Post by johnreiter902 on Nov 13, 2019 15:23:18 GMT
by ddswanson (October 30th 2008)
The newly-repaired spaceship Tiak Avenger, carrying Jim Chisholm and
Vic Valor on their quest, blasted away from Juneo, headed for the Rao
system, former home of the fabulous planet Krypton. After a day of
constant 1g acceleration out of the plane of the local ecliptic, Valor
was ready to engage the hyperdrive motor.
Jim was more than a little nervous. "Hey, Vic! How do we know it's
going to work, and we won't simply explode, or vanish forever, or get
smeared into a trail of atomic vapor spread across the galaxy? We
trusted the old boat once, and practically got killed the first time
we had an emergency."
"The Juneon engineering team and I did test the hyperdrive, Jim. We
put it on autopilot and had it jump 10 seconds out and 10 seconds back
and it worked just fine."
"Oh, great, a 20 second unmanned test. That makes me feel SO much
better!"
"Well, we could stay in regular space. It would only take a couple of
hundred years to get to Krypton and back. I'd hardly notice, but it
might get tedious for you." Valor had been interacting with humans
long enough to pick up on both ends of sarcasm.
"OK, let her rip" Jim agreed reluctantly. After all, the ship had to
be in better condition now than when they'd left Earth. Didn't it?
"Hypderirve in 3 2 1 Drive engaged!"
Jim felt an indescribable internal twist almost as if he was being
painlessly turned inside out then instantly the feeling vanished,
along with the universe outside the Avenger's port. Human senses were
not designed to function in hyperspace. Despite the mathematics that
insisted that there was a complete, complex universe surrounding them,
all Jim could see was featureless gray outside. Occasionally in his
peripheral vision there were glimpses of what looked like mist
swirling in a fog, or a curdle in a glass of milk almost subliminal
motions that were gone when he jerked his head around to look at them
directly.
It was pretty spooky, and he quickly turned away. "Now I know why
they have shutters on the ports." He was just about to ask Valor what
he saw through his electronic senses when he noticed something
alarming. "What's that shaking? It feels like my seat and the floor
are attached to a Magic Fingers machine!"
Valor shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary. A hyperdrive engine
channels a tremendous amount of power. No matter how well-constructed
they are, no matter how precisely tuned, whenever a new engine is
first engaged, or reactivated after a major overhaul, it requires some
fine-tuning. The adaptive programming in the drive computer should
learn to compensate and smooth it out in a couple of hours."
Jim was again amazed at the humanlike grace of Vic Valor. The
Valor/Marnu entity controlled the Valor battle suit extremely well,
including even facial emotions.
`Actually, I should stop thinking of him as an animated battle suit,
he's probably technically an android by now'. Valor and the Juenon
team had spent quite a bit of time building additional apparatus into
the body cavity of the battle suit, and Valor was no longer hollow.
`I wonder what new abilities he has?'
A couple hours later, after a lengthy workout in the gym with a
training android programmed with all Jim's knowledge of aikido (which
moved with mechanical precision but nowhere near Valor's grace), a
soak in the sauna and an excellent dinner prepared by the Tiak
Avenger's autochef, the vibrations had still not eased. In fact, he
was certain they had increased slightly in intensity. An instant
later, things on the table were rattling around, and the next instant
the ship was shuddering so hard Jim was thrown from his seat, and the
next instant the floor slammed upwards into him, throwing him into the
ceiling, which drove him back towards the floor like a hammer,
knocking him out.
He awakened a few seconds later, surrounded by a pearly white force
field, automatically thrown up (a little belatedly) by the Glove to
save his life. The shaking had ceased while he was unconscious.
Battered and groggy, he made his way to the bridge.
"Damn it, Vic! I think the ship's trying to kill me!" he yelled when
he entered the control room. "What the hell was that?!?!"
Valor was typing at super speed on a keyboard when he arrived and text
was flashing across the monitor faster than Jim could focus on it. He
didn't even look up when Jim screamed at him.
"There's an unexpected issue interfacing Juneon engine sensors with
the Terran monitoring computer" the other explained. "The computer
was interpreting the sensor signals wrong, and it set up a positive
feedback loop. Instead of dampening the vibrations, they were
strongly amplified."
"Strongly amplified?" Jim was incredulous. "We were shaken around
worse than when we crashed into a planet!"
"I told you the power of the hyperdrive is tremendous " Before Valor
could continue, Jim had glanced out the port. He hollered, much
louder than before
"EVASIVE "
*****
But it was too late. Something hit the Tiak Avenger, and she was
kicked sideways like a tin can. Though her nearly invulnerable
ceramic hull survived the impact unscathed, Jim and Valor were thrown
violently against the wall of the control room as the ancient ship
spun wildly out of control. Jim's force field protected him this
time, but he was pinned to the wall, unable to move, by the
centrifugal force. Though the field protected him from the crushing
affects of the awesome acceleration, it couldn't shield his inner ears
from the spin, and he was well on the way to being violently ill from
intense dizziness when he passed out again.
With his tremendous strength, Valor was able to dig hand and foot
holds into the deck and slowly drag himself to the navigation station.
It was like climbing a sheer wall in 10 gravities, in a Category 5
hurricane, only worse. The situation was outside the program
capabilities of the autopilot, as no one in the ancient Galactic
Patrol had ever expected a massive GP ship to be set spinning like an
off-balance top! So the ships automatics weren't going to be able to
stop the spin. Relying on brute force, Valor clawed his way into the
chair and using the ship's maneuvering engines, gradually slowed and
finally halted the spin.
Jim awakened in sick bay, attached to the Juneon autodoc. "I guess
we're alive but I'm not so sure that's a good thing" he managed to
croak out.
"The collision alarm was damaged by the engine oscillations" his
partner reported. "Still, the probability of dropping out of
hyperspace in a random location and being in the path of an object
massive enough " Valor started, but Jim interrupted.
"Until we're done with Wotan" he groaned "we'd better assume that
Murphy rules!"
Vic Valor on their quest, blasted away from Juneo, headed for the Rao
system, former home of the fabulous planet Krypton. After a day of
constant 1g acceleration out of the plane of the local ecliptic, Valor
was ready to engage the hyperdrive motor.
Jim was more than a little nervous. "Hey, Vic! How do we know it's
going to work, and we won't simply explode, or vanish forever, or get
smeared into a trail of atomic vapor spread across the galaxy? We
trusted the old boat once, and practically got killed the first time
we had an emergency."
"The Juneon engineering team and I did test the hyperdrive, Jim. We
put it on autopilot and had it jump 10 seconds out and 10 seconds back
and it worked just fine."
"Oh, great, a 20 second unmanned test. That makes me feel SO much
better!"
"Well, we could stay in regular space. It would only take a couple of
hundred years to get to Krypton and back. I'd hardly notice, but it
might get tedious for you." Valor had been interacting with humans
long enough to pick up on both ends of sarcasm.
"OK, let her rip" Jim agreed reluctantly. After all, the ship had to
be in better condition now than when they'd left Earth. Didn't it?
"Hypderirve in 3 2 1 Drive engaged!"
Jim felt an indescribable internal twist almost as if he was being
painlessly turned inside out then instantly the feeling vanished,
along with the universe outside the Avenger's port. Human senses were
not designed to function in hyperspace. Despite the mathematics that
insisted that there was a complete, complex universe surrounding them,
all Jim could see was featureless gray outside. Occasionally in his
peripheral vision there were glimpses of what looked like mist
swirling in a fog, or a curdle in a glass of milk almost subliminal
motions that were gone when he jerked his head around to look at them
directly.
It was pretty spooky, and he quickly turned away. "Now I know why
they have shutters on the ports." He was just about to ask Valor what
he saw through his electronic senses when he noticed something
alarming. "What's that shaking? It feels like my seat and the floor
are attached to a Magic Fingers machine!"
Valor shrugged. "Nothing out of the ordinary. A hyperdrive engine
channels a tremendous amount of power. No matter how well-constructed
they are, no matter how precisely tuned, whenever a new engine is
first engaged, or reactivated after a major overhaul, it requires some
fine-tuning. The adaptive programming in the drive computer should
learn to compensate and smooth it out in a couple of hours."
Jim was again amazed at the humanlike grace of Vic Valor. The
Valor/Marnu entity controlled the Valor battle suit extremely well,
including even facial emotions.
`Actually, I should stop thinking of him as an animated battle suit,
he's probably technically an android by now'. Valor and the Juenon
team had spent quite a bit of time building additional apparatus into
the body cavity of the battle suit, and Valor was no longer hollow.
`I wonder what new abilities he has?'
A couple hours later, after a lengthy workout in the gym with a
training android programmed with all Jim's knowledge of aikido (which
moved with mechanical precision but nowhere near Valor's grace), a
soak in the sauna and an excellent dinner prepared by the Tiak
Avenger's autochef, the vibrations had still not eased. In fact, he
was certain they had increased slightly in intensity. An instant
later, things on the table were rattling around, and the next instant
the ship was shuddering so hard Jim was thrown from his seat, and the
next instant the floor slammed upwards into him, throwing him into the
ceiling, which drove him back towards the floor like a hammer,
knocking him out.
He awakened a few seconds later, surrounded by a pearly white force
field, automatically thrown up (a little belatedly) by the Glove to
save his life. The shaking had ceased while he was unconscious.
Battered and groggy, he made his way to the bridge.
"Damn it, Vic! I think the ship's trying to kill me!" he yelled when
he entered the control room. "What the hell was that?!?!"
Valor was typing at super speed on a keyboard when he arrived and text
was flashing across the monitor faster than Jim could focus on it. He
didn't even look up when Jim screamed at him.
"There's an unexpected issue interfacing Juneon engine sensors with
the Terran monitoring computer" the other explained. "The computer
was interpreting the sensor signals wrong, and it set up a positive
feedback loop. Instead of dampening the vibrations, they were
strongly amplified."
"Strongly amplified?" Jim was incredulous. "We were shaken around
worse than when we crashed into a planet!"
"I told you the power of the hyperdrive is tremendous " Before Valor
could continue, Jim had glanced out the port. He hollered, much
louder than before
"EVASIVE "
*****
But it was too late. Something hit the Tiak Avenger, and she was
kicked sideways like a tin can. Though her nearly invulnerable
ceramic hull survived the impact unscathed, Jim and Valor were thrown
violently against the wall of the control room as the ancient ship
spun wildly out of control. Jim's force field protected him this
time, but he was pinned to the wall, unable to move, by the
centrifugal force. Though the field protected him from the crushing
affects of the awesome acceleration, it couldn't shield his inner ears
from the spin, and he was well on the way to being violently ill from
intense dizziness when he passed out again.
With his tremendous strength, Valor was able to dig hand and foot
holds into the deck and slowly drag himself to the navigation station.
It was like climbing a sheer wall in 10 gravities, in a Category 5
hurricane, only worse. The situation was outside the program
capabilities of the autopilot, as no one in the ancient Galactic
Patrol had ever expected a massive GP ship to be set spinning like an
off-balance top! So the ships automatics weren't going to be able to
stop the spin. Relying on brute force, Valor clawed his way into the
chair and using the ship's maneuvering engines, gradually slowed and
finally halted the spin.
Jim awakened in sick bay, attached to the Juneon autodoc. "I guess
we're alive but I'm not so sure that's a good thing" he managed to
croak out.
"The collision alarm was damaged by the engine oscillations" his
partner reported. "Still, the probability of dropping out of
hyperspace in a random location and being in the path of an object
massive enough " Valor started, but Jim interrupted.
"Until we're done with Wotan" he groaned "we'd better assume that
Murphy rules!"