Preparations made, the G5496 pulled out of orbit and away from EcoHope 11. Dank and Trixie May joined Junior on the command deck to watch the planet gradually fade into a tiny, indecipherable speck in the distance.
The three went down to the equipment room to examine the latest repairs and modifications to Firebird. The oily mess was completely gone, along with the source. Dank had completely removed the engine block and alternator and fitted brackets for a portable fusion unit to be wired in.
Replacing the combustion engine with a modern, clean burning fusion unit would lower the weight of Firebird while increasing the efficiency a thousand fold.
He had repaired the damage from the fights and fitted larger, and theoretically higher power capacitors in all the motivators and dropped the old stones into the ship's inventory.
Dank had also solved the mystery of the still-powered but darkened Beater. The electrical jolt of the energy field launcher had hyper powered the capacitors, but it had simultaneously burned out every LED in every joint. He had replaced these with industrial quality lighting units which had built in regulators. The comforting blue glow would return as soon as she was powered up.
"What else do you need?" Junior asked, running has hand along the sleek, recently painted forearm. Even the emblem gleamed under the heatless, omnidirectional lighting.
"I need one of them fusion units, but I need executive approval to pull one," Dank replied.
"I can get you that," Junior promised.
"I also need a place to test her out," Dank added, "and maybe one of them control units I read about."
"I'll add that to the list," Junior agreed.
"And a dedicated staff to fan me and feed me grapes," Dank tacked on.
"Don't press your luck, Dank."
Chapter Thirty Two Interlude
File: Datanet Core Server Gamma Kappa One Hundred and Forty Two, Galactic Travel, Era: Modern -0, Index Earth Prime Protection Force, Training, Data Supplied by Datanet Press Corps
Interplanetary travel is a credit to the Faithful scientists of the Benevolent States United. While chemically fueled rockets have long been capable of traveling long distances through the resistance-free expanses of open space, it can take one of these rockets hundreds of years to reach its destination.
Earth Prime Protection Force vessels travel within systems using basic fusion systems and travel long distances using two new technologies which are detailed below.
The first is a solar sail. Deployed as soon as a vessel leaves the shadow of a planet, these sails harness solar particles to propel a ship forward with velocity that accumulates gradually but does not deplete itself.
The second technology involves the processing power of our Datanet systems, which calculate the effects of gravitational fields of nearby stars and uses them to propel the starship into faster and faster speeds.
Through these methods, journeys that would have taken the Faithful hundreds of or thousands of years can be completed in a few short weeks or months.
Limitations exist with this technology, as with all advances. First, setting up the solar sails is very labor intensive, as is taking them down at the end of the voyage. More importantly, actual speed of travel varies depending on region and fluctuations in the gravitational tides, making interplanetary journeys somewhat unpredictable.
The G5496, sails expanded, seemed to almost fall through space towards Earth Prime. Junior tried to avoid staring out the front glass because the stars moving past in the sea of inky black gave him a horrible feeling of vertigo.
Instead, he spent time on the training deck familiarizing himself with the upgrades to Firebird, helping Dank make the modifications in the equipment bay, sitting in the lounge with Trixie May and a cup of caf or studying Earth Prime Protection Force policies and procedures in his quarters.
The trip to Earth Prime was scheduled to take over a month and the crew on the bridge seemed fairly certain thy would arrive within twenty four hours of their target.
Junior had never even seriously considered the possibility of visiting Earth Prime before he had found himself on his way there.
He found himself with almost too much time to consider the ramifications. He knew only what he had read or been taught about Earth Prime. He had seen pictures and vidcasts, watched old Earth movies and heard the stories of the last war on Earth.
He wondered how the people of Earth Prime, especially the government officials of the Benevolent States United, would accept he and Dank and Trixie May.
He hoped that his reluctance to make the journey alone hadn't condemned his friends to death.
Things with the crew had settled down considerably since Dank had thrown his beer party in the training deck. Junior and Trixie May had forced McComb to fly them back to the surface to resupply before they had left orbit. His first command lesson had been profound: Beer is a powerful motivator.
Junior hoped to better cement his bond with the crew before they arrived at Earth Prime. He got the feeling that most of the men, outside of senior command liked him, he just wasn't sure they were prepared to listen to him.
While he slept, he played subliminal management training recordings in his cabin and he studied up on Earth Prime history and culture whenever possible.
According to the Datanet, Earth Prime was a glorious utopia free of disease, hunger, war, and poverty. It was the dream of those on EcoHope 11 to live such a life, and Junior felt divinely fortunate just to be seeing it. It took about a week, with McComb's help, for Junior to start reliably using the computer system in his quarters. After that, he started absorbing information as quickly as it could be displayed.
He also spent hours every day on the training deck, working out with the rest of the troops.
