NanoTec: Flight to a Distant Star

06: 2100: Flight to the Distant Star

Rewritten on 29 July 2017

Enjoy!

*End of Author's Note.*

In the late 21st century, once again, humanity or rather, NanoTec escaped from Einstein's cage. The ring shaped engine of the Alcubierre Drive gave them the power to leap to the nearest star at many, many times the speed of light.

After years and years of dreaming, they were finally ready to leave the cradle of their homeworld. It was eleven years later that the first human interstellar colony ship was built.

The NNT TeraNova was a symbol of mankind's innovation and honor. It was to be loaded with humanity's best and brightest, ready to inherit a galaxy they long ago decided was devoid of life. The universe was all out there for their taking.

That...was until the Spores arrived. They came in silence. No statement of intention. No declaration of war. Not even a demand for their surrender. They struck humanity so hard and fast, that within seconds all the precious hopes and dreams they clung so tightly to were all but burning meteors falling to Earth...

The NNT TeraNova was well on its way to completion. Its aluminum scaffolding was laid down on November 2096 and after four years of construction, the whole ship was finally complete apart from a few sub-systems that had yet to be installed.

It was lucky that the years of construction were smooth sailing with little to no complications or the process would have taken much longer.

The ship was unique in its own sense, besides the fact that it looked exactly like an upsized EarthGov cruiser with boxes attached to its sides.

The 700 meter long colony ship ran on a Shangri-La Fusion Reactor and was fueled by a deuterium-deuterium fusion reaction, unlike the fission powered EarthGov ships which ran on Thorium-232.

Its main thrusters were also powerful fusion reactors of inline design, running on helium exhaust from the internal reactors.

Having little to no armor at all, the TeraNova could not take too much damage before the pressure hull fails entirely. It was not a warship after all.

What really made this ship special however, was that it was the first human built starship to ever equip a form of FTL engine.

The Alcubierre Drive that resided in and on its stern was the specially built ring shaped warp field distributor. As NanoTec's warp field technology was still in its inkling stages and was not at all advanced enough, the power consumption of the drive was calculated to be astronomical and also needed an extremely large, and very obvious ring.

Claev was conducting structural checks on the interior of the ship and TKE was examining the outer whipple shielding.

The hull had a professional, silver shine on it, much to the extent that one could say that the job done was flawless. At least that was what TKE would have said about it.

"Alright. Now all we have to do is get the last batch hydrogen fuel and we're done..." TKE mumbled to himself. "Such a shame. Earth's climate had just been restored and we now have to depart in such an uncouth manner... Well screw EarthGov anyways."

Using the RIG gyroscopic assistance, he gently eased himself away from the TeraNova and towards SkyLab2's airlock.

Today was pretty busy. He began thinking to himself. I had thought we were supposed to finish the ship by next month, but Saegen-sir had been driving for its completion in the next 48 hours. Some sort of slave driver he is!