"This is it," Yukariah Heap indicated with two of its arms outstretched, "Mercurand."
The intake on the front was deceptively small, hardly wider than a docking bay. Jennifer glared at it with a jaundiced eye. "What is that scoop designed to take in?"
"The interstellar medium," Yukariah answered.
She folded her arms. "A Bussard ramjet requires a physical or magnetic scoop hundreds of kilometers across, just to get enough hydrogen to sustain a bare-minimum fusion reaction. There's no way that tiny little inlet could send out a magnetic scoop anywhere near that large."
"Mercurand doesn't use the hydrogen it gathers for fusion," the Human-Centaurian leader explained. "It's used for reaction mass, and for annihilation material with the craft's onboard supply of antiprotons. And that reaction mass is continously accelerated until it's right at the Heisenblatt-Sturnbridge ratio, the optimal balance between high Isp and low energy requirements. When it's jetted out the back, the exhaust comes out at relativistic speeds."
"So, you mean," Ken piped in, "The engine on this beast is . . . an antimatter-powered synchrotron?"
"Yes," Yukariah answered. "It's a lightweight, high-efficiency design that recaptures all the synchrotron radiation that would otherwise go to waste."
"Still," Ken mused, "It's a 12.2 light-year trip to UV Ceti from here."
"You can shave 2 light-years off of that," Yukariah noted, "If you take off from Sirius."
Jennifer's eye twinkled. "We can shave nearly four light years off, if we take off from Sol."
"And cross all the way from one end of Sirian space to the other to get there?!" yelped Torra. "Braving not one, but three hostile Gate Guards in the process?!"
And at last, Ken Tractor, Torra Zorra, and Jennifer Doe were beyond the range and interest of their attackers, on a ten year trip into the unknown.
The Pentagon War is continued in chapter 9.
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