by Ryk Brown
“You work here?” Jessica asked with indignation.
“Uh, yes, sir,” the man responded. “How can I help you?”
“You can help me by finding out the status of this man’s friend… the young woman who has been in surgery for the last few hours.”
“I don’t know anything about…”
“Then find out, and pronto!” Jessica demanded. “That’s an order, mister!”
“Yes, sir,” the technician responded, quickly exiting the room.
Jessica turned back around to face Tony. “Sometimes you just have to get a little angry to get what you need.”
“Seems wrong to leave someone sitting here wondering for so long.”
“Yeah, well, this isn’t a civilian facility. They aren’t used to dealing with concerned family members or close friends. Here, everyone goes back to work, and they hear about the patient’s status later through the proper channels.”
“Makes sense, I guess. It doesn’t exactly inspire confidence though.”
“Well, I promise you, you aren’t going to find better medical care anywhere… certainly not on Earth.”
“Yeah, it’s practically nonexistent on Earth these days. Unless you’re dying, you have to wait weeks to be seen.”
“Well, the nanites they use can fix just about anything in a third of the time it would take our bodies to heal naturally.”
“They were worried about giving her nanites when we first arrived. That guy, Josh, said the nanites can cause pain to people that aren’t from Corinair.” Tony looked at her. “Is that true?”
“My understanding is that there is some debate about that,” Jessica said as she leaned against the edge of the bed next to him. “I know that Commander Taylor, who is from Earth, went through a lot of discomfort during her nanite therapy. She was more busted up though. It could’ve just been her in particular. I don’t know, really. Others on our crew from Earth have been treated using the nanites, but I don’t know the specifics.”
Doctor Chen came into the room carrying her data pad. “I’m sorry you’ve had to wait so long for word,” she told Tony. “I spoke with Doctor Galloway who is performing the surgery. They will be done within the hour. Synda is still in critical condition. However, she is expected to survive.”
“Are the nanites going to cause her pain?” Tony asked.
“It is possible, but we can manage any discomfort she experiences due to the nanites. If the pain is too severe, we can even keep her in a comatose state during the nanite therapy. I don’t believe that will be necessary in her case however.”
“Will I be able to stay with her?”
“Not for the first few hours during her recovery,” Doctor Chen explained. “However, after that, you can spend as much time as you like with her.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Jessica said. Tony nodded his appreciation as well. Jessica turned back to Tony. “Well, I haven’t eaten since before we left Earth. What about you? Are you hungry?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I should wait here.”
“Nonsense,” Jessica insisted. “You heard the doc. You won’t be able to see her for a few hours. Might as well get some grub while you wait. Besides, I’m buying.”
Tony sighed as he rose from the bed. He looked around the room again as he slowly followed Jessica out of the treatment center. “I have to admit that this is all a bit overwhelming,” he said as they entered the corridor. “I’ve never even flown in a plane before, let alone in a spaceship—not to mention a spaceship that was supposed to be lost months ago.”
“Yeah, I can see how it would be,” Jessica agreed. “But you do have to admit that it is pretty cool.”
* * *
Josh and Loki stepped through the forward hatch on the starboard side of the Aurora’s main hangar bay and headed across the deck. It was the first time Josh had donned a full flight suit since their escape from Tanna in the 72 Herculis system more than a month earlier. He tried not to smile but was clearly losing the battle. As they passed the edge of the starboard forward transfer airlock and caught their first sight of the newly repaired Falcon, his smile turned into a grin.
“Whoa,” Josh exclaimed.
Loki smiled as well. Although it was to be the Falcon’s first flight since she had been repaired, he had already seen the refurbished, old interceptor.
“The new paint job looks great,” Josh said as he ran his hand along the underside of the Falcon’s nose. He could feel the ship’s fusion reactors humming from inside as he admired the ship’s jet-black finish. “She’s already fired up?”
“Marcus put together our own dedicated ground crew,” Loki explained. “We now have our own crew chief, weapons tech, engineer, and systems specialists.”
“No jump drive specialist?”
“We still have to share one with the jump shuttle,” Loki said. “There are only three jump-capable spacecraft on board. They spun up her reactors and did the preflight while we were suiting up.”
Josh tapped Loki on the chest with the back of his hand as he passed by. “Pretty cool, having our own flight crew, huh?”
“I guess the captain figured that with as many flights as the Falcon will be flying, she needed a full time crew to keep her space worthy at all times.”
“Is this the same dissipative stuff as before?” Josh asked, noticing the tiny reflections of light in the Falcon’s paint.
“It’s supposed to be better,” Loki explained. “The Takarans provided the same formula they use to coat the Ghatazhak armor. It will reduce the energy transfer from an energy weapon blast by up to seventy percent. We should be able to take several direct hits in the same location before experiencing hull damage.”
Josh squatted down to look underneath the Falcon. “That’s definitely new,” he said, pointing at a shallow dome nearly a meter in diameter that protruded from the bottom of the ship amidst its main gear.
“They added better sensors as well,” Loki explained. “We’ve got better image resolution on visible light and better signal collection. We also have improved thermal imaging systems.”
Josh stood up and backed away from the ship as he walked around the backside to complete his inspection. “What is that?” he asked as he spotted entirely new thrust ports on the Falcon’s main propulsion system.
“That’s the best part,” Loki explained. “They built new covers around the thrust ports to hide direct view of our main propulsion thrust ports. We only have to be a few degrees off the enemy target’s sight line, and they won’t see our thrust.”
“What about our thermal signature?”
“It will still be there, but it will be significantly reduced.”
“But those thrust ports used to gimbal,” Josh said, somewhat concerned. “If we lose that, we lose a lot of maneuverability.”
“We didn’t lose it,” Loki told him. “The entire cover separates and retracts up the top and bottom sides, allowing full gimbal of the thrust ports.”
“So we only close them up to hide our departure burns, then?”
“Yes. The idea is that, once we’ve completed a recon, we can accelerate without detection in order to get to a safe jump point more quickly.”
“Hey, anything that shortens our cold-coast time is fine by me,” Josh declared. “Any other surprises I should know about?”
“A few,” Loki said. “The nose turret’s destructive power has been increased thirty percent. The weapons bays have been widened, allowing two additional attachment points in each bay. And the laser comm-array now can auto-track on a fixed coordinate, allowing us to maneuver without having to refocus the array to maintain laser-based communications.”
“Sweet,” Josh said as he headed toward the boarding ladder on the Falcon’s port side. “Let’s mount up.”
Loki foll
owed Josh up the boarding ladder, climbing into the backseat of the Falcon’s cockpit.
Josh snuggled down into his seat at the front of the cockpit, looking over the familiar console of the old Takaran deep-space interceptor. The old ship was his baby. It had been Tug’s ship for many decades. The old man had flown it on missions as the leader of the Karuzari. He had taught Josh to fly it back on Corinair. It was a fast ship, able to accelerate up to ninety percent the speed of light in relatively short order. Since the Corinairans had installed a miniature version of the Aurora’s jump drive in her, she had become a potent reconnaissance and quick strike platform. This was where he belonged.
He listened to Loki calling off the engine start checklist as if he were listening to his favorite song, answering back to each call out as if he were singing along with the tune.
With their checklist complete, Loki fired up the Falcon’s flight systems as the canopy closed and locked into place. Josh gave a thumbs-up sign to the crew chief standing in front of them, and the elevator beneath them began to rise, lifting them quickly up into the long shaft that led all the way up through the top of the Aurora’s outer hull. The journey upward took nearly a minute with the dull shaft lights casting odd shadows into the Falcon’s cockpit as they traveled upward. Finally, they came to a stop in the transfer airlock just below the outer doors. The inner airlock doors slid closed beneath them, and they waited another minute as the air was sucked out of the airlock. Finally, the outer doors opened, allowing them a view of the massive gas giant hovering over them.
“Holy crap!” Josh exclaimed, his pulse quickening. “I didn’t realize we were that close to Jupiter.”
The elevator began to move again, lifting them the rest of the way up and coming to rest less than a meter below the Aurora’s outer hull surface.
“Flight, Falcon. In position and ready for launch,” Loki announced over the comms.
“Falcon, Flight. Clear for launch,” the flight controller answered. “Welcome back, gentlemen.”
“Flight, Falcon copies clear for launch. Thanks.”
Josh looked down at his console, then quickly around the outside of his ship. “Here we go,” he announced as he fired his thrusters. The Falcon lifted smartly off the pad, translating directly upward and away from the Aurora. As they ascended, Josh rolled his ship to starboard thirty degrees.
“What are you doing?” Loki asked.
“Just wanted to get a look at the Celestia,” Josh explained. “It’s not every day you see a ship that size sitting on the surface of a moon. Who knows if we’ll get another chance?”
Loki was already looking out the side of the canopy. “Weird, isn’t it? She looks just like the Aurora.”
“Finish her up, slap a new coat of paint on her, give her some guns, and we’d have a fleet!”
* * *
“What about your fusion generators?” Vladimir asked Ensign Tillardi as they continued down one of the Celestia’s lateral corridors toward her starboard side.
“We don’t have any,” Tilly admitted.
“They installed antimatter reactors without fusion backups?” Vladimir exclaimed. “Are they crazy?”
“One of the build techs told me that all kinds of things in the build order got rearranged to get the ship ready to fly in a hurry. I guess once you guys disappeared, they got nervous.”
“If they were so nervous, why didn’t they install any guns?” Vladimir asked. “They could have at least dropped in the quads. Your transit tunnels are already in place, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
Vladimir stopped at the entrance to the starboard FTL generator room and pressed the button on the control panel to open the door. Nothing happened.
“It’s locked, sir.”
Vladimir looked at the ensign. “Why?”
“There were some guys from special projects working in there when the attack came.”
“What were they working on?” Vladimir asked.
“Something to do with improving the efficiency of the FTL fields,” Lieutenant Commander Kovacic said. “They don’t talk much about it. Their spec-ops babysitters are always watching them.”
“They’re still on board?”
“Yes, sir,” Tilly answered. “They’re probably in there right now. They only come out to eat, sleep, and use the head.”
“Open it,” Vladimir ordered.
“Lieutenant Commander, that area has been deemed off limits by special projects,” Lieutenant Commander Kovacic explained. “It’s classified as top secret.”
“You’re the CO of this ship, aren’t you?” Vladimir said. “Don’t you think you should know what is happening on your own ship?”
“I tried,” Lieutenant Commander Kovacic defended, “but those spec-ops boys won’t listen. They claim to be under orders from Admiral Galiardi himself, and I believe them.”
Vladimir looked at the lieutenant commander in disbelief.
“The admiral called me and gave me my orders personally. I was just running a supply team to transfer provisions onto this ship when the attack came.”
Vladimir activated the intercom built into the control panel on the bulkhead next to the door. “Attention. This is Lieutenant Commander Kamenetskiy of the UES Aurora. I order you to open the doors immediately.”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I cannot comply with your orders,” a voice answered over the intercom.
“Identify yourself,” Vladimir ordered.
“Barrows, Clifford T, Ensign, SO-4,” the voice answered.
“You do realize that I outrank you, Ensign.”
“Yes, sir, I do. But this area is classified. I am under orders directly from EDF command. No one enters either field generator room without express permission from EDF command authority.”
Vladimir turned to Ensign Tillardi. “Open it.”
“What?”
“You do know how to override an internally locked door control, don’t you?”
“Uh, yes, sir, I do.” Tilly glanced at his CO. “I just didn’t think I was supposed to admit it—at least, not to a command officer.”
“We’re not your typical command officers,” Vladimir said, pointing at the control panel. He looked at the two Corinari guards that had accompanied them. They got the message and moved into position on either side of Vladimir, weapons raised and ready.
Ensign Tillardi glanced nervously back at the armed guards, as well as his CO, as he removed the control panel faceplate and bypassed the door control lock.
The big doors to the field generator room split down the middle and slid open to either side. The two spec-ops soldiers on the inside quickly raised their weapons.
“Drop them!” the Corinari sergeant demanded as his body tensed and his finger slid from his trigger guard to the trigger itself. He took aim on the spec-ops soldier to the left while his partner took aim on the one to the right.
Vladimir stood in the middle of the doorway, his hands clasped behind his back as he calmly looked at the two special operations troops nervously holding their weapons at the ready. Both men wore scraggly beards and tattered uniforms, much like the rest of the Celestia’s haggard crew. “Well, apparently we have a problem.”
“This area is classified, sir!” one of the spec-ops soldiers instructed.
“Yes, you already told me as much,” Vladimir responded. He slowly moved his hand up to his comm-set, tapping it to place a call. “Aurora Actual, Cheng.”
“What are you doing, sir?” the spec-ops soldier asked, his weapon pointed directly at Vladimir’s face.
“You said you needed EDF command authority to allow me to enter, did you not?”
“Cheng, go for Aurora Actual,” Nathan’s voice answered in Vladimir’s comm-set.
“Captain, I have a pair of ne
rvous, unshaven, special operations types pointing weapons at me.”
“Why?”
“Apparently both of the Celestia’s FTL field generator bays are off-limits. I am told that special projects was conducting some sort of experiment.” Vladimir looked beyond the two spec-ops soldiers at the massive generators in the room. Several technicians in similarly deteriorated clothing looked on from either side of the equipment. “Bozhe moi,” Vladimir exclaimed as he suddenly realized what he was looking at in the distance.
“What is it?” Nathan asked, recognizing the Russian phrase.
“Captain, I think the Celestia has a jump drive.”
CHAPTER TWO
“She can fly,” Vladimir said, leaning forward on the conference table, “but she barely has enough propellant on board to lift off, let alone to change orbit or reach escape velocity to leave the Jovian system.”
“Assume for a moment that propellant is not an issue,” Nathan said. “How much work would be required to get her to minimum operational status?”
“It depends on what you mean by minimum,” Vladimir answered. “To navigate space, we only need to fix the leak and repressurize the command deck so she can at least support a flight crew. We should also connect the fore and aft sections with a pressurized passageway so we do not have to use EVA suits within the ship.”
“How long will that take?”
“A few days if we’re lucky.”
“What about the flight deck?” Major Prechitt asked. “If we could get it working, we could park some fighters there to help protect her.”
“The main hangar bay is open to space,” Vladimir explained. “None of the spacecraft transfer airlocks have been installed at the aft end of the bay. However, all of the internal transfer airlocks and elevators are installed and reported to be functional. So it is possible to use the fighter alleys and the cargo deck as the pressurized hangar decks.”
“Basically run all flight ops in combat mode, then,” Nathan said.