Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 Chapter 4



   Over the next couple of days, repairs moved along smoothly.  Mike was in
awe of the recent events in his life.  Mike was sitting in his room on a
warm day, just relaxing and enjoying his private time.  Crimson his partner
was leaning idly against the door, a cool gleam radiated off its blade. 
Mike wondered if Crimson resented being his partner.

   "Now stop that foolish nonsense right now Michael.  I choose you as much
as you choose me.  So deal with the hand you've been dealt," Crimson said
offhanded.

   Mike was silent with astonishment that Crimson could hear his thoughts.
Mike was still getting used to that, although he thought it was pretty cool
to have a sword.  Sam had informed him earlier that morning, main power was
up to fourteen percent, and Sam had gone off reserve power late last night.
Sam decided he would wait to inform Mike in the morning, as Mike was fast
asleep when Sam went off reserve power.  Mike didn't mind that Sam waited;
he was exhausted from training with Crimson.  Crimson had run him ragged
all day yesterday and informed Mike he was progressing nicely.

   Mike was meeting the others later, to discuss finding a stronger power
source for the ship.  Deciding he had enough of lying around Mike dressed
for a long day's work.  Fifteen minutes later, Mike was walking towards the
tunnel with Crimson.  At the entrance, they waited for the others to
arrive. The others arrived with looks of utter exhaustion on their faces,
though they were eager to begin another day of work on the ship.  They all
had their swords with them, which seemed only natural.  They entered the
tunnel heading for the ship.  Sam was already busy with repairs when they
arrived at the ship.

   "Good morning everyone," Sam said.  "Captain, can we hold a staff
meeting in fifteen minutes?  I have some good news to tell everyone."

   "Yeah Sam.  We'll have it in the galley today if nobody minds.  I need a
morning pick-me-up badly."

   There was a chorus of agreement from the rest of the crew.  Everyone
headed straight to the galley and poured hot steaming cups of coffee. 
Mitch finally had Sam fabricating coffee properly, after only five
attempts. A few days ago Mike asked Mitch to download some recipes for
Earth style cuisine and beverages.  The previous menu selections were,
well, raunchy at best.  It tasted kind of like boiled chicken that had been
sitting for five days in the noon sun.  Only Jack was brave enough to try
the food, he ended up in the med-bay for the rest of the day, vomiting and
seeing weird colors.  It looked like Mitch's programming was finally paying
off.  Once everyone was settled in, Sam brought the meeting to order.



   "Well, main power is up to twenty percent and the solar panels are
running at ninety-nine point nine-nine-nine-eight percent efficiency.  At
the current rate, the ship will be fully operational in nine days.  Give or
take a day for any last minute complications."

   Everyone was silent for a few moments.  Mike hadn't expected the ship to
be ready this far ahead of schedule apparently everyone else was equally
surprised.  Mike had some questions for Sam.

   "Sam, can you activate some more maintenance droids?  Cause if you can,
we can have them start to unearth the ship."

   "Certainly Mike.  I just activated eight more maintenance droids.  I
instructed them to attach digging equipment to themselves and proceed to
the surface.  Captain, I believe that the droids should start at the hole
where you first fell in.  At that point, it is relatively easy to unearth
the ship using the hole as a point of reference.  The ship is only twenty
feet down and about a mile long by half a mile wide.  It is a good thing
that we are in a secluded area or else someone might see our activity."

   "Wow, I didn't realize the ship was that big," said Mike.

   "Well, yes, the design of the ship was supposed to be imposing, against
pirates and other such riff-raft," Sam stated.

   "Ok, Mitch please report on your end," said Mike.

   "I found some very interesting material in the computer core.  I've
decrypted most of the files with a few more to go.  But what I've found so
far is far beyond anything this planet could hope to come up with."

   "Really?"

   "Yeah, there were also some secret prototype files and upgrades hidden
deep within the computer core.  I doubt that even Sam was aware of these
files."

   "Sam, can you confirm what Mitch is saying?"

   "After Mitch discovered this hidden information and decrypted them I was
able to access them without difficulty."

   "So, what's inside of these files and upgrades?" Asked Jack.

   Mitch decided to field this question, because Sam apparently didn't know
what to make of the information.

   "Well, there appear to be upgrades for the ship and it fighters.  Our
ancestors and their people couldn't figure out the mechanics of these
upgrades well enough to use them.  So, they stored the basic principals of
the upgrades in the computer cores of all their ships for safe keeping
until the day they finally figured them out.  These upgrades include:
metaphasic armor, singularity weapons, hyperspace drive, a frequency
rotating shield modulator, and some other cool applications that got
scrapped on the drawing board."

   Everyone in the galley was quiet, some of them didn't understand
everything Mitch just said, and some of them didn't have a clue about
anything Mitch had said.  Mike was the first to ask a question.

   "So what does that mean to us at the moment?  Can you figure out how to
make any of those things work?"

   "Well to be honest, I've already solved the problems and created a few
more surprises from the other files I found along with the upgrades."

   Everyone was in a complete state of shock; even Sam was astonished at
what Mitch had said.

   "Unfortunately the upgrades for the ship will have to wait until we get
to space before we can implement them.  The problem with the upgrades in
the first place, was a pretty basic mistake in the calculations.  After I
over came that, it was pretty easy to get them working.  Of course, these
new upgrades are going to take up a lot of power to use them at all, but I
figure we could find a more powerful source of energy for the ship."

   "Anything else?" asked Mike.

   "Yeah with the files I found with the upgrades, I was able to construct
body armor to use in combat, if the need should ever arise.  To be honest I
stole the design of the suit from the XBOX games Halo and Halo 2, I just
hope I don't get sued by Bungie Studios for stealing their concept.  Also,
our swords can interact with the body armor, to control and operate the
shielding, environmental controls, and the body armor's sensors.  Just like
in the Halo game.  I should have enough suits for everyone in the next day
or two."

   The Breaker blades seem delighted by this new development and everyone
else seemed pleased also.

   "I've got some other ideas on the back burner for now, until we get into
space.  I just want to wait till we get the ship off the ground before I
make any other changes."

   Mike was surprised at the pace of events.  He would never have guessed
his life would turn into an amazing adventure over night.  Mike was happy
with the progress everyone was making.

   "Alright Jack, anything new to report?" asked Mike.

   "Yeah, repairs are nearly complete, weapons are back online, and engines
are primed and ready for use.  Both the main and auxiliary sublight drives
will be repaired by tomorrow, but we can't properly test all of this
equipment until we get more power.  Otherwise everything is in working
order; cloaking device, navigation, shield operations, matter transport,
communications array, are all operational Captain."

   "Ok, then all we need to do is find a better source of power for the
ship.  Anyone got any bright ideas?" asked Mike.

   Both Mitch and Jack raised their hands at the same time.  They both
looked at each other and smiled.

   "Jack you remember that conversation we had a few days ago?" asked
Mitch.

   "Yeah, the one about alternative power sources."

   "Well I was thinking about that and I think I've found a solution to our
power problem."

   Everyone waited for Mitch to continue.  Mitch went on to explain that he
devoted the last couple of days to solving their power problem.  He was in
the science lab exploring and reading the lab inventory files.  Mitch was
scrolling through the files, finding some interesting things, when he
decided to snoop through the cabinets lining the walls.  In the last
cabinet he discovered a beaker marked unknown sample.  Inside the beaker
was a green kind of slime, so he took it over to a table and set it down.

   Mitch pulled up the file on the sample, but it was pretty bare. 
Apparently, the original crew had picked it up in an asteroid field outside
of the solar system just before they were stranded.  The science officer
thought it had some potential for a power supplement, but it proved to be
unstable and he never got a chance to test the substance.

   Mitch was mulling over the implications of the slime, and decided to
test it.  Retrieving some silicon power crystals from a nearby storage
closet, Mitch cut a small fragment of power crystal and put it in the
middle of the lab table.  Taking a stirring rod, he covered it with a tiny
sample of slime.  Dropping a bit of slime on the crystal, Mitch ran for the
hills, assuming that the unstable slime would react badly with the power
crystal.  When nothing happened, he cautiously moved back to the table. 
The slime had fused with the crystal, turning the power crystal from clear
to a nice shade of jade green.

   Mitch then called Sam and had him construct a chamber to test the new
crystal.  Sam said he would run a small amount power through the chamber
and monitor the results.  Mitch put the crystal in the chamber and started
to feed 15 watts of power into the chamber.  The crystal started to glow
and pulsate, the chamber was shaking violently, and it seemed the chamber
was going to tear itself apart.

   Sam quickly shutdown the power to the chamber before it reached critical
mass.  Mitch was stunned into silence, because he had no idea what had just
happened.  Sam reported the output of small crystal generated 1017 power
larger than the input, which was enough power to run the eastern coastline
of the U.S.  for the next two thousand years, without having to insert more
power than they just did.  The output from 15 watts was 1,500,000
terawatts; by comparison, all the electric plants in the United States and
Canada produce 7 terawatts daily.

   Sam analyzed the small crystal and found that the crystalline matrix
stabilized the unknown substance by fusing it into the matrix, thereby,
creating a tremendously clean power source.  It took Mitch and Sam a few
days to create a new crystal to power the ship and use the new upgrades. 
Mitch had Sam see if he could replicate either the green substance or the
new crystal without too much complication.  While Sam was doing that, Mitch
brought in Jack to create a new power chamber for the engine room using the
new crystal power source.  Jack said it would take a few days to build one,
but he could do it.  Mitch was just waiting for the system to go online
before starting a practical test.

   Mike and Emily's jaws nearly hit the floor as they listened to this
story.  Jack was the only one not totally surprised by the news.  Mike's
thoughts were reeling with shock at what he just heard.  This was beyond
anything he had envisioned for a new power source and the implications were
mind-boggling.

   Emily seemed to recover first from the shock of this discovery and
asked. "How in the hell did you come up with something like this so soon?"

   Mitch replied, "Since starting work on the ship and being given all this
knowledge, my mind has been in overdrive coming up with new concepts with
the technology available on this ship.  Plus, I had a lot of sugar the
other day and I was really hyper.  I had to put that energy to use
somehow."

   Mike was thinking about the future and what Mitch's discovery could mean
for everyone on the planet.  He was already formulating a plan for earth,
when his reverie was broken by the awkward silence.  He asked Mitch and
Jack when they would be ready to test the new power source.  Jack said they
would be ready tomorrow.  As it was already after six p.m., Mike decided
that they accomplished enough for one day and called it a day.  Everyone
rose from their chairs and proceeded to leave the ship.  They would be back
tomorrow for the test and if all went well they could have the ship in
orbit by mid-afternoon.