The Voyage of the Star Wolf Read Online Free PDF Page B

their scanners.”
    Korie looked over at him. “At this point, Wan, I don’t know how much of this ship is left. That’s what’ll determine what we’ll do. By rights, we should all be dead now.”
    The auxiliary astrogation console lit up then and Korie was momentarily cheered. It was a start. As each piece of the network started coming back online, it would start querying the rest of the system; if the queries went unanswered, each piece would automatically initiate its own set of restoration procedures for the equipment it could talk to.The resurrection of the ship would happen in pieces, much like the individual resurrections of each surviving crew member.
    Two of the other consoles on the Bridge flashed back to consciousness then. Korie floated over to them and punched for status reports. As he suspected, they were still isolated from the rest of the ship. They had no information to report.
    Korie considered his situation. His captain was disabled, maybe dying. His ship was dead in space and an unknown number of his crew were unconscious or dead. They were light-years from the nearest aid and they were surrounded by enemy marauders who would be looking for them as soon as they finished destroying the rest of the fleet. They had no weapons and no engines. They couldn’t retreat either sublight or superlight. And, if that weren’t enough, they were blind. All their sensors out of commission. He had no way of knowing if an attack was imminent, and no way of fighting back if it were.
    But on the plus side , he told himself, I’m finally in command. The irony of it was almost enough to make him smile. He tapped his headset. “Chief?”
    â€œIt’s bad news,” said the voice in his ear. “I’m going to have to restring everything. It’ll take days.”
    â€œWe have days,” said Korie. “Listen, I have an idea. Can you put a man in the lookout with a sextant? Take a sighting?”
    â€œIt won’t be very accurate.”
    â€œIt doesn’t have to be. I just want to make sure we’re pointed in a useful direction.”
    â€œI can do that. If we’re not, we can rotate the ship around the singularity until we are. I can even do that by hand, if I have to. We’ll rig block and tackle and walk it around.”
    â€œGood. Now, here’s the second part. Can you run the mass-drivers off the fuel cells—and for how long?”
    â€œDo you mean leave the singularity damped?”
    â€œYes.”
    The chief thought a moment. “It’s very old-fashioned,” he said, “and I’m not sure what you’re gaining, but it’s doable. This is just a guess, but I can probably give you six weeks at least, maybe eight, but not more than ten.”
    â€œI’ll take the six. If we make it that far, God likes us. I want no stress-field activity at all for the entire time, and I want you to minimize all electrical functions. Let’s run this ship as if she’s dead. Minimum life support, minimum everything.”
    â€œIt won’t work,” said the chief. “They’ll still find us. We can’t get far enough away.”
    â€œDo the math,” said Korie. “It’s not distance that works for us. It’s speed. Normal space is nasty. A constant acceleration of even one-third gee will pile up enough velocity in twelve hours as to make it practically impossible for anyone to intercept us in normal space—not unless they’re prepared to chase us for several days, more likely weeks. And if we know they’re chasing us, we plug in the singularity and go to full power and it’s still a standoff.”
    â€œMmm, maybe—” The chief engineer was not enthusiastic about the idea. “What’s to keep them from jumping into hyperstate, leaping ahead and brushing us with their ripple?”
    â€œIf we live long enough to get to that situation, we’ll activate