by Ryk Brown
Jessica smiled. “And you, Sergeant?”
“Signed up to see the world, and I got the galaxy,” Sergeant Weatherly replied. “I’m good to go, sir.”
“Scout Three has hard dock, Lieutenant Commander,” the Corinairan technician announced. “They are cycling their airlock now.”
“Last chance?” Jessica said to Naralena and the sergeant.
A moment later the airlock hissed and the inner doors slid apart, revealing the extended docking tunnel and the open hatch to Scout Three on the opposite end. Sergeant Ravi came walking down the docking tunnel toward them. “Ready to go, sir?” he asked as he entered the foyer.
“Ready as we’ll ever be,” Jessica answered.
“Great,” Sergeant Ravi said. “The jump sub is attached to our topside aft maintenance airlock and ready to go. So, if you’ll all follow me, we can get you on your way.”
Sergeant Weatherly motioned for Naralena to lead the way, then for Jessica.
“Lieutenant Commander,” Nathan called as he entered the compartment.
Jessica looked at Sergeant Weatherly. “I’ll catch up to you.” She turned and looked back at Nathan. “What’s up, Skipper?”
“Just wanted to wish you good luck,” Nathan said. “It’s become kind of a habit, every time you embark on some crazy mission.”
Jessica rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and I thought being assigned to the Aurora was going to be boring.”
“Yeah, well, it’s certainly not that.”
They both stood there for several seconds, not saying anything.
“Wow, this isn’t awkward,” Jessica finally said.
“Right,” Nathan replied. “Be safe, Lieutenant Commander.”
“Be safe?” Jessica laughed. “Man, you suck at this.” She grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him toward her, giving him a kiss that, while not overly passionate, was more than friendly. After they separated, she noticed the smirk on the face of the Corinairan technician at the airlock control pedestal. “Something funny, Mister?” she snapped.
The technician snapped to attention, the smile disappearing from his face. “No, sir.”
Jessica turned back to Nathan. “You be safe as well… Captain.” She flashed a smile, then turned and headed down the boarding tunnel, disappearing into Scout Three’s hatch without looking back.
Once inside the Scout ship’s outer airlock, she moved to the open hatch on the other side. As Sergeant Ravi pulled the outer hatch closed, Jessica grabbed the bar over the inner hatch opening, lifted up her feet, and swung herself into the ladder tunnel on the other side of the hatch. The gravity in the Scout ship’s main deck pulled her downward at a perpendicular angle to the airlock’s gravity. She placed her feet on the ladder rungs that wrapped around the inside of the tunnel and began to climb down into the Scout ship.
She skipped the last few rungs and dropped to the main deck, then turned to face aft, finding her older brother standing next to the hatchway that led to the wardroom. “Permission to come aboard, Captain?”
“You always kiss your commanding officer goodbye?” Captain Nash wondered.
“You saw that?”
Robert pointed up the tunnel over her head.
“I was just messing with his head,” Jessica insisted as Sergeant Ravi came down the ladder behind her.
“All buttoned up, sir,” the sergeant reported.
“Very well,” Captain Nash replied as he tapped his comm-set. “Skeech, disconnect and take us out. I’ll be there shortly.”
“Aye, sir.”
Captain Nash looked at Sergeant Ravi, who was standing by the forward hatch. “Don’t you have someplace to be, Sergeant?”
“Uh, yes, sir,” the sergeant replied, disappearing into the forward compartment and closing the hatch behind him.
Robert looked back to his baby sister. “I thought I saw something in his eyes when he spoke about you on that shuttle ride down to Porto Santo to surprise you.” He looked at her sternly, “You’re not sleeping with him, are you?”
“Of course not,” she replied. “At least, not since he became my CO.”
Robert looked at her again, with even greater disapproval.
“We had a one-night stand on Founders’ Day,” Jessica defended, “the day before I deployed. He didn’t even know I was in the service.”
“You knew.”
“I didn’t know we would end up on the same ship,” she defended. “Hell, he wasn’t supposed to be on the Aurora. His assignment got changed that night.”
“Yeah, I wonder why?”
“Oh, come on,” she insisted. “Look, nothing has happened since that night. Hell, that’s the first time I’ve kissed him since I stepped on board, and like I said, I was just messing with him. We’re just friends.”
“Dangerous waters, little one.”
Jessica snickered. “You’re such an ass.”
“You’re such an ass… sir?”
Jessica made another face at her older brother. “Well, if you’ll excuse me… sir. I have to get to my jump sub.”
Robert sighed. “Hey,” he called to her in his most authoritative tone, “be safe.”
“Back at ya, Bobert,” she replied as she turned and headed through the aft hatch into the wardroom.
Jessica made her way into the wardroom, around the center multipurpose table and into the hatch at the other end of the compartment. She smiled at her brother, still standing in the forward hatchway, as she pulled the hatch closed behind her, then moved down the narrow corridor that ran along either side of the Scout ship’s reactors. At the first intersection, she turned right and squeezed between two vertical trusses, moved a few meters toward the side, and then turned forward again.
“Lieutenant Commander,” Lieutenant Scalotti greeted, offering a casual salute as Jessica approached the service airlock.
“Lieutenant,” she replied. “I trust our ride is ready?”
“Yes, sir. They’ve been testing it for the last few days,” the lieutenant explained. “It’s quite a feat of engineering, especially considering how little time they had to get it ready.”
“I try not to think about that part,” Jessica admitted.
Jessica looked into the small airlock, finding Sergeant Weatherly and Naralena waiting for her in the cramped airlock.
“How do they do EVAs from here?” the sergeant wondered.
“No pack,” Lieutenant Scalotti replied. “Just an umbilical.”
“Did you check it out?” Jessica asked the sergeant.
“We were waiting for you, sir,” the sergeant replied.
“Not much to look at, and it’s pretty cramped,” she told him. “Luckily, we won’t be in there very long.” She took a deep breath and glanced up the tunnel that led topside to the jump sub. “Well, I’m driving, so I’ll sit up front,” Jessica explained. “Naralena, you sit behind me, which puts you in the back, Sergeant. Since the hatch is over Naralena’s seat, you’ll have to get in first.”
“You sure you know how to pilot that thing?” the sergeant wondered.
“It’s pretty much automated,” Jessica assured him. “All I have to do is push a few buttons to activate it, and boom, we’re cruising underwater on Kohara.”
“And they tested it already?” the sergeant asked.
“Of course they did,” she replied. She looked back at Lieutenant Scalotti. “Right?”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant assured them. “Last test jump was about four hours ago.”
“You see?” she said as the sergeant started up the ladder. “Nothing to worry about.”
“Good luck, sir,” the lieutenant said as he stepped back from the airlock hatch. Jessica watched as the sergeant climbed up the ladder, opened the outer hatch, and then floated through the opening, disappearing into the sub. She turned to Naralena. “Give me a minute to get settled, then come on up and close the hatch behind you.”
Jessica started up the ladder as Naralena nodded. She could feel the Scout ship’
s artificial gravity lessen in strength as she ascended. By the time she reached the outer airlock, she was floating freely. Directly above her was the center seat, upside down from her perspective, with the back of the sub’s forward-most seat reclined back and lying on top of the center seat. She pulled her knees in to her chest, floating in a ball, and used her hands against the bulkheads to flip herself over so that her feet were pointing straight up toward the floor of the jump sub looming over her. She stopped her rotation, straightened her legs, and pushed herself through the hatch and down into the jump sub. Once inside, she slid forward along the reclined seat back until she reached the forward-most seat of the jump sub’s cockpit. “How are you doing back there, Sarge?” she asked, as she settled into position.
“You weren’t kidding when you said it was cramped back here,” the sergeant replied.
“Yeah, well, that space used to be full of air tanks and such. They had to pull them to make room for your dumb ass.”
“This mission wasn’t my idea, sir.”
Jessica smiled as she pulled the lever on the side of her seat, causing the back to spring back upright. “I’m in!” she called out to her companions still inside the Scout ship, as she fastened her lap belt. She looked out the two, small forward portholes of the jump sub. Scout Three loomed over them, upside down and mostly to their right, as they were attached to her port maintenance airlock. She scanned the touch screen display in front of her, just below the window. The display was sealed in a water-tight container to protect its sensitive electronics from water when they flooded the sub for egress. Technicians from both Takara and Earth had worked together feverishly for the last three weeks to fit one of the Earth’s mini-subs with a jump drive. Then, with the addition of two more members to the mission, they had been forced to get even more creative in order to fit all three people into a cockpit that had originally been built to accommodate two. The results, of course, were rather cramped quarters.
Jessica could hear Naralena as she moved into the seat directly behind her.
“Closing the hatch,” Naralena announced as she reached up and pulled the hatch down tight and spun the locks closed. “Hatch is secure,” she added as she settled down into her seat and fastened her restraints.
Jessica paused for a moment, scanning the display as she recalled the power-up sequence that she had rehearsed in the simulator, and then began powering up the jump sub’s systems.
“What kind of sub did you say this was?” the sergeant asked from the back of the cramped cockpit.
“DSWS,” Jessica replied as she mounted her comm-set and ran a quick systems check. The console was quite simple, with nothing more than a touch screen that allowed the user to scroll through various systems status screens, and a few controls for the jump drive as well as the communications gear.
“A what?”
“Deep Sea Worker Sled,” she explained. “It was used to take deep sea workers from ship to work site, then back again.”
“I thought sleds didn’t have pressurized cockpits?” the sergeant commented.
“They added all of this,” Jessica said, gesturing at the walls and ceiling around them. “Actually, it used to seat four, fully suited divers. They kept the sub’s maneuvering systems, batteries, and buoyancy control systems, and then gutted most everything else.”
“What was left?” the sergeant wondered.
“There were a lot of tank racks,” she replied. “I guess they changed tanks a lot while they were working. They used those spaces, as well as space where the last two seats were to install the mini-jump drive, energy banks, comm gear, and basic life support. The whole thing is controlled from the mini-computer built into this console here.”
“How ‘basic’?” the sergeant wondered.
“A couple hours at best,” she answered. “Oh, and of course the mandatory jump drive self-destruct package as well.”
“Of course,” the sergeant replied uneasily. “Is this thing safe?”
“You heard the lieutenant,” Jessica said as she tapped her comm-set. “Scout Three, Jump Sub One. We’re in and secure. All systems are green here.”
“Jump Sub One, Scout Three,” Ensign Wells replied over the comms. “We’ll be at the first jump point in one minute. Just sit back and enjoy the ride.”
“Enjoy the ride,” Jessica said under her breath. “We’re in a converted mini-sub… In space. I’ll enjoy the ride after it’s over.”
“I thought you said this thing was safe?” Sergeant Weatherly said.
“If everything works the way it’s supposed to, and we don’t hit anything while we’re jumping, then yeah, this bucket is safe.”
“I don’t know,” the sergeant protested. “I once jumped into the ocean from about fifteen meters up… From a shuttle. That water was not soft.”
“Relax, there’s nothing to worry about,” Jessica assured him. “As I understand it, it will be like we were dropped, nose first, from about ten meters above the water. It won’t be fun, but the sub will survive, and so will we.”
“And you know how to operate the jump drive?” the sergeant asked.
“Look, Sarge, if you don’t want to go…”
“No offense, sir, but the jump drive is a complex device, isn’t it? It needs all kinds of precise calculations and stuff. And don’t you have to be on the correct course and speed before you…”
“Not this one. It’s designed to make a fixed-distance jump. Scout Three will put us on the correct trajectory and speed,” Jessica explained, “I just activate the system, and at the precise moment, it jumps us. When we come out of the jump, we’ll already be thirty meters under, so no one will see our jump flash. Then all I have to do is level her off and steer us to shore as we climb up to more shallow depths.”
“And how do we get back?” the sergeant asked.
“Just take her down, steer it back upward for a moment, and activate the jump sequencer again. It will put us back out in space, about a light month outside the Tau Ceti system, where Scout Three will be keeping an eye out for us.”
“Jump Sub One, Scout Three. Prepare for jump series, in three…” Ensign Wells called over Jessica’s comm-set, “…two…”
“Jumping,” Jessica called out. “Cover up!” she added as she closed her eyes and covered them with both hands.
The blue-white flash of Scout Three’s jump field lit up the inside of the jump sub, fading a moment later.
“Jump complete,” Ensign Wells reported.
“We’re good,” Jessica announced as she removed her hands from her eyes and looked out the forward window. “How are we looking up there?” she called back over the comms.
“Came out on target,” Ensign Wells replied over the comms. “Give us a few minutes to get you on the correct speed and trajectory.”
“Take your time.”
The three of them sat in silence, all squeezed into a space originally meant for only two, surrounded by a shell that was designed to keep from collapsing against outside pressure trying to get in, rather than the reverse. It was a shell that provided precious little protection against cosmic radiation, if any at all.
“Does this seem like a really crazy idea to anyone else, or is it just me?” Naralena wondered, breaking the silence.
“No, it’s not just you,” Jessica said, laughing. “This is beyond crazy. Way beyond.”
“Jump Sub One, Scout Three,” Ensign Wells called over the comms. “We are on the designated intercept trajectory with Kohara, thirty-five KPH closure rate. Jump point in one minute. Stand by for release.”
“Jump Sub One, ready for release,” Jessica replied as she slipped her shoulder straps on as well. “Get secured,” she instructed.
“You know, Jess,” Captain Nash called over the comms, “if anyone had told me that someday I’d be dropping my little sister into an inland sea a couple light years away, I would have thought they were crazy.”
“Well, you know how much I’ve always loved water sports,” Jessica r
eplied.
“Just don’t drown, alright? I don’t know how the hell I’d explain this to Mom and Dad.”
“Dying isn’t on my agenda, Bobert,” Jessica replied. “Besides, it’s damned hard to kill a Nash, remember?”
“Jump Sub One, release in three……two……one……release.”
Jessica pressed the release button attached to the ceiling above the front windshield. A loud grinding sound of a motor reverberated through the hull of the jump sub as the docking clamps gently pulled away from their docking collar, setting them free. She watched out the forward porthole as maneuvering jets fired along the topside of Scout Three, sending them drifting up and away from the jump sub.
“We’re free,” Jessica reported, both over her comm-set and to her two companions behind her. She glanced at the console in front of her. “Positive separation rate. Three meters and increasing. She leaned forward and peered up through the porthole at the Scout ship as it fired its deceleration thrusters and quickly fell back away and out of her sight.”
“Fifty meters separation and increasing,” Ensign Wells reported. “You’re clear to jump, sir.”
“Roger that,” Jessica replied. “Jump point in ten seconds.” Jessica armed the jump drive as the countdown continued. “Hold on, people. We’re about to get wet.”
“Good luck, Jess,” Robert called over the comms.
“See ya, soon,” she replied as she tightened her shoulder restraints. She glanced down at the console. “Cover up! Jumping in three……two……one…”
Jessica closed her eyes and covered her face with both hands again, tightening her muscles to prepare for the sudden jolt they would feel when they came out of the jump, thirty meters below the surface of Lake Tanner on the planet Kohara.
“…Jumping!”
The blue-white jump flash washed over the cockpit of the jump sub, lighting up the inside of Jessica’s eyelids, despite their being closed and covered. She remained tense, expecting the sudden jolt, but it didn’t come. Something was wrong.
Jessica’s hands dropped from her face and her eyes opened, immediately looking through the jump sub’s two forward windows. It was dark outside the sub. Something else was different. The gravity… “What the…?” A surge of adrenaline hit her as the situation became apparent.