Chapter 53: Star People Side Story 9: Prototypes Part 1

Star People

Side Story 9

Prototypes Part 1

Polaris City, May 26^th, 13 AE…

“Ow!” Jeremy Critton groaned as his associate Gerald Forks applied a cellular regenerator on the spot of Jeremy’s forehead where the rubber ball had hit him. The bruise began to fade away.

“Why did you throw that ball so hard?” Gerald asked. “You only needed to toss it into the portal, not chuck it like a fastball.”

“I didn’t think it would have enough momentum to make it to the other side.” Jeremy asked as the pain subsided. He then got up and dusted off his pants. He gave the teleportation portal a glare before turning back to the group of scientists and engineers in the facility. “This damn thing still has a lot of glitches to work out!”

“Yes, we agree.” A blonde, green-eyed woman agreed. This was Angela Reddins, one of the chief researchers in quantum physics. “Your little accident did prove a few things.”

“Like what?” Jeremy asked as he took a sip of coffee from a mug on a nearby table.

“You had the right idea to give the ball some momentum. However, there’s just no way to guide that ball through to the exit portal. Unless you want to attach a miniature hyperspace thruster to that ball.”

“That would defeat the whole purpose of this teleportation system.” Gerald pointed out. “We want to move things and people from one place to another, without having to rely on a hyperdrive. The warp-field generator can warp the space, no problem. The problem is trying to navigate what is essentially a wormhole.”

“So basically, we need some kind of outside guidance in order for the object or person to move through the warped space and out the other end.” Jeremy hypothesized.

“I don’t know of any equation or theory that can do that.” Angela remarked. “And it’s not like the answer will just appear like magic.”

“Funny you should mention magic.”

Everyone looked toward the source of the new voice and was surprised to see the Terran Prime Director and two dwarves standing near the entrance to the testing laboratory.

“Prime Director Roderas! What are you doing here?” Angela asked as she and her colleagues straightened up in front of one of the members of the Council.

Benjamin smiled as he gestured to his two dwarven companions. “This is Clurke and Vulkar. I trust you know of them?”

“Of course!” Angela remarked as she walked over to them and knelt down and addressed the two dwarves. “You’re the ones who created the Neo-Psion reactor, right?”

“Yes, we did.” Clurke acknowledged as he and his son shook hands with her. “And Director Roderas believes that my people may have the key to solve your problems with this… teleportation system?”

“Really?!” Gerald exclaimed while the other scientists and engineers were also surprised.

Clurke walked over to where the prototype teleportation portals were and looked over their general configuration.

“Hmmm… you Free Landers are on the right path. These devices look very similar to our Gate Magic portals.”

“What’s a Gate Magic portal?” Jeremy asked.

“It’s best that I show you.” The dwarf engineer turned back to the Terran Prime Director. “We need to get back to the Kingdom of Merin.”

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Kingdom of Merin, May 28^th, 13 AE…

 “Ah yes! Mithril Mine Number Ninety-Nine! I have many fond memories of my youth here!” Clurke said as he, his son and a group of Free Land scientists and engineers stood at the foot of a large mountain, at the entrance to a deep and very busy mine.

A steady stream of dwarf miners and blacksmiths came in and out of the entrance. Those who entering the mine were pushing mine carts filled with tools and supplies. Those who were exiting the mine were pushing carts laden with raw, unprocessed metal ore.

“Mithril? Isn’t that the mythical metal that is extremely conductive to magic?” Angela asked.

“Yes, indeed it is.” Clurke stated as he and Vulkar put on hard hats that had magic light stones on the front to illuminate the darkness like a flashlight. “Mine number ninety-nine is filled with an abundance of metals, which include iron, copper, silver and gold. However, in the deepest part of the mine, there is a huge vein of mithril. The vein is so vast, that it would take even us dwarves eons to mine it all out!”

“How deep is this mine?”Jeremy asked as he and his compatriots put on hard hats as well.

“By the time I stopped working here, it was already 2 kilometers deep. That was about fifty years ago.  I believe it is now 3 kilometers deep. However, we are not here for mithril. You are interested in our Gate Magic portals, correct?”

“Yes we are.” Gerald replied.

“Very well. Step lively and follow me!”

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Thirty minutes later, the group was twelve levels down and had traveled more than a kilometer below the surface. Fortunately for them, the air remained fresh due to the magical wind gemstones that were embedded in the walls. The gems also maintained a constant atmospheric pressure so that none of the miners or visitors suffered the effects of decompression sickness.

During their descent, the group passed by several metal arches that resembled their prototype teleportation portal. Each one was about eight feet high, three feet wide, glowed with a greenish light and would flicker momentarily whenever a miner would come out of or disappear into an arch. Each portal was spaced out from each other at an average distance of 100 to 200 meters between them. And each one had a panel next to them with dwarf runes inscribed on them.

Clurke and Vulkar walked up to an arch and began explaining how it worked. At the same time, Jeremy took out a portable sensor module and turned it on.

Clurke went first. “Okay. Now you have to set the control panel if you want to go up or down, or if you want to move forward or backwards a bit. For example, let’s say I want to go to that gate over there.” He gestured to his left to a portal that was about a hundred meters away. He tapped the rune on the left side of the panel and then stepped into the arch. The arch opened up a brief circle of light as the dwarf vanished into it. The light immediately blinked out afterwards.

“Where did he go?” Angela asked.

“He’s over there.” Vulkar stated as he pointed to the distant portal. Sure enough, Clurke was standing a hundred meters away and waving his arms. A few seconds later, he worked the control panel of that arch and stepped into it. The arch beside the group briefly glowed again as Clurke stepped out of the circle of light.

“And there you go.” Clurke said with a smile. “Easy, right?”

Jeremy looked down at his sensor readout with an astonished expression. “I don’t believe it! You actually disappeared for a second, and there’s no record of you traversing that distance!”

“Let me try that!” Gerald announced as he walked up to the control panel and addressed Vulkar. “I want to go two floors up. How do I do that?”

Clurke’s son pointed to the top of the panel. “Tap that rune twice. The maximum distance you can go up or down is three floors, so if you want to go that far, you tap it three times. If you want to go down, you tap that bottom rune the number of floors you want.”

The Terran scientist nodded as he tapped the top rune twice and stepped in front of the arch. When the circle of light appeared, he stepped forward and vanished.

Two minutes later he reappeared in front of the group with an excited expression.

“It works! It really works! I was really two floors up!”

“What did it feel like?” Angela asked she was busy writing on a datapad.

“Nothing really. I just stepped into the light and I found myself stepping out of the portal, two floors up. It was basically instantaneous! Then I just set the controls to two floors down and here I am!”

The other scientists and engineers crowded around the portal while Jeremy looked back at the dwarf father and son with a befuddled expression. “I can’t believe that the other nations haven’t shown greater interest in this technology! Don’t they realize that you could revolutionize the transport and shipping industry?! Not to mention the military applications?!”

The elder dwarf could only shrug. “I told you before, this is a short-range system. We can’t go much further than half a kilometer. Doing so will exceed the runes’ tolerances and you know how inefficient the Naran Divine Gate is when they substituted those cheap elf and imp runes.”

“Yeah, well those guys don’t have Free Land technology backing them! I’m pretty certain we can do something to increase the range of these portals and make them more useful. With a little bit of tinkering, I think we can put the same kind of function into our own prototypes.”

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June 4^th, 13 AE…

Battle-Mech Testing Hanger #13…

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“Look at her! Isn’t she a beauty?” Engineer Warren Hikes commented as he and his colleagues gazed upon the fruit of their labors for the past three months.

The object in question was Free Land’s first transformable Battle-Mech, the Valiant Prototype. It would have all the functions of a standard Hunter Battle-Mech with the added ability to shift into a fighter mode for long-distance travel and aerial/space combat. It would not need a Bot-Hauler and could transport itself to the battlefield.

“I’m glad we decided to scrap the idea of stripping down a Battle-Mech and just build this prototype from scratch.” The Catian engineer Sureka commented.

The Valiant Prototype was currently in its vehicular mode. It was twice the size of a Star Hawk, and had extra modules. The wings were delta-shaped and the entire fighter resembled that of an SR-71 Blackbird. Its main armaments included six kinetic-accelerator guns, three on each wing root, two dual-mount particle cannons on the main fuselage, and twin missile launcher pods on the upper half. The Valiant was driven by two low-density plasma engines and powered by a miniaturized, neo-proton core.

The basic structure of the new Battle-Mech had been completed and was in the final stages of testing its fundamental systems. It would be ready for its first test flight within a month.

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July 24^th, 13 AE...

Kindom of Atlans…

“Damn it!” Lenns Hodder swore as the engine prototype blew apart 30 seconds after ignition. This was their ninth attempt to re-create the General Electric J47 turbojet engine of the F-86 Sabre. As firefighters raced in to extinguish the flames, he turned around and looked at the blueprints on a large desk in the observation booth.

“It’s just like when we struggled to build the Warhawk engine.” Akar remarked.

“Yeah, but this is an entirely different beast.” His superior stated. “We already knew how to build an internal combustion, propeller-driven aircraft engine so the Warhawk and Mustang were just advanced versions of what we already had. This is our first endeavor into building a jet engine. We just learned the basic principles and we don’t have the right materials to withstand the increase in pressure and temperature.”

“I really wish Free Land had not destroyed all those Zedan jets. We could have examined one of them and used it as a template to build our prototype.”

“Yeah, well they didn’t let the dwarves take apart a Scrapper either, and they still managed to build their own Battle-Mech prototype. We really need to get into gear or we’re going to fall behind those little guys. So how’s the airframe working out?”

“It’s actually doing quite well in the wind tunnels. The engineers say that if we can get a working engine, the new Sabre jet could reach transonic speeds in level flight. They estimate speeds up to 1,000 km/hr or better. And they’ve already begun testing the new pressure suits.”

“All of that isn’t going to do us much good if we can’t get a working engine.”

“There is another alternative.”

“What is it?”

“I had a colleague look over an engine that was salvaged from a crashed Sky Blade II fighter.”

“A Sky Blade? Isn’t that one of Naran’s fighters?”

“Yes. It was shot down during the Zedan war. Most of the fighter was destroyed when the pilot bailed out and the fighter’s self-destruct spells activated. However, the spell that should have destroyed the engine failed, so it was intact when our salvage teams found the wreckage.”

“I see. Did Naran find out that we have one of their fighters?”

“No, it was kept secret as we transported the intact engine to Bisra while substituting a fake destroyed engine. After our researchers began studying the engine, we found out that it had been enhanced from the original design, using methods that most likely the engineers learned from Free Land.”

“Really? What kind of enhancements?”

“The engine housing was made from an aluminum alloy that we had never seen before. It took us a month to figure out the formula. Apparently, the Naran used aluminum mixed with a metal that is called manganese. And the turbine blades seem to be coated with another metal called nickel.”

“I’ve never heard of those metals before.”

“They’re located on the Free Land Periodic Table. We call those metals under different names and consider them as junk ore. However, Free Land found uses for them as alloys. We theorize that these alloys are the reason why the Sky Blade II engines can withstand greater temperatures and stress. That would explain their improved performances over their predecessor, the Sky Blade I.”

“Do you think we’ll be able to duplicate the formulas for these alloys?”

“With a bit of tinkering and a lot of trial-and-error… I think so.”

“Well, let’s get started then. That Sabre engine isn’t going to build itself.”

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August 10^th, 13 AE…

Polaris City, Research and Development Lab #12…

“What is that?” Head Researcher Peter Minovsko asked as he approached Clurke at a worktable.

“Oh, this is my improved reactor! I call it the Neo-Psion Reactor Mark II.” The dwarf proudly replied as he showed the Terran physicist his latest creation.

It was a metal disk that was about the size of a frisbee and had much smoother lines than the original model. Instead of improvising with salvaged Battle-Mech components, the reactor had proper conductors, resistors and relays embedded in the surface. However, the biggest difference between the Mark II and the Mark I was the seeming absence of dwarf runes.

“So where are the runes?”

Clurke smiled as he turned the disc on its side and pried it apart. The disc split into two halves, revealing tiny lines imprinted on their insides. To the average observer, one might assume they were imprinted circuit pathways. He then put one half under a holographic, magnifying viewer. The image it projected made Peter’s eyes widen in shock. The lines were revealed to be extremely tiny dwarven runes, etched in series.

“How did you manage to imprint such tiny runes?” Peter asked in bewilderment.

“I used a most remarkable device. I believe you call it a nanotech laser?”

“And these runes have the same capability as the larger ones?”

“Actually, they do.” Clurk confirmed. “As you know, we dwarves cannot tell you how to create these runes, but we can tell you that the more runes that are available, the more efficient the effect becomes. After taking that class in basic electronics, I became inspired by those imprinted electronic circuits and thought that if you can create such tiny transistors, then why can’t I do the same with runes?”

“So the reason why you used the nanotech laser was to imprint more runes on a smaller surface?”

“Exactly! What you are seeing are 1,000 times more runes than on my original reactor. And since the overall pattern is just like imprinted quantum circuit pathways, it is quite compatible with Free Land technology! Watch this!”

The dwarf put the two halves back together and walked over to the revised Teleportation Portal prototype. After their trip to Merin, they had brought back a pair of Magic Gate portals for study and had modeled the new prototype after them. It was also discovered that dwarf runes were the key to directing objects and people through the portals and that the Neo-Psion Reactor was the perfect device to conduct psions through the runes.

Clurke disconnected his original reactor and attached his newer version to the apparatus. He then turned it on and pointed to the readouts.

“See that? Exactly the same output but with far less energy consumption! And exactly the same function!”

Clurke simply walked into the portal and disappeared inside the frame. He instantly reappeared on the other frame, more than 50 meters away. He then went back inside the second frame and came out the first.

At this point, Peter was more than impressed at the dwarf’s ingenuity. They had already made a Free Land version of the short-range Magic Gate portal, and Clurke’s improvement with the Neo-Psion Reactor now meant they were on their way to creating a longer-ranged, practical teleportation system.

“Since you were the one who came up with this idea of inscribing dwarf runes with a nanotech laser, I think it would be best that you name this new process. So what are you going to call it?”

Vulkar’s father thought for a bit before replying. “Since what I’ve done is use dwarf runes to basically create a circuit, then I believe calling it a Dwarf Rune Circuit or DRC seems fitting.”

“Dwarf Rune Circuit, it is!”

 To be continued…

Author’s Notes

This will be a three-part side-story during the one-year time skip that will explain how Free Land got its teleportation system and other advancements, and a few other events.

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