Ep.#6 - "Head of the Dragon" (The Frontiers Saga) (33 page)

“Sir,” Naralena began, “I’ve set up the automatic comm links between the C2 and the Aurora. I’ve also set up relay systems to be used by all the other jump ships. Whenever one of the jump-enabled ships arrives at a destination, it will automatically synch up with other comm-units in the area and exchange messages.”

“How did you get it to do that?” Cameron asked.

“
I
didn’t,” she admitted. “Deliza did. She said something about slaving it to the jump drive’s plotting software. Once they lock in a jump destination, the comm relay unit checks your C2’s relay unit for any messages going to the same location. She even programmed in a message tracking system so that the senders know what time their message was delivered to its intended recipient.”

“Nice work,” Cameron told her.

“Thank you, Sir,” Naralena answered. “I’ll pass that on to Deliza.”

“That is one clever sixteen year-old girl,” Nathan mumbled. “Did she ever agree to stay behind where it’s safe?”

“Tug finally had to put his foot down and order her to return to Corinair to care for her sister at Master Chief Montrose’s home.”

“I was sure we were going to have to carry her off the ship in shackles,” Nathan said.

“Flight ops reports the platform is down and secure,” Naralena reported. “The last shuttle has departed for Corinair, and the deck is now red, Captain.”

“Very well,” Nathan answered before turning to face the flight team sitting in front of him. Of the three flight crews that had been trained to operate the Aurora, Colin Riley and Devon Chiles were the most qualified. They had originally been assigned as the second shift, behind Josh and Loki, but only because they had less time working together and had not learned to anticipate one another the way Josh and Loki had. Now that his first team had taken on the duties of flying the jump interceptor—affectionately named the Falcon—Riley and Chiles had become his primary pilots. They didn’t have the personality that Josh and Loki had, but they were all business and had performed well during the Savoy mission to capture the garrison and airbase on Ancot.

“Mister Riley, plot our jump back to the staging point outside Takara,” Nathan ordered.

“Aye, sir, plotting jump back to the staging point,” the navigator answered.

“And don’t forget to give the Takaran battle group a wide berth,” he reminded him. “We don’t need to draw their attention.”

“Yes, sir.”

Nathan tapped his comm-set to activate. “Doctor Sorenson, Captain.”

“
Yes, sir,
” Abby answered over the comms.

“Last chance to stay behind, Doctor,” Nathan stated in jest.

“
Thank you for the offer, Captain, but I suspect you may need someone to keep the jump drive operational so you can continue to jump about at will.
”

Nathan chuckled to himself, remembering all the times she had warned him in the beginning of their journey’s in the Pentaurus cluster that the jump drive was only a prototype and should not be used so frequently. Despite her objections, he had continued to use the jump drive at will. As far as he was concerned, it was as reliable as anything else on his ship, perhaps even more so. The physicist had once told him that they had built the prototype rather robustly due to the fact that they didn’t really understand exactly how it worked. It was a good thing that they had. “Did your people get all the extra jump field emitters in place to cover the staging platform?” Nathan asked.

“
Yes, Captain. We should not have any problems.
”

“Thank you, Doctor,” he said as he closed the connection by tapping his ear piece once again.

“Course plotted and ready,” Mister Riley reported.

“Very well. Mister Chiles, take us out of orbit.”

“Aye, Captain, breaking orbit,” the helmsman answered.

Nathan raised his hand slightly. “Tactical, kill the aft view.” A moment later, the aft camera disappeared, leaving only the image of the planet Corinair as it began to fall away. “I hope that’s not the last time we see her,” Nathan mumbled as he watched the planet fall away. He noticed both his helmsman and navigator as they looked at each other, then back at Nathan. “Just a figure of speech, gentlemen.” As the flight team returned their gazes to their consoles, Nathan glanced to his right toward Cameron just in time to receive a scolding look from her. Nathan shrugged.

“Jumping to first waypoint in five seconds,” Mister Riley reported.

Nathan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He was about to embark on the biggest campaign that anyone from Earth had fought in for over a thousand years. He found his thoughts wandering back to Earth, wondering what his parents, his sisters, even his older brother Eli, were all doing at that moment. Did they wonder what had become of him? Did they even know he was missing? He was sure his father did as he was very well connected. It suddenly dawned on Nathan that his father’s bid for the North American presidency was about to go to the polls. If they made it through the next battle and eventually made it back to Earth, his father could be sitting in the capital building in Minneapolis when the Aurora made orbit overhead.

His thoughts were interrupted when the bridge filled with the flash of the first jump.

“Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported. “Plotting second jump.”

“What were you thinking?” Cameron asked, having realized that Nathan’s mind had been somewhere else.

“Nothing, just thinking of home,” he answered. A small laugh escaped his lips. “Funny how all I wanted was to get away from there for a while. Now all I can think about is getting back.”

“Second jump plotted,” Mister Riley reported. “Jumping in five seconds.”

“What will you do when you get back?” Cameron asked.

“Before or after the court martial?” Nathan mused.

The bridge again filled with the flash of the jump.

“You know what I mean,” Cameron said.

“Jump complete,” Mister Riley reported.

“Threats?” Nathan asked.

“Threat board is clear,” the tactical officer, Mister Randeen, reported. “The only contacts in the area are the cargo shuttles and their escorts.”

“Very well. Take us to the staging point,” Nathan ordered.

“Aye, sir.”

“Comms,” Nathan said, “let flight ops know they have a green deck.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll see that the cargo shuttle crews are relieved as well,” Cameron stated. “I’m sure they could use a shower and a meal after sitting in the middle of deep space for ten hours.”

“Good idea,” Nathan agreed. “How long until Josh and Loki return from their recon?”

“Four hours,” Cameron answered. “It will take us just over five hours to recharge the jump drive’s energy banks to full power. After that, we’ll be as ready as we can be.”

“Very well. As soon as we get on station, deploy the staging platform,” Nathan ordered as he rose from his seat. “Have the tug dock it to our starboard boarding hatch. We never got a chance to check the outer hull on our forward port side after those fighters plowed into us. Let’s not take any unnecessary chances.”

“Yes, sir,” Cameron answered as Nathan moved past her.

“And make sure everyone gets some rest over the next few hours,” he added as he moved toward the exit.

“Where will you be?” Cameron asked, surprised he was leaving the bridge.

“I feel the need to walk the ship,” he told her. “You have the conn, Commander.”

* * *

After visiting engineering, jump control, the flight deck, and flight operations, Nathan found himself standing in the Aurora’s eerily empty medical facility. The main treatment room was empty with only the central overhead lighting turned on. All the lights and monitors at the heads of each of the twelve treatment beds were turned off, leaving unusual shadows cast across the beds.

Nathan stood there for a moment, remembering the various scenes of carnage and despair that had painted this room in the past. Many lives had been both lost and saved here, and most of them had one thing in common; they had happened under his command.

He continued moving deeper into the room, looking to his left and right. There were a few new devices on the walls, undoubtedly brought on board by the Corinairan doctors who, according to Doctor Chen, were considerably more advanced than the physicians of Earth. In fact, the entire medical facility had nearly doubled in size. Nearby compartments had been re-tasked and joined with the main facility to increase both its treatment and recovery capabilities. Most of the crew quarters used by medical personnel had been similarly sacrificed in order to provide long-term recovery beds closer to the main medical facility. This had required that much of the medical staff, most of whom were officers, shared their quarters.

Nathan had always wondered why the designers of the Aurora and her sister ship, the Celestia, had not thought it necessary to give his ship a larger medical section. After all, unlike the Defender class ships that never left the Sol system, the newer, Explorer class ships were FTL capable and were expected to be away for many months at a time. Had the people of Earth really not expected their new ships to suffer such heavy losses? It seemed hard to believe, but then again, at the time, the movement for peace had been strong. The opposition to the construction of the Aurora and the Celestia had been significant.

As Nathan approached the other end of the treatment room, he half expected Doctor Chen to come walking out of the utility room in the back, her medical scrubs smeared with blood. That room, however, was dark. The room to his left was not. Nathan hesitated for a moment. The last time he had looked in that room, it had been stacked with the bodies of the dead just after they had destroyed the Campaglia. That had been the day that Captain Roberts had died and placed the burden of command on Nathan’s shoulders.

Someone was in the room; he could hear them shift in their chair. He turned and walked toward the room, peeking in slowly so as not to disturb. As he entered the room, he could see Doctor Chen, the petite young woman that she was, her face buried in a data pad as she studied its display screen. Her jet black hair was straight and neatly combed, tied back in a tail that hung down across one side of her neck. Her uniform was neat and tidy, and for once, she was not covered with the blood of others. At that moment, she did not appear the stoic, young physician that had kept the remaining crew of the Aurora alive for all those weeks. Instead, she appeared to be just another young, female fleet officer sitting at her desk, reading reports.

“Doctor,” Nathan said, announcing his presence as gently as he could. The attempt was unnecessary, as by now, with all that she had been through in the last few months, she was no longer easily startled.

Her eyes rose first, checking the identity of her guest, her head following suit when she realized who it was. “Captain Scott, I was not expecting you. Is everything all right?”

“Fine, thanks,” he answered, moving further into the room. “What are you reading?”

“Corinairan triage protocols,” she explained. “They’re somewhat different than ours.”

“Don’t junior staff usually handle triage?”

“With the level of knowledge the Corinairan physicians carry, I pretty much am the junior staff around here,” she admitted.

“I didn’t realize.”

“Oh, I don’t mind,” she assured him, turning off her data pad and setting it down on the desk. “I am learning a lot, and they are never condescending about their superior medical skills. Besides, with all of them available to handle the majority of the patient care, I have found more time to manage the department.”

“Speaking of doctors, where are they?” Nathan asked. “The place seems empty.”

“Most of them are taking advantage of the downtime before the attack to get some rest. It may be awhile before they get another opportunity.”

Nathan nodded his agreement. He, too, was considering trying to get in a nap, but doubted he would be able to do anything but lay on his bed and stare at the overhead.

“So what
does
bring you to medical?” Doctor Chen asked.

“I was just out walking the ship,” he told her.

“Walking the ship?”

“Yeah. For some reason, I just felt like I needed to reconnect with her.”

“You don’t feel
connected
to your ship?” she wondered, a look of confusion on her face.

“I spend most of my time on the command deck: the bridge, my ready room, briefing rooms. I get down to the flight deck on occasion. I even stopped eating in the mess hall. Vladimir got me eating in the captain’s mess. I didn’t even know I had a mess.”

“I see,” she answered, despite the fact that she did not.

“I mean, we’re about to go into battle, not because we have to, but because we chose to, or more precisely, because I chose to.”

“You didn’t choose any of this, Captain,” Doctor Chen disagreed. “You may think you chose to attack the Takaran capital, but that’s not really the case, at least not directly. Events left you, left us, with few alternatives.”

“We could’ve packed up and started jumping home,” he reminded her.

“Yes, we could have, and I’ll be the first to admit that, at times, I wish we had done just that. But we all know that was never really a choice.” She looked at him for a moment before continuing. “A wise, old Chinese man once said, ‘We cannot be accurately judged by those that come after us, but only by those living in the moment in which the decision was made.’”

Nathan’s face crinkled about as he tried to recall the phrase. “I don’t think I’ve heard that one,” he admitted. “What wise, old Chinese man said that?”

“My father,” she answered.

“Not one to get directly to the point, is he?”

“No, he isn’t,” Doctor Chen admitted with a slight chuckle at the end.

Nathan rose from his chair and headed slowly to the exit. “Thanks, Doc.”

“For what?”

“For doing your job so well,” Nathan told her as he paused at the door. “It makes it a lot easier to put people in harm’s way when you know someone like you will be waiting to care for them when that harm comes.”