Freya's Tears by Redhawk D Jordan

Author:Redhawk, D Jordan [Redhawk, D Jordan]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2014-06-15T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

“All right, I need you to shut off everything that’s not life support.”

Els complied with Kolodka’s order. “Gravity Control Array too?”

“Yep. The fewer demands we put on the generator when I reboot her, the better.”

Flipping the switch, Els silently hoped Bennie had found all the unsecured free weights in the hold. Everyone else had had posts to maintain during the emergency, so Bennie had spent the time slowly maneuvering through zero-g in the cargo hold, searching for potential danger to the cargo when gravity was restored. Els shut down the interstellar and fusion drives, the waste system, multiple internal electrical circuits and all external electrical ones.

The tachcom crackled. “Whoa! What just happened? The ship went dark.”

She swapped comm bands. “Just me shutting systems down, Austin. No worries.” He muttered something in response as she returned to the ship intercom. “Okay, Kol. Done.”

“Is everybody in a safe place?” Els listened to her crew give the go-ahead, adding her own to the mix. Kolodka sighed into his radio. “Hold on to your hats, people. Let’s see if this works.”

Els leaned forward, arms on the edge of the copilot’s panel, hugging her elbows as she studied the amber and crimson readouts. Providing life support remained up, they’d survive fine with the food and water on board. This area of space didn’t see much traffic; if Kolodka’s repair job didn’t succeed, if they had to send out a Mayday it could take weeks before anyone legitimate heard or responded. A call for help could end up causing more harm than good, though. A distress signal could alert the more dangerous denizens in this region, the ones that hid in the less trafficked places between major shipping lines, awaiting prey. The only differences between a critically disabled ship and a derelict ready for legal salvage were the meat sacks on board—an easy fix for the less scrupulous businessperson.

The lights across her panel flickered. A faint whine in one of the panels indicated the ship’s primary computer systems powering. She hunched over the panel as crimson lights flickered into the amber range, one by one. Not all changed over, but the majority did. Some engineering issues remained with a couple of internal power lines. She chewed her upper lip as the now solid amber lights started quavering as tentatively as the tremble in her gut. They began to flutter into the green range as she held her breath.

“Well?” Kolodka asked, causing Els to jump in her skin.

“It’s working.” Her next words were drowned out by Robb’s whoop. “So far,” she intoned over him. The panel continued its unsteady color change until it seemed to settle. “We still have some power problems, but it looks like the majority of our systems are good to go.”

“Okay. Let’s get the systems back on, one by one, starting with the gravity array.” Kolodka sounded as strained as Els felt.

“Everybody braced and ready?” After she received responses, she reached for that section on the panel. On a lark, she shut down all secondary and tertiary gravity systems before firing up the main control.

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