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“Say no more, Captain,” Josh told him. “We quite understand. Never trusted the Karuzari much myself, either.”

“It’s not so much a matter of trust at this point,” Nathan corrected. “As I said before, it’s more a matter of caution. We have too much at stake to risk haphazardly.”

“Yeah,” Josh agreed, changing to a more somber tone. “The chief told us all about the Jung and such. You blokes certainly have your plates full.”

Nathan smiled at the expression. “Yes, we do at that.”

“Captain?” Loki interrupted. “You said missions,” he added, emphasizing the plural.

“Yes. Later, we’ll also need you to make a couple of runs to the planet surface. First to deliver Tug and Jalea, along with most of the ore your team collected. And then to bring them and a load of supplies back to the ship a day or two after.”

“The surface? The surface of what? We’re not going back to Haven, are we?”

“No. We’ll be going to the Darvano system.”

“Darvano? But that’s nearly ten light years away. That’ll take weeks,” Loki exclaimed.

“Not for us, remember?” Nathan reminded him.

“You’re gonna jump?” Josh asked, unable to hide his excitement.

“Yes.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t mind seeing that. I don’t mind tellin’ ya,” Josh stated. Although not as easily excited as his friend, it was obvious that Loki was also excited.

“We’re going to jump in about five minutes,” Nathan told them. “Would you like to hang around and watch?”

“Oh, you bet,” Josh stated, Loki’s head nodding rapidly up and down.

“Very well, then. Follow me,” Nathan said as he rose from his desk.

Josh and Loki followed Nathan out of the ready room and back out onto the bridge.

“You guys just stand back here,” Nathan told them, pointing to the back of the room in front of the burnt-out comm station that had been offline since they had first encountered the Ta’Akar.

Nathan moved down from the upper platform that held the tactical station in the center, the jump control console on the right, and the new temporary comm-station on the left. “Are we ready to jump?”

“Jump drive is fully charged and ready. Our first jump is plotted and verified,” Abby reported.

“Where will the first jump take us?”

“Exactly five light years from here, to a point pretty much in the middle of nowhere, sir. But definitely deep within the Pentaurus cluster.”

“Helm ready?” Nathan asked as Cameron stepped down from the upper level and moved in front of him to sit at the helm console.

“Helm is ready, sir.”

“Are we gonna feel anything?” Josh asked Jessica, who was standing at the tactical console directly in front of him.

“No,” she said, turning her head slightly to cast a disapproving look at his question.

Nathan heard Josh’s question. “Commander, you know, maybe we should always warn the crew and passengers when we are about to jump. I mean, there is no sensation involved-not like when we’re accelerating or decelerating. It might be better for the crew to be aware of any abrupt change in location.”

“It might at that,” she agreed.

“Jess? Any problems with that?”

“None that I can think of, sir.”

“All right then. From now on, procedure will be to announce a jump at least one minute before. Then give a 5 second count down. Afterward, we should announce that the jump is complete, and specify our new location.”

“Is all that really necessary?” Cameron asked.

“Too much?”

“It does seem a bit dramatic. But then again, you may be right about the psychological affect on the crew. What good is it to have served aboard a starship if you never even knew where you went?”

“Great. You might want to add that to the manual, Commander,” Nathan announced with satisfaction.

“Might I also suggest that we rig some sort of auto-adjustment of the viewer to take place just before and after a jump, instead of shutting it down and then back up. It takes a few seconds for the system to reboot when it’s shut completely off, and those few seconds could be crucial upon arrival.”

“That’s an excellent idea. Add that one to the book as well.”

“Captain,” Jessica began. “Who makes the announcement?”

“Well, as long as Abby is controlling the jump, then she can make the actual jump announcements. “Comms can make the initial ship-wide, and then announce our new location when we arrive.” Nathan turned to the comm-officer. “Ensign.”

“Attention all hands. Stand by to jump in one minute.”

Nathan took a seat in his command chair, located on the middle level between the tactical console and the flight consoles.

“Why one minute?” Cameron asked as she turned around from the helm to face him.

“I don’t know. Because it sounded good?”

“We can fine tune the procedures later,” she said with a raised eyebrow, as she turned back around to face the helm console and the main view screen.

Josh and Loki watched as the bridge staff calmly pressed buttons, checked readouts, and made adjustments to various systems as they waited for the jump to occur.

“Captain,” Abby said. “I’ve taken the liberty of adding a small subroutine to the jump sequencer that will dim the brightness and contrast of the main viewing system as soon as the jump is initiated. It will restore the original settings immediately after the jump has completed.”

“Excellent.”

“Ten seconds to jump,” Abby announced.

Nathan looked over his left shoulder toward the comm-officer, gesturing to him. “Patch the doctor ship-wide.”

Abby’s voice echoed throughout the ship as she announced the jump sequence. “Jumping in five-”

Abby turned the key to arm the jumping system.

“Four-”

She flipped open the two clear covers that protected the jump field generators from being activated accidently, and flipped both rocker switches.

“Three-”

Josh and Loki both looked nervous as they swallowed hard.

“Two-”

Abby flipped open the cover over the large red button that a technician had wired into the console to serve as the main jump initiation button.

“One-”

The main view screen suddenly dimmed.

“Jumping.”

Abby pressed the button and initiated the jump.

Josh and Loki watched through the dimmed viewer as a pale blue wave of light quickly spread out from the emitters on the hull. Within a split second, each wave of light had connected with its neighbor and their brilliance increased rapidly into a blinding flash of white light, subdued only by the lowered display settings on the main view screen. A second later, the flash subsided, revealing that the stars had shifted ever so slightly.

“Jump complete,” Abby announced calmly.

“Verify position,” Nathan ordered.

After a few seconds, Cameron responded. “Position confirmed. We are now halfway between Takara and Darvano, approximately four point five light years from the Darvano system, and about twenty light hours outside of the known shipping lanes. We are now deep in the middle of the Pentaurus cluster.”

“Any contacts?” Nathan asked.

“Negative, sir,” Kaylah responded.

Sensing that the jump was over, Josh could no longer control himself. “Oh that was just the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!” Loki said nothing, only standing there with his mouth hanging open.

“Let’s do it again,” Josh exclaimed.

“We will,” Nathan promised. “In about five hours.”

“Great! That should be just enough time to teach us how to fly this thing,” Josh exclaimed, as he started advancing toward the front of the bridge.

“Easy there, fella,” Jessica warned him, stepping in his path.

“No, wait a minute,” Nathan said, much to everyone’s surprise. “That might not be such a bad idea.”

“What? Are you crazy?” Cameron responded.

“Well not right away, of course. But why don’t we put them in the simulator and see how they do? I mean, they can’t crash the simulator.”