“Why two jumps?” Cameron asked. “Darvano is only nine point five light years away.
“Two reasons. First, the good Doctor suggests that we don’t push the limits of the drive unless we have to, at least until she has more time to review the performance data collected over the jumps to date. Second, I’d prefer to arrive at any destination with enough power in the drive to do a quick escape jump, in case we jump into yet another bad situation.”
“Makes sense,” Cameron agreed.
“Once we get there, we locate the hideout Tug spoke of and plot a jump to get as close as possible so that we can sneak in undetected.”
“That might require more than one jump, Captain,” Abby warned. Nathan looked at her quizzically, forcing her to better explain. “It would take hours-maybe even days depending on how erratic the trajectories of the objects in the asteroid belt are-to gather enough data to make a close in jump. It might be better to jump in next to a planetary body, or a moon-something with a bit more stable and predictable orbit. From there, we can get a more accurate and more up-to-date trajectory mapping of the belt before plotting a jump deeper into the belt itself.”
“Makes sense. But I want to get the ship into that hideout as soon as possible. The longer we’re sitting out in the open, the more chance there is of being spotted.”
“Captain,” Jessica interrupted, “I’m not too crazy about the idea of flying this ship into some kind of cave without checking it out first.”
“You think it might be a trap?” Cameron asked.
“The thought has crossed my mind,” Jessica said.
“Yeah, mine too,” Nathan admitted. “Suggestions?”
“We could send that hot-shot Josh in first,” Cameron suggested with a wry smile. “Put him and his copilot into the shuttle and let them recon it out first.”
“Not a bad idea, Commander. Jess, maybe you should go along with them.”
“Sounds like a hoot,” she exclaimed.
Nathan smiled. “Wear your flight restraints… Trust me.”
“Will do, skip- Sorry, Captain.”
“Okay. So they do a fly through inspection first, then we follow them in. Once the ship is secured inside the hideout, we’ll send a team over to power everything up so that we can get busy repairing the ship. I especially want to get the hull patched up so we can have access to our forward sections again. More than seventy percent of our living quarters are in there and between the wounded and the extra guests, we’re running out of space.”
“What about supplies?” Cameron asked. “If Corinair is as advanced a world as Tug says, we might be able to get some decent supplies this time.”
“Yeah, like something besides molo,” Jessica complained.
“We still have credits to spend, and a bunch of raw ore that we can sell,” Cameron added.
“I was thinking about that,” Nathan said. “As much as I know you like to gather intel in the field, Jessica, I don’t think it’s a good idea for any of us to go down to the surface on this trip. I think we’d stand out too much this time. Besides, according to Tug, you cannot get past the Port Authority without proper ident-chips.”
“I guess I can sit this one out,” she said with a wave of her hand. “Besides, I’ve been thinking. If this secret base of theirs has comm-gear, maybe we could do some signals intelligence gathering.”
“Good idea. Meanwhile, we’ll send Tug and Jalea down to the surface in the shuttle. They can sell off the rest of our ore and buy us some supplies. We’ll leave them on the surface for at least a day or two so they can also make contact with any rebels that may be hiding out on Corinair.”
“And what, bring them back here?” Jessica objected.
“Hey, we need all the help we can get at this point. I’m hoping that some of them might also help with repairs as well. So far, they all seem to be pretty good with tech.”
“Let’s just be sure we don’t end up outnumbered on our own ship,” Jessica warned.
“From Jalea’s estimates, I don’t think that many of them survived. I’d be surprised if they find more than a handful of them.”
“How long do we plan to stay in the Darvano system?” Cameron asked.
“No longer than necessary, of course. But hopefully long enough to at least get all the major repairs done. We’ll have to play it by ear.” Nathan looked around the room. “Any more questions? All right. Let’s get ready to make our first jump-in say, thirty minutes?”
Abby nodded in agreement, as did the others.
“Great, dismissed,” he announced. As they got up to leave, Nathan activated the comm-panel on his desk to hail the comm-officer on the bridge. “Can you send Josh and Loki to my ready room?”
Twenty minutes later, Josh and Loki arrived at the entrance to the bridge. Having been forewarned of their arrival, the guard at the hatchway escorted them the few meters down the short corridor that led into the aft port side of the bridge.
“Whoa,” Loki muttered as he gazed upon the bridge, and the main view screen that wrapped around the entire front half the room and up over the helm and navigation consoles.
“This is nice,” Josh whispered back to Loki. Despite the fact that most of the Aurora’s technology was less advanced than that found on even the older ships used on Haven, the layout of the bridge left him in awe. “I’d love to get my hands on the flight controls of this baby, eh, mate?” he added, jabbing Loki in his side with his elbow.
“This way, gentlemen,” the guard stated, reminding them of why they were here. Josh and Loki turned to see the guard standing behind them, his arm outstretched to point toward the door to the captain’s ready room, just inboard from the entrance they had just passed through. “The captain’s expecting you.”
Josh and Loki followed the guard, looking back over their shoulders to catch a last glimpse of the bridge on their way out. The guard swung the hatch open and they stepped inside the ready room.
“Gentlemen,” Nathan greeted them nonchalantly. “What took you so long?”
“Sorry, Captain,” Loki began, “but we had just pulled the computer core from the harvester when you called. Once pulled, you only have ten minutes to get it hooked back up to power, or you lose all its base programming.”
“That’s understandable. Have a seat,” he said, gesturing to the two chairs in front of his desk.
Josh felt a bit uncomfortable. His flying technique had gotten him and Loki into hot water on more than one occasion. And right now, it felt similar to the time they had been called into the Haven Port Authority Flight Controller’s office. They had gotten scolded for nearly an hour that day, and had just about lost their flight status. “Have we done something wrong, Captain?”
“No, not at all. I have a couple of missions I wanted to discuss with you. That’s all.
Josh started to relax a little, as did Loki.
“Missions?” Loki asked, not quite sure what the term meant.
“You know, flights? What do you call them?”
“Flights, I guess,” Loki answered with a shrug.
“What kind of missions did you have in mind, Captain?” Josh asked.
“The Karuzari have a base of some type inside a hollowed out asteroid. We would like to use it as a place to hide while we conduct repairs.”
Josh’s eyes lit up. “This place must be pretty big, if you can fit your whole ship inside it.”
“Apparently, it’s an entire facility of some sort.”
“Captain?” Loki asked. “Why do you need us to fly in?”
“We need someone to recon the entrance, the main port, and the exits, before we take the ship inside.”
Josh could see that his friend was getting suspicious. “You expecting trouble?” he asked the captain.
“I wouldn’t say expecting,” Nathan said. “Let’s just say we’re being overly cautious and leave it at that.”