Space Trippers Book 1: Trippin' (11 page)

Captain Fairbanks still held her hand to her chest as she recovered from the shock. Her red-hair looked even brighter against her now pale skin. "Does everything on this ship have to be unconventional? Everywhere I turn it is modified this and experimental that." she complained bitterly.

Valesque smiled, showing all four of her sharp Virrilian fangs. "Thank you. I am glad you noticed." She was rather proud of all the new inventions and custom modified gadgets they had put into the ship.

The Captain struggled to regain her composure. "The unit will operate in advisory, non-visual, mode until we can get the imaging redesigned." she said finally, eyeing the innocent looking M.M.U cautiously.

"The girl can go to the deck, we are in need of a crew member there as it is currently unmanned.” the Captain finished ungenerously, stubbornly sticking to the I.P.A medical room regulations.

Lola looked to Valesque with uncharacteristic worry and concern on her pretty face. Valesque gave her a reassuring nod, to say she would be safe there.

Keeping Lola away from the Captain would probably be a good idea. Seeing as Captain Fairbanks does not like unconventional things on her ship, she would certainly not appreciate finding out Lola was an android, and would try to deactivate her.

The hydroponics labs would be the perfect place; Lola would not have much responsibility there, could learn the job rather easily and would be completely out of the way.

As Valesque was pondering the benefits of Lola’s new assignment her thoughts were abruptly interrupted by the Captain’s sharp address to her.

"Now, you might as well show me what horrors await me in the power core and engine rooms." Fairbanks ordered pessimistically as she turned to leave the Med-room with one last disparaging glance at the wide-eyed, pink and blue haired crewmember.

Valesque followed her out of the room, accompanied by Fazar and Sanic.

She could see no immediate way out of it.

The time it would take to argue it out with the Captain would probably be more than it would take to give her a quick lecture tour of the ship's core. Besides, she might find something down there she could use to dismantle the Space Tripper, since the area is still under construction.

It was a quiet trip down to the engine rooms.

Valesque was wrapped up in her thoughts over how best to approach the problem of the Space Tripper. The Captain was brooding over her dismal fate of being in charge of this increasingly unconventional ship and ragtag crew. Sanic was pondering over his chances now that he learned the Engineer’s rank was not superior to his.

And Fazar was busy mulling over new proverbs to use in situations like these, but so far he could think of no other circumstances like this one.

As the Hydro-lift doors hissed open revealing the main engineering deck, three of the group suddenly awoke from their thoughts and stared in awe of the scene before them.

The main engineering deck shined with stainless steel and polished crystal. The lights on the control panels sparkled off their highly polished metallic casings.

The crystal technical input panels shimmered in the lights from above and glowed with the colors of the information that was appearing on them. All around them was a show of lights, colors and shining newness.

The deck was laid out with rows of control centers against the exterior walls, and islands of flat paneled input screens and technician’s tables in the middle.

Off in the distance there was a large break in the deck that seemed to cut the deck in half. Inside the space was the visible part of a very large, round metallic ball that seemed to go up at least three more floors and encompass over eighty feet of deck space in width.

The sphere came up from an opening in the deck and continued on up through another opening in the ceiling. All around the perimeter of the sphere were shiny metal and glass railings with a single, bridge walkway spanning the fissure from the deck level to the portal on the side of the gigantic suspended orb.

This was the first ship they had seen with something like this as the core, and they were all momentarily dumbfounded at such an incomprehensible sight.

Valesque was not one of the three in amazement, she was still lost in her thoughts and working on some calculations on the Vid she had taken from her hip pouch.

She stepped out of the Hydro-lift onto Solar Deck 1 still lost in her own thoughts until she sensed the others were not following her.

She glanced back over her shoulder to see them still standing half way in the Hydro-lift, staring out in wonder at the massive, open deck space.

Good a place as any to start the tour , she thought as she turned back to them, putting her Vid-screen away in her hip pouch as she regarded their stunned expressions satisfactorily.

“This is Solar Deck 1. The main control center for engineering on this ship.” she began, breaking them out of their trances as they turned to look at her.

“As you can see there are many different control stations around this area, each having to do with different aspects of the ships power, weapons, shields and other control functions. You may have noticed the large sphere in the center of the deck.” Valesque continued with a little smirk. “That is the heart of the ship. We call it the Light Core, though some refer to it as the Star Chamber.”

“Is the ship’s power reactor beyond the ball?” the Captain questioned as she glanced up and down the deck looking for the familiar sight of a fusion reactor core.

“No.” Valesque replied slightly irritated by the anticlimax of the question. The Captain had missed the point and was completely unmoved by the device before her. “The Light Core IS power core for this ship. There is no fusion reactor or otherwise on this deck. All your power is coming from that ball.” the disappointed Engineer informed her a little briskly.

“There is no fusion reactor on this ship?” Captain Fairbanks asked unbelievingly.

The Captain then caught herself and shook her head in wonder at her naivety; of course there would be no fusion reactor on this ship… that would be too logical. The engine room would stay the course and have some drastically modified and completely ineffective new power source. How stupid of her to think otherwise.

She once again sighed at her bad fortune to be stuck with this ship, and wondered what kind of thing she could have done to make the General punish her like this, as she turned her attention back to the Engineer and the end of her explanation on the lack of a fusion reactor.

The young Engineer’s mood seemed a bit brighter as if she had been getting a very welcome reaction from the other two in the group, who seemed completely enraptured by her discourse as they glanced eagerly from their guide to the giant device like enthusiastic school kids on a field trip.

“….making it completely self sufficient and both physically and environmentally safe. There is no danger from the system if it ever goes down or becomes unstable.” Valesque finished, quite pleased with her explanation and how both Sanic and Fazar seemed to grasp the workings of the device and its practicality.

The Captain on the other hand seemed slightly bewildered and Valesque could just see a load of irrelevant questions about to assail her from that source.

She sighed, trying to calm her disappointment in the Military Officer as she turned to the Captain who had already initiated the onslaught.

“But, how does it work? If we do not have the standard issue, and perfectly satisfactory in my opinion, fusion reactor, how can we be sure of enough dependable power output? Obviously something is lacking if all it can give us is enough energy to move this ship at a crawl.”

Valesque blinked back her anger at the questioning of her power source’s dependability and design.

“The Light Core is quite capable of putting out more than enough power to not only move this ship at full speed, but also to provide ample energy to all decks including all scientific decks with their massive power drain when research is being done in all labs. I assure you Captain if you understood the application of the Light Core’s design you would not need to question its reliability or power production capabilities” Valesque replied a bit condescendingly as she led them all a little closer to the device in question. “As you can see, the shape of the core means there is no space left unused in its light absorption.”

“Light absorption?” Fairbanks echoed, completely lost. She had not been paying attention earlier when the Engineer had explained how the device replaced the fusion reactor and so she still had no idea what this huge ball was and how it was supposed to produce power.

The Engineer sighed as she stood in the middle of the aisle with one arm across her chest supporting her raised arm in whose hand she was hiding her face.

She did not have time for this.

They could all be on the brink of death and she had to re-explain the solar energy collection device to the dense Military Captain.

As Valesque was pondering how she could possibly explain it simply enough for the Captain to finally understand, Sanic eagerly broke in, looking very Etherian in his excitement.

“I can explain it!” Sanic volunteered, seeing Valesque hanging her head in her hand and looking rather disheartened. He had understood the entire concept as she had explained it and was very eager for the Captain to understand and appreciate the Virrilian’s impressive design as well.

“It is like the panels on a Solar Farm” he began, trying to keep it simple as if he were explaining it to a child. “Only it is like hundreds of solar farm absorption arrays combined and formed into a gigantic sphere. That way you see there are no missed spots in the light chamber, every inch of that huge ball is being used and is absorbing power.

It really is magnificent.

If you can calculate how much energy solar panels encompassing the area of, what is that… some 1,600 feet in circumference? That can produce an amazing amount of power output!” Sanic gushed, his dark grey eyes alight with enthusiasm and his cheeks flushed with excitement as he gazed up at the magnificent structure.

“How can a ball of solar panels absorb energy when it is in the middle of a ship? Are we always going to have to be near a star in order to maintain energy? Is that why this ship is traveling so slowly? It is between power sources?” the Captain questioned incredulously at the very idea of using solar panels to power a space ship.

“The light chamber does not feed off exterior light sources.” Valesque replied as if the Captain were a moron, as she lifted her head a little and glared at the dim-witted woman through a fringe of hair.

“As I explained earlier it is powered by a single high intensity laser. That laser is then refracted in a web like pattern over the entire interior of the ball. The solar panels are a new updated design and are extremely efficient in picking up every ray of light available. The panels are in a slightly hexagonal shape that allows them to be fitted snugly together to conform to the sloping surface. This also allows room for the tiny refracting mirrors that are precisely aligned to continue that one single high intensity laser beam all over the inside of the core, creating a complete web of light beams that encompasses the entire interior.

The laser is then heightened in strength by a super fine gas of readily available elements that when the laser is exposed to them the beam shines 100 times brighter. Thus producing a very cheap, readily available and very efficient power source.” the Virrilian engineer concluded proudly as she straightened back up and brushed her shimmering black hair from her face.

“So, you are saying that this entire ship can run off the power of one laser?” the Captain reviewed unbelievingly.

“Well, after it gets going, yes.” Valesque replied a little hesitantly.

“After it gets going?” the auburn haired Captain questioned suspiciously.

“Well..yes. When the system is first started or when it is restarted from empty it takes about three to four weeks to completely fill all of the energy containments. However, you can have life support and basic power needs up in about six days. Low engine power can also be provided after seven days. But it is best to let the system completely charge before using its power.”

“And….what level might we be running at now?” Fairbanks dreaded to ask.

“As the ship was still being built we had not bothered to completely charge the system as of yet. We had basic power running and we had taken her out for a little, low powered space run to test the hull integrity. But other than that it was only in about its second week of actual charge up.

We weren’t supposed to be on her maiden flight for at least another month.” the Engineer replied, excusing the present low energy supply. “I would say we are at about half capacity at the moment.”

“And so that is why we are running so slowly? The magnificent experimental power core is incapable of enough output to get us going for a month?” the irritated Captain surmised.

“No, not at all and I don’t think so.” the Engineer replied with a flash of anger in her eyes. “This ship is equipped with thousands of power storage containers. They are located on the deck above us, Solar Deck 2.” Valesque informed her as she waved her hand towards the location she was referring to.

“Each container is 10 feet high and 20 feet wide. If you consider there are about 100 containers across and 250 rows of them, that is about 25,000 power storage units. Even with only half of them full this ship has plenty of power to operate.