Impulse (11 page)

The commander shook her head. “You'll not convince him otherwise, Peter. He's made up his mind on this. And I've followed him long enough to know he's usually right in these situations. That's why I put my trust, and my respect, in him.” I glared at her, my foot tapping impatiently on the floor.

“And that's what worries me,” I said. “Inflexibility is a bad thing in a commanding officer.”

“Perhaps you're mistaking inflexibility with loyalty to his command and crew,” she responded.

“And perhaps he's acting out of emotion and pride rather than logic,” I said, then sat back down at the expansive table and eyed her warily. “I know what this is about, Commander. He feels guilty about the men he lost, and so do you. He's leaving me on the ship to make sure I'm safe so that you can both put yourselves in danger to assuage your guilt. I'll not have it!” I slammed my fist on the table. She came at me aggressively and stared me down, her fingers flexed on the tabletop.

“Yes, you will, Commander,” she seethed. “You'll follow your orders, because that is your duty. We don't get to choose what is wise or unwise. That's what they pay captains for, and they pay us to follow our captain's orders. So I'll ask you only one more question: will you follow your orders as given or will I have to replace you?” I stared hard into her eyes. I could tell she knew that I was right, but the order had been given. Still, I had a choice to make.

“I will follow my orders, XO,” I said quietly.

“Good!” she snapped, then stormed from the room.

I headed down to the landing bay immediately and found Marker before reporting to my bridge station.

“John, I have a question,” I said, taking him aside from his training and into a maintenance hallway.

“Sir?”

“Can the Downship be made ready before Mission Go?” I asked in a low voice. Marker looked over his shoulder.

“Aye, sir, it can,” he said back, just as low. I nodded.

“Good, make her ready . . . quietly, Corporal. What's her crew capacity?”

“Up to twelve, sir, for diplomatic missions, less depending on how much storage you want for other scenarios. How many do you plan on taking out?” he asked. This time it was my turn to look around for eavesdroppers.

“Out, just you and I. Back . . . that's a different question. Pack her for search and rescue, Corporal.” He eyed me like a man of experience questioning one of inexperience.

“Are you expecting trouble, sir?” he asked.

“Me? Hell yes! But the captain and the XO seem to be inviting it. Now get her ready and be prepared to go on my order.”

“She'll be ready, sir,” promised Marker.

I nodded. “And one last thing, pack some proximity charges, just in case. You never know what we might have to blow up, or through, out there.”

“Aye, sir.”

Our conversation over, I made for the lifter, stopping only for a moment to sweep my eyes across the landing bay to the two shuttles that would be protecting my commanding officer and my XO. I sighed and stepped off the deck, anxiety mounting in the pit of my stomach.

I was at my longscope station ready to go twenty minutes early. Tralfane sent a cryptic message at 1340 hours that said merely “Active.” I powered up the 'scope and ran her through her regular calibrations, noting the addition of Tralfane's new displays, still blacked out to me, and placing them to one side of the icon grid so they wouldn't distract me.

Ten minutes later I withdrew from the 'scope station to give the captain my ready report. Zander nodded acknowledgment from the captain's chair as Kierkopf stood next to him, observing the preparations.

“All jump coordinates to Levant verified and passed on to the astrogation officer?” Zander asked me.

“Yes, sir,” I replied, nodding toward Jenny Hogan at the astrogation station.

“Have we passed the outer marker beacon yet?” Zander asked Lt. Layton.

“Affirmative, Captain. Eight minutes ago,” said Layton from the helm.

Zander stood abruptly. “Start the clock, XO. Five minutes from my mark.” He raised a hand at this, then brought it down in a slashing motion.

“Mark!” he said.

Dobrina took to the shipwide com and made the call. “All stations, this is the XO. Five minutes to jump. I repeat, five minutes and counting,” she said, then put the receiver down and sat back down at the XO's station, strapping herself in.

“Store the 'scope for the jump, Mr. Cochrane,” she said to me. I shut down the 'scope as the jump alarms sounded throughout the ship. Readiness reports came pouring over the central com system and were acknowledged by the bridge crew. Once I had the longscope stored I made my way to the third station and activated my personal com before strapping myself in.

“We're going early, sir?” I dared to ask.

“Early being relative, Commander,” Zander said. “Any time we're on mark and within two hours of a scheduled jump I demand my crew be ready at five minute's notice. Circumstances don't always happen by the clock, Mr. Cochrane.”

“Understood, sir,” I said. This was yet another of Zander's idiosyncrasies. I still didn't quite know what to make of him, fool or genius.

I took final reports from Jenny Hogan at the astrogation station and Layton at the helm as well as a final good-to-go from Marker and the marines stowed below decks. Dobrina reported her stations at the ready as well.

“Mr. Poulsen,” said Zander to
Impulse
's
propulsion officer, “spool up the Hoaglands.”

“Aye, sir!” said Poulsen. I watched as his hands ran over the heat-sensitive touch controls, setting marks and keying in spatial coordinates fed to him from Hogan at Astrogation. I switched over to my monitor to make sure our protective Hoagland Field and the hyperdimensional drives were nominal. Poulsen raised his left hand over his head to indicate
Impulse
was ready to jump.

“All systems green, XO?” asked Zander one final time as he sat down and strapped in, the last one to do so.

“All green, sir,” responded Kierkopf, not taking her eyes from her board.

“Mr. Cochrane?”

“My board is green, sir,” I said, indicating that the helm, navigation, and longscope systems were ready.

I watched as Zander leaned back in his chair, hands gripping the arms tightly. I did the same.

“Stand by all stations,” he called. “On my mark.” I watched the main bridge display as the forward baffles covering the nose of
Impulse
expanded like an umbrella, opening to catch the energy wave generated by the rear HD plasma drives. A purple glow enveloped the ship's exterior, caught by the forward baffles to create a closed energy field. Only one more act now, to engage the hyperdimensional drive and take our ship through the jump point to Levant.

“Three . . .” called Zander, “two . . . one . . .”

“Jump!” he commanded.

“Jumping!” said Poulsen, his voice echoing shipwide over the com as his free hand swept down his board from top to bottom.

What seemed like seconds passed. I was disoriented, as if pieces of me were missing and rushing to put themselves back into place before I noticed. The bridge looked blurry, and I felt an unpleasant vertigo that thankfully lasted only a moment. Unfortunately that sensation was then replaced by nausea. I heard a voice in my ear com, Commander Kierkopf, I guessed.

“Close your eyes,” she said. I did, and the nausea slowly passed. Then I heard sounds of activity around me again, followed by a gentle tapping on my shoulder.

“Commander, are you with us yet?” I looked up into Commander Kierkopf's eyes. She had her hands on my shoulders and was looking intently at me. In my reverie I found the sight of her quite attractive. I reached up to touch her face, but she deflected my hand before I could go further. Then she stepped back from me.

“He's here, sir,” she said, turning away from me to Captain Zander, who already had his coffee. She handed me a cup and added some fluid from a dropper.

“Helps clear the head,” she said. I nodded, thinking about the theoretical physics classes that I'd had as a cadet. The instructors had stated that jumps were impossible according to physics as we knew it. The Earth Historians claimed only to know how to use the technology, not how it worked. I was just thankful that I'd passed through my first jump point and reassembled in a different part of the same universe in one piece.

Another minute passed and I regained my footing, picking up on the hum of activity around me.
Impulse
was already well underway in normal space and in full cry. I had made my first jump. We were in the Levant system.

“I'd like a report from the 'scope as soon as you're ready, Commander,” said Zander.

“Ready now, sir,” I responded.

“Nonsense, boy. Take another minute,” he said. “First jump always takes it out of you. You're lucky. Many times I've seen the crew take advantage of a young man's first jump.”

“Advantage, sir?” I asked, my head still clearing of fog.

He smiled. “Hand in warm water, that kind of thing. Academy pranks.”

Automatically I looked down to check my pants. Thankfully, they were dry. I remembered reading that the jump disorientation weakened as you got more experience. Like your first drunk. Word was it killed about same number of brain cells. I took another sip of my coffee, hoping that was so.

Jump points were not exact locations in space, but rather areas of varying size that allowed a ship to jump into a region of space, usually close to a star, if you knew the Lagrange grid point references. Many First Empire system jump points were known, but many others were lost in antiquity. Levant was one of the closest major jump points to Quantar, and had been a bustling trading post in the old empire days. From the look of the astrogation display we had jumped pretty close to the center of the ingress point, an area bound by the marker beacons installed by the Unified Navy survey probes. I reminded myself to give Jenny Hogan a commendation when things calmed down.

“If you're ready, Mr. Cochrane, I'd like to get my longscope reading now,” said Zander.

“Aye, sir, I'm ready,” I said. I set my coffee down and made for my duty station. After a few minutes of scanning I had made my first pass through the displays, at least the ones I had access to. The Levant system consisted of four rocky major planets in the inner system, all within four masses of Q-standard, and eight outer gas giants. There were a wide array of minor planets and seventy-nine moons, including two orbiting Levant Prime. The jump point was located between the orbit of the fifth and sixth outer planets, both smaller gas giants, which would be a big advantage for future traders. No distorting gravity wells from the more massive outer planets would make traversing the Levant system a breeze. The only major obstacle was a cloud of asteroids between the orbits of L-5 and L-6. Levant Prime was the fourth planet outward from her F-type blue-white main sequence star.

I switched off the survey displays and proceeded through my regular protocols, scanning the path ahead to Levant Prime. There was minimal disruptive flak and no energy anomalies on the infrared. Stellar dust and debris was within acceptable ranges.

“First sweep complete. The path to Levant Prime is all clear, Captain,” I called out, then began a second scan. After repeating the process I gave the clearance again and stepped back from the 'scope, waiting for Zander. He stood.

“I want a system-wide scan, Commander. Not just the path ahead, and not just the path we took before,” he said.

“System-wide, sir?” I asked. That could take hours. Zander nodded affirmative.

“Start with the asteroid cloud between L-5 and L-6, Commander. Our longscope officer warned us of an energy anomaly there the last time we entered this system. I want to see if it's still there,” he said.

“Aye, sir,” I said, and dove back under the hood. Scanning the asteroid cloud would probably take me twenty minutes. Of course the whole crew would be waiting on me while I scanned.