finger to emphasize her point.
“Look,” Nathan assured her. “I don’t care who’s in charge. I just wanna do a good job.”
“Great, then you won’t be disappointed when you’re sitting second seat to me.”
Nathan stopped dead in his tracks, stunned by her brazen attitude. That’s when he noticed that she was headed for the captain’s ready room. And all of a sudden, Nathan found that he did care about the lead pilot position. In fact, he cared about it more than he ever could’ve imagined. So much so that he ran to catch up with her to make sure that they met the captain together, as equals.
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 finger to emphasize her point.
“Look,” Nathan assured her. “I don’t care who’s in charge. I just wanna do a good job.”
“Great, then you won’t be disappointed when you’re sitting second seat to me.”
Nathan stopped dead in his tracks, stunned by her brazen attitude. That’s when he noticed that she was headed for the captain’s ready room. And all of a sudden, Nathan found that he did care about the lead pilot position. In fact, he cared about it more than he ever could’ve imagined. So much so that he ran to catch up with her to make sure that they met the captain together, as equals.
CHAPTER 3
Something was wrong. Nathan was pulling the joystick to the left to try and line the ship up to dock with the station. But for some reasons, the ship was starting to roll to her right. “What the hell?”
“I’m reading an unknown failure in the bow maneuvering thrusters, port side,” Cameron said.
“No kidding? I’m telling her to roll left, but she’s rolling right.”
“Well stop it,” she ordered, as she struggled to try and figure out what was wrong.
“Stop what?” Nathan quickly took his hand off the joystick, startled by Cameron snapping at him.
“Stop maneuvering.”
“I’m not touching anything.” Now Nathan had both hands hovering in the air over his controls.
Cameron’s eyes were darting about her console, as her fingers danced across the smooth touch-screen surface in an attempt to deal with the problem. She knew something was wrong. She just had to figure out what it was, and then come up with a solution. “The thruster is firing on its own.”
“Well shut it down and switch to backups.” Nathan was well aware that she already knew what to do, and that telling her to do it was unnecessary. But they had not gotten along since day one, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to deal with her when he was at the helm. So he had been forced to chose the only logic course, and just tell her everything, just to cover his own butt.
“Working on it,” she assured him, more calmly now that she knew what needed to be done. “It’s not responding. The right roll thruster is still stuck open and firing.”
“Get it shut down, Cam. We’re going into a roll.”
“Backups are not responding.”
Suddenly, an alarm sounded, followed by a computerized voice. “Collision Warning. Collision Warning.”
“Range to station?” Nathan requested after the computer voice alerted him to the additional problem. They were coming dangerously close to the station, and if they didn’t slow their rate of approach soon, the thrusters would not be powerful enough to keep them from colliding and causing massive damage.
“Twenty kilometers,” Cam responded after glancing at the range readout. She immediately turned her attention back to the thruster problem. “I still can’t get it to stop firing.”
“Cut the fuel flow,” Nathan suggested.
“Already tried, no good. I’m jettisoning the entire maneuvering pod.”
“What?” Nathan’s eyes went wide. “What the hell am I supposed to maneuver with?”
Cameron rolled her eyes, wondering why she had to explain the obvious to him. “If we jettison the pod, we stop the burn before the roll becomes unrecoverable.” She was abnormally calm, talking as if she were reading from a manual.
“What about the fuel flow?”
“The unrestricted flow will be sensed by the line pressure monitors, causing the fail-safes to trigger at the source end of the line.”
Nathan had no idea what she was talking about. But it didn’t matter as she wasn’t waiting for him to agree with her.
“Pod is away.” she announced confidently. “Now try and get us out of this roll.”
Nathan grabbed the joystick, again pulling it to the left. But the Aurora handled differently than the Reliant had in simulations. The Reliant was a much older ship, and was designed to fly on more gentle maneuvering curves. The Aurora was not as restricted in her movements and could assume almost any flight attitude the pilot desired. It
