Aurora: CV-01 (6 page)

“Yeah, you left out that I flunked chemistry in secondary school. How is it you know so much about me?”

“I make it a point to know who I’m working with.”

“Well, that’s encouraging—I think.” There was no response for an awkward moment. “So, I guess we’ll be working together?”

“In a manner of speaking.” She was either being coy or rude. He wasn’t sure which just yet.

“So it’s kind of exciting, huh?” he asked, trying desperately to strike up some kind of friendly conversation with her. But he didn’t seem to be having any luck.

Cameron couldn’t figure out if Nathan was trying to size her up, hit on her, or was just being polite. And it made her wonder if he even realized what was at stake? One thing was for sure, she was
not
going let her guard down around him.

“The XO was laying it on kind of thick back there, wasn’t he?” Nathan fumbled, “all that
Best of the Best
stuff.”

“
Best of Class,
” she corrected.

“Huh?”

“What he said was
Best of Class,
” she reiterated as they came to the top of the ramp and turned towards the bridge.

“Whatever,” Nathan muttered. He was pretty sure now, she was just rude.

Cameron glanced at him for the first time since he started talking to her, put off by his cavalier response. “Look, Ensign, I don’t know if you realize this, but you and I, we’re in competition with one another.”

“Hey, I’m not looking to compete with anyone,” he defended. “I’ll be happy if I just don’t screw anything up”.

Cameron stopped short of the entrance to the bridge, turning to Nathan to confront him. “Let me spell this out for you, okay? It takes two people to fly this ship, a helmsman
and
a navigator. And the helmsman is the senior member of that team. And the first one to take the helm will probably end up lead pilot, in command of all three flight teams once this ship is fully staffed. Get it?” she ended, stabbing him in the chest with her pointed index finger to emphasize her point.

“Look,” Nathan assured her. “I don’t care who’s in charge. I just wanna do a good job.”

“Great, then you won’t be disappointed when you’re sitting second seat to me.”

Nathan stopped dead in his tracks, stunned by her brazen attitude. That’s when he noticed that she was headed for the captain’s ready room. And all of a sudden, Nathan found that he
did
care about the lead pilot position. In fact, he cared about it more than he ever could’ve imagined. So much so that he ran to catch up with her to make sure that they met the captain together, as equals.

CHAPTER 3

Something was wrong. Nathan was pulling the joystick to the left to try and line the ship up to dock with the station. But for some reasons, the ship was starting to roll to her right. “What the hell?”

“I’m reading an unknown failure in the bow maneuvering thrusters, port side,” Cameron said.

“No kidding? I’m telling her to roll left, but she’s rolling right.”

“Well stop it,” she ordered, as she struggled to try and figure out what was wrong.

“Stop what?” Nathan quickly took his hand off the joystick, startled by Cameron snapping at him.

“Stop maneuvering.”

“I’m not touching anything.” Now Nathan had both hands hovering in the air over his controls.

Cameron’s eyes were darting about her console, as her fingers danced across the smooth touch-screen surface in an attempt to deal with the problem. She knew something was wrong. She just had to figure out what it was, and then come up with a solution. “The thruster is firing on its own.”

“Well shut it down and switch to backups.” Nathan was well aware that she already knew what to do, and that
telling
her to do it was unnecessary. But they had not gotten along since day one, and he wasn’t sure exactly how to deal with her when he was at the helm. So he had been forced to chose the only logic course, and just tell her everything, just to cover his own butt.

“Working on it,” she assured him, more calmly now that she knew what needed to be done. “It’s not responding. The right roll thruster is still stuck open and firing.”

“Get it shut down, Cam. We’re going into a roll.”

“Backups are not responding.”

Suddenly, an alarm sounded, followed by a computerized voice.
“Collision Warning. Collision Warning.”

“Range to station?” Nathan requested after the computer voice alerted him to the additional problem. They were coming dangerously close to the station, and if they didn’t slow their rate of approach soon, the thrusters would not be powerful enough to keep them from colliding and causing massive damage.

“Twenty kilometers,” Cam responded after glancing at the range readout. She immediately turned her attention back to the thruster problem. “I still can’t get it to stop firing.”

“Cut the fuel flow,” Nathan suggested.

“Already tried, no good. I’m jettisoning the entire maneuvering pod.”

“What?” Nathan’s eyes went wide. “What the hell am I supposed to maneuver with?”

Cameron rolled her eyes, wondering why she had to explain the obvious to him. “If we jettison the pod, we stop the burn
before
the roll becomes unrecoverable.” She was abnormally calm, talking as if she were reading from a manual.

“What about the fuel flow?”

“The unrestricted flow will be sensed by the line pressure monitors, causing the fail-safes to trigger at the source end of the line.”

Nathan had no idea what she was talking about. But it didn’t matter as she wasn’t waiting for him to agree with her.

“Pod is away.” she announced confidently. “Now try and get us out of this roll.”

Nathan grabbed the joystick, again pulling it to the left. But the Aurora handled differently than the Reliant had in simulations. The Reliant was a much older ship, and was designed to fly on more gentle maneuvering curves. The Aurora was not as restricted in her movements and could assume almost any flight attitude the pilot desired. It was like comparing an airliner to a fighter jet, and Nathan had little experience in flying the latter.

“Our roll is starting to oscillate,” Cameron warned as she watched the ship’s attitude display. As the ship rolled on her longitudinal axis, the ends of that axis were starting to trace circles that were widening slightly with each revolution.

“Slave the bow docking thrusters on the port-side into the stick to replace the missing pod,” Nathan ordered.

“They’re not going to be powerful enough,” she warned as she followed his instructions.

“Override the safeties on the chamber pressure to get more power out of them.”

“They’ll blow,” she warned. Cameron switched her comm channel to send an urgent message ship-wide. “Attention, Attention. Emergency evacuation. Sections twelve through fourteen. Decks C, D, and E. Seal off forward primary bulkheads.”

Damn it.
I should’ve thought of that
.

“Overriding safeties. Maximum chamber pressure reset to twenty-five percent above normal.”

Nathan again pulled the joystick to the left, this time favoring the bow thrusters by angling the stick slightly forward as well. More alarms started sounding, and Nathan noticed a red warning light flashing on Cameron’s console, increasing the size of the knot in his stomach. Suddenly, the flight console shook slightly and Nathan could feel his seat wobble, as a distant muffled explosion was heard.

“The chamber blew,” Cameron said. “We’ve got a hull breach, Deck D, section thirteen. Damage control teams responding.”

“Casualties?”

“Unknown,” she answered.

“Range to station?” The explosion in the docking port chamber had done exactly what Nathan suspected it might do, adding enough counter force to take the oscillation out of their roll and allow the remaining maneuvering thrusters to stop it altogether. Of course, Cameron didn’t bother to acknowledge that he had successfully stopped the roll. But they were still closing on the station, and would soon collide with it if he didn’t stop their approach. Nathan knew that he couldn’t use the forward braking thrusters, as there was only one left in working order on the right of the bow. That would put them into a slow flat spin instead of slowing their approach.

Ten kilometers,” Cameron updated.

The warbling collision alarm became more frequent as the computer voice upgraded the warning.
“Collision Alert. Collision Alert.”
Nathan knew he had to do something fast before it was too late. He glanced over at Cameron, thinking he saw a momentary look of satisfaction on her face. She was sure it was about to be another failure with Nathan Scott at the helm.

“Warn the station to evacuate the decks facing us,” he ordered as he pulled the stick back hard. “Pitching over.”

“What?” She hadn’t expected that.

“Do it!” Nathan watched the attitude indicator, stealing glances at the forward view screens. The view of the approaching station dropped quickly away, replaced by the black field of stars. He was flipping the ship end-over to point her tail at the station. “And bring the main drive online!”

“You’re going to cook that station!” she argued as she sent out the warning message.

“I’m just gonna singe them a little,” he muttered to himself.

He pushed the stick forward and held it just enough to stop the end-over flip. With the Aurora now coasting toward the station tail first, he gave the order. “Give me a one percent burn on the mains.”

Nathan sensed Cameron’s hesitation, sending her an insistent look.

“Firing the mains at one percent.” She tapped a few buttons and brought the main propulsion system into play. “I hope they got out in time,” she added, as if pointing out his mistake.

Although Nathan appeared confident, he felt like he was about to piss himself. Apparently, the captain hadn’t been exaggerating when he bragged that his sim operators would make him cry.

“Collision Alert. Collision Alert.”

“Range to station?”

“Five kilometers,” she answered. “Closing at five hundred meters per second.”

“Mains?”

“Burning at one percent.”

“Any casualty reports yet?”

Cameron looked at the message board on her console. “Five injured, twelve missing.”

“Damn it!” he muttered.

“Collision Alert. Collision Alert.”

“Four kilometers, closing at three-seventy-five per second.”

Nathan wanted to add more power to the mains, but he knew that if he wasn’t already cooking the hull of the station, increasing his burn would.

Three kilometers.” Cameron reported calmly. “Two fifty closure.”

Nathan’s pulse was racing, and he felt his heart beating in his throat. He glanced over at Cameron. She was cool and calm, just like always. But then again, she wasn’t the one who was going to have to explain to the captain why they barbequed the station.

“Two kilometers,” Cameron updated. Nathan could sense the satisfaction in her statement.

“Collision Alert. Collision Alert.”

Nathan’s optimism was almost gone.
It’s not going to work.

“Message from the station,” she reported. “There hull temp is critical. They report structural failure in thirty seconds.”

It felt to Nathan as if Cameron were saying ‘I told you so.’

“One kilometer, one hundred closure.”

“All hands! Brace for impact!” Nathan resigned.

“Eight hundred meters, fifty closure,” she updated.

Nathan expected the computer voice to remind him of the impending collision, but it did not. They
were
going to strike the station, but there was a
chance
it might only be a bump.”

“Five hundred meters,” Cameron announced, pausing for a moment before continuing. She couldn’t believe what her instruments were showing her. “Zero closure,” she added. She felt like she had been betrayed at the last second, just as she was about to witness another crushing blow to her adversary.

“Kill the mains!” he ordered. “All stop!”

“Mains are offline,” she announced as she shutdown all maneuvering and propulsion systems. “All systems reporting all stop.”

Nathan breathed a sigh of relief. “Damn, that was close.”

“Attention. All hands secure from collision alert,” Cameron announced. “Repeat, secure from collision alert.”

Nathan should’ve thought of that one too, but at the moment he didn’t care. He was just relieved that he hadn’t destroyed the station.

“We
are
still rolling slightly,” she pointed out to him, making sure that he realized it was not a complete victory.

Suddenly, the lights in the room brightened, the projection screens surrounding them turned blue, and the back half of the room swung open.

Nathan nearly leapt from his seat as he left the simulator, not waiting for any critique.

“Fifteen minutes!” the sim controller called out to Nathan as he passed by.

Nathan waived acknowledgment as he exited the simulation center and headed down the corridor.

“You’re at the helm on the next one, Ensign Taylor,” the technician informed Cameron as she calmly got up and stretched her muscles. They had been sitting in the simulator for more than three hours.

“No problem,” she smiled on her way out.

The sim controller sitting behind his console above and behind the simulator bay just shook his head in disbelief. “That is one icy bitch,” he commented to the floor tech after Cameron had left the room.

Just then, the comm system buzzed. “Flight Simulations, Lieutenant Jacobs,” the controller answered after pushing the speaker button to take the call.

“Work Taylor just as hard,”
the captain’s voice announced.

“Yes Sir,” the controller answered as the line went dead.

“Damn, he was watching that?” the floor tech asked.