by Nick Cook
Alice opened her mouth to respond, but another sound of throat clearing came over the speaker.
‘Look, before you all kick off another endless round of arguments, I have a suggestion that I think you’re all going to rather like,’ Lucy said.
Niki’s gaze tightened on one of the speakers. ‘Go on.’
‘I can fly in close proximity to Ariel. Then if there are any problems with the REV drive I can extend my own gravity field to envelop Ariel and bring her safely back down to the ground. Alice wouldn’t have to use the ejection pod system. Think of it as me tagging along as an insurance policy.’
Niki’s face visibly brightened. ‘Now I like the sound of that.’
‘However, there is one tiny little catch,’ Lucy added.
Jack groaned. ‘I thought it sounded too good to be true. What is it, Lucy?’
‘Lauren will need to be on board for the test flight. Unfortunately my core flight control protocols, which enable me to alter my gravity field, are handled by one of my compromised systems. In the event of a crisis Lauren would need to manually override the system using the Empyrean Key.’
‘What? But I’m no computer programmer,’ I replied. ‘Wouldn’t Jodie be a better bet – at least to accompany us as well?’
‘I’d be more than happy to do that,’ Jodie said.
Niki stared at her. ‘But you can’t.’
I glanced between them. Why the sudden overprotectiveness on Niki’s part?
Jodie squared up to him, hands on hips. ‘Oh, but I can and I will if I want to.’
A sharp clapping sound came over the speaker. ‘People, will you all take a moment to breathe? No, Jodie, you really don’t need to be on board because all Lauren will need to do is activate an icon with the Empyrean Key. That will initialise my drive override.’
‘OK, I guess even I can manage to push a button,’ I said. My gaze snapped back to the man-made saucer craft. So I would be going up in that thing. A slight edge of concern crept in, but that lost out to the excitement rising through me. As something of a sci-fi geek this was beyond what once would have been my wildest dreams. Even with everything I’d experienced in the last couple of years, this was going to be right up there with the best of them.
Niki looked between Alice and me. ‘Are you both really set on doing this?’
I cast a wide grin at Alice. ‘Now I’ve got my head round it, yes, I can’t wait.’
‘And do you need to ask again, Niki?’ Alice said as she smiled back at me.
He sighed. ‘No, not really. But please, Alice, just promise me that you’ll take it easy with this first test flight. No loops or whatever it is that test pilots do. Baby steps and nothing more.’
‘Of course, Niki.’
‘Then I’ve just got one thing left to say…’ He paused a suitably dramatic length of time. ‘Good luck.’
Jodie beamed at him. ‘I knew you’d see sense.’ She stood on her tiptoes and gave the head of security a peck on the cheek.
As a foolish smile filled Niki’s face, Mike stared at Jodie’s back with a confused look.
A cog turned over in my mind. Seriously? Was this the reason for the captain’s barely contained hostility for Mike? Could Niki really be Mike’s love rival when he at least seemed to be his late forties?
Jodie spun on her heel and gestured towards Ariel. ‘OK, people, let’s make this happen.’
I sat in the incredibly comfortable reclined CIC seat on Ariel’s flight deck, my sense of anticipation now through the roof. A currently transparent screen hung suspended on a metal arm in front of me. When the weapon systems were added this would light up like a Christmas tree for whoever would eventually sit here, someone like Ruby. But for now it was safe for a rookie to sit in the hot seat. Alice had slid herself out of her wheelchair, now stowed in a locker that had lowered itself into the floor, and sat next to me in the pilot’s chair.
Further out around us, on the curved screens that lined the spherical walls of the cockpit, critical system information was displayed. That included the REV drive temperature, showing a toasty 120 degrees Celsius. Another glass screen had automatically lowered in front of Alice when she’d first sat in the chair, displaying flight information, including air speed, currently at zero.
‘OK, Eden Control, time to test our transparency mode,’ Alice said into the microphone on her headset.
‘Roger that,’ Jodie replied from the control centre that had been set up in the lab next door to the silo.
Alice pressed a button in the arm of her pilot’s chair. The hexagonal screens on the curved cockpit walls were filled instantly with a perfect 360-degree virtual view of the landing bay, provided by a live video feed from multiple cameras mounted on the exterior of Ariel’s fuselage and stitched together by Delphi to give us a seamless panoramic view.
I might have been used to what I thought of as the magic carpet mode in the other Sky Dreamer Corp. craft, but this was seriously jaw-dropping. It was as though the cockpit had become a translucent bubble. Over that view a vector outline of Ariel’s hull was superimposed and showed the edge of the saucer-shaped craft encircling us.
The landing bay around us was deserted, thanks to Niki’s natural overabundance of caution. All ground personnel, including Jack and Mike, had been pulled back to the flight control desk behind a now sealed blast door.
Alice had arranged for a live feed to be streamed to the IMAX theatre so that the rest of Eden could watch our maiden voyage. According to Jack, who’d briefly put his head round the door, it was quite the party atmosphere in there. This test was even being relayed to the astronauts in the Martian mission-simulation cavern. No one wanted to miss out on what was going to be one of the most important moments in the history of Eden.
Lucy’s crystal micro mind ship began to slowly rotate on its axis on the cockpit’s screens as she hovered above the floor.
Alice gestured towards her. ‘Lauren, do you want to check in with Lucy to confirm that your synaesthesia link is working with her OK?’
‘Checking now.’ I raised the Empyrean Key in the flat of my hand. But rather than use the tuning fork on my belt, I spoke into my headset’s mic. ‘Delphi, please broadcast carrier tone.’
‘Broadcasting carrier tone,’ Delphi’s voice replied around us.
A soft chime rang out and settled into a single looping note. At once a constellation of icons appeared around the stone orb, including a new teardrop-shaped icon that I hadn’t seen before.
‘The icon you’ll want to know about is that new one,’ Lucy’s voice said from the same cockpit speakers that Delphi had just used. ‘That will initiate a manual override of my drive-control safety protocols – if needed in an extreme emergency.’
‘Does this mean you’ve been spying on us all this time?’ I asked, surprised that she was able to see what was happening.
‘Only since you activated the Empyrean Key. I’ve piggybacked on to Delphi’s control systems on board Ariel. And before you start complaining that I’m snooping on you, it means I’ll be another pair of eyes keeping a lookout for anything going wrong.’
‘That sounds good to me,’ Alice said. She turned towards me. ‘So are we ready to make history, Lauren?’
‘Always.’ A swarm of butterflies began swirling in my stomach. This promised to be the experience of a lifetime.
Alice smiled as she adjusted the mouthpiece on her headset. ‘Eden Control, are you ready for our departure?’
‘Check,’ Jodie’s voice replied. ‘Opening launch bay door now.’
A quiet rumbling sound came from above Ariel in the launch silo. A bright blue disc of sky began to appear overhead on the virtual walls of our flight deck.
Alice flicked a switch and the ladder that led up to the platform retracted into the floor. The clamps locking the flight deck into position were released with a clunk. A slight whir came from the gimbal motors that connected it to the two rings, designed to fully rotate on their pivot points. They spun a couple of de
grees as the gyro levelled out the floor on which our seats were mounted.
‘OK, I’m warming up Ariel’s REV drive now,’ Alice said. She flicked another switch and a humming noise came from the cockpit’s curved floor.
The temperature on the projected HUD rapidly climbed to 150 degrees Celsius. I felt the pull of gravity within the cockpit release me a fraction. The sense that the world had shifted beneath us freaked me out more than anything else.
Alice peered at the read-outs on the wall screens. ‘Plasma acceleration at a hundred-and-fifty-K revolutions per minute. Pressure is two-hundred-and-fifty-K atmospheres. Gravity vortex disruption is an eight-nine per cent of mass. Our REV drive is in the green, Eden Control.’
‘Roger that,’ Jodie said. ‘We’re seeing the same figures here.’
‘Then we’re good to go,’ Alice said. ‘Eden Control, on my mark.’ She placed her hand on the metal egg-shaped device on the right arm of her chair, which was mounted on a gimlet rod that enabled it to be moved in any axis. Alice then rested her left hand on what looked like an aircraft throttle control in the left armrest.
I centred the teardrop icon in the Empyrean Key’s holographic display, ready to initiate it at the first hint of trouble.
A quiet whooshing sound came from outside and the excitement ratcheted up inside me. This must have been what it was like for Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins as they sat on the launch pad in Apollo 11, getting ready to launch and knowing they might be about to make history. But I had a growing sense of fear too. What if we blew up in the launch silo, our bodies ripped apart by the sudden G-force as the REV drive let go and did god knew what to gravity?
I suddenly found it hard to breathe.
‘Five, four, three, two, one…’ Jodie said.
Alice settled herself in her pilot’s chair as the numbers on her display ticked up. ‘We have ignition of multimode lift rockets.’ She gently raised the egg shape on its control arm and simultaneously pushed the throttle a fraction forward.
The hissing sound became a soft whoosh and Ariel began to slowly rise upwards. My excitement became euphoric as my fear was swept away. Incredibly, this had worked and we hadn’t been blown to pieces – so far at least.
As Alice nudged the throttle back and we came to a dead stop, whoops and claps came over our cockpit speakers.
‘All systems are functioning nominally,’ Jodie’s voice said over the noise of people applauding.
Alice beamed at me. ‘Not exactly a fire and brimstone launch of a traditional rocket, but…’
She held up her hand.
I leant across and high-fived her. ‘This is amazing, Alice. Just think of the possibilities now we know the REV drive actually works.’
‘Goodness, yes. Now we’ve been able to replicate what the Overseers have had access to for years, at last the entire human race can benefit from this technology – not just a chosen few. We certainly couldn’t have done this without your help, Lucy.’
‘Oh, you are more than welcome,’ Lucy replied. ‘But you wait until you get this baby outside and use the supersonic vectoring nozzles in combination with the REV drive. After what you’re used to flying, Ariel is seriously going to blow your human minds.’
‘It’s already pretty much blown and we’re only ten metres off the ground,’ I said. ‘The theory is one thing, but the reality of this craft is on a whole other level.’
‘Then let’s go and see what Ariel can do in the wide open sky,’ Alice said.
‘Just remember to keep this maiden flight below ten thousand feet,’ Jodie’s voice said. ‘Although you’re in a pressurised capsule, let’s take this one step at a time.’
‘Understood,’ Alice replied. She pushed the accelerator forward again just a centimetre and we started to rise further.
The rock walls skimmed past in an almost totally eerie silence, the only sounds the gentle hum of the torus-ring electromagnets spinning the heated mercury within the REV drive. There was also the background hiss of multimode rockets lifting the remaining eleven per cent of Ariel’s weight that wasn’t being neutralised by our gravity-disruptor drive.
On the virtual cabin walls I looked down to see Lucy’s micro mind ship had now taken off. She floated up beneath us, maintaining a ten-metre separation. Above us the disc of sky was growing steadily bigger, now ringed by trees.
We rose towards the circle of blue like a train approaching the pool of light at the exit of a tunnel. With a burst of sunlight we exited the silo and tree trunks then canopy tops sped past. Ariel had quickly cleared the trees and was steadily rising above them until the jungle stretched away beneath us in a green-carpeted series of hills and valleys.
‘Talk about a smooth ride,’ I said. ‘This certainly puts a helicopter to shame.’
‘I agree. Even our electric-powered aircraft fleet can’t match this,’ Alice replied.
‘Trust me, there’s no comparison,’ Lucy’s voice said. ‘And to demonstrate just how superior she is, I suggest you bring her to a complete stop. Then try initiating a slow full three-sixty-degree forward roll.’
‘That will take me back to my aerobatic days,’ Alice said. ‘Lauren, are you up for this?’
I gave her a thin smile. ‘Just nothing too violent. If I start to look green, please stop whatever it is you’re doing.’
‘Don’t worry, I will. Let’s give this a whirl…’ Alice gently rotated the control egg on the end of its rod mounting.
The outline of Ariel’s nose appeared over the view, although, technically, did a saucer-shaped craft have a nose? She started to dip towards the ground on the spherical screens around us and my brain sort of freaked out yet again. With a gentle hum from the gimlet platform motors the flight deck continued to stay completely level. As the view outside rotated on the cockpit wall screens, Lucy’s craft orbited past us like a crystal star as we rolled forward.
‘Oh my…’ Alice said, her eyes widening.
Ariel continued to rotate until the projected outline of her hull on the screens was pointing straight down. I could just see the open launch shaft as a dark hole in the jungle far beneath us. Even the specks of a flock of scarlet macaws flying over the trees were visible, heading towards a salt lick I knew the birds favoured, having seen them when we’d been training in the jungle. This flight was already far beyond anything I could have imagined.
We continued to roll until the craft was upside down. The contradiction between what my eyes saw and what my body was telling me intensified as the flight deck remained level.
‘We’re monitoring an elevated heart rate from you, Lauren – are you OK?’ Jodie asked.
‘I’ll live, but this is beyond mind-blowing. Sort of like being in a crazy computer flying sim without any sense of inertia as you sit on your sofa.’
‘That’s the general idea behind the design,’ Jodie replied.
Ariel began to roll back up towards the sky, righting herself, not that there was a right way up in this craft. I glanced around for a sick bag as I fought a swirl of nausea.
‘You look a bit green, Lauren,’ Alice said as we rotated back to the horizontal again and she killed the roll.
I took in a deep breath and flapped a hand towards the cockpit camera that Lucy was obviously using to spy on us. ‘Give me a moment and I’ll be fine, but, bloody hell, this is so disorientating. It’s absolutely bonkers.’
‘And, Alice, how are you doing?’ Jodie asked.
‘Fine actually. I’ve had a lot of flight time in aerobatic craft, although this really isn’t like anything I’ve flown before.’
‘In addition to the gyroscopic-controlled flight deck, there is also the gravity-dampening effect of the REV drive. With extreme acceleration up to Mach 6 you might pull a couple of Gs, but nothing like you would without the REV drive.’
‘Talking of which, I think it’s time to experience that acceleration for ourselves,’ Alice said. ‘Lauren, if it becomes too much just say and I’ll back off immediately.’
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‘Oh, don’t you worry, I will.’
‘You’ll be fine,’ Lucy said, cutting in. ‘Your brain should quickly adapt to what’s going on, Lauren. But if it doesn’t, just kill the transparency mode and Alice can use her chair’s screens to fly Ariel.’
‘Maybe we need a safe phrase, Alice,’ I said.
‘“I’m going to puke” will work just fine for me,’ she replied with a smile. ‘So are you ready to see what Ariel’s rate of ascent is like?’
‘I guess so.’ I gripped the Empyrean Key harder and kept my eye on the teardrop icon.
‘In that case I’d recommend a maximum of fifty per cent throttle with the vectoring multimode thrusters,’ Jodie said. ‘Any more than that and you’ll find yourself in space before you can blink. And don’t forget to keep to that ten thousand feet altitude limit we agreed.’
‘Oh, you are so raining on my parade, but all right,’ Alice replied.
She pushed the throttle halfway. The acceleration was instant and we tore up in to the blue sky, as if we’d just hit warp speed. But it was gentle too, just the softest pull of inertia pressing me down into my seat. The view on the screens of the outside world was another matter.
‘Holy crap!’ I shouted as the jungle beneath us dropped away at a mind-bending speed, even though my body experienced what was probably less than a single G-force.
Even Alice’s eyes had widened as the blurred world outside came to a stop as she killed the throttle.
Lucy streaked up from the jungle below, halting just beneath us like a sheepdog that had got too far away from its flock.
Alice gawped at the glass screen in front of her. ‘Holy moly, according to the read-out we’re now at nine thousand feet. We also hit Mach 2.5 in that ascent – over twice the speed of sound and with almost no sense of acceleration. But what happened to the sonic boom we should have caused by ripping through the air like that?’
‘You’re still thinking of this as a conventional human aircraft, but it really isn’t,’ Lucy replied. ‘As you know, the REV drive’s gravity-disruption field also affects the surrounding air, creating a bubble round the craft. You can go as fast as you like through air – or even water for that matter – all without causing so much as a ripple, hence no sonic boom.’