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Authors: Phillip Nolte
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out slowly. "There will be no reinforcements from Earth," she said. "At least not anytime soon."
"Have they given you any reason?"
"Yes, they have and it is a very serious development," said the Admiral. Again she paused for a moment and looked around the room. "Some might say that what is happening is impossible."
"How so?" asked the Ambassador.
"Central Command reports that they are currently unable to macrojump between the Sol-Terra and the Santana Nexus hyperlink point."
There was a silence as the people in the room digested the news and the implications.
"You say they can't use the hyperlink zone?" asked F.C.Talbot, who was both intrigued and appalled by the announcement.
F.C. Talbot had been a Federation Navy engineer a long, long time ago, all the way back during the Succession War, in fact. After the war, he had gone on to forge a long and lucrative career as consulting engineer and along the way had become a philosopher of some note who was known to be particularly critical of organized religion. He had been invited by Ambassador Saladin to participate in the Ambassador's diplomatic summit meeting, which was to have been held at the Santana Nexus a few weeks ago, in the hope that the old engineer cum philosopher could provide a fresh viewpoint and perhaps help the diplomats find a way to ease the political tensions that were permeating through and poisoning the entire Quadrant.
The meeting had been aborted by the Sheik of Barsoom's attack upon and subsequent capture of the Santana Nexus Station during which the Ambassador had been forced to flee the system. Talbot had been on board the Istanbul when she jumped out to safety during the attack and had been marooned with all of the other diplomats when the diplomatic ship had taken refuge in the Scrapyard. With his wealth of practical knowledge concerning older ship designs, Talbot had volunteered his services to the Scrapyard defense effort where his expertise had proven to be particularly valuable.
"No, they can't ," said Kingston. "Something happened about twenty-four hours ago. Two different ships that were scheduled to use that hyperlink point charged up their jump modules and attempted to jump but they were unable to generate a field and they...," she searched for the appropriate word, "...they overloaded their jump modules. A third ship stepped her module up to emergency power levels and suffered an explosion and fire. The Federation authorities are looking into it but they have suspended all traffic through that hyperlink point until they can figure out what's wrong."
"That means..." mused Talbot, "...that someone m ust have figured out how to generate a hyperdrive counterfield, the so-called 'hyperdrive damper!' But that's supposed to be impossible!"
"No one knows for sure what is going on, Dr. Talbot, " said Kingston, "but Central Command had stationed a scientific ship nearby before the third ship attempted to jump and they got some very peculiar readings from the zone."
Talbot continued musing, "Well...there is a sort of 'handshake' protocol between the ship and the zone they are linking to. It's a calibration wave that allows a final fine tuning of the jump parameters. Stage II communicators are really just a modified and greatly extended form of this handshake wave. We can ping the zone with the handshake wave to obtain final jump parameters and we can send bursts of information through with our Stage II consoles but that's all we've been able to do so far. Generating and sustaining a damper field is way beyond anything that has been possible before. If this has been accomplished, it could change everything!"
"I know, Dr. Talbot, and you can bet that the Federation has put an army of their best people to work on the problem but the most immediate effect is that we can expect no help from the Sol-Terra Quadrant until they can figure out how to restore the use of the hyperlink point."
"This means that..." began Kresge.
"...Yes, Commander," the
"Have they given you any reason?"
"Yes, they have and it is a very serious development," said the Admiral. Again she paused for a moment and looked around the room. "Some might say that what is happening is impossible."
"How so?" asked the Ambassador.
"Central Command reports that they are currently unable to macrojump between the Sol-Terra and the Santana Nexus hyperlink point."
There was a silence as the people in the room digested the news and the implications.
"You say they can't use the hyperlink zone?" asked F.C.Talbot, who was both intrigued and appalled by the announcement.
F.C. Talbot had been a Federation Navy engineer a long, long time ago, all the way back during the Succession War, in fact. After the war, he had gone on to forge a long and lucrative career as consulting engineer and along the way had become a philosopher of some note who was known to be particularly critical of organized religion. He had been invited by Ambassador Saladin to participate in the Ambassador's diplomatic summit meeting, which was to have been held at the Santana Nexus a few weeks ago, in the hope that the old engineer cum philosopher could provide a fresh viewpoint and perhaps help the diplomats find a way to ease the political tensions that were permeating through and poisoning the entire Quadrant.
The meeting had been aborted by the Sheik of Barsoom's attack upon and subsequent capture of the Santana Nexus Station during which the Ambassador had been forced to flee the system. Talbot had been on board the Istanbul when she jumped out to safety during the attack and had been marooned with all of the other diplomats when the diplomatic ship had taken refuge in the Scrapyard. With his wealth of practical knowledge concerning older ship designs, Talbot had volunteered his services to the Scrapyard defense effort where his expertise had proven to be particularly valuable.
"No, they can't ," said Kingston. "Something happened about twenty-four hours ago. Two different ships that were scheduled to use that hyperlink point charged up their jump modules and attempted to jump but they were unable to generate a field and they...," she searched for the appropriate word, "...they overloaded their jump modules. A third ship stepped her module up to emergency power levels and suffered an explosion and fire. The Federation authorities are looking into it but they have suspended all traffic through that hyperlink point until they can figure out what's wrong."
"That means..." mused Talbot, "...that someone m ust have figured out how to generate a hyperdrive counterfield, the so-called 'hyperdrive damper!' But that's supposed to be impossible!"
"No one knows for sure what is going on, Dr. Talbot, " said Kingston, "but Central Command had stationed a scientific ship nearby before the third ship attempted to jump and they got some very peculiar readings from the zone."
Talbot continued musing, "Well...there is a sort of 'handshake' protocol between the ship and the zone they are linking to. It's a calibration wave that allows a final fine tuning of the jump parameters. Stage II communicators are really just a modified and greatly extended form of this handshake wave. We can ping the zone with the handshake wave to obtain final jump parameters and we can send bursts of information through with our Stage II consoles but that's all we've been able to do so far. Generating and sustaining a damper field is way beyond anything that has been possible before. If this has been accomplished, it could change everything!"
"I know, Dr. Talbot, and you can bet that the Federation has put an army of their best people to work on the problem but the most immediate effect is that we can expect no help from the Sol-Terra Quadrant until they can figure out how to restore the use of the hyperlink point."
"This means that..." began Kresge.
"...Yes, Commander," the
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