Stars Fell on Alabama

by M. Alan Marr

  “Okay. At some point, I’d like to make some phone calls and get some information before we show up at the meeting.”

  “Sounds like a plan. We’ll take the BBJ to Seattle, but then we need to start the search for the base, regardless whether we purchase an aircraft or not. Sound good?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  Chaz notices the back of the Range Rover is empty; all of his camping gear is missing. When queried, the crewman cleaning the vehicle explains that Adonis crewmen removed the ‘cargo’ to make room for medical supplies. The Recon ship brought back a number of injured personnel from Lyra. Chaz wonders why they didn’t just leave the truck behind to make more room.

  Dev explains. “The Recon ship isn’t really set up for passengers. They must have strapped some of the injured in the seats of the truck. I guess that was better than lashing stretchers to the deck.”

  Without being too indelicate, Chaz looks inside the Range Rover. The cleaning crew did their job well. No evidence of the injured is present. The new car smell is gone, but it doesn’t smell like sick people, either. Dev takes Bross aside and briefs him on the length of his anticipated absence, and covers a few last-minute orders.

  While Dev is doing that, Chaz wanders toward the back of the Recon ship to get a look at the work being conducted at the aft engine discharge vents. Bad timing, as the workers on the scaffolding bolt the panel closed and descend to the ground level. Several crewmen and one officer climb down. Chaz recognizes the officer and happily salutes. “Commander Joss.”

  Dev looks over upon hearing the name and sees Joss and Chaz shaking hands. “Thank you, Bross.”

  “Save travels, Commander.” Bross salutes Dev smartly and then departs.

  Joss and Chaz meet up with Dev.

  “Joss, what are you doing here?” Dev says.

  “I just wanted to make sure your ship was ready,” Joss says, and then turns to Chaz with a grin. “By the way, how was Bellerophon?”

  Chaz snorts. “Tropical.” Joss smiles at that as well.

  “He did well,” Dev says, then changes subjects to the Recon ship. “How did they get here so fast?”

  “According to the log, they kept the engines fired at one hundred twenty-five percent the entire way.”

  “Whoa,” Dev says with concern. “Are the engine cores still intact?”

  “You’ve got two new ones,” Joss replies.

  “That means we’ll have to accelerate slowly until they’re properly run in. Anything else to report?”

  “The ship was used as a medical evac. It was . . . pretty messy in there. Also, the Flight Officers reported some damage to the starboard vents during the attack on Adonis.”

  “Serious damage?” Dev says.

  “Not anymore. We installed a new venting module, and the board is clear. She’s ready to fly.” Joss adds, “I saw the equipment requisition, so I delivered it personally. And I wanted to see you both off.”

  “I’m glad you did.” Dev smiles.

  Joss adds, “Tan wanted to be here, but she’s in a briefing.”

  “I understand. My thanks, old friend.”

  “Pleasure,” Joss replies and then shakes hands with both of them again. “Safe journey.”

  Without further ado, Dev and Chaz head toward the ship. Along the way, Dev turns around and calls out to Joss. “Want to take a billet on Earth?”

  Joss laughs. “I’d love to . . . but Tan would feed me to the Yeti. You forget we have three children.”

  Dev laughs and continues walking. “Next time we’re here, I want to see them.”

  “They’d like that very much.” Joss waves. “See you next year.”

  While the officers were chatting, the ground crew pulled the Range Rover into the Recon ship and secured all the cargo in the hold. All of the servicing equipment and scaffold lifts are taken away as well. All but one member of the ground crew boards a vehicle. The remaining ground crewman, the Lead Tech-E, stands by the boarding ramp of the ship. The crewman salutes the officers and hands the electronic logbook to Dev and gives a brief synopsis of the ship’s status. He reports internal power is online, gravity systems ready and standing by, and that the ground vehicle and all cargo is Mag-Locked and secure. Dev thanks and dismisses the crewman. Chaz follows Dev up the boarding ramp and prepares for departure. Chaz casually activates the switch to close the ramp. He watches the ramp close, and notices the border light is in fact green, and then meanders up to the control deck.

  Dev reads over the log and briefs Chaz that four of the injured from Lyra were indeed loaded into the seats of the ‘ground vehicle.’ Two stretchers were lashed to the roof racks of the truck and one across the hood. The four sleeping berths in the ship carried injured, as did seating in the forward lounge and upper canopy. Stretchers were loaded in all available deck space in the cargo bay and control deck, and all workstation seats were occupied by patients and caregivers. The pilot seats were the only two not used for anything other than what they were originally designed for.

  Chaz wonders, “Any word on their conditions?”

  “No. But they would have been the most critically injured. Hopefully they’ll recover.”

  Chaz expected the ship to smell like a hospital, particularly since many of the injured Lyrans had severe burns. But like the Range Rover, the ship is spotless and odor free. Dev stops at the holographics table and brings up a detection grid around the ship. The ship itself is the target of the scan: two lifeforms present.

  Chaz watches the scan. “What’s that about?”

  “Just making sure we don’t have any stowaways,” Dev replies as he watches the display. “Two Humans, no animals or insects aboard.”

  “Wow, it wouldn’t have occurred to me to check for insects.”

  Dev smiles. “Some locusts once managed to stow away on a flight to Earth about three thousand years ago. It made headlines. You could say it was . . . biblical.” While that sinks in, Dev moves across to the propulsion systems controls and initiates engine start. Chaz watches everything Dev is doing. Outside the ship, the gravity drive comes alive with a brief blue glow, sending up a cloud of dust from the tarmac as the main engines wind up to power. Dev and Chaz take their positions at the pilot stations, and they are cleared for departure. Before they lift off, however, Dev opens the hull, flooding the control deck with daylight, to give Chaz the best view.

  The Recon ship lifts off slowly and assumes a standard engine-powered departure climb into orbit. Unlike their fighter departure from Trieste, this is a much more subdued ascent along established flight corridors. The new engine cores require gentler handling at this point. The open hull gives Chaz an unparalleled, and unhurried, view of Trieste. The easy climb to orbit is smooth and steady. Chaz gets up from his seat and moves to the forward windows to sightsee. He even has the chance to see some of the Tertian civilian aircraft in the flight corridors and notice they have stubby wing-like airfoils. Apparently, the flight restrictions around Trieste have been lifted.

  The slow climb to orbit is nothing short of magnificent. The size of Trieste, the clarity of her air and oceans, is like a short vacation. And since Chaz isn’t worrying about the actual flying, he is able to take in all the sights. As the ship clears the atmosphere and heads out into space, Chaz notices, for the first time, the subtle change in onboard gravity as the system regulates. Chaz looks down, then to Dev. “Did they gravity just kick in?”

  “It did. You felt it cycle as we achieved orbit?”

  “Yeah. It’s subtle, but I definitely felt it.”

  “That’s good. You’re starting to notice the small details.”

  Chaz walks over to Dev’s pilot station. “The adventure continues.”

  “What did you think of Trieste?” Dev says as he programs their outbound course.

  “Incredible,” Chaz replies. “I know I say it all the time, but I really could live here.”

  “Sorry, we have a big job to do back on Earth.”

  “Then how about we r
etire here?”

  Dev smiles. “Perfect idea.”

  The voice of an air traffic controller comes across the speakers. “Recon Commander, you are clear to depart the Crown.”

  Dev keys the system. “Recon Commander, aye.”

  “That it?” Chaz says. “We’re on our own now?”

  “That’s it,” Dev replies. “Not much is ever headed out this direction.”

  The Recon ship’s engines fire and come up to power gradually. Inside, the acceleration is not as abrupt as Chaz has become accustomed to, but he still steadies himself initially. The ship heads away from the Crown and out toward deep space.

  Later, Chaz and Dev are enjoying some capulus in the forward seating area.

  “You did so well back there,” Dev compliments. “I think they were expecting you to crash and burn in the simulator.”

  “The grid lines were a little distracting.”

  “I couldn’t really do anything about that. They wanted to see how you handled our stuff, not a watered down version of it.”

  “The only thing that really surprised me was the zero-g. I wasn’t expecting that at all.”

  “It didn’t even occur to me to warn you about that.”

  Chaz has an idea. “Hey, are you able to shut down the gravity in here?”

  “I can, why?”

  “I’ve never experienced weightlessness for more than a second or two until that simulator. I’d like to see what it’s like not strapped into a seat.”

  “Okay, we can do that,” Dev says. “We need to secure everything first, particularly the liquids.”

  Chaz and Dev finish their capulus and then go through the ship, making sure everything is battened down and secure. Below in the cargo hold, Dev re-programs the cargo restraint panel for the change. The green dots under the Range Rover and all the cargo boxes are still energized. Dev ramps up the system and initiates a lockout to override the gravity system.

  “What’s that you’re doing, Dev?”

  “Just making sure the restraint field continues to operate after we switch off the gravity.”

  “Yeah, I guess we don’t want the truck and cargo floating around.”

  “That, and we definitely don’t want the gasoline escaping. Volatile liquids can become very problematic in zero-g.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize this was going to be such a hassle.”

  “It isn’t,” Dev replies. “We just have to take the proper steps. We’re good. I increased the strength of the restraining system and locked it out from the rest of the ship.”

  Returning to the main deck, Dev sits at the pilot station and buckles in before pulling up the gravitational system on his control panel. “Don’t hit your head,” he warns, and then throttles back slightly so the ship is no longer accelerating. He watches the acceleration curve on the display even out, then programs the gravitation system to reduce internal gravity to zero. Chaz hears the onboard gravity power down. The swirling racetrack graphic of the gravity system slows and g-force readout slowly counts back to zero. Chaz feels it in his stomach first, and then the sensation spreads, and he gently floats off his feet.

  “Whoa! This is awesome!”

  Dev watches with delight as Chaz floats around the cabin having fun like a little kid. He bounces off the bulkheads and does flips and somersaults. He kicks off of the edge of the navigation table and pretends to fly through the air like a super hero.

  “Hey, watch the—” Dev warns, as Chaz crashes into the forward bulkheads. He isn’t hurt and bounces back, laughing hysterically.

  “This is so much fun!”

  TIME IN TRANSIT:

  11 HR: 17 MIN

  Chaz stands at the holographic navigation table. Several course lines are projected between Corona Borealis and the Constellation Oasis. Dev returns to the control deck from below with an electronic pad and stylus.

  “Dev, this blue course line, is that our proposed course, or actual course?”

  “That’s our potential course. Potential courses are projected ahead of us, and change as you change conditions in the ship.”

  “So how does it look?”

  Dev looks over the navigation course. “It looks good.”

  “What were you doing down there?”

  “I was just logging the numbers and verifying replenishment rates. The new engine cores are fine, and the new venting module is even more efficient than the old one.”

  A long thing perimeter arc with holographic text reading Corona Borealis flashes as the Recon ship crosses it. The navigation hologram reduces to a smaller scale, showing a much larger picture with delineated outlines of deep space envelopes, appearing almost as a topographic display of a long channel or river winding through the cosmos.

  “Something just happened.”

  Dev looks at the display. “Ah, finally.”

  “What is it?”

  “We just crossed the termination shock; the outermost gravitational perimeter of the Crown.”

  “We’ve been out here for almost twelve hours.”

  “Our stars and planets generate a lot of gravity. Took longer today because of Penthar’s current position. We’re also operating at reduced power until the new engine cores are run in.”

  “Is that going to delay our arrival?”

  “We’ll be on time. Now that we’re out of the shallows we’ll pour on the speed. Just a matter of elongating the acceleration curve.”

  “I can’t get over the distances you guys can cover.”

  “It is pretty amazing.”

  “And you can maintain those speeds indefinitely?”

  “Pretty much. Accelerating in a trough translates into exponential increases in velocity. That’s how we can transit the constellations. Beauty of it is, once you’re up to speed, you’re set. You can maintain it as long as you need, even if you depart the trough. When that happens we’ll deploy the topsails and take advantage of all the natural phenomena available in the shallows.”

  “I think I understand the acceleration part, that kind of makes sense. But what I don’t get is how you can maintain speed after leaving the trough. It seems to me it’s like a one way street.”

  “Isaac Newton. First law of motion. An object in motion tends to stay in motion. Think about it, light and other superluminary particles transit star systems all day long. Depending on their mass, they don’t lose much in terms of velocity, particularly something with the inertia and density of a ship.”

  “What about when we need to slow down?”

  “Deceleration dynamics may blow your mind completely.”

  “Oh no, why?”

  “Because, technically, deceleration is still acceleration, only on the inverse.”

  “Okay, yeah, don’t go there.”

  Dev laughs. “It will all make sense. Eventually. Just remember that slowing down is easier than speeding up.”

  “Hmm, okay. What about meteorites and small rocks and stuff? Isn’t hitting something going this fast, like deadly?”

  Dev explains. “Hitting a stationary object is not recommended. Very few things in space are ever stationary, so we have that going for us. The big stuff is easy to avoid. The autoflight systems are linked with proximity detection and will make minor course changes to avoid collisions. Smaller particulate matter yields around our bow wave. The hull itself has a negative field, which repulses anything that gets through. Aside from that, the ship is made of some pretty tough stuff.”

  “What about the sails? Do they get damaged?”

  “They do, but the sailcloth is made of dynamic picofiber. It can detect tears and actually repair itself on the molecular level.”

  The powerful acceleration engines on the Recon ship fire gradually to propel the vehicle on what will be the fastest leg thus far. The acceleration is more subdued. The autopilot will continue on a steady acceleration curve as the engines gain efficiency.

  “Usually, first stage deep space acceleration is the most apparent,” Dev says. “Once we�
��re up to speed, accelerating from high speed to higher speed is even easier and consumes less energy.”

  Dev spends a few minutes re-plotting their course on the holographics table. Chaz brings Dev another steaming cup of capulus.

  “Thanks.”

  “Thank you,” Chaz replies.

  “For what?”

  “For having confidence in me. For starting me out on this amazing adventure.”

  Dev hits a few keys on the panel, and the holographic display of their current position shrinks down to a pinpoint within a vast cosmic star field. The image continues to reduce, until, eventually, the display shows the entire Milky Way galaxy. The galaxy shrinks down to multiple galaxies, then to a stellar image with ghostlike outlines Chaz has never seen before.

  Chaz looks at the image curiously. “Whoa, is that . . .”

  “The entire known universe,” Dev says. He presses another couple of keys on the panel, and the holographic images jump outward, casting its imagery beyond the tabletop and all around the control deck. Chaz looks around at the floating holographic galaxies.

  “Told you,” Dev smiles, “it was in the stars.”

  Half an hour later, the Recon ship reaches cruising speed, and all systems are functional. The next few hours are spent with Chaz in a course of basic astronautics. Along the way, the computer signals the approach of a gaseous particle front, meaning they are departing the trough for the time being, as the area ahead is being influenced by stellar phenomenon. Dev deploys the solar sails. The ship is now fully rigged for long-range cruise, and work at the navigation table occupies most of his time. A short while later, Dev alters course slightly to run downrange of several nebulas along their route in order to take in energy and gaseous particles. Light from the beautiful nebula fills the control deck. Their course will be steady for the next hour or so. Dev is drowsy and moves to the forward lounge to take a much-needed break. Chaz uses the space toilet and takes the opportunity in the back to look over the provisions in the pantry locker. A few minutes later, Dev nods off on the couch. He has been working non-stop until now. Chaz decides to let him sleep a little, and takes a seat at the aft-most work station and begins playing with his new Ti-Phone. He cues up some music and notices the data from his Ti-Phone is simultaneously appearing on the workstation screen in front of him. Chaz quickly figures out he can access his music files right there at the workstation. Chaz touches one of the music files on the screen. Instantly, “Shut Up and Dance” by Walk the Moon begins blaring over the ship’s speakers, waking Dev up with a start. The music startles Chaz as well, and he scrambles to find the volume or shut it down. Too late, he sees Dev is awake and standing, so he leaves the music playing. Dev laughs and then listens to the beat. Chaz is moving to the music down the aisle of the ship. A wide smile grows on Dev’s face, and he joins him for a dance.