Lost in Magadan: Extraterrestrials on Earth

The Impegi was designed to operate with as few as fifty crewmen, but could comfortably house over 100 without retrofitting any sections of the ship. Since it was designed for long distance travel, and many of its destinations took over twenty years to reach, the ship was outfitted with LTS chambers, or long-term-sleep chambers. These chambers would slow the crewman’s metabolism and place him in a deep, dreamless sleep for years at a time. While sleeping in the chamber, the crewman would age at a fifty percent slower rate. The Vitahician scientists were working on a way to completely stop the aging process during LTS, but had not yet achieved success on that front. Once they could calibrate the LTS to slow the aging process down to zero, then they could attempt to send a ship to another galaxy.

On a typical voyage, the crew would take shifts operating the ship, while the rest were in the LTS chambers. Ten crew members would stand watch and monitor the ships functions for any problems. If there was a serious issue, they would pull the Commander out of LTS; otherwise, they were capable of handling most routine tasks. There was very little for the ten on-duty crewmen to do, as the Impegi’s computer did all the calculations. The ship was essentially on autopilot while traveling at FTL speed. With a crew of fifty, each crew member would sleep for several years and then serve a few months on duty; this cycle would continue until they reached their destination.

The most impressive bit of armament was not the pulse weapon or the torpedoes, but the nanobot reinforced plasma shield. The plasma shield would protect the vessel from attacking pirates or, more likely, an unidentified asteroid or space debris. Not even the advanced minds of the Vitahicians could accurately plot a collision-free course through space at twenty times the speed of light, taking into account the stars, planets, asteroids and space debris. It would be nearly impossible to navigate around these things at such speeds. The ship’s computer would calculate and recalculate the trajectories of all celestial bodies while they were traveling, but inevitably some small objects would be missed. If the Impegi were to run into a small asteroid or space debris while traveling, the plasma shield would repel the foreign object. If the object were to pass through the plasma shield, within a fraction of a millisecond, billions of nanobots would be shot at the object. The nanobots were designed to interact with and dissolve the object into a fine mist. Finally, the Impegi was equipped with an outdated optical stealth shield which would cloak the ship from the naked eye and radar. The optical shield was original to the ship; even though there had been numerous advances to the optical technology, there had never been any reason to update it on this ship.

The Impegi was powered by six antimatter injected nuclear fusion reactors that powered local propulsion and an electromagnetic propulsion drive. This would bend space and time around the ship, allowing it to reach speeds of up to twenty times the speed of light. The ship itself did not travel faster-than-light; it existed within a bubble that compressed time and space directly in front of the ship and expanded it behind the ship. While traveling at FTL speeds, the crew would not experience time differently than normal; however, people on their home world would seem to age more quickly. When the ship was not traveling in excess of the speed of light, the antimatter reactors would simply power the thrusters, which could bring the ship to speeds over 450,000 miles per hour.

The ship had 100 crew and passengers on board for its final mission. All crew members had volunteered knowing that they would likely never return home.

Commander Forte, and the three other officers stepped out of the elevator onto the ship’s helm. The helm was sixty feet long and forty feet deep. The entire length of the command center was transparent so that officers at the helm could get a panoramic view of space. When traveling at light speed, or while under attack, an armored shield would slide down over the window for additional protection. The shield was not currently in use, so all those at the helm could see the infinite sea of stars before them. The helm had numerous large display monitors that tracked everything from positioning, course plotting, fuel consumption, life support, systems analysis, cargo holds, and reactor performance.

“Good morning, Commander, welcome back to the helm,” exclaimed Captain Pilosus, with the standard Vitahician salute.

“Glad to be back, Captain,” responded Forte. Forte was genuinely happy to be back on the helm. Even though time passes very quickly in the LTS chamber, Forte was eager to get to Earth and begin the next chapter in his life. “Anything interesting happen since I was last at the helm?”