Sparkling blue oceans pounded the beach of pure white sand, the crash of foaming waves soothing as the calls of seabirds came from above. The island was small, barely two miles in any direction from its mountain’s peak of one thousand feet, and made up of small forests and freshwater springs and streams that joined on one side of the island and fell to the ocean in a terrific waterfall, of grassy fields that were soft and wet with dew on the morn, and of rocky sun-rocks that grew warm at the slightest hint of light and were slow to let loose their heat. The entire island was bordered by a strip of pure white sand, no weeds or grasses growing in it, almost always three dozen feet across soaking up the sun’s rays to burn or warm whatever lay upon it.

The turquoise ocean stretched to the horizon, and a coral reef stretched out far below the surface of the water for almost a mile all around. The swells grew large as they approached the shore, finally rising in a roar of white foam as they became waves that rose higher, until they broke and washed their wrath over the shore.

The gulls called again, constantly. On shore, laying in swimming trunks and on a towel through which the heat of the sand was comforting, was a figure, muscled chest evident even face-down. Sun-basking, enjoying the moment, the feel, the sounds... The sounds of gulls, of surf, of beeping...

Beeping? The figure sat up, and slowly the surf became softer, the gulls bled away, the trees less clear and the grasp on the island less strong. The sun became less warm, and the entire world he had just been tanning in became less of what it was.

Sub-consciously, tired, almost, the figure seen became aware of being awake. The dream faded, and the figure opened his eyes. He sat up on one elbow, using the other hand the remove the sleep from his eyes.

Long black hair fell in his face, and he blew it away with a breath. Dark brown eyes looked about the world, still asleep as they became awake, finally relenting and commanding the rest of him to get up.

The beeping of the alarm was quickly shut off; at that response, the lights flickered on brightly, and the man squinted for a moment, until his eyes adjusted. He lifted a smooth, muscular arm to scratch the back of his head, then sat upright fully. Powerful legs and a light build resembled something of what had been seen on the island, and his features and clean-shaven face were not unattractive.

Boxers of a course material were quickly covered by black, baggy pants that fit only in the waist, and were made of the same, course material. A long-sleeved shirt was also black, although not as course as the material of the lower body. A black belt and silver catch fastened the over-long pants to the man, and socks of an obscure, non-dyed material were pulled on.

The man stood a moment, almost six and a quarter feet, retrieving black boots from a corner locker, which were pulled on the feet, the extra pants tucked into it as they were buckled tight.

Finally the man left the ten by ten cell of his room and entered the refresher, emerging ready for the small world he lived in.

He opened the door to his room and walked out, the boots obvious on the mesh-metal floor. He strode to the end of the long hall and climbed up the ladder, through a round porthole and onto the next level. He walked past windows gazing into the depths of space as if they were nothing, and entered a room that could have been called the mess hall if it were not stacked full with lockers and storage containers wherever the table and chairs were not. The smell of nutrient steaks and eggs filled the room, and the figure strode to a bar to pick up a steak. Through a low window the kitchen was in chaos, as once again the cook on shift was young.

"Still can’t keep it in order?" the figure asked, his voice deep.

The young chef looked at him for a moment, before he was busied beating the pan he held as the eggs burst into flames. "I’ll put it this way, Jadan, next port we’re taking on a cook, whether he wants to come or not."

The figure laughed, smiled mentally at the use of his nickname, then spoke half-sarcastically, half-encouragingly, "Well, at least you hate the food enough to add more than the usual amount of flavor to the steaks. Makes them taste better than dry boards."

At this it was the cook’s turn to laugh. "Least I only have to serve the rest of the day, then I can get back to running my post."

"And make Lekin cook? You’re in for a speech, once you get out of here." Jadan said.

"His shift is shorter than mine, plus he enjoys it. And, as much as I suck at it, cooking for eight people isn’t a terribly hard job." The cook shook his head. "That is, once he gets in here, he enjoys it. He’d much rather be doing something like re-calibrating the suits’ thruster sensors or something."

"No," a voice called from behind them, half amused, "I did that last week."

Jadan turned, looking at the thin, half-muscled form of Lekin. He stood around five and a half feet, but was skinny as was allowed to serve as and spent all his time tinkering with various aspects of the ship.

"Really." Jadan said, sitting down to tear at the round slab of hard, black...stuff before him.

"Yeah. I’ve gotten this ship in such good condition that there isn’t much else to improve on." Lekin said.

"There’s chef-boy’s cooking." Jadan said, leaning his head to the side without looking as he anticipated the flying egg. "And his aim."

Lekin laughed. "Yes, but I don’t take on apprentices."

"Oh, my life has no goal now." The chef mocked.

"Yes it does. You can flip steaks for a living."

"Watch it Lekin. Steaks are harder than eggs." The chef grinned.

"And I’m sure you’d love to throw one at Lekin, but I hope you can refrain, Julian. You’d just have to work Lekin shift while he recovers." Jadan chastised him, standing.

The steak dropped onto a plate.

Jadan left them with a good-natured look as he walked away, dropping his plate with the rest, leaving them to argue about the phase variance of prototype engines, and what not.

He walked back to the ladder, descending two more decks to stand at his post a moment, watching the engine core thrum. After a moment, he moved his hands over the dark table, which promptly lit up and displayed various bars and charts. A white circular depression in the middle of the square table glowed softly, turning the air above it different colors with a three-dimensional display. Jadan hit a few controls, bringing up the hanging object he wanted, then reached across and moved his hand about the air as if he were moving an object. The sensors embedded around the holo-plate saw this movement and moved the object accordingly.

Briefly, Jadan reflected on his first time with the holo-display. He had stood there for hours, marveling at he feeling of moving mere air inches and in fact aligning a twenty-foot-long thruster, or moving a magnetic containment field a micron for every three inches of his fingers.

He stood there a while, moving his hand in various way to adjust those things that had become out of sync or changed overnight. This was his job, as chief engineer, and he was totally absorbed in his task.

Suddenly, a voice called out behind him. "Morning, sir!"

Jadan jumped at the unexpected call of his assistant, and the ship shuddered as his hand moved an object the wrong way. He quickly came back and fixed the mistake, but not before it would have woken everyone.

Slowly, the immediate concern over, Jadan turned. "Good morning, Kaj."

"Sorry sir."

They stood there a moment, before Jadan finally remember that Kaj could do nothing unless he was given an order for the day. "Just try to remember this time not to do that again. It might not be a RCS thruster quad next time."

"Yessir."

"Nevermind. There’s a sensor cluster down on B-16, I’m going to go fix it." Jadan said as he grabbed a small case and headed out towards the door. "Hold the fort while I’m gone."

"Yessir!"

Jadan shook his head. Kaj meant well, but he was young and inexperienced. True, he was a genius of sorts, and they were all lucky to have him on hand to fix most things, but he had few skills in delicate matters others than alignment.

Jadan walked a short distance down the corridor, then stopped. Set into the wall was a panel, totally black when there should have been a read-out. Just below it was an access panel Jadan popped out, revealing various circuits and chips.

One wire in particular had been burned black, and smoke stained were evident around it. Jadan took out a tool from the case, a large, circular shaped thing, and activated it over the wire. A bright blue glow was evident as waste energy over the wire, and he moved the length of it, removing the smoke and junk that covered it. Setting that tool back into the case, he removed another one, this a thin, pointed thing with a large square screen set in the top, a button on either side.

It let off a little beep as Jadan turned it on, and showed an ultra-magnified view of the wire. He moved slowly along it, until the display showed a large twisted mass of lines where before there had been neat, straight areas. He pressed the first button and the device let off a little hum, then quit.

On the wire itself, there was a tiny patch of blue where before there had been only red wire.

Jadan put that tool up and took out another in turn. This one looked to be like a pencil with a very fine point. As he pressed a button embedded in the side, it let off a tiny, needle-thin beam of green, which he placed over the blue-marked area of the wire. That done, he replaced his tools and closed the panel.

On the black panel, a single button appeared in the top-right corner, which he pressed. The screen changed, showing a smooth green symbol in the center--the sensor--with thick lines on either side showing the ship’s hull. Out about kilometer was a red, fluid shaped figure.

Jadan cursed, grabbing his case in a hurry and running down the corridor. Okin, the weapons officer, wouldn’t be awake now. He flew into engineering, throwing the case in it’s slot and slamming the locker shut, yelling things to Kaj and running out again.

.Jadan ran all out down the corridor and came up the ladder, finally hitting the bridge. The only officer on deck was Lekin, who looked confused and bewildered as Jadan stopped, slid on the only non-mesh floor on the ship, and took a step back to slam down on a blue button tucked away on the weapons board. He heard generator far below humming as they came on, and he looked at a more detailed layout of the ship.

It was unclassified, the only distinguishing factor was a large amount of weapons and beacon identifying it as enemy. It was almost twenty times their size, and brimming with power.

"Get everyone alive!" Jadan ordered Lekin. The younger officer was still confused, but moved to obey. Jadan closed his eyes briefly, gathering his senses, and tapped a green button. A small chime was accompanied by a sleepy, "Whatizit?"

Jadan tried to keep from laughing. "Enemy ship off the port beam, twenty-one ration, approximately eight hundred meters and closing at twenty per second, no known class." That’s what it is, Jadan thought.

There was a sound of cursing and rustling. "Epsilon 4. Charge weapons and cloak."

"Yessir." Another chime ended the conversation.

Jadan took a seat in the bolted chair, tapped another button and routed it to Engineering, giving Kaj command. A minor note, but lots of minor things added up to big problems. He worked furiously at the controls, changing the unfamiliar layout to something he could work. He brought up the right displays, hit certain commands, made sure to keep a yellow control in the corner for when Okin came in.

There were so many things to keep track of, he was glad when Okin arrived, and he gladly changed the layout back to the tactical officer’s preference.

"Let’s get out of here." The Captain said as he took his chair.

Jadan spared an instant to gaze out the bridge’s viewport. The entire fore of the bridge was transparent plasteel, and it afforded a wonderful view of space from the pilot’s console, as if he were embedded in space.

Jadan watched as Garrin, the chef, moved up to pilot them, and he knew it was time to go.

He slid down the ladder, sprinting back to his station and letting Kaj read him out the report as he checked the engine.

"Enemy vessel’s shield and weapons systems charging... the cloak isn’t working." Kaj said.

"Maybe not, but they are part of the Hadrikarian faction. They don’t have contrahole transportation." Jadan reminded him.

"How’d they get out here?" Kaj asked him, tapping controls on a neighboring console.

"They might have an outpost. We’re not far from their space."

"They’ve been getting closer to contrahole travel in the last few years."

"And if they’ve found it, we’re dead." Jadan said, finishing his rapid taps of controls and watching the engine thrum powerfully as if came online to full power. Below them, the large contrahole engines powered up. Jadan tapped a button. "Bridge, this is Jadan. Contrahole engines are ready to go, repeat, ready for contrahole generation."

"Negative, Engineering," the Captain’s voice answered him, "Enemy ship is past event horizon. No contrahole formation, repeat, no contrahole formation. Power up for attack." The comlink chimed out.

"Attack? On something twenty times out size? Is he crazy?" Kaj asked.

Jadan’s stomach dropped, but he worked on his console. "Maybe, but he’s wanting to live, and that give us the advantage."

Kaj nodded reluctantly, and prepared for the oncoming battle.

This was the part he hated most, the waiting for something, anything to happen. The soft thrum of the engine, the otherwise silent room.

There were several shudders, sounds of the ship being struck at multiple times, and Jadan felt the Lekin-improved weapon firing rapidly, could imagine the other ship being struck by energy that pierced their shields.

A chime confirmed his imagination. "Engineering, prepare for contrahole jump to New Haven."

"Yessir." Jadan said. "How long will they be stuck out here?"

"Stuck, chief?" The captain asked.

Jadan’s frowned as weapons struck the ship. "Didn’t we just take out their engines, sir?"

"Chief, if you don’t get us to New Haven, the only thing left stuck out here will be our engines. They’re following us."

"Sir?"

"Just do your job, Chief." The Captain said, not wanting to explain.

Jadan blinked, shifted as the weapons fire became more apparent on weakening shields, and finally called out to Kaj and no one else. "Initiating contrahole jump... now!" he pressed a button and braced against the console for the jump.

Outside the ship, the fabric of space slowly twisted and folded, until a small black hole was formed. The ship and enemy were drawn in alike, and the hole flattened out into normal space once they were gone.

At New Haven, the sudden appearance of a white hole thrust out a friendly ship... and an enemy. Almost immediately, Jadan pressing the engines into the red to speed them away, New Haven defense attacked the enemy ship, reducing it to manifolds and raw material in a moment.

That year of 2073, Jadan’s ship was upgraded and engaged in battle so many times that it eventually was the most powerful ship in the fleet.