the least, it might give us enough time to get maneuvering and propulsion back online.” Nathan turned his attention to Ensign Yosef, monitoring the sensors from her sciences station. “Ensign Yosef. How many rebel ships have landed so far?”
“Only two, sir.”
“Two?” Nathan quickly activated the comm. “Jessica! What’s taking so long down there?”
“These ships are bigger than we thought, Captain. I don’t know if we’re going to be able to fit them all in here!”
“Well, leave one in the airlock and one on the apron, if you have to! Just get them on deck! How long before they can fire on us?” he asked Cameron
“Five minutes, maybe,” Cameron answered. He knew she was guessing. They knew nothing about Takaran weapons and technology.
“Jalea,” he asked, drawing her away from Doctor Sorenson’s side. “We need to get your ships on board more quickly, there’s not enough time.” She looked puzzled. “Not enough time,” he repeated. “Go faster.” Suddenly, she understood what he wanted, and began communicating the problem with Marak. A moment later he heard Marak’s voice giving a rather important sounding command over their communicators. He didn’t understand what he was saying, but from the tone of Marak’s voice he was pretty sure that if he had, he wouldn’t have liked it.
“Nathan,” Cameron called. “Two of the rebel ships have reversed course!”
“What?”
“They’re on an intercept vector for the incoming Takaran ships.”
“What are they doing? They’ll be destroyed!” Nathan spun back around to face Jalea “What did he tell them to do!”
“Need more time,” she explained. “They give.”
“They give? You mean they give their lives?” Nathan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Do they know this?”
“They know,” she answered, with no emotion showing in her voice.
“The rebel ships have fired on the Takarans, and they’re changing course, heading away from us.”
“Did their fire…”
“…No effect,” Cameron reported. Nathan was now standing next to her at the tactical display, watching the engagement. “The Takaran ships are changing course, pursuing.” They watched for less than a minute, until the two Takaran ships caught up to the rebels and obliterated them. “The rebel ships are destroyed,” Cameron reported. “They’re resuming original course. ETA six minutes, weapons range in one.”
“How many people were on those ships?” Nathan asked Jalea coldly.
“Six,” she answered in much the same tone.
Nathan couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. Six people had just sacrificed themselves for nothing. At the most, it might have gained them an extra minute.
“They’re firing!” Cameron reported. “Missiles inbound, tracking four, all nukes! ETA thirty seconds!”
“Bridge! Hangar Bay! The last of the rebel ships are on deck!”
Nathan stood there staring intently into Jalea’s eyes. She didn’t blink, didn’t look away. Where he had once seen strength and compassion, he now saw only a cold ruthlessness that he wasn’t sure he could understand. And he knew he didn’t like it.
“Captain!” Cameron begged.
“Kill the view screen,” he ordered calmly. “Doctor Sorenson, it’s time to go.”
CHAPTER 7
“Transition complete,” Doctor Sorenson reported with just the slightest hint of relief in her voice.
Cameron immediately switched the view screen back on, revealing a sea of asteroids of varying sizes. Nathan couldn’t help but marvel at the view. He had never seen an asteroid field, and by his understanding, this one was far more dense than most. The field of stars before them had an unusual twinkling quality, as the numerous asteroids too distant to see with the naked eye passed in front of stars, causing them to blink off and on. His gaze was fixed on the screen for at least a full minute, so long that Cameron was beginning to wonder what he was staring at.
“Anything on sensors?” he finally asked Ensign Yosef.
“No Sir, just rocks.”
Nathan wasn’t sure he could believe it, not after the previous two jumps. “What? No Jung patrols? No mammoth Takaran warships? No rebel hoards?”
Cameron just gave him a sideways glance, unimpressed by the timing of his sarcasm.
“I’m just checking,” he defended.
Jalea exclaimed something in her native language, astonished at what she had just witnessed.
“How is this possible?” she finally asked in English, her eyes wide.
“I really don’t know,” Nathan admitted. “But lucky for us, it is.”
“Captain, suggest we start a plot of all the nearest asteroids?” Cameron suggested. “Just to be on the safe side.”
“Good idea.” he agreed.
“Just so you are aware, Captain,” Doctor Sorenson interrupted, “the transition system’s energy banks are now down to less than ten percent.”
“And that’s bad?” he asked. There was still so much he didn’t know about this new system.
“It will take at least a few hours to charge the energy banks enough to execute even a short transition. That’s assuming we’re able to run our reactor at one hundred percent the entire time.”
“Understood, Doctor. When time permits, I think we’re going to need a full briefing on the capabilities and limitations of your, what did you call it?”
“Hyperluminal Transition System.”
Nathan mumbled it to himself, giving up halfway through the name. “You know what? Let’s keep calling it a Jump Drive for now.”
“That’s not exactly accurate,” she protested.
“Maybe not, but it’s a lot easier to say. Besides, that other one will never catch on,” Nathan added as he opened a comm channel to engineering. “Engineering, Bridge.”
“Yes! Go ahead,” Vladimir responded, sounding more than a bit annoyed at being bothered again.
“Can you run the primary reactor for the jump drive at one hundred percent?”
“What is this, jump drive?” he asked, having not heard of it before now.
“Doctor Sorenson’s little project?”
“Of course, I should’ve known.” Nathan could hear the change in the tone of Vladimir’s voice. “Yes, this I can do. But please, for no longer than is necessary.”
“Understood,” Nathan acknowledged, switching off the comm.
“Captain,” Ensign Yosef warned, “if the Takarans come looking for us, that reactor is going to be like big sign pointing out our location, regardless of all these asteroids.”
“How long does it take to shut down an antimatter reactor?” he asked Cameron, embarrassed that he didn’t know.
“Ten to fifteen minutes, I think.”
“Actually,” Doctor Sorenson interjected, “we rewrote the shutdown procedure to satisfy our abort protocols. We can have the reactor off line in about three minutes, and the core would no longer be emanating any discernible energy output within seconds of starting the abort process.”
“Excellent, problem solved then.” He turned to Ensign Yosef, “If you pick-up any signs of a Takaran ship, don’t go through us, just tell Doctor Sorenson and she’ll shutdown the reactor. Okay?” Nathan looked at each of them to make sure everyone understood their part.
“Nathan,” Cameron said in a hushed tone, “I think our jump drive has made quite an impression on the locals.” Cameron looked toward Jalea, who was now standing by the port exit in the back corner of the bridge facing
