Free Warrior Chronicles 5: Warrior's Curse by Shawn Jones

become friends. Regardless, it was clear from Liz’s demeanor that they had made progress.
     
    Cort was pleased. H’uum’s ships were already halfway to the black hole, and he wanted to get his own ships en route as soon as possible. In just over three more weeks another group of humans would disappear. Lee Pan had told him the next event would be twelve weeks later. Cort knew he couldn’t stop the event three weeks away, but he wanted to prevent the following one. If George’s plan worked, he would be able to. Looking at his son walking with Liz, he smiled, swiveled his chair back around and waited for them to enter the building.
     
    When they were in his office and had exchanged greetings, Cort asked about the engine modifications. “Now that you’ve had time to work on it, what do you think of George’s idea, Liz? Do you still think it will work?”
     
    “Have you looked at it, sir?”
     
    “Nope. You know the physics is way over my head,” Cort smiled. “George says he can do it, so I assume he can. That’s why I called you.”
     
    Liz was confused. “Called me? What did you call me, sir?”
     
    “Sorry, it’s an old term. I mean I commed you. That used to be a ‘phone call.’ When he told me he could do it, I commed you.”
     
    Liz smiled at Cort’s ancient terminology. “Ah. Well, I cannot check all of George’s math, because a good portion of it is beyond current mathematics. It is beyond even theoretical mathematics. But what I can check, I have. Since we lost the Nill core, we no longer need the transition chamber of the Jonah drive. By replacing it with George’s exotic cannon design, we can alter the shape of the warp bubble. By making it more elliptical, we are able to achieve rapid matter attenuation. The bubble becomes monochromatic and …”
     
    Cort smiled and held his hand up. “Liz, I just told you the physics is over my head. Speak slowly, enunciate, and dumb it down. Dumb it down a lot .”
     
    “I am sorry, sir.” She thought for a moment and began again. “Okay, currently we use a near-spherical warp bubble to push our ships through space time, like firing a ballistic round through water. But if we don’t constantly recharge the bubble, space time resists us sufficiently to slow us down. We can only recharge it so quickly. Do you follow me so far?”
     
    “Space time resists our warp bubbles.”
     
    “Exactly. George’s math indicates that we can actually stretch that bubble. Using a PSR cannon, we can push the bubble’s boundary forward to the target locus and then shrink the bubble, pulling the ship forward to its destination. Still with me?”
     
    Cort nodded. “Like a rubber band. We stretch it and let go. The back edge catches up with the leading edge, bringing the ship with it. But what is a PSR?”
     
    “Correct. They are Perlmutter Schmidt Reiss particles. So named because the three physicists from your time are credited with the discovery of dark energy. George has a different name for them, but we have agreed to use human terminology for the sake of simplicity.”
     
    “Okay, you flex warp parabola to change the shape of the warp field, and control its size by how much dark energy PSRs you fire into it.”
     
    Liz nodded.
     
    “How fast can we go then? Can we compare with H’uuman speed?”
     
    “Sir, you have the concept, but I think you are missing something. We will take the ship out of our space time, then move and reappear in our space time. We will reappear at the same moment. In fact, for a moment so brief it is immeasurable, we will in both places at once.”
     
    Cort realized the implication. “So you are saying we have instantaneous jumps. As in Nill core transition speed?”
     
    Liz smiled. “Exactly, sir. We will be able to jump through space again. There are some limitations. For instance we have to reappear in reasonably empty space. If we don’t, pretty much anything near our emergent locus will be destroyed.”
     
    Cort