Chapter 5

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer.”

~ Harriet Tubman

WarpStar

‘Forty-eight hours ago,’ John thought as he sat in his command chair, thinking of how he had got to that exact spot. Just two days ago, he was an executive officer for a crew without a ship, a ship that he had destroyed. How did he deserve to be sitting in this chair, when his actions directly destroyed a Federation asset? The Dreadnaught took an astronomical amount of minerals, composites, alloys, and other raw materials to create. Thousands of hours of hard labor of both man and machine to build, thousands of days designing and engineering the ship to fruition. The Avenger was an expensive ship, costing far more than the WarpStar would have. How could John be sitting where he was at that moment, with everyone knowing his actions caused the direct loss of something so expensive?

Despite the guilt John had for the Avenger, he was hopeful. The WarpStar was his child; he was responsible, this time, for her crew, for the ship. Three hundred lives are counting on him to make the best decisions possible. The feeling was surreal.

“Mission Clock at 10 minutes, sir,” a young junior officer broke John out of his trance.

“Thank you, Ensign,” he casually replied, hoping no one saw him in a daydream.

“Engineering, Con,” The Capitan called out over the 23 M.C. “Status on the power plant?”

“Particle containment holding steady, seventeen trillion positrons have been produced and are ready to try main power draw,” replied Lieutenant Commander Jeffery Donovan, the ship’s new chief of engineering. Donovan had served as a senior engineer on board the Avenger and was next in line to be the engineering chief. He had served under John when he was chief of engineering as well. The two men have developed a strong working relationship over the years.

The moment everyone has been waiting for had finally arrived. Fusion technology has already proven to be a stable and reliable source of energy for centuries; John had theorized an entirely new form of energy production, harvesting, and storage system. However, the technology was not feasible at the time, as there was no method to produce positrons at a rate that would make it net positive on power production. On top of that, there was no known method to collect the energy and store it in a way where the ship’s systems could utilize it. It wasn’t until the discovery of a mining operation on the outer asteroid belts of Orion that a rare and new metal had been discovered. Accidental explosions of the metal produced more positrons than have ever been seen in any controlled environment, and, a bonus, scientists found that with the help of a magnetic and graviton field it can absorb the energy produced in the reactor for practical use. The best news of all was the outer asteroid belt in Orion had more tonnage of this metal than Iron in Sol.

“Alright, here goes nothing!” John said as he scanned the room, looking at the faces of his crew. Excitement and fear ran rampant on the bridge. Both for the same reasons, a new ship is launching from dry-dock for the first time. A new form of space travel and a new command crew: all reasons to be excited and terrified.

“I have the Con,” John said, sipping his coffee standing in front of the Island observing the crew.

“The Captain has the con!” the Officer of the Deck shouted his relief.

“Commander, let’s get the word.”

“Aye sir,” O’Connell acknowledged the order while picking up his headset, opening external communications. “Utopia-Planitia flight control, this is F.W.S WarpStar, requesting departure clearance, and bay doors open.”

“WarpStar this is Utopia-Planitia Flight Control, you have clearance and authorization, retracting Dry-dock doors, good luck!” the operator replied.

John picked up the mic just above his head on the command Island and selected the 28 M.C. “Engineering, Con. Initiate fusion reactors, start drawing on main power, cut power from umbilical.”

“Con, Engineering Aye.”

“Sir, Helm reporting thrusters at 100 percent response,” Ensign Carr gave her report.

“Engineering reporting all systems drawing on the ship’s power,” Robert reported at Ops.

“Ops, cut the umbilical,” John gave the order, the WarpStar was no longer drawing power from Utopia Planitia, but drawing power from her fusion reactors. She was truly alive for the first time.

“Con, Engineering, main reactors holding at twenty-eight percent, main power systems are green, she’s alive, sir!!!” Commander Donovan said over the 28M.C. with excitement.

Everyone in the bridge cheered for a brief moment before the ship’s executive officer cut them off.

“Sir, all hands report ready,” reported O’Connell.

“Excellent.” With the mic still in his hands, John switched the Master Circuit knob from 28 to 1. “All hands, prepare for departure from space dock.”

The bridge crew held their gaze forward as they saw the giant dry-dock doors open wide from top and bottom, exposing the black void of space beyond the well-lit, brown and red interior of the safety of the Shipyard. The stars began to take over slowly as the seconds ticked by, finally ending with the God of War himself in all his glory, taking up the entire bottom view.

“Take us out, Ensign,” he said, smiling, admiring the view while sitting back down on his chair.

Ensign Carr gave a slight giggle as she turned back to her Helm station and started working the controls of the new and improved Manual helm station, which she was quite enjoying. “Aye, sir.”

The ship came to life as Ensign Carr activated the thrusters, inertial dampeners, matter deflectors, and other systems to get the ship moving. Now with the Spacedock doors wide open, there was enough room for the marvelous ship to exit the womb it had known for its entire life.

As the ship began moving forward, Carr stated, “Engaging aft thrusters at one-third power.” The WarpStar could be seen from many angles, but the forward bridge view screen was the most spectacular. Watching the dry-dock slowly fade away as the ship made her crawl outside into the void. Getting a glimpse of the escort craft hovering and patrolling the area, making sure the brand-new ship was safe during her most vulnerable time. They are watching Deimos in the background, standing guard from the cosmos.

“Oh, I forgot about this; ha! You are going to love this, sir!” Lt. Jackson started pushing a few buttons, and the bridge came alive. The walls from the viewscreen, to back all turned from their standard color to an active viewscreen themselves. Each section displayed their respective position, so now the crew on the bridge have an almost 360-degree view of the ship. The sensors are placed at strategic points, even parts of the ship could be seen in some sections.

“Amazing!” Henderson said, admiring the view. However, his attention quickly turned to the port side of the ship, where he noticed the sidewalls of space dock were getting unusually closer, and the Starboard side was drifting away as they were exiting.

“Uhh, Ensign?” John said, keeping his eye on the situation.

“I see it, sir, the Starboard thruster is giving me some trouble,” Carr said.

“I see it, there’s a problem in the power regulation, can’t compensate,” Jackson reported the error as he had just noticed it.

“Initiate a power subsystem bypass,” Commander O’Connell jumped in, impressing John with knowledge of some engineering systems.

“No!” Carr said, “I got this; we’ll just come out a little fast!” she said, as she adjusted power levels on the thrusters. The overall speed of the exit from the dry dock was faster than procedure would dictate, but the drift was successfully compensated. Within a few more seconds, the WarpStar was finally free of its berth and flying in the ocean of void that is space.

“Woah!” Carr said surprisingly, “She has some balls!!”

“Excuse me, ensign?” O’Connell asked in a slightly irritated voice.

John laughed a little bit at the commander’s response, “It’s fine, commander, just an old expression!”

“Yes, sir,” O’Connell said as he sat back down on his command chair.

“Sir, we are now clear of Dry-Dock!” Ensign Carr gave the news everyone was waiting to hear.

“Excellent work, ensign, switch to Sub-Light engines, and point us towards Neptune.” John gave the first order the WarpStar would receive.

“Aye, sir, course locked in, ship answering course Two Five Nine Four degree positive.”

“All ahead full.” John sat down and ordered the ship to move under its thrust for the first time.

All the engines at this point were fired up and running; the WarpStar whizzed past all the various ships in the area, which consisted of several military freighters, escort ships, and the F.W.S Independence.

“Sir, incoming communication request from the Independence,” the junior communications officer reported from the communications station.

“Let’s hear it,” John replied.

“WarpStar! Good to see you off, man, she is a beauty!” Admiral Briggs replied on the other end.

“Thank you, sir, we are on schedule and on course, proceeding with phase two in a few minutes.”

“Understood, WarpStar, we will meet with you at the Rendezvous in a month. Have fun!” the Admiral said as the comm cut out. Then the Independence vanished into the void, engaging her Hyperdrive and jumping to another system.

“Engineering, Con,” John chimed over the 23MC

“Are we good?” Henderson asked.

“The board shows green, containment is good, power output is good. The fusion core is holding stable; temperature is holding steady, currently outputting at twenty-five percent, F.T.L. conduits are active. I think we are good!” the chief engineer read off the WarpStar core stats.

“Excellent, let’s keep it up. Bridge out,” John replied as he put down the mic unit. “Helm, status.”

“Sir, we are on course and clear of any gravity wells. We are clear for hyperspace jump,” Ensign Carr said as she carefully navigated the ship.

“Understood. Nav, dial the Sirius Hyper-buoy and initiate handshake. Prepare for Jump.”

“Aye, sir, contacting Sirius.” The junior Navigation officer began the procedure to communicate with the Hyper-buoy in the Sirius system, requesting gravitational address information and prepping the Hyperdrive on board the ship to accept the address and initiate the jump. “Address received, coordinates locked in. Hyperdrive is ready.”

“Ensign, initiate jump.” John gave the order with a trace of anxiety. The destroyer that John had designed, and his first command, was about to rip the laws of physics to shreds. Tearing a hole in the fabric of space and time to travel to another part of the universe, instantaneously, was not an easy task. The prototype ship was about to make its first break of the known laws of physics and everyone was visibly nervous.

The jump was much different than what they had seen on the Avenger. Instead of a giant blue, green ball appearing out of the cosmos, ripping its way into existence, they had just seen the stars change patterns. Their position in Sol when they initiated the jump was already far enough away from Mars that the Roman God of War and the Greek god of Terror were nowhere in sight. The view of the galaxy was just a blanket of black littered by white dots that just changed when the jump was initiated. The Hyper-buoy in the Sirius system, like most other buoys in most other systems, was placed on the far edge of the system and was not in proximity of any celestial bodies of the system. Sirius itself was no more substantial than the dots of the other stars covering the blanket of the galaxy.