Nathan had skipped breakfast this morning, partly because he had over slept, and partly because he wasn’t really that hungry. He also knew that there wasn’t much in the way of traditional breakfast foods available on board, so it was just as well to wait until later. He could always snack on more dried fruit and nuts if he got hungry later.
He had also woken up a little stiff and sore and had considered stopping by Medical. But it wasn’t exactly on his way, and he also didn’t feel like getting a lecture from the doctor about any number of medical protocols he had broken in the last few days. Doctor Chen was taking to her new position rather nicely, and the power was going to her head just slightly.
He convinced himself that his sore back and arm were merely the result of spending the night on the couch in the captain’s quarters-or rather his quarters. He still wasn’t used to that idea. Regardless, he was sure that the soreness would pass as the day wore on.
“Captain on the bridge,” the guard announced as Nathan stepped through the hatchway. The statement caught Nathan a bit by surprise, not only because his presence was being announced but also by the fact that once again there was a guard posted at the entrance to the bridge. Due to the short-staffing, they had discontinued that practice a few days ago.
“Morning Captain,” Jessica said from the tactical console at the back of the bridge.
“Good morning. What’s with the guards?” he asked, pointing back over his shoulder.
“With all the guests on board, I decided it was best to at least keep the bridge secure.”
“What about the other door?”
“Sealed off on the other side of the break room. Port hatch is now the only route in or out of the bridge.”
“Where’s Commander Taylor?”
“In your ready room, sir.”
“Call Abby to the bridge, and then you two join us.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nathan looked at the forward view screen. The image was just a collection of nondescript stars, none of which he recognized, except for the slightly brighter amber one in the middle of the screen. “I won’t miss that place,” he said, pointing at the amber star on the screen as he turned to head to his ready room.
Cameron sat at the desk in the captain’s ready room. Having always been an early riser, she had come on duty at zero four hundred hours. She had given Jessica, who had taken the first watch on the bridge, a few hours off to get some rack time before the morning pre-jump briefing. Jessica also was not much of a sleeper, and had been fine with just a three hour nap and a hot shower. Having had her fill of molo while on the surface of Haven, she too had opted for dried fruit and nuts.
Cameron, on the other hand, had decided to brave another selection from the escape pod meal kits. Some type of scrambled eggs and sausage that she wished she could’ve passed on. But since the idea to use the escape pod meal kits was her idea, she had to set an example for the crew. It hadn’t been that bad, and she was sure that, if stuck on an escape pod for weeks on end, it would be just fine. But at this point, even the molo, despite Jessica’s less than favorable reviews, seemed more desirable.
Cameron liked sitting in this office. It felt right to her. Ever since she was old enough to enlist, her dream had always been to command a starship. Although the history file stored in the Data Ark showed many women had commanded such ships in the distant past, no women had commanded a ship of any kind since the great plague. Women had been too valuable for the repopulation of the Earth to risk them on such hazardous assignments. But since the discovery of the Data Ark, the infant mortality rate had dramatically decreased, and the human life span had doubled to well over one hundred years. Most people were continuing to work well into the eighties and nineties. Only a century ago, humans on Earth rarely lived past seventy.
It wasn’t that she wanted to be the first, since obviously that distinction was technically assigned more than a millennia ago. But she wouldn’t mind being the first since their return to space. And she sure wouldn’t mind being the youngest. Perhaps that had been why she had been so disappointed when Nathan had been made helmsman and promoted over her. She knew she could do the job. Sure, Nathan had a natural instinct-a gift as Captain Roberts had referred to it-for flying. But there was a lot more to being a pilot, and even more so a captain, than instinct.
So she had spent many hours in this very chair, wondering how she might have handled the events that had transpired over the last week. She was certain she would’ve done most things differently. And she was pretty confident that the outcome could have been better. But she wasn’t positive, and that fact alone caused her some concern.
“Good morning, Commander,” Nathan greeted as he entered the ready room. Cameron immediately began to rise to relinquish her seat to its rightful owner. “As you were,” Nathan insisted. He had never been one for the protocols of rank. And considering what they had been through together, it seemed just plain silly, especially when they were the only ones in the room. “How’s everything?”
“Repairs are on schedule,” she began. “Three rail guns were brought back online, and Allet is upgrading the system to increase their rail launch velocities. He also thinks that he can increase their fire rate and accuracy by rewriting the software, making it more efficient.”
“That’s great, Cam. But I meant, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
Nathan eyed her for a moment, looking for a chink in her armor. “You’re fine? I’m beat to hell. Even with a full night’s sleep. And knowing you, I’m sure you only got in four or five hours at best.”
“Well, you were down on the surface getting shot at from every direction.”
“While you were up here, fighting off a Ta’Akar boarding party and one of their warships, which you did quite well, by the way.”
She knew he was just trying to be nice, to be a good friend, but she had never been too comfortable confiding in others about her feelings. She had grown up in a house full of boys-five of them, to be exact. That had forced her to be tougher than most. Then, enlisting in the Fleet straight out of college hadn’t helped matters. Despite the rapid change in social mores brought about by the discovery of the Data Ark, most military organizations on Earth were still dominated by men.
Still, there was a part of her that wanted to trust Nathan, to be able to speak with him as a friend. But her duty as his executive officer came first, and she just couldn’t see them as anything other than mutually exclusive.
“Nathan,” she said in a less official tone than usual. “I’m fine, really.” Nathan stared at her for a moment. “Really,” she repeated, standing to leave. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to take a quick break before our pre-jump briefing.”
“Okay,” Nathan answered, holding both hands up in resignation. He had made the offer, and that was all he could do for now.
Cameron moved out from behind the desk and exited the room just as Jessica and Abby entered.
“Where’s she going?” Jessica asked. “I thought we had a meeting.”
Nathan got up and moved around behind the desk, leaving room for Abby to take a seat in front of the desk, while Jessica took her usual position sprawled out on the couch.
“She’ll be back shortly,” he stated as he took his seat. “Abby, I assume you already have a plot calculated for a jump to the Darvano system?”
“Yes, sir. I also have a tentative escape jump ready, just in case we jump into another… situation.”
“Considering our history so far, that’s not a bad idea. In fact, perhaps we ought to make that standard procedure-jump to just outside a system and take a peek before jumping all the way in.”
“Kind of like testing the temperature of the water before diving in?” Abby stated as a comparison.
“I’ve always been more of a jump-right-in kind of girl, myself,” Jessica said.
Nathan smiled. “Now why do I find that so easy to believe?”
“Actually, Captain, once I’m able to verify the accuracy of these new star charts, I should be able to pre-plot many jumps. In fact, it might be useful to create a network of pre-defined jump-points.”
“How would that help us?”
“Rather than having to plot a jump from a point in space that you expect to be at when you execute the jump, you simply fly to that point, executing the jump at the precise moment that you cross the threshold.”
“Maybe I’m missing something, but that doesn’t sound much different to me.”
“The difference is that currently, we have to plot the jumps on the fly, which our systems were never really meant to do. And we usually don’t have time to verify the plots, which I shouldn’t have to remind you is incredibly risky. Predefined jump points would already be verified, therefore the risk would be minimized.”
“Interesting idea, Doctor,” Nathan admitted, “but I’m hoping we won’t be around this area long enough to need such a network.”
“As do we all,” she agreed. “However, the idea could also be applied to short-range hops as well. For example, the parameters required to make a jump of say, one light hour, are the same regardless of departure and arrival points. It is only the departure and arrival points that differ from jump to jump.”
“You’re talking about making some jump plot templates, right?”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”
“Are you sure it’s worth the effort?” Nathan asked. “You yourself said that we needed to refrain from using the jump drive if possible. You said that you couldn’t guarantee how long it would continue to function.”
“I may have been a bit conservative in my concerns.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“Your engineering staff and my team managed to get the rest of the emitters’ telemetry feeds re-established. After analyzing the data from the emitters collected over the last few jumps, we were able to make a few adjustments to the field generators. I believe that it may last considerably longer than I anticipated.”
“So you think it could make all one hundred and twenty five jumps to get us home?” Cameron asked as she entered the room. She had heard Abby’s last statement from the hatch as she entered.
“It’s too soon to promise that many jumps from the system. But I do feel better about our chances today than I did yesterday.”
“That’s good news, Doctor. Thank you,” Nathan said as Cameron took her seat next to Abby.
Nathan took a deep breath to bolster his confidence. He knew that what he was about to say might not be well received, especially by Cameron. He wasn’t sure Doctor Sorenson would like it either, but she was not the type to argue in front of others. And from their conversation after yesterday’s briefing, he was pretty sure that she understood the bigger picture better than most.
“I’ve decide to take the ship back into the Pentaurus cluster.” Nathan held up his hand to prevent Cameron from objecting before he finished his opening statement. “I believe the possible benefits of the zero-point energy device justify the additional risk for two reasons. First, it might give us the power we need to get home in a fraction of the time. And second, the device could also be of significant assistance in the defense of Earth-maybe even more so than the jump drive itself.”
Nathan could feel resistance boiling up from inside Cameron, and she looked like she could explode at any moment. “Now I understand that some of you may be opposed to this idea. But let me point out a few other factors that heavily influenced my decision.” Nathan leaned back in his chair, looking at each of them in much the same way that Captain Roberts had done. “Did it ever occur to anyone that the odds of running into not one, but two Jung patrol ships, just beyond the Oort cloud, might be too high to even calculate?” Nathan looked to Jessica. Being special operations trained made her naturally suspicious. If anyone would understand his line of thinking, it would be her.
“They either knew we would be there,” Jessica said, her mind racing, “or they were already preparing to invade.”
“Our detection grid doesn’t reach that far out,” Cameron added, “at least not accurately enough to pick out ships against any other objects in the Oort. Especially if they were matching the speeds and trajectories of other objects.”
“And if either one of those two possibilities are true, it would be suicide to return in our present condition.”
“If they were prepping for an invasion,” Jessica said, “don’t you think they would’ve had something bigger than a couple of patrol ships out there?”
“Maybe,” Nathan admitted, “but the Oort is an awfully big place. And they might have only put patrol ships out there to be sure that we didn’t spot them too quickly and jump away again.”
“It could also have just been dumb luck,” Cameron reminded him.
“Yes, it could have been. But I’m not willing to take that gamble, at least not until we’re in a better state of readiness. If we returned home now, we could be jumping into a whole new hornet’s nest. If we stay here, at least for awhile, we can not only get our ship fixed up, but we might even pickup some cool new tech to show the folks back home,” Nathan said with a smile. “To that end, I think it best we continue to ally ourselves with the Karuzari. At least until we determine the validity of this power source.”
“If what you’re saying is true,” Cameron argued, “then the Jung could be invading Earth at this very moment, while we’re sitting here talking about joining some local rebellion.”
“Even if we had started jumping our way back home from day one,” Jessica interrupted, “we’d still be a couple of months out from Earth.”
“But if it was just a coincidence that we ran into those two Jung patrol ships, the invasion may not have happened yet.”
“And if that’s the case, then a few more days out here getting ourselves repaired won’t make much difference, will it?” Nathan said.
“Listen up,” Jessica barked, trying to take command of the argument. She could tell that Nathan and Cameron could spend the entire day hashing this out if they were allowed to. She was a bit shocked, as it was no way for a captain and his XO to behave, especially in front of command staff. But she also knew that their already tenuous working relationship had been severely strained not only by Nathan’s sudden advancement to captain, but also by the fact that Cameron disagreed with most of his decisions.
Nathan and Cameron both fell silent, turning to look at Jessica, who now had a bit of a sheepish look on her face as she realized that she too had just overstepped her bounds.
“If I may,” she began, looking to each of them for their silent approval. “Assume for a moment, the worst case scenario. At the time we ran into those two patrol ships, the Jung already had Sol surrounded and were about to strike. If true, it’s already happened, the Earth is fucked, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it, at least not in our present state. Do we agree on that much?”
Again she looked to them both, getting grudging agreements. “Now, assume the best case scenario. It was just a co-winky-dink. The Jung are still cleaning up and reinforcing after their invasion of Alpha Centauri. Our best intel puts their top speed at ten times light. So even if the Jung had left the Centauri system the day after the invasion, it’ll still be another five months before their forces reach Earth.” Jessica turned her attention to Abby. “Doctor, if we were in port, how long would it take to outfit another ship with another jump drive?”
“I don’t know. It took us years to build the prototype.”
“Best guess, assuming that every man, woman, and child was working on the project.”
“One year, maybe?”
“So that’s not an option. Captain? Again, if we were in port, how long to make us fully up to specs?”
“A few months, I suspect.”
“Okay, possible, but even then, it’s still just one ship against God knows how many. And we’re not heavily armed, even if we had all of our squadrons on board.”
“But the jump drive does give us a huge tactical advantage,” Cameron reminded her, hoping to prop up her point of view on the matter.
“True, but it’s also an advantage that can be taken away with a few lucky shots. Or worse yet, captured and used against us.”
“So, are you saying we should, or we shouldn’t go back?” Cameron asked. She was beginning to get confused, as Jessica was showing support for either case.
“I’m saying that we have time to decide. Making snap decisions isn’t going to make our or the Earth’s situation any better. And if the captain’s right, and we can pick up some advanced tech, that might make all the difference in the world. Or in our case, the Sol system.”
“It only makes sense to stay here for awhile, and see what develops,” Nathan concluded.
Cameron wasn’t convinced. “I just don’t know, Nathan. All I can think about is the people back home. It just feels like we shouldn’t be risking our necks out here. We should be doing it back home.”
“But we are risking our necks out here for the people back home. Just because they are so far away doesn’t make it any less so.” Nathan looked at Cameron. He could see the doubt in her eyes. It wasn’t her usual stubborn streak this time, and she wasn’t scared; he knew better. Cameron had already proven herself in battle as much, if not more so, than any of them. She was scared that they were making the wrong decision-that they were putting the Earth in further jeopardy. “Look, Cameron. We all know that I can make it an order. But I don’t want to have to do that, especially not in this case. I really want your support on this.” Nathan flashed her a smile, that same one that had always gotten him out of trouble with his mother as a boy. “You know I’m not smart enough to pull this off without you.”
Cameron looked at Nathan and his goofy smile. “Well, at least you understand that much,” she said, leaning back in her chair in resignation. “All right then, I’m with you.”
Jessica clapped her hands. “Great! What’s the plan, skipper?”
Nathan’s smile faded for a moment as he turned to Jessica. “Would you stop calling me skipper?” Jessica shrugged apologetically, holding both hands up with her palms forward, a goofy grin on her face. Nathan returned his attention to the group. “We make two jumps to get to a position just outside the Darvano system, say about one light day.”
“Why two jumps?” Cameron asked. “Darvano is only nine point five light years away.
“Two reasons. First, the good Doctor suggests that we don’t push the limits of the drive unless we have to, at least until she has more time to review the performance data collected over the jumps to date. Second, I’d prefer to arrive at any destination with enough power in the drive to do a quick escape jump, in case we jump into yet another bad situation.”
“Makes sense,” Cameron agreed.
“Once we get there, we locate the hideout Tug spoke of and plot a jump to get as close as possible so that we can sneak in undetected.”
“That might require more than one jump, Captain,” Abby warned. Nathan looked at her quizzically, forcing her to better explain. “It would take hours-maybe even days depending on how erratic the trajectories of the objects in the asteroid belt are-to gather enough data to make a close in jump. It might be better to jump in next to a planetary body, or a moon-something with a bit more stable and predictable orbit. From there, we can get a more accurate and more up-to-date trajectory mapping of the belt before plotting a jump deeper into the belt itself.”
“Makes sense. But I want to get the ship into that hideout as soon as possible. The longer we’re sitting out in the open, the more chance there is of being spotted.”
“Captain,” Jessica interrupted, “I’m not too crazy about the idea of flying this ship into some kind of cave without checking it out first.”
“You think it might be a trap?” Cameron asked.
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, mine too,” Nathan admitted. “Suggestions?”
“We could send that hot-shot Josh in first,” Cameron suggested with a wry smile. “Put him and his copilot into the shuttle and let them recon it out first.”
“Not a bad idea, Commander. Jess, maybe you should go along with them.”
“Sounds like a hoot,” she exclaimed.
Nathan smiled. “Wear your flight restraints… Trust me.”
“Will do, skip- Sorry, Captain.”
“Okay. So they do a fly through inspection first, then we follow them in. Once the ship is secured inside the hideout, we’ll send a team over to power everything up so that we can get busy repairing the ship. I especially want to get the hull patched up so we can have access to our forward sections again. More than seventy percent of our living quarters are in there and between the wounded and the extra guests, we’re running out of space.”
“What about supplies?” Cameron asked. “If Corinair is as advanced a world as Tug says, we might be able to get some decent supplies this time.”
“Yeah, like something besides molo,” Jessica complained.
“We still have credits to spend, and a bunch of raw ore that we can sell,” Cameron added.
“I was thinking about that,” Nathan said. “As much as I know you like to gather intel in the field, Jessica, I don’t think it’s a good idea for any of us to go down to the surface on this trip. I think we’d stand out too much this time. Besides, according to Tug, you cannot get past the Port Authority without proper ident-chips.”
“I guess I can sit this one out,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Besides, I’ve been thinking. If this secret base of theirs has comm-gear, maybe we could do some signals intelligence gathering.”
“Good idea. Meanwhile, we’ll send Tug and Jalea down to the surface in the shuttle. They can sell off the rest of our ore and buy us some supplies. We’ll leave them on the surface for at least a day or two so they can also make contact with any rebels that may be hiding out on Corinair.”
“And what, bring them back here?” Jessica objected.
“Hey, we need all the help we can get at this point. I’m hoping that some of them might also help with repairs as well. So far, they all seem to be pretty good with tech.”
“Let’s just be sure we don’t end up outnumbered on our own ship,” Jessica warned.
“From Jalea’s estimates, I don’t think that many of them survived. I’d be surprised if they find more than a handful of them.”
“How long do we plan to stay in the Darvano system?” Cameron asked.
“No longer than necessary, of course. But hopefully long enough to at least get all the major repairs done. We’ll have to play it by ear.” Nathan looked around the room. “Any more questions? All right. Let’s get ready to make our first jump-in say, thirty minutes?”
Abby nodded in agreement, as did the others.
“Great, dismissed,” he announced. As they got up to leave, Nathan activated the comm-panel on his desk to hail the comm-officer on the bridge. “Can you send Josh and Loki to my ready room?”
Twenty minutes later, Josh and Loki arrived at the entrance to the bridge. Having been forewarned of their arrival, the guard at the hatchway escorted them the few meters down the short corridor that led into the aft port side of the bridge.
“Whoa,” Loki muttered as he gazed upon the bridge, and the main view screen that wrapped around the entire front half the room and up over the helm and navigation consoles.
“This is nice,” Josh whispered back to Loki. Despite the fact that most of the Aurora’s technology was less advanced than that found on even the older ships used on Haven, the layout of the bridge left him in awe. “I’d love to get my hands on the flight controls of this baby, eh, mate?” he added, jabbing Loki in his side with his elbow.
“This way, gentlemen,” the guard stated, reminding them of why they were here. Josh and Loki turned to see the guard standing behind them, his arm outstretched to point toward the door to the captain’s ready room, just inboard from the entrance they had just passed through. “The captain’s expecting you.”
Josh and Loki followed the guard, looking back over their shoulders to catch a last glimpse of the bridge on their way out. The guard swung the hatch open and they stepped inside the ready room.
“Gentlemen,” Nathan greeted them nonchalantly. “What took you so long?”
“Sorry, Captain,” Loki began, “but we had just pulled the computer core from the harvester when you called. Once pulled, you only have ten minutes to get it hooked back up to power, or you lose all its base programming.”
“That’s understandable. Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his desk.
Josh felt a bit uncomfortable. His flying technique had gotten him and Loki into hot water on more than one occasion. And right now, it felt similar to the time they had been called into the Haven Port Authority Flight Controller’s office. They had gotten scolded for nearly an hour that day, and had just about lost their flight status. “Have we done something wrong, Captain?”
“No, not at all. I have a couple of missions I wanted to discuss with you. That’s all.
Josh started to relax a little, as did Loki.
“Missions?” Loki asked, not quite sure what the term meant.
“You know, flights? What do you call them?”
“Flights, I guess,” Loki answered with a shrug.
“What kind of missions did you have in mind, Captain?” Josh asked.
“The Karuzari have a base of some type inside a hollowed out asteroid. We would like to use it as a place to hide while we conduct repairs.”
Josh’s eyes lit up. “This place must be pretty big, if you can fit your whole ship inside it.”
“Apparently, it’s an entire facility of some sort.”
“Captain?” Loki asked. “Why do you need us to fly in?”
“We need someone to recon the entrance, the main port, and the exits, before we take the ship inside.”
Josh could see that his friend was getting suspicious. “You expecting trouble?” he asked the captain.
“I wouldn’t say expecting,” Nathan said. “Let’s just say we’re being overly cautious and leave it at that.”
“Say no more, Captain,” Josh told him. “We quite understand. Never trusted the Karuzari much myself, either.”
“It’s not so much a matter of trust at this point,” Nathan corrected. “As I said before, it’s more a matter of caution. We have too much at stake to risk haphazardly.”
“Yeah,” Josh agreed, changing to a more somber tone. “The chief told us all about the Jung and such. You blokes certainly have your plates full.”
Nathan smiled at the expression. “Yes, we do at that.”
“Captain?” Loki interrupted. “You said missions,” he added, emphasizing the plural.
“Yes. Later, we’ll also need you to make a couple of runs to the planet surface. First to deliver Tug and Jalea, along with most of the ore your team collected. And then to bring them and a load of supplies back to the ship a day or two after.”
“The surface? The surface of what? We’re not going back to Haven, are we?”
“No. We’ll be going to the Darvano system.”
“Darvano? But that’s nearly ten light years away. That’ll take weeks,” Loki exclaimed.
“Not for us, remember?” Nathan reminded him.
“You’re gonna jump?” Josh asked, unable to hide his excitement.
“Yes.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t mind seeing that. I don’t mind tellin’ ya,” Josh stated. Although not as easily excited as his friend, it was obvious that Loki was also excited.
“We’re going to jump in about five minutes,” Nathan told them. “Would you like to hang around and watch?”
“Oh, you bet,” Josh stated, Loki’s head nodding rapidly up and down.
“Very well, then. Follow me,” Nathan said as he rose from his desk.
Josh and Loki followed Nathan out of the ready room and back out onto the bridge.
“You guys just stand back here,” Nathan told them, pointing to the back of the room in front of the burnt-out comm station that had been offline since they had first encountered the Ta’Akar.
Nathan moved down from the upper platform that held the tactical station in the center, the jump control console on the right, and the new temporary comm-station on the left. “Are we ready to jump?”
“Jump drive is fully charged and ready. Our first jump is plotted and verified,” Abby reported.
“Where will the first jump take us?”
“Exactly five light years from here, to a point pretty much in the middle of nowhere, sir. But definitely deep within the Pentaurus cluster.”
“Helm ready?” Nathan asked as Cameron stepped down from the upper level and moved in front of him to sit at the helm console.
“Helm is ready, sir.”
“Are we gonna feel anything?” Josh asked Jessica, who was standing at the tactical console directly in front of him.
“No,” she said, turning her head slightly to cast a disapproving look at his question.
Nathan heard Josh’s question. “Commander, you know, maybe we should always warn the crew and passengers when we are about to jump. I mean, there is no sensation involved-not like when we’re accelerating or decelerating. It might be better for the crew to be aware of any abrupt change in location.”
“It might at that,” she agreed.
“Jess? Any problems with that?”
“None that I can think of, sir.”
“All right then. From now on, procedure will be to announce a jump at least one minute before. Then give a 5 second count down. Afterward, we should announce that the jump is complete, and specify our new location.”
“Is all that really necessary?” Cameron asked.
“Too much?”
“It does seem a bit dramatic. But then again, you may be right about the psychological affect on the crew. What good is it to have served aboard a starship if you never even knew where you went?”
“Great. You might want to add that to the manual, Commander,” Nathan announced with satisfaction.
“Might I also suggest that we rig some sort of auto-adjustment of the viewer to take place just before and after a jump, instead of shutting it down and then back up. It takes a few seconds for the system to reboot when it’s shut completely off, and those few seconds could be crucial upon arrival.”
“That’s an excellent idea. Add that one to the book as well.”
“Captain,” Jessica began. “Who makes the announcement?”
“Well, as long as Abby is controlling the jump, then she can make the actual jump announcements. “Comms can make the initial ship-wide, and then announce our new location when we arrive.” Nathan turned to the comm-officer. “Ensign.”
“Attention all hands. Stand by to jump in one minute.”
Nathan took a seat in his command chair, located on the middle level between the tactical console and the flight consoles.
“Why one minute?” Cameron asked as she turned around from the helm to face him.
“I don’t know. Because it sounded good?”
“We can fine tune the procedures later,” she said with a raised eyebrow, as she turned back around to face the helm console and the main view screen.
Josh and Loki watched as the bridge staff calmly pressed buttons, checked readouts, and made adjustments to various systems as they waited for the jump to occur.
“Captain,” Abby said. “I’ve taken the liberty of adding a small subroutine to the jump sequencer that will dim the brightness and contrast of the main viewing system as soon as the jump is initiated. It will restore the original settings immediately after the jump has completed.”
“Excellent.”
“Ten seconds to jump,” Abby announced.
Nathan looked over his left shoulder toward the comm-officer, gesturing to him. “Patch the doctor ship-wide.”
Abby’s voice echoed throughout the ship as she announced the jump sequence. “Jumping in five-”
Abby turned the key to arm the jumping system.
“Four-”
She flipped open the two clear covers that protected the jump field generators from being activated accidently, and flipped both rocker switches.
“Three-”
Josh and Loki both looked nervous as they swallowed hard.
“Two-”
Abby flipped open the cover over the large red button that a technician had wired into the console to serve as the main jump initiation button.
“One-”
The main view screen suddenly dimmed.
“Jumping.”
Abby pressed the button and initiated the jump.
Josh and Loki watched through the dimmed viewer as a pale blue wave of light quickly spread out from the emitters on the hull. Within a split second, each wave of light had connected with its neighbor and their brilliance increased rapidly into a blinding flash of white light, subdued only by the lowered display settings on the main view screen. A second later, the flash subsided, revealing that the stars had shifted ever so slightly.
“Jump complete,” Abby announced calmly.
“Verify position,” Nathan ordered.
After a few seconds, Cameron responded. “Position confirmed. We are now halfway between Takara and Darvano, approximately four point five light years from the Darvano system, and about twenty light hours outside of the known shipping lanes. We are now deep in the middle of the Pentaurus cluster.”
“Any contacts?” Nathan asked.
“Negative, sir,” Kaylah responded.
Sensing that the jump was over, Josh could no longer control himself. “Oh that was just the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” Loki said nothing, only standing there with his mouth hanging open.
“Let’s do it again,” Josh exclaimed.
“We will,” Nathan promised. “In about five hours.”
“Great! That should be just enough time to teach us how to fly this thing,” Josh exclaimed, as he started advancing toward the front of the bridge.
“Easy there, fella,” Jessica warned him, stepping in his path.
“No, wait a minute,” Nathan said, much to everyone’s surprise. “That might not be such a bad idea.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Cameron responded.
“Well not right away, of course. But why don’t we put them in the simulator and see how they do? I mean, they can’t crash the simulator.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Cameron spouted. “Have you seen him fly?”
“I was riding with him, remember? Seriously, Cam. You’ve been on duty pretty much non-stop for days now, with no more than a few hours of sleep here and there. It might not be a bad idea to have a backup pilot and navigator.”
“Nathan, get serious. These guys don’t know the first thing about this ship.”
“Let’s just throw them in the sim and see what happens. You never know. And it might keep them out of trouble.”
“Yeah, come on, love. Give us a shot,” Josh called out from the back of the bridge.
Cameron rolled her eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh.
“I’ll cancel your debt,” Josh added.
“What?”
“You still owe me two dinner dates, remember?”
“Fine, they can play in the simulator. But there is no way they’re flying this ship unless they do better in the sims than any of us ever did.”
Nathan smiled. “Jess, would you mind getting them started?”
“What the hell,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere for awhile anyway.” She turned around to head out. “Come on, boys, I’ll show you the arcade.”
As Jessica led the two pilots into the corridor, they met Vladimir and Tug’s oldest daughter, Deliza, coming from the opposite direction.
“Good Morning, Jessica,” Vladimir greeted.
“Hey, Vlad. Hi Deliza,” Jessica said. “What’cha up to?”
“Deliza has been a very big help in Engineering. I thought I would reward her by showing her the bridge.”
As Vladimir was talking, Deliza was stealing shy glances at Josh and Loki, who were only a few years older than her. Noticing her glances, Josh instantly turned on the charm.
“Hi, I’m Josh. You probably don’t recognize me. Last time I saw you I was wearing my flight helmet. I’m the pilot that saved you from Haven.”
“We’re the pilots that saved you from Haven,” Loki corrected, stepping up next to Josh, vying for Deliza’s attention.
“Enough boys,” Jessica scolded. “Eyes forward and keep going.”
Vladimir looked confused. “Where are you taking them?”
“Captain wants to toss them into the flight simulator, see how they fair at flying this ship.”
“Really? Why does this not surprise me?”
“Nothing Nathan does these days surprises me,” she agreed as she followed them off down the corridor.
Vladimir turned back toward the entrance to the bridge. He spied Nathan through the hatch. “Nathan!” he called. He turned to Deliza. “Wait right here,” he instructed before stepping through the hatch onto the bridge. “Nathan, I was wondering if I could show Deliza the bridge.”
“Today seems to be the day for tours. Why?”
“She seems to have a knack for identifying inefficiencies, especially with computer systems. And I think she is interested in the jump drive. I thought perhaps she might be of assistance if and when we get our hands on the zero-point device.”
“But she’s only sixteen.”
“This is true. But I get this feeling that she understands our technology better than we do.”
Nathan looked at his friend. “You’re serious?”
“Da.”
Nathan peeked past Vladimir at Deliza standing in the corridor on the other side of the hatchway. “What the hell. I just sent a pair of nineteen year-olds to learn how to fly this ship. I guess I might as well let a sixteen year try to fix it.”
Vladimir turned to motion Deliza to enter. “Deliza, you remember Nathan?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for allowing me on the bridge.”
“No problem. Vladimir tells me you understand our system quite well. I imagine they must seem antiquated to you.”
“No, of course not,” she said, not wanting to offend him. “Your ship is very interesting. It is true, that the systems are… different. And in many cases some of your systems use a design that we abandoned long ago. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are not as good. Some of them I find to be far more robust and dependable. Advancement for the sake of advancement is not always a good thing.”
“A very wise observation,” Nathan agreed.
“My grandfather used to say, a flame will provide enough light, without running up a bill.”
Nathan and Deliza both looked at Vladimir.
“Okay, my grandfather was a little crazy.”
“I am most interested in this jump drive that you use for interstellar movement. I understand that it utilizes some combination of expanding and collapsing energy fields to initiate-”
“Whoa, you’re already flying way over my head, there,” Nathan admitted. “Perhaps you should introduce her to Doctor Sorenson,” he recommended, pointing toward Abby.
Vladimir led Deliza the few steps over to the jump control console, where Abby was busy processing the calculations for the next jump plot. “Doctor Sorenson. If I may bother you for a moment?”
Abby turned to face Vladimir, expecting to have another confrontation with the stubborn engineer. Their working relationship had been trying since day one. Though things had improved due to the nature of their situation, both of them still approached one another cautiously.
When she saw Deliza standing next to Vladimir, she was a bit surprised. The last person she expected to see standing next to the arrogant Russian was a demure sixteen year-old girl. Suddenly, her maternal instinct kicked in, as she was reminded of her own daughter back on Earth. She was still far younger than the girl that stood before her, but there was still the same innocence in her eyes.
“Doctor Sorenson, I would like to introduce Deliza Tugwell. She is Tug’s oldest daughter.”
Abby remembered that the rebel leader’s wife, this young woman’s mother, had been killed during the battle on Haven not even a full day ago. And yet here this young woman was, standing proudly on the bridge of a foreign ship, meeting complete strangers-yet she was quite at ease.
“This is Doctor Sorenson,” Vladimir continued. “She is in charge of the entire jump drive project. She is a very smart woman.”
“It is an honor to meet you, ma’am,” Deliza said softly, holding out her hand.
“It is my pleasure.”
“Deliza is also a very smart young lady, Doctor. She has been helping her father maintain his ship for many years. And she has already helped me in engineering. She is very interested in your jump drive technology. Perhaps she could visit with you for awhile? Ask you some questions?”
Abby looked uncomfortable, and looked over at Nathan by the ready room entrance for approval. Nathan shrugged and held up his hand, putting his thumb and forefinger a few centimeters apart, indicating just a little.
“Sure,” Abby said, her frown changing into a smile. “A few. But you will have to wait a few minutes. I am running some calculations for the next jump. When they are complete, I will have more time. Maybe five minutes?”
“Of course,” Deliza answered, stepping back out of the way to wait.
“I must return to engineering.” Deliza waved to Vladimir as he left.
“Hey Vlad,” Nathan said, stopping him on his way out. “If she’s so much help to you,” he said under his breath, “then why are you leaving her here?”
“She is very smart, yes. And very helpful. But she will not stop asking me questions. Why, why, why, all morning long.”
Nathan smiled as Vladimir left the bridge. He was about to return to his ready room when the comm-officer called for him.
“Captain, I’m picking up a lot of communications signals.”
“What kind of signals?”
“Everything. Audio, video, telemetry, even news broadcasts.”
“From where?”
“From everywhere,” the comm-officer reported. My guess is that since we’re sitting right smack dab in the middle of the cluster, we’re picking up signals from every star around us.”
“Don’t we always pick up such traffic?”
“Well, yes, but the signal strengths are usually too low to be of any use. But these are all quite strong.”
“Start recording them,” he instructed. “And call Jessica to my ready room.”
“Yes, sir. But Captain, with so much of our core still down, we’re going to run out of storage space in about twenty hours if I record everything.”
“Understood. I’ll let you know.”
Deliza stood behind Abby and off to the side, twisting and straining to see the displays on the physicist’s console as the numbers danced across the screen, changing every few seconds as the calculations constantly updated. After several minutes, she could no longer control herself. “Are you running those calculations concurrently through the same processing bank, or are you running each stream through a different bank?”
“Excuse me?” Abby asked. She was a bit put off by the child’s question, as well as a bit impressed.
“I’m sorry,” Deliza apologized. “I shouldn’t bother you.”
“That’s all right,” Abby assured her, remembering that the poor girl had recently lost both her mother and her home. “They are running through separate processing banks. Why do you ask?”
“It’s just that the calculations seem to be running abnormally slow.”
“Yes, they are,” Abby admitted. “I’m afraid this console wasn’t really designed for these types of calculations. Spatial equations can be quite processor-intensive. Normally, we would run them on the main frames, but much of that system was damaged during our first battle.”
“The computers in my father’s ship could run those equations in one tenth the time,” she said enthusiastically, “maybe even less.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Even the ones in the shuttles could run them faster. The shuttles are highly automated, and their flight systems use entire arrays of processing banks. They need them to run the auto-piloting systems.”
“That’s interesting,” Abby admitted. “Do you think it’s possible to interface them with our systems?”
“I don’t see why not. They might lose a bit of performance due to the need to translate languages, but the hit should be negligible. I can help you install them,” Deliza offered.
“I’ll speak to the captain about it as soon as I finish plotting the next jump.”
“The next jump? Where are we now?”
“We’re in the middle of the Pentaurus cluster, about halfway between Takara and Darvano.”
“That’s in the middle of nowhere. Why are we out here?”
“Due to our limitations in power generation, the jump drive only has a range of 10 light years. And the captain prefers to jump into a system with enough energy to jump out again in a hurry, in case there is trouble.”
“A wise precaution. Then we are waiting to recharge your energy reserves?”
“Yes,” Abby answered, surprised that she had come to the correct conclusion with so little information. “You catch on quickly, don’t you?”
“My father says I have a gift for science,” Deliza admitted. “It’s really all I do.”
“Don’t you have any other interests or hobbies?”
“No, not really. But I do enjoy science, very much in fact.”
“You remind me of myself at your age. I couldn’t get enough of it. My mother used to tell me to go out and be with my friends, but I preferred to study.”
Suddenly, the console beeped. Abby turned to check the status of her calculations. “There we are. All done.” She turned back to Deliza. “Now, let’s go talk to the captain about those computers.”
“You wanted to see me, sir?” Jessica asked as she entered the ready room.
“Yeah, Jess. Remember how you were talking about signals intelligence earlier?”
“Sure,” she answered as she plopped down on the couch.
Nathan was amused at the way she always went straight to that couch. “You really like that couch, don’t you?”
“Hey, what can I say? I’ve got a thing for couches.”
“Have you moved into your new quarters yet?”
“Naw, why?”
“They’re bigger. And they’ve got couches.”
“Great. I guess that’s next on my to-do list. So what were you saying about signals intel?”
“Comms reported a lot of civilian signals coming in from all directions. Mostly general broadcasting and communications stuff. Guess since we’re sitting in the middle of everything, we’re getting it from all over the cluster. I told comms to record everything, but he says with half the main frame still down, he’ll run out of storage space in less than a day.”
“Well, since we’re at least a few years out from any star, everything we pickup is going to be at least a few years old. So none of it will be actionable. But it could help give us a feel for the area-it’s history, customs, popular opinion, and the like. Hell, it could even tell us what the rebellion has been up to over the last few years. That is, if we get lucky and pick up a news broadcast or something.”
“Yeah, you’re right. But what about the storage issue.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’re only going to be out here for five hours anyway. After that we’ll be sitting much closer in, so the sig-int will be fresh. Of course, that presents a whole new problem. How are we going to translate it all?”
“There’s a woman, one of the workers. She was serving molo stew last night. Nara-something. Naralena, I think. She speaks like eight languages fluently. Worked as a translator before.”
“Eight languages? How the hell did she end up on Haven?”
“No idea. I wasn’t sure it was polite to ask, to be honest. Maybe she can help.”
“What the hell. Apparently we’re accepting all applicants.”
Nathan’s eyebrows raised momentarily, acknowledging that her pun had more truth in it than she might have realized. He pressed the call button on the comm-panel on the desk. “Can you hail Naralena to my ready room? She’s one of our guests.”
“Yes, sir,” the comm-officer replied over the comm-set.
“Captain?” Abby’s voice came from the hatchway. “A moment?”
“Of course, Doctor,” Nathan said, gesturing for her to enter. Abby stepped through the hatchway into the ready room, with Deliza following. Deliza looked sheepishly into the room, obviously feeling ill at ease in the captain’s official office.
Abby waited for Deliza to step up next to her before beginning. “Deliza has informed me that the computers used on the shuttle might be more efficient at processing the multi-spatial calculations used for plotting our jumps. If she is correct, it could speed up the process ten-fold. With your permission, I’d like to look into it.”
“As long as it doesn’t interfere with the operations of the drive, I don’t see why not,” Nathan answered. “You can probably use the one from the out-of-service shuttle. I believe they were planning on using it for spare parts anyway. I’ll let Josh and Loki know that you’ll be coming by.” Nathan looked directly at Deliza instead of Abby. “Thank you, Deliza.”
“You’re quite welcome, sir,” she answered as they turned to exit.
Jessica shook her head. “And the applicants just keep getting younger.”
“According to Vlad, that little girl is smarter than any of us.”
A few moments after Abby and Deliza departed, the Volonese woman, Naralena, appeared at the hatchway.
“Excuse me?” the woman said. “I was told you wished to speak with me.”
“Yes, Naralena, right?”
“Yes,” she said as she entered the room.
“This is Jessica Nash, my Chief of Security.”
“Pleased,” Jessica said. Naralena simply nodded politely.
“I was wondering if you could help us out.” Nathan said.
“I’d be happy to help in whatever way that I can, Captain.”
“We’re collecting a lot of transmissions, from neighboring stars and such. Communications, broadcasting, all sorts of stuff. But it’s all in languages that we don’t yet understand. We were hoping that you might be able to translate at least some of it for us.”
“I can certainly try. I do speak most of the common languages in this area. Is there anything in particular you are looking for?”
“We’re just trying to get a better understanding of the societies and cultures of the area, as well as a bit of recent history.”
“Yes, of course. I can see how that would be of use to you. Of course, I’d be more than happy to translate whatever I can.”
“Great, I’m going to have you work for Jessica for now. She’ll get you set up in one of our auxiliary offices for now, where you should be able to work without interruption.”
“It sounds like an interesting assignment,” she admitted. After working for the harvesting team on Haven for the last six months, sitting in a climate controlled, clean office translating any number of common languages into ancient Angla was going to be a joy.
Jessica rose to escort Naralena to her new office.
“You know, in sig-int, they usually have computer algorithms that search for keywords and phrases, tagging them for further analysis. Maybe we can rig up something similar?”
“Talk to Vlad,” Nathan told her. “He might be able to help you out with that.”
Nathan was a bit surprised to see Deliza sitting on the floor, behind and beside the jump control console located at the aft end of the starboard side of the bridge. She had several large electronic components arranged around her, one of which was connected to an external battery of some type. The side panel to the aft end of the jump control console was open, and Deliza appeared to be peering into the opening, comparing what she saw inside the console to the array of connectors she had splayed out across the deck in front of her. As she checked each connector, she entered information into her data pad, apparently double-checking and triple-checking everything.
“What’s she doing?” Nathan whispered to Jessica at the tactical station.
“I think she’s figuring out how to connect that computer core from the shuttle with the one in Abby’s console.”
“That’s not going to interfere with anything, is it?”
“Not according to Abby. But I advised that she wait until after we reach the hideout before she started connecting anything. For now, the little brainiac is just figuring out how she’s going to connect it. I’m pretty sure I heard Abby talking about running some simulations on the shuttle core first, though.”
“How are we looking, Doctor?” Nathan asked Abby.
“Jump drive is fully charged. The last jump to just outside the Darvano system is plotted and ready, and an escape jump from Darvano is also ready.”
“Very well. Stand by for a jump.”
“Standing by,” Abby said. She leaned down toward Deliza. “You might want to see this.” Deliza grinned, and immediately stood up, moving into position to better view the event.
Nathan looked around. “Where’s Cam?”
“Getting some rack time,” Jessica told him.
“We can do this without her, can’t we?”
“You’re the captain. What are you asking me for?”
“Right. Let her sleep. Give a ship-wide jump warning-except for Cam’s cabin.”
Jessica pressed a few keys, telling the computer to exclude Cameron’s cabin from the broadcast. “All hands, one minute to jump. Repeat, one minute to jump.”
“Kaylah. Any contacts in the area?”
“No, sir. The scope is clear.”
Nathan leaned back to whisper to Jessica again. “You know, this used to give me the heebie-jeebies. But now that I’m getting used to the idea, I’m starting to kind of like it. It feels really powerful to be able to give the order, and just like that, we’re suddenly light years away.”
Jessica looked at Nathan’s boyish grin. “You’re kind of weird, sir.”
“Ten seconds to jump,” Abby announced. She switched on her headset, which was now pre-programmed to broadcast ship-wide during a jump. She counted down from five to one, and jumped the ship yet again.
Deliza watched the main viewer as it darkened just enough to prevent the sudden explosion of blue-white light from blinding all those looking directly at it. As fast as it had come, it was gone, and the stars shifted again.
“Jump complete,” Abby announced. “In position just outside of the Darvano system, thirty-three point four light hours out from Corinair.”
“Contacts?” Nathan immediately asked.
“No contacts,” Kaylah announced after a moment’s pause. “The scope is clear.”
Abby turned around just enough to see Deliza’s face.
“That was amazing!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, it was,” Abby agreed. She could see the wonder in the child’s eyes. But she could also see the mind of a genius as she calculated the scientific implications that such a device carried. It was the same dancing eyes she had seen on her father when they had accidentally discovered a way to jump vast distances in space during their testing of advanced energy shielding. The accident that had revealed this miracle of science and physics to them had been so discreet that the effect on the test vehicle’s position had almost gone completely unnoticed. In fact, it had for several months. And it would still be a mystery had her father not noticed the discrepancy. And he might still be alive, she thought.
“How often do you guys do that?” Deliza asked.
“Oh, a few times a week, at least,” Nathan bragged.
“You are weird,” Jessica mumbled.
Nathan just sneered at her. “Kaylah, scan everything you can, and compare it to the star charts that were translated from Tug’s fighter. I want to know everything possible about this system before we try to sneak into it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Doctor, how long until we can enter the system?” Nathan asked.
“Four and a half hours to be fully charged,” Abby answered. “But there is more than enough power to jump in now, and still have enough for a short escape jump, if you prefer not to wait.”
“I can wait,” Nathan insisted. “I prefer to enter with as much jump juice left over as possible. We’ll have a pre-jump briefing in four hours. Command staff, the shuttle crew, and Tug and Jalea,” he said as he turned to head back to his ready room. “You have the con, Jess.”
“Aye, sir,” Jessica responded. She slowly turned her head to face Abby, waiting for Nathan to leave the room. “Jump juice?”
Abby just shook her head at the euphemism.