The Ship: The New Frontiers Series, Book One

by Jack L Knapp

  “We could probably take one or two of you up for a test flight. Are any of you rated aviators?”

  “We all are. Colonel Ponder is rotary-wing only, Admiral Sessions is rated in tactical aircraft, but the rest of us all have multi-engine experience. Is there some reason we can’t all get an opportunity to fly in your plane?”

  “Chuck?” Frenchy asked.

  “We can do it if you’ve got the time. The plane has been modified; we needed the cargo space, so we closed that off with a bulkhead. That means we only have space for a pilot and copilot up front. I suppose we could fit seats behind the crew space, but we’ve never had a reason to. We’ve got enough lift to accommodate more passengers.”

  “Perhaps later. But can you manage at least a takeoff and landing for each of us?”

  “Chuck?”

  “Not a problem, Frenchy. We can probably do a little better than that.”

  “Thank you. Your system is suitable for Navy use, aboard ships I mean?”

  “Surface ships and submarines. As a matter of fact, Morty proposed that we test a submarine vehicle, but we aren’t in that business and none of us have the expertise needed.”

  “Not to jump the gun, but part of what we bring to the table is expertise. Are you willing to sell us the rights to your device?”

  “No. We might consider licensing it for military use, but we would retain all rights to the system.”

  “You understand that if this system is all you say it is, it confers a strategic advantage to the nation that owns it?”

  “For a short time, yes. But all discoveries become compromised; just look at jet power. Two countries independently developed jet engines but soon everyone had them. Radar too, secret in the beginning, but as soon as others knew it was possible they started working on their own systems. It will be the same with the impeller drive. If the government owned the system, they might share it with other favored nations or use it as a bargaining chip. No, we can discuss leasing, but we will retain control.”

  “I understand Mister Sneyd is a veteran. Sir, you’re a former Marine; are you willing to keep your country from gaining a strategic advantage? Is this the sort of patriotism they teach Marines nowadays?”

  “I’m not sure what they teach at boot camp now, general, but they teach something different in government courses. Have you ever heard that patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel?”

  “I think I might have heard that, Mister Sneyd. Well, it was worth a try. About those demonstrations, do you suppose we could adjourn for lunch and do that afterwards?”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “The plane we can fly now. The others, we don’t fly them in daylight. Too much chance they’ll be compromised.”

  “Well...I intended to mention this at some point. I’m afraid you’re already compromised. DOD knows about your devices, they’ve even got photos. Satellites use infrared, and one of your buggies gets really hot. Once they located that one and concentrated on it, the others showed up too. The thing is, if we have photos you can bet the Chinese have them, also the Russians and probably the Israelis, the Japanese, and anyone with a half-decent intelligence net.”

  “Shit. All of them?”

  “Count on it. We watch for stuff and the other team does too.”

  “Frenchy, you might as well send the workers home. Pick a couple of the guys who’ve flown the Bedstead and ask them to stay, they can be relief pilots in case we need them. We’re flying everything but the large craft. That’s down for repairs.”

  It wasn’t, but there was no way I was letting a government spy, what the brass hats really were, anywhere close to that. They’d catch on that we had a spacecraft, even if we hadn’t flown it higher than a dozen yards off the ground. They had satellite photos that wasn’t the same as looking at the ship close up. From ground level, it looked like a modified space shuttle with elements from the Air Force lifting bodies, thanks to Joe’s experience. Those other vehicles had been designed for space, and the heritage showed.

  The visitors trooped out to the small kitchen area. Microwaving MRE’s was probably good for them, Chuck thought, considering how long it had been since senior officers had to make do with Meals Rejected by Everyone. Chuck touched Frenchy’s arm, holding him back for a moment.

  “I’ll fly the Twin, Lina flies the Bedstead, both of us with one passenger. Mel takes the other three on the King. We’ll load our passengers beside the runway, so they see only what we want to show them. I won’t get fancy. I’ll demonstrate that the plane flies, Lina and Mel can fly and hover, but only at low altitude. They can take their people out on the test course, that should demonstrate how reliable the system is. When the batteries get low, I’ll tell them to bring the passengers back to the runway. We can send them on their way from there. Don’t take chances, these guys are smart and we don’t want them to see anything they shouldn’t.”

  “Sounds good, Chuck. I’ll watch what I tell them, you have a word with Lina and Mel.”

  #

  The Bedstead and the King were parked behind the Twin. Lina and Mel stood nearby, anonymous behind tinted helmet faceshields. Two guards stood between the DARPA group and the others, armed, but with pistol holstered and rifle slung. They were obviously prepared to respond if necessary.

  Chuck walked over to the visitors. “Gentlemen, first a short briefing, then we’ll take you out to demonstrate that our systems do everything we’ve said. I have room for one passenger in the Twin, so I can give whoever is flying with me a quick checkout on the controls. Lina is the pilot of the smaller craft, we call it the Bedstead, and Mel will pilot the King, the larger one. All three use our impeller system and they have no other means of propulsion. The pilot’s controls for each craft are simple; a proprietary computer system controls the impellers. The pilot flies the computer, it takes care of everything else. I apologize for not having extra helmets available, but I didn’t expect to be flying passengers today.

  “I emphasize that the pilot is in charge of the craft. They’re not authorized to do more than answer simple questions about where you’re going, what altitude you’ll be flying at, things like that. If you have questions, please save them for when you get back and I’ll answer them so long as they don’t involve trade secrets.”

  “I’ve got one quick question, Chuck.” The speaker was the Marine, Major Hooke. “Why in the world did you name that smaller craft ‘The Bedstead’? If that’s not a secret, I mean.”

  “Simple answer, because the first version had a flat deck and upright units at each corner. An observer mentioned that it looked like a flying bedstead and the name stuck. The larger unit was originally named the California King because it was larger.”

  “I take it the impellers are pointed up, for lift? Wouldn’t it have been simpler to mount them on a plane so they pushed straight ahead? At least, do it that way at first.”

  “We didn’t have a plane, but we did have enough material to build the original Bedstead. We operated on a shoestring in the beginning.”

  “I see. But it doesn’t look like a bedstead now, does it?”

  “No. The round objects you see are simply external housings. The impellers are mounted inside. Let’s go over and take a look.”

  Chuck led the way to the King. “As you can see, this model has eight impellers, two on each of the deck’s four sides. The Bedstead has an impeller at each corner, enough for flight but it can only carry limited amounts of cargo or a single passenger. The King has eight impellers and can carry up to two tons, although we prefer less. The controls are more responsive that way, and we don’t want to run a crash test by overloading.

  After waiting for the chuckles to die away, Chuck continued. “You’ll notice that the impeller housings are sealed. There’s no air inlet or exit, so no hidden propellers or jets.”

  The five nodded thoughtfully. “You mentioned control problems. Have you had such problems or crashed one of your devices?”

  “No crash. You’re pilots,
you all know what happens to an aircraft’s controls when you approach max gross weight on takeoff. They get mushy and you have to baby the plane into the air. We get some of the same effect using the impellers. I should also point out that if we increased the load, we would be nudging the computers’ limit of controllability. They operate within set parameters, and we believe it’s safer not to push those limits.

  “But none of the craft will be overloaded today, so why don’t you decide who will fly with whom? I’d like to get started, do the demonstration flights, and hold a short debrief when we’re finished.”

  The five officers sorted themselves out and four of them found seats aboard the lifters. Lina and Mel checked to make sure that seat belts were fastened, then lifted off, Mel following Lina as she headed away from the factory campus.

  “I’ll fly left seat, Admiral. I won’t be doing any of the air combat maneuvers you’re accustomed to, the Twin isn’t built for that.”

  “I didn’t expect you to, Chuck. You fly, I’ll watch.”

  Chuck flipped the switch as soon as they were buckled in, starting the turbos.

  “Admiral, we use electrical power for the impellers. The engines on the wings are turbogenerators, turboprops converted to drive generators instead of propellers. Two turbogenerators gives us 100% redundancy. There’s also a battery system, and it’s capable of powering the plane unaided but only for a limited time.”

  “Impressive, Chuck. Speaking as a guy who often flies over blue water, I always like having power in reserve! I’ve made two water landings and that was two too many.”

  “No water landings today, Admiral. I’ve been watching the gauges and we’ve got power from the turbogenerators. Next step in the takeoff checklist, bring up the impellers.” Chuck operated the thumbwheel, then gently nudged the stick forward until it reached its detent.

  He continued as the plane began rolling. “From this point, it’s like flying any other airplane. I’ve selected takeoff power from the impellers, and as soon as I reach sixty-five knots she’ll start to fly.”

  “Interesting. You started moving immediately. What would happen if you locked the brakes and waited until you had full power?”

  “I’d probably get more acceleration and quicker liftoff. No need to do that with this bird, we’ve got plenty of runway. You’re thinking of carrier takeoffs?”

  “Carriers or short-field takeoff. My first comment is, no afterburner. Perhaps no chance of aerial refueling either. Do you have any idea whether your impellers can take the gees that a fighter pilot loads onto his plane?”

  “I doubt it, admiral. We had problems with material failures because they couldn’t stand up to the loads we put on them. I’m guessing that impellers wouldn’t be suitable for fighters, at least not Navy fighters. Still, they wouldn’t need to crash onto the carrier deck like you do with your other fighters. It would be more like landing a helicopter.”

  “Well, maybe. But you do have heavy-lift capability?”

  “Lift we’ve got. You’re thinking of a standoff fighter platform that controls the surrounding airspace with missiles?”

  “It’s an idea. We tried that with the F4, it didn’t even have a gun at first. The new fighters all have guns, but they depend on missiles to do most of the killing.”

  “Then you’d need a new kind of fighter, not just modify something you already use. The impellers are controllable within limits, we can rotate them up or down a few degrees. You could use that capability to operate at higher altitudes than conventional fighters, fire your missiles downward and let them home on their targets from above. They’d gain a lot of speed that way, so you’d need to factor that into the missile design. You’d pick up longer range and higher closing speeds from the gravity assist.”

  “Hmmm...” the admiral was lost in thought, exploring the possibilities.

  Chuck flew on, banking left, then left again, heading back for the runway.

  “You mind if I take the controls?”

  “No, go ahead. It’s straight stick and rudder flying, maybe a little heavier on the controls than the jets you fly.”

  “I started in prop planes at Pensacola, so maybe I remember how it feels to fly using muscle instead of hydraulics.”

  “Runway’s in sight, admiral. Think you can land us?”

  “Let me do a couple of turns first, get a better feel of the controls. If you don’t mind.”

  “No, go ahead. I’ll follow through on the controls anyway, and if it looks like you’re about to get in trouble I’ll take over.”

  “I wouldn’t have it any other way, Chuck. Thanks.”

  The landing was smooth, a greaser. Chuck complimented the admiral. “Not bad, admiral. You’ll doubtless do better with practice.”

  The admiral chuckled. “Son, I’ve used that line myself more than once. It was a good landing and you know it. This beats the heck out of trying to land on a deck that’s moving around, and doing it in the dark to boot. I also didn’t mind in the least that we stopped at rollout instead of an arresting wire stop. I’ve done it, but that doesn’t mean I like it. Most pilots don’t, the ones that will admit it. The others lie.”

  The Bedstead and King were still out flying when they taxied to the parking area. The admiral walked around, looking at the turbogenerators under the wings, examining the large hatch where the batteries were loaded.

  “You haven’t mentioned cost, Chuck.”

  “No, that’s Frenchy’s area of expertise. I suspect we can compete with people who manufacture jet engines.”

  “That’s good to know. Budgets are tight, you might have heard that, and adopting your system would be expensive. We can’t afford to scrap our other systems, especially fighters, not considering how much we’ve spent on them already. We might be able to modify the tankers and the airborne command and control birds. Loiter time, though, we’d have to look at that. We’d also have to work out fuel consumption tables, things like that; I’m sure you have your own figures, but Navy planes operate in a different environment.”

  “You’d know more about that than I would, admiral. The turbogenerators use roughly the same amount of fuel that the turboprops did, maybe a little less because we can operate them at their most efficient speed. The batteries even out the demands on the power system.”

  “Interesting. Chuck, I probably shouldn’t tell you this but I’ll be recommending that we explore your system. How we use it, though, we’ll have to work that part out. You seem to be insistent on secrecy, and to be truthful that’s going to be a major stumbling block.”

  “That’s not our problem, admiral, it’s yours. You’ll simply have to find a way to deal with it.”

  #

  Frenchy called them together after the DARPA group left, heading back to Washington. “What did you think of them, folks? Let’s start with Lina first. You flew with the Marine, right?”

  “I flew with all of them except the admiral. We made a couple of stops and swapped people around. The Army officer and the Marine were interested in both machines, the Bedstead as a possible scout vehicle and the King as a replacement for tactical trucks. They have problems with IED’s. They realized that if you aren’t limited to road nets, the enemy can’t plant bombs in your path. You could also truck in supplies and fly them over the walls, doing all your loading and unloading inside. You might even eliminate some of the pilots, fly the haulers by controlling them remotely.”

  “Smart people. I hadn’t thought of that, but they were interested, right?”

  “Very much so, dad. They have problems, and they understood that we could help solve some of them. The Marine understood that our lifters, expanded to a larger size of course, could replace the hovercraft they use to land troops and supplies on an enemy-controlled beach. He mentioned that a hollow frame, big enough to mount the impellers and batteries but with a large opening in the center, could land a shipping container prepacked with supplies. It could also land a troop unit that could deploy immediately. Instead of a s
hipping box, think of two rows of seats, facing outboard. This carrier would have a solid spine down the middle for the batteries, with seats for passengers on the sides. Think of a long, skinny H shape, with the crossbar representing the spine for the batteries. The troops would load aboard the ship, maybe from one of those Marine Corps assault ships with the hollow space in the hull? They would fly the troops directly to the shore, maybe do evasive maneuvers, then pick a spot and drop off the troops. He mentioned mounting supporting fire units on the landers, machine guns on the front alongside the pilot’s compartment, mortars on the aft part of the H. He said he thought the Coast Guard would also be interested. They do rescues, so they could take a passenger-model lifter out and load up refugees or take people off sinking ships. You’d need some sort of overhead cover for that type, although it wouldn’t be necessary if you were transporting combat infantrymen.”

  “Bright people. They think, that’s for sure. I mentioned to the chief of the group, General Fuller, that we had experienced delays. We would like access to nuclear power plants, but he didn’t appear to think that would be a problem. I guess we have to wait now. Even DARPA is part of a bureaucracy, and we all know how fast those operate. Just look at how long it’s taken them to answer Morty’s letter!”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Got a minute, Lina?”

  “Hi, dad. Sure, give me a sec to finish up.” Lina closed the display, apparently the interior of a new spacecraft that she was designing. Frenchy wondered, but decided to ask about it later.

  “Okay, what’s up?”

  “Maybe nothing. I got to thinking, though, and I wondered if you’re happy here. You were planning a career in architecture and this is a long way from that. Does it bother you, wasting your education?”

  “Who says it was wasted? I’m helping design the next generation of spaceships. It’s not traditional architecture, but it’s close enough. I’d be designing washrooms if I worked for a major firm. Even if I opened my own business, I’d be beating the bushes for customers. Without a reputation, people aren’t willing to risk millions of dollars by hiring an unknown. That’s why so many go to work for an established firm, just so they can work in the field. Santiago Calatrava gets to design beautiful things, billion dollar bridges and buildings, but newbies don’t get the chance to do that kind of work. I can, and in a sense I already have. I love it here.”