“I’m not so sure of that,” Cameron spouted. “Have you seen him fly?”
“I was riding with him, remember? Seriously, Cam. You’ve been on duty pretty much non-stop for days now, with no more than a few hours of sleep here and there. It might not be a bad idea to have a backup pilot and navigator.”
“Nathan, get serious. These guys don’t know the first thing about this ship.”
“Let’s just throw them in the sim and see what happens. You never know. And it might keep them out of trouble.”
“Yeah, come on, love. Give us a shot,” Josh called out from the back of the bridge.
Cameron rolled her eyes, letting out an exasperated sigh.
“I’ll cancel your debt,” Josh added.
“What?”
“You still owe me two dinner dates, remember?”
“Fine, they can play in the simulator. But there is no way they’re flying this ship unless they do better in the sims than any of us ever did.”
Nathan smiled. “Jess, would you mind getting them started?”
“What the hell,” she said. “We’re not going anywhere for awhile anyway.” She turned around to head out. “Come on, boys, I’ll show you the arcade.”
As Jessica led the two pilots into the corridor, they met Vladimir and Tug’s oldest daughter, Deliza, coming from the opposite direction.
“Good Morning, Jessica,” Vladimir greeted.
“Hey, Vlad. Hi Deliza,” Jessica said. “What’cha up to?”
“Deliza has been a very big help in Engineering. I thought I would reward her by showing her the bridge.”
As Vladimir was talking, Deliza was stealing shy glances at Josh and Loki, who were only a few years older than her. Noticing her glances, Josh instantly turned on the charm.
“Hi, I’m Josh. You probably don’t recognize me. Last time I saw you I was wearing my flight helmet. I’m the pilot that saved you from Haven.”
“We’re the pilots that saved you from Haven,” Loki corrected, stepping up next to Josh, vying for Deliza’s attention.
“Enough boys,” Jessica scolded. “Eyes forward and keep going.”
Vladimir looked confused. “Where are you taking them?”
“Captain wants to toss them into the flight simulator, see how they fair at flying this ship.”
“Really? Why does this not surprise me?”
“Nothing Nathan does these days surprises me,” she agreed as she followed them off down the corridor.
Vladimir turned back toward the entrance to the bridge. He spied Nathan through the hatch. “Nathan!” he called. He turned to Deliza. “Wait right here,” he instructed before stepping through the hatch onto the bridge. “Nathan, I was wondering if I could show Deliza the bridge.”
“Today seems to be the day for tours. Why?”
“She seems to have a knack for identifying inefficiencies, especially with computer systems. And I think she is interested in the jump drive. I thought perhaps she might be of assistance if and when we get our hands on the zero-point device.”
“But she’s only sixteen.”
“This is true. But I get this feeling that she understands our technology better than we do.”
Nathan looked at his friend. “You’re serious?”
“Da.”
Nathan peeked past Vladimir at Deliza standing in the corridor on the other side of the hatchway. “What the hell. I just sent a pair of nineteen year-olds to learn how to fly this ship. I guess I might as well let a sixteen year try to fix it.”
Vladimir turned to motion Deliza to enter. “Deliza, you remember Nathan?”
“Yes, sir. Thank you for allowing me on the bridge.”
“No problem. Vladimir tells me you understand our system quite well. I imagine they must seem antiquated to you.”
“No, of course not,” she said, not wanting to offend him. “Your ship is very interesting. It is true, that the systems are… different. And in many cases some of your systems use a design that we abandoned long ago. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they are not as good. Some of them I find to be far more robust and dependable. Advancement for the sake of advancement is not always a good thing.”
“A very wise observation,” Nathan agreed.
“My grandfather used to say, a flame will provide enough light, without running up a bill.”
Nathan and Deliza both looked at Vladimir.
“Okay, my grandfather was a little crazy.”
“I am most interested in this jump drive that you use for interstellar movement. I understand that it utilizes some combination of expanding and collapsing energy fields to initiate-”
“Whoa, you’re already flying way over my head, there,” Nathan admitted. “Perhaps you should introduce her to Doctor Sorenson,” he recommended, pointing toward Abby.
Vladimir led Deliza the few steps over to the jump control console, where Abby was busy processing the calculations for the next jump plot. “Doctor Sorenson. If I may bother you for a moment?”
Abby turned to face Vladimir, expecting to have another confrontation with the stubborn engineer. Their working relationship had been trying since day one. Though things had improved due to the nature of their situation, both of them still approached one another cautiously.
When she saw Deliza standing next to Vladimir, she was a bit surprised. The last person she expected to see standing next to the arrogant Russian was a demure sixteen year-old girl. Suddenly, her maternal instinct kicked in, as she was reminded of her own daughter back on Earth. She was still far younger than the girl that stood before her, but there was still the same innocence in her eyes.
“Doctor Sorenson, I would like to introduce Deliza Tugwell. She is Tug’s oldest daughter.”
Abby remembered that the rebel leader’s wife, this young woman’s mother, had been killed during the battle on Haven not even a full day ago. And yet here this young woman was, standing proudly on the bridge of a foreign ship, meeting complete strangers-yet she was quite at ease.
“This is Doctor Sorenson,” Vladimir continued. “She is in charge of the entire jump drive project. She is a very smart woman.”
“It is an honor to meet you, ma’am,” Deliza said softly, holding out her hand.
“It is my pleasure.”
“Deliza is also a very smart young lady, Doctor. She has been helping her father maintain his ship for many years. And she has already helped me in engineering. She is very interested in your jump drive technology. Perhaps she could visit with you for awhile? Ask you some questions?”
Abby looked uncomfortable, and looked over at Nathan by the ready room entrance for approval. Nathan shrugged and held up his hand, putting his thumb and forefinger a few centimeters apart, indicating just a little.
“Sure,” Abby said, her frown changing into a smile. “A few. But you will have to wait a few minutes. I am running some calculations for the next jump. When they are complete, I will have more time. Maybe five minutes?”
“Of course,” Deliza answered, stepping back out of the way to wait.
“I must return to engineering.” Deliza waved to Vladimir as he left.
“Hey Vlad,” Nathan said, stopping him on his way out. “If she’s so much help to you,” he said under his breath, “then why are you leaving her here?”
“She is very smart, yes. And very helpful. But she will not stop asking me questions. Why, why, why, all morning long.”
Nathan smiled as Vladimir left the bridge. He was about to return to his ready room when the comm-officer called for him.
“Captain, I’m picking up a lot of communications signals.”
“What kind of signals?”
“Everything. Audio, video, telemetry, even news broadcasts.”
“From where?”
“From everywhere,” the comm-officer reported. My guess is that since we’re sitting right smack dab in the middle of the cluster, we’re picking up signals from every star around us.”
“Don’t we always pick up such traffic?”
“Well, yes, but the signal strengths are usually too low to be of any use. But these are all quite strong.”
“Start recording them,” he instructed. “And call Jessica to my ready room.”
“Yes, sir. But Captain, with so much of our core still down, we’re going to run out of storage space in about twenty hours if I record everything.”