Chapter 3.1 - 2168 (Part 1) V2.1

Somewhere on an isolated beach on the Gold Coast of Australia, a tall beautiful, tanned woman of the typical varied ethnic background of North Americans was lying topless next to her lover. He was slightly taller than she and had a slightly lighter skin tone. As it turns out, he couldn't get a tan to save his life. He sat up to put on a little more sunscreen #69. His friend helped with his back. Robert then picked up his tablet to continued reading his favorite new book "Just picture it." The delightful and uplifting novel was not his usual fare but was a nice distraction from technical journals and the like. He was able to enjoy the story for twenty minutes or so and then an irritated look appeared on his face as the comm unit implant in his mastoid bone alerted again.

Doctor Robert Scott acknowledged the communication and then looked at his lovely wife and said. "Mynah, I think that the honeymoon is over. This is the third time Fleet has pinged me today. The final integration tests must have gone well."

She sat up and looked at him from under her sunglasses. She gestured to the perfect blue water and light surf. "It's okay babe, we've had a good three weeks. We really earned it after all of the work we put in over the last year and a half. I guess it's time to go home and pay the piper."

Robert smiled and was more than slightly distracted by the beauty of his genius wife, but managed to say. "Yeah, I'm afraid that it's time that we take the sub shuttle back home and get back to work."

His friend and lover smiled. "It's okay Bobby; I've had a wonderful time here with you. We'll have to come back here again sometime. I guess it's time for the next adventure life brings us!"

As a gull squawked loudly above, Mynah smiled wickedly and then continued. "It's also nice to know that Fleet, GA and even Mick and his team of miracle workers can't do anything without the two of us!"

Robert then leaned over and kissed his bride, best friend, and colleague.

After cleaning up at the resort, the two friends boarded the Sydney to Los Angeles sub shuttle. Even at the supersonic speeds of the underground maglev tube train, the trip took nearly five hours. Once they got to L.A. and cleared North American Alliance customs, an awaiting air cab took them from the terminal directly to Cal Tech. Captain Goldberg had been insistent that they arrive as soon as possible...

Early in the California morning; which to Robert and Mynah was the middle of the night Australia/stomach time, they arrived at the lab complex. As they landed on the hover pad, Robert and Mynah were surprised to be greeted by an armed escort of NAA Marines and Captain Goldberg's assistant, Ms. Hillary. As much as Robert disliked Goldberg, he thought even less of Hillary. The thin-faced woman said impatiently as they exited the automated vehicle. "We've been waiting Doctor Scott, this way please."

Robert held Mynah's hand tightly and said with false sincerity to Goldberg's assistant. "Thank you for meeting us, Ms. Hillary. You didn't have to go to the trouble. I'm sure that my staff could've taken care of it."

She winced at the sarcasm. "Not a problem, sir. Captain Goldberg insisted."

After their honeymoon trip to the barrier reef, Doctor and Mrs. Scott did not have much time to unpack. All of the Scott–Mittal grav plate installations had gone off without a hitch; mostly thanks to Mick Jones and his team. Someone had once said that the Scots had Invented the Modern World. Mick Jones, late of Caithness Scotland was living proof that it was still true!

There was a flurry of activity and many more people than usual occupied the lab's small spaces. Upon looking at the cacophony of action, Doctor Scott asked his lead technician. "What in hell is going on here, John?"

The older man answered. "Doc, these guys from Fleet showed up a couple of weeks ago, flashed a bunch of NAA badges and then they reset the priorities. Things have changed since you left and these clowns started giving orders."

Doctor Scott then stated to no one in particular. "Okay, who's in charge here? This is my lab, right!"

Ms. Hillary interrupted rudely. "I'm sorry Doctor Scott, circumstances have changed. The Chinese Hegemony have asserted their treaty rights to share in all Near Earth discoveries. This has placed the NAA in a difficult position."

"What Near Earth discoveries. None of this is within the structure of the treaty!"

With an uncomfortable look, Ms. Hillary answered. "They found out about the gravity plate and the communications system. At about the same time, they argued successfully that these discoveries qualified under the terms of the treaty and the Court at The Hague agreed..."

Sometime in 2043 when the self-styled Muhammad al-Mahdi, who later became known as the infamous False Hidden Imam had convinced the Shia Caliphate that the End of the World was near and they did what they had always threatened to do and nuked Tel Aviv with a very dirty, ground-based nuclear fission weapon built into a semi-truck. In retaliation, the Israelis did exactly what they had promised and returned fire by vaporizing Qom and Lahore. At least they had the decency to use an air burst so as to limit the fallout. The fact they used three megaton hydrogen devices and made sure that the devastation was complete and all that was left of the two cities were two glassy craters. The treaty of 2045 between the Chinese Hegemony and the North American Alliance was a direct result of this tragedy. If the Chinese and North Americans had shared their intelligence information in the years leading up to this event, they probably would have determined that war was imminent and possibly could have stopped it. But they didn't, and 37 million people died.

"So just how the hell, did they figure out what we have discovered?"

Ms. Hillary gave Doctor Scott a strained look.

Doctor Scott returned the look with a scowl. "Ms. Hillary, Major Jones, Mynah, my office please."

Before entering Doctor Scott's office they all deposited their tablets and comm padds in the cubbies at the door. They entered the office and Robert had the AI lock and latch the door and then said "AI, security level three." Some people had given their home and office AI's names and personalities. Robert preferred to keep his cyber-relationships strictly business.

With that, the metal shutters closed over the window to the main lab and the comm dampening field activated. The active sound deadening field was enabled and the acoustics made the occupants of the room feel like they were inside a box of cotton balls. Before Scott could say anything, Ms. Hillary tried to answer his questions.

"They know about your gravity plate and the communications unit, but not the watermelon."

With an exasperated look, Doctor Scott said. "Of course they know about the communications system: they detected our signals with their JUNO system at Jiangmen and besides Doctor Schmidt and I published all of the results!"

At that point Mynah smiled and said proudly "and that's why you and Rolf will be sharing the Nobel this year or the next!"

The sentiment from Mynah did not mollify an exasperated Dr. Scott. He looked directly at the weasel-like woman from Fleet HQ. "Right, but you people were in charge of security! How is it that China's MSS Bureau-7 found out that we were installing the systems in the cruiser? The cover story was supposed to be that we were years away from an operational test and had already experienced some catastrophic failures. As I remember from your security plan, Ms. Hillary, you were even spreading rumors that we were going to abandon the project completely!"

Ms. Hillary raised her hands in the air. "We don't know, we're looking into it, but we think the leak was in San Diego. Not at Fleet Headquarters."

Finally, Mick spoke to break the tension. "It's okay Doc, even if I handed them one of tha' plates, without knowing the secret of Mynah's nano-matrix construction technique they would have a hell of a time duplicating any of it. As a matter of fact, I know how the thing works, and I couldn't build one on my own! We might as well just let them know what we have and that if they play nice we might even let them know how it is done."

Doctor Scott settled down a bit. "Thanks for being the voice of reason, Mick. Of course, we'll meet our treaty obligations. We all know what happened the last time the old UN failed at that mission...Let's be sure that all of the manufacturing techniques are elevated to Level Four security from now on." He again looked directly at Goldberg's assistant. "Ms. Hillary, I propose that a new level Four plus security system be implemented immediately for all aspects of the FTL drive."

With that, Ms. Hillary nodded in agreement. "I'll take that proposal to Fleet first thing in the morning. There's one more thing. The treaty allows them to send an observer on the test flight..."

Doctor Scott shook his head. "Okay, so let me get this straight, we're to do the test flight in the modified 0.1c cruiser and demonstrate just the artificial gravity and not the new drive to the Chinese, is that right?"

Hillary nodded. "That's Captain Goldberg's plan. Once the Chinese are satisfied with what they see, hopefully, we should be able to do another flight in secret to test the FTL drive."

"Hope isn't much of a strategy...anyway, you're sure that they don't know about phase three?"

"We're not sure of anything."

"Great... Maybe you should put Fleet Intel on it!"

An exasperated Ms. Hillary answered quietly. "Sir, Intel has, um, Intel has only been read in on phase one and two..."

Scott raised his hands in the air in frustration. "So, find a couple of top officers and read them in!"

"I'll pass your suggestion on to Captain Goldberg..."

Putting on his best diplomatic face, Doctor Scott said with finality. "Thank you, Ms. Hillary, is there anything else you need from us at this time?"

"No, sir."

With that, Scott barked. "AI, door!"

The door unlatched and Hillary departed. As the door closed behind her, Scott again instructed the AI to re-establish the security field at its highest level. He motioned for the three remaining in the room to sit at the conference table. "Sorry Mick, I know that none of this is your fault..."

Major Jones smiled and responded humorously. "No problem, Doc. I can't stand that woman either. I think she might actually be a cyborg!"

Robert and Mynah both laughed.

Mick went on. "And the worst thing about it is that they had one simple part of this project, security! And they bollixed it up!"

Scott calmed down, took a deep breath and said. "It's just frustrating to me to have to follow all of their security protocols and then they screw it up. But, when all is said and done, we all know that we can't keep this, even watermelon a secret forever."

The beautiful and brilliant Mynah Mittal-Scott made a keen observation. "Absolutely right, but if we can get a five or ten-year head start on practical FTL ships, there are lots of places out there we could get to first. It sure would be nice to call dibs on some of the better real estate we might find in the deep dark..."