He looked up at the screen, which had returned to a normal data display, “Santana, say status.”
This voice was sexless with a slight metallic edge, “ALL SYSTEMS OPTIMAL - HULL SEALED - READY FOR FLIGHT OPERATIONS.”
He exhaled the breath he had been holding, closed the panel door, and returned to his chair. He heard Twisst giggling and was glad they couldn’t see his face.
“Archer Port Control, Santana ready to lift.”
“Santana, you are clear for departure route as filed.”
“Santana lifting now.”
Hayes tapped on the master input panel and voice released the AI, “Santana AI, release and activate flight plan.”
“SYSTEMS RELEASED - LIFTING.”
Hayes looked out his port to watch the ground fall away with only a slight sensation of acceleration. The two landing struts that he could see swung inward and disappeared from his sight.
“LANDING STRUTS RETRACTED AND LOCKED.”
Doctor Ames called down again, “Are we moving? I thought I felt something.”
“Sorry, Doctor; I’ve never had passengers before and I forgot that there is no way for you to know anything; I’m feeding a fore and aft outside view to your screens now. We’ve lifted off and are approaching the top of the atmosphere. We will be maneuvering for ten minutes or so while the auto-pilot vectors us out to two planetary diameters where the AI will release the isolator drive for a quick dash to the sun and then back to normal space for vectoring and a high-G boost toward Forest. The entire thing should take about thirty to thirty-five minutes.”
Thirteen minutes later: “Get ready; isolator drive coming up now for about a minute.”
The familiar wash of distorted vision and the unpleasant sensation of being squeezed through a small hole that no one had ever managed to adequately describe seemed to end before it began and gave way to the pleasant floating of free-fall. Hayes watched the Santana’s red dot track the planned course on the resonator display as it rapidly closed on the side of Archer’s primary.
While the isolator drive was steerable--to a small degree, if there was sufficient power--it was incapable of altering velocity; what speed that was attained by the isolator drive depended on the relative velocity that was attained before activating the drive. To make that reality more complex, the AG, or Anti-Gravity, or lift ring if it was a ship capable of landing on a planet, had its greatest effect when it pushed against another gravity field. The further away that gravity field was or the smaller it was, the less the repulsive effect. So, to achieve minimum transit times, ships normally pushed off from the strongest gravity field they could for as long as they could with as much power as they could. Basically, that meant lining up a course as close as possible directly away from the local star and using the planets and the star of the destination system to decelerate and maneuver to cancel out any remaining relative motion differences between the origin and destination.
The only thing that penetrated an isolator drive field was gravity to a small extent. The mass resonator detected gravitational fields and allowed for navigation and avoidance of massive objects that would distort the drive field and destroy the ship.
Santana broke out above the star’s corona and spent three minutes pouring power through the lift ring to align itself on a course to Forest; it then spent another nineteen minutes at maximum power before re-activating the isolator drive.
“Okay, you can float around if you want; we’re on our way.”
A minute later, Ames and Twisst drifted into the open space next to Hayes’ chair; Hayes eyeballed them carefully, looking for any sign of imminent upchucking.
“How are you two feeling? If you’re not doing well, I strongly recommend another pill and some sleep; that seems to allow the body to adapt with the least occurrence of unpleasant side-effects.”
Twisst shrugged her shoulders, “I feel fine; it is Jonathon that may be a problem.”
Hayes and Twisst looked at Ames.
Ames had a grip on a handhold but raised his free hand, “I admit I find this a bit unpleasant, but it will pass and I will live.”
Hayes smiled at long ago memories of similar feelings, “Doctor Twisst, do you have any children?”
She looked surprised, “Why, yes, I have two; why do you ask?”
“Woman adapt better to weightlessness, and woman that have had children do the best of all. There is no evidence for it, but the opinion is that it has something to do with having experienced physical changes during the first trimester and the usual nausea episodes.
“Like I said, take another pill and sleep, or stay in your bunk where you have a normal up and down visual perspective of the things around you. Another good thing is to read or watch a vid; those things will occupy your mind. If you want to exercise, I have a set of cuffs for the ankles and wrists that attach to elastic bands that attach,” he waved a pointing finger around the compartment, “to several points here. You hang in the air and strain your muscles against the resistance. I find that an hour or so of that followed by a bagger is very relaxing.”
“What’s a ‘bagger’?” asked Ames.
Hayes released his lap belt and pointed ‘up’ the ladder, “That’s a bag-shower. Head on up to the top and I’ll show you how it works.”
##
The com panel at the end of the console chimed; CeCe tapped the ACCEPT pad and Commander Amanda Kraigor, the Captain of the Streak, appeared on a screen on the left side of the circle, “Hello, Amanda; are you ready to lift yet?”
Commander Kraigor saw Wills at the other end of the console, “Hi, CeCe, no; I need to talk to the Admiral.”
Wills looked up at that, “Yes, Commander; what do you need?”
“Sir, the Streak may not be available. Two of my four reactors have advanced initiator chamber neutron
