He turned back toward her, “Hang in there Victoria; medical attention is on the way.”
She opened one eye at him, “Don’t worry, I will live, Admiral; I may not enjoy it, but I will live.”
He smiled back at her, “Is everyone else okay?”
The general response was in the affirmative; they were shaken but uninjured.
Satisfied, he turned back to CeCe and Helt, rubbing his own face, “Someone tell me why we’re pulling so much power from the reactors; we could have turned all of Temple Bay into superheated steam by now.”
CeCe had been back-checking Helt. Her readings showed that the isolator drive was operating correctly and smoothly even if it was pulling every spare watt the massive reactors could provide. It had never been determined just how much power an isolator drive could absorb; the math was fuzzy at best. The only real known cause for power consumption variations was based on the size and shape of the ship--the smoother, the less--the bigger, the more.
She, carefully and slowly, eyed her instruments. The resonator display showed them headed outward from the Forest system. She swept her eyes around the circle of screens; those that had been showing an external view now showed the blackness of isolator space.
Her eyes came back to the resonator display; she entered a display data command, “That’s . . . odd.”
Wills and Helt were on edge enough without hearing that, “What?” was spoken in unison.
“We were on the sunward side of Forest. The combined planetary rotation and orbital motion should have given us a combined vector slightly more in the direction of the Forest primary. That does not seem to be the case.”
She scanned the black screens one more time. Was that . . . ?
“AI, say mass of this ship.”
“SHIP’S MASS IS 5.6452X10 to the 24th KILOGRAMS”
Helt froze, Wills swallowed--hard, “That’s . . . a planetary level mass.”
CeCe smiled broadly, “Yes, sir; I would wager that it is the exact mass of Forest. AI, turn on north side external lighting.”
Normally, the activation of external lighting while in isolator drive was a waste of power; you couldn’t tell they were on. In this case, the brilliant glare illuminated the ground beneath the Weasel, the ground between the Weasel and the game field, the game field with its mass of terrified locals, and a little of the town where CeCe had seen a small, improbable light.
The rest of the group pressed up behind the command chairs, incredulous expressions crossing their faces as they gawked at the view of an outside world.
Stoker whispered, “Well, there goes something else that I knew was impossible.”
Wills was reclined in his chair tapping a finger on the console, “That is a word that I will never use again.”
CeCe looked up at the screen to engineering, “Captain Helt.”
“Yes, Captain”
“Can the reactors maintain their current output? I don’t think I need to offer speculation on the culinary state of our goose if we should lose the isolator drive anytime soon.”
Helt nodded, “The Berlin Reactors can take this and more. But I will shift some of the load off the old Weasel reactors.” He began tapping on his console, “I’ll feel better if they were kept down to 110 percent. I’ll also reduce power consumption inside the ship, open the heat sink vents, and take any needed internal heating from them. Oh, and I’ll get those two primary reactor cooling systems back online.”
He stopped tapping and looked up at CeCe, “I can stabilize it. What are you going to do with it?”
#
Two hours later, internal power consumption had been reduced and the reactor load evaluated and stabilized to sustainable levels. Helt had people repairing the damaged primary cooling systems on the two reactors, and Doctor Treelam had her scalp laceration reduced and covered with a small bio-gel pack. The worst injuries throughout the ship were a dozen broken bones, and a variety of cuts and sprains.
Wills stood with Ames, Twisst, and Susan as the loading ramp lowered to the ground in front of them. Helt and an engineering team hurried down the ramp ahead of them to check external damage.
Wills reached the ground and turned toward the game field. He was surprised by the size of the crowd and noticed that they had come closer but had stopped as they reached the overhang of the ship as though the ground beneath was untouchable. Wills had the odd thought that they had come to the lights of the Weasel to get some relief from the sudden shock of the absolute darkness of the isolator environment.
Ames looked around and took a deep breath, “I appreciate the fact that the Silverman saw fit to bring the atmosphere with. Those isolator theorists I know are going to have a total orgasm over this one.”
While the engineering people ran checks on the floaters, the three of them made the two hundred meter walk to the edge of the crowd. Fires and torches were appearing around the game field and throughout the mass of locals. Wills had thought about getting a needler out of the weapons locker but had settled for posting Kraigor and Bonn at the foot of the loading ramp with stun grenade launchers in case a hasty retreat from the tense locals became necessary.
They stopped about ten meters from the Foresters where Joe and a group of town leaders stood. Joe had never given Hayes or Wills the impression that he adapted well and quickly to sudden changes in his life; the look on his face at this moment did nothing to change that impression. Wills waved him forward and made sure Susan was standing next to him. If he had to bet, he figured that she would understand what he was about to say
