The Voyage of the Star Wolf Read Online Free PDF

we’ll have to—”
    Something flickered.
    The ceiling panels began to glow very softly. Hodel and Korie looked around as the emergency lights came on, and grinned.
    â€œAll right!” said Li.
    â€œListen,” said Hodel. “The circulators are back on.”
    Korie stopped and listened. “You’re right.” He tapped his headset. “Engine room?”
    Chief Engineer Leen’s voice sounded surprisingly loud in his ear. “Captain?”
    â€œNo. Korie.” He swallowed hard. “Damage?”
    â€œCan’t tell yet. We’re still sealed off. Do you have light?”
    â€œThey just came on. Thank you. The singularity?”
    â€œIt’s still viable—”
    â€œThank God.”
    â€œâ€”but we’re going to have to jump start the whole system.”
    â€œAre your men okay?”
    â€œNone of us are okay, sir; but we can do it.”
    â€œHow long?”
    â€œAs long as it takes.”
    â€œSorry. Oh, Chief?” Korie added. “Don’t initiate gravity until we’ve secured the entire ship. There’s too many unconscious bodies floating.”
    â€œRight. Out.”
    Korie noticed that the chief had not asked about the captain. He swung to face the flight engineer. “Hodel?”
    â€œSir?”
    â€œTake the captain to sick bay. Then come back for the others.”
    â€œYes, sir.” Hodel launched himself across the Bridge, colliding clumsily with the captain. He grabbed the old man by the back of his collar and began pulling himself across the ceiling toward the rear exit.
    Korie floated across to Li. “Hold still, Wan—” Li was pinned in hischair. Korie shone his light all around the wreckage. “Okay, it doesn’t look too bad.” He anchored himself and pulled. Li floated free. “You okay?”
    â€œI’ve been better.”
    â€œThere’s a sani-pack in that compartment.” Korie pointed. “Start getting some of this crap out of the air.” There were floating globules of blood and urine everywhere.
    Korie was already checking the other Bridge officers. Two of them were dead in their chairs. The third was unconscious. He wondered if there were enough survivors to bring the ship home.
    â€œYou know, we can’t stay here,” Li said, behind him. He was vacuuming wet sphericles out of the air. “Our envelope didn’t flash out. They’re going to know we’re still alive and hiding in normal space.”
    â€œIt’s very hard to find a dead ship. You have to be right on top of her.”
    â€œThey’ll track our singularity with a mass-detector,” Li argued. “That’s what I’d do. They know where we went down, and they’re going to have to come looking for us to make sure. They can’t leave us here to attack the Dragon Lord .”
    â€œWe’re not attacking anything right now,” said Korie. He floated over to the auxiliary astrogation console and began trying to reboot it.
    â€œThey don’t know we’re hit,” the weapons specialist pointed out.
    Korie grunted. The console was dead. He drifted down to the base of it and popped open a maintenance panel. He’d run it on battery if he had to. “Everything you say is correct. But we don’t have a lot of options right now. If we recharge our hyperstate kernel, we’ll be instantly visible to any ship within a hundred light-hours, and if we inject into hyperstate, we’ll be visible for days. If they’ve englobed the area, we’ll never get out.”
    â€œYou think you can sneak away at sublight? That’ll take weeks.”
    â€œWe’re going to need a few weeks to rebuild this ship anyway.”
    â€œThey’re still going to be looking for us, no matter what we do. If they don’t find us immediately, they’ll expand their search patterns. They know we’re here and we can’t shield against