“Commander, what’s it like on Earth?” The young officer asked.
“I know it’s not healthy, but I wish I had some of that coffee, the humans drink,” Forte said shaking his head. “The main thing to remember about Earth is that, out of its seven billion people, less than fifty thousand even know of our existence. Most of our contact with humans will be limited to the government agents with whom we work. We will be allowed out into the world to interact with the public on a very limited basis and only under strict protocols. The penalty for revealing our identity to unauthorized humans is death.” Forte gathered his thoughts for a moment. “The last time I was on Earth, Harry Truman was President of the United States of America. They had just developed the atom bomb and could barely achieve flight within their own atmosphere. Since then, with our assistance, they have developed antimatter reactors, invisibility cloaks, and space flight within their own solar system. The Earth we see in a few days will be very different than the one I left.”
Cordatus interjected, “Most of that advancement is due to the teams of scientists we left there. Why do only a few humans share in the technology we give them?”
“That’s not exactly true. Most humans have benefited from the technology we help them engineer; and they just don’t know it came from us. Most humans believe that their technological advances come from the work of human scientists,” Forte corrected him.
“This is a great breakfast,” the baby-faced Officer interjected, “it feels like I haven’t eaten in years.”
Cordatus chuckled. “That never gets old. I will have to thank the cooks for doing a great job this morning. Hey kid, do you even have to shave yet?”
The young man looked a little embarrassed. “No, I’m only sixty years old; this is my first assignment.”
Cordatus lifted his mug, as if to toast: “I would give anything to be sixty again - with my whole life ahead of me.”
Commander Forte said, “I’m glad we wake up the cooks first.” As the four finished off their breakfast, the galley was filling with newly awakened crew members.
“Shall we head up to the helm and relieve the crew. They have been standing watch for quite a while,” asked Forte, as he pushed himself away from the table.
Cordatus stood up and said, “Time to get to work.”
After thanking the cooks for the healthy breakfast, the men walked through the corridor that lead to the elevators., filed in, and headed up five levels to the command center located near the top of the ten-story tower at the stern of the ship.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Impegi was nearly 600 years old and had been transporting cargo in outer space for 570 of those years. The super structure was 1,700 feet long, 200 hundred feet wide, 300 feet high and could carry more than 270,000 tons. The Impegi was a Gerulus class vessel which meant its primary function was to transport large amounts of materials to distant planets, whether for colonization or trade. The ship had a long cigar-like shape and closely resembled an ocean going super container ship. The ten-story tower at the stern of the ship, housed the crew’s quarters, the LTS chamber, communications equipment, and the command center.
Even though it was designed primarily for transporting cargo, it was equipped with a modest arsenal of defensive weapons. The Impegi was equipped with one hundred positron torpedoes and an antiproton electromagnetic pulse weapon, which was capable for firing over 70,000 high intensity energy bolts per second. Not enough to wage war, but enough to defend against pirates or lesser developed species, like humans.
The Impegi was designed to operate with as few as fifty crewmen, but could comfortably house over 100 without retrofitting any sections of the ship. Since it was designed for long distance travel, and many of its destinations took over twenty years to reach, the ship was outfitted with LTS chambers, or long-term-sleep chambers. These chambers would slow the crewman’s metabolism and place him in a deep, dreamless sleep for years at a time. While sleeping in the chamber, the crewman would age at a fifty percent slower rate. The Vitahician scientists were working on a way to completely stop the aging process during LTS, but had not yet achieved success on that front. Once they could calibrate the LTS to slow the aging process down to zero, then they could attempt to send a ship to another galaxy.
On a typical voyage, the crew would take shifts operating the ship, while the rest were in the LTS chambers. Ten crew members would stand watch and monitor the ships functions for any problems. If there was a serious issue, they would pull the Commander out of LTS; otherwise, they were capable of handling most routine tasks. There was very little for the ten on-duty crewmen to do, as the Impegi’s computer did all the calculations. The ship was essentially on autopilot while traveling at FTL speed. With a crew of fifty, each crew member would sleep for several years and then serve a few months on duty; this cycle would continue until they reached their destination.
The most impressive bit of armament was not the pulse weapon or the torpedoes, but the nanobot reinforced plasma shield. The plasma shield would protect the vessel from attacking pirates or, more likely, an unidentified asteroid or space debris. Not even the advanced minds of the Vitahicians could accurately plot a collision-free course through space at twenty times the speed of light, taking into account the stars, planets, asteroids and space debris. It would be nearly impossible to navigate around these things at such speeds. The ship’s computer would calculate and recalculate the trajectories of all celestial bodies while they were traveling, but inevitably some small objects would be missed. If the Impegi were to run into a small asteroid or space debris while traveling, the plasma shield would repel the foreign object. If the object were to pass through the plasma shield, within a fraction of a millisecond, billions of nanobots would be shot at the object. The nanobots were designed to interact with and dissolve the object into a fine mist. Finally, the Impegi was equipped with an outdated optical stealth shield which would cloak the ship from the naked eye and radar. The optical shield was original to the ship; even though there had been numerous advances to the optical technology, there had never been any reason to update it on this ship.
The Impegi was powered by six antimatter injected nuclear fusion reactors that powered local propulsion and an electromagnetic propulsion drive. This would bend space and time around the ship, allowing it to reach speeds of up to twenty times the speed of light. The ship itself did not travel faster-than-light; it existed within a bubble that compressed time and space directly in front of the ship and expanded it behind the ship. While traveling at FTL speeds, the crew would not experience time differently than normal; however, people on their home world would seem to age more quickly. When the ship was not traveling in excess of the speed of light, the antimatter reactors would simply power the thrusters, which could bring the ship to speeds over 450,000 miles per hour.
The ship had 100 crew and passengers on board for its final mission. All crew members had volunteered knowing that they would likely never return home.
Commander Forte, and the three other officers stepped out of the elevator onto the ship’s helm. The helm was sixty feet long and forty feet deep. The entire length of the command center was transparent so that officers at the helm could get a panoramic view of space. When traveling at light speed, or while under attack, an armored shield would slide down over the window for additional protection. The shield was not currently in use, so all those at the helm could see the infinite sea of stars before them. The helm had numerous large display monitors that tracked everything from positioning, course plotting, fuel consumption, life support, systems analysis, cargo holds, and reactor performance.