"Nash, give me fuel versus time. Work out a worst case," she ordered.

"I have the trade-offs, Sharl," Hudson replied. "Assuming we get engines to full power, we have nine hours to make worst case orbit, only we wouldn't have any lander fuel left—we'd be stranded in orbit. The window to get everyone down with fifty kilos of equipment is ninety minutes. After about six hours we'll have to start leaving people behind. Depends on how low our orbit is."

Quinn's helmet pivoted upward as if in prayer. "Run the numbers again," he ordered.

"I already did, sir—three times," Hudson's voice was confident, if subdued. "That assumes everyone rides down on the apple. We buy some slack with an injection run. We've got six penetration modules and at least six qualified Marines."

Quinn switched off the auto-stabilizers to conserve fuel. "Rhodes! How're you doing? Give me an estimate!" he demanded.

Buccari was about to repeat the command when Mendoza, Rhodes's senior propulsion technician, came up on the circuit, gasping for breath.

"Commander Quinn, we got it figured out, er. it' s—"

Silence. The circuit went dead, and the ship went absolutely dark, the stark glare of the approaching planet their only light. Buccari keyed her intercom. Silence. She flipped open the control cover on her forearm and activated her suit transceiver. Much of the crew was already up, saturating the frequency. Hudson took charge, directing the confusion. No one was in contact with engineering, the mass of the ship blocking transmissions to that most rearward station.

"I'm heading back," Buccari said, releasing her fittings and clearing her visor. As she floated into the tubular longitudinal accessway the emergency battle lighting flickered on. A red glow bathed the forty meter tunnel, and Buccari's vision adjusted to the monochromatic pall. Rhodes's bulk emerged from the distant afterhatch.

"Give me.. one hour to re-run cross-connects," the big man blurted on the radio circuit, his voice an octave higher, his breathing labored, "and to…reinforce secondary circuits. Energy paths overloaded. The power manager locked up, and. I had to run a bypass to override. We lost the load. Goldberg…is rebooting the power manager."

They met halfway. Rhodes's anguished face, ashen even in the red battle light, ran with perspiration. A bypass on the power manager was a major operation, done by a station crew over a period of hours, even days. Rhodes, with only two technicians, had just done one in less than ten minutes. Buccari refused to think of the shortcuts the engineer had employed, or their consequences.

Commander Quinn came up on the radio: "We have no choice, Virgil. You take too long and we'll all have nothing but time on our hands."

"Yes, sir," Rhodes replied. "I understand—"

"Commander," interrupted Buccari. "I'm going back. I'll run the power manager while Mr. Rhodes finishes cross-connects. I think I know why the connect didn't hold."

"Sure, Sharl," Quinn replied. "I'll just take a nap."

Ignoring the sarcasm, she turned to the engineer and smiled. "We got work to do, Virgil."

"Roger, Lieutenant," Rhodes gulped, trying unsuccessfully to return the smile. He flipped his big body and floated aft, propelling himself by hand rungs interspersed down the bore. Buccari followed.

Compared to the gray drabness of the flight deck, the expansive engineering compartment, even under emergency lighting, was gaudily illuminated, with banks of instrumentation lining all surfaces, except the aft bulkhead, where an airlock led to the cavernous main engine hold. Next to the lock an observation bay looked out over a labyrinth of reactors, pipes, radiator fins, and turbines. The engineering technicians were engrossed in their tasks. They had discarded their battle suits, stripping down to buff-coloredjumpsuits, their shiny-bald heads glistening with perspiration. Buccari removed helmet and gloves, leaving the apparel drifting in a catch net near the hatch.

"Mendoza, force the auto-repair diagnostic on the transmission paths," Rhodes ordered. "Goldberg, I want you to finish the reboot!"

"I've got the power manager, Goldberg," said Buccari, sliding next to the petty officer and hooking her boot around a security tether. "Mr. Rhodes wants you on main memory." The propulsion technician, absorbed in her efforts, looked up with irritation.

"I'll get it! I'm almost there, Lieutenant—" Goldberg started.

"Goldberg!" boomed Rhodes. "Main memory! Reset and reboot, now!"

Goldberg pushed from the console, propelling her thin body across the compartment. Spinning and jackknifing adroitly, she gracefully cushioned her vigorous impact next to the main computer control console and was quickly at work.

Buccari analyzed power manager status and was soon consumed by the task of reprogramming the computer. Minutes passed in controlled frenzy. As she worked, her mind drifted back to the near disastrous engagement with the alien spacecraft. With startling awareness she realized the limitless scope of their luck: they were still waiting for the same power sequence that fired the laser cannon. The cannon would not have fired, just as the main engines had not. They should have been annihilated by the alien ship. How had they escaped?

Buccari finished programming and checked the time display on the bulkhead. Precious minutes marched into history. Her eyes would not leave the blinking diodes that marked the time, her entire being focused on the inevitable dwindling of opportunity, the irrefutable and immutable narrowing of existence that the passage of time represented. The essence of life was palpable; her pulse pounded in her ears.

Rhodes's hour was up!

"Okay, Lieutenant," said Rhodes, interrupting her trance. "Cross-connects are firm, but I need ten more minutes to stabilize ion pressures and temps."

"Roger," Buccari replied. "Power manager is resetting. You're only going to get a conditional reset. There's not enough time to get a full null, but it'll be good enough. Good luck, Virgil." She redonned helmet and gloves and slipped into the darkened connecting tube, anxious to once again look out upon the shining planet.

It was brilliant; she opened the flight deck hatch to a white flood of natural light and had to squint to see the instruments. She flashed Hudson a thin smile and then hit a button on her wrist controls, causing her gold visor filter to click instantly into place.

"Well?" Quinn demanded. "What's it look like?"

As if in answer, the ship's lighting flickered to normal. Buccari glanced down at her power console as the primary circuit indicators switched to green, clearing most of the error messages on her screen.

"Rhodes needs ten minutes to complete cross-connect, but it looks functional," she reported, locking into her seat. "I wouldn't want to use the power paths again. Main busses are fried, and the alternates are just hanging together. We tested for load. They'll hold. We got at least one shot."

Quinn grunted and busied himself with preorbital checks. Buccari joined the litany of preparation; challenges were answered with responses of unequivocal certainty. The ship was a wreck; systems were out of specification, or inoperable, but the checklist moved onward and around these obstacles, measuring their impact and weighing the risks and alternatives.

"Preorbital checks complete," Buccari reported. She saved the checklist deviations to the logfile and cleared the checklist screen. She punched a button on the communications panel. "Flight deck to engineering. Your turn, Mr. Rhodes. Status?"

Goldberg responded. "Power manager shows a conditional reset, just like you said. You sure we can't get it to full function by a reload simulation? Mr. Rhodes and me think we can do it in five minutes."

"Go with what we you have, Goldberg," Buccari almost shouted. "The power manager may not hold together for that long, and we have a date with a planet in a few minutes."