"As for your first question," he continued, "We talked a little about the drive systems before. I guess you don't know much about starship propulsion systems."
Tor shrugged. "Not much. Schoolbook stuff, and what we talked about when we got hit. I know that we use the two different drive systems, but I don't understand why we didn't just use the second one when the f-first was damaged."
"Aw, Crap!" Valt interrupted. "Give the kid a book to study, and let's get on with the meeting!"
"Damn it, Valt," Jirik replied irritably, "We all had to learn, once. Go ahead, Bran." Valt grunted, but made no other reply.
Bran nodded. "All right, Tor. I'll try to explain it in words, though it really has to explained in mathematical formulae to make sense."
"You were right, as far as you went," he continued. "We do have two separate systems. The Inertial Drive is for intrasystem travel. Actually, it's a variation of a system thousands of years old called 'ion engines'. Basically, the fusion reactor powers generators which strip subatomic particles from atoms of fuel, and projects them through the tubes at velocities approaching C; the speed of light. So, the ID is Newtonian, used in the regular universe. Unfortunately, that's the system that we lost. That little pebble was wandering around the edges of this system at a relative velocity of thousands of kilometers per second, plenty of speed to penetrate the Lass from end to end, if we'd been facing that way. We were unlucky enough to be breaking out of Supralight just as that damned little rock intersected our course. If we hadn't been powering up the Inertial Drive generators when the damned thing hit, it would've just punched a hole through them, and would have been fairly easy and cheap to fix. But the generators were powering up, and ate themselves. Nearly total losses."
Tor shook his head. "But, why couldn't we just use the other drive to limp to Boondock? I couldn't believe how much that tow cost!"
Jirik scowled. "I couldn't believe how much it cost, either, This damned planet doesn't have a tug service, so all we could do was send out a call for help."
"In remote systems like this," he continued, "usually either lunar shuttle services double as tugs when necessary, or asteroid miners will give you a tow, for a fee. Boondock's three moons are just small hunks of rock that aren't worth developing, so there's no lunar shuttle. All we could do was hope that there was a miner who wanted to pick up some credits." His face reddened, and his scowl deepened. "That bastard that came out to us, though, was nothing but a damned pirate! If that second miner hadn't shown up, and got him into a bidding contest, we'd have had to pay that so-and-so ten percent of the salvage value of the ship and the cargo! As it was, it cost us an arm and a leg to get here!"
Bran shrugged. "Water under the bridge, Captain." He looked at Jirik pointedly. "If I may continue, the Supralight, or Inertialess Drive consists of a field generator that, when activated, creates a field which renders the ship inertialess. In effect, it turns the ship into a giant quark, removing the constraints of Einsteinian physics. The other part of the Supralight drive operates on a photon reaction principle. Streams of photons are directed through the same tubes used by the reaction drive. Since photons have no mass, they're the only things that can be ejected from the ship while it's encased in the field, and even they have to ejected through what I guess you could call a 'hole' in the field, though that really doesn't describe it. And please don't ask me how massless photons can provide propulsion. The only answer I could give you would be 'magic." There may be a dozen people in the Alliance who understand jump space and jump physics, but they would have to use mathematics to 'explain' it. We can't maneuver when Supralight, of course, and that's why a voyage is done in a series of 'jumps' between stellar systems, with intermediate stops for astrogational course correction. That, in turn, is why a good astrogator, like Valt here, is worth his weight in iridium. The astrogator can make the difference between large profit and disastrous loss on a voyage.
Valt smirked. "I'm glad to see that at least someone appreciates my ability!"
"We all appreciate your ability, Valt," Jirik replied with a wink in Bran's direction.
As Bran resumed his seat, Jirik had been watching the others' faces, which had become thoughtful. This was the first time that they realized that the parts would have to be manufactured, and the first estimate that they had received of the duration of their visit to Boondock
Jirik rose again to his feet. "As you can imagine, we're running our operating capital seriously low. I'm going to ask each of us to withdraw 200 credits from our Share Accounts, which will constitute our spending funds for the next two weeks. If we're here longer than that, we'll allow more."
Valt's head snapped up. "Two hundred? For two weeks? I can't live on that!"
"Not if you keep boozing the way you have been," Jirik agreed, "But I don't think you will be. I think that you're going to be too tired from working in this damned gravity to do a lot of boozing."
"B-b-b-but why, Captain?" Tor asked. "I'm not p-p-planning to buy anything special, but I'd like to know what's going on." He subsided into a red-faced silence, fidgeting nervously.
Jirik smiled gently. "I was just coming to that. As you'll remember, the original idea that convinced us to take this long cargo run to the Rim was that we would take the proceeds and buy a cargo of heavy metals on spec, run it back to our home sector, and sell it at a good profit. Unfortunately, a pea-sized asteroid scrapped that plan. Delivery penalties ate into our profit from the run. Repairs are going to eat up the rest of them, and probably dig into our operating capital.
"A couple of days ago, I checked into the cost of replacing an Inertial Drive Generator, and factored in a rough guess of the cost of repairs on the other one. I also factored in refueling costs, docking fees, and even the cost of lading crews if we do happen to get a cargo. We're not broke, but we're far from flush. What I want to do is take the credits in our share accounts, and try to chase down a cargo Remember, the old bitch is a big ship. We need to arrange one or maybe a number of cargoes that hopefully will let us replenish our operating capital and also, hopefully, get headed back to our home sector. As Bran mentioned, Tor, the Lass is too big a ship to try to compete with these Rim tramps. We've got to get back toward inner Alliance or Empire space, where we can operate. We're strangers here. We don't know the territory. We don't know where the cargoes are, we don't even know who knows where they are.
"I'm suggesting that we use our Share Account funds to grease palms, pay bribes, or even just buy drinks; whatever it takes to track down some cargoes that will let us get back to our own territory, with at least enough credits to refuel once we get there. I not only want your credits, I want your help! I know that I'm usually responsible for the Purser's duties, arranging and negotiating cargoes, and so on. But this time, we're all going to have to pitch in. Keep your ears open. Valt, if any of your drinking buddies are off any of these tramps, start asking questions. I've been too busy to have any free time, but that's going to change. I'm planning to begin socializing, especially with tramp Captains, Traders, and shipping agents.