Chapter 11 - Workshop

  Year 3001, Sunday 22 days until classes start. Walkway to the Forge Sector.

  “Where are we going?”

  Athena pointed to the pillar of smoke coming from a cluster of large buildings, “You wanted a workshop, correct?”

  “We’re going to the workshop?”

  “Yup, I’ll show you some of the training tools in the workshop.”

  “Training tools?”

  Athena shrugged, “There’s a few pilot simulators in this workshop.”

  My eyes widened, “Simulators?”

  “It will be pretty difficult to use them and even harder for you to fly a corvette.”

  “What does ether throughput really have to do with my ability to fly? I’ve heard and read everywhere that it matters but I don’t really get it.”

  Athena thought about it for a second, “When you fly a craft, you control it as if the whole craft is an extension of your body.”

  “Yeah?”

  “So imagine trying to do things without any kind of muscle control.”

  “That would be pretty difficult.”

  Athena shrugged, “Very difficult. Not impossible.”

  “So, I can fly?”

  “Probably not. Because your ether channels are eleven times larger your minimum ether throughput is already higher than the failure rates of most corvette parts.”

  “Couldn’t I lower my minimum output?”

  Athena shook her head, “It’s unrealistic to lower your minimum output by that much. You’d be better off trying to fabricate parts that could withstand higher throughputs.”

  “Don’t destroyers and cruisers have higher throughput limits?”

  Athena nodded, “You’d probably be able to pilot a mothership very comfortably. Something only a handful can do now.”

  “A mothership?”

  “Your parents want me to prepare you with a structured education for that mentorship program.”

  “Wait what’s a mothership?”

  Athena pointed to a big poster, “You know the Hades? The Zues? And the mothership currently being assembled on Luna Poseidon?”

  I nodded, “I think my father was on Hades.”

  Athena frowned, “Your parents played a role in every mothership. They probably just never told you about everything they’ve done.”

  I shrugged, “They rarely talk about anything like that.”

  “Eh. Whatever. It’s not all that important. So there are methods to lower your minimum output.”

  “Really? How.”

  “So, you know how your voice has different ranges from where the sound originates?”

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  What? What does that mean? I was confused, “What?”

  Athena suddenly spoke in a very high-pitched songlike voice, “This is called the falsetto range.”

  Switching back to her normal voice she asked, “Do you know the difference between falsetto and modal?”

  “One is higher pitched than the other?”

  She nodded while frowning, “That’s obvious. You know how sound is made by vibrations. What do you think the difference is?”

  “The higher false whatever range uses a different method to make the sound?”

  “Close enough, modal is a more optimal vibration for volume and efficiency while falsetto is a faster vibration that isn’t optimal since it requires much more muscle contractions to reshape the vibrations.”

  I thought about it, “So are you saying ether is like this?”

  Athena snapped her fingers and held up a little clear marble, “There are many methods to using ether and most fall into a micro or macro category.”

  I stared at the marble, “How… did you do that?”

  She tossed the marble up in the air and it disintegrated, “This is an example of fabrication, a micro usage of ether.”

  I watched as the marble blasted apart into vapor, “How did you do that?”

  “Fabrication means forcing molecules to bound or break from each other.”

  I scratched my head and thought about it, “So you use small amounts of ether on individual molecules to create something?”

  Athena nodded, “So you can use that brain of yours.”

  I rolled my eyes, “It’s not like I’m an idiot.”

  Athena was silent for a few seconds as we neared the end of the path, “Yeah… Sure…”

  She really had such a low opinion of me. What was she expecting? Was she expecting a genius? It’s not like anyone is born smart. Does it matter who my mother or father is? Does it matter who my family is? Does it matter how much stuff I have? Ugh. Ridiculous. I followed her as she navigated through a side path, “So what was the training you made me start today?”

  “You need to first sense ether before we get into controlling it. After all, you can’t ever hope to control something you can’t even feel.”

  “Really? Why can’t I control it through secondary senses by looking at the stuff I put ether into?”

  Athena shrugged, “Go ahead and try it in the simulator. If you can figure it out then do whatever works for you.”

  We stopped in front of a sizable building with a large revolving glass door in the front. Through the glass I saw David talking to someone.

  “Hey David! How’s training been?”

  David spun around with a big grin on his face, “Kaiser have you seen this stuff? It’s crazy man.”

  “Whoa whoa what?”

  “Dude look over there!”

  I looked at what David was pointing at. On the wall was a massive engine about three times taller than me and two times taller than David. I squinted at it. I didn’t recognize this engine, “What is tha- “

  David smacked my shoulder, “Dude, come on. Don’t tell me you don’t know this beauty.”

  I saw the letters AR-3000. My jaw dropped, “Holy crap. Is that legit?”

  David put both hands on my shoulders and started shaking them like crazy, “It better be real it better be real it better be real.”

  While David shook my shoulders I looked over to see Athena and David’s advisor talking to each other. Athena noticed me looking at her and gave a mischievous smile. It’s gotta be real. I grinned, “David we gotta take off the plates.”

  David smiled, “It’s been killing me waiting for you to get here to do that.”

  “Your advisor couldn’t help?”

  David rolled his eyes, “Can’t trust anyone else with this gem.”

  He was lying. I grinned. David was saving it for me. We quickly made our way to the massive engine.

  David looked up at it in awe, “A real atmospheric three K engine.”

  “You can’t these on the open market.”

  David nodded, “Yup. Remember when you begged your father to get us one?”

  I chuckled, “At least he settled for the hornet.”

  “And we proceeded to ruin the space capabilities of that thing. I wonder what made him trust us with this thing.”

  I glanced back at our advisors who were in a very animated conversation about something, “Maybe it’s because we got some supervisors.”

  David smirked, “Well, let’s overclock the hell out of this thing.”

  I scanned the workshop and saw the pile of parts, “What’re you thinking of overclocking?”

  David scrunched his eyebrows, “Actually yeah. This is the first time we’re touching an ether generator.”

  “How do they usually do this stuff?”

  David shrugged, “I got no idea.”

  “How’d you overclock the hornet?”

  David grinned, “I got no idea.”

  I burst out laughing and grabbed a wrench, “Take off the armor plates?”

  David nodded, “Yeah, We’ll figure out how this thing works… probably.”

  A few minutes later the panel clattered to the ground. A small man-sized opening just big enough for David to squeeze into showed the inside of the engine. David ducked his head into the cavity, “Ah! So this is an ether generator.”

  I watched as David pulled out a little grey sphere out of one of the walls. I pointed at it, “That’s a differential?”

  David lifted it above his head and peered at the bottom of the sphere, “Um… yeah. I think that’s what this part is.”

  “Uh. Do we know what we’re doing?”

  David let out a burst of laughter, “I got no idea.”

  “You taking notes?”

  David shrugged, “Notes on what?”

  “Well, if we end up with some parts after we reassemble it…”

  David smirked, “Look, if that happens it means we can assemble an engine better than the factory.”