TOM SWIFT And The Reconstructed Planet BY Victor Appleton II Made in The United States of America A Special Word of Thanks To author Joanne Larner, my British writing buddy. She who introduced me to a Richard III who is much more interesting than a pile of old bones found under a parking lot and gave him a romantic side he might actually have had in real life, even if the time traveling parts may be a bit fictitious. But, who am I to say anything; I deal with the fiction of science all the time! ©opyright 2016 by the author of this book (Victor Appleton II - pseud. of Thomas Hudson). The book author retains sole copyright to his or her contributions to this book. This book is a work of fan fiction. It is not claimed to be part of any previously published adventures of the main characters. It has been self-published and is not intended to supplant any authored works attributed to the pseudononomous author or to claim the rights of any legitimate publishing entity. 2 THE NEW TOM SWIFT INVENTION SERIES Tom Swift And The Reconstructed Planet By Victor Appleton II There has been a tenth planetary object residing beyond the orbit of Pluto. It remained hidden until space-based telescopes detected all the tell-tale signs. But it remained unseen for years and years until Tom Swift decides to go take a look. Known as Eris, it is larger than Pluto—about one-quarter the size of the Earth—and even has its own moon, but is so far away that it never gets closer to the sun than millions of miles farther out than the apogee of Pluto’s orbital path. When he and Bud and their crew arrive, it is to a distressing sight: Eris is attracting another solar object, and they soon find it is about to smash the planet apart. Everything Tom tries only delays the inevitable, but he must succeed in saving Eris. If not he calculates that so much debris will be pulled toward the sun that it will slam into at least five other planets. With Mars a possible victim, it is vital to succeed. Too late he watches as the planet is hit and begins to break up. What can be done to hold everything together? Even if he finds something, can Tom really rebuild an entire planet? ___________________________________________ This book is dedicated to the team at the Palomar Observatory and Mike Brown, Chad Trujillo and David Rabinowitz who first discovered Eris in 2005. And the crazy part is that Eris isn’t the only other new “planet” in our solar system. There’s Sedna, a planet that takes 10,500 years to make one orbit of the sun. And, 2012 VP113, a tiny planet with a cryptic name. Why these are not Jeopardy or Q.I. questions can only be ascribed to ignorance or petty jealousy. Or, foolish indifference. 3 With very little event horizon, if Tom hadn’t maneuvered the ship within thirty miles, the black hole wouldn’t be visible against all the stars and debris surrounding it. CHAPTER 8 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE 1 How Many? 9 2 The Other New Outpost 19 3 To Space 29 4 Drop Off and Recovery 39 5 Can You Drag Race at FTL? 49 6 Faster-Than-Physics 59 7 Designing the TranSpace Dart 69 8 Harnessing A Black Stallion 79 9 Parallel Parking in The Asteroid Belt 89 10 Goliath Heads For Home 99 11 An Unavoidable Conclusion 109 12 TranSpace Dart Outbound 121 13 “Gee, It’s Still Bright Way Out Here!” 131 14 Return to Try Something Else 141 15 The Dart Breaks the Light Barrier 151 16 A Near Calamity 161 17 How Do You Reconstruct a Planet? 171 18 Abandon, or Marshall On? 181 19 “Well, Bud, We Tried…” 191 20 …And Then it All Comes Together 199 5 AUTHOR’S NOTE When I allowed myself to be convinced—and, it didn’t take a lot, to be honest—to help resurrect Tom Swift, but using my own spin on things, little could I have known that six years later I would have completed fifteen solo novels plus another trio of dual-author novels, along with scores of short stories. Now, as I begin novel sixteen and year seven I find my enthusiasm has not waned one iota. Of course now rather than having three or more waiting titles to get to I am getting out of my comfort zone. For now I am well into the realm of speculative science fiction with our fair-haired inventor, I have but two titles in mind at the moment. With the previous novel dealing with time travel and this one having elements of faster-than-light travel I may be leaving behind mymore ecologically-oriented stories, but I promise that whatever I write about Tom and Bud and all the rest of the folks from Enterprises, it will continue to be thoughtful and aimed at the widest possible audience. I would love to say that these things write themselves. Really, I would. In fact, they kind of do. I “discover” a title plus a few words to set things off, but the characters tell the story to me. So much so that often what I start out to write gets left in the dust of what actually comes out through my fingers. This one turned out fine… ______________________________________ Copies of all of this author’s works may be found at: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/tedwardfoxatyahoodotcom My Tom Swift novels and collections are also available on Amazon in paperbound and Kindle editions. Barnes and Noble sells Nook ebook editions of these same works. 6 Tom Swift and the Reconstructed Planet FOREWORD A goodly number of people were bothered and even outright angry when a bunch of academics took their collected pipes out of their collected oral orifices long enough to declare that Pluto had been demoted. Count this author among them. What sticks in my craw now is that Eris, the planet in this story, is supposedly about the right size to be given minor planet status, yet this same body of jer— people have done nothing toward that end. Yes, yes, yes, I understand that as time goes on things change. Methods of measuring object ‘out there’ change and people’s interpretation of what they are seeing out there change. But let’s all get together and push back on these people. Sauce for the goose and all that. Set a definite guide for planets, minor planetary objects and even moons. Surely some of the small asteroids trapped by the gravity fields of the larger planets aren’t true moons? Take our own Moon. It is technically a planet orbiting in our gravitation field and we in its making us a binary planet system all on our own! Did you know that? If they were then all of the asteroidal debris that circles the Earth ought to be given individual moon names. What about Cruithne? Is it a near Earth object or moon? The Trojan asteroids? The Moon of Georg Waltemath? Lilith? I wish we could put a stake in the ground that includes Pluto as a real planet again and anything larger as well—as long as they orbit our sun. Victor Apleton II 7 8 CHAPTER 1 / HOW MANY? “HEY, MR. SWIFT,” a dark haired young man of about twenty- three called out as he came into the large office. He had found Damon Swift, world renown scientist and inventor, sitting at his desk on the far side of the room. The younger man, Bud Barclay, inclined his head toward another desk sitting closer to the door. “Have you seen Tom? I tried TeleVoc-ing him about an hour ago and he said to come over about now.” “No, Bud. He hasn’t been in this office all day. And, I can’t say that I’ve heard any noises coming from his laboratory next door. Did you try the underground hangar office?” Bud nodded. “Yep. And the cafeteria and the Barn. Loads of places.” He noticed that the older man seemed to be stifling a grin. “So, no idea, huh?” “Well, he mentioned something about a road test. I think he was planning to go out to our longest runway some time today. I’d check there if I were you.” “Thanks!” Bud called as he was heading out the door. He stepped onto the moving ride/walk band down the middle of the corridor and jogged toward the far end of the building. Jumping off just before the end he took five big steps to the stairs and raced down them. He had left his red convertible in one of the closest parking spots so he jumped in and was racing off and around the building complex that sat in the middle of Swift Enterprises—the four-mile-square industrial and experimental facility—within seconds. He took the access road that let him cross the two easternmost runways, past the small terminal for private aircraft and visitors, and then to the east end of runway 27. To his great surprise a pair of beautiful young women stood there, one with a tablet computer and an old-fashioned stopwatch, and the other leaning over and speaking softly to her. The first one—obviously timing some sort of event—was blond, blue-eyed and he was certain she would look incredible in a bikini. The other was dark haired, like himself, and had lovely light brown skin.