Eric Flint - Threshold

"Can you get anything out of our sensors?" "Lemme see what I can coax out." He shifted to the onboard sensors ofNebula Storm, which included visible, ultraviolet, infrared, radar, and a number of others. A picture of the space around the distantOdin began to build up. Filter… spectroscopics… Oh, not good. "Definitely worse than just the one accelerator rib. I'm getting significant gas and vapor around the ship. She's leaking atmosphere, reaction mass, maybe other stuff like a sieve. Best guess-when it happened, it shredded a large part of the rib and blew pieces of it intoOdin." "And they're still headed straight for Io," Larry added. "You'd think they'd have been able to calculate that right after the main burn, though," Jackie said, puzzled. "Why didn't they shift orbit? They can't becompletely out of fuel." "No, they probably have a little left," A.J. agreed. "I dunno why they wouldn't have shifted." "It's obvious," Madeline said.

"Given the amount of time, we know that dodging even something the size of Io wouldn't take much effort from them for quite a while. They don't need kilometers per second of delta-V for that, just a relatively few meters per second, and they have enough for that. So, instead of correcting right off, they were waiting to find out wherewe were. They needed to know the strategic and tactical situation before making that move." "Except that the longer they wait, the harder it's going to get," Joe continued. "And with a mutiny and now what looks like major damage, I'll bet no one's thinking about that right now."

Jackie looked at Larry and Joe. "Can we match up withOdin? Do anything to help them?" Larry sighed. "We're closing at about four kilometers per second. We can bias that for a closer approach at course intersect if we want, but we don't have the power to make up the delta-vee difference. If they manage tomiss Io… taking just the right orbit flyby, they might be able to come close to matching up with us at Europa. Maybe." The Ares astronomer shook his head. "I think they'd still have to do a minimal Oberth even there, and I don't think they have that much left. I think it'd take at least a kilometer-per-second burn." Joe looked depressed and angry. "Even if we did… I really don't know what we could do. We can't tow them clear. Even almost dry in the tanks, Odin masses something over ten thousand tons. We don't have the room on board to take more than a few refugees, and I don't know how far we could push life-support." "Then the only thing we can do is keep trying to warn them," Madeline said decisively. "Jackie, I want you to broadcast a warning to them, with details of exactly when they will impact and a constantly updating timetable of how much they have to shift their current course to escape. A.J., keep trying to get information out of their systems… and findsome way to deliver a message. Can you do that?"

A.J. studied the meager data he was getting back, compared it with what he knew ofOdin, its systems, and its crew. "I think so. I just hope I can do it fast enough."

Alarms screamed throughout theOdin, almost deafening Horst and Anthony. Horst's display flickered, paused in mid-update, and then went to local. "The shipboard net just went down." "But I thought that was impossible!" Anthony said with a stunned look. Horst felt the back of his neck prickling as though something horrid was creeping up on him. Which maybe it was. "Nothing is impossible. But that is a very improbable thing to have happen. A distributed network it is, not so centralized… Some nodes are coming back. I am trying to find out…" As he managed to force some kind of status evaluation out of the crippled network, the full horror began to sink in. "Dear God," he breathed. Most of the habitat ring had suffered some kind of damage. A few cabin segments-including Anthony's-had been in the shadow ofOdin 's hull, shielded from the debris and shrapnel, but the vast majority of the habitat ring, standing so far out from the main hull as it did, was in line of sight of the explosion. Damage ranged from single punctures to shattered composite viewports to segments so riddled with holes they looked like a section of sponge. The entire facing side ofOdin 's hull was riddled with holes, random punctures through hull, support networks, power conduits, and stored supplies.

One of the external cameras showed an image that Horst quickly blanked out: an image of debris slowly moving away from theOdin -debris that showed several human silhouettes. Anthony was looking over his shoulder, muttering something that sounded like prayers. "Horst, how bad is it?" "I am trying to get more accurate information. Connecting to the controllers for the main systems. But it is very bad." Horst knew that most members of the crew, during the last few hours, had been in their cabins or in the hab-ring laboratories. The main hull was for command or bridge crew and engineering, for the most part, especially during maneuvers. Which implied something he did not want to think about. "Connected, finally. A lot of discontinuities in the network… Well, one good piece of news-theMunin is undamaged and can probably be launched." "But it cannot hold that many people, yes?"

Horst hesitated for a moment, but there was no reason to evade the issue. "There may be not that many people left to load on," he said grimly. Anthony stared at him, wordless for a moment. "You… you cannot mean that." "I am very afraid that I do," Horst said quietly.

"We need to get into our suits now. According to the data I am getting, any route we take out of here will take us through vacuum."

Anthony nodded silently, and began-painfully-to pull on his suit.

"Where do we go?" "To theMunin first. It has independent systems, including its own communications, life support, and power. We need to be able to tellNebula Storm what has happened. Maybe they can help.

And we can useMunin as our own fortress, if Fitzgerald and his people survived. Assuming, at least, that the bastards are not yet on board it." He went to shut down the terminal, but stopped as an unusual signal was highlighted by his application. He sat back down.

"Who…?" The signal was coming from one of the surviving controller units on theOdin 's driver-support ribs. But it wasn't a normal control or update signal. It looked like… Suddenly he understood. Decoding the signal didn't take long. Reading it, however, he almost wished he had taken longer. Anthony saw it in his face as he turned. "Horst, what is wrong now?" "I just got a message from A.J.

Baker, through some of the Faerie Dust he still has on board. And he tells us that soon we will have a much worse problem to worry about."

Anthony froze. "Oh, God, I had forgotten! Io!" "Yes. Io." The astronomer resumed putting on his suit. "We must find a way to get control ofOdin very soon." "We will have to use the laterals. The NERVA drive is no longer usable." "What?" "Oh, the reactor and so on is basically intact," Horst said bleakly. "But the thrust nozzle is shredded. Try a burn with that kind of damage, and it will vaporize. I have no idea what would happen after that." "Then," Anthony said, clumsily forcing his wounded arm to cooperate, "we have even less time than I thought."

Hohenheim struggled slowly back to consciousness. How long have I been out? What happened? He tried to move, but found that something impeded his movement. Opening his eyes, he gasped. Below him, space rotated slowly, majestically. Jupiter passed him, and other distant objects. Nowhere was there a sign of theOdin. He was alone, spinning through the void, four hundred million miles from Earth. Not while still feeling gravity, I am not. He moved his head; everything seemed to be working. He looked around, trying to ignore the vertigo of space all around him. Looming above him like a constantly falling skyscraper wasOdin. Looking down his body, he could see that he lay facedown across one of the habitat support ribs. The part of the cabin unit that would have been under his upper body had been blown away somehow.