Chapter 60: The First Jump

I stepped through the doorway. Ensign Munfree jumped to her feet and turned to look at me. “Captain,” she shouted.

I nodded. “Helm, can you plot a course for system Gee One Dash Six Five Nine?”

“Sure,” Lance Corporal Kelly said. He turned to look at the controls.

“Captain?” Ensign Munfree asked.

“I need an all ship intercom channel,” I said. My own words felt weighty on my tongue. “This announcement won’t be welcome.”

Chaz sat down and turned to her controls. She seemed to move mechanically. After several seconds she turned to me and held up her left hand. “In three, two,” she began.

The chime I was learning to recognize already rang out. I waited a moment and then took a deep breath. “Crew,” I began. “If you haven’t heard a message drone just arrived in the system. It is part of an early detection system that was set up in this system and other nearby ones. Something has entered a system that contains planets the Sa’arm can exploit. We have been ordered to go and verify the report.”

“I know we just boarded the ship this morning, and that we’re still fixing all of the problems the ship has, but this mission is that important. We’ll be leaving orbit in two hours. If you want to take the time to dictate a quick message for your concubines, you can. Ensign Munfree will see that they get sent,” I said.

As soon as I stopped speaking, Ensign Munfree spun her chair around so she could face me. “We’re going to another system?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said. “Once the engine repairs are complete, we’ll break orbit.”

“You’re right, I was sure we’d get a week,” Chaz said.

“It was always a possibility. Sadly, Ipanema can’t go with us or in our place. Their engines are down due to the surge they had,” I said.

“I understand,” Ensign Munfree said. “Can I go and compose a message to Jezame?”

“Go,” I said. “I’ll man the bridge for now.”

Ensign Munfree got up and rushed out of the room. I moved to sit in the captain’s chair. Blaine surprised me by sitting up and then turning to look at me. “We’ll need two or three hours at seventy percent power to escape the system and activate the jump drive. Once we activate the engine, we’ll need about thirty-five hours to reach the system.”

“It’s that close?” I asked.

“Not really. The system is about thirty-seven light years away,” Blaine said. “We will be pushing the jump drive to close to full speed, which is about twenty-eight light years per day.”

“We are that close to the Sa’arm?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Blaine said. “None of my training sessions included a description of Sa’arm ships and how fast they are.”

“Understood. Do you need time to send a message to your ladies?” I asked.

“We need someone at the helm,” He said.

“Can you set up so the orbit is on automatic? I’ll remain in the captain’s chair and can call if there is a need for someone to hurry here,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Blaine asked.

“Yes,” I said firmly. “I know that Terrence is on break. If I see a problem I’ll call him.”

“Thank you,” Blaine said as he stood up. “The orbit is stable and should be fine for the next forty minutes. I’ll be back in less than twenty.”

“Go,” I said.

“Will you be sending a message to your concubines?” he asked as he stood up.

“I’ll compose something before we break orbit,” I said. “But for now I’ll watch the displays. Honestly, I’m not sure what I can say at the moment.”

“You’ll know what to say,” Blaine said. “One thing I believe is that you always know what to say.”

I was about to nod, when the intercom chime rang. “Captain Parker?” I heard Ensign Daniels say.

“Go ahead,” I replied.

“What information do you have on this mission?” he asked.

“Sergeant Griffith gave us the information as it was transmitted to the planetary AI unit. All we know is that the system is a Gee class one several light years away. Apparently the Confederacy left some kind of detection device that was programmed to launch the message drone if anything appeared in the system. Unfortunately, it didn’t bring any video or sensor recordings with it,” I replied.

“So we have no clue what we might need?” he asked.

“Get the engines fixed first,” I said. “Then the medical pod and after that the rail gun. The missile station can be last. If we are firing four missiles at a time, I’ve taken us in too deep.”

“The engines are fixed,” Ensign Daniels said. “We’ve run flow tests on all conduits. We can go to one hundred percent on them without danger. The only problem is that the control station isn’t ready. With only one station operational I don’t want to go higher than seventy percent on the engines.”

“Lance Corporal Kelly put together a navigation plan that only requires seventy percent power to leave the system. He did say he wanted flank speed for the jump drive,” I replied.

“That won’t be a problem. The jump drive operates without requiring maximum flow output. We’ll be able to give you the speed you need.”

“We have more than thirty hours before we emerge in the system. That should give everyone a chance to rest,” I said.

“Everyone?” Ensign Daniels said. “You do realize that you don’t have concubines who will drag you off to your home when you drive yourself too hard.”

“I never,” I began.

“Tell someone who wasn’t paying attention,” Ensign Daniels said. “Like that Captain Prescott idiot. He’s probably going to get more out of Ipanema than some captains, but Corsica will win all the accolades in this area of space and that’s because you put in sixteen to twenty hour days. But we had your concubines there to keep you from burning out.”

“Someone needed to do the work,” I said.

“You did more than your share,” Ensign Daniels replied. “And I’m sure you will again when you get the chance.”

“We had more than a few crew who weren’t ready for this,” I said. “We have a few who still aren’t really ready to head into battle.”

“You can’t fight the battle for them,” Ensign Daniels said. “And you should send some message to your concubines. Just to let them know.”

“I’m not sure what to say. After all, I’m about to take my ship into an unknown system possibly to fight an enemy ship we know very little about. I’m taking a huge risk,” I said.

“We all knew we’d have to take risks like this someday,” Warren said. “And you’ve done all you can. Now, I’ll make sure the ship is as fixed up as we can get it. You start thinking about how we’ll move through the system and find this ship once we get there.”

“That I can do,” I said. “Let me know as each repair is completed.”

“On it,” Ensign Daniels said. “Although I’m going to have Truit and Ambrose stand down for at least four hours. They have gone above and beyond in keeping everything together and getting the engines repaired.

“Understood,” I said. “I’d like to see the majority of the crew working only about eight hours out of every twenty-four when we can do that. And I never want to hear that someone worked more than sixteen.”

“You need to hold yourself to the same standard,” Ensign Daniels said with a laugh.

“Once Ensign White comes back off break I’ll take the time to rest,” I said. “For now, I have command.”

“You always have command on Corsica,” Ensign Daniels said. “But I should go and give my men their break.”

“Carry on,” I replied. I waved a hand in the air dismissively.

Silence was my only reply. I turned to the chair controls and activated the display for the navigation and propulsion station. The display took me a few minutes to figure out, but soon was obvious that Blaine had left the ship in a stable orbit.

I set up an alert that would chime if the ship shifted in the orbit and then tried to place a call down to the planet. There was a moment where I was sure I had failed and then Ashley’s cheerful voice rang out.

“Mark! I thought you were supposed to be on Corsica,” she said.

“I am. But I wanted to make a quick call. Is everyone around?” I replied.

“I think Matti, Erica and Angelique are walking on the lakeshore. The water is so clear. Erica has already asked if she is allowed to have a canoe replicated,” Ashley said cheerfully. “I can call the others in. They have set up some lounge chairs and are enjoying the morning sun.”

“If you can do that quickly. I only have a few minutes for this call,” I said.

“Won’t take that long. They are set up just outside. Oh, Aine had a good point. We really need doors on both sides of our home. The one we have faces the lake which is great, but you have to walk around if you want to go to where the playing fields will be,” Ashley said. Her voice seemed to be fading away as she talked.

“Guys! Mark called us. It sounds like he can’t talk long, so if you want to join in you need to run into the house,” I heard Ashley shouted.

“What?” Lenore asked. “He’s supposed to be on Corsica. Why would he be calling?”

“Because we got a mission,” I replied. “I’ve given all my crew permission to either call or record a message during the next two hours.”

“Two?” Tatyana asked. She sounded nervous. “What happens in two hours?”

“Corsica will be heading out. A remote warning station in another system has sent out an alert that the system has been visited by a ship of some kind. My orders are to head to that system and find out what there is to find,” I said.

“But what if you don’t return?” Ashley asked.

“If anything happens to me, I’d ask that Morgan look after all of you,” I said. “He knows Lenore, Ashley and Miki. He’s also a very caring man, and I’m sure he will do his best to help you grow as people.”

“I’d rather stay with you,” Aine said. “You don’t just tolerate me. You actually care about me.”

“I try, but its not always that easy,” I said. “And I can’t really talk for very long.”

“Let me guess,” Lenore said. “Right now you are sitting on the bridge. You’ve sent Kels and Chaz off to enjoy a break. You’ve probably told whoever was at the helm to go and tell his concubines while you cover his job as well, so you’re probably sitting alone on the bridge and still on duty.”

“Lenore, do you think so little of me?” I asked.

“No,” I heard her reply. Her voice was husky. “I love you more than I ever thought I could love another man after my daughter was born. But I also know you. You are going to take on more than your share of the duties. You’ll do all you can do to make things better for the men and women serving under you.”

“She’s right you know,” I heard a voice say behind me. I spun the chair around and found Private Morrison standing in the doorway.

The man saluted me. I sat there in shock for a moment and then returned the salute.

“Mark?” I heard Ashley say.

“Sorry, one of my crew just arrived on the bridge,” I said. “Did you ask a question?”

“When will you be back?” she asked.

“The system far enough away that the trip there will take more than a day,” I said. “And I don’t know what we’ll find. It will probably be four or five days to make a round trip.”

Michael ignored me as he walked down to the helm station. He sat down and quickly pulled up the displays.

“Private, why are you here? I thought you were watching the medical pod,” I said.

“Not much to do there,” he said. “The process is proceeding normally and Brent should be perfectly healthy in a day. I could have stayed there, but Blaine told me that you had offered to allow him to call his girls.”

I heard laughter. “See,” Lenore said cheerfully. “I know you that well. Mark, you need to get back to commanding. We’ll be here. We’ll even see if we can record something special for you and send it before you head out.”

“Thanks,” I said as I felt my face turn red.

“You treat your ladies real well,” Private Morrison said.

“I try,” I said. “And they try hard to please me and take care of me.”

“Did you know some of them before the pickup? I heard a rumor that you did,” Private Morrison asked. “Oh, the orbit is fine and I can’t improve on Blaine’s planned route to the edge of the system.”

“Good to hear,” I said. “All we need now is for everyone to finish saying goodbye to their ladies and for engineering to get the flow tech station put together.”

“Will we need it?” Private Morrison asked.

“Not initially, but you don’t want to not have something like that should we need it. If there is a reason we need full engine thrust in the system we are headed to, we don’t want to be caught without it,” I replied.

“I remember in simulations trying to deal with unbalanced engines,” Private Morrison said. “The ship always wanted to turn away from the engine with the greater thrust.”

“I don’t think we’ll have that problem once engineering finishes the repairs. And that’s one thing I’d like to you pay attention to. In battle the only people we have who aren’t manning a battle station would be the two helmsmen who are on standby near a medical pod. If you can help with repairs we can try to keep all the engineers with the engines,” I said.

“Terrence and I already talked about that. We also mentioned it to Blaine and he’s working on it as well, but one person can’t do a lot of the repairs. Can we have concubines help?” Private Morrison asked.

“AI? What are the rules regarding concubines participating in repair work on a ship?” I asked.

“No concubine can operate a weapons station or carry any form of projectile weapon while on a ship,” the AI said.

“So they can help repair damage?” I asked.

“Affirmative,” the AI said.

I smiled and looked at Private Morrison. “We only have three concubines on board since Morgause left both her concubines back on Crucible, but that is three people who can help. However expect them to be mostly able to fetch things and help lift debris. Its doubtful we can train them to do complex repairs in the time we have.”

“Hopefully we won’t need them to do that,” Private Morrison said. “But it will be nice to have extra hands. I’m sure that Ensign Daniels would have liked having the help in reassembling the flow tech station. I understand that they had to have two people holding panels in place while others secured them.”

“I’ll pass the information on to Ensign Daniels,” I said. “With only three concubines on the ship, I didn’t want anyone abusing them or asking too much. It would be unfair to ask them to do all of the cleaning and such.”

“I doubt that will be a problem,” Morrison replied. As he finished the door to the bridge opened.

We heard a groan. “My concubines are going to kill each other,” Blaine muttered.

“What’s the problem?” I asked as I spun the chair around.

“Betsy is back playing cheerleader bimbo, and Rory is unhappy that she no longer has someone to talk to,” Blaine said.

“Can’t they talk to each other?” Morrison asked.

“If Betsy puts forth the effort they can, but right now she’s pretending that the only things interesting her are lingerie, sex and me. Rory still isn’t confident in her looks and shy about talking about sex, so I guess the conversations have lots of silence involved,” Blaine said.

“I thought I said that your concubines could call mine,” I said. “That would give both of them someone to help break up the monotony.”

“The comm system won’t accept outgoing calls from a concubine, except to their owner,” Blaine said.

“Let them know they can walk over. My concubines were talking about laying out in the sun and enjoying looking at the lake. You can do that now and then we should look into breaking orbit if everyone is ready,” I said.

“I’ll get to my station,” Private Morrison said.

“You’ll stand down,” I said. “If you want to watch the medical pod or check it occasionally you can, but we shouldn’t need you just to leave the system and activate the jump drive.”

“But,” Private Morrison said.

I smiled. “I understand. But Blaine can handle two more hours of duty and then once we activate the jump drive he can go off duty. The jump takes more than thirty hours so everyone will have time at the helm while we travel to the system. When we breakout, I’ll expect everyone at their stations.”

Morrison nodded. “I’ll get a meal and then check in with Ingrid about having her concubine help.”