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.There will probably be a lot of extra play in the flight controls.”“That’s fine,” said Exit, sounding relieved.“Just get me a little bit of control back, and you’ll be my hero.”“Don’t thank me yet,” Randolph commed.“You haven’t seen how awful the repair is going to be.Between not being able to hold onto the cables very well and the small area that the wires have to run through.just don’t thank me yet.We’ll see how it goes.Corporal, let’s start with a pair of wire cutters.”“How is the repair coming?” Exit commed 15 minutes later.“We’re getting to where I’m going to have to make some hard decisions.”“Doing good, sir,” replied Staff Sergeant Randolph; “in fact; I’m just finishing up.Two minutes.” He finished installing heat-shrink tubing over the solder joint.He just needed to heat it, and he’d be done.“Hand me the heat gun, please,” he said without looking up.His hand remained empty.“Today? Kinda like to get out of here, and it sounds like the pilot is getting antsy.” Corporal Lawrence still didn’t reply.Randolph looked up in annoyance.“Could you PLEASE hand me.” Corporal Lawrence wouldn’t be handing anyone anything ever again.A two-inch wide sliver of metal from the asteroid was protruding from her facemask, which was rapidly filling up with blood.A thin red mist sprayed out into the vacuum from where the metal breached the facemask.As she slowly spun to the side, Randolph could see that it protruded from the back of her helmet as well.“Shit,” Randolph said.“The thrusters are fixed,” Randolph commed, “but we just lost Corporal Lawrence.”* * * * *Chapter Thirty-OneBridge, TSS Vella Gulf, Stargate to 54 Piscium, Gliese 876, February 21, 2021The stargate spread out in front of the Vella Gulf.It looked close enough to touch, but didn’t seem to be getting any closer.“This is the hardest part,” noted Captain Sheppard, “knowing that the Archon attack is imminent, and that we need to get back as quickly as possible, but being unable to go quickly because we’ll give ourselves away.”“Yes it is,” agreed Calvin, as conscious of the passage of time as anyone else.He could feel it slipping away from them.“Dead slow ahead,” ordered Captain Sheppard.“Dead slow ahead, aye,” repeated the helmsman.The Vella Gulf started forward and jumped.Bridge, TSS Vella Gulf, 54 Piscium System, February 23, 2021“That’s a lot of stuff waiting for the Archons when they attack in two days,” said the OSO, using the long range viewer to catalog the Drakul forces at the stargate to Archon space.“They’ve still got a lot of ships there, even without the task force we saw leave, but what’s going to kill them are the mines.I’ve never seen a minefield so dense.Even if the Archons use those robot ships, there’s still going to be a ton of mines waiting for them.” He paused, trying to count all the mines he could see in one area.“Damn,” he finally said.“There’s got to be something we can do to make their entrance easier.” His weapons-release finger twitched unconsciously.The sense of urgency driving the Terrans to do something, anything, was at an all time high.“What we really need to do,” said Ensign Sara Sommers, “is something for the rest of the Psiclopes left on Olympos.”“I wish we could,” said Captain Sheppard.“However, we don’t know how many Psiclopes still exist, and there’s no way to get them off even if we could sneak in there and get them.”“I realize that,” said Ensign Sommers.“It’s just that I can’t think of anything worse than sitting around, waiting to get eaten.It would almost be a mercy to put them out of their misery.”“It would be a mercy,” said Steropes, as he entered the bridge.“I know it’s what I’d want.”“Steropes, I know this has to be tough on you,” said Captain Sheppard.“Why don’t you go back to your cabin or to the gym or something.We’ll take care of this.”“Anywhere I go, I’ll only think about it,” said Steropes.“Besides, there ought to be a Psiclops involved in determining the fate of the planet, don’t you think? What are you going to do?”“We were just working on that,” said Calvin.“The problem is that we have a couple of things we’d like to do, but probably can’t do either of them very well.”“What are they?” asked Steropes [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]