Marcus lowered the boarding ramp the last meter until it made contact with the platform, allowing Tug, Jalea, and Jessica to step off the ramp and onto the platform.
Jessica turned back to face the shuttle. “Josh, you and Loki stay with the ship. If we’re not back in thirty minutes, head back to the Aurora and get help.”
“Got it.”
“What about me?” Marcus asked, not sure that he wanted to hear the answer.
“Come on, tough guy. You’re with me.”
“Great.”
Jessica and Marcus followed Tug and Jalea across the platform to a small personnel hatch just to the right of the cargo doors. Tug spun the hatch lock and swung the hatch open. There was very little illumination from the shuttle’s exterior flood lights making its way into the next room, so Tug and Jalea both turned on their helmet lights as they entered. Following suit, Jessica and Marcus did the same. They stepped into the airlock and closed the hatch behind them, repeating the process to pass through the inner hatch. Once inside, they made their way down a long, dark corridor, the beams from the helmet lights dancing about the walls. After about ten meters, they came to a door marked Control.
The small control room consisted of four consoles on one side of the room and another four opposite them. Within moments, Tug was at the correct control panel and had activated the emergency lighting.
“I have activated the emergency backup power. The external communications array should be active in a few moments. It will have a limited range until the main reactor is online, which will take about an hour. So it can provide communications in the general vicinity of this asteroid only. Once the main reactor is online, we should be fully operational.”
“Shuttle, this is Nash.”
“Go ahead,” Loki answered.
“We’re good here. It’ll take about an hour to get everything powered up. Meanwhile, take off and get outside. Once you’re outside the asteroid, contact the Aurora and tell her she’s clear to approach. Transmit your scanner data back to them and then stand by until you hear from me.”
“Copy that. Taking off.”
“So what do we do now?” Marcus asked. “Sit around and wait?”
“I don’t know about you,” Jessica said, “but I’m gonna take a look around this place.”
“It should take about an hour to bring the facility fully online,” Loki reported over the comms. “So by the time you get here, it should be fully operational.”
“Copy that,” Nathan answered from his command chair on the bridge. “How were the tunnels?”
“Pretty straight, not too long, plenty of room. Shouldn’t be a problem. Plus there’s an exit tunnel on the opposite side. The toughest part is the initial turn into the tunnel. You have to come down into a crack and then slip under this massive overhang that hides the entrance. The first turn into the tunnel is a little sharp, but after that it’s no problem. He had to fight the asteroids gravity the whole time, but Tug says the whole thing is lined with gravity plating, so you’ll have a zero G environment when you get here.”
“And the main docking area? How’s that?”
“It’s huge,” Loki exclaimed. “You could park three of your ships in there.”
“Copy.” Nathan turned to Cameron, who had been standing next to him and listening to the conversation the entire time. “What’s our ETA there?”
“We can go quite a bit faster than the shuttle, so just under an hour.”
“Send us your scan data,” Nathan ordered. “We’ll be there in just under an hour.”
“Copy that. Sending scan data now.”
“Whenever you’re ready, Commander.”
“We’re receiving the scan data, Captain,” the comm-officer reported.
“Very well. Kaylah, use their scan data to build a 3D navigation map. I think we’d like to get a look at the route before we take the ship in there.”
“Yes, sir,” Ensign Yosef responded.
Cameron took the seat at the helm console and prepared to break orbit.
“I don’t suppose you need my help flying the ship?” Nathan offered.
“For a basic transfer orbit?” Cameron said. “Please, I can do this in my sleep.”
“Doctor, I assume it’s just as pointless to ask if you have escape jumps plotted?”
“Correct, it is,” Abby answered, her eyes never leaving her console.
“All right, then. As strange an order as it may seem, take us to the hideout, Commander,” Nathan ordered.
The asteroid now filled most of the main view screen as the Aurora closed in on the massive rock. Lit mostly from behind and to port, the irregular mass was riddled with shadows that were barely softened by the ships external floodlights. Cameron had slowed their closure rate as they approached and they were now nearly matched in their orbital velocities around the parent star.
“I think this place will work fine,” Jessica reported over the comms. “We’ve been through most of the main compartments, but it’s only a fraction of the entire facility. According to Tug, most of it is closed off and powered down since they never really needed it. But there’s a full space dock, with gantries and robotic arms and the like. There are also several machine and fabrication facilities. In fact, they have something similar to the 3D component printing technology that we use, only a lot more advanced from the looks of it.”
Cameron looked at Nathan from her seat at the helm, her face showing hope for the first time in days. From what she was hearing in Jessica’s initial report, the rebel hideout might be a blessing in disguise.
“Sounds good. We’re on approach now, so we should be docking shortly.”
“Yeah, we’ve got you on our scope here, so we’ll be tracking you all the way in. Nash out.”
“Captain, Shuttle One has just arrived in our hangar,” the comm-officer reported.
“Very well,” he answered. “Have them refuel and get the shuttle ready to launch again, just in case.” Nathan turned back to Cameron. “Are you ready for this, Commander?”
“Don’t worry, Nathan. This will be easy.”
“Easy? You’re about to pilot a spaceship through a tunnel in an asteroid. I don’t remember ever running any simulations on this.”
“Not to worry. I used the 3D nav-map that Kaylah assembled to plot a series of maneuvering waypoints that I programmed into the navigation system. The ship will practically fly itself through the tunnels. All I’ve got to do is get her in the front door and to the first waypoint. The computer will take it from there.”
“Very well. Take us in.”
“Aye, sir.” Cameron pushed the nose of the ship down slightly and applied a bit of forward thrust to move closer and slip down under the asteroid, rolling the ship over as they drew closer. The image of the asteroid on the main view screen moved up and then rotated over, until it was only showing along the bottom quarter of the screen and was slowly rising as they descended towards it.
Nathan moved over into the copilot’s seat as he watched the main view screen. Cameron noticed him assuming the navigator’s position with some dismay, as she had been pretty much flying the ship solo since they had arrived in this part of the galaxy.
“I’ve got this, Nathan,” she said under her breath.
“I’ll be good,” he promised quietly. “I’m just going to sit here in case you need me.” She shot a quick glance his way, not wanting to take her eyes off the console displays. “Besides,” he added. “I feel useless sitting back there.” Nathan glanced back at Cameron and noticed a slight smirk forming on her face. “Don’t start,” he warned.
Cameron slid the ship slightly farther to port in order to line her up with the crack into which they needed to descend. The flight display showed a line drawing of the basic shape of the crevice, as well as both the recommended and their actual flight paths. All she really had to do was keep to the recommended flight path until they hit the first waypoint. At that point, she could use the ship’s auto-flight system to run them through a series of maneuvers she had already programmed using the data collected by the shuttle. Although she felt confident that she could pilot the ship through the tunnels manually, there was no reason not to let the computers do the work. She was quite sure that, had Nathan been sitting at the helm, he would have chosen to fly through the tunnels on his own. Back at the Academy, she had noticed that most of the male pilots were reluctant to let the computer do any of the piloting. It was just one more thing about the male ego that she failed to understand.