“What’s our situation regarding LHS 1565?” Captain Andrews asked the moment he stepped into the node.
“Well, for starters, we named it Estrella de la Muerte,” Priscilla said with a smile.
“That’s uhh…really encouraging,” Andrews said. “But not that pertinent.”
Bob supplied.
“If we could regain helm control, what are our chances of firing the engines to break free?” Captain Andrews initialized a holo display of the stellar system, examining the ship’s vector and performing some of his own computations.
“I see we’re lower on isotopes than we expected,” Andrews said as he looked over their fuel situation.
“We think that the ramscoop was not performing correctly for some time, but the readings were being reported as though it were. The edges of this system have a lot of lithium, but we ended up missing it all,” Priscilla supplied as she brought up the variances on a holo display.
Tanis leaned against the railing that overlooked the ten-meter drop to the bottom of the node. There had to be a way out of this situation, but she couldn’t see it.
“Bob, can you show your best option for our breakaway burn on the holo?” Joe asked.
Bob complied and highlighted the point where the burn would take place.
The captain expanded the holo to forty light-years. The vector didn’t even come close to intersecting any other stars. The Intrepid would be adrift forever.
“Is there any chance we can correct that vector after the burn?” the captain asked.
“We’ll have plenty of D2, but no lithium. Our fusion engines aren’t designed to run without lithium, and with the primary scoop emitter damaged we’re not going to have much on the way out,” Priscilla supplied.
“What a miserable little star.” Andrews rubbed his jaw.
“I may have a way out of this, sir,” Joe said as he walked around the holo and zoomed it back in close to the star.
Tanis gave him a smile, which he glanced at and returned.
Tanis said.
Joe replied.
“How accurate is this in regards to how the star will look when we pass it?” he asked Bob.
A slider appeared displaying a timeline and the ship’s position.
the AI replied.
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