Space Voyage #1

[Jay-qu]

My personal alarm awoke me when the probability had reached 50% I knew they wouldnt have alerted BigDog yet - it wasnt certain enough to bother him. But a half half chance was good enough to me! I raced out of bed, threw on my hypo t-shirt (my thinking shirt) and set off at a sprint to con.

Even having my quarters placed fairly closely to con I only just made it in time for the full system alarms to kick in, that means probability is well into the 90's this is not good!

It was like watching a movie, on the screen in amonst a tangle of green lines there was a thin direct red path heading straight for us, we had reached the asteroid belt. The computer had estimated the size to be approximately .5m that was far to big for the lasers.

"and it hits in around 9mins Jay, so unless you want to be floating dead in space, give me some options" BigDog, cool and calm as always, even in the face of imminent danger, you cant help but look up to the guy. I also couldnt help but notice that the man never sleeps, one heck of a powerhouse!

"ships engines will take more than 10mins to engage, even if they where ready to fire now the ship isnt orientated right, we would not avoid collision" I replied, all I got back was blank stares.. everyone was looking at me for a solution - where the hell did Pyro get to! "well why havent the manouvering boosters been fired already?" "Jay the calculations required take time and absolute precision, there are almost 100 boosters peppered around the outside of the ship, to help us move in any direction, each booster needs to have the rate of fuel, orientation and duration of burn carefully caculated individually so that.." "yes yes I know all this, I helped design it.. " I shot back, hoping he would get to the point, we are on a timeline here! "Well heres the thing, that is normally a walk in the park for ships distributed processing computer but the MCP has taken its toll on the system, now we dont the system resources to do it in this small time fame!"

"7.5 mins Jay, you better think of something!"

[/usr/bin/mcp]

[INTERRUPT]
Imminent threat to self detected bearing vector {2.34, 1.53, 4.56} speed 25 km/s, estimated time of collision 381.45 seconds.

Probability of structural damage to self 99.985%
Probability of loss of self-function that support biological organisms 99.99999%

[DIRECTIVE]
Avoid collision with incoming object.

[CHILD PROCESS]
Calculations have been started within a subprocess by usrid:JQ which are consistent with preliminary estimates for evasive burn

[DIRECTIVE]
Allocate system resources to task.

[COMPLETE]

[OUTPUT TO TERMINAL SESSION USRID:JQ]
Coincident with primary objective "preserve self" calculations for evasive burn
are complete. Burn characterisics below.

EXECUTE > (Y/N/A)

[Pyrotex]

I got back to my suite and put the cake on a table. A short trip to the closet and I was out of my semi-demi-formals and into something totally casual: fitted denim jeans (with bell-flair cuffs completely embroidered in pure silver thread and tiny magnetite beads) and a loose African silk butoo pull-over. Aahhhh... so comfortable. A linen headband, personally signed by Stephen Stills himself, completed the look.

I got a spork, and waved on my display, clicking for general ship news. Hmmm. An asteroid was on impact course. Fascinating. I'm sure the guys can handle something like that and won't need me. I watched the other features while scarfing the cake, washing it down with a triple espresso latte.

Then into the bedroom and get horizontal. I could already feel the sugar rush sugar depression caffeine tremble caffeine buzz. I closed my eyes. No chance of actually going to sleep. I wanted to doze. Lightly. I wanted those narsty little nanobots to have every chance of playing their little ditty in my left ear. nanobots. ditty. pretty... city... dizzy... dez... eray... pity... perty... perky...
ti...
ts...
@
)
=
'

WHAT? I bolted straight up in bed! I looked around in a panic, my heart racing, looking for my Daddy! He was right here in this room! He hollered my name! And he said...
And he said...!

[Tarantism]

just to let yall know,

i have been floating just a bit outside the hatchway, ever since we entered space. i have a bag of chips and a soda, and this is the coolest thread ever.

[Tarantism]

*knocks on a window in a hypothetical situation

"hey, thanks guys"

[TheBigDog]

Bloody hell! My mind was racing, thinking of what we could possibly do to evade the oncoming asteroid. This was right up Jay-Qu's alley. He had done much of the calculations for evasion procedures for the Prophesy. He took to this situation like a bulldog to pulling the leash. The best bet was to let his mind run with it.

I ran through the hypotheticals in my head as I watched the readouts clarify on the huge screen before me.

The lasers would obliterate a small object. They would do a number on this rock too. They are very powerful. Not so much like a slow burning light, but more like hitting something with a stick of dynamite. The energy impact of the combined beams of light from the three lasers carry impact energy. But the danger with a rock this size is that intact it may actually pose less threat than in the peices that would survive a laser blast. And if it broke into too many peics there would be too many to follow up with and blow away with additional shots.

For manuvering we basically have the main engine. If we have a need to evade an object we can point the ship, fire the engine, and be out of the way. We have two problems with that right now. First is that the engine is cold. We could do a fast start, but it wrecks havoc on the hydrolic shocks and beats the hell out of the whole ship. And second is that we have just repaired the hydrolic system from the sabotage of Racoon, and I am not sure if it would stand up to a cold fire sequence.

The third option is using the manuvering thrusters. These are almost decorative. they are a backup to the backup to the backup. And they use up precious propellant. One of the limiting factors of our expedition is how much propellant we can carry.

Third this was this... the ship is built to protect itself. It will switch itself into automatic survival mode if there is an imminent collision that jeopardises the ship. We only have so long to act before the ship acts for us. And when the options are limited... who knows what priority the ship will make.

I could feel myself pushing the bottom of my mustache with my bottom lip. I did this when I was thinking. When I was puzzled. When I didn't know what the other guy had in his hand.

There was still a great deal of open space betwen us and the asteroid. But is was disappearing fast. Jay-Qu was working on solutions for thruster based evasion. It looked like everything was coming up dark orange. No guarantee of evasion.

"Con, what solutions has the computer arrived at for evasion? Can it display any yet?"

"It is workin on it BD. But it doesn;t have any evasion tactics that guarantee we don't take a hit. I will display what it has."

Half of the screen changed to a grid of displays. Each was a hypothetical evasion tactic. Trouble was we were basically helplessly drifting in space - at a very high rate of speed.

One solution called for turning almost 90 degrees and cold firing the engine. But to rotate and fire there was not enough time to change our course and evade. 98% likely to take a hit. Unknown if engine would survive the cold fire.

Three different solutions showed us using thruster manuvers to evade, but the best was still a 96% chance to take a hit.

There were two scenarios involving the lasers, but both showed a 99.9% chance of damage to the ship.

The other screens were the scary ones. The ship was determining the best place to ALLOW the asteroid to hit, in case the only choice was to pick the point of impact. I didn't like the way it was thinking. And I was glad that I had insisted on that option. Worst case was he crew didn't survive, but the ship did. It would make its way back to earth and take another crew to space some day.

Shit! There had to be a solution. This was getting depressing.

"Jay-Qu, we need to think outside the box here. And we need to do it right now."

Six minutes to impact. All the lines on the screens ended in red.

Bill

[Jay-qu]

J-"Ok BigDog I have something, but your not going to like it.."
BD-"Jay at the moment I dont think there is any other option, give me what you've got"
J-"Well as you know the ship has been trying to find a solution that will get us back down below 50%, as the asteroid gets closer the ship will change its tactics"
BD-"It goes into survival mode"
J-"Exactly, but this is supposed to be a last resort, it will seal off a part of the ship it deams acceptable to loose and takes the hit.."
BD-"We dont want that.."
J-"No, we want to get through this in one peice"
BD-"So where are you going with this, and be quick 5.5mins to impact"
J-"Well what if we let the ship take the hit"
BD-"WHAT!"
J-"well sort of.. you see the ship thinks its a solid object, but infact it is just a whole lot of space! There are 2 courses of action, 1. We try take over the ship and orientate it as best we can for the rock to pass straight through our guts or 2. Convice the ship that it is acceptable to take a hit where there is really space, the choice is yours sir, I think both have an equally likely chance of working. 1. will require some really fancy flying while 2. will take some really quick re-programming"

5mins to impact..

[KickAssClown]

I looked up from my real quick conversation with the MCP.

"BD? The MCP says it's got a burn profile for collision avoidance. It's set and ready to go. just needs confirmation..."

[TheBigDog]

Jay-Qu was a madman or a genius. Or both. We were closing on this rock at a rate of just about 80 km/second. There was a report coming from KAC that the AI had a solution for evasion, but the ships computer didn't agree with the solution. A couple of minutes of debate ensued, but Jay-Qu...

He was fixated on an idea. And it was insane.

The line representing the path of the rock was narrowing as we approached it. It was still about half the size of the ship, representing the probable path of the rock. As we got closer the line was narrowing. It was just off center of the ship. Damn near a bulls eye. This had to be the worst luck in the history of man. Billions of miles of open and nearly empty space, and we come across a freaking rock at the moment that we can do nothing about it!

And still Jay-Qu was smiling. And intense kind of smile... like... a mad scientist. Like Dr Frankenstein at the moment he declared that he knew what it felt like to have the poser of God. He smiled that kind of a smile.

"BD, it is going to miss."

"How is that, JQ?" He had my interest, and I believed in him unfaultingly, but the computer showed a much different picture.

"The computer is calculating the best place for an impact. With a very small object it would try and absorb the impact on the cargo bays. But this rock is too big. It would rip through the full length of the ship. So the ship is leaning toward hitting one of the hab modules. It gives the best probability of survival of crew and ship, but would certainly cripple us. We would need to end the mission and return to earth. The areas that the ship is trying to preserve are the engines and the spokes. Damage to the engines means the ship is doomed. And damage to a spoke would cause a structural chain reaction that would leave the hab rings floating like disconnected strings in space. The only way to survive would be to take a hit to a hab module with a clean pass through of the rock. Just one module would be disabled at best. But if it hits a connector it could as bad as hitting a spoke."

He paused to take a breath. His eyes were as wide as any I had ever seen. He looked crazed and determined. He was actually panting with the enthusiasm of the challenge. Sweat was dripping form the ends of his curly hair.

"So, whats the plan then?" I clamped a hand on his shoulder breaking the momentary spell he had fallen under.

"The computer is trying to figure out where to take the hit. But what the program doesn't consider is that the rock could still miss us! The program considers the whole space of the Prophesy to be solid. But looking at the ship head the area of the spokes is actually mostly open. Look at the path on the screen. It is off center. If we turn the ship to face the asteroid it will pass straight through the spoke area and the odds of it hitting us are in our favor. But the computer is not programmed to even attmpt that. It want to preserve the spokes, but letting it pass through them is our greatest chance of survivial."

I was processing this fast. As fast as I could. We had just a couple of minutes remaining. It would take most of that time just to orient the ship.

"How can we be sure that the asteroid will miss the spokes?"

Jay-Qu looked me dead in the eyes with his crazed gaze. "We can't. But it give us the best shot at no damage at all."

"Con, you heard him. Lets orient the ship to face the path of the asteroid."

"BD, it still won't work."

I had forgotten. The ship was still programmed to override our commands to preserve the ship. If it thought that the ship was in imminent danger it would take control to evade, overriding our efforts.

Jay-Qu continued, "We need to turn off the auto survival program or it may kill us."

There was no way to turn off the auto survival program. That had been seen to very well. The Prophesy was too valuable to leave her vulnerable to impacts that would happen quicker than the crew could react. So the defense system was designed to keep a constant vigil. It was never turned off. So how could we do this?

The ship was almost done adjusting its orientation. The line representing the path of the asteroid had narrowed to about ten meters wide. It ran just alongside the center hub of the ship. Doing the math in my head there was roughly a 20% chance of hitting a spoke.... NO! 2 spokes. They were in line with each other. If this thing hit one it would hit the second as well. Cocking the ship slightly would limit the damage to one spoke, but would provide a bigger target. And even a single spoke taken out would doom the ship and crew. The decison had been made. We were now committed to this manuver.

"Ideas for how we prevent the ship from overriding?" It was too late to reprogram it about the hollow space between the spokes. We had to find a way to fool the computer into thinking that there was not danger. And we had about a minute until it took control.

"Con, can we tell if the spokes will be in the path of the rock?"

There was a longer than normal delay. Ten seconds. The reply was choked...

"It is dead on a spoke BD. Two minutes till impact." On the screen two of the spokes now had red marks on them. The Prophesy would make six more revolutions before being hit, but those were the ones that would take it.

Jay-Qu stepped forward and barked to the Con. "Increase rotation speed NOW! Keep increasing until the spokes are all clear!"

The Con got busy on the order. The main gyro was accellerating, forcing the the ship accelerate its spin in the opposite direction. Accellerating was faster than decellerating the spin, so JQ was making the right move. This would probably do it. Just one last hurdle or the ship might kill us.

YES!!! There might be a hope in hell for us yet!

"KAC, this is BD." I called him on the intercom, and was deilivering my best command voice. I didn't wait for a reply, I knew he could hear me. "Have you been following the action up here?"

"10-4," replied KAC without delay.

"Good. See if you can have that program you have been talking to convince the auto evasion program that we are going to live through this. It needs to convince that program that the ship will not be damaged..."

The Con spoke up at this point. "BD, we have increased rotation speed. The spokes are not clear of the asteroid."

The red marks were gone from the spokes. Now it was up to KAC and that strange program to make the ship understand that!

Bill

[ronthepon]

I was observing the events on the ship through the access override program. All cameras and bugs aboard were finally under my control.

It was obvious by now to everybody about the reason behind the blaring alarms. But only a small group was aware of the terrible decicion making going on down there.

TheBigDog had taken his decision. It was horrible thinking about the fact that I had been a part of the mcp's 'development' team. If it would be the reason for our collision, I'd be responsible to a deal.

A thought occured to me. What if I used the access overriding program to completely use up all system resources, and simultaneously erase all chances of there being a change of any kind in te ship's state?

This was where it got horrible. I had to decide now. Call BD? Risk the time?

Or go on and risk a deal more? Blow my cover and secrets... ensuring that I get thrown out of all that I am a part of?

My fingers shivered over the keyboard.