The go ahead was given. Defender A55 taxied out onto the tarmac, tilted upwards and within seconds we were entering the blackness of space. I pressed a holo-button to engage our pre-loaded flight plan. I asked for a station status from each of the others. Once completed we had no set orders for the next six weeks.
Our increased power from Pop's feed modifications left us with extra power to apply to our active skin. The computer was programmed to make minor course corrections to avoid any sizable asteroids, but our ability to withstand larger hits added a bit of extra comfort.
With nothing to do for six weeks the conversation quickly turned to my recent honeymoon. I did my best to deflect inappropriate personal questions and to not dignify them with an answer. It was all in good fun, but it was personal just the same.
It had taken just 32 minutes for us to once again reach half light speed. The Defender continued to accelerate. The conversation soon died down with Whip poring over the new helmet manuals while Bigg played holo-solitaire.
Pop dug into the application of his new Sodium feed which left me to daydream about Paige. I had a timer set on the hour as a reminder for us to check in with command.
The dings of the reminder after the first hour broke me out of a vivid daydream with Paige and I on a snow-ski adventure. The slopes had been perfectly manicured and then covered with four inches of fresh powder. I did a quick station check and sent the results to Battle Command. After completing the first hourly check I automated the reminder to free us from the manual task.
As I continued with my daydreaming Pop alerted me to the fact that we had just passed through 74.00000% light speed and were continuing to accelerate. We were now moving faster than any man had ever traveled.
I chatted for a moment with Battle Command asking if they had noticed our speed. They had. The scientists and engineers were all elated and had been hashing over the theories of what would happen if we actually made it to light speed.
No test by man had ever shown that it was possible to travel beyond that threshold. There were theories about time travel and warping space and time but nothing had ever been proven. Defender A55 and its crew would possibly be the first to find out.
It wasn't long before we passed beyond the heliosphere into outer space. I adjusted our sensors to fill the inner walls of our ship with the view that we would see from outside.
The blackness was as black as the ride from the chamber to Regents Field. But... the stars... the stars were brilliant with the Milky Way being spectacular. No image I had ever seen on the ground could do it justice.
We soon passed through 83.00000% light speed and continued to accelerate. Our estimated six week journey to the incoming alien vessels had dropped to five weeks and then four. Again the scientists and engineers on the ground were elated. The feed of data across channel 1647 had them continuously glued to their monitors.
Five hours into our flight we passed through 96.00000% light speed and the acceleration continued. All systems were functioning perfectly. There had been no noticeable affect on any of the crew or with the ship itself.
Other than the occasional blip on the screen of the active skin encountering a pebble there had been nothing out of the ordinary displayed. The active skin was performing just as the scientists had predicted.
The ship itself had only made one minor course correction to avoid a collision. The rock was roughly one meter wide but a course change was done as a precaution.
After five hours and forty-seven minutes we trickled through 99.00023% of light speed. The instruments still showed acceleration. For the next seven minutes we all watched silently as the digits slowly approached 100.00000%. Bigg commented that the view out back of the ship had taken a noticeable turn in color with the Sun first going orange, then red and now a dark red.
It was a strange site to see your own Sun from that distance. It had become just another large star. The fact that it seemed to be dimming was a bit disconcerting.
As our speed gauge reached 100.00000% the visible light from our Sun snuffed out. The surrounding stars had turned a deep red and the ones surrounding those had gone orange in color.
Straight behind was nothing but pure black. For 23 seconds the gauge stayed at 100.00000%. It then began to count back down.
I had everyone do a complete station check but all the numbers looked good. I then asked Battle Command what they could make of it and did not receive a response.
Apparently reaching light speed was having an affect although we had no idea of what it was. The accelerometers continued to show positive numbers but the speed indicator continued to slip.
We were soon back to 96.00000%, then 83.00000% and then 74.00000%. The speed continued to drop and we had no explanation as to why. That was when Whip let out a giddy screech. At that moment I almost soiled my reclamation suit... even though it would not have mattered.
I quizzed Whip on her discovery and was told to wait a second. She worked feverishly at her holo-display. After a brief delay the 71.00000% on the speed indicator turned to 129.00000%. We had passed the speed of light and were continuing to accelerate.
Whip had dug into the console software and found a programming error that had limited the speed indicator to 100%. A quick live patch and we now had our true speed. We all sat staring in amazement before anyone spoke.
Bigg had taken notice of the fact that our trip counter now displayed that we were only two weeks from encountering our target. The black void of stars continued to grow larger from the view behind the ship. The reds and oranges did the same as the view continued outward.
We had lost our communication with Command when we passed through 100%. Even the entangled particles had not been able to break the barrier. After eleven and a half hours we broke through 200% and continued to accelerate. All instruments continued to read as normal. Our trip counter was now down to ten days and continued to shrink.
As we all sat watching our monitors the reclamation suits injected a pre-programmed sleep aid into our systems. Within seconds we were all fast asleep. Our Defender continued to accelerate.
We awoke six hours later from a stimulant and were quickly again fully alert. The speed indicator showed 308.54672% and the trip counter had dropped to 34 hours 16 minutes.
I ran a quick calculation of when we would need to start our deceleration and what the trip counter would be after that adjustment. We had 16 hours before we dropped below light speed and 22 hours before we occupied the same portion of space as our alien invaders.
Suddenly that long dull boring mission had turned into one where we were wishing we had more time to prepare. I consulted my crew and we came to the decision that we would adjust course to be well to the right of the incoming ships.
We would also turn off the BHD and drift silently past our target before re-engaging. With a little luck we would be able to gather intel from behind them without being detected.
In our final hour of acceleration we topped out at 352% of light speed. And... we could have continued to accelerate. All systems were functioning normally.
Bigg then chimed in with a bit of a revelation. He had been re-running calculations on the active skin and had determined that at the speed we were traveling it would not take a large asteroid hit to overwhelm the active skin.
Something about the size of a pebble would be enough. We made adjustments to the automated steering program for anything larger than a BB.
After the first hour of deceleration we were all left twiddling our thumbs. The anticipation of the upcoming events was taking its toll on our ability to focus. Bigg was spending his time on holo-solitaire while Whip continued to read through manuals.
I used the time to daydream about Paige while Pop got out of his chair to go look over the spare reactor they had put on-board. We each programmed in a sleep time to coincide with when we would drop back below light speed. The hours ticked by slowly.
Chapter 11
The stimulants were again injected into our systems
bringing everyone to full awake. We each watched our trip counter and speed indicator as we dropped through light speed. I looked at the ships rear view and could make out a faint red glow of stars behind us once again beginning to show. My next thought was to contact Command to let them know our status.
I tried repeatedly to raise the QE comm but there was no response. Had we gone too far? Had our speed broken the entanglement of the particles? In either scenario we were now so far into space that our regular communications would take months to arrive back at Earth.
The alien ships were still almost four months away from Earth. Standard communications would only arrive at best a month ahead of them. I decided to adjust course closer to the alien ships where we could glide close to them and send back data.
Once we reached them we could no longer broadcast a standard transmission as they would then know we were there. It was not the outcome we had hoped for only hours before. We would slow to 10% light speed and then shut down the BHD. It would allow us to broadcast for three hours as the alien ships approached our position.
As our BHD went silent I asked Pop to hook himself back into his chair. I wanted us all focused on interpreting data as we approached our foes. Anything we could send back could possibly be the one thing that could change the course of battle.
Every half hour I again tried to re-establish the channel 1647 link back to Command. Every half hour I received nothing but silence. We had charted our course to bring us within 100,000 kilometers of the incoming ships. From that distance all of our sensors would operate at full resolution.
We each began the task of going over the data. I had visual, Whip took RF, Bigg took ultraviolet and Pop took infrared.
My first visual was still fuzzy at the distance we were. A quick measurement told me that the two ships were approximately 700 meters wide by 300 meters tall. Again, we guessed saucer shaped just as the ones from the S.A., 70 years before.
A few moments later the size was confirmed by the others. Whip detected RF transmissions between them like what we had captured before. Again, we were unable to decrypt the codes that we had been listening to for months.
As each feature of the ships became more distinct we logged and transmitted them back towards home. Our counter had ticked down to display that we only had 15 minutes more to transmit before we would have to go silent.
That was when we got our first details about the length of the ships. It soon became apparent that the ships were 700 meters wide by 300 meters tall by... eight... kilometers... long. They were much bigger than we had expected.
As the details became clearer I could see two rows of alien fighters down the side of the ships that I was viewing. With only two minutes of broadcast time left the computer imaging system counted out 256 fighters per row.
That would be more than 2,000 alien fighters total. Our guys at home would be overwhelmed. There was no way we could let these ships continue without at least taking a shot at them. I looked over at Whip and she asked that I just give the word and it would be so. I nodded and she began to work feverishly at her holo-display.
With only 18 seconds left before broadcast silence I adjusted course directly towards the alien ships and Whip launched four BHD warheads with skins active and drives disabled. I then made a hard correction to maneuver us out of the way.
The warheads drifted silently towards the eight kilometer long vessels. The first two warheads were not heard from again as the alien ships had their gravity waves riding in front of them. It was evidently protection from any space debris they might encounter at their high rate of speed.
We waited patiently for the second set of warheads as they were coming in at a steeper angle to the second ship. As two bright flashes tore the nose off the alien carrier it began to disintegrate along its axis as debris from the front smashed into the oncoming sections.
We had done it! With one ambush we had taken out an alien carrier and nearly a thousand fighters. The numbers would still be overwhelming once they reached Earth but I was sure no one would complain.
Just before the explosions reached the farthest point a number of fighters ejected from the ship's hull. The first ship continued on its course while the fighters fell quickly behind.
The alien fighters could not match the speed of the remaining carrier leaving them to fall back. They continued onward and I could only guess they would be picked up when the main fleet caught up to them.
We had timed the blast so that Battle Command would at least see if a detonation had occurred. Three seconds of the destruction had been broadcast home before the transmission had gone silent.
We drifted quietly allowing the surviving fighters to continue onward safely away from us. We did not have the armaments to take them on in any meaningful way, leaving us with our best option... to stay hidden.
When the aliens had passed us by for more than an hour I brought the BHD back online. Pop then chimed in with a suggestion. He knew we all wanted to speed around the alien ships so that we could be home to help fight them when they arrived at Earth. What he added was a thought that had not occurred to the rest of us. With our faster than light abilities we could make a run out to the main fleet to gather data and still return home in time to fight.
We all agreed that it was a worthwhile mission given the fact that the advance fleet of two smaller ships had carried over 2,000 fighters with it. The blob of the main fleet had looked to be much larger.
A course was plotted and set into the computer. If the acceleration held we would increase speed for 17 days before beginning to slow for another 17. In one month we could travel a distance that would take the aliens almost two years to do. Everyone agreed, the course changed and the throttle was pushed to full.
Bigg began running his calculations of the speed we would achieve and what size space debris we could absorb. If the acceleration held we would be traveling at more than 68 times light speed. But, we had a major problem. At about 12 times light speed our active shielding would have trouble absorbing space debris no bigger than a grain of sand.
I quickly calculated an adjustment by lowering the BHD throttle percentage. We would continue to accelerate only not as fast as before. The saved power could be diverted to the active skin. The new calculations stretched the trip to 37 days at a peak of 18 times light speed. It would allow us to handle debris strikes as large as a pebble. It was not optimum, but it was certainly manageable.
I punched in the new numbers and watched as the computer adjusted the trip counter. Whip then let me know that we would have to immediately turn back once we got to the main fleet if we wanted any chance at returning home for the fight with the eight kilometer carrier.
I wondered if there would even be a home to return too. At the time of our departure it was believed that we would have 87 newly commissioned Defenders ready to fly. The Defenders were ready, but their crews had seen very little action in them. The DSims were a great training tool, but the reality of fighting in space required another level of experience that simulators just could not provide. Aside from the carrier the Defenders would have a thousand fighters to contend with. The odds were not in our favor.
I pushed the throttle to full and we settled in for our 37 day ride out to the main fleet. I wondered how much solitaire the crew could play and of what else we might do to break the certain monotony and boredom that was coming our way. Pop immediately unhooked himself from his chair and squeezed through our supplies to have a look at the spare micro-reactor.
I asked him what he was up to and he replied that he was just wondering if there would be any way to connect the second reactor to our system and power it up. He thought it would make for an extremely powerful shield if we had double the energy available. I had a sudden thought about what we might do to occupy our 37 days of free time.
We would spend it attempting to update and modify our systems with the spare equipment we had on-board. With the reactor I reasoned that with twice the power we could possibly increase ou
r rate of acceleration thereby cutting down on our travel time.
If we could arrive in half or two thirds the time it would leave us with more time to observe and more time to return home before the carrier arrived. I advised Whip and Bigg to focus their energies on making a second reactor hookup a reality.
Aside from the theoretical thinking that my crew was capable of I was more amazed with their practical common sense abilities. Not only could they envision some pretty fantastic ideas, but they had the skills needed to put those ideas into practice. After 16 hours of poring over schematics, gathering tools and making modifications my trio of unknown geniuses were ready to give the second reactor a try. They mounted the reactor to our frame and had only to connect the power feeds into our existing system.
A breaker switch to an unused circuit had allowed the second reactor to tie into the power grid while the first reactor remained at full power. Pop said he did not remember the breaker being on any other Defender but that he was glad it was on ours.
I sat back in my chair and stared nervously at Pop sitting at his console. One more switch and we would know if our little experiment was a success. I then thought of my Great Uncle and I raised my voice asking Pop to wait. He was about to flip a holo-switch on his console bringing the second micro-reactor to life.
I thought back to David Brenner's send-off message and how he had said that he hoped we could put the reactor to good use. I could only come to the conclusion that he had this exact scenario in mind.
I gave Pop the go-ahead and we watched intently as the micro-reactor slowly came to life. As the manual had instructed it would take seven minutes to come up to full operational status. When the monitor readout for the second reactor reached 100% I again gave Pop the go-ahead to take it live.
As he flipped the second holo-switch an alarm went off on everyone's console at the same time. Pop, Whip and Bigg all began system checks to identify potential problems. The first reactor's output was dropping as the second reactor's output rose. The alarm continued to sound and I advised everyone to just wait and watch.
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