“Do your people salute, Captain? I don’t wish to offend.”
“It’s fine,” Kellen said, fighting the urge to run a finger around his uniform collar. “Please, sit.” He indicated the second-in-command position. He hadn’t had a full crew complement since before the long sleep. Even at the rate they were waking up their people, they didn’t have enough people to man a ship as they had in the past.
And they weren’t waking up ship’s crew. Their priority was scientists and other specialists who could help them rebuild their infrastructure. And that had been delayed when they’d had to respond to threats. He couldn’t blame all of them on the Earth Expedition or the robot crew, but they had definitely played a part in arriving in the Garradian system trailing clouds of enemies.
Lt. Dish sat in the second chair, giving a little wriggle that he took to be delight. He arched a brow, and she gave him a rueful look.
“I grew up with Star Trek. It’s like a dream come true to sit on the bridge of a spaceship,” she explained. Perhaps something in his face prompted her to add, “I promise I won’t touch anything.”
She didn’t know it, but she already touched “something.” There were controls embedded in the arm rests she gripped, but they weren’t active and wouldn’t become active for her without some kind of triggering control. Such as the sudden extinction of the captain.
It was his turn to sense his expression turning wry.
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” It seemed wise to alter the subject before he embarrassed himself.
“I know we’re dropping out of star drive soon,” this also seemed to please her because her eyes gleamed with excitement, “but I was wondering how close to Arroxan Prime we’ll be at that point.”
Kellen activated a map of the Arroxan Prime star system—one updated with data from the ship that had dropped Dr. Walker off—and added a data point for their arrival.
“I don’t want to drop in too close to the planet. Star drive is not kind to large, solid objects,” he added. It pleased him when she grinned, as if she understood the small joke. “And we want to do new data scans. Make sure nothing has changed and to restore comms with Dr. Walker.”
Now Lt. Dish frowned. “Did we lose comms because of the star drive?”
Kellen hesitated. “It is possible. The systems we have transited are…complicated.” He wasn’t a scientist, but he’d learned enough to know complicated when he saw it. “And we dropped out of star drive several times.”
He waited for her to ask, but she didn’t. She just nodded.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’ve been studying the pattern of Dr. Walker’s transmissions.” She sighed and frowned. “I’m no expert on space transmissions, but it looks to me like his last transmission wasn’t complete. As if there is data missing.”
Kellen nodded. “It is possible our own transits cut off the data stream…”
He knew Veirn was listening and was probably already looking into it.
And then Veirn weighed in to the discussion. “Dr. Walker mentioned concern that someone planet-side might be tracking their transmissions.”
“But,” Lt. Dish’s frown deepened, “according to him they lack the technology to disrupt…” Her voice trailed off. “Miss Marple.”
“Excuse me?” Kellen said.
“She’s an imaginary detective on Earth, but she always says don’t believe what you’re told.”
“It is true that Dr. Walker couldn’t know if the government had the ability to block his comms,” Veirn said.
“So, it is possible that someone else down there knows we’re coming?” Kellen didn’t like that idea.
“I don’t think they could—unless they could read the transmissions and that would take time,” Lt. Dish pointed out.
“Cracking an alien language is most difficult,” Veirn said.
And Veirn would know. It and its AI kin did it fairly regularly.
“They might not need to know what we’re saying. Just the fact of the transmissions might cause…distress,” Lt. Dish pointed out. “It’s probably a good idea we’re coming in kind of slow and easy.”
“Yes,” Kellen said. And they could also come in cloaked. That seemed an even better idea.
Now the bridge felt oddly full to Kellen. Riina and Tim were seated at the science station to his right. Trac, as was typical for the robot, stood in the corner, with his skitterfin wrapped around his neck. He didn’t know how he could stand it. Of course, he was a cyborg. A robot. He couldn’t feel it.
