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    © 2004 Andrew Dormeier
Artemus sighed and fell into his captain's chair, laying back and looking at the murky ceiling of smoke. Falinor swiveled in his chair to face Sol.
"Your plan worked sir. The ships followed the coolant leak." "We're just lucky their sensors were unable to pick us up while they were ghosted. The EM residue from that cruiser may have helped mask our escape." "I recommend we go further into the nebula to avoid being detected by that last ship. It seems that they wanted to make sure we weren't still in the area." "It seems likely. Take us in deeper, but make sure that the nav computer knows where we are. We don't want to get lost in here." The Gallant Force moved slowly though the thick warm gases of the nebula in order to refrain from disturbing the gas, which would leave a trail. Its hull was badly damaged in areas, revealing wiring where armored plating should be. Part of the port engine assembly was non-functional and several of the small spatial flux projectors placed around the hull were charred black or destroyed altogether. Artemus sat forward in his chair, a thoughtful expression on his face. "Falinor, what systems are damaged?" "It appears as though the ghost drive is inoperable from blown power relays. As you noted, the flux enhancements are damaged as well; most likely, the projectors on the outer hull will need to be replaced. The main engines are also severely damaged. We will need to repair the port drives from outside the ship. One torpedo launcher is damaged, but the rest of the weapons array seems to be in working order. The shields are at 94%, and life support is unharmed. Hull integrity is at 89%, no sign of any possible hull breaches." "It seems we are in need of significant repairs. Do we have all the needed parts on board?" "Checking storage logs now.yes, we have spares for all the effected systems, but just barely." "Most of these repairs are going to require working outside the ship, but I'm not comfortable performing major repairs in that fog out there: we're too close to the nebula border. The hull is stable, you say?" "Yes." "Okay, well let's see what we can fix internally before we tackle the bigger problems. We need the ghost drive working more than anything else anyway. Go check on those power relays-I'll head down to deck four to tell Pete what's going on and to get whatever parts we'll need." Artemus exited the bridge and walked past the ruptured pipe, now silent. He came to a split in the hallway. A door stood in the median between the paths. Sol tapped a small pad to the right of the door and it slid open, revealing an elevator. He stepped into the small room and pressed on the wall panel. The door closed and the lift descended two decks. |
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