he would share with her what troubled him. What she couldn’t figure out was why he kept checking the time.
Around twenty-seven thirty, his conscience overcame his disbelief, and he locked himself in his study. He immediately began making calls to others he knew in the Order, instructing them to watch the sky around twenty- eight thirty this night, as well as the quadrant to monitor. He even contacted one of his worshipers who worked at a local observatory and convinced him to not only monitor that area of the night sky, but to record everything around the appointed time. By twenty-eight fifteen, he had more eyes and devices monitoring the quadrant in question than he could count and each of them in turn had promised to contact others. And contact others they had. By twenty- eight twenty, the net was already abuzz about the upcoming event. A new net frenzy had been created before the event had even happened.
One thing was certain. If there were to be a sign this night, he would not be its only witness. By the night’s end, in the eyes of his world, he would either be a prophet or a fool.
“Yes, sir. I have already locked all sensors on the target area,” the equipment operator assured his boss over the comm-unit. “Yes, I have sent out verification requests to any and all observatories with a clear line of sight to that area to monitor for any and all anomalies as well. Yes, they have. At least twelve on Corinair alone. Sir, might I ask what it is that we’re looking for? Well, can I at least inquire as to why you think something is going to happen? It just seems odd to be looking in that exact location at that exact of a time. No, sir. I don’t mean to question your- Sir?”
The equipment operator looked at his comm-panel in disbelief when he realized that his supervisor had hung up on him. He still had no idea why he had been instructed at the last moment to train all sensors on a small area in the northern sky at twenty-eight thirty hours. At this point, he only hoped that nothing would show up. At least then he might have a chance of keeping his job, despite his having questioned the director of the facility.
He looked up a digital readout of the local time. Twenty-eight twenty-nine. On his network monitor, requests were coming in from all over the planet from other observatories wanting to know more details about the strange confirmation request he had been forced to send out earlier. He quickly composed a response and prepared to send it in bulk to everyone currently online. It read ‘Never mind.’ He was confident that in just a few minutes, he would be able to send it out and the evening’s circus would be over and done.
He looked back at the time readout. Twenty-eight thirty exactly. He stared at the screen for a full minute, the smile of satisfaction on his face growing wider with each passing second. Once the time readout changed to twenty-eight thirty-one, he reached over to click ‘send’, but his hand instinctively withdrew when he heard an event alert alarm beeping at him. His eyes quickly drew to the display from the visible light telescope. There was a sudden, bright, bluish white flash of light. It was at least four times bigger than the biggest star in the night sky, and it was gone as quickly as it had come.
His satisfied smirk having fallen off his face, he reached over and changed his message to read, ‘Did anyone else see that?’ and then clicked ‘send’. It was going to be a long night.
Within an hour, the event had been verified by at least ten of the twelve Corinairian observatories that had been monitoring the target coordinates as requested. All had described it as a sudden flash of blue-white light. Sensors had shown it to be a massive burst of pure energy that, like the visible light, had come and gone in only an instant. One of the science stations on one of the moons of an outer planet had already dispatched an automated probe to the location of the event. But it would take days for the probe to reach the location, and even then it was doubtful that anything of consequence would be found.
But thanks to the work of the Priest of the Order that had originally contacted his worshiper who just happened to be the director of one of the most prestigious observatories on the planet, the word was already spreading like wildfire across the net. And if this Prophet Priest was correct, a gift sent to deliver them from evil would arrive within a day.
CHAPTER 8
Since the Aurora was tucked away, safely moored to the Karuzari base deep inside the asteroid, the bridge was not fully staffed. Other than the comm-officer and the marine at the entrance, the only other people on the bridge were Abby and Deliza, both of whom were busy working out the bugs in the new jump plotting system.
“Good morning, sir,” the comm-officer greeted as Nathan entered the bridge.
“Good morning. Any news?”
“Shuttle is on its way back to Corinair. They should be landing shortly. Other than that, nothing.”
“Where’s Kaylah?” he asked, noticing her absence. Of the few bridge staff he actually had, Kaylah had been the most dependable. She had been at her station every waking hour since the crisis began. Cameron had commented that Kaylah was perhaps the one person on the ship that slept even less than she did. Nathan hoped the ensign’s long hours hadn’t finally caught up.
“She’s crashed out in the break room. She was up most of the night tying in her console with the asteroid’s external sensor array.”
“Did she get it working?”
“Yes, but it’s only a passive system. I guess the Karuzari don’t want to advertise their position. I’ve got her primary display up on my auxiliary here,” he added, pointing to one of his smaller side screens. “I’m supposed to wake her if we pick up anything out of the ordinary. Would you like me to wake her?”
“No, let her sleep awhile. She’s earned the rest, I’m sure.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Who’s the duty officer?” he wondered, not seeing any command staff nearby.
“Ensign Nash, sir. She’s in your ready room.” The comm-officer made a face indicating that she too was probably sleeping.
Nathan nodded once his understanding as he turned his attention to the tactical station in front of him. He stood for a moment, looking over the displays. The same passive sensor readings that were currently displayed on the comm-officer’s side screen were also displayed on one of the tactical screens. There was plenty of traffic being tracked. But it was all standard civilian traffic, and it was all at a considerable distance from them without a single track bound anywhere near them. All in all, Nathan felt safer than he had in days. If a suspicious ship were to suddenly appear in the vicinity, unless they had sensors that could penetrate several kilometers of solid rock, their asteroid would appear to be just another abandoned mining camp, one of hundreds floating in the belt of the Darvano system. And should something go horribly wrong, he was confident they could exit the underground base, clear the belt, and jump away, all before sustaining any significant damage.
Satisfied that everything was in order, he turned his attention to the upgrade project being conducted by Abby and Deliza. “How’s it going, ladies?”
Deliza quickly stood, youthful exuberance and excitement in their little project evident in her demeanor. “Very well, Captain,” she announced proudly. “The shuttle’s computer core is much more powerful than the ones in this console.”
“That’s great news,” Nathan said, sensing that Deliza needed some confirmation. He looked to Abby for some sort of confirmation as to the young girl’s claims.
“She’s not exaggerating, sir,” Abby assured him. “Not only will this computer greatly decrease the time necessary to calculate a jump plot, but it will also significantly increase the accuracy of the jump as well.”
“How so?” Nathan asked. He didn’t for a moment expect to understand any of what he was sure she was about to tell him, but he was feeling unusually optimistic this morning.
“The calculations are far more precise than our own computers. Ours have a fixed number of digits available to either side of the decimal point. Granted, there are many. And in almost all cases they are more than adequate. But their computers use a floating point system that can accommodate a nearly infinite number size.” She could see that he did not understand what she was talking about. “The gist of it is that we can calculate most jumps in less than a minute. And the increased accuracy means that we can arrive as close as a few hundred meters without fear of merging with a nearby object.”
“Merging?” Nathan shuddered. “That doesn’t sound like something we would want to do.”
“No,” she agreed. “It does not. However, I should point out that we have no idea what the effects of such a
