“I relieve you, Sir,” Nathan announced quietly, but with far more conviction than he expected.
The captain could not return his salute. “I stand relieved.” A wave of calm seemed to wash over the captain at that moment, as he closed his eyes again. Nathan started to turn away to exit, when he felt the captain’s hand tug at Nathan’s shirt, stopping him.
“Get them home,” he stated emphatically as Nathan turned back to him. “Get the jump drive home,” he coughed. “It’s their only hope.”
Nathan watched as the captain’s grip on his shirt loosened, his hand falling back to the bed as his eyes closed. Suddenly, an alarm on the bio-monitor started beeping rapidly, startling him. Oh my God.
Doctor Chen had been watching the entire exchange as she cared for a nearby patient. Hearing the alarm, she dropped what she was doing and came running over. “He’s crashing! I need some help in here!”
Doctor Chen pushed Nathan aside as she rushed past, her eyes on the bio-monitor the entire time. “He’s in V-Fib!” she declared.
Nathan backed away, making room for the few people available to help the Doctor as she frantically tried to resuscitate the captain. But Nathan already knew it was too late. The captain had known it as well. That was why he had transferred his command to him.
Nathan exited the sick bay and began wandering the corridor, his mind racked with an overpowering combination of guilt and grief. The medical bay was packed full of people with injuries he had probably caused, and there was a pile of bodies, bodies of men and women, all of whom had sworn to serve their world just as he had upon graduation only a few short weeks ago. Is this what it’s like to be in command?
He wandered down the corridor, not really headed in any particular direction that he was aware of. He passed an ensign that was carrying supplies back to medical. Upon seeing the captain’s bars on Nathan’s collar, the crewman immediately stopped and snapped to attention, which was something that was only done for upper level command staff. At that moment, the lights in the corridor came back on. And suddenly, Nathan knew exactly where he was headed.
Minutes later, Nathan walked onto the bridge. A young marine armed with a close-quarters defense weapon snapped to attention as he passed.
“Captain on the bridge!” the marine announced. It was the first time Nathan had been referred to as captain, and it felt strange, but in a good way.
Cameron spun around from the tactical station, expecting to see Captain Roberts, miraculously healed and returning to take command and get them safely home. But instead, she saw Nathan, wearing a pair of blood-smeared captain’s bars.
“Sorry,” Nathan apologized, seeing the disappointment in her eyes. “It’s just me.”
“I guess it’s official, then,” she admitted reluctantly. She also knew what it probably meant. “Is he…”
Nathan didn’t answer. He didn’t have to, she saw it in his eyes.
“You might want to clean the blood off of them,” she whispered as they turned back to the tactical station.
“Maybe later.”
“Main power just came back on a minute ago,” she told him, noticing him looking at the tactical displays.
Nathan looked around the bridge, noticing that they had cleaned it up in his absence. “I see you tidied up the place a bit.”
“Yeah, well, with everything down there wasn’t much to do. And a few people showed up to help, so we moved out the bodies and as much debris as possible. And we got a tech to shut down the damaged consoles so we won’t have any more sparks or fires if you decide to bounce us around again.”
“How many systems are back up?” he asked, ignoring her sarcasm.
“We’ve only just started assessing things since the power was restored a few minutes ago. We’ve got most of our local sensors back online, although Kaylah says that until she can run a full diagnostic on them, we shouldn’t trust their accuracy out to more than a few million kilometers. She also reports that there are five more small ships out there, that have taken up positions all around us. But I can’t tell if they’re in position to attack us or defend us.”
“Yeah, well, they said they were here to help.”
“Really? You spoke to them?
“Yeah, one of them speaks Angla.”
“What?”
“Angla. I think it means really bad English in their language,” he said. “They’re down in engineering helping Vlad right now.”
“You think that’s wise?” she questioned.
“Don’t worry. Jessica has orders to keep a close eye on them.”
“Jessica?”
“Ensign Nash, from Spec-Ops? She’s one tough nut. Kinda scary. You’d like her,” he jabbed. It felt good to lighten the mood after what they had been through over the last couple of hours.
“I see. How many of these helpers are there?”
“Four, for now. If it works out, there’s more available if needed.”
“Four? How’s she going to watch all four?”
“She’s armed. And she’s got help,” he assured her. “Besides, they warned that more of the enemy might return soon, so I figured we’d better accept their offer, and get out of here as quick as possible.”
“And you just believed them?”
“For now, cautiously.” Nathan stepped up to the tactical console and pressed the comm button. “Engineering, Bridge!”
“Yes,” Vladimir answered.
“How’s it going down there?”
“I’m sorry, Nathan, but it will take longer than I thought to get maneuvering and propulsion systems back online. The damage is worse than I expected.”
“Well, at least you got main power up, that’s something.”
“Thank you, Nathan. But it was not me. It was those people you sent down. They are pretty good engineers. Difficult to speak with, but they are very smart and learn quickly.”
“Glad to hear it. Keep working on maneuvering and propulsion. Bridge out.”
“Lieutenant!” Jessica called out as she entered the bridge with Jalea at her side. Nathan spun around, not expecting to see Jessica back on the bridge so soon. “Oh, excuse me, Captain,” she corrected, after seeing the bloody bars on his collar. “We need to talk.”
“I thought you were watching our guests?” Nathan asked, surprised.
“I’ve got Sergeant Weatherly and the rest watching them. Besides, this couldn’t wait,” she insisted.
“Jalea, this is Cameron,” he introduced.
Jalea, still not terribly confident in her ability to speak English offered only a respectful nod, taking Cameron’s handshake when offered.
“Listen, we’ve got problems,” Jessica continued, interrupting the pleasantries. “According to Jalea, there are more Takaran ships on their way…”
“…What? I hope you don’t mean more like that last one, ‘cause it nearly killed us.” Nathan did not like where the conversation was going. He had just been officially placed in command, and he was hoping for a little more time to get used to the idea before the next crisis.
“No, smaller ones, she thinks…”
“…Anything on sensors?” Cameron interrupted, turning towards Ensign Yosef.
“No Sir.”
“I don’t understand?” Cameron asked Jessica. “How does she know they’re coming?”
“Their ships reported it. They picked up the incoming vessels on their sensors a few minutes ago. I brought Jalea up here so she could translate between you and their ships.”
“Good thinking.” Nathan commended.
“Actually, it was Marak’s idea,” she admitted. “He thought it would be better for her to remain with you, as your translator, for now.”
“But how are Marak and the others going to communicate with our people in engineering?”
“Vladimir figured out that their language is a mixture of Slavic and Germanic languages, with a little Arabic thrown in.”