Sleep Be Not Forever

The ship barely started to respond when it was hit by all five of the pursuing vessels. It began to move about out of control due to severe damage to its diamagnetic propulsion system.

'Oh, no!' Benttan exclaimed, while fighting with his controls. 'They've got StrobLasers! The beams cut straight through our field and vaporized all the converters of the diamag-propulsion unit!'

'That's not all,' Tena said. 'Scanners show that their converters are building up energy fast. They're going to hit us again!'

I said, 'At this close a range, if our scanners were as sensitive as those on the Ebony, we'd have known they had StrobLasers, and could have made evasive maneuvers sooner. How long before they can fire again?'

Dian said, 'It'll take about forty-five seconds, sir.'

'That's time enough,' I said. 'Turn on the invisibility field and combine it with the force field.'

Benttan turned to make the combination and then stopped as he realized what I had meant.

Glancing back to me, he said hastily, 'That's impossible, sir. The circuits of the two fields are too different to combine.'

I used my command console to override all the other consoles on the ship and began frantically to manipulate the uni-screen and field circuits. The conversion had been made before when Jim and I had played our game back in the Solar System. It was one of the hardest combinations I'd done.

And it was difficult at first to remember the correct method. So I patched into my augmentation implants, and everything suddenly became as clear as a crystal. I now recalled every minute detail of the conversion. And my augmented speed had my fingers and hands moving almost too fast to follow.

The others sat in tensed amazement as they watched me make the instrument combinations that they'd considered impossible just moments before.

The seconds ticked by.

My fingers collided frequently as I moved faster and faster and faster, in a race with time.

Outside, I knew the other ships were continuing to build up energy. The Explorer craft itself swerved back and forth completely out of control. And had it not been for the craft's anti-gravity induced, inertial balance system, we would have long been dashed senseless against its walls.

Now there were twenty seconds left.

Then ten.

Then nine....

Suddenly I stopped.

The others watched my exhausted expression on their comlink screens, with uncertainty.

'I've done it.' I said.

With those words, the viewing screen went completely black.