“Lieutenant,” the captain said, “when we come out of the transition, if you see anything in our path, don’t wait for anyone to tell you to take evasive action. Understood?”
“Yes Sir,” Nathan answered. Now he was starting to think Vladimir had been wrong.
“Ensign Taylor,” the faster you can get a fix on our location after the transition, the happier I’ll be.”
“Yes Sir.”
“XO, bring the ship to yellow alert, please.”
“Yellow Alert, Yes sir.” The commander changed the ships readiness status to yellow, again changing all the light bars throughout the ship and sounding the condition change alert. “All hands, Yellow Alert! Set ship’s to condition to yellow!” the commander announced ship-wide.
All over the ship, the crew rushed to make sure that everything was properly stowed away, every system was checked and ready, all non-essential systems were shut down, and all bulkhead hatches were closed.
A few minutes later, the last of the green condition lights on his tactical display changed to yellow. “Ship is set at condition yellow, Sir,” Commander Montero reported.
“Very well. Time to threshold?”
“One minute, Sir,” Cameron responded.
Down in Engineering, Vladimir was getting nervous. The two reactors used by the special projects team had been running at one hundred percent for over four hours, long before he had come on duty, and he did not understand how they were using so much power. No one had informed him of what was about to happen, but he knew that the moment of truth for the special projects team was at hand. He only hoped it didn’t result in damage to his reactors.
“Crossing threshold, Sir,” Cameron reported. “We are now on the far side of Jupiter from the Earth.”
“Doctor Karlsen,” the captain announced. “Whenever you’re ready.”
Doctor Karlsen watched over his daughter’s shoulder as she worked the console at the auxiliary station, making comments to her in Danish as she worked.
“Transition systems are ready,” she announced. “Energy banks at forty percent capacity.”
“Is that enough?” the captain asked.
“More than enough for transitions both there and back, Captain,” she answered calmly, trying to hide her annoyance at the question during so critical a time.
“You think we’ll feel anything,” Nathan whispered to Cameron, but got no response.
“Transition parameters locked into auto-sequencer, the system is ready for initiation.”
Doctor Sorenson looked at the captain, who was looking back at her over his shoulder. It was a polite gesture, as it was his ship to command.
“Let her rip,” he ordered.
“Initiating transition in five…”
Despite the fact that they had been told there would be no sensation, and no change in ship’s velocity momentum, everyone on the bridge turned their chairs to face forward.
“Four…”
The captain wondered what his wife was doing at the moment.
“Three…”
Nathan rested both hands on his console, as if to brace himself.
“Two…”
For some reason, Cameron did the same.
“One…”
Nathan held his breath.
“Initiating…”
Outside of the ship, a pale blue wave of light washed out from shield emitters that were scattered strategically about the hull of the ship. In a split second, the bluish light grew into a glowing ball that encompassed the entire ship. Suddenly, the light turned white as it fell back into the ship, erasing her from view. It all happened in an instant. One moment the Aurora was orbiting Jupiter, and the next she was gone.
Inside the bridge, the main view screen showed the blue-white flash, flooding the entire bridge with a ghostly flash of light. It was like being caught unexpectedly by a really bright camera flash, causing spots in front of the eyes of all those unfortunate enough to be looking forward during the event.
“Transition complete,” Doctor Sorenson announced. “Verifying position.”
Despite the big blue-white blotch floating in his field of vision, Nathan frantically scanned the view screen for any signs of obstacles directly in their path.
“Position?” the captain asked.
“We are exactly two meters off our projected arrival point,” Doctor Sorenson announced. “The transition was successful,” she added with pride.
A man who cared little for emotional outbursts, in such professional situation, Doctor Karlsen simply put his hand on his daughter’s shoulder and gave it a loving squeeze. She knew that coming from him, in their current setting, it carried far more meaning than anyone around them could understand. Inside, they were both beaming with pride as the culmination of ten years of work on what had started out as an energy shield project, was about to change the course of humanity.
“She’s right, Sir,” Cameron assured the captain. “We’re at the designated position, on the outer edge of the Oort cloud.
“My God,” the captain exclaimed. “Sensor contacts?”
“The board shows clear, Captain,” Commander Montero reported.
“Sensors may be inaccurate, Sir,” the officer operating the long range sensor station advised. “I suggest we run a full diagnostic to make sure that they were not affected by the transition.”
“I know I was,” Nathan mumbled, still blinking repeatedly as he tried to make the big blue splotches leave his field of vision.
“Very, well. Get on it,” the captain ordered as he turned to face Doctor Karlsen. “Congratulations, Doctors. You may have just saved the Earth,” he added with a smile.
“Contact!” the sensor operator announced. “Just came on the screen, transferring plot to tactical!”
Nathan felt a cold shiver pass over him.
“I’ve got it, Captain,” the commander announced from the tactical station. “Running ID check against the intel database.”
“Helm,” the captain began in a low and controlled tone. “Slow and easy, turn into the contact’s bearing. And keep your thrust low to avoid detection.”
“Aye, Sir,” Nathan responded. “Coming to port, slow and easy, minimal thrust.”
“I’ve got a probable match,” the commander reported. “Jung patrol ship, smaller than us, lightly armored, missiles, rail guns and shields-no energy weapons. Not much fire-power really.”
“Maybe, but in our current state, without any shields and limited fire-power of our own? I’d say we’re evenly matched,” the captain observed. The commander nodded in agreement.
“We’re pointed toward the contact, Sir,” Nathan reported.
“Very well.” The captain turned his attention back to the commander. “Have they spotted us?”
“Not sure. But if we flashed outside like we did inside, our arrival would’ve been kind of hard to miss, don’t you think?”
“Maybe, but we did come in behind them. If we’re lucky, they’re doing directional sweeps forward.”
Commander Montero grimaced suddenly as the information on his contact track changed. “No such luck, they’re changing course and accelerating. They’re headed our way.”
“Comm! Unlock all internal communications and sound battle stations! And get the deep space comm array back online! I wanna know if that Jung ship tries to send out a message!” The captain spun back around as the battle stations alarm sounded and the condition lights on the bridge changed to red, casting an eerie, faint red tinge on everything in the room.
“Helm, full speed ahead, bring her up to quarter-light fast! I wanna close to weapons range before she has a chance to take action!”
“Aye, full speed ahead, coming up to one-quarter light.” Nathan brought the ships main engines up to full power, instantly feeling the acceleration push him back in his seat despite the attempts by the inertial dampening
