Fulcrums of the Universe: A TESS NOVEL #2 Read online

  FULCRUMS OF THE UNIVERSE

  A TESS NOVEL #2

  Randy Moffat

  Fulcrums of the Universe

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © 2014 Randy Moffat

  Author Credits to Robert Heinlein, Mark Twain, David Weber and Lindsey Davis for the gifts of their writing which have influenced me in various ways with their excellence.

  This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Booktango

  1663 Liberty Drive

  Bloomington, IN 47403

  www.booktango.com

  877-445-8822

  ISBN: 978-1-4689-5290-2 (ebook)

  Contents

  Dedication

  Forward

  Introduction

  Prologue

  CHAPTER 1 Comparing levers with the universe while almost naked in the wilderness of space

  CHAPTER 2 An obscure leverage at the fulcrum of intelligence

  CHAPTER 3 Leaning on a lever to make a hole into a hole

  CHAPTER 4 The penultimate ultimatum—A violent lever buried in mass times acceleration

  CHAPTER 5 A Hú done it—The cocked lever on a smoking gun

  CHAPTER 6 A Woo Wow factor—Leveraging the Petrovski effect at the quantum level

  CHAPTER 7 China invented the levers of state

  CHAPTER 8 In science there are three classes of levers

  CHAPTER 9 ‘A Number 1’ leverage for the Petrovski effect

  CHAPTER 10 A class three lever of action with lots of effort and guns

  CHAPTER 11 What do you do when you lean down on a lever and the weight at the other end leans back?

  About The Author

  List Of Terms Used In This Novel

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to all the people who have unstintingly raised me, helped me and supported me during my journey through this world including many friends and family. My deepest thanks for all of them for being who they are.

  Special thanks for the forbearance of the late LCDR Robert Moffat (USN) and Mrs. Mary Alice Geraldine Moffat… for not strangling me at birth as I undoubtedly deserved. Also my deepest thanks to the late CPT David Morton Bremner (RAF and later Aer Lingus) and Mrs. Elizabeth Ferguson Bremner for gifting me the wonder of your daughter; my companion, lover and wife of many decades. Robert, Mary Alice, David and Betty though they have all removed from this coil are still very much living gods in the temple of our hearts and minds. Thus is the gift of love.

  FORWARD

  The author’s conundrum

  Before you begin to read this novel you are to consider that Emerson is always correct when he pointed out that “. . . all my best thoughts were stolen by the ancients.” Though I set out with all the will in the world how could I ever best this for example…

  Note: Italics here are mine

  “The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad.

  The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again.

  So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what follows or what went before we know nothing at all…

  _____ The Venerable Bede

  Ecclesiastical History of the English People, Book II—731 Common Era

  If something in my story seems familiar it is because Aristotle wrote it or Titus Lucretius Carus anthologized it millennia ago. So don’t sweat the details and get on with your flight through the warmth of our great big mead hall right now!

  INTRODUCTION

  This book is the sequel to the novel “The Petrovski Effect.” Though this book is crafted to read on its own, I recommend you read the first novel in the series first so that you understand any references.

  Cast of Characters:

  TESS Leadership (Formerly Q-Kink Kommand)

  Admiral Phelan “Bear” McMoran (Head of TESS—Almost deceased—but generally pleased to still have a twinkling mote in his eye in the shape of his commander of logistics) *Read “The Petrovski Effect” by Randy Moffat for the “deceased” reference

  Rear Admiral Maureen O’Hara (Commander—Logistics—Big bright magnified magnificent hazel eyes to decease for… and smart too.)

  Rear Admiral Samuel Wong (Commander—Operations—Occasionally looking Stink-Eyed, but an exceedingly bright left brain to the service’s right hand)

  TESS Personnel (Formerly Team Q-Kink Members)

  TESS Research

  Dr. (Honorary—Seventeen Universities and counting) Antonin Petrovski (A pimply former Grad Student who discovered the ‘Petrovski Effect’ accidently on purpose—the principles of which lie behind the McMoran drive—the entire mess of which qualified him as the all time winner in the honorary doctorate lotto) *Read “The Petrovski Effect” by Randy Moffat for that story

  Dr. Albert Feathersgait (Former Atomic Energy Commission (Later Nuclear Regulatory Agency… . later DOE) drone—kind of worthless as a ground breaking discovery scientist… but a paperwork Sensei… and a bit of an ass)

  Dr. Mohammed Aziz (Mathematics—Incomprehensible unless you speak mathematics or money—primary translator of Petrovski’s genius into the language of mathematics which paves the path into engineering like a broom in front of a curling stone)

  TESS Operations

  Captain (Posthumous) Leonard Baxter (A deceased slave driving lunatic Non-Commissioned officer… much beloved—dearly departed… in pieces—First hero of TESS… his remains are buried with a nice plaque on the bluffs above the Birthplace of TESS) *Really! You should read “The Petrovski Effect” by Randy Moffat for this story too

  Captain Dana Johnson—Chief of Engineering—(A lady fast approaching a certain age but with a mind that was having the time of its life—that brain being the motive force behind actually designing, engineering and building TESS ships… in a hurry)

  Captain Lewis “Caveman” Craig—Chief of Security—(A Gentleman of even greater age than Johnson and damned cranky to boot, but serious about his job. A veteran of foreign wars)

  TESS Lieutenant 2 Duane Hú—Chief of Electrical Engineering—(A huge easy going giant of a man to whom electrons come easy—with a dent in his head for every low doorway on the flagship—shaping up as a newly minted officer and under consideration for promotion)

  TESS Warrant Officer 3—Shea Killien—Chief Technician for Mechanical Engineering—(The title a courtesy to the former NCO; really a jack of all trades craftsman who lifts weights and works like a plow horse and happy right where he is)

  TESS Lieutenant 3 Van Ziegler—Chief of Computer Engineering—(A sour faced computer geek who is very hard to like—in other words vital to TESS information operations)

  TESS Lieutenant 2 Tia Woo—Chief of Communications—(A quiet radio expert who is about to be famous)

  TESS First Sergeant Temple Rivera—Communications Sergeant—(A not so quiet radio expert who is about to be famous too)

  TESS Warrant Officer 3—Drew
Esteban Oley-Pinta—the name is presumptuously long so it gets shortened to “Pinta”—(Former NCO and now Operations Watch-stander aboard the (SS) Gaia—Current record holder for most hours of human spacewalks)

  TESS Warrant Officer 3—Pierre Henri Gaston—(Former civilian and now Operations Watch-stander aboard the (SS) Gaia—Breathing down Pinta’s neck for the record)

  TESS Sergeant First Class Melisa Anderson—Operations Dogs-body aboard the (SS) Gaia—no job is too big or too small—(Decorative but surprisingly capable. Enjoys pissing off her admiral in her spare time on behalf of the proletariat)

  TESS Staff Sergeant Alesandra Diaz—Operations valet aboard the (SS) Gaia—(Dangerous woman about town—a good shot)

  Early TESS Additions:

  Mr. Milton Murray—TESS Chief of Intelligence and Counter Intelligence—(Mannequin for aloha shirt Haute couture—now that TESS is space-borne the chief inhabitant of the “Bat Cave”—former home of Q-Kink. Affectionately called ‘M’ in a straight up rip off from James Bond by the TESS Hollywoodphiles) *Again—get busy and read “The Petrovski Effect” to figure out these references

  Recent TESS Additions:

  Captain Reginald Dixon—Ex Her Majesty’s oceanic destroyer commander and now Captain of the TESS Space Ship (SS) Tellus—Senior member of the first TESS expansion team—(Talks funny—North of England funny)

  Midshipman Baskarian—Operations T Watch-stander (Navigation) aboard the (SS) Gaia—The T stands for trainee—(Sweats a lot… with good reason)

  Cadet Sergeant Angela Smith T Watch-stander (Radar and Weapons) aboard the (SS) Gaia—(Learning fast out of necessity)

  Lieutenant 3 Terrance Spaulding—Brutus team leader—A new guy to TESS… with a gun

  Other less admirable individuals:

  Vice Chairman Bo Hú—A Chinese Political boss who is feeling his oats.

  Premier Wěi Lau—The Capo de tutti capi—boss of bosses in China—distinctly feeling a Hú elbow in his ribs.

  Mǐn Chén—Vice president of the National People’s Congress—cursed to live in interesting times

  MAJ Sen Sho—A hard core Chinese hard body Marine and admirer of Bo Hú’s hard line

  Honorable Doctor Liu Zeng—Scientific Advisor to the Central Leading Group for Protection of Party Secrets—another batty admirer of Bo Hú

  Qing Li—Head of Chinese intelligence for the Eastern United States and a Western style playboy. Playing all five sides against the middle for reasons of his own. *If it helps in pinyin Chinese the letter ‘Q’ is pronounced roughly as a “Ch” sound.

  PROLOGUE

  The wreck of the Gaia

  The ship hung still in outer space—where gravity waves from an endless ocean of emptiness lap on the shore of solar pebbles scattered over the beach of the planetary system. She was a steel composite cocoon clutching her tiny seed of warmth within it; slim protection against the endless expanses of cold. She was a former SBMS, an oceanic nuclear ship built as a naked threat with nuclear war buried in her belly and made to travel swiftly, with deadly intent, buried beneath restless mountains of liquid dy-hydrous oxide that covered most of her home world; she had not been built originally as a space craft, but merely pressed hurriedly into service for her current purpose. Her former elegance in water was a square peg in the pentagonal hole that represented the expanding reaches of her new home in space and she had been altered dramatically and crudely to bolster her for the task. That hurry was written all over her. A human looking at her at first glance might have taken her for a badly damaged wreck. The formerly dull black plates that remained of her hull were now only visible as glimpses though endless winding of heavy aluminum banding tape that squeezed in turns like an ace bandage to firmly hold the hull sections just tightly enough together to keep the vital bubble of atmosphere inside from exploding the surface outward like the serrations on a grenade casing. Turned to her current task in a flurry of emotional, temporal and monetary pressures she bears hundreds of unpolished and poorly healed scars from her spacecraft facelift in the form of surgeon’s weld marks and scorches from cutting torches had sliced across what a planetary sailor would call her ruined visage. These were especially apparent on the former clean lines of the sail superstructure which now sported numerous awkwardly fixed dish antennae, aerials, windows as well as a honking great rotary cannon rising up like a defiant erection thrusting out of a gouge where the shark fin met the hull. Worse, three massive and unwieldy rectangles of metal were fixed at bow and stern, the words “Yellow Trucking” still slightly legible beneath their hurriedly applied paint – these cubist forms completely ruining the formerly smooth lines of her flawless aqua-dynamics. Around her waistline, insult was added to injury by rows of large, poorly matched water tanks that girdled her—transforming her trim dancer’s waist into that of a sloppy middle aged matron. Finally, like a cherry perched on an ice cream sundae left too long in a July sun an awful looking sign sat near her front end. The sign was scrawled hastily on a discarded deck plate slapped with white primer paint and wired to the ubiquitous aluminum bands. In the white part someone had sketchily stenciled with a spray-can in bight day-glo orange the name of this travelling junk heap… . “SS Gaia!” Her appearance was mankind making a rude gesture at the hostile universe.

  CHAPTER 1

  Comparing levers with the universe while almost naked in the wilderness of space

  Levers! Life is all about levers. I was trying futilely to achieve a Zen state while contemplating various kinds of levers and floating in a weightless lotus position inside the extended middle finger of my flagship’s sail; hanging safe as any baby in my warm womb of human habitat, carefully maintained behind placental layers of triple heated window panes made of super tough acrylics and warm glass that kept the average outside temperature of three degrees Kelvin at bay. I had just achieved an epiphany.

  All the secrets of the universe lay in the Yin of levers and the Yang of fulcrums.

  I was looking forward, a view that left me absently contemplating the overly cluttered bow of the SS Gaia and the vast reach of stars beyond. The Gaia was the first true ship to use the lever of the Petrovski effect. That discovery was the contribution of TESS to humanity. It allowed the first true space drives. The drive was a lengthening of destiny’s gangplank that would let the human race shuffle just that little bit further outward on the past the fulcrum of the universe. I was mentally looking towards the bold new future we were trying to build. Trying to envision what could be.

  It wasn’t working.

  Epiphany or no epiphany I kept dropping down out of my elegant fulcrum theories focused on a brilliant glow over the horizon of TESS’ out years and plunging back down into the miseries of the present. It was like getting hit by a cold bucket of water that left you itching in wet underwear—doomed to stare morosely out the slightly dirty window at my ragged reality, peering moodily across the organic mess that was my poor ship and wanting to scratch you left bottom cheek. Perhaps worse than the view of all that impromptu engineering, a trick of the light gave me an occasional glimpse of my own reflection in the glass superimposed over what I was seeing. That always brought me down. I certainly didn’t approve of how my face looked now. My lips were as tightly pursed as some impecunious Victorian dowager’s poke. Annoyance personified.

  I should be clear here. Annoyance was an unnatural state. Annoyance wasn’t really me. I was usually a paragon of sunshine and light, but lately an ugly laundry list of grievances against the universe had turned me back towards my distant dour ancestral roots in the overcast marches of Scotland where some thistle kept poking up under your kilt and into your tender bits. Staring distractedly about in my fog of Celtic racial moodiness I enumerated that angry bitch the cosmos’ personal slights against me lately over and over in my mind.

  One instant background irritant was simply my immediate surroundings. I was hovering in the lounge called ‘eleven forward’—the name was a m
ere half-assed condescension to my anger by the ship’s crew. Infected by the virus of dead head Next Generation Trekies among the team they had been calling the place ‘ten-forward.’ I had put up with it for a time, but during one late night watch when I was off duty and a bit in my cups I finally cracked and began shouting at them about their lack of imagination. Trying to shame them into some originality at least. It is still a bit hazy but I recall referring to them as unoriginal dwitnoids and several stronger moral equivalents that rhymed with “duck” until a vein started throbbing noticeably on my temple and I ground to a halt, gripping my head to try and stabilize the gyrations. With a derisive snort I’d finally zig-zagged off to bed for a drunken flollop. In response to my tirade they had stood politely and contritely at parade rest while peering carefully down at the deck grids beneath their feet, swaying like the saplings of Birnam Wood en route to Dunsinane and trying hard not to titter openly. They loved it when I lost my cool. They’d all cautiously waited until I left. Then they’d engaged in what I heard later was a lively debate to arrive at their pitiful solution to what they referred to as “my” problem. The power of their amplified hive mind was liberally lubricated by several additional tumblers of gin which certainly brought the illumination level up to that of a 2 watt bulb. Their solution? They added a number one to the lounge’s former name. I could picture their gratified faces assuming looks of idiot self satisfaction at a job well done and pretending I would never notice the least similarity between “10 Forward” and “11 Forward.” Morons.