Ep.#8 - "Celestia: CV-02" (3 page)

“I hope you’re right,” Cameron said. “It just seems like it would be safer to wait and see what kind of help we can get from the Takarans and the Corinairans.”

“Cam, I spent a lot of time on Takara with Tug while we were being repaired. He’s got a lot on his plate right now. I doubt he can spare a single ship. The nobles were not happy when we left. They did not want to give up their lands on conquered worlds. If Tug is unable to convince them otherwise, he could be looking at his own war.”

“Maybe Major Prechitt is right,” Cameron suggested. “Maybe the Corinairans could send us some propellant.”

“Even if they could, it would take weeks, if not months. I’m not willing to run on empty for that long. In fact, I’m half tempted to slingshot around and head back to Tanna ourselves to save time. Problem is, we’ve got a very small window of time to collect those old signals from Earth. If we miss it, most of them will be too weak for us to make out, and we need that intel as well.”

“And if the Tanna resistance is of no help?” Cameron asked.

“Then we start jumping the Falcon around looking for fuel depots ourselves while we wait to hear from our allies. Worst-case scenario, we set up shop out in the fringe and start our own little mining and fuel production colony. If that’s what it takes to fight this war, then that’s what we’ll do,” Nathan insisted. “There is no quick-win scenario with this one, Cameron. We all know that.”

Cameron took a deep breath and let it out with an uncharacteristic sigh. “I know. I just can’t stop thinking about what might be going on back on Earth right now.”

“I know what you mean,” he told her. “But we really are
it
this time, Cam. We can’t afford to make a single mistake.”

* * *

“Once Major Prechitt gives me an estimate on the number of simulator hours it will take to train a new flight crew, I’ll be able to work up a rotation schedule with the Cheng so that no one will be stepping on someone else’s toes,” Cameron told Nathan as they approached the entrance to the bridge.

“I don’t imagine it will take them too long,” Nathan said. “All his pilots are well trained, and the Falcon’s technology is outdated even by Corinairan standards.”

“I spoke with Vladimir, and he thinks he can rig a data pad to act as a cockpit simulator for the purpose of testing their repairs as they go.”

“How is that possible?” Nathan asked.

“Captain on the bridge!” the guard announced as Nathan stepped through the hatch.

“Does he have to do that?” Nathan whispered to Cameron.

“We talked about this, sir,” she whispered back. “We need tighter discipline. We’re going to war, after all.”

Nathan nodded, indicating his understanding and recalling their earlier conversation.

“Anyway,” Cameron continued as they headed toward the center of the bridge, “he’s going to reprogram a data pad to send the same control signals as the Falcon’s cockpit controls, as well as receive and display the same data about the ship’s systems that the cockpit display would show. If it works, the flight crews can train as much as they’d like without interfering with the repairs.”

“That’s a really good idea,” Nathan said as he stepped up onto the small command podium at the center of the bridge. “That man is smarter than he looks.”

“It wasn’t actually his idea,” Cameron said. “The Corinari flight mechanics use a similar device during maintenance. It saves them from having to climb up into the cockpit or have a second person do so.”

“Still, it’s a good idea to adapt one of our data pads to do the same thing.” Nathan sat down in his command chair and turned his attention forward. “Mister Riley, what do you have for us?”

“Beta Virginis to Wolf 1481 to Sol,” Mister Riley reported, “That will put us at the requested point in the Sol system. Our course at arrival will not be directly at the Earth, but a small course correction would put us on an intercept course if desired.”

“Will that give us the viewing angle we’re looking for?” Nathan asked Lieutenant Yosef.

“Close enough that it shouldn’t make a difference,” the lieutenant reported.

“I’ve reviewed Mister Riley’s proposed course,” Cameron said. “At the speed we’ll be traveling on arrival at the recon point, the change in our viewing angle over the course of a full day’s travel will only be a single degree.”

“Any idea if either of those systems is occupied?” Nathan asked.

“According to the survey files in the Data Ark, neither system has any habitable worlds, mostly just gas giants and frozen, rocky worlds,” Cameron said. “Beta Virginis does have a super-Earth, but it’s too far from its parent star to have liquid water. If there are any colonies in either system, they’ll most likely be mining operations of some sort, but I doubt anyone will be out there. There are many more worlds in the core that are far better candidates for such operations.”

“Just as well,” Nathan said. “We don’t need the extra complications right now, unless one of them just happens to have a fuel depot.”

“No one is that lucky,” Cameron said, “not even you.”

“I suppose that would be too much to ask, wouldn’t it? How long will it take us to get there?” Nathan asked.

“If we push the jump drive to her new safe max range of fifteen light years, then limit each jump to fourteen light years to ensure that we have enough power for an emergency escape jump at each arrival point, it should take us around forty-two hours,” Cameron explained. “That includes the time it will take to perform the two gravity assist maneuvers.”

“Better than I thought,” Nathan said. “Maybe we should think about using gravity assistance to make big turns more often.”

“We got lucky this time, sir,” Cameron reminded him. “We’re not always going to find such convenient alignments.”

“Still, until we know we have a reliable source of propellant, we should always look for a gravity assist course whenever possible. Like you said, every drop counts.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well done, Mister Riley,” Nathan said. “Execute your first jump when ready.”

“Aye, sir,” Mister Riley answered. “Activating auto-nav. Executing course change for the Beta Virginis system in one minute.”

“You know,” Nathan said to Cameron, “if we
are
going to fight a long, drawn-out, guerrilla-style campaign, eventually we’re going to need a base of operations.”

“What did you have in mind?” Cameron asked.

“I don’t know, a small moon, an asteroid, maybe even a hospitable world.”

“We’d probably have a hard time finding one in the core that isn’t already taken,” Cameron said. “From what we’ve learned, we may have a hard time finding one within a few hundred light years.”

“Yeah, that would be asking a lot as well, wouldn’t it?” Nathan said.

“I think we’re a long way from needing a base of operations, Captain.”

“Just thinking ahead, Commander.”

Cameron’s eyes narrowed. “Is that why you were hoping to find an industrialized world outside the core on our way home? You wanted a base of operations?”

“Actually, no,” Nathan said, “although it would have been nice. In all honesty, I really did expect to hand the ship back over to Fleet when we got home.”

“The thought that we might be too late
never
occurred to you?” Cameron asked, a faint hint of disbelief in her voice.

Nathan felt the ship’s maneuvering systems firing to alter her attitude. A few seconds later, the mains fired in order to adjust her heading. The Aurora’s inertial dampening systems still allowed for some sensation of movement while removing enough of the force of acceleration so as not to interfere with the normal operations of her crew. “Perhaps. Maybe I just didn’t want to admit that possibility to myself. Just between us, I wasn’t all
that
surprised when it
did
happen, considering how things have gone so far.”

“Yes, we’ve had our share of luck,” Cameron agreed, “both good and bad.”

A minute later, the main engines went quiet.

“Course correction complete,” Mister Riley reported. “We are now on a heading for Beta Virginis.”

“Very well, Mister Riley,” Nathan said. “You’re cleared to jump.”

Nathan was relieved to be jumping away from the Earth, even though his mind was still on the billions of people on their homeworld now living under Jung occupation. He tried to tuck away his concerns about his parents, his brother, his sisters, and all of their children, but they kept creeping back into his thoughts. At least for a time, they were heading away from trouble, even if only temporarily.

As the bridge filled with the blue-white light of the jump flash, he knew the Aurora could be headed directly into another Jung stronghold, but it was a risk they had to take. Every jump was a calculated risk, especially now that they were back in the core and in enemy territory. It seemed strange to him to refer to his own home system as enemy territory, but that was the reality.

* * *

Marcus stood in the Aurora’s port-side aircraft maintenance bay staring at the damaged Falcon, his arms folded across his chest.

“What do you think, Senior Chief?” Vladimir asked as he entered the maintenance bay.

“I don’t rightly know,” Marcus admitted. “That boy has banged up a lot of ships over the years, and I’ve been able to fix them all. But this one? To be honest, I’m not sure which end to start at.”

“It is not that bad,” Vladimir assured him. He looked over the exterior. The Falcon sat on a tow dolly, as her landing gear doors were buckled inward and would not open. The front half of the canopy was completely shattered. There was evidence of unburned fuel on the fuselage near the thrust ducts, which meant problems with the air-breathing turbines. There were also numerous dents, scratches, and even some sections where the hull skin was torn open. “It’s all body work,” Vladimir declared.

Marcus handed him his data pad. “Here’s the internal systems’ diagnostics report.”

Vladimir looked over the list. “That’s only twelve items.”

Marcus reached over and pressed a button on the data pad to go to the next page.

“Okay, twenty-four items,” Vladimir said, as members of his repair detail began to arrive.

“That’s only page two,” Marcus told him, “of eight.”

“
Oh Bozhe
,” Vladimir mumbled. “How did they get this thing off the ground again?”

“Josh was the pilot, remember?” Marcus said. “The boy don’t know when to keep his feet on the ground.”

Vladimir looked at the interceptor as it sat perched at an unnatural angle on the tow dolly. “You start at one end, and I’ll start at the other,” he joked.

“Get the cables on her and lift her up, boys!” Marcus ordered the work crew. “First thing we gotta do is get some jack stands under her, so we can work on her gear doors.”

“We are going to be here for a long time,” Vladimir said as he rolled up his sleeves and headed for the aft end of the Falcon.

“Yup.”

* * *

“I’ve been thinking,” Cameron said between bites of her salad.

“About?” Nathan asked.

“How we’re going to go about this. Fighting the Jung, I mean.”

“And?”

“As long as we don’t take too many hits, we can jump in, strike, and jump out indefinitely. I mean, how do they counter that ability?”

“By being ready to fire in any direction,” Nathan said, “or laying mines all over the place, or using a firing pattern that just sweeps all over the place, kind of like what Tug used to take out that comm-drone.” Nathan took another bite as he thought. “There are There’re a lot of ways to counter our jump drive once they figure out how we’re using it. That advantage will not last long. Once every ship in the Jung fleet knows about us, they’ll be ready.”

“If we had the plasma cannon turret working, we could jump in beside them, take a dozen shots, and jump out again along the same course, all without maneuvering. We’d only be in their sights for a few seconds. Do that a few times from varying angles and ranges, and just about any ship would fall sooner or later.”

“Why couldn’t we just jump with our nose pointed toward where we know the target will be when we come out of the jump?” Nathan said. “The plasma cannon in tube one made short work of them.”

“Can we jump with our nose pointed off our course?” Cameron asked.

Nathan shrugged. “Why not? The way I understand it, our course and speed are the determining factors, that and the amount of power dumped into the jump fields when they cross. I don’t think attitude is part of the equation.”

“I’ll have to check with Abby about that,” Cameron said. “That reminds me; we should probably go ahead and replace all our torpedo tubes with the plasma cannons.”

“Why?”

“We’re going to run out of torpedoes sooner or later,” Cameron explained. “Seems logical to switch them over while we have the time.”

“I’m not so sure,” Nathan argued. “There may be advantages to physical torpedoes over the plasma cannons that we don’t know about. I think I’d prefer to keep at least half our tubes as they were built for now. Besides, we don’t have any evidence yet to suggest that two cannons on each side would be twice as effective as one.” Nathan took another bite of his lunch. “Like I said, let’s not make any mistakes.”

“You can make a mistake by not doing something just as easily, Nathan.”

“Very true. I’m just saying I’d like to analyze the idea a bit more before coming to a decision.”

“Nathan Scott, thinking before acting.” Cameron laughed. “Never thought I’d see the day.”

Nathan flashed a sarcastic lopsided smile her way as he finished his lunch and pushed the empty container aside. “Doesn’t matter anyway. With the Falcon and the new jump shuttle project, the fabricators are going to be busy for the next few weeks. We’ll make do with what we have for now. As soon as they get that new inner bulkhead installed in the starboard forward torpedo room, we’ll have two working plasma torpedo cannons pointed forward. That will have to do.”

“Plasma torpedo cannons?” Cameron asked. “I’ve never heard that term before.”

“Makes sense to me,” Nathan said. “They shoot bolts of plasma energy from a cannon that sits in one of our torpedo tubes. Plasma torpedo cannons.”

“Maybe just plasma torpedoes,” Cameron suggested. “That way they won’t be confused with the turret-mounted cannon once we get that up and running.”

“Sounds good.”

“I was also thinking about the missile battery,” Cameron said. “We only have a finite number of missiles as well.”

“You want to replace our missile battery also?”

“The missile battery isn’t the problem. It’s the space that the additional stored missiles take up. If we cut the number of missiles we carried by at least half, we’d gain a lot of deck space above us.”

“What would we do with it?”