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ERIC NYLUND
227
targets before they started firing and filling the space between us
with ionizing plasma. Now? ..." Mathematical symbols raced
along her length, flashing blue and indigo. "Cross-indexing
similar mirrored images and extrapolating, I estimate there are
currently between three and five operational ships, sir."
Admiral Whitcomb gritted his teeth and concentrated. He had
to get this ship moving—take out one or two enemy craft. Maybe
the tangled plasma-filled space would cook the rest of them.
That was their best chance. Their only chance. He'd have to
trust the Master Chief to get that drive conduit fixed.
"Very well, Cortana," he said. "Heat the Gettysburg's reactor
to maximum power and prepare to flood the main-engine plasma
conduit. Charge all available weapons turret capacitors."
"Yes, sir. Standby."
He glanced at a screen that showed the Gettysburg sitting atop
them inverted. "Is the launch bay on the Gettysburg intact? Can
it hold an atmosphere?"
Cortana blinked. "Yes, sir. It has a slow leak of thirty-two kilo
pascals per—"
"Pressurize the bay."
"Acknowledged, Admiral. However," Cortana replied, "that
will leave our air reserves dangerously low."
The Admiral stared at the ships surrounding them—a plasma
bolt struck a distant cruiser head-on, and its nose buckled. Gouts
of flame flared along its lateral plasma lines. The ship looked
like a fish spit with a red-hot poker.
That could have been them.
"Hurry up, Chief," he whispered.
On the displays the Admiral spotted two ships. There was a
carrier far away; it looked undamaged. Closer, off the port bow,
was a cruiser that, aside from a hole punched through its aft sec-
tion, was also undamaged ... and only ten thousand kilometers
away. That was the priority target.
"Lay in a new course," the Admiral ordered. "Two-four-zero
by zero-three-five."
Lieutenant Haverson took an involuntary step closer to the
display, and his face contorted as he worked out the math in his
head. "That's.. . a collision course, sir."