The Ship: The New Frontiers Series, Book One

by Jack L Knapp

  “Sounds good. Let’s take a look at that aft section.”

  “This way. It’s not quite complete yet. The cells are in and connected, but the radiator piping isn’t. The system puts out a lot of heat and we’re going to need some of it for cabin heating, so there’s a divider with separate fans in the heat exchange system. One channel of the ‘Y’ fitting leads to the cabin radiators, the other goes to a system of external radiators. They’re the things that look like fins, running the length of the fuselage on both sides. The solar cells will absorb or reflect solar heat, meaning that if we don’t heat the cabins, we’ll freeze our butts off. Can’t have that.

  “We went with molten carbonate fuel cells, MCFC, expensive in a sense because we’ve got to install the plumbing to dump the waste heat the cells generate. I hate that idea, wasting heat, so I intend to eventually pump it through a Stirling cycle engine/generator. It increases the efficiency of the MCFC units.”

  “So the cells generate too much heat? Is that why you put them in the aft section?”

  “It’s easier to deal with the heat problem that way, yes. The ship’s frame is titanium and so is the skin in the engine section, so heat isn’t a serious problem.

  “I’ll do what I can to test the complete system on the ground, first inside the building, then during local flights that don’t go past the stratosphere. We might have to tweak the handling characteristics; the local trips will tell us how much we still have to do.”

  “Sounds good. Grandpa was always concerned with safety, so taking it one step at a time makes sense to me. How close are we to flying this bird?”

  “A week, maybe ten days before first lift off the cradle. The pilot and copilot stations are in, but we still have to install cabinets for storage of crew equipment, and we haven’t built them yet. Passenger seats, too. Based on Morty’s figures, this ship is overpowered, so we need good seats for the rest of the crew, even though I doubt I’ll accelerate this one past maybe four gees. Unless they’re trained to deal with that much acceleration, four gees can cause blackouts, so I’d really prefer to never go beyond two gees.”

  “How much power will the fuel cells put out?”

  “They’re designed for a sustained maximum of a megawatt. You could draw more than that, maybe an additional quarter megawatt for a short time, but that consumes more hydrogen and generates a lot more heat that has to be dumped somehow. I won’t go past the design maximum unless there’s an emergency.”

  “I see what you mean about being overpowered. You have the mounts in place, but you haven’t installed the impellers yet.”

  “No, Morty wanted to wait on that. They’re in that locked storeroom that’s behind the back wall over there. We’ll use eight of the marine units for main propulsion, they’ll be mounted on the frames in the aft compartment. We’ll put four aircraft model impellers up front, right behind the radar set. They’re intended primarily for attitude control, but they’re on gimbals, so they can also add forward impulse. We’re using four batteries in the aft compartment and two up front here. In theory, you could unbolt the bow section and use it for an escape capsule. There’s just about enough power from the two battery packs to bring you down through the upper atmosphere. From there, you use the flight controls in the wings to land dead-stick. The numbers say it would work, but it’s strictly a last-ditch system. Still, I guess if the alternative is to use the escape capsule or burn up, it’s a good thing we’ll have power wrenches stored in the crew lockers. The ones that aren’t made yet.

  “Why don’t you look around, get familiar with the layout, while I help the crew build those lockers? Lina designed the pilot and copilot’s stations, so she can show you where everything is.”

  “Thanks, Joe. I’ll do that.”

  #

  “So this is the pilot’s seat?”

  “Morty called it the spacecraft commander’s seat. It has a full set of controls, but we anticipate that the copilot will control the computers that actually do the flying. He’s also responsible for everything that’s happening inside the ship. The commander monitors what’s going on outside, plus he also directs crew operations while loading or unloading cargo from the central bay. That’s the tentative division of assignments, anyway. We’ve got two armorglass ports up front and two small side ports so the remaining crew and any passengers can see out, but the pilot and copilot won’t use those except in an emergency. The primary control system uses the cameras. They feed into that big display screen in front. We’ve got a camera at the tip of each wing, steerable, two more fixed cameras that face front, and one steerable camera that faces aft. The controls are on the board between the commander’s position and the copilot’s, so that in an emergency either can choose what camera feed they want to display. Normally the commander decides, but we’ve provided for emergencies. The cameras are better for flying than using direct viewing, because the cameras can be zoomed to give telephoto or wide angle images. They’re also shielded. The pilots won’t ever be blinded by some kid with a laser pointer.”

  “That doesn’t happen very often, Lina.”

  “Once is too often, Chuck. Morty and Joe were all about being prepared before it happens.”

  Chuck sat down in the commander’s seat as Lina slid into the copilot’s. He glanced around, recognizing some of the controls; they were essentially the same as the ones on the Bedstead, the King, and the Twin. The gauges were better arranged, and he understood most of what he was seeing.

  “Are those the only gauges?”

  “They’re backup only. The system displays are around the edges of the screen, easy for the copilot or spacecraft commander to see.”

  “Joe mentioned a radar. Where’s the display for that?”

  “You’ll see it when we power up the screen. The radar display is in the center, the left side is for the port wing camera and the starboard wing camera is displayed on the right. It’s switchable; you can use the nose cameras instead if you prefer, although they only show what’s ahead, while the wing cameras are mounted far enough back that they also show the forward section of the ship. We’ve not settled on a protocol yet; we haven’t had power connected to everything yet, and for that matter we don’t want to put the radar into service while there are people in the building. That’s one of the things Joe mentioned, the testing we can’t do until we get into the air.”

  “Have you tested the ceiling hatch, or do you intend to fly out through the doors in the back?”

  “Probably be best to use the side doors, don’t you think? At least for the first flight. Morty didn’t want to use the overhead hatch if he didn’t have to. He was afraid it would cause it to leak, next time we got a heavy rain.”

  “He was always a worrier, wasn’t he?”

  “He was. Even so, he was happy. I don’t ever remember him being depressed or sad.”

  “You’re right. The impellers, for that matter the ship, are his life’s crowning work. That’s his real monument, not that stone I ordered.”

  #

  Chuck and Lina settled into an uneasy relationship, something that was better than being apart but no longer what they’d had in the beginning. Chuck occasionally caught Lina looking at him as if she wondered what kind of person lived inside. How could someone be so...ordinary, and yet be capable of violence?

  Chuck thought about it, then decided it was something she’d have to work through. He lost no sleep over the men he’d shot. They shot at him first, he’d only defended himself. For that matter, it seemed obvious that they had intended to burn the factory. One was likely the man who’d raped Lina. His only regret had nothing to do with killing the men, only the haste he’d had to employ. He’d enlarged a cave in the side of an arroyo, digging it out, then put the bodies and their weapons inside before collapsing the ceiling. The area was deserted, so it should be safe enough; the ranch hands had no reason to ride down in the arroyo, and there was no livestock on this part of the range. It was not the best arrangement, but it was the best he
could do. As it was, he’d barely gotten the Bedstead inside the hangar before the sun came up.

  Joe’s estimate was optimistic. Finishing the ship, hooking up everything, storing equipment on board and fueling the tanks took four weeks. The first flight took place on Saturday, after the shop crew had gone home. Chuck served as copilot, Joe took over as commander. No other passengers were on board.

  Chuck couldn’t fault Joe’s control. He brought the impellers on line, set the power at 38%, then rotated the impellers to the vertical lift position. Chuck, by prior agreement, kept his fingers on his controls in case the ship lifted too fast. But the big craft smoothly left its cradle and hovered in place, rock steady. Joe held it there while he tweaked flight settings. Chuck monitored the fuel cell output and battery charge. Everything seemed to be working normally; there had been a small initial decrease in battery charge, but then the automatic controls cut in and the fuel cells increased output. The battery packs soon registered 100%.

  “I’d like to test the system before we take her outside, switch off the batteries one at a time to make sure they’re all working as expected. You ready, Joe?”

  “Go ahead, Chuck. At worst we’d drop a few inches into the cradle, and this bird should handle that with no problems.”

  “Understood. Switching off the aft battery packs in sequence, starting now.”

  A few minutes went by as Chuck isolated systems. At one point, he pointed to a gauge indicating oxygen levels in the aft compartment. “Looks like the fuel cells are pulling more than expected.”

  “That’s why we’re doing this. We’ll just add another oxygen tank in the cargo hold and increase oxygen flow before we try a high-altitude flight. Anything else you want to look at?”

  “No, I’m done. You ready to land?”

  “I am. But I think we can try an outdoor flight tomorrow. Refuel, look at the computer log readouts, then take her out. You want to fly as commander or leave me in the hot seat?”

  “I think it’s time I got my feet wet, Joe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sol was grumpy. Months had passed, no word from Walter, and today he was meeting with politicians. This left him feeling unclean, even though it needed to be done; all that money his company’s PAC paid out, from time to time politicians needed to be told what they could do in return. He’d already met with a senator and two Representatives this morning, plus four staffers from other offices. There was one final Representative to see. This one was probably the worst of the lot; how had he managed to get himself elected? It said something about the American electorate, that was for sure.

  But none of this showed on Sol’s face. His expression was open, welcoming, when the short, bald-headed man walked in. Sol met him with a handshake and glanced meaningfully at the receptionist. By now, the woman knew the routine as well as Sol himself did; she would buzz his phone after fifteen minutes to see if he wanted to end the visit.

  “Welcome, welcome, Mister Chambers! Can I get you a cup of coffee, or maybe something stronger?”

  “It’s been a long day, Sol. I don’t need more coffee, but maybe if you’ve got some of that good Tennessee sour mash stuffed away somewhere...?”

  Sol smiled and opened the cabinet. He poured a glass half full of Maker’s Mark and added an ice cube; by now, he’d dealt often enough with the man to know his preferences. “Just the thing to rev up your motor after a hard day on the Hill, Mister Chambers.”

  “Well, we’re not in session, but that doesn’t mean the work stops. I’ve been meeting with constituents and visiting a few of our leading industrialists. They’re people like you, Sol, the folks that keep our economy humming. I’m nearly talked out!” Chambers drank a healthy slug of the whiskey. “But I’m always interested in your problems, you know that.”

  You sure are, Sol thought. Especially when you smell campaign money. But his voice was smooth, unhurried; none of the contempt showed.

  “I wanted to talk to you about something I’ve discovered, something I consider to be a real threat to the American economy. Running a business is tough enough, having to compete against foreigners and all that cheap labor. It was bad enough when they were shipping in cars and trucks made with sweatshop labor, but now they’re doing the designing in Japan and places like that. They’re over here now, using honest American labor for the grunt work, but the high-paying jobs stay overseas.”

  Chambers grunted and sipped his whiskey. “None of the jobs are in my district, either. You’re right, it’s a shame. But how is that a threat to the economy? Sounds to me like it’s more of a threat to your business, Sol.” Despite the stiff drink which Chambers had almost finished, his eyes were shrewd. A functioning alcoholic, he somehow managed to drink copious amounts and still show almost no effects until late in the evening. His personal staff knew to have his car ready and drive him home before he passed out. They were successful, most of the time.

  “No, it’s not about the Japanese carmakers. I know how to deal with them. It’s about how we all do business, working with parts suppliers and contracts and financing. Businesses need to look ahead, sometimes far ahead, so that everything runs smoothly. There’s this fellow, though, he doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t know a lot about business either, but I hear he’s starting up a factory. I don’t think he’s going to succeed, but you see, the way he’s going about it leaves all of us manufacturers in an uncompetitive position. Some companies have had to move their main offices overseas just to stay competitive. I know how much you value competition among private businesses, Mister Chambers, I’ve heard you mention it often during your speeches. But you see, if we’re left behind by this new business model, we’ll have to pay more for financing, American jobs will be threatened, investors will lose money. Some of those investors are in your state, Mister Chambers, and some are in your district. Your state pension funds are invested in my company as well as others like it, so I thought you would have a real interested in seeing that we’re not threatened by unfair competition.”

  “Cut the horseshit, Sol. You’re feeling threatened by these people, you want me to see what I can do. Best thing to do is send out some letters, get one of the regulatory agencies involved. They require lots of paperwork, it takes lots of time, you know how slow the government can be. Any particular one, maybe more than one, you’d like me to encourage? And where is this company located, anyway? What is it they’re doing that’s got your underwear in a knot?”

  “Well, as to which agencies might have jurisdiction....”

  The conversation continued for another ten minutes, a necessary part of the charade. Chambers now understood what Sol wanted and how he could help him get it. He also knew that Sol would ‘continue to support him’, that the campaign money from the political action committee would keep coming and might even be increased. The exact amount wasn’t specified, but there was no need; the PAC could be generous to its friends when campaign time came around.

  Sol washed his hands as soon as the man left. Still not satisfied, he washed them again. It was just business, he understood that, but still...

  His right hand felt slimy.

  #

  Chuck examined the page carefully. “I don’t see anything wrong with it, Joe, but suppose I read through it and you do the dry run on the copilot’s controls to see if I missed anything.” The page was part of the checklist for piloting the spacecraft, necessary for eventually training crewmembers and for eventual acceptance by government regulators. But that was in the future; for now, the checklist would help the spacecraft commander avoid the feeling of being too familiar, avoid missing a step in bringing the complicated machine from standby to ready.

  “Check oxygen sensors, power compartment.”

  “Checked, nominal.”

  “Fuel pumps on standby, computer control selected.”

  “Standby, selected.”

  “Check batteries, charged.”

  “Checking batteries now. Forward batteries, port, 100%. Forward, s
tarboard, 100%. Aft, portside outboard...”

  Meticulously, the two continued the checklist. Chuck penciled in two corrections before reaching the final item on the checklist, power on, main buss.

  “I’ll type up the corrections and write the program for the computer.”

  “The three computers have to agree, or the errant one gets automatically kicked out of the system. The pilot also has the option of cutting its power. I suppose you could call the pilot secondary, not that I like the idea much. I still miss having a real stick that’s cabled directly to the flight controls.”

  “Joe, you’re not that old. That went out with radial engines. You’re not strong enough or quick enough to control any of the jets flying today. It’s all fly-by-wire, all digital, now.”

  “It might be obsolete, but my three-quarter Spitfire is more fun to fly than anything with a jet strapped on!”

  “I’ve heard the same from guys with replica Mustangs, Joe. Anyway, I’ll get these into the computer and have a hard copy printed up for us by tomorrow.”

  #

  Chuck was writing code when a buzz interrupted him. He checked his cell automatically, but the buzz wasn’t coming from his belt holster. Finally, he picked up his grandfather’s phone, still lying where Chuck had left it after he collected Morty’s personal possessions.

  A glance at the screen revealed that the charge was down to less than half and that the caller had an icon, a government eagle, by his number. Maybe they were calling to offer condolences, even though his grandfather had passed three months before. Chuck pressed the call button.

  “Hello?”

  “Mister Sneyd?”

  “This is Charles Sneyd, yes.”

  “I’m sorry, I was calling a Mister Morton Sneyd. Is he there?”

  “Who’s calling?”

  “I represent the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Morton Sneyd sent us a proposal some time back, and I’d like to discuss it with him.”