Chapter 8

As Robert and his family sat at breakfast, all the small ones had either gone to school or out to play. Robert had sent mental messages to Brad's family and Susan's family to join them after breakfast. When everyone was there Robert explained that Nancy requested that they join the AI's on the spacecraft as the aliens that had destroyed their home planet were about to enter the far side of the Milky Way Galaxy looking for habitable planets with life forms they could harvest for food. Robert said he did not know how long they would be gone, but they would return each afternoon so not to be absent for a long period of time. He told everyone to return in an hour prepared to depart from his office.

When they were ready Robert transported them to their benefactor's spacecraft into the council chambers where he had met the senior AI before. The full AI Council were in place when the chief AI began with pictures that showed nine smaller ships surrounding a very large ship which all took to be the command ship. The command ship looked to be about half the size of Earth's moon. The AI said to destroy the command ship would be a monumental task as their home planet, with all their advanced technology, had not been able to defeat this race of aliens. Brad asked if they could be exposed to something like the biological germ that had wiped out most of the human race. The AI's looked at each other with amazement that their ancestors had not thought of that. Now the issue would be how to get the germ aboard those ships all at the same time. Robert said that they would have to reproduce enough of the germ for thousands of aliens. The AIs said they would produce enough of the germ for all ships as they could not be affected by the germ.

Toni said they needed to get close up pictures of the ships to figure out how to get the canisters aboard or attached to some type of intake system that would allow the airborne germs to infiltrate the ships. She said it would be easy if they were on some planet where the crews could be infected and carry the killer germs back to their ships. The aliens were about a light year from the Scorpius Constellation. Of Earth's cosmologist they believed there were thirteen stars that had a family of planets in orbit around them. The AIs said there were closer to two thousand stars that had planet families and twenty-five to thirty-five percent had planets that might support some type of animal life. The aliens would have to explore every planet family looking for food. It could take them five to ten Earth years to explore just the Cats Paw Nebula, let alone the whole Scorpius Constellation. It could take a few hundred years before it reached this part of the Milky Way. Robert wanted to stop these aliens that destroyed entire worlds and civilizations before they could do much more destruction.

The group then turned to the issue of transportation to the Scorpius Constellation in a reasonable amount of time. Also the ability to keep their spacecraft and themselves invisible while deploying the germ. If they could identify the life support systems of the ships, the germs could be injected into the ships air system. If they used their ability to teleport themselves into the aliens spacecraft in the life support compartments, they could release enough canisters into the system to eliminate all life aboard those spacecraft. The thing they would have to do is remove the part of the germ that made it attack only the humanoid DNA.

The day had been long and tiring, and Robert's group were exhausted as they returned to Campinas and home. Sofia had a light dinner ready for them, and the kids were all clambering for attention. A little red headed four year old girl came up and climbed onto Robert's lap asking if he was her Uncle Robert. He said he was, as she was Toni and Rod Jones' daughter, and a very intelligent youngster that was already taking things apart and putting them back together again. Her name was Maria Victoria Jones, as Toni thought her mother and sister were the two most important women in her world. Vicky and Toni were leading the conversation tonight, to keep the adults minds off the things that would have to be discussed in the next few days.

The next morning Robert asked Sophia Agostino to join them for part of the day to discuss a matter that she might be able help with. Sarah met with Sophia and explained about their powers and Robert's psionic abilities. Sophia told Sarah that Sara, Robert's mother had explained his abilities a few years back and that is how he knew about the biological germ that was to be released on the world. Sarah then told Sophia that they may have to use a modified germ to also save the world. Sophia said that what ever had to be done she would do her part.

The group met with the AIs again, and there were a few added to discuss what would have to be done to remove the designer part of the germ that caused it to only infect humans. The AIs understood the drug's capabilities to kill humans, but were not sure how to remove the DNA designer element. Sophia said that the DNA attachment could be removed by simply removing the chromatin protein from the germ, and it would kill every animal that it had contact with, including humans. Sophia also said that with the chromatin removed, the life of the germ would be shorter, unless it was attached to a living thing that caused the germ to propagate. The results on a being unknown to them was not known, and if they were amphibious the results were really not known. Nancy said that the beings were gas breathing, but she thought they required a much higher nitrogen content in the air than was known on earth. She said that Sophia could review the information on board the spacecraft that referred to this alien being, and maybe that would help her calculate the efficiency of the germ.

The next topic was transportation to an area close enough for teleportation to the alien spacecraft. The optimum scenario would be to capture one of the smaller spacecraft and learn what they could about these beings. The senior AI said they would use their spacecraft to transport Robert's team to the Scorpius Constellation, but they would have to remain invisible as they had no offensive or defensive weapons on board. They should be in the Scorpius Constellation ahead of the arrival of the alien fleet, and hopefully find a straggler to capture. The senior AI said that if Robert wanted to, they could leave any time and meet the fleet before they reached the Milky Way. Robert asked how soon the canisters could be prepared and ready for use and he was told very soon.

Asteria had sat quietly throughout the entire discussions until now. She now spoke up and said that she would be the one who would place the canisters on the alien spacecraft, as she had been on the ships many years ago. The design should be similar, and that she would know the life support systems better than anyone. Nancy said that the AI scientist had found a vaccine that would work on Asteria, but earth born humans were short an organ that her race had that would reject the germs. They would capture some of the enemy and insure that they would succumb to the germ.

Robert objected to this plan, as it was the human race that was being threatened and not theirs. Asteria stopped Robert, telling him that it was her family that was captured and used for food for these monsters. It was her planet that they destroyed, and it was the people she was with that were driven to an alien planet to live alone, surviving many hardships. This was her fight, and she would fight it in a way that they never could.

The people around the room sat quietly, all thinking they would feel the same way if they were in her shoes. Since Asteria had not become romantically involved with anyone here yet, she was the right candidate to do the mission. Robert said that from this room ten people would be selected to join Asteria and him on the mission. The eleven of them would be her support team, and if something happened to her they would complete the mission. Looking at Asteria and Nancy, he said that was the end of the discussion. Nancy nodded her head, telling him that they were creating an android for Asteria that would actually board the alien spacecraft, but would be controlled by Asteria mentally. That way she would never be in danger. Robert asked why they could not create androids for each member on the team, and Asteria could teach them the potential layout of the smaller ships and they could deal with those while she deals with the mother ship. Nancy thought that was a good idea, as long as Robert was not one of the members controlling an android of the boarding parties. Robert started to object when he was cut off by the entire group telling him he was either the coordinator or staying on Earth. He knew when he was overruled, and took his instructions in good graces.

The final topic was how to cover their absence from Campinas for the mission. Robert said that he and the people that volunteered for the mission would leave on some type of search mission looking for more survivors, and would be gone for an extended period of time. Brad did not think that was a good cover story, as they would be expected to check in a few times a week for additional information and to update everyone else on their progress. The better way was to take his wives as the mission team, and they could return to the island on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia for R&R. No one would question that, and Injerd and Elisa could be the pilots so that Tom Schneider and Ron Barton would not be required. They could take the NI-01, as the distance was about seventy-six hundred nautical miles and the range of the A380 was eighty-three hundred nautical miles, it would be no problem especially if Injerd and Elisa used their trick from the flight from Hawaii to teleport them most of the distance. Brad felt that with Maddy along they would have excellent medical support, and if required she had Marion along to assist. Everyone thought it was a good plan and said so, as that would give them twelve people to operate the androids. They would have to watch the controllers, as they would be in a state of semi consciousness, and if they got into trouble the support team would pull them from the control state and sacrifice the android.

Robert and the team returned to Campinas to relax and prepare themselves for the mission, they were relying on the AIs to notify them when it was time to depart on the mission.

Authors note: remember this is a work of fiction, and as some concepts are grounded in fact some are from the imagination of the author. I am not an aircraft engine designer as such, however as I read, up to eighty percent of the thrust of jet engines is produced by the air compressed by the turbo fans before the combustion chamber; then why can not an engine be designed without a combustion chamber.

Bob Atkins was in the cockpit of a Cessna 172 revving the engine, watching the tachometer. The tachometer was measuring the actual RPM of the propeller. Sitting beside Bob was John Adams, the aircraft mechanic, and he kept nodding his head. Finally John told Bob they had completed all the testing they could do, so it was time to get a pilot to see if the 172 would fly. They found Tom Schneider and asked if there were any of the pilots that had been test pilots and done first flights of a new aircraft engine. Tom said he had first flight experience in both new airframe and power plant aircraft. They explained the new power plant, and showed him all the data that had been collected in the test. As Tom looked over the data, he got to the last page and his eyes opened wide. Turning to John, he questioned the final test, as the maximum RPM was listed as twenty-seven hundred, and they had run a twelve hour test on the power plant at three thousand RPM. John said the twenty-seven hundred RPM limit was on the Lycoming IO-360-L2A four cylinder engine. The new engine was rated at forty-eight hundred RPM, but he did not think the airframe would take that speed.

Tom did a thorough preflight inspection. When he opened the engine cowling there was what looked like an electric motor with something connected to the back, and the propeller connected to the front. In the corner was a container secured to the firewall with two cables exiting the top plate. Tom asked what was in the container, and was told that was the power generator for the main motor to power the propeller, and a twelve volt generator was connected to the rear of the motor to generate power for the avionics and any other power needed for the aircraft. Tom signed off on the preflight inspection, and climbed into the left seat of the Cessna.

Bob got into the back seat and John into the right seat. Tom said that first flights were normally flown with a pilot alone. The other two agreed, but John said that they had so much confidence in the power plant that they wanted to be part of the first flight. John explained that the throttle was, as always, the RPM control, and should be used the same way. As Tom checked out the instrumentation, he found any related to the old power plant were either covered or replaced, and each new gauge was explained. Tom pulled the throttle back about an inch and the propeller began rotation at fifty RPM. Tom pulled the throttle until the tachometer showed seventeen hundred RPM. He looked at the two men, and in a normal voice asked where the engine noise was. Both Bob and John laughed, saying if he needed the noise they had a recording for him. Tom declined, and lowered the engine speed to one thousand RPM. He released the brakes and started his taxi to the runway. Because this was a small private airport there was no tower controller, so Tom turned onto the runway and set the brakes. He then advanced the throttle to twenty-seven hundred RPM and checked all the gauges, and set the radio to the security centre frequency.

Tom called the centre, informing them of the intent of the flight and the expected duration with a tentative flight plan. He requested that they be tracked in case of emergency. Carolyn was heard telling him to hold for five minutes and they would have an aircraft in the air to track them. Tom said to get the tracker in the air, he would be at the Campinas airport in five minutes for a touch and go. With that he pulled the throttle to the first stop and noted the Tachometer read twenty-seven hundred RPM's. Tom released the brakes and the little plane seemed to jump with a desire to fly. At the twelve hundred foot marker the wheels were in the air and Tom initiated a steep climb out. He was surprised that the climb out was three degrees steeper than he had expected, and there was no appearance of a stall. He levelled out at fifteen hundred feet and headed for the main airport at Campinas.

He told the security centre he was on the final leg for a touch and go. Tom then advanced the throttle to the first stop and noted thirty-three hundred RPM on the tachometer, and started his decent for a full power touch and go. As he crossed the end of the runway he was at two hundred twenty-five kilometres and saw a twin Bonanza ready to take off, he wondered if that was his chase plane. He let the Cessna roll about a hundred feet and put it back in the air. As he made his first turn, the twin was just reaching take off speed and lifting off. Tom headed north to the area where the farms were being worked and made some severe climbing and descending turns. As he levelled, out the twin pulled up beside and Injerd wanted to know where the touch and go manoeuvre came from. Tom said it was a manoeuvre all test pilots learned, to test the airframes and the ability of the engine to hold RPM under extreme conditions.

They continued to fly with Tom doing every test he knew; he was still going strong when Injerd asked him if his fuel was getting low yet. Looking questioningly at Bob, Tom was told he had another year before he would run out of power. Tom told Injerd he would land with her but he had a years fuel supply on board. Injerd laughed and said "oh sure". When they landed he let the twin land ahead of him and then taxied up beside her; he left the propeller turning to see what Injerd would say.

She walked over to the Cessna and was listening to the engine as Tom shut down. The shut down was a lot easier than with a petroleum powered engine, as all he did was push the throttle forward and flip a switch. Climbing out of the cockpit, Tom waved Injerd over as he lifted the cowling. When Injerd looked at the compartment she asked several questions in less than a minute. The three men laughed when John Adams said that was the same look that Tom had on his face when he looked in the engine compartment.

Injerd asked when four of these would be ready for the Airbus A380, as she wanted to fly that monster with quiet engines. Bob said the motor was not the problem, it was configuring the turbines to the shaft of the motor for enough thrust to obtain seventy-two thousand foot-pounds of thrust. Jet engines did this with compressed air and burning fuel. In his method, there would just be the movement of air from turbine blades. Bob said what was really needed was a mechanical engineer to design a ducted turbo fan that would supply the required thrust without the combustion chamber. There was a company in California that designed an electric motor that had a horse power rating of three hundred lb-ft and had a top RPM rating of fifteen thousand for extended periods of time. The amount of time depended on the amount of air that could flow around the motor to cool it. The concept and theory were solid if the RPM and air flow could be maintained.

As time passed a manufacturing plant for vehicle power trains had been established and almost every type of car, truck and farm implement had been converted to a cold fusion power train. The farm people were very happy with the new power trains, as the noise of the old combustion engine was gone, and the quiet was very nice. Robert relaxed the rules of teenagers having cars as long as there were speed controls installed that would be increased as the drivers proficiency improved. Most of the propeller driven aircraft had been converted to the cold fusion motors and a ducted turbo fan engine would be tested in one of the Global Hawk RQ-04's. Three engineering students took on the project to design the multistage turbo fan to produce enough thrust to power one of these drones. The initial testing had gone well and the air speed appeared to be higher than the original jet engine. They also had to design a two speed transmission, one speed for ground operation and one speed for flight operation. The ground operation had been tested for several weeks and was very good. The ducted fan turbo engine had been run and tested for endurance for two hundred forty hours non stop as the estimated speed of Mach 1.8. The young engineers felt if the airframe could do it, they could achieve Mach 3.5. Many were sceptical, but had a wait and see attitude.

The big day came and the RQ-04 was ready for the first test flight. Several additional measuring devices had been added to measure power plant performance and air frame stats. Radar O'Reilly had selected the oldest RQ-04 as the test aircraft, as it had many problems with the engine, and the airframe was about to exceed the manufactures recommended life span. Radar was at the controls and had practised for hours with the new power plant, and was undoubtedly the best controller around. The RQ-04 was rolled out ready for takeoff. Radar advanced the throttle and started the taxi to the operational runway. Turning on to the runway, he sent the command to switch the transmission to flight operation. Advancing the controller to full throttle with the brakes still set, the roar of the normal engine was not heard. The airframe vibration indicators were just above mid range but not near the red zone. Radar released the brakes and the drone leap down the runway. Radar reached takeoff speed and lifted into the air for the first flight. As soon as the drone was airborne, the vibration indicators fell to 0.1 m/s². To most people this would feel like riding a new full size car on a smooth road. Radar advanced the speed control to cruise speed at 350 nautical miles per hour, and saw he still had over two thirds of the speed control travel left before it reached the maximum stop. As he climbed to the service ceiling of nineteen thousand eight hundred meters everything looked very good. He began to advance the speed control again and reached Mach 2.5, when the engineers asked him to reduce speed to Mach 2. They noticed that between Mach 2 and Mach 2.5 the vibration indicator had reached 1.0 m/s². After discussions, they set the maximum 'not to exceed' speed at Mach 2. Radar turned the drone to a heading of magnetic north and turned on the high speed digital cameras. Travelling north then south, the circumference of the earth at twenty-one thousand six hundred nautical miles at Mach 2 would take sixteen hours for it to return to Campinas. He would then fly to the equator and fly west around the world. This way he would get a good look at the progression of the ice age.

Another area that was making progress was the spacecraft design team. This team consisted of about a dozen people headed by Annabelle Danielson and Martha Rickenbacker. The two ladies were creating a deep space craft that would house three to five thousand people. The actual crew was about four hundred and the other people on board were scientist and researchers. The labs were latest state of technology at today's standards with space for growth if required. There was the capability to convert cargo spaces into dormitories, if required to move beings from one planet to another. The initial sketches of the outside looked much like a long octagon shaped tube with a bubble on the front end. The length was about one thousand meters (3281 feet) and a diameter just over three hundred four meters (one thousand feet); providing approximately three hundred million cubic feet of interior space. The calculation was half of that would be needed for propulsion and life support, another twenty-five percent for living and ten percent for navigation and battle stations, with the remaining for cargo of what ever kind.

The propulsion system was a concept, and every experiment they had run had failed. Robert listened to the update and saw that they would not be ready for deep space travel in a hundred fifty years at the rate they were going. Robert opened a mental link with Nancy to see if there was any technology that could be passed on without violating the rule of no advanced technology beyond our understanding. Nancy said they were on the edge of a major discovery, but had put the idea on the shelf as not possible at this time. The creation of antimatter was the crux of the whole propulsion issue.

Robert asked what research had been shelved because they were too far out for our time. Annabelle and Martha said the only really promising idea that had been shelved was the antimatter propulsion research. The reason it had been shelved was the storage of antimatter positrons. Since they could not touch matter they had to be stored in a magnetic force field storage area. The other issue was making the positrons. To make one gram of positrons could take hundreds of years. Robert said that he wanted the two most knowledgeable researchers available to visit with Nancy and see if she could assist them in resolving those two issues.

Annabelle said that there were three people that needed to take that trip, and that was Martha Rickenbacker, Eddie Star Runner and herself, as they were the only three that had worked on the antimatter project. Robert told her that he needed either her or Martha to remain behind to run the overall project so that the remainder would not fall behind. Martha looked at Annabelle, telling her she was the only one with overall knowledge of the project. Martha offered to remain behind, but she would have to have several days of updating to take over. Annabelle said no, Martha was right and she should stay, she was becoming an administrator more and more and less of a researcher. Robert reassured her that she was a very required researcher, as the design of the hull and everything that went into it was from her knowledge and training.

Martha and Eddie told their families they would be on a training mission for the next few weeks, and would be putting in very long days. They may even be taking a trip to New Mexico to gather information on the propulsion system they were designing for the space craft. The trip depended on the ice age and how far south the ice cap had progressed. The Rickenbackers, Daniels, and Eddie Star Runner and his wife Mary were having dinner at the Daniels', when Edward looked at his wife and reminded her which Eddie she was married to. Martha, in the same tone, said he should be the one talking, as he was the one flying all over with a female copilot. Then both laughed, enfolding each other in their arms as they both knew they had a strong marriage. The other four in the room looked relieved, as they had never seen this type of kibitzing between these two. Mary asked when the training would start. Annabelle said they did not know for sure, as Robert was arranging it with a lady named Nancy and they would be notified. Mary asked the other five if they knew who Nancy was, and they acknowledged they did not. Mary then told them that Nancy was Robert's contact with the aliens on the spacecraft that was protecting Earth until we could fend for ourselves. Mary said that she would bet any training they would receive would be out of this world. Everyone got a laugh out of that.

Annabelle then told every one that they would be receiving an invitation to her and Barry Gold's wedding in three weeks, and that she needed Martha and Mary to stand up for her at the wedding. Martha said it was about time that the two of them got married, they had been together for a couple of years. Mary said that maybe this was a shotgun wedding, then asking Annabelle if a premature baby might be on the way. Annabelle laughed and told them that if she was pregnant she did not know it, so no premature baby. The six spent the remainder of the evening enjoying each others company.

Brad started to let tidbits slip out on purpose that Robert had not had an R&R period since the time they had spent at the Great Barrier Reef more than nine or ten years ago. The citizens knew that Robert had insisted that everyone take an R&R period of at least four weeks every year and it was considered paid vacation. There were some cases where people had requested longer periods and received the time with no questions asked. Robert made air transportation available to them at the expense of the Monarch.

Nancy entered Robert's consciousness almost a year to the date from the time they met about the aliens that liked humans for food. They were approaching the Milky Way Galaxy and would enter in the next few weeks. Robert and the selected people were needed to depart Campinas no later than the end of the week. That gave the team three days to be ready to depart. What was not common knowledge was that NI-02 (Ann called it Nickel 2) had been in a secluded hangar and supplies for the mission had been loaded. The only thing that remained were the perishable supplies. Brad, Amy and Eumache were going along to look after the kids while the other fifteen were on the mission. Nancy had a hologram area on the spacecraft constructed so that the kids would think they were in Hawaii. Injerd said they would leave at seven PM, and the kids could sleep overnight while they travelled. What Injerd knew was that they were going to be teleported to the alien spacecraft as soon as they cleared the west coast of South America. Robert had arranged for Nancy to cause the satellites to see their airplane all the way to Hawaii. They had just cleared the coast as the engines were shut down. As they settled in the hangar of the spacecraft there was no landing roll or taxi. All the kids were asleep, and did not wake up when they were carried to bed.

After breakfast the next morning Robert Jr. (Robbie) asked where they were at and Sarah said Hawaii. Robbie said they could not be in Hawaii as the star constellations were all wrong. The adults all looked at each other wondering what to say next. Robert told Robbie that he would explain it later if he would eat his breakfast. Robbie just shrugged and dove in to his breakfast. Later as Robert and Robbie sat in deck chairs Robert was reminded that his father said he would tell him about the star constellation changes later and since they were alone it was now later. Robert asked his son if he had ever thought someone was talking yet there was no one close enough to be talking to him. Robbie said sure he listened to him and the mothers talking all the time. Well not all the time as sometimes he wanted to listen but there seemed to be something blocking him from listening. Robert told him that was telepathy and normally the listener heard only the side of the conversation of the person they were concentrating on. Robert asked again if Robbie was listening to one side of the conversation or heard everyone who was participating in the conversation. Robbie said he heard everyone and in their own voice. Then he told his Dad that he could hear Robert and Sarah thinking about what was being said and how to respond when they spoke the next time. Robert thought the little shit is in Sarah's and my heads. Robbie said he was not a little shit unless Robert was a big shit. The two of them laughed as Robert called Sarah mentally.