Suddenly, with a lurch and a shuddering groan the ship was
struck by severe cavitiations. Already unbalanced by the
unusual gravity, Elle lost her footing and slammed to the
floor, sliding across the corrugated surface. With a cry she
threw her arms up, just before she slammed up against a
wall. Her head struck the steel of the airlock doors and
stars danced briefly across her
vision.
Squinting from the pain,
Elle levered herself off the deck and started again, more
carefully, to gain access to the bridge. Just as she
reached the bridge door, the ship convulsed again, almost
sending her sliding back
again.
She
slapped the door open pad, but the steel double doors did
not slide apart. The ship was in lockdown
mode.
Gritting her teeth, she popped open the emergency acess
panel, and yanked on the yellow and red striped bar inside.
There was a slight pause, and then a pronounced clunk as the
MagLocks released. The doors hissed
open.
She
stumbled through the door, heading for the Nav chair.
The bridge was awash in warning lights and buzzers, flashing
red strobes and a Synthesized voice saying "warning hull
overstress warning hull overstress warning hull overstress
warning" Over and
over.
She
spied Gregory in the Nav chair. He craned his neck to look
at her. Was he doing all
this?
"What
the hell are you doing?" She shouted at
him.
"Nothing!! We're in a powerslide! The engine won't shut
off!"
"What?"
Elle whispered under her breath making her way slowly to the
Nav chair. A powerslide was a combat maneuver, a turn while
under main engine thrust. It created a huge amount of stress
along the hull, and was only used by vessels a third the
length of
Gravlaw.
She reached the back of the Nav chair, holding tight to the
headrest to keep her footing. Quickly she scanned the
instruments. Greg was right. The ship was in a wild,
corkscrewing, unchecked turn, rotating quickly enough to
create it's own gravity using centrifugal force. None of the
maneuvering thrusters were engaged, meaning that whatever
was affecting the turn had nothing to do with the
maneuvering systems. The only operating engine was the
Reactor. She quickly checked the readout. It was
turned down to neutral, but it was quite obvious that the
engine was operating at or near full power. So the
bridge connection to the engine had failed
somehow?
That left two options. There was a secondary, emergency
control station located farther aft. They could attempt to
reach the station, but in all probability Gravlaw would
shatter and spill it's atmosphere and crew before they
got halfway
there.
So there
was really only one option left, which was
to-
"Call
engineering! Have them scram the engine!!"
Greg
hesitated only an instant before reaching for the Comm
board. A few moments later his voice shouted out from the
shipwide broadcasting
system.
"Shut the
engine down! Scram!
Scram!"
Scramming
the engine would certainly stop the acceleration, but they'd
be drifting in space untill the engine could be reset. Under
the circumstances, Elle thought, I don't think anyone'd
protest.
Just as
she finished the thought, the Engine blew out with a
tremendous roar. A sustained groan issued from the
ship's hull as the metal unburdened itself of
stress.
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