It’s complicated as fuck.
When the first prototype jump portal was successfully tested over eighty years ago, it could jump a vessel into and out of what’s been dubbed the “ether” but couldn’t transport living things. It took another fifteen years of R&D to discover how to create a “bubble” around the vessel, so that it looked like it was a string to the universe, but the people inside it noticed nothing amiss, and transport them.
Ether-jump engines naturally emerged from that technology.
The operator—moi—creates branes with strings sandwiched between them, and then we ride. Those branes are what the ether-jump nav is there to ensure aren’t in the middle of a damn star, or in the middle of a planet, or on top of a space station.
Portal jumps are easier because the portals are essentially permanently fixed branes, or points, that talk to each other and transfer the ship—or comms buoy—through them. They remain relatively stationary in space, and only talk to each other. But because they are fixed points in space, they don’t move. Once you set up two of them, they need to stay where they are, otherwise it can fuck things up.
And ships over a certain size, or carrying certain densities of cargo, can’t jump through portals that aren’t powerful enough to transport them.
And it’s fucking expensive to make portals. The companies earn the money back on selling jumps through them to companies who can’t afford ether-jump engines for their fleets.
Ten hours into our jump, I’m about to call it a day and head for my quarters to monitor the systems from my console there when I hear something that immediately sets my own internal alarms jangling.
A warning tone from the plasma com panel, which handles the ether-jump engine’s core.
Before I can make it over to the panel, the tone sounds again, louder, along with a verbal system alert.
“Warning! Plasma core signal dipping into unknown variable. Auto-shutdown of ether-jump system will commence in twenty seconds. Please manually confirm jump-in point now.”
“Fuck!” I scream, diving for my own panel again. I’m aware that the captain’s barking orders at the rest of the bridge crew but I’m too busy to listen to him. I’m scanning the coordinates the AI spit out, verifying them with my own math and with navigational and com buoys, all while the computer’s voice is cheerfully counting down to what could potentially be our deaths, if I get this wrong.
I’ve just about got it.
“Jump-in commencing in ten…nine…”
I tune it out and tap in my command code to approve the jump-in and wrap my hand tightly around my lucky stylus.
Please, please, please let that be right! I want to see Olarte again.I haven’t had to undergo one of these exact scenarios since training, and they always made my ass pucker then, too.
“…two…one. Jump-in proceeding as approved.”
I keep my eyes closed as I feel the wobble, and then I suck in deep, rasping gasps of air as I listen to the captain demanding status reports from the other crew and hear alarm chirps going off all over.
We’re alive. We’d be dead already if I fucked it up.
I open my eyes and pull up our current coordinates.
We’re smack in the middle of a massive void between several different star systems.
In other words, a best-case outcome for a worst-case scenario.
I slump back in my chair, the shakes hitting me as my stylus races through my fingers. I let the system do another check of itself to confirm the first set of numbers, and then I run through them.
We’re good.
I turn to see the captain staring at me, and I give him a thumbs-up.
“What happened?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I have to pass that off to McMurtry if you want a fast answer.” I drag myself to my feet.
“Where are you going?” he asks.
“I need a fucking drink after that. Someone damn well better have at least a shot of liquor to share with me.”
I head for the corridor. Right now, they don’t need me, and I’m no good to them.
