Ryk Brown - Aurora CV-01

“Captain,” Lieutenant Commander Patel interrupted, “I am not aware of any of these concerns you speak of. In fact, our simulations predict that we should be able to reach eighty percent the speed of light, instead of the original projections of seventy-five.”

“I’m not disagreeing with you at all, Chief,” the captain assured him. “I’m quite sure you’re correct. All I know is that Command wants us to be ready to depart for a basic lap around the block in twenty-four hours. If there’s some other reason for these orders, they’ve decided that I don’t need to know. What I do need to know is are we ready for a basic test sail?”

“All flight systems are online and ready, sir,” the chief assured him. “And main propulsion has been ready for several days now. However, we do not have all of our weaponry installed, and we have no energy shielding installed, as the team from Special Projects is still using those spaces.”

“Well, do we have any weaponry?”

“Yes sir, we have most of the forward rail gun turrets installed and ready, but all guns aft of amidships have yet to be hooked into main power. We also have the forward torpedo tubes ready to go, but the aft tubes still need to have their loading systems installed. All of those components are still sitting in the main hangar bay.”

“That reminds me,” the captain interrupted, turning to his commander. “We need to move as much of that stuff in the hangar bay into the cargo holds for the time being. We’re going to need room for shuttle craft to operate out of the flight deck if anything goes wrong during our first sail.”

“Sure, Captain,” the XO promised. “But some of that stuff is pretty big.”

“Well, move the smaller stuff out, and slide the bigger stuff off to the sides out of the way. We don’t need the whole bay, clear. Just enough room for five or six shuttles should do it.”

“Yes sir.”

“I’ve also insisted that we at least get ammunition for our rail guns, and a dozen torpedoes, just in case. Something about sailing out in a warship without any bullets just doesn’t sit right with me. Even if it is just a few laps around the block.”

“Captain,” the chief asked. “I just want to remind you that we’ll be operating with only half our designed reactor capacity, since the Special Projects people hijacked the other half.”

“Really?” the captain asked, somewhat surprised. “That’s a lot of power. What the hell are they doing with it?”

“I really do not know, sir. They aren’t talking. Best I can tell is that it involves the shield emitters, since they’ve hijacked them as well.”

“Maybe a new type of energy shielding?” the XO theorized.

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“Any idea when they’ll be finished?” the captain asked.

“Not really. But they haven’t been asking for as much lately, so maybe that means they’ve completed their work.”

“Let’s hope so,” the XO added. “Those people make me nervous.”

“Well, will two reactors be sufficient?” the captain asked Chief Patel.

“Yes sir. More than enough, for a little trip around the neighborhood. But we won’t be able to use our FTL field emitters until after we get our other two reactors back.”

“Understood. Okay, so that brings us to the crew,” the captain said, turning toward Commander Montero.

“We’ve got one full skeleton shift trained and ready, Captain,” the commander responded. “I wouldn’t want to go into battle with them, but they should be able to handle a basic test sail without screwing anything up too badly.”

“Very well.”

“That reminds me,” the commander added. “How’s your little training project going?”

“Lieutenant Scott and Ensign Taylor are at least trying to work together. They still have a long way to go, but I think it might do them some good to get out of the simulator and into real space.”

“I hope you’re right,” the commander cautioned. “I’ve seen some of their training tapes, and I’ve gotta tell, Skipper, those two scare me.

“Okay, so I guess I can tell Command that we’re ready enough, then.” The captain leaned back in his chair for a moment before continuing. “There’s going to be an inspection tomorrow morning by Admiral Yamori. Let’s make sure we’re ready for it.”

As the Fleet was only about thirty years old, there were only four admirals in the ranks. Admiral Yamori was in charge of fleet development, which included the special projects division as well as the design and construction of new ships to fill out the Earth’s burgeoning space defense force. Prior to his service in the fleet, he had commanded several sea-going warships in the Eurasian navy. Once the Data Ark had been discovered, he had retired from the navy to study physics and advanced spacecraft design at the European campus of the Ark Institute. He was the only admiral in the fleet that had never actually commanded a space vessel. But then, his position was about building them, not operating them.

“You’ve made remarkable progress, Bill,” the admiral praised, as they strolled the corridors of the engineering section. “Especially considering how under staffed you’ve been.”

“Thank you, Sir,” the captain responded. “We’ve been working around the clock to try and get her ready. But a lot of the credit goes to the station crews, Sir. They’ve been working their tails off, every minute of every day. We couldn’t have gotten this far without them.”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“It also was a big help to have most of the components available in our hangar bay, Sir,” Commander Montero added. “We never had to wait for anything to be shuttled up to us.”

The admiral had started his tour at the bridge, worked his way aft, and had just finished up in engineering when they met up with doctors Karlsen and Sorenson in the corridor.

“Ah, Doctor Karlsen,” the admiral greeted. “And Doctor Sorenson. A pleasure to see you, as always. I hope everything is going well for you?”

“If you’d like to take a look for yourself, Admiral, we are ready.”

“Excellent.” The admiral turned to the captain and the XO. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen. I’ll meet up with you later on the bridge.”

“Yes Sir,” the captain agreed. The captain and the commander, snapped to attention, saluting the admiral as he departed.

The admiral followed the two doctors past the armed guards that had been at the entrances to both the port and starboard shield generator bays since the special projects team had come aboard.

“I’d love to be a fly on that wall right about now,” the XO commented as they headed for the bridge.

“I have a feeling we’re going to know all about it soon enough,” the captain assured him.

The day had started off like any other, up at six in the morning and breakfast at seven. Only today Nathan felt far more optimistic than he could remember since coming aboard. It might have been the time spent on the bridge the day before, where the simulations that he and Cameron had run seemed to have gone more smoothly than usual. He didn’t know if they were finally developing a working rapport, or if it was just that on the bridge, there were far more eyes on them.

But his good mood could also have been the result of a shorter than usual work day. Because of the inspection, the captain had given the entire crew the evening off, with none of the usual after dinner training or work teams that usually lasted right up until bedtime.

But most likely, Nathan’s, as well as everyone else’s better than usual moods were probably due to the knowledge that not only was today a ‘training free’ day, scuttlebutt had it that they were going to take the ship out for quick ‘lap around the block’, as the XO had referred to it. After weeks of intense training and late night work parties, the crew was itching to show what they could do.