Free The Catherine Kimbridge Chronicles #1, Inception by Andrew Beery Page B

her hard."
     
Cat knew that a part of Ken, the husband and chaplain, wanted to be with his wife, but she also knew that his commitment to duty would keep him focused on the task at hand. As she had told the crew earlier, there would be time for mourning later... If they survived, she added as an afterthought.
     
Cat waved towards the tablets. "How bad is it?"
     
Ken sighed... "It's not good. Most of the mains are blown... I can get active shielding online in a day or so but not any faster. The hyper drive is in good shape... as are the fusion generators but there is no way to get power from one to the other... The best we can do at this point is jump about half a click."
     
"So we can't run... Can we fight?"
     
"With what?" Ken asked. We don't have juice for the rail gun. We can launch torpedoes but given the amount of shielding those ships carry we’re not going to get far unless we use one of the 'SJ's... And without a working hyper drive we can't afford to use them"
     
Cat pointed to the various tablets on table. "You said we had a working hyper drive but we could only shunt enough power to it to do a micro jump. It might be time to try the micro-jump routines we've been working on."
     
Ken leaned forward resting his elbows on the table while looking at one of the tablets. "The only way we’re going to get this to work, is if we can tie Cal into the drive system and let him calculate the jumps. The Bowman's AI wouldn't be up to it even if it were 100% which it clearly is not."
     
"Cal" Cat addressed the air... "Have you been monitoring?"
     
" Yes Captain. "
     
"Do you have sufficient access to the hyper drive controls to run a series of hyper drive micro jumps?"
     
" This will not present an issue. I calculate I can engage the hyper drive sixty eight times a second for a top effective speed of roughly 200 kilometers a second. I should point out that because the D'lralu can continue to accelerate his top speed is well in excess of this. Nor will this speed be fast enough to escape the blast zone of an 'SJ' round. "
     
Cat smiled. “If I'm right we won't have to escape the blast zone. At maximum speed, how long before we can get into orbit around Pluto?"
     
" Three hours and twenty six minutes. "
     
"... and how long before Three of Nine gets here?"
     
" Three hours and twelve minutes. "
     
Cat's face fell. Her plan hinged on beating the D'lralu to Pluto. "Cal make best possible speed for Pluto."
     
Turning to her First Officer... "Ken I need you to get an SJ ready for deployment in two hours. I want you to program it to jump the moment it loses the lock on our transponder for more than 5 seconds."
     
"Why 5 seconds?"
     
"Because if it loses that lock for more than 5 seconds we will either be dead or safe... Either way I need it to return Three of Nine to whatever hell spawned him."
     
***
     
The next three hours went by in a blur. Ken deployed the SJ round per her instructions. At the same time, with Cal's assistance, the fusion core from the sole undamaged shuttle was Gerry-rigged to feed power into the main hyper drive. This allowed the size of the micro-jumps to be increased by 13%, which meant it would be a dead heat to the Pluto-Charon dual planetary system.
     
Cat had briefly considered heading for the closer of the two planetary bodies that orbited around a common center of gravity but even at 12% the mass of Pluto, Charon was simply too small to offer the protection needed from the SJ round they were about to deploy.
     
Cat looked about the bridge. Ken's people had done a good job cleaning things up. Communications, helm and weapon stations were all manned. Shields were still down but the displacement generators were working over most of the critical systems. Environmental was still pretty much of a lost cause but Oxygen candles had been lit to supplement their dwindling O2 supply. It was ironic that, if they survived the next few minutes, they would be dependent on technology used to take