Ep.#5 - "Rise of the Corinari" (18 page)

“I am sure that was all in the past.”

“It wasn’t that far in the past.”

“Tell me, Commander; do you believe that who we are is set at birth? Or do you believe that we are all the result of that which we experience along the way?”

“A little of both, I guess,” she answered. “Well, maybe a little of the first and a lot of the second.”

“Have the events of the last month changed you in any way?”

“Yes, of course,” she admitted.

“Then is it not possible that they have changed your friend as well?”

“My friend?” Cameron questioned. “I’m not sure you could call us friends.”

“I saw him toss all logic and reason aside to procure medical care for you,” Tug told her. “And I watched him stay by your side every possible moment. Those are not the acts of mere coworkers.”

Cameron was quiet for several minutes.

“What is it about him that worries you the most?” Tug asked, finally breaking the silence.

“I worry that he is so arrogant, so headstrong, that he will do something stupid that will get us all killed and leave the Earth to the mercy of the Jung.”

“Do you think Nathan a bad person?”

“No, I just think he’s irresponsible,” she stated.

“The man I have come to know takes his responsibilities quite seriously,” Tug argued, “perhaps even too much so.” After another pause, Tug continued. “May I offer my perspective on the matter?”

“Do I have a choice?” Cameron retorted.

“Not really, no,” Tug laughed. “Nathan’s biggest problem is that he does not yet believe in himself, in his own ability to lead and to make the right decisions.”

“Finally, we agree on something.”

“Part of the reason for this,” Tug said, “is that he does not yet feel that those he commands believe in him.”

Cameron looked at Tug. “What you’re really saying is that
I
don’t believe in him.”

“You are the only other person on the ship who could have taken on the role of captain, had it not fallen onto Nathan’s shoulders, are you not?”

“Yes…”

“Then it is understandable that he might need your support, your
belief
that he can do the job, and that he is worthy of being followed.”

The transport vehicle came to a stop outside the side entrance to the hospital in which Cameron had been recuperating for the last few weeks. Several Corinari guards and a few medical personnel came out to meet her, having been notified by comms of her arrival.

“Do me a favor, Tug,” Cameron asked. “Keep an eye on him until I get back. Worthy or not, he still needs someone to keep him in line.”

“I will do my best until your return,” Tug assured her with a grin.

* * *

Nathan walked down the main corridor of the command deck on his way to the bridge. After changing back into a normal uniform, he felt much more himself. The ceremony for the signing of the Alliance treaty had felt much like one of his father’s political circus events back on Earth. He had grown to despise such events to such a degree that he had joined the fleet to get away from them. Yet here he was, more deeply embroiled in politics than ever before, committing his world to an interstellar alliance that might or might not save his world. It had not been what he had set out to do. All he had wanted was to get his ship and his crew back to Earth and turnover command of the Aurora to someone more qualified.

He wondered what would have happened had he followed Cameron’s advice from the start and headed home immediately, slowly making their way back to Earth in a long series of jumps, ten light years at a time. Would he be halfway home by now? Who knew what dangers lay between the Pentaurus Cluster and the Sol system? It seemed entirely possible that they could have found themselves in an even worse position than they already were had they simply run home at their earliest opportunity.

Nathan knew that he had done the right thing by choosing to defend the Corinairans from the Ta’Akar. Whether or not it was for the right reasons was unimportant at this point. If he had allowed the bombardment to continue, the captain of the Yamaro might have destroyed the entire planet. Had he knowingly allowed the innocent people of Corinair to perish in such fashion, he would not have been worthy of his position.

Still, he couldn’t help but review the events of the last few weeks in his mind, over and over again, wondering how a different decision at each step in their journey might have led to a different outcome.

One of the four surviving marines left on the Aurora’s crew stood guard at the main entrance to the bridge. As the most critical compartment on the ship, Jessica had insisted that the marines be solely responsible for its security. The Corinari could guard the rest of the ship. Nathan knew that while she did not actually expect any subterfuge from the Corinari, she also realized that they still knew too little about the politics and ways of their new allies to trust them completely. They had no choice but to accept their help, but there was no reason not to keep a watchful eye on them, at least until their loyalty had been proven beyond doubt.

The marine guard snapped to attention, raising his right hand in salute as the captain approached. “Sir.”

Nathan returned the salute in a more casual fashion than it had been given. “Corporal,” he greeted as he stepped through the hatchway. He stopped as he entered the bridge, surprised to find it both empty and dimly lit. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was only twenty-one hundred hours. “Where is everyone?” he asked the corporal at the entrance.

“In their racks, I expect, sir,” the corporal surmised.

Nathan looked back at his watch, realizing it was still set to the local time for the city of Aitkenna back on Corinair. As preoccupied as he had been during their journey from Corinair to Karuzara, he had completely forgotten about the time difference. He expected they were going to have to come up with a way of dealing with such time issues in the future. Perhaps some sort of an ‘Alliance Mean Time’ would do the trick.

Nathan changed his watch back to shipboard time and saw that it was four in the morning. “Ah, yes,” he said to himself. That would explain the darkened, empty bridge. As shorthanded as they were, while safely docked within the Karuzara spaceport deep inside the asteroid, he had agreed to have only a duty officer and one guard on duty at night in order to allow their overworked crew some decent sleep for a change. They would be back to a normal routine soon enough.

“Where’s the duty officer then?” Nathan asked the corporal, knowing that Jessica had been left in command during his absence. “No, wait; let me guess,” he added, pointing toward his ready room at the back of the bridge. The corporal nodded.

Nathan entered his ready room and found Jessica right where he expected, sprawled out on the couch. She looked so peaceful that he hated to wake her, but he couldn’t resist. He cupped his hands around his mouth and called out, “General quarters! General quarters! All hands, man your battle stations!”

Not taking the bait, Jessica opened one eye and peered at Nathan. “Nice try,” she muttered.

“That’s, ‘Nice try, sir,’” he reminded as he took a seat behind his desk and turned on his display.

Jessica sat up. “Well at least you changed,” she commented as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes. “That goofy dress-uniform you guys concocted made you look like a doorman at one of those overpriced European hotels.”

“Please, don’t remind me.”

“I see you’ve got your sidearm back on,” she commented, noticing his gun belt. “Good boy.”

“They wouldn’t let me wear it at the ceremony,” Nathan explained. “I felt really uncomfortable without it.”

“Yeah, the psych boys back home called it ‘Persistent Readiness Syndrome’,” she explained. “We’re all going to have it for some time.” Jessica laughed. “I can’t imagine how the sergeant reacted when they tried to take
his
weapon away.”

“He just looked at them and they backed down,” Nathan said, chuckling at the memory.

“I’ll bet,” she said as she stretched. “So how was the party?”

“Pointless and boring,” Nathan declared as he scrolled through reports.

“Worse than the last one?”

Nathan paused for a moment, trying to remember the last party he had attended. Then he remembered the party at his parents’ estate the night before he had left Earth for his first assignment. He remembered getting fairly smashed, and he remembered that his father had announced his candidacy for the office of the North American Presidency. Mostly, however, he remembered his brief sexual encounter with a hot little brunette he had only just met. He had no way of knowing at the time that she was in the fleet, let alone that she would end up as his chief of security.

“No, this party was worse,” he assured her, adding, “no hot, easy chicks in tight skimpy dresses at this one.” Nathan flashed his usual charming smile, the same one that always got him out of trouble with his mother as a teenager.

Jessica smiled back as she stood and headed toward the exit, “Bite me,
sir
.”

“Goodnight, Jess,” Nathan said as she stepped through the hatch.

“Goodnight, Skipper,” she answered from the empty bridge, knowing that he hated the term.

Nathan tapped away at his keyboard for several minutes as he summarized the evening’s events for his log. He noticed he had become more careful with his wording in recent weeks. He knew his logs would be carefully examined and picked apart by all manner of experts, both fleet and civilian. Perhaps, someday, even historians would peruse his account of the events in the Pentaurus cluster, passing judgment on his decisions based on the words he left behind.

Chapter Five

“We are up to eight work teams,” Vladimir boasted as he placed his breakfast on the table across from Nathan and sat down to eat. Although still only at a fraction of its capacity, the mess hall seemed so much more alive now that there were at least one hundred Corinairan troops and technicians on board the Aurora.

“Half of them are working on repairs; the other half are concentrating on installing some of the original systems that were scheduled to be installed after our little ‘test flight’.”

“You mean all the crated stuff in the hangar bays?” Nathan asked.

“Da, and there is even more in the cargo holds,” Vladimir added. “Most of it is not urgent, but if we are to have full crew soon, much of it will become important very soon.”

“Possibly, but don’t let it slow down repairs,” Nathan reminded him.

“It will not,” Vladimir assured him. “Many of the repairs must be done in certain order, so there is only so much we can do at once. That is why I have the other crews installing stuff; better than having them sit around doing nothing.”

“What about the hull repairs?” Nathan asked. “Maybe they could help with that.”

“Mister Tonken and the Corinairan technicians are handling the repairs to the hull, and I get the impression that they do not wish to be disturbed any more than necessary,” Vladimir explained between bites. “Once the hull repairs are completed and the inner hull has been pressure tested, we will open the forward compartments and begin repairs to the damaged interior sections.”

“Did they give any indications as to how long it will take them?” Nathan asked.

“He would not commit to anything firm, but he indicated it could take several weeks. It depends on how much material they can get ready-made from the Corinairans, and how much they must process and fabricate themselves.”

“They can do that?”

“Yes,” Vladimir assured him, “they have the facilities already in place here. The Karuzari installed the heavy equipment long ago, when they first created this base. But the fabrication process is slow, as the ores must be mined and processed first.”

“What about the Yamaro’s fabricators?” Nathan wondered. “Can we use them to create hull plates?”

“Nyet, they are not designed to make such large components. They are limited to things no bigger than, say, this table.”

“I thought they were supposed to be such wonderful devices.”

“Oh, they are; they are most incredible. The speed and precision is amazing. They are far beyond anything we have on Earth.”

“Then why aren’t we using them?”

“As I said, they are not designed to make such large pieces,” Vladimir reiterated. “Besides, hull plates are very simple in their construction, and Mister Tonken seems confident that enough ready to use plating can be located.” Vladimir quickly drank his tea and poured a second cup. “Anyway, the Yamaro’s replicators are already busy.”

“Doing what?” Nathan asked.

“Making more fabricators. What else?”

“When did that happen?”

“They started the moment they finished making our new emitters.”

“Who made that decision?” Nathan wondered.

“Some scientist from Corinair,” Vladimir told him. “He insisted they create at least two more before they did anything else. One to dedicate to making more fabricators, and another one for them to study.”

“To study?”

“Yes, they plan to reverse engineer the fabricator and scale it up. They hope to use them to build ships.”

“I don’t think the Ta’Akar will give us that much time, Vlad.”

“I don’t think it matters,” Vladimir laughed. “These Corinairans, they are like starving children. They have all this scientific knowledge they have been dying to utilize over the last thirty years. Now that they can, they want to build everything they can think of. It is actually quite entertaining to listen to them.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Nathan sighed.

“You sound disappointed.”

“I was hoping we might use the fabricators to burn off a few million rounds for the rail guns.”

“You do realize we are in port, yes?” Vladimir asked. “And
inside
an asteroid?”

“Yeah, I just hate being unarmed, even in port.”

“Just ask the Corinairans to produce some slugs,” Vladimir insisted.

“Slugs?”