K-F DRIVE MISJUMP

"I don't think we're in Kanzshash anymore..."
--ComStar Official Prayer of the Misjump--
The Book of Blake (834th ed.)

Okay you pirates, shut up and park it. Can you people over there in the junk ship see me? [taps on the camera, clearing up the fuzzy connection slightly] Better? Ok, first off, we've made it to Ozawa. The jump was more or less successful, burning 98% of our available charge and resulting in a returnpos delta of only 247 kilometers and .0023 seconds from intended space-time jump point, This isn't bad considering the gravitic conditions we just left from. On the screen you should now see the map of the local jump lanes:

While we have arrived at our destination at the proper where and when, it has come to my attention that we have not exactly had the most normal of jumps. While mis-jumps are a relativly common occurance these days, most do not result in a returnpos delta in excess of 2000km or 3.14 seconds. What? Yes, Cranky-Joe is correct, our returnpos was well within these tolerances, but something else has occured. I will let your individual commanders brief you on the current situation as it applies to your department, but it is clear that we have not arrived in the correct "what". No, I didn't know that it was part of the equation either, but we're stuck with it and we might as well try and figure out what happened.

Based on our best data-- I said data Joe, not "wild-assed guesses". Will someone please disable the vid-link to the Brig? Good, thank you. Anyway, as I was saying, based on our best data we have determined with the help of the ComStar crew on board the junk ship that the Slipstream has arrived in some sort of wierd Alternate Reality. While we do not yet know much about this universe, it is clear that it is very different from our own. I will be holding a mission briefing with the senior staff and esteemed guests in one hour to discuss options of a planet-fall/fact-finding expedition and will be able to update you all shortly. In the meantime, let me try to explain how I think we got here.

A processed Germanium Buckyball

As you all well know, the operation of a ship equipped with the Kearny-Fuchida Hyperdrive is more of an art these day than a precise science. As our ComStar friends have demonstrated, it is closer to a religion than some of us would like to regularly admit. Nevertheless, we do understand a few off the basics. During our last jump out, we were suffering from three major problems: 1) Gravity, 2) lack of cooling Helium, and 3) a cracked jump-core. Most of you will remember when that last one happened... For those on the junker ship let's just say that you should never, ever, jump out between two pulsars--no matter how badly the ISF is chasing you. We thought that we had the last problem licked when the Northwind Irregulars returned from planetside with a full ton of processed jump-grade Germanium. As some of you may know, Germanium must be specially processed into something called a B-Ball before you can use it in a jump core. It sort of resembles an sperical jump-lane map, with the individual Germanium atoms forming the planetary systems. This process is expencive, and Blake only knows how the machines that do it work. Peace of Blake be with you too Adept Ferguson. [grumbles at the interruption] Germanium Buckyballs alligned in a crystal lattice

Germanium Buckyballs alligned in a crystal lattice

Luckally for us, the metal recovered had already been pre-processed and was ready for integration into our existing core. Once it was carefully heated and used to repair the cracks in the drive, we let the Germanium begin to cool and partly powered up the drive core. This would allow it to allign into the proper crystal structure needed to conduct and amplify the electromagnetic fields of the jump drive. We were still left with the low Helium reserves after the boarding attack by the ISF ninjas and the wildly fluctuating gravity of the planetary system. Since we couldn't do anything about either, we simply plotted the course as best we could and hoped for the best.

As it turned out, the combination of these things has proven to be our undoing. The gravity problems were bad, but overcomable, the core was were our problem occured. Upon further analysis, we have discovered that the strange white powder that was coating the Germaniun bars was Cesium 135, a commonly occuring radioactive isotope found on worlds that have suffered a massive nuclear bombing in their past. Sadly, Murchison was one such world. From what we can tell, during the last several centuries some of the Cesium was able to penetrate the processed Germanium B-Balls--possibly during an atomic airburst. They became trapped there, but continued to radiate as normal. From what I'm therorizing, this set up the proper conditions to allow multiple Cesium atoms to fuse into one massive atom. While we don't have the best equipmant on board for testing this theory, these new atoms look to be so large that they are almost visible with a standard high-powered microscope. Overcharged Germanuim Buckyball containing a Chroniton particle

Overcharged Germanuim Buckyball containing a Chroniton particle

Yes, that big. So large that on a quantum level they are actually bending space-time around them to a measurable effect. No, I didn't think it was possible either! These things, which I'm calling Chronitonium for lack of a better name, seem to be in excess of number 119 on the Star League Universal Periodic Table of Known Elements. Supposedly, nothing that big can exist, but in light of what we have imbedded in our jump core I'm going to have to say that the larger elements must be at least partly stable once you get them big enough. Nevertheless, when we powered up the jump-core, we didn't have enough Helium in the tanks to get the core down to the required 2.174 "Kay" to turn the heluim into superconducting He4II. Without that, the heat allowed the Germanium lattice to become unstable and start individual atoms spinning. When this happened the Chronitons were released in a flood, skewing the jump-field and landing us where, I mean "what", we currently are. Based on this, we can begin researching how to control the release and focus it through the existing space-time field. If we are careful, we have enough Chroniton-laden Germanium still in storage to attempt this twice. After that, we're going to be stuck when, where, and what we are.

End Brief, senior staff meeting in 1 hour. [*Click*]

Battletech

The Northwind Irregulars, Davion Privateers

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Last Updated: 1/10/01
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