Discovery_Taurian Empire Read online

  Discovery

  By

  Nate Johnson

  Copyright 2017 Nathan Johnson

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means. This is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author's imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Purple Herb Publishing

  [email protected]

  Dedicated to

  James Coleman

  An honorable man with a keen mind and a kind heart

  Other books by Nate Johnson

  Intrepid (Taurian Empire)

  Blackthorn (Taurian Empire)

  Discovery (Taurian Empire)

  Worth Saving

  Nolan Reed

  A Demon’s Nightmare

  First (Short Story)

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  DISCOVERY

  Chapter One

  Petty Officer Nicolaus Barns closed his eyes and listened to the subtle drone of his engines. Yep, there it was. That irregular tick sound that let him know something wasn’t right.

  He quickly glanced up at the readouts, but they were still showing things as all good. It’d take them a few minutes to catch up.

  Silently, he placed his bet on the aft starboard thruster. He knew the yard birds had screwed up that repair last year. Now it was finally catching up to them.

  As he watched, the needle for the aft starboard thruster dropped one percent. A sense of pride washed through him. Technically, they were the Imperial Navy’s engines. But in reality, they were his engines, and he knew them like his mother’s smile.

  “Thompson,” he yelled across the engine room. “You and Stevenson finish wiping down. I don’t want Chief pissed off at me because you missed a spot.”

  Nick glanced up at the readout again. It was holding steady at ninety-nine percent. Well within range, but it wouldn’t last. The only question was would it hold up long enough to get them home?

  They could maneuver without it. The Captain would just have to adjust and use a different combination of the seven remaining impulse engine thrusters to align the massive ship.

  The I.S.S. Endurance was a good ship, he thought. One of the Navy’s best. But, after six weeks on patrol, things were bound to break. He just would have preferred if it had been someone else’s equipment.

  Sighing to himself, he leaned back in his chair and started planning the tear down of the engine. One of his favorite parts of the job.

  Grinning from ear to ear, he sent up a silent prayer of thanks. The smartest thing he’d ever done in his life was walking away from college to join the Imperial Navy.

  Just imagine, if he’d stuck with school, he might have his own cubicle in some stale office building. Some gleaming metal monstrosity that scarred the skyline of some boring city. Hell, he might even have to use a briefcase.

  The thought made him shudder. The idea of being trapped in the same boring job every day, pushing documents from one device to another for the rest of his life was enough to turn his stomach.

  Instead, he was on an Imperial Cruiser in deep space. Protecting the Empire and getting to fix things with his own hands.

  Once they reached Galvutu, he and his shipmates would spend four days getting drunk and chasing women. Then be right back here, headed for home, doing a job they were very good at. A man couldn’t ask for much more.

  “Now, Hear, This,” a deep voice said over the ship's 1MC. “We have been diverted to the Cevalty system. Prepare for a high-speed run.”

  “Where’s the Cevalty system?” Stevens asked.

  “How should I know?” Nick replied while he glanced back to the readouts. Shaking his head, he mumbled under his breath. He wasn’t going to get to take the engine down. Not now.

  For the next five days, Nick listened to the rumor, and wild guesses swirl amongst the crew. The farther away they were from any authority, the greater the story. He’d learned long ago to not believe anything he heard.

  No one had any idea. Even Sparks, the communication tech didn’t know. All he knew was that the message came in for the Captain’s eyes only and the next thing he knew, they were diverted.

  The bridge guys didn’t have any clue either. The Cevalty system was a barren backwater. There was no conceivable reason for them to be headed that way.

  Nick ignored it all. It wasn’t his problem. His worry was that starboard thruster and its slow descent to ninety-seven percent.

  Finally, after five long days of very high speed and a dozen wormholes, the Endurance entered the Cevalty system.

  Nick had passed the word via the Chief that he needed to take down the starboard aft thruster. Chief had taken it to Lieutenant Evans, the Engineering Officer had taken it to the Skipper. But they’d been told to wait.

  Whatever was happening, it was obviously more important than his engine.

  “Hey Barns,” the Chief said as he stuck his head into the engine room. “The Skipper wants to see you on the bridge.”

  Thompson and Stevens looked at him like he’d just been ordered to jump out an airlock.

  Nick frowned, this didn’t make sense. Maybe the Captain wanted to discuss the engine rebuild. Wanted to know how long it would take.

  He quickly wiped his hands and checked that his uniform wasn’t too dirty. Standard ship’s coveralls, a smudge of grease screamed at him from a lower leg, but there wasn’t much he could do about it now. Besides, he worked around machinery. What did they expect?

  Making his way to the bridge, he went over in his mind the steps he would have to take to rebuild the engine. Corners he could cut to speed things up. Two days. At least, he told himself.

  At last, he made it to the bridge. Stopping before the hatch, he took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves.

  Stepping through the bridge hatch always seemed like stepping into a different world. Screens, beeps, and a half-dozen crewman, each in pressed uniforms, performing tasks that were as foreign to him as the inside of a church.

  A large screen at the front of the bridge showed another vessel hanging in space. A dozen antennas and sensors poking out at every angle and the words I.R.S.S. Discovery painted on the tail.

  Nick frowned. What in the hell was a research vessel doing out here?

  Then, slowly, as the Endurance swung to port. A blue-green planet came into view.

  Well, that answered that question, he thought. No wonder they had a research vessel out here. A new life sustaining planet had been discovered. Cool, way cool, he thought, as he studied the screen, searching out details.

  Two white polar caps covered the top and bottom of the planet, taking up almost half its surface. Several green land masses were separated by blue ocean, all of
them intermittently covered with puffy white clouds.

  He wondered briefly what they were calling the new planet and why all the secrecy. Usually, the Empire would be screaming from the rooftops that another planet had been discovered. A new place to immigrate to. A new world to discover.

  “You wanted to see me, Skipper,” Nick said as he stepped forward.

  Captain Jarvis turned and nodded, then looked at Commander Jones and Lieutenant Evans.

  “It seems the Discovery has a problem with their thrusters,” the Captain said reluctantly. “I need you to go over and see if you can fix them.”

  Nick’s brow narrowed in confusion. A ship that size should have a couple of Engineers.

  “Yes Sir,” he responded, what else was he going to say?

  “Commander Jones will go with you. I want you to evaluate the situation with their equipment and let me know how long it will take to fix it. We need to get back on station as soon as possible.”

  Again Nick had to fight from frowning. None of this was making sense. Responding to vessels in distress was sort of the reason they were on patrol. What was the big hurry to get away from here?

  But then, they didn’t pay him to worry about stuff like that.

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” he replied.

  The Captain looked at him for a long moment as if trying to decide whether to say more or not. Finally, he said, “And Barns, I don’t want you talking to the crew. Just evaluate the situation with the equipment and make a report. Is that understood?”

  Nick’s stomach twisted a little. This had just gone from strange to outright weird.

  “Okay, Sir,” he said with a hesitation. “But I might need to ask some questions, or I will have to tear the entire engine apart to figure out what happened.”

  The Captain studied him for a long moment then sighed. “Very well, but only questions about the engine. Understood?”

  “Yes, Sir,” he responded. He didn’t understand, but now was not the time to get technical.

  “Grab your tools and suit, then meet Commander Jones at the shuttle.”

  Nick started compiling a list of tools he might need to perform a job he had no idea about.

  “Can I take one of my apprentices to give me a hand? It might hurry things along.”

  The Captain shook his head, “No, one person will have to be enough.”

  Again weird.

  Oh well, just do as you’re told Nick, he thought to himself. He’d learned long ago that it was a waste of time trying to figure out what officers wanted and why they wanted it.

  Saluting smartly, he turned and hurried aft to grab what he needed. Then he stopped at his quarters to change into a full pressure suit. That was standard procedure for ship to ship transfer via the shuttle.

  Once he was fully ready, he lifted his canvas bag of tools and found the Executive Officer, Commander Jones, waiting for him in the shuttle.

  Petty Officer Rowlings was to be their coxswain for the trip over. Jake shot him a quick questioning look. Obviously, he was as clueless as everyone else. All Nick could do was shrug his shoulders in return.

  Jake shook his head and started the procedures for disembarking from the Endurance.

  “Remember,” Commander Jones said as he belted himself into a seat, “no questions except about the thrusters, understood?”

  Nick nodded his head. He wondered briefly if the Commander was aware that the more mysterious they made things, the more he wanted to find out what the hell was going on.

  Biting his lip, he forced himself to remain quiet and settled down for the quick trip over to the Discovery.

  Once they were docked and Jake had synchronized the gravity fields, the Commander opened the air lock and motioned for him to follow. The coxswain had been instructed to close the airlock behind them and remain with the shuttle.

  Jesus, Nick thought, you’d think they were stopping anyone from finding out about the Emperor’s love child.

  As the outer airlock door opened, Nick was surprised to find three people waiting for them. Each with a silent frown, as if they were not exactly pleased to see them.

  The obvious leader of the group was an older woman, rather tall, black and gray hair, more gray than black. With a heavy scowl on her face.

  “Captain Simpson,” the Commander said as he stepped forward to shake her hand.

  “Doctor Simpson,” the woman corrected. Nick watched as she hesitated for a moment before taking the Commander’s hand.

  She reminded him of an Admiral he had known once. The kind of person who didn’t like people and would have preferred a universe without them.

  Next to her was a short, thin man of about forty. A pinched face and narrow shoulders. The kind of guy that spent his life lost in numbers. The name Robinson was stitched on his chest above his suit pocket.

  The man’s eyes never stopped moving, he observed everything and didn’t seem to like what he saw. Something about him made the hair on the back of Nick’s neck stand up. Not in a bad way, more in a this guy doesn’t belong in space, kind of way.

  Finally, Nick shifted to look at the third person and almost dropped his tool bag.

  A young woman looked back at him with a slight smile. Pretty, on the verge of beautiful. Long brown hair and eyes as soft as a mountain meadow. Even in her coveralls, the woman had all the right curves in all the right spaces.

  Granted, he’d been in space for six weeks. But this woman would have been enticing anywhere, anytime. What in the world was she doing out here on a research vessel in the middle of nowhere?

  She looked back at him, and he could have sworn she blushed just a little. Was he that obvious, he wondered? Probably.

  “This is Professor Robinson and Miss Rogers,” the Captain said as way of introduction. Nothing more. No thank you for coming five days out of their way to help. No welcome aboard.

  A cold shiver crept down his spine.

  “This is Petty Officer Nick Barns,” Commander Jones said. “If you could show him to the engine room, he’ll get started, and we can be on our way.”

  “Miss Rogers,” Doctor Simpson said with a nod of her head.

  Nick sent up a silent prayer of thanks that she would be his escort. Suddenly, this job was looking better and better every minute.

  “If you will follow me,” the young woman said as she started aft.

  Nick shifted the bag on his shoulder and turned to follow the woman. It took a lot of effort to keep his eyes off the swaying hips in front of him. A task in which he failed miserably. They were just too good not to watch, and it had been six weeks after all.

  “Barns,” the Commander called after him. “Remember.”

  Nick sighed heavily, this was getting ridiculous.

  “Yes, Sir.”

  Miss Rogers gave him a quick smile and started down the long passageway.

  “We do appreciate this,” she said over her shoulder as she opened a hatch then stepped back to let him through first.

  Nick bit his lip. It was the only way to stop himself from asking any of a dozen questions that were flying through his mind at that particular moment.

  Questions like; where was she from? what were they doing out here? was she married? you know, the important questions in life.

  Shaking his head, he stepped into the engine room and froze in place. He’d know that smell anywhere. The sharp tang of burned metal and melted grease.

  Crap, this wasn’t going to be a quick fix, and Captain Jarvis was going to be pissed when he found out.

  Chapter Two

  “What happened?” Nick asked the woman, silently questioning himself as to whether it was an authorized question. The restraints on what he could say were ridiculous, and the fact that this woman was this pretty wasn’t making it any easier.

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. The thrusters were working, and then they weren’t.”

  “Don’t you have an Engineer on board?” he asked as he lowered his bag to the deck and started inspect
ing the outside of the engine. A few scorch marks confirmed his worse fears.

  “We did,” Miss Rogers said with a guilty look that only made him more curious. “But he left over a month ago. They haven’t sent us a replacement yet.”

  Nick could only shake his head as he pulled a ratchet from his bag and began removing the engine cover. This class of vessel only had one thruster engine that filled four pressure tanks, one tank for each thruster.

  As he started removing bolts, he glanced around the rest of the engine room and shook his head slowly. Someone had royally screwed up.

  The place looked like his big brother’s bedroom, a conglomeration of dirty rags and spare parts. He could already tell the CO2 scrubbers needed their filters changed, and he could have sworn he felt a vibration in the gravity field that told him someone hadn’t checked the settings for a long time.

  “Can you fix it?” she asked with a hopeful tone to her question.

  He smiled back up at her. “I can fix anything if I have the parts and enough time.”

  She smiled back at his cocky answer, obviously relieved.

  “Good,” she said. “We were lucky you were so close. Another week and I don’t know what Doctor Simpson would have done. We are losing orbit.”

  He shook his head, “We’ll you’re not clear yet. It’s going to take me five or six days to fix it.”

  She blanched for a second, “Really? It is that bad?”

  He smiled at her, “I don’t know that I’ve ever seen worse.”

  The color slowly drained from her face as she began to realize how bad things could have been.

  He could well imagine how troubling the thought could be to her. Without thrusters, they had no way to maneuver. Firing up the Higgs engine could keep them off the planet’s surface, but they could only move in a straight line. Off into deep space with no chance of hitting a wormhole correctly.

  “Don’t worry,” he added. “We’ll get you fixed up.”

  She nodded her appreciation then watched him work.

  An awkward silence fell between them. With the limitations on what they could talk about. It put a quiet damper on any hopes he had.