"To become true citizens of the Cosmos, we have to do something that physics says is impossible: We have to travel, faster than a beam of light."
– Morgan Freeman; "Through the Wormhole"
Chapter One: FIELD TEST
"Yes Mother, it's just as I told you, they wanted to recruit someone with our unique abilities, something to do with "extreme environments"."
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"No, they don't want to dissect me!"
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"Mom, it's been almost a century since you even arrived here, you met dad here, why would any group of humans have hostile intent toward us now?"
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"I know he would have had reservations as well. I still have a hard time understanding why they would have asked one of our kind, considering there are several of the races that are stronger and more durable."
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"Look, the most I can say is that I was in the right place at the right time, and my education matched what they were looking for."
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"I promise to visit before we start the real tests. Besides, I still have several months of training to undergo before they'll even think about sending me anywhere."
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"Yes, I promise to call every week."
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"Love you too, Mom."
Moira Brooks sighed as she hung up. The young skeleton then pinched the bridge of her nose with a bony hand before breathing in, and letting out a breath. It wasn't as if her mother's concerns were completely groundless. The invitation had seemingly come out of nowhere, after all.
Seriously, what kind of professional organization just sends out invites to join a cutting-edge space technology project completely at random? And requires an NDA before they'll even let you look at the job requirements? Nobody, that's who.
But on a whim, she'd signed the NDA. And then all the secrecy made sense. As well as why they'd chosen her.
Darker possibilities aside, it did make a disturbing amount of sense to hire an undead as an experimental spacecraft pilot. Despite being classified as closer to a "Bone Golem" than a true undead like a zombie, being a Skeleton did offer some unique advantages. As preliminary tests had shown, she was far more resistant to sudden changes in g-force than even a wight, for starters. And her near-golem nature made her able to survive hard vacuum in the event of a hull breach. (The fact that she could subsist on nothing but pure mana in a pinch didn't hurt either.)
The most sensible reasons, she supposed, had to do with her near-draconic durability, coupled with her relatively short stature, at five-foot-eight -basically baseline human scale, unique anatomical features aside- and the physical dexterity her near-human digits offered. Of course, her unique complexion: a pale purplish blue, topped by silvery hair, and her reddish-brown eyes made it clear to even the most casual of observers that she was most definitely not human.
But for all that, she was still a person, and she was grateful that the almost exclusively human testing personnel at MHI had been kind to her. Their enthusiasm was almost infectious, and she'd quickly found herself caught up in the excitement. The first (living) pilot of an FTL craft! Although deep space FTL had already been achieved, so far it was only with unmanned probes sent to the far reaches of the Sol system, although those had done so with great success.
Now though, the competition had changed. While it had been a certain private corporation that had achieved FTL first, now that the technology was proven to be viable, every industrialized nation on earth, and several of the wealthiest corporations had all joined the race to be the first to send a living being (or one mostly alive) faster than the speed of light.
The fact that said achievement was also due to several mamono-led innovations hadn't hurt either… From emergency medical equipment, to true artificial gravity, to the exotic matter that even made FTL possible, mamono grasp of arcane energies - "magic" in the old parlance – had allowed for rapid advancement. Almost daily, it seemed, Science Fiction was becoming Science Fact, and several previously unobtainable devices and technologies were now possible with the so-called "Magitech" that blending mamono abilities with human science had produced.
But despite all the advances, it still took people with nerves of steel to test the first prototypes, and those brave souls would be forever immortalized for their achievements. It had been sheer coincidence that she'd been studying spacecraft metallurgy at Foster College when she'd received that letter. And now here she was, studying far more than her original college coursework, on top of grueling physical training in preparation for the achievement of a lifetime.
Eighteen Months Later…
And now, the big day was here.
All the physical training, all the long hours in simulation, all the time Moira had spent in classrooms and workshops having her head crammed full of knowledge, had led to this: A chance to be the first living being to travel beyond the Sol system, at a speed once thought to be only possible in the realms of fiction.
The young skeleton looked out of the viewport of the orbital launch dock at the product MHI had wrought. The finest piece of machinery human technology and mamono arcane science could produce: The Icarus.
At thirty meters in length, and twenty meters in both height and beam, she was a stark white, and resembled a tapered cigar with a curve-edged square cross-section, with the small domes of communication antennas sat atop her two sets of four radiator fins. If the craft's entire length were to be divided into fourths, at the demarcations between the imaginary segments, there was a wide ring twenty-five meters in diameter, and almost a meter long. These were the heart of the Alcubierre-derived FTL drive, and using three it was hoped would improve performance far beyond the traditional two drive rings previous unmanned craft had utilized. The wide bell of a standard fusion torch truncated the smooth taper of both the fore and aft ends, each ringed by nine auxiliary chemical engines. The smoothly plated hull was evenly pockmarked by the ports for cold gas thrusters, and the covers for retractable solar arrays ringed the craft's two middle segments, sat between the radiators, and completing the deceptively complex design.
As she made her way down the egress tunnel to the entry hatch, Moira took one last look at the vessel's identification. Emblazoned on the top aft radiator in a rich black, the craft's name, registration number, and pilot were proudly displayed:
XFV-01 Icarus
Pilot: Moira F. Brooks
As Moira shook the hands of the closeout techs, and entered her ship (her ship!), she thought back to the whirlwind of activity her morning thus far had entailed: The early wakeup, and meal of her choosing, the initial suit-up and final medical check, the flight to orbit, rendezvous with the MHI launch platform, and now here she was boarding her shiny new spacecraft. Now it was showtime, time to put all the preceding months of effort, study, and training to their intended use.
She quieted her thoughts as she strapped herself into her command chair, and responded to the final queries and checks by rote, the sequence long since having become routine, the product of countless hours of training.
"Pilot Brooks, begin umbilical disconnect, spool up main reactor."
There were the switches, exactly where they had been in the simulator, and her gloved fingers danced.
"Disconnecting umbilicals, spooling up main reactor, aye."
With a sound that vibrated through the hull, the electrical, water, and fuel lines disconnected from the hull, small clouds of crystals flashing away from the connection that held liquids, while a deep thrum reverberated for a few moments, as the Icarus' hot-bottle fusion plant came up to full power.
"Disconnecting docking clamps."
As the docking clamps released, she flared the Icarus' lateral maneuvering thrusters, and slowly drifted away from the Mishima Heavy Industries spaceborne launch complex in low earth orbit. Once she was clear, Moira fired up the auxiliary engines, and moved away at an accelerating pace, until she was clear to engage the primary fusion torch.
"Main engine at 75%, increasing velocity to 15 kilometers per second, charging capacitors from main reactor."
After achieving the desired velocity, the bright flare of the main engine died down to a faint glow, and the drive rings began to "spin" in their housings.
"Prepare to prime drive rings with exotic matter."
"Initializing FTL drive, priming rings, aye."
An observer would have noticed a distinct light distortion forming around each ring, as the rings were filled with the most important substance mamono arcane science had managed to produce: exotic matter, and their central channels began to glow faintly.
Snug in the lone chair on the Icarus' tiny command deck, Moira took a moment to marvel over how seamless the outside view was. Aside from a few heavily shielded portholes on the upper and lower decks, her main view to the outside was through a myriad of cameras arrayed along the hull. From her perspective, she was sitting at the front of a large transparent bubble, staring out into space with the earth below and to her left, creeping steadily across the night side of the globe as the sun broke over the horizon.
Glad I don't get vertigo…
Soon, the Icarus had accelerated to the appropriate velocity, and Moira sat back and enjoyed the view for a few minutes, until her craft was far enough away from the launch complex to break orbit as she crossed the terminator, and entered full daylight.
"Pilot Brooks, you are clear to engage your fusion drive, and break orbit."
"Roger control, now breaking orbit."
As the fusion drive flared to power again, the eight fins along the Icarus' hull extruded radiators, venting the excess heat the massive drive generated while in operation.
The resulting acceleration pushed her gently back in her seat, as the gravity plating in the decks automatically adjusted to the increased acceleration, allowing only the barest hints to bleed through, and inform the pilot of the craft's motion. Regretfully, Moira engaged the piloting displays, overlaying the spectacular outside view with the trajectory, velocity, and systems monitoring holographic overlays she would need in order to make history. To guard against possible difficulties if acceleration was stronger than the gravity plating could handle, the Icarus' attitude, throttle, and other controls were built into the arms of her command chair. (The fact that the entire chair could be rotated backwards in the event of dangerous levels of deceleration was another small touch that made it clear the designers of the craft wanted her to survive the experience, and for that, she was grateful.)
Orbit successfully broken, the skeleton turned test pilot shifted in her seat, rolling her shoulders to work out the discomfort of having to sit still for so long. The ride up to orbit had been smooth, but first there had been the launch pressure suit, then the shipsuit she'd worn on the launch platform, and now she was crammed into her specialized pilot suit, an entire R&D project in and of itself given her unique anatomy...
She could feel her outer "ribs" shifting as she stretched her spine. The suit was comfortable, but stiff, and packed with sensors, measuring both her vital signs (what few of those she had), and the external forces being exerted on the suit. Between that, and the fact that she was sweating into her suit liner, Moira was more than ready to take a break, wash up, and maybe catch a nap in the Icarus' fully equipped habitation section.
At least the air's fresh… She had to give credit to whomever had designed the life support system. The air was fresh and clean, none of the usual faint hot metal/gym-sock odor that permeated space facilities that were in use for a long time.
But that was for later, for now, she had to monitor systems, and ensure the Icarus was on the proper trajectory for the first big hurdle before accelerating to FTL velocity: engaging the ship's Ansible. The quantum entangled communications device would relay both voice transmissions and telemetry data back to both the MHI facility in orbit, and the main control team on the ground in real-time. (The fact that the device emitted no electromagnetic signals at all was good for keeping their testing results secure.) Along her outbound track, she would also pass several prepositioned marker buoys, the times she passed them allowing a more accurate speed measurement.
"Control, stand by for transmission cut-off, and transfer to ansible. "
"Copy that, Pilot. Taking down the big loop, transferring to Orbital-Ground loop, and ansible relay."
"Radio check: one, two, three."
"Copy that Pilot, we read you five-by-five."
"Attaching telemetry readout in three, two, one, mark."
"Telemetry coming in clear as well. Data demuxing looks good."
"Lining up for outbound trajectory, now syncing with guide beacons."
"Copy that, you may engage when ready."
It took only a few moments to line up the Icarus with the nearest guide beacon, almost a hundred thousand kilometers out, and "up" above the system's plane of the ecliptic. Following the beacons would take her to the edge of the heliopause, and from there into true deep space. For a test run like this, it was a good idea to stay away from the hydrogen wall, or the termination shock. From the first one onwards, the twenty beacons of the test were evenly spaced a light-hour apart. Their powerful sensors and ansible relays would ensure that as she passed by, her flight would be recorded and everything analyzed, from gravimetric distortions, to samples of her ion trail.
"Stand by for acceleration, preparing to charge drive rings, retracting radiators."
With a deep breath, Moira engaged the capacitors for the drive rings, flooding them with their first burst of energy, and continuing to charge them from the main reactor. The dark channels down the center of each ring now glowed brightly to life, with visible streams of energized exotic matter swirling past the check windows on their exteriors. As the fusion drive faded out, the extended radiators reeled themselves into their fairings with a faint hum.
"Drive rings charged, beginning gravity well generation, stand by."
Moira took another breath, as she flipped the organic "headband" atop her head down over her eyes, it was as if she had the upper frontal portions of a skull sitting over her face like a set of bony goggles.
There was a noticeable sense of vertigo, as if she was on a rollercoaster poised at the top of the first hill, slowly tipping over the edge. And then, the Icarus began to move.
The acceleration was barely felt within the cockpit, but to an outside observer, the drive rings would have flared even brighter, and it was as if the entire vessel had stretched impossibly long for the briefest of instants, before snapping towards the distant point it had stretched towards, while all colors of the craft red-shifted to darkness. MHI had chosen their launch window well, ensuring she launched on from the planet's day side, making the Icarus' drive flare much harder for their competitors to detect.
Roughly an hour later, the first signal and dataset came into the testing facility, along with the live transmission: "Passing beacon one, holding at .9c"
"Copy that pilot, you are go to accelerate to Two Lights."
"Acknowledged."
Aboard the Icarus, Moira let out the breath she'd been subconsciously holding. Acceleration to almost the speed of light had taken more of a toll on her on nerves than it had on the Icarus' systems, but the test was to accelerate to Three Lights, and there was a long way to go. Every second she accelerated, she was creating and shattering the record for the fastest living being in all of existence. It was such a small thing, the analog-style throttle lever she was pushing forwards, but the energies it commanded rivaled those of a small star.
Fifteen minutes later, the message came: "Passing beacon Two", and the test facility erupted in cheers. Everyone was on their feet, and the director was on the radio barely maintaining his composure.
Two Lights. Cee-two-squared. Four times faster than a photon.
"Pil- Moira, you did it! We've done it! You're the fastest person in the galaxy!"
"Thanks Control, it's a beautiful thing to hear you say that. I'm… I haven't got too many words to say right now."
Taking a deep breath, the director resumed speaking, but was unable to keep the grin out of his voice: "Well done, pilot, you are clear to accelerate to Three Light."
"Copy that Control, accelerating."
And that was the moment that things went Wrong.
"Control, I'm detecting a fluctuation in the number two drive ring. Diagnostic is reporting it as a harmonic oscillation."
The atmosphere in the test facility changed in an instant, as if someone had sucked the air out of the room. The director felt a ball of ice settle in his stomach. "We see it here too, pilot. Can you decelerate safely?"
"Negative, Control, the number three ring is now also reporting oscillation, and it's starting to build. Diagnostic reports destructive interference possible." Moira was amazed at how calm she felt. During her training, she'd read about how test pilots tended to remain calm, even when things were going catastrophically wrong. One article had posited that this was to ensure that whomever came after them knew exactly where things had fallen apart.
And now it was her turn.
Apparently, things began to fall apart at nine times the speed of light.
"Control, harmonic oscillation between the number two and number three drive ring has begun to resonate with the number one ring as well."
The craft had begun to vibrate, and now it was so bad it was getting hard to see, and Moira dared not remove her hands from the controls to push her "goggles" up.
"The harmonics are causing the craft to both vibrate, and oscillate in a rhythmic fashion, thrusters are unable to mitigate. Acceleration has passed three point five Light, and trajectory is unrecoverable."
In the background of the transmission was a rising hum, that rose to a wailing moan as her voice was almost drowned out. "Gravity well generation has failed, drive rings are overloading-" the transmission cut out for a second.
"Tell my-" there was a loud BANG, and the transmission cut off.
There was silence in the test facility, before the director began speaking into his headset. "Control, to Pilot Brooks, please respond." After a few seconds, he repeated the transmission.
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"Control, to Pilot Brooks, please respond."
As he continued, the technicians shifted in their seats, and began analyzing the data still streaming in from the telemetry readouts. As they broke the data into sets that could be analyzed, a timeline began to emerge.
"All right, so just after the 'bang', there's a brief mechanical sound, and the pilot's chair reports as having assumed Crash Position."
"I have a report from the number four relay beacon, it's a visual record, and the image is grainy, but it looks like the ship was still in one piece at the time it was taken."
"Look at that, it's streaming charged exotic matter!"
"We can surmise from this that all three drive rings were damaged seriously enough to lose containment."
"Can we reposition the remaining relays to try and set up a search pattern?"
"We can, but the odds of spotting her are slim to none."
"We need to try."
"Got something! Number ten spotted her, but only for a few seconds. She's definitely subluminal, maybe .025c at this point."
"Safeties must have kicked in, and flipped the drive field at the last instant."
"No wonder she isn't responding. Mamono or not, that must have felt like swan diving onto concrete."
"Hull integrity and oxygen levels are still nominal."
"The drive is toast, though. Integrity scans are coming back that all three rings are ruptured, and segments are physically missing."
"Fusion torch is reporting loss of fuel containment."
"Even if it was intact, the drive rings exploding stripped all the radiators, and dented the pressure hull in two places."
"It didn't break her back, but Icarus is in a pretty bad way."
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"Control, to Pilot Brooks, please respond."
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"Control, to Pilot Brooks, please respond."
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