Read Alicia Jones 3: New Frontier for Free Online Page B

hull.”
    She pointed in mock anger, “Bad alien, wormholes, now.”
    I sighed, “Yes mom.”
     
    I read something in the morning reports that woke me up even
better than coffee.  Two thousand light years away rimward, and we ran
into another species in space, but only stellar, not interstellar.  All
indications were they didn’t detect the stealth ship dropping off a
probe.  This made me think of Marlon, surely they were a species we should
find out all we could soon.
    Of course, if they didn’t take my suggestion, we’d have to
depend on the probe we dropped off and what we could glean off of television
and radio signals.  Considering how skewed aliens would see Earth based on
our television, I was sure the Intel wouldn’t be very good.  Not much was
known about them yet, but they were on par with what Earth’s technology was
just last year, before I’d stumbled onto anti-mass and FTL.
    We weren’t even sure what they looked like yet, all I knew
was there were several artificial satellites in orbit, as well as a couple of
larger space stations.  The planet itself was larger than Earth, a little
closer to their sun, and had a slightly weaker electro-magnetic field.  It
had a slightly longer day, twenty-five point three hours long, and the gravity
was at point nine two of Earth normal.
    I was sure future reports would have a focus on that world
compared to others, and looked forward to it.  Again, a part of me itched
to take my ship there and take a look myself, but I had plenty of work to do as
admiral of fleet, and a scientist with my own project, and watching over the
company.
    We also now had over a two thousand light year buffer that
was covered by sensors, so assuming any craft coming from that direction
travelled as fast as we did, we’d get at least a couple of hours’ notice.
    It took me a couple of days to design a wormhole generator,
and according to my calculations it would take forty percent of the dark energy
reactor’s potential energy generation to open one.  To put that in
perspective, that much energy from the reactor, would be enough to power eight
thousand ships of our current configuration.
    We really did have energy to burn, and outside of the
wormhole generator we would be barely scratching the surface.  I
considered the idea of layered EM shielding, increasing the size of the ship by
many factors to make use of that power, and by placing many plasma
cannons. 
    However, it occurred to me it might send the wrong message
to the rest of the galaxy.  It would be a juggernaut, and something built
for war.  Perhaps if the galaxy went to hell, we could build a few of
them, but for now I’d have to be happy to at least have one system on board
ship that used the higher energy now available to us.
    I had other concerns as well, I had no worries about the
current board, or me, trying to take over the galaxy, but human nature also had
me reluctant to design such a ship.  I wasn’t naïve enough to think no one
else would, once the patents were in and the designs were in the hands of the
governments.  But I was also sure the tech would eventually leak out to
other worlds and restore the balance.
    I believed most wanted a peaceful state in the galaxy of
trade and defense, but power corrupts.  Sometimes those thoughts made me
wonder if even the dark energy reactor, and wormhole drive was too much.
    I snorted, maybe it won’t be in the budget for them to buy
any?
    The ironic thing was I’d be only able to patent the energy
converters and wormhole generator if it worked.  There was no new tech in
creating a dark energy reactor, it was a rather simple, if intense, artificial
gravity device.  I considered the idea of classifying the dark energy
reactor, even with the dark energy converter and wormhole patent, no one else
would be able to make use of it because of not meeting the energy requirements.
    Wormhole generation was something purely on paper.  I
had a design, but didn’t know