Latchkey discovery
āGeneral Organa Solo! Admiral! I ā thereās something you need to know!ā
āWhat is it?ā Leia replied, frowning for a moment at the Duros in front of her. āYaral, correct?ā
āYes, General,ā Yaral confirmed. āGeneral, Iāve been going over the implications of the operation that took place on Starkiller Base, and⦠I think Iāve got it.ā
ā...got what?ā Holdo asked. āYouāre not making sense.ā
āI ā ah, sorry,ā Yaral mumbled, and put down his datapad. āItās⦠so, ah, one of the extant problems in Hyperspace theoretics for the last several decades at least is that we canāt predict what routes will work and what routes wonāt. It should be a settled science, but the fact that it only semi-reliably produced results matching empirical observations is a major clue that what weāre working with is actually an approximation⦠and not a good one. Thereās plenty of models that were supposed to solve this, but none of them were⦠ah⦠they didnāt properly allow for the psuedovelocity-hypervelocity transition, for example, or they produced results that seemed to indicate that actual hyperspace travel was impossible, or they werenāt reliable with results.ā
āIs this important?ā Leia asked. āI mean you no insult, Yaral, but we are currently being pursued by a First Order ship capable of tracking us through-ā
She stopped.
ā...is that relevant to this?ā she asked.
āIt might be,ā Yaral said. āAt least ā it might be if theyāve got a general solution to hyperspatial field theory, if itās the same as ā so, Iāve been working from the way that the Millennium Falcon jumped under the Starkiller Base shield. That indicates that the former understandings about mass shadows were not correct and could not be correct, and that gave me a hint so I tried using a different model on the way that mass impacts hyperspace. Specifically, itās not the mass itself that impacts hyperspace, itās the energy of the gravity that impacts hyperspace. The very energy bound up in the gravitational field, the, the warped space time is what is causing the impact, and normally thatās essentially the same but it becomes different under certain circumstances. Frame dragging around black holes, especially multiple black holes, is one of the places where it becomes particularly noticeable, but itās not the only one ā and Starkiller Base was suppressing the mass that it contained as it charged up, which changed the calculations!ā
The duros sounded terribly excited, and he flicked through several pages of notes. āAnd this results in ā it all falls out of equations from the seven-fifties, one of the old models that was rejected for improper agreement with evidence, but if I plug in the new corrections then it fits all known observations. And the effect of firing a large bolus of energy through hyperspace has the same impact!ā
He showed them the next page. āSee?ā
Admiral Holdo and General Organa Solo exchanged glances.
ā...we⦠donāt have qualifications in theoretical hypermetrics,ā Holdo said. āWhat are we looking at, exactly?ā
āThis is what happens if you fire a large beam of pure energy through hyperspace,ā Yaral explained. āSee this term here? Because the pure energy beam has energy, and that energy is the same kind of mass-energy that impacts hyperspace, then in addition to exiting hyperspace at the target location it suffers superluminal bleed ā the normal scattering that you get with light moving through a medium, it still happens, only the light moves outwards at faster than light speeds. Thatās why the beam could be seen while it was in transit!ā
His voice was full of passion. āYou see? This must be correct, because it exactly replicated observations I wasnāt even trying to explain. Itās the grand unified theory of hypermetrics!ā
āMarvellous,ā Holdo said, sounding slightly frustrated. āBut what does this mean on a practical level? What can we do with it?ā
Yaral looked at his notes, then at Admiral Holdo.
Then back at his notes.
ā...well, this means that itās possible to predict the exact moment at which the superluminal transition takes place,ā he said. āAnd, in fact, to demonstrate that the hyper velocity generated by the hyperdrive does not have to take place only after transition. It would in fact be possible to tune a hyperdrive so that it makes a very good approximation of hitting lightspeed while still in normal space, though the downside is that the whole ship would be converted to an energy packet in so doing while still in normal space instead of tachyonic space. It would completely destroy the ship if it hit anything, and itād make a mess of whatever it hitā¦ā
He flicked forwards another page. āAnd it would make it possible to hit hyperspace anywhere! Without restriction, in fact ā once the calibrations were done to more correctly align a hyper envelope with the energy structure of the ship, you wouldnāt even need to take off. You could jump to hyperspace while standing on the ground.ā
āAnd tracking through hyperspace?ā Leia asked.
ā...possibly, butā¦ā Yaral said, flicking back, then tapped out a few more calculations.
āI think I can see how theyāre doing it,ā he said, eventually. āItās something about the energy signature of a specific ship, theyāre tracking the vector and energy levels on hyperspace transition and they can then simply follow it until it stops. But thatās a branch conclusion of the theory, it doesnāt require the full unified theory.ā
Holdo nodded.
āThank you,ā she said, catching Leiaās eye. āGeneral. This is our answer ā we retune the hyperdrive of the Raddus to do that superluminal transition in realspace. Iāll stay on board to drive it in, but the rest of you need to evacuate to transports⦠thereās a world not far away. We can get in range of it, then everyone else evacuates and I ram the Raddus right down Snokeās throat.ā
āYouād die,ā Leia pointed out, which was an understatement.
āI did not join the Resistance because it was safe, General,ā Holdo replied. āAnd we need to get Yaralās knowledge off this ship and to the New Republic. We need the Resistance to survive. That is the highest priority.ā












