not be repaired.
A half dozen crewmen, most of them engineers or technical specialists, were busy trying to repair the most urgent systems. In the middle of it all was Vladimir, bigger than life, barking out orders to at least three different work teams simultaneously. In contrast to Doctor Chen, Vladimir appeared to be enjoying the challenge.
“Vlad!” Nathan called out as he came toward him. Vladimir spun around to see Nathan limping slightly on a bandaged leg and sporting bloody captains bars on his collar.
“Nathan!” he smiled. To Nathan’s surprise, Vladimir gave him a big hug. “I’m so glad you survived, my friend.” Before Nathan could speak, his friend turned and barked more commands to a nearby work team before continuing. “And you are a captain now?!”, he added, slapping Nathan on the back. “But still, I am not going to salute you.”
Nathan noticed one of the rebels scurry past carrying some type of wiring harness. “How are they doing?” he asked Vladimir, tilting his head toward the passing man. “Are they much help?”
“Yes! They are very good! Not as good as me, of course. But they seem to know their way with such things. It makes me wonder what they have in their ships,” he added under his breath.
“You think they might be more advanced than us?”
“Nathan, everyone is more advanced than us!” he exclaimed.
Nathan hadn’t thought about it before, but now he realized that Vladimir might be right. The people of Earth had only started getting back into space about thirty years ago. And there had been little research and development done beyond the technologies found in the Data Ark. With the threat of Jung invasion looming over them, there hadn’t been time. They had heard that a few of the fringe worlds had been less impacted by the plague. So it made sense that some of them could’ve developed more advanced technologies over the last millennia, while the people of Earth were rebuilding from the ground up.
“But with these people, I think it is sometimes yes, sometimes no.” Vladimir could see by Nathan’s expression that he was confused. “At some things, they are amazed, like they cannot believe what they are seeing. At others, they cannot believe we are still using them!” he laughed.
“How are the repairs going?” he asked, getting back to the reason for his visit.
“Oh, terrible! So many things not working! No engines, no maneuvering, only two good reactors. And as you can see, many consoles are badly damaged. It will take weeks to repair! But do not worry, Nathan. We will fix it. We will fix everything.
“How long until we have maneuvering again?”
“A few hours at the most. Main propulsion, I do not yet know. But soon, we will have all four reactors online, so we will have full power once more.
“Then do we have weapons?”
“Soon, soon,” Vladimir promised. “First rail guns, then torpedoes. Missile batteries, they must still be installed. But since we have no missiles to fire, it does not matter.”
“Well, the sooner you can get us moving, the better. I have to tell you, being a sitting duck out here makes me nervous.”
“Just try to keep us out of trouble for awhile, Nathan. That would be of great help.”
“I’ll do my best. But our intel says we’ve only got about a day at the outside.”
“Intel? What intel?”
“Our guests, they tell us the Takarans will come looking for us soon.”
“Who are these, ‘Takarans’?” Vladimir had spent the entire time in engineering, and still had no idea of what they had been through. All he knew was that he and his fellow engineers had been bounced around on three separate occasions. “What is going on, Nathan? Where are we?”
“I wish I knew. My best guess is somewhere out on the fringe.”
Vladimir looked at Nathan like he was crazy. “The fringe?…”
“…I know it sounds crazy…”
“…It is not possible!”
“It’s complicated…”
“…It’s got something to do with that evil doctor woman, yes?” Vladimir surmised.
Nathan again recounted the day’s events for the benefit of his friend. Vladimir took the news far better than Doctor Chen had. In fact, he seemed more excited about the existence of the Jump Drive than anything else. And it appeared that his new chief engineer was looking forward to the challenges ahead with absolute glee. It had not been the reaction Nathan had expected, but it had been a refreshing one.
“So how bad off are we?” Nathan asked Cameron as she followed him into his ready room. As he entered, he was suddenly struck by the starkness of the now empty room. It had been at least sparsely decorated when it had been occupied by Captain Roberts, but now it had been stripped of even those few mementos.
“I took the liberty of clearing out the captain’s belongings,” she explained, noticing his reaction. “I hope you don’t mind.”
It had not occurred to Nathan that this task would need to be performed. And now that she had done it, he realized that it would not have been easy for him. For that small kindness, he was surprisingly grateful. “No, not at all,” he answered softly. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
“What did you do with…”
“…I packed them safely away,” she assured him. “I’ll see that his family receives them when we get back.”
Nathan nodded his approval as he made his way across the small room and around the desk. “You can skip the engineering stuff, I already got that from Vlad.”
“Well, the bow took a beating. There are multiple hull breaches. Most are from weapons fire as we backed away from that Takaran warship. The biggest breach of course is from ramming them.”
“Not my fault,” he defended. “We were pretty much dead-stick at the time.”
“Yes, I was there,” she reminded him before continuing. “The forward section is going to be uninhabitable until the breaches are sealed and the hull is repaired. In port, that would take a few days. Out here?” she shrugged, indicating she had no idea.
“Maybe never,” Nathan admitted.
“Of course, most of the forward section is housing, and some recreational areas. But since we’re shorthanded, there should still be plenty of housing available aft of the forward bulkheads.”
“And what about crew?” he asked hesitantly. He knew he wasn’t going to like the answer.
Cameron took a deep breath before giving him the news. “Thirty-eight dead, forty-two injured.”
Nathan fell into his seat. “Thirty-eight? Oh my God,” he muttered. The first thought that crossed his mind was how many of those deaths had occurred after he assumed command. It was a small point, insignificant to those that had perished. But it meant everything to Nathan. “How many injured?”
“Forty-two,” she repeated. “But twenty of them are minor and can still man their posts.”
“So we’ve only got forty people to run this ship?”
“That’s it.” Cameron could see that Nathan was devastated by the news. But as bad as she felt for him, if he was going to be captain, he was going to have to get used to such news.
“We can’t run the ship with forty people, can we?” It didn’t seem possible to him, but he wasn’t sure.
“Technically, no. But there are several departments that either were not online yet, or are too damaged to be of any use right now, so we might be able to squeak by. But there are some areas that are going to present problems, especially if we have to go into battle again.”
Nathan looked at her, a confused look in his eye. He was still stuck on the number of crew he had lost and was not yet thinking clearly.
“We can fly the ship, and we can fight with her, but we won’t have anyone for damage control.”
“Maybe we can get some more help from these rebels?” Nathan suggested off the top of his head.
“Nathan, I’m not sure we should trust them too much just yet,” she warned. Like Jessica, she was far more suspicious of the rebel’s motives than Nathan seemed to be. And his eagerness to trust them worried her.
Nathan considered her warning. “Yeah, you could be right about that. I just don’t see that we have much choice given the circumstances. I mean, badly damaged, barely enough crew to fly the ship, and God knows how far
