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“Aye, sir.” Lieutenant Hikowa wrinkled her brow, and then she slowly nodded and silently mouthed,“ . . . yes.”
Boiling red plasma filled half the forward view screen. It was beautiful to watch in an odd way—like afront-row seat at a forest fire.
Keyes found himself strangely calm. This would either work or it would not. The odds were long, but hewas confident that his actions were the only option to survive this encounter.
Lieutenant Dominique turned. “Collision with plasma in nineteen seconds, sir.”
Jaggers turned from his station. “Sir! This is suicide! Our armor can’t withstand—”
Keyes cut him off. “Mister, man your station or I will have you removed from the bridge.”
Jaggers looked pleadingly at Hikowa. “We’re going todie , Aki—”
She refused to meet his gaze and turned back to her controls. “You heard the Commander,” she saidquietly. “Man your post.”
Jaggers sank into his seat.
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“Collision with plasma in seven seconds,” Lieutenant Hall said. She bit her lower lip.
“Lieutenant Jaggers, transfer emergency thruster controls to my station.”
“Yes . . . yes, sir.”
The emergency thrusters were tanks of trihydride tetrazine and hydrogen peroxide. When they mixed,they did so with explosive force—literally blasting theIroquois onto a new course. The ship had six suchtanks strategically placed on hardened points on the hull.
Commander Keyes consulted the countdown timer on his data pad. “Lieutenant Hikowa: fire the nuke.”
“Shiva away, sir! On course—one eight zero, maximum burn.”
Plasma filled the forescreen; the center of the red mass turned blue. Greens and yellows radiatedoutward, the light frequencies blue-shifting in spectra.
“Distance three hundred thousand kilometers,” Lieutenant Dominique said. “Collision in two seconds.”
Commander Keyes waited a heartbeat then hit the emergency thrusters to port. A bang resonatedthrough the ship’s hull—Commander Keyes flew sideways and impacted with the bulkhead.
The view screen was full of fire and the bridge was suddenly hot.
Commander Keyes stood. He counted the beats of his pounding heart. One, two, three—
If they had been hit by the plasma, there wouldn’t be anything to count. They would be dead already.
Only one view screen was working now, however. “Aft camera,” he said.
The twin blots of fire streaked along their trajectories for a moment, then lazily arced, continuing theirpursuit of theIroquois . One pulled slightly ahead of its counterpart, so they appeared now like twoblazing eyes.
Commander Keyes marveled at the aliens’ ability to direct that plasma from such a great distance.“Good,” he murmured to himself. “Chase us all the way to hell, you bastards.
“Track them,” he ordered Lieutenant Hall.
“Aye, sir,” she said. Her perfectly groomed hair was tousled. “Plasma increasing velocity. Matching ourspeed . . . overtaking our velocity now. They will intercept in forty-three seconds.”
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