by Ryk Brown
“It’s the times we live in,” Miri told him.
“These times need to end,” the president said, “and soon.”
“I couldn’t agree with you more,” Miri told him. “Then I have your approval?”
“As president of Earth, I cannot tell you to ask others to break the law, Miri,” the president replied, purposefully nodding his head in non-verbal approval.
“The sound suppression field is on, Pop,” Miri reminded him.
“I know,” President Scott replied, smiling. “This way, I can say ‘I did not tell anyone to execute such a plan’, and not be lying.”
A smirk came across Miri’s face. “That’s a pretty fine line you’re walking, Mister President.”
“Like you said, these are the times we are living in.”
* * *
Marcus stood in the newly opened starboard side of the Seiiki, where the cabins that he, Neli, and Dalen had lived in for the last five years had once been. It had taken Vladimir’s technicians only a single day to gut the starboard side to make room for the additional reactors and shield generators about to be installed.
“Feeling a bit sentimental?” Neli asked him.
“Don’t be silly,” Marcus insisted. “It was just a bunch of metal, composites, and shit. Once this overhaul is finished, this is going to be one lean, mean little ship.”
“Maybe, but it won’t be home anymore.”
“It’s a spaceship, Neli,” Marcus reminded her with a look of disapproval. “Normal people don’t live on them.”
Neli laughed. “No one is ever going to accuse us of being normal.”
Marcus dismissed her with a wave as Josh, Loki, and Dalen entered the now wide-open compartment.
“Holy shit!” Josh exclaimed. “That didn’t take long.”
“We have to reroute all this cabling to the inboard side,” Marcus told them, “so the mag-fields on the reactors won’t mess with them.”
“Can’t we just add extra shielding?” Dalen asked. “Moving them’s going to be a pain.”
“We’re going to be adding a lot of additional weight, what with six more reactors and four more shield generators,” Loki explained. “That’s not going to leave us a lot of useful load with fuel propellant tanks. Every little bit of weight we save counts.”
“And that extra shielding would only make it worse,” Marcus added.
“Then just make the engines more powerful,” Dalen suggested.
“How the hell did you ever get your engineer’s ticket?” Marcus wondered.
“I’m not an engineer,” Dalen reminded him, “I’m a mechanic. Big difference.”
“Apparently.”
“Can we just get this over with?” Josh begged.
“Good idea,” Marcus agreed. “You head up there, into the crawl space, and start disconnecting the main trunks, so we can pull them out and reroute them.”
“Up there?” Josh wondered, looking at the cramped, dark crawl space above the outboard starboard bulkhead. “Why me?”
“Cuz you’re the smallest of us,” Marcus replied. “You’ll fit better.”
Josh rolled his eyes in disgust. “This sucks.”
“Hayes! Sheehan!” A voice beckoned from the Seiiki’s cargo deck, below and aft of them.
“Up here!” Loki replied.
“CAG wants you both in the simulator bay!”
“Now?” Marcus bellowed.
“Yesterday!”
“Yes!” Josh exclaimed triumphantly.
Marcus looked at Josh. “You set this up, didn’t you?”
“Not me,” Josh assured him. “But I sure wish I’d thought of it,” he added, patting Marcus on the shoulder as he headed aft. “See ya later, old man. Good luck with all this.”
Loki shrugged at Marcus, turning to follow Josh.
“Damn,” Marcus grumbled.
“I’ll climb up, and disconnect the trunks,” Dalen offered, moving toward the ladder.
“It never ceases to amaze me how Josh always manages to get out of work he doesn’t want to do,” Neli commented.
“Besides flyin’, it’s his only other talent,” Marcus told her. “He’s been skipping out on work since he was in diapers.”
* * *
“Good Morning, Abby,” Cameron greeted as she met Abby at the bottom of the ramp on G deck.
“Good Morning, Cameron. You didn’t come all the way down here just to meet me, did you?”
“I was just completing a department inspection, and I heard you had boarded.”
“Down here in the bowels of the Aurora?”
“I had forgotten how much more exercise an XO gets aboard this ship. I hate to admit that I may have gotten a bit lazy as captain. I’m sure Doctor Chen will be happy to see me lose a kilogram, or two.”
“I had forgotten how big the Aurora really is,” Abby agreed.
“I spoke with Commander Kaplan earlier,” Cameron said as she walked along with Abby. “She promises to get a research lab put together for you aboard the Mystic in the near future.”
“I don’t mind working here,” Abby assured her. “It’s only a five-minute shuttle ride from the Mystic. That’s better than my commute was on Earth.”
“Yes, but there will be times when the Aurora will be away, and we don’t want to interrupt your research any more than necessary,” Cameron explained. “And we certainly can’t take you with us.”
“Why not?”
“We’d likely be going into harm’s way,” Cameron reminded her.
“I’ve been aboard this ship when she’s gone into battle before, Cameron.”
“I know. It was Nathan’s orders,” Cameron explained. “Something about a promise he made to your husband.”
“Ah, yes.”
“How is he settling in, by the way?”
“Better than expected,” Abby stated with a pleased lilt in her voice. “Lieutenant Commander Shinoda has him analyzing the economic systems of the Pentaurus cluster, and the effects the Dusahn occupation is having on it.” Abby touched Cameron’s arm for emphasis. “Thank you for that. The challenge is helping to take his mind off the forced relocation.”
“You’re quite welcome.”
“The only problem now, is that he’s constantly babbling on about economics, which I know nothing about.”
“How about the children?”
“Between the rec center, the pool, and the micro-gravity gymnasium, they’re keeping quite busy. And there are more than a few kids their ages aboard the Mystic to hang out with. Getting over the language barrier will be a challenge, but they’ve been through that before. Kirsten has already befriended Jessica’s goddaughter, Ania. Did you know that Jessica’s mom took it upon herself to start a school for all the children?”
“No, I did not.”
“It’s only a couple hours a day, over the Mystic’s network. But she tutors anyone who needs extra help in person. She’s quite an amazing woman. Nothing stops her.”
“Well, she did have to raise Jessica.”
“From the way she tells it, Jessica pretty much raised herself.”
“Why am I not surprised,” Cameron said. “Just down this corridor.”
“How is Nathan doing?” Abby wondered.
“He seems to be doing well enough,” Cameron replied. “He’s settling back into the role of captain. He’s got a lot of catching up to do. The Aurora has gone through a lot of changes since he was in command. But he seems to soak up information at an amazing rate, now. Something to do with the changes the Nifelmians made to the structure of his brain.”
“Yes, I heard about that. You know, I could tell there was something different about him when I first saw him again on Earth. A calmness…a confidence.”
“He’s always been confident,” Cameron insisted. “Perhaps too confident, if you ask me. As I remember it, bordering on arrogance at times.”
“That’s what’s different, I suppose. The arrogance isn’t there. At least, not like it was.”
“They say that arrogance is often a mask for a lack of confidence,” Cameron commented.
“Then maybe his confidence is real this time,” Abby suggested.
“Perhaps,” Cameron agreed. “If I’d been through everything he has, and survived, I suppose I’d be confident, as well.”
“Or a complete basket case,” Abby joked.
Cameron wasn’t laughing. Luckily, they had reached Abby’s destination. “This is it,” she said, pausing at the door. “The Aurora R&D lab.”
“I guess I’d better get to work,” Abby said.
“And I’d best be off to run the ship,” Cameron said. “Good luck.”
“To you, as well, Captain.” Abby turned and punched in her security code, causing the hatch to slide open. Beyond the hatch was a cavernous room, with offices and shops along all sides, and a large doorway into an elevator pad which led all the way to the top of the Aurora, passing through each hangar deck along the way. There were four technicians to one side, working with Deliza on the mini jump sub they had used to escape from Earth five days ago.
“Abby!” Deliza called out, heading toward her.
“Good morning,” Abby greeted as she approached.
“Welcome to the Aurora’s R&D bay,” she said, waving her arms around as if showing her the space. “It’s actually the port spacecraft maintenance bay. We sort of took it over.”
“What are you working on?” Abby wondered.
“We’re just doing a deep engineering scan of the jump sub,” Deliza explained. “Nathan wants to build a few more of them.”
“Why?”
“In order to move operatives on and off Dusahn-held worlds at will,” Deliza explained. “I can’t wait to see your research on the stealth emitters. I’m dying to help solve the overheating problem.”
“Actually, I think I may have already solved that problem,” Abby admitted.
“Really?” Deliza exclaimed, barely able to control her excitement. “When?”
“A few days before we left Earth, actually.”
“Why didn’t you say anything on the ride back?” Deliza wondered.
“I haven’t had a chance to give it a proper test,” Abby admitted. “I’ve only run simulations.”
“And?”
“So far, the new formulation looks correct. But we need a live test on an actual emitter, which we don’t have.”
Deliza grabbed Abby by the hand, leading her toward a large shop door on the starboard side. “But we have these,” she told her, pointing into the next bay.
As they approached the shop, Abby could see several small machines. “Are those fabricators?”
“Four of them,” Deliza proclaimed proudly. “The Aurora’s fabrication shop busted their asses making them, too. They installed the last one just a few hours ago. And the next compartment over is full of just about every core material you could imagine. We can pretty much fabricate anything we want now.” Deliza turned to look at Abby. “Please tell me you brought the specs with you.”
Abby reached into her pocket and pulled out the data chip she had been carrying since they left Earth five days ago, and held it up for Deliza to see.
“Outstanding!” Deliza exclaimed.
“Let’s get started,” Abby declared with a smile.
* * *
“You wanted to see me?” Jessica asked as she entered the captain’s ready room.
Nathan was busy reading, flipping through screens on his data pad every other second, so he held up his hand to signal her to give him a moment.
Jessica took advantage of the opportunity, and plopped down on the couch. “Ah, I missed this couch.” When Nathan still didn’t respond, she rose and moved over beside him, looking over his shoulder at his data pad as he quickly flipped through the last few screens. “You can’t possibly be reading that fast.”
Nathan flipped to the last screen in the file, then put the data pad down and grinned. “Pretty slick, huh?”
“Do you actually remember any of it?”
“Every word,” Nathan chuckled. “And I was going slow.” Nathan leaned back in his chair. “I don’t know what Michi did to my brain, but I like it.”
“It’s kinda creepy, rearranging things like that.”
“According to her, it’s more like adding extra pathways, so that electrical impulses move more directly to their targets. She used the analogy of city streets. Ones that are laid out in standard grids are easier and faster to navigate, than ones that look like a bowl of spaghetti, meandering all over the place.”
“Are you saying my brain is like a bowl of spaghetti?” Jessica challenged.
“Her analogy, not mine,” Nathan defended, his hands up.
“What did you need to talk to me about?”
“I just wanted to know how you’re settling in at tactical.”
“Fine,” Jessica assured him. “It’s kind of boring, to be honest.”
“For a tactical officer, boring is good,” Nathan told her. “How is Vidmar taking it?”
“He doesn’t seem to mind,” Jessica replied. “Actually, he’s been quite helpful. He’s been teaching me all the standard attack patterns the Alliance has developed over the years, as well as the ones Cameron has devised. Did you know the Aurora’s main torpedo cannons are able to cant laterally, and focus all four cannons on a single point anywhere between one and one hundred kilometers?”
“I did,” Nathan assured her. “I didn’t, but I read that yesterday, when I was reviewing all the weapons systems. You can focus them in pairs, as well, or spread them out a few degrees, so they’ll hit different quadrants of a distant target, depending on how far out that target is. Same with the broadside cannons aft. All in all, this ship is now remarkably well armed.”
“I’m actually kind of itching to get her into a scrape to see what she can do,” Jessica admitted.
“Let’s not jump into anything too early,” Nathan warned.
“I’m just saying.”
“How are our new recruits doing?” Nathan asked.
“For now, they’re keeping busy repairing their own ships, with a little help from Vlad’s technicians and our fabricators. Three Eight Three has a lot of hull damage to her underside from Walsh trying to skip his gunship off the surface like a flat rock across a pond. You don’t really think he meant to do that, do you?”
“Doubtful,” Nathan admitted.
“Then we may have found someone with your same uncanny luck,” she added. “Anyway, they’re basically pulling the damaged hull panels—which is most of them—and feeding them back into the fabricators to make new ones. It’s faster than trying to repair them.”
“That’s good thinking.”
“Vlad’s idea.”
“How about Lieutenant Commander Shinoda?” Nathan wondered. “What’s your read on him?”
“Good guy; likable, easy to work with, knows his stuff. He’s also really good at pulling meaningful intel out of data most people would have overlooked. I can see why Cam thinks so highly of him.”
“That’s good to hear,” Nathan said. “How’s Telles doing?”
“Telles is always fine,” Jessica said. “That’s what makes him Telles. He’s got the Ghatazhak helping assemble point-defense turrets to install on all the ships, starting with the Glendanon and the Mystic, which are our two biggest, unarmed assets at the moment. The Manamu and the Innison will be next.”
“Good,” Nathan said. “The Aurora can’t really leave the fleet until it can at least defend itself.”
“That’s why we got the gunships, isn’t it?” Jessica reminded him. “So we can conduct hit-and-run strikes to harass the Dusahn, without using the Aurora to do so.”
“Yes, but it’s going to take some time to get all the gunships back in operational order. Most of them took damage. Besides, we still need to train crews to operate them.”
“Well, we’ve got four good pilots already, and one fully-trained crew on Three Eight Three,” Jessica pointed out
. “Stick Josh and Loki in two more, and that makes six. Then just fill the gun turrets with Ghatazhak, and you’re ready to go.”
“Just like that?”
“Yup.”
“There’s more to operating gunships than just flying and shooting, Jess,” Nathan warned.
“Yeah, but not for what we want to do right now,” she argued. “All that other stuff can come later, can’t it? All we need to do now is jump in, shoot some shit up, and jump out…hopefully all before the Dusahn can even spin up to fire back.”
“I don’t know,” Nathan said.
“The first missions are all about testing their response anyway, not about showing them how much damage we can do. Besides, if we jump in like a bunch of amateurs—which is exactly what we’ll look like at first—it might make the Dusahn overconfident, making it easier to strike a real blow later on, once we get them better prepared.”
Nathan tipped his head. “You may have a point.”
“Damn right I do,” she boasted. “Make them think we’re a bunch of wannabes with guns and ships…ones who are too afraid to stand and fight when the Dusahn start shooting back. Then, after a dozen, or so, lame-ass attacks, we jump in with the Aurora and pound the shit out of one of their ships, catching them off guard.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” Nathan agreed. “However, we’ll only get to do that once, so maybe we should figure out how to take out more than just one of their warships when we do.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” Jessica said, a gleam in her eye. “What if we take a few flatbed cargo haulers, remove their cargo pods, and stack a couple rows of mark one plasma torpedo cannons on them. Set them up like our broadside cannons. Just bolt them to the deck, along with a few reactors to power them. Then they can just jump in alongside a target and blast away, launching about a dozen plasma torpedoes at once from close range, and then jump out again. Have two or three of them jump in alongside the same target in a row, and that sucker’s got no more shields to protect them. Then the gunships, or the Aurora, can easily finish them off.”