Rescue Branch (Kinsella Universe) Read online

  Rescue

  Branch

  Gina Marie Wylie

  Copyright © 2010, 2012 Gina Marie Wylie

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN-13: 978-1478306689

  ISBN-10: 1478306688

  Book I

  Rescue Branch

  CONTENTS

  1

  Midshipman

  1

  2

  Trainee

  22

  3

  More Training

  39

  4

  Graduation Exercise

  58

  5

  The Miracle That Wasn’t

  80

  6

  Space can be a Friendly Place

  100

  7

  What Duty Means

  125

  8

  The Tap-Dancing Elephant

  152

  9

  The Inquiry

  190

  10

  Sighted Ceres Sinking

  217

  11

  Ceres is Ruinously Out of Spec

  246

  12

  Waking Up is Hard to Do

  273

  13

  Weddings and Funerals

  298

  Chapter 1 -- Midshipman

  Rebecca Cooper remained at her desk when the knock on her door came. It was a few minutes after seven PM and about now her roommate's boyfriend was due to show up and the two of them would go to the library to “study.”

  Becky was two months into her third year at Annapolis; she had no intention of messing that up over a guy... she wasn't intending to mess up for any reason.

  Her roommate went to the door, expecting to see her friend. Becky was surprised when her roommate called, “Attention on deck! Ten Hutt!”

  Becky rose out of her chair, turning to see who the unwanted guest was.

  Commander Krista Jacobsen was one of the taller instructors at the Naval Academy, blonde and blue-eyed. Becky had no idea why she was standing in the door to their dorm room.

  The commander was brisk. “You're Midshipman Feller, is that right?” she was speaking to Becky's roommate.

  “Yes, ma'am. Midshipman Nita Feller, third classman.”

  “Get lost. Come back in an hour; hour and a half.”

  “Yes, Commander!” Nita said with alacrity. She'd already been ready to go out; she simply picked up her things and was gone out the door a second later.

  Commander Jacobsen stalked forward like a lethal panther. “So, Midshipman Cooper! I have your application here! So you want to be an astronaut!”

  Becky had frozen into a brace as soon as she knew there was a regular officer at the door. She glanced at the papers in Commander Jabobsen's hand. “Ma'am, yes ma'am!”

  “Don't try to be cute or gung-ho with me, Middie! I just want yes or no answers. Are you running around in circles? Keeping physically fit?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” Becky answered. She ran every day, rain or shine.

  “One last time, Midshipman. I want to hear a 'yes, sir' or a 'no, sir.' What else are you studying besides my advanced astrophysics class?”

  Becky tried not to be put off by being asked something that couldn't be answered by a simple 'yes' or 'no.'

  “Sir, advanced differential calculus and linear algebra. Aerospace concepts and engineering applications two.”

  “So, you want to be a rocket scientist?”

  “I want to go into space, Commander, yes, sir.”

  “It is Tuesday evening, Midshipman. I have some reading for you.” She promptly produced four typewritten pages and waved them in Becky’s direction. Becky could only see that it look like a legal document, at least in the beginning. The commander delivered them into Becky’s hands.

  “For you, Midshipman, I have a special burden and a special boon. Thursday, either you or I will brief my students as to the contents of the patent I just handed you. I will prepare a thirty-five minute summary and will take questions. You may prepare a thirty-minute summary and also prepare to take questions. If I think you are anywhere near prepared, you'll do it and not me.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “If you have prepared adequately, nothing else will be on your schedule Thursday. I'll excuse you with all your instructors. Fail, and you will be miserable, Midshipman.”

  “I won't fail, ma'am.”

  “You'd better not. The special boon? That's the third name on that patent. That and about four hundred pages of project design, which, until yesterday, were classified 'President's eye's only.' With an understanding of the patent, Midshipman, and an understanding of the project plan, the sky will literally be your limit.”

  “Yes, Ma'am.”

  “What is today, Midshipman?”

  “Ma'am, it’s election day. I voted for the first time in my life by absentee ballot.”

  “Off-year elections -- still they will have an impact on the future. You will want to read the patent application with one eye on the future, Midshipman.”

  “Yes, ma'am.”

  “The third name on the patent is Professor Stephanie Kinsella at Caltech. She was my thesis advisor when the Navy paid my way to finish up my doctoral work in astrophysics there. Professor Kinsella...” her voice trailed off. “You and I together, Midshipman, might, I repeat, might, qualify to carry her pencils, for all that Professor Kinsella is a lot closer to your age than mine.

  “Do you understand your task, Midshipman Cooper?”

  “Yes, ma'am. Review the patent, prepare to give a briefing on it Thursday morning.”

  “If you need more time to understand the math, Midshipman, call me. I will excuse you from your classes tomorrow as well. Thursday morning, however, is the drop dead deadline.”

  Becky tried not to let her astonishment show. “Yes, Commander.”

  “One last thing, just so we are clear here, Midshipman. If you had a chance to go into space, just how much would you be willing to give up?”

  “I don't know what you mean, ma'am.”

  “Would you give up the appellation 'Rocket Scientist?'”

  “I think that is more a derogatory term, ma'am.”

  “Think about it, Midshipman.”

  She spun on her heel and vanished.

  It had, Becky thought, taken less than ten minutes, tops. Why had Commander Jacobsen demanded her roommate leave for an hour or an hour and a half? There was no way she'd come back early; it really was a command to take more time.

  Becky read the first page of the patent application; it was mostly legal verbiage. She started in on the math on the second page. She read the first paragraph, stopped, blinked in astonishment and went back over it again.

  The math was simple; where it ended up wasn't. It was too simple; she shivered in reaction. It was entirely too simple. The equations might have been simple, but the result wasn't.

  Over and over again she ran the equations. In her head, on her computer, on a piece of paper. All said the same thing: nothing wrong here!

  It wasn't so much the destruction of physics as she knew it; it was turning a corner and realizing that what everyone thought was a blind alley was actually lit with klieg lights.

  One line after another she understood where the math went; she was no longer concerned if it made sense or not. Someone had done a number on the math; that much was certain. She wasn't likely to shine a negative light on it.

  Towards the end there were three lines of equations without much in support. The support was, really, nothing to write home about. She looked at the three lines again and again, and all she could do was shake her head. They made no sense.

  Her roommate retu
rned. “What did Jacobsen want?”

  “Hush! Go to bed! Forget it!”

  Becky's roommate was understandably upset, but Becky had long since passed the point where she cared for her roommate at all.

  Wednesday dawned and Becky realized she was only halfway through the task of completely understanding the math. She fired off an email to Commander Jacobsen and refocused her efforts. At lunchtime her roommate was aghast, aware of the penalties professors subjected any malefactor. Becky ignored her, concentrating instead on the patent.

  By late afternoon Becky was at her desk, hormones humming in her body. Never in her life had she imagined such a thing could happen without a sexual component.

  That evening Commander Jacobsen was back. “Are you ready, Midshipman?” Becky was aware of her roommate's intense gaze.

  “Yes, ma'am. I understand the math. I am in all respects ready.” Well, except for those three lines, she was ready. If asked about them she planned on looking the commander directly in the eye and pleading ignorance.

  “On your head, then. So be it.”

  Becky bobbed her head; ready for anything. She knew her roommate assumed the worst, but she had no intention of helping her with the time of day.

  Thursday she began the day in Commander Jacobsen's first period class. The kindest thing you could say about the initial reaction was “disbelief.” At the end one of the midshipman stood and addressed a question to Commander Jacobsen, who had remained seated and silent through out Becky's presentation.

  Commander Jacobsen had laughed then. “Do you see these?” she said, grabbing a piece of chalk and drawing lines under the first half dozen lines of equations Becky had written on the board.

  “These tie together gravity and electromagnetism. Further along you find equations tying together those and the strong and weak forces. What is before you is that long promised, but until now elusive, Holy Grail of Physics -- the 'Grand Unified Theory of Everything.'

  “What Midshipman Cooper has presented this period is going to fundamentally reform physics as we know it. And, along the way, has given us space travel for dummies, handing us the solar system on a silver platter.”

  Becky was grateful for the intervention -- but then she had to erase the board and prepare for the next class.

  The second period was First Classmen; there were fewer questions, and far more people taking notes. The third period was a larger surprise. Several other faculty members from the physics and math departments stood silently watching Becky write the equations and explain the math. There were a lot more questions, mostly from the faculty members.

  Then came lunch and there seemed to be a force field around Becky as she ate -- one that kept people at a distance. They would come and look, hover for a few moments, talk among themselves and then leave.

  She smiled slightly to herself; she knew what the math meant now -- at least most of it. Commander Jacobsen was right -- it was the solar system handed to mankind on silver platter. It would even be possible to build ships that could go to another star, albeit the trip would be time consuming and more than a little dangerous.

  She went back to her dorm room. Her roommate was nowhere to be found, so she gratefully sank down at her desk and started on some of the assignments she'd missed. She'd barely begun to work when there was a peremptory knock on her door. She got up and answered it, finding Lieutenant Stafford, her tactical officer, there.

  The lieutenant was a tall black woman; very tall and very black. In spite of their disparate appearance they had more in common than most. They both wanted a shot at the space program and were trying to prepare themselves as best academically as they could.

  “Midshipman Cooper, in a short time there will be an announcement that all afternoon classes will be canceled today. Please present yourself to the Commandant at 1330 hours on the auditorium stage.”

  Becky blinked. If she was in trouble, she'd have been called to the Commandant’s office, not the auditorium. She knew what was expected of her. “Aye, aye, sir. I'll be present at the proper time.”

  “I don't suppose -- between now and then -- you'd let me borrow that paper?”

  Considering it was invariably Lieutenant Stafford demanding something of her, Becky was only too happy to comply. She handed the woman the few pages. Lieutenant Stafford lofted them in the air. “Hard to believe that this is considered the greatest scientific discovery of all time.”

  “Pardon?” Becky asked, surprised. She'd known it was important, but she'd not really understood how important.

  “This gives mankind the solar system,” Lieutenant Stafford repeated what Becky had heard. “We can do it cheaply and easily. It gives us plentiful power, of a non-nuclear kind. I don't know how you could hook this up to generate electricity -- I just started thinking about it -- but there has to be a way. But we should be able to figure out something.

  “I know it's not something you can really brag about, Midshipman Cooper -- I mean anyone who knows the math can read this and figure out pretty much what it means! But it means something when an undergraduate engineering student can read it and understand it.

  “I will find you after you see the Commandant and return this to you.”

  Becky swallowed. “I made a few copies. You can keep it, if you want.”

  Lieutenant Stafford laughed. “That saves me a trip to the copier! Good job, Midshipman!”

  The announcement about the afternoon's classes being canceled came a few minutes later. “Classes for the Academy are canceled for the afternoon. Instead, there will be an important presentation at the auditorium at 1400 hours; all midshipmen, staff and support personnel should be in attendance.”

  So, a half hour early she reported to the stage where a bevy of officers, mostly captains and a sprinkling of admirals were already in attendance. Midshipmen had been dragooned into setting up chairs in the stage wings for the dignitaries.

  The Commandant saluted her and Becky returned it, a little bemused. “This morning was a good job, Midshipman. You have no idea how much it warms my heart to hear about someone given a no-notice task -- and doing it well. Rest assured, your other instructors will see it that way too.”

  “Yes, sir,” she answered politely.

  “Go talk to Commander Jacobsen for a few minutes; you deserve the opportunity. Then come back and we'll find a good seat for you.”

  Coming to the Commandant's attention was usually your final stop on the way out the door -- it was unnerving to find him a benign father figure.

  She went to Commander Jacobsen, standing a few feet away, watching the preparations phlegmatically.

  “Midshipman Cooper, ma'am.”

  “Yes. Now you will learn a great truth about me -- I'm really a glory hog. I set you on a task to warm up the audience for me.”

  It sounded like a dirty trick, but if that was the case, why was the commander laughing?

  “I figured you could practice a little public speaking, Midshipman Cooper, in front of small groups. I don't think you are quite up to seven thousand spectators at a whack yet, though.”

  Becky contemplated that number. No, probably not.

  “I agree, Commander.”

  “I know you probably think I put you out to sink or swim. I did do that; I was pretty sure, though, that you could swim.

  “Tell me, did you do any other research?”

  “Commander, no, ma'am.”

  “Do you understand the significance of the names on the patent?”

  “There is a significance, sir?”

  “They are listed in order of participation in the patent. Caltech has 40 percent, Mr. Benko and Mr. Chang, Caltech grad students, have 25 percent each, and Doctor Stephanie Kinsella has 10 percent, offered up as a bonus by Caltech.”

  “Oh.”

  “I also will add that any professional titles are listed -- Doctor, for instance. They list a title for Kinsella -- but they don't for the other two.

  “Does this help in translating the patent appli
cation, Midshipman Cooper?”

  “Ma'am, I can't say as it does.”

  “As you get older, you will have more experience with more things. Caltech gets their share because they are the sponsoring organization. Benko and Chang are clearly grad students -- I suspect they are grad students who got lucky, and found something unexpected that Kinsella noticed.

  “Tell me, Midshipman Cooper. I've estimated your age as twenty-one. Odds are I'm within a year.”

  “I'm twenty-one, Commander.”

  “Stephanie Kinsella is a year older than you -- she's been a professor at Caltech now for two years. She was my thesis advisor.”

  “Oh.” Becky was stunned. How did someone Kinsella’s age get to be a full professor? It usually came at middle age!

  “Midshipman, Stephanie Kinsella defines exactly what it is when someone says, 'a hard charger.' Now for some other things, things that if you'd had lots of time, and a knowledge that there was something going on, you might have researched for yourself.

  “Monday this was all top secret. In spite of the off-year elections held a couple of days ago, on Monday the President convened his top advisors and they heard a presentation from Kinsella about a project she has in mind.”

  She handed Becky a stack of paper nearly two inches thick. “This is Kinsella's project plan. After you get done faunching at it, I will give you an A+ in my astrophysics class, if tomorrow morning you tell me the one thing that Kinsella wanted more than anything else from her meeting with the President and his men. Technically the plan is still classified. Monday it was “President's Eyes Only.' That's been superseded, but my source doesn't know what the current classification is. In short, don't go to anyone else for help.”

  “Yes, Commander.”

  “Now, prepare to listen to my dulcet tones explain all of this to a great many people who won't have a clue.”

  “Commander...” Becky hastily interjected. “Why me?”

  “I've seen you naked, Midshipman Cooper.”