A tour of

The initial tour of the ship with Rye was fairly easy; she’d apparently been part of the construction team that had worked on the vessel - that was how she’d gotten access to hack into the AI and leave her message. They wandered around, Dustin pointing out as examples a few of the adjustments the human shipyards had made to make it easier to change things in the future without access to a full team of Rabyth engineers. At last, however, they found themselves in the main engineering room. Fabrication bays lined the walls between the two great reactors at either end, each humming with power as the ship flew onward.

Dustin stopped and began to explain things to his excited chief engineer. “Right. So these are reactors one and two. Nominally, the first is for primary systems, and the second is a switchover failsafe, running in low power mode to ensure no failure of artificial gravity or life support in the event reactor one fails.” Rye nodded, then gestured at a diagram showing on a screen mounted to the wall that showed the two further reactors - one far forward and one to the rear of the craft. “And those?” she asked, eyes sparkling at the possibility of secrets being revealed. “Ok” Dustin said, tapping the diagram. “This first one, the fore reactor - that’s officially a redundant system. In practice, it’s purpose is to take over for reactor two as a failsafe in the event reactor two is used for it’s secondary purpose. The aft reactor on the other hand - reactor four - that has a slightly different use in mind.”

Dustin rested his palm on the screen for a moment. “Update system overlay, authorization code via voice-print Terra-Alpha-One. Sola, do you copy?” There was a moment’s pause, before a nearby speaker crackled into life. “Authorization granted captain. System overlay activated for the duration of the time you and the chief engineer remain in the vicinity.” As Sola’s voice faded, the display updated. Entire blank sections expanded to reveal a second and then third network of connections and power shunts running the length of the vessel. “What is this?” Rye said for a moment, eyes scanning across the ship. “Magnetic chargers, phase inverters - and that’s a frankly paranoid level of point defense. Are you planning on diving straight into an asteroid belt?” Dustin shook his head. “Star Command recognizes the importance of peaceful contact. We also read a bunch of files the Velca had on piracy in galactic space before they realized just how nosy we were and tightened up their encryption. Earth does not intend for her first and potentially only starship to fail in it’s mission because a bunch of thugs strapped slug throwers onto a shuttle and started taking pot-shots at our port engine.”

Rye’s fingers traced along the lines. “Huh. Yea, I can see that. There’s still something more you’re not showing me, isn’t there?” Dustin nodded. She was quick - to have spotted the loose connectors and obfuscated junctions that fast. “Yes. Two somethings, actually. One you’ll find out about if we need it and not before; I actually don’t have the authority to make it show up on the diagram without activating it and I have no intent of doing that right now. The other is something I’m hoping to get your help with.” At that, he pulled out his tablet and swiped a few files quickly across to Rye. The engineer glanced briefly at them, eyes flicking back to the system diagram - then she paused and looked at them more closely.

“I can see why you put four reactors on this thing. If you want this to actually function, you’d need most of a reactor’s power output to run it. It’s a clever idea - why didn’t you build it back in human space?” she said after studying the plans he’d sent her carefully. Dustin shrugged. “Because it won’t work - there’s some issues we haven’t been able to hammer out. I have this odd feeling you might be able to figure out a solution however, hence why I’m turning the project over to you chief engineer. Right now there’s little actual engineering that needs doing as we’re virtually fresh out of space dock, and I don’t want you getting bored.”

The Rabyth woman glanced sideways at him with an odd expression for a moment before nodding. “Ok. In that case, captain, lets go see reactor three. The whole backup idea is a load of bachrana-dung, you and I both know that. This ship’s been built with all four reactors running at full power in mind, though only someone that looked at fuel storage against usage rates as a way of relaxing before bed would spot it. Whoever you humans had plan all this out to sneak past the nerd’s approval team was really crafty - your species keeps surprising me.” Dustin nodded. “Yea, you’re right. Three was originally planned to be hooked into this system if we’d managed to get it working. Half the setup is already assembled - the projectors at least. It’s just the generators we can’t get to run - they…” and Rye cut him off with “…they keep phasing with each other and blowing as soon as you turn the thing on. I can see the issue, and you’re right, it’s near impossible to solve and would probably take even a genius a few weeks of solid work to get a workaround going. Lucky for you, you hired one to tinker with your ship. Let’s get going.”

Dustin arrived back to the bridge three hours later covered in a mixture of grease and sweat. What had started out as a tour had rapidly led to his chief engineer ordering him around as she reordered the secondary engineering bay near reactor three to her satisfaction. He had felt that as captain he probably should haven’t let the Rabyth take as much charge as he had, but he’d gotten swept away in her enthusiasm to get going on the project. Meli flicked an ear up as he sank wearily into his chair in much the same way a human would have raised an eyebrow, but didn’t say anything. “Our new crew member is currently in the process of stripping down single-handedly a piece of hardware that took a team of six humans three weeks to assemble - and she’s rebuilding parts of it on the fly. Apparently she needs to test some things out before she figures out how to get the system I want functional. I think we may have really hired a crazy genius here Meli.”

His chief science officer shrugged in response. “You hired her. Besides, she is a very capable engineer, I reviewed her file. What exactly is she working on?” Dustin sat up straighter at that, replying “ah, right. I didn’t tell you. Sola, put the mock-up video of the repulse-array onto the main screen would you.” A minute later, the display flickered to show a ship with what looked roughly like the outline of the Solar Ascent hovering in the void of space. “See, normally we use point defense to take care of micro-meteors and space junk.” Dustin explained, even as tiny tracer lasers flickered from the mock ship to take out imagined debris. “But what if something comes in harder or faster than that? Like a projectile weapon or a larger meteor?” At this, a bright green ball slid onto the screen, heading straight for the ship.

Meli tilted her head. “Auto compensation from the engines, the vessel turns and takes the impact on the impulse cushion to limit the damage to a reasonable level.” As she spoke, the ship on screen did exactly that, the green ball sliding down the now tilted side leaving a trail of red damage indicators behind. “That’s good as far as it goes. But depending on the size and speed, that can still lead to significant damage. In the event of several impacts in quick succession, a vessel would need to go for repairs.” Dustin said, adding “you know my species and our history with conflict. We’re naturally nervous about our ships getting hit with things, even if AI and impulse drives can turn them into glancing blows.” Meli nodded, before Dustin pointed to draw her attention back to the screen.

“What if instead you could generate a bubble around the ship - a combination of an impulse drive and the collapsing wave of a weave-jump. Weave-jumps - even failures - cause a gravitational negation effect in the immediate area; it’s why ships don’t jump too close to inhabited worlds right? The pulse after a ship leaves could cause all kinds of tidal issues. Add to that the directed **** of an impulse drive…” and here another green ball slid towards the model ship. Instead of turning, the ship just sat there. A moment later, a flicker of yellow and blue arced around the ship as the ball hit some kind of barrier, stopping in it’s tracks before sliding slowly back the way it had come. “We call the concept reactive shielding” Dustin said to a stunned Meli, adding “but we couldn’t quite get it working - it keeps shorting out when we try and cover the entire ship. If Rye can solve that problem, we’ll be the safest ship flying.”