“Marak only wishes to repay his life debt to you, Captain,” she stated coldly. “He will see to it that you receive all the help that you need in order to get you started on your journey.”
Nathan stared at Jalea, unsure if he could believe her. It had been a precisely worded response, which made him suspicious. “That’s all?”
“Yes.”
Nathan wasn’t sure if they were telling the truth, or were the universe’s greatest liars. But he wasn’t going to give them the chance to take advantage of him.
“Look, Jalea. No disrespect intended, but I find it hard to believe that it’s that simple. I mean, by your own words, you people are fighting a war. And from what I hear, you’re losing. And all you want is to repay a life debt?”
“I understand your reluctance to believe us, Captain. You do not understand us. So I would not expect you to take our word so easily. You would be foolish to do otherwise.”
“Then you won’t be insulted if I don’t fully trust you right now?”
“Like I said, you would be foolish to do otherwise.” Jalea could tell that Nathan was having a difficult time believing her, and decided to offer more of an explanation. “Captain, your ship saved us not once, but twice. First, you appeared as if by magic, to stand as a shield between us and our enemy. Then, again as if by magic, you carried us all away to the safety of this asteroid field. In truth, you saved us not once, but twice. So indeed we owe you much. Probably much more than we can ever repay.”
Nathan looked them both over before deciding that he had little choice but to take them at their word for now. And he had no doubt that Jessica would keep a close eye on them while they were on board. “Very well,” he stated as he rose. “On behalf of the Aurora and her crew, I thank you for your help.”
“Just as we thank you for yours.” Marak spoke a few words to Jalea as he rose. “Marak wonders if he might return to continue his work with your chief engineer?”
“Yes, of course. Jessica will accompany you.”
Jessica took the cue from Nathan and led Marak out of the room, leaving Nathan alone with Jalea.
“Captain,” Jalea spoke. “I offer you another bit of information that might ease your concerns?”
“Please do.”
“What you said before is true. We are losing our war with the Takarans. In fact, had they defeated us this day, it is likely that the few remaining ‘Karuzari’, or ‘rebels’ as you call them, would’ve disbanded forever, and the revolution would be over. So you have done far more than saving our lives this day. You may have also saved our cause.” Jalea bowed her head slightly, then brought her eyes back up to his, their fierce determination showing brightly. “It is for this that Marak feels indebted.”
“Thank you for sharing that with me.” Nathan looked at her intently. “Is there anything else?”
“You should understand, Captain, that a life debt is a very serious thing to the Karuzari. And Marak would gladly sacrifice his own life to honor that debt.
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” Nathan stated in a tone that indicated he had nothing further to say on the matter.
Jalea bowed her head again, took a step backward, then turned and strode confidently out of the room, leaving Nathan alone.
“Captain to the bridge!” the comm officer’s voice called over the comm. Nathan immediately rose and followed Jalea out of the room.
“What’s up?” he asked as he entered the bridge.
“We’ve got a contact, Captain,” Cameron reported. “It just left the Takaran outpost on one of the gas giant’s moons. It’s headed toward the asteroid field.”
“Did you power down the reactors?”
“The moment they appeared,” she assured him.
“Are they headed for us?”
“Not yet. They appear to be headed to a different part of the field.”
“Let me know if they change course,” Nathan ordered before turning to Abigail. “How much of a charge did we get?”
“Eighty-seven percent.”
“So we can jump what, maybe eight and a half light years?”
“I would try to keep it under eight, if possible.”
Marak and Jessica entered the bridge, having turned back when Jessica heard of the contact on their way to engineering. Marak immediately began talking excitedly with Jalea in their language.
“Comm, find out how much longer until we get maneuvering and propulsion back online.”
“Captain?” Jalea interrupted. “Marak has told our ships to monitor all transmissions from the Takaran ship. We will provide translations of any communications that we intercept.”
“Thank you.”
“Captain,” the comm officer called out. “Engineering reports maneuvering is restarting now, should be online in a few minutes. Main propulsion will take longer.”
“So we can crawl out, but we can’t run.”
“We do have rail guns back up. At least we’ll be able to fight back,” Cameron suggested, hoping to alleviate some of Nathan’s frustration.
“I do not believe they will find us,” Jalea assured him. “The rocks are an excellent place to hide.”
“She’s right sir,” Ensign Yosef chimed in. “With all the metal in these asteroids, and the distortions and echoes caused by their gravitational fields, they’d have to be able to actually see us in order to find us. I’m having a hard time tracking them, and our sensors are pointed away from the field.”
“Okay. What else can we do?” Nathan was getting anxious.
“We can pre-load the forward torpedo tubes,” Cameron suggested.
“Yeah, but we can barely turn the ship toward the targets,” Nathan reminded her.
“They do have their own guidance systems, Nathan,” she explained. “If they come so much as thirty degrees of our bow line, we can fire on them-as long as they’re in range that is.”
“Okay, make it happen.”
“Might I suggest that you take steps to reduce any signals coming from your ship, Captain,” Jalea advised.
Nathan did not yet fully trust Jalea, but as long as she was on the same ship as them, their immediate motives were still the same-to survive.
“Ensign Yosef, please see to that,” Nathan ordered, distracted by the continuing conversation between Marak and Jalea.
“Yes Sir.”
Jalea broke from her discussion with Marak to speak to Nathan. “Captain, I do not understand. Can you not do as before? Can you not bring our ships on board and then simply disappear?”
“But to where?”
“Captain,” Abigail interrupted. “We’ll need to get clear of the gravitational influences of the asteroid field before we can safely jump.”
“How clear?”
“Well clear, I’m afraid.” Nathan didn’t much care for the thought of wandering out into open space with a Takaran warship out their looking for them. In their current state, he doubted they would stand a chance.
“What would happen if we jumped from here?”
“I really do not know,” she admitted. But Nathan could see on her face that she didn’t want to find out.
“The minute we run, that ship will come after us,” Cameron warned him.
“But they’re not coming toward us now.”
“No, but that could change at any moment,” she reminded.
“Well, let’s not wait around for that to happen. Work with Jalea to find us a new place to hide. Preferably somewhere within eight light years. And let’s start moving those rebel ships back inside. No use in waiting until the last moment.”
Marak suddenly received another communication from his ships, and immediately began giving Jalea instructions.
