“Maximum power to the primaries. I want those guns charged now!” Barron was leaning forward in his chair. He hadn’t heard anything from engineering. Then the bridge lights came on, and the main display rebooted. One glance down at the power monitors told him Fritzie had gotten it done. Dauntless’s reactors were back online.

“Yes, Captain.” Darrow’s voice was haggard, the pressure and strain clearly beginning to take its toll. But there was excitement too, crackling in his words as it was all across Dauntless’s bridge. They weren’t out of the fight yet. They still had a chance.

“Captain…” Travis’s voice came through on his headset. She sounded exhausted, and there was something wrong, he could tell. But her words were music to his ears. “Both reactors restarted and operating. Power flow to primaries operating on full.”

“Well done, Atara. My congratulations to everyone down there.” He paused, then asked: “Fritzie?”

“She’s wounded, sir, but I think she’ll make it. There are a lot of casualties down here…” It sounded like she was going to add something, but she remained silent.

Barron swung his head toward Darrow. “Time until full charge?”

“Forty-five seconds, sir.”

“Captain, there’s no way I can get to a firing station, not in less than a minute.” Travis’s words were loud in his ears.

“Call gunnery, Atara. You would know who’s…”

“There’s no one there, sir. The gun crews have suffered heavy losses, and all reserves are in the outer turrets. There’s nobody in main fire control now.”

Barron felt his stomach clench. His wild gamble, the heroism of his people in pulling it off…and now there was no one available to fire the guns.

The ship’s AI…

“Captain…the enemy is decelerating. And they are beginning evasive maneuvers.”

How could they have reacted so quickly? What kind of mind reader am I up against here?

Barron opened his mouth to order the ship’s AI to fire the primaries. The computer did most of the work on any shot, but the touch of an experienced gunner often made the difference between a near miss and a devastating hit, especially when the target was trying to evade. Barron wasn’t sure if he believed completely in intuition, but the stats backed him up. Gunner-assisted shots had a much higher hit probability than unaided computer targeting. It defied explanation, but it was a documented fact.

But I don’t have anybody to fire…

“Captain, you have to do it.” Travis’s words floated in the air around him, seeming unreal at first. But then he realized she was serious.

“I’m not the gunner you are, Atara.”

“You learned gunnery at the Academy, just as I did…and there’s no one I’d rather have at the controls than you.”

Barron was about to argue again, but Darrow’s voice interrupted him. “Fifteen seconds to full charge, sir.”