by Ryk Brown
“How do we get her on the ground?” Nathan wondered. “Covertly, I mean.”
“I could space jump,” Jessica suggested.
Nathan didn’t like the idea but said nothing. The idea of jumping from orbit and falling to a planet below just didn’t seem right, despite the fact that she and others had done so successfully in the past.
“That’s what I was thinking,” Cameron agreed. “After Lieutenant Commander Nash jumps, we loop around the planet just enough to put us on a trajectory for the Barnard system.” Cameron continued her first line around the Earth and outward, pausing to zoom out and reveal more stars before continuing the line to Barnard’s star. “Once there, we do another sling shot to put us on course for 72 Herculis. We can jump in close enough that it’s only a few short jumps to Tanna by jump shuttle. This should all take us another week, by which time the jump shuttle should be back up and operational. Right, Lieutenant Commander?” Cameron paused, looking at Vladimir, her last question directed at him.
“Uh, yes, of course,” he answered, caught off guard.
“We coast and wait for them to return, then decide what to do about our propellant problem based on whatever intel Loki and Waddell bring us.”
“What about Jessica?” Nathan asked. “Are we just going to leave her on Earth?”
“Of course not,” Cameron said. “With recharge times and whatnot, it will take us several days, if not weeks, to make this work. I’d have to plot all this out before I could give you an exact timeline. But I’m sure Lieutenant Commander Nash will have plenty of time to complete her mission before we return.”
“And if for some reason it takes us considerably longer than expected?” Nathan asked.
“I’ll just find a nice beach somewhere and wait patiently,” Jessica said, smiling.
Nathan couldn’t help but smile back, especially when he considered the image of Jessica sunbathing on a tropical beach clad in a skimpy bathing suit, if anything at all.
“We can always send the jump shuttle to retrieve her,” Cameron said.
“Or the Falcon, for that matter,” Vladimir added. “She will probably be ready by then as well.”
Nathan sighed yet again. “I have to tell you, I’m not crazy about the idea of leaving someone behind on Earth while we go jumping out forty-some-odd light years away for weeks at a time. The Earth is occupied by enemy forces, remember? It’s not going to be a vacation. However, it does seem to be the best plan. Furthermore, if all goes well, it will accomplish our three most immediate goals: getting propellant, making contact with the resistance on Earth, and rescuing the Celestia.”
“Not to mention that the Earth resistance might have intel that would help us determine whether or not there is a trap waiting for us on board the Celestia,” Jessica pointed out.
“Another good point,” Nathan agreed. He turned to Cameron. “Plot this all out, Commander, then coordinate with the lieutenant commander, Major Waddell, and Loki.”
* * *
Nathan made his way down the ramp from the command deck to the operations deck on his way to personally check on Lieutenant Montgomery’s progress with the upgraded jump drive that he was installing on another of their shuttles. Normally, he would receive updates from his executive officer, Commander Taylor, but Cameron needed time to plan their upcoming missions with his security chief, Lieutenant Commander Nash.
It was also an opportunity for Nathan to stretch his legs and walk the ship, something he hadn’t done much over the last few weeks as they had cold-coasted through space gathering signals about the Jung invasion two months earlier. He had spent most of his time cooped up on the command deck, thinking of ways to fight the Jung, both in the Sol system and throughout the entire core, if it came to that. He had begun to feel like a hermit, bouncing from ready room to quarters to captain’s mess.
The upgraded jump shuttle concept held particular interest to Nathan, as every scenario he ran lacked the same thing: resources. People, equipment, materials, and fabricators, just to mention a few. They were a single ship packed full of supplies and ordnance to be sure, but still a ship. They needed a support base, somewhere people could live and work in support of the operations of the Aurora. In the Pentaurus cluster, they had Corinair. Battered as it was, there had still been people and an industrial base. They had even possessed a spaceport in the Karuzara asteroid that was nearly perfect for making repairs to his ship. He had not realized how important those factors were until he tried to plan a campaign without them. It made him realize why terrorists acted as desperately as they did at times, as they, too, had no support base to speak of.
He wondered if that was how the Jung would see his ship and his crew, as terrorists. Did they believe they had a rightful claim to the Earth simply because they were powerful enough to assert it? It certainly would not be the first time that such a claim was made. Nathan’s studies of Earth history had taught him countless examples of exactly such claims, both pre- and post-plague.
As Nathan continued down the corridor toward the main hangar deck, he made a mental note to himself to see to it that whoever made the trip back to the Pentaurus cluster to seek assistance should make it known that, above all else, they needed support infrastructure—specifically the kind with which they could set up a base of operations.
Nathan’s train of thought was interrupted by his comm-set.
“Captain, medical,” Doctor Chen’s voice called over this comm-set.
“Go ahead, Doctor,” Nathan answered.
“You should probably come to medical, sir.”
“What is it?”
“It’s Josh, sir… He’s awake.”
“On my way,” Nathan answered, smiling.
* * *
Nathan found himself looking into Josh’s open eyes. “It’s about time,” Nathan said as he approached Josh’s bed. He couldn’t stop the grin that was forming on his face, even if he had wanted to.
“Sorry, sir,” Josh said in a gravelly voice. “I guess I just needed some time off.”
“Take all the time you need, Josh. We’re still fixing your ship, so you’ve got some time still. How are you feeling?”
“Tired, a headache, I think. Leastways, I feel like there’s something going on in there that isn’t usual.”
Marcus came in and stepped up next to the captain, looking at Josh with a wide grin. He looked at the captain and jabbed him in the side with his elbow. “You see? I told you he was hard to kill…”
Nathan favored his right side slightly as the senior chief’s elbow jabbed him. “Yes, you did, Senior Chief.”
“Oh, uh… Sorry, sir,” Marcus said, realizing he was overstepping his bounds, especially under the new, stricter disciplinary guidelines being enforced by Commander Taylor. He tried for a moment to stand stoically, but he failed miserably, bursting out in a loud guffaw.
Nathan patted the senior chief on the back. “It’s quite all right, Marcus. I feel the same way.”
“Damn you, kid!” Marcus suddenly bellowed. “You scared the shit outta me!” The senior chief’s laughter returned, sweeping away his sudden anger just as quickly as it had come.
Loki was next to enter, smiling at the sight of his best friend with his eyes open and being yelled at by Marcus. For the first time in weeks, things were getting back to normal.
“I’ll talk to you later, Josh,” Nathan told him as he turned toward Doctor Chen. “Doc?” he called, gesturing for her to follow him into the next room.
Nathan and the doctor quietly exited the treatment area, going into the entry foyer as Loki and Josh began talking. “So he’s going to be okay then?” Nathan asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the others.
“Well, the fact that he is conscious is a good sign,” the doctor began, “but we won’t know if he’ll have a full recovery fo
r some time yet.”
“When will you know for sure? I mean, he looks pretty good, considering what he went through.”
“Mentally, he’ll probably be fine,” the doctor agreed. “I’m more concerned about his motor skills. Josh is an instinctive pilot. Such people have differences in their neural pathways that contribute to their abilities. It will take time for us to know if those pathways healed without losing any of those capabilities that give him his unique piloting abilities.”
“If you had to guess…”
“Like I said, the fact that he is awake and talking normally is a good sign. Give it a few days, Captain,” the doctor urged. “By then, he’ll be stronger, and we can conduct a few tests.”
“Of course,” Nathan said. “Nice work, Doc.”
“Congratulate the Corinairans,” Doctor Chen insisted. “It was their nanites that saved him.”
* * *
Nathan entered the port repair bay at the aft end of the port-side fighter alley. There were at least a dozen men hard at work on both the Falcon and the jump shuttle that had been disassembled by Lieutenant Montgomery and his team of Takaran scientists for the purpose of testing the mini-ZPEDs with the shuttle’s jump drive.
The bay was originally designed to allow the complete tear-down of two EDF fighters simultaneously. Both the Falcon and the jump shuttle were considerably larger than a standard EDF fighter, which made for a very cramped repair bay.
Nathan ducked under the Falcon’s wing-body in order to get between the two ships as he moved toward the back of the repair bay in search of Vladimir. Once he reached the back wall and looked to the sides, he found the big Russian hunched over a workbench, a welding hood over his head and a plasma welder in his hand. Nathan shielded his eyes from the intense light as he approached, taking care to stay clear of the sparks and to not disrupt his chief engineer’s work.
“Vlad!” he called out once the plasma torch in the man’s hands died out.
The Russian looked from side to side, forgetting that he was wearing a hood with a darkened visor. He lifted the visor and saw his friend and captain. “Nathan! What are you doing here?”
Nathan held up a food box in his hand. “Lunch!”
“Excellent!” Vladimir set down his welder and took off his helmet. “Finish this weld,” he told the nearest technician, “then give it to Jalvers.” Vladimir took off his heavy gloves and placed them on the bench. “Let’s eat!” he told Nathan, gesturing for him to follow.
Vladimir led Nathan into the small office at the inboard aft corner of the bay, shutting the door after they entered to reduce the noise coming from the repair bay. “What did you bring me?” Vladimir asked.
Nathan was always amused by the amount of joy his friend took at eating. “Your favorite, dollag and keiber root.”
“Ah,” Vladimir exclaimed as he opened the box and took a seat at the desk. “Meat and potatoes!”
“I thought the shuttle was being worked on in the starboard repair bay,” Nathan said.
“We had to move it over here,” Vladimir explained as he shoveled his first bite of dollag into his mouth. “Montgomery said there was too much risk of mixing up parts or something.” Vladimir shoveled the potato-like keiber root in his mouth as well, not stopping to chew before he continued talking. “I think he just wanted more room to work.”
“Yeah, it’s kind of tight in there.”
Vladimir looked at Nathan, noticing that he had not brought a box of food for himself. “You’re not eating?”
“I already ate.”
“How did you know I was hungry?”
“When are you not hungry, Vlad?”
Vladimir nodded his agreement as he took another bite of dollag meat.
“So, how go the repairs?” Nathan asked, making small talk.
“You mean since I gave you a report four hours ago?”
“Humor me.”
“Everything is installed. We just have to put all the access panels back in place, reconnect the control conduits, and put the seats and benches back in. Then, of course, we must test everything.”
“Then it will be ready soon?”
“Two days,” Vladimir promised, taking a swig of water. “Three at the most.”
“I was kind of hoping it would be ready sooner.”
“I am good, Nathan, but I am also careful—especially with ships that can jump a light year at a time. Don’t forget; Abby has to sign off on the jump drive systems as well. That’s where the fun begins.” Vladimir rolled his eyes as he scooped up the last of his food.
Nathan looked at the empty box. After all of the meals he had shared with his friend, he was still amazed at how fast the man could eat. “Yeah, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to take the ship back into harm’s way without propellant.”
“What are you worried about?” Vladimir wondered. “You jump in, Jessica jumps off, you jump out, da?”
“Not exactly. Jessica thinks we should attack a few Jung installations on the surface, make it look like a probing raid. She thinks that if we just jump in and jump out, it will make them suspicious and make it more difficult for her to get down to the surface and disappear into the population.”
“Then we jump in, she jumps off, we fire and blow up a few things, then we jump out.”
“We have to wait until we travel far enough around the planet so that we line up with our next gravity assist target.”
“How long will that take?” Vladimir wondered.
“About fifteen minutes.”
Vladimir’s expression changed for the worse. “That is a long time, especially in orbit over an enemy-held planet.”
Nathan sighed. “It still feels weird to think of it that way. The Earth, our world, controlled by the Jung.” Nathan thought for a moment. “Do you ever wonder about your family? How they’re doing? If they’re even alive?”
“My father died more than a decade ago,” Vladimir said. “My mother moved in with her sister. They live in a small dacha in a village about three hours east of Moscow. There is nothing there that would interest the Jung. I’m sure they are fine.” Vladimir chuckled. “Besides, I pity the Jung soldier that runs into my mother.” He looked at Nathan, who still looked pensive. “You think about your family, yes? Your parents, your brothers and sisters?”
“Parents and sisters, yeah. My brother, not so much. He’s the oldest, and I’m the youngest. We never hung out much, never really got along. I mean, it’s not like I wish him dead or anything. You know what I mean.”
“I have a cousin like that. If he disappeared tomorrow, no tears of mine would be shed.”
Nathan wondered if he would cry over his brother’s death. It seemed unlikely, and that somehow made him feel guilty.
“So, you are worried that we might get into more trouble than we can handle if we stay in orbit so long,” Vladimir said. “Why? If things get too bad, you jump early and we deal with the problem after we are safe again. There are thousands of planets out there, Nathan. I’m sure we can find something we can line up with to make a turn. So we have to jump a few more times than we thought? No problem! Not every mission must go exactly as it is planned. Hey, it’s better than putting more holes in our ship!”
“You have a knack for making every problem seem simple.”
“It is a gift,” Vladimir said, shrugging his shoulders as he rose from his seat. “Now go; I have work to do. My captain wants his jump ships back.”
* * *
Commander Taylor entered the captain’s ready room, her data pad in hand as usual. “Captain?” she called from just inside the hatch. She waited for Nathan to look up from his display. “I’ve finished the mission planning and course calculations.”
“Come in. Let’s take a look,” Nathan said.
“I’
m not interrupting, am I?” she asked, noticing that he had been deeply engrossed in whatever was on his view screen.
“No, please, I need the break,” he insisted, rubbing his eyes. “Battle tactics and scenarios analysis can be really tedious and boring at times—especially if that’s all you ever look at.” He took the data pad she offered and began scanning the display, leafing through the pages.
“We’ll need to do a minor course correction before we make our first jump, but the propellant use will be minimal. Once we jump into Earth orbit, it will take twelve minutes to reach our next jump point, the one that will take us to the Barnard system.”
“Twelve minutes,” Nathan mumbled. “That’s a long time in orbit. How much resistance do you think we’ll encounter?”
“There are two ships in the system that we know of,” Cameron explained, “both cruisers. However, their positions as we see them are nearly two months old. One of them appeared to be parked at the moon’s L2 point. If she is still there, she wouldn’t be able to get into firing position on us before we jumped out. The other ship was near Mars. At sub-light speeds, she wouldn’t make it back in time either. Of course, keep in mind that we now know that their FTL systems are accurate enough to perform interplanetary FTL runs, so regardless of where a ship is, they could be back to Earth in minutes. The only advantage we have is that we will be on the backside of the planet in relation to those two ships—that is, if they are still in the same locations as they were two months ago, which is doubtful.”
