Maxwell's Demon Ch. 01-06

"Wheels, run the short runway pre-drive checklists. I'm plotting now," she said.

Seats reoriented to their primary drive positions in preparation for thrust. A monitor to the left of Wheels activated with checklists. On the right monitor was a graphical display of the LDR flux coils along the body of the ship used to shape the liquid metal coolant stream.

"LDR coming online. There is emission nozzle damage. Should we see what the leak rate is before we calculate our burn Micks?" Wheels asked.

"No. Fuck no. No time. We'll lengthen our vector to make intercept with Mars. Let's see what the leak rate is under power. Worst case, we'll run the reactor into supersaturation and let it cool before our decel burn. I'll slag it if I have to. I'd rather have that on my record than a lost ship."

"Reorienting primary drive to match your plots ... Micks. We're ready," Wheels said.

"Light it!" Micks said.

"Iss328, this is Scoope 1. Your drive burn is good. You are discharging LDR fluid from your ventral flux lines. Repeat, you are discharging LDR fluid from your ventral flux lines," John said.

"Acknowledge Scoope 1. We confirm LDR malfunction. We're attempting to adjust collector plate and flux patterns to minimize. Will advise for secondary observations," Wheels said.

"That's it there!" Wheels said. "If we overdrive the forward flux coils, throw the damaged heavy stream farther, there's improved recovery rates at the collector. It's not perfect, but based on the current burn and total reactor runtime: if we cut out eight hours of reactor time we could be within heat tolerance envelopes."

"Understood. Re-plotting," Micks said. She licked her lips and pushed her seat away from the console. "That works, we'll be on rations, but we'll get home. Wheels, send our new burn plan to Scoope 1. Request another LDR visual check with your modified flux pattern."

Jennifer sank into her chair. There seemed little blood on her face. She'd put a lot of people at risk. It could have been the reactor module that suffered damage, stranding both crews and forcing them to wait for rescue, if any, with many unpleasant questions. Whatever this void particle was capable of, it was real: The exotic matter, the Fuzanglong, her Father cast into the stars beyond this solar system, it was all real to her now. She didn't want to let go.

-*-

Jennifer paced back and forth across the hab module trying to figure out what her next move should be.

"You're going to wear out the magnets in those boots," Micks said, sliding through the door. "I obviously didn't make it a secret I think you're hot, but you must be pretty important too. Someone embedded a civilian email for you in the Targus navigation array data packets. I found it while we were uploading our emergency burn plan to Mars Orbital Traffic Control. Whoever did this, it's not cheap."

Micks gestured to the wall comms panel. "I forwarded it in here. You can take it on that wall panel." Micks turned to leave.

"No, please stay," Jennifer said. She read the message from her administrative assistant:

"Jennifer, I'm forwarding this to you. I hope you'll approve the expense report. This is a year's worth of my CoreX salary if you don't. This sounded urgent, and whoever sent it paid Onsat top dollar to reach you in real-time from Earth. I couldn't catch you while you were in civilian comms range, so I resorted to this. Please don't fire me."

The message from Greg warning of Casey's funding demise, verbatim, followed.

"Micks, is it possible to send a reply message back on the Targus array datastream?" Jennifer asked.

"You can do anything you want if you've got the coin for the comms girl," Micks said smiling.

Yes. The answer, Greg, is yes, Jennifer said to herself, scribbling a reply note on the comms panel.

"Money's no problem Micks. Do whatever it takes for this message to get back before we do," Jennifer said.