Story: The Lethe, pt. X

The most tedious part of the mission had begun: getting far enough away from the large gravity well of Mars in order for the jump drive to be engaged. Two days of travel later, and the Hyperion successfully reached a point at which the gravity of Mars would not interfere with the jump drive’s bending of space. Preparations began for the Hyperion’s first jump as official starship.
Skylar, Sawyer, and Chang spent the hours preceding their arrival at the safe point in order to calculate the exact settings needed to make the jump 5 light years ahead. Normally, the calculations would only take a few minutes, but this jump required extra precision because Sawyer had to scan ahead to see if the Lethe happened to be in the ship’s path. If so, then the Hyperion would want to jump a shorter distance in order to arrive exactly next to the Lethe.
Finally, Skylar announced, “We’re ready to jump, Captain.”
Dobbins looked up from the status monitors that he had been studying casually. “Excellent. Lieutenant Sawyer, any sign of the Lethe in the region ahead of us?”
“No, sir,” Sawyer replied quietly. “Nothing out there at all of any size, sir.”
Dobbins nodded. “That’s to be expected. If the Lethe were this close, someone would have spotted her. Mr. Skylar, whenever you’re prepared, let’s make the first jump.”
Skylar smiled. “Aye, sir.” His hands once again danced over the control panel and the Hyperion initiated a jump.
An observer outside the ship would have seen a unique sight. First, the clear striping around the middle of the ship suddenly began to glow orange. That orange glow grew in intensity until several meters on each side of the ship reflected the aura. Then, suddenly, without any flash from the engines or change, the Hyperion vanished, reappearing just as suddenly in a new location without any signals to indicate its arrival.
On board the Hyperion, the change was as sudden. One minute, Dobbins sat looking at his control panel, watching the jump field grow up to full strength. For the briefest microsecond, he felt like he blacked out, and then he noticed that the jump field indicators on his panel were dropping. The distant star patterns on the holographic display had changed dramatically. The Hyperion had just jumped 5 light years from Earth and sat alone in vast darkness of interstellar space.
“Jump complete, Captain,” reported Skylar.
“No sign of the Lethe in the immediate vicinity,” Sawyer said. “I’m expanding scans outward to 5 light years ahead.”
Dobbins nodded, still a little shocked by the suddenness of the jump. He knew what had happened—even if he did not totally understand it—but even knowing what had happened did not settle the slight sense of disorientation he felt. To try to get his sense of equilibrium back, he walked over to the communications station, where Lieutenant Marquél sat, transmitting on all hyperwave frequencies in an attempt to contact the Lethe.