Black Fleet Trilogy 1: Warship by Joshua Dalzelle Page B

operations like a transition.
    "OPS?" he asked.
    "Confirmed, Captain," Ensign Davis said crisply. As a courtesy she began putting up the countdown timer and relative position of the ship on the main display. "Nav data has passed redundancy checks. We should come out where we're supposed to."
    The bridge remained silent as everyone tensed up for the coming transition. Even Aston Lynch, secured in an observation seat, kept his mouth shut, though he looked at the display pensively.
    "Five seconds!" Ensign Davis called out loudly and a sharp klaxon sounded twice throughout the entire ship. A few seconds later the ship shuddered violently and there was a slight dip in power on non-essential systems that caused the ambient lighting to dim slightly.
    As soon as the shuddering subsided the main display cleared and became a window once again, allowing the crew to see that beyond the glowing warp drive emitters there was a clear star field, letting them know that they had reemerged safely into real space.
    "All departments have checked in," Davis reported. "Waiting for confirmation of position." Jackson waited patiently as the spacer at the Nav station determined their position by taking star captures and measuring local gravitational anomalies.
    "We're fifteen thousand kilometers from our expected transition point," he reported. "I'm sending the data to OPS and Engineering."
    Jackson frowned. Even though this was still within the limits for the length of the previous flight, he'd hoped to emerge much closer to their target. When the ship was in warp it was literally flying blind, relying on internal instruments to make sure they emerged where they were supposed to. The Blue Jacket's crew routinely hit targets of less than five thousand kilometers on longer flights so he was inclined to believe it was something that Jericho Station had done to his equipment rather than an error on his crew's part.
    "I expect that to be tightened up on the next jump," he said, giving fair warning to everyone that they needed to find out why the internal navigation systems were off by so much. "Plot a course to our rendezvous coordinates and send them to the helm. OPS, retract the warp drive emitters and close the external hatches. Once they're stowed, start the main engines and let me know when we're clear to begin maneuvering."
    "Aye, sir," Ensign Davis said, the emitters beginning to slowly retract into the hull even before Jackson had finished issuing orders. He watched as the delicate devices were carefully nestled back into their storage nooks and the heavy external hatches were swung over and locked into place, protecting them from debris hits or potential enemy weapons-fire. Early generations of Terran starships had two enormous rings, one fore and one aft, that made up the warp drive and were permanently affixed around the hull. Jackson had always been idly curious how many of those ships were lost because they became stranded between jumps due to a micrometeor impact damaging an emitter ring.
    "I don't like the fact we're not permitted to take an active scan of the area," Jackson said quietly to Celesta. "I'd like to you to go down to the CIC and begin a passive scan of surrounding space, full spectrum."
    "Aye, Captain," she said, popping the latches on her restraints and hustling off the bridge.
    The Combat Operations Center was the heart and soul of the ship when it came to flying, tracking, and shooting. It was a room located near the middle of the main hull and was crewed by fifteen specialists at all times manning every instrument on the Blue Jacket , ready to feed information to the bridge whenever needed. There was even a command station in the room where the captain could run the ship from there if needed. The Operations Center used to be referred to as the Combat Information Center back before human vessels were capable of travelling between the stars, but the term "CIC" was an anachronism that had survived to the modern age of