Ep.#1 - Aurora: EV-01 Read online

  The reality was, he missed the Aurora.

  “I’m ready,” he told her.

  Cameron swung the door open, allowing Nathan to enter first. He took three steps inside, then stopped dead in his tracks as he caught sight of the ship before him.

  Nathan was speechless. He had only given input in the initial conceptual phase and had never seen the final design for the new Expedition-class ships.

  Nathan turned to Cameron, a huge grin on his face.

  “I had a feeling you’d like her.”

  “She’s got the same lines,” Nathan stated, half in disbelief. “Different, but the same feel.” Nathan chuckled. “She’s beautiful…and smaller.”

  “She’s one third the size of the old Explorer-class ships.”

  “How’d you manage that?”

  “We’ve come a long way since the Aurora and the Celestia were built. We don’t need thick hulls and huge propellant tankage. That was half the Aurora’s mass right there. Plus, we wanted her to be able to land, and grav-lift systems do have limitations. So we had to keep her size down. A smaller size also has the benefits of a smaller crew and lower operating costs.”

  Nathan began walking slowly toward the ship, looking her over. “She looks fast. As big as she was, the old Aurora could really accelerate.”

  “Her rate of acceleration is considerably less, but she can still get up to speed in a hurry,” Cameron assured him. “She’s also got linear FTL.”

  “Why?” Nathan wondered.

  “It’s always good to have options,” Cameron replied.

  “What about her armaments?”

  “All of her guns are quad-barreled, dual-function turrets. Two barrels are plasma cannons, and the other two are rail guns. And she’s loaded with a wide array of rail-gun slugs: explosive, fragmenting, flak-wall, you name it.”

  “How many guns?”

  “She has eight large, fixed turrets, top and bottom, two forward, two aft. She’s also got twenty medium turrets for the grav-wing channel, and forty smaller turrets that can be deployed along any of the gun channels.

  “Gun channels?” Nathan asked, unfamiliar with the term.

  “See that groove in the grav-lift wing, and then on the side of the ship, running fore-aft? Those are your gun channels. Your guns are stored in bays located forward, midship, and aft, and can be fully deployed in less than a minute. You can put all your guns on one side, if you like, or spread them out evenly. However you need.”

  Nathan sighed, shaking his head back and forth, still not believing what he was seeing. “The SilTek engineers really outdid themselves on this one.”

  “Don’t let Vlad hear you say that.”

  “Why?” Nathan wondered.

  “He fought with them on just about everything,” Cameron explained. “To be honest, this ship is more his vision than theirs.”

  Nathan looked at the aft hull, noticing an extended longitudinal seam. “Is that…?”

  “A nacelle?” Cameron finished for him. “Two of them, port and starboard. We took that idea from the XKs but integrated them into the hull. Just like the XKs, they can be easily swapped out. Even better, they can be changed out anywhere, so you don’t have to limp to the nearest port.”

  “Good thinking.”

  “Another one of Vlad’s ideas,” Cameron replied. “Each nacelle has a main drive, a decel drive, and a ZPED powerful enough to run the entire ship. And there’s a third ZPED in the main hull powering the jump systems and the linear FTL, which can also serve as an emergency backup power plant.”

  “What’s her jump range?” Nathan asked.

  “One thousand light year single jump, two thousand one minute, plus she’s got an emergency escape energy bank that will jump her one hundred light years. There are also hookups to connect additional energy banks to double her one-minute range for long-distance missions.”

  “Four thousand light years?” Nathan was astounded. “That’s insane. There’s no way any humans could have settled that far out.”

  “Don’t forget, these ships are intended to be in service for at least a hundred years. Who knows how far out we will have settled by then.”

  Nathan sighed yet again. “It’s like a dream come true.”

  “Wait until you see its shuttles and fighters.”

  Nathan laughed. “Well what are we waiting for?”

  They continued toward the ship, strolling out onto the gangway leading from the work platform to the main port cargo hatch.

  “She can dock with other ships?” Nathan asked, noticing the docking collar built into the side of the hull.

  “Vlad came up with a universal docking system that can adapt to every known docking system. It can even get a good seal to hull breach, as long as the breach isn’t bigger than the docking apparatus,” Cameron told him.

  “How is that possible?”

  “Pressure shields,” Cameron replied. “This ship is amazing in ways you’ve never dreamed of, Nathan. She’s everything you could possibly want, and more. And she’s designed to survive. An important attribute considering her mission and her commander.”

  Nathan paused a moment, peering over the edge of the gangway at the massive, oval grav-wing on the bottom of the ship. “How big of a planet can she land on?”

  “Up to one point five times Earth’s mass, assuming a standard load-out.”

  “Let’s hope I never have to land her on anything that big,” Nathan said as they continued toward the ship. “I hate high-G worlds.”

  As they approached the entrance, Nathan spotted the ship’s name and logo on the hull next to the hatch. ‘CSAS-Aurora: EV-01’. He paused again, reaching out and touching the logo and name with his hand.

  “What are you doing?” Cameron asked.

  “Nothing,” Nathan replied.

  “I take it by the grin on your face that you’re going to accept command?” Cameron stated.

  “Was there ever any doubt?” Nathan replied, following her inside.

  * * *

  “Why are we stopping on this deck?” Nathan wondered as he followed Cameron off the elevator.

  “I thought you’d like to see the lounge.”

  “This ship has a lounge?”

  “Lounge slash mess hall slash event room; it even has an outdoor patio.”

  “On a spaceship?”

  “Pressure shields, remember?”

  “Of course.” Nathan followed her down the central corridor, which eventually dumped into the mess hall. He paused a moment, looking about. There were square tables arranged all around the large, open compartment, each with four chairs. At the forward end of the space, the wall was floor to ceiling windows, with a set of clear doors in the middle that opened to the outdoor patio. “This is more like a café than a mess hall.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “And that entire patio is covered with a pressure shield?”

  “One that doesn’t have a warning tint, so it’s like you’re really outside the ship. The shield can be extended as well, so the patio can double as an emergency evac space.”

  “Please tell me there are blast doors,” Nathan begged.

  “Every opening in the hull with pressure shields has blast doors,” Cameron assured him.

  Cameron stopped at the door to the captain’s quarters. “Are you ready?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Cameron stepped up to the door, which slid open automatically.

  “Nice,” Nathan commented.

  “All the hatches are now automated sliding doors, all of which automatically seal in the case of a sudden decompression,” she explained as she led him inside.

  They passed through an entry foyer that led into a small but cozy living room.

  “Wow,” Nathan exclaimed. “It’s like a hotel suite.” He looked to h
is left, spotting a small dining area, beyond which was a kitchenette with a door at the opposite end. “Where’s that door lead to?”

  “The captain’s mess.”

  “A bit much, don’t you think?” The large floor-to-ceiling windows on the outboard side of the living room caught Nathan’s eye. “What the…” As he walked toward the windows, he realized what he was seeing beyond them. “Is that a balcony?” He walked up to the windows, staring in disbelief at the view outside from the balcony. It wasn’t the interior of the assembly building, but a beach with crystal blue waters lapping at the sand.

  “The SilTek engineers developed a new twist to the pressure shields,” Cameron explained. “Any image can be projected against them, just like the inside of the Sugali fighter’s canopy.”

  “So these actually open?” Nathan asked in disbelief.

  Cameron walked up and pulled the transparent sliding doors open, opening the living room up to the balcony.

  Nathan followed her out onto the balcony in awe. “This is incredible. A balcony on a spaceship. Seems totally unnecessary though.”

  “One of the purposes of the Expedition-class ships is to be impressive. Their mission, after all, is to support our member worlds and get new members signed up. Since we can’t impress them through sheer size, we thought amenities such as this would help. All of the outboard-facing quarters have them, although only the captain’s quarters and the VIP quarters have balconies accessible from both the living room and the master bedroom.”

  “So you’re telling me all the quarters on this ship are this nice?”

  “Not this nice, but close. Except the troop dorms on the lower decks. Those don’t have any windows at all. But they’re not designed to serve as long-term housing. I’m telling you, Nathan, they thought of everything with this ship. And nearly every space is designed to be adaptable to a variety of uses. But again, I’m just scratching the surface here.”

  Nathan sighed again. “Next you’re going to tell me there’s an ice rink on board.”

  “Sorry, no ice rink,” Cameron replied. “But I’m sure Vlad could flood the flight deck for you from time to time.”

  “Don’t give me any ideas.”

  “Would you like to see the command deck now?” Cameron asked.

  “Lead the way,” Nathan insisted. “I feel like a kid on Christmas Day.”

  * * *

  “This is the command deck,” Cameron announced as they exited the elevator and headed down the corridor toward the center intersection.

  They turned forward at the intersection, heading to the bridge.

  “It’s only slightly smaller than the old Aurora’s bridge,” Cameron said as she led him onto the bridge. “But I think we managed to get that cockpit feel you preferred on the XKs.” Cameron stopped and turned to face Nathan. “What do you think?”

  Nathan looked around slowly, taking it all in. It had basically the same layout as the Aurora’s original bridge, but more compact. The doorway they had just passed through was the compartment’s only entrance. The aft bulkheads jetted out at forty-five-degree angles, disappearing into the large side windows. Gone was the massive, semi-spherical wrap-around view screen—something that Nathan had never found useful. Instead, the half-circle front of the compartment was covered with actual windows. Each window was identical in size, and all of them were leaned inward at the same angle. There was very little headroom, so little that an abnormally tall person might have problems. The overhead was littered with strategically placed panels over each workstation, as well as downward-angled view screens in key positions.

  Nathan moved forward past Cameron, running his hand along the stand-up tactical station. The command chair was just forward of the tactical station, just as it had been with the original Aurora. The difference was that it wasn’t on a single-step, raised platform, but on the same main level as the entrance, the tactical station, and the auxiliary stations on either side. It also had three view screens designed to feed critical information to its occupant.

  The two stations directly to either side of the command chair were recessed one step down, and the helm and ops stations directly in front of the command chair were three steps down.

  “All the windows serve as projection screens as well,” Cameron explained. “Either in full or semi-opaque mode. Every window has emergency pressure shields in case of rupture, and there are blast doors that can be raised if needed. But even with the blast doors up, the windows still function the same, just using external cameras. You can also overlay tactical information over objects in the windows, just like in the Nighthawks. Same with the Dragon canopies. There is also a holographic display system located forward of the helm, where you can display star maps, holo-comm images, three-dimensional graphics of ships and such, whatever you like.”

  “This is so much better than that big, stupid, dome,” Nathan commented as he sat down in the command chair. It was comfortable and had wide arms with lots of touch-screen controls, as well as a small view screen at the front of either arm, angled in and upward toward his face. The three view screens arranged before him between the two flight team stations were just below his forward sight line and were perfectly angled as well. There were even view screens hanging down from the overhead arranged in a semi-circle before him, tucked in just behind the top edge of the forward-facing windows.

  “Ops to the left, helm to the right,” Cameron informed him. “Sensors directly left, and comms to the right.”

  “And tactical behind me,” Nathan surmised.

  “It can be, yes, but since ops handles the weapons on this ship, it’s more of a stand-up general purpose station,” she explained. “Some call it the ‘watch station’. All of the stations can be configured to perform any task, with the exception of the helm station, which has the manual flight controls.” Cameron waited for a response, observing Nathan as he sank back in the command chair, appearing to get comfortable. “I thought you’d feel that way.”

  From Nathan’s position, he could see all the way down the Aurora’s gently sloped bow and to both sides, giving him an unobstructed one-hundred-and-eighty-degree view. It was definitely the best seat in the room.

  “I assume those are some sort of tactical display system?” Nathan surmised, pointing to the three flat screens before him, in between the helm and ops stations.

  “Normally, yes,” Cameron replied as she reached down and pressed a button on the command chair’s sidearm panel. The chair began moving forward, coming to a stop with the arms of the command chair snug against the console. The very moment the command chair made contact with the console, the displays changed from filling the entire surface of the three consoles to a series of six smaller screens along the top, and various touch-screen control pads on lower portions of the consoles. “Behold, the captain’s command console.”

  Nathan couldn’t help but laugh. “You’ve got to be kidding!”

  “I remember how much you used to complain about having to just sit there and give orders or ask people questions during critical phases,” Cameron said. “To be honest, I hated that as well. From this console, you can run practically everything.”

  “This is amazing,” Nathan exclaimed.

  “Well…What do you think?” she asked again.

  Nathan couldn’t stop the smile forming on his face. “It’s perfect.”

  * * *

  “It’s weird,” Nathan stated as they came out of the elevator onto C deck. “This is a completely different ship, yet it feels so familiar.”

  “Well, there are similarities among all such ships,” Cameron pointed out.

  “No, it’s more than that.”

  “We did try to keep some of the same aesthetic elements wherever possible.”

  “That’s not it either,” Nathan insisted. “I mean, obviously I still have a ton to learn about this ship, but…”

 
“But what?” Cameron wondered.

  “This is going to sound stupid,” Nathan told her, “but it feels like this Aurora is what the original Aurora should have been. What it would have been if we’d had the same technology available to us back then.”

  “That’s not stupid,” Cameron assured him. “In fact, that’s pretty much what we were shooting for. The purpose of the original Explorer-class ships was to travel to the lost colonies of Earth and reestablish diplomatic relations with them. Their combat capabilities were more defensive than offensive. These Expedition-class ships are being built for the same general purpose. To seek out the lost colonies of Earth and invite them to become members of the Systems Alliance. The biggest difference between the two classes is that the Expedition-class ships were designed as jump ships from the ground up. They were also designed for a variety of missions, whereas the Explorer-class ships were less versatile.”

  “I don’t know,” Nathan objected. “I think we managed to squeeze quite a lot of versatility out of the original Aurora.”

  “No argument there,” Cameron agreed as she led him through the doors to the main shuttle bay. “Behold, the Navarro-class shuttles.”

  Again, Nathan was awe-struck. Inside the massive bay were two large, identical shuttles, both of which looked eerily similar to Suvan Navarro’s original captain’s yacht from the old Takaran capital ship, the Avendahl.

  “Just as you specified, these shuttles were designed with swappable bays so that they can be quickly reconfigured for different missions. Note the names on their sides.”

  Nathan looked at the first ship, noting the name ‘Mirai’. Then he looked at the other and smiled. “The Seiiki.”

  “I assume that’s the one you will be taking on away missions,” Cameron said.

  “Now why would you think that?” Nathan joked.

  * * *

  “The entire Dragon system is empty right now,” Cameron explained as they walked through the empty fighter service bay, headed aft. “You will have a standard load of twelve before departure, however.”

  “Twelve?” Nathan wondered. “That’s it?”