Aurora: CV-01 (28 page)

“Really?” Nathan had finished his lunch and closed up the container. “And what did your father teach you of Earth.”

“Earth is where all humans came from. But long ago, they leave quickly. Terrible evil on Earth. It came to all her worlds. So people, they go to stars. They hope evil will not follow.” Jalea ate the last piece of food in her kit and followed it with a drink of water before continuing. “Sometimes, parents tell children to behave, or evil will find them too.”

“Does the story say what kind of evil?”

“No, but it is only story. No one truly believes this,” she asserted.

“But you believe it?”

“Maybe a little,” she confessed, a tiny smile on her lips.

“Do many others believe?”

“Some. But they not say, they afraid.”

“Afraid of what?”

“Takarans not believe. They say all come from Takara, not Earth. If you not believe as Takarans, you not live.”

Then they are fighting against religious persecution
. Suddenly, they were starting to look more like terrorists than revolutionaries. He was beginning to wonder how far he could trust them. Perhaps Cameron had been correct. Perhaps these were not the kind of people they wanted as friends.

“Do others in your group speak Angla?”

“Yes, some. Those from other worlds. But Takarans not learn Angla, not safe.”

“What about on Parule?” Nathan was hoping to find a world where they might be able to communicate without having to use the rebels as an intermediary.

“Yes, most people on Parule learn Angla. It is language of all worlds.”

“A universal language, of course.” Nathan remembered from history that English had been the standard language spoken throughout the core at the time the bio-digital plague had struck.

“Is this not why your people speak Angla?” Jalea looked intrigued.

“Sort of, I guess. There are many different languages spoken on Earth, but we all learn English so that we can all communicate…” Nathan stopped in mid sentence, noticing the look in her eyes had changed.

“Then you
are
from Earth?” Nathan didn’t notice that her English syntax had suddenly improved.

“Well, yes, I thought we explained that…” Nathan stopped in mid sentence, noticing another change in her eyes. The intrigue had suddenly vanished, replaced by that same cold determination he had seen earlier on the bridge.

Jalea relaxed slightly, leaning with her elbow on the arm of the chair in which she sat. “Then I must ask you, Nathan. Are you evil?”

Her question had been asked in near perfect English, and Nathan felt a chill go down his spine. So overwhelming was the sensation that Nathan was startled when Cameron entered the room with Abigail hot on her heels.

“Nathan, we need to talk,” Cameron insisted. She noticed that Nathan seemed a bit shaken, yet Jalea was calm and relaxed. “Nathan?” she repeated.

He looked up at Cameron, seeing the urgency on her face. He looked back at Jalea, recomposing himself. “If you would excuse us a moment, Jalea?”

Jalea bowed her head respectfully, rose from her chair and strolled out of the room. Cameron watched her curiously as she exited, wondering what she had interrupted.

Cameron was about to start talking when Nathan held up his hand indicating that she should wait. Finally, when he was sure that the door was closed and Jalea was out of ear shot, he spoke. “What’s wrong?”

“We’ve calculated our position, Nathan. And it’s not good.”

“And I’m supposed to be surprised?” he responded sarcastically.

“You will be,” Cameron promised him. “We’re more than a thousand light years from Earth.”

There was a moment of silence. Nathan looked at Cameron with disbelief. He looked at Abigail, and then back at Cameron again. “You’re kidding, right?” Cameron didn’t speak, but her expression gave him his answer. “No, I guess you wouldn’t be, would you.”

“Certainly not about this,” she assured him.

“A thousand light years?” he repeated.

“Yup.”

“You have
got
to be kidding me!” Nathan exclaimed. “Please, Cam! Tell me you’re kidding me?”

“Sorry.”

Nathan couldn’t believe his ears. After all that they had been through, to learn that they were so much farther away from Earth than anyone had ever thought possible.

“There’s gotta be some kind of mistake here,” he pleaded. “I mean, come on, a thousand light years?” Nathan turned to Abigail, “Abby, how the hell could we jump a thousand light years?”

“There’s no mistake, Captain,” Abigail apologized. She felt that it was somehow her fault that they were stranded so far from home. “I checked the calculations several times. We are one-thousand and seven light years from Sol. Of that I’m sure. As to how, my best guess is that it had something to do with the shock wave from that antimatter explosion. Maybe it somehow added additional energy into the fields? I just don’t know yet.”

“Well, now how long is it gonna take us to get home?” He already knew he was not going to like the answer.

“That’s at least a hundred and ten jumps, maybe more. If everything goes well, maybe three or four months. But…”

“…Fat chance of that!” Nathan squawked. “I mean, considering how our luck has been so far!”

“You have to remember, Captain, that this is only a prototype model. I cannot guarantee that we’ll get ten jumps out of it, let alone a hundred.”

Nathan thought hard. There had to be a way out of this problem, he just had to think of something. “What if the FTL field emitters were operational? How long would it take us then?”

“About a hundred years,” Cameron reminded him, knowing that he should already be aware of that fact. “We’re only rated for ten times light, remember? Besides, it would take weeks to get those emitters back online. And we’d have to take the jump drive off line in order to do it.”

“What about the comm-drones the Takarans use? Jalea said they can do a hundred times light. Maybe we could adapt their technology into our systems?”

“That’s a bit of a reach, don’t you think?” Cameron was getting tired of Nathan’s desperate scramble for an immediate answer. “You might as well face the facts, Nathan. We’re stuck out here for a while.”

“There has got to be a way to get back,” he insisted. “I mean, we got here in a single jump. So there must be a way to get back in one. Isn’t that right, Doctor?”

“If our assumptions about
how
are correct, then yes it is possible. But figuring out how to do that could take even longer than it would to make the hundred jumps home.”

Nathan leaned back in his chair, thinking. He was the captain now. And his last orders had been to get the jump drive back to Earth as soon as possible. Not only was the fate of his crew resting on his shoulders, but also quite possibly the fate of his entire world as well. He hoped his lunch wasn’t going to come back up.

“Nathan,” Cameron began. “If we’re going to get through this, we’re going to have to get organized, we’re going to need a proper chain of command. And I hate to admit it, but we’re also going to need help, and lots of it.”

“You’re talking about Jalea and company, right?” Cameron just nodded. “I don’t know, Cam. I’m starting to think you might have been right about them after all.”

“Well, until we find somebody else…”

“…Better the devil you know, huh?” Nathan took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Who all knows about this?”

“Only the bridge crew,” Cameron assured him.

“Not Jalea?”

“No, she was in here with you when we figured it out.”

“Good, let’s keep it that way. In fact, let’s not tell anybody just yet. I’ll figure out when to tell the crew.” Nathan rose slowly from his seat as if standing tall to face the new challenge. “Very well. Doctor Sorenson. If you could devote all your attention to keeping the jump drive operational, it would be greatly appreciated. Until we find a way to get our FTL systems functional, that prototype of yours is our only way to get around.”

“Yes, Captain,” Abigail answered.

“And if you can find the time, I wouldn’t mind if you did a little research into possibly increasing the range of that prototype.” Abigail nodded her agreement.

“Ensign Taylor,” he said, addressing Cameron in a more formal tone than usual. “I’m going to need a full damage assessment, as well as a proposal for a working crew roster as soon as possible. You’ll have to prioritize positions, and maybe even retrain a few people. But one way or another, we need to be able to fly, and maybe even fight with this ship. It looks like the Aurora is going to be our home for a bit longer than we expected.”

“Yes Sir,” Cameron acknowledged. Despite the fact the she had never thought Nathan was fit to be in command of anything, let alone the entire ship, she was happy that he was stepping up to the challenge.

“And one last thing, I’m going to need to meet with Jalea and Marak as soon as possible. And make sure Jessica is here as well,” he added as he sat back down.

“Yes Sir!” Cameron stood at attention as Abigail left the room, raising her hand in salute. After a moment, Nathan looked back up at her. “Oh please,” he protested as he returned the salute. “Dismissed.”

* * *

Jessica entered the captain’s ready room, assuming a slightly relaxed stance in front of the Nathan’s desk. “You wanted to see me, Sir?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid the situation has changed somewhat.”

“How so?”

“You might want to sit down, Jessica,” he warned her. Nathan rose from his seat and walked around to the front of his desk, sitting on its edge in the same manner as Captain Roberts had always done. “It seems we’re a bit farther away from Earth than we originally thought.”

“How far?” she asked suspiciously.

“About a thousand light years.”

“No fuckin’ way,” she responded without thinking, quickly adding an embarrassed “Sir.”

“Yeah, that was my reaction too.”

“How the hell are we gonna get home?”

“We don’t know yet, we’re working on it. But it could take some time. So we’re going to need to start making friends out here. We’re gonna need help, and lots of it. At least until we get the ship up to snuff. So I’m gonna need you to handle intelligence as well as ship’s security. You up to it?”

“Hell yes, Sir.”

Nathan noticed she was grinning more than expected, considering the news. “What’s so funny?”

“Nothing. I was just thinking about how when I first got assigned to this ship, I thought it was going to be a
boring
tour of duty.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what I was
hoping
it would be,” Nathan chuckled.

“Then I guess we were both wrong.”

“Listen, Jess. In a few minutes we’re going to be meeting with Jalea and Marak. I’m gonna need to negotiate some kind of an arrangement with them. We need a safe harbor to make repairs, and right now they’re our only option.”

“I’d advise proceeding with caution, sir. I’ve got a hunch there’s more going on with these people than they’re telling us.”

“Yeah, I got the same feeling,” he said, remembering his last conversation with Jalea. “I can’t tell if they’re revolutionaries or terrorists.”

“Exactly. So don’t give them any more information than necessary. The less they know about us and our situation, the weaker their position.”

“Makes sense. Anything else?”

“And watch what you say around them. I’m pretty sure Jalea speaks our language a lot better than she lets on. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they all speak
Angla
for that matter.”

Nathan had already realized that Jalea spoke English better than he had originally thought. But he hadn’t considered the possibility that the others spoke it as well. “You’ve got a suspicious mind, Jessica,” he complimented her.

“It helps when you’re in spec-ops.”

The comm beeped twice, and Nathan pressed the button to answer. “Yes?”

“
Jalea and Marak are here, Captain,
” the communication officer reported over the comm.

“Send them in.” Nathan got up and went back behind his desk, Jessica rising to stand beside him as their guests entered the room.

Jalea entered, looking more poised and confident than she had since he last spoke with her. Marak was close behind, the difference in him being that he was a little more unkempt after several hours working on damaged engineering systems. Nathan noticed Marak’s appearance and chose to use it as his opening.

“Looks like you’ve been hard at work, Marak. How is it going in Engineering?”

Jalea translated Nathan’s words to Marak. Nathan wondered if Marak really didn’t speak English, or if they were just keeping up a front. If they were, then they obviously were not ready to reveal that fact just yet, so Nathan would have to cautiously play along.

“Marak says that everything is going well. And that your chief engineer is a very clever man.”

“Yes he is. Please, have a seat?” Nathan waited for his guests to sit down before taking his seat. Jessica remained standing, leaning slightly against the counter behind her.

“What may we do for you, Captain?” Jalea was again speaking far better English than before, apparently feeling that the charade was no longer required. And her sudden improvement did not go unnoticed by Jessica.

“Your English has improved, Jalea,” Nathan commented. He wanted her to know that her sudden improvement had not gone unnoticed.

“It is all coming back to me now,” she lied, a polite smile on her face. Nathan had a feeling that she was probably very good at deception, especially with her hypnotic eyes. Nathan wondered if she had been chosen for this assignment specifically because of her unique attributes. He wondered if she had abruptly changed her personality after realizing that playing the beautiful, demure widow with broken English wasn’t going to get her what she wanted. Yet in this role, she was just as convincing, if not more so.

“I’m sure it is.” Nathan thought for a moment, unsure of what to say next. He could dance around the issue, as Jessica had suggested, or he could come clean and lay his cards out on the table. Keeping in his usual character, he chose the latter.