“I know her.”
Vladimir looked in the direction of Ensign Nash. “You know this woman? She is very beautiful. You must introduce me.” Vladimir straightened up, raising his hand as if to wave to her.
“Whattaya doin’,” Nathan protested, grabbing Vladimir’s hand. “Are you crazy? She’ll see us!”
“I thought you said you know her?”
“Well, I don’t mean I know her, know her. I mean I know her.”
“Nathan, please. You do not make sense.”
“I mean, I met her, last night at a party. We’d both been drinking…”
“…Ah, then you know her!” Vladimir realized. “Then you definitely must introduce me.”
Nathan peeked towards her to make sure she hadn’t noticed them. It was a big ship, and if he was lucky, there was a chance that…
“…Scott, Nathan!” the commander called out.
Yes, Sir!” he answered instinctively.
“Helm and Navigation! Report to Captain Roberts.”
Nathan sank back down in his chair, peeking toward Jessica just in time to see a mischievous smirk on her face. “You have got to be kidding me”, he mumbled.
“I think I may have underestimated you, my friend,” Vladimir whispered as he patted Nathan on the shoulder.
“Taylor, Cameron!”
“Yes, Sir!” The woman a few chairs down called out.
“Helm and Navigation! Report to Captain Roberts.”
Nathan leaned forward slightly to see past Vladimir. She was a few years younger than Nathan, with shoulder-length brown hair. She was of medium height with angular features, and appeared quite disciplined and business like in her manner. Even though her gaze never wavered from looking at the podium, he was sure she could see him. As Nathan turned his eyes forward again, she stole a quick glance, sizing up her competition.
Having completed calling out the assignments, the lieutenant commander stepped away from the podium allowing Commander Montero to finish the briefing. “The next two weeks will be difficult. Besides your accelerated training regimen, you will also be called upon to help with some of the finishing work within your respective departments. Then, upon completion of your training, some of you will be promoted to head your teams. In turn, you will be responsible for training the next group of graduates due out in six months. Until that group is trained, this ship will be operating on a skeleton crew of one hundred instead of her standard compliment of three hundred. So the long hours will continue well after your training has concluded.”
The commander paused, stepping out from behind the podium, leaning against it in order to strike a less formal posture with his new crew. “Captain Roberts and I are both aware that we will be asking a lot of each and every one of you over the next six months. But you are Fleet Academy graduates, which means you are the best our planet has to offer. Only the best get into the Academy, and only the Best of Class get assigned to ships like the Aurora.”
That last statement gave Nathan pause. He had done alright at the Academy, finishing thirty-second out of a class of five hundred. But he knew for a fact he wasn’t Best of Class, especially considering the problems he experienced in the command simulations. He had felt lucky when he was looking at being on a backup graveyard flight team on the Reliant. But now he had a shot at becoming the lead helmsman for the newest, fastest ship in the fleet? Not only did he feel like he didn’t deserve it, but he wasn’t sure if he even wanted the responsibility. That’s when he started to suspect his father’s handiwork in his sudden reassignment. But why? What did he hope to accomplish? Was he trying to force him to accept responsibility, like he had been preaching to him his whole life? Or maybe, he was setting him up to fail, hoping that he’d give up on a life in space and take a nice, safe posting back on Earth. That would certainly please his mother. All of a sudden, Nathan wasn’t so sure his plan to leave it all behind and start over was going to work as well as he’d hoped.
The commander returned to his place behind the podium before continuing. “Until further notice, the duty hours of this ship are zero-eight-hundred to twenty-two-hundred. There will be no days off until after the first test flight in two weeks. All crew report to your department heads to begin training. Dismissed!” Commander Montero stepped away from the podium and exited the briefing room, with Lieutenant Commander Kaguchi right behind him.
Vladimir suddenly turned to face Nathan, excitedly demanding, “You must give me details.” Now that the briefing was over, he was dying to know more about Nathan’s tryst with Ensign Nash.
Nathan turned to him, all set to share the events of the previous night, when he noticed Ensign Taylor, hurriedly making her way out of the briefing room. Suddenly, he felt the need to follow her. “Vlad, my friend- gentlemen do not kiss and tell.” Nathan got up and left, patting Vladimir on the shoulder on his way out.
“Gentlemen? What Gentlemen?” Vladimir turned to his departing roommate. “But we are roomies, Nathan!” But it was too late. Nathan was already on his way out the door.
Nathan entered the corridor outside the briefing room just in time to see Cameron turning the corner down the corridor to his right. Breaking into a jog, Nathan caught up with her as she was heading up the ramp to the command deck.
“Ensign Taylor,” he said as he caught up to her. She barely reacted to his presence, not slowing her stride or missing a step as she ascended the long ramp. “Hi, I’m Nathan Scott.” Nathan offered his hand as he fell into step alongside her.
“I know who you are, Ensign,” she answered. Although Nathan hadn’t expected any particular type of response, her absolute lack of interest or emotion was a bit surprising, as was her disregard for his offer of a handshake.
“Really? So who am I, then?”
“Ensign Scott, Nathan R. Graduated thirty-second in your class from the North American Fleet Academy, despite rather mediocre scores in command simulations. Specialized in Piloting and Navigation, studied Earth History in a private college, son of Senator Dayton Scott, who just announced he is running for president of the NAU.' She flashed a fake smile at him. “Did I miss anything?”
“Yeah, you left out that I flunked chemistry in secondary school. How is it you know so much about me?”
“I make it a point to know who I’m working with.”
“Well, that’s encouraging-I think.” There was no response for an awkward moment. “So, I guess we’ll be working together?”
“In a manner of speaking.” She was either being coy or rude. He wasn’t sure which just yet.
“So it’s kind of exciting, huh?” he asked, trying desperately to strike up some kind of friendly conversation with her. But he didn’t seem to be having any luck.
Cameron couldn’t figure out if Nathan was trying to size her up, hit on her, or was just being polite. And it made her wonder if he even realized what was at stake? One thing was for sure, she was not going let her guard down around him.
“The XO was laying it on kind of thick back there, wasn’t he?” Nathan fumbled, “all that Best of the Best stuff.”
“Best of Class,” she corrected.
“Huh?”
“What he said was Best of Class,” she reiterated as they came to the top of the ramp and turned towards the bridge.
“Whatever,” Nathan muttered. He was pretty sure now, she was just rude.
Cameron glanced at him for the first time since he started talking to her, put off by his cavalier response. “Look, Ensign, I don’t know if you realize this, but you and I, we’re in competition with one another.”
“Hey, I’m not looking to compete with anyone,” he defended. “I’ll be happy if I just don’t screw anything up”.
Cameron stopped short of the entrance to the bridge, turning to Nathan to confront him. “Let me spell this out for you, okay? It takes two people to fly this ship, a helmsman and a navigator. And the helmsman is the senior member of that team. And the first one to take the helm will probably end up lead pilot, in command of all three flight teams once this ship is fully staffed. Get it?” she ended, stabbing him in the chest with her pointed index
