Warpath (52 page)

“Not from where I was
sitting,” Carnie said. “You did lead us through that, and you
took the most dangerous targets on, like that antimatter missile. I
don’t think there’s one of us who would have thought of
detonating it on purpose so it caught the tails of those Order
fighters, and if anyone did think of it, I don’t think they’d
have the guts. Except for maybe Hot Chow, but he was out of the
fight. Oh, and you saved his ass too. What’s this, man, why am I
not getting through to you here? This is just a gut check. What would
you tell one of us if we had a bad mission?”

Minh-Chu couldn’t
help but admit that the young pilot was right, and deactivated the
interface that would allow him to demote himself. “Thank you,
Carnie. You’ve saved Slick from doing double duty, commanding the
Triton’s and the Revenge’s fighter wings.”

“Buy me a drink
sometime, Angry Grape if you can find it,” Carnie said. “Besides,
did you think about who Slick would eventually put in charge of this
outfit?”

“You’d be close to
the lead, your stats are better than almost everyone here.”
Minh-Chu suddenly realized that he was standing next to a solution to
another problem. “I’m putting you in for Squadron Leader along
with Sticky. I have to take another look into the third spot, but you
two are going to start taking command level qualifiers tomorrow if we
stay in transit.”

“I don’t know if
I’m ready,” Carnie said.

Minh-Chu pressed the
STOP button on the elevator so it would continue moving to the
command deck. “That’s what the qualifiers are for. Oh, and start
memorizing regulations, they’ll be part of the command qualifier.”

“Yes, Sir,” Carnie
said with a little smirk. “Holy shit,” he muttered to himself.

“Oh, and stow the
language,” Minh-Chu said. “That’s not how Officers sound.”

“Yeah, I’ll work on
it.”

The lift doors opened
and Minh-Chu turned towards Carnie, shaking his hand. “Thank you,
and good luck. Remember, this isn’t a reward, this is an
opportunity to do more for everyone in your wing and on your ship.”

“Thank you, Ronin,”
he replied.

“You’d better pass
those quals,” Minh-Chu said as he walked out of the elevator car
into the relatively narrow concourse. “I’m not going to run this
wing alone, you know what they say.”

“Misery loves
company?” Carnie replied as the doors started to close.

“True, but I was
thinking; ‘when this job drives me crazy, I’m going to take you
with me.’”

“No one says that!”
Carnie shouted after him.

Minh-Chu joined
Stephanie on the Flight Operations Deck above the main bridge to help
as the Samurai Squadron and a few personnel shuttles made their way
to them from the Triton. Jake enjoyed seeing him on the bridge, upper
or lower half, it didn’t matter. As commander of their fighter
wing, he would be spending more and more time there.

It was a strange
experience seeing Minh-Chu and Stephanie work together though.
Minh-Chu had only been there a moment before Jake realized how all
the people who survived his previous lives were coming together in
his new one.

Jake hadn’t seen
Stephanie laugh since he woke up, not even during the welcoming party
on the Solar Forge, but Minh-Chu had the magic combination to crack
her stern expression. Her mood was so improved that she was leisurely
rocking from toe to heel as she oversaw landing operations from the
command podium above the bridge. “All craft are aboard and secure,
Sir,” she said to him through the intercom.

“Thank you,
Stephanie, good work,” Jake replied. The counter said it took them
only nine minutes to recover Samurai Squadron and three personnel
shuttles, two of which weren’t planned.

“The Triton is
forming the wormhole that will take us to waypoint three,” Kadri
announced.

“Helm,” Jake
addressed. “Careful entry, please. Don’t get too close to the
Triton.”

“Aye, Captain,”
Ashley replied.

The bridge was half
empty of familiar faces. Finn, Agameg, and Frost had left their
subordinate officers at their posts while they made inspections,
supervised damage control and made plans to rebuild based on the
supplies they had on hand. The Revenge was crossing the threshold
into the wormhole behind the Triton when Jake received a surprising
report.

Agameg and Finn had
found a way for a component inside the dimension drive to safely
project shield barriers without requiring an emitter directly behind
the protected area. It was so simple, and they were able to use a
small piece of software written aboard the Triton to enable it
immediately. Jake looked the procedure over and checked for risks.

The part of the
dimension drive that created the funnel through outer-dimension space
was the key, and in normal space it could create powerful barriers
that stopped objects and high energy from getting in, while letting
anything they liked leave from the inside of the field. The system
that opened dimensional rifts would not be used at all, so Jake
opened a channel to Finn. “You can implement this right now?” he
asked.

“Absolutely. It’ll
give us time to repair and replace the forward emitters and increase
the rest of our shield defensive capability by…” Finn replied
trailing off.

“Approximately three
hundred percent,” Agameg finished for him.

“I know, I was just
double checking that number,” Finn said. “It seems high, even
though we’re going to have to feed those systems about thirty seven
percent of our generated power to do it.”

“How long will it
take to calibrate the system?” Jake asked.

“First, Agameg is
right, we get a minimum of two hundred and fifty percent boost in our
shield intensity, and a maximum of three hundred thirty five percent.
I know, that sounds huge, and it is, but we can’t open a
dimensional rift while we’re doing this. So, if we want to jump we
have to shut down our enhanced shields, then wait a little over a
minute for the capacitors to recharge before we open a rift.”

“I think we can live
with that, considering we can barely shield the nose of the ship
without it,” Jake said. “Now, calibration?”

“I’m almost
finished,” Agameg said. “I only had to feed the shape of the ship
into the computer, add a few metres in all directions, allow for a
pocket of space around our launch bays, and now it is complete.”

“Good work, you two
work three times as fast together,” Jake said.

“The new program came
from the Triton, actually,” Finn said. “Ayan and the artificial
intelligence there finished putting it together while she was on her
way here. We’d never have been able to do it without her code.”

“It was easier than
it looks,” Ayan said as she stepped onto the bridge. She had a
hard, meter long case slung over her shoulder in addition to her
personal carry bag. An Ensign at the rear of the bridge took them
from her. “You can put that in the Captain’s quarters,” she
said. “Thank you.”

“Welcome aboard,”
Jake said.

“Thank you,” Ayan
said, walking to him. She stopped beside his command chair, resting
her hand on the back of his neck and leaning against it. “The
information you got from Lorander is going to make using the
technology in the dimension drive a lot more possible. I’ve been
reading through it non-stop since I boarded the Triton, and there are
absolutely no mysteries about the systems in the dimension drive.
Lorander started studying the prototype aboard the Fallen Star as
soon as Shozo approached them. Now we have all their work on the
technology.”

“So, you’re happy
with what I was able to get out of them?” Jake asked.

“Jealous, to be
honest,” Ayan said. “All I ever got were kind words and
philosophy lessons, which were invaluable, if I’m being honest.
They made seeing you in a stasis tube much easier during those six
weeks. I don’t know what they saw in you that convinced them that
we should have an instruction manual to improve every technology we
already have the keys to.”

“Pardon, Captain,”
Liara said; addressing Ayan. “Did you say every kind of
technology?”

Jake couldn’t help
but recognize that, not only was the entire bridge listening to his
and Ayan’s conversation, but they were glancing at her and smiling
a little as well. Were they just happy to see her? Was it the
spectacle of seeing him and Ayan together that keep them glancing?

“There are
interactive documents dedicated to teaching us to move forward with
everything from agriculture to weaponry. The weaponry portion of the
database is thinnest, but I don’t think they saw a need to tell us
how to weaponize technology, it’s something we’re already a
little too good at. Have you had much time to look through the
information package?” she asked Jake.

“Honestly? Not
really,” he replied. “Running the ship and trying to keep my
balance has kept me busy.”

Ayan cocked her head,
concerned and curious.

“It seems all that
extra muscle growth in the tank had a side effect. At least, that’s
my theory. Our medical technician found a small tumour, it was
causing problems with my inner ear. It’s gone now, but it’s going
to take a little time for me to find my equilibrium again.”

“So, that’s what’s
wrong!” Ashley exclaimed from the helm. “Sorry, eavesdropping.
It’s just, I didn’t know why you needed help walking around
awhile ago, a few of us were worried.”

“It’s all right,
Ash,” Jake said. “I’ll be steady on my feet again in a couple
days.”

“Okay, whew,”
Ashley said. “Nothing serious.”

“Do you have time for
a break?” Ayan asked in whisper.

Jake checked their
disposition in the wormhole and the ship status then nodded. “We
don’t come out of this wormhole for about forty minutes.”

Stephanie surrendered
control of the Flight Operations Deck to Minh-Chu, and descended the
short staircase at the rear of the bridge by picking her feet up and
sliding down the railings on her hands. “Good time for a break,
Captain,” she said.

“I’ll take half an
hour,” Jake replied, carefully standing up. The deck didn’t seem
to tilt nearly as much as it did the last time he attempted to rise.

Ayan tucked herself
under one arm and walked off the bridge with him. She chuckled a
little when they finished the short journey. “I remember seeing how
close your quarters were to the bridge on the schematics, but
actually making the trip in ten steps, seven for you, is another
thing entirely. If you’re not careful, you’ll serve your whole
command in a ten by fifteen metre area.”

“Not if I can help
it,” Jake replied. “I’ve never wanted to explore the ship more
than I have today. Getting knocked off my feet, not being able to
help with repairs or check damage myself has been a pain in the ass.”

“No one expects you
to do any of that,” Ayan said. “Your place is the command
centre.”

“I’m a mission
driven Captain. I’m too good on the ground, or in a boarding team
to get stuck on the bridge full time,” Jake said. “At least, I
used to be.” A wobble in his balance made him overcompensate,
fighting the support of his suit, and he leaned against the lockers
beside his door, pulling Ayan into his arms. It wasn’t intentional,
but he was glad to have her to himself in a private space, even if it
was for a short time. “Lapse in balance there.”

“Sure, sure,” she
said, looking up at him.

“While we’re here,”
he said before kissing her. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders
and reciprocated warmly. The world spun a little, but he did his best
to ignore it, and held her, one hand around her waist, the other
across her back. Ayan leaned against him fully, and even through his
light armour the feeling of her in his arms, the long, open kiss, the
light rose and lilac scent of her was nearly overwhelming. Nothing he
could remember from his life could compare. He did not press the
situation, but kept trading intimacy, enjoying the moment with her
without showing intentions for more.

He didn’t have
expectations or designs for the half hour they were stealing, but
having time to be with her was something he needed, though he didn’t
know it until she was there. The sound of her breathing, of her body
against his, her parted lips and the play they enjoyed between was
more than enough. Jake would not have been able to guess how long
they spent together against his storage locker, but when it ended he
knew it was longer than he would have guessed, and not long enough.

He drew back a little,
offering an opportunity for the long moment to end, but she followed
him, and they continued. A short time later she began to withdraw,
and he squeezed her to him a little, she squealed and giggled lightly
against his lips. A parting kiss later, and they were extracting
themselves from each other. She brushed her red curls out of her
blushing face and straightened her vacsuit, even though it had
already adjusted itself. “I swear that’s not why I wanted to drag
you off to your quarters,” she said through a smile. “Not this
time, anyhow.”

“Sure, sure,” he
said.

“No regrets, though,”
she said. “I brought you something.” Ayan picked up the hard case
that was delivered to his quarters and opened it to reveal a
collapsed adaptable bed frame. “I plundered the Triton’s storage
for all the spare beds they had. There are two crates with
seventy-five of these in each one of them. I didn’t mark them, so
no one knows what’s inside. I put a low-priority order in for more
too.”

“A hundred fifty of
these?” Jake asked, taking the slender frame, collapsed to no more
than a thin pair of poles a meter long, in his hands. “We’ll
start giving these to senior officers and work our way down.”

“I thought you’d
say that,” Ayan replied.

“And the Chiefs, I
have to make sure they get them.”