“What are you suggesting?”
Jack forced himself to hold Katja’s glare. The question she posed had been a challenge. Her dark eyes burned with their usual intensity, and while he was getting used to it he still couldn’t decide whether fear or lust was his dominant emotion. It certainly wasn’t fondness or affection—she was far too distant for that.
Eventually, though, he broke her gaze and looked around the cruiser’s wardroom. He sat with his feet on the coffee table and she sat beside him, legs curled up as she turned to face him. Except for a pair of stewards clearing the dining table, they were alone in the space.
He shrugged.
“I’m not really sure what’s real anymore.”
“Is it your Cloud connections? That can mess with anyone’s mind, and you’ve been in pretty deep these past few weeks.”
He might struggle with the Cloud, he thought absently, but it was the least of his worries.
“No,” he said. “It’s more that I’m sitting here on a cruiser which looks exactly like the one I used to serve in. She’s a different ship, but half the crew are exactly the same people as those I used to serve with. Oh, except Thomas is now the captain, and not a subbie. Plus I’m sitting here, talking to a woman who was dead for more than a year. Who I can communicate with in a way most of the human race doesn’t even know exists.”
<You think this is strange?>
He held up his finger and thumb in close proximity.
<Little bit.>
She shrugged. In her blue uniform coveralls and wearing a lieutenant’s rank, she almost looked as he first remembered her. Her hair was longer, but every fiber of her being seemed to whisper a threat. It was strange to see his own rank insignia to match, but he glanced at it to remind himself that she wasn’t his superior anymore. On this mission they were equals, and he knew his strengths.
The door opened and a familiar female form stormed in, flopping down on the couch near him.
“Fuck!”
“And good morning to you, Hayley,” he said with a smile.
She glared at him, the bags under her eyes giving evidence to the pressure of the past week’s drills. Jack and Katja had boarded literally minutes before departure, and in the three days it had taken Admiral Moore to move into deep space, this crew had been kept running from one simulated emergency to another.
Jack had never taken Thomas to be a hard-assed line officer, but the way he’d been driving the crew since taking command made him wonder if his colleague’s true self had just been hiding in the soft, fluffy guise of a strike officer.
“We’re making the jump in ten minutes,” Hayley said. “And then hopefully I can get some sleep.”
“Yeah, because Centauri space is a real yawner.”
“Fuck off.”
He glanced over at Katja. “These are my peeps.”
Katja gave him a tiny smile, then rose to her feet.
“We should probably get to the bridge.”
He followed her lead, resisting the urge to pat Hayley on the head. Line officers could bite if provoked.
The walk forward was quick, and those few crew members they passed barely glanced up, so intent were they on their jobs. No one had questioned the arrival of two new lieutenants, and even those crew who knew Jack didn’t seem to have noticed that he’d barely set foot in the hangar. He wondered if he should be insulted.
One of the Hawks had been replaced by what looked to be a high-performance racing launch, and that had started lips wagging—but with no conclusions.
Warning lights flashed at the threshold to the bridge, announcing the impending switch to zero-g. Katja slowed to a stop and pressed a hand lightly against Jack’s chest. Her fingers tapped against him, almost hesitantly.
“We should check our entanglement,” she said. “Now, and then again after the jump.”
“Okay,” he replied hesitantly, as he realized that she was tapping the spot in his ribcage where that creepy device had been implanted. Katja removed her hand and purposefully looked away from him. Then, deep in his chest, he felt a sharp flare. It was brief, and didn’t hurt—he couldn’t really say what it felt like—but it was unmistakable.
“It’s working,” he said with a nod.
Katja barely looked up, pushing the door open and stepping through. Moore’s bridge was fully crewed. She and Jack hooked onto the anchor lines, and then made their way to the center of the sphere. All around them the starry blackness stretched away to infinity. One of those stars, nearly dead astern, shone brighter than the rest. Sol was more than ten billion kilometers away, placing Moore most definitely in the middle of nowhere.
Perfect for a secret dimensional jump.
Commander Kane sat in his seat at the center of the bridge. He noticed the pair of arrivals and nodded to them.
“Ms. Emmes,” he said, “Mr. Mallory. Your timing is perfect. Why does that not surprise me?”
Katja didn’t respond, other than to cross her arms and look forward. Things were still a bit frosty—had been ever since he and Katja had boarded. Not only had Thomas seemed unsurprised to see her—given that she was officially dead—but their formal handshake had been less than what Jack expected from old friends. Of course, the last time he’d seen them together she had kicked Thomas nearly in half, and then arrested him.
Maybe they were still working through some issues.
“One minute to jump,” Sublieutenant Chen announced from his position as second officer of the watch.
“All stations report ready,” Moore’s XO added. He was a short bull of a man named Lieutenant Duquette, who in very short order had already demonstrated more competence than Bowen’s old XO.
Jack glanced around the bridge. Some of the operators he recognized from Bowen, but apart from Thomas, two of the subbies, and John Micah, all the officers had been pulled in from the Fleet manning pool, which was generally made up of the survivors from destroyed ships. It was significant, though, that all of these officers were survivors—they’d all been through hell at least once already, and lived to tell the tale. It gave him confidence that they would serve Thomas well.
“Thirty seconds to jump.”
“Douse the beacon,” Thomas ordered. “Switch all sensors to passive.” His commands were carried out and reports came back. Moore was silent in deep space, poised to do something Jack had never seen before—jump without a jump gate.
“Jump coordinates are locked,” Micah reported from ASW. “Projector ready.”
This “projector” was a new piece of technology that had been delivered on board—a top-secret device that could create a temporary path into extra-dimensional space and project it around the ship. It tapped, not into the Bulk, but into the even more mysterious spatial dimension known in physics as the Point. Infinitesimal in size, it still connected to every coordinate in five-dimensional spacetime, and allowed instantaneous travel between far-separated areas in the brane by offering a “short cut.” In the Point, distances were real, but so small as to be practically immeasurable.
It was the principle behind all the jump gates ever made, and was a proven reality of the universe, but Terran jump gates were all massive, high-energy devices that took years to set up and required a minimum of gravimetric interference. The Centauris had proven the possibility that jump gates could be much smaller, and could be safely operated inside of gravity wells, but even those had been stationary, pre-set devices. This projector was the first time he’d ever heard of a vessel being able to create its own jump gate at will.
“Deactivate gravity,” Thomas said. His voice was measured and calm, but he was gripping his armrests with unusual intensity. Jack ensured his anchor line was taut, and then felt the stomach-turning lurch as gravity disappeared. No one moved, but he saw a few grimaces on the faces behind consoles.
“Three… two… one… jump!”
There was a flicker of darkness, accompanied by a strange, wavering slide that might just have been in his mind. He tightened his grip on the anchor line, and forced himself to breathe. All around him, the stars looked the same as they had a moment before. Ahead of him, Katja floated in silence, arms still crossed tightly over her chest.
He reached inward with his mind and activated his entanglement device. She turned wary eyes toward him, and nodded. Entanglement was tied in to the Point, as particles somehow became connected in that dimension and could transmit certain information via the no-distance in the Point to dispersed positions in the brane.
“Officer of the watch,” Thomas said, “check our position.”
The young officer seated next to him examined his displays.
“All directors,” Thomas continued, “report status.”
“AAW condition white,” the anti-attack warfare director reported. “No detected threats.”
“AVW condition white,” the anti-vessel warfare director echoed. “No indication of other vessels.”
“ASW condition white,” John concluded as the anti-stealth warfare director. “No gravimetric anomalies.”
“Based on star fixes,” the officer of the watch announced, “we are in the Centauri system, approximately eight billion kilometers north of Centauri A. I’ll have an exact position in three minutes.”
“Very good.” Thomas released his grip on his armrests. He took a long look around at the starscape, then pointed low on the bow. “There. Twin suns. That’s where we’re headed.”
Jack followed his gaze down and saw two stars shining much brighter than all the others. He glanced aft to where Sol had shone just moments before, but saw nothing of note amid the sea of lights.
“We’ll retain passive sensors and zero-g for now,” Thomas announced. “I want to get a good assessment of the rebel strength as we close Abeona.”
“Yes, sir,” the XO replied.
“And ASW,” Thomas called over his shoulder, “have the projector pre-programmed with our escape jump back to Terra.”
Katja rotated slowly in place, turning to face the captain.
“How long until we deploy?”
“About forty hours for us to close Abeona, unless you want to spend extra time in your little ship.”
“We’ll launch at maximum range,” she said, as if she was challenging him to disagree. “Three billion k.”
“Then it’ll be about twenty-five hours.” He shrugged. “The bridge can keep you posted on exact timings.”
“Make sure they do,” she said.
Every officer within earshot appeared to stiffen, but if Thomas took any offence at Katja’s attitude, he hid it well. Chen snuck a sidelong look over at Jack, but he ignored the silent communication. These were his peeps, but Katja was his partner. And they didn’t have to live with her for the next few weeks.