Starcorp 1: Escape from Sol

From the moment that he accepted the commission offered to him by the Starcorp League Joshua Sloan had been anxiously waiting for this day. He perceived this moment as the start date for the actual construction of his war machine. All that he had done before this was design its physical appearance and dimensions. This felt more like play than work to him. His imagination could run free with ideas. In his mind, this was preparatory to the actual work of constructing it. He knew that the workforce and budget that he was about to bring to bear was monstrous by comparison to all that he had done so far.

Despite this comparatively minuscule opening process, the design phase took up all the available time that led up to this day. Even with six months to work with he was rushed to complete an overall blueprint for all the component vessels to his war machine. To affect this, he was given fifty engineers. They were all highly qualified and highly rated professionals from all sectors of the starcorp community. They were all specialist in robotics, primarily the large construction robots, and the construction ships that housed and maintained them.

Construction starships and construction robots were the vessels and machines that built the starcorps. Construction robots were the Spacers version of a construction crane on earth. Massive in size, the construction robots were the asteroid wranglers that collected and mined the planetoids for its mineral wealth. They were the construction workers that assembled the starships and spaceships of the starcorps. Construction robots were the mainstay of the starcorps. The continued growth of the starcorps was dependent upon their existence. The manufacture and selling of construction robots was a major industry within the starcorps. More than three-thousand construction robots were in service about the solar system. Their function and design grew, evolved and expanded with the starcorps. Many of the top design engineers responsible for their development were assigned to Joshua’s team. They were responsible for more than three-hundred design suggestions offered to Joshua regarding the look and size of his war machine. Together, they assessed and modified these designs until Joshua settled on the final blueprints. This decision he made less than two days earlier. Joshua spent the time after this formulating the command structure for the next phase of the project.

For much of the past six months, Joshua and his collection of design engineers had been falling through space towards the planet Saturn. Their final destination was to be Saturn VI, Titan, the largest moon about the planet. The Starcorp League picked this location as the site for the construction of Joshua’s war machine. A fictitious starcorp was devised as a front for this project. They felt that Saturn and its moons were sufficiently distant enough to keep this, massive and top-secret construction project hidden from, nearly, all the other inhabitants of the solar system, for the short term. There were seven minor exploration and research endeavors taking place around Saturn and its moons. But they were minuscule in scale and governed by distant starcorps that were part owners in Joshua’s project. The League was confident that they could keep them in the dark, for the most part, for the next few years.

The starship that was carrying Joshua to his construction site was called the Dominion. It was a newly built vessel that was originally intended to go elsewhere. The Starcorp League secured it under the pretense that the purchase order was sold to a new starcorp. The League assigned this fake starcorp the ticker symbol RG01E21820317. The maximum occupancy of the Dominion was twenty-five thousand people. At this moment, there were only two-hundred-eighty-six people aboard the vessel. There was no need for any more than this number, for the present. The ship’s crew, the habitat maintenance personnel made up the bulk of this number. Joshua’s design and engineering team, and their families made up the difference.

The Starship Dominion was expected to be the first of several large purchases on behalf of this fake starcorp. Factory ships and Construction ships were already being targeted up for the assembly process of this project. The varied super segments of Joshua’s war machine were to be manufactured by starcorps all about the solar system. Each piece was to be ferried to Titan by dedicated space haulers. After arrival, these super segments would be assembled together by large construction robots. Their primary function would be the fastening together of the hulls and the habitat chambers. Smaller robots would take on the task of assembling large mechanical portions and the overall infrastructure. The smallest robots would be used to assemble the human spaces within the habitat ring, along with their associated plumbing and wiring. Each of these robots would be manned by at least one operator. It was estimated that a workforce more than five thousand would be needed to complete the project within the allotted time frame. The cost of all of this was to be secretly covered by all the starcorps. This concealment of expenditures and resources by the starcorps was considered to be the weakest link in this top-secret program.

The Dominion was four hours away from commencing deceleration into Saturn’s gravitational sphere. The Captain of the starship also planned to use this event to steer the Dominion into a high orbit around Titan, one of the gas giant’s sixty-three moons. This act of decelerating to a virtual stop was expected to last for five hours. For the whole of this time, the passengers and crew would be secured inside space capsules located, in a cluster, atop of the starship’s hub. Joshua elected to use the time before this event to lay out the organizational structure of this program’s next phase and to assign the heads of its separate divisions.

Joshua’s team of engineers strolled, one after the other, into a large plain room in the starship’s office complex. It took less than five minutes for all fifty to assemble. In appearance, the room looked like a classroom. A large, white, marker board was situated along the front wall. The space inside was large enough to accommodate twenty engineering workstations. Half of the fifty engineers found seats somewhere inside. The others crowded about along the side walls. Joshua was the last to arrive, two minutes behind the group. Gripped in his left hand was a computer tablet. A rather pretty-looking young man followed him into the room, one step behind and to the left. All discussions and whispering between the assembled engineers came to a stop the moment they walked through the door.

“Thank you all for coming on such short notice,” Joshua began as he hurried into the room.

Joshua stopped at the head of the room shortly after entering. His companion took a position to his left. Joshua scanned the faces in front of him and was quickly satisfied that all were present.

“I believe you’re all familiar with Nathan Holt,” Joshua began with a hand gesture towards the person to his immediate left. “I’ve selected him for the position of Director of Human Resources. I asked him to be here so that you all can attach a face to the title that some of you will be communicating with regularly.”

Nathan Holt was small in stature and build, flawlessly groomed and decidedly young in appearance. This was an image that he put great effort into maintaining. His polished manner and ease at conversing with others were matched only by his intellect. He was what some had termed sharp as a tack. Upon his introduction, he gave a slight bow to the assembly before him. There was no reciprocation other than a few nods of comprehension. All present had seen Nathan before, but only a few had ever spoken to him. And these conversations were all limited to passing salutations. There was no animosity behind their non-response. The engineers saw this introduction as a perfunctory formality ahead of the main event. They filed Nathan’s name and face away in their memory and waited on Joshua to continue with his address. This he did three seconds later.

“The first thing I want to say is thanks to all of you for the work that you’ve done so far. I know that many of you have been separated from family and friends by this project. And I know I’ve pushed you hard over the past six months, but you have risen to the challenge. We’ve accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. I am convinced that we have the concept designs we need to turn these models into full-scale, fully functional, machines. So, I want you all of you to know that I appreciate the hard work and dedication that you’ve given to this project.”

“So much for the easy part,” Joshua continued after a brief pause to inhale and exhale. “As you all know; we will begin deceleration within the next four hours. As soon as we’re parked in orbit around Titan we will begin the second phase. A lot will be happening now, and it will be coming at us very fast. I can tell you that there are seven transport ships in route to us as I speak. On them, there are an additional three hundred engineers, scientists, and technicians. Three of them are expected to arrive within the next two-hundred hours. And this is just the first wave of a large workforce that will be assembling here over the next several years. When they arrive, I need us to be ready to put them to work. You all know what we’re doing here. We don’t know how much time that we have. It could be a lot, or it could be very little. So, I want us to treat time is if it’s running out fast. We need to keep pushing for solutions today. We don’t have the time to put it off until tomorrow. I’ve seen what you can do, and I have every confidence that you will rise to the challenge once again.”

Joshua took a moment after this to peruse the faces staring back at him. After five seconds of this, he began to speak on the primary subject behind this meeting.

“Okay then, let’s get started.”

Joshua panned the room full of faces with a hint of a smile. A few seconds later he began to speak again.

“Dan,” Joshua called out with a look towards Dan Goodrich, “I’m assigning you the job of heading up the development of all support vehicles other than the space-planes.”

Dan was a moderately handsome white male with sandy hair. He stood five-foot-eleven and sported an average build. His default demeanor was always pleasant friendly. His response to Joshua’s delegation was to render a smile and a nod.

“Hung,” Joshua continued with a look to Jeffery Hung, “you will head up development of the basestar.”

Jeffery was a six-foot tall Asian male. His other features were in keeping with his ethnicity, with an exception for his speech. His first language was English. He responded to Joshua’s delegation with an authoritative nod of his head and an equally decisive reply.

“Looking forward to it…”

Linda,” Joshua called out a second behind with a look at Linda Clark, “I’m picking you to head up development of space-planes.”

Linda was a five-foot-six sandy-haired blond. There was nothing about her facial features to prompt most people to think her attractive. This perception was helped by the fact that she did not put much effort into her appearance. Most people to meet her thought her to be gay, and those acquainted with her knew this to be right. This was a fact she made no attempt to hide. She responded to Joshua’s delegation with a slightly mumbled “okay” while appearing to be pondering the patterns on the floor.

“I will be heading up the development of Mows,” Joshua continued a second behind Linda’s response. He gave all a quick glance with a pan from left to right and back again. He then continued with his delegating two seconds later.

“Chris,” Joshua began again with a look towards Christopher Hodges. “I want you on my team. I would like you to head up the hull systems divisions for the Mows.”

Chris was a large, barrel-chested man that stood all of six-foot-three in height. Gruff in his manner, it was not in his nature to hold back on his opinion about anything. Joshua waited for an acceptance, which he was slow in given. Three seconds passed before he made eye contact with Joshua and nodded his head in the affirmative.

“Lowell,” Joshua spoke with a look at Lowell Kane. “I would like you to head up the guidance and control systems software division for me.”

A thin man, nearly to the appearance of being gaunt, Lowell was the most energized person in the room. His actions were invariably quick, as was his thinking and his speaking. He often lost patience with those that had trouble keeping up with him. Among his intellectual equals, that had problems following his train of thought, this feeling impatience was often reciprocated.

“You’ve got me,” Lowell sharply accepted with a nod of his head.

Joshua responded to this reply with a smile and a nod before turning his attention to Harold Reyes. He could only see his head as he peered over the shoulders of others standing in front of him.

“Harry, I need you run the mechanical systems division.”

Harold Reyes stepped to the forward from the rear of the group. Standing six-foot-two in height, Harry was a tall, moderately muscular and a decidedly handsome man. His only feature to suggest his Hispanic heritage was his dark hair. After brushing his way past four people, he stopped three feet out in front of the others and gave his reply in a resounding voice.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Joshua reacted to this answer with a large smile. After a few seconds, he turned his attention towards Keith Mallory.

“Keith, I need you for the power and propulsion systems division.”

Despite his five-foot-eight stature, Keith was formidable in appearance. Moderately husky and ruggedly handsome, he maintained a near constant stern expression. At the sound of his name being spoken, he gave Joshua a decisive expression and responded to his request an instant behind.

“I can do that boss.”

Joshua gave a smile that bordered on a grin in reaction to this acceptance. Two seconds later, still holding his smile, he turned his attention towards Mark Fleischman.

“Mark, I need you to run the weapons development division.”

Mark was six-feet tall and slim of build. From a distance, most would think him athletically inclined, but his conversation quickly dispelled that notion. His genius level intellect was clearly marked whenever he spoke and the subjects that most intrigued him. Sports were never one of these.

“Okay,” Mark replied with a faint smile and a nod.

Still smiling, Joshua reacted to this with a nod of approval for his response. A second later he began to look about the room. He scanned back and forth and back again before settling his attention on Eric Pettorino seated at the front to his left.

“Eric,” Joshua addressed with the residue of his smile still on his face. “I need you take care of the human systems division for me.”

Eric was a marginally rotund man of little stature, five-feet-six to be exact. His demeanor was often pleasant. And when it was not, he was likely entertaining others with a display of high spirits. After hearing Joshua’s request of him, he flashed a broad smile and gave a quick nod of acceptance.

Joshua gave back a quick nod of approval and then he looked to Barbara Noonan. She was standing in an erect posture straight away from him with her arms folded in front of her. Tall and slender, with dark shoulder length hair, she exuded confidence and professionalism.

“Barbara, I would like you to manage project integration.”

Barbara gave a slight nod of acceptance without any emotional expression. Joshua accepted this with a soft smile and a nod. Two seconds after this he addressed the group.

“Are there any questions or concerns about these assignments?”

Joshua took five seconds to examine the room after presenting this query. There was no response.

“Or anything, in general,” Joshua appended to his original query.

Again, there was no response. After a few seconds had passed, Joshua added a final remark with an authoritative tone to his voice.

“Okay then, I will expect project heads to have their assignment of division leaders turned into Nathan within the next forty hours—People, I want us to hit the ground running here. We need to treat this as if time is about to run out because that might very well be the case.”

After this Joshua dismissed the group to prepare for deceleration into the Saturn System. The assembly shortly disbursed. Two hours later they and all others aboard the Dominion were secured into escap pods within their assigned space capsules. The Captain of the Dominion began decelerating the massive starship an hour later.

Saturn gleamed with the reflected light of the nearest star, Sol. From the perspective of the Dominion, Saturn looked like a multi-hued marble, suspended in space at arm’s length away. In the opposite direction, Sol looked like a glowing light bulb situated one hundred yards distant in a pitch-black room.

The enormous disk-shaped starship appeared as though it was motionless. In reality, it was traveling towards the Saturn System at close to one percent of the speed of light. At the command of the Captain, the Dominion began to slowly rotate about. A couple of minutes later, its backside was turned forward. A few seconds after the end of this transition the primary thruster ignited. At the center of the backside of the starship, a glow of white emanated out the large opening and disbursed into the black of space. There was no visible change in starship’s disposition, but this appearance did not reflect the reality. The starship’s computer was reporting a steady falloff of forward momentum. It also reported a sharp increase in power consumption by the Zero G Generator. This was understood by the crew as a normal act to compensate for the inertia produced by deceleration.

The Dominion’s primary thruster blazed for ninety minutes before shutting down. By the end of this time, Saturn loomed before it, blotting out a view of the vast empty space behind. The rings of the gas giant were clearly visible on its monitors. The Dominion continued to fall into the system for another two hours with its engines off, its course slightly askew of Saturn. Halfway through this time, a speck appeared on the monitors in the path of the starship. Several minutes later, the speck looked to be a moon. The massive starship ignited its primary thruster once again and maintained its burn for an additional twenty-six minutes. The strength of its burn incrementally descended over the course of this time and the tiny moon ahead grew before it at a perceptible pace. When the primary thruster shut down altogether, large features of the moon were visible to the unaided eye. The bulk of Saturn was blocked from Dominion’s view by the moon that was situated between it and them. The attitude thruster of the starship began to negotiate its final maneuvers. After another five minutes, these thrusters discontinued their minuscule adjustments, and the Dominion settled into its parking orbit about Saturn’s largest moon, Titan.