Cameron watched as the opening to the end of the assembly berth passed them by, their bow breaking into open space high above the Earth. Despite her calm exterior, Cameron could feel her pulse racing with excitement at the sight of it all, despite the fact that it looked exactly the same as it had in the countless simulations they had run.
She too had joined the fleet to get away from her old life. And she had also lacked the patriotic feeling shared by most of her class. But ambition had never been something that she had lacked. For her, it was all consuming. It drove her day in and day out, and made her cold and competitive.
But she was okay with it, figuring that the sacrifice now while she was young would pay off later. She had no interest in becoming a baby-factory, like so many of her friends back home. She agreed with those that felt the Earth’s population was being refilled at an acceptable rate, making such efforts not only unnecessary, but unwise.
And so she had committed herself to a life in the fleet, hoping to make captain someday. It had required her to fore-go any romantic entanglements, not wanting to deal with the additional distractions. Not that she didn’t date on occasion. After all, a girl did have needs. But she had always been up front with anyone of interest, which probably explained why she had few second dates.
“Clear of the Platform, Sir,” Nathan announced. So far so good.
“Very well, take us to departure altitude and prepare a course for Jupiter.”
“Climbing to departure altitude,” Nathan acknowledged. Nathan fired up the main engines at only a few percent of their overall thrust capacity, in order to increase their velocity and climb to a higher orbit. A low, almost inaudible rumble began emanating from the stern of the ship as her massive engines began their low intensity burn.
“Calculating course for Jupiter,” Cameron reported. “Velocity, Sir?” she asked the captain.
The captain thought about it for a moment before responding, a smile coming across his face. “Flight’s discretion,” he offered.
Cameron and Nathan looked at each other. Nathan’s face was like a mischievous little boy who suddenly had a great idea. But Cameron’s was a look of concern, probably due to her helmsman’s expression.
“Within reason, of course,” the captain added.
Nathan silently mouthed the question half light to Cameron, who nodded grudging agreement.
“Recommend half-light, Sir,” Cameron advised. “At Jupiter’s current position, that will get us there in approximately eighty-seven minutes.”
“A bit much for our first time out,” the captain speculated as he shifted nervously in his seat. “But they did want us to test our new engines, so half-light it is. But do us all a favor and take it up slowly? Remember, we’ve got untested inertial dampeners and a ship full of newbies who don’t have their space-legs yet.”
“Yes Sir,” Nathan assured him. “I’ll bring her up nice and easy.”
“Departure altitude in one minute,” Cameron reported.
Captain Roberts pressed a button on the comm panel on the arm of his command chair to address the entire ship. “All hands, this is the captain, prepare for acceleration in one minute.” Without skipping a beat, the captain switched his comm to Engineering. “Chief? We’re going to take her up to half-light. I trust you’ll let us know if there are any problems down there?”
“Yes Sir, but I don’t anticipate any,” the Chief Engineer’s voice crackled over the comm.
Nathan could imagine the excited look on Vladimir’s face down in Engineering, as he programmed in a five minute acceleration curve that would get them to half the speed of light in just under fifteen minutes. It was a very slow rate of acceleration, considering what he knew the ship was designed to do. But the captain’s earlier point had been a valid one, which Nathan had not even considered.
“Departure altitude achieved, ready to break orbit,” Cameron announced.
“Very well, take us out of orbit, and make way for Jupiter, half-light, Lieutenant.”
Cameron pressed a button on her console that changed the ship’s condition to yellow.
Throughout the ship, the condition lights located along every corridor and every compartment suddenly changed from green to yellow as she announced the last acceleration warning to the crew. All at once, anyone standing immediately sat down and faced forward. If they weren’t able to sit, they stood leaning against a wall that faced aft. If they couldn’t do that, they grabbed onto something. The inertial dampeners were a new feature in Fleet vessels, and no one was quite sure how well they were going to work. And the last thing that new crewman wanted was to fall on their ass during their first acceleration.
“Breaking orbit,” Nathan announced as Cameron finished her ship-wide warning. He activated the acceleration sequence he had programmed moments ago, as he changed the ships heading. “On course for Jupiter, beginning acceleration sequence.”
All the bridge staff who were not facing forward suddenly stopped what they were doing and turned their seats towards the main view screen as the ship began to accelerate. The sliver of the Earth that had been decorating the bottom edge of the main view screen suddenly fell away from view as the ship pulled out of orbit and headed for Jupiter.
Nathan wasn’t sure if it was his gentle acceleration curve, or the new inertial dampeners, but the sensation was almost unnoticeable. In fact, it was even a bit disappointing, and he wondered how much the dampeners would help if he really had to punch it.
Fifteen minutes later they were traveling at half the speed of light, and Nathan had discontinued his burn. In about an hour, he would have to start a gradual deceleration burn so that they would settle into a comfortable orbit around Jupiter. Of course Cameron would let him know when and at what thrust to burn, but he was pretty sure that the rest of the crew would never feel a thing.
“Traveling at half-light, Captain. On course for Jupiter,” Nathan reported.
“Very well,” the captain answered as he rose from his chair. “XO, you’re with me,” he added as he headed for his ready room door at the aft end of the bridge. “You have the con, Lieutenant.”
Cameron rolled her eyes as she noticed the big toothy grin forming on Nathan’s face.
Deceleration on approach to Jupiter had gone as planned, thanks to Cameron’s precise navigational calculations. In only a few minutes, the Aurora would be captured by Jupiter’s gravity well and fall into a stable orbit high above her equator. The eighty-seven minute trip had been uneventful thus far, a welcome change for Nathan from the gut-wrenching simulations they had endured previously. It had made him realize that perhaps Vladimir had been correct, that all he had to do was to fly the ship wherever the captain told him. And that was fine with him.
He was just a bit surprised and more than curious when Doctor Karlsen and his daughter entered the bridge and went directly to the starboard auxiliary station. Located at the aft end of each side of the bridge just forward of the exits, these stations could be reprogrammed to act as monitoring and control stations for just about any of the ship’s systems.
“What are they doing here?” Nathan whispered to Cameron, as he tilted his head back towards the two Physicists. Cameron just shrugged her shoulders, indicating she had no idea.
Immediately, everything that Vladimir had ever said about the irritating blonde woman and the work they had been doing flashed through Nathan’s mind. If they were on board to test some top-secret project, then the far-side of Jupiter seemed a likely spot. He tried to hear what the two of them were talking about as they worked back in the corner, but they were speaking what Nathan assumed was Danish.