Rocket Season - Chapter 7

Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

All rights reserved.

Second Printing – February 2025

Future Chron Publishing

Cover – Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

Cover Image – Photo 115346712 / Rocket Launch © Nexusplexus | Dreamstime.com

Previously published as:

Rocket Summer

Rocket Fall

Rocket Winter

Rocket Spring

Contains additional material.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Hard Science Fiction – Old School

Human Generated Content

CHAPTER 7

Williams' Farm

Hell's Hollow Road

North Georgia, USA

After the eye operation Jack had followed the news more closely than usual using his Tabbie. Today he read about GDP being down more than two percent in Germany as riots continued there, and now the same had spread to Brazil. Japan and South Korea had falling GDP also but were calm as the populations were more stoic. Northeast China had disappeared from the rest of the world behind a new Great Wall of censorship. Australians had voted out their government again, the third time in three months, as their GDP was falling fast. Jack shut down Tabbie and stared out his bedroom window.

The world is worse off than me.

Right after the operation, Dr. Limbaugh had told Jack how pleased he was with how the operation had gone. He remarked about the quality of Jack's nerve endings which were attached to the prosthesis, they were perhaps the best he had ever seen.

After a week of nothing but a confused blur, Jack had begun to be able to distinguish forms. By the following week when he went back to Atlanta to see Dr. Limbaugh he was seeing rather well. The following week he began trying the magnifying effect and was getting quite good at invoking the function and setting the magnification.

But now in the fourth week something else had appeared. Whenever he was talking to another person, Jack began having trouble with the prosthesis, he finally figured out what was happening. It was the voice of the person. The voice was causing a reaction that colored (literally) the interaction. Deep voices, high voices, men's voices, women's voices, all had their own slight colorful sheen. It was also related to the speaker's frame of mind.

At first, he was alarmed that the prosthesis was failing and a call to Dr. Limbaugh had him returning to Atlanta for a checkup.

Rocket Season - Chapter 6

Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

All rights reserved.

Second Printing – February 2025

Future Chron Publishing

Cover – Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

Cover Image – Photo 115346712 / Rocket Launch © Nexusplexus | Dreamstime.com

Previously published as:

Rocket Summer

Rocket Fall

Rocket Winter

Rocket Spring

Contains additional material.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Hard Science Fiction – Old School

Human Generated Content

CHAPTER 6

Brevard's Hospital

Atlanta, Georgia

USA

Jack woke up.

He heard beeps, like electronic equipment. Was he still in the lab? He didn't think so. He tried to open his eyes but only one worked and it seemed blurry. He started to raise his hand but felt it restrained by something, so he blinked to clear his good eye and squinted.

The restraints, he noticed, were not restraints but different IV lines. Obviously, he was in a hospital bed. He blinked again trying to clear his vision further. He turned his head and noticed there was someone sitting in a chair against the wall. They seemed to be sleeping, their head lowered to their chest.

One last time, he blinked and squinted. It was his mother, he was sure.

Rocket Season - Chapter 5

 

Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

All rights reserved.

Second Printing – February 2025

Future Chron Publishing

Cover – Copyright © 2024 D.W. Patterson

Cover Image – Photo 115346712 / Rocket Launch © Nexusplexus | Dreamstime.com

Previously published as:

Rocket Summer

Rocket Fall

Rocket Winter

Rocket Spring

Contains additional material.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and events are products of the author's imagination and should not be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events and people, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Hard Science Fiction – Old School

Human Generated Content

CHAPTER 5

Georgia Polytechnic University

Atlanta, Georgia

USA

Jack was busy trying to pull his experiment together. He had let the material he needed get away from him by not moving quick enough. Now, he was scrambling to find a new source, a problem becoming more urgent in a world with collapsing supply chains and regional aggressions.

At three inches under six feet, with hair that always needed cutting, he was the perfect image of a physics student. His glasses also contributed, but he was just as skilled in other areas of his studies as the sciences.

As a graduate student, his project was highly constrained by the general funds budget of the department. That's why he had waited to order the materials he needed. He thought they would become cheaper as production ramped back up after the war but then, as he waited, the war had started again. Luckily, he was safe in the United States, but New India was skirmishing again with Southern China over territory, the exact territory where the element Jack needed was being mined. There were other mining areas, but their output was almost all taken, the result was that the price of rhenium had tripled.

Jack had come up with the idea of adding the heavy metal atom to the PZT matrix (which would then become RPZT) because he was hoping that it would increase the internal energy capacity of the stack, which was important to the Mach thruster's efficiency. The idea came from his early days as an engineering student when he was studying rocketry, where rhenium was used in rocket engine metallurgy because of its high melting point.

After some discussion with a chemist friend, he had decided that rhenium could do the job. He found a company that was willing to modify its PZT stack for Jack in return for the results of his research. He was all set, until he got the latest news.