The Unforeseen Shortcut

A new drive has some fascinating results

The Aether’s Lance was a triumph of engineering, a kilometer-long vessel gliding through the interstellar void. Its heart was a massive particle accelerator, a toroidal beast that fired protons in relentless cycles, producing a steady 1g of thrust by ejecting high-energy particles from the stern. The crew, Captain Adam Wright, Engineer Milo Chen, and Navigator Priya Sanjay lived in Earth-like gravity, a rare comfort on their journey to Proxima Centauri, 4.24 light-years away. At 1g, the trip would span years, but relativistic effects would compress subjective time aboard.

Milo, a relentless tinkerer, had been obsessed with the ship’s accelerators for months. His focus wasn’t the main drive but a pair of smaller, experimental side accelerators, mounted port and starboard. Originally designed to assist with lateral maneuvers, Milo repurposed them to test theories about particle interactions in the interstellar medium. He’d fire low-energy beams sideways, probing for magnetic fields or stray ions, hoping to refine the ship’s shielding. Adam indulged him, though Priya often rolled her eyes at Milo’s endless tweaks. “You’re chasing ghosts,” she’d say, checking nav charts.

For weeks, Milo’s side accelerators hummed, producing data but little else. The ship cruised at 0.002c, the main accelerator’s steady output keeping them on course. Then, during a late-night shift, Priya noticed Milo staring at his sensor readouts, muttering. “What now?” she asked.

“The side beams are causing micro-ripples in the local spacetime,” Milo said. “Barely detectable, but they’re there. Like the beams are nudging the vacuum.”

Adam, overhearing from the command deck, raised an eyebrow. “Nudging how?”

“Not sure,” Milo admitted. “But it’s like the beams are compressing spacetime slightly, perpendicular to our path.”

Priya frowned. “If they’re doing that sideways, what happens if we point one forward?”

Milo blinked. The idea was so obvious it stung. They’d been so focused on lateral experiments they’d never considered redirecting a beam ahead. Adam approved the test, intrigued. Milo reconfigured one side accelerator to fire a low-energy proton stream forward, intending to ionize debris for early detection of obstacles. The beam was weak, a fraction of the main drive’s power, and sensors began picking up faint plasma signatures from ionized particles ahead. It worked as planned.

But then, something extraordinary happened.

Priya’s nav display flickered. The ship’s velocity, relative to distant pulsars, spiked. Internally, sensors held steady at 0.002c, tied to the main accelerator’s 1g thrust. Externally, though, they were clocking 2c. Then 4c. Then 8c.

“This can’t be right,” Adam said, gripping the console. “FTL breaks physics.”

Milo’s face was pale. “It’s the forward beam. It’s not pushing us. It’s… folding spacetime ahead, shrinking the distance.”

Priya’s jaw dropped. “It’s like a warp, but not. The main accelerator’s keeping us at 0.002c locally, but the forward beam’s collapsing the path.”

Adam’s mind raced. “Can we stop it?”

Milo ran diagnostics. “If we cut the beam, the distortion collapses. Could shear the hull.”

“And if we don’t?” Priya asked.

“We reach Proxima in… six hours, subjective,” Milo said. “Earth’s perspective? We’re hitting 12c.”

Adam weighed the gamble. The Aether’s Lance wasn’t built for this. The forward beam, a repurposed side accelerator, had turned the ship into a spacetime plow, carving a shortcut through the universe. Yet the main accelerator’s 1g kept their internal physics normal, no exotic tech required. Just a freak side effect of Milo’s tinkering.

“Keep it on,” Adam decided. “Priya, track the distortion. Milo, bolster hull integrity.”The next hours were surreal. Stars on the viewscreen warped into prismatic arcs, not streaking but bending. Internal clocks ticked normally, but external signals, like a faint Earth transmission, arrived impossibly fast, squeezed by the compressed spacetime. The crew felt the familiar 1g, oblivious to the universe folding outside.

Proxima Centauri swelled into view. Priya shut down the forward beam, and spacetime snapped back, the ship shuddering but holding. Sensors confirmed: they orbited Proxima b, 4.24 light-years from Earth. Subjective time: ten hours since the beam activated. Earth’s time, per signal lag: under four months.

“How?” Priya whispered, staring at the red dwarf.

Milo shook his head. “The beam created a spacetime gradient, shortening the path. We didn’t break light speed. We sidestepped it.”

Adam exhaled. “We stumbled into something bigger than us.”

The Aether’s Lance had discovered a new kind of travel, not a warp drive but a spacetime shunt, born from months of Milo’s side experiments and a single, belated forward test. They sent a message to Earth, knowing it would take years to arrive. The crew had work ahead: refine the beam, study its limits, and share the discovery. For now, they circled a new star, accidental trailblazers in a universe suddenly within reach.

End