can make the initial ship-wide, and then announce our new location when we arrive.” Nathan turned to the comm- officer. “Ensign.”
“Attention all hands. Stand by to jump in one minute.”
Nathan took a seat in his command chair, located on the middle level between the tactical console and the flight consoles.
“Why one minute?” Cameron asked as she turned around from the helm to face him.
“I don’t know. Because it sounded good?”
“We can fine tune the procedures later,” she said with a raised eyebrow, as she turned back around to face the helm console and the main view screen.
Josh and Loki watched as the bridge staff calmly pressed buttons, checked readouts, and made adjustments to various systems as they waited for the jump to occur.
“Captain,” Abby said. “I’ve taken the liberty of adding a small subroutine to the jump sequencer that will dim the brightness and contrast of the main viewing system as soon as the jump is initiated. It will restore the original settings immediately after the jump has completed.”
“Excellent.”
“Ten seconds to jump,” Abby announced.
Nathan looked over his left shoulder toward the comm-officer, gesturing to him. “Patch the doctor ship- wide.”
Abby’s voice echoed throughout the ship as she announced the jump sequence. “Jumping in five-”
Abby turned the key to arm the jumping system.
“Four-”
She flipped open the two clear covers that protected the jump field generators from being activated accidently, and flipped both rocker switches.
“Three-”
Josh and Loki both looked nervous as they swallowed hard.
“Two-”
Abby flipped open the cover over the large red button that a technician had wired into the console to serve as the main jump initiation button.
“One-”
The main view screen suddenly dimmed.
“Jumping.”
Abby pressed the button and initiated the jump.
Josh and Loki watched through the dimmed viewer as a pale blue wave of light quickly spread out from the emitters on the hull. Within a split second, each wave of light had connected with its neighbor and their brilliance increased rapidly into a blinding flash of white light, subdued only by the lowered display settings on the main view screen. A second later, the flash subsided, revealing that the stars had shifted ever so slightly.
“Jump complete,” Abby announced calmly.
“Verify position,” Nathan ordered.
After a few seconds, Cameron responded. “Position confirmed. We are now halfway between Takara and Darvano, approximately four point five light years from the Darvano system, and about twenty light hours outside of the known shipping lanes. We are now deep in the middle of the Pentaurus cluster.”
“Any contacts?” Nathan asked.
“Negative, sir,” Kaylah responded.
Sensing that the jump was over, Josh could no longer control himself. “Oh that was just the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” Loki said nothing, only standing there with his mouth hanging open.
“Let’s do it again,” Josh exclaimed.
“We will,” Nathan promised. “In about five hours.”
“Great! That should be just enough time to teach us how to fly this thing,” Josh exclaimed, as he started advancing toward the front of the bridge.
“Easy there, fella,” Jessica warned him, stepping in his path.
“No, wait a minute,” Nathan said, much to everyone’s surprise. “That might not be such a bad idea.”
“What? Are you crazy?” Cameron responded.
“Well not right away, of course. But why don’t we put them in the simulator and see how they do? I mean, they can’t crash the simulator.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” Cameron spouted. “Have you seen him fly?”
“I was riding with him, remember? Seriously, Cam. You’ve been on duty pretty much non-stop for days now, with no more than a few hours of sleep here and there. It might not be a bad idea to have a backup pilot and navigator.”
“Nathan, get serious. These guys don’t know the first thing about this ship.”
“Let’s just throw them in the sim and see what happens. You never know. And it might keep them out of trouble.”
“Yeah, come on, love. Give us a shot,” Josh called out from the back of the bridge.
Cameron rolled her eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh.
“I’ll cancel your debt,” Josh added.
“What?”
“You still owe me two dinner dates, remember?”
“Fine, they can play in the simulator. But there is no way they’re flying this ship unless they do better in the sims than any of us ever did.”
Nathan smiled. “Jess, would you mind getting them started?”
“What the hell,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere for awhile anyway.” She turned around to head out. “Come on, boys, I’ll show you the arcade.”
As Jessica led the two pilots into the corridor, they met Vladimir and Tug’s oldest daughter, Deliza, coming from the opposite direction.
“Good Morning, Jessica,” Vladimir greeted.
“Hey, Vlad. Hi Deliza,” Jessica said. “What’cha up to?”
“Deliza has been a very big help in Engineering. I thought I would reward her by showing her the bridge.”
As Vladimir was talking, Deliza was stealing shy glances at Josh and Loki, who were only a few years older than her. Noticing her glances, Josh instantly turned on the charm.
“Hi, I’m Josh. You probably don’t recognize me. Last time I saw you I was wearing my flight helmet. I’m the pilot that saved you from Haven.”
“We’re the pilots that saved you from Haven,” Loki corrected, stepping up next to Josh, vying for Deliza’s attention.
“Enough boys,” Jessica scolded. “Eyes forward and keep going.”
Vladimir looked confused. “Where are you taking them?”
“Captain wants to toss them into the flight simulator, see how they fair at flying this ship.”
“Really? Why does this not surprise me?”
“Nothing Nathan does these days surprises me,” she agreed as she followed them off down the corridor.
Vladimir turned back toward the entrance to the bridge. He spied Nathan through the hatch. “Nathan!” he called. He turned to Deliza. “Wait right here,” he instructed before stepping through the hatch onto the bridge. “Nathan, I was wondering if I could show Deliza the bridge.”
“Today seems to be the day for tours. Why?”
“She seems to have a knack for identifying inefficiencies, especially with computer systems. And I think she is interested in the jump drive. I thought perhaps she might be of assistance if and when we get our hands on the zero-point device.”
“But she’s only sixteen.”
“This is true. But I get this feeling that she understands our technology better than we do.”
Nathan looked at his friend. “You’re serious?”
“Da.”
