“All fighters report aboard and stowed, Captain!”

Lazar leaned forward in his seat, eyes unwavering, never leaving the chrome polish of the two massive Coralate warships as they hung vulture-like in their clouds of flitting, shining fighters.

“Baker?”

The young lieutenant glanced up from her console, shook her head. “Robson... he’s uh,” She paused, winced. “He’s not happy. He says he still needs about an hour to reach the mine.” She paused. “More or less, that’s what he said.”

“No can do.” Lazar breathed a frustrated sigh, made a quick gesture. “Asteroid field it is. Kerrigan, are we ready to fire up those emitters yet?”

“As much of a miracle as it’s going to take to pull this off, I don’t think we can be any more prepared to give it a go than we are right now.”

“Good enough.” Lazar’s eyes slipped back to the viewer. “Make me a miracle.”

“Initializing emitters.”

For one brilliant, blazing moment, reality seemed to catch fire, to brighten with the blue, crackling haze of electric light. Sparks danced across skin, raced and washed across the viewer in a streaking battle of laser tracers and exploding flame– and then, nothing. In the space of a breath, the entire surface of the ship lit with blinding light only to suddenly collapse back into darkness again. In every room and every corridor, overhead lighting flickered, guttered, died and returned to feeble life along lines of overloads and rolling blackouts. Systems flared, collapsed, and as the ship pitched hard to port, it threw everyone off balance, tossing equipment, tools, bodies and people to the floor. Beyond it all, beyond the screaming, the shouting, the knuckles whitening against consoles, another noise echoed across plating and steel, rising up from deep within the core of the Fu-Hetschwietz degen-drive to shake the entire ship with the injured vibrations of a metallic groan so deep, so strong that it raised hairs across necks, shivered spines and widened eyes. Picking himself off the floor, Lazar turned his eyes back to the viewer, saw only the darkness of a dead screen.

“What the hell just happened?” He half-turned, eyes shooting hard for Kerrigan. “Report!”

“Ohhhhh, not good.” Kerrigan managed, hands already deep within the holographic controls of his console. One hand swept across his forehead, smeared the streak of blood clinging there. “Not good, not good!”

“Kerrigan!” Lazar shouted. “That is not something I want to hear right now!”

“Primary inertial compensator assemblies are offline!” Harrison shouted, attracting Lazar’s eyes for an instant. “Secondary ICAs are coming online,” He shook his head. “Forty-five percent functionality.”

“Forty-five...?” Lazar shot a glance back at the Tactical Officer. “What’s going on, Kerrigan? I thought we were putting up a shield! Why the hell are my ICAs burning out!?”

Kerrigan shook his head quickly, eyes never leaving the console. “In order to make the shield work, I had to redirect power through uh– about twelve different systems, including the inertial compensators.” He shook his head again. “Oh god, not good, not good.”

“Did it work?” Lazar stood. “Do we have shields?”

“No sir.” Kerrigan looked up, met the Captain’s eyes with a gaze gone pale, full of fear. “But in all honesty, I think that’s the least of our worries right now.”

“That’s not something I want to hear right now either, Kerrigan.”

Kerrigan swallowed, fingers working frantically through isometric data. “When I... When the modifications I made in the system came online, it was too much for the emitters.” He gestured futilely. “Not only did the overload fry the most critical components of all our remaining ship to ship weaponry, the resulting quantum cascade fried about half the systems tied into it.” He swallowed again. “ICA’s, plating polarization, skin sensors, uh... viewers, point defense systems, jamming, AI countermeasures, the works.” He shook his head. “We’ve got nothing left. Hell, it’s worse than having nothing left. We just gave the blueskins the upper hand.”

“But I take it we still have our sublight thrust and our primary drive.” The Captain turned back, met Anderton’s quick, firm nod. “With this many systems burnt out, we don’t have a choice anymore.” He stepped toward the dead viewscreen “Anderton, sound the alarm– Baker, work with him, coordinate and comm everyone, let them know that red-run procedures are a must for this jaunt. I want us bending space out of here as quickly as possible, and with three quarters of our ICA systems burnt out, it’s going to be a rough ride.” He turned to Harrison. “Do you have enough to run up navigation calculations?”

“I’ve done it with less.” Came Harrsion’s quick reply.

“What about the mine, sir?” Anderton asked.

“Robson’s team just ran out of time.” Came the Captain’s sudden response. Tracing his way back across the deck, he stopped just short of his seat, turned back toward the forward section of Operations. “At this point, we don’t have the luxury of trying to detach or salvage it. We’re going to have to leave it where it is and just hope that it doesn’t blow or rip loose and spread itself all over hell and half of Jericho on our way back to safer waters.”

“Roger that.” Came Anderton’s quiet response.

“Prepare to engage engines on my mark.” Lazar glanced at Baker, waited for the edge of a nod that meant the message had been relayed, that people would be darting for safety harnesses and supporting themselves against doorframes. Fingers fell, gave the gesture. “Mark.”

“Engaging engines.” Anderton’s hands locked onto bars of isometric light, moved through loose code to urge the ship’s massive degen-drive to life. Hull plating rattled, groaned. Deep within the meandering metallic entrails of the ship, something shrieked, squealed with the sound of tortured metal. Lazar glanced at Anderton, saw the strain on the young lieutenant’s face.

“What’s going on?” He asked, working to check his fear the instant he heard the edge of it eating at his tone. “Why aren’t we moving?”

“I don’t know, sir.” Anderton pulled in a worried breath and pushed the drive harder, bit his lip as the ship rattled and screamed around them. For one frightening instant, Anderton glanced at Harrison, saw the look in his eyes, the quick shake of his head. No go. Movement zero. Hands spasmed in the isometric display, dropped the light-crafted throttle back to zero.

“Captain,” Anderton swallowed, glanced back at Lazar. “We’ve got a serious problem.”

“Well, isn’t that a switch.” Came the sarcastic response.