by Bob Blanton
“Don’t they use scaffolding?” Blake asked.
“They risk messing up the alignment,” Catie said. “The printer checks the alignment for each pass, but if you get it too far out of alignment, it has to stop and realign itself.”
“But if they print everything, how was ADI able to help us with making the polysteel and the batteries?” Marc asked.
“She got that information from the Thorean data,” Catie said. “They’re the ones who developed polysteel and the ceramics we used in our batteries. They used the printers like we do, only printing the parts they couldn’t manufacture or to do short runs. And some of the things she referenced were from the other civilizations. The Paraxeans haven’t innovated much in the technical arenas, but they’ve been active in the medical area. They’re the ones who developed the nanites.”
“Yes,” Dr. Metra said. “Paraxeans are obsessed with health and extended life. It is the one area where you’re allowed to innovate and are rewarded for doing so; that’s why I became a doctor.”
“What do they do with all their mathematicians, engineers, and scientists?” Liz asked.
“Unfortunately, many are relegated to technician roles, supporting the printers and managing the assembly that has to be done,” Dr. Metra said. “We do have many that work on theoretical studies, but they’ve not been very productive.”
“What a waste,” Marc said.
“Yes, it is,” Dr. Metra agreed.
Chapter 9
Good from Pain
Kal and Catie were grappling under Liz’s tutelage. Catie had Kal in a chokehold from behind. He was trying to twist out of it, or at least break her grip, but he was not able to, and he was starting to run out of air. He tried to push her over, but she braced her feet and held him. Then he just grabbed her arm and bent in half, pulling Catie’s feet off the ground. Then he did a shoulder roll, which flipped her to the ground with him rolling over the top.
Catie let go of him and jumped up and did a hard side kick to the side of Kal’s head.
“Oww!” Kal yelped. “Hey, take it easy girl, we’re only sparring!”
“You broke my arm,” Catie yelled. Her right arm was hanging limp at her side.
“No way, let me see,” Kal said as he stepped toward Catie.
Catie backed up and kicked his knee.
“What’s up with you?” Kal yelped.
“We’re still sparring,” Catie said as she bounced away from him.
“Break,” Liz yelled. “Sorry, I just assumed you guys would stop. Let me see your arm?”
Liz gingerly felt along Catie’s right arm. “Oww!”
“I think she’s right, it feels broken,” Liz said. “We’d better get you to the clinic.”
“See, I told you, you brute,” Catie hissed at Kal.
“I’m sorry, but you should have taken me to the ground so I wouldn’t have the weight advantage,” Kal said. “I didn’t think I would hurt you when I did the roll.”
“We can hold off on the lesson until we get her arm fixed,” Liz said. “Why don’t you call for a cart, and we’ll drive her over to the clinic.”
“I already called,” Kal said. “Right when she was kicking my knee.”
◆ ◆ ◆
Catie was sitting in the treatment room, waiting for the doctor when Dr. Metra walked in. “Hi, Dr. Metra,” Catie said. “How did I rate you?”
“I was just available,” Dr. Metra replied. “Lie down and let me see your arm.” Dr. Metra pulled the scanner over, so it was above Catie’s arm. The scanner was mounted on an articulating arm so it could be positioned over any part of the bed Catie was lying on. The bed acted as an imaging array, letting Dr. Metra see what was essentially an X-ray of Catie’s anatomy.
“Ah, yes, it is definitely broken,” Dr. Metra said. “It didn’t quite break completely, so the ends are still lined up. I’ll make up some nanites to get in there and start the bones knitting.”
Dr. Metra spent a few minutes at a machine in the corner of the room; then she came back with a syringe. She injected Catie’s arm with the substance in the syringe. She spent a few minutes manipulating the controls on the display screen next to the bed.
“What are you doing?” Catie asked.
“I’m directing the nanites to where I want them to go,” Dr. Metra said.
“I thought you could program them to do that for you.”
“I can, but then I would have to use the smart micro nanites, and I really don’t want to waste them.”
“Aren’t we printing enough of them for you?” Catie asked.
“I have some procedures that I’d like to do that would take millions of them,” Dr. Metra said. “I try and save enough up to do one of them every few months. I used to get some made on the side when there was free time on the printers, but they never seem to be free anymore.”
“Oh, that’s me,” Catie said. “I use up all the free time to make parts for ADI. You should mark yours as high priority, and I’ll do them first.”
“Oh, thanks, but I don’t know if it would be a higher priority than ADI,” Dr. Metra said.
“What did you do before, on Paraxea?”
“Oh, we never had that many issues that required smart micro nanites,” Dr. Metra said. “But we have so many older patients here who have gone years without proper treatment, that I could use all of our capacity on just their issues.”
“You can’t just do what you’re doing now and direct dumb ones with a scanner? Maybe we could make a few more scanners,” Catie suggested.
“That wouldn’t help,” Dr. Metra said. “The treatments I’m talking about take up to a week, maybe two. You can’t have a patient spend that much time in a treatment room, so I save up the micro smart ones so I can inject them and put them in stasis for the treatment.”
“Hmm,” Catie mused. After a minute, her eyes lit up. “Why don’t you have smart nanites haul the dumb micro nanites around for you?” she asked.
“What?” Dr. Metra asked.
“Couldn’t you use the regular sized smart nanites to haul around the dumb micro nanites? They could work like your scanner and place them in the right place, then go back and get more,” Catie said.
“You know, I think that might work,” Dr. Metra said. “ADI, would you do an analysis on Catie’s idea?”
“Doctor, I have sent three proposals to MADI for you and her to analyze,” ADI said.
“Thank you, ADI,” Dr. Metra said.
“Why did you use ADI instead of MADI?” Catie asked.
“Oh, ADI is much more powerful than MADI is. MADI is a small special-purpose DI; she’s just for medical records and analysis. And ADI has much more experience,” Dr. Metra said.
“Okay, I didn’t realize there was that much difference,” Catie said.
“You’re ready to go,” Dr. Metra said as she fitted Catie with a sling. “I’ve sent instructions to your comm about restrictions on your activities for the next two weeks.”
“Thanks,” Catie said as she hopped off the treatment table.
“No, thank you,” Dr. Metra said. “I have quite a few patients who will be very happy that you broke your arm today.”
“At least someone is happy,” Catie quipped.
◆ ◆ ◆
“You good?” Liz asked as she met Catie in the waiting room of the clinic.
“Yeah,” Catie said. “I have to wear the sling for the rest of the day, no running for two days, and no lifting or punching with my arm for two weeks.”
“Did she give you exercises you can do?” Liz asked.
“Yes,” Catie moaned. “I’m sure they will keep me in shape so you can start beating on me again in two weeks.”
“You sound like you don’t enjoy it,” Liz said.
“I just want to be on the winning end once in a while.”
“You’re getting much better,” Liz said. “I have to really concentrate to avoid getting nailed.”
◆ ◆ ◆
“What is going
on?” the president asked as he entered the situation room in the White House.
“There has been a coup in North Korea,” Director Lassiter said.
“About time those sanctions did something,” the president said.
“Yes, sir,” the director said.
“So what are we worried about?” the president asked.
“China’s response,” Secretary Palmero said.
“Where’s Kim?” the president asked.
“We believe he has fled to China,” Director Lassiter said. “We haven’t been able to confirm that yet.”
“What do we expect China to do?” the president asked.
“It’s hard to imagine the military moving without a nod from China,” Secretary Palmero said. “I don’t expect them to do anything yet.”
“So what are we doing here?” the president asked.
“Assessing the situation, looking to see if Russia responds,” Secretary Palmero said. “It’s a potentially volatile situation.”
Chapter 10
Space Manufacturing
“Uncle Blake, we’re starting up the solar panel plant today,” Catie said. “Do you want a tour?”
“When is it?” Blake asked.
“After lunch.”
“I’ll be there.”
Fred and Blake followed Nikola and Catie to the inner hub for their tour. They were all experts at maneuvering in microgravity, so they moved along quickly, using the holds along the corridor to maneuver themselves to the manufacturing section.
“I see you picked one of the spaces next to the vacuum section,” Blake said.
“We have our raw material out there, and we’re storing the pallets there as well. Vacuum space is low cost, and when it’s out there, you can just back an Oryx into the hub and load it up,” Catie said. “We designed a special airlock that lets us have a bot take them out and stack them up.”
“That’s efficient,” Fred said.
“Thanks,” Catie said, accepting the compliment.
“Wow, this is compact,” Blake said as they entered the space. Five technicians were managing the process. The space being used was only three meters wide and four meters long.
“We can put in three more lines,” Nikola said. “Then, if you want more, you just duplicate it in another manufacturing cube.”
“Nice, scalability,” Fred said.
“Okay, Catie. How did you solve the plasma overlap issue?” Blake asked.
“With the two-tenths of a second settling time, we have to run five plasma fields over every point each second. So, we have an array of plasma guns on a carousel, like we talked about,” Catie said. “We run them at a slight angle to compensate for the forward motion. It takes twenty guns to cover the one-meter width, so we only have to have them travel at fifteen centimeters per second. With the carousel, we have to use forty-five plasma guns.”
“How do you keep it all calibrated?” Blake asked.
“We stop every four hours and recalibrate,” Catie said. “But everything is carefully balanced so it doesn’t drift.”
“I like that angle idea,” Fred said. “It simplifies the process even more. I’ll have to adapt the polyglass process for that, too.”
“Yeah, I just thought of it when one of the technicians complained about the waste when we shut down for calibration or repairs,” Catie said.
“Necessity is always the mother of invention,” Blake said. “What’s the target for production?”
“We want to hit twenty percent of worldwide demand for solar panels. That’s forty million panels per year,” Fred said.
“We sure aim high,” Blake said. “How many lines is that Catie?”
“Two hundred seventy-five, give or take,” Catie said.
“Two hundred fifty-four,” Nikola said.
“You have to account for downtime,” Catie said. “Assume about ten percent.”
“Oh,” Nikola said. “I should have known better.”
“So that’s seventy of our manufacturing cubes,” Blake said. “We have one hundred twenty that are next to the vacuum space and another nine hundred in the hub.”
“That’s a lot of space,” Nikola said.
“Fred, how many to take care of your glass demand?” Blake asked.
“Long term, about the same,” Fred said. “Plus, we have polysteel panels we have to make up here for the station’s inner walls, it won’t be as much space, but count on at least thirty.”
“I thought the hub was bigger,” Nikola said.
“It is, but the top sixty meters is the manufacturing facility for the Oryxes and other craft, so it’s not in vacuum, but we can still use it. We just have to take the load through the big airlock,” Blake said.
“What are you thinking about, Uncle Blake?” Catie asked.
“Just wondering if we need to build another section?” Blake said. “It looks like we have plenty of space right now, but who knows what else we’ll come up with.”
“I’d plan on that next section,” Fred said. “You know what comes after twenty percent?”
“Yeah, forty percent, then sixty, then eighty, then one hundred,” Blake said. “I know Marc well. He’ll be expecting us to fulfill the total demand; he just wants the industries on the surface to have time to shift to other products.”
Chapter 11
Damn Pirates
ADI pinged all the members of the board with an emergency call; the freighter carrying their first load of solar arrays to the Chinese was under attack.
“I’ll grab a Fox and see if I can help,” Catie declared on the comm.
“No, just come to the boardroom,” Marc ordered.
“But . . .”
“We’ve already sent two Foxes,” Marc said. “Come to the boardroom!”
Catie was out of breath when she reached the boardroom; she had been in the condo when the alarm was sounded. Her father and Uncle Blake were the only ones there as yet.
“I could help if you let me,” she complained.
“You would have been ten minutes behind the other Foxes,” Blake said. “They were on standby at the airport, and we don’t have one here in the city. You cannot always be the hero.”
“I don’t care about being the hero,” Catie said, “I just want to help.”
“And you will,” Marc said, “but with your brain and from here; now settle down while we get an update. ADI?”
“The Foxes are thirty minutes from the freighter,” ADI said.
“Captain, this is Marc McCormack, we are sending assistance, are you able to hold out?”
“They have fired across my bow,” the freighter captain replied. “I am afraid that they will sink me if I do not heave to. These are not normal pirates with such a big cannon.”
“Out fighters are only thirty minutes away,” Marc said. “Is there any way you can stall them?”
“I can try, but this is not a speedboat, it’s a freighter; it does everything slowly,” the captain replied.
“I understand,” Marc said. “We are assessing our options.”
“Where are they?” Catie asked.
Blake linked Catie into his comm so she could see the map that showed the freighter. “They are a long way from anywhere,” he said, “southwest of Wake Island and east of Guam.”
“So the closest help?” Catie asked.
“Two days,” Blake said.
“Can they abandon ship?” Catie asked.
Marc shook his head.
“Can they hide?” Catie asked.
“What good would that do?” Blake asked.
“If we can take out the pirates’ ship, they can’t afford to sink the freighter,” Catie said. “If the crew can hide until the Foxes get there, the pirates are faced with a choice of either abandoning their attempt or being stuck on that ship while the Foxes prevent them from escaping until help comes.”
“It might work,” Marc said. “Captain, is there a place where you and the crew can hide or shelter until help arrives?”
>
“For how long?” the captain asked.
“We’re twenty-seven minutes away,” Marc said.
“I will wait until they fire their cannon again, then I will kill the engines and hide with the crew. We will be in one of the shipping containers,” the captain said.
“How do we let you know it is safe to come out?” Marc asked.
“Yell my wife’s name, it is Carmelita,” the captain said.
“We’ll call out Carmelita when we get there,” Marc said.
“What are we going to do?” Blake asked. “We can’t land a Fox on the freighter.”
“I can take a Lynx and set it on its tail,” Catie said. “We could have some guys rappel down.”
“Won’t they get caught in the backwash?” Kal asked. He and Liz had entered the room so quietly that nobody had heard them.
“Not if we have enough wind,” Catie said. “Take it into the water and have it heel up like we did when we were diving for the Chagas. But then they’d have to use a raft to get to the freighter since we’d only be five to ten meters up.”
“Both of those might work,” Liz said. “It would be nicer to rappel down than it would be to have to get wet and climb up.”
“I’ll take a team,” Kal said.
“You’ll send a team,” Marc said. “Anyone besides Catie able to pull that stunt off, of riding a Fox on its tail?”
“Until last week, none of us had thought of it,” Blake said. I’m sure Kasper has it etched in his brain, but he’s never practiced it.
“Okay, you and Liz,” Marc said. “She was a helicopter pilot, so she might have some suggestions.”
“My team will meet you at the landing strip,” Kal said. “Which Lynx do you want to take?”
“Lynx five,” Catie said. “I just flew it.”
“Go!” Marc said. “Captain, help is on its way. Our fighters are twenty-five minutes away, and our boarding crew will be there in thirty-five minutes.”