Fernandos or Bust

"A quantum tunnel inside a negative higgs field..." Jamie mused out loud as all the technical people on the 'Dwarf at around a meeting room table.

"yeah, my thoughts exactly." Cass reiterated her previous feelings, noting Jamie's lack of enthusiasm for the idea.

"This is somewhat reminiscent of Schrodinger's Cat." Kenneth interjected.

"How so?" Jamie asked.

"If memory serves correctly, the Cat was deemed to be both alive and dead at the same moment. The Quantum tunnel would work in much the same way, having us in both positions at the same time, if only for a nano second." He explained.

"So you're suggesting if we jump too close to our current position, we might generate a quantum singularity?" Artemis asked, sounding much more amiable now that his speech circuits had been corrected.

"Precisely."

"Ahh." Jamie said. "That's not good."

"But a singularity generated by a field with essentially less than zero mass would have zero potential, wouldn't it?" Cass said, putting her console down on the table to show her calculations.

---------------------------
Several hours of hard-science discussion later.
---------------------------

"The Sovereign's problem was Quantum radiation from the pseudo singularity it generated?" Cass said, as the conversation petered out. "So if we have zero Mass, we've solved that problem. And with Zero mass, it will move us even faster than the Sovereign. Is that what these calculations say?"

"It would appear so." Kenneth said.

The table was now littered in random sheets of paper, all covered in complex calculations, from the rather mundane thrust-weight ratios of the current engine configuration, to the quantum calculations based entirely on the Quantum drive. All in all, a headache waiting to happen.

"It'll work as it is now, with the Sovereign plugged into our systems." Jamie said. "But it's a bodge job at best. I'll need a month at least to cannibalise everything and move it over, and that's with everyone helping." he finished.

"Well, we've got something for now, at least. How long will it take to get us moving?" Jay asked, although he wouldn't have called himself that technical, he was a pilot, and so he knew engine systems.

"Give me 2 hours to configure it and run a few simulations." Jamie said. "Assuming Artemis can free himself for that time. I'll need some of his stuff to run the simulations thoroughly, and Kenneth's computer systems can help with that too."

----------------------------
2 hours later
----------------------------

"Ok everyone." the comm system crackled into life across the ship as Jay addressed everyone. "This is a prototype system, so there's no telling how it will interact with everything we have. Be prepared for anything."

Lights on the control panel lit up as the Higgs field generated, artificially reducing the ships mass to zero and beyond. The sub-light engines powered up, utilising all the power the core of the Sovereign could provide. The 'Dwarf began to move, albeit slowly. Acceleration was almost non-existent, however it did enable the ramscoop boussard collectors to suck in a lot more Hydrogen than it would normally. A fusion reaction began, and then...

"Ok, Here goes nothing." Jay said, and hit the control the team had wired from the Sovereign to the drive room.

....

"Was that it?" Jay said, looking around. "Did it do anything?"

Moments later, a bright white light engulfed everything visible, and persisted for several seconds, before dying back down.

"is that....?" Cass asked, looking out of the window.

"Fernandos?" Jamie asked, a wide grin on his face. "I'd recognise the flow of that river anywhere."

<Tag guys. So, it worked! and now we've arrived at Fernandos!>