“Skål!” Lingenfelter forced the bitter fluid into her mouth and slammed its polymer bag down on the kitchen island. She pounded her palm against the empty bag twice more while forcing herself to swallow. The Svean finished her ritual by chugging the glass of water next to the bag. “Yuck!” she finally cried out with a smile. “I can’t believe we now have to do this every five hours.”
It was 17:00 and Zanshin was in her fifty-fifth hour inside t-space. The freighter had crested the metaphorical hill and was over halfway through her journey. Since the crew’s last dose of anti-rad, the ship’s hardpoint cameras at the fourth and ninth cargo containers had joined the lengthy list of non-essential repairs needed. Both had perished during the last several hours along with half a dozen other non-vital ship systems. Among them was Zanshin’s water reclamation unit but the system easily held enough potable water to last the remainder of the trip. The hangar containment field generator’s demise had been far more pressing, if only to safeguard the open deck cutout leading to the Engineering Department. Brooke and Naslund had spent most of the afternoon troubleshooting and repairing the generator. Everyone knew the problems would only get more severe. As Zanshin sailed deeper, the nebula’s intensity increased ten-fold in tunnel space.
“Sorry, Elease,” Truesworth said as he watched her shudder. “We’ve entered the second radiation band and the medical protocol calls for halving the time between our doses.”
“I know, Jack,” she sighed. She collected the empty bags from everyone. “But you’d think with us not even knowing if we’re going to find the tunnel exit that we could forgo the ‘torture of many shots’ regimen.”
Naslund chortled. “Hey, I’m still counting on you to come up with some super-solution that saves us.” He patted Truesworth’s shoulder. “Just make sure you keep up on the sensor work so we can tell when we have to start drinking this stuff every two and a half hours.”
Lingenfelter shuddered. “When is that?”
“At hour eighty-two, when we hit the threshold of the final radiation band,” Truesworth answered.
“We’ll have to do that dosage for the last eighteen hours of the trip,” Lochlain added.
Lingenfelter chewed her lower lip as she walked to the recycler. She stuffed the empty bags into the unit. “Eighteen hours… a shot of anti-rad every two and half hours…” she mumbled. “Ugh, that’s eight shots of this crap in less than a day. I may never drink another shot again.”
“Heresy,” Truesworth chided.
* * *
“Skål!” Lingenfelter downed another dose of medicine and slammed its container down on the counter. Her hand went for her water glass.
It was 22:00, the end of Lochlain’s duty shift. Another five hours had expired along with the Number Six hardpoint retention rings and the portal motor for the forward port hold. Both casualties were deemed to be non-essential repairs. When the Number Four Toland propulsion drive failed however, there was a far greater sense of urgency.
“How’s the drive coming?” Lochlain queried from his usual position behind the kitchen island. With the crew on the opposite side of the counter, he could have passed for a bartender.
“We’ve already got it fixed,” Naslund answered proudly and tapped his chest. “I guessed right on the very first troubleshoot attempt.”
“What was it?”
Naslund’s chest deflated somewhat. “It was a problem with the Fergnati shift HIC board. Irreparable. We had to replace the entire circuit board but at least we had the part in inventory.”
“And our navigation shield?” Lochlain asked. “How’s it holding up?”
Brooke pulled out her datapad and showed him the screen. “Degrading at about projected levels. We’re actually a little better than predicted because of the extra shielding we started with two days ago. I’d still recommend that we follow the standard anti-radiation protocol even though we’re a little ahead of the game.”
“Better safe than sorry,” Lochlain agreed. “It’s a good thing we can still tell when we enter the different radiation bands.”
In front of him, Lingenfelter’s face lit up. “Hey!” she cried out excitedly. She smacked the side of her head as her blue eyes widened. “I may have just came up with a way to solve our timing problem!” She bounced as she fished out her datapad and placed it on the kitchen island for all to see. The crew gathered tightly around her as nimble fingers slid gracefully over its surface. She brought up a blank screen and quickly drew a crude tube. “Okay,” she prefaced, “we have no idea exactly where in the tunnel we are or precisely how long we’ve been in it.”
“That accurately summarizes the problem,” Lochlain intoned.
She smiled brightly. “But we do! Thanks to Zanshin’s sensor arrays, we know how much radiation is hitting us and we can compare those levels to the Carinae tunnel charts to determine which radiation band we’re in.”
Truesworth leaned forward and his hand hovered over the datapad. “How does this help us?”
She swatted his hand away and brought up the tunnel chart. “Don’t you get it? Because of your sensors, we know that when we hit ‘X’ level of radiation we’ve entered a new radiation band. And thanks to my nav charts, we know exactly where these bands begin! You said that near the end of the tunnel, we need to switch to a dose every two and a half hours.” She tabbed to a second navigation chart. “But we also know that the third radiation band begins at hour eighty-two.”
Lochlain inhaled sharply. “My God, she’s right.” He quickly consulted his own datapad. “Look. The chart lists the final leg of the trip as eighteen hours, seven minutes and twenty-one seconds long.”
“Captain, that’s only an estimate,” Truesworth cautioned.
“But it’s based on data collected from the Federation pathfinder ships that navigate this tunnel to maintain the charts,” Brooke argued.
“Wait a minute,” Naslund interjected. “Didn’t I basically suggest this approach about twenty hours ago?”
Brooke shook her head. “You suggested basing our estimate from our entrance point. Elease is saying we can fix our location along the tunnel at the last radiation threshold. It’s a much closer starting point than what we have right now.”
Lingenfelter rapidly drew a line on her sketch to split her tunnel into halves. “Here’s the third threshold.” She placed an “X” directly over the line. “So, when we hit the final phase of the anti-rad therapy, we have a known position along the length of the tunnel.” She looked at Lochlain. “How much error do you think will be added over the course of eighteen hours, seven minutes and twenty-one seconds?”
Lochlain hemmed. “Depends on the variability in the tunnel space we sail through but, regardless, it’s a hell of a lot less error than what’s built up over the duration of the entire trip.” He scanned the navigator’s datapad and pressed his finger over the “X.” “Okay, we potentially have our when. Now we need to solve where.” He looked to his crew. “How do we get ourselves centered inside the tunnel so we’re actually passing through the tunnel point when we generate the effect?”
“Can we somehow use the radiation levels again?” Naslund asked feebly. “I mean, the way tunnel space wraps, isn’t the radiation highest near the walls of the tunnel and weakest in the center? Can’t we just compare saturation levels and use it as a guide?”
Truesworth scratched his chin and mused, “Not a bad idea but it’s too slow. We’re traveling at one tenth the speed of light. That’s not an insignificant speed. By the time Zanshin’s sensors get a reading, the computer interprets the reading and presents the reading to us, and then we interpret the presentation and then input a course correction, not to mention that Zanshin then has to fire her thrusters and wait for physics to move the ship in the right direction… Sure, we’ll hit the center but we’ll sail right past it. We’re simply not going to be able to react fast enough to maintain a consistent, straight line course down the center.” He lapsed into silence but finally growled, “I hate to be a killjoy but we need something better. We need a straight course line to follow if we want Zanshin to pierce the tunnel point.”
Lochlain wagged a finger at him. “You’re right, so let’s figure out a way to create a straight line in tunnel space.” He brought his hand to his mouth and tapped his teeth with his index finger in thought.
“A line is just two connected points in space, right?” Brooke asked rhetorically.
Lingenfelter and Naslund nodded impatiently.
“So, we create two reference points,” Lochlain mumbled to himself. “But how…” His jaw dropped open in epiphany. “We can use the lifepod’s beacon!”
Brooke beamed at him.
“How?” Naslund asked.
Lochlain pressed a finger back to the “X” on Lingenfelter’s datapad. “When we hit the final radiation band, we center ourselves as best as we can and then eject the lifepod. Its distress beacon is strong and will ping far longer than the eighteen hours we’ll need.”
“But,” Lingenfelter interjected as she shook her head, “won’t the lifepod just drift with us at point-one-C?”
“Yes,” Brooke answered excitedly, “but not if we fire the pod’s thrusters to bring it to relative rest.” She playfully punched Lochlain in the arm. “We can even use the thrusters to better position it in the center once it’s at relative rest.”
Lochlain rubbed his arm but grinned. “That’s our first reference point. How do we make a second?”
“The shuttle?” Lingenfelter suggested.
Both Lochlain and Brooke answered, “No.”
“It’s an F-class shuttle, Elease. The beacon isn’t nearly strong enough,” Naslund explained. “Those shuttles aren’t meant for deep space. They’re just built to travel back and forth from low orbit.”
“I know a way to make it work,” Truesworth stated confidently. His head bobbed as he looked at Brooke. “We’ll use Zanshin’s beacon on the shuttle.”
She took a light step back as her eyebrows stitched together. “Can that be done? Can a freighter beacon be installed into a shuttle?”
Truesworth’s smile twisted devilishly. “I have some experience installing non-standard beacons into freighters.”
“Such as?” Brooke pressed with narrowed eyes.
“IFFs.”
“What’s that?” Naslund and Lingenfelter asked in concert.
Brooke answered for Truesworth. “Identify, Friend or Foe. It’s a military identity beacon, sort of.”
The sensorman nodded in confirmation. “Fundamentally, that’s what it is. It’s a bit more than that because it receives and interprets but at its heart, it’s a beacon that broadcasts a coded signal to allied ships so everyone knows they’re friendly.” He tugged lightly at the collar of his shipsuit. “I, uh, installed an IFF from a Brevic destroyer into a freighter that’s not too different from Zanshin, actually.”
“But not on its shuttle,” Brooke clarified. “That’s a different animal. That’s going to take some major improvisation.”
Truesworth’s head tilted in acknowledgment but his grin remained. “You’ll be amazed at how resourceful I become when my life is on the line.”
Lochlain tapped a finger on the island’s countertop. “We deck officers need to get to work on this immediately. We’ll bring Mercer and Casper in when we need their support but, for now, I want them to continue work on keeping Zanshin’s systems alive.” He looked at his crew. “We’re rapidly running out of time. We have the theoretical answers but we need working solutions before we hit the final leg. That gives us twenty hours to math out problems and accomplish the physical work required.” He tapped his chest. “I can make the necessary modifications to the lifepod. It already has a remote protocol built in so that rescue ships can dock with it in the event the crew is unresponsive. We’ll eject it right at the third radiation band. That way, we can use it not only as our first reference point but also to help mark the starting line of the final leg.” His hand flittered between Brooke and Truesworth. “The shuttle is less of a priority because we won’t need it as soon as the lifepod. However, once we’ve got everything else settled, I want Mercer helping Jack to tear out our beacon and install it on the shuttle. Elease and I can cover his shift.”
Brooke waved him off. “Have Casper help Jack. He’s got a better handle on shipboard transmission devices than me.” To her left, Naslund beamed proudly at the endorsement.
“Is this really going to work?” Lingenfelter asked.
“There’s real potential,” Lochlain promised. “A million things can go wrong but this gives us genuine hope.”
“Speaking of things that can go wrong,” Brooke interjected, “the degradation to the power core shield got worse over the last three hours.”
The morning after the initial discovery, Lochlain and Brooke had informed the others about Zanshin’s failing power core shield at the next round of anti-rad. The reduction had stabilized for many hours before dropping again precipitously.
“Where are we at with it?” Lochlain asked.
“It’s down to eighty-nine percent,” she replied, “but that’s not going to last. Right now, I estimate the power core will be able to run at only sixty-seven percent of maximum based on the average rate of decline.”
“We need at least eighty-five percent to generate a tunnel effect,” Naslund observed.
Lingenfelter folded her arms over her chest angrily. “So we’re going to engineer a way to navigate to the tunnel point only to not have enough power to turn on our tunnel drive? That seems colossally unfair.”
“Technically, we have the power,” Brooke quibbled. “What we can’t do is deliver the power fast enough to the tunnel drive to trigger it. It’s really the difference between specific energy and specific power.”
Lingenfelter batted blue eyes at Brooke. “Mercer, I was barely smart enough to become a navigator,” she teased.
The engineer laughed. “We have enough specific energy. That’s the amount of energy stored in our fuel cells. The nebula isn’t affecting those levels. Our problem is with specific power. That’s the speed at which the energy can be discharged.” Her hand ran an imaginary circle of Zanshin’s power loop as she explained, “Energy stored in the fuel cells runs to the power core. Through a reaction, the power core turns that potential energy state into a realized energy state and then sends it out to the ship’s systems. The problem we’re going to have is that we can’t switch those states fast enough to deliver the burst of power the tunnel drive needs to generate a tunnel effect.” She frowned and dropped her hand. “At least not without the containment field becoming overwhelmed and, well… exploding.”
Lingenfelter frowned with her. “Can’t you just wave your hands and somehow keep the core shield together for the few seconds we have to overtax it?” She churned her hands as she searched for an idea. “Can’t you overload the thingamabob to bypass the doohickey to save the day?”
Brooke rolled her eyes. “If this were a privateer holovid, sure—”
Truesworth interjected with a winning smile, “I actually did that once in a skirmish a couple years ago.”
“But I can’t do it in real life in a real ship inside the Izari Nebula,” Brooke finished over him.
“But you do have a real solution,” Lingenfelter predicted optimistically.
Brooke flashed white teeth. “Of course I do. I’m a brilliant engineer.” She wrapped an arm around Naslund’s shoulders. “Casper and I are working on building a supercapacitor.”
“Not just a normal capacitor,” Lochlain quipped, “but a super one.” He placed a hand to his chest and boasted, “It was my suggestion that they make it a super one.”
Brooke mimicked Lingenfelter from seconds ago and crossed her arms in indignation. “Sweetheart, I know you think that joke is funny but there really is a difference between the two.”
“Only to an engineer,” he volleyed back.
“At any rate,” she continued while admonishing her captain with a stern headshake, “we’re building an EDLC, a double-layer capacitor.”
“What’s that and how does it help us?” Lingenfelter asked.
“A supercapacitor is sort of like a battery in that you can charge it up,” Brooke oversimplified. “But instead of a steady stream of energy being released from it, a supercapacitor gives up its energy in one, big burst. It’s exactly what we need.” She had held a similar conversation with Lochlain twelve hours ago. “My workaround calls for us to build a supercapacitor, charge it up while we sail down the tunnel and then discharge it in conjunction with the power core to meet the power level required by the tunnel drive.”
“What materials are you using?” Truesworth asked. “Graphene for the electrodes? Do you have a fabricator down in Engineering? What’s your solvent for the aqueous solution?”
Lingenfelter stared at him in muted surprise.
The Brevic dipped a shoulder and gave her a sly grin. “I’m a sensorman. We’re way smarter than navigators.” He unsuccessfully ducked the empty anti-rad bag thrown at him.
“We have a small fabricator built into the work bench behind the main engineering console,” Naslund answered. “We’ve been running it continuously to make enough graphene. Unfortunately, we just lost some of our profits on the thirty-nine drums of sodium perchlorate sitting in the crew’s hold. We can dissolve that into ordinary water to serve as the electrolyte. Of course we’ll still have to wrap it and devise a container but—”
“So, problem solved?” Lingenfelter interrupted the engineer’s to-do list.
“Well,” Brooke mulled, “we have to build it, patch it into the power core, patch it into the tunnel drive and then charge it but, yeah, the problem should be solved.”