A bead of sweat dripped down Richard’s nose. “10 seconds….” He wiped his hand across his face. “5 seconds… 3… 2… 1… scoop shutdown!”
The ship lurched and shuddered as the scoop released the tachyon and re-entered normal space. “Success…” Richard whispered to himself.
Jack jumped out of his seat and moved forward to the sensor station. “Status?”
Kate’s hands were a blur as they moved back and forth across keyboards and panels. “Hold on.”
“It’s kind of important…” he replied.
Her head snapped around. “Then I’d better not fuck it up. So HOLD ON,” she said with a glare.
Jack backed away and turned his attention to Gina. “Helm?”
She turned toward him, wearing a look of astonishment. “As hard as it is for me to believe, our course is exactly what we programmed.” She pointed at Richard. “His crazy thing didn’t tear off or send us spiraling.”
Richard held his hands high over his head in a mocking sign of victory.
“I hate to interrupt your moment of triumph, Clover,” Kate interjected, “but we’re in deep shit.”
“What? Why?” Jack asked.
Kate jabbed a thumb in Richard’s direction. “His little toy didn’t come with proper brakes.”
“Braking thrusters are on,” Gina calmly replied.
Stinson shook her head. “Not enough for the speed we’re carrying. In about ninety seconds, we’re going to round Saturn, come right up behind that ship for about half a minute, then whip right past them and keep going. By the time we make a second pass, they’ll have launched and be ready for us.”
A sickening silence crossed the bridge. Finally Jack spoke up.
“How do we slow down right now?” he asked.
Gina stood up from her chair, her eyes closed tight. Suddenly her hands began tapping against her body in rhythmic fashion, and she began talking to herself, lips moving but making no sound. Baffled, the rest of the crew watched until her eyes flew open and she dropped back down into her seat. “We dive,” she said. “We dive.”
“Use the atmosphere…” Richard said. “It’ll have to be done right or we’ll fry…”
Sarah began making calculations on the shields screen as Gina began plotting a course to skim them along the atmosphere. As she typed, Sarah became more and more distressed. Her brow furrowed as she re-did her math. But nothing changed.
“Captain, the ship’s shields and armor were designed to handle the energy of laser cannons and the impacts of small asteroids. But the heat and energy from an atmospheric burn? No. We do this and at bare minimum we’ll lose the shields almost completely on whatever side of the ship we skate on.”
Jack looked at Gina. “Helm?”
“I’m out of other ideas.”
Kate’s voice was flat as she spoke. “We don’t do this and we lose the element of surprise. We’ll be facing a lot more than one single ship.”
Jack swiveled around to look at Sarah. He hoped she would offer another idea, give him a way to not damage the ship and yet maintain the shock needed to complete this mission. Instead she gave him a look of cold pity, a look that said “you wanted to be captain and play hero, so now you’re stuck with it.”
“Make your dive, helm,” Jack said, never taking his eyes away from Sarah.
“We’ll protect our crispy side as best we can once we attack.”
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