Part 25: Cold Stars

Jade and John learn what, exactly, the SPARK is

   Jade smiled and reached out for the blonde woman’s hand. “Doctor Dylan Uitleg?”

            “Yes, one and the same,” the woman replid with a warm smile. She read the confusion on Jade’s face, and offered, “Don’t worry, it’s a common mistake. My father was obsessed with poets of the past. Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, so boy or girl, he was going to use the name.”

            “I see,” Jade said. She took a moment to examine her surroundings. The docking bay was large, with wide windows on either side looking out on the rest of the ships and stations in orbit around the massive planet. She was making notes in her mind, trying to figure out what everything was, and cursing Byron for his poor preparation. She had no idea what was here, or how she would rendezvous with Alex and find the mutonium ships.

            “I’m sure you have a lot of questions,” Dr Uitleg said.

            Jade was pulled away from her assessment of her surroundings, and responded with a quick, “What?”

            “I was saying, ‘I’m sure you have a lot of questions.’ At least, that’s the assumption I made when you requested a tour of our facilities as part of the agreement to buy your mutonium deposit.”

            “Yes, I do have some questions,” Jade said. “But first,” Jade turned around, looking back at the shuttle to see John unloading their luggage, “I’d like to know where to take my things. I’d like to get settled in first thing. It has been a long trip.”

            “Of course,” Dr Uitleg said, “We’ve had a little change of plans for the tour, a last minute addition who has yet to arrive.”

            “Oh,” Jade said, cocking an eyebrow, “And who might that be?”

            “Are you familiar with Kilon politics?”

            Jade thought about that for a moment. She had to answer not as herself, but a nouveau riche prospector who’d luckily stumbled onto an asteroid full of the most valuable substance in space. Would that person follow Kilon politics? Probably not, Jade decided. “No,” she answered.

            “Well, be that as it may, you are in store for a great honor. Broker Mertomco has come all the way from Urbemavis, the capital of the Federation, to tour the project as well.”

            Jade didn’t recognize the name, but she knew what a Kilon Broker was. They were important, they were the power behind the power on Kilos. This would not make the job any easier. “Sounds great,” she said.

            “Excellent!” The doctor said. “If you would follow me, I will show you and your assistant,” she shot a look back at John, and smiled, “to your quarters while we await the Broker’s arrival. In the meantime, I can also give you a brief overview of what the project is, and what we aim to do here.”

            Dr Uitleg turned on her heal and made her way across the docking bay. Jade had to move quickly to keep up. John struggled a bit with the luggage before the Kilon security team moved in to help. Their destination was not within this station, but another shuttle in the bay.

            “Are we to understand that we won’t have access to our shuttle during our stay?” Jade asked as they settled into the Kilon shuttle.”

            “We can ferry you back here at any time, if you wish,” Doctor Uitleg replied, “but only Kilon ships are actually allowed beyond the security station.”

            “What about cargo or delivery ships?” John asked. Jade shot him a quick look. He apologized and lowered his head. “Sorry, m’lady, I’ll only speak when spoken to.”

            “It’s all right,” Uitleg said, patting John on the knee, “that’s a good question. There is a larger security and logistics station, located not far from here, where all of our supplies are delivered.” She pointed out the window of the shuttle, and Jade could see a large supply depot a few hundred kilometers away.

Jade didn’t notice it on the approach, because she was too worried about John crashing their shuttle. Beyond that, though, she could see the large ship she did notice on the way in, the one that was so odd.

Uitleg followed Jade’s gaze and smiled. “I see you’ve noticed it, yes?”

“Noticed what?”

“The large ship out there, the long cylindrical one. That is the culmination of my life’s work, the Stellar Propellant for Advanced Radical Kiloforming. The SPARK.”

Jade smiled. “Those are a lot of words. What do they actually mean?” Uitleg shifted in her seat. Jade could see her excitement. “She must not get to give this talk too often,” Jade thought.

“I am so glad you asked! You’ve see the star here, well, of course you have, how could you miss it?” Uitleg was grinning ear to ear.

Jade was confused. She’d made a mental not to herself when they arrived that there was no star in this system. “Actually, I didn’t see any star. I thought that was strange.”

“Oh, of course,” Uitlege slapped herself on the head for dramatic effect. “Most people will never see a cold star.”

“A cold star?”

“Yes. That is what we are orbiting now, although, not for long if my research is right. You see, sometimes systems develop around a great big ball of gas. Planets form, satellites settle in, but the one big thing, the most important thing in the system, the star in the middle of the system, it doesn’t ignite. That is a cold star.”

“These are a relatively recent discovery, of course. No one could see them, since they were not giving off any light, or energy at all for that matter. There were some gravitational anomalies, for sure, but nothing in our understanding of space could account for them. They did not give off the same signatures as black holes. Finally, a joint Kilon/Terran research team flew to one of the anomalies, and this is what they found,” Uitleg gestured out the window at what Jade thought was an enormous gas giant, “a system of planets orbiting a star that simply failed to ignite.”

“There are several of these systems close to the Kilos system, and the Sol system too, for that matter. New worlds to colonize, to settle, if only we could get the star to burn. Our research showed that there was sufficient pressure to start the fusion reaction within these cold stars, but for some reason, there wasn’t sufficient heat. Even the massive pressures within these cold stars seemingly could not get these stars to start burning.”

“And that is where the SPARK comes in. The SPARK is an enormous ship with just one function; ignite a star. Our research indicates that a sustained stream of super-heated hydrogen plasma, fired directly into the cold star’s core, should be sufficient to kickstart the fusion process.”

“That is where you and your mutonium deposit come in. We tried this once before. The initial SPARK was similar to the one you see out your window. But it was built using conventional materials. We thought that strong shielding would prevent damage when the outer atmosphere of the star began to burn from the plasma passing through it, before the fusion reaction was sustainable. We were wrong. The first SPARK was turned into molten slag before a reaction in the core could become self-sustaining.”

“But building with mutonium? That changed everything. If our calculations are correct, we should be able to stay in close orbit of this cold star long enough to turn it into a hot star. If this works, it will radically change course of galactic civilization!” Uitleg leapt from her seat, thrusting a finger into the air. She stood there for a moment before she realized everyone was staring at her; Jade, John, the Kilon security team. She looked at them, blushed, and sat back down, still unable to suppress her smile. “What do you think?” she asked.

“Impressive,” Jade said. She looked out the window at the SPARK, no hanging more sinisterly in orbit. “If that thing can ignite stars” she wondered, “what else can it do?”