The Imperative Chronicles, Books One and Two: The Mars Imperative & The Tesserene Imperative

by Mark Terence Chapman

  “Give us another ten minutes and we’ll be back up to factory specs, if not a few percentage points above.”

  “Thanks for keeping on it, you two. Good work! Attention, attention,” he said, still on the intercom, but now addressing everyone aboard. “The drive has been repaired, with everyone’s help. We’ll try a microjump in a little while to verify that everything’s working correctly. Assuming we survive that, let’s all get together for a meal, and then we can discuss our options.”

  Cap wasn’t kidding. It doesn’t matter how long or short a test jump is. If we’d overlooked anything at all, when we triggered the drive we might just cease to exist. Or, to be more precise, our atoms might be spread across an almost infinite number of dimensions, or we might instantly become a quantum singularity. But no pressure, right?

  Although we’d all had a hand in the repairs, as the RCO I had the ultimate responsibility for keeping the drive in good working order. If the drive failed, it was my fault.

  The good news was that if it did fail, I’d probably never know it.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later it was time for the test flight. Even though I’d double- and triple-checked our work, and run and rerun the diagnostics, I still wasn’t absolutely, positively, convinced that we hadn’t screwed up somewhere. Murphy has an annoying habit of jumping up and biting people on the ass at the worst possible time. This was most definitely the worst possible time.

  “Initiating jump in ten…nine…eight….everyone hang on,” Cap intoned.

  I was already strapped in at my duty station in Engineering, so I clenched my teeth and closed my eyes. If this was going to be the end of the line, I didn’t want to see it. Sure, I’d made dozens of engine repairs before “in the field” without incident, but normally anything this extensive would have been done in a shipyard with a whole team of experts to make sure nothing went wrong. As I was oh-so-aware at that moment, there were a thousand things that could go wrong, many of them with fatal consequences.

  “Three….two….one….now!

  I felt the familiar sensation of my body turning itself inside out. That wasn’t exactly what was happening, but that was as close as the human mind could come to explaining the feeling of dimension-shifting as we slipped through the folds in space. The sensation isn’t exactly unpleasant, but it is unsettling to most people until they get used to it. Some never do, of course. The unfortunate few who suffer from jump sickness are quickly weeded out of the spacer training program. For the rest of us, jump translations are just business as usual.

  When I opened my eyes, the swirling shapes and almost-colors of interspace flickered on my console, as expected. Apparently we’d survived the jump into nothingness. Now we just had to survive the return to our universe. It was believed by many—not counting the alien conspiracy nuts—that the fourteen deepspace ships that simply vanished over the years were lost somewhere in interspace. No one knew for sure.

  “Jump plus five seconds,” Cap reported. “Hold on—I’ve got some fluctuation in the temporal slip rate. Swede?”

  My chair began to vibrate as the variance multiplied at an exponential rate. “Attempting to compensate!” I shouted. The vibration continued to increase. After twenty seconds of that, the fillings in my teeth felt like they were coming loose. I kept tweaking the injector mix. It was more a matter of art than science to get the right combination of settings for a new or rebuilt drive. If I didn’t get the slip rate in balance, and fast, our journey was going to come to an instantaneous and unspectacular end in about five seconds. My fingers flew across the console as I looked for the magic combination that would make this problem go away.

  No matter what I did, the oscillation kept accelerating. I couldn’t focus on the controls.

  “Now would be a good time, Swede!” Cap hollered. I barely heard him over the whine from the straining engine as it tried to shake itself to pieces—and us along with it.

  I couldn’t spare the attention to respond. A bead of sweat had run down to the end of my nose and distractingly refused to drop. To make matters worse, it tickled all the way down. Another second and it wouldn’t matt—

  The vibration stopped.

  “There, that’s got it!” I called out. My voice seemed to echo in the near-silence. “The slip rate is holding steady. It looks like we’re green across the board, Cap.” I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer. The sweat bead chose that moment to drop onto my lap and I had to stifle the beginnings of hysterical laughter.

  “Good work, Swede!”

  We continued cruising for a few more seconds as we collectively caught our breath.

  “It looks like the drive is working correctly. Reverting to realspace in three…two…one… now!”

  This time I kept my eyes open and glued to the console, willing everything to be okay. One instant I was looking at iridescent eddies and the next there was an asteroid before us with stars gleaming in the background.

  I let out the breath I hadn’t realized I was holding.

  Sparks’ voice came over the intercom. “We’re exactly where we’re supposed to be, Cap.”

  “I wouldn't have it any other way,” Cap replied matter-of-factly. A casual observer would never know from listening to Cap that we’d just been an instant away from oblivion. “I’ll park the bus and then we can get something to eat. I’m famished!”

  Eat? I was just about ready to lose what was left of lunch.

  CHAPTER 9

  History of Space Exploration: Tesserene—Initially, tesserene ore was referred to as “Ganymedean rocks” and the gravitic effect was thought to be merely an interesting phenomenon. However, everything changed in 2073 when the laboratory in Singapore that was performing the initial analysis of the rocks was vaporized by a few grams of the ore. Suddenly, those simple rocks received serious attention.

  Scientists quickly identified tesserene’s enormous potential as a power source, both on Earth and for space flight. When the same experiment was performed on the refined mineral, the researchers found that pure tesserene’s properties changed dramatically.

  It took four years before scientists learned to control the reaction and use it productively. By focusing the gravitic distortion, they were able to create ripples, or folds, in the fabric of space. Computer-generated representations of tesserene’s ability to fold space reminded BRISTOL UNIVERSITY researcher DR. DAVID MASSINGILL of a four-dimensional cube, or TESSERACT; hence, its name.

  During extensive research into the properties of tesserene, scientists determined that the folds created by focusing the mineral’s gravitic distortion theoretically could be used to allow objects to jump across immense expanses of space almost instantaneously. First, however, researchers had to develop an engine to create and control stable folds. It took another fourteen years, but in 2091 the greatest international assemblage of minds ever to concentrate on a single task finally succeeded.

  — Excerpt from Encyclopedia Solaris, 2194

  * * * *

  I explained earlier that we use the starflight drive to jump between star systems by folding space, and the thrusters for close-in maneuvering. However, I didn’t really explain how we traveled in-system, between planets or through an asteroid belt.

  It’s really just a powered-down version of interstellar travel, using smaller jumps. To jump to an uncharted star system, a ship locates the gravity well of the target star by using a known galactic coordinate. Then the ship calculates the jump to a certain safe distance from the star.

  There’s an element of risk involved in a blind jump like that, because there’s no way to tell what else might be in the vicinity of our arrival zone. There’s a small yet very real chance that there would be an undetected chunk of rock right in our path when we jumped in. If so, our trip would end in a hurry.

  Once in a system, we chart all of the major planets, moons, asteroids and comets. This serves two purposes. First, our company gets paid a fee by the United Nations for doing the survey. It’s n
ot a lot, but it helps defray some of the costs of the mission. Second, mapping the gravity wells gives us reference points for in-system jumps. As long as the target object masses at least as much as the ship, the ship can jump to any gravity well in the system.

  The process is a bit different for microjumps—say, between asteroids or moons that don’t have large gravity wells. Then it’s purely a matter of line-of-sight. If we can see it to map its coordinates, we can jump to it. For longer jumps we need some source of gravitic distortion in the target zone. The larger the distortion, the longer the jump can be.

  It’s not impossible to jump in the absence of significant mass, however we’d be limited to extremely short jumps, which would mean an absurdly large number of steps to get us anywhere. The trick is to make sure a ship never finds itself in the middle of nowhere.

  * * * *

  Once again, we congregated in the Commons, this time finishing up the remains of a repast of paella. The last two times we’d met here, it was to figure out how to save our lives. Now, it was to decide our future.

  “All right, lads, settle down,” Cap called out.

  He looked more relaxed than he had in days. Getting a good night’s sleep and having a death sentence commuted can have that effect on you.

  “As we’ve just verified, the starflight drive is up and running. With life support back in operation, we no longer need the air scrubber, so I’ve asked Guido to store it, in case we ever need it again. I’ve logged his clever design into the mission record and I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Company distribute the plans to all ships’ crews. Guido’s design might just save other lives.”

  This news drew applause and some slaps on the back for the grinning Italian.

  “I’ve also logged the procedure for installing a third thruster, and the sims we ran, in case anyone else ever ends up in a similar situation. We’ll probably make the record books. There have been many instances of life support failure, or loss of air, or starflight drive failure—even catastrophic failure. But as far as I know, no ship has ever suffered damage to as many critical systems at once as we have and survived. You’re all to be commended!”

  More cheers and whistles.

  “The repairs we made to the hull and the water main appear to be holding, and the third thruster is offline again, to simplify steering. Other than some minor damage that remains to be taken care of, we seem to be back in good working order. This means we have a decision to make: Do we continue the mission, or do we go home? As captain I have the authority to make a unilateral decision. If this were purely an issue of safety I’d do so. But it looks like we can proceed without undue risk, so now it’s as much a matter of finances as anything else.

  “We’ve all been through hell recently, and we came within minutes of never seeing home again. I can certainly understand wanting to return to Earth, and I think you’ve earned the right to decide for yourselves. We’ve all been together for a long time—hell, what with personality conflicts, retirements and injuries, a crew that stays together as long as we have is almost unheard of.

  “Therefore, I’ve decided to put it to a vote and abide by the majority decision. Everyone will get a chance to state his case for continuing on or heading back. If anyone wants to go home after everything we’ve been put through, I for one won’t think any less of him. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve all earned our pay—and then some. Fair?”

  Our nods, and a “Hell, yeah!” from Tom, indicated our agreement.

  “All right then, who wants to start?” At first there was a lot of looking around and some nervous expressions until, finally, Guido spoke up.

  “Cap, it was scary for a while—I don’t mind admitting it. We didn’t know if we’d see our loved ones again. I know I prayed, and I’m sure some of the others did, too.”

  The rest of us nodded in agreement.

  “Believe me, I would dearly love to get home and give my wife a big fat kiss and hold my new baby again, to let them know I’m alive and well.

  “But I signed on to do a job, and I’m damn well going to do it, no matter what the universe throws at us!” His dark eyes shone defiantly as he spoke. “Besides…I could really use the bonus from a big score.” We grinned, because we were all in the same boat, figuratively as well as literally.

  “That’s all I have to say on the matter. I vote we keep going.”

  There were nods all around.

  “Is that how you all feel?” Cap eyed each of us in turn. “Shall we spit in the face of the universe and continue the mission?”

  “I’m in,” said Tom. “I’m not running home with my tail between my legs.”

  “Same here, Cap,” added Sparks, with a sharp nod.

  “Me too,” I said.

  “Well, then it doesn’t matter what my vote is. We’re going on. But just so you know, I’m of the same mind. I’ve never been prouder of each and every one of you!” Cap said. A broad grin spread across his mustachioed mug. “I say let’s get ‘out there’ and kick some ass and make some money! Tom, Sparks, see if you can find us some likely candidates.”

  “Aye, Cap!” they echoed.

  “And the rest of you, we still need to get the other pod back in operation.”

  “Aye, Cap!” Guido and I repeated.

  Somehow, the sickly green paint of the Commons seemed more cheerful than it had a few hours earlier.

  “So, what do you guys think?” Sparks asked. “Do we keep exploring the asteroid belt, or do we head for a moon?”

  “There are thousands of potential targets in the belt,” Tom interjected, “and I’ve charted eleven moons in the system, so far. We’ve detected some nickel, bauxite, and copper on several asteroids within sensor range. Nothing exceptionally valuable individually, but we stand to make some money on bonuses in this system collectively. It looks as if it might be rich in metals, if nothing else. I still haven’t detected any tesserene—although there’s no telling what else is out there that we haven’t spotted yet.

  “We’re already in the belt,” Cap said, “so we might as well keep doing what we’re doing, unless one of you has a good reason for us to zip out to a particular moon right now.”

  We all shook our heads.

  “In that case, let’s keep exploring and charting everything until we find something worth stopping for, or until we run out of decent-sized asteroids. Then we’ll check out the moons.

  “We’re still short of water, but I’m sure we can locate a comet somewhere in this system. With life support working again, what water we do have will soon be its usual crystal clear self. Therefore I’m reinstituting showers.”

  That garnered cheers all around, and a “Thank God!” from Sparks.

  “Now let’s go get some water so we can take indecently long hot showers again.”

  The meeting ended with every face grinning from ear to ear.

  * * * *

  “Closing in on C1,” Sparks intoned. “Stand by.”

  We were rendezvousing with a comet in the Oort cloud surrounding the Richelieu system. Sensor readings showed that it contained plenty of the water ice that we needed. The comet was more than three billion kilometers from our previous location in the asteroid belt, but with our newly repaired drive, it was a matter of only minutes to jump there.

  After a few seconds, Sparks continued, “Depressurization complete. Pod 2 you're clear to exit the ship.”

  “Roger, Shamu. Exiting now.”

  Pod 2, containing Tom and Guido, floated out of the bay and headed for the comet. The pod contained the usual extraction equipment. The gear wasn’t really intended for mining ice, but it worked as well for that as it did for anything else. After all, at temperatures approaching absolute zero, ice is as hard as rock. Any ice that melted from friction would refreeze almost instantly. I had already set up the refinery to separate the ice from rocks, dirt, frozen gasses and other cometary ingredients that we didn’t need, and then funnel the resulting water into the life support system for purific
ation. Although the refinery wasn’t equipped to handle liquids as input, it had no trouble with liquids as output. After all, it had to handle molten metals.

  The time it took for the pod to match speeds with the comet was longer than the whole trip out to the ice ball, but Tom managed it with his usual skill. “Setting down in three…two…one…now!” he confirmed.

  “Acknowledged, Pod 2.”

  Tom fired the anchors to hold the pod in place, and shut off the engine. Then he and Guido went about setting up the extractor.

  It didn’t take more than three hours all told to replenish our water supply. After tanking up, we had most of the ingredients we needed to subsist in space indefinitely: water, air, and enough tesserene for starflight fuel—everything but an infinite supply of food and thruster fuel. Still, we had enough food aboard to last us for another four months, so it didn’t seem likely that famine would be a problem for the duration of this mission.

  Tom and Guido docked Pod 2 in the bay and re-entered Shamu proper.

  “Right then, lads,” Cap called over the intercom, “what say we go find some buried treasure?”

  * * * *

  Three days had passed since we visited the comet. Guido and I finished repairing Pod 1 while Sparks and Tom were busy scouting the asteroid belt. Thus far we’d identified 103 gravitic indicators within range of our sensors, of which forty-seven showed tentative theta-band signatures. Of course, even in the presence of both indicators, there are many wild goose chases. There are plenty of sources of TB radiation in the galaxy and sometimes an asteroid turns out to have another reason for emitting TB. And, naturally, as with any sensitive optronic equipment, there are occasional false-positives.

  All in all, we’d investigated and discarded eleven of the forty-seven potentials, and along the way we identified two more iron ore deposits and one of copper. We didn’t only scan for tesserene, after all, even if it was our primary objective. We mapped the locations of those deposits for later reference. The plan was that if we didn’t find any tesserene by the time we finished exploring this star system, we’d come back to the best sites, fill our holds with whatever refined ores would fetch the highest prices back on Earth, and then head home and claim our finder’s fees on the future mining sites for the rest.