Chapter 119: Antimatter Drive

It took us five years. Five whole years before we finally improved the particle accelerators to produce more significant amounts of antimatter. Soon, we were producing kilograms of antimatter as opposed to nanograms. Not a significant amount, but it was a start.

"Good job, everyone," I told them, looking pleased. We had gathered in the lab and were surveying the results of our experiments. I couldn't help but celebrate inwardly at how close we had gotten to success. "Now we are going to test if the antimatter engines work."

"Yeah, we developed a working model for the antimatter drive," Paul Ke said, checking his schematics. "We followed the model that Miguel Alcubierre developed, and added the subsequent improvements that the other scientists made over the last century to reduce energy consumption and stuff. However, all this is theoretical so far. We have run isolated trials within the lab itself, condensed into miniaturized experiments under controlled environments, but we don't know if these were translate into reality."

"Only one way to find out," I said with a shrug. "Let's do it."

We went to the space center in the far end province of the country, which was the site for launching rockets, satellites and space shuttles. Already we had our spacecraft with the Alcubierre drive installed within set there, ready for takeoff.

I wanted to be the pilot, but I was immediately shut down by my employees. Not because I was too important and they couldn't afford to lose me, but simply because I didn't have the license to pilot a space shuttle.

"You're not a pilot. How are you supposed to pilot the spacecraft?" They had pointed out. I had no choice but to accept their objections and we appointed a professional space pilot by the name of Pierre Shi instead.

"Well, this is it." Pierre saluted before he went toward the dock. I hesitated for a few moments, placing a hand on his shoulder to stop him.

"Sorry about this. I know how immense the risk is. Remember, if you sense that there is anything wrong, pull out immediately. Don't risk your life. Your life is more important. If this experiment fails, it fails. No one will blame you. But I need you to return alive to pilot a more successful version."

"Don't worry. I knew the risks when I accepted the job." Pierre smiled. "Whatever happens out there, don't blame yourself. This is the only way mankind can progress. I share in your vision, you know? I want our dream to succeed – it's my dream as well as yours. I also want to explore the stars, to conquer the last frontier known to man. But we won't be able to succeed if we don't take any risks. Don't worry. If anything happens to me, I want you to promise me that you won't give up. That you will keep working at it. There are many like me who share the same dream. And we are more than willing to risk our lives to see it come to fruition."

"Thank you."

I didn't know what else to say, so I put as much emotion into my words as possible."

We watched as Pierre embarked upon the spaceship, which we had christened, Zheng He, after the dude who explored seas unknown to Hua Xia prior to his time. If the Westerners had Christopher Columbus, then Hua Xia had Zheng He as an analogue. Zheng He was known for being the most famous and successful mariner and explorer of his time, having traveled across the world via the oceans, commanding fleets and bringing trade to previously unexplored regions.

The science and engineering team had to take shelter in the control center where we watched the Zheng He shudder when Pierre began the launch sequences. Obviously, nobody wanted to be near the spacecraft when it took off, with intense temperatures and flames billowing outward and cooking any unprotected human in seconds. Everyone kept a distance, even the takeoff crew and technicians on the ground.

Then with a thunderous bellow, the Zheng He took off. It rose steadily toward the heavens, its sleek, silvery figure turning into a comet. One of the holographic screens depicted Pierre's helmeted head, his cockpit trembling violently from the fierce vibrations. Looking at him shaking about made me feel dizzy, but I kept my eyes on the floating monitor.

This man was risking his life for scientific progress and the dream to explore the stars. There was no way I would take my eyes off him. He had the courage to accept the risk and fly a previously unknown spacecraft, one built with unprecedented technologies. He had embraced the dangers that came with it for the one out of a hundred chance that we might succeed.

I understood just how much of a risk he was taking. There were a million things that could go wrong during the journey. The volatile reactions of matter and antimatter meeting within the engine, the apocalyptic explosions contained only by an energy shield that I had personally invented – and the tremendous energies unleashed were capable of annihilating the entire spacecraft from existence. The Alcubierre bubble, as we decided to call it, might end up crushing the ship because of previously unknown forces. It might have unknown effects on mankind, especially since we couldn't really run proper experiments on human pilots in a lab, despite our best efforts. There might be intense radiations that the energy shields protecting the spacecraft wouldn't be able to keep out. It was possible that the Zheng He would rip itself apart when exiting the bubble.

It was also possible that the Zheng He would be trapped within the Alcubierre bubble forever, unable to exit, until it ran out of antimatter fuel. And Pierre would be locked within an eternity of torment, slowly starving to death while being isolated from reality itself.

We didn't know what would happen. We had done our best to mitigate whatever risks there would be, but nothing was hundred percent. Anybody who claimed that you could succeed on the first try was lying. We had run into many failures over the five years and this was our best working model. Nonetheless, it was still the first launch ever, and we didn't know how such experiments would translate into reality. There might be chaos factors that we hadn't considered. Elements that didn't exist within a lab that would interact with the Zheng He in reality.

"I've broken orbit!" Pierre reported. He sounded excited, even as he continued to wrestle with the controls of his ship. "I'm now outside the atmosphere and in outer space proper."

"Excellent. Everything working fine so far?"

"Yeah." Pierre nodded at my question. "No problems. I estimate that I will reach the translation point in ten minutes. Then I will activate the Alcubierre drive and start the bubble. I will then head for Alpha Centauri and then do a U-turn and return to Earth after a brief exploration of the system."

"You do just that." I smiled. "Good luck. And make sure you don't take any unnecessary risks."

"Yeah, I won't. See you when I get back."

Ten minutes later, the Zheng He vanished from our sensors. We watched with bated breath, wondering if anything had gone wrong, but we wouldn't know. As far as we could tell, Pierre had successfully activated the Alcubierre drive and had gone into faster than light speed.

Only time would tell us if our invention was a success.

*

The first news we received regarding Pierre's successful return was a few weeks later. To be precise, it was fifty-two days, twenty hours, forty-six minutes and three seconds from the launch.

"Success!"

That was the first word he uttered when he translated back into the solar system, looking tired. Even though his helmet, I could tell that he had lost weight. His cheeks were sunken and he had grown slightly emaciated. I couldn't tell if those were the aftereffects of the Alcubierre bubble or space travel. After all, he didn't exactly have a proper diet aboard the Zheng He, and people were known to lose bone and body mass when spending too much time in zero gravity environments.

Not only that, there was the danger of exposure to radiation in outer space. People on Earth was protected from such radiation because of the ozone layer and atmosphere, but there was nothing in outer space to absorb such lethal rays, except the energy shields of the Zheng He. I could only hope that they had stayed unbroken throughout the entire duration.

"It worked?" I asked, astonished. My team was murmuring behind me, excited and looking forward to the data. And also delighted that Pierre had successfully returned alive and well.

Most of all, they were overjoyed that we had actually succeeded in building a working Alcubierre drive.

"Yeah! I reached the Alpha Centauri system in days. Spent a few weeks flying around it and exploring the system. As we suspected, there are at least three inhabitable planets. I'll be transmitting you the data shortly."

Cosmologists and astronomers had long known that the Alpha Centauri system was a triple star system, consisting of Proxima Centauri (Alpha Centauri C), Alpha Centauri A and Alpha Centauri B. There was a planet with life circling Proxima Centauri, along with a super-Earth that was surrounded by a ring. Alpha Centauri A also had an inhabitable planet, or so it seemed.

"We can start thinking about colonization!" One of my scientists whispered excitedly as he reviewed the data.

"Yeah, but first we need to welcome Pierre home." I smiled and watched Zheng He slowly drift toward Earth. "Our hero needs to rest."

Not only that, there was also a lot of other projects we needed to work on before I could make extrasolar colonization a reality. First…we had to conquer Mars. Already, I had a terraforming project in place, one that was supposed to help us fight pollution and climate change. When that succeeded, we could turn the attentions of terraforming technology to reshaping exoplanetary landscapes…

…beginning with Mars.

And if we can colonize Mars, then spreading out to the rest of the galaxy and colonizing the stars would be more than possible.