The WF Telemachus (Patreon)

The WF Telemachus sat motionless in space, ten metres off its port side was the communication array UNSC265/K. K stood for Kuiper Belt. The region of space out beyond Neptune, reaching as far as 50AU (Astronomical Units - the distance from the Earth to the Sun) from our star. Despite the number of objects out here, more than 300,000 small icy bodies, it's really very empty. The comms array, unluckily, was struck by a snowball sized piece of ice and dirt. Probability of that very much in the millions to one range. The Telemachus was out here to make a repair. 

UNSC265/K wasn't the most important array in the UN comms network. But it did provide cover for the rare WF Ship journies out this far. Prospectors still adventured in to the furthest reaches of the Solar System hoping to strike it lucky with a mineral rich rock. The fact that a lot of Kuiper Belt Objects did have significant deposits of useful metals and minerals was a puzzle to astronomers, out here things should be little but ice and dust. Theories suggested that a lot of KBOs had started off much closer to the sun before being flung outwards by interactions with Jupiter or Saturn. It did mean that there was still a wild frontier for explorers to gamble on.

The Telemachus wasn't one of those. It was a reasonably sized WF Ship. A cargo bay just too small to make it useful for trade, but just big enough to carry equipment and drones for repairs. It also had the advantage of having three very large domed windows, in addition to the cockpit sphere. This did make it look a little like an insect, but was great for manoeuvring around damaged ships, stations, and in this case - comms arrays. Being able to eyeball where you are and where you're going was always easier than relying on cameras and screens. That was definitely the opinion of Roma, the captain, and owner of the Telemachus. 

Roma was an engineer originally. Working on reverse engineering the inertial damping effects that came with the WF technology. Employed first by the UN, she made huge strides in understanding the way Weird-Fields interplayed with mass and space-time. After winning a series of prestigious science and engineering prizes, she was approached by Aristo Onassis IV to head up development of the family's fleet of airbarges. Airbarges had replaced container ships and tankers on Earth as soon as understanding of WF science had allowed for limited reproduction of anti-grav technology. Huge kilometre long structures, silently sailing across the skies, were commonplace now. When Roma was approached by Onassis, the anti-grav tech was slow, airbarges could travel at only a few kilometres per hour (slower than the ships they replaced), only really having the advantage over container ships in their ability to travel in a straight line between points, and their zero emissions (vital even during the end days of fossil fuel usage on Earth).

Roma's understanding of WF tech meant she was in high demand, and for her signature she extracted a very high price from Onassis. She agreed to take a full time, ten year, contract with Onassis Shipping, her payment - one Weird-Field Ship of her own. At this point Onassis shipping had bid for dozens of WF instruction sets, and lost every one. With Roma heading the bids, she was convinced she could start winning them. 

Eight years later, Roma had transformed air shipping. No longer were WF airbarges slow plodding leviathans, now they could attain speeds approaching Mach 1, with absolutely zero internal consequences. Onassis Shipping was by far the dominant player on Earth, and its expansion to Mars, Venus, the Moon, and Titan saw it gain near monopoly status. Aristo quickly became the richest man on Earth, and eventually he was reckoned to be the richest man who had ever lived.

Roma got her ship. Onassis Shipping finally won a bid, and construction started in early 2169, and a little less than eight months later, the ship was built. Aristo insisted on naming it himself, something Roma didn't feel she could argue with too much. The first WF Ship that Onassis Shipping had built and they were giving it away. Admittedly Roma had made much more difference to the corporation's bottom line than a dozen WF ships, so allowing the old man his moment wasn't too hard to bear. Besides which, with the advances Roma had made with the company, they were sure to win dozens of WF bids in the future.

After the naming ceremony, Aristo had named the ship The WF Telemachus after the Greek myths, Roma boarded and flew straight up, away from the blue seas of the Aegean, in to the blue skies of Earth, and in to the black of space. Roma had been in to space hundreds of times, but never at the control of her own ship, and only a few times in the cockpit bubble. She paused the Telemachus a thousand kilometres up, and just watched the Earth spin below her.

Where to next? Roma had no ties, plenty of money, and her very own spaceship. It seemed anything at all was possible.

To be continued…