toward the bow. And watch out. I happen to know it’s heavy.”
A few of the crew laughed as they sprang to their work. But the boisterous sound dropped off as the ship went dark.
The heads-up status displays, the hovering symbols that marked equipment, the chatter of ship noise and expert software, everything in second sight and hearing disappeared. The ship was left dim and lifeless around them, a mere hunk of metal. All they had to see by was unaugmented work lights, making the generator area a shadowy, red-tinged twilight zone.
Then the coldjets started, pushing the
Lynx
to orient it bow-first toward the Rix battlecruiser. The microgravity shifted the loose plates of shielding again, but by now the crew had attached handholds and stronglines to them, and they soon had the beasts under control. But in the dim light and swaying microgravity, it felt like the below decks of some ancient warship on a pitching sea.
Frick looked reflexively for a time stamp, but his second sight held nothing. The fields that created synesthesia were highly penetrative and persistent—the Rix would be looking for them in their hunt for the
Lynx
. Second audio was out of the question as well; only hardwired compoints were to be used. He’d gone over this with Hobbes, but it hadn’t seemed real before now.
Frick damned himself for not thinking to bring a mechanical chronometer. Had there even been time to fabricate such an exotic device?
“You,” he said, pointing to a rating. “Start counting.”
“Counting, sir?”
“Yes. Counting out loud is your job now. Backwards from … three hundred eighty. Count slow, in seconds.”
A look of understanding crossed the rating’s face. She started in a low voice.
“Three hundred eighty, three hundred seventy-nine …”
Frick shook his head at the sound. He was using a highly trained crewman as a clock, for god’s sake. They would be running handwritten notes next.
His angry eyes scanned the dimness of the generator area. Everywhere, huge and unwieldy pieces of metal were beginning to move with agonizing slowness. Each was supported by a web of strong-lines. The cables were packed with stored kinetic energy, windup carbon that would contract when keyed. This purely mechanical motive force was invisible to the Rix sensors, but it was capable of pulling the weightless if massive sections of hullalloy through the ship.
Frick looked about for a rating with free hands.
“You,” he called.
“Sir?”
Frick held up his bare hands. “Get me some gloves.”
In 370 seconds or so, the Rix might turn them all to jelly, but damned if Watson Frick was going to be crushed by some piece of dumb metal in the meantime.
Executive Officer
Katherie Hobbes had never heard the battle bridge so silent.
With the synesthesia field absent, most of the control surfaces had turned featureless gray. She seldom appreciated how few of the screens and controls she used every day were physical. It looked as if the frigate’s bridge had been wrapped in gray, grabby carpeting, like some featureless prototype. The few hard icons that remained—the fat, dumb buttons that were independent of second sight—glowed dully in the red battle lights. The big airscreen that normally dominated the bridge was replaced by its emergency backup, a flatscreen that showed only one level of vision at a time, and fuzzily at that.
Trapped in the dim world of primary sight, the bridge crew moved in a daze, as if synesthesia were a shared dream they’d all just awoken from.
Not that their confusion mattered. There wasn’t much they could accomplish with the
Lynx
running in its near-total darkmode. The frigate’s pilot staff were handling the coldjets, nudging the ship through a very slow arc—ninety degrees in eight minutes—to keep the bow directly lined up on the Rix battlecruiser. The
Lynx
was like a duelist turned sideways, keeping the smallest possible area oriented toward her opponent. The pilots spoke animatedly
A few of the crew laughed as they sprang to their work. But the boisterous sound dropped off as the ship went dark.
The heads-up status displays, the hovering symbols that marked equipment, the chatter of ship noise and expert software, everything in second sight and hearing disappeared. The ship was left dim and lifeless around them, a mere hunk of metal. All they had to see by was unaugmented work lights, making the generator area a shadowy, red-tinged twilight zone.
Then the coldjets started, pushing the
Lynx
to orient it bow-first toward the Rix battlecruiser. The microgravity shifted the loose plates of shielding again, but by now the crew had attached handholds and stronglines to them, and they soon had the beasts under control. But in the dim light and swaying microgravity, it felt like the below decks of some ancient warship on a pitching sea.
Frick looked reflexively for a time stamp, but his second sight held nothing. The fields that created synesthesia were highly penetrative and persistent—the Rix would be looking for them in their hunt for the
Lynx
. Second audio was out of the question as well; only hardwired compoints were to be used. He’d gone over this with Hobbes, but it hadn’t seemed real before now.
Frick damned himself for not thinking to bring a mechanical chronometer. Had there even been time to fabricate such an exotic device?
“You,” he said, pointing to a rating. “Start counting.”
“Counting, sir?”
“Yes. Counting out loud is your job now. Backwards from … three hundred eighty. Count slow, in seconds.”
A look of understanding crossed the rating’s face. She started in a low voice.
“Three hundred eighty, three hundred seventy-nine …”
Frick shook his head at the sound. He was using a highly trained crewman as a clock, for god’s sake. They would be running handwritten notes next.
His angry eyes scanned the dimness of the generator area. Everywhere, huge and unwieldy pieces of metal were beginning to move with agonizing slowness. Each was supported by a web of strong-lines. The cables were packed with stored kinetic energy, windup carbon that would contract when keyed. This purely mechanical motive force was invisible to the Rix sensors, but it was capable of pulling the weightless if massive sections of hullalloy through the ship.
Frick looked about for a rating with free hands.
“You,” he called.
“Sir?”
Frick held up his bare hands. “Get me some gloves.”
In 370 seconds or so, the Rix might turn them all to jelly, but damned if Watson Frick was going to be crushed by some piece of dumb metal in the meantime.
Executive Officer
Katherie Hobbes had never heard the battle bridge so silent.
With the synesthesia field absent, most of the control surfaces had turned featureless gray. She seldom appreciated how few of the screens and controls she used every day were physical. It looked as if the frigate’s bridge had been wrapped in gray, grabby carpeting, like some featureless prototype. The few hard icons that remained—the fat, dumb buttons that were independent of second sight—glowed dully in the red battle lights. The big airscreen that normally dominated the bridge was replaced by its emergency backup, a flatscreen that showed only one level of vision at a time, and fuzzily at that.
Trapped in the dim world of primary sight, the bridge crew moved in a daze, as if synesthesia were a shared dream they’d all just awoken from.
Not that their confusion mattered. There wasn’t much they could accomplish with the
Lynx
running in its near-total darkmode. The frigate’s pilot staff were handling the coldjets, nudging the ship through a very slow arc—ninety degrees in eight minutes—to keep the bow directly lined up on the Rix battlecruiser. The
Lynx
was like a duelist turned sideways, keeping the smallest possible area oriented toward her opponent. The pilots spoke animatedly
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