Free The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword by Jack Campbell Page A

impossible. It would just blow up if the regulators didn’t have power.” Marphissa breathed a sigh of relief as the displays flickered to life again. “Progress. Maybe there is still hope.” She peered at the display, which continued to waver in intensity from bright to dim. “There’s nothing on it except a static view of what was last known. This is useless.”
    “Kapitan?” someone called.
    Diaz hit his comm controls. “Yes! Senior Specialist Sasaki?”
    “Yes, Kapitan. The power core did an emergency shutdown. We’re not sure why, so we’ve isolated it and will do a restart.”
    “I need comms and sensors back online fast!”
    “I understand and will comply, Kapitan. Two minutes.”
    But two minutes, then four minutes, then ten went past. Diaz’s attempts to call engineering again failed as the comm circuit went dead once more.
    The engineering watch specialist dashed back onto the bridge, gasping for breath. “Kapitan, the power core—”
    “I know,” Diaz growled.
    “They are rewiring again, Kapitan. They found that just doing a restart would probably trigger another threatened overload and shutdown, so they’ve been pulling things out and redoing them.”
    “Why did I lose comms with engineering?” Diaz demanded.
    The woman looked off to one side, groping for words. “They . . . needed a certain black box . . . Junction Model 74A5F Mod 12 . . . and the only one available was in the internal comms, so . . .”
    “My ship is being torn apart from the inside out,” Diaz said. “Those senior specialists are doing as much damage to my ship as the Syndicate did!”
    Marphissa nodded. “If we survive,
Manticore
is going to need some extensive internal repairs. And we’ll have to reward those senior specialists who are tearing your ship apart because otherwise we’d already be dead.”
    The displays vanished again, then reappeared before anyone could even curse their disappearance. “Kommodor, we have updated external information! External comm links and sensors are active again,” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla reported.
    Marphissa had been able to deaden her worries a bit when she literally could not see anything about events outside of
Manticore
, but now they sprang to full life again as Marphissa bent close to study her display.
    The Syndicate flotilla was still in pursuit, still slowly closing the gap to
Manticore
, but the battleship now was accompanied by only the single heavy cruiser and three surviving Hunter-Killers. Kontos and Seney must have hit CEO Boucher’s formation again. Both the
Pele
formation and the one now centered on
Kraken
were coming around for two more attacks.
    “Look at that!” Diaz said in amazement. “
Midway
! The battleship, I mean.”
    Marphissa tore her attention away from the nearest ships, trying to figure out what Diaz was talking about. Then she saw it. The battleship
Midway
, light-hours away, had come around, accelerating at full capacity on a route that would place her between the Syndicate formation and the hypernet gate. “What is Kapitan Mercia doing? She’s revealed for everyone to see that the
Midway
actually has full propulsion capability!”
    Bradamont was staring, too, but suddenly gave out a burst of laughter. “She’s a genius!”
    “A genius? Mercia just let the Syndicate flotilla know—”
    “That’s why it’s genius,” Bradamont exulted, seeing the looks of incomprehension on the faces of both Diaz and Marphissa. “Don’t you see?
Midway
appeared to have severely damaged main propulsion. But now she has revealed that her main propulsion is fully functional.
Midway
also looks to have only a few weapons operational.”
    Marphissa suddenly understood. “But now the Syndicate flotilla will think that is also a ruse? They will think maybe
Midway
is fully combat capable? And rushing to join the fight as soon as she saw an opening?”
    “Yes! Rushing to block the retreat of the Syndicate formation so it can’t escape.