Ben, Jarvick, Jim and the rest of the team were sitting in Ben’s office going over the performance reports from the last flight Jarvick had taken to the moon. The report contained all the data from the sensors that were built into the most important parts of the ship; the power system, the navigation and guidance systems, and the hyperlight drive. The only errors that appeared in the report were minor ones that could be corrected through adjustments in the computers. There was one anomaly in the data stream that the Team was trying to understand that had nothing to do with the ship’s performance; it had to do with the outside air pressure during Jarvick’s ascent toward orbit. The men were looking at a graph on the screen and Ben pointed to a spot and said “Right here, Jarvick, there is a negative spike in air pressure on the outside of the ship. I don’t see anything in the log indicating a cause. Did you change anything in the controls?”
Jarvick thought a second and said “Do you remember when we were designing the power systems, and I asked that I have a way to apply AC to the Azurite?”
“Yes, I do.” Jim said. “You said you wanted to experiment with it.”
“According to the time stamp in the graph, that’s when I tried it out. I have a switch on the panel that isn’t wired into the logging system; we didn’t have the time. I pushed that switch during the ascent to see what it would do and saw nothing, so I disregarded it.”
Ben then said “Well, it did something that affected the air pressure.”
Jim scooted forward in his seat “The Azurite, being exposed to Alternating Current, may have produced some kind of force field. You said it moved some objects around in the lab when you were experimenting with it.”
Jarvick’s face lit up “That’s right! It must have produced a force field around the ship when I pushed the switch!”
“That could prove to be useful” said Ben.
“We have to test it. I need to know how effective it is” said Jarvick.
Ben asked “Why don’t we try some low velocity tests while it is on the ground first?”
“Then we can move to the higher speed tests later” said Jim.
Over the next week, more test flights were performed on the ship and followed up with the usual performance reviews, which were all satisfactory. The Team also started testing out the force field; first by throwing objects at the ship, which all bounced away harmlessly, then graduating to higher speed tests. They eventually came to the conclusion that the best way to test the force field was to shoot a bullet at the ship as it was flying past the JPL landing area. Everyone agreed that if the test failed, there would be an element of danger and repairs would have to be done on the ship. Jarvick accepted the risk and the test was performed as planned, which it passed. The bullet never struck the ship, it bounced off his force field and fell to Earth.
The Team decided that the ship was as ready as it ever will be and Jarvick agreed; it was time for him to go home. He had been discussing this with Cindy, explaining that the trip was long and could be hazardous, but she chose to return to Gavilon with him. She didn’t have any family here on Earth and the two of them had become fond of each other, and Jarvick thought it would be nice to have the company on the three week trek back home.
Two days later, on a Wednesday, they left. Cindy packed lightly, only the barest necessities, as did Jarvick. After saying his goodbyes to his brother and the Team at the JPL, he thanked them profusely for all their help. He also made sure that there were three boxes loaded on board in the small cargo area in the rear of his ship, each containing extra samples of the crystals that made this return trip possible. The one with the blue crystal was in a padded metallic case to protect it, the ones with the green and orange crystals were in their separate boxes, and all three were strapped down to the deck. The Team had engineered a gravity control system for inside the ship, but only the front part where the “crew” resides, not the cargo area. Jarvick took one last trip through the hangar at the JPL to pick up a few things that he thought may be useful on the return trip and boarded the ship.
They had just passed the moon when Jarvick increased the ships speed and turned to Cindy, “I loaded a lot of books into the computer to help us pass the time; we don’t have any hypersleep units on board so we are going to be reading a lot.”
Cindy asked “How long is it going to take?”
“About three weeks, just under light speed, if the hyperdrive keeps working. We have enough nutrition tablets for a month if something goes wrong.”
“I’m perfectly happy to spend three weeks alone with you” said Cindy.
The next day they passed Mars and Jarvick turned on the force field, in case he made a mistake going through the asteroid belt. After Jupiter he would activate the hyperdrive.
When Jarvick saw that they were clear of the asteroid belt, he remembered the last time he was in this area of space. Jupiter was within sight and there was a large asteroid here that didn’t belong. Now, Jupiter’s orbit had taken it farther away and appeared a lot smaller; and Jarvick had thoughts of home and why he has not heard from them.
It was time to engage the sub-light speed hyperdrive and Jarvick wondered if their engineering of the power system was up to the task of the three week trip. There is only one way to find out he thought, so he programmed the Nav computer and powered up the hyperdrive. Cindy watched the front screen as the stars went from white dots to bright streaks as the ship surged to just under the speed of light. Jarvick monitored the readings on the computer and noticed that they weren’t going as fast as during the trials, and then he saw that he had left the force field on. He turned it off and the speed indicator moved up a little bit, so he made a mental note of it. Evidently, the force field activation degrades the power crystal’s performance.
Jarvick and Cindy climbed down into the compartment behind the bridge. It was a small room with a padded sitting area along the wall with a table in the middle that had two handheld computers sitting on it. The room was designed for relaxing and passing the time. There was a berthing compartment to the rear of this one, and the cargo room was behind that, where the gravity control system did not reach. Cindy stretched out on one of the couches as Jarvick went farther aft toward the cargo room. After opening the hatch, he stepped into the dimly lit room and began to float toward one of the boxes he had picked up from the JPL. It was secured on a shelf above the crystals and after opening it he took inventory of its contents. In it he saw his two jump belts, a few hand tools, about a half dozen boxes that were one inch across, (these contained small samples of the crystals), a jar that held a gallon of saltwater, and three spray cans that had orange labels. He took out the jump belts and closed the box, then returned to the world of gravity up forward where he saw Cindy reading something on the computer.
Jarvick sat down on the other couch, ate a nutrition tablet and turned on his computer to read something. It was going to be a long, boring trip.