“Great, I’m going to have you work for Jessica for now. She’ll get you set up in one of our auxiliary offices for now, where you should be able to work without interruption.”
“It sounds like an interesting assignment,” she admitted. After working for the harvesting team on Haven for the last six months, sitting in a climate controlled, clean office translating any number of common languages into ancient Angla was going to be a joy.
Jessica rose to escort Naralena to her new office.
“You know, in sig-int, they usually have computer algorithms that search for keywords and phrases, tagging them for further analysis. Maybe we can rig up something similar?”
“Talk to Vlad,” Nathan told her. “He might be able to help you out with that.”
Nathan was a bit surprised to see Deliza sitting on the floor, behind and beside the jump control console located at the aft end of the starboard side of the bridge. She had several large electronic components arranged around her, one of which was connected to an external battery of some type. The side panel to the aft end of the jump control console was open, and Deliza appeared to be peering into the opening, comparing what she saw inside the console to the array of connectors she had splayed out across the deck in front of her. As she checked each connector, she entered information into her data pad, apparently double-checking and triple-checking everything.
“What’s she doing?” Nathan whispered to Jessica at the tactical station.
“I think she’s figuring out how to connect that computer core from the shuttle with the one in Abby’s console.”
“That’s not going to interfere with anything, is it?”
“Not according to Abby. But I advised that she wait until after we reach the hideout before she started connecting anything. For now, the little brainiac is just figuring out how she’s going to connect it. I’m pretty sure I heard Abby talking about running some simulations on the shuttle core first, though.”
“How are we looking, Doctor?” Nathan asked Abby.
“Jump drive is fully charged. The last jump to just outside the Darvano system is plotted and ready, and an escape jump from Darvano is also ready.”
“Very well. Stand by for a jump.”
“Standing by,” Abby said. She leaned down toward Deliza. “You might want to see this.” Deliza grinned, and immediately stood up, moving into position to better view the event.
Nathan looked around. “Where’s Cam?”
“Getting some rack time,” Jessica told him.
“We can do this without her, can’t we?”
“You’re the captain. What are you asking me for?”
“Right. Let her sleep. Give a ship-wide jump warning-except for Cam’s cabin.”
Jessica pressed a few keys, telling the computer to exclude Cameron’s cabin from the broadcast. “All hands, one minute to jump. Repeat, one minute to jump.”
“Kaylah. Any contacts in the area?”
“No, sir. The scope is clear.”
Nathan leaned back to whisper to Jessica again. “You know, this used to give me the heebie-jeebies. But now that I’m getting used to the idea, I’m starting to kind of like it. It feels really powerful to be able to give the order, and just like that, we’re suddenly light years away.”
Jessica looked at Nathan’s boyish grin. “You’re kind of weird, sir.”
“Ten seconds to jump,” Abby announced. She switched on her headset, which was now pre-programmed to broadcast ship-wide during a jump. She counted down from five to one, and jumped the ship yet again.
Deliza watched the main viewer as it darkened just enough to prevent the sudden explosion of blue-white light from blinding all those looking directly at it. As fast as it had come, it was gone, and the stars shifted again.
“Jump complete,” Abby announced. “In position just outside of the Darvano system, thirty-three point four light hours out from Corinair.”
“Contacts?” Nathan immediately asked.
“No contacts,” Kaylah announced after a moment’s pause. “The scope is clear.”
Abby turned around just enough to see Deliza’s face.
“That was amazing!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, it was,” Abby agreed. She could see the wonder in the child’s eyes. But she could also see the mind of a genius as she calculated the scientific implications that such a device carried. It was the same dancing eyes she had seen on her father when they had accidentally discovered a way to jump vast distances in space during their testing of advanced energy shielding. The accident that had revealed this miracle of science and physics to them had been so discreet that the effect on the test vehicle’s position had almost gone completely unnoticed. In fact, it had for several months. And it would still be a mystery had her father not noticed the discrepancy. And he might still be alive, she thought.
“How often do you guys do that?” Deliza asked.
“Oh, a few times a week, at least,” Nathan bragged.
“You are weird,” Jessica mumbled.
Nathan just sneered at her. “Kaylah, scan everything you can, and compare it to the star charts that were translated from Tug’s fighter. I want to know everything possible about this system before we try to sneak into it.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Doctor, how long until we can enter the system?” Nathan asked.
“Four and a half hours to be fully charged,” Abby answered. “But there is more than enough power to jump in now, and still have enough for a short escape jump, if you prefer not to wait.”
“I can wait,” Nathan insisted. “I prefer to enter with as much jump juice left over as possible. We’ll have a pre-jump briefing in four hours. Command staff, the shuttle crew, and Tug and Jalea,” he said as he turned to head back to his ready room. “You have the con, Jess.”
“Aye, sir,” Jessica responded. She slowly turned her head to face Abby, waiting for Nathan to leave the room. “Jump juice?”
Abby just shook her head at the euphemism.
CHAPTER 5
In the four hours since arriving on the outer edges of the Darvano system, Nathan had managed to eat, study the details of the system from Tug’s star charts, and had even gotten up the nerve to visit Medical for his post away-mission checkup. As expected, he had received an earful from Doctor Chen regarding not only his tardiness, but also for the trauma inflicted on the prisoner. Despite his repeated apologies, he doubted she would be forgiving him any time soon.
Fortunately, the prisoner had not been seriously injured. His facial lacerations were already on the mend, as was his fractured nose, no doubt the result of Jessica’s well placed boot heel. He had also had a pretty decent neck injury due to the initial blow that Jalea had delivered. Jessica had later explained to Nathan that Jalea’s first blow to the prisoner’s neck had been intended to kill. Had it not been for the prisoner’s quick reactions, she probably would’ve succeeded.
That knowledge of intent troubled Nathan, as this was quite probably the second time he had witnessed the brutal, warrior side of Jalea’s personality. The woman was usually so cold and dispassionate in day-to-day conversation. Even when they had been under fire on the surface of Haven, she had still remained cold and calculating the entire time. In fact, that episode in the brig was the first time he had seen her snap emotionally. And it made him wonder exactly how much anger was still trapped inside of her.
Nathan wandered down the corridors surrounding the flight decks, looking for the squadron briefing room that Jessica had advised him to use for this pre-jump briefing. With a total of twelve people in attendance, the command briefing room would be too small, yet the main briefing room would be too large. The squadron briefing room was made to accommodate up to thirty-two pilots, and was equipped with all the audio-visual displays they would need. Nathan had been too embarrassed at the time to admit that he didn’t exactly know where this particular briefing room was located. Now, he only hoped that by the time he found it he would only appear fashionably late.