Interstellar Incident: An Alicia Jones Novel 02 Read online

  The gravity plates had to be set for the area gravity was needed, and by design, the field needed to stop at the hull so anywhere between the gravity plate and the hull was at one gravity, but beyond, was nothing. It had taken a while, but Kristi and I had a pretty good understanding of it now, how it actually works and the math behind it. It also gave me a glimmer of an idea, but I’d need to think about it for a while. It should be possible to project the field completely away from the emitter, although not too far away as the power requirements go up in a steep curve the farther away it gets.

  “You have a call from Nathan,” Al said in his usual unemotional tone.

  “Put him on Al… Hi Nathan, what’s going on?” I asked, possibly a little too eagerly because I caught a calm down look from Kristi.

  I could hear the smile in his voice when he replied, “Alicia, I managed to wrangle a few days off. I was wondering if you’re up to try our date again, I know its short notice, and a Monday night tomorrow, but will you be available?”

  “I think I could squeeze you in, what’s the plan?” I cringed at my word choice, at the obvious play on words. It had definitely been too long for me. Unless he did something really stupid, he was getting lucky tomorrow night. Assuming we weren’t interrupted by an emergency… again.

  He cleared his throat, “Just dress casual, I’ll pick you up around six?”

  I replied, “Sounds good, do I need to eat?”

  He said cheerfully, “No I have that covered. And by the way, congratulations Doctor Jones, I’m sorry I missed it.”

  I said softly, “Thanks Nate,” then in a teasing voice, “I’ll still let you call me Alicia though.”

  He snickered and said in faux gratitude, “Thanks Doctor Alicia, I appreciate that.”

  I laughed, and we talked for a little longer and then got off the phone. Kristi raised an eyebrow at me, so I had to fill her in on what was going on. I wondered where he was taking me, but a part of me didn’t care. I’d enjoyed pool the last time we went out, I was sure he’d pick something fun and not typical, like dinner and a movie.

  Kristi and I went furniture shopping online when I got off the phone. The apartment we were in had come furnished since it was owned in part by the school, and we had a house to fill up, or at least will have to shortly. Of course, we weren’t really buying actual furniture, merely the right to fabricate the designs. It didn’t take more than a couple of hours to design all the rooms in the house. I also had my main ship fabricator create a couple of more small fabricators. I’d be able to send two to the office building, and two to the house when things were ready to go forward.

  Both the office and house would take two or three days to complete after purchase. I was really thrilled about it. After dinner we vegged on the couch, giving our brains a break, and we watched a Netflix marathon of sci-fi shows until it was time to get some sleep.

  Kristi was in class, so when the call came in clearing the office inspection, I called my shuttle down and headed to Colorado Springs to meet the realtor. I also had all four of the smaller fabricators stuffed in the back. When I got out the realtor was smiling. She’d seemed a little nervous around me yesterday, but I guess she’d gotten over the fact I wasn’t technically human.

  Maybe the ten percent commission on the sale had something to do with that.

  “Good morning Miss Jones,” she greeted me.

  “Good morning, is everything ready?

  She nodded, “Just pending the funds.”

  I instructed Al to transfer the funds to complete the sale. A couple of minutes later the agent shook my hand, congratulated me, and turned over all access for the building A.I. for entry and ownership. I waited for her to leave, and then I unlocked the office to let in the fabricators, and had Al activate them to build out the planned layout and office furniture.

  I should my head as I closed and locked up, it was almost too easy since we didn’t have to go through all the lending crap.

  I walked down to a coffee shop and grabbed a latte, and then started working on a small gravity device. It occurred to me it wouldn’t hurt to have something that could protect me in a pinch. Tasers and guns were illegal to own, but there were no laws against gravity. Of course, that might change in the future, but new weapons were funny that way, no laws against them.

  I imagined if someone attacked me, they may have trouble doing so when gravity slowly increased to four G’s directly under them. That would make a two-hundred-pound man weigh about eight hundred.

  I designed a small gravity generator the size of a large marble, or maybe one of those super bounce balls. The energy source was small so it wouldn’t last as long as most reactors, but it would still last for about two weeks of constant use, which added up to a lot of short term uses before it would need a recharge of fuel, or a simple fabricated replacement.

  I started one of the devices building on my shuttle, using the missile fabricator for it and took a sip of my coffee. I was missing something obvious, and it was tickling at my brain. I tried to ignore it, knowing my subconscious would let me know when the idea was fully cooked.

  The other inspection still wasn’t done yet, so I started trolling the web for information on people looking for grants and assistance for scientific research. It probably wasn’t the best way to go about it, but I was looking at what they were looking into first, and then checking out the scientists that were doing the research if I thought the idea had merit.

  I’d thought about it, and the idea of hiring people the normal way just didn’t do it for me. Kristi and I already had our ideas and the intelligence to develop them. I wanted to help develop new ideas, not hire random college graduates that were looking for direction and wouldn’t recognize an original thought if they were hit on the head with it.

  Not that there was anything wrong with most college graduates, it was simply a bad fit for a research based company. I needed creative and brilliant inventors, not people looking for a nine to five paycheck.

  Although I did put out an ad for a building slash H.R. manager. Since we’d be doing research, I also put out a few feelers to security firms in the area, it wouldn’t hurt to have a single guard behind the desk to keep an eye on things and make sure nothing walked out. The building A.I. would also watch, but it wouldn’t be able to stop someone.

  Independent research grant requests were a matter of public record, so it didn’t seem like that bad of a plan. Of course, I wouldn’t be offering them just money, I’d be offering them a job, resources, and major profit sharing.

  I’d seen a couple of possibilities and had Al tag them for follow up when the call I was waiting for finally came in. The inspection showed there was nothing wrong with the house, so I got the realtor on the phone. He indicated he’d be there soon, so I walked back to the shuttle and went up to Monument at a rather sedate pace and flew manually, which was fun. Going up into space and back down for long distances were a pain to do manually, it required a lot of field modifications for each step. But just flying low in atmosphere was… really fun.

  Almost the same short conversation played out with the second real estate agent. He ported over the ownership and access to the house A.I. I set the last two fabricators loose when he was gone, and took a moment to admire the mountain view. It really was beautiful up here. Either way, I’d be able to move in a couple of days. I wasn’t sure what Kristi was doing yet, with the other shuttle she could reasonably move and commute quite easily until college was finished.

  When I got into the shuttle, my new toy was ready. I had Al take control of it, and was about to have him test it when I realized doing so in the shuttle would be stupid before it was calibrated. If my gravity field crossed with the anti-mass field.

  I froze… and then started laughing. I was so slow sometimes. The clues were all there, even all the warnings in the anti-gravity plating, that it shouldn’t ever be allowed to extend past the hull, for the obvious reasons. It made me wonder why no one had done it before. Then I realiz
ed of course someone had, the real question was, why hadn’t they been using it?

  I took the shuttle up to my ship and started a new design, a few actually. I wonder if the general would be annoyed with me, I’d have to show him the new toys when they were ready. It wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, a way to stop any FTL usage in an area would have been better, but this would be close enough… I was doing the research in my ship’s lab, because this would be my design alone, and not shared with the University.

  When I was finished with the designs, and upgrade designs to every class of craft, I implemented them on all of my ships, the big main ship and the two shuttles. It was late in the afternoon by then, so I took my shuttle back down.

  Kristi was home, so I sent her my new designs.

  “Hey, we are the proud owners of a business building, and I got the house being furnished now.”

  Kristi shook her head, “You’ve been busy today, let me go over this.”

  I grunted, “If this is as effective as I think it will be, do you have any designs for sub-FTL combat?”

  Kristi nodded, “I tried to make it as simple as possible. One is a simple software update, for the missiles I mean. We can tweak the field so that it weighs a couple of grams, and they’ll still reach somewhere around point six light speed with its current drive. We can even load it in the ships programming so they can be changed on the fly in battle. The explosion is the easy part, as they’ll just overload the fusion reactor on board.

  “The second one is more like… a plasma gun. It would require physical changes however. The idea is to use the anti-mass particle cannon with a few alterations. Mix the anti-mass particle field to contain plasma, if done correctly when the weapon fires it will be a directed thin energy blast moving at the speed of light. Think phasers on Star Trek. Obviously each gun, or cannon, will have to have a fairly robust medium sized reactor added in.”

  I raised an eyebrow, “And if it’s wrong?”

  She looked at me and said deadpan, “The ship blows up of course.”

  I started to giggle, “Umm, that might be bad, any other ideas?”

  She shook her head sadly, “Coward. Okay, I admit the system doesn’t lend itself to stability. I’m still working on it.”

  I had a thought and asked, “Have you tried narrowing the gravity field that ejects it? Perhaps just make the anti-mass particles around the barrel instead of inside, kind of like they are around a ship. That would give the plasma injected negative mass, but the gravity field that fires it can be targeted at the plasma only in the center of the barrel. It should work, right? As soon as the plasma leaves the anti-mass field it should turn into pure energy directed away from the ship. No go boom.”

  She giggled, “Yes, no go boom. Let me think about that a minute, it sounds good but let me do the math. I’ll also look over your designs later while you’re out. Oh… and no, I didn’t think of it. The only other thing I had as a possibility was a rail gun, but that seemed like a bad idea. Once fired they couldn’t be redirected, and unlike energy which will lose cohesion, it would keep going forever until it hit something.”

  I nodded, “Okay, could you send that missile programming up to my ship? And… if the other weapon works out have all my anti-mass particle weapons converted? I’m actually already doing all the other upgrades. I thought we could test them before updating the general. Oh, do you think we can call them phasers, or will we get sued?”

  “Yeah, I can do that if the math works out. It shouldn’t take me long to figure out if your idea will work or not. As far as a name, let’s just call them plasma cannons.”

  I tilted my head not quite suppressing my smile, “Probably a good idea. I’m going to get ready.”

  She grinned, “Have fun on your date. I’ll probably have this figured before you go, and Joe will be here around eight, just so you know.”

  I sighed and got into the shower. I’d never tested my gravity defensive weapon, so I had Al try a few things and run some scans, and get it calibrated while I was in the shower. It should work, but the effective range was only about sixty feet. Farther than that the energy requirements were just too high. When I finished up in the shower I did my hair, put on a pair of matching white lingerie, a pair of jean shorts, a tight body hugging white shirt, with a looser casual red blouse over it and half buttoned.

  I was pretty satisfied with the results, and it was almost six when I went back out into the living room. I heard Kristi’s shower going, and checked my A.I., and apparently my idea worked, because my particle weapons were being upgraded to plasma cannons…

  Chapter 4

  Nathan knocked on the door about one minute to six, and I was actually ready to go. I called out a goodbye to Kristi and opened the door with a smile on my face.

  Nathan was wearing a pair of blue jeans, and a plain gray collared shirt that was tight enough to be distracting. His blue eyes were glowing with approval as he took me in, and I smiled wider.

  “Ready to go?” he asked with a lifted eyebrow.

  I grinned, “Why, is that surprising?”

  Nathan shook his head, “You look great,” and after a moment of hesitation he leaned in and kissed me.

  I managed not to plaster myself against him with a little effort, it was a good kiss, thorough but short.

  “What was that for,” I asked with a smile.

  He took my hand and I wordlessly followed him down the stairs.

  He cleared his throat, “Figured I’d get that first kiss out of the way. You know, to save on awkwardness?”

  I snickered, “Really? Were things awkward then?”

  He shook his head, “Just a… redefining of things maybe. We dated, then you were my boss and we couldn’t… and now were dating again? Seemed like the thing to do.”

  I asked deadpan, “It was a solid plan, how about the second kiss?”

  He grinned, “You’ll be the first to know.”

  I rolled my eyes playfully and squeezed his hand to let him know I was playing. He opened the passenger door of his car for me and I slipped in, and I couldn’t help the light smile on my face when I caught him looking at my legs before he shut the door. I felt a little warm under his gaze.

  He really was a good guy, it’s why I’d been waiting on our third date so long.

  When he got in the other side I asked, “Where are we going?”

  He started the car and pulled out onto the road, “Well, my pool skills fell short, so I thought I’d challenge you on a different game. But first, dinner. Do you like German food?”

  “Sure, what game?”

  He shook his head and said facetiously, “Very cutthroat, and I won’t show you any mercy, I do believe the establishment is called putt putt golf.”

  I laughed, “Alright, I’ll try not to embarrass you.”

  He teased, “Was that a challenge I heard?”

  Miniature golf? Seriously?

  Actually after a little thought it sounded kind of fun, I hadn’t done that since I was a teenager. It would be novel if nothing else, and sounded better than a typical date. Plus, it was his company I wanted, anything else was up in the air as far as I was concerned. I loved the feeling I got from him when he looked at me, he actually cared, and wanted to show me a good time. Of course, that came with the attraction he felt.

  We chatted a few more minutes before we pulled into a parking lot. It was a German family owned and run Deli slash restaurant. The place had a homey atmosphere, and the food was very good. I tried the sauerbraten which is a pickled roast, along with a couple of beers.

  After dinner we went to go play miniature golf. I got a few strange looks from the family we followed, as well as the couple behind us, but they eventually stopped staring at me and I relaxed and started having fun. Of course, I was reminded quickly that miniature golf was less about putting skill, and more about figuring out the trick for each hole with a dose of luck added in. Skill was an element of course, but not a very large one.

  In short,
he cleaned my clock, and I wondered if he’d done a little recon on his own, in other words, played here before. It didn’t really matter to me, I had a really good time. When we got back to the car, he gave me that second kiss, and though it started out tentative, we were both breathing rather heavily when it was over.

  I let Nathan take me home then, and I spent the night and almost all of the next day with him. The real world just felt very far away during that time, and we were happily and passionately absorbed in each other.

  I was tempted to stay even longer, he’d only get three days passes every once in a while since he was deployed so much, and I couldn’t seem to get enough of him, but we both had other stuff to get back to for his last day, so he took me home rather late on Tuesday night. It was kind of a bittersweet moment, I was falling for him, but knew we wouldn’t do more than talk on the phone for the next… who knew how long.

  Chapter 5

  Kristi dragged the last twenty-four hours out of me as soon as I got in the door. She seemed both happy and concerned for me. I could understand that, it sucked seeing so little of Nathan, but the heart chooses who the heart chooses. I was happy enough about it, nothing was perfect after all.

  When we wound down, Kristi said, “Well while you were ignoring the world, I tested the upgrades today, and your weapon works better than I’d expected, and mine works as we thought they would. So you can let the general know I guess, after you look over the data. We also have a lot of applicants for the office position, and I found a few independent projects out there that need cash as well. Oh, and the fabricators should be done sometime late tonight, or early tomorrow morning, so we can move any time after.”