Chapter 61: Arrival at Gee One Dash Six Five Nine

Over thirty hours later I was once again sitting in the Captain’s chair as the AI rang the klaxon for General Quarters. Blaine, Chaz and Kelsey were sitting at their stations. I could see Chaz fidgeting as we approached the end of the jump.

“Problems?” I asked Chaz.

“It’s just that I’m still not sure how to do everything. Right now we’re about to emerge into this system. We know that there likely will be Sa’arm ships. I’m covering for our lack of a tracking officer, so I have to watch a dozen different displays,” she said nervously.

I used the controls to call up a couple of extra displays. I put the primary tracking data on them. I was surprised at how detailed the system information was.

“I can see how that might be a problem,” I said. “This is a crowded system.”

“Yes, the planets are small, but according to the limited data have surprisingly dense cores so the gravity on the two planets orbiting in the habitable zone are still about seventy-five percent of Earth’s,” Chaz said.

“Make sure the helm gets the data on the debris. I see two asteroid fields,” I said.

“How big and dense?” Blaine asked. “And where?”

“One is right about where Venus orbits Sol,” I said.

“Huh?” Blaine asked.

“Officially the star in our home system is called Sol. It’s rarely used, but that is the official name,” I said.

“So about Venus’s orbit. How close is that to the star?” Blaine asked.

“Closer than we’ll probably need to go,” I said. “I expect if we find the Sa’arm they will be around one of the two planets that might be able to host life, or looking at asteroid belts near the edge of the system.”

“Which is where the other one is,” Chaz said. “It’s not very dense, but if I can believe the information available, if all of the debris manages to eventually come together, this planet would have a diameter more than twice what Earth’s is. Its not close to the star though.”

“So we’ll run into that early,” I said. “Chaz, make sure you have the sensors ready for breakout. Don’t be afraid to launch any reconnaissance drones.”

“We don’t have any,” Chaz said.

“None?” I asked.

“Ensign Daniels,” I heard Chaz say. “What is the possibility of designing and launching some reconnaissance drones?”

“We can’t do it in the next fifteen minutes,” I heard Ensign Daniels reply. “I can try to come up with something over the next few days, but there is no chance to have something for this breakout.”

“How are the engines?” I asked.

“My people are very happy with how the jump drive has performed. We have looked at capacitor two and Private Walton has found out why it failed. We have already replaced the component that caused it to discharge too quickly,” Warren said.

“Breakout in one minute,” Blaine called out. “Engineering, please be ready to configure to standard drive quickly.”

I looked down at my displays. A flashing countdown was showing how close we were to jumping. “Kels? How are the weapons stations?”

“Corporal Boswell is resting, so I don’t have missile one manned. All other posts are manned and every station is currently green. Weapons are available when you need them,” she said.

“Engine room, break the jump bubble,” Blaine said.

“Cutting power to bubble generators,” we heard Private Moore reply. “Port and Starboard both showing standard bubble degradation.”

“How do we know?” Kels asked.

“Corsica isn’t the first Patrician class ship. There is a ton of data on how the jump bubbles should look,” Blaine responded. “I’m detecting the breakout point. Bow will drop out of jump space in ten ... nine...”

My hands gripped the armrests of my chair as I watched the last few seconds countdown. The displays in front of me showed in unblinking steadiness that the ship was about to enter the new system.

“Breakout,” Blaine shouted.

“When did we start playing video games?” Kelsey said with a quiver in her voice.

“Tracking?” I asked. I pulled up a mirror of the primary tracking display.

We had emerged just outside the orbital zone filled by the outer asteroid belt. The ships sensors were identifying the orbits of dozens of asteroids.

“I don’t see any ships,” Chaz said.

“Helm, let’s stay outside the asteroid belt. Come about to starboard and circle the system,” I said.

“Coming about,” Blaine said. “Why do you want us to stay outside the belt?”

“We’re right at the edge of jump distance,” I pointed out.

“Oh,” Blaine said. “Good point. Engineering, how long until the jump drive is reset?”

The response was immediate. “One hour for the capacitors to recharge.”

“Can I cut in a bit?” Blaine asked. “We can’t jump for the next hour, so hanging out at the edge of the system isn’t necessary.”

“See if you can find a couple of asteroids we can escort. If we hang out near one, it might make us harder to see,” I said.

“Good idea,” Chaz said. “I’m seeing evidence of three small ships passing through. Some of the asteroids are showing signs of orbital chaos.”

“Chaos?” Kelsey asked.

“She’s saying that the movement of the asteroid suggests that something has pushed them out of their original orbit recently,” I replied.

“That’s what the AI analysis says. But I don’t see the ships. There are three zones of the belt where something passed through,” Chaz said.

“Could a ship have entered and then exited? So it would only be one ship?” Kelsey offered.

“It could,” Chaz admitted. “But it doesn’t look right for that. All three trails look like a ship tried to cut directly across the belt from the outside to the inside. There is a diagonal to the trails that flows with the orbital direction of the belt.”

“Huh?” Kelsey said. “I’m a backwoods girl. Can you say that in English?”

“Captain? Can you help me?” Chaz asked.

“I’m trying to think of how to put it. I can visualize what you are saying, but explaining it won’t be easy,” I said.

“Blaine can tell me,” Kelsey said.

“Nope,” Blaine replied. “I’m a jock, not some orator who can fascinate others by telling stories.”

“I think I have it, but it won’t work perfectly. Picture the belt like a river. It’s flowing along. When the ships entered, they were taking the shortest route, so they were going directly across, much like how you’d cross a river,” I said.

“I’ve done that, I can see that, but how does that make the nature of the trails matter?” Kelsey asked.

“Ah, when you enter the river you are entering a flow of water. As you cross are you at the same spot in the river?” I asked.

“No, but how does that ... Oh. Are you saying that looking at the direction the belt is flowing and where the asteroids that show the disruption of their orbits are you can see if the ship was heading towards the inner part of the system or not?” Kelsey asked.