Post by Flexico on Jun 26, 2007 15:56:29 GMT -5
WARNING: VERY LONG!!
"I can't believe we came all the way to Earth in your junky rig." Quazar gestured toward my spacecraft.
"Are you kidding? We can't fit anything but a couple duffel bags in your speedster. We need material for this project." I didn't lift my eyes from my work as I spoke.
Quazar and I were testing a new type of rocket fuel that we had developed. Since back home they only use new-age fuel technologies and didn't want us to destroy the atmosphere, we had to do most of our tesing where the locals had already done the job for us.
My mechanical right eye was something I could no longer live without. I now wired together circuits so tiny that one could not hope to see them, let alone work with them, without lab machinery. Now we were deep in the African bush, far from any life forms other than insects, a few stunted bushes, insects, some dune grass, insects... Did I mention INSECTS?
Quazar paced around in the shade of my ship. I could see the glint in his eye that meant he was dying to pull some hilarious prank on me, but coupled with it was the understanding of the delicacy of my procedure. He was the pilot, I was the engineer. At this moment, he felt useless and teeth-grindingly bored.
"We have video games in the ship's computer," I offered.
He snorted good-naturedly. "How can one enjoy those games after flying a fighter craft through a Teklitan military base at mach four? Or hyperspace-warping your sorry craft out of that event horizon?"
Sensing the rhetoic, I returned to my work, only to find I had finished it while he was talking. Sometimes the mechanical part of my mind can figure out a small job that needs to be done, and I subconciously give up some control to it. Sort of creepy, but often useful.
"Done!" I held it up. I admired my work, all the switches and circuits and processors aligned in perfect functioning order. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yeah, well, let's stick it in the rocket and hope it doesn't explode."
I gave him a wry smile and turned to the larger part of the contraption. The rocket was strangely reminiscent of many human crafts, with its cone-and-cylinder frame and three swept-back fins. Ours, however, had a revolutionary new CO-free replenishable combustion fuel, a more aerodynamic shell than any combustion rocket in history, and now... the processing power to control fuel efficiency.
When I stood erect, my nose was about level with the tip of the rocket. I carefully removed the nose cone and even more carefully connected my tiny procrssor with the fuel control circuitry.
I bounded and Quazar flapped behind a large rock we had carved out to meet our purposes. "Your show now." I gestured to the controls. His heavily muscled, clawed hands didn't look like they could pick up an egg without shattering it, but he gripped the joystick and dials with a grace and gentleness that rivaled the digits of any sentient being.
The rocket, now nearly 10 meters away, hummed to life. "In three. Two. One."
Blue-white smoke billowed from beneath the fins, but vanished quickly, catalyzing with the atmosphere to bacome harmless nitrogen. Just as I predicted! I said to myself, eyes wide.
"And we will have a sudden liftoff... now."
The rocket seemed to disappear in a cloud of smoke and dust, but that vanished almost as quickly as the rocket did.
"We have 500 meters. Fuel thirty percent exhausted."
"Pull back! It'll never make it at that rate--"
"I'm pulling back already, I just wanted a dramatic liftoff. There will be plenty of fuel to break the atmosphere."
I saw and heard nothing in the sky. As Quazar made infinitessimal adjustments to the dials, I watched the numbers on the display. After several minutes, the air resistance dropped to zero, and the rocket's angle began to taper off.
"That's it!" I shouted and jumped up. "We did it!"
Quazar grinned but didn't move. The joystick swept in a small circle. I asked, "What are you doing?"
"There's eough fuel left to aim it in our general direction so we don't need to go cross-country to pick it up." He concentrated on the readouts. "And to compensate for the wind..."
He jumped up as suddenly as I had and we hugged out of excitement. "YES!"
"Now so long as the parachute works, this patent is all ours." He laughed. "But after all we just accomplished, how could we possibly mess up a parachute?"
I smacked his head. "Don't SAY that!"
We waited expectantly for the streamlined cone to drift to the ground beneath a billowing mushroom of cloth.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Quazar and Jethro love the planet Earth and have made friends with some its occupants, but they always need to worry about the human public discovering them. The best solution is to acquire for themselves a significant area of land. They have no human currency with which to purchase it, so they planned to sell he humans some advanced technology. However, their government would not authorize the giving of advanced technology to a race as irresponsible as humans. So, they had to invent something of their own that humans would find useful.
And they have now succeeded.
"I can't believe we came all the way to Earth in your junky rig." Quazar gestured toward my spacecraft.
"Are you kidding? We can't fit anything but a couple duffel bags in your speedster. We need material for this project." I didn't lift my eyes from my work as I spoke.
Quazar and I were testing a new type of rocket fuel that we had developed. Since back home they only use new-age fuel technologies and didn't want us to destroy the atmosphere, we had to do most of our tesing where the locals had already done the job for us.
My mechanical right eye was something I could no longer live without. I now wired together circuits so tiny that one could not hope to see them, let alone work with them, without lab machinery. Now we were deep in the African bush, far from any life forms other than insects, a few stunted bushes, insects, some dune grass, insects... Did I mention INSECTS?
Quazar paced around in the shade of my ship. I could see the glint in his eye that meant he was dying to pull some hilarious prank on me, but coupled with it was the understanding of the delicacy of my procedure. He was the pilot, I was the engineer. At this moment, he felt useless and teeth-grindingly bored.
"We have video games in the ship's computer," I offered.
He snorted good-naturedly. "How can one enjoy those games after flying a fighter craft through a Teklitan military base at mach four? Or hyperspace-warping your sorry craft out of that event horizon?"
Sensing the rhetoic, I returned to my work, only to find I had finished it while he was talking. Sometimes the mechanical part of my mind can figure out a small job that needs to be done, and I subconciously give up some control to it. Sort of creepy, but often useful.
"Done!" I held it up. I admired my work, all the switches and circuits and processors aligned in perfect functioning order. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yeah, well, let's stick it in the rocket and hope it doesn't explode."
I gave him a wry smile and turned to the larger part of the contraption. The rocket was strangely reminiscent of many human crafts, with its cone-and-cylinder frame and three swept-back fins. Ours, however, had a revolutionary new CO-free replenishable combustion fuel, a more aerodynamic shell than any combustion rocket in history, and now... the processing power to control fuel efficiency.
When I stood erect, my nose was about level with the tip of the rocket. I carefully removed the nose cone and even more carefully connected my tiny procrssor with the fuel control circuitry.
I bounded and Quazar flapped behind a large rock we had carved out to meet our purposes. "Your show now." I gestured to the controls. His heavily muscled, clawed hands didn't look like they could pick up an egg without shattering it, but he gripped the joystick and dials with a grace and gentleness that rivaled the digits of any sentient being.
The rocket, now nearly 10 meters away, hummed to life. "In three. Two. One."
Blue-white smoke billowed from beneath the fins, but vanished quickly, catalyzing with the atmosphere to bacome harmless nitrogen. Just as I predicted! I said to myself, eyes wide.
"And we will have a sudden liftoff... now."
The rocket seemed to disappear in a cloud of smoke and dust, but that vanished almost as quickly as the rocket did.
"We have 500 meters. Fuel thirty percent exhausted."
"Pull back! It'll never make it at that rate--"
"I'm pulling back already, I just wanted a dramatic liftoff. There will be plenty of fuel to break the atmosphere."
I saw and heard nothing in the sky. As Quazar made infinitessimal adjustments to the dials, I watched the numbers on the display. After several minutes, the air resistance dropped to zero, and the rocket's angle began to taper off.
"That's it!" I shouted and jumped up. "We did it!"
Quazar grinned but didn't move. The joystick swept in a small circle. I asked, "What are you doing?"
"There's eough fuel left to aim it in our general direction so we don't need to go cross-country to pick it up." He concentrated on the readouts. "And to compensate for the wind..."
He jumped up as suddenly as I had and we hugged out of excitement. "YES!"
"Now so long as the parachute works, this patent is all ours." He laughed. "But after all we just accomplished, how could we possibly mess up a parachute?"
I smacked his head. "Don't SAY that!"
We waited expectantly for the streamlined cone to drift to the ground beneath a billowing mushroom of cloth.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Quazar and Jethro love the planet Earth and have made friends with some its occupants, but they always need to worry about the human public discovering them. The best solution is to acquire for themselves a significant area of land. They have no human currency with which to purchase it, so they planned to sell he humans some advanced technology. However, their government would not authorize the giving of advanced technology to a race as irresponsible as humans. So, they had to invent something of their own that humans would find useful.
And they have now succeeded.