by Ryk Brown
“So,” Nathan said, breaking another uncomfortable silence. “My turn?”
“Fair is fair.”
Nathan began an exaggerated ritual, rubbing his hands together and pretending like he was loosening up for something really big.
“Alright already! Out with it!”
“You’re cold and dispassionate, you refuse to admit when you’re wrong, and you’re always trying to prove to everyone that you’re better than me.”
They sat there for a few moments, each thinking about what the other had said, trying to decide what was true and to come to terms with it.
“Well, you make me sound like a real bitch,” Cameron mumbled.
“I wouldn’t say that. I may have overheard others toss that word around, but…”
Cameron cut him off with a slap of the back of her hand against his shoulder.
“I am not dispassionate,” she objected.
“Maybe that was the wrong word.”
“So what do we do?”
“I don’t know, call a truce maybe?”
“I guess I can live with that,” she resigned.
Nathan held out his hand, which Cameron reluctantly shook. “Alright then.”
Cameron rose from her perch and made her way down the step ladder. Once back on the deck, she turned back to Nathan. “You know, I wasn’t trying to prove that I’m better than you,” she explained as she turned to walk away. “I already know that I am.”
Nathan just smiled and watched her walk away, thinking, she really is a bitch.
It had been a long walk back to his quarters from the hangar bay. And all Nathan wanted to do was climb into his bunk and stay there. The day had been long and exhausting, at least emotionally if not physically. And he suspected that despite their truce, the next few days were not likely to be any easier.
Nathan was sure that he had done everything possible to try to work with Cameron. In fact, he had purposely avoided giving her a direct order whenever possible so as not to make her feel like anything other than an equal partner. But after listening to the captain, he was starting to wonder if that had been a mistake. Nathan had never cared much about rank. He followed and respected it, after all, the Fleet was a military organization. And like any other it depended on rank and discipline in order to function, which he understood fully well. But having rank had never meant much to him, personally. Of course, that could’ve been because until now he had always been pretty much at the bottom of the totem pole. Nathan liked his job. He loved piloting the ship. But as far as being in charge was concerned, it was starting to feel more like a punishment than a privilege.
“There you are!” Vladimir declared from his bunk as Nathan entered their quarters. “I was starting to wonder if you had fallen asleep in the simulator!”
“I’ve spent the last couple of hours being verbally assaulted,” Nathan explained as he took of his uniform shirt.
“What are you talking about?”
Nathan kicked off his shoes and fell onto his bunk, rolling over onto his back before continuing. “First, I was getting chewed out by the captain. Then I got an ear full from Cameron’s roommate.”
“The little red head?” Vladimir inquired. “She is full of fire, that one.”
“Yeah, tell me about it. Then, I had to do a little verbal jousting with Cameron in the hangar bay.”
“This does not sound like a good time,” Vladimir sympathized. “What did the captain want?”
“Let’s just say that if Cam and I don’t get our act together and start playing nice over the next few days, you’re gonna have a new roommate.”
“Bah! It will never happen, my friend. You will do fine, you will see.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure, Vlad. We’ve been screwing up the simulations left and right! If I was the captain, I wouldn’t let us fly a cargo shuttle, let alone a starship.”
“Nathan, you worry too much. These simulations they put you through, they are crazy! They could never happen! These people who make them, they are reading too much science fiction. Trust me on this, such things do not happen to people such as us.”
“I don’t know,” Nathan objected.
“Listen, when they give you normal stuff, you know flying around, dock with this, dock with that-this you do okay, yes?”
“Sure, but…”
“…The captain, he knows this, trust me.”
“Maybe, but it’s not about flying the ship. It’s about Cam and I not getting along.”
“Yes, of this I have heard.”
“What?”
“Everyone knows this,” Vladimir explained. “They say you are like old married couple,” he laughed. “Hey, maybe you should sleep with her!”
“Oh, that would really help!” Nathan protested.
“Okay, then maybe I should sleep with her?”
“Get serious.”
“It’s a big sacrifice, yes. But for you, I am willing to do this.” Vladimir joked.
“No thanks,” Nathan chuckled, “That won’t be necessary.”
“Are you sure? I can go right now. I am always ready to serve.”
“Enough, already!”
They both had a good laugh over the idea, after which Nathan decided to change the subject. “So, speaking of woman problems, how are things going in your part of the ship?”
“Better,” Vladimir said. “She is not as bad as before. She is still a pain in my ass. But at least not as often.”
“What happened? Did you sleep with her?”
“No, of course not,” Vladimir protested. “Not that I wouldn’t, because of course I would if necessary.”
“For the good of the ship?” Nathan teased.
“Yes, for the good of the ship!” Vladimir announced proudly. “For the Aurora!”
“For the Aurora!” Nathan laughed.
Captain Roberts entered the briefing room at exactly 0800 hours, his data pad in one hand and his coffee mug in the other. “Good morning gentlemen,” he greeted, as he made his way to the head of the table and sat down. Commander Montero, his executive officer and his chief engineer, Lieutenant Commander Patel were already seated at the table. “Thank you for coming. I know you all have more than enough work to do since we’re still so short handed. So I’ll try to keep this meeting as brief as possible.”
The captain took another sip of coffee before continuing, calling up his notes on his data pad as usual, to ensure that any pertinent information he might need would be at his finger tips. He was a man who believed in being well prepared whenever possible.
“The reason for this meeting is that Fleet Command is anxious for us to get underway on a limited test run of our primary propulsion systems. It seems that there is some concern over the efficacy of their design, as well as their projected performance capabilities. If that turns out to be the case, Command would like to be able to address these problems before the Celestia is fitted with the same propulsion systems.”
“Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Patel interrupted, “I am not aware of any of these concerns you speak of. In fact, our simulations predict that we should be able to reach eighty percent the speed of light, instead of the original projections of seventy-five.”
“I’m not disagreeing with you at all, Chief,” the captain assured him. “I’m quite sure you’re correct. All I know is that Command wants us to be ready to depart for a basic lap around the block in twenty-four hours. If there’s some other reason for these orders, they’ve decided that I don’t need to know. What I do need to know is are we ready for a basic test sail?”
“All flight systems are online and ready, sir,” the chief assured him. “And main propulsion has been ready for several days now. However, we do not have all of our weaponry installed, and we have no energy shielding installed, as the team from Special Projects is still using those spaces.”
“Well, do we have any weaponry?”
“Yes sir, we have most of the forward rail gun turrets installed and ready, but all guns
aft of amidships have yet to be hooked into main power. We also have the forward torpedo tubes ready to go, but the aft tubes still need to have their loading systems installed. All of those components are still sitting in the main hangar bay.”
“That reminds me,” the captain interrupted, turning to his commander. “We need to move as much of that stuff in the hangar bay into the cargo holds for the time being. We’re going to need room for shuttle craft to operate out of the flight deck if anything goes wrong during our first sail.”
“Sure, Captain,” the XO promised. “But some of that stuff is pretty big.”
“Well, move the smaller stuff out, and slide the bigger stuff off to the sides out of the way. We don’t need the whole bay, clear. Just enough room for five or six shuttles should do it.”
“Yes sir.”
“I’ve also insisted that we at least get ammunition for our rail guns, and a dozen torpedoes, just in case. Something about sailing out in a warship without any bullets just doesn’t sit right with me. Even if it is just a few laps around the block.”
“Captain,” the chief asked. “I just want to remind you that we’ll be operating with only half our designed reactor capacity, since the Special Projects people hijacked the other half.”
“Really?” the captain asked, somewhat surprised. “That’s a lot of power. What the hell are they doing with it?”
“I really do not know, sir. They aren’t talking. Best I can tell is that it involves the shield emitters, since they’ve hijacked them as well.”
“Maybe a new type of energy shielding?” the XO theorized.
“That’s what I was thinking.”
“Any idea when they’ll be finished?” the captain asked.
“Not really. But they haven’t been asking for as much lately, so maybe that means they’ve completed their work.”
“Let’s hope so,” the XO added. “Those people make me nervous.”
“Well, will two reactors be sufficient?” the captain asked Chief Patel.
“Yes sir. More than enough, for a little trip around the neighborhood. But we won’t be able to use our FTL field emitters until after we get our other two reactors back.”
“Understood. Okay, so that brings us to the crew,” the captain said, turning toward Commander Montero.
“We’ve got one full skeleton shift trained and ready, Captain,” the commander responded. “I wouldn’t want to go into battle with them, but they should be able to handle a basic test sail without screwing anything up too badly.”
“Very well.”
“That reminds me,” the commander added. “How’s your little training project going?”
“Lieutenant Scott and Ensign Taylor are at least trying to work together. They still have a long way to go, but I think it might do them some good to get out of the simulator and into real space.”
“I hope you’re right,” the commander cautioned. “I’ve seen some of their training tapes, and I’ve gotta tell, Skipper, those two scare me.
“Okay, so I guess I can tell Command that we’re ready enough, then.” The captain leaned back in his chair for a moment before continuing. “There’s going to be an inspection tomorrow morning by Admiral Yamori. Let’s make sure we’re ready for it.”
As the Fleet was only about thirty years old, there were only four admirals in the ranks. Admiral Yamori was in charge of fleet development, which included the special projects division as well as the design and construction of new ships to fill out the Earth’s burgeoning space defense force. Prior to his service in the fleet, he had commanded several sea-going warships in the Eurasian navy. Once the Data Ark had been discovered, he had retired from the navy to study physics and advanced spacecraft design at the European campus of the Ark Institute. He was the only admiral in the fleet that had never actually commanded a space vessel. But then, his position was about building them, not operating them.
“You’ve made remarkable progress, Bill,” the admiral praised, as they strolled the corridors of the engineering section. “Especially considering how under staffed you’ve been.”
“Thank you, Sir,” the captain responded. “We’ve been working around the clock to try and get her ready. But a lot of the credit goes to the station crews, Sir. They’ve been working their tails off, every minute of every day. We couldn’t have gotten this far without them.”
“Yes, I’m sure.”
“It also was a big help to have most of the components available in our hangar bay, Sir,” Commander Montero added. “We never had to wait for anything to be shuttled up to us.”
The admiral had started his tour at the bridge, worked his way aft, and had just finished up in engineering when they met up with doctors Karlsen and Sorenson in the corridor.
“Ah, Doctor Karlsen,” the admiral greeted. “And Doctor Sorenson. A pleasure to see you, as always. I hope everything is going well for you?”
“If you’d like to take a look for yourself, Admiral, we are ready.”
“Excellent.” The admiral turned to the captain and the XO. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. I’ll meet up with you later on the bridge.”
“Yes Sir,” the captain agreed. The captain and the commander, snapped to attention, saluting the admiral as he departed.
The admiral followed the two doctors past the armed guards that had been at the entrances to both the port and starboard shield generator bays since the special projects team had come aboard.
“I’d love to be a fly on that wall right about now,” the XO commented as they headed for the bridge.
“I have a feeling we’re going to know all about it soon enough,” the captain assured him.
CHAPTER 4
The day had started off like any other, up at six in the morning and breakfast at seven. Only today Nathan felt far more optimistic than he could remember since coming aboard. It might have been the time spent on the bridge the day before, where the simulations that he and Cameron had run seemed to have gone more smoothly than usual. He didn’t know if they were finally developing a working rapport, or if it was just that on the bridge, there were far more eyes on them.
But his good mood could also have been the result of a shorter than usual work day. Because of the inspection, the captain had given the entire crew the evening off, with none of the usual after dinner training or work teams that usually lasted right up until bedtime.
But most likely, Nathan’s, as well as everyone else’s better than usual moods were probably due to the knowledge that not only was today a ‘training free’ day, scuttlebutt had it that they were going to take the ship out for quick ‘lap around the block’, as the XO had referred to it. After weeks of intense training and late night work parties, the crew was itching to show what they could do.
Of course, every section chief had objected to the idea of starting the Aurora’s trials earlier than originally scheduled. There were still dozens of systems that were not completely installed. The galley, for example, still did not have functioning cold storage and the crew was still being fed by the mess halls down on Earth. More than half of the ships weaponry was still incomplete, her FTL fields were inoperative, as were the shields. But until the special projects team concluded their experiments and returned the emitters and the last two reactors to them, there was nothing that could be done about those systems.
But with the focus of the cruise being a test of the main propulsion system’s sub-light capabilities, the captain, as well as Admiral Yamori, were convinced that an eight hour trip around the system would be safe enough. And the Reliant, which was currently conducting training exercises within the inner system, could provide assistance if something were to go wrong.
So with the rumor being that they would depart just after lunch, Nathan had taken a chance and was sitting down to a larger than normal breakfast with Vladimir. They had been a little late in arriving, thanks to his roommate’s inability to get from quarters to the galley without stopping to strike up a conversation with at least
one member of the opposite sex.
“I am so excited,” Vladimir exclaimed as he sat down to eat. “I will finally get to see the engines in action. No more simulations.”
“I second that last part,” Nathan agreed as he started eating.
“And the best part is, while we are underway, that woman will not be bothering me.”
“I hear ya.” It suddenly occurred to Nathan that the reason he was in such good spirits this morning was simply because he knew that today he would be free of the usual tension between himself and Cameron, which in itself had turned out to be mentally exhausting. While actually underway, the captain or XO would be giving the orders. And although Cameron still had no problem ‘offering alternatives’ to Nathan, he had no doubt that she would not be offering them in the presence of command staff.
“I really hope that we get the chance to bring the engines to full power today. I believe we can get to at least eighty percent light, maybe eighty-five.”
He watched in amazement as Vladimir shoveled food into his mouth. Nathan had been raised in a very proper family, where they had been taught to put down their eating utensils in between bites in order to ensure the slow, methodical chewing and swallowing of their food. Not that Nathan ate abnormally slow. He had abandoned such rituals out of necessity over the years. But Vladimir was shoveling the food in before he had swallowed the previous bite. And he was still able to talk relatively clearly while he was eating. Nathan had dined with Vladimir nearly every day for the last two weeks, and had yet to get used to his style of inhaling his meals.
“Are you in a hurry or something,” Nathan chuckled. “Why do you eat so fast? Slow down and enjoy your food.”
“I know, I know-is bad habit. I get this from old job. I worked my way through school on rescue squad. It was very busy station. When you got chance to eat, you ate quickly or not at all.”
“Now hear this!” the comm-system blared through the loudspeakers. “All hands report to stations and prepare to get underway. Repeat, all hands report to stations and prepare to get underway. Departure in 5 minutes. That is all.”