When Do We Have To Go Back?

A short while later Holly announced, "We're at a quarter light speed, but it looks like the engine is hitting some type of wall because it's running at 75% so this may be as fast as we can go without pushing that safety margin."

Jessica asked, "But is there any way we could we get an in person view of all the planets as we pass before we have to turn around and head home?"

Holly and Rachel chuckled but Stephan sternly informed her, "The only other planet whose orbital position is close enough for us to see would be Pluto. And we would only make it halfway there before we have to turn around."

Rachel disagreed, "I don't know boss. At our current speed we'll be in range in about 24 hours."

Stephan rebuked, "OK miss math genius. Then how close will we get before we have to turn around?"

Rachel easily replied, "At our current speed we will be passing Neptune's orbit right before you want us to head back. But if the engine is still holding strong we should be good to keep going."

Concerned for the endurance of the engine though, Stephan ordered, "Either way, we will still be turning around in about 12 hours. The engine may be doing better than we expected but I still don't want to take the chance of it breaking down too far away to make it back within rescue range." Reluctantly everyone refocused on the engine's performance and on making sure it was working as expected. Then, after a couple of hours, Dawn asked Stephan, "So did you build a kitchen or do we have to eat in our seats?"

Still concentrating on the readings from his panel, Stephan said with a general wave of his hand, "Back there."

She shared a look of confusion with Jessica and then looked to Rachel and Holly and was fixing to ask them when Rachel stood up, turned towards her, and volunteered, "Follow me. Steph didn't build us a full blown kitchen but me and Holly made sure to fix it up with at least a microwave and a table. If we had left it completely up to Steph we would have been having to eat that goop stuff they make the astronauts eat."

Jessica giggled and informed Dawn, "I'd believe her. When Steph first moved into a house of his own he wanted to buy that junk for his house back then just because he didn't know how to cook or even use a microwave and wanted something that he thought would already be ready."

Dawn grimaced as they walked back to the kitchen and remarked with a chuckle, "Then I'm glad he has you girls around to straighten him out when he tries to be fast and easy or just plain lazy."

Rachel contributed, "Just be glad we're only looking at having to put up with this for a couple more hours."

When Dawn saw the confined space of the kitchen area she sarcastically responded, "Seeing this I am most definitely glad, because if we had to put up with this for more than a day I would have to make our architect build us a better kitchen."

Jessica laughed but Rachel offered her opinion, "I don't know about the kitchen. My first priority would be to make him hook us up with some actual beds instead of his plan to have us either sleep in the hallway or strap ourselves into our seats."

Dawn shook her head and agreed, "Yeah. I would rather have a decent place to sleep if it came down to having to choose between the two."

Jessica then pleaded, "But I would love it if we could see Pluto though."

Rachel reluctantly replied, "I would like to see it too but it looks like we'll have to wait until the next go-round."

Dawn contributed, "Pluto would be nice but I would love to see Alpha Centauri or even farther out if we could make it."

They both agreed and silence fell as they ate their food while each of them was wondering about how far the ship might make it on this test run and on other, further places they would love to be able to see one day.

When they returned after eating, Dawn told Stephan, "Hey Steph, I was thinking about the engine hitting this wall thingy that Rachel referred to and I was wondering... could that wall be Greg's force field thingy using more of the energy the engine is producing so it can continue protecting us at higher speeds?"

"Grrr." Stephan growled, "I had totally forgot about that durn thing! Holly! Turn that thing off for a minute and see how it affects our speed then turn it back on as quick as you can so we know we'll have a higher chance of staying safely protected and can decide if we want or need to use it when we're further down the road."

Holly reached over and turned it off as directed. Then her and Stephan kept close watch of what the engine was doing and their speed. After a minute without the device, Stephan, with his attention still focused on the data showing on his console, waved to Holly to turn it back on.

She tried but wasn't able to get it back working after following the directions Greg had given her for turning it on and off. She then took over the piloting from Rachel and let her try as well but neither one of them was able to get it to work.

Growing frustrated, Stephan tried as well but was also unable to get it turned on. Worried about the safety of the ship and the increased possibility of receiving fatal damage from even molecules of water at the speeds they were at, he growled out, "Rachel, I hate to do this but start turning us around and slowing us down so we don't have to worry about hitting something at these speeds."

Having been sitting there watching them work due to her not having the engineering knowledge they had, Dawn countered, "Keep flying Rachel. Stephan, move over. I got this."

Aggravated, Stephan demanded, "How do you think to know you have this when us three haven't been able to while following Greg's direct instructions!?"

"Because," Dawn smiled and said as she bent over and, not bothering to press any of the buttons that the others had pressed, explained as she simply touched the machine, "Greg's device doesn't use electronics to work. It uses our talents." She finished as she sat back down in her seat.

"What do you mean? He showed us how it worked and it has been working since he left. So if it runs on talents then how has it still been running this whole time?" Stephan asked confused.

Dawn smiled then answered, "That is why it took me so long to figure it out. I noticed Greg using his talent to calibrate the device and when he activated it but I didn't think it was running off a talent when it was still working after we got so far away until I got to watching how you three were trying to turn it on. The electronics was turning on but the field wasn't generating and so I used my talents to look it over and that's when I saw how he had done it."

She turned to Stephan directly and continued, "He has also has the builder talent that you have. And so, when he was making the device, he used it to make the device draw on the energy our talents use and to use that energy to keep it running."

"But he said it uses it's battery to keep running so how does it do both?" Stephan wondered.

Dawn smiled and replied, "Because both are the same. Or, rather, I should say that the energy our talents use is the same energy that his battery stores. And, the kicker, is that it's energy is the same energy that your engine uses."

Rachel giggled as she added, "And that would explain the numbers I'm seeing on my console!"

They turned to her and Stephan asked, "What do you mean? The only difference I'm seeing is our speed increased while that thing was off."

"It's like when you're using your phone while it's charging," Rachel explained, "It's gonna use the plugged in power before it touches the battery. So it has been drawing energy from the engine instead of it's own battery and, so the faster we go the more energy it needs to generate a field strong enough to keep it's integrity at the higher speed, it was getting to the point where the device was having to use, say, 2% more energy for every 1% gain in speed."

"What about now?" Stephan grumbled.

"Now," Dawn answered, "When I activated it I set it to use it's own battery so we should have more juice free from the engine, but with the device using the same energy, it's force thingy might be set up to feed any incoming energy to the device instead of the engine so the engine might not have as much power to run on now."

When Stephan started to question her explanation, Rachel provided, "Looks like her numbers are almost right. We were struggling for a 30% speed of light before with a usage of almost 80% but, since we turned it off, speed has held the same but usage has dropped down to just right around 50%. Also, energy feed is being cut by a little shy of half. So if we had a full energy feed our usage would be closer to 25%."

He sighed and expressed, "Whew! Glad to hear better usage numbers but if we still had the full energy feed we were expecting we'd be able to up the speed enough to see Pluto before turning around."

"But if we hit the gas a little we could definitely make it! So come on bro, up the juice so we have something more than numbers to look at today!" Jessica complained.

Stephan help up a finger signaling her to wait while he looked over his console's numbers again, sighed once more, and told Holly and Rachel, "I guess we can boost our usage to 60% but that will be as high as I want to go since that device is pulling some of the incoming energy as well. I am still holding to the 12 hour time limit so we'll hold at whatever speed a 60% usage will give us for another two hours and then we will, without a doubt, be turning around and heading back no matter how far we've been able to go. So, even if we are 2 minutes away from Pluto, we will still be turning around. No ifs, ands, or buts about it."