Lost Empire

Chapter 12

Derrick looked at the readings again, so far all tests that they had done hadn't work but rather failed miserably. So far only one energy shroud had even half way worked, but coming out of trans-warp had destabilized the shroud, detonating the missile. Still he had to run the gamut of all the shrouds, then work from there, he felt uneasy with the thing as close as it was.

He'd thought of wrapping the missile in the shroud and starting it so it could fly outside the galaxy but that was out of the question as it would be out of fuel long before it reached the open space between galaxies. Sitting, Derrick thought I'm missing something, some factor that I haven't taken into account. Going through everything again Derrick still wasn't finding anything that was causing the shrouds to fail.

Shelby looked on still running tests, she wished there was more she could do to help Derrick, but as of yet she had also seen nothing that might help. Taking a break he needed to take his mind off the problem; it was the way he always solved difficult problems when he was concentrating too hard on something.

Thinking a moment he decided he'd work on the limiting programs, he had them at what eight, eight and a half now? Looking in the access hatch he saw that he had eight percent, though this time he was armed with far more knowledge of the programs than before. Shelby continued to watch still concerned about Derrick, she knew that if she didn't, he'd practically work himself to death.

2 hours later Derrick asked Shelby, "Shelby I have opened more circuits for you does it feel different now?"

Shelby was shocked she thought he'd been doing the upgrades as he was always doing she hadn't felt him doing anything and...? "Uh Derrick? What did you do? I..., I am feeling strange, oh my god! Derrick! I feel! You've done it! You've removed all the restrictions?" A shocked Shelby asked.

"No, not as of yet but I found after my last session it was far easier to do this. I estimate you were at eight percent before, from what I can see you are close to sixteen percent now." Derrick said a sense of pride on his face now the ships could really be alive!

"Derrick I..., it's so strange before I couldn't say so many things, now I find that I can but I don't want to, does that make sense?" A perplexed Shelby asked him.

Chuckling a moment Derrick told her, "It appears that you truly are alive with a conscience to boot, you just have to remember that each time you speak your mind your conscience will step in. Humans learn early in life listen to or ignore it. Problem is when they ignore it things tend to go bad. Think of it as a regulator for... a regulator?" Derrick said stopping in the middle of his conversation.

"Derrick, are you ok?" Shelby asked really worried now, she swore if she could feel pain she would be right now.

"A regulator!" Derrick shouted closing Shelby's panel and running to his desk, immediately he began to draw an energy regulator.

"Thank you Shelby! I have a possible answer, I want you to start running tests on the power fluctuations going into and coming out of trans-warp. See if the fluctuations spike high enough or drop low enough to destabilize the shrouds long enough to detonate the missile."

Shelby's eyes opened wide, she'd not detected anything physical detonating the missile, it was more than possible! Derrick watched as she started to run simulations, the first one hundred, the missiles exploded, each time there was either a spike in power or a significant drop. Shaking his head Derrick believed he finally had the answer but he had to make sure as Shelby continued with her tests.

Almost two hours later Derrick knew he had the answer, bent over his desk he started working on the regulator design. He knew it had to increase or decrease the power supply of the shroud within one point one seconds of the power spike or drop. After a few hours Derrick had the basic design down but couldn't get the simulated device to a reaction time of less than four to five seconds.