onedge

The one word that could best describe the way Rita Alvarez felt today was ‘frustrated.’ Never before in her entire forty-three years had she been so angry and so enthusiastic at the same time.

On the one hand, she had been selected from hundreds of experienced candidates to command the Hermes mission. It was possibly the most important mission in the ten year history of Nations United for Peaceful Astronautical eXploration, an organization better known as Nupax. Rita was sure that September 8, 2135 was destined to go down in history as the day she became a hero by ushering a new mode of astronautical exploration.

On the other hand, her assigned pilot was eighteen-year-old Ensign Caleb Saunders, the only son of Nupax president E. W. Saunders. Alvarez knew that the young ensign had been up against as much competition as she had, and she could see nothing that made him qualified enough to be chosen as the Hermes pilot. Alvarez detested the fact that her partner in the historic mission on which they were about to embark was only there because he knew the right people.

She fumed over her frustratingly-unalterable situation as the countdown to the launch of the Hermes reached T-minus one minute, thirty seconds. Having already triple-checked all systems, and having found them to be in perfect working order each time, Alvarez decided to force the frustration and worry out of her thoughts by replacing them with a review of the mission and its objectives.

The media, of course, knew nothing of the importance of today’s launch. To them, it was simply another in a long line of sleeper-ship missions in which the crews were put into cryogenic hibernation, shot into deep space, and reawakened decades later when they finally reached their distant cosmological destination. But as Alvarez knew, not only was this mission different, but it could potentially serve to eliminate that mode of space travel by rendering it obsolete.

The Hermes mission was the test flight of the top-secret, experimental Contaka Drive. The Contaka Drive, named for its creators Elyssa Conner and Hiro Mintaka, employed quantum energy as its main power source and was designed to make long-distance space travel more economically and scientifically viable. To put it simply, the Drive allowed ships to travel thousands of times faster than the speed of light, meaning that a trip that used to take years to make would now take mere weeks, or even days.

The quantum-ionic core of the Drive produced one byproduct: transphasic cronon plasma. The cronon was not just waste material, though. It was collected in a specially- designed pod for later use in creating a transdimensional gateway, or wormhole. When cronon plasma was released into space, the transphasic properties of the substance reacted with space to create a wormhole which lead to the hyperspace dimension. Hyperspace existed slightly out of phase with ‘normal’ space and did not have the same laws of physics. The two most attractive properties of hyperspace were that lightspeed was not the maximum rate of travel and that engine thrust was fifty times more effective.

Alvarez shook her head abruptly a few times to break her own train of thought. She had to focus more on the mission objectives and less on the technical specifics. It was going to be a struggle. Before she was ever a shuttle commander, she had been--and was still, first and foremost in her heart--an astrophysical engineer. That unique combination of background experience had been one of the deciding factors in her being chosen to command this mission, but it could also be somewhat distracting in that she couldn’t help but dwell on the marvelous scientific properties at work in the Contaka Drive.

Back to the task at hand, she silently resolved. Looking to the countdown clock, she noted that she still had about forty-five seconds until take-off. Before her thoughts could drift back to her animosity toward Ensign Saunders, she decided to quickly review what she would have to do next.

After launch, and upon exiting Earth’s atmosphere, they were to set a course for the dark side of the moon. It was hoped that the distance and the lunar barrier would protect the general population in the event that anything went catastrophically wrong with the trial run of the Contaka Drive. No one knew quite what would happen if a ship run on quantum power were to explode. Alvarez had long since decided that such an event was not an option. Assuming the Hermes wasn’t immediately destroyed upon activation of the Drive, a wormhole would be generated and the vessel would enter hyperspace. They would then set a course for the nearest star, Alpha Centauri, and travel through hyperspace until they reached that destination, monitoring the Drive the entire time for signs of trouble. Once at Alpha Centauri, they would exit hyperspace to confirm that they had arrived at their intended destination and then return home and contact Nupax Command.

The announcement that ten seconds remained until launch broke Alvarez from her reverie. She focused on her controls, but felt a slight surge of contempt rise in her as she recalled that she really had nothing to do until they reached the opposite side of the moon. Everything until then would be navigation and was thus in the hands of Ensign Saunders. She fought the cringe she felt rising up her spine, forcing herself to act in a professional manner; she was trying, she really was, but there was just something about that kid next to her that made her so . . .

She took a deep breath and looked to her left to make sure the little jerk was doing his job. Saunders caught her glance with the corner of his eye, and replied by turning away from his console to face her with that big, dumb grin of his and giving her a thumbs-up. By the time he had turned his attention back to his console a brief moment later, Alvarez’s annoyance level had significantly risen.

She tried to hide it--there was no way she was going to let the brat know that he had gotten to her--but she wasn’t sure she was succeeding.

Ugh, Alvarez thought to herself, he’s so arrogant! Who does he think he is, my friend? Well, we’ll see about that!

She started typing commands into her computer console in order to re-check the shuttle’s on-board systems, but realized there was no point to it. First of all, it was far too late to correct anything before launch; second of all, she had already gone through that procedure several times. But she couldn’t think of anything else to do; she was stuck strapped in her little upholstered chair until they were spaceborn and had their artificial gravity up and running.

At last, the countdown reached zero, and the Hermes shuttle was launched. Alvarez noticed Saunders arduously making minor course corrections and adjustments. As much as she hated him and the fact that he was here, she did have to admit that he seemed to know what he was doing. But that didn’t change the fact that there were navigators with greater seniority and experience that could have been chosen, and it didn’t change Alvarez’s belief that he’d gotten the job because he was related to the man in charge.

Continue . . .