“Initializing zerodrive systems . . .” Urle said.

Warning lights covered the boards, telling them that they lacked sufficient energy needed to create a rift between realities. Brooks had already input his override codes, and gave a final confirmation.

“Fusion reactors are stable, beginning the distortion field . . . gravity fields increasing . . . tenkionic attraction increasing . . .”

Urle’s voice was calm, but a note of alarm came into it.

“Aperture is trying to open – Fisc, I hope it doesn’t actually open . . . No, the aperture is not stabilizing. Repeat, it’s trying, but we are not getting an opening.”

He looked up at Brooks. “We are accelerating towards it.”

Brooks leaned forward in his seat, crossing his hands in front of his face. They felt nothing yet. The pseudo-gravity of the aperture was pulling on them all equally. Even the ship – the tenkionic matter that made up much of her hull and internal solid areas distributed the force in some way, sparing it the stress of tidal forces.

“Activating standard drive to pull us off-kilter . . . Now we’ll feel a bump.”

Brooks leaned back, letting his chair secure him.

“System ready for switch to automatic,” Cutter said in his clipped voice. “In case we all pass out.”

“Ah,” Kell said. “That again. Your kind seem to do it often.”

Brooks looked up at the ambassador, who was still standing. “I suppose you’re not going to sit this time, either. The forces will be different.”

He was starting to feel them already, pulling him towards the side as his body’s momentum wanted to keep moving in a straight line – but the ship began to curve its path.

“G-forces increasing, it’s gonna get worse from here,” Urle said, his voice louder.

“I do not need to sit,” Kell said, amused. “It would not truly support me, anyway.”

Brooks felt his head now wanting to tilt, and he saw the officers each doing the same.

Urle resisted the longest, his biomechanical muscles eventually straining until even he had to let his head rest against the side of his seat.

The pressure built and he had to breathe harder.

“Five Gs . . .” Urle said.

It was pressing down on them all, enough that their chairs automatically rotated to keep the pull in the optimum direction for humans to resist it. Despite how nearly every member of the crew had the genetic enhancements and augments that had stacked with hundreds of years of space exploration, despite their technology that was twisting and violating physics to keep the forces from being so great that it crushed them, they felt it.

They were all breathing hard, tensing, fighting the gravity. One couldn’t just take such pressure. They’d black out in a heartbeat if not prepared.

He and the others were fighting hard.

“Ten Gs . . .” Urle said. His voice sounded strained. “Countering . . . 427 Gs . . . The ship is showing the strain . . .”

They felt it before they heard it. The ship itself was groaning. A deep hum, as she vibrated so intensely that each oscillation couldn’t be told from the last.

“Cenz, you holding up okay?” Brooks asked. Such things were particularly unpleasant to him.

“I’ll survive,” the being said, his voice much calmer than his vitals suggested. Perhaps he had set his system not to try and impart his emotional state into his words.

“Divert power from non-essential systems as necessary to spare the important ones,” Brooks ordered. If the garden pumps had to break, they could fix them later. “And make sure the infirmary is most protected . . .”

“Done,” Urle bit out. “Path . . . on-screen . . .”

Brooks was nearly whited out, but he could see the path of the ship. They were running close to the outer edge of the rift they had nearly-opened. Too close.

“Are we going to clear it?” he managed to say.

“I . . . I don’t know,” Urle said.

Brooks saw in his alerts that 62% of the crew had blacked out.

More alarms were starting to go off.

“Outer pod broke off! Nothing important, just some science equipment . . .”

“Turn off the zerodrive,” Brooks ordered. “Let the aperture fade, so we don’t clip it!”

He couldn’t see now. All was white, and he was gasping for breath. Only a few more seconds . . . Once they could get back into a straight path, stop trying to skirt the massive gravity of the aperture, they would stop feeling it . . .

“It’s off – aperture isn’t dissipating! Oh shit, did we . . . It’s shrinking, but I’m not sure . . . This is going to be close, Captain!”

Something was rattling loudly, then he heard a crash as something broke loose and flew down the hall, banging against the bulkheads. His ears were ringing.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Then he blacked out.

“We’re past!” he awoke to. His vision had returned, and Kell was standing in front of him, looking him in the face from only a few inches away.

He smiled slightly. “It is interesting to watch, no matter how often I see it,” he said.

Brooks said nothing, but looked past him.

“Report!”

“We made it past Captain!” Urle said, turning to look at him. “Nearly skimmed the aperture, but we made it! We’re on course for the Hev moving at . . . Fisc, .09c!”

“How long until we reach the Hev?”

“Two minutes – our velocity is dropping . . . our pseudo-momentum is fading,” Cenz said.

It violated physics for a thing to lose energy for no reason, but that was just how zerospace operated. At least it kept the energy in the universe from actually changing . . .

“And their missiles?”

“They’re trying to correct, but we’re going to miss them,” Urle said. “Their velocities are too high – I don’t even think they have enough reaction mass left to catch us.”

Jaya turned to look at him. Her expression was that of a hunter closing in on prey.

“Missile racks ready, PDCs are loaded and hot.”

“Good,” Brooks said. “Warm up the coilguns. We’re going to give them everything we’ve got.”

“Captain!” Cenz said sharply. “They’re launching another volley of missiles. Not as many as the last, but a sizable amount, still counting!”

Brooks saw it appearing on the vast screen before them – boxes appearing around a horde of missiles, freshly-launched.

“They reloaded a hell of a lot faster than I expected,” Urle bit out, his hands flying over the controls. Even with his mind directly hooked into the system, his hands worked, adding what little they could to the speed of thought.

“They’re going to be close together – launch and fire counter-missiles, everything we have! We just have to survive this one round, and then we’ll be in among them!”

If their anti-missile weapons could take out more than one at a time, they just might make it through . . .

“Missiles incoming, less than ten seconds,” Jaya said. “All PDCs locked and firing, but sir-“

“All crew,” Brooks said, his message resounding through the ship. “Brace for impacts!”

----------------------------------------

Apollonia stumbled down the hall, trying to shake off the effects of blacking out.

She hadn’t been the only one; most people in the room apparently had gone unconscious during the maneuver.

She had come to with the doors open and the speakers blaring out for all Response personnel to report to their action stations.

And that’s where she was going. But she still felt dizzy, unable to even quite understand what was going on. A drone had scanned her and told her she had no aneurysms or other health issues, that she was fit to report for duty. That she’d be okay in a few moments.

She didn’t feel okay.

“Good luck!” the woman, Ann, who had been next to her said as she left.

Only after the door had sealed had she realized she’d left her tablet in there.

“All crew!” Brooks’s voice came through the speakers in the halls. “Brace for impacts!”

An emergency seat popped out of the wall, and she threw herself into it, the webbing lashing itself around her-

Almost not in time. The ship shook and she was thrown forward in her webbing. Everything rattled – then it rattled again. She lost count of how many impacts there were – though she couldn’t count very well in her present state.

“Hull breaches detected,” the words came. “All civilians remain in safety bunkers. All Response personnel, report to assigned stations and await further commands.”

She was going to need full vac gear.

Other alerts played, as the webbing released her.

They phrased things in that official sort of way, but the gist was clear, even to her.

Be prepared for dead or dying people.

Be ready to die.

Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she knew she had to finish putting on her vac suit. Even if just for her own safety; if something punched through the ship, it was always better to have yourself covered.

Though maybe getting blasted out alive into the dark was worse than a quick death.

Her knees felt weak.

She slapped the door open panel on a room and ducked inside. Putting her back to the wall, she slid to the floor and couldn’t make herself stand up.

She couldn’t do it.

----------------------------------------

“All but three accounted for!” the call came.

Across the ship, the Response Volunteers had gone to where they’d been assigned. There were two reported injuries – nothing seriously, thank the stars – and one no-show.

Vakulinchuk squinted at the list to see who the no-show was, adrenaline making it hard to focus on fine details.

Apollonia Nor.

He flicked the notification away, and looked to the teams assembled before him, his image going out to every Volunteer.

“Your assignments are issued, get those breaches sealed, watch for rooms that may still have pressure and therefore people inside! Move!”

The teams reacted, moving – if not skillfully, then at least determinedly. One short that they should be. But now was not the time to worry about that. Things happened. He just hoped she wasn’t hurt out there and no one knew.

He heard a clunking, and saw a hatch open, with the new Abmon officer who had transferred aboard.

“Sir,” he said, through his rocky grumbling. “My post is not far from a breach, but is intact. I’m quite strong and naturally resist vacuum. Permission to help?”

His system came up with the relevant information; even if his last tests had been awhile ago, He That Squats on Yellow Sand was qualified for non-combat duty, without a doubt.

A short-handed team could sure use the strength of an Abmon . . .

“Accepted,” he barked, sending to the Armorer his orders. “Get down to your assigned team and help them, they’ll be expecting you.”

Squants on Sand saluted, and began to amble away at what was – for an Abmon – rather fast. “I will not let you down, sir!” he said sincerely.

----------------------------------------

Pirra saw the notification come up.

The fire in front of her demanded more of her attention, but her team were veterans of more than a few burning oxygen leaks. The flames sputtered, then died.

“That’s the last one!” Kiseleva said through the comm. Pirra could see her mouth moving, but only hear her through the radio.

To her right was open space, where the missile had torn a breach through the outer hull, leaving a ten-meter gap. The edges were being closed rapidly by heavy drones, crawling along the inner hull, carrying small plates they fused together. In a matter of minutes they’d have it fully sealed, even if it wouldn’t stand up to most weapons.

“All team, back to rendezvous,” she ordered. “And good work.”

She trotted out with the others. No one wanted to be in an open area if they got hit again, though for at least a few more seconds they were expecting silence.

She looked at her alarm again.

He That Squats on Yellow Sand had joined one of the short-handed Volunteer Response teams.

Annoyance flashed through her that the Abmon had gone around her orders, but at least it was a non-combat unit . . .

He was rated for that, at least.

She sent a priority message, to both he and Vakulinchuk, who had signed off on his joining.

“Once he helps his team with their immediate vital issues, Squats on Sand is to report back to his post without delay,” she said sharply.

She grabbed a handhold and got another warning of a high-G maneuver. The ship was about to go into a spin.

Her team moved quickly and were strapped in. The main computer monitored everyone it could, to determine when it could safely begin the maneuver, but it would only wait so long.

She checked the monitoring systems, saw that Alexander and Elliot were safe, in a bunker deep in the ship. Then Iago; he, too, was reaching safety, somewhere near the equator ring. He pinged as he strapped in, and she felt as content as she could.

“Hold on,” she said calmly to her unit. No one looked alarmed, even as the entire ship began to spin.

Then the ‘G-SHOCK IMMINENT’ alarm went off. The ship’s massive coilguns were warming up . . . about to fire.

Oh, they were in the shit now, she thought.