Prophets

“—the hell?” Wahid said, and he began tapping madly at the display. “You see that, Parvi?”

“I have depressurization in the main maintenance tunnel. Damn. Major power drains on the main tach- drive.”

“I lost all data readings on the tach-comm,” Kugara said.

“Shit,” Wahid said, “that’s because we don’t have one anymore.”

The main holo display switched to one of the external cameras, pointing down at the stern of the Eclipse. A long contrail of ice crystals and debris emerged from a small hole in the skin of the ship, as if the ship was being followed by a small comet.

Did the tach-comm just blow up?

Mallory looked around and realized that Dr. Dorner was staring at him. Did I say something? Did I give myself away?

“What happened to the tach-comm unit?” Mosasa snapped.

“The diagnostic logs show an intense power spike at the time of transmission,” Kugara replied quietly.

“It spiked across the whole system,” Parvi said. “The drives are intact, but the tach-comm is interlinked with the damping system. It drained two thirds of the power reserves before vaporizing. We only have one damping conduit left at about fifty percent capacity.”

“No!” Mosasa snapped, slamming his hands down on the console in front of him. “We cannot have the tach- comm down. That communications link is essential.”

“Sir? Did you hear what I said?” Parvi’s voice was on the verge of cracking. “We’re down two thirds of our power reserves. That’s our return trip and our margin.”

“We have to repair the tach-comm. Communication is our number one priority!”

Everyone, bridge crew and scientists, stared at Mosasa as their nominal leader stared into the holo before him, watching the ice cloud of venting gases fade as the ship sealed off the damaged section. “We need the communication link back up.”

If anything, the look of shock on Mosasa’s face was worse now than when he heard an entire star was missing.

“I’m sorry,” Wahid said. “From all the engineering data, there’s nothing left to repair. The surge completely vaporized the main transmission coils, as well as the primary power damping coils. We only got half of one secondary coil to keep the drives from overheating. We’re damn lucky we didn’t suffer a main drive failure. We don’t even have the power to spare for a transmission, even if I could pull a new coherent emitter out of my ass.”

Mosasa shook his head, hands clutching the console in front of him. At the moment he looked way too human.

Only one third power, Mallory thought. That’s less than two fully-powered jumps. That can’t even get us halfway back.

He could see that understanding sinking into the faces of the rest of the crew, except for Nickolai’s, who appeared as enigmatic as ever. Mosasa stared at the console in front of him, whispering, “Was this planned?”

“Sir?” Parvi asked.

Mosasa pushed himself upright. “We need to conserve power and get to a colony where we might be able to repower the ship and repair the damage. Everyone on maintenance duty, I want the drives checked out. Make sure they suffered no other damage.”

“What colony?” Wahid asked.

“The closest one is HD 101534. It is eight light-years away and leaves us with an acceptable margin in our remaining power reserves.”

If it is still there, Mallory thought.

Most of the crew had things to do, checking out the integrity of the tach-drive, doing what they could to fix the damping system, repairing the breach made by the failing tach-comm, plotting a course to the next nearest “lost” colony. Even the scientists finally had some work, trying to decipher exactly what happened to Xi Virginis.