Read, children, science fiction.
And adults too — read. Broadening one's horizons has never hurt anyone. Books are made to be read, after all, not burned.
"Two minutes until we exit hyperspace," Ihaar warned, glancing at me. "Commander, are you sure...?"
"Chief Engineer," Trebal, sitting in the ship's commander seat, interrupted him in an icy voice. "Were you given an order?"
Ihaar looked at her, then at me. He seemed to be trying to understand why there was no objection from my side...
"The decision has been made," I resolved the situation. "If you have constructive objections or suggestions, voice them, Ihaar."
"No, nothing like that," he wilted. "But if we all die, know this — I was against this initiative!"
"Noted," I replied dryly. "Officer Trebal, are you ready for the maneuver?"
"Yes, ready," she replied.
"Don't mess it up," I advised. "Your life depends first and foremost on how well you execute my plan."
"I remember," Trebal said, putting her hands on the armrests and closing her eyes for maximum concentration. "I'm ready for the maneuver..."
She didn't need to tell me twice. More likely, she was reassuring herself that she was capable of it. Then again, I didn't put the words in her mouth, did I?
A greenish flash from the hyperspace window spat the Hippaforalkus into real space. Only for the ship to continue its rapid approach toward a planet growing quickly in the main viewport.
"And there's Taranis," I muttered, watching the planet from orbit. Before, when I was taking piloting lessons from Chaya, I hadn't even had the desire to look at the planet from space.
Now, I could enjoy it in all its glory.
Snow-white swirls of clouds, blue oceans, greenish-brown patches of land... It was beautiful here, no denying it!
Especially considering the glow of myriads of stars in space filling the panorama. Truly breathtaking!
Why hadn't I noticed this before?
Planet Taranis.
"Entering the planet's gravity well," Ihaar announced.
"Were you able to activate the transporter cabin?" I asked.
"No," the Chief Engineer shook his head. "The velocity is too high. Can't stabilize the matter stream... We need to slow down!"
Well, no kidding, as if nobody knew that.
Except our maneuvering and braking thrusters were in the state of baked potatoes. We had to work with what we had.
"Deactivating the starboard sublight cluster," Trebal reported.
On the monitor responsible for displaying the ship's power consumption, the left half of the Hippaforalkus's stern flickered. A second later, it went dark, signaling that the ship was only receiving power for the port cluster.
In total, the ship had sixteen rectangular sublight engine emitters. Grouped into four banks — four per bank — they were combined into two clusters, port and starboard, spaced across the stern.
Simultaneous ignition resulted in uniformly accelerated motion in a straight line. Flights between objects within star systems or rendezvous with objects in real space, as well as acceleration for entering a hyperspace window — that was basically all sublight engines were for.
In the events I knew of, with ZPM as a power source (and likely with significant modifications), sublighs could reach speeds approaching light speed. But considering the galaxy spanned hundreds of thousands of light-years from end to end, using them wasn't very practical. When there was an alternative, of course.
"Observing course correction," Ihaar announced. "Two degrees and rising."
"Are we on track?" I asked.
"No," the Chief Engineer replied, checking readings on several consoles. "Velocity is too high; the planet's gravitational pull is insufficient for us to enter orbit."
"In other words, we're going to fly right past it?" I clarified.
"Yes!" Ihaar snapped. "That's why I said this maneuver of yours was nothing but stupidity! No one has done this in millions of years! There's no up-to-date program to calculate all the risks!"
"You did the calculations yourself!" I reminded him. "And you said it would work!"
"I said, 'It will work if we don't die!'" the Chief Engineer parried. "Looks like I was wrong. Give me time to redo the calculations! If it can be solved, then there was an inaccuracy somewhere!"
"Then, Plan B," I ordered, touching my finger to the transmitter of the radio headset clipped to my ear. "Alvar, open the hangar and fly down to Taranis."
"Understood," the Ermen said without any extra words. "Good luck!"
Plan B involved using the transporter cabin to evacuate all non-essential personnel from the Hippaforalkus. After all, Plan A involved a very dangerous maneuver.
In case of the traditional failure of Plan B, Plan C had been developed: everyone except me, Trebal, and Ihaar would evacuate from the ship, but using the jumpers. The ones in the battleship's hangar and those requisitioned from the Aurora were enough for everyone with the Ancient gene to take one or two Athosians and three stasis pods in the cargo hold.
If it worked, everything would be fine. As soon as the jumpers landed on the surface, they'd unload in the hangar and fly back to the Hippaforalkus to pick up the next batch of "sleeping beauties."
If not... We'd save maybe fifty people. The rest would have to be left on board until we found a way to stop the ship's flight.
We'd know soon enough.
"I'm starting to increase thrust on the starboard engine cluster," Trebal announced. "By increasing speed and changing the trajectory..."
"I need another minute!" Ihaar yelled, tearing himself away from the control console. "Don't do anything! A miscalculated speed or orbital insertion angle will put such stress on the ship that we could literally break apart!"
"The jumpers have left the hangar," Alvar reported. "The pilots are heading for the outpost."
"Report on the situation when you arrive," I ordered. After a moment's thought, I added:
"Contact Atlantis and tell Chaya about our position. If she can help..."
"Done!" Ihaar looked at Trebal. "Increase speed using the starboard sublight cluster!"
"That's exactly what I was doing!" the woman protested. "You said..."
"I know what I said," the Chief Engineer cut her off. "But without the numbers, I couldn't tell if we'd die or not! Increasing thrust by five percent every three seconds. I'm rerouting all available power to the shields — it will reduce the strain on the hull."
Despite the fact that we were supposedly flying parallel to the surface of Taranis, it was already clear that the perfect plan — exiting the hyperspace jump and settling into Taranis's orbit — had failed.
The idea was to "brake" the Ancient battlecruiser using the planet's gravity.
The concept was based on the inverse principle of what was known as a "gravitational slingshot."
Or, scientifically, a "gravity assist maneuver." The principle was to change a ship's course and speed using the gravitational forces of a large celestial body.
The first practical application in Earth's history was by a Soviet spacecraft, the automatic interplanetary station Luna 3.
A gravity assist maneuver involves a spacecraft on an orbital trajectory approaching a sufficiently massive celestial body orbiting the same center of mass. If the approach is with a planet, the center of mass is the system's star. If, for example, the maneuver is performed around a planet's moon, then the planet itself becomes the center of mass.
On Earth, this technique is used to accelerate, decelerate, or adjust the trajectory of spacecraft. It helps to dramatically gain (or lose) speed, change trajectory, or flight vector. This significantly saves available fuel.
So, if Soviet scientists, who had only just begun exploring space nearly seventy years ago, could calculate such a thing, then those who had traveled from one distant galaxy to another millions of years ago (or even longer) should find it a piece of cake.
Turns out, not quite.
As much as Trebal boasted about her species' advancement, it actually took Ihaar several days to calculate the data. And he got it wrong.
Yes, it's unlikely Earthlings in '59 of the last century could have done it that fast, but... There were millions of years of evolution between us! The Ancients had surely been traversing this galaxy for hundreds of thousands of years!
Ah well, that was all lyrical.
"Beginning course correction," Trebal reported. "First..."
It didn't affect the ship much, but at the same time, the views of Taranis, occupying the left half of the bridge's viewport, grew slightly larger.
"Don't use constant acceleration," Ihaar said. "In our case, corrections need to be made with short bursts. Thanks to the shields, the strain on the hull will be minimal, as will the effect of gravity..."
In a simplified representation, a gravity assist maneuver around a planet looks like this: a spacecraft enters the planet's sphere of influence with a given entry velocity relative to the planet. This velocity is determined by the difference in speed between the spacecraft and the planet relative to the star. In the planet-centered coordinate system, the spacecraft flies around the planet on a hyperbolic trajectory and leaves its sphere of influence with an exit velocity greater than the entry velocity.
After the spacecraft leaves the planet's sphere of influence, its heliocentric exit velocity will equal the sum of its entry velocity and the planet's orbital velocity. This is called the velocity increment and is the result of a gravity assist maneuver in its "gravitational slingshot" variant.
The velocity increment depends not on the planet's orbital speed, but on the relative entry velocity, the planet's mass, and the aiming distance — the closer the spacecraft's trajectory passes to the planet, the greater the deflection angle and the larger the velocity increment. The minimum distance is limited by the need to avoid contact with the planet, including its atmosphere.
But in our case, we needed not to accelerate, but to decelerate a spacecraft the size of a two-kilometer Ancient battleship using Taranis's gravity.
And for that, it was sufficient to move not along the vector of the planet's orbital motion around the star, but against it.
Yes, in interplanetary space, there is no substance dense enough to absorb the speed of a body moving by inertia. But there is gravity and the laws of celestial mechanics. And even in this universe, Newton's Third Law couldn't be fooled: the force of action was still equal to the force of reaction.
Like the planets of the Solar System moving counterclockwise around the Sun, Taranis rotated similarly around its axis and star. Therefore, we exited the hyperjump "against the grain."
Because power to the starboard engine cluster was cut off, we were able to deflect the battleship's motion vector to the right by increasing the driving force on the left.
Now, by adjusting the left cluster to fine-tune our entry into the planet's gravity well, we were moving against the gravitational eddies, as the Ancients called them, and thereby reducing our own speed. Because of this, the Hippaforalkus would lose its excess velocity in real space, settle into a stable orbit around Taranis, and not fly off into the impenetrable depths of endless space.
At least in theory...
On the forty-third course correction, a groan of protest against the planet's gravitational pull resonated through the ship. The Hippaforalkus was close to its target, but its rotational speed was still too high. At any moment, it could be flung out of orbit or torn apart by opposing forces as soon as we dropped the shields. And drop them we would have to.
"The second batch of jumpers has left the hangar," Alvar reported to me over the radio. "Brought out another twenty pods."
"Situation at the outpost?" I asked, watching Ihaar muttering curses under his breath. The metal had deformed in several external compartments, causing depressurization. From what I could see, it was in the corridors, so nothing serious.
"All quiet," he replied. "No sign of outside presence, though there's a whole delegation at the gate. Looks like they've been sitting here for a while, want to go through the gate. Should I do something about them?"
"Ignore their requests for now," I ordered. "Our priority is contacting Atlantis."
"Yes, that's what I planned, but these idiots are sitting right in the vortex formation zone. If we start dialing an address..."
"Chase them out of there," I ordered, hearing an alarm signal from one of the consoles. "We have more important problems here."
"Understood, I'll handle it," Alvar replied.
"What happened?" I asked Ihaar, who was studying the data.
"One of the engines in the working cluster has reached critical temperature," he reported. "I had to shut it down and the other three in its section, otherwise there would have been an explosion. Looks like the cooling system failed..."
"How much is this going to hinder us?" I asked.
Losing four out of eight working engines was bad. Considering the speeds we were talking about...
"Significantly," Ihaar grimaced as if from a toothache. "The orbital correction rate has been cut in half. I'll either have to increase the load on the remaining engines — double on a constant basis and quadruple during the correction — or recalculate the entire procedure with the new parameters."
"What's the probability that feeding more power to the remaining engines will burn those out too?"
"I don't know!" Ihaar said irritably. He clearly didn't enjoy being under pressure at that moment. "This ship is over ten thousand years old! I can't vouch for any of the active systems!"
"Then start figuring it out," I said. "Has the ship's speed dropped enough to use the teleportation chamber?"
"Let me check." Ihaar darted across half the bridge to another console. "Yes... No!"
"Care to be more specific?"
"We need one more speed adjustment," he rattled off. "Then we'll be within the allowed speed limit for energy transfer."
"Then calculate the new adjustment," I set the task, glancing at Trebal.
Despite sitting in the comfortable, ergonomic commander's chair, the girl looked like a squeezed lemon.
"You okay?" I asked quietly, stepping close.
"I'm not piloting for the first time," she smiled weakly. "But this... This is too difficult for me. It seems like controlling a ship without maneuvering thrusters is harder than with them."
"Oh, come on," I encouraged her. "It's going well enough. At least you don't have to restart the engines every time, like I originally thought I'd have to do."
"The person who told your nation that you don't need constantly running engines to travel in a straight line clearly doesn't know the laws of stellar mechanics," Trebal snorted. "I feel that if we did that, the engines would explode without the warning system even triggering."
There's a well-known point of view that constantly running engines aren't needed for space flight. Like, why would you do that if there's no resistance in space? Just a waste of fuel.
That'd be fine, the idea is actually sound... As long as the spacecraft's dimensions don't exceed a certain size and mass. Yes, there's no resistance in a vacuum. But to maneuver a starship, you either need to equip it with maneuvering thrusters the size of sublight engines, or a huge number of smaller ones.
The thing is, even in empty space, a single conditional push isn't enough to turn a hulk weighing several million tons, or even more. Different races solve this problem differently. The Ancients, for example, did it by running the sublight and maneuvering engines simultaneously.
It's very similar to turning the wheels on a car with a dead power steering system — during motion, it's much easier to turn than cranking the wheel while standing still. Furthermore, the action of maneuvering thrusters reduces inertial speed, which is very important for a warship — those who slow down in the heat of battle become priority targets.
Trebal tried to explain all this logic of constantly running sublight engines to me, but in most cases, I didn't recognize a single familiar law of physics or description. From which I concluded that at the level of the Ancients' spaceflight, thousands of other physical laws and forces are discovered and active, ones modern astrophysicists don't even suspect.
"Can you see it through?" I asked her.
"I don't know," the girl answered honestly. "It's... It's hard for me to connect with the ship when half the systems I'm used to accessing while piloting aren't working."
"In that case, rest," I helped her out of the command chair and sat her in the nearest seat. "You've done most of the work..."
"Not even close!" Ihaar tore himself away from his calculations. "We've done the easiest part — and that's with eight engines, not four. We need another one hundred and seventy-four adjustments to equalize the speeds and not burn out the engines. We'll have to turn them on for one second every second, one hundred and seventy-four times..."
"Wouldn't it be simpler to turn them on once for the whole time?"
"No, it wouldn't," Ihaar objected. "Look, I can explain why we need to do it this way, but we don't have much time. We've already covered thirty percent of the braking distance, but only done twenty percent of what was planned. If we don't hurry, we'll have big problems with structural integrity."
"Then tell me what to do," I ordered, climbing into the commander's chair. "Trebal," the girl looked at me with an exhausted gaze. "As soon as the transport chamber becomes usable, transfer to Taranis. And transfer as many stasis pods as possible to the planet. I'll finish everything myself."
"And if something goes wrong again?" Ihaar protested. "A malfunction, or something worse...?"
"I think the onboard computer will give me a hint on how to fix it," I said optimistically. "It worked during Trebal's mutiny."
"It worked," the girl said quietly. "But I'm not sure that one of the Ascended didn't help you. I've never heard of a mental connection with equipment being at that level before..."
The Ascended helped me? I highly doubt any of them decided to take the risk and interfere. A violation of the rules, after all.
And my contact with the Hippaforalkus's onboard computer isn't much different from how my interaction with the Puddle Jumper computers went. Although... who knows? Honestly, I'd even be happy if someone among that arrogant crowd started helping me.
"Start the adjustment," Ihaar said, clicking switches and buttons on his console. "I've revised the speed output and voltage supply to the engines, so there will be more adjustments... But I'm already preparing a program for you and uploading it to the onboard computer. It will help you conserve energy during mental contact... But it also increases the risk of a speed increase. I don't like the influence of solar wind, distortions, and vacuum instability... You'll have to make two hundred and seventeen adjustments. Start in one and a half minutes. Forty milliseconds of engine operation, ten milliseconds of break. That way we won't burn out the engines, the shields won't be fried by gravity resistance, the ship's frame won't deform... But after this, you'll feel very, very bad..."
"It's not so much the constant strain that's draining, but the mental contact with the ship itself," Trebal explained. "I already said: the longer the exposure, the greater the weakness..."
"I'll keep that in mind," I promised, closing my eyes and mentally reaching out to the onboard computer.
"Well then, let's save you, shall we?"
Of course, it would be incredibly stupid to think it would answer me. Still, while Ancient computers are very advanced, they're not yet artificial intelligence.
"First and second adjustments complete," I heard Ihaar's voice through a wad of cotton. "Speed... has decreased. We're within the acceptable range for using the transport chamber!"
"Get in it, now!" I commanded. "If I can't stop in time, I'll follow you."
"Alright," Trebal's voice came. "Let's go, Ihaar."
I didn't open my eyes to avoid breaking the mental contact with the ship, so the touch of lips on my cheek was a surprise.
"For luck," Trebal whispered. "Please, don't take unnecessary risks. The ship isn't as important as you are."
"Really?" I asked, launching another adjustment. And another, and another, and another... "And what makes me so special?"
"You survive — I'll tell you," the girl promised.
It even made me curious — are all these manipulative games with the consequences of the Ascended breaking the rules a peculiarity of the Aurora's officers, or what?
But there was no time to search for answers.
It was the thirty-seventh adjustment, and I already felt like I was getting the spins...
Read science fiction, kids. It might save your life one day.
Or ruin it.