Page 35 of Experimental Voyage
“She’s fine,” Waldren replied without looking my way. “The system shut down when the drive cores activated, leaving the life support system on. As I hadn’t activated the engine, the ship’s systems went into emergency mode. That involves shutting down all non-mandatory systems. On this ship, life support is the sole mandatory system. It’ll take me an hour or so to get everything back up and checked for damage. But the system had enough time to shut down before the drive cores activated.”
“Has this ever happened before?”
“Not that I’m aware of. Alban?”
The Veloc, who waged war with one of the consoles, snorted. His crest feathers snapped up, and a moment later, he cooed. “We’ve been pulled a three-week voyage from Melody. I’m registering the shiftgem gate’s position in our systems.”
With a chuckle, Waldren went over to Alban and peered at the display.
I marveled how the man used all surfaces as launching pads, somehow gliding to where he wanted with the right amount of force to keep from crashing into something. “How do you learn to do that?”
“You mean move without gravity?” Alban asked.
I nodded.
“Our first three voyages are done without gravity to teach us,” the Veloc replied. “We then learn to cope with gravity in space. Each voyage has a two week adaptation period to get used to gravity after floating in space for a few months. We weren’t going to put you through that environment until you healed. It can cause strange consequences on a body. Gravity serves important purposes.”
Waldren bobbed his head, and he typed something onto Alban’s console before floating back to his station. “Do star scans and pipe them to an exploratory map file,” he ordered. “Exclude Melody’s location on the maps with a notation that we have a claim on a habitable world within four weeks of this waypoint. As soon as we have Melody registered as ours, we’ll release an updated map. Run another scanner for any other planets from this location. Our scanner should be able to detect Melody from here.”
“Roger,” the Veloc replied before getting to work.
“Camellia, I’m going to bring the informational database up next. I want you to find the shiftgem section of the archives and see if you can get any matches on the color patterns and gate shapes. That might help us learn which gate this might access.”
“Can a shiftgem gate connect to multiple gates?”
“Absolutely,” he replied. “When you want a specific destination from a gate that has multiple destinations, we have to send a series of pulses to change the gate’s color. Once the gate is the correct color pattern, we activate our drives and make use of the gate. Those gates are pretty rare, however. I know of only six of them in the universe. We’ll probably end up discovering another gate after this, which will be another big paycheck in our accounts. Shiftgem gates are worth even more than habitable worlds.”
My eyes widened. “Finding gates are worth even more than entire planets?”
“They are. In exchange for sharing the location and destination of the gate, we’re paid a hefty sum. Gates that go to exterior space are priceless, but all captains pay yearly fees to help cover the allowances for using the gates. This ship costs ten thousand credits a year for gate usage. There are millions upon millions of ships paying fees. Eighty percent of those fees tend to go to bounties for discovering new shiftgem gates.” He chuckled, paused his work long enough to rub his hands together, and added, “I really might have enough to upgrade the entire ship with this. Sure, we’ll need to do a lot of work protecting Melody, but that’ll be worth it. I’m going to get a dual-drive system, too.”
“Dual-drive system?” I stared at him, struggling to comprehend how he’d gone from his more restrained self to boisterous.
“The ship will have two sets of engines, so the chances of a catastrophic failure preventing space travel are significantly reduced. It’s expensive, but it’s worth it—and if I have the funds, I’ll do a tri-engine system. The third engine would be rigged to replace one of the others if they broke. In space, the loss of an engine can be a death sentence. I tend to do a lot of maintenance work on the engine to make sure there aren’tany issues.” Waldren returned to his station and typed on the console, narrowing his eyes while considering the ship’s output. “All right. The systems seem to be checking out. According to the sensors, we’re being held in some form of gravity well. It’s reporting pressures on all sides of the ship, which is holding it in place. Not a lot of pressure, but enough to make certain we aren’t going anywhere. Engaging the engines will be enough to break the hold. This is good for us because it’s enough to keep us from drifting.”
“Shiftgem gates can do that?”
“Apparently.” Waldren tapped a few buttons on the keyboard. One by one, the lights returned to the bridge, and the ship vibrated as the engine kicked back on. “All right. The systems are coming back faster than expected. It looks like the ship automatically started rebooting the instant we crossed through.”
Alban snorted, and he said, “We’re getting planetary readings already. I’ve located Melody, and there are four other planets within range. I’m getting the scan data. We’re close enough we can issue a claim to them without visual. They aren’t registered.”
“Are they within this system’s Goldilocks Zone?”
“Checking,” the Veloc replied before tapping buttons on the console and monitoring the screen. “Mathematical analysis confirms all planets are potentially habitable.”
“Fourhabitable planets?” Waldren paced around the bridge, and the activation of the displays implied he’d gotten the systems up enough to utilize his link. “Can we afford to establish protectorates for all four?”
“We can. If we apply a share to the fees, locating the shiftgem gate and sending the star charts would be sufficient to lay claim over all four planets. If we flag them all for research and non-commercialization, we’d be able to establish the protectorateswith ease.” Displaying his teeth, the Veloc raised his crest. “It will take a few months to handle all the paperwork, during which Camellia can pursue her training and other ventures. Her share of the shiftgem gate discovery will set her for life and allow her to pursue her dreams as she sees fit. I am sure the Deltans will still host her even with her fiscal success from this venture.”
“Assuming we make it out of here—and figuring out where the gate goes.”
“I suspect the partnering gate will form not far from our world. We have limited gates, and conditions are optimal for the manifestation of one. This gate clearly is capable of manipulating our ship, so I suspect it is able to get a lock on our home world.”
According to Waldren’s grunt, the Veloc had given him terrible news. “We’ll have to increase our security around our home.”
“The other clans will help with that, as they will be given access to the gate as part of our protectorate. I’ll contact the Crimson Feet.”
Waldren froze. “The Crimson Feet?”
