“Standby to end deceleration burn,” Cameron announced, drawing Nathan’s attention back to his job.
“Standing by.”
On Cameron’s command, he cut the main engines, ending the deceleration burn, the low rumble subsiding.
“Approach velocity and vector are perfect,” Cameron announced proudly, despite the fact that Nathan was the only one listening. “We should settle into orbit in four minutes.” Cameron switched her comm channel to hail the captain. “Navigation, Sir. Jupiter orbit in four minutes.”
“Very well, Ensign. Go ahead and pitch over. We’ll be there momentarily,” the captain instructed over the comm.
“Yes Sir,” she said, before ending the connection. “You’re clear to pitch over,” she told Nathan.
“Pitching over.”
Nathan pushed the joystick forward slightly, holding it there for several seconds. Although a smaller ship, the Aurora still had plenty of mass and it took more than just a small puff of attitude thrusters to get her to flip over in a timely fashion. The inertial dampening systems appeared to be doing their job, which allowed him to handle the massive ship more like a large fighter-bomber than a carrier vessel.
The Aurora had been approaching Jupiter tail first, using her massive main engines to decelerate. Most interplanetary trips were made at less than ten percent of light, from which the ship’s braking thrusters were capable of slowing her down to orbital velocities. But since the purpose of their mission had been to test main propulsion, a more aggressive flight profile had seemed appropriate.
Now that the burn had completed, the ship was flipping end over, her nose coming up to point in the direction of the gas giant. Everyone on the bridge watched in amazement as the planet seemingly rose from under the deck into view. It stopped its ascent to settle in the center of the view screen as Nathan applied counter-thrust to stop their pitch-over. The planet quickly grew as they approached, until it filled the view screen’s bottom quarter from side to side. As it grew closer, they could see the bands of brown, red, and orange clouds as they rotated in opposing directions around the surface of the planet. No one on the bridge had ever seen any planet other than the Earth in this way until now, and it held them all transfixed.
Except, Nathan noticed, the two scientists still working away in the back corner. Either they had seen such things before, or their work was so all consuming that they didn’t even notice.
They did notice when Commander Montero returned to the bridge and stepped up to the tactical station. Two armed marines had followed him, taking positions on either side of the port exit. A moment later, another pair of marines took a similar post at the starboard exit.
Nathan and Cameron exchanged concerned glances at the presence of the guards, ensure of what was happening.
“Captain on the bridge!” one of the marines guarding the port exit announced as Captain Roberts exited his ready room and entered the bridge. Although no one was expected to abandon their duties to stand and salute, all casual conversations ceased and everyone instantly became more alert and focused.
The captain entered the bridge with a more serious expression than usual. “XO, lock down the bridge,” he ordered as he passed by the tactical station and made his way forward to his command chair.
Commander Montero turned and motioned to the marines on the port exit, who immediately locked their hatch, the marines on the starboard exit following suit.
“Comm,” the XO said. “Lock out all internal communications except for tactical, the command chair, and those between the starboard auxiliary station and the shield generation compartments.”
“Yes Sir,” the communications officer answered.
“And take the deep space communications array off-line until further notice.”
“Yes Sir.” The communications officer acted quickly to fulfill the commander’s orders. “Deep space array is off-line, internal communications are locked out except for those specified, Sir.”
“Jupiter orbit achieved, Captain,” Nathan announced. He didn’t know what was going on, but he was sure it had something to do with their being in orbit over Jupiter. He glanced over at Cameron, who for the first time that he could remember, looked worried.
“May I have your attention,” the captain announced.
His look was stern, his demeanor serious, and it made Nathan wonder what had happened to suddenly change his persona so drastically over the last ninety minutes.
“What I’m about to tell you is classified as top-secret, need to know only, and all of you need to know. The rest of the crew, however, does not. At least not yet. Before I begin, I would like you all to know that neither myself, nor Commander Montero were aware of any of this until we opened an encrypted, position-locked file given to us by Admiral Yamori during yesterday’s inspection.”
Nathan and Cameron exchanged concerned glances at the captain’s opening statement, as did many others on the bridge.
“Eighteen months ago, the Centauri system was invaded by the Jung Dynasty. Centauri forces were quickly overwhelmed, resulting in a total loss of her entire defensive force. At that point we lost our source of intelligence in Centauri space, so we must assume that the entire system is now controlled by the Jung. That leaves Sol as the last free system in the core.”
A dead silence fell across the room, punctuated only by the occasional sounds of various systems giving faint tones to alert their users. Everyone in the room understood the gravity of the information. It was, after all, the reason most of them had joined the fleet in the first place.
For Nathan, it meant something more. He had spent endless hours arguing with his father about the importance of the fleet. And he had never been able to understand how his father, a man who had once believed whole heartedly in the existence of the fleet, could’ve suddenly changed his mind. And now, with what everyone feared the most coming to be, he could finally convince his father how unequivocally wrong he had been. And while this should’ve pleased him, none of it seemed to matter now.
“Fleet intelligence assessments predict that an invasion of Sol should be expected within a year, two at the most. The invasion of the Alpha Centauri system cost the Jung more than a few ships. And intel suggests that it will take them awhile to reinforce their forces enough to be able to mount an overwhelming invasion of Earth. As you know, the Jung rule with fear more than anything else. And overwhelming victory in any campaign is of paramount importance to them.
Questions began to pop into the minds of the bridge staff. What were they going to do? What about their families? They had all heard rumors about what the Jung did to those they ruled. And why they had left port so early, before they were even fully armed?
The captain expected such concerns from his crew, and intended on answering them as best he could. “We have been sent here, to the orbit of Jupiter, to test an experimental drive system that Fleet Command hopes will give us a significant tactical advantage over the Jung. If this prototype proves successful and we are able to install it into the rest of the ships in time, we might stand a real chance of saving the Earth.”
The captain now had everyone’s undivided attention, as their hope hung on his every word. “Doctors Karlsen and Sorenson from special projects are in charge of this test, so I will let them explain further.” The captain motioned to Doctor Karlsen to take over as he stepped aside.
The tall, heavyset, elderly man moved from the back of the room to stand on the command platform. Nathan had only heard of the man until now and had not even seen his face. Rumor had it that he had lived, ate and slept in the shield generator compartments over the last two weeks. And after seeing the tired look on the man’s face, Nathan believed the rumors to be true.
“Many years ago, during testing of a new, multi-layered energy shielding system, we accidentally discovered a new method of hyper-luminal space travel. This system is capable of relocating a vessel to a distant point in space, many light years away, in the blink of an eye.”