“Is there danger?”
“No, Kapitan. Stress and temperature readings are within safe parameters. But that unit is not putting out full thrust. Its output is varying from fifty to eighty percent of maximum.”
“Let’s hope that’s enough,” Marphissa said, her eyes locked on her display. The Syndicate flotilla was flattening out from its turn, charging toward the fleeing Manticore as the surviving Syndicate heavy cruiser scrambled to rejoin its companions before Pele could return. The rate of closure of the Syndicate flotilla on Manticore was dropping fast as the heavy cruiser strained to pull away and escape intercept. But that rate had to hit zero, then hopefully turn negative as the range began widening again, or else Manticore would still be doomed.
Kontos had brought Pele back again, too late to catch the heavy cruiser alone, swinging in from above to strike the rear of the Syndicate formation. The remaining Syndicate light cruiser blew apart as it tried to evade fire from the battle cruiser as well as Gryphon and Basilisk. The rest of the Midway flotilla, still in a separate formation under Kapitan Seney on Kraken, had bent down and back, and was coming in a flat curve at the Syndicate formation from behind and below.
But CEO Boucher plowed on, closing the distance to Manticore with increasing slowness as the heavy cruiser kept increasing speed. “She knows this is the flagship,” Marphissa said. “CEO Boucher has been analyzing our comm patterns, and she knows I’m aboard Manticore.”
Diaz nodded. “And she wants to make an example of you. Kill the leader, and the rest will submit. Snakes always try that even though it rarely works. There’s always another leader.”
“I don’t think her intentions matter any longer,” Bradamont said, eyeing the display. “I think we’re clear. We’re going fast enough that the battleship will take about a week to catch us at this rate.”
The words had barely cleared her throat before Manticore shuddered throughout her length.
The lights went out, the life-support fans stopped, and the displays vanished.
Marphissa waited in the hushed darkness for the second it took for the emergency lighting to come on. “Something happened,” she observed to Diaz, who was fruitlessly pounding the internal comm controls on the arm of his seat.
“Engineering watch specialist!” Diaz said, his voice reverberating in the strange silence on the bridge. He lowered his voice before speaking again. “Get down to engineering and find out what’s going on. We need power back. We need everything back.”
Marphissa was gazing at where her display had been. Now, nothing but the blank, armored forward bulkhead of the bridge could be seen. The entire compartment felt strangely smaller with the equipment offline and life support not offering the constant, reassuring background noise of fans and ducts and circulating fluids. The bridge was buried deep in the ship, as safe as possible from enemy fire or other threats, which normally brought a sense of reassurance. At the moment, it was creating a feeling of literally being buried.
Senior Watch Specialist Czilla propped open a device pulled out of the emergency locker near his station. It lit, showing a series of readings. “We are still all right for oxygen and CO2 concentration, Kommodor. Estimated time to dangerous reduction in O2 and dangerous density of CO2 is twenty-five minutes.”
“We’ll hold off sealing our survival suits to conserve their life support for when we need it,” Marphissa said. “Damn! What is going on outside?”
“We’re still moving,” Diaz said. “We’ve stopped accelerating, but the Syndicate flotilla is still in a long stern chase. Those surviving Hunter-Killers with the battleship have been burning a lot of their fuel cells. Unless CEO Boucher provides new cells from the battleship’s stockpile, those Hunter-Killers will be in trouble before the Syndicate ships can catch us.”
“At the moment,” Marphissa grumbled in a very low voice, “I’m worried about our own people catching us. We had made it back up past point one five light speed when the power cut out, and now we’re racing outward at that velocity. If we get too far out before they can send someone to intercept us…”
“We could open some exterior fittings to vent atmosphere,” Diaz said. “Pivot the ship using that method, then figure out how to light off main propulsion without power—”
“That’s impossible. It would just blow up if the regulators didn’t have power.” Marphissa breathed a sigh of relief as the displays flickered to life again. “Progress. Maybe there is still hope.” She peered at the display, which continued to waver in intensity from bright to dim. “There’s nothing on it except a static view of what was last known. This is useless.”
“Kapitan?” someone called.
Diaz hit his comm controls. “Yes! Senior Specialist Sasaki?”
“Yes, Kapitan. The power core did an emergency shutdown. We’re not sure why, so we’ve isolated it and will do a restart.”
“I need comms and sensors back online fast!”
“I understand and will comply, Kapitan. Two minutes.”
But two minutes, then four minutes, then ten went past. Diaz’s attempts to call engineering again failed as the comm circuit went dead once more.
The engineering watch specialist dashed back onto the bridge, gasping for breath. “Kapitan, the power core—”
“I know,” Diaz growled.
“They are rewiring again, Kapitan. They found that just doing a restart would probably trigger another threatened overload and shutdown, so they’ve been pulling things out and redoing them.”
“Why did I lose comms with engineering?” Diaz demanded.
The woman looked off to one side, groping for words. “They… needed a certain black box… Junction Model 74A5F Mod 12… and the only one available was in the internal comms, so…”
“My ship is being torn apart from the inside out,” Diaz said. “Those senior specialists are doing as much damage to my ship as the Syndicate did!”
Marphissa nodded. “If we survive, Manticore is going to need some extensive internal repairs. And we’ll have to reward those senior specialists who are tearing your ship apart because otherwise we’d already be dead.”
The displays vanished again, then reappeared before anyone could even curse their disappearance. “Kommodor, we have updated external information! External comm links and sensors are active again,” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla reported.
Marphissa had been able to deaden her worries a bit when she literally could not see anything about events outside of Manticore, but now they sprang to full life again as Marphissa bent close to study her display.
The Syndicate flotilla was still in pursuit, still slowly closing the gap to Manticore, but the battleship now was accompanied by only the single heavy cruiser and three surviving Hunter-Killers. Kontos and Seney must have hit CEO Boucher’s formation again. Both the Pele formation and the one now centered on Kraken were coming around for two more attacks.
“Look at that!” Diaz said in amazement. “Midway! The battleship, I mean.”
Marphissa tore her attention away from the nearest ships, trying to figure out what Diaz was talking about. Then she saw it. The battleship Midway, light-hours away, had come around, accelerating at full capacity on a route that would place her between the Syndicate formation and the hypernet gate. “What is Kapitan Mercia doing? She’s revealed for everyone to see that the Midway actually has full propulsion capability!”