Frontiers 07 - The Expanse (7 page)

Jessica stared at the major for several seconds. She could see in his eyes that her threats made little difference.

“Will there be anything else, sir?”

“No, Major. You’re dismissed.”

Major Waddell rose from his chair, came to attention, and raised his hand in salute, a gesture meant to demonstrate his understanding of his commanding officer’s authority over him.

Jessica returned the major’s salute and watched him depart in proper Corinari fashion, pivoting perfectly on his heel and toe. She knew that, although his behavior would probably change, his hatred of the Takarans would remain. She only hoped it wouldn’t be a problem.

* * *

“Analysis of jump twenty is complete,” Commander Taylor said as she entered the captain’s ready room.

“And?” the captain asked from behind his desk.

“Everything looks good. According to Doctor Sorenson, running the ZPEDs at up to five percent during jumps did not result in any abnormalities.”

“No changes in accuracy noted?”

“No, sir,” Cameron assured him. “Abby is confident that it is safe to begin installing the upgraded emitters. She would like to continue jumping fifteen light years at a time with the ZPEDs running at five percent while we upgrade the secondary emitter array.”

“Did she say why?”

“The more data the better, as I understood it. I think she would just feel more comfortable if she saw consistently positive results before attempting a ZPED-powered jump.”

“Can’t argue with that, can we?”

“No, sir.”

“I talked to Vlad at breakfast this morning. He finished validating the new emitters last night.”

“Then I guess we’re all set,” Cameron stated.

Nathan could hear the lack of commitment in her voice. “Something tells me you’re less than enthusiastic about the idea.”

“I’m just not sure it’s really worth the risk, Nathan.”

“I don’t think there’s as much risk as you think,” he argued. “Abby’s not the type to take chances, especially now that we’re finally on our way home.”

“Perhaps, but we’re already jumping fifteen light years at a time. That’s a fifty percent increase in range. As we are now, we could be home in just over two weeks without the additional risk.”

“It’s not just about the time it takes to get home, Cam. It’s much more than that.”

“Like making sure the benefits of the alliance are enough to keep you out of prison?”

“Funny, Cam. Very funny. Think of it… jumping twenty or more light years at a time without recharging. You could cross the galaxy in a matter of weeks. You could strike the Jung home world—wherever that is—in a few jumps, return to Earth, reload, then jump back, and strike again. You could deliver as much ordnance on a target as an entire fleet using just one ship. I think that’s well worth the risk of a few test jumps along the way.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you, Nathan. I’m just saying I wish we didn’t have to take the risk, at least not now.”

“Then you don’t mind if I give Vlad the green light?”

“What are you asking me for? You’re the captain.”

“Yes, I am. But I depend on you to keep me from going off the deep end, remember?”

“Hey, I was in a coma when you started that whole Na-Tan thing.”

“I’ll let Vlad know,” he told her with a smile.

“I’ll start organizing work crews,” she told him as she headed for the exit.

“Hey, you don’t really think they’re going to toss me in the brig, do you?”

“Probably not,” she admitted, “not with all the cool tech the Takarans are contributing.” She paused at the hatch for a moment, then turned back to face him. “Still, for once, I’m glad you’re the captain and not me.”

* * *

“What are we having?” Jessica asked as she entered the captain’s mess.

“I have no idea,” Nathan admitted. “I stopped asking a week ago. I can never remember how to pronounce the names anyway.”

“I don’t care as long as it’s meat and lots of it,” Vladimir declared. “I have not eaten since breakfast.”

“
You
skipped lunch?” Cameron asked in disbelief. “
You?
”

“We are very busy installing and testing the new emitters,” Vladimir defended. “I am definitely earning my pay this week.”

“I was watching those spidery-looking things you’re using,” Nathan said. “What do you call them?”

“We call them ‘crawlers,’” Lieutenant Montgomery stated.

“That makes sense,” Nathan agreed.

“They are used by exterior work crews on all Takaran warships. They are very efficient.”

“And a lot more comfortable than wearing a pressure suit,” Vladimir added as he watched the captain’s chef place dishes of food onto the table in front of him. “They are safer as well.”

“Yes, they offer significantly better protection against cosmic radiation than even the best pressure suits,” Lieutenant Montgomery agreed.

“I haven’t seen them yet,” Major Prechitt stated with curiosity. “What do they look like?”

“Well, like spiders,” Nathan stated.

“Spiders?” Major Prechitt was unfamiliar with the word.

“They have an oval pod in the middle of an oval ring. The pod holds the worker who can reach out using arms to perform work on the exterior of the ship. They move around using these long, articulated legs like a spider.” Vladimir placed his hand on the table, walking his fingers around to mimic a spider walking.

“Ah, ‘prycopa,’” the major declared. “Interesting. I would like to see them.”

“They are operating from the starboard cargo airlock,” Vladimir explained. “Both of them are in use during the recharge cycle, but they come in to be recharged for about an hour during each jump.”

“We use something similar in the orbital assembly facility over Earth,” Nathan explained, “except ours sit on the end of a single, long, articulated arm that connects to a trolley on a track that runs the length of the assembly structure. Workers could spend an entire shift inside one of those things.”

“How is the refit progressing?” Major Prechitt wondered.

“Slightly behind schedule,” Lieutenant Montgomery admitted. “After all, this would best be done in port. However, I am confident that we will finish in a few days.”

“It would be faster if we had a few more crawlers,” Vladimir admitted.

“Why don’t you just fabricate more?” Jessica suggested as she loaded her plate.

“All the fabricators are busy making emitters,” Vladimir told her as he began eating.

“Crawlers are rather complex machines,” Lieutenant Montgomery explained. “Fabricating them would take considerable time and would tie up all four fabricators. Perhaps later, when there is room in the fabrication schedule.”

“Sounds like we should fabricate some more fabricators,” Nathan stated.

“Are any of these dishes meat-free?” Cameron asked.

“Yes, sir,” the cook answered. “I prepared these two especially for you.”

“Thank you.”

“I guess there are vegetarians on Corinair as well,” Nathan commented as he began eating.

“How can you not eat meat?” Jessica wondered.

“How can you eat it?” Cameron responded.

“Like this,” Jessica stated, placing a chunk of meat in her mouth.

“Classy. It’s my great-grandmother’s fault, really. She grew up in northern Europe during the bovine plagues. So many died from tainted beef that people just stopped eating meat period. No beef, no fowl, no fish. Her parents organized a neighborhood farm where everyone helped cultivate their own food, so they could be sure it was safe.”

“Seems a bit drastic,” Major Prechitt commented.

“Perhaps to you and me,” Cameron admitted. “However, there were people dying by the thousands then. It was nearly one hundred years ago, and the knowledge from the Data Ark had yet to reach everyone, especially the smaller villages.”

“It seems so impossible,” Lieutenant Montgomery admitted. “There has not been a case of tainted food products of any kind on Takara for centuries.”

“A hundred years ago, our people were just reinventing propeller-driven aircraft,” Nathan explained. “After the bio-digital plague nearly destroyed humanity, we had to relearn everything. We had to reinvent things that had been used for hundreds of years.”

“I’m confused,” Major Prechitt stated. “How did you get from airplanes to starships in only one hundred years?”

“The Data Ark,” Nathan stated.

“What is a Data Ark?” Lieutenant Montgomery asked.

“Someone more than a millennia ago, before the great plague, decided to create a database to contain all the history, science, culture, and religion of humanity. When the bio-digital plague hit, the Ark was closed down to protect its contents. In the chaos of the following decades, the Ark was forgotten. It was discovered nearly nine hundred years later in a sealed facility in the Swiss Alps. Once the people of Earth figured out how to get it running again, we had access to all the information stored inside. Because of that information, we were able to jump ahead technologically more than three hundred years in only a century.”

“Amazing,” the lieutenant muttered. “What type of information did it contain?”

“Everything.”

“A sudden influx of such scientific knowledge seems like it would be dangerous,” Major Prechitt observed.

“Very true,” Nathan agreed. “Luckily, the people that discovered the Ark realized this early on. An international commission was formed in order to prevent just such a mistake from being made. It was quickly realized that the application of the knowledge had to be carefully chosen and monitored to prevent another catastrophe like the bio-digital plague. In fact, many people objected to accessing any of the data, claiming we weren’t ready.”

“Seems a valid argument,” the major said. “Odd that you chose to develop a space program over preventing tainted foods from reaching the population.”

“It didn’t go quite that way,” Nathan chuckled. “Once we learned that humanity had once colonized other worlds, we were curious to learn if they, too, had recovered. When we discovered that an empire known as the Jung had risen up and conquered most of the core and fringe worlds, we became concerned and decided we needed to be able to protect our world. Hence, we needed to be in space.”

“But to go from airplanes to starships in a single century,” Lieutenant Montgomery stated in awe, “it seems impossible, even with fabricators.”

“Funny you should mention fabricators,” Nathan said. “We use a similar technology called 3D printing. It is nowhere near as advanced as your fabricators, but it was a lot better than the old methods of die-casting.”

“But a space program requires a huge industrial base.”

“We had plenty of industry,” Nathan said. “It just wasn’t high-tech at the time. Computers were the first thing to be produced using the information from the Data Ark, since it was a computer, after all. What resulted was an overnight renaissance of science, technology, and manufacturing. Within seventy years, we were building the Defender class ships in orbit.”

“Defender class?” the lieutenant asked.

“Very big, very slow,” Vladimir said.

“The Defender class ships are sub-light vessels used to patrol and defend our home system. We built four of them over the last twenty years. They may be slow, but they are heavily armed.”

“Why didn’t you construct faster-than-light ships?” Major Prechitt asked.

“The technologies required for FTL-capable ships were a bit more advanced, and we didn’t want to wait that long to get some type of defensive capabilities in place,” Nathan explained. “In addition, there were many who feared that building FTL warships might appear a provocative act to the Jung, forcing them to attack before we were ready to defend ourselves.”

“A reasonable point of view,” Lieutenant Montgomery said.

“Perhaps, if you know the size and strength of your enemy, which at the time, we did not. We did eventually build a few small FTL ships for the purpose of reconnaissance.”

“What did your people learn?” Major Prechitt wondered.

“That the Jung were far greater in number than we had originally estimated, and that their wave of domination was headed our way. In fact, the Sol system is now the last of the original core worlds that is not under the control of the Jung.”

“Do the Jung have jump drives as well?” the lieutenant wondered, concern for his own world obvious on his face.

“Not to our knowledge,” Nathan told him. “All our intelligence indicates that the Jung still use linear propulsion systems that are similar in capabilities to your own.”

“Then surely your people have a tactical advantage over them, and an enormous one at that,” Major Prechitt observed.

“If we can get back to Earth, yes,” Cameron said. “As far as we know, our jump drive is the only operational prototype in existence.”

“According to Doctor Sorenson, all data concerning the jump drive program is contained in the computer systems on this ship. Without us, the Earth has no jump drive. They can’t even build another one.”

“That still doesn’t make sense to me,” Jessica mumbled. She noticed that Major Prechitt and Lieutenant Montgomery were staring at her as if they wanted her to elaborate. She looked at Nathan, who didn’t seem to object. “I mean, why? Why put everything and everyone in one place, especially when testing a prototype? Don’t scientists usually hide in a bunker somewhere and press a button remotely?”

“She has a point, Captain,” Major Prechitt agreed.

“You have to understand, Major,” Nathan explained. “The Earth is under incredible stress. Our industrial complex is strained to its limits. The international economies are spending money they do not have on spaceships, and the sons and daughters of every country on Earth are going through training to crew those ships. The governments of Earth still can’t agree on how to handle the Jung: with diplomacy or force.”

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Jessica said.

“Captain,” Abby interrupted, “if I may?”

“Of course, Doctor.”

“Fleet has been aware of Jung operatives on Earth for some time.”

“I knew it!” Jessica declared, dropping her fork on her plate. “It
was
an ambush!”

Major Prechitt was looking directly at Nathan. “An ambush?”

“On the first test jump, we found Jung gunboats lying in wait. Captain Roberts suspected an ambush. We fought, one of their antimatter reactors overloaded as we tried to jump away, and we ended up in the Pentaurus cluster being fired on by the Campaglia.”

Both Major Prechitt’s and Lieutenant Montgomery’s eyes were wide open in astonishment. “Incredible,” the major declared. “The odds of your ship jumping a thousand light years across the galaxy and ending up at that point in space at that particular time… Quite frankly, Captain, I don’t think astronomical adequately describes those odds.”

“There may be a reason that we came out of the jump where we did,” Nathan said, “but that’s another story.”

“The project was kept under the tightest security, with only a few key people in Fleet Command and the government aware of the nature of our research. There was much deception involved, including moving our facility about from time to time. I believe they even had decoy teams at one time, but I cannot be sure. Exactly why they chose to put all of the researchers and our data into the prototype vessel, I cannot be certain. However, I suspect they feared that our facility was about to be discovered by Jung operatives.”