When the Keeper's Wake entered high orbit over Sirion the ships somewhat primitive AI took a moment to contemplate what it had accomplished. Over the past four hundred years it had accelerated a ship that had been a planetoid in a past life to a speed within a few hundredths of a percent of light speed. It was careful to balance the need to reach a good traveling speed with the need not to crush it's precious cargo under the weight of unbearable gravities. A healthy Keldon in stasis can comfortably survive 20 gravities of acceleration perpendicular to his spine. The Keeper's Wake accelerated at 19.9 gravities for three hundred years.
The Wake's AI detected Sirion at 99.95% of light speed. It was almost to late. Directional thrusters as large as Mt. Therasol on Keldana I turned the Wake 180 degrees. There was barely enough mass left in the core of the former planetoid to perform effective deceleration. The mass drivers fired in the opposite direction and decelerated the Wake at 21g's.
Many younglings died in stasis.
The Wake's AI regretted this but it could not allow the only survivors (so it was programmed to believe) of the Keldon species to fly off the plane of the elliptic and into intergalactic space. After 100 years of deceleration the Wake entered the Sirius system at .0001% of lightspeed. Her mission was done.
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Wednesday, May 9, 2007
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