Cameron sat at the desk in the captain’s ready room. Having always been an early riser, she had come on duty at zero four hundred hours. She had given Jessica, who had taken the first watch on the bridge, a few hours off to get some rack time before the morning pre-jump briefing. Jessica also was not much of a sleeper, and had been fine with just a three hour nap and a hot shower. Having had her fill of molo while on the surface of Haven, she too had opted for dried fruit and nuts.
Cameron, on the other hand, had decided to brave another selection from the escape pod meal kits. Some type of scrambled eggs and sausage that she wished she could’ve passed on. But since the idea to use the escape pod meal kits was her idea, she had to set an example for the crew. It hadn’t been that bad, and she was sure that, if stuck on an escape pod for weeks on end, it would be just fine. But at this point, even the molo, despite Jessica’s less than favorable reviews, seemed more desirable.
Cameron liked sitting in this office. It felt right to her. Ever since she was old enough to enlist, her dream had always been to command a starship. Although the history file stored in the Data Ark showed many women had commanded such ships in the distant past, no women had commanded a ship of any kind since the great plague. Women had been too valuable for the repopulation of the Earth to risk them on such hazardous assignments. But since the discovery of the Data Ark, the infant mortality rate had dramatically decreased, and the human life span had doubled to well over one hundred years. Most people were continuing to work well into the eighties and nineties. Only a century ago, humans on Earth rarely lived past seventy.
It wasn’t that she wanted to be the first, since obviously that distinction was technically assigned more than a millennia ago. But she wouldn’t mind being the first since their return to space. And she sure wouldn’t mind being the youngest. Perhaps that had been why she had been so disappointed when Nathan had been made helmsman and promoted over her. She knew she could do the job. Sure, Nathan had a natural instinct-a gift as Captain Roberts had referred to it-for flying. But there was a lot more to being a pilot, and even more so a captain, than instinct.
So she had spent many hours in this very chair, wondering how she might have handled the events that had transpired over the last week. She was certain she would’ve done most things differently. And she was pretty confident that the outcome could have been better. But she wasn’t positive, and that fact alone caused her some concern.
“Good morning, Commander,” Nathan greeted as he entered the ready room. Cameron immediately began to rise to relinquish her seat to its rightful owner. “As you were,” Nathan insisted. He had never been one for the protocols of rank. And considering what they had been through together, it seemed just plain silly, especially when they were the only ones in the room. “How’s everything?”
“Repairs are on schedule,” she began. “Three rail guns were brought back online, and Allet is upgrading the system to increase their rail launch velocities. He also thinks that he can increase their fire rate and accuracy by rewriting the software, making it more efficient.”
“That’s great, Cam. But I meant, how are you doing?”
“I’m fine, sir.”
Nathan eyed her for a moment, looking for a chink in her armor. “You’re fine? I’m beat to hell. Even with a full night’s sleep. And knowing you, I’m sure you only got in four or five hours at best.”
“Well, you were down on the surface getting shot at from every direction.”
“While you were up here, fighting off a Ta’Akar boarding party and one of their warships, which you did quite well, by the way.”
She knew he was just trying to be nice, to be a good friend, but she had never been too comfortable confiding in others about her feelings. She had grown up in a house full of boys-five of them, to be exact. That had forced her to be tougher than most. Then, enlisting in the Fleet straight out of college hadn’t helped matters. Despite the rapid change in social mores brought about by the discovery of the Data Ark, most military organizations on Earth were still dominated by men.
Still, there was a part of her that wanted to trust Nathan, to be able to speak with him as a friend. But her duty as his executive officer came first, and she just couldn’t see them as anything other than mutually exclusive.
“Nathan,” she said in a less official tone than usual. “I’m fine, really.” Nathan stared at her for a moment. “Really,” she repeated, standing to leave. “Now, if you don’t mind, I need to take a quick break before our pre-jump briefing.”
“Okay,” Nathan answered, holding both hands up in resignation. He had made the offer, and that was all he could do for now.
Cameron moved out from behind the desk and exited the room just as Jessica and Abby entered.
“Where’s she going?” Jessica asked. “I thought we had a meeting.”
Nathan got up and moved around behind the desk, leaving room for Abby to take a seat in front of the desk, while Jessica took her usual position sprawled out on the couch.
“She’ll be back shortly,” he stated as he took his seat. “Abby, I assume you already have a plot calculated for a jump to the Darvano system?”
“Yes, sir. I also have a tentative escape jump ready, just in case we jump into another… situation.”
“Considering our history so far, that’s not a bad idea. In fact, perhaps we ought to make that standard procedure-jump to just outside a system and take a peek before jumping all the way in.”
“Kind of like testing the temperature of the water before diving in?” Abby stated as a comparison.
“I’ve always been more of a jump-right-in kind of girl, myself,” Jessica said.
Nathan smiled. “Now why do I find that so easy to believe?”
“Actually, Captain, once I’m able to verify the accuracy of these new star charts, I should be able to pre-plot many jumps. In fact, it might be useful to create a network of pre-defined jump-points.”
“How would that help us?”
“Rather than having to plot a jump from a point in space that you expect to be at when you execute the jump, you simply fly to that point, executing the jump at the precise moment that you cross the threshold.”
“Maybe I’m missing something, but that doesn’t sound much different to me.”
“The difference is that currently, we have to plot the jumps on the fly, which our systems were never really meant to do. And we usually don’t have time to verify the plots, which I shouldn’t have to remind you is incredibly risky. Predefined jump points would already be verified, therefore the risk would be minimized.”
“Interesting idea, Doctor,” Nathan admitted, “but I’m hoping we won’t be around this area long enough to need such a network.”
“As do we all,” she agreed. “However, the idea could also be applied to short-range hops as well. For example, the parameters required to make a jump of say, one light hour, are the same regardless of departure and arrival points. It is only the departure and arrival points that differ from jump to jump.”
“You’re talking about making some jump plot templates, right?”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking.”
“Are you sure it’s worth the effort?” Nathan asked. “You yourself said that we needed to refrain from using the jump drive if possible. You said that you couldn’t guarantee how long it would continue to function.”
“I may have been a bit conservative in my concerns.”
“What made you change your mind?”
“Your engineering staff and my team managed to get the rest of the emitters’ telemetry feeds re-established. After analyzing the data from the emitters collected over the last few jumps, we were able to make a few adjustments to the field generators. I believe that it may last considerably longer than I anticipated.”
“So you think it could make all one hundred and twenty five jumps to get us home?” Cameron asked as she entered the room. She had heard Abby’s last statement from the hatch as she entered.