captain and his XO to behave, especially in front of command staff. But she also knew that their already tenuous working relationship had been severely strained not only by Nathan’s sudden advancement to captain, but also by the fact that Cameron disagreed with most of his decisions.
Nathan and Cameron both fell silent, turning to look at Jessica, who now had a bit of a sheepish look on her face as she realized that she too had just overstepped her bounds.
“If I may,” she began, looking to each of them for their silent approval. “Assume for a moment, the worst case scenario. At the time we ran into those two patrol ships, the Jung already had Sol surrounded and were about to strike. If true, it’s already happened, the Earth is fucked, and there’s not a damned thing we can do about it, at least not in our present state. Do we agree on that much?”
Again she looked to them both, getting grudging agreements. “Now, assume the best case scenario. It was just a co-winky-dink. The Jung are still cleaning up and reinforcing after their invasion of Alpha Centauri. Our best intel puts their top speed at ten times light. So even if the Jung had left the Centauri system the day after the invasion, it’ll still be another five months before their forces reach Earth.” Jessica turned her attention to Abby. “Doctor, if we were in port, how long would it take to outfit another ship with another jump drive?”
“I don’t know. It took us years to build the prototype.”
“Best guess, assuming that every man, woman, and child was working on the project.”
“One year, maybe?”
“So that’s not an option. Captain? Again, if we were in port, how long to make us fully up to specs?”
“A few months, I suspect.”
“Okay, possible, but even then, it’s still just one ship against God knows how many. And we’re not heavily armed, even if we had all of our squadrons on board.”
“But the jump drive does give us a huge tactical advantage,” Cameron reminded her, hoping to prop up her point of view on the matter.
“True, but it’s also an advantage that can be taken away with a few lucky shots. Or worse yet, captured and used against us.”
“So, are you saying we should, or we shouldn’t go back?” Cameron asked. She was beginning to get confused, as Jessica was showing support for either case.
“I’m saying that we have time to decide. Making snap decisions isn’t going to make our or the Earth’s situation any better. And if the captain’s right, and we can pick up some advanced tech, that might make all the difference in the world. Or in our case, the Sol system.”
“It only makes sense to stay here for awhile, and see what develops,” Nathan concluded.
Cameron wasn’t convinced. “I just don’t know, Nathan. All I can think about is the people back home. It just feels like we shouldn’t be risking our necks out here. We should be doing it back home.”
“But we are risking our necks out here for the people back home. Just because they are so far away doesn’t make it any less so.” Nathan looked at Cameron. He could see the doubt in her eyes. It wasn’t her usual stubborn streak this time, and she wasn’t scared; he knew better. Cameron had already proven herself in battle as much, if not more so, than any of them. She was scared that they were making the wrong decision-that they were putting the Earth in further jeopardy. “Look, Cameron. We all know that I can make it an order. But I don’t want to have to do that, especially not in this case. I really want your support on this.” Nathan flashed her a smile, that same one that had always gotten him out of trouble with his mother as a boy. “You know I’m not smart enough to pull this off without you.”
Cameron looked at Nathan and his goofy smile. “Well, at least you understand that much,” she said, leaning back in her chair in resignation. “All right then, I’m with you.”
Jessica clapped her hands. “Great! What’s the plan, skipper?”
Nathan’s smile faded for a moment as he turned to Jessica. “Would you stop calling me skipper?” Jessica shrugged apologetically, holding both hands up with her palms forward, a goofy grin on her face. Nathan returned his attention to the group. “We make two jumps to get to a position just outside the Darvano system, say about one light day.”
“Why two jumps?” Cameron asked. “Darvano is only nine point five light years away.
“Two reasons. First, the good Doctor suggests that we don’t push the limits of the drive unless we have to, at least until she has more time to review the performance data collected over the jumps to date. Second, I’d prefer to arrive at any destination with enough power in the drive to do a quick escape jump, in case we jump into yet another bad situation.”
“Makes sense,” Cameron agreed.
“Once we get there, we locate the hideout Tug spoke of and plot a jump to get as close as possible so that we can sneak in undetected.”
“That might require more than one jump, Captain,” Abby warned. Nathan looked at her quizzically, forcing her to better explain. “It would take hours-maybe even days depending on how erratic the trajectories of the objects in the asteroid belt are-to gather enough data to make a close in jump. It might be better to jump in next to a planetary body, or a moon-something with a bit more stable and predictable orbit. From there, we can get a more accurate and more up-to-date trajectory mapping of the belt before plotting a jump deeper into the belt itself.”
“Makes sense. But I want to get the ship into that hideout as soon as possible. The longer we’re sitting out in the open, the more chance there is of being spotted.”
“Captain,” Jessica interrupted, “I’m not too crazy about the idea of flying this ship into some kind of cave without checking it out first.”
“You think it might be a trap?” Cameron asked.
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, mine too,” Nathan admitted. “Suggestions?”
“We could send that hot-shot Josh in first,” Cameron suggested with a wry smile. “Put him and his copilot into the shuttle and let them recon it out first.”
“Not a bad idea, Commander. Jess, maybe you should go along with them.”
“Sounds like a hoot,” she exclaimed.
Nathan smiled. “Wear your flight restraints… Trust me.”
“Will do, skip- Sorry, Captain.”
“Okay. So they do a fly through inspection first, then we follow them in. Once the ship is secured inside the hideout, we’ll send a team over to power everything up so that we can get busy repairing the ship. I especially want to get the hull patched up so we can have access to our forward sections again. More than seventy percent of our living quarters are in there and between the wounded and the extra guests, we’re running out of space.”
“What about supplies?” Cameron asked. “If Corinair is as advanced a world as Tug says, we might be able to get some decent supplies this time.”
“Yeah, like something besides molo,” Jessica complained.
“We still have credits to spend, and a bunch of raw ore that we can sell,” Cameron added.
“I was thinking about that,” Nathan said. “As much as I know you like to gather intel in the field, Jessica, I don’t think it’s a good idea for any of us to go down to the surface on this trip. I think we’d stand out too much this time. Besides, according to Tug, you cannot get past the Port Authority without proper ident-chips.”
“I guess I can sit this one out,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Besides, I’ve been thinking. If this secret base of theirs has comm-gear, maybe we could do some signals intelligence gathering.”
“Good idea. Meanwhile, we’ll send Tug and Jalea down to the surface in the shuttle. They can sell off the rest of our ore and buy us some supplies. We’ll leave them on the surface for at least a day or two so they can also make contact with any rebels that may be hiding out on Corinair.”
“And what, bring them back here?” Jessica objected.
“Hey, we need all the help we can get at this point. I’m hoping that some of them might also help with repairs as well. So far, they all seem to be pretty good with tech.”
“Let’s just be sure we don’t end up outnumbered on our own ship,” Jessica warned.
“From Jalea’s estimates, I don’t think that many of them survived. I’d be surprised if they find more than a handful of them.”
“How long do we plan to stay in the Darvano system?” Cameron asked.
“No longer than necessary, of course. But hopefully long enough to at least get all the major repairs done. We’ll have to play it by ear.” Nathan looked around the room. “Any more questions? All right. Let’s get ready to
