Page 7 of Starlight, Starbright
“Shields to maximum.” Zoric turns to Tanaka. “Plot an evasive course through the debris field.”
I'm already calculating. Shields at maximum draw power from the secondary grid. The same grid someone's been testing for weeks. If they sabotaged the sensors during the fluctuation, they might have weakened the shield generators too. We could raise shields and find them operating at half capacity.
“Captain, I need to get to Engineering.” The words come out fast. “Now.”
He looks at me. Two seconds. Makes the call. “Go.”
I run.
The corridor blurs past. My feet pound against deck plates. The ship shudders. The collision alarm starts wailing. A two-tone pattern that repeats every three seconds. I count them. Nine repetitions before I reach the engineering deck. Twenty-seven seconds gone.
The doors open and I'm shouting before I clear the threshold. “Jian! Shield generator status!”
She's at the main console, her hands already moving. “Generators one and two at full capacity. Three is showing fluctuations. Same signature as our mystery pattern.”
Of course it is. Whoever's doing this timed it perfectly. Disable sensors so we can't see the threat, weaken shields so we can't survive it. Simple. Elegant. Deadly.
“Can we compensate?” I'm at her side, pulling up the shield distribution grid.
“Not without overloading the other two generators.” She points at the power flow diagrams. “We don't have enough capacity.”
The ship shudders again. Harder this time. An impact. Small, probably. The first of many.
Think. I've run hull integrity simulations a hundred times, tested every configuration of shield geometry and power distribution. There has to be a solution. There's always a solution.
“What if we don't use all three generators?” The idea forms as I speak. “Concentrate the shield forward. Let the rear quarter drop to minimal coverage.”
“That leaves our engines exposed.” Jian's eyes widen. “If we take a hit there...”
“We won't. We're decelerating, moving away from the field. All the impacts will come from ahead.” I'm already rerouting power. “But if we spread our shields thin trying to cover everything, we'll fail everywhere. Focus. Survive what's in front of us first.”
Another impact. The lights flicker. Someone swears across the deck.
“Chief, if you're wrong about this...” Jian doesn't finish the sentence.
“I'm not wrong.” I finish the rerouting sequence. “Generators one and two, full forward configuration. Angle the shield profile thirty degrees to deflect instead of absorbing. Generator three offline for emergency repair. Execute.”
The power grid reshapes itself on my display. Red lines indicating shield coverage concentrate toward the bow, forming a wedge instead of a sphere. It's beautiful, actually. Efficient. The kind of solution I'd sketch during night shift just to see if it could work.
Now I get to find out.
The ship groans. Metal against metal, stress fighting physics. Impacts come in rapid succession. One. Two. Five. Twelve. I stop counting. Each one sends vibration through the deck that travels up through my boots and into my bones. The shield integrity display shows fluctuations. Ninety-three percent. Eighty-seven. Ninety-one. Holding.
“Forward shield generators at optimal temperature.” Jian reads off the numbers as they update. “Deflection angle is working. We're pushing debris away instead of taking full impacts.”
“Time since initial alarm?” I ask.
“Sixty-eight seconds.”
The impacts slow. Stop. The viewscreen on the bulkhead shows the asteroid field falling behind us. Red trajectory lines on the display turn yellow, then green. Clear.
“All stations, damage report.” Tanaka's voice over the shipwide comm sounds steady, but I detect the edge underneath. She was scared. We all were.
The responses come in one by one. Minor hull breaches sealed automatically. Some blown conduits in the outer decks. Nothing critical. We survived.
Jian turns to me. Grins. Then laughs. “You actually did it.”
“We did it.” I slump against the console, suddenly aware that my hands are shaking. Not from fear. From pushing through crisis on nothing but stubborn refusal to let anyone die on my watch.
