“Atara…” He wanted to comfort her, but he didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t at fault, not by any reasonable measure. But she would take the responsibility no matter what he said to her. “You did well,” he finally added, wishing he had something better to say.

“Thank you, sir.” She sighed softly. “With your permission, I’ll go check on Commander Fritz. She’s working on the reactors.”

“I don’t need to tell you how critical her success is, Atara. Whatever Fritzie needs, give it to her. Our survival is in her hands now.”

“Yes, Captain. Travis out.”

The last fighter had hit Dauntless hard, slamming into the ship’s hull at enormous velocity. Much of the kinetic energy transformed into heat, melting and buckling whole sections of the hull. Chunks of shattered debris drove deeply into Dauntless’s guts, ripping through deck after deck, crushing systems and equipment…killing crew.

Barron knew that could have been the end, that it still could be. But as bad as the damage was, it could have been far worse. Hundreds of kilometers of cable, piping, conduits, and cooling lines had been severed, chopped up into half-melted scrap. But the reactor cores themselves were intact, and the accelerator tubes for the primaries were unaffected. Dauntless was out of action, dead in space with both reactors scragged. But they were repairable. If there was time.

“Captain, we’re picking up energy readings from the enemy ship.” Darrow turned to look over at the captain’s station, and Barron could see the horror in his eyes. “They’re accelerating, sir. Directly toward us.”

Damn…if we had an hour. Even half an hour…

“Projected time until enemy enters firing range?”

“Four minutes, Captain.”

Barron reached up and tapped the side of his headset, toggling up Fritz’s direct line. “Fritzie, I need reactor power in two minutes or we’re all dead.” It was blunt, brutally so, but there wasn’t time for anything else.

“I might be able to get one of the reactions started, but there are bound to be leaks everywhere. We’ll most likely flood half the ship with radiation.”

“Do it.”

“Sir, a cold start like that has a lot of risks. It could scrag the reactor permanently. It could blow us up.”

“Fritzie…do it.” Barron’s voice was firm, dripping with confidence. But he suspected Fritz saw right through him, that she knew it was all pure bullshit.

“Yes, sir.”