Tor was the new kid, fresh off the farm. He'd just signed on at Corona, when the Lass' previous crewman and partner had signed off after a quarrel with Valt, and the authorities there had refused to let them lift without a Comm Officer. This was his first jump, and the alarms had evidently scared him silly.
Jirik strode to the engineering console and shut off the alarms before turning to the others. The sudden silence seemed deafening. The kid crowded after him. "What is it, Captain? What's happened? Are we gonna die?"
Even under the circumstances, the kid's last question made Jirik chuckle. "No, Tor," He replied, "We're not gonna die. We've been holed, probably by a small meteorite. There's no danger. Bran's patched the hole, temporarily. But we do have a problem. The damned thing, whatever it was, hit both our inertial drive generators." He cursed heatedly.
Tor cut off his flow of profanity. "But, Captain! I thought we had shields to protect us from stuff like that?"
Jirik sighed. "We do, Tor. But they're powered by the inertial drive generators. We don't need them in hyperspace. If that pebble had passed this point five seconds sooner, we wouldn't have emerged yet, and wouldn't really have been here for it to hit. If it'd hit two seconds later, when the inertial drive was fully on line, we'd have had shields. As it is, it hit us during the only few seconds when a starship is vulnerable. We'll know how much of a problem we have when Bran finishes surveying the damage. Meanwhile, try to relax. We're in no immediate danger."
Valt merely half-smiled, and turned back to his astrogation station. Tor, though, was still excited. He paced back and forth until Jirik growled at him to sit down. He gave his Captain a look that reminded him of a puppy that's been kicked, but he returned to the comm station.
Jirik began to survey the instruments at the engineering station. Both ID indicators were bright red, of course. Yellow lights indicated most of the other systems, including Life support. They were using the emergency system, since the main system would have been powered by the IDs. This was no problem, of course. The emergency system could maintain them for months. Actually, except for the fact that the food synthesizers would be able to produce only standard rations, and of course the fact that they were without their inertial drives, they were in good shape.
"Valt," Jirik said into the oppressive silence, "See if you can find out where we are, where this planet, uh, Boondock is, and what we have to do to get there. As soon as Bran knows how badly we've been hurt, we'll have a meeting to find out where we stand." Valt nodded and turned back to his console.
It took Bran a bit more than half a standard hour, but finally he was finished, and the crew gathered in the Wardroom for a meeting.
"Okay," Jirik said for the benefit of the log recorder, "This is a shareholder's meeting to discuss the present situation. All shareholders present." He stifled a smile as Tor straightened in his chair and puffed out his chest, although technically he wasn't a full shareholder yet. Had he ever been that young? "Bran, how bad is it?"
Bran's dour expression gave nothing away – Bran's expression was always dour. "All right," he began, "To start with, the port Inertial Drive generator is, I think, beyond repair; at least, it can't be repaired out here. The starboard generator's casing was scored, and it may be too weak to use. The external components were also hit by whatever it was. I might be able to jerry-rig something that can at least get us moving again if the casing isn't too weak, but it'll take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks. It depends on the stores we have. We lost some air, of course, and the space between the inner and outer hulls is depressurized. "
"How about cannibalizing the port generator for the external parts?" Jirik asked.
Bran shrugged. "Some of them, maybe. But I'm worried about the starboard generator's casing. If it's been weakened too much, and it blew, well . . . "
Valt shifted impatiently. "So we sit out here for a few weeks while you maybe get us going again? Are there other alternatives?"
"Maybe," Jirik replied, "But not certainly. Before we get into that, what did you find out?"
Valt got to his feet with a surly look. "We emerged from supralight at the edge of the system. We're even a bit out of the plane of the ecliptic. It was a textbook emergence, so don't try to blame me!"
With an effort, Jirik smiled into Valt's glowering face. "Nobody's blaming you, Valt." He relaxed slightly, "There's no way you could predict a micrometeorite from twelve light years away. Or that it would hit us during the only few seconds during which it could damage us. But it happened, and we need to know how bad it is."
Valt jerked his head in a mollified nod. "Well, as I said, we're on the edge of the system, five degrees out of the plane of the ecliptic. We emerged with almost no real velocity or orbit. For the few moments that the ID generators were on line, we gained some velocity, but unless we can get some acceleration, we won't approach the orbit of Boondock for about three months, and when we get there, Boondock will be on the other side of the sun." He glared at each of them, then sat down.
Tor had been fidgeting as Valt spoke. As soon as Valt sat down, Tor raised his hand, like a kid in school. Jirik saw Bran hide a smile as he said, "You don't have to raise your hand here, Tor. What is it?"
The kid flushed. "Well, I don't understand something. How could we emerge with almost no velocity? I mean, we were going faster than light, right? We didn't just stop, did we?"
"Aw, C'mon," Valt protested. "Give the kid a book and let's get on with the meeting!"
"Tor's entitled to an explanation," Jirik replied. "If we have to hire a tow, it'll come out of his profits too, you know!" He nodded. "Go ahead, Bran."
Bran shrugged. "How much do you know about our propulsion systems, Tor?"
"Well," Tor admitted, "Not much. I know we have two separate systems, but I don't understand why."
Bran nodded. "You're right, of course. We do have two separate systems, one for intersystem travel, and one for intrasystem travel. You probably learned about the Inertial Drive in school. Its invention was one of man's greatest accomplishments. The ID made it possible for us to use constant boost to get around in a system. Before that, you computed a ballistic orbit, boosted as little as possible to get into that orbit, then shut down the engines and coasted! It took months and even years to get around in a system. The ID made interstellar trade practical. But, like most real breakthroughs, it's basically pretty simple. I've got a pop-level book I can lend you, if you're really interested."
He sighed. "On the other hand, the Jump Drive made interstellar trade possible. There may be a dozen theoretical physicists in the Empire and the Alliance who understand it well enough to try to explain it, but they could only do it in mathematics. Our language is designed for a Newtonian universe. Whatever continuum it is that the Jump Drive uses, it isn't Newtonian! Our thought processes and logic just can't cope with the lack of human logic. The guy that originally discovered the thing must've had a really weird mind!"
Jirik chuckled. "A few years ago I made up my mind to learn to understand jump theory. After about two years, I gave up. When someone asks me how the jump works, I just grin and tell them, 'Magic'!"
Bran grinned. "That's just as accurate as terms like 'supralight'."
Tor looked puzzled. "I thought 'supralight' meant 'faster than light'."
Bran's grin widened. "A popular belief, thank all the odd gods of the galaxy! If people believe that, they somehow think they understand it, and stop asking uncomfortable questions. Of course, physicists go into a tizzy when you equate supralight and FTL. It seems that they think they own the term 'faster than light', and that it describes a very specific theoretical concept. When the jump drive was first designed, it touched off a battle that went on for years. Finally, the spacers agreed to use the made-up word 'supralight', and the physicists agreed not to assign that term any other meaning." He shrugged. "Actually, I understand that the term translates as 'above light'."