stasis in time.
“Status report.” Alice ordered as she returned to the bridge. The biological portion of her eye had been healed by regeneration medication but with few medical specialists aboard there was no hope of having her eye repaired. Instead she allowed the bridge medic to use nanobots to separate it from her optical nerve and push it out of the socket under local anaesthetic in the ready quarters. As a temporary measure she had an eye patch materialized and placed her ocular implant into a small case she pocketed. She'd have something done about it later, the patch wouldn't do. “First person to say 'yar' or 'ahoy' will be the last,” she added.
“We're three minutes from emerging from the wormhole, repair crews are already at work on the damage on the corridors and gunnery deck, we lost nine security staff in the fighting and our astronomers have found something interesting from the pure sciences department of the ship, Captain.” Agameg got out of the command seat and returned to tactical.
“They were watching that?”
“Aye, they were the first to notice our torpedoes getting hacked and they reported it to me straight away.”
“Good job, and you made the right decision to target one of the torpedoes for a sure hit instead of lessening our chances by splitting your firepower Agameg. How are our defensive systems now?”
“The rail cannons taken out by the nuke only needed a reset, and our shields can hold a full charge again,” Chief Grady's hologram reported. “Tell her the bad news, Finn.”
“Right. Our primary emitters are working right now, but there will be no way to power them back up once they've lost their charge. That whole line of circuitry and half the control interface is fried, permanently fried.” Finn reported from the engineering station on the bridge.
“There's no way to repair them?” Alice asked peevishly.
“They have to be replaced and it would take weeks to fabricate the parts we need, some just can't come from a materializer and we need to train to machine them ourselves, then we'd actually have to make the tools to do it. When I say fried, I mean fried. If you can find a single cable down there that hasn't melted under the strain once the main emitter array and everything connected to it blows, well, you're more qualified than I am,” Finn answered peevishly.
“Blows?”
“Right, I had to run the bulk of the energy through the capacitors and power cells that sit right under the array and the power can only flow in one direction; in, through then across or out from the array. Right now those capacitors have about a hundred times as much energy running across them per millisecond than they're made to carry or discharge and I had to use the larger power cells as conductors, so the connectors have fused together to make a low resistance path to get power from the reactors straight to the emitters. When that wormhole closes the emitter systems will deactivate in the wrong sequence, leaving the capacitors and power cells over charged, so they'll burn out and we'll have about twelve tons of scrap. We'll have to replace the entire assembly.”
“There's no way to prevent this?”
“Nope. You asked me to give you a wormhole and you got one. Probably the last one.”
“So about two weeks before we can generate a wormhole large enough for the ship?”
“No. Three if you manage to buy an entirely new assembly and if not it'll be at least four weeks to rebuild the power systems and another six to rebuild the control room and emitter array. After that we'll have to calibrate it and that'll take at least two more weeks outside of drydock, a day if you can manage to find us a berth. Knowing how unlikely that is, I don't think you'll ever see this ship generate a wormhole again.”
“Easy, Finn.” Chief Grady interjected quietly.
“No, it's all right. He saved our butts, followed orders and I ignored his warnings; he gets a free shot,” Alice said with a nod. “Clean up as much as you need to in order to make that section of the ship safe. Oh, and Finn? Take a few minutes to cool down then get to the bridge. I need an Engineering officer here in person from here on out and you're it.”
“Emerging into unaltered space, Captain,” Ashley reported from the helm.
“Tactical, begin scanning, and get those astronomer's eyes looking too, I don't want to miss a thing.”
The Triton emerged from the wormhole within a few hundred kilometres of their reconnaissance craft.
Alice watched the engineering status hologram and a representation of the inside of the main emitter control room. She couldn't help but wince as it was filled with sparks and the feed was cut off entirely by an explosion that shook the entire ship. “There it goes, a fire suppression team is already in place to take care of it,” Finn reported from the hallway outside the control room. “I'll be on the bridge in a few minutes. I only wish there could have been another way.”
“It was worth it,” Alice nodded.
“Sure was, good job hotwiring the system, I've never seen it done,” Laura added.
Alice brought up the communication screen up on the secondary holographic display so she could listen in on the exchange with the fighters.
“Triton SSG Control to Scrubber and Hardcore. You're ordered to return to hanger using our Tractor Net.” Commanded Assistant Chief Paula, who had taken over for her subordinate.
“Understood Triton. We'll be coming up underside and holding until the net draws us in. Looks like you've seen some action, anything we need to know about?” replied Hardcore.
“No. Make it quick,” Paula stated flatly.
“Are you sure? I could pick up some takeout on my way.”
“I'm sure, smart asses,” Paula muttered as she cut the comm session.
“What did our astrologers find?” Alice asked Agameg.
“Just after the Eden ships arrived they spotted a wormhole exit point and this;” Agameg replied without missing a beat, bringing up a hologram of a small vessel. The sensor information underneath it indicated that it was emitting almost no energy, but there was definitely a cockpit and windows for living quarters on the forty three meter long vessel.
“It's a Regent Galactic survey and observation ship,” Larry reported from the helm. “I had to ferry one between systems once. They're cramped, made to check on troubled areas and get out.”
“I guess they just wanted to see how we fared against about a thousand fighter drones. I hope they enjoyed the show.” Alice thought for a moment and watched the main holographic display on the bridge, where everyone could see the Uriel fighter being drawn up into the receiving bay at the rear aft of the ship. “All right, get us underway to these coordinates at our best speed. We don't have time to cover the emitters with stealth material, so they'll see us coming. I need everyone on the briefing list I'm posting to report to the mission theatre in seven hours. Stand down from high alert. Agameg, the bridge is yours,” Alice said as she stood and strode out of the bridge's main entrance, across the command corridor and into another set of double doors.
The main briefing theatre hadn't been in use for over thirty years, and as she walked into the large circular space she couldn't help but pause. You picked a lousy time to go on a milk run Jake, I hope you manage to sort yourself out.
Arrival
The Uriel fighter was much more comfortable than Jake had anticipated. Before he woke to the wormhole emergence alarm he dreamt he was in a soft, warm mound of mattresses and cushions, a dream he wouldn't share with some of the more hardened crew members back on the Triton.
As planned, he was awake several minutes before emerging from the highly compressed wormhole, the fighter performed beautifully as a personal transport, despite the fact that he didn't have the long term cabin component installed. He was able to stretch a little, but he was still sitting in essentially the same position.
Even though he was easily in control of all aspects of the ship while simply travelling, he knew he'd wish he had brought a copilot if he ran into trouble. Controlling shield, weapons, navigation, communications and the myriad other systems would be overwhelming, despite his practice sessions in the simulations.
No one knew who Hitman was until he actually had it stencilled onto the Uriel fighter he took, but he was
