Aliomenti Saga 6: Stark Cataclysm by Alex Albrinck

suppose that it’s my way of reminding myself how long I’ve been around. I suppose I could reverse the graying hair, smooth out some wrinkles, but I’m comfortable with my appearance.”
    Angel nodded. “That’s very wise, indeed.” She nodded toward the whiteboard again. “If the whiteboard itself wasn’t the subject of your question, I can only guess your interest lies with what’s written there.”
    He stepped farther into the room, nodded, then frowned. “This looks like an equation to calculate energy needs for something… perhaps a spaceship?”
    Not bad. “Something like that.”
    “The values you’ve entered, the resulting numbers… the energy quantities are enormous. I’m not sure it’s possible to generate that much energy.”
    She nodded. “That’s the problem. If I have to travel the required… distance, the equation says I’ll never make it.”
    He motioned at a chair. “Mind if I sit down? I’ve spent too much time working on numbers of this magnitude on the other side of the decimal point. It’s good to stretch my mind to think about numbers staggeringly large, rather than those which are staggeringly small.”
    She finally recognized him. “You’re the one called the Mechanic, aren’t you?”
    He nodded. “Not sure how I got that nickname, but it’s stuck.”
    She laughed. “You’ve apparently fixed everything that breaks around this place, things nobody else has been able to figure out. And the advances with the nanobots are pretty staggering as well. I’d say the name is well earned.”
    He nodded once, accepting her compliment. “We all do our best. You… you’re Angel, right? Will and Hope’s daughter?”
    She nodded. “Lucky me, huh? My parents are alive and nobody can find them.”
    He cocked his head. “If nobody can find them, how do you know they’re alive?”
    She frowned. “You know how Porthos, the Hunter, can sense Energy with far greater sensitivity than anyone else? For some reason, I can sense… I don’t know what to call it… perhaps life forces? Something like that. Same degree of sensitivity. I can feel my parents’ existence, no matter where they are. Mom’s nearly blinked out a while ago, but she’s stronger now.”
    The Mechanic looked impressed. “That’s a useful skill indeed. It’s always nice to know your loved ones are alive, isn’t it? Even if you can’t see them.” He nodded back toward the board. “As to your problem… have you considered the possibility that the equation might be wrong?”
    Angel nodded. “All the time. I don’t want to toss the equation as wrong simply because I don’t like the answer.”
    “Maybe you’re asking the wrong question,” the Mechanic mused. He scowled, rose, and moved to the whiteboard. “See, this section here is nullifying the distance traveled, and the section over here is drawing little power from your fuel source.” He stopped for a moment. “This is… wrong. What type of fuel are you planning to use for your spaceship? You’re not getting any real power from that fuel source. If you change the fuel source or derive more efficiency from it, you can get more energy from less fuel and bring your trip back into the probable range.”
    “That doesn’t change the amount of energy we need to generate, though.” Angel stood and paced the room. “I don’t know of a fuel source that could generate that quantity, so changing the source and the conversion efficiency doesn’t matter.”
    “It could, actually,” the Mechanic told her. “When you propel a ship or rocket, you have to account for the mass of the fuel until it’s consumed. If you can reduce the amount of fuel, you reduce the mass of the object propelled. Increase the energy produced per unit by a factor of ten, and you get more than that back in reduced energy requirements, because you’re using proportionally even less energy at the end.” He tapped a portion of the formula. “Right here. See? The exponent here