THE KOSTROMA SAGA by Michel Poulin - HTML preview

CHAPTER 27 – SPACE REFIT

 

13:57 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Thursday, January 8, 2320

Command bridge of the armed merchant ship A.M.S. KOSTROMA On approach to the Avalon Space Yards

Low Earth orbit

 

The tall brunette in her early thirties smiled on seeing the face of a mature man appear on one of the small viewing screens attached to the armrests of her command chair.

‘’Hello Gustav! I am back from my second trip to Eris and am ready for the refit we discussed a few months ago and that is to be financed by the Spacers League. I also have a few million credits which are burning my fingertips and which I am eager to spend at your shipyard on a few personal projects I have in mind.’’

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‘’Aaah, the kind of customer I like!’’ replied with a smile Gustav Shomberg, the owner of the Avalon Space Yards and one of the most famous spaceship designers in the Solar System. ‘’So, how are the scientists in the Eris Station doing, apart from wallowing in Eris diamonds?’’

‘’Studying and observing, as you would expect from true scientists. They are also quite busy studying each other, considering the fact that seven babies have been born at the station in the past year and a half, with more on the way. By the way, I also kept busy with Michel Koniev, what with those long space trips, and we now have a three-month-old boy named Misha. You will be free to cuddle him once you come aboard.’’

‘’Oh! Congratulations! I am sure that he will make an excellent ship captain one day. About your refit, I received three weeks ago from the Spacers League the weapons systems, ordnance and materiel meant to be fitted to the KOSTROMA. From formidable, your KOSTROMA will soon become a truly mighty opponent in a space battle.’’

‘’Well, I sincerely hope that I will never need to use those weapons, ever: I hate war, even if I proved to be good at it while fighting the Terran Federation four years ago. The personal improvements I have in mind are definitely on the more pacifist side.’’

‘’I am eager to hear about them, Tina. I suppose that your crew will go for a long and well-deserved vacation period on Earth while we will work on your ship.’’

‘’You supposed right, Gustav. I may have forests, giant aquariums and farms aboard the KOSTROMA, but I still don’t have a seaside beach or a mountain range.’’

‘’Can’t have it all, I guess.’’ said Shomberg while shrugging and smiling. ‘’Well, I will now leave you in peace, so that you can dock your ship inside my Dry Dock Number One. See you later!’’

The video link was then cut, leaving Tina Forster free to concentrate back on guiding her 1,700-meter-long ultra-heavy cargo ship towards the waiting main dry dock of the Avalon Space Yards. At an empty mass of 2,510,000 metric tons, the KOSTROMA would definitely inflict some major damage to the space yard if not handled properly and with due caution. Thankfully, her cargo holds were presently empty, while her deuterium-tritium fuel tanks were only a quarter full, the result of the long, year-long return trip to Eris, so her ship’s gravity sails, which worked in a fairly similar way to anti-gravity fields, proved more than sufficient to propel the KOSTROMA with agility and precision. Another twenty minutes and the giant cargo ship moored itself inside the largest of the

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yards’ dry docks. The access doors of the dry dock then closed and compressed air started filling the vast volume of space inside.

‘’Mooring clamps engaged and secured! Communication tunnels extending into position!’’ announced First Pilot Frida Skarsgard, a 31-year-old woman with reddish-brown hair and blue eyes who was also a close friend of Tina.

‘’Shut down all engines! Secure from flying stations!’’ said Tina in turn before looking at her First Navigator, Dana ‘DD’ Durning, who was also her unofficial First Officer. While Dana said that ‘DD’ were simply the first letters of her name, sneaky tongues (male ones mostly) said that it alluded to the size of her chest. Whatever the meaning of ‘DD’ was, the 36-year-old still had most men salivating at her sight.

‘’Dana, you have the bridge. I am going to meet Mister Shomberg.’’

‘’Understood!’’

Getting up from her command chair, Tina then walked down the steps linking her platform level with the next lower one, where the access rotunda to the elevators was. At this level in the ship, just under the massive, 700 meter-diameter bow shield of the giant cargo ship, only two personnel lift cabins and two medium cargo lifts reached all the way up to the bridge complex and were reserved for the exclusive use of the crew. The other elevators contained inside the central longitudinal spine tube of the KOSTROMA stopped short of it on Deck 23, which was the highest level passengers could normally get to, unless invited up by Tina. Calling up one of the lift cabins and then riding it down to the ship’s Main Promenade Deck, on Level 9, Tina left the cabin there and started walking down one of the four radial hallways linking the deck’s central rotunda with the peripheral ring which constituted the Main Promenade proper. Passing in succession in front of the entrances of the ‘Maharaja’ Indian restaurant, the ship’s commercial daycare center, the ship’s barber shop and hair salon and the children’s playground, she arrived after some sixty meters at the junction of the hallway and of the Main Promenade. Small trees and rows of decorative bushes planted on both sides of the ten-meter-wide ring promenade added a soft natural touch to what was in essence a commercial shopping venue used by crewmembers, members of their families, passengers and visitors alike. The shops, boutiques and clubs of the Main Promenade were in fact one of the main reasons why the KOSTROMA was such a popular mixed cargo and passenger ship in the Solar System. For the men and women working hard in often isolated mining operations and smaller human outposts around the Solar System,

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the passage of the KOSTROMA represented a rare and much appreciated occasion to entertain themselves, shop for things which were not available locally, enjoy exotic food and generally change their minds from work. On such stops at isolated facilities and outposts, another particularity of the KOSTROMA made it even more popular, this time with the managers and logistics officers of those facilities and outposts: the extensive agro-food production facilities on which Tina had worked for years now to develop aboard her cargo ship. With a length overall of 1,740 meters and a total of 128 full decks, many of which were sub-divided into more decks, Tina had plenty of internal space available to devote to hydroponic gardens, animal farms and fish ponds, and this without hurting her cargo-carrying capacity, which presently stood at a whopping maximum of twenty million metric tons, most of it transported in space cargo pods attached to its external flanks. That initiative, apart from helping to fulfill Tina’s dream of transforming her ship into what she called ‘a village in space’, had proved as well to be very lucrative commercially. One reason for that was that the KOSTROMA was now self-sufficient in terms of food production, with Tina not needing anymore to buy foodstuff at often inflated prices from Earth suppliers or from Spacers’ moon farms. Another reason was the fact that some of the crops and foodstuff produced aboard the KOSTROMA were highly-sought of products, like spices, coffee, tea and chocolate, which Tina was then too happy to sell to other Spacers at prices markedly lower than those asked for by Earth’s exporters.

Tina smiled to herself on seeing that the reception counter of the East Outer Access Gallery, which was now some fifteen meters ahead of her, was already processing visitors from the Avalon Space Yards, many of them being obviously spouses or children of the workers of the giant orbital facility. Despite being stationed in Earth orbit, a trip to Earth’s surface was still fairly costly for the average worker, who normally saved his or her money for vacation trips rather than for shopping trips. There was also the fact that the KOSTROMA and Tina enjoyed a special relationship with the Avalon Space Yards, which had conducted its first major refit and had also secretly helped arm it in prevision for the war that had opposed in 2315 the now defunct Earth Federation and the Spacers League, a war in which Tina and her cargo ship had played a crucial role. Her smile widened as she watched a group of excited children dragging their parents towards the nearby children’s playground of the Main Promenade, which covered over 500 square meters and had a free height of ten meters, allowing it to

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house some fairly elaborate play modules. Other children also assaulted the adjacent ‘Enceladus Swirl’ ice cream parlor and candy shop, which served fresh ice cream and chocolate produced aboard the KOSTROMA. The parents of those last children actually put up little resistance, as fresh dairy products were some of the most sought of (and expensive) items off Earth’s surface, due to high transportation costs and the difficulty of keeping those products fresh during the long delivery trips across the Solar System, which could take up to four weeks aboard older cargo ships.

Tina was passing by the reception counter and through the large airlock situated at the junction with the access gallery when her wrist videophone buzzed, making her stop and raise her forearm. Seeing that it was Spirit, the artificial intelligence central computer of her ship, calling her, she opened the line and spoke in her videophone.

‘’Yes, Spirit?’’

‘’I am sorry to bother you, Tina, but I just got a message from Shanya, my friend on the VEON SHOURIA: a team of Koorivars just departed Vancouver Island in one of their shuttle craft and is on its way to here. They wish to speak to you in private about a most important and sensitive subject.’’

Two things immediately made Tina freeze for a moment. First, Shanya was the AI computer of the Koorivar ship VEON SHOURIA, which had been saved by the KOSTROMA on Eris. The notion of two super computers calling each other a ‘friend’ was enough to make most people pause. Second, a ‘most important and sensitive subject’, when it related to the Koorivars, could only concern one thing: their anti-matter drive.

‘’Uh, I was on my way to go see Gustav Shomberg, to discuss our refit with him. When is the Koorivar shuttle scheduled to arrive at the Avalon Space Yards?’’

‘’It should dock with the station in about 43 minutes.’’

‘’Then, once they are on the KOSTROMA, have them wait for me in my suite on Level 24. I will join them there after speaking with Shomberg.’’

‘’Understood!’’

Her mind now busy speculating about what the Koorivars wanted to tell her, Tina closed the link and resumed her walking. Once out of the 320-meter-long telescopic access gallery, Tina found that Shomberg had sent a driver with an anti-gravity scooter to wait for her at the reception airlock of the station. Thanking the driver, she took place in one of the passenger seats of the scooter and let the man drive her down the long

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passageways of the installation. Four minutes later, the scooter was letting her step off in front of Shomberg’s private office, situated in the design department of the Space yards. Shomberg’s personal secretary, a stunningly beautiful Asian young woman, greeted Tina with a respectful bow.

‘’Welcome to Mister Shomberg’s offices, Fleet Captain Foster. Mister Shomberg is waiting for you in his office. If you will please follow me.’’ A bit amused at being greeted by her rank as a reservist in the small Spacers League’s navy, Tina returned the woman’s bow, then followed her into a large but not extravagant work office where a joyful disorder of piles of documents and dozens of miniature ship models greeted her. Despite being a true technological genius, Gustav Shomberg was a bit old-fashioned in his work habits and manners and liked to use paper documents whenever he could. Shomberg, a tall and beefy man of pure Nordic type with platinum blond hair and pale blue eyes, greeted Tina with a rather unceremonious hug and kisses on both cheeks.

‘’Tina, it is truly nice to see you again.’’

‘’And it is also nice for me to see you, my friend. So, you wanted to discuss with me the refit work on my ship?’’

‘’Of course! The Spacers League is after all ready to spend some 278 million credits on that refit, so we might as well make sure that it is done right. I already received from the League all the materiel and systems for that refit, so we will be ready to start as soon as we agree on how to make it. You did say on your last call that you wanted to spend some of your own millions on personal work to be done on your ship. What did you have in mind exactly?’’

‘’You remember my complaint about not having a seaside beach? Well, I want one! I would like you to use the free overhead space available over the northern and eastern quadrants of the forest ecosystems occupying my ship’s bow section to build a false beach with a false lake of sweet water at least twenty meters wide, on Level 24. I would also like to add some extra agricultural surfaces over the rest of those two quadrants, in order to boost my cereals production. Right now, my wheat production levels are barely enough to fill my minimum needs and I still have to buy wheat grain from time to time.’’

‘’I see! With the trees in your Boreal Forest and Temperate Broadleaf Forest not growing higher than about seventy meters, we have a good twenty meters or more of free height to play with in order to build those new deck surfaces. Supporting those new

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decks above your forests will not be a problem: I will simply suspend them from your bow shield structure above them.’’

‘’I knew that you would find quickly a way to do this, Gustav.’’ said Tina in an enthusiastic tone. Now, about that artificial beach…’’

By the time that she left Shomberg’s office some fifty minutes later, Tina was satisfied that her ship was in good hands for its refit. Now, it remained for her to see what the Koorivars wanted to tell her. Despite being visibly alien creatures, she knew them to be pacifist, good-natured beings whose talents were mostly geared towards the arts rather than technology. Added to the fact that they were vegetarians and didn’t eat meat or fish, this made the average Koorivar a normally agreeable person. Her mind was still dancing around that question when she arrived back at the reception desk of her ship’s eastern access gallery, again being driven by the scooter driver loaned by Shomberg. Stopping at the reception desk, she asked a question to Natalia Vasilyeva, the tall blonde who worked as the ship’s Chief Hostess.

‘’Natalia, did a group of Koorivars arrive aboard in the last hour?’’

‘’Yes! Four of them, including Administrator Sheraz, arrived some twenty minutes ago by shuttle and were then led to your private suite on Level 24. They are presently waiting for you there, along with Captain Shanandar.’’

‘’Perfect! Thanks, Natalia!’’

‘’My pleasure, Tina.’’

The questions in her mind redoubled at the mention of Administrator Sheraz, who was the political leader of the some 22,000 Koorivar refugees who had been saved on Eris by the KOSTROMA and who were now living on the northern portion of Vancouver Island, on lands graciously given to them by the President of the Northern Alliance, Claudia d’Arcy. If he had come, then that meant that what was to be discussed probably concerned all the Koorivars. Hoping that some kind of local dispute was not at play here, Tina made her way up to her private suite on Level 24, just under the bridge complex. Her suite, along with the suites allotted to the other senior officers of the ship, had a dominant view of one of the four forest ecosystems Tina had made built inside the bow section of her ship. Each of these ecosystems, housing a distinct type of vegetation and climate and carefully separated from the three other ecosystems, covered a surface of 7.1 hectares and had a free height of up to 95 meters, allowing even the tallest trees on Earth to grow in them. However, even when planting already half-grown trees at the

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time the new bow section had been built, that had been less than four years ago, so her forests were still growing up and would continue to do so for decades. Still, the view she had from her suite of the Temperate Rain Forest ecosystem, in the western quadrant of the bow section, was nearly enough to make someone forget that they were aboard a ship of Space.

When she entered her suite, she found five Koorivars, all of them of at least mature age, waiting for her in the main lounge, which had a nice view of the forest below. All five got up at her appearance, with one coming to her for a hug.

‘’Tina, thank you for receiving us!’’

‘’It’s my pleasure, Shanandar. Your request certainly sounded urgent. Is there some kind of problem brewing up on Vancouver Island?’’

‘’Not a problem, Tina.’’ replied Administrator Sheraz, standing a few paces away. ‘’In fact, Vancouver Island is close to a paradise for my people and I will never thank your people enough for the gift they gave us. The reason we came here has to do with a stunning discovery that Doctor Koomak, to my left, made recently. Doctor Koomak?’’ The oldest Koorivar present quickly bowed to Tina before starting to speak.

‘’Pleased to finally meet you, Captain Foster. On Shouria, I was considered one of the top physicists among my people, with my specialty being astrophysics. I recently attended an international conference on physics in Vancouver and something said during that conference struck my mind and started a wild idea. Well, after I presented that idea to Shanya, the central computer of the VEON SHOURIA, it turned out that my idea was not so wild after all. In fact, Shanya ran a computer simulation based on it and found it to be fully viable. To make a long story short, I believe that I found a way for us to travel around the stars and find back the two other evacuation ships which left Shouria before its destruction, some 361 years ago.’’

Tina was silent for a moment, frozen speechless by Koomak’s declaration, before she was able to ask the first of many questions now popping up in her mind.

‘’Travel around the stars? And at what speed?’’

‘’If my calculations are correct: near instantaneous speed. Basically, the idea is to use some of the properties of our anti-matter creation process to deform the fabric of space itself and open a temporary wormhole between two star systems. All the theoretical calculations and simulations have been done by now, but we still have to conduct test runs to make sure that my invention is fully viable and safe to be used.

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That is where we would need your help and that of your friend, Gustav Shomberg, to build an experimental drone craft and test it before adapting what Captain Shanandar is now calling the ‘Koomak Drive’ to your ship. Once all that is done, we would then solicit your help to go find our compatriots lost among the stars.’’ Tina, stunned by all this, had to sit on a sofa before she could speak again.

‘’But, even if your ‘Koomak Drive’ proves to work as planned, why go after the two sister ships of the VEON SHOURIA? Why not let them arrive at their intended destinations and settle there?’’

‘’For the same reasons which necessitated your KOSTROMA to save the VEON SHOURIA from its icy tomb on Eris, Tina.’’ answered Shanandar, the captain of the VEON SHOURIA. ‘’Remember how the computer controlling our interstellar flight failed due to old age and how all our reserves of seeds meant to provide us with crops had turned bad? Well, we are afraid that the same things will happen to both the SHUNDAR and the SHANIZAR. If and when that happens, the last 44,000 Koorivars in existence will be wiped out and will disappear, leaving only my compatriots now living on Vancouver Island as survivors of my race. When I left Shouria in cryogenic sleep, along with my first contact crew, I fully expected our systems to survive our long voyage and for our reserves of seeds to keep intact. However, as you know too well, our systems failed us, badly. We don’t want the same things to happen to the SHUNDAR and to the SHANIZAR if we can avoid it. We are ready to pay with the help of our gold reserves for the building of a prototype craft and for its testing, then for modifying your KOSTROMA if Doctor Koomak’s drive proves to be both effective and safe. So, what do you think, Tina?’’

‘’I…I don’t know, really. I see so many implications from this, many of them political, implications of the same kind which were created by the announced existence of your anti-matter drive. Remember the troubles that brought to both me and you. A woman even lost her life because of it, while many more could have been killed as well. On the other hand, you should know that the Spacers League is about to sink over a quarter billion credits into a refit which will add many new weapons, fire control systems and ship armor to my KOSTROMA. As a reservist officer of the Spacers League Navy, I don’t have any more full freedom to use my ship as I wish, unless I am ready to break some rules in the process. Finally, would it be fair to develop an effective interstellar ship drive system, only to hide it from the rest of Humanity? Exploring the stars around

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us has been a dream for a long time for Humanity. To keep that dream to myself sounds wrong to me.’’

Sheraz slowly nodded his head in response, understanding her hesitations and misgivings.

‘’You are indeed right to ask yourself all these questions, Tina. You are proving again that you have a clear head about those things, which is to your credit. I agree with you that a viable interstellar ship drive is too big a gift to keep to only ourselves. The real question is: can Humanity use it in a peaceful way, without embarking on voyages of conquests, like it happened too often in your Humanity’s history? Can Humans find a livable home among the stars without taking it away by force from any potential alien life forms which would already be living on those worlds?’’

‘’That is a very good and pertinent question indeed, Sheraz. I fervently hope that at least the Spacers League and the Northern Alliance would prove worthy of such an interstellar drive. As for the rest of Earth, I am not so sure.’’

‘’Then, here are two important questions for you, Tina: first, how much confidence do you have in the discretion and honesty of your friend, Gustav Shomberg? Second, how much do you trust Governor Robeson and President d’Arcy?’’ Tina didn’t have to think look before replying to the Koorivar politician.

‘’Gustav Shomberg, apart from being a genius ship designer, is both a most decent man and a person with strong moral convictions. I would trust him with my life. As for Governor Robeson and President d’Arcy, while both of them are politicians who can play a good game like any other politicians, both are decent women who truly care about their citizens and who take the notion of public service seriously. If approached discretely, I am convinced that we could arrive at a fair deal on how to use in the future your new Koomak Drive, that is of course if it proves to work.’’

‘’I am pretty sure that it will work, Captain Foster.’’ replied the old physicist. ‘’The only things left to do is to build a prototype robotic craft and test it properly. I already have the technical drawing of such a ship, which of course also includes an anti-matter drive.’’

‘’Then, we shall pay a visit to Gustav Shomberg as a group tomorrow.’’ declared Tina, now convinced. ‘’In the meantime, you are all invited to have supper here and spend the night aboard. This will also give me a chance to go get my little Misha at the crew’s daycare center, so that I can present him to you, along with my husband Michel.’’

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10:10 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Friday, January 9, 2320

Work office of Gustav Shomberg

Avalon Space Yards, Earth orbit

Like Tina, Gustav Shomberg was at first left speechless when Doctor Koomak, who had come along with his four compatriots and Tina, told him about his project to build a prototype interstellar craft. Then, the engineer surprised everybody by suddenly yelling loudly in approbation, a huge grin on his face.

‘’You are asking me if I am interested in building and testing the first interstellar ship in history? Of course I am interested! Building a true starship was my lifelong dream!’’

‘’Uh, I must remind you that there may be a few delicate political considerations about this, Gustav.’’ said gently Tina. That didn’t seem to faze off Shomberg, who gave her a sober look.

‘’It is certain that there will be political considerations, Tina: every major new invention has brought some such considerations in the past. You are after all talking about opening the road to the stars to Humanity…and to the Koorivars. So, Doctor Koomak, tell me more about your star drive.’’

‘’Well, if described in as simple terms as possible, it basically uses a process quite similar to the one involved in our anti-matter rocket but, instead of transforming matter into anti-matter, we will create a rip in the fabric of Space itself, a rip that will then suck in the ship carrying my device. That ship should then be instantly transported to the opposite side of that rip. The distance and direction traveled would basically depend on the intensity of the field created by my device and by the orientation of the ship at the time of the pulse. Basically, we would only need to point the ship in the right direction, dial in the field intensity and press the ‘jump’ button.’’

Shomberg’s mouth half opened as he measured the implications of Koomak’s words.

‘’But, that means that we wouldn’t even need to extensively modify a ship to give it an interstellar capability. We would only need to add the field generator to its bow.’’

‘’That is correct, Mister Shomberg.’’ said calmly Koomak. As for Tina, those words struck her much harder and her eyes opened wide.

‘’But, that means that my KOSTROMA should be able to be easily modified in order to turn it into a starship, right?’’

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‘’If all goes well, yes!’’ replied Koomak. Shomberg then added to the drama with a few words.

‘’Since you based your invention on your anti-matter drive, then I suppose that you could easily draw as well the plans of an engine similar to the anti-matter engine that had propelled the VEON SHOURIA, right? Such engines would nearly be a must for any interstellar ship, in order for it to have a good cruising capability inside star systems.’’

‘’That is indeed a given, Mister Shomberg. To keep all this simple and quick, I would see such anti-matter rocket engines designed as simple add-on booster packs, to supplement the existing thermonuclear fusion rockets of Human ships. I would say that four such ‘booster packs’ could be quickly built and then be easily fitted to the KOSTROMA. They could in fact be fixed to the outer circumference of its stern gravity sail section, thus saving a lot of time and efforts. Since they can function with about any kind of fuel, cruising range would be nearly unlimited, even though simple lead pellets are still the best, most efficient and compact way to fuel them. Being able to convert all the mass of its fuel into energy, our Koorivar anti-matter drive would be way more efficient in terms of fuel than your existing fusion engines, where only a few percent of the fuel mass is converted into energy.’’

‘’We of course won’t expect you or your space yard to work for free on our behalf.’’ added Sheraz. ‘’We have many tons of pure gold which we will be happy to use to pay for your services, Mister Shomberg.’’

‘’Gold will certainly do, Administrator Sheraz.’’ replied Shomberg with a wide smile.

09:28 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Tuesday, February 17, 2320

Command bridge of the A.M.S. KOSTROMA

Docked inside Dry Dock Number One of the Avalon Space Yards

With the ship being officially under refit and with most of its crew and occupants gone on extended shore leave on Earth, the bridge of the KOSTROMA was unusually quiet and deserted compared to when it was cruising around the Solar System. This morning, only Gustav Shomberg, Tina Forster, Doctor Koomak, Chief Engineer Shoumak, Captain Shanandar and Rose Tillman, the KOSTROMA’s chief engineer, were present on the bridge, anxiously watching a video feed retransmitted by one of the

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KOSTROMA’s cargo shuttles, which was presently flying alongside the prototype star craft in a high orbit well away from normal shipping lanes. Inside the cargo shuttle was its regular crew, plus Navigator Krennek and Dana Durning. Since the start of the project, only a few chosen persons had been made privy to it, in order to keep it as secret as possible. Even among the crew of the KOSTROMA, the number of persons in the know could be counted on the fingers of two hands. The construction of the prototype craft had been equally discreet, with all the building and fitting work done inside the KOSTROMA’s workshops and hangars instead of inside one of the space yards dry docks. The prototype craft was not even brand new. Instead, to save time and efforts, an elderly cutter ship due to be decommissioned at the yards had been extensively modified and refitted inside one of the large craft hangars situated in the stern gravity sail section of the cargo ship. Now, that old cutter was about to make history…if all went well.

‘’Cutter’s itinerary programmed and loaded. All its external sensors and special instrumentation are on and functioning. The cutter is now pointed towards its first destination and ready to go. I am now backing off to a safe distance.’’ Dana Durning’s calm voice only made Tina more nervous than she already was: so much was depending on this test flight. The Koorivars present on the bridge were equally nervous, while Gustav Shomberg watched like a hawk the data coming from the prototype craft and being displayed on the screens of the workstation he was occupying. After a few minutes, Dana’s voice came back on the radio.

‘’I am now some 600 kilometers away from the cutter and following a parallel course. We are ready here for the test.’’

‘’Understood!’’ replied Tina from her command chair. ‘’Stand by!’’ She then turned her head to look at Koomak, who was sitting at one of the control stations of the bridge which had been reconfigured for this test run.

‘’Ready when you are, Doctor Koomak.’’

‘’Thank you, Captain Foster. Initiating jump in three…two…one…NOW!’’ Watched by six pairs of anxious eyes, the video picture retransmitted by the cargo shuttle suddenly showed a kind of nebulous orange glow just ahead of the prototype craft. Then, both the glow and the cutter disappeared from the screen.

‘’Visual and radar contact lost with the cutter. I am now transmitting the readings from my instruments to you.’’

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‘’Thanks, Dana!’’ said Tina before smiling to Koomak. ‘’Well, the prototype at least went somewhere. Hopefully, we will know exactly where in a few hours. How long do you think that it will take before we get news from the cutter, Doctor?’’

‘’The programmed course of the cutter called for thirty minutes of observation time after reemergence, in order to establish with certainty its new position, followed by a change of course to point the craft towards its second destination. Another thirty minutes are to be spent after the second reemergence before our cutter is supposed to point back at the Solar System for its return trip. If travel with my new drive is truly instantaneous, we should then see the cutter return after about 74 minutes or so. However, I must caution you that the precision of each jump, even if successful, is still unknown. Our cutter could well travel without incident to its two intended destinations, the Alpha Centauri system and Barnard’s Star system, and still reemerge about anywhere within our Solar System. I in fact would not be surprised to see it reemerge in a place as far as the Jupiter System.’’

‘’Hell, I hope that it won’t be the case. Imagine if the Jupiter Space Control Center sends us back our cutter with a fine for flying around without a valid flight plan.’’ That made Gustav Shomberg laugh briefly before he smiled to Tina.

‘’Well, in that case I will proudly display that fine notice in my office. How about we go take a break and try to relax a bit now? Our cutter won’t be back for at least one hour, so we might as well stand down for a moment.’’

‘’Not before I can analyze the data collected by your cargo shuttle’s instruments at the time of the jump.’’ cut in Koomak, who was already looking at a data stream running on his display screen. After a minute or so, he turned his chair around to look at the others.

‘’The instruments’ data basically corresponds to what I was expecting. The only thing we can do now is to wait.’’

That brought a sour look on Shomberg’s face.

‘’Waiting… I hate waiting! I am happy when things are happening, not when I have to wait for things to happen.’’

So they waited…and waited as the minutes passed by. Tension rose up by a few notches as the 75 minutes bar passed, with still no sign of the prototype craft. Tina’s nerves and those of the others were close to cracking when Dana Durning’s voice came back on the radio, sounding triumphant.

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‘’I AM GETTING A TELEMETRY SIGNAL BACK FROM OUR CUTTER! IT COMES FROM BEYOND THE MOON, HALFWAY TO MARS!’’ A concert of cheers greeted that message on the bridge. On his part, Koomak blew air out in a most human way at this piece of news, then looked at the telemetry signal they were now receiving.

‘’Our cutter reemerged in our system some two million kilometers away from its intended return point. So much for precision navigation.’’

‘’After visiting two star systems? That is plenty fine with me!’’ replied Shanandar. ‘’Let’s see now if our cutter indeed reached Alpha Centauri and Barnard’s Star.’’

‘’We will also need to study the cutter down to its smallest detail, to ascertain if jumping around affected in any way its structure, and this down to the molecular level. Then, we will need to conduct more test flights.’’ said Koomak, throwing some cold water on his companions’ enthusiasm. ‘’Our work here is only starting, my friends.’’

17:03 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Monday, March 1, 2320

Tina Forster’s suite, Level 24

A.M.S. KOSTROMA, inside Dry Dock Number One Avalon Space Yards

‘’To the success of Program Dice Throw!’’

‘’TO PROGRAM DICE THROW!’’ repeated out loud the fourteen Humans and five Koorivars present in Tina’s lounge, raising their cups of Champagne high. Everybody took a sip from their cups before Gustav Shomberg looked questioningly at Tina.

‘’Our prototype testing went as well as we could humanly expect. I believe that we now have enough test data to be able to design and build a custom-made Koomak Drive for your KOSTROMA.’’

‘’I agree! Rose, how is the building of anti-matter drive units for our ship and its auxiliary craft going?’’

Rose Tillman thought for a moment before answering.

‘’All four so-called ‘booster packs’ for the KOSTROMA have been completed and are presently being fixed to our stern section. As for our craft, six out of ten of our shuttles, plus our ship’s cutter, have been modified and are now propelled by anti-matter

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engines, which will tremendously boost their performances and will also allow them to much more easily self-start their engines. Give me another two weeks and both our ship and all our auxiliary craft will be ready, especially now that the planned initial refit work has been completed.’’

‘’What next, then?’’ asked Michel Koniev, Tina’s husband, who was now part of the tight circle of program participants. Tina smiled to her tall, athletic and most handsome spouse and raised a hand to caress his left cheek.

‘’Then, when we are fully ready to go, I will talk to our crew…all of our crew.’’

08:32 (Greenwich Universal Time)

Wednesday, April 7, 2320

Apartment 20283, Level 20

Outer ring of bow section, A.M.S. KOSTROMA

Floating on station off the Avalon Space Yards

Low Earth orbit

‘’Come on, Mother! We will be late if you don’t hurry up.’’ Ramya Mistry sighed at her eldest daughter’s impatience and took the time to finish adjusting her sari before turning towards Priya.

‘’I couldn’t go to a Captain’s general address in a botched dress, couldn’t I?’’ Priya, now 22 years old and a most beautiful young woman by all accounts, made a face at that.

‘’Well, it couldn’t be worse than arriving late for the address. The rest of the family has been ready for ten minutes now, so let’s go!’’

Leaving the family’s apartment, which was located next to Priya’s own one-bedroom apartment, the mother and daughter joined up with Priya’s father, younger sister and two brothers outside their door, then walked as a group towards the nearest elevator. Taking a quick ride down one level, the Indian family then walked alongside the transparent wall of the giant aquarium which formed a ring around the base of the bow section. That aquarium, with a circumference of 2,036 meters at half of its maximum width of 27 meters and with a maximum depth of thirty meters, actually housed a diverse marine life forming a true ecosystem of its own which did a lot to make life aboard the KOSTROMA even more pleasant. The family then turned into the entrance to the

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covered observation gallery linking the bow outer ring with the central core at the level of Deck 19. There was already a fairly dense crowd of crewmembers and their families walking towards the core section, all heading to the ship’s auditorium on Deck 10. When the Mistry family arrived at the auditorium, it was to find most of the other occupants of the ship already there and sitting in the concentric rings of folding jump seats of the vast theater-like room. Already on the stage was Tina Forster, standing behind a lectern and with a microphone in front of her. Also on the stage with her was Captain Shanandar. His presence intrigued Priya and her family but they quickly took up seats as near to the stage as possible without asking questions then. At precisely nine o’clock, the scheduled time for her address, Tina powered her microphone and spoke in it, with her voice resonating around the 3,000 seat-capacity auditorium.

‘’Thank you for coming, my friends, and welcome to this address. Now that the refit work on our ship has been completed and tested, you probably expect me to announce our return to business on the trade and passenger routes of the Solar System. Well, we will indeed be traveling far and wide, but not in this solar system.’’ Tina paused for a moment to let pass a wave of surprised exclamations from her audience, then resumed her speech.

‘’What I mean by that is that our beloved KOSTROMA is now much more than just a giant interplanetary cargo ship: it is now a true starship, able to travel quickly between various star systems. We owe this incredible new capability to a Koorivar scientist, Doctor Koomak, who invented the interstellar drive now equipping our ship. During the past three months, me and a very small group of engineers and specialists, both Human ones and Koorivars, worked in secret to design, build and test a small prototype starship equipped with the Koomak Drive. Those tests were fully conclusive, with our modified cutter jumping nearly instantly to the Alpha Centauri system and to the Barnard’s Star system before coming back without incidents or damage. We then equipped the KOSTROMA with its own Koomak Drive and further improved it by adding anti-matter engines of Koorivar design to it. Our ship is thus now truly without equal in the Solar System. You may now be asking yourselves why I and my Koorivar friends did all this. The answer to that is simple: to perform a search and rescue mission in order to find and save the two sister ships of the VEON SHOURIA which left Shouria just before its destruction some 361 years ago. As you all know, the VEON SHOURIA suffered a number of significant systems degradations during its long trip towards the Solar System, with the result that it landed by default on Eris, with its crew still in hibernation and with

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its food reserves already spoiled and inedible. The two other Koorivar evacuation ships, the SHUNDAR and the SHANIZAR, are unfortunately likely to experience the same kind of systems degradations and may get lost in space if left to their own devices. When we saved the VEON SHOURIA and its occupants from their icy tomb on Eris, I then vowed to Captain Shanandar, who is now standing beside me, to help him find the rest of his people if and when we ever become able to travel among the stars. Well, that time has now come and I fully intend to honor my promise to him. However, I also have a responsibility to all of you, who are all very dear to me. I would never force you and your family members to participate in what will be a risky, not to say a dangerous mission, just to honor a personal promise. I thus called you here this morning to inform you of my intentions and to give you the choice of either staying on board and participate in this search and rescue mission, or to leave the ship and stay safely within the Solar System. For those who will prefer to stay behind, I will arrange alternate places of living and employment while the KOSTROMA travels through the stars. Be assured that no one will blame you for deciding to keep your family safely inside the Solar System. However, I can assure you that all who will accept to come will be useful for our mission. This includes the owners and employees of our commercial concessions on the Main Promenade, who are most welcome to join us in this adventure. For those owners who will come with us, I offer them a suspension of their rent payments during our trip, as I doubt that you will find many paying customers where we are going. I will now let you some time to decide with your family members if you want to stay in this system or go with the KOSTROMA. If you need more time to decide, then I will happily delay our departure for a few days to let you take an informed decision. Don’t feel pressured in coming along and don’t fear any negative repercussions if you decide not to come. The choice is now yours, my friends.’’

There was then a heavy silence around the auditorium, a silence that was however quickly broken when Priya Mistry jumped to her feet and shouted out loud, surprising her own family.

‘’I AM WITH YOU, CAPTAIN!’’

That prompted at once dozens of other crewmembers to also jump on their feet and yell their willingness to come. That caused a snowball effect around the auditorium among the single crewmembers present, who all volunteered for the mission. The married members of the crew took more time to take their decision, as they consulted their spouses and children first, but everybody voiced their decision within minutes. Tina felt

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tears come out of her eyes when she saw that not one single crewmember, commercial concession owner or employee decided to stay behind. When she spoke, it was with a trembling voice full of emotions.

‘’Thank you, my friends, thank you from the bottom of my heart. I couldn’t ask for a more worthy group of people to be with. I will ask you not to inform others outside of this ship about our intentions, as public and political reactions to our planned mission are hard to predict and could be negative. We will now power up our engines and go to the Jupiter System, where I will inform personally Governor Robeson about our mission before we leave for the stars. Bless you all, my friends.’’

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Jupiter and its moon Callisto.