by Ryk Brown
“Jump drive is ready,” Abby reported.
“Very well.” Nathan took in a deep breath and exhaled slightly. “Helm, break orbit and proceed on course for the first test jump waypoint.”
“Aye, sir. Climbing out of orbit and proceeding to first waypoint,” Josh reported. As much as he wanted to grab the manual flight stick and the throttles and fly the Aurora just as he had flown his old harvester around the rings of Haven, Josh followed the teachings of the Aurora’s executive officer. He simply told the ship where he wanted to go and let the flight computers decide how to manipulate the ship’s various systems in order to get there. A moment later the ship’s main engines engaged and the ship began to accelerate, climbing into a higher orbit as she circled the planet below. “Climbing out of orbit,” Josh reported. “Orbital departure point in three minutes.”
“Understood,” Nathan answered as he rotated his chair to the right to address his guests. “Gentlemen, for this test, we will climb out of orbit and accelerate on course toward the point we wish to jump to. Once we reach the first waypoint, we’ll execute the jump and arrive at our target destination a split second later. At that point, we’ll come about on a return course and jump back to our original point of departure.”
“Will we feel anything?” Mister Briden asked, presumably on the behalf of the Prime Minister.
“Nothing at all,” Nathan assured them. “There is a bright flash of light that is translated inside through the main viewer at the moment we jump, but we have programmed the viewer to reduce its intensity whenever we jump to avoid momentary blindness.”
“I see. And how will we know that the jump was successful?”
“Verifying our position is easy enough,” Nathan assured him.
“Perhaps,” Mister Briden responded. There was a touch of disbelief in his voice that did not go unnoticed by Nathan. One of the Corinari generals then asked a question, which Mister Briden promptly translated. “The general asked how many times you have performed such jumps.”
“I’m not sure,” Nathan admitted. “I stopped counting after about a dozen.”
“And what is the range of your jump drive?” Mister Briden asked.
“The maximum range of the jump drive is ten light years,” Nathan reported, knowing full well that Mister Briden and the others were already aware of the system’s capabilities. “However, we prefer to limit our jumps to slightly less than that in order to allow us enough reserve energy to make an emergency escape jump should we find unexpected trouble upon arrival.”
“A wise precaution,” Mister Briden admitted. We were told that its range can be greatly increased, if given enough power.”
“That’s what we’re hoping, yes,” Nathan agreed.
“Leaving orbit now, Captain,” Josh reported.
“Very good, Mister Hayes,” Nathan answered. “Bring the ship on course to the first jump waypoint and accelerate to one tenth light.”
“Aye, sir. On course to first waypoint. Accelerating to one-tenth the speed of light.”
The image of the planet above them had been growing steadily smaller for the last few minutes as the Aurora’s altitude had increased. Now that they had broken orbit, the planet slid quickly back over their heads and disappeared. The stars slid across the screen from starboard to port as the ship turned onto its new course, and Nathan could feel a slight sway as the ship accelerated rapidly.
“Velocity now at ten percent light, sir,” Josh reported. “Steady on course for the first waypoint.”
“Very well,” Nathan acknowledged.
“Ten seconds to jump point,” Abby reported from the jump control console.
“Comms,” Nathan said.
“Attention all hands. Stand by to jump,” Naralena announced ship-wide.
“At this speed, it would take approximately twenty hours to reach our destination."
Abby counted down the last few seconds to the jump over the ship-wide loudspeakers. “Jumping in three……two……one……jump.”
Everyone on the bridge stared out the forward section of the spherical view screen as pale blue-white light washed out from the emitters, spilling rapidly across the hull until it was completely covered. The light grew quickly in intensity, coming to a blinding flash a split second later. Had the viewing system not automatically compensated for the flash, they would all be seeing blue dots about now. Even with the filters, they still had to squint at the flash.
As quickly as it had come, the flash was gone and the hull was back to normal. The view outside seemed normal as well. In fact, it appeared as if they had not moved at all.
“Did it work?” Mister Briden wondered.
“Ensign?” Nathan inquired.
“We are exactly two light hours from our last position, Captain.”
“The stars do not appear to have moved,” Mister Briden commented.
“They would not,” Abby interjected, “as the distance jumped was not enough to cause any noticeable change in the position of the stars themselves.”
“How can we be sure that we are where you say we are?” Mister Briden challenged.
“Helm,” Nathan began, still facing Mister Briden, “come about one hundred and eighty degrees, and put us on a course back to Corinair.”
“Aye, sir,” Josh answered. “Coming about.”
“Ensign Yosef, after we come about, put the long-range optics on Corinair and find the Aurora.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Seeing is believing,” Nathan announced to Mister Briden.
“Back on course for Corinair,” Josh reported as the ship finished her turn.
“I have Corinair on long-range imaging, sir,” Ensign Yosef reported.
“Put it up in a window on the forward viewer, Ensign,” Nathan ordered.
A moment later a window appeared on the forward viewer covering most of the normal view of space. After a few seconds, a distant image of the planet Corinair appeared.
“Magnify and enlarge the window,” Nathan ordered. The window grew to four times its original size, and the image filled the window itself. They were looking down at the planet’s northern pole. “Can you zoom in and find the Aurora?” Nathan asked.
“One moment, sir.” Ensign Yosef worked her controls for a moment, zooming in further and sliding the image of the planet around in the window as she searched for the image of the Aurora orbiting the Corinairan home world. “Got it,” she announced, zooming in even farther.
“Zoom in on the Aurora only, Ensign.”
Ensign Yosef continued to zoom in until the image of the Aurora filled the window. The image was surprisingly clear, considering they were two light hours away. From the left side of the window, a small ship came into view as it approached the Aurora from aft.
“You came on board a couple hours ago,” Nathan explained. “That’s the image of your shuttle landing on this ship two hours in the past.”
Gasps were heard from the Prime Minister, as well as from the general and the members of his staff. Mister Briden, however, offered no such response, remaining calm and unaffected.
“Anytime you’re ready, Doctor,” Nathan said, confident that he had made his point.
Abby nodded then looked at Naralena. Naralena repeated her warning to the crew, after which Abby again counted down the last three seconds before they jumped. The window on the forward view screen disappeared, and once more the bridge was filled with the subdued blue-white flash as the ship jumped back to her previous position just above Corinair. The planet filled the entire bottom half of the viewer, its sudden appearance catching the Prime Minister and the rest of the party, including Mister Briden, somewhat off-guard.
Their voices filled the bridge as the visitors chattered excitedly amongst themselves in their native tongue. In their excitement, they did not notice Josh and Loki scrambling to reduce speed and quickly maneuver the ship into orbit after jumping in considerably closer to the planet than expected.
Everyone else on the bridge did
notice, as did Nathan. A quick glance at the helm displays told him that they were going way too fast to stay in orbit. “Flip her over and apply the mains,” Nathan told Josh in a low voice.
Josh didn’t need to be told twice and had already taken manual control of the ship. He began pitching her over before Nathan had even finished giving the order. Despite the amount of thrust being applied, it still took at least thirty seconds for the ship to finish pitching over and bring her main engines to face their direction of travel.
“Bring the mains up slow and steady, Mister Hayes,” Nathan warned, remembering the way Josh had bounced them around in the harvester during their escape from Tug’s farm on Haven. “Let’s avoid knocking our guests off their feet.”
“I’m not so sure we have time to worry about that, sir,” Josh commented.
Nathan glanced at the displays again, checking their velocity, their angle of attack, and the recommended orbital insertion angles all painted on the helmsman’s main display screen. Nathan quickly ran the math in his head, remembering similar numbers during a docking simulation that had gone wrong during one of his initial training sessions with Cameron. “You’ve got time,” he added calmly.
Nearly a half-minute later Josh had the Aurora’s main engines at full power. At one hundred percent, their main engines produced an incredible amount of thrust, and Nathan saw the velocity readout decreasing rapidly.
“Start taking them down slowly until you settle us into orbit,” Nathan instructed.
“What altitude would you like, sir?” Josh asked, a mixture of sarcasm and overall relief in his voice.
“Any altitude will be fine for now, Mister Hayes,” Nathan assured him. “We’ll worry about re-parking her after our guests have departed.”
“No prob… I mean, yes, sir.” Josh looked over at Loki who looked as pale as Josh felt.
Nathan turned to face their guests, his eyes meeting Abby’s concerned look from just beyond the group of chattering Corinairans.
“Captain,” Mister Briden said, “I have to admit, that was an impressive display.”
“Thank you,” Nathan told him. “But we were slightly off target. I’m afraid that we will have to work hard to get the emitters recalibrated in time to intercept that comm-drone before it reaches the Ta’Akar home system.”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Mister Briden agreed. “We will leave you to your work, Captain.”
“Thank you, gentlemen.” Nathan looked at Jessica standing at the tactical station directly behind his command chair. “Lieutenant Commander, would you please escort our guests back to their shuttle?”
“Of course,” Jessica answered. “Mister Briden, if you’ll all follow me.”
Nathan shook each of the visitors’ hands as they exited the bridge, still chatting excitedly about what they had just witnessed. He had no idea what they were saying, but he was pretty sure they were contemplating the possibilities the jump drive presented. It was a subject that had weighed heavily on Nathan’s mind since he had decided to share the technology with their new allies.
After the last visitor left the bridge, Nathan made his way over to Abby at the jump control station. “What the hell happened, Doctor?”
“The variances between the new emitters and the old ones had a more drastic effect than I had anticipated, Captain. We came out considerably off-target on both jumps.”
“Yeah,” Josh agreed, “especially that last one! That was some fun, huh?”
“Is there something wrong with the new emitters?” Nathan asked.
“No, sir. They just seem to be more efficient in their use of power. It’s almost as if the sections of the jump field that are being generated by the new emitters are making the entire field take longer to decay to the point of collapse, causing us to come out of our jump slightly later than expected.”
“Can they be recalibrated?” Nathan asked.
“Possibly.”
“Can it be done in time to intercept that drone?”
“Doubtful,” she admitted. “And certainly not with enough time to retest them.”
“What if we purposefully jump short, just to be safe?” Nathan suggested.
“You’re assuming that the effect will always be the same, and that it won’t be compounded when we jump greater distances.”
“Bad idea, huh?” Nathan admitted.
“Quite,” Abby agreed. “The only way we could possibly intercept that drone now is if we replace all the emitters with replicated ones. That way they’d all put out a uniform amount of energy.”
“Will that work?” Nathan wondered.
“It has a better chance of working than trying to calibrate them,” Abby told him.
“How many emitters are we talking about?”
“Another thirty-seven emitters.”
“Can we manufacture and install thirty-seven emitters in, what, twenty-eight and a half hours?” Nathan asked, looking at his watch.
“We never stopped producing them, sir,” Abby told him. “In case any of them went bad or got damaged in combat, we thought it would be wise to have some spares. We have about a dozen spares already, and it only takes about an hour to make one emitter, and we have two micro-fabricators to work with. If we have installation teams working nonstop and have the new emitters brought out to them as they are made, we might make it.”
“Let’s get on it then,” Nathan sighed. “Naralena, contact the Yamaro and tell them to pump out emitters as fast as they can.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Josh, as soon as the Prime Minister’s party departs, adjust our orbit and rendezvous with the Yamaro again. I want us parked as close as possible to her.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Naralena, get Lieutenant Commander Kamenetskiy on the comm and put him through to me,” he ordered as he headed into his ready room.
“Yes, sir.”
By the time Nathan made it to his desk, Vladimir was already on the comms.
“How did the test go?” Vladimir asked over the comms.
“Fine, if you like nearly jumping into the planet’s atmosphere at ten percent light.”
“Shto?”
“Listen, Vlad, can your guys install thirty seven more emitters in twenty-eight hours?”
“Impossible. Why?”
“Abby didn’t seem to think it was impossible.”
“Of course she did not. She has no idea how difficult it is to do such things, or how dangerous.”
“Dangerous? How is it dangerous?”
“You mean other than working in vacuum? The Darvano sun is different than ours. It is stronger, puts out more radiation. It limits the amount of time that workers can spend outside the ship to only a few hours per day. Any longer and they risk overexposure to radiation that could be fatal.”
“What if we had more men?”
“The work requires two people to perform, and it takes them about two hours to replace one emitter. They can work three hours, maybe four. We would need maybe sixty people in order to complete the work so quickly.”
“What if we kept the ship between the workers and the Darvano sun?” Nathan wondered.
“Da, that might help, I think. But it will be more difficult in the darkness.”
“We’re going to park up close to the Yamaro. Maybe she has some exterior lighting we can use.”
“Maybe. But I only have twenty men that are qualified to do such work under such conditions.”
“I’ll get you more,” Nathan promised, “as many as I can.”
“You must do so quickly, Nathan,” Vladimir urged. “By the time they arrive and are ready to go to work, the men I have will probably have already reached their maximum exposure time.”
“Understood,” Nathan told him. “Get your guys ready, Vlad. We’ll rendezvous with the Yamaro in a few hours. I want you ready to go to work.”
“We will begin installing the spare emitters we already have immediately,” Vladimir promised. “If you are able to rotate the ship to ke
ep the work teams in the dark, it will help.”
“Will do. Thanks.” Nathan switched off the comm-set on his desk. His chief engineer and his band of volunteer Corinairan technicians had their work cut out for them, and it was dangerous work at that. Then again, stopping that comm-drone before it was able to deliver word of their presence in the Darvano system to the Ta’Akar command would probably buy them a few months to better prepare. Nathan was sure of that, and preparation was essential at this point. They couldn’t continue reacting to events; doing so had nearly depleted the Aurora of ammunition, crew, and even spirit. They needed to take control, to go on the offensive.
Nathan switched the comm-set back on, pressing the button that hailed the comms-station. “Naralena, get me in touch with Commander Taylor on Corinair,” he instructed, “and see to it that Chief Montrose is also on the line.”
* * *
“Attention on deck,” the guard at the door to the briefing room announced. Everyone in attendance stood at attention as Nathan walked briskly into the room.
“As you were,” he ordered as he made his way to the head of the table and took his seat. “First, I want to thank you all for your tireless efforts over the last twenty-eight hours. Your dedication and that of your teams are why we were able to pull off the impossible and install all of the new emitters in time.” Nathan paused and took a breath before continuing. “Unfortunately, as you all know, I cannot offer a break just yet, as we have a mission to perform. We need to locate and destroy the comm-drone that will be arriving in the Takaran home system in less than a day. If we are successful, we could gain at least two additional months before a Takaran battle group comes knocking at our door. That’s time we desperately need to prepare.” Nathan stopped and looked at the faces at the table. “Any questions?”
“How are we going to catch a drone moving at FTL speeds?” Josh asked.
“Good question, Mister Hayes,” Nathan said. “Ensign Willard?”
Ensign Willard leaned forward in his chair as he spoke. “The drones accelerate up to between ninety and ninety-five percent the speed of light before they go into FTL. This is how they achieve FTL speeds of nearly one hundred times light. They are designed to drop out of FTL when they encounter a hail from a Takaran ship. Once they are out of FTL, they listen for a valid message exchange signal. If the signal passes authentication, the drone will decelerate and begin a message exchange with the hailing ship, returning to FTL once the exchange is complete.”