“I can pretty much do everything from here,” she offered, feeling a bit guilty that she had forgotten that he was wounded and had probably been in pain the entire time. “If you prefer, you could go now?”
“Thanks, no. I just want to rest for a few minutes first. Besides, maybe you should at least take a quick break, get off the bridge, stretch your legs a bit.”
“I could use a trip to the head,” she admitted. Nathan could tell that she too welcomed even a short respite. Cameron stood up to leave. “I think I’ll do a quick walk around the main decks, get a feel for the general condition of things,” she decided. “I shouldn’t be too long, maybe an hour.”
“See if you can rustle me up some water, will ya?” he smiled.
“I’ll see what I can find,” she promised as she walked past. She felt herself instinctively about to place her hand on his shoulder, as a show of bonding and support as she passed, but stopped short of doing so. She still wasn’t sure how all of this was going to play out, and she wasn’t entirely comfortable giving him her full support just yet. Less than a week ago, they had been competing for the same spot at the helm. Had she gotten that position, it would’ve been her sitting in the command chair instead of Nathan Scott.
“Doctor Sorenson,” Nathan asked as he rose and stepped over to her station, “I know you’ve had a difficult day, probably more so than the rest of us. I just want you to know that I am very sorry about your father.”
“Thank you, Captain.” In all the commotion over the last few hours, she had not been given any time to mourn his passing. “I appreciate your concern. But I’ll be alright.” She paused for a moment before continuing, gathering her thoughts. “You know, ever since my mother died, this project was all that he had.”
“I’m sorry, Doctor. I didn’t know.”
“Please, call me Abigail,” she insisted. “Anyway, it was more than ten years ago.” She looked away from Nathan, her eyes welling up again despite her best efforts. “That’s why I joined this project. If I hadn’t, I probably would never have seen him. It consumed his every waking moment.” She wiped her eyes, a smile breaking through the sorrow as she looked up at Nathan. “He said that this technology would ‘change everything’.”
“At least he got to see it work for himself before he died,” Nathan offered.
Abigail just nodded, still trying to keep her emotions under control. “Funny thing is, I knew this project would kill him. But I always assumed he would work himself to death, in his lab.”
Nathan felt guilty for imposing upon her during such a difficult time, but he needed the skills that only she could provide. “Listen, Abigail, I hate to ask you for anything else. I mean, you’ve already saved our butts twice today. But I need to know what kind of condition your systems are in. I need to know what I can count on this ‘Hyperluminal Translator Thingy’ to do for us.” Nathan flashed the same smile that usually got him out of trouble with his mother.
“Just go ahead and call it a ‘Jump Drive’,” she conceded.
“You see? It is easier,” he bragged. “Anyway, maybe later you could fill me in on how this thing works, and what we can, and more importantly cannot do with it.”
“Yes, of course,” she agreed, nodding her head up and down several times as she sniffed. “Whatever needs to be done.”
“Great, thanks Abigail.” Nathan put a comforting hand on her shoulder as he turned toward the port entrance, where Jessica had just entered.
“Sir,” Jessica greeted him as she approached. “Now that all of the rebel ships have left, I have nothing left to guard. Marak and his two guys are still working in engineering, and I’ve got a couple guys watching Marak’s ship. So I came up here to see what I could do.”
Nathan had known that Jessica was strong the first night he had met her. But he had been more than impressed at how she had handled herself over the last few hours. More than anyone, she had met every challenge thrown at her head-on, without hesitation. More importantly, she had demonstrated excellent instincts. And that was something that you were born with-a lesson he had learned from Captain Roberts. Nathan had always been good at sizing people up quickly. That was a talent he had inherited from his father. And he knew that Jessica was someone he needed in his corner.
“In Special Operations school, they not only teach you about specialized combat and tactics, right? They also teach you about things like intelligence gathering and security, stuff like that?”
“Yes Sir. Spec-Ops are trained to go covert, to gather intel, hit hardened targets and the like. So it also requires a detailed understanding of security.” Jessica could go on about her highly specialized training for hours, as it was a great source of pride for her. But it suddenly occurred to her that there was probably a reason for his question. “Why do you ask?”
“I’m going to need someone to handle ship’s security, at least temporarily. I’ve got enough to think about, and you seem to have a knack for this sort of thing.”
“I appreciate the offer, Sir. But I’m not sure I’m ready,” she protested.
“More so than any of us,” he pointed out. “So, you’ll take the job?”
Jessica smiled at the idea of the extra responsibility. Even if it was only temporary, it would still look great on her service record.
“Yes Sir. Thank you, Sir,” she said as she snapped a salute.
“Great,” he exclaimed, returning her salute half-heartedly. “Then I’ve got a job for you,” he explained, gesturing to her to follow him.
They walked over to Jalea, who was helping Ensign Yosef try to figure out where they were in relation to Earth. It was turning out to be considerably more difficult than expected.
“Excuse me, Ensign,” Nathan apologized. “But we need to borrow Jalea for awhile.” Ensign Yosef nodded and returned to her work as Nathan led Jalea away, heading toward the back of the room.
“What may I do for you, Captain?” Nathan noticed that Jalea’s pronunciation was getting a little better, as was her syntax. He had a feeling that she had spoken the language quite well at some point in her life, and that it would not be long before she became fluent once again.
“Earlier, you said that it would take some time for a message to get here? What did you mean by that?”
“When you escaped, the Takarans would send message to all ships. All ships must look for you, near them.”
“And it would take a couple of days for a message to reach the ships that are here, in this system.”
“Yes,” she confirmed, nodding.
“How the hell can they get messages between systems that fast?” Jessica was shocked at the news. If true, it created a new tactical twist that she would have to pay close attention to in the future.
“They have some sort of communications relay, a drone or a ship maybe. Apparently it can go over a hundred times the speed of light,” Nathan explained. “I was hoping you could learn a bit more about that, and anything else you can.”
“When message arrives, ships will look here first,” Jalea interrupted.
“Yeah, so would we,” Jessica agreed.
“Listen, Jalea, would you mind if Jessica asked you some more questions? We could really use some more information about the Takarans, the rebellion, and this whole system,” he explained. “It would really help us a lot.”
“Please, I must check with Marak on this,” she told him, pulling her communicator from her belt.
“Of course.”
Nathan and Jessica took a few steps away, moving closer to the entrance to the captain’s ready room to give Jalea a moment to confer with her commander.
“If they can get messages between systems within days instead of months or years, that gives them quite an advantage. Especially if these people cannot,” Jessica explained.
“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking,” he agreed.
“I wonder what else they have?” Jessica added.
“Captain?” Jalea had finished conferring with her commander. “Marak says I can do this, mostly. But some questions, maybe I cannot answer.”