Dremiks (8 page)

“Very well, then. If there are no issues that need to be addressed here, I suggest we all return to our duties. Further reports and updates will be expected on schedule.” He tapped his tablet and made sure to make eye contact with Lieutenant Guttmann. The engineering department had a crucial timetable about which the captain required hourly updates. As the officers rose and negotiated past each other and toward the door, the captain remained seated.

“A moment, Commander.”

She was nearly to the door; standing right beside him, she looked down at the top of the captain’s head, unable to read his expression. She backed up and stood stiffly at the side of the table, waiting for the others to depart.

“Anything I need to know about?”

Maggie ran through a, disturbingly long, mental list of possible transgressions. If the captain was probing for faults, expecting her to blurt something out in a guilty fit, he would be disappointed. “Only what is in my reports, sir”

Hill turned his head and looked up at her. He blinked so slowly that he was almost staring at her. His expression was blank, without a movement of lips or eyebrows. “Indeed.” He waited, hoping that his silence and stern expression would break her resolve and have her explain the eye-play between herself and Ryan.

She stared straight ahead, standing stiffly but not quite at attention. She’d had a lifetime to practice avoiding probing stares and harsh glares. As long as she didn’t make direct eye contact and kept her expression neutral, the captain would be unable to ferret out whatever information he was after. It was an annoying game, but one that seemed to define their interactions.

Hill stood. He waited a moment longer before mentally shelving the question until a later date. “I will be making a round of the decks at one hour prior to jump. Please assume officer of the deck status while I am away from the bridge.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” She waited until she heard the door snap shut behind the departing captain, then, exhaled a long breath.

One deck down, Dr. Fortunas stepped to the side and allowed Dr. Ruger to enter the science and medical area ahead of him. “Totally unobtrusive experiments?” Her tone indicated she doubted his assessment.

“Unless you are a cockroach, in which case the experiments promise to be quite invasive.”

Cassie shuddered. “I hate those things. Please make sure that none escape.”

Fortunas chuckled. “Except for those I coat in chocolate for my staff, I assure you that all my bugs are properly contained.” He enjoyed her look of horror and added to the medical doctor’s agitation by winking at her.

“You are incorrigible.”

“Indubitably.” He stopped by his desk to pick up a data disk. “By the by, what
is
the story between our dear Vice Chancellor and Commander O’Connell?”

Cassie blinked and then blinked again. “What? Maggie and Ryan Hill? What are you talking about?”

“I thought, perhaps, there was a politically motivated association between them. Ryan seems quite tight with Admiral O’Connell. Never mind, obviously my old eyes are playing tricks on me.”

Dr. Ruger harrumphed. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with your eyes, just your suspicious mind. If you’ll excuse me, I have to make sure I’ve completed the captain’s checklist. I’d hate to be thrown in the head for dereliction of duty.”

Fortunas stared at her and then threw his head back with a shout of laughter. Still chortling and shaking his head, he explained, “I think you mean “brig” dear. “Brig” is the word for jail. The “head” is the bathroom.”

She threw up her hands in exasperation. “Why do I even bother?” When she walked away Dr. Fortunas was still laughing. He motioned his assistant to his side and began to set up the few experiments the captain
would
allow him to run during a jump.

***

Commander O’Connell matched her stride to Lieutenant Price’s. He turned his head and nodded to her. “Ma’am.”

“I’m going for a run, Lieutenant. You’re welcome to join me if you like.”

Price shook his head. “No, thank you, ma’am. I maxed out my last cardio-vascular test, you know. I find I can stay in top condition with a run just once every few days. Since you’re going for a run though, do you mind if I pop into the simulator? I need to shave another few seconds off my docking maneuvers. I know I topped the best scores in the fleet before we left, but I don’t want to get rusty. Someone might set a new standard while we’re out here.”

Maggie didn’t know whether to be astounded that the younger officer had so blatantly bragged, to her face, about beating her records or to be amazed that he could be so obviously self-absorbed and not run into the bulkheads out of sheer oblivion. Every other time Price made a self-aggrandizing statement or issued a thinly veiled challenge, she told herself she was overreacting. At the moment, the commander was convinced the young man was just being an ass.

“Yes, you’d best go on. I changed the difficulty setting on the docking simulation to better mimic real conditions. Beating a record in a simulator set on easy mode is hardly worth mentioning. I’ll see you on deck for your shift.” She nodded in dismissal and turned to head down the side corridor to her quarters. The almost palpable sense of Price’s irritation made the smile on her face a fraction more smug.

***

“Captain Hill was most distressed that you decided not to attend his briefing.”

Chancellor Trell waved a pudgy hand over the table in front of him, indicating that Ryan Hill should help himself to the assortment of sweets. “Tut tut for him then. I’m sure you filled in admirably. I hardly have time for his little militaristic power plays.” Trell wiggled in his seat, reminding Ryan of nothing so much as a fat larvae struggling to slide back into a safe home. “Ryan, the military will try to assert authority where-ever and when-ever they can. It is up to us to keep this mission on track.” He pointed a finger at Ryan. “You should be able to control your brother’s urge to dominate. He can’t command us. This is a civilian mission.”

“I’ll do my best, Chancellor, but my brother can be most obstinate.” Declining sugar for his tea, Ryan crossed his feet and slouched slightly in his chair.

Trell snorted. The sound was repulsive; Ryan could not help wincing. “This latest order about limited communications, I find the timing questionable. Surely the admiral would have informed me of this prior to our departure.”

The admiral
had
informed Ryan Hill, but he chose to keep that information to himself. “I don’t think it will be an issue. Young Ensign Robertson is in charge of communications. I’m sure we can escape the notice of a green boy.”

Trell’s second chin wobbled when he shook his head. “Don’t underestimate Robertson. His father has an ear for our cause. I would not make an enemy of him.”

“I know who our friends are, Chancellor. I remind you that the military is my problem. You still trust me to handle this, of course?”

Trell rushed to assure his deputy of his continued support. When Ryan answered a page from his wife and asked to be excused, Trell was in a more amicable state of mind. “Of course. We must keep the good lady happy, mustn’t we?”

The younger Hill brother shot the chancellor an assessing look. His features returned to neutrality when he discerned no hidden meaning in the portly man’s words. “Yes. The trials of marriage...” He forced a laugh and departed. The door had barely shut behind him before a scowl marred his features.

In his quarters, Ryan found his wife in a state of hysterics.

“Calm down, Marissa. It’s just a small change in our schedule.”

“Small?” Her shrieks echoed in the tight confines of their room. “It’s too damn soon! They will discover this too early and then what will we do? It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.
You
said...”

Ryan Hill walked over to his wife and slapped her across the face. She reeled backwards from the blow. In shock, she sat on the edge of the bed, holding her cheek. “Control yourself. You knew the timing could be affected this way. You will watch your tongue and keep yourself together, is that understood? Any more outburst like this and you risk giving away everything.”

“How dare you hit me?” She hissed the question at him while pushing back her long black hair.

“I dare Marissa. I dare quite a lot, and I dare
for
you. Never forget it again. I have work to do before the jump. I suggest you lie down and get some rest. You will need it.” He left her sitting there. He could feel her glare on his back; he didn’t care.

***

Outside the bulkheads and corridors of the ship, Neptune slipped past. The
Hudson
slowed, as if taking a deep breath before plunging into the blackness beyond.

Chapter 5

At two hours until jump, as announced on the ship-wide broadcast system, O’Connell relieved the captain as officer of the deck. Lieutenant Price strapped himself into the co-pilot’s seat but did not remove helm control from computer guidance. Once buckled in his seat, Tony began running through the co-pilot’s one hundred-fifty point pre-jump checklist. Most of the items on his list were redundancies shared with O’Connell’s pilot’s list. When it came to conduit jumps, the ISA felt double checked was double sure.

O’Connell didn’t immediately settle into her own seat. She’d be strapped into the pilot’s chair for the better part of four hours and was in no hurry to start that stretch any sooner than necessary. Jumps were, to her, an exercise in hyperactive boredom. Everyone on the ship scuttled about frantically checking systems before strapping into seats and… waiting. Once the navigational computers told the engines to begin their phased jump sequence there was nothing for the pilots or anyone else to do. They sat and stared at computer screens and hoped everything worked as intended. Price and O’Connell would both have their hands on the controls in case something did go wrong, but any actual piloting of the
Hudson
during the jump was done completely by the computer systems.

Around the crowded bridge, military personnel moved to their stations with swift steps and intent expressions. If anyone shared the commander’s cynical view of the pre-jump routine, he didn’t show it. Ensign Robertson checked the large, back-lit, star chart on the wall above his station and then double checked the readings on his tablet. He caught Price watching him and gave the co-pilot a short nod.

Behind Robertson, Chief Turner’s post was still empty. He was with the captain, making a final round of the crew spaces. The chief’s role during the jump was to monitor the bridge engineering readouts. Lieutenant Guttmann would remain in the engineering bay for the jump, where he had actual control of the systems that started the jump.

Beside the chief’s station, Ensign Chi was in his chair. He wasn’t strapped in, yet, preferring to wait until the last possible moment. Having his movements restricted disconcerted Chi. It was one of the reasons he’d never made it past basic flight instruction.

“Have you begun your checklist, Ensign?”

Chi sat a little straighter in his chair before replying. “Yes ma’am!” He pointed at a monitor and control panel that showed all of the
Hudson’s
vital systems and damage control stations. Computers monitored the air pressure, oxygen mixture, temperature, and structural integrity of each room or passageway on the ship. Lights and alarms would sound at Chi’s station if anything changed for the worse. All the lights were green. A “green board”, like submarine “dive boards” of the 20th century, meant that the
Hudson
was ready to enter the jump conduit. “I have a green board. The cargo bays are sealed. Once the captain has finished his tour of the decks, I will seal the remaining hatches.”

“Good. The last thing we need is a fifty ton cargo container pinging around a vented bay.”

Chi ducked his head to cover his grin. He’d enjoy seeing the mayhem she described, but as an officer he could hardly admit it. “No, ma’am, that would definitely FUBAR my week.”

O’Connell cut her eyes from intently studying the board to focus on his face. She forced a stern frown. “More like your career, Ensign. See that it doesn’t happen.” She nodded in dismissal and walked away, fighting to suppress her own grin. The image of an irate Captain Hill as cargo pods galloped about in a depressurized hold had her fighting a chortle of amusement.

In engineering, Lieutenant Guttmann stood at rigid attention while the captain reviewed the engineer’s pre-jump criteria.

“Carbon compressor shut off in...” The captain glanced at his wrist. “Five minutes?”

“Yes sir. Ten minutes after that the tubes from the compressors to the fuel conversion tanks will be vented to remove any combustible residue.”

Captain Hill nodded. He knew the check list by heart; he knew Guttmann knew the list by heart, and he knew Guttmann knew he knew. It was all a part of the captain’s constant training of his officers. He felt it was his duty to make sure each officer was as hyper-aware of his, or her, duty as the captain himself was. Hill’s driving need for perfect adherence to procedure and training was such an ingrained part of his personality that he would have been shocked at the annoyance he caused others.

For once, though, Lieutenant Guttmann was not irritated by the captain’s compulsive attention to detail. The problem with routines and procedures, in Swede’s opinion, was that they became so commonplace that people got sloppy and skimmed over a checklist or duty log. Knowing that he was as prone to this inattention as anyone else, the lieutenant welcomed someone triple-checking his work.

Dremikians had never shared with humans precisely how they had discovered jump conduits. The special hallways between galaxies were the result of the expansion, and contraction, of star systems. Like hollow threads connecting the stars, jump conduits swallowed light and pushed matter to astounding speeds. Technically the
Hudson
would not be moving faster than light, since light moved faster within a conduit. They would, however, be moving far faster than the previously assumed “speed of light”.