by Robert Boren
“Latest generation on both,” I said. “Would this system not work as well on older ships like the Centurion class?”
“It would take more time to tune,” JJ said. “We still have to run this as is for a while and then check the parameters, but it’s rare that we need to do much tuning after the first set.”
“Mind if I start scanning Sheppard One again?” Nolan asked. “This recent activity might have caused them a problem.”
I nodded. “Go ahead.”
“Could I trouble you for something to eat, Captain?” JJ asked. “Didn’t get a chance before I met you at the base.”
“Sure, I’ll show you where the kitchen is, and everything else too, since you might be with us for a while. We’ve got a stateroom you can use.”
“Perfect. Lead the way.”
“Tim, you have the bridge. Remember the weather. If things start to whip up, get us out of here.”
“Yes, Captain,” Tim said as we left the bridge.
“You’ve got a good crew,” JJ said. “Nolan’s a genius.”
“I thought you knew him.”
“We’ve talked very briefly, but not about anything technical. If we’re on our own, he could be useful.”
I took her to the kitchen and showed her how to order food. I was hungry too, so we both ate.
“This ship has a good meal fabricator, Captain. Almost tastes real.”
I laughed. “Try some of the cheesecake. Deacon loves it.”
“Cheesecake?”
“Yeah, there should be some left, assuming Deacon hasn’t eaten it all yet.”
She smirked. “I think I’ll pass for now, but thanks.”
“I’ll show you to the stateroom. It’s down the hall from mine.” We took off in that direction.
“Were you able to reach Chairman Vermillion?”
I shook my head no. “Tried on the way back from sick bay. No message, and I couldn’t raise him. This is bad. Did you hear what Tim was saying on the bridge?”
“I was shutting it out,” she said. “The first tune requires a lot of concentration.”
“He’s been scanning for spacecraft traffic. Says there’s none.”
“None?”
“Yeah. He was thinking the Corporation went on a rampage and blew up a lot of Samson Drives, but there’s no debris along the shipping routes.”
“So what’s going on? Do you think all spacecraft have been grounded?”
“I hope that’s what happened. Might be something a lot worse.”
“Like what?”
“Clan attacks might have forced all of our ships to flee the area,” I said.
“Or head down to the planet surfaces,” she said. “It wasn’t a Clan ship firing that railgun on our base, though. That was a Central Authority ship.”
“Probably an Overlord ship,” I said.
She glanced at me. “There’s not much difference anymore, Captain.”
We got to the empty stateroom, and I ushered her in, using my PA to assign the door access to her.
“Not bad,” she said, walking around the room. “It’s not any smaller than yours.”
“All the staterooms on this ship are the same size. We’ve got a clothes fabricator down in Engineering. I’ll have Deacon send you an invite for the system, so you can access it.”
“Perfect. How’s it going with the Neanderthal?”
“We’re using ALS to teach him English.”
JJ smiled. “Good, I hope it works.”
“Me too. I’ll leave you alone for a while. Make yourself at home. If you have any questions, send them to me.”
“Will do,” she said.
I left, going to my stateroom to try Vermillion again. No luck, so I went back to the bridge.
“She settled?” Nolan asked me as I sat in the Captain’s seat.
“Yeah, I gave her one of the open staterooms, two doors down from mine. Any problems with the tuning?”
“The code could be tightened up a bit, but it’ll work. I already have an idea how to alter it so there’s no need for tuning.”
“Well, don’t concentrate on that right now. I want to run down the Clan angle we were tasked with.”
“Good, I was hoping you were going to follow through with that. We’ll probably get some answers about the attacks.”
“I’m hoping we don’t,” I said. “I’d rather just deal with the usual petty Central Authority political garbage. Being in another all-out war with the Clan won’t be good for anybody.”
“Is it safe for us to be snooping around for the Clan, Captain?” Izzy asked. “We’ve got no support anymore. I can’t raise any of the Corporation bases.”
Nolan chuckled. “It’s as safe as it would’ve been had the attacks not happened.”
I nodded in agreement. “This ship might be the safest place to be in the Central Authority Zone right now.”
“Exactly,” Nolan said. “By the way, I’m quite impressed with JJ.”
“Good, she’s impressed with you too. Try to keep the rancor with her to a minimum, because I need your brains working together without any back-biting. You clear?”
“Chrystal clear,” Nolan said. “I’ve got the coordinates for the first world ready.”
“Where is it? Far away from Earth, I hope.”
“It is, but it’s got a wormhole that connects it fairly closely to Earth.”
“Name?”
“Aurora Calista. It’s a long trip. Couple of days for us, even with our superior speed.”
“How long would it take for a Clan ship to get from Earth to there?”
Nolan smiled. “I see we’re on the same wavelength. More than a week.”
“We can do double duty, then. Check for Clan ships and wait to see if anybody arrives through that wormhole.”
“Like I said, we’re on the same wavelength.”
{ 11 }
Deep Space
J J came back to the bridge after a couple hours. “Let’s run the last phase of the tuning, Nolan.”
Nolan nodded, and JJ took Izzy’s chair again. They ran through the procedure as I watched.
“Sir, still not seeing traffic,” Tim whispered, trying not to disturb Nolan and JJ. “You don’t think there’s some new weapon out there, do you?”
“Who knows? I don’t want to spend much more time here. Ensign Daniels was onboard when we were here before. Whoever he was working for probably knows to watch.”
“Maybe they don’t think we’d dare come back here,” Tim said.
“That’s what I’m counting on, but it might be giving me a false sense of security.”
I watched silently for about fifteen minutes as JJ and Nolan worked their procedure.
“There, done,” JJ said. “This was easier than most of the tests I ran on the Tristar.”
“We’re good?” I asked.
“Yep,” Nolan said. “We’re totally invisible.”
“Good. Let’s get ready to go. Right now. I just called Izzy back to the bridge.”
“I was already on my way, Captain,” Izzy said as she breezed through the door. “You got the coordinates, Nolan?”
“Sending them now, my dear.”
“Here’s your station back,” JJ said. “Thank you.”
Izzy nodded as she took her seat, seeing that the coordinates were on her PA. She shot us up to orbit, and we made the jump, the faint feeling hitting me for a split second.
“Still not used to that,” JJ said, shaking her head.
“Nobody is.”
“Where are we going?”
“Aurora Calista,” I said. “It’s connected to Earth by a wormhole, and has another worm hole leading to the Clan Zone. We’re gonna kill two birds with one stone.”
JJ looked up the planet’s data on her PA. “Wow, that’s on the far edge of our zone. Another level twelve world. How long will that take this ship?”
“Couple days.”
“That’s almost as fast as the Tristar,” she said. “You�
��re hoping to see a Clan ship heading through the wormhole from Earth, aren’t you Captain?”
“It’s a possibility, but then again, it wasn’t a Clan ship that attacked the base, as we’ve discussed.”
“Dammit,” Nolan muttered.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I had a deep scan running for the last several hours. No ships anywhere.”
“I already told you that,” Tim said.
Nolan glanced at him. “Don’t be offended. I know some tricks you don’t, but in the end, all I could do was verify your findings. I had to try.”
“What the hell is going on?” I asked.
“I can probe for the Tristar,” JJ said.
“When we’re out of the jump?” Tim asked.
“No, I can do it now,” she said, speaking into her PA. She watched it for a second. “They’re underway. This is odd.”
“What?” I asked.
“They’re going to the same place we are.”
“How are you able to track while we’re both in a wormhole?” Tim asked.
Nolan chuckled. “There have been some breakthroughs lately. You should know that, you’re on the most advanced ship in the zone right now.”
“Can the Corporation track us?” I asked, feeling sweat break out on my brow.
JJ nodded. “That is a side benefit of the cloaking system. We’re giving off a tracer that can be tracked with the correct encryption key. Only the Corporation has it.”
“I don’t like the sound of that at all,” Tim said. “If things have gone sideways, the Tristar might be on its way to take us out.”
Nolan snickered. I caught it and glared at him. “What?”
“JJ, try to connect with this ship,” Nolan said. “You can, right, even from onboard?”
She nodded, speaking a code into her PA. “That’s odd. We aren’t showing up.”
Nolan smiled.
“Dammit, Nolan,” I said. “What’d you do?”
“I changed the program slightly. We aren’t sending out a trace.”
“How the hell did you figure that out so fast?” JJ asked. “We had legal reasons to put that in. The Senate required it for us to keep our right to field un-controlled prototypes.”
“When were you gonna tell us that?” Izzy asked, eyeing her.
“Nobody on this ship had a need to know. It’s classified.”
Nolan looked at me. “Captain, do you really want anybody, even the Corporation, to be able to track us after what just happened?”
I sighed. “No. I wish you’d tell me before you do this kinda thing. It could make things difficult for us.”
“Are you saying you wouldn’t have given me permission?”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not saying that. I would have given you permission.”
“Captain!” JJ said.
“Look, JJ, we’re in an unusual position right now. All of the capabilities of the Corporation might be in the hands of the Overlords as we speak.”
Nolan smiled. “Exactly.”
“What’s to stop them from blowing our Samson Drive?” Tim asked.
JJ shot me a glance, then looked away quickly.
“You’re hiding something,” I said to her.
“We haven’t been able to get the remote-destruct command to work while the new cloaking device is active,” she said. “I suggest we leave it on at all times, even when we’re in a wormhole.”
“That will consume a lot of power,” Tim said. “Where will we get more fuel?”
“What’s our level now?” Nolan asked.
“Eighty-five percent,” Izzy said, reading off her PA. “We’re good for a long time, even if we consume more than normal.”
“What’s a long time?” I asked.
“Almost a year, Captain.”
“Hell, then why are we even talking about it?” I asked. “We need to settle down and look at this logically. We know that the Tristar isn’t trying to intercept us at Aurora Calista, correct?”
“That is correct,” JJ said. “I can see that we have no tracer, and without that, the Tristar has no way to see us. As long as we’re cloaked, of course.”
“Can we communicate with the Tristar?” Tim asked.
“Not if we wish to hide our location,” JJ said. “Your holographic system might be visible. Any way to shut it down?”
“What holographic system?” Nolan asked.
I shot a stern glance at JJ.
“Oops. Sorry, Captain.”
I chuckled. “Oh, what the hell, at this point I don’t really care.”
Nolan grinned. “You’ve been holding out on us.”
“You didn’t have the need to know, and Vermillion wanted it kept a secret for now.”
“I take it there’s something about this system beyond a pretty holographic display,” Nolan said.
“It allows us to communicate while we’re in a wormhole,” I said. “Probably when we’re cloaked, too.”
“Have you tried it?” Tim asked.
“We tried it while we were on the jump to Cremonia,” I said. “We were cloaked then, even though the tuning wasn’t done.”
“Maybe that’s why we couldn’t get Vermillion,” JJ said.
“No, I don’t think so. I could access my drop box. That’s how I got the message he sent right after we evacuated from Earth.”
“The drop box isn’t replicated locally?” Nolan asked.
“Nope. That much I know.”
Nolan shook his head. “They might be able to track us with that. We’d better figure it out in a hurry, or shut it down.”
“How do you know shutting it down will stop it from being trackable?” Tim asked.
“That’s a good question,” JJ said.
“Yeah, I don’t know that for sure, but it’s not wired into the ship. The device resides on a moveable object in my stateroom. Worse comes to worse, we could shove the damn thing out the airlock.”
“Can I take a look at it?” Nolan asked.
“Sure, no problem. Let’s go.”
Nolan and I got up.
“Mind if I tag along?” JJ asked.
“Not at all,” I said. “Tim, you’ve got the bridge.”
“Yes sir,” he said, exchanging a glance with Izzy.
We were in my stateroom in a couple minutes. I pointed to the chair, sitting in front of my desk. “I’ll fire it up. Maybe Vermillion is available now.”
I sat in it, motioning for Nolan to come closer.
“Looks like a normal desk chair,” he said.
“There’s a pad under the right arm that controls everything.” I did the taps to bring up the holographic frame.
“Interesting,” Nolan said.
“I’ll try to raise Vermillion.” I tapped the command to page him. There was no response.
Nolan got closer. “Nothing, huh? Let’s see the drop box.”
I tapped the command, and my indicator showed up, the only message being the one Vermillion had sent right after the evac. “See, there’s the message.”
“Okay, shut it down and let’s turn this chair upside down.” Nolan said.
I tapped it off and lifted the chair, setting it upside down. Nolan checked out the pad under the arm, and shook his head.
“Problem?” I asked.
“I can’t open this. Seen those fasteners before. They’re the same type used on the Samson Drive security module. It might blow if I force my way in.”
“Crap,” JJ said. “What now?”
“Do you have shielded storage next to the fusion reactor?” Nolan asked. “We could put it in there. I doubt if it can get a signal out of that.”
“That’s a great idea,” JJ said.
“Not sure if we have room.” I tapped my PA. Deacon’s smiling face showed up.
“What’s up, Cappy?”
“Hey, Deacon, how much space do we have in the shielded storage next to the reactor?”
“There’s very little fuel there. Most of what we have is
already in the reactor. How much space do you need?”
“Enough to put a desk chair in there,” I said.
“Thinking of having a seat?” Deacon asked. He broke into a chuckle. “It’ll give you a suntan in a hurry.”
“I’ll bet. No, there’s a transmitter built into it that might give off our position to the Central Authority or worse. I’d like to put it in there to prevent transmission.”
“You can’t just remove the battery?” Deacon asked.
“It’s a long story,” I said.
“Well, it might fit, but it’ll probably be tight. Meet me down there.”
“See you in a few minutes,” I said.
Nolan and JJ went for the door. I pushed the chair out on its wheels. We shoved it to the cargo lift and took it down, taking the thin hallway to Engineering. Deacon was at the door waiting for us.
“Gonna tell me what’s up?” he asked.
“There’s an experimental COMM device built into this. Since we can’t trust anybody at this point, I don’t want it to give away our position.”
“Well, Cappy, let’s check it out. Caraway is suiting up now.” He led us to the fusion reactor.
“How much fuel are we consuming?” JJ asked. “Much above normal with the cloaking device running?”
“I was gonna ask about that. We’re using about 2% more per hour than normal. You want to be running that device all the time?”
“We need to for the time being,” I said. “Can’t say any more about it.”
“No problem,” he said. “Ah, here comes Caraway.” We watched him walk over in the thick white suit, the headgear in his hands.
“That’s what you want in there?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said.
Caraway nodded, then put the headpiece on and pressurized the suit. He opened the airlock door, pulling the chair in behind him. The door closed, and he opened the inside door, pulling the chair through. There was a square white storage locker next to the cylindrical reactor. He used a remote to access his PA and open the door, looking inside, then speaking into his remote.
“It’ll fit, barely.” He moved the chair in, turned it upside down, and slipped it in place.
“Thank God,” JJ said. We watched as Caraway closed the shielded locker, then came back into the airlock. After a quick flush, he opened the outside door and came out, closing it behind him and pulling off the head piece.
