by Ryk Brown
“And as soon as you get the Celestia’s birds refreshed, send them back to their ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Helm, as soon our birds are recovered, take us back to our position over the Celestia and restart propellant transfer operations.”
“Yes, sir,” Mister Chiles answered from the helm.
“Nice work, everyone,” Nathan said as he turned and headed aft. “Hopefully, the Jung will spend enough time licking their wounds for us to get the Celestia off that damned rock and out into space again.” Nathan continued aft, passing behind the tactical station and around the comm-center toward his ready room door. “You have the conn, Mister Riley.”
“I have the conn, aye,” Mister Riley answered.
Nathan entered his ready room, closing the hatch behind him. He moved around behind his desk and sat down carefully in his chair, placing his hands flat on his desk in front of him. He could feel the adrenaline coursing through his body. More frighteningly, he could feel the satisfaction of having just destroyed two more Jung ships. Even the bloated, grotesque faces of the Jung crewmen floating out in space did not bother him.
He picked up his hands and turned them over, holding them up to look at them. His hands trembled, and his palms were sweating. He wiped them on his pant legs, placed them carefully on the arms of his chair, leaned back, and closed his eyes as he waited for the adrenaline to subside and the post-battle fatigue to wash over him.
* * *
After having moved far enough away from Tony’s corpse, Jessica had disposed of her Ghatazhak jump rig and her pressure suit, turning it into a pile of dust in the usual fashion by using the chemical cold burn kit provided by the Corinari. Now dressed in typical Earth civilian clothing, she found it much easier to get some distance between her and their landing site.
Jessica scrambled up the last few meters of the hill on the edge of the field and sought cover behind a large outcropping of rock along its crest. She dropped her pack from her shoulders and set it in front of her as she peeked her head up over the rocks to glance back in the direction she had come. It was late at night, and the partial moon provided only a modest amount of illumination. As best she could tell, there were no signs of movement behind her. She was safe for now. If the Jung had tracked the energy signature from the thermal shielding on Tony’s jump rig as she had intended, the shuttles she had spotted on her way down would arrive at their landing site soon enough, and the area would be crawling with Jung troops. They would find Tony and the data pad, and with any luck, they would take the bait.
Jessica pulled out her visual scanner and took another look at the field below. She could see Tony’s body, the main chute still gently tugging at the corpse from time to time. She set the scanner down and pulled her laser comm-unit out of her pack and opened it up. The small dish folded open, revealing a stubby laser emitter at its center. The outer edge of the dish folded open further, creating a collector nearly half a meter in diameter. She switched the unit on and waited for it to get its bearings. Then she pulled out a data chip containing the comm-schedule, encryption codes, and coordinates that she was supposed to use to communicate with the Falcon during her time on Earth. She plugged the data chip into the laser comm-unit. A few seconds later, the dish spun around, tilted upward, then flashed ready on its display screen. She pulled out the small cable and plugged it into her comm-set, looking around once more to be sure no one was within earshot before tapping her comm-set to key the mic. “Falcon, Nash. Feet dry. Phase one complete, on station. Comm next, one zero four five, zulu. End comm.” She tapped her comm-set again to close her mic and watched the laser comm’s display screen as it encrypted her transmission and sent it in a digital burst along its invisible laser beam. If the Falcon was on station at the designated waypoint for this communication appointment, they would receive her transmission and relay it back to the Aurora. The comm waypoints were four light minutes out, and the Falcon would still have to jump back, deliver the message to the Aurora, and jump to the next comm waypoint to transmit the captain’s response. She set the unit to repeat her message once every thirty seconds for the next three minutes and activated the auto-repeater. In ten minutes, she would point the dish to the next comm waypoint and await a response. It was not the most convenient method of communication, but compromises had to be made for the security of both the Falcon and herself.
She continued to wait as the laser comm repeated her message, beaming it out along the laser and into space. She pulled out her data pad and activated its navigation software. Seconds later, she was looking at a map of the countryside outside Sydney, Australia. She was several kilometers southwest of the city. According to President Scott, at least a third of the Intrepid’s crew was still at large, hiding out in the area after bailing out when their ship went down. At the very least, there had to be some sort of organized resistance in the area, as it was one of the largest cities on the continent.
A tiny tone sounded in her comm-set, indicating the auto-transmission cycle was over. Jessica selected the next comm waypoint coordinates, and the dish rotated forty degrees to the east to line up with the next set of coordinates found on the data chip. She set the unit to receive mode and waited.
Jessica pulled out her water bottle and took a long drink. She looked up at the night sky. She wondered how Synda was going to take the news. Would it interfere with her recovery? Should she even tell her? Would it be better to tell her later, or just lie completely and tell her that Tony was still alive down on Earth?
Jessica had to fight to shake off the guilt. She had been doing her job, fighting to save the people of Earth from the Jung. Tony had made his choices; he had chosen his fate. Many had died, and many of them had not chosen their own fate.
She closed her eyes and waited. Her mind drifted to thoughts of her own family: her brothers, her mother, her father. She had no idea if they had survived the Jung invasion. The story she had originally told that perverted, old man she had encountered on her first sojourn to Earth had been partially based on fact. Her parents had lived near the North American Fleet Academy, and most of her hometown had been destroyed during the invasion. She had even considered attempting to contact them during her first mission to Earth but had chosen against such reckless attempts.
Another tone played in her comm-set, interrupting her chain of thoughts. The receive cycle had ended, and there had been no answer. The Falcon was not at the designated comm waypoint, which meant they were either busy or worse. She only hoped it wasn’t the latter.
Jessica thought for a moment, looking at her watch as she made time calculations in her head. She selected a new comm-target. This time, it was not a waypoint. Instead, she set the unit to take aim on Jupiter with a wide dispersion beam. The signal would be weak, but it would be readable. It would take nearly an hour to reach them, but they would at least know she was alive and was attempting to make contact. The display flashed ready again, and she tapped her comm-set to begin recording her message. “Aurora Actual, Nash. Feet dry. Phase one complete, on station. Negative contact with Falcon at one eight four eight sierra tango. Will proceed with mission. Request next comm at two zero one three sierra tango. End comm.” She keyed up the transmit cycle and set the repeat count to three bursts. She pressed the send button, and the laser comm-unit began transmitting the message.
Jessica waited for the device to finish transmitting, then packed up the unit and returned it to her knapsack. She picked up her visual scanner and searched the area below, as well as all the way around her. She was still safe, so she settled in to wait.
CHAPTER SIX
“Thanks for coming to our rescue,” Cameron said over the view screen on Nathan’s ready room wall. “You didn’t have to cut it so close, however.”
“I have a flare for the dramatic, don’t I?” Nathan said. “How does it feel scoring the Celestia’s first kill?”
“I b
elieve the Celestia’s original crew was more excited than I was,” Cameron told him, “especially Lieutenant Commander Kovacic. I think he feels guilty that they couldn’t do more to get the ship into better shape during the last few months.”
“It’s not like he had any resources at his disposal. To be honest, I’m surprised he was able to keep his crew alive and in relatively good spirits, all things considered.”
“That’s what I told him,” Cameron said. “As for me, I’m still waiting for my heart rate to get back down to normal.”
“I know what you mean.”
“By the way, Doctor Sorenson has finished her analysis of the Celestia’s jump drive.”
“What’s the verdict?” Nathan asked.
“I’ll let her explain,” Cameron said. “She’s standing by to report.”
The image on Nathan’s view screen spit in two, with Abby’s face being added beside Cameron’s. Abby was in the starboard jump drive field generator room on the Celestia. “Doctor,” Nathan greeted.
“Captain.” Abby took a breath. “As I explained before, the Celestia’s jump drive is quite similar in design to our own. The biggest differences are in their choice of composite materials and their methods of power storage and distribution. Our program was apparently more conservative in our approach. The Celestia’s development team chose a more aggressive approach.”
“Is that bad?” Nathan wondered.
“My father and I often debated that very topic, Captain. He was quite conservative in his methods, choosing the most reliable methods and materials, thoroughly testing and validating all findings and all components along the way. He preferred to take baby steps toward the development of a giant leap in space travel technology.”
“I gather you did not agree with him.”
“Not entirely, no.”
“Well, what’s the bottom line? Can we make it work?”
“I believe so, yes,” Abby told him. “In fact, it should work even better than the Aurora’s jump drive.”
“Better as in farther?”
“If we complete the installation as designed, it should have an effective jump range of twenty light years with a recharge ratio of one to three, or just under seven hours to complete a full recharge. If we incorporate the improved materials and fabrication methods developed by the Corinairans and Takarans, we may be able to achieve a range of thirty light years per jump.”
“What would you recommend?” Nathan asked.
“I believe it would be best to complete her jump drive as designed. We can add a secondary emitter array later using the Corinairan and Takaran improvements.”
“It would be nice to have the redundancy as well,” Cameron added.
“Good idea,” Nathan agreed. “How long will it take to get it working?”
“I’ve consulted with the fabrication officer on board the Aurora,” Cameron said. “Using the Aurora’s fabricators, it will take approximately two weeks to create all the emitters for the primary array.”
“And to install them?”
“Vlad estimates four weeks,” Cameron explained. “However, he can begin as soon as the first few emitters have been fabricated and tested. Total time to a functioning jump drive, assuming there are no problems, should be approximately two months.”
“Doctor, didn’t your team install both the emitter array and the field generators on the Aurora in less than a month?” Nathan asked.
“That was with a full team of expert technicians in a facility designed for building space vessels,” Doctor Sorenson stated, “not coasting through space at near relativistic speeds while trying to remain hidden from Jung sensors.”
“Point taken.”
“Installation on the underside of the ship will be a bit trickier,” Cameron pointed out. “We’ll have to shut down nearly everything, wait for the topside to cool down, then rotate the ship so the underside faces away from Earth while we install those emitters, if we want to remain undetected, that is.”
“We might be able to help you out there,” Nathan told her. “It would probably help if we timed our harassment attacks to coincide with your installation schedules.”
“Agreed.”
“If there is nothing further, Captain?” Abby asked.
“Of course, Doctor,” Nathan said. “Thank you. I’ll see to it our fabricators begin production immediately. I’ll send the first batch over via cargo shuttle as soon as they are ready.”
Abby nodded as her image disappeared from Nathan’s view screen, and the image of Cameron sitting in her ready room expanded to fill the screen once again. “You really think the Jung are going to leave us alone that long?” she wondered.
“If they take the bait Jessica planted on Tony’s body, we should be able to sucker them out in the opposite direction from your departure course.”
Cameron shuddered at the thought of Tony slamming into the Earth’s surface at a few hundred kilometers per hour. “I still don’t think we should have done that, Nathan.”
“These are desperate times, Cam. Tony made his choices, and I made mine. And for the record, it was my choice… no one else’s.”
“Just don’t make your course too opposite,” Cameron said. “You don’t want to make it obvious.”
“How about one hundred thirty-seven degrees off your departure course,” Nathan suggested, “and twenty-two degrees below the ecliptic?”
“Jupiter may hide our burn from the Jung sensors on Earth,” Cameron said, “but that will not be the case with the ships chasing you. They will be able to see our burn, regardless of what course you take.”
“That’s why you’ll be making course changes along the way,” Nathan explained, “especially once the ships chasing us have either been destroyed or are sent running back to Earth.”
“They’ll keep coming after us; you know that.”
“And when they do, we’ll keep destroying them. Sooner or later, they have got to realize they’re better off waiting for their reinforcements to arrive from Alpha Centauri. Once they get down to only a few ships, they’ll stand their ground and hold the Earth until help arrives. That’s how we’ll buy you the time you need to get your jump drive working.”
“And once we get it working, then what?”
“Jump your way back to Tanna, top off your tanks, and continue on to the Pentaurus cluster. Even if you had a dozen plasma cannons, until the rest of your ship is fully functional, you wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“And what will you be doing in the meantime?”
“We’ll keep harassing them with hit-and-run strikes. Maybe send the Falcon out to recon other Jung-held systems nearby, see what kind of forces they actually have. It shouldn’t take more than a few months for you to return, and with two fully loaded, jump-capable warships, we’ll have a much better chance at taking down that battleship and liberating the Earth. Besides, by the time the Takarans finish building out your ship, they may even have some help ready to send back with you.”
* * *
Jessica sat unmoving behind the outcropping of rocks. Her arms were laid across the rock, holding her visual scanner to her eyes and allowing her to scan the field below without moving her head so much as a centimeter in either direction. Two large branches cut from a nearby tree were laid over her, their foliage covering her head and body in order for her to remain hidden from aerial observers that were soon to come.
It had been over an hour since she had touched down in the field below after having jumped from low Earth orbit. She was surprised that the Jung had not arrived earlier. She was beginning to wonder if they had even detected the energy shielding used for thermal protection by the Corinairan jump rig Tony had been wearing. Granted, their sensors would have needed to be trained at exactly the right location to notice the moving energy source, but
if they had captured members of the Winnipeg resistance cell, they knew she had jumped to Earth from the Aurora the last time it was in orbit. Surely they would be looking for the same trick this time around.
Just as she was starting to seriously doubt their plan, two Jung combat landers came in low from the opposite side of the small valley. They decelerated as they approached Tony’s body, landing fifty meters to either side. Jessica increased the magnification on her visual scanner as Jung troops began to disembark from the landers in proper assault fashion. They circled out, creating a secure perimeter, just as EDF spec-ops troops would have done. Lieutenant Telles was right, Jessica thought. These guys are better trained than the Jung troops the Ghatazhak had faced on Tanna. Jessica checked that her visual scanner was recording the images. The Ghatazhak lieutenant would surely want to analyze the movements of the Jung troops.
She continued watching as the Jung established their perimeter. Two more men, both clad in much heavier outfits than the other troops, began approaching Tony’s body in a cautious and steady manner. They held blast shields and some type of handheld scanning device, and they appeared to be wearing full pressure suits under the bulky, protective armor.
Jessica smiled. They’re afraid he’s booby-trapped. “They’re not dumb,” she whispered to herself.
* * *
Nathan stepped through the hatch from the access corridor and headed around the corner of the self-contained, vault-like complex that enclosed the Aurora’s bridge.
“Captain,” a voice called out from behind.
Nathan stopped and turned aft, finding Lieutenant Telles walking toward him. “Lieutenant.”
“I was hoping to have a word with you, sir,” the lieutenant said as he approached. “Do you have some time?”
“Will it take long?” Nathan asked as he turned and continued forward.
