CHAPTER FOUR
-----JUMP-----
"Security?" I asked loudly as I walked into FTB CIC.
"Yes Admiral?" responded a Marine Corps Captain from the row of computers adjacent the entrance.
"Quarantine the Athena. I want a deck by deck inspection of the ship and a face to face check of her crew and passengers." I saw Beverley give me a stern look as I gave the order, but I knew she understood. "I want a guarantee there are no Hotel-Charlies in the group she just picked up from Scorpia." The Marine Captain nodded in understanding. At the mention of the code name 'Hotel-Charlie' he instinctively grabbed the handle to his sidearm before coming to his senses.
The Marine Captain said something into a corded phone next to his station, then rushed out of the room yelling, "Quarantine underway, no frakking toaster is getting on this station!" Then I remembered, he was one of the Marines with me on the Craton when we took out Stevens.
Major Biers asked Beverley, "What's a hotel charlie?"
I grabbed a folder of five pictures that rested on a shelf under the lighted table and handed it to Biers. The folder said KNOWN CYLON AGENTS and had the Colonial emblem for 'top secret' on it. "These," said Beverley, while looking at the pictures, "are Humanoid-Cylons. We know of five models with multiple copies. Through an exhaustive investigation, we have identified them as Shelly Godfrey, Sharon Valerii, Leoben Conoy, Aaron Doral, and Simon Davis."
"Tinker, jump the station," I commanded as I glanced over to the power stations. I saw the Power Allocation Computer screen and the Power Grid Status screen. We were in the 'green' so I knew there wasn't going to be a drain on the stations power if we jumped. Sometimes, if power isn't properly allocated, the spinners will not spool to achieve the necessary charge, and we end up wasting fuel.
"Jump the station, aye sir," responded Tinker. Commander Tinker went to work barking orders in the background. "Spool up spinners one through eight in ten second intervals, start the clock!"
"What's happening?" asked Major Biers.
"Give me a status of Battlestars one through six."
Beverley answered Biers, "This entire station is capable of faster than light travel."
Biers mouthed an 'oh' as Tinker continued, "prep for primary coordinates."
"Olympus is spooling up," responded a female voice.
"Rycon spooling," added a young man.
"Solaria and Universal charged and ready," said a young lady.
"Acropolis spooling," continued the first female voice.
"Erasmus is catching up," finished the young man.
I walked over to one of the many rows of manned computer stations. A teenage boy was sitting there with a headset on. He was one of the many internal communications experts on the station. He nodded in my direction. I spoke softly to him, in order to not interfere with the jump prep, "contact Craton, get Chief Slaton down here. And contact Athena, tell her XO to get down here with the salvaged flight recorder."
"Olympus and Rycon charged and ready," said the young man.
"Spinners one through eight are at forty percent," said another male voice from the back of the row of computers.
I kept talking to the teenage comm boy, "Also, when you call Craton, tell Marks I want him to assist in the inspection of the Athena." The kid nodded and relayed my commands to the appropriate people. I walked over and joined Beverly and Biers at the lighted table.
"Spinners one through eight are now at sixty percent,"
"Begin dumping the residual charge through the integrity shell."
"Whats an integrity shell?" asked Biers, again in a low voice to Beverly. It was obvious to me Biers was trying hard to catch-up on current events.
I interrupted Beverly before she could answer, "FTB is nothing more than a space station sized moon, hollowed out, and reinforced." I flopped a graphic of the framework of the station on the lighted table and continued, "you can see here the intricate framework along the stations walls. This framework is much like a geodesic spiders web that is laced within the crust of the moon. We call this the 'shell.' If you fly a Raptor around the dock, you'll see the massive supports that form interior part of the shell." I flipped pictures of the dock onto the table.
Biers examined each one and asked in her accented voice, "this must of taken a long time and cost more than one planet can produce in a year. How did you build this?"
I smiled. "We didn't build it, the governments of the Colonies did, and they did it a long time ago." I pointed to the old equipment around the room to prove my point.
Biers set the picture back down and asked, "Why do you dump power into the shell?"
"Spinners one, three, five, and seven are at one hundred percent. The rest are closing in."
I sighed. The answer to that was well over my head, but I understood the basics of it. "An FTL enables an object to jump from one position in space to another, near instantaneously, without the temporal effect caused by near light travel." I saw Biers' eyes glaze over. I let out a single laugh before I continued, "basically you pop out of the universe here," I pointed to an empty point above the table, "and reappear in the universe over here," now I pointed to a point on the table. "We call it 'jumping,' and the whole process is virtually instantaneous. But to do it, you need a way to make sure everything jumps altogether at the same time. This is what limits ship sizes."
"Spinners two, four, and six are at one hundred percent. Spinner eight is at ninety five."
"Shell is charged."
At that time, we heard and felt a hum from all around us. I continued, "when an FTL drive is activated, it emits a spatial distortion field that pulls everything in the surrounding area inward toward its center. This would be the moment you jump off the universe. What makes the ship jump with the FTL depends on two factors, size and strength, the size of the ship relative to the drive, and the strength at which the FTL is physically connected to the ship, and every structural point thereafter. Structure is important, because the FTL is the object actually jumping off the universe and it needs to pull the ship with it. Small ships are excellent for jumping, the ship to drive ratio is damn near one to one, and the structural point is the actual frame of the ship. A Battlestar is different. The ratio is about five to one, and the FTL is mounted to the keel, which is what the main supports are mounted to, then the cross supports, cross sections, members and so on. So when a Battlestar jumps, significant physical stresses try to rip it apart."
I took a breath as I saw Biers trying to catch up.
"We are spooled. FTL is ready for jump."
"Acknowledged, one minute on the clock. Sound the jump signal across the station."
"So when something this large tries to jump?" asked Biers.
I smiled. I knew she would get it. I answered her, "it wants to rip to shreds. But we keep it from doing it. The shell is a carbon composite alloy that, when a charge is applied to it, the molecules align, become ridged and strengthen exponentially depending on how much power you can get to it. It would be great to build a Battlestar out of it, but the strength of the shell is only in a pre-aligned bidirectional way." I saw confusion, "The carbon composite beams that compose the shell are only strong up and down."
"That's why they are constructed to form a shape like a dome?" asked Biers.
"Precisely. The FTL drive at the base of the tower jumps off the universe and pulls the station inward with it. The shell is what keeps everything together as it jumps. But there is a problem. The FTL isn't large enough to pull the whole station with it in the small amount of time allotted. So,"
"You need the six Battlestars to augment the stations FTL," finished Biers.
I smiled. At the time, I thought she and I would be new friends.
"Jump in three, two, one."
-
The small moon that was FTB Station, disappeared from its position in space. In less than a second, a brilliant flash of light had engulfed it. In its place, all that had remained of the moon, were a few clouds of dust, and few clumps of boulder sized rocks that had once rested on FTB's surface.
-
I couldn't breathe. I was outside an Opera House, looking up towards its massive double doors. I was wearing a black tailored suit that fit me like a glove. I stood at the bottom of the stone steps that led up to the pillars that framed the doors. In front of the doors was a little girl, who I had never seen. She smiled to me, then waved for me to join her. The moment I conceived the thought to join her and moved my leg in anticipation of climbing the stairs to do so, I was stopped.
A hand had grabbed my arm. I was frozen, unable to move. I turned to see the owner of the hand. It was Kara. She was wearing her flightsuit, gloves, pressure collars, and holding her helmet with her other hand. Kara shook her head 'no' to me. I understood she meant for me not to join the little girl. "You and I are on a different path," she said. "The little girl and the Opera House are not for us to interfere."
"How do you know?" I asked because I felt a strong desire to join the girl.
"They won't let you," said Kara as she pointed at the doors to the Opera House. Standing on either side of the doors were a man and a woman. The woman had blond hair, and was wearing a strikingly familiar red dress. The man was clean cut and wore a fascinating, pin striped, tailored suit. She looked like a Humanoid-Cylon, and he looked like a once famous scientist I used to work for, but I just couldn't put my finger on it.
They both glared at us in anger. "Who are they?" I asked.
Kara glared back at them. "Elemental beings from a God who claims himself to be true. They go by, and will receive, many names over the life of this Universe. Some know them as Prophets, others will know them as Angels. Zues called them the bastardize offspring from the Erebus." The man and woman began to walk toward us.
"Who are you? I know you're not Kara."
She smiled. "I'm. . ."
-
FTB reappeared. It reappeared one fifth of its way down its orbital path around the system, and north in latitude relative the systems sun. It was a distance less than a light year, but still equally impressive considering the size of the station. The position was carefully picked in order to maintain it's orbit around the system without loss in speed or distance.
-
We came out of the jump. My equilibrium was spinning, I lost my balance and fell down. Tinker and Beverley helped me up. "I'm fine, I'm fine," I proclaimed as I grabbed the table. The room was still spinning, but was slowing. I didn't want to appear weak in front of the crew. "Launch Raptors to standby coordinates. We have to keep the lighthouse on for the Oceanus and Metanira."
Slaton walked into the room with the XO of the Athena, Major Lindsey Cramer. She held a metal case in her arms. Inside the case was the flight recorded to the Carina. "Tinker, Beverley, with me. Major Biers, Colonel Marks could use your help inspecting the Athena." I looked to the young comm guy who I had spoken to earlier, " and escort the Major to Athena's dock please."
"Yes sir," said everyone in unison.
I walked out of the room, with my staff in tow. We were headed to another room on the same level.
-
D'anna left FTB CIC, with her escort, and made her way to the Athena. The travel time to the middle docking level from FTB CIC was about thirty minutes, then another fifteen minutes to the dock Athena was sitting on. So they had to go up ladders, through causeways, up stairs, and through hatches. The process was long, and confusing, but the teenage boy helped her out by leading the way.
They finally arrived to the middle docking level. Once there, a large circular corridor ran the circumference of the docking level, so passage to Athena would be easy. D'Anna noticed that every hundred feet there were pressure doors that were designed to seal in the event of a atmospheric breach. She also noticed how void this corridor was of people. There were thousands of people on the station, but only officers had need to access the ships. The civilians stayed in the converted tunnels, caverns, and caves below the dock.
Along the way, they walked past an accordion like retractable causeway that connected to one of the exterior pressure hatches on the Battlecruiser Craton.
ACCESSING HIGHER COMMAND FUNCTIONS
SLEEP MODE::SUSPENDED
PROGRAM 7A::ACTIVATED
MISSION OBJECTIVES::
1. ENTER CRATON, PROCEED TO NET ADMIN OFFICE, UNDETECTED
2. NEED TO KNOW PENDING COMPLETION OF OBJECTIVE 1
3. NEED TO KNOW PENDING COMPLETION OF OBJECTIVE 2
4. NEED TO KNOW PENDING COMPLETION OF OBJECTIVE 3
The teenage boy felt a tingling sensation as his neck was snapped violently to the right, severing his spinal cord from his brain. Then everything was dark.