The Ship: The New Frontiers Series, Book One

by Jack L Knapp

  Chuck discussed this with Will. “I don’t want to say anything to Joe, but I keep thinking that what started out as a simple craft now resembles the ships that blew up before they ever got to space. Or came apart on the way down. The shuttle was second or maybe third generation, it was always complicated, never really safe, and it showed. Four were built, they were thoroughly inspected and essentially rebuilt between missions, but even so two of them blew up. Even a simple thing like a gasket can cause failure, and when it happens in space, it’s catastrophic. The refueling system is necessary, I agree, but we’ve added a whole lot of extra connections and gaskets to what started out as a relatively simple ship.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that too, Chuck. That first flight to altitude, I know we’d tested the bird from tip to tail, but even so I was puckered until we got back. It’s possible we could fly the Twin into low orbit if we had to rescue people. Keep the batteries fully charged until the turbogenerators flame out, maybe even add an oxygen bleed system to boost where that happens. The only thing that kicks the generators offline is lack of oxygen from the air, so we burn atmospheric oxygen until there’s not enough, then supplement from onboard tanks. Enriching the airflow might give us another ten thousand feet, maybe more. No one’s ever tried this, at least as far as I know. They didn’t need to, they lost lift before they ran out of air. Our wings or airfoils won’t work either, but as long as we’ve got electric power we don’t really need them. The impellers can substitute.”

  “No way you’re going to pressurize that cabin, Will. It was never designed for that, and a redesign would add too much weight. Adding a couple of extra battery packs is out too; you’re reaching the limit, where the extra charge is offset by the impellers having to lug the extra weight. Diminishing returns, in other words.”

  “I anticipated the problem with cabin pressure. I thought about reducing pressure to something the cabin can take, maybe a tenth of an atmosphere. The new door seals should tolerate that, and the maintenance crew has been over the cabin, plugging leaks. It’s essentially a sealed capsule, thin, but maybe good enough to keep us alive, with wings and aerodynamic controls attached. It won’t be quite as bad as working in open space. If the pressure is high enough, the automatic systems won’t kick in. The gee tubes on the arms, legs, and the torso won’t inflate, so we’ll have a lot more flexibility.”

  “Maybe. In an emergency, it might be worth a try. But we don’t know how the plane would react if we exceeded, say, 100,000 feet. The service ceiling is less than half that, so we might end up with you stuck in space too.”

  “I plan to try it tomorrow, a limited trial, not with the oxygen bleed system but just take it to max altitude and see how it handles. I’ll be on battery after the turbos quit, I expect it to spin but I think it’s safe enough. Want to come along as copilot? There’ll be a lot to do, and I could use the help.”

  “Sure, but my weight added to the plane’s gross will affect your numbers.”

  “I won’t get final numbers, but I’ll at least get some idea of whether it’s feasible. I’ll also get a better idea of how long it takes to discharge the batteries. I won’t go below half charge, that’s enough to get us down if I can’t restart the turbogenerators after reentry.”

  “When do you want to go?”

  “Tomorrow morning. I’ll give you a wakeup call when I’m ready. Get a good night’s sleep, remember to wear your suit. We’ll be on suit internal pressure and heat until we get back to safe altitude. I’ll bleed off cabin pressure starting about 10,000 and watch for a blowout. We’ll be plugged into the cabin’s electricity and oxygen supply, so the suit’s emergency pack will remain fully charged in case something fails. Low bulk meal tonight, no bathrooms available for maybe as much as four hours after we take off. Cleaning the suits afterward...nah. Better to be prepared.”

  “See you tomorrow morning, Will. This sounds like fun.”

  #

  Chuck groaned and stretched. It seemed as if he’d only just gone to bed, but a glance at the digital clock mounted on the wall told him it was almost 8am. Swinging out of bed, he walked into the bathroom.

  He looked at the other bed, but it wasn’t occupied. Suddenly he jolted awake. Where was Mel? He would normally finish work before morning and be sleeping now. Why hadn’t Will called him? Had he missed the call, maybe Will found someone else to fly with him? He picked up the intercom phone and pushed the ring button.

  Chuck laid down the phone, shocked. Will hadn’t flown after all. Mel wouldn’t be sleeping in the bed again; he’d crashed during the night while flying the Bedstead.

  Frenchy was waiting when Chuck walked in. “Grab a cup of coffee and we’ll talk.”

  Subdued, Chuck nodded. He joined Will, and Lina at the table.

  “What do we know?”

  “Mel’s gyros locked up, the computers crashed, and as near as we can tell the chute failed. The lines were twisted around each other when the riders found the wreckage. Mel was still strapped in the seat. We think he came down from at least two hundred feet, maybe as much as a thousand although he wasn’t supposed to go that high. The body was pretty mangled, which made me think he’d gone higher than intended. I guess he was killed instantly.”

  “Damn. We talked about the high altitude tests, I intended to do them before I got tied up with the ship. I should have been flying the Bedstead!”

  “Then you’d be dead, Chuck. This wasn’t pilot error, it was a cascade of equipment failure.”

  “I asked Mel about using a personal chute, but he said he didn’t know anything about them. I don’t have experience, but at least I know how the things are supposed to work!”

  “Let it go, Chuck. We’ve got too much other stuff to do. The sheriff’s office has been notified and they’re sending an ambulance and an investigation team.”

  “What are we going to tell them, Frenchy?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve called the legal team and they’ll get here as soon as they can. They’ll do most of the talking.”

  “Frenchy, it’s going to be hard to keep this under wraps. We’re going to have to tell them something.”

  “I don’t have an answer yet. The lawyer I talked to said to say nothing, let them do the talking, but I’m not sure if the investigators will accept that.”

  “What about the Bedstead?”

  “Smashed. The frame is twisted, the impellers tore loose when it hit. There apparently was some activity going on inside the casing, but they’re smashed too. It came down rear end first and the two rear impellers are half buried. The ground is mostly sand there, it’s in an arroyo. The investigators are going to want the wreckage, maybe not the sheriff’s people, but there will be others. I don’t see how we can keep them from taking the pieces.”

  “Can they reconstruct the impellers?”

  “Maybe, given time. The computer was smashed too and we picked up a couple of the pieces. They looked like metal disks, so they’re not going to get anything off the hard drive. Pieces also came off the impellers after the crash, and we’ve managed to hide some of the debris. We can justify going in to see whether Mel survived, but they’ll know something unusual was going on and we’re going to be under increasing pressure from now on.”

  “Do we have any records indicating we had anything to do with the Tesla? They’ll soon learn about the Twin if they don’t already know about it, and they may shut it down if they realize it uses the same propulsion system that was on the Bedstead. The Tesla too.”

  “There are no Tesla records here, not anymore. Officially, we’ve set the divisions up as different companies, so I hope they won’t realize Tesla is ours. Not right away, anyway. We may have to go public with the Twin. If we do, we immediately apply for FAA certification. Until they nit-pick through the wreckage, that’s not going to happen, but there’s a good chance that someone will figure out what we’re doing. We’ve got paperwork ready for the patent application when we need it. DARPA won’t be happy. The crash is goi
ng to slow us down, so we may not be able to meet the contract.”

  “What about the spacecraft?”

  “They don’t know it’s a spacecraft yet, as far as we can tell. There’s no reason for us to allow their investigators into the hangar or that walled off section of the assembly plant, so they won’t see the Farside. That’s not where the accident happened, and the Bedstead wreckage is still where it went in. I’ve had people moving some of the parts for the power station into the assembly building, stacking them right inside the door, and maybe that will be enough to keep the Farside out of sight. I can tell the investigators that I’m storing supplies in there if they ask, so maybe they’ll move on to other things. I’m sending everyone else home, so with luck they won’t be bothered by the sheriff’s people.”

  “You know you’ll have to deal with the FAA, don’t you? Maybe even the NTSB? They’ll be all over the crash. From what you’re saying, it was obvious that the Bedstead was flying before it came down. The parachute will tell them that much.”

  “I know. But they won’t be here right away, maybe for a day or two, so I’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I guess we need to be ready to get the King out of here before someone decides this is a crime scene and locks it down, the Farside too. Your place?”

  “I’ll fly the King to the cavern inside the Farside’s cargo bay. That leaves the Twin. Maybe you should make yourself hard to find too. There’s not much room at my ranch, not nearly the shop facilities we have here, but maybe we can still do something on the DARPA contract. I can hide stuff there in any case. No one except you, Dolph, Will, and Lina knows about it, so it’s best if you’re not here to answer questions. The guys who worked on the PV plant know, but they’re still on vacation. I’ll call them and tell them not to come back until I send for them.”

  “You and Lina take the King and the Farside, Chuck. Will and I will stay here, at least for now. The Twin doesn’t look like it’s anything unusual, and anyway it’s got that experimental certification. Unless they connect the plane with the crashed Bedstead, and that doesn’t look like anything else that flies, we should be all right. Load everything into the Farside as soon as you can and be ready to take off on short notice. Take Joe with you too. It’s better to leave after dark, but if you don’t have a choice, just take off through the roof hatch. Maybe you should open it, just in case. The investigators will go to the crash site, not here, and by the time they get back here, I want you two long gone. We may have to hide the Twin too if they start snooping around, but if so, Will can fly us out of here. With the King gone, the rest of the impellers moved to the cavern, there’s not a lot left to find. They can bring the parts of the Bedstead back here if they want, spread them around the floor of the assembly building while they’re doing their investigation. That idea you had, prepping a place to hide stuff, is turning out to be pure genius.”

  “There’s also the warehouse, Frenchy. You could stash things there, maybe even the Twin if you took the wings off. Otherwise, it won’t fit though the cargo door. There’s already a guard on the building, unless you laid him off. It’s not the best solution, but it might be necessary and that would be better than leaving it here.”

  “Maybe. I can send some of the gate guards with you if you think you need them. They know something’s happened and that we’re going to have a lot of unwanted visitors to deal with.”

  “I don’t think so, Frenchy. People know we have guards at the gate, we don’t want to make them know anything has changed. Anyway, we want to hide on Morty’s ranch, not make it obvious we’re concealing something.

  “I hope we’re not forgetting anything. The priority is to get the King, the extra impellers, and the Farside out of here before anyone sees them. If we run out of room in the Farside, I’ll load the King’s frame into the van and send it to the ranch. I’ll have to take off the impellers anyway, it won’t fit in the van otherwise, but that won’t take long and we can add them in with the ones we’re hauling in the Farside. We’ve got the crane for loading the frame, so the whole job won’t take more than three or four hours. We’ll have the van out of here while the investigators are still at the crash site, and meantime the shop crew can load the Farside.”

  “I can’t help but think we’re not well organized, Chuck. All those people coming in, they’ll be asking questions and we don’t have answers. We’re floundering around, just trying to decide what to do. And what about Mel? Did he have a family?”

  “Panit’s taking care of that, Frenchy,” Will said. “He’s got the records. I don’t think Mel had a wife, he’s divorced, but maybe there were children. I don’t know if his parents are alive, he never mentioned them. Brothers or sisters either. The office people have the personnel records, so let them take care of it.

  “Anyway, our first job is to get through the day. About letting the lawyers do all the talking, it will look suspicious, but you can claim it’s corporate policy or something. I hope they get here quick, because we’re going to need them.”

  Chapter Thirty

  The phone call was not unexpected.

  “Mister Fuqua? I represent the Department of Transportation. Will you be available later today? I can meet you at your business in New Mexico, but it will take time for me to get there. The Learjet is off on another errand, won’t be back until later this morning. The pilot anticipates arrival in Roswell sometime around three this afternoon. I’ll rent a car, so shall we say 4:30pm?”

  “First, let’s discuss your business with me. I haven’t contacted the DOT.”

  “I understand that, but I’m afraid we’re contacting you this time. If you’re busy, then perhaps a subpoena would help? I’m sure one can be arranged, either judicial or perhaps Congressional. There are serious questions regarding the role you played in the death of your employee.”

  “Before you waste your time, I won’t meet with you unless my own attorneys are present.”

  “I see. Then perhaps a subpoena will be necessary.”

  “You must do what you must do, sir. Serious questions, your name for this, are meaningless. What questions? Why would you think I had something to do with the unfortunate accident that took the life of my friend and employee Mel? This sounds very much like a fishing expedition, so any answers to your ‘serious questions’ will come only after my counsel approves.”

  “I hoped we could do this more informally, but if you insist, we can do it the hard way. You should expect to hear from us shortly.”

  Frenchy broke the connection. This was a complication, although he’d expected it to happen. The phone rang again. This time, the call came from the Federal Aviation Administration. The gist was much the same as the first and Frenchy responded as he had before.

  A third call was different. This one came from Colonel Ponder, the Army representative who’d visited with the DARPA group.

  “Mister Fuqua, it looks from here like the buzzards are circling. Are you going to be able to build the prototypes we talked about?”

  “Colonel, I just don’t know. I don’t think they’re looking for information, they intend to shut us down. We only have one factory, and I’ve already been threatened with a subpoena, maybe Congressional.”

  “That might be a problem, but it will take time to get one. Who’s going to issue the subpoena? Which subcommittee? That can be important, but regardless, we’ve got friends on Capitol Hill. The defense budget is huge, and there are a lot of benefits for elected officials. While we can’t directly oppose Congress, we do have influence. Even among committee members, some have more influence than others.”

  “Pork, you mean.”

  “I didn’t say that, Mister Fuqua. Benefits, that’s how I see it. Factories have to go somewhere, and the labor climate and other things can influence the choice. End-user tests can be viewed favorably or perhaps less favorably, with considerably more scrutiny of the product before acceptance. It’s a kind of dance on the Hill, and we understand the system. We have friends, and I’ll see th
at they understand that we need your project completed.”

  “I’ll do my best, colonel. But if they shut down the factory, I’m not sure what I can do.”

  “About that, they’ll have a much harder time if they have difficulty serving that subpoena. I can’t advise you of what to do, of course, but...”

  “I understand. My legal team will be arriving later today, so I’ll put the matter in their hands.”

  “Of course. And about the cargo unit and the personnel transporter, I’m authorized to say that we would really like an opportunity to test those.”

  “I’ll see what I can do, colonel. There may be other options, even if the New Mexico plant is shut down temporarily.”

  “You have my personal phone number, and I can contact the rest of the team. The crash was very unfortunate; it may be that flying cargo or people over walls and buildings won’t work.”

  “I don’t anticipate a problem, colonel. The crash may have been caused by the design of the craft, maybe because the Bedstead uses only four impellers. The King uses eight and has dual systems, so there’s more control. It’s temporarily unavailable for testing, but I hope to have it ready within a few days and we’ll repeat the series of tests Mel was working on. We expect considerable disruption in our operations, a memorial service, things like that to deal with. Mel was a personal friend as well as a valued employee.”

  “I understand. I won’t keep you longer, Mister Fuqua. I’ll keep you advised of happenings in Washington, and I’d appreciate you notifying us here if there’s going to be a significant holdup in production of the test units. Are you the only one authorized to contract with us?”

  “No. I’ll make sure that others are included on the list, Chuck Sneyd from the operations side, Panit Jindae from management, maybe my daughter Lina as my personal representative.”

  “That should be sufficient. Admiral Sessions asked me to inquire about the ship you’re using, the cargo ship? He has a few ideas he’d like to talk about after you get through the next few days.”