Three months later they had the missiles disassembled and turned around. The launch tubes were modified to hold the missiles while firing. The warhead casings had been melted down to make magnets. All the camouflage exterior had been melted down and reformed into brackets and magnets. This once beautiful spacecraft had been cannibalized past the point of ugly.
The remaining missiles fired in pairs, only slowed down the ship about four thousand miles per hour. Then the fun began.
Everyone not working on assembling the magnetic engines was feverishly modifying the used rocket into engine parts. The linear accelerator portions of the launch tubes were stripped and rebuilt into accelerators for what they called a solar magnetic drive.
Five months later the first test was a partial success. The solar wind was accelerated, but the wrong way. Portions of the three solar engines were unmounted and turned around.
Ionized particles of the solar wind were captured, compressed by magnetic fields, and then accelerated.
The delta-V factor wasn't much, but the main reactor carried it without using any of the remaining rocket fuel. After a week Susan recalculated their velocity and position. She was ecstatic because they'd be within fuel reach of civilization within eight months.
Letting the crew celebrate for several days was a relief, even for Bill. Then he called everyone together and outline their new problem. “Anyone with a little luck had been tracking us. My enemies surely have. Our ship now looks like salvage. We have no missiles or other defensive weapons. Our new orbit will take us to the moons of Jupiter. Everyone, start thinking how we can defend the ship, otherwise we may die before we even see the science station on Thebe.
The next morning a piece of paper was on the wall.
Why do we have to go to Thebe?
After breakfast Bill pulled the paper off the wall and said, “Well, Thebe is the best location our jury rigged drive. Also something else was brought to my attention. The magnetosphere of Jupiter is charged positive in some areas and negative in others. That means our solar magnetic engine will pull in some areas and push in others. Think on this and lets hear some ideas about how we can use this to our benefit.”
Three days later, Wilbur brought up the subject again, “Bill, I've pulled all the known data on Jupiter's magnetosphere. James, Susan, and I did some rough calculations and came up with a theory. Most everyone is aware of the original problem we had with the engine. It collected ionized particles and then fired it back out the intake. Ionized particles may be used as a weapon of sorts.
Jupiter's magnetosphere contains different concentrations of ionized particles, not to mention the polarity. Remember, we set up the engines so the ship travels engineering section first because of the extra shielding it has.
We need to design a method of reversing the engines without having to go out and physically turn the center section around. Theoretically, we could then maintain acceleration in the desired direction no matter the charge of the ions we draw in, plus if needed we can reverse the direction of the expelled ions and use them as a weapon against any ship attacking us.
It's physically possible to turn the explosive warheads into mines we could launch on a ballistic trajectory, but they can be easily dodge.”
Bill looked at Melissa and then stated, “OK, Wilbur pick your team and give us results by next week. Meantime, I want everyone else to strip down the communications equipment. We need some kind of long range radio built, even if it's AM. Also, James, can you build a couple of mining lasers. I know they won't be as powerful as the military ones, but maybe we can use them to protect ourselves from missiles.”