Chapter 18: Jumpdrive Delight

The noise in the conference room was deafening to Buck's ears. The excitement over the discovery of the Dark Matter that Benny, Bear and Summer had made had the entire confederation in a quandary over just where to start with practical uses of the dark matter.

Captain Father and Captain Tomias sat on either side of Buck with the same quirky smile that he wore.

"Isn't life grand gentlemen?" Buck asked over the noise.

Father looked at his son with a twinkle in his eye, "Well I do not know about being grand, but this is most definitely amusing to say the least."

Captain Tomias chuckled at the Air Walkers reply, "That is true Captain Father, but how much longer are we going to let this spectacle of blathering children go on Buck?"

Buck looked at the groups around the table arguing over which use of the dark matter should have priority. Of course each little group thought their idea was not only the best plan but should have priority over the other ideas.

"OK people! That's enough out of all of you now. Everyone sit down and shut the hell up!" he said, firmly if not loudly.

It took a few seconds before everyone settled down and the real meeting could finally start.

"Bear, what has your group decided would be the best use of the dark matter to be first?" Buck asked.

Bear looked at Benny and his little daughter Summer and stood up. "Well Buck, after going over the different ideas presented by the other groups around the table, we three have decided that none of them are a major priority right this minute. Instead we would like to install a new jumpdrive engine for the Defiant, and then go meet this damn meteor before it has a chance to even get close to the earth."

That brought a flurry of voices from the rest of the people at the table. Some were in favor of following the trio's plan, but the others still wanted to stick with their own plans.

"How much time are we looking at Bear to reconfigure your jumpdrive engine to accept the dark matter power?" Captain Father asked.

Bear leaned down to confer with his two partners on just how long they thought it would take to reconfigure the jumpdrive engine. They whispered back and forth for a minute or two and finally they all nodded in agreement.

"Well sir after talking with my partners here, we think it could be done in a week, if we can get the help we need that is," Bear stated.

"Impossible!" shouted one of the Fergus scientists.

"That does seem too short a time to achieve your desired results," added one of the Air Walker scientists.

The room started filling up again with voices arguing over the amount of time Bear's team had estimated to have a working jumpdrive running off dark matter power. None of the scientists believed it could be done within the timeframe that Bear predicted.

Little Summer stood up in her chair to speak for her trio's defense of their idea and the timeframe it would take to complete it.

"I am sorry that all of you feel the way you do about Uncle Bear's answer," she said softly over the negative voices around the table. None of the all- knowing scientists were listening to her. She was just a child after all.

"QUIET!" Bear roared over the babbling eggheads.

When an almost seven foot tall black man wearing two huge SIG Jungle knives yells at you, you tend to shut the hell up!

"Gone on sweetie. Explain to these egg heads what we are talking about," Bear said softly, smiling at his niece.

Summer smiled and stepped from her chair on to the table. She looked for all the world like any other ten-year-old girl, until you looked into her emerald green eyes and saw the intelligence behind them.

"As I was saying before gentlemen, I'm sorry you don't understand how we can and will do what we promise. You are stuck in the past in your ideas of how dark matter works and what can be done with it. We on the other hand have at least two hundred years of knowledge that you do not have," she said, pointing at the Fergus scientists.

She looked at the Air Walker scientists, "And you gentlemen are even further behind the, what did uncle Bear call it? Oh yes, you Air Walkers are way behind the eightball. So pipe down and listen for a change and you might learn something," she admonished them.

Buck fought hard not to laugh at the pompous scientists sitting around the table. Only he, Tomias and Father knew just who and what Summer really was. Besides it didn't hurt to put the eggheads in their place every once in a while.

He looked over at Captain Tomias and he had tears rolling down his face as the good captain fought not to laugh at his own men.

Buck cleared his throat and managed to say, "Thank you Summer. Now why don't you explain just how your configuration will work on the Defiant's jumpdrive engine to these all-knowing gentlemen."

Over the next hour, Summer went step by step over what their team had discovered and how it could be implemented into the jumpdrive engine. She explained that with the additional shielding around the components of the engine the jumpdrive would produce more than 500 percent more capacity than what it did now. In other words the Defiant would be one fast mofo as her uncle called it. She made a note to ask uncle Bear what a mofo was later when she had a chance.

"Thank you so much for your great presentation Summer. Now Benny, if we can get this upgrade done on the Defiant what is your plan for the ship's use specifically?" Buck asked.

Benny knew that a lot of feathers had been ruffled around the table by Summer's presentation even though she had been absolutely correct in everything she had said.

"Captain, I believe that while we are working on the jumpdrive engine we should also be reconfiguring the weapons to use the dark matter also. I would like to have a mixture of teams working on the new LERG cannons and see if the dark matter can be use to provide additional power," Benny replied.

Bear added quickly, "Buck, I believe that both short and long distance scanners would benefit with the power produce by the dark matter. One of the experiments we did in the shuttle showed great promise in cutting the amount of feedback from space debris."

This brought excited mummers from a few of the others around the table.

Buck stood up clapping his hands together. "Great, now do I have anyone willing to take on either the weapons upgrade or the scanners upgrade?" he asked.

Hands shot up everywhere around the table, as the others finally realized they'd better get off the damn fence if they didn't want to get left behind.