“Skipper, this is Santos. The whole forward drive segment’s gone into automatic shutdown. We’ve lost Number Two Alpha node, and it looks like Beta Three went with it.”

“Can you restore them?” There was urgency in the captain’s voice, and Santos closed her eyes in furious thought.

“No way, Ma’am,” she said through gritted teeth. Her eyes popped back open, and she traced the blinking schematic with a fingertip while her mind raced. Then she nodded to herself. “The main ring’s broken at Alpha Two and Beta Three. I think we’ve got some more damage at Beta Four, but the rest of the ring looks okay,” she said. “I can probably route around the wrecked nodes, then run up Beta Two and Four—assuming Four’s still with us—to compensate in the impeller wedge, but it’s going to take time.”

“How long?”

“Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, Ma’am. At best.”

“Very well, Dominica. Get on it as quickly as you can.”

“I’m on it, Skipper!” Santos unlocked her shock frame and jerked up out of her chair. “Allen, I’m going forward. You’re damage control officer till I get back.”

“But what about Fusion One?” Manning demanded. “It’s open to space and we’ve lost two-thirds of the forward power watch!”

“Oh, shit!” Santos bent over his panel, studying the readouts, and her face tightened. Not only were most of her people dead, but there was already an imbalance in the fusion bottle temperature. She stabbed keys and grunted in relief as the data readouts changed.

“The bottle’s holding steady,” she said quickly. “Cut the reactor out of the circuit to be safe—Fusion Two can handle the load—and keep an eye on that temperature. If it starts climbing any faster than it is, let me know.”

“Yes, Ma’am.” Manning bent back over his console, and Santos headed for the hatch at a run.

· · • · ·

“Direct hit, Sir!” Lieutenant Commander Jamal announced, and Coglin nodded in sharp approval. At last! And about damned time, too; they’d been firing at Fearless for over seventeen minutes.

“Her acceleration’s falling, Sir.” Jamal’s voice was sharp with excitement, and he grinned hugely. “We must have taken out her forward impellers!”

“Good, Jamal. Very good! Now do it again,” Coglin growled.

“Aye, aye, Sir!”

Honor bit her lip so hard she tasted blood, but somehow she kept the sickness from her face. Fearless had just dropped to half power, which was bad enough, but the loss of the alpha node could be disaster. Despite the loss in acceleration, she was continuing to close the range on Sirius, if more slowly, for her velocity was almost fifteen hundred KPS higher than the Q-ship’s. But Sirius was now out-accelerating her by almost 1.5 KPS². Unless Santos could restore the forward nodes, the range would begin to open again in less than seventeen minutes.

Yet that was the least of Honor’s worries. She stared into the visual display, watching it sparkle and flash as Fearless’s over-strained point defense beat aside the missiles coming in at shorter and shorter intervals, and fought her despair.