Flipspace: Primalocracy

By John Steiner

Testing a new Flipspace protocol, the Mockingbird travels to its most distant mission yet. There, Colonel Rama orders Major Fitch to lead a surface team to a planet outside the habitable zone, yet teeming with life based on ammonia. Rama flies a second science team in studying the remaining planets, where an artificial satellite is found. Fitch’s team also finds traces of civilization and discovers a lingering threat that destroys technology. The study of fallen societies turns into defense from a planet-wide force.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Melange Books, LLC
• Release date: Feb 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781680460520

John Steiner

John Steiner earned his Associate of Biology at Salt Lake Community College, where he is currently working as a tutor in math and chemistry. He exercises an avid interest in history, science, philosophy, mythology, martial arts as well as military tactics and technology.

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Special Smashwords Edition

Primalocracy

Flipspace #10

by John Steiner

Published by

Melange Books, LLC

White Bear Lake, MN 55110

www.melange-books.com

Primalocracy, Copyright 2015 John Steiner

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-68046-052-0

Names, characters, and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Published in the United States of America.

Cover Design by Becca Barnes

Table of Contents

Primalocracy

Chapter 1: Cold Start

Chapter 2: Hopscotch

Chapter 3: History in Stone

Chapter 4: Legacy

Chapter 5: Footsteps and Whispers

Chapter 6: Law of the Jungle

Chapter 7: Retrograde

S.E.T.I. Protocols

Spectres

About the Author

Previews

PRIMALOCRACY

John Steiner

Testing a new Flipspace protocol, the Mockingbird travels to its most distant mission yet. There, Colonel Rama orders Major Fitch to lead a surface team to a planet outside the habitable zone, yet teeming with life based on ammonia. Rama flies a second science team in studying the remaining planets, where an artificial satellite is found. Fitch’s team also finds traces of civilization and discovers a lingering threat that destroys technology. The study of fallen societies turns into defense from a planet-wide force.

Chapter 1

Cold Start

Come on, people, Colonel Ramachandra called over the ruckus made by her crew filing into the windowless room. It’s going to be a long night, little birds.

Her voice sounded no more stern than before, but the mother’s disapproving undertone brought down the noise level and firmed up discipline in the ranks. Maybe it was having just returned from Earth-side leave, Rama thought, or it was due to being based on Global Orbital Defense Station Seven. The space installation circled the Earth every twelve hours at around 20,000 kilometers altitude. It was large enough for successive rotational rings to each spin with centrifugal force equivalent to one gee.

For the mission Rama was about to brief her crew on, the Mockingbird docked with her Flipspace Device in low orbit in order to ensure that the FSD could not build up a charge for conducting a spatial rotation. The reason came from a new Flipspace Protocol more revolutionary than the mobile flip target, and it promised just as much savings in mission flight time.

At last, Rama chided with deadpan manner. "The room has come to order. Your Grav-Leave was well earned, but now it’s time to get into the biggest game of all. You may be wondering why our FSD docking maneuvers weren’t conducted at any of the Lagrangian Stations before exo-solar deployment. ForCom has called on us to test a new power-up procedure designated the Cold Start.

"The short version is this. We’ll be channeling power from Mockingbird’s fusion reactor into the FSD nacelles to prime up the reaction cells. Because of the tremendous draw, even to a fusion reactor, technical personnel are required to be on station to assist and prepare for emergencies. Mr. Goddard will explain to you the details."

At Rama’s cue, the Logician and civilian FSD specialist, Stanley Goddard, rose from a chair to approach the podium with a computer slate in hand. After a couple swipes over its clear surface, the Logician was ready and cleared his throat.

Thank you, Colonel, Goddard accepted, and then began by directing everyone’s attention to a flat midair projection originating from a ceiling fixture. "To start, you’re aware of concepts like delta-V and other mathematic rate-of-change principles. To create sufficient Dark Energy for a spatial rotation, we need to employ far more sophisticated calculations which manipulate the Higgs field that gives particles the phenomenon of mass.

We designate changes in a Higgs field delta-H with the superscript zero, and added the Greek letter subscript Psi for the field. Positive delta-H Psi values dampen cosmological constants that dictate the value of Dark Energy. With a negative delta-H Psi we get increasing Dark Energy from our FSD reaction cells. However, up until the Henry-Draper 40307 mission we never had the mathematical means of inducing a cascade effect in Dark Energy levels outside of a spatial rotation itself, and even then being within a gravity well severely hampered Tesseract formation.

Jesus Christ, Stanley, Sergeant Dean Macready groaned, holding a palm to his temple. My head can only take so much of this shit. We all don’t have twenty-fold brain power.

Rama eyed Macready with raised brows, but made no further admonishment out of sympathy. She too struggled with the equations that befuddled the best mathematicians on Earth. Even Logicians had been stumped until Goddard’s SETI work.

During my communication attempts with the Toroid organism, Stanley skipped ahead to