Hi, this is a new story project I have been working on for the last month.
Its the first of three (somehow) planned parts, I hope you enjoy it.
************************************
Down the rabbit hole
[Nina (Nina_Ustinyavna@relay.topirc.au]
[Dr.Steinberg is channel-op]
[27 users in channel]
So we will still use the Large Hadron Collider, even after the International Linear Collider will go online in 2027?
Yes, of course we will do. With the second generation upgrade of the LHC finished next year, we have a lot of unknown physics to discover. The ILC is meant to give us a more precise understanding of the Higgs Bosons while the LHC will look for new particles.
Dr. Steinberg, do members of the CERN facility accept invitations from other particle physics laboratories? We have been working hard on our local particle accelerators and think it is an one of a kind.
Yes, CERN sends representatives to other laboratories from time to time, but why do you think your accelerator is special?
We integrated a faster than light engine field into our accelerator. We had a proton-proton collision at 40c a few weeks ago.
*LOL*
Miss Nina, I assume that you are really from the orbital community, judging from the relay you are using. But if I remember the rumors about faster than light drives correctly, they are not working within our solar system.
That is right. Our labs are a space station orbiting the gas giant Nostromo, roughly 15000 astronomical units away from the sun. A perfect place for particle physics, faster than light research and astronomy!
Miss Ustinyavna, I would like to continue this conversation later in a non-public channel.
~***~
18 months later.
CI-201 Serenity Valley was in a low Earth orbit, slowly approaching the 100 km limit which was used to mark the border between space and atmosphere, her particle shields glowing how from the increasing density of the atmosphere.
"Skyguide, this is transorbital flight XF-1921 Serenity Valley. We request clearance for deorbit corridor to the Geneva airport. Please respond."
It had taken more than a year to finalize the visit from CERN to the Little Big Bang Labs, and more months to get the flight path registered. A lot of catgirls had not even believed the it would happen at all.
When waved space vehicles slowly became legal, flight control operators had to deal with an increasing number of contacts that came out of nowhere, often without concept how international flights would be handled.
At first governments decided to send Fen vehicles out onto the oceans before they got a corridor to outer space, but flight operators quickly became concerned to mix these crafts with their normal air traffic for hundreds or thousands of kilometers.
In the end most countries created new, nearly vertical flight corridors where waved spacecrafts could quickly climb through the busy lower layers of atmosphere.
As long as they registered in advance and had a certificate from a larger Fen faction that both the pilot and the ship was trained to do a controlled atmospheric descent guided by a ground operator you could get a permission.
"Skyguide, this is transorbital flight XF-1921 Serenity Valley. We received the flight corridor and begin our descent."
Nina Ustinyavna sighed and looked to the captain of the Serenity Valley.
"Lets just hope there is no lawyer changing its mind in the last moment" Nina said, "I say we just touch down and grab the group before someone else can react, okay?"
The other catgirl groaned.
"Hey, its not their fault that your plan was delayed long enough for the LHC coming online again. They have been a lot more busy since this time" Alice replied, "but you are right, the legal thing was a nightmare to do."
The Serenity Valley plunged deeper into the atmosphere of Earth, following the invisible borders of a flight corridor it had received earlier through clouds full of snowflakes. Soon the spaceship was deep and slow enough that the particle shield was switched off to take advantage of the aerodynamic shape of the ship.
"XF-1921 Serenity Valley, this is Geneva Tower. You are cleared for landing pad twelve, please make sure to land within the marked area and stay out of the takeoff and landing corridors."
The buildings of the airport became larger and larger until the Serenity Valley finally touched down on the concrete surface in front of a minor hangar.
"Here we are… secure the ship and switch the reactor to standby" Alice, the captain of the Serenity Valley, ordered. "We will keep a sensor watch while we are on the ground. Daria, make sure that the Exocomps stay inside, I don't want trouble because they were caught working on some random airplane!"
"Its freezing cold and snowing outside, where the hell are my winter clothes?" Nina said, looking at the little snowstorm on the viewscreen of the bridge. "It would be just like my old home again."
"What, you need winter clothes to walk a few hundred meters through this weather?" Alice asked and grinned. "No trust in your fur? Its not that cold outside compared to your former home in Russia."
----
Professor Steinberg watched the Fen spacecraft slowly touching down on the parking space of the Geneva airport that normally was used for intercontinental flights.
"What do you think Susan, will it be worth all the time we will be away from Earth?" he asked his coworker, "I am still a little bit skeptical about their claims."
"Are you kidding me?" The woman standing at his side smiled. "Even if all their claims about the accelerator are wrong, I will be able to spend lots of time with my little telescope in a place with better conditions than the old Hubble!"
"You are most likely right, I shouldn't be that cynical." He looked to the four students behind them. "Anyone who wants to leave the boat now? Might be your last chance!"
The four students shook their heads.
"No way Professor" one of them said, "just lets get on board. I know a few other fans of the old computer game who would still pay money for this."
The two scientists nodded to each other and pushed the door to the parking field open, letting in a wave of snow into the building from the outside. The hangar ramp of the spaceship slowly opened and they could see two catgirl standing on the ramp.
The six of them hurried over to the Serenity Valley where they met the two catgirls.
"Hello, I am Alice, the captain of the Serenity Valley" the left catgirl said, shaking hands with both Professor Steinberg and Miller. "Lets get back inside, the weather here is a little bit cold. This here is Nina Ustinyavna from the Little Big Bang Labs."
Everyone shook hands as they moved up the ramp into the cargo bay of the ship.
"Can you maybe see if they can move our luggage into your ship" Susan Miller asked. "Its the two pallets just behind the door. Just be careful with the larger one please, I hope its not too much weight."
"I will get the pallets inside, don't worry about them" Nina said. "And don't worry about the weight either, we have a large and mostly empty cargo bay at the moment."
She quickly went down the ramp and through the snow towards the airport building, looking for someone with a forklift.
"Excuse me, I am looking for the person who brought the pallets here" she asked an airport official in the terminal, "Is there someone who could bring them into our ship?"
"I am sorry, but the forklift was needed at a different terminal, the regular airlines have priority" the man in the suit said and grinned. "But I think we have some emergency lifter you might be able to rent! Are you interested?"
"No thank you, we will deal with them on our own" Nina said with a sigh and raised her wristcom. "Daria, here is Nina… I have some lifting work to do, could you send out your horde of little helpers?"
Before the person in front of Nina could decide if he should protest or not, a swarm of Exocomps raced out of the Serenity Valleys and surrounded the two, eagerly hovering up and down.
"Okay my friends, these two pallets have to be carefully moved into the ship's cargo bay" Nina said with a smile. "And nothing else, the rest stays here… we want to lift off soon!"
----
While Nina was taking care of the cargo, the captain was slowly leading the guests through the elevator into the meeting room on the upper deck, giving them a short tour through the ships rooms in between. Just as they arrived at the meeting room Nina finally caught up with them.
"I wish they had given us a parking slot with a gangway, but they say our docking adapter isnot compatible with the gangways" Alice said as they entered the room, "but this way you already got a tour through most of the ship. Maybe we can show you more details of the ship later."
"Thank you for the tour, but let me introduce myself and my coworker and students" Susan Miller said with a smile. "I am Professor Doctor Susan Miller from the Astrophysics department of the university of Cambridge and this here is my co worker at CERN Professor Doctor Frank Steinberg."
Professor Steinberg nodded and Susan turned to the four students.
"These four are two students from Cambridge and two from Heidelberg which will come along as a long term practical course. The two on the right are from the department of Astrophysics in Cambridge, Joseph Singh and Amanda Fox." She smiled and looked over to the other two students. "And these two are Julia Machold and Ingo Bartels, both from the Particle Physics department at the university of Heidelberg."
"Then I am happy to welcome all of you on board. Thanks to all of you for joining us on this unusual trip. I am Alice, I am the Captain of the Serenity Valley" the captain answered and looked to Nina, "and this is Nina Ustinyavna, the person who came up with the idea for your visit."
"I noticed the Serenity Valley has an interesting design for a spaceship" Susan Miller noted, "was it necessary to make it that aerodynamic?"
"No, it wasn't… and there are a few flying bricks out there in the solar system" Alice chuckled. "But there were quite a few fans of the original Mass Effect games among us, so we tried to replicate the outer form of the ship as much as possible."
"But?" one of the students asked.
"But we were unable to replicate the nice Tardis effect of the computer games ship" Alice explained. "Because of this the ship feels a little bit tight if you spend a few weeks on it. But our journey will not take that long, we should arrive at the Labs in three days."
"Damned, no Tardis… with all that crazy rumors what is going on in orbit it would have been a nice surprise" Susan said looked around. "So where will we live in the next few days?"
"It is a good thing that we didn't even tried to do something crazy as a inside bigger than outside" Nina interrupted Alice, thinking back to the long discussions during the creation of the first Normandy class. "The Normandy class have been designed as ships that can fights for their own, too much Handwavium can ruin a project like this."
"So even with your wonder material called Handwavium, sometimes more is less?" Professor Steinberg asked and Nina nodded.
"To answer your original question, the Normandy has been designed for a total of seventeen people. Four shifts of two, an away team of up to six persons, the captain and the ships digital intelligence Daria" Alice said. "The two cabins for the away team are empty at the moment, you can use them until we arrive at the Labs."
"That sounds fine, must be one of the most comfortable spaceships we have ever used" Professor Steinberg said with a smirk. "I hope we will have a chance to watch the start through a window."
"Yes and no… yes, of course you can watch the start. But no, you cannot watch it through a window because this ship has no windows" Nina answered with a smile. "Windows are a weak spot in the armor, we use large viewscreens instead."
"No windows" Julia murmured, "what happens if your electronics have a malfunction?"
"We have a few emergency fiberoptics for this, but if our internal systems will not work, we will most likely not be able to do anything at all" Alice explained. "Which brings me to the last point that keeps us from starting. We need to assign each of you a space suit."
----
Since the flight of the SS Uncertainty the Fen had to tackle the problem of space suits. Most Fen were aware that the space suit might become the only thing between them and the cold vacuum of space. Some decided to skip the whole space suit creation because they planned to live only in one of the large cities like Kandor.
Every year there are a few idiots who got themselves a new Darwin Award.
Luckily the creation of space suits has a lot of overlap with environmental systems and life support, which means they normally work very well and have only a few quirks, if any at all. You can get away with a lot of Handwaving on space suits. This also explains that a lot of space suits are custom made.
Every biomod with a tail has more trouble with getting a space suit. Normal suits are just unusable because of the tail and quite a few 'special made' suits are uncomfortable, difficult to reproduce, quirky… or all three of them.
When Catgirl Industries was founded, the catgirls decided to use a material Cathy had brought back as a bounty from Nehalennia, a specially waved plastic that could change its form and structure based on the input of an attached computer system. But this turned out to be a lot more difficult than anyone had thought.
While theoretically very flexible, the plastic was difficult to control by external systems through lots of tiny wires or optical fibres. The original waved plastic quickly began to split into a large number of very specialized variants, each of them 'programmed' with a special transformation.
Even then, the project "Mimetic Plastic" stayed a labor intensive and obscure side project of the catgirls until Cortana and her project group came up with a way to use the substance as a computation substrate in 2020.
----
"Ahh, we already wondered if we would need a space suit on the station" professor Steinberg said, "getting ESA space suits wasn't really an option and Miss Ustinyavna suggested you would deal with things like this."
"Please, my name is Nina professor, being called Miss Ustinyavna make me feel old. In theory you wouldn't need a space suit on one of our space stations, but we have a policy that everyone should have one" Nina replied. "In addition to this the experimental chamber with the particle accelerator at the labs is kept in constant vacuum, so you need it anyways."
"Is a space suit even useful for working on the delicate components of a particle accelerator? I have seen some pictures of the new ESA suits, but it still seems to be a handicap" Steinberg continued. "On a space station it should be much easier to get the air out of the accelerator chamber than in a cave below Switzerland."
"We would like not to waste that much air on a space station… its considered wasteful. Many Fen are used to work in hard vacuum, its a typical environment out here" Nina replied. "And I can assure you the space suits the Fen are using have not much in common with the models ESA uses at the moment. Some use the same inspiration, but Handwavium allows for a much more flexible design."
"Finally we come to the interesting part of this discussion. Because half of your group has to make a decision" Alice said and grinned. "We have six space suits we bought at Kandor for you on board. They are modern Fen hardware, comfortable and reliable inner pressure suits with a bubble helmet. You have to practice a bit to get in and out, but that should not take long."
"Miss Miller, Miss Machold and Miss Fox, you three could also take one of the suits we use ourselves at Jenga and the Little Big Bang Labs" Nina added, "they are counter pressure suits we developed in the last years. They might be better for delicate work, but you might need a few hours training for the control system."
"Is there a special reason why you only extend this offer to us" Susan Miller asked with a puzzled face, "do you have only three spare suits?"
"No, but as I said they are counter pressure suits and a suit designed for catgirls might be a little bit painful for a male human" Alice said with a neutral voice, careful not to laugh out when the two students suddenly got a red face. "I see you understand what could be the problem."
After a moment Susan Miller finally broke the awkward silence. "I understand" she said, not willing to add more to this topic.
"Ehh… good" Alice continued, "but you three should make a decision."
"I think I will just use the standard suit you bought for us" Susan finally said, "but if my student wants to try I will not intervene. What do you think Amanda?"
Professor Steinberg nodded to his coworker. "I agree, thats something Miss Macholds can decide this for herself."
The two students looked at each other for a moment.
"Is this some experimental space suit?" Amanda Fox asked thoughtful, "we are not used to things that can go wrong with your technology."
"No, the suits are at least as reliable as any other space suit in Fenspace" Nina replied. "In fact nearly all catgirls at the Labs use them personally."
"And the rest?"
"The rest of them has good friends at Jenga who send them a prototype of the next generation of the suits, they have additional features but are still a bit quirky" Nina chuckled, "think about it as a mixture of 'beta testing' and 'my cool new toys', nothing you need to worry about."
"Thats sounds okay, I think I will try your own suits" Julia finally said and Amanda nodded. "Yes I agree, thats one of the reasons why we wanted to visit Fenspace, to learn about new things!"
"Perfect, now we just have to get each of you into his or her suit and we can lift off" captain Alice said. "I will send you to Masami, a member of my crew. She will give you an introduction to your suits in the ships Medbay while Nina and me help the rest of our visitors with theirs."
----
When the two students entered the Medbay of the Serenity Valley, another catgirl was already waiting for them.
"Hi you two I am Masami, one of the pilots of the Serenity Valley" the catgirl welcomed them. "You are Julia and Amanda, right? Oh, I may call you Julia and Amanda?"
Both students nodded and Masami smiled happily.
"Perfect, just perfect. The captain told me that you two would like to try out our own space suits, so I got two of them from storage for you" Masami said and put two sealed bags with a black 'fabric' on the desk. "But before we open this, you need something else."
"Wait a moment, we were with captain Alice until a minute ago and she never told anyone else a word about our decision" Julia Macholds asked irritated, "how can you already know about it?"
"Oh, that is a little secret that we three will find out during the next days, but I want to keep it a surprise" Masami said with a grin and took two neckbands from the desk in front of her. "These collars are augmented reality interfaces we call Third Eye's, you need them to control the space suit. Please put them on."
"Augmented Reality you say? It doesn't look like this" Amanda Fox said and looked at the collar with a grin, then put it around her neck. "I hope we don't damage them accidently."
Masami waited patiently until both collar had locked themselves with a magnetic seal.
"Oh, don't worry. The outer layer is an armored material, its difficult to damage" she said and snickered about the surprised look of the two students. "Now touch the collar and say 'open' to unlock them. The collar automatically reacts only to the voice of the user to prevent accidental commands. Oh, we also have a version with a small bell attached if you like!"
Both Amanda and Julia quickly took the collar off again, snickered and put them on again. Masami nodded and gave each of them one of the space suit packs.
"As you will see our space suits are made from four pieces, tights, t-shirt and boots." Masami explained, "They are the basic parts of our Dynamic Pressure Suits, which means that they can produce the necessary pressure on demand."
"What material are they made of, I could swear I have already encountered something like this but I cannot name it" Amanda said after she opened her package. "Is it really safe to make a space suit from fabric?"
"Oh, I don't think you ever had something like this in your hand, it is something that had not existed a few years ago" Masami objected. "Its a multilayer material made from a substance we call 'Mimetic Plastic', which can constrict and even move on its own when controlled correctly."
"Okay, that sounds complicated" Julia said with a smirk, "but I don't think we will have to build our own."
Masami laughed about the joke, thinking back to the time where the suits still had been a huge experiments with lots of participating catgirls. Luckily the time where everyone had to build his own suit to prevent friends from sneaking in quirks was mostly over.
"No, you don't need to, the suits became very user friendly in the last year. There is a research group on Jenga which is still improving them, but they got good enough for normal use." Masami said. "You can wear them directly on skin or you can keep underwear below them, but I would suggest not putting anything else below them. Oh, there is just one other thing we have to do."
Masami opened a drawer and took out two tiny sealed packages, each with a needle inside.
"The suits must be personalized before use, otherwise the handwavium will not work correctly, you have to put a drop of blood on the little bump on the center of the back" Masami said and handed both students the sealed package. "Don't worry, the needles are sterilized and a small drop should be sufficient. Can you put the suit on too, so I can show you how it works?"
It took a few minutes until Masami had put up a screen for Julia and Amanda to stand behind while they exchanged their clothing with the space suit.
"The material feels comfortable, I hope sweating will be an issue with it" Amanda said with a nod. "So how does this transform into a vacuum prove space suit?"
"The suits interior surface has been waved with a high-quality environmental Handwavium strain, it should cause no issues even when you would have to wear it for days" Masami explained, "but let me explain you the basic functions."
Masami put her hand on her own Third Eye collar, explaining the 'command voice' interface would have to wait until they had more time.
"You control the suit by touching the collar and speaking one of the command words. I have programmed the suits with two basic switches, we can worry about more options later. The first switch has the command words 'seal' and 'unseal', it connects all the parts of the suit and activate the counterpressure and environmental sealing. The second one is 'helmet on' and 'off', which deploys the helmet."
"Are you kidding us? This thin fabric contains some kind of helmet?" Amanda spat out, running her fingers over the upper suit. "Okay, its a little bit thicker on the top and back than the rest of the material, but it cannot be much more than a few millimeters!"
"You will be surprised what you can do with a lot of research and a bit Handwavium" Masami chuckled, "just don't be frightened when you activate the suit."
"Lets give it a try" Amanda said, "what would be science without experiments. SEAL."
Obediently the mimetic plastic of the space suit began to change.
First the material of all four parts began to stretch towards each other, quickly joining into a single piece. The arms began to extend until they formed a pair of gloves around Amandas fingers.
Then the structure began to change. The suits became both thicker and skintight as tiny cells in the the middle layer of the suit extended to form a half a centimeter thick impact absorber. The surface layer closed its openings and a number of blue glowing lines began to appear.
"Woah… that feels strange" Amanda said, walking a few meters to get a feeling for the new suit. "But it looks really nice!"
----
"Captain, everyone is suited up and we finally got a clearance to leave our parking position."
Alice smiled, finally they could get away from this cold and snowy airport and up into space where the Serenity Valley should be.
"Very good, lets get out of here before they decide that we have to wait even more time" he said as the a holographic projection of their new flight corridor lit up. "Daria, is everything ready for takeoff in our ship?"
"The Serenity Valley is ready captain. All hatches are sealed, all Exocomps are within the ship, Mass Effect engine and forcefield ready for full power" the ships AI Daria replied. "I am also listening to the towers conversations with the few other planes still incoming in this weather, there is no one in range anymore they could use as a valid reason to delay us."
"Don't call for Morphy Daria, just don't do it. They might just decide to close the airport because of the weather and demand we stay" Alice joked, then she turned to one of the catgirls in front of her. "Betsy, take us to fifty meters height, then align us for the outgoing vector and get us out of here and on our way to the Limit."
The Serenity Valley shivered for a moment as the drive field went active, but then internal gravity took over and the feeling of movement vanished.
Further back in the Meeting Room of the Serenity Valley the six visitors from CERN and two crew members were watching the start of the ship on a holographic projection.
"Damned, thats just not the same as I hoped it would be" Professor Steinberg said and sighed. "No windows and we didn't even feel the acceleration when we took of."
"The monitor is showing the same thing you would see looking out of a front window of a normal ship, we even can get some visual enhancements" Masami said. "At Nostromo you wouldn't see a damned thing except for the stars without. But I think we have a shuttle with an acceleration drive there if you want to get a flight where you can feel the acceleration!"
"I know, I know… its just you feel a bit cheated when things go this way" Steinberg replied, then he looked at his student Julia Macholds. She was looking around and smiling… while keeping her eyes closed. "Miss Macholds, can you maybe explain what you are doing?"
"I am sitting on top of the ship and watching our takeoff. It is looking fantastic!" Julia said without even opening her eyes. "Oh, sorry professor… I am using this augmented reality neckband and asked the ships AI to let me look outside. I think its a projection from the ships sensors."
Professor Steinberg blinked a few times, then he looked to his coworker Susan Miller and back to Julia.
"What?"
Its the first of three (somehow) planned parts, I hope you enjoy it.
************************************
Down the rabbit hole
[Nina (Nina_Ustinyavna@relay.topirc.au]
[Dr.Steinberg is channel-op]
[27 users in channel]
So we will still use the Large Hadron Collider, even after the International Linear Collider will go online in 2027?
Yes, of course we will do. With the second generation upgrade of the LHC finished next year, we have a lot of unknown physics to discover. The ILC is meant to give us a more precise understanding of the Higgs Bosons while the LHC will look for new particles.
Dr. Steinberg, do members of the CERN facility accept invitations from other particle physics laboratories? We have been working hard on our local particle accelerators and think it is an one of a kind.
Yes, CERN sends representatives to other laboratories from time to time, but why do you think your accelerator is special?
We integrated a faster than light engine field into our accelerator. We had a proton-proton collision at 40c a few weeks ago.
*LOL*
Miss Nina, I assume that you are really from the orbital community, judging from the relay you are using. But if I remember the rumors about faster than light drives correctly, they are not working within our solar system.
That is right. Our labs are a space station orbiting the gas giant Nostromo, roughly 15000 astronomical units away from the sun. A perfect place for particle physics, faster than light research and astronomy!
Miss Ustinyavna, I would like to continue this conversation later in a non-public channel.
~***~
18 months later.
CI-201 Serenity Valley was in a low Earth orbit, slowly approaching the 100 km limit which was used to mark the border between space and atmosphere, her particle shields glowing how from the increasing density of the atmosphere.
"Skyguide, this is transorbital flight XF-1921 Serenity Valley. We request clearance for deorbit corridor to the Geneva airport. Please respond."
It had taken more than a year to finalize the visit from CERN to the Little Big Bang Labs, and more months to get the flight path registered. A lot of catgirls had not even believed the it would happen at all.
When waved space vehicles slowly became legal, flight control operators had to deal with an increasing number of contacts that came out of nowhere, often without concept how international flights would be handled.
At first governments decided to send Fen vehicles out onto the oceans before they got a corridor to outer space, but flight operators quickly became concerned to mix these crafts with their normal air traffic for hundreds or thousands of kilometers.
In the end most countries created new, nearly vertical flight corridors where waved spacecrafts could quickly climb through the busy lower layers of atmosphere.
As long as they registered in advance and had a certificate from a larger Fen faction that both the pilot and the ship was trained to do a controlled atmospheric descent guided by a ground operator you could get a permission.
"Skyguide, this is transorbital flight XF-1921 Serenity Valley. We received the flight corridor and begin our descent."
Nina Ustinyavna sighed and looked to the captain of the Serenity Valley.
"Lets just hope there is no lawyer changing its mind in the last moment" Nina said, "I say we just touch down and grab the group before someone else can react, okay?"
The other catgirl groaned.
"Hey, its not their fault that your plan was delayed long enough for the LHC coming online again. They have been a lot more busy since this time" Alice replied, "but you are right, the legal thing was a nightmare to do."
The Serenity Valley plunged deeper into the atmosphere of Earth, following the invisible borders of a flight corridor it had received earlier through clouds full of snowflakes. Soon the spaceship was deep and slow enough that the particle shield was switched off to take advantage of the aerodynamic shape of the ship.
"XF-1921 Serenity Valley, this is Geneva Tower. You are cleared for landing pad twelve, please make sure to land within the marked area and stay out of the takeoff and landing corridors."
The buildings of the airport became larger and larger until the Serenity Valley finally touched down on the concrete surface in front of a minor hangar.
"Here we are… secure the ship and switch the reactor to standby" Alice, the captain of the Serenity Valley, ordered. "We will keep a sensor watch while we are on the ground. Daria, make sure that the Exocomps stay inside, I don't want trouble because they were caught working on some random airplane!"
"Its freezing cold and snowing outside, where the hell are my winter clothes?" Nina said, looking at the little snowstorm on the viewscreen of the bridge. "It would be just like my old home again."
"What, you need winter clothes to walk a few hundred meters through this weather?" Alice asked and grinned. "No trust in your fur? Its not that cold outside compared to your former home in Russia."
----
Professor Steinberg watched the Fen spacecraft slowly touching down on the parking space of the Geneva airport that normally was used for intercontinental flights.
"What do you think Susan, will it be worth all the time we will be away from Earth?" he asked his coworker, "I am still a little bit skeptical about their claims."
"Are you kidding me?" The woman standing at his side smiled. "Even if all their claims about the accelerator are wrong, I will be able to spend lots of time with my little telescope in a place with better conditions than the old Hubble!"
"You are most likely right, I shouldn't be that cynical." He looked to the four students behind them. "Anyone who wants to leave the boat now? Might be your last chance!"
The four students shook their heads.
"No way Professor" one of them said, "just lets get on board. I know a few other fans of the old computer game who would still pay money for this."
The two scientists nodded to each other and pushed the door to the parking field open, letting in a wave of snow into the building from the outside. The hangar ramp of the spaceship slowly opened and they could see two catgirl standing on the ramp.
The six of them hurried over to the Serenity Valley where they met the two catgirls.
"Hello, I am Alice, the captain of the Serenity Valley" the left catgirl said, shaking hands with both Professor Steinberg and Miller. "Lets get back inside, the weather here is a little bit cold. This here is Nina Ustinyavna from the Little Big Bang Labs."
Everyone shook hands as they moved up the ramp into the cargo bay of the ship.
"Can you maybe see if they can move our luggage into your ship" Susan Miller asked. "Its the two pallets just behind the door. Just be careful with the larger one please, I hope its not too much weight."
"I will get the pallets inside, don't worry about them" Nina said. "And don't worry about the weight either, we have a large and mostly empty cargo bay at the moment."
She quickly went down the ramp and through the snow towards the airport building, looking for someone with a forklift.
"Excuse me, I am looking for the person who brought the pallets here" she asked an airport official in the terminal, "Is there someone who could bring them into our ship?"
"I am sorry, but the forklift was needed at a different terminal, the regular airlines have priority" the man in the suit said and grinned. "But I think we have some emergency lifter you might be able to rent! Are you interested?"
"No thank you, we will deal with them on our own" Nina said with a sigh and raised her wristcom. "Daria, here is Nina… I have some lifting work to do, could you send out your horde of little helpers?"
Before the person in front of Nina could decide if he should protest or not, a swarm of Exocomps raced out of the Serenity Valleys and surrounded the two, eagerly hovering up and down.
"Okay my friends, these two pallets have to be carefully moved into the ship's cargo bay" Nina said with a smile. "And nothing else, the rest stays here… we want to lift off soon!"
----
While Nina was taking care of the cargo, the captain was slowly leading the guests through the elevator into the meeting room on the upper deck, giving them a short tour through the ships rooms in between. Just as they arrived at the meeting room Nina finally caught up with them.
"I wish they had given us a parking slot with a gangway, but they say our docking adapter isnot compatible with the gangways" Alice said as they entered the room, "but this way you already got a tour through most of the ship. Maybe we can show you more details of the ship later."
"Thank you for the tour, but let me introduce myself and my coworker and students" Susan Miller said with a smile. "I am Professor Doctor Susan Miller from the Astrophysics department of the university of Cambridge and this here is my co worker at CERN Professor Doctor Frank Steinberg."
Professor Steinberg nodded and Susan turned to the four students.
"These four are two students from Cambridge and two from Heidelberg which will come along as a long term practical course. The two on the right are from the department of Astrophysics in Cambridge, Joseph Singh and Amanda Fox." She smiled and looked over to the other two students. "And these two are Julia Machold and Ingo Bartels, both from the Particle Physics department at the university of Heidelberg."
"Then I am happy to welcome all of you on board. Thanks to all of you for joining us on this unusual trip. I am Alice, I am the Captain of the Serenity Valley" the captain answered and looked to Nina, "and this is Nina Ustinyavna, the person who came up with the idea for your visit."
"I noticed the Serenity Valley has an interesting design for a spaceship" Susan Miller noted, "was it necessary to make it that aerodynamic?"
"No, it wasn't… and there are a few flying bricks out there in the solar system" Alice chuckled. "But there were quite a few fans of the original Mass Effect games among us, so we tried to replicate the outer form of the ship as much as possible."
"But?" one of the students asked.
"But we were unable to replicate the nice Tardis effect of the computer games ship" Alice explained. "Because of this the ship feels a little bit tight if you spend a few weeks on it. But our journey will not take that long, we should arrive at the Labs in three days."
"Damned, no Tardis… with all that crazy rumors what is going on in orbit it would have been a nice surprise" Susan said looked around. "So where will we live in the next few days?"
"It is a good thing that we didn't even tried to do something crazy as a inside bigger than outside" Nina interrupted Alice, thinking back to the long discussions during the creation of the first Normandy class. "The Normandy class have been designed as ships that can fights for their own, too much Handwavium can ruin a project like this."
"So even with your wonder material called Handwavium, sometimes more is less?" Professor Steinberg asked and Nina nodded.
"To answer your original question, the Normandy has been designed for a total of seventeen people. Four shifts of two, an away team of up to six persons, the captain and the ships digital intelligence Daria" Alice said. "The two cabins for the away team are empty at the moment, you can use them until we arrive at the Labs."
"That sounds fine, must be one of the most comfortable spaceships we have ever used" Professor Steinberg said with a smirk. "I hope we will have a chance to watch the start through a window."
"Yes and no… yes, of course you can watch the start. But no, you cannot watch it through a window because this ship has no windows" Nina answered with a smile. "Windows are a weak spot in the armor, we use large viewscreens instead."
"No windows" Julia murmured, "what happens if your electronics have a malfunction?"
"We have a few emergency fiberoptics for this, but if our internal systems will not work, we will most likely not be able to do anything at all" Alice explained. "Which brings me to the last point that keeps us from starting. We need to assign each of you a space suit."
----
Since the flight of the SS Uncertainty the Fen had to tackle the problem of space suits. Most Fen were aware that the space suit might become the only thing between them and the cold vacuum of space. Some decided to skip the whole space suit creation because they planned to live only in one of the large cities like Kandor.
Every year there are a few idiots who got themselves a new Darwin Award.
Luckily the creation of space suits has a lot of overlap with environmental systems and life support, which means they normally work very well and have only a few quirks, if any at all. You can get away with a lot of Handwaving on space suits. This also explains that a lot of space suits are custom made.
Every biomod with a tail has more trouble with getting a space suit. Normal suits are just unusable because of the tail and quite a few 'special made' suits are uncomfortable, difficult to reproduce, quirky… or all three of them.
When Catgirl Industries was founded, the catgirls decided to use a material Cathy had brought back as a bounty from Nehalennia, a specially waved plastic that could change its form and structure based on the input of an attached computer system. But this turned out to be a lot more difficult than anyone had thought.
While theoretically very flexible, the plastic was difficult to control by external systems through lots of tiny wires or optical fibres. The original waved plastic quickly began to split into a large number of very specialized variants, each of them 'programmed' with a special transformation.
Even then, the project "Mimetic Plastic" stayed a labor intensive and obscure side project of the catgirls until Cortana and her project group came up with a way to use the substance as a computation substrate in 2020.
----
"Ahh, we already wondered if we would need a space suit on the station" professor Steinberg said, "getting ESA space suits wasn't really an option and Miss Ustinyavna suggested you would deal with things like this."
"Please, my name is Nina professor, being called Miss Ustinyavna make me feel old. In theory you wouldn't need a space suit on one of our space stations, but we have a policy that everyone should have one" Nina replied. "In addition to this the experimental chamber with the particle accelerator at the labs is kept in constant vacuum, so you need it anyways."
"Is a space suit even useful for working on the delicate components of a particle accelerator? I have seen some pictures of the new ESA suits, but it still seems to be a handicap" Steinberg continued. "On a space station it should be much easier to get the air out of the accelerator chamber than in a cave below Switzerland."
"We would like not to waste that much air on a space station… its considered wasteful. Many Fen are used to work in hard vacuum, its a typical environment out here" Nina replied. "And I can assure you the space suits the Fen are using have not much in common with the models ESA uses at the moment. Some use the same inspiration, but Handwavium allows for a much more flexible design."
"Finally we come to the interesting part of this discussion. Because half of your group has to make a decision" Alice said and grinned. "We have six space suits we bought at Kandor for you on board. They are modern Fen hardware, comfortable and reliable inner pressure suits with a bubble helmet. You have to practice a bit to get in and out, but that should not take long."
"Miss Miller, Miss Machold and Miss Fox, you three could also take one of the suits we use ourselves at Jenga and the Little Big Bang Labs" Nina added, "they are counter pressure suits we developed in the last years. They might be better for delicate work, but you might need a few hours training for the control system."
"Is there a special reason why you only extend this offer to us" Susan Miller asked with a puzzled face, "do you have only three spare suits?"
"No, but as I said they are counter pressure suits and a suit designed for catgirls might be a little bit painful for a male human" Alice said with a neutral voice, careful not to laugh out when the two students suddenly got a red face. "I see you understand what could be the problem."
After a moment Susan Miller finally broke the awkward silence. "I understand" she said, not willing to add more to this topic.
"Ehh… good" Alice continued, "but you three should make a decision."
"I think I will just use the standard suit you bought for us" Susan finally said, "but if my student wants to try I will not intervene. What do you think Amanda?"
Professor Steinberg nodded to his coworker. "I agree, thats something Miss Macholds can decide this for herself."
The two students looked at each other for a moment.
"Is this some experimental space suit?" Amanda Fox asked thoughtful, "we are not used to things that can go wrong with your technology."
"No, the suits are at least as reliable as any other space suit in Fenspace" Nina replied. "In fact nearly all catgirls at the Labs use them personally."
"And the rest?"
"The rest of them has good friends at Jenga who send them a prototype of the next generation of the suits, they have additional features but are still a bit quirky" Nina chuckled, "think about it as a mixture of 'beta testing' and 'my cool new toys', nothing you need to worry about."
"Thats sounds okay, I think I will try your own suits" Julia finally said and Amanda nodded. "Yes I agree, thats one of the reasons why we wanted to visit Fenspace, to learn about new things!"
"Perfect, now we just have to get each of you into his or her suit and we can lift off" captain Alice said. "I will send you to Masami, a member of my crew. She will give you an introduction to your suits in the ships Medbay while Nina and me help the rest of our visitors with theirs."
----
When the two students entered the Medbay of the Serenity Valley, another catgirl was already waiting for them.
"Hi you two I am Masami, one of the pilots of the Serenity Valley" the catgirl welcomed them. "You are Julia and Amanda, right? Oh, I may call you Julia and Amanda?"
Both students nodded and Masami smiled happily.
"Perfect, just perfect. The captain told me that you two would like to try out our own space suits, so I got two of them from storage for you" Masami said and put two sealed bags with a black 'fabric' on the desk. "But before we open this, you need something else."
"Wait a moment, we were with captain Alice until a minute ago and she never told anyone else a word about our decision" Julia Macholds asked irritated, "how can you already know about it?"
"Oh, that is a little secret that we three will find out during the next days, but I want to keep it a surprise" Masami said with a grin and took two neckbands from the desk in front of her. "These collars are augmented reality interfaces we call Third Eye's, you need them to control the space suit. Please put them on."
"Augmented Reality you say? It doesn't look like this" Amanda Fox said and looked at the collar with a grin, then put it around her neck. "I hope we don't damage them accidently."
Masami waited patiently until both collar had locked themselves with a magnetic seal.
"Oh, don't worry. The outer layer is an armored material, its difficult to damage" she said and snickered about the surprised look of the two students. "Now touch the collar and say 'open' to unlock them. The collar automatically reacts only to the voice of the user to prevent accidental commands. Oh, we also have a version with a small bell attached if you like!"
Both Amanda and Julia quickly took the collar off again, snickered and put them on again. Masami nodded and gave each of them one of the space suit packs.
"As you will see our space suits are made from four pieces, tights, t-shirt and boots." Masami explained, "They are the basic parts of our Dynamic Pressure Suits, which means that they can produce the necessary pressure on demand."
"What material are they made of, I could swear I have already encountered something like this but I cannot name it" Amanda said after she opened her package. "Is it really safe to make a space suit from fabric?"
"Oh, I don't think you ever had something like this in your hand, it is something that had not existed a few years ago" Masami objected. "Its a multilayer material made from a substance we call 'Mimetic Plastic', which can constrict and even move on its own when controlled correctly."
"Okay, that sounds complicated" Julia said with a smirk, "but I don't think we will have to build our own."
Masami laughed about the joke, thinking back to the time where the suits still had been a huge experiments with lots of participating catgirls. Luckily the time where everyone had to build his own suit to prevent friends from sneaking in quirks was mostly over.
"No, you don't need to, the suits became very user friendly in the last year. There is a research group on Jenga which is still improving them, but they got good enough for normal use." Masami said. "You can wear them directly on skin or you can keep underwear below them, but I would suggest not putting anything else below them. Oh, there is just one other thing we have to do."
Masami opened a drawer and took out two tiny sealed packages, each with a needle inside.
"The suits must be personalized before use, otherwise the handwavium will not work correctly, you have to put a drop of blood on the little bump on the center of the back" Masami said and handed both students the sealed package. "Don't worry, the needles are sterilized and a small drop should be sufficient. Can you put the suit on too, so I can show you how it works?"
It took a few minutes until Masami had put up a screen for Julia and Amanda to stand behind while they exchanged their clothing with the space suit.
"The material feels comfortable, I hope sweating will be an issue with it" Amanda said with a nod. "So how does this transform into a vacuum prove space suit?"
"The suits interior surface has been waved with a high-quality environmental Handwavium strain, it should cause no issues even when you would have to wear it for days" Masami explained, "but let me explain you the basic functions."
Masami put her hand on her own Third Eye collar, explaining the 'command voice' interface would have to wait until they had more time.
"You control the suit by touching the collar and speaking one of the command words. I have programmed the suits with two basic switches, we can worry about more options later. The first switch has the command words 'seal' and 'unseal', it connects all the parts of the suit and activate the counterpressure and environmental sealing. The second one is 'helmet on' and 'off', which deploys the helmet."
"Are you kidding us? This thin fabric contains some kind of helmet?" Amanda spat out, running her fingers over the upper suit. "Okay, its a little bit thicker on the top and back than the rest of the material, but it cannot be much more than a few millimeters!"
"You will be surprised what you can do with a lot of research and a bit Handwavium" Masami chuckled, "just don't be frightened when you activate the suit."
"Lets give it a try" Amanda said, "what would be science without experiments. SEAL."
Obediently the mimetic plastic of the space suit began to change.
First the material of all four parts began to stretch towards each other, quickly joining into a single piece. The arms began to extend until they formed a pair of gloves around Amandas fingers.
Then the structure began to change. The suits became both thicker and skintight as tiny cells in the the middle layer of the suit extended to form a half a centimeter thick impact absorber. The surface layer closed its openings and a number of blue glowing lines began to appear.
"Woah… that feels strange" Amanda said, walking a few meters to get a feeling for the new suit. "But it looks really nice!"
----
"Captain, everyone is suited up and we finally got a clearance to leave our parking position."
Alice smiled, finally they could get away from this cold and snowy airport and up into space where the Serenity Valley should be.
"Very good, lets get out of here before they decide that we have to wait even more time" he said as the a holographic projection of their new flight corridor lit up. "Daria, is everything ready for takeoff in our ship?"
"The Serenity Valley is ready captain. All hatches are sealed, all Exocomps are within the ship, Mass Effect engine and forcefield ready for full power" the ships AI Daria replied. "I am also listening to the towers conversations with the few other planes still incoming in this weather, there is no one in range anymore they could use as a valid reason to delay us."
"Don't call for Morphy Daria, just don't do it. They might just decide to close the airport because of the weather and demand we stay" Alice joked, then she turned to one of the catgirls in front of her. "Betsy, take us to fifty meters height, then align us for the outgoing vector and get us out of here and on our way to the Limit."
The Serenity Valley shivered for a moment as the drive field went active, but then internal gravity took over and the feeling of movement vanished.
Further back in the Meeting Room of the Serenity Valley the six visitors from CERN and two crew members were watching the start of the ship on a holographic projection.
"Damned, thats just not the same as I hoped it would be" Professor Steinberg said and sighed. "No windows and we didn't even feel the acceleration when we took of."
"The monitor is showing the same thing you would see looking out of a front window of a normal ship, we even can get some visual enhancements" Masami said. "At Nostromo you wouldn't see a damned thing except for the stars without. But I think we have a shuttle with an acceleration drive there if you want to get a flight where you can feel the acceleration!"
"I know, I know… its just you feel a bit cheated when things go this way" Steinberg replied, then he looked at his student Julia Macholds. She was looking around and smiling… while keeping her eyes closed. "Miss Macholds, can you maybe explain what you are doing?"
"I am sitting on top of the ship and watching our takeoff. It is looking fantastic!" Julia said without even opening her eyes. "Oh, sorry professor… I am using this augmented reality neckband and asked the ships AI to let me look outside. I think its a projection from the ships sensors."
Professor Steinberg blinked a few times, then he looked to his coworker Susan Miller and back to Julia.
"What?"