Status Quo Read online

  Six months of research and development had produced a number of dead ends. Jim and his team and created a number of engine variations and injector modifications, altered pressure, combustion ratio and management settings. Nothing had worked. It proved to be a far more difficult problem than even he had anticipated.

  Then he had a breakthrough. The engine wasn’t the issue, neither was the injector itself. It was the fuel that was the problem.

  Quirium was odd stuff. Discovered by accident during solar surveys over two hundred years before, it was a bizarre, stable form of high energy plasma which, defying the established laws of physics at the time, happily existed at room temperature. It defied explanation for many years until some of the more esoteric quantum mechanics boffins figured out how it worked. In a nutshell you had the most potent fuel imaginable, which you could, if you so desired, carry around in a bucket or, more practically, pump into fuel tanks. Better still, you could scoop high energy native hydrogen plasma from the sun and through a relatively straightforward catalytic reaction, produce Quirium. Hyperspace travel, once the exclusive preserve of the fabulously rich, became mass-market commonplace almost overnight.

  Quirium worked well as a high-demand, short-duration energy source. This was exactly what you needed for hyperspace travel. For injectors, of course, you wanted the opposite. To make it work required a very inefficient reaction setting. Most of the Quirium injected during operation in normal space was wasted to prevent the injectors cooking themselves. It was this inefficiency that gave the engine flux its distinctive magenta hue. Jim viewed it as a kludge; there had to be a better way. Like most engineers ‘good enough’ wasn’t for him.

  He thought he’d found the answer.

  His ‘eureka moment’ came when he wondered whether or not he could use a Quirium isotope, rather than ‘natural’ Quirium, which would be more suitable for injector usage. It had not been tried before. The wireframe sims looked promising. Today’s test was the first real version, albeit on a very small scale.

  The engine note had increased in pitch with the Quirium injection.

  'Right. Stand by to switch injection fuel to test isotope.'

  'Set.' Geraint replied.

  'This is it then.' Jim said, taking a deep breath, 'switch fuel and cut injector rate to point-one grams per second.'

  Geraint hit a switch and they watched the engine.

  For a moment the magenta hue flickered back to the normal cyan, before the new fuel was injected. The engine sound had dropped and returned back to normal.

  'It’s stable,' Geraint observed, after a moment’s pause.

  'Power output?'

  Geraint smiled. 'Ninety-six percent of standard.'

  That was promising; not enough yet, but definitely promising. At a stroke the injected engine was producing the same power output, at one fifth the fuel cost.

  'Slowly raise the injector levels back to point five grams per second. Let’s go for full power and see what we’ve got here. If we can get to five times standard power we’re doing well.'

  Geraint programmed in the sequence and they watched as the magenta plume lengthened slowly. The engine tone rose commensurately.

  'Power output at three hundred percent of standard. Temperature high, but stable.'

  'Keep it going.'

  'Four hundred percent, temperature borderline.'

  'Hold it there for a moment. What’s the temperature rating?'

  'We’re at ninety percent of recommended maximum operating temperature on the engine.'

  'What’s its burst capability?'

  'Overburn at one-twenty percent for two minutes.'

  'That should be enough. Let’s do it, let’s go for broke.'

  Geraint allowed the injector procedure to complete. 'We’re back to point-five grams per second. Power output is… four-hundred-and-eighty-two percent of standard!'

  'Temperature?'

  'One-hundred-and-five percent of tolerance.'

  The engine was whistling loudly now, but still seemed to be running well.

  Jim let out a breath. A major breakthrough after all! The engine cooling was an easy problem to fix. With a bit of refinement on the isotope they should be able to hit that ten percent efficiency mark. Hyperspeed drive manufacturers were not going to be pleased.

  'I work the efficiency at about eight percent,' Geraint commented, 'Not bad for our first outing.'

  'Log the results, let's purge the tank and go again. They'll be loads of unburnt quirium in there by now, we don't want it contaminated,' Jim said, looking across at the display. He frowned.

  The digital readout had changed. The sound of the engine was rising, increasing in volume dramatically, its tone growing fiercer, rougher.

  Power output: 490% … 492%… 494%… 498%

  'Geraint, shut down the injector!'

  'Done. What’s the matter?… Prak! Look at that!'

  Power output: 512%

  'How can the power output be going up with the isotope supply shut off?' Geraint demanded. The engine noise was now a scream.

  Jim shook his head; this didn’t make sense, 'Shut down the engine completely. All off! Now!'

  Power output: 620%

  'Engine off!' Geraint called.

  Inside the test lab they could see the magenta flux was undiminished. Something else appeared to be happening, sparkles of white light visible in the flux.

  'Is that engine off?' Jim demanded, struggling to make himself heard over the noise.

  'Yes: no standard or Quirium fuel going in at all now!'

  'Then how the hell is it…'

  Power output: 845%

  The tiny prototype engine was glowing now, heated way past its nominal operating temperature. The engine flux was changing too, moving from magenta up-spectrum to a deeper blue colour. The engine noise was hammering around them, ringing in their ears, making the plexiglass windows vibrate.

  'We’re getting some gamma ray emissions!' Geraint shouted, holding his ears, staring at the environment scanners in alarm. 'High frequency, upper end of the spectrum! Gravimetric emissions too!'

  Jim was looking at the scanner readouts, trying to figure out what was happening. The whole lab was shaking around them. The fuel supply was off, standard and isotope both. Some kind of self-sustaining reaction was occurring, but what the prak was fuelling it?

  Suddenly he realised. His eyes widened in horror.

  The unburnt Quirium inside the test lab tank!

  Somehow it was sustaining the engine flux. The power output was increasing, he could see from the graph measuring the engine. It was continuing to grow exponentially. The noise was unbearable.

  'Prakkin' hell!' He shoved Geraint roughly towards the exit. 'We’ve got to get out of here! It’s gone into a some kind of reaction cascade!'

  Before the two men could reach the door, without warning the engine flux in the test lab suddenly contracted. There was a flash of blue non-light and the shields surrounding the lab flickered brilliantly, followed a split second later by the plexiglass windows shattering into a million pieces and showering them with fragments.

  A shockwave blew them off their feet and across the floor.

  Water sprinklers snapped on and red warning lights turned the room into a vision of hell. Sparks blew out from overloaded and shorted consoles and smoke billowed into the air.

  Just as suddenly as it began, the noise stopped abruptly. Silence crashed, punctuated only by the tinkling sound of bits of plexiglass.

  Jim crawled over to Geraint.

  'Are you ok?' he managed. Neither of them were seriously hurt, just minor cuts and bruises,

  'Yeah, I think so. What the prak was that?'

  Jim looked at the shattered lab. The prototype engine was gone, presumably vaporised along with the injector rig. The gravity sled was still there, but looked slightly odd.

  They both approached it cautiously.

  In the middle of the sled, centred exactly where the engine had been, a hole had been cut
. It was neater than the most accurate and advanced laser machining could have produced, absolutely, excruciatingly spherical, about two feet in diameter.

  Everything inside that space simply wasn’t there anymore.

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 2

  '… Unofficial reports of Thargoid craft in Galcop system space continue to increase. Sources close to the Galactic trading guild have reported that horrifying numbers of independent trading ships are going missing in various sectors and claim Galcop are losing control of the situation. We tried to get an interview with Galcop but were told a Galcop representative was not available for comment. Is a major Thargoid invasion imminent? Truth is, we don’t know. This is Anna Mereso, for the Tionisla Chronicle, Wideband channel three-eight-five-point-two…'

  Reet Tyley screened out the news broadcaster and watched as the automech droids loaded the last of the cargo aboard his battered old freighter. The Eclipse was something of a family heirloom now. A first-generation Boa, over forty years old and with more light years under its engines than a generation ship. It wasn’t the prettiest of ships, Reet hadn’t bothered with a repaint in over five years. He rather liked the ‘rat look’. Made the ship look down-at-heel and less of a target for pirates. Anything that helped with that was a bonus.

  His father had bought it years ago, then quite a modern ship, the replacement for his aging Python. He’d always been a stickler for having things tidy, what was it he used to say?… 'Everything ship-shape and Bristol fashion.' Some old prak like that.

  It had been something of a relief to the whole family when he finally snuffed it.

  Nobody had bothered with cleaning much since. Reet’s view was that as long as everything worked that was fine by him. Occasionally it drove his daughter mad. She’d shout them all down at the family table and storm off, vigorously reprogramming the mechs to tidy up, but after a couple of days it would all calm down again, only to be repeated the following month. It always seemed to be once a month or thereabouts. Go figure.

  They were docked at Tianve, a high-tech, touristy system, in the far north-east quadrant of galactic sector one. All the tourism was due to the fact that Tianve played host to the only known pulsar in accessible system space, other than that there wasn’t much else to remark on. Like many locals, Reet had never actually visited his home planet’s most famous sight.

  He grinned slightly. In the old days they really thought there were eight separate galaxies, until some bright spark had figured out that they were just eight different sectors of the same old place. That had caused a bit of embarrassment, coming on the airwaves just two short days after a major speech given by the then Galcop president about how marvellous it was that humanity now had dominion over half the Local Group. Still, presidents always said dumb things. That’s what they were paid for. He’d resigned shortly afterwards.

  'Cargo manifest is complete,' the mech reported.

  'Seal her up,' Reet acknowledged. It was time to leave. He was already getting station sick anyway. These Tori stations always seemed to spin just a little too fast for him.

  'We set?'

  Reet looked up at his son, Red.

  'Yep, round up the troops and we’ll be on our way. One hour ’til our dock slot.'

  'Who’s got the escort duty for outbound?'

  Reet looked at the roster,'Looks like Jante, Lance, Rebecca and Coran. You’re with me on the barge alongside Jenner. Rebecca will want the Krait, of course.'

  'Naturally. I’ll go get the family.'

  'Whoever isn’t sober, no rations for two days!'

  'Yes, father.'

  'That was a joke.'

  'Yes, father.'

  Reet watched his son go. Red was such a straight arrow; he took after his grandfather a bit too much. Tall, elegantly built and with immaculately brushed black hair, white teeth and an erect stance, he was a guy born a hundred years too late. He’d have been right at home in the chivalrous old days of space exploration. He had visions of being a bounty hunter, but an honourable one, striking down the bad guys and helping out the poor honest ones. Reet didn’t have the heart to disillusion him. There was no way it was going to happen. They started out as traders, and traders they would always be, eking out an existence ferrying anything of value between sellers and buyers. It wasn’t much of a life, but it was a life.

  A lot of people didn’t see how it could be so hard. You had a big ship, you loaded it up with cheap stuff, flogged it at a profit and made loads of cash. Reet had promised himself he’d kick the living guts out of the next person who asked 'So why aren’t you rich then?'

  Fuel was cheap, and you could scoop it anyway, but the running costs of five ships were huge, and that was before wages, food, air recyc, maintenance, insurance, tax, docking fees, berthing fees, flight permits, space lane tolls… it all added up. You had to trade damn smart to turn a profit. Sometimes you lucked out. Once, a market crash had cost them almost three months worth of credits. Many of their colleagues went bankrupt, some ended up, in desperation, as pirates. They were already dead. It was a tough life, with little in the way of certainty or security.

  Red piloted their best ship, though ‘best’ was, like all things, relative. Red’s ship was their only Krait, pretty well tweaked up, with a beam laser, shield boosters and an extra energy unit. Everybody else got the Sidewinders, which were – now what would be a polite way of putting it?… - basic. Beginners’ all-purpose space instruction craft.

  Jenner and Lance were Reet’s nephews, Jante his niece. They’d been working with him ever since their father bought the business end of a missile back on Riedquat. He’d had this crazy idea of flogging Leestian opex computers into an anarchy. He’d been a good pilot, with a dangerous rating, and flew a tough ex-military Asp. It hadn’t been enough. Reet had taken them under his wing when his brother didn’t return.

  Rebecca was his daughter, as different from his son as she could possibly be. Eight years younger than Red, she’d spent most of her teenage years undergoing ‘attitude readjustment’. The loss of her mother early in her life had skewed her personality. Reet had done what he could, but he wasn't one to wear his emotions on public display. The lack of the softer side of family life had shaped his daughter in a way he regretted, but could do nothing about. Life was life, no point in complaining about what you couldn't change.

  She was wilful, often reckless, but she was a damn fine pilot, clearly inheriting the ability from her mother. She was way ahead of the rest of them, already meriting a strong Competent rating, despite only having held her licence for two years. Virtually all the kills credited to the family were hers. She was vicious and tenacious in combat, her crowning moment to date was chasing down and killing a marauding pirate in a Python class cruiser on her own in one of their battered old Sidewinders, with nothing but a pulse laser. She’d achieved some notoriety at the Tianve station for that, even got on the news.

  Some muttered she might even make Elite, providing she didn’t get herself killed first. She was a risk-taker and notoriously selfish. Reet wouldn’t be surprised to see her simply cut off and run on her own one day without notice. She was utterly self-dependant and always had been. He suspected she did minor trading operations on her own, but she was admirably discreet. Some of the things she managed to acquire hinted of a credit balance more significant than her wages might suggest. He knew she was saving for her own ship. He’d caught her looking at Mamba flight specs at the last station.

  She was by far the youngest member of the crew, the others were fiercely protective of her. Reet didn't get the impression it was reciprocated. Rebecca cared about Rebecca.

  Coran, the final member of the team, was a hired hand, bought into supplement the fighter escort. He had his own Mk1 Cobra and kept pretty much to himself. You paid him, he did the job. He was a good enough pilot. Not spectacular, but reliable. Bald, with a jagged scar running from the back of his head to the temple and bright green eyes, he looked quite intimidating, but they’d never h
eard him raise his voice above a whisper. Even Rebecca at her most irritating couldn’t get much of a reaction out of him. He always seemed to be thinking of something light years away. Jante reckoned that he’d suffered some major trauma in the past and part of his brain had been hex-edited to allow him to cope. No one had ever had the nerve to ask him. That was about as much of a relationship as they had.

  Red found Jenner, Jante and Lance in one of the null-gee bars close to the station’s central axis. Red didn’t care for these places much, but his cousins seemed to find them entertaining. Drinking dangerously spiked chemical beverages in free fall wasn’t his idea of a good time, particularly when some of the patrons overdid it. Gave a whole new meaning to ‘wall to wall projectile vomiting’. The place was noisy, heaving with life forms, most of them not humanoid: felines, lupids, grubs and even a few insectoids jostled for space.

  Fortunately the crew were in pretty good shape, having only recently emerged from cram sleep.

  'Can’t be time to farking go already?' Jante asked. She was a short and slightly dumpy ginger haired woman. A great mechanic. She had a special ability to swear like a Galcop trooper. Red didn’t find it particularly attractive in a woman.

  ''Fraid so. We’re due out in under an hour. Dad’s waiting.'

  'Fraggin’ long haul this time.' Lance commented, knocking back the last of his decanter. He was their technician. A wizard on the computers, keeping most of the high-tech stuff running well. He was usually to be found hanging out of access ports tweaking the systems, his head and torso buried in wires. There always seemed to be another tweak. Lance was tall and gangly, he stood taller than Red at over two metres. He’d spent a lot of his youth in null-gee environments, which explained a lot.