of our local sensors back online, although Kaylah says that until she can run a full diagnostic on them, we shouldn’t trust their accuracy out to more than a few million kilometers. She also reports that there are five more small ships out there, that have taken up positions all around us. But I can’t tell if they’re in position to attack us or defend us.”

“Yeah, well, they said they were here to help.”

“Really? You spoke to them?

“Yeah, one of them speaks Angla.”

“What?”

“Angla. I think it means really bad English in their language,” he said. “They’re down in engineering helping Vlad right now.”

“You think that’s wise?” she questioned.

“Don’t worry. Jessica has orders to keep a close eye on them.”

“Jessica?”

“Ensign Nash, from Spec-Ops? She’s one tough nut. Kinda scary. You’d like her,” he jabbed. It felt good to lighten the mood after what they had been through over the last couple of hours.

“I see. How many of these helpers are there?”

“Four, for now. If it works out, there’s more available if needed.”

“Four? How’s she going to watch all four?”

“She’s armed. And she’s got help,” he assured her. “Besides, they warned that more of the enemy might return soon, so I figured we’d better accept their offer, and get out of here as quick as possible.”

“And you just believed them?”

“For now, cautiously.” Nathan stepped up to the tactical console and pressed the comm button. “Engineering, Bridge!”

“Yes,” Vladimir answered.

“How’s it going down there?”

“I’m sorry, Nathan, but it will take longer than I thought to get maneuvering and propulsion systems back online. The damage is worse than I expected.”

“Well, at least you got main power up, that’s something.”

“Thank you, Nathan. But it was not me. It was those people you sent down. They are pretty good engineers. Difficult to speak with, but they are very smart and learn quickly.”

“Glad to hear it. Keep working on maneuvering and propulsion. Bridge out.”

“Lieutenant!” Jessica called out as she entered the bridge with Jalea at her side. Nathan spun around, not expecting to see Jessica back on the bridge so soon. “Oh, excuse me, Captain,” she corrected, after seeing the bloody bars on his collar. “We need to talk.”

“I thought you were watching our guests?” Nathan asked, surprised.

“I’ve got Sergeant Weatherly and the rest watching them. Besides, this couldn’t wait,” she insisted.

“Jalea, this is Cameron,” he introduced.

Jalea, still not terribly confident in her ability to speak English offered only a respectful nod, taking Cameron’s handshake when offered.

“Listen, we’ve got problems,” Jessica continued, interrupting the pleasantries. “According to Jalea, there are more Takaran ships on their way…”

“…What? I hope you don’t mean more like that last one, ‘cause it nearly killed us.” Nathan did not like where the conversation was going. He had just been officially placed in command, and he was hoping for a little more time to get used to the idea before the next crisis.

“No, smaller ones, she thinks…”

“…Anything on sensors?” Cameron interrupted, turning towards Ensign Yosef.

“No Sir.”

“I don’t understand?” Cameron asked Jessica. “How does she know they’re coming?”

“Their ships reported it. They picked up the incoming vessels on their sensors a few minutes ago. I brought Jalea up here so she could translate between you and their ships.”

“Good thinking.” Nathan commended.

“Actually, it was Marak’s idea,” she admitted. “He thought it would be better for her to remain with you, as your translator, for now.”

“But how are Marak and the others going to communicate with our people in engineering?”

“Vladimir figured out that their language is a mixture of Slavic and Germanic languages, with a little Arabic thrown in.”

“Odd combination,” Cameron observed.

“Yeah, well, Vladimir speaks German as well as Russian, and with Jalea’s help he managed to fill in a few of the blanks, at least enough for now. He’s pretty smart, I’ll give him that.”

“Captain!” Ensign Yosef interrupted. “I’ve got them now! Transferring to tactical.”

Cameron looked down at the tactical display. “Two of them, much smaller than the first one. They’re moving fast, maybe twice light, so we can’t out run them.”

“We can’t outrun anything in our current state,” Nathan added, the frustration obvious in his voice.

“How long until they reach weapons range?” he asked Cameron.

“Well, they’ll reach us in about twenty minutes. Assuming their weapons range is about the same as ours, maybe fifteen?”

Nathan thought some more. No propulsion, no maneuvering, no weapons. To him it all equaled one thing-no options. He looked around the bridge. There were marines guarding both exits once more, and two more ensigns had come in and taken the ship’s systems station behind Ensign Yosef, and the Port Auxiliary Station located just in front of the port exit was being reconfigured to manage both Communications and Electronic Countermeasures.

“Can your ships stop them?” he asked Jalea.

“No, Takaran ships big, very strong.”

“Can you call for help?” Jessica interjected.

“No, help too far, no time.”

Nathan noticed that Doctor Sorenson was sitting quietly at her station, running systems checks to keep her mind off of her father’s untimely demise. “Doctor Sorenson?” he asked. “Can we jump again?”

She stared at him coldly for a moment, finally answering. “I do not think you understand the complexity of this system, Captain,” she warned. In her mind, she blamed the reckless manner in which Captain Roberts had used the system for the death of her father. The first transition algorithms had taken days to calculate, and even longer to verify. And these people thought using it was like jumping over a puddle. “You can’t just jump, jump, jump, whenever you like…”

“…Doctor,” he interrupted, trying to take a more gentle tact. “I understand what you’re saying, and under normal circumstances I wouldn’t dream of using it in such a haphazard manner. But these are not normal circumstances. We’ve got more enemy ships on the way, we’ve got no weapons and we’re adrift. I don’t see any other options.”

She looked at him again, realizing he was right. “Maybe. We just got power back minutes ago, and I haven’t finished running diagnostics on the transition sequencer yet. But the field generators are okay, and there is still enough energy in the storage banks for a short jump, maybe two or three light years at the most. But I do not know the state of all the field emitters on the outside of the hull. We took a lot of weapons fire, and if too many of the emitters are damaged, the fields may not initiate properly.”

“What happens if they don’t” Cameron asked.

“I’m not sure.”

Cameron could see in the Doctor’s eyes that she at least had a suspicion of what might happen. “What do you think could happen?”

“Part of the ship might not jump.”

“Part of the ship? I don’t think I like the sound of that,” she insisted.

“Neither do I. Doctor, can’t you check the emitters from here?”

“No. We did not have time to add hard-wired sensor leads to all the emitters, so we used wireless ones on

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