“Get this ship in the air!” Marcus shouted over the comms from the back of the shuttle.
“We can’t,” Josh responded. “We’re locked out. The whole facility is on lock down.”
“Then bypass the auto-flight system, you idiots!”
“You can’t bypass the auto-flight system, Marcus!” Loki argued. “It’s hardwired into the ship’s flight systems.”
“Not if someone un-hardwired it! Just flip the damn bypass switch, under the starboard console, all the way to the outboard edge. It’s a lockset switch. Just pull the toggle down and then flip it forward.”
Josh felt along the underside of his console, running his hand until he felt the switch. He pulled the toggle switch down, disengaging the toggle’s locking mechanism, and then flipped the switch forward. The flashing red display stopped flashing and suddenly changed to ‘Auto-flight Disengaged’. “That’s it! It worked!”
“Of course it worked,” Marcus muttered.
“How the hell did you know about that?” Loki asked as he fired up the engines.
“Who the hell do you think un-hardwired the damn thing?” Marcus bragged. “Now get us in the air!”
Moments later, the shuttle began to roll forward on its way to the flight line.
“What are you, idiots?” Marcus hollered. “Just take off from here!”
Josh felt pretty stupid for not thinking of that himself. After all, if they were going against a lockdown order, breaking the rules by taking off from the loading area instead of the flight line was the least of their worries.
The shuttle’s engines screamed as Josh applied full thrust, causing the ship to suddenly leap into the air. The cargo shuttle wasn’t pretty, but it was made to haul several tons of heavy rock and ore, so a few dozen crates of food and a handful of passengers was no trouble at all.
Nathan stormed onto the bridge from his ready room with Jessica hot on his heels.
“Contact!” Kaylah reported as he entered. “Just came up on passive. Transferring to tactical.”
Jessica stepped up to the tactical console along with Nathan. “It’s on the outer rim of the system,” she reported. “It’s decelerating. Based on its speed I’d say it dropped out of FTL at least five or ten minutes ago.”
“Got an ID?” Nathan asked, although he already knew the answer.
“Not yet. He’s too far out to ID using passive. And if we go active, we’ll give away our location.”
“Well I’m pretty sure we know who it is.” Nathan took in a deep breath and sighed. “General quarters,” he ordered calmly. “All hands to battle stations and prepare to get underway.”
“General quarters, aye, sir.”
“I’m pretty sure we’re going to need an escape jump pretty soon, Doctor,” he said to Abby as he moved to the helm to start prepping the ship for departure.
“Captain, we just finished hooking up the shuttle’s computer core to our jump system. We haven’t even run any simulations yet.”
“How long will it take you to unhook it?” he asked as he worked the helm console.
Abby looked at Deliza, who had done most of the work installing the new, improved computer core.
“An hour? But we’d still have to recalibrate your original core after that, so maybe ninety minutes?”
Abby turned to look at Nathan as he shot her a glance.
Nathan felt his heart sink. The jump drive was the one thing they had going in their favor in this part of the galaxy. And now there was a possibility that it wouldn’t work when he needed it most. But there was nothing he could do about it now. If he had them disconnect it, he wouldn’t be able to jump for over an hour. He seriously doubted they could remain hidden that long. And even if they did, Captain de Winter might become impatient and start laying waste to the surface of Corinair. He briefly considered getting the enemy warship to chase him, possibly buying time until they could jump. But he didn’t have linear FTL capabilities, which meant he couldn’t outrun the Ta’Akar warship for more than a few minutes. Once again, their fate was left to luck.
“Guess you’re gonna have to test it on the fly again, Doc.”
Abby felt as if she were turning pale, as a cold shiver went through her body. “I’m really getting tired of this,” she mumbled to herself as she began calculating an escape plot on the new system.
“Shuttle two-four-one-eight, you are in violation of a lockdown order. Land immediately or interceptors will be dispatched and you will be shot down.”
“Help!” Josh cried over the comms. “They’ve got a gun!” he added, right before he started clicking the talk button over and over. “They’re forcing me to take…em…moon…help-” Josh ended the fake broadcast, turning to Loki looking very pleased with himself. “You think they bought it?”
“Oh, sure,” Loki said.
“Maybe they’re already too busy, what with all the riots and stuff,” Josh said hopefully.
“Don’t think so,” Loki muttered. “We’ve got company coming up real fast.”
Josh looked over at Loki’s display. Besides the multitude of outbound contacts, there was a red flashing triangle coming up from behind them.”
“Hang on back there,” Loki called over the comms. “We’ve got company.”
“Who is it?” Marcus asked. Suddenly, the shuttle jumped as something exploded in the air just outside their starboard side. Marcus was nearly thrown out of his seat. “Never mind.”
Marcus stood up and pulled a long safety strap from the ceiling, connecting it to his harness. “You two buckled in?” he asked Tug and Jalea.
“Yes!” Tug answered. “Why?”
Marcus grinned and slapped the big red button along the side of the rear cargo hatch. The massive cargo door hissed as it began to open, starting its slow lowering into its ramp position. The sudden change in cabin pressure was immediately felt by all, as the wind rushed in around the widening crack between the door and the frame.
“Shuttle two-four-one-eight, you are in violation of a lockdown order. Land immediately or we will fire on you.”
“What the hell are you doing, you crazy old fart?” Josh yelled over the comms from the cockpit.”
“Just try to keep this thing low enough so we don’t all suffocate, while I shed this bugger from our ass!” Marcus declared.
The rear hatch continued to lower until Marcus stopped it at its standard platform position, parallel to the deck.
“Give me a hand!” he shouted at Tug.
“With what?”
“We gotta start tossin’ some of this stuff,” he declared as he picked up the first crate and tossed it out the back of the ship. The crate bounced off the end of the ramp, broke open, and sent vegetables flying towards the local police interceptor that was rapidly closing on them.”
Tug’s eyes widened. “You don’t really think you’re gonna stop that interceptor by throwing produce at him, do you?”
“Whattaya think I am, stupid? I need room for my new toy!”
His explanation didn’t inspire any confidence in Tug, who rose to help nevertheless. After securing himself to the ceiling in similar fashion, Tug also began tossing boxes of food out the back of the shuttle. Somewhat to Marcus’s amusement, the tumbling produce did cause the compact interceptor to dodge back and forth wildly, trying to avoid messing up his windshield.
After a few minutes, they had tossed nearly a third of the boxes out of the back. “That’s enough!” Marcus yelled as he started to cycle the hatch closed again. Now Tug was even more confused.
“I’m pretty sure he’s lost it,” Loki decided.
“What the hell are you doing, Marcus?” Josh cried out.
“Just hold’er steady for a few minutes while I get setup,” Marcus told him while he inserted a heavy stand into a socket in the middle of the aft section of the cargo deck, less than a meter from the rear hatch which was now fully closed.
“Gimme a hand with this thing!” Marcus ordered. Tug crossed over to the other side of the cargo bay as Marcus opened a long compartment and started pulling out what looked like one of the energy cannons off Tug’s fighter.
“Is this what I think it is?” Tug asked as they wrestled the heavy weapon from the locker and carried over to the post they had set up a moment ago.
“You bet!”
“Where did you get it?” Tug asked as they plopped it down onto the mount at the top of the meter high post.
Marcus uncoiled the power cable from the weapon, flipped open a port on the deck, and plugged the weapon in. “I took it from your little ship!”
“Who said you could-”
Marcus hit the door control to start cycling the rear hatch open again. “You can thank me later!”
“Jesus,” Josh exclaimed as air once again began rushing in from the rear of the ship. “Can you override his door controls or something?”
“Shuttle two-four-one-eight, this is your final warning. Land immediately or we will destroy you.”
Another burst went off outside, this time to port and even closer. The rear of the ship lurched upward, launching Marcus upward and Tug back over onto the now disorganized pile of supplies. As the door swung open down and away from the shuttle, Marcus swung the business end of the energy cannon outward, another grin forming on his face.
“We’ve gotta do something,” Loki exclaimed.
“Like what?” Josh defended.
“I don’t know! Do some of that crazy pilot shit you always do!”
“Crazy pilot shit? I’m just trying to keep from slamming into any of the other thousands of ships flyin’ all about us right now!”
Loki turned his head to look over his shoulder toward the rear of the shuttle to see what Marcus was doing. When his eyes caught sight of the weapon mounted in the middle of the deck, he nearly spun around in his seat, his eyes going wide. “Oh fuck!”
Cameron’s fingers danced across her console as she entered commands into the helm. The series of waypoints she had programmed into the auto-flight system had carried them out of the cavern and through the exit tunnel with flawless precision. Although she did not state the fact to Nathan, she was sure that navigating the tunnels in this fashion had saved them several minutes over flying through them manually.
“Coming up on the exit,” she announced.
“Let me know the moment you have our sensors back up,” Nathan told Kaylah. From the moment they had disconnected their umbilical from the base inside the asteroid, they had been blind to the outside world. Had there been someone to stay behind and man the hidden base, they could have at least monitored their own sensors and relayed information to them on their way out. Nathan decided that if they were ever to use such a facility again, he would have to make sure that they had a wireless telemetry feed for such data.
“Yes, sir,” Ensign Yosef answered.
“Try to contact the shuttle once we’re clear,” Nathan told the acting comm-officer. “Let them know we’re coming to get them.”
“Crossing the exit threshold now,” Cameron announced. The rocky ceiling passed over them and was replaced by the black star field. The exit tunnel dumped directly into another long trench that eventually widened and became shallower until it was level with the primary surface and disappeared altogether.
“Where are they, Kaylah?”
“I’m not seeing them, sir,” she admitted, double-checking her display to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.
“They’ve gotta be out there somewhere.”
“The gas-giant might be between us and them,” Jessica suggested. “Based on their last course and rate of deceleration, it is possible.”
“They can’t be that dumb,” Nathan said. “Even I’m not that dumb.”
“I’ve got them,” Kaylah announced with relief. “They just came out from the far side of the seventh planet.”
“He’s definitely not stupid,” Jessica commented. “He had to have picked up speed to make it that far over in such a short time. He did not want to be anywhere near where we thought he would be.”
“Should I change course to bring the gas-giant between us?” Cameron asked.
“No, keep on a straight bearing to Corinair, best possible speed, no finesse.” Cameron looked at him quizzically. “During our conversation, I got the impression he was surprised by my age. He probably thinks I’m young and dumb.”
“Well, he’s half right,” Cameron said under her breath. Nathan didn’t take the bait, but he did like that his XO was starting to become more relaxed under pressure, as it helped keep him in the same mood.
“Let’s not give him any reasons to think otherwise,” Nathan added. And remember, no finesse,” he added as he turned to go to tactical.
“So, just fly like you then?” she said to herself.
“Comms, any luck with the shuttle?”
“Not yet, sir. But there’s a lot of traffic coming from Corinair.”
“He’s right, sir,” Kaylah agreed. “There are at least twenty large transports in orbit, and I’m seeing at least a hundred shuttles coming from the surface of Corinair. And that’s not counting the ones that are still in the lower atmosphere, which we can’t see from here without going active.”
“What, are they evacuating?” Nathan wondered aloud as he stepped up next to the tactical console.
“Could be,” Jessica said, “if they know about that warship. After what was showing on their news the other night, wouldn’t you?”
Marcus looked out over the top of his makeshift gun emplacement along its double barrels. He could feel the humming of the power cells as he watched and waited for the rear hatch to lower enough to give him a clear line of sight on his target. But as the door nearly reached its platform position, the small police interceptor was nowhere to be seen. Before Tug could react, the interceptor suddenly jumped back up into sight from below them, and Marcus let go a double-shot of bright red balls of destructive energy that leapt from the ends of his barrels out toward the interceptor. “Surprise!”
The interceptor dropped back down slightly, avoiding Marcus’s first shot. The interceptor changed its angle to return fire, but as he did so, the rear hatch dropped down into its boarding ramp position, putting its trailing edge into the shuttle’s airflow.
The sudden disruption of the airflow under the shuttle’s tail caused its back end jump sharply upward, causing the interceptor’s volley to pass just under their tail.
“What the hell!” Josh cried out as he fought to compensate for the sudden change in the shuttle’s flight characteristics.
Josh’s over compensation for the sudden upward movement of the shuttle’s tail caused it to dip back down sharply and below their flight path. Fortunately, the motion put the little police interceptor right in the middle of Marcus’s view. Marcus again squeezed the trigger, letting out another pair of red balls of energy.
The police interceptor snap-rolled to try and avoid the incoming fire, but one of the red balls of energy caught its wing, clipping off its outer half. The little interceptor immediately began to yaw to the right. A few seconds later, the canopy shot up off the interceptor and the pilot’s rocket-powered ejection seat fired, sending the pilot well above his now tumbling ship.
“Oh yeah!” Marcus screamed as he watched the pilot’s chute open. He reached over and started cycling the hatch closed again. “Get us the fuck outta here!”
“You got it, pops!” Josh declared as he started to climb again.
Marcus looked over at Tug and Jalea, both of whom were still in disbelief. “Not bad, huh?”
The bridge rumbled as the ship decelerated sharply on its approach to Corinair.
“Captain, I’m getting multiple hails from Corinair’s militia demanding identification and intent.”
“Ignore them,” Nathan ordered. “I doubt they can spare anyone to deal with us right now, considering the chaos on the world right now. Besides, once they see us change course and veer away, they’ll likely lose interest.”
“If not, then they surely will when that Ta’Akar warship unloads on them,” Jessica said under her breath.
“You don’t think he was bluffing?” Nathan asked.
“You saw the video,” Jessica reminded him.
“Yeah, but we still don’t know for sure who was responsible for that, the Ta’Akar or the Karuzari.”
Jessica looked up from her console to look Nathan in the eyes. “Nathan, at some point you’re gonna have to decide once and for all who you can trust.”
Her words hung in the air for what might have been an eternity, had his thoughts not been immediately interrupted a moment later.
“Captain, I have the shuttle,” the comm-officer reported.
“Loki!” Nathan called over his comm-set. “Did you pick them up? Are you on your way?”
“Yes, but we almost didn’t make it, Captain. It’s a mad house down there. The entire spaceport is locked down. We had to bust our way out!”
“Cam, can you send them an intercept heading and speed?”
“Heading, yes. Speed? Tell them to go as fast as possible.”
“Jessica, how are we looking?”
“It’s going to be close,” she admitted. “If I had a more exact idea of their weapons range-”
“Abby, adjust your plot to start from a few hundred thousand kilometers downrange of the intercept point that Cam is calculating.”
“Got it,” Cam announced. “Sending course data to Abby and the shuttle.”
“Loki. We’re sending you a course heading. Taking that heading at full speed.”
“Uh, okay.”
“You’re going to have to land at full speed. We’ll try to slow down to match you as best we can. But we’ve got bad guys on our tail.”
“Yeah. I’m starting to notice that you guys kind of attract them.”
“We’re three minutes from intercept,” Cameron announced.
“Jess?”
“Four, maybe five until they can get missiles on us.”
“Holy crap, I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Loki exclaimed as he stared out the forward view ports. They were approaching the Aurora at full speed, more than ten times their usual landing speed. Loki knew that it was all relative; all that was important was the difference in velocity between the two ships. But still, both ships were traveling incredibly fast. And the fact that they only had a minute or two to land before the warship that was chasing them both got close enough to fire didn’t help calm his nerves.
“Relax, Loki, I’ve got this,” Josh assured him.
“Incoming!” Jessica announced from the tactical station. “She’s launched four missiles. Impact in two minutes.”
“Prepare to fire all rail guns, point-defense mode, aft,” Nathan ordered.
“The shuttle is still in the line of fire,” Jessica warned.
Nathan snapped his fingers at the comm-officer. “Get me the shuttle.” A moment later the comm-officer turned his head back toward the captain and nodded. “Josh, I need you on the deck now. We’ve got incoming and you guys are blocking my point-defense systems.”
“Working on it.”
“How long?”
“One minute, max.”
Nathan looked at Jessica.
“It takes at least thirty seconds to spin up a point-defense field.”
“Damn!”
The shuttle drifted over the Aurora’s main propulsion section as it continued on its way forward toward the flight deck.
“Can’t you move this thing any faster?” Loki begged.
“A minute ago you were complaining that we were going too fast. Now we’re too slow?”
“Just get us down.”
The shuttle finally cleared the propulsion section and began rapidly descending toward the flight deck.
“Our firing solution is clear,” Jessica announced.
“Fire all rail guns,” Nathan ordered.
Having already been deployed and aimed, the rail guns immediately began to open fire, just as the shuttle touched down gently on the flight deck.
“We’re down!” Loki announced.
“Abby,” Nathan asked. “How quickly can you plot a jump to just out of their weapons range?”
“How far?”
“I don’t care. Whatever is quickest. Just get us out of the range of those missiles!”
“Give me a minute. Cameron, send me your new course.”
Cameron stood slightly and stretched over to her left to reach the middle of the unmanned navigator’s station on the other side of the center pedestal that separated the helm and the navigation consoles in order to transfer the course data to Abby.
“Oh shit,” Jessica exclaimed suddenly. “One got through. Brace for impact!”
As the shuttle began to roll off the landing apron and into the hangar bay, a missile streaked overhead, no more than twenty meters above their heads just to the left of them.
Josh and Loki looked at each other. “Uh oh.”
The missile passed over most of the ship, skimming along until it struck the upper portion of the hull just forward of the primary bulkhead line. The force of the explosion was immense, sending pieces of the outer hull flying in all directions.
The bridge shook violently as the missile exploded. The entire room suddenly shifted to the right, taking the floor out from under anyone standing, as well as sliding the chairs right out from under anyone sitting. Everyone on the starboard side of the bridge immediately found themselves on the floor. Nathan and Jessica, who had been standing at the tactical station, found themselves in a pile just to the left of where they had been standing. Kaylah and the acting communications officer, both of whose consoles were on the port side of the bridge, found themselves slamming into their consoles face first. Cameron, who was partially standing and stretching to her left to try and reach the navigation console went toppling over the center console and into the navigator’s chair, ending up in a pile on the far side of the entire flight console.
The lights went dark, with only the illumination from the main view screen lighting the bridge. A few systems shorted and sparked, but the lights quickly came back on, and the crew picked themselves up. All but one.
“Abby!” Nathan called out. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” she answered as she climbed back into her chair.
“Tell me you have a jump ready?”
“Yes, sir. I do.”
“Jump! Jump! Jump!”
As Abby initiated the jump, Jessica, who had just gotten back on her feet quickly killed the point-defense fire. The view screen darkened and a moment later the room was bathed by the blue-white flash of the jump.
“Cam, verify our position!” Nathan turned toward the helm, but Cameron wasn’t there.
“Sir!” Kaylah cried.
Nathan turned his gaze to the left and saw Kaylah dropping to her knees next to Cameron’s motionless body.
“Med-Team to the bridge!” Nathan ordered as he rushed over to Cameron’s side. “Is she?” He couldn’t bring himself to say the word.
Kaylah felt for a pulse at Cameron’s neck. “She’s alive, sir. But her breathing is very shallow, and I can barely feel her pulse.”
“Stay with her, Kaylah.” Nathan rose and immediately sat at the helm to assume the job of flying the ship. “Abby, start plotting me another jump out of here, just in case.”
Nathan scanned the helm displays as he took control of the ship. They were still on the same course and at the same speed. But they were five light minutes farther away from their last location than they should’ve been at their present speed. It wasn’t very far. In fact, Nathan hadn’t even realized that the jump drive could be used over such a short distance. It was, however, just enough to keep them comfortably out of reach of the Yamaro’s long-range missiles.
Doctor Chen and two crewmen entered the bridge and immediately went to Cameron’s side. Nathan kept looking out of the corner of his eye as the doctor struggled to keep his executive officer alive.
“Her right lung is collapsed, and her pressure is way down. She’s gotta be bleeding internally,” she stated as she finished her scan of Cameron’s body with her portable medical scanner. “Finish up that line and get her on oxygen. I’ve got to get her into surgery before she bleeds out.”
“Doctor,” Nathan said as he continued piloting the ship. “Is she gonna survive?”
“She’s in bad shape,” the young doctor admitted grimly. “I’ll do what I can.”
Nathan kept his eyes forward as they loaded her pale, motionless body onto the stretcher. She was a strong-willed, determined young woman, but now she was as limp as a rag doll. It crushed Nathan to see his friend in such a state.
Tug and Jalea entered the bridge in a hurry, obviously having rushed there directly from the hangar deck after they had landed. In their hurry, they nearly ran into the medical team carrying Cameron out on a stretcher. Tug’s expression immediately turned somber when he realized what was happening.
“Kaylah,” Nathan said calmly. “I need you back on your console.”
Kaylah looked at him. “Yes, sir,” she answered as she rose and climbed back into her chair.
“I need to know the position of that warship. I need to know if they’re still pursuing us.”
“Yes, sir. One moment.”
“Captain, I have an escape jump plotted to take us outside the system,” Abby reported.
“Engineering. Report,” Nathan called over his comms.
“No problems,” Vladimir reported over the comms. “All primary systems are functioning.”
“Abby?”
“We’re still good, Captain. Ninety-eight percent charged.”
“Jess?”
“Lost a couple rail guns along the port side, just forward of the primary bulkheads. But other than that, we’re good.”
“How about our point-defense rounds?”
“We can hold a field for maybe a minute before we run out. Still full up on kinetic rounds, and about ten percent of our explosive hull-penetrating rounds.” Jessica looked at Nathan. “Not much left to shoot with, I’m afraid.”
“Not that it matters much,” Nathan admitted. “With her missiles we’d never get close enough to be able to hit anything.”
“Captain,” Kaylah interrupted. “I’ve found the Ta’Akar warship, sir.”
“Is it still after us?”
“Negative sir, they’ve broken off pursuit. They’ve assumed a high orbit over Corinair.”
Oh God, Nathan thought.
“Captain,” Jalea began, “If they’re assuming a high orbit-”
“I know,” Nathan admitted.
“There are billions of innocent people on Corinair,” Jalea said.
“And there are millions of innocent people on my world as well!”
Josh and Loki peeked their heads in through the hatchway to the bridge, unsure if it was safe to enter due to all the shouting.
“Captain!” Kaylah announced. “The Yamaro is opening fire on Corinair, sir.”
“What?!” Josh cried. “Captain! We gotta do something!”
“Yeah, Captain,” Loki agreed. “They’ll be wiped out!”
“What can we do?” Nathan pleaded. “We’re just one ship. We’re not even heavily armed.”
Nathan looked in the eyes of his guests, and then in the eyes of his crew. Every one of them was scared: scared for the people of Corinair, scared for the people of Earth, and scared for themselves. All except for one. Tug’s eyes were sympathetic, as if he understood the pain than Nathan was going through. It was as if he had been through it himself.
Tug stepped forward, placing his hand on Nathan’s shoulder. “Nathan,” he said softly. “I know that you are young. I know that this responsibility was not yours by choice. And I know that this task seems an impossible one. And you are right; you are but one ship, one small ship. But your ship has a miraculous device, the likes of which has never been seen. I know that you do not know how to use it just yet. But neither do they know how to defend against it. And that is your biggest advantage. Trust in me. Trust in yourself, just as we all do. Together, we can do this. We can save them all-both your people and mine.”
Nathan was more conflicted than he had ever been in his entire life. No matter which way he decided, he had both tactical and ethical justification. But none of that mattered to him at this moment. He knew that no matter what, he could not bring himself to jump away and leave billions of innocent people to die needlessly, even if it meant risking his own world.
Nathan looked at Jessica. “It seems that fate once again has me in its clutches,” he said, a slight smirk forming on the corner of his mouth. He turned toward Josh and Loki. “You two think you’re ready to fly this thing?”
“Hell yes,” Josh exclaimed, nearly falling over himself to get to the helm, Loki stumbling right behind him.
Jessica stepped up next to Nathan. “Don’t get me wrong-I hope Cameron’s gonna be all right and all-but it’s a good thing she’s not here right now, because she’d probably relieve you of command.”
“You’re right. She would,” he admitted. “And what about you?”
“Hey, you know me, skipper. I’m always ready to kick some ass.”
Nathan turned back to Tug. “What can you tell me about the Yamaro?”
“She’s a heavy cruiser, and she operates several squadrons of short-range attack fighters. She is armed with long-range missiles and short-range energy weapons, of which she has many. But her biggest strength is her shielding. She can project a shield barrier bubble at least two kilometers in all directions. She normally does this to allow maneuvering room for her fighters as they are launched and recovered.”
“How do the fighters get past the shields?”
“They can open and close small holes in the shields to let them in. But the shields are one way. That is, they only keep what is outside from coming in. They do not stop what is inside from getting out.”
“Is it possible to knock her shields out?”
“Not from the outside. You would have to be inside her shield perimeter. Then, it would be rather easy. Just take out enough of her emitters. She would not be able to maintain a proper shield and it would completely collapse. But there is no way to get close enough to even try.”
“I have an idea about that,” Nathan said as he moved closer to Abby and Deliza. “Abby, you said before that the new computer core that Deliza installed makes it possible for you to jump closer more accurately?”
“Yes, considerably so.”
“Does that mean you can jump closer to another object?”
“Yes, but-”
“How close?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Less than, say, two kilometers?”
“Less than one, I would think.”
“Could you jump us to say, five hundred meters off that warship?”
“Yes. I believe so.”
“Would that ships energy shields get in the way?”
“Not at all. When we jump, we are traveling in a different dimension. So matter from this dimension would not react with us while we were in transition.”
“Okay. I’m not even going to pretend that I understand that. I’m just going to believe you when you say it will work.”
“Yes, sir. It will work.”
“Great. Plot a jump to take us back to Corinair. Say, about one light minute out.”
“Yes, sir.”
Nathan spun around to face the front of the bridge. “Helm, come about. Set course back to Corinair. Reduce speed to one percent light.”
“Yes, sir,” Josh answered. Josh immediately began executing a slow turn to head back, as Loki began plotting the new course for him. The order to reduce speed to one percent of light put a smile on Josh’s boyish face. He had never flown anything faster than one percent light.
“Captain,” Tug interrupted, “you will only get one chance, maybe two if you are quick enough with your second pass. Once he discerns your strategy, he will undoubtedly pull his shields back in close, so as not to give you room.”
“Jess-” Nathan said.
“Jump in, shoot, jump out, repeat as needed. Yeah, I got it,” she assured him as she began preparing instructions for the fire control computers for the rail guns. “Josh, we’ll need to keep our topsides facing the target as we pass, so I can get all our guns on the target.”
“Got it.”
“Captain? How many jumps are you planning?” Abby asked.
Nathan turned back to Abby, realizing that she would need to calculate each jump on the fly. “We’re gonna jump in to a range of one light minute and then charge in as if we’re going to slug it out. Then just after they fire their long range missiles, we jump forward to about five hundred meters ahead and five hundred meters to his side. That should put us inside his shields and give us a clean shot. Then we jump back out to just beyond his range, and repeat as many times as it takes. Or at least for as long as it still works,” he admitted. “Can you manage that?”
“Yes, sir. I believe so.”
“How long will you need to calculate each jump?”
“At such short distances? Maybe thirty seconds each?”
“Great. That should be more than quick enough.” Nathan straightened up and moved back to the command chair. “Comms, alert both engineering and medical. Let them know we’re going into combat.”
“Captain,” Jessica warned, “she’s going to be performing surgery on Cameron in the middle of the battle.”
“Yeah,” Nathan answered grimly. “I know.”