Ep.#5 - "Rise of the Corinari" (13 page)

“A wise precaution, as usual, Doctor.”

“Breaking orbit, Captain,” Josh reported.

“Bring us onto the intercept course, Mister Hayes, and bring her up to ten percent light,” Nathan ordered.

“Coming to intercept course. Accelerating to ten percent light,” Josh reported. Josh quickly accepted the course fed to him by Loki and instructed the Aurora to come to the new heading and accelerate. After pushing the execute button, the ship turned slightly to starboard and applied even more thrust.

“Doctor, run your test plot and initiate when ready,” Nathan told her.

“Yes, Captain.”

Tug sat patiently waiting in the cockpit of his interceptor, his flight helmet sitting atop the console in front of him.

“So where’s your girlfriend been lately?” Marcus asked, trying to make small talk as he checked Tug’s restraint system.

“Who?” Tug asked, his mind elsewhere.

“The rebel princess,” Marcus said, “at least that’s what Lieutenant Commander Nash calls her.”

“Oh, you mean Jalea.” Tug smiled, slightly amused by the reference. “She is supervising operations on Karuzara.”

“Where?” Marcus asked, his face in a confused pinch.

“The asteroid base,” Tug explained. “That’s what Josh has named it.”

“That boy shouldn’t be allowed to name anything,” Marcus insisted with a grumble.

“It seemed to fit well enough.”

Marcus noticed Tug’s distraction. “You sure you wanna do this? Chase a comm-drone across the cluster? Seems a bit crazy, if you ask me.”

“If given a choice, a wise man would surely say no,” Tug lamented.

“Guess you’re not as wise as you thought, huh?”

“Sometimes life does not give us choices, my friend,” Tug told him.

“Bullshit. It ain’t life that left you no choice; it’s honor.”

Tug looked at Marcus’s gruff old face. He was a bitter, sour man on a good day, but he was also wiser than he let on. “Perhaps you are correct.”

“Listen, those new reactors the Corinari techs put in are top notch. I’ll bet you can push them up to at least a hundred and twenty percent if need be.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Tug promised.

“Also, one of their computer guys programmed in some firing patterns for your main nose turret. I think he called them ‘algorithms’ or something. He said you might find them useful.”

“I just might at that.”

“Yeah, he said something about the old ones being geared for hunting forty-year-old ships or something. Couldn’t hurt, right?”

“No, it couldn’t.”

“
Attention all hands. Prepare to jump,
” Abby’s voice announced over the loudspeakers in the Aurora’s main hangar bay.

“I hate this part,” Marcus admitted.

Tug looked at Marcus with a puzzled look on his face, noticing how the old man was clenching his jaw as Abby counted down the last three seconds leading up to the jump.

“
Jump complete.
”

“Damn!”

“You can feel the jump?” Tug asked.

“Makes one of my fillings hurt,” Marcus explained, “only for a second, mind you, but for that second it hurts like hell.”

“Interesting.”

“Not to me it ain’t,” Marcus exclaimed as he prepared to climb down from Tug’s cockpit. “Good luck, Tug,” he said, holding out his hand.

Tug took Marcus’s hand and shook it. “Thanks.”

“How are we looking, Abby?” Nathan asked.

Abby was busy looking over the reports from the first test jump with all the new emitters installed. “That is unusual,” she reported.

“What’s unusual?” Nathan wondered.

“We’re still on the correct course, Captain,” Abby explained, “but we jumped approximately one point two five light hours instead of only one. Apparently, the new emitters are more efficient than the original ones. Less energy is lost in the initial generation of the fields.”

“Is that good or bad?” Nathan asked.

“Well, it means we might have increased our potential range a bit,” she told him. “I will need to do more calculations in order to determine exactly how much.”

“Is that going to cause us any problems with this mission?”

“No, sir,” she assured him. “I believe I can adjust the output parameters to compensate for the increased efficiency of the emitters, although it may take a few jumps to get it right.”

“Very well,” Nathan told her. “Plot the next jump to a point just ahead of the drone’s current estimated position.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Helm, bring us up to maximum velocity, smartly if you will,” Nathan ordered.

“Yes, sir,” Josh answered, excited to have a chance to bring the Aurora to her maximum speed.

“Captain, is that really necessary?” Abby asked. “After all, the maximum jump ranges were all calculated on fifty percent light. Even at half that we would still have enough energy in the banks to complete the mission.”

“Yes, I’m sure you’re correct, Doctor,” Nathan agreed. “But the faster we go, the easier it will be for Tug to catch up to the drone and destroy it.”

“Of course.”

“Will that present a problem, Doctor?” Nathan asked.

“No, sir. It’s just that we have never jumped at that velocity before.”

“Yeah, firsts are becoming something of a habit on this ship,” Nathan quipped.

“Passing twenty five percent light,” Josh announced.

“Hold at fifty percent until we complete our next jump, Josh. Then continue accelerating after the jump is completed.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

“Hey, I don’t want to take any more chances than I have to, Doctor.” Nathan turned his seat around to face Jessica at the tactical station directly behind him. “How are we looking, Jess?”

“Board is still clear, sir. Nothing but Corinairan traffic,” Jessica told him.

“Sensors?” Nathan asked, rotating to port to face Ensign Yosef.

“All clear as well, Captain,” the ensign reported.

“Ensign Willard,” Nathan began, “if we’re going to be following the same course as the drone, how are we going to keep from colliding with it? I mean, as I understand it, we don’t actually jump past anything. We still go in a straight line.”

“In order to avoid shipping traffic, the comm-drones have their own dedicated transit corridors,” Ensign Willard explained. “These corridors run from the outer edges of the system, rather than from their centers, so their corridors, although parallel to the main transit corridors, are sufficiently offset in order to prevent collisions.”

“So we’ll be coming in at an angle,” Nathan stated, “from outside the comm-drone corridor.”

“Correct.”

“Passing forty percent light,” Josh reported.

“Jump plotted and locked in, Captain,” Abby reported.

“Very good. As soon as we hold at half-light, make your jump.”

“Understood.”

“Comms?” Nathan called.

Naralena again activated the ship wide announcement system. “Attention all hands. Stand by for jump.”

“Tug, be ready,” Nathan called over the comms. “Hopefully we’ll get lucky with the first jump.”

“
I am ready to launch, Captain,
” Tug reported over the comms.

“Forty-five percent light,” Josh announced.

“Sensors and tactical, keep your eyes peeled for threats after we jump,” Nathan warned. “We’ll be jumping to within a light year of Takara. There may be patrols.”

“I think the odds are pretty slim that we’ll actually run into a patrol,” Ensign Willard insisted. “After all, we’re talking about a pretty vast area, Captain.”

“Yeah, you would think that,” Nathan agreed, “but so far we’ve found space to be a lot more crowded than you might think.”

“Velocity at half-light and holding, sir,” Josh reported as he cut the main engines. The Aurora was now coasting silently through space at half the speed of light, and would continue to do so forever if left undisturbed.

“Abby,” Nathan prompted.

Abby switched on the ship wide announcement system. “Jumping in three……two……one……jump.”

The blue-white light flashed through the bridge, subdued just enough by the filters on the main viewer to avoid blinding anyone looking at the screen.

“Jump complete,” Abby announced.

“Starting sensor sweeps,” Ensign Yosef announced.

“Continue acceleration, Josh,” Nathan ordered.

“Aye, sir. Mains coming up again,” Josh responded as he fired up the main engines once more and quickly brought them up to full power. There was no discernible lurch this time, as the ship was already traveling at two-thirds her designed maximum velocity. The rumble of the main engines returned, and the velocity readout again began to increase.

“Threat board is clear, sir,” Jessica reported.

“Good,” Nathan commented. He had half expected to come out of the jump right in front of another Takaran capital ship.

They waited patiently for several minutes while Ensign Yosef continued to scan the area ahead of them for the emission patterns that Ensign Willard had told her to look for.

“Nothing yet, Kaylah?” Nathan asked, becoming impatient.

“No, sir, just the usual background radiation and lots of extremely low power radio signals coming from other systems.”

“Are you sure? Maybe it’s there and you’re just not seeing it?”

“No, sir. I’m sure,” Ensign Yosef insisted.

“Sir,” Ensign Willard interrupted, “we need to be patient.”

“What if we jumped short of it?” Nathan speculated.

“We would still be able to detect it,” Ensign Yosef added, “just not as accurately as if it flew past us.”

“Very well, then we wait,” Nathan decided.

“Passing fifty-five percent light,” Josh reported.

The bridge remained quiet for what seemed like an eternity. The only thing punctuating the silence was Josh reporting their velocity every few minutes until they reached seventy-five percent the speed of light.

Now at three-quarters the speed of light, the main engines were again quiet as they coasted along through the vacuum of space, patiently waiting for their target to streak past them. Try as he might to think of nothing, Nathan couldn’t help but contemplate all that was riding on the success of this single intercept. If successful, they would have several months in which to prepare the Darvano system to defend itself. It was even conceivable that several months might be enough time for them to wage some sort of guerrilla-style hit-and-run campaign to weaken the Ta’Akar enough that they could be completely overthrown. However, if they failed to intercept the drone, depending on the position of Takaran ships in the area, they could find themselves under attack within a month. That would barely be enough time to repair and rearm the Aurora, let alone establish any military capabilities within the Darvano system.

“Contact!” Ensign Yosef announced as her fingers danced across her consoles, quickly analyzing the incoming data streams. “The drone just blew past us, about a hundred thousand kilometers to port. Oh my God, it’s traveling at ninety times the speed of light.”

“That's what we expected,” Nathan reminded her.

“Yes, sir. I know. I’ve just never seen anything traveling that fast before.”

“Can you track it?” Nathan asked. “Can you verify its course?”

“Yes, sir. I just need a minute to collect enough data,” she assured him.

“Comms,” Nathan said, “tell Tug to get out onto the apron and get ready to launch.”

“Yes, sir,” Naralena answered.

“Abby, as soon as Kaylah has a plot, I need you to put us eight light hours ahead of that drone. That should give us just over five minutes to get Tug into position before the drone catches up to us.”

“Understood,” Abby replied.

“We’ll be jumping even closer to Takara, Jess,” Nathan warned.

“Don’t worry, Skipper,” she promised. “I’m not taking my eyes off the threat board.”

“I’ve got the drone’s true course and speed plotted, sir,” Ensign Yosef announced. “I’m feeding it to navigation and jump control.”

“Excellent. Whenever you guys are ready,” Nathan told them.

“Tug reports he is on the apron and ready for departure, Captain,” Naralena reported from the comms station.

“Remind him to close his eyes when we jump,” Nathan instructed Naralena.

“Yes, sir.”

“Jump plotted, Captain,” Abby reported.

“Mister Sheehan?” Nathan inquired, wondering if he was ready.

“All set here, Captain.”

“Let’s do it.”

“Attention all hands. Prepare to jump,” Naralena announced.

“Jumping in three……two…”

Tug checked the mag-locks on his landing gear and put his hand on his flight control stick as Abby’s voice finished counting down to the jump.

“…
One……jump.
”

Tug closed his eyes tightly as the brilliant blue-white light of the Aurora’s jump fields washed out over her surface, only to disappear a moment later.

“
Jump complete,
” Abby reported over the comms.

Tug released his mag-locks and applied full upward thrust. The interceptor leapt up off the flight apron of the Aurora, quickly rising above the top of her main propulsion section just aft of the apron. Another thrust stopped his ascent and he fired his main engines at full thrust, angling to port as he quickly left the Aurora behind.

“Tug, Aurora. I’m away, moving into position.”

“Start transmitting the dropout signal,” Nathan ordered.

“Transmitting now, sir,” Naralena reported. Ensign Willard watched over her shoulder, checking to see that the frequency and signal strength matched those used by warships of the Ta’Akar, which were the only ones authorized to order a comm-drone to drop out of FTL in order to exchange messages.

“Threat board is clear, Captain,” Jessica reported. “Tug is moving into the slot. His current velocity is point eight light and accelerating.”

Nathan said nothing, just stared straight ahead at the main view screen, wondering what good a view of the stars was at a time like this. “Jess, can you put your tactical view up on the main view screen?”

“Yes, sir,” Jessica answered. A moment later a large window appeared on the forward section of the spherical view screen, superimposed over the view of the stars ahead of them. The window showed a three-dimensional view of the area, with an icon indicating the Aurora at the center, and another icon indicating Tug’s interceptor moving away from them to port at a respectable rate. Sets of numbers indicating course and speed of both of the icons appeared just below them, moving along with them.