by Ryk Brown
“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. An
d 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 c
ouch. “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.