Harris stretched his legs up and away. He connected gently with the ceiling and glided towards the floor. He latched onto a chair and dragged himself over to the command console, where all the ship's systems could be attended to. Fearing sabotage, Harris ran a preliminary status check. There was no internal damage to any of the ships systems, though several were shut down or malfunctioning. What caught Harris's eye were the external sensors. They were lit up like the Los Angeles Lights Festival.

The hull was taking a pummeling.

Harris worked the manual controls for the ceiling, turning it clear without the need for one of the remotes. The view was beautiful at first glimpse, but it quickly turned sickening as Harris remembered what he was seeing.

A plume of charged particles spread out before the Surveyor. He knew in that instant that he was in the middle of a frappe-thick cloud of the little bombs. He had no doubt that the thousands of mini explosions wracking the hull pushed the ship out of a stationary orbit. He had yet to determine how long the Surveyor had been falling and how far. The answers to those questions would tell him if he would live or die in the next few minutes.

He sent his query to the computer. As he waited the few seconds it took the system to work the thousands of variables affecting the ship, he did his best to block out the screaming alarm, which pulsed in synchronized beats along with the pain in his skull. When he saw the text flash on the screen, he got the one answer he didn't expect: results unknown.

What the computer was telling him was, you can get out of this if you do absolutely everything right. Under normal circumstances, Harris would feel confident in his training and knowledge, but in his current condition…. As Harris rubbed his hand over his head, an automatic reflex, he felt the thick glob of dried blood on the back of his head. The wound made him think of his humanity, of his crew—they were in danger too. They were his responsibility. He was the captain. If he died, they all died.

"Not acceptable," he said.

He had just minutes to formulate and implement a plan. Step one, shut off the damn alarm.

In ten seconds, he had the alarm system shut down. As the lights ceased flashing and the alarm went silent, his mind did the one thing he couldn't afford it to do, went blank.

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