“We’ve got a problem,” Cole said.
“I see it.” That was their last chaff pod, and the missile wasn’t fooled. Molly started composing their surrender in her head, losing herself in the beauty of the star and the long, curving river of plasma coursing off the surface. A solar flare had erupted recently, its smaller stream of hot matter jetting out tens of thousands of kilometers, curving close to their current heading.
Very close to their current heading.
Cole’s gift had become a threat, but Molly saw that it could also be their savior.
“Hold on,” she said, altering course slightly toward the thick column of plasma that made up the solar flare. Even the gradual change in direction could be felt at their high rate of acceleration. Molly glanced at the three crew members strapped in on the cargo cam. They were awfully still; she hoped that meant they were doing okay.
After a moment, Cole seemed to get the plan. “How close are you going to try and get to that mess?”
“Not too close. Shouldn’t have to. The heat radiating out from the plasma will detonate the warhead from a distance. Those things can’t carry the shielding we do and still be that fast.”
Cole worked some numbers through the nav computer, his glove fixed to the panel by his side. Molly watched the results crawl across her own screen.
“I hope you’re right,” he said, “because that missile is gonna get to us before we get to that flare.”
She glanced at his calculations and started to agree. His results had them a thousand kilometers short of the solar flare when the missile struck, further away than she had hoped. Then she saw he hadn’t factored in the difference in mass between Parsona and the missile. They were going to get more suction from the combined gravity of the star and the black hole than their little friend was.
“It’s going to be close,” she admitted.
“We’ve still got three more missiles behind this guy, and the fleet is closing in pretty fast. What happened to surrendering?”
It was a lot to think about at once. Even if the plume of plasma set off the first missile, they were going too fast to come to a complete stop and let the heat take out the other three. Besides, any decrease in speed would just bring them in range of the fleet’s lasers. Molly felt completely cornered, as powerless as the coil of fire being sucked off of the star’s surface, rolling across space into the black hole.
The black hole.
“The what?” Cole asked.
Molly must’ve said it out loud.
“Do I get two vetoes per day? ’Cause I’m against hiding in the black hole as well.”
She didn’t have time to explain herself. The missile was half a minute from impact, and the wide column of fire streaking off the star and joining the spiraling river was close enough to see its features. Smaller arcs of plasma leapt up and crashed back into the main body like fiery fish breaking the surface of a lava lake and diving back in.
Cole updated the situation: “Fifteen seconds to impact.”
Molly couldn’t just hold her breath and see if the gambit with the missile would work; she needed to calculate her next dumb idea. She keyed the ridiculously large numbers into the nav calculator with one hand while she gradually altered course with the flight controls. The key was to keep assuming everything would work, like during the Tchung simulation when she’d moved from one audacious move to the next. Only this time, with very real consequences.
She moved Parsona gradually closer to a new heading, using a rough guess while the nav computer struggled with an enormous Lagrange calculation. She wondered if Cole could feel the slight change in their heading and the forces acting on their bodies.
He counted down the second missile’s impact over their private channeclass="underline"
“Six…”
Molly concentrated on the nav computer, waiting on it to spit out an answer.
“Five…”
She remembered, all of a sudden, that her mother was in there somewhere.
“Four…”
Hopefully the grueling load on the CPU eased her boredom, slowing down her sense of time—
“Three…”
Molly shook the thought out of her head, amazed her brain would even go there right then.
“Two…”
The calculation finally popped up. Molly was impressed to see how close the answer was to her rough estimate.
“Detonation!”
The missile behind them expanded into a miniature version of the nearby star. Cole felt a change in his flightsuit as the explosion slewed the back of the ship slightly. He tried to pump his fist in celebration, but they were moving at a blistering pace. The suit could keep his flesh from being crushed—and the gravity panels in the dash could make it easier for his hands to work the controls—but nothing could help him wave his limbs in jubilation.
Then he realized there wasn’t anything to celebrate. Molly had altered their heading, giving up on the slingshot maneuver. Even if the other three missiles exploded from the heat, the fleet was going to catch up to them, engaging them while they were trapped in this crazy system. A red warning indicator flashed on the SADAR screen. It finally struck Cole that Molly’s new vector had problems. Whatever celebratory mood he had felt quickly drained away.
“Why’re we heading toward the black hole, Molly?”
He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.
“We aren’t. We’re heading for the L1 in this system.”
“This system doesn’t have an L1, it’s—” Cole realized he was wrong just as he voiced his complaint. It was easy to see the star orbiting the black hole as an anomaly, as if there was only one “body,” and the black hole was just an exotic companion. But they were both just points of gravity to the computer. Lots of gravity in the case of the black hole.
Between the two masses, there had to be a Lagrange point, an L1 where the force of gravity from both objects cancelled out. And Parsona should be close to the L1—it would be much nearer the less-massive star.
Cole looked at his nav screen and saw Molly had already calculated the spot. When had she done that?
“Uh… we might be going too fast for a safe jump to hyperspace. We aren’t gonna to be in the L1 for a full second at this speed.”
“I know. So you’d better time it just right.”
“Me?”
Cole looked over the numbers, trying to remember the recommended limitations for their hyperdrive. It wasn’t a question of whether they were exceeding them—he just couldn’t tell if they were tripling or quadrupling the max speed on the warranty card.
“Yeah, you, navigator. And try to anticipate the flinch that’ll probably come just as you thumb the drive.”
Cold checked the hyperdrive. It was still spooled up from his last shift. A glance at the three missiles on SADAR told him they’d be a non-issue—the jump would come before the explosion. Still, the warheads trailing behind were like snarling dogs chasing him toward a high fence, helping to steel his resolve.
Most likely, they wouldn’t come into play at all. Because he was probably going to get them all killed first.
Molly smiled to herself, resigned. Just as with the last missile gambit, the die had already been cast. Now she could enjoy the wait while Fate read the pips.
The radio hissed to life, interference from the solar flares garbling the transmission and drowning out every other word in a chorus of pops and hisses. It sounded like the Navy was warning them of the impending danger.
Someone in the command ship must’ve plotted their new course and realized what they were up to. Probably someone right out of the Academy, Molly thought. Someone whose creativity hadn’t been beaten out of them. She pictured a young navigator, maybe someone a class or two ahead of her, possibly even someone who’d picked on her. She could imagine him going to the fleet commander with a sense of excitement, his voice trembling as he explained her wild plan.