Tripping.Stern was still talking, but Garrett tuned her out. Event horizon’s just about as solid a thing as you can find in space and it’ll be more like jumping headfirst off a cliff…Dammit, the thing’s got ashape!
“That’s it!”she blurted, and she saw Castillo jump as though he’d been shot. “Gravity! We’ve been banging our heads trying to figure out how to beat it. But why not use it to our advantage?”
“My God,” said Bat-Levi, giving a little laugh of astonishment. “Of course, the gravity well around the protostar…”
“It’s like any other,” said Castillo, his voice ramping up with excitement. “It’s strong, but it’s got an outer limit, an edge just like that black hole out there.”
“We accelerate toward the well at a shallow enough angle, then we ought to ricochet off the gravitational field,” said Garrett. “We’ll rebound, like a stone skipping over a pond.”
“I heard that,” came Stern, who was still on speaker. “Captain, I’m just a doctor, but even I know that if there’s any miscalculation, we either burn up or come apart at the seams.”
Trust Stern to put a damper on things. A slingshot around a sun—now thatwould be a piece of cake compared to this.
“We’ll still need the speed,” said Garrett, thinking furiously. “And to do that, we’d need to make Glemoor’s plan work. I don’t see how we can do that without turning the immediate area into a fireball.”
“Captain.” It was Bat-Levi. “There isa way. Instead of the protostar, we go for the black hole. Like you said, Captain, it’s the shape.The gravity well of the black hole’s event horizon is spherical. Using it to our advantage will be riskier in a lot of ways. Its gravitational field will be much stronger than that of a protostar. But the pull will give us the speed we can’t build up now by ourselves, and without burning us all to a cinder.”
“Unless we trip over the event horizon,” said Stern. “Then we just get turned to vermicelli.”
“Well, look at it this way, Jo, we won’t burn up,” said Garrett. “But our angle’s shallow enough, we skip right off.”
There was a moment’s silence, broken by Stern: “Why do I think we’re going to try this crazy stunt?”
Garrett spun into action. “Mr. Castillo, lay in a course for that black hole. Ninety plus sixty. Keep us shallow. Kodell, divert auxiliary power to the shields. And what about my tractor beams?”
“Working.”
“Beg, borrow, and steal, Kodell.” Garrett watched as the nebulae swam on the viewscreen with their course change. She felt the ship lurch with a sudden acceleration as they stopped fighting gravity. It was as if the black hole had reached out and grabbed them.
“Picking up speed, Captain,” said Castillo, unnecessarily. “One-half impulse!”
“Sucking us in,” said Garrett. Suddenly, the ship shook, and Garrett felt her body momentarily pressed back into her chair as if a giant hand had planted itself square in her chest. Then, just as quickly, the pressure slackened, and Garrett jerked forward, almost slamming to the deck. Behind her, she heard Bat-Levi gasp, and then the stubborn squeal of her first officer’s servos as they fought to hold her upright.
“Mr. Castillo!” shouted Garrett. She staggered from her chair then clutched at an arm as the ship twitched and shuddered.
“I’m sorry, Captain!” Castillo’s fingers were moving desperately over his console. Another jolt nearly sent him face-first into his instruments, and he had to brace himself with his left hand as he worked with his right. “Electromagnetic turbulence is getting stronger the closer we get to the black hole. I can’t hold her steady!”
Glemoor looked over from his console toward the helm and then to Garrett. “Captain, we’re too steep! We won’t be able to break away!”
As if to confirm his words, Garrett felt her stomach drop in free-fall as the ship took a sudden plunge, slammed from above by what felt like a solid belt of hypercharged particles and compressed gases.
“It’s the gravity, Captain!” Bat-Levi shouted. The ship rocked, and the artificial gravity hiccupped enough to send her backpedaling on her heels, off-balance, and slamming into the guardrail. She wheeled around, clutching for support. “Captain, the gravity, it’s sucking all the matter in this region toward the black hole! Like a column of air in a wind tunnel, only it’s denser because the particles are being squeezed together.”
Garrett didn’t need her to spell out the rest. With the increased compression and electromagnetic winds, the ship would be slow to respond, like trying to turn on a dime in a pool of molasses.
Garrett whirled on her heel. “My ship, Mr. Castillo!”
My ship:an age-old command, one used by pilots of planes not starships, but Castillo needed no translation. He jumped to one side as Garrett leapt to the helm and activated first the starboard, then port thrusters.
“Forty degrees.” Glemoor threw a quick glance at his captain then back at his instruments. “Forty-five. Hull stress increasing, Captain. Approaching tolerance limits. The closer we get…”
“The higher the concentration and pressure of gas and particles,” said Garrett, her eyes on her controls. “I know,Mr. Glemoor.”
“Captain, we’re close,”said Bat-Levi, and “if we pass too close to the gravity well…”
“Fifty!” shouted Glemoor, the Naxeran’s calm breaking at last. “Impulse power at three-quarters! Hull stress at tolerance! Captain!”
At almost the same instant, the main computer shrieked an alarm.
“We’re not going to make it,” muttered Castillo, in an undertone. He stood just behind Garrett’s right shoulder, and she felt a slight jolt as his hands clutched the back of the chair. “We’re not going to make it.”
For just the briefest of instants, Garrett wanted to spin around and shake the young ensign until his eyeballs jittered. Later,she thought grimly. We live through this, then I’ll give him an earful, and he’ll be damned glad to hear it because it will mean we’re alive.
She grappled with the helm, trying to keep them on a steady course, feeling the ship going mushy and unresponsive and knowing that the space outside the ship was so thick with particles it was like trying to maneuver through sludge. Like the old fighter pilots. Get her nose up, get it up!She nudged the thrusters again and again, in short bursts. Only instead of a throttle and flaps, a shaker stick and a yoke, she had thrusters and gravity and a boiling hailstorm of superheated ionized gas and…heat. Garrett gasped. Hawks, gliding, and… heat.
“Glemoor!” Garrett barked. “Arm photon torpedoes two and seven!”
“Captain?”
“Doit! Numbers two and seven! Ten-second delay!” She fired a five-second blast from the thrusters along the ship’s belly and saw the positioning gyros record the shift in the Enterprise’s attitude as the ship angled up, exposing more of the flat of its belly to the gravitational front of the black hole.
“Aye!” Glemoor’s black skin was dripping sweat. His frills were stiff, and the yellow of his eyes had deepened to a hot gold. “Torpedoes armed! Fifty-five degrees, Captain! Fifty-six!”
Almost there.Garrett blinked sweat from her eyes and winced at the sting. Almost there. Come on, girl, come on, don’t let me down, don’t quit on me now.
But she had to protect the other ship. Her plan wouldn’t do much good to them if she ended up incinerating them. “Engineering! Kodell, reinforce aft shields! Steal from us if you have to, but give that other ship every gram of protection you can!”
Suddenly, the ship dipped precipitously. To her horror, Garrett saw that they’d lost five degrees, now ten….
“Kodell!”Gritting her teeth, Garrett brought the side of her fist down on her maneuvering thrusters and was rewarded with nothing. “Kodell, where’s my power, where’s my control?”