The Resolute

by G. Weldon Tucker

  Above him, barely two hundred yards, Lena did the same and both planes came alive. “Engines hot,” called Lena. Repeated, once again, from the opposite side. Four planes hot and pilots anxious.

  “Take positions five thousand miles for our first rollout, wing! Spread ‘em out one mile for now!” Jack reminded them. That was the recommended wing distance for the trials. Far enough to respond to anything he did, but not so close that a Zephroan lucky shot would easily take all at once.

  Of course, the system would do most of the driving, because at five thousand miles, no one could see the other, and radar was simply too slow.

  Just in case, all four were armed to the teeth with two of the smaller, four inch photon laser cannon.

  The power Laser, the big one, was mounted, but not yet functional. Having scanned the universe in millions of miles, they should be alone, and it was worth the risk. Besides, photon lasers, fully charged, ready to go, should win over a ‘life or death’ maiden flight.

  “Ready,” came the repeated answers as each ‘plane’ slipped easily in a side move designed to put a mile distance between them and the Resolute. In a moment, Lena reported, “Wing One ready.”

  “Light ‘em up!” Jack called.

  The four shot forward as if catapulted from a slingshot, ripping past the nose of the Resolute like she had stopped and parked. The forward vid picked them up as friendly bogeys, and the view was a rapidly diminishing picture of four very powerful fighters going for speed.

  Instead of several hundred feet of plane and a another few hundred feet on the long edge of delta wings, these were a far more manageable, sleek unit. Five hundred feet long, a hundred wide, with three stubby twenty foot stanchions, upon which the three separate engines were mounted. These were thrusters, feeding off hydrogen, and fed by space scoops of comparatively massive size.

  Inside the body, not far behind the pilots, the two nuclear plants generated excessive amounts of deadly gamma rays, which were thrown the length of the ship in their individual accelerators until vented out the aft end. Thus the length was important. Too short, they would be useless. Too long, and they lost the ability to dart as required.

  The hydrogen in methane fed thrusters could take the planes to light speed, yet the combined forces took it to four times light speed… in a hell of a hurry!

  “Topping out four point three two… no increase,” Lena reported at mark of the three minutes. Less mass meant far more speed, far more thrust.

  “Yes, me too. Still, very impressive. How about a reverse turn… Watch the angle, we do not want to hit Resolute!”

  “Flight ready, Sir. Straight on the bowline, up plane of fifty degrees, rollout in five, expect five g’s, Captain.”

  “NOW!” he cried and poured on the coals.

  The flight responded, breaking out in a flower rollout, taking them to that five thousand mile spread. If the flight had not been cued to one another, they would have been hard put to keep their distance, but he was pleased to see they all had been more than ready.

  The four performed as if they were connected on a string, and they turned completely around in a high u-turn, quickly going back toward Resolute, but well in excess of five miles above her… relative. Everyone finally could release their breath, allowing blood to flow again. Holding one’s breath tightly compressed kept blood in the brain on these high g turns. The suits helped, but they were not enough.

  Angela and crew cheered as the four made their show off turn and screamed back at them, quickly achieving two light speed, so that there was a very rapid approach. It was a blink and they were gone behind Resolute. Of course, none were visible, but the system scanner tracked them easily as fast moving bogeys, here and gone.

  “Show offs,” Angela breathed, but she glad to see her driven, over achiever partner was having a spectacular time!

  CHAPTER 5

  At the end of the first eighteen months, Jack had three small wings of four each on station, usually in stealth, and ready for anything. He needed wings of six, but they were not ready, yet. Each plane held a pilot and copilot. And, of course, Chips. The third deck had hustled and now kept pace with the two below. So, when as they continued launching, they launched six at a time.

  One more flight wing, six planes, then, maybe, Jack could relax a little. As long as they could find the materials, even another six would be that much better. Nearly twenty-four planes. A good sphere of protection.

  Four wings were ideal, for it allowed down time, repairs, maintenance and such, but they could stay out there forever, if they needed. All one had to do was teleport in some water and sandwiches and teleport out the waste products. With only three people aboard, neither would be a problem. However, at this point, it was unnecessary.

  He loved the Resolute, of course, and she had proven herself in battle. Or, maybe, Angela had proven herself. But the monster craft was an easy target for sneak attacks, and it was the fighters’ job to find the ambush, and disrupt it.

  With more wings, they had better coverage, fore and aft, high and low, as well as a near sphere around the big ship, out as far as they wanted. Spread thin, so he needed that next wing.

  So, they’d moved out a million miles ahead, behind, and overhead to some degree, keeping in close contact. But it was damned lonely out there. Nothing to see but distant stars, and a floor of the galaxy below. Now, though, there was one pair of planes to every station. Six people. It was not that lonely…

  For asteroids, traveling in the fifty thousand mile per hour range, and most were less, this gave the Resolute a decided advantage of at least twenty hours. Plenty of time to calculate, then to evade. It did little for the high speed Zephroan, but perhaps they could provide a battle warning, delaying the attack…

  Every six hours, one of the fighters of each pair dropped back, staggered in time, so they did not all show up at once, and the crew was swapped by teleportation, one at a time.

  Jack, who had more experience with the modern, very precise teleporting units, was more at ease with this then Angela. She practically chewed nails to the quick every time it had to happen. Especially when it was Jack’s turn. At least for the first few months. Eventually, it became so common that she, too, could relax a bit, too.

  Soon, Jack had thirty-nine well qualified pilots, now, though he was rapidly bringing up another eighteen. It paid to have many extras. His plan was to reduce the flying time to four hours, so that he would have a more attentive crew. Six to eight hours of boredom was hard. He did it enough times to realize how dangerous it was, and he did not like it.

  So, with two wings, eight units, he was oversupplied with pilots, but the next wing was coming soon. Like manufacturing the planes, training never stopped. There was no time to sit back and wait. But there was plenty of time to train the latest batch.

  Finding Navy pilots has never been a problem. Finding really good ones was a matter of tough screening, tougher training conditions, and a required minimum of ninety-five percent on every simulator they ran. These simulators, of course, were not his great grandmother’s vid games. Not even as had been redesigned in the early days of the Resolute.

  And this is where experience came in. Jack put the best programming minds in the Resolute on the problem, putting in simulations that mimicked the Zephroan’s ambush habits, with their ability to hide. And the pilots in training got the latest simulator training available in hopes that they would survive the next contact…

  -----

  And so it progressed, time and work load. They had used up most of the excess titanium by the end of the second year. It wasn’t long before, Jack had fifty pilots and another full wing of six planes. They all performed beautifully. With each upgrade, they became very well prepared offense and defense units.

  They had very sensitive scanners, heavy duty x-band radar, long range communications, a tried and true system, and very deadly six point laser cannon, two power bolts, four deadly narrow photons. Fore and aft covered. With simple commands, the s
ide units could also provide coverage in one half of a sphere. Nothing should even be allowed to approach.

  The stealth skin, the tough, clear plastic-like skin that portrayed the downstream view, was perfect. Jack could not improve on that technology, but to be sure, they tested that one, regularly. Even from a half a mile, on pure visual, out the thick glass cockpit window, they could not see each other, no matter how they tried. But if one of them lit up a laser, or opened the throttles, the weak spots appeared, immediately.

  Jack was now spending his free time working on improving that aspect. He was contemplating a hood like assembly that would move the visible part of the laser out twenty or thirty yards, for, after all, there was no wind resistance, and it made no difference in the handling. But the danger in putting the laser out front, any of them, was that if the enemy fired at the front unit, the fighter would ‘fly’ right into it. It had happened too many times.

  The other choice, then, and more practical, was a wide angle cowling that allowed only a thirty-degree view at best. Laser in space, photon or power, is invisible except through debris. But it is the lenses that give away location. Anyone they were attacking should briefly see the photon, but too late to do anything about it. Anyone else at an angle would not. It was coming together.

  His flying time was down to one or two shifts a week. And he was home nights… which pleased Angela as much as it pleased him.

  As it should be…

  -----

  One night, before they went to bed, Jack was excitedly explaining his latest idea of how to handle thruster flame to Angela. This was another area of weakness in a fighter that needed every ounce of thrust to dodge and dance in a battle.

  “Hydrogen burns bright in space because we augment it with methane. That has a carbon component that will flame in the presence of hydrogen. Four hydrogen to one carbon. If we can get away from methane, which is, weight wise, difficult to handle, we could have a colorless discharge. Meanwhile, the isotope shows nothing. We need to mask the aft end of our craft.”

  “But Resolute has tons and tons of recoverable methane,” Angela pointed out. It was, in fact, a renewable resource. Mammals of all types, kept it coming. And automatic atmosphere collectors inside Resolute stored it from whatever source.

  “What if we could use the nuclear plants in the fighters, and Resolute’s four, to bust up water into two hydrogen molecules as fuel, and the oxygen against the methane, say, two to one? We would get back water and we recycle the process. Plenty of heat and pressure available there. It would almost be a recirculation, as long as we feed in methane. There would be one free carbon atom…which is soluble in water and can be filtered out…”

  “You would have to bring in a lot of water, a precious, mass loaded resource, wouldn’t you?” Chemistry, while not her weakness, was not her favorite, either.

  “It would if we had to carry tons of it. But I think once it starts, and recycles, you could get by with say, a hundred gallons of it. Running out of methane would kill the process. And we are fully stocked on that for the thrusters. It could be hurried if we put it all under heavy heat and pressure.

  Angela offered, “Well, you and the engineers will come up with something. That sounds pretty good, if not dangerous. I mean, you do not have room to make a mistake in those little fighters, right?”

  “No, not much room for error.” He was scribbling formulae and schematic sketches as he talked, thoroughly energized. He did not notice how she paid far more attention to him, rather than his pencil.

  “Okay, I think it is making sense. I will put this in front of the engineers tomorrow. Do you really think it can be done?” he asked, his little boy smile in place. He was unsure, and he needed a push in the right direction.

  She grinned, a wicked come on. “Okay, talking ideas with you is very much a turn on. You have exhausted my technical skills. Take it up with Applewhite. I have some other technical skills I want to try. Besides, big boy, it is your birthday, tomorrow. I want to have all I can of you before you get too old! Come to bed!” He was turning thirty-seven. A long way from old, and he proved it.

  They both did. An all-around good display of technical skills for both of them.

  -----

  Michael Applewhite’s only concern was the danger of tapping into the shell of the nuke plant to handle the water and the carbon. “If we make the tiniest error, we irradiate the pilot, or blow up the plane.”

  Jack knew that, but he had a plan. “First, then, let’s refit one and run it up outside of the plane frame. We have extras, the small nuclear plants we replaced. Perhaps we can put it on a platform that we can teleport a long way off into space and run it remotely. We can retrieve it with the teleporter if all goes well. Or, laser it to dust if it has not done it to itself.”

  “Good idea. With the right monitoring equipment, it would be like a remote test lab. Still, I think we can test it to ten or twenty percent of capacity inside here, and then do the run up outside. I like it. Give me a couple of days to get my nuke boys on this. They got the head for it.”

  And so, the next upgrade was being prepared. Progress is not defined by standing still.

  The growth of people, political parties, military establishments, or all combined is like any good company, it is either growing, changing, or it is stagnant and still, and this latter is a surefire way to decline to nonexistence…

  CHAPTER 6

  So now, the original three years had been changed to nearly six, as they held at one half light-speed. Considering that this is ninety-one thousand miles per second, still damned fast. But a traveling speed, no good for long distance or battle.

  And so it was that on the third year of travel, Jack proudly got what he expected, and a lot more. The new engines were perfect, flameless but powerful, and within six months, the fighters were all refitted. Now, a plan was already in the works to refit the Resolute, one engine at a time.

  -----

  Then, one evening, as he lay basking in the warmth of love and affection, thinking how clever he had been, his paired partner, his wife, stirred in his arms.

  “I have a serious question, Jack.” She turned those bright blues on him and waited until she had his full attention.

  He arched an eyebrow, looking at her sideways. He had papers all over the desk in front of him. “Oh, oh. Serious? What is it, love?”

  “You have been such a success, and I just wanted to dramatically boost your ego. But then, you might be hard to live with.”

  “Never, come on, spill it!”

  “Come here. Right here, next to me.”

  He did, concern evident as he lay next to her, holding her close. “What is it sweetheart?”

  “I’m pregnant,” she said, softly, watching his eyes, hoping for the right reaction.

  “Oh, I see… Oh. I SEE… OH BY CHIPS, REALLY?” he rolled over onto her, hugging and kissing her and laughing with her for long minutes. And squashing her flat with his considerable bulk over her petite form.

  “I thought you… you had some kind of birth control stuff. No?”

  “I missed my last dose… I would say fourteen months is really about it.” She had begun to dig knuckles into his ribcage, a sure sign she was under stress… under him.

  “Is… is this what… what you really want?”

  “Only if it is what WE really want!”

  “Yes for me. Oh, Chips, yes. Mother will be thrilled, she has held her breath for sooo long!” he finished by kissing her and finally responded to her knuckles in his ribs. He was far too heavy to lie on her like this.

  “Breathe. Lemme breathe. I take it you are happy?”

  He rolled away, grinning like a fool. “Wow!”

  “Yes, it is what I want. I am thrilled that you are so excited about it. I was afraid you would go all macho on me and …”

  He would not let her take the air out of the balloon, as he cut her off, stroking her tummy. “Oh, baby, I am sooo happy! How are you going to do it, new age or old fashi
oned?”

  “Then, I am happy, too. I think new age. I cannot find coverage of all the responsibilities, and frankly, I am thirty-six years old. I do not want to lose my position on the bridge, either. We will transfer our son or daughter and let the medical system handle it. The only delays will be right after the initial ‘delivery’ and the required bonding is started. You have to participate in it, too, you know. You cannot just run off and kill things.”

  “Oh, no problem. I will be right here. We need another year to refit the Grand Old Lady with the new engines, anyway.”

  The new age philosophy took the pain and drudgery out of pregnancy and child birth, without causing any damaging results to the mother’s body. It had been in fashion on all the ships, late Earth, and even Renewal for centuries, and though Angela was not sure of the entire process, it was very appealing.

  And there was a hell of a lot of children that had come through just fine. In fact, better than fine. They had immunities to disease, increased intelligence, better bodies, the works. Why rely on nature’s vagaries? As long as none were Cyborgs, right?

  What she had not planned was the how. How did they get that little thing into a type of incubator? That started as an oversized container with all the necessary trimmings, nutrients and such. It grew as the fetus grew, until it was larger than the baby, but smaller than a mother might feel with her own serious stretching. So, it was commonplace, but the idea was still a bit puzzling to Angela.

  Baby making had never been her priority, so education was in order. And she made Jack attend every class.

  “I gotta just be there to lay the keel, not handle the launch,” he protested, but it did little good.

  However, closing on the third month, the end of the first trimester, having survived morning sickness and a change in hormones, she made up her mind. After all, the process would not ‘take’ after the third month.

  Angela opted for the procedure. She needed to stand the bridge, in or out of battle, and she dare not be influenced by hormones, which, basically, were drugs.