“Well, you were down on the surface getting shot at from every direction.”
“While you were up here, fighting off a Ta’Akar boarding party and one of their warships, which you did quite well, by the way.”
She knew he was just trying to be nice, to be a good friend, but she had never been too comfortable confiding in others about her feelings. She had grown up in a house full of boys-five of them, to be exact. That had forced her to be tougher than most. Then, enlisting in the Fleet straight out of college hadn’t helped matters. Despite the rapid change in social mores brought about by the discovery of the Data Ark, most military organizations on Earth were still dominated by men.
Still, there was a part of her that wanted to trust Nathan, to be able to speak with him as a friend. But her duty as his executive officer came first, and she just couldn’t see them as anything other than mutually exclusive.
“Nathan,” she said in a less official tone than usual. “I’m fine, really.” Nathan stared at her for a moment. “Really,” she repeated, standing to leave. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to take a quick break before our pre-jump briefing.”
“Okay,” Nathan answered, holding both hands up in resignation. He had made the offer, and that was all he could do for now.
Cameron moved out from behind the desk and exited the room just as Jessica and Abby entered.
“Where’s she going?” Jessica asked. “I thought we had a meeting.”
Nathan got up and moved around behind the desk, leaving room for Abby to take a seat in front of the desk, while Jessica took her usual position sprawled out on the couch.
“She’ll be back shortly,” he stated as he took his seat. “Abby, I assume you already have a plot calculated for a jump to the Darvano system?”
“Yes, sir. I also have a tentative escape jump ready, just in case we jump into another… situation.”
“Considering our history so far, that’s not a bad idea. In fact, perhaps we ought to make that standard procedure-jump to just outside a system and take a peek before jumping all the way in.”
“Kind of like testing the temperature of the water before diving in?” Abby stated as a comparison.
“I’ve always been more of a jump-right-in kind of girl, myself,” Jessica said.
Nathan smiled. “Now why do I find that so easy to believe?”
“Actually, Captain, once I’m able to verify the accuracy of these new star charts, I should be able to pre-plot many jumps. In fact, it might be useful to create a network of pre-defined jump-points.”
“How would that help us?”
“Rather than having to plot a jump from a point in space that you expect to be at when you execute the jump, you simply fly to that point, executing the jump at the precise moment that you cross the threshold.”
“Maybe I’m missing something, but that doesn’t sound much different to me.”
“The difference is that currently, we have to plot the jumps on the fly, which our systems were never really meant to do. And we usually don’t have time to verify the plots, which I shouldn’t have to remind you is incredibly risky. Predefined jump points would already be verified, therefore the risk would be minimized.”
“Interesting idea, Doctor,” Nathan admitted, “but I’m hoping we won’t be around this area long enough to need such a network.”
“As do we all,” she agreed. “However, the idea could also be applied to short-range hops as well. For example, the parameters required to make a jump of say, one light hour, are the same regardless of departure and arrival points. It is only the departure and arrival points that differ from jump to jump.”
“You’re talking about making some jump plot templates, right?”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”
“Are you sure it’s worth the effort?” Nathan asked. “You yourself said that we needed to refrain from using the jump drive if possible. You said that you couldn’t guarantee how long it would continue to function.”
“I may have been a bit conservative in my concerns.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“Your engineering staff and my team managed to get the rest of the emitters’ telemetry feeds re-established. After analyzing the data from the emitters collected over the last few jumps, we were able to make a few adjustments to the field generators. I believe that it may last considerably longer than I anticipated.”
“So you think it could make all one hundred and twenty five jumps to get us home?” Cameron asked as she entered the room. She had heard Abby’s last statement from the hatch as she entered.
“It’s too soon to promise that many jumps from the system. But I do feel better about our chances today than I did yesterday.”
“That’s good news, Doctor. Thank you,” Nathan said as Cameron took her seat next to Abby.
Nathan took a deep breath to bolster his confidence. He knew that what he was about to say might not be well received, especially by Cameron. He wasn’t sure Doctor Sorenson would like it either, but she was not the type to argue in front of others. And from their conversation after yesterday’s briefing, he was pretty sure that she understood the bigger picture better than most.
“I’ve decide to take the ship back into the Pentaurus cluster.” Nathan held up his hand to prevent Cameron from objecting before he finished his opening statement. “I believe the possible benefits of the zero-point energy device justify the additional risk for two reasons. First, it might give us the power we need to get home in a fraction of the time. And second, the device could also be of significant assistance in the defense of Earth-maybe even more so than the jump drive itself.”
Nathan could feel resistance boiling up from inside Cameron, and she looked like she could explode at any moment. “Now I understand that some of you may be opposed to this idea. But let me point out a few other factors that heavily influenced my decision.” Nathan leaned back in his chair, looking at each of them in much the same way that Captain Roberts had done. “Did it ever occur to anyone that the odds of running into not one, but two Jung patrol ships, just beyond the Oort cloud, might be too high to even calculate?” Nathan looked to Jessica. Being special operations trained made her naturally suspicious. If anyone would understand his line of thinking, it would be her.
“They either knew we would be there,” Jessica said, her mind racing, “or they were already preparing to invade.”
“Our detection grid doesn’t reach that far out,” Cameron added, “at least not accurately enough to pick out ships against any other objects in the Oort. Especially if they were matching the speeds and trajectories of other objects.”
“And if either one of those two possibilities are true, it would be suicide to return in our present condition.”
“If they were prepping for an invasion,” Jessica said, “don’t you think they would’ve had something bigger than a couple of patrol ships out there?”
“Maybe,” Nathan admitted, “but the Oort is an awfully big place. And they might have only put patrol ships out there to be sure that we didn’t spot them too quickly and jump away again.”
“It could also have just been dumb luck,” Cameron reminded him.
“Yes, it could have been. But I’m not willing to take that gamble, at least not until we’re in a better state of readiness. If we returned home now, we could be jumping into a whole new hornet’s nest. If we stay here, at least for awhile, we can not only get our ship fixed up, but we might even pickup some cool new tech to show the folks back home,” Nathan said with a smile. “To that end, I think it best we continue to ally ourselves with the Karuzari. At least until we determine the validity of this power source.”
“If what you’re saying is true,” Cameron argued, “then the Jung could be invading Earth at this very moment, while we’re sitting here talking about joining some local rebellion.”
“Even if we had started jumping our way back home from day one,” Jessica interrupted, “we’d still be a couple of months out from Earth.”
“But if it was just a coincidence that we ran into those two Jung patrol ships, the invasion may not have happened yet.”
“And if that’s the case, then a few more days out here getting ourselves repaired won’t make much difference, will it?” Nathan said.
“Listen up,” Jessica barked, trying to take command of the argument. She could tell that Nathan and Cameron could spend the entire day hashing this out if they were allowed to. She was a bit shocked, as it was no way for a
