I opened the first Jack Mack novel, ‘Among the Many Stars,’ with Jack
McFee making jumps from system to system in a highly modified McFee
W-4A. This was a very small vessel to be fitted with a jump drive and a
great many compromises had to be made to jam in both the drive element
and an array of surveillance equipment.
The W-4, in any of its iterations, was never intended to be a jump
ship. Jack’s machine may well have been the only one ever converted! Nor
was the earlier W-2B from which it, in part, derived. The W-2C was
another matter, a bit larger vessel which was designed with an eye to
possible jump drive installation.
Not that most were. W-2Cs mostly served as medium fighters and the
mass of a jump element would have seriously impacted their performance. A
handful were equipped, however, some serving as jump-couriers and some
as trainers. A number of early C-types, fitted with the relatively
low-performance Riley-Thule twelve-tube engine, served as the core of
the jump school operated from Fundy Station.
I mentioned jump-couriers. This was the most common use of lighter
machines fitted with jump drives—to be relatively quick couriers from
system to system. Most were a good bit larger than the W-2C. Among McFee
machines that would include W-6s and W-9s, both multi-engine types. We
have Jack being conveyed home from Oz Station in a W-9 in ‘Among.’ These
machines were rarely used in combat with jump drives. Again, the extra
mass involved would have seriously impaired their effectiveness. Most
jump ships were quite large.
Jack’s Nativ spy ship is another matter. It is not particularly large
and certainly doesn’t have a lot of power. Performance-wise, it is the
proverbial dog. But its role is to jump into systems to conduct
long-range surveillance patrols. It is most certainly unsuited to any
sort of combat.
The bulk of combat vessels that were fitted with jump drives were
carriers, with complements of smaller, non-jumping machines. This was
generally the most effective approach. Larger cruisers were also fitted
out to jump, being too heavy for use with carriers, for the most part.
There was always some compromise in performance with the mass of a jump
element but that was less noticeable with larger ships.
I will drop Jack into a new jump ship for the next Jack Mack novel,
essentially a customized civil ship suited for a post-war spy. And his
AI buddy ‘M’ is likely to be moved from the Nativ to accompany him on his
missions.