“Any ideas?” he asked, admitting that he had none of his own.
Cameron looked at him, saying nothing. But he could see in her eyes that she had no ideas either.
Nathan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I guess all we can do is wait,” he resigned. “And hope that Vlad is still with us.”
It was their first opportunity to stop and look around the bridge, and witness the amount of damage they had sustained. The helm and navigation consoles appeared undamaged for the most part, which was a good thing. The Sensors and Electronic Countermeasures stations were both fried. But the auxiliary console behind them that had been configured for the Jump drive seemed relatively undamaged, which was surprising considering the exit directly behind it had practically collapsed.
The comm stations at the rear of the bridge had suffered some sort of an explosive short circuit, but the port side auxiliary station, as well as the engineering and science stations were all intact. And of course, the tactical station that Nathan had been using was also relatively undamaged.
All in all, he figured it could’ve been much worse. They were, after all, still alive. And that meant there were still possibilities. He only hoped that whatever they might be, that they weren’t too unpleasant.
Cameron had taken it upon herself to deal with the injured. She had first checked on the captain, who still lay bleeding and unconscious, but alive for now. She did what she could, breaking out an emergency medical kit from the cabinet near the exit. But other than the captain and the four of them, the rest were dead. Altogether, a total of seven people had died on that bridge half an hour ago. She just wondered how many more had died elsewhere on the ship. They had left Earth on a simple test cruise with a skeleton crew of one hundred, which was barely enough to run the ship. They couldn’t afford to lose even those that had died on the bridge, let alone others. Not if they were to have any hope of getting back to Earth.
Earth, she thought, wondering in what direction it might be.
“Have you thought about those smaller ships?” Cameron asked him.
“What?” He had been off in his own little world when she asked the question.
“The other ships out there? The smaller ones that were attacking the big one that nearly took us out.”
“Oh yeah, I’ve thought about them.” It was a lie, he hadn’t. “Well, if any of them survived the shock wave, they’ve probably high-tailed it out of here by now. I mean, a big ship like that has gotta have friends, right?”
“Maybe. But what if they’re still out there?”
“What, you think they’re gonna come after us?” he asked.
“Why not?”
“We didn’t have a fight with them?”
“We didn’t have a fight with the big one either, but that didn’t stop them.”
“Maybe they thought we came to help the smaller ships?”
“It’s possible.”
“Then shouldn’t the smaller ships be thankful we helped them out?”
“Maybe. But what if they’re pirates, they could be coming back to board us right now.”
“Space Pirates? Come on, Cam.” It sounded too silly to him. But then, the more he thought about it… “Ya think?”
“I don’t know what to think,” she admitted with a sigh.
Nathan thought he saw a bit of desperation in Cameron’s expression. And he knew how she felt. “Let’s just think positive thoughts, okay?” he encouraged.
Suddenly, a crackly voice came across the comm at tactical. A crackly voice with a Russian accent. “Nathan! Can you hear me?”
Nathan jumped up and ran back to the tactical station. “Yes! Vlad! I can hear you! What’s your status!”
“Well, I’m okay,” he joked, causing Nathan to smile. “But the ship, she is not so good.”
“Can you get power restored?” Nathan knew that they could only go for so long without power.
“Yes! Soon! We are working on it now! But Nathan, I had to hot-wire the comms to tell you something. There are ships approaching us from behind. I think they are going to land inside the hangar deck.”
Nathan’s mind began racing. Who were they? Was it the same ships that had been attacking the warship that nearly destroyed them? If so, why were they coming here? Were they coming to board them? If not, why else would they try to land? Maybe some of the smaller ships were from the bigger one. Maybe that’s who is coming to land.
Nathan managed to break from his out of control thoughts for a moment. “How do you know?” he asked Vladimir.
“We have power here, and I have a man on sensors. He saw them. He says if they are landing, it will be in a few minutes.”
Nathan knew one thing for sure, no matter who they were, he couldn’t just let them walk onto the ship unescorted. And if they were another boarding party, which seemed the most likely scenario, they needed to be stopped at the flight deck, before they got deeper into the ship.
“I need to get someone to the hangar deck,” Nathan said to himself. “Vlad! Can any of you keep them from entering?”
“We don’t have any weapons, Nathan!”
Nathan thought furiously for several seconds, his eyes dancing around the room as if looking for inspiration. “Is the wireless working?”
“Yes! I tried calling you on it before, but you did not answer,”
“Sorry, I didn’t have them on.”
“What kind of commander doesn’t wear wireless?” he said to someone near him.
“I gotta go, Vlad! Get power up as soon as you can!”
Nathan grabbed his headset and put it back on. “Master Chief! You still with me?” he inquired urgently through his headset. “Master Chief! Bridge! Do you copy!”
“Bridge, Ensign Nash here.” The was a pause. “The master chief is dead.”
Nathan had only met the man once, when he tricked Nathan into touching the outside of the ship as a joke. But for some reason, the news of his death startled, causing him to lose his train of thought.
“Jessica?”
“Yeah.”
“How many of you survived the shock wave?”
“If you mean that last wild ride you gave us, then just me, Sergeant Weatherly, and two other tech specialists.”
“You’re still armed, right?”
“Uh, yes,” she answered sarcastically.
“Get everyone you can to the hangar bay! We’ve got ships coming in with unknown intent!”
“What? Who the hell are they?”
“I don’t know! Just get over there and don’t let anyone from those ships leave the flight deck!” he ordered. “Now move it, Ensign!” He wasn’t sure why he threw in that last part. Maybe it was because that’s what he thought the captain would say. Maybe he was trying to act more like a leader. Or maybe he was getting tired of being questioned. He didn’t want to be in charge, especially now. But command had fallen on his shoulders and he wasn’t about to shirk away from his responsibilities, not this time.
“On our way,” she obeyed, hearing both the urgency and the desperation in his voice.
“And stay on wireless, the hard-lines aren’t reliable right now!”
“Yes Sir!”
CHAPTER 6
Jessica stepped carefully around the storage crates that had been repositioned at the forward end of the hangar bay. It had been slow going making her way from the entrance to her present location about halfway into the massive compartment. Still only illuminated by emergency lighting, it was difficult to see where she was going. Many of the smaller containers had been knocked about by recent events, creating a maze of sorts, composed of crates of varying size and shape, strewn about in no discernible order. She had noticed, however, that they would make good cover in the event of another firefight, which is what she was expecting.
Following her were Sergeant Weatherly, the two surviving technicians that had fought off the first boarding party, and three other crewmen they had picked up and armed along the way. As they broke out into the open, she looked about, glancing up to either side of the bay. There were catwalks located about 2 decks up, running the entire length of the bay.