“How much time,” he asked.
“We’ve got five minutes to get up to speed before we’re too close to escape its gravity well, sir.”
Nathan turned to Jalea. “You know, they all have to burn in unison for this to work.”
“Controls for one ship, will control all ships,” she explained.
Nathan understood what she meant. Fleet tugs used a similar method, slaving the flight controls for all tugs into the bridge of the ship being pulled, thereby using the tugs like they were external propulsion pods. It had been one of the simulations he had been required to pass during his flight training, and it had been a difficult one to master. Luckily, in this case, someone else would be doing the piloting.
“Prepare yourself,” Jalea warned as the voice on her communicator completed what sounded like a countdown, albeit in another language. Nathan could hear the voices of the rebel pilots as they chattered back and forth over Jalea’s communicator. The countdown ended with the last word being spoken louder and more urgently than the ones proceeding it.
On the view screen, The main engines of the two visible rebel ships began to glow a faint amber. As he heard the voice of the lead rebel pilot over Jalea’s communicator, he could tell that he was announcing his increases in thrust. They watched as the rebel engines thrust ports faded from amber to yellow as their levels increased. As the thrust levels increased, so did the stress level in the lead pilot’s voice.
“Three minutes,” Ensign Yosef announced.
The main thrust ports on the rebel ships again changed, going from yellow to a brilliant bluish white. The lead pilot’s voice was now yelling.
“They are at full power,” Jalea announced.
“Jesus,” Cameron exclaimed. “She wasn’t kidding about those little buggers being strong. Look at the amount of thrust they’re putting out.”
“Two minutes to impact,” Ensign Yosef updated.
The asteroid was now filling more than half the upper side of the main view screen, its horizon sinking farther and farther down the screen on its way to the floor. The lead pilot’s voice yelled another announcement, and the rebels engines became pure white, expanding their radius somewhat and taking on a blinding brilliance.
“What are they doing?” Nathan yelled.
“Their engines are burning much more than normal,” Jalea exclaimed. There was more yelling over the communicator, but this time from some of the other pilots.
“What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Engines very hot now,” Jalea explained.
“They can’t keep that burn rate up for long,” Cameron warned.
“Sir!” Ensign Yosef interrupted. “Our velocity is climbing! It’s working!”
Nathan could hear more excited voices over Jalea’s communicator, as the rebel pilots realized they were starting to move.
“Impact in…,” Ensign Yosef suddenly stopped mid sentence, watching her sensor display as it updated. “We’re going to miss it, Sir!” she announced, obvious relief in her voice.
“Tell them to reduce their engines before they rip themselves apart!” Nathan ordered.
Jalea began yelling instructions into her communicator. An inquiry came back from the lead pilot.
“Captain, the pilot wants to know if you would like them to go a little longer, maybe help you away from rocks?”
“What do you think, Cam?” Nathan asked.
“This field is pretty big sir. They’d have to get us a lot of velocity to clear it in anything less than a few days.”
“That’s okay, Jalea,” Nathan apologized. “Please ask them to turn off their engines.”
“As you wish.”
Having avoided yet another catastrophe, Nathan hoped they might finally have a chance to regroup. It was the first time since they left the orbit of Jupiter that there wasn’t some immediate calamity about to befall them.
He had watched the entire towing operation standing behind the helm station. And now with the immediate threat averted, he dropped into the captain’s command chair without even realizing the significance of where he sat.
“Don’t get too comfortable,” Cameron warned, turning her chair to face him. “We still have a lot of work to do.”
Nathan leaned forward in the command chair, his elbows resting on his knees. He couldn’t help but feel that he should know what she was talking about, but at the moment, all he could think about was that he was incredibly thirsty.
“We’re going to need to put together some sort of a damage report, at least of the most critical stuff,” she explained. She paused for a moment, her tone becoming more serious. “And we need to get an idea of how many people we lost today,” she added. “Or more importantly, who we’ve got left to run the ship.”
Nathan thought about what she was saying. How many people we lost today. He wasn’t sure he really wanted to know. Most of the crew had only been on board for a few weeks, himself included. He had only known a handful of them by name. The idea that now he never would know them just didn’t seem possible. Every one of them knew that a life in the fleet came with risks. But he was quite sure that none of them, himself included, had expected this much risk, this soon.
“Yeah,” he sighed. “I was in medical earlier.” The memory of it was still fresh in his mind. “I was there, you know, when he died.” It bothered Nathan to speak of it. He hadn’t known Captain Roberts for very long. And what little interaction had occurred had been strictly professional. But Nathan couldn’t help but feel that he had lost someone that would’ve been very important to him, had he survived.
“I kind of figured,” she admitted.
“You know, right before he died, he said, ‘get the ship home.’ More specifically, to get the ‘jump drive’ home, that it was their ‘only chance’.”
“By ‘their’, he meant ‘Earth’, right?” Although the captain’s meaning had been obvious, Cameron didn’t care for ambiguity.
“I’m pretty sure.” Nathan looked down for a moment, thinking. He had a terrible feeling that there was something more going on than any of them realized, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And until he figured it all out, he wasn’t sure who he could trust.
But he also knew that if he was going to get them home, he would need help. He had accepted the responsibility of command, passed to him by his captain. But inside, he knew he wasn’t ready for it. There was so much he still didn’t know. So he was going to have to trust someone. But other than Vladimir, Cameron was the only other person on board that he really knew. In fact, they had spent so much time together in the simulator over the past two weeks, he probably knew Cameron better than he knew Vladimir. So if he was going to trust anyone, he might as well start with her.
Nathan sat back up, recomposing himself before continuing. “Listen, if we’re going to get through this and get home, we need to get organized. I’m going to need an executive officer.”
“Who did you have in mind?”
Nathan raised his head to look at her, a slight smile forming at the corner of his mouth.
Cameron suddenly realized his intent, sitting up straight in shock. “Oh, get serious.”
“You’re the most qualified person I know, Cam.”
“I’m the only person you know, except for Vladimir. And there’s no way I’m letting him become XO.”
“Then you’ll do it?”
“On one condition. I get to object whenever I want.”
“Like I could stop you?” he smiled.
Cameron smiled back. “Not in a million years,” she laughed.
“Then it’s a deal?” Nathan held out his hand to shake on it.
“Yeah,” she reluctantly agreed, taking his hand. “It’s a deal.”
“Great. Besides, I need Vlad in engineering anyway.”
“You’re an ass,” she exclaimed, tossing his hand aside.
“Well, since you’re XO now, I guess it falls on you to determine the condition of our ship and her crew. Feel free to grab whoever you need to help.”
“Yes Sir,” she answered, mocking a salute.
“But don’t be gone too long, I need to go down to medical and get my leg treated. And I want to go by engineering to see how Vlad is doing with our guests.”