Dark Space: Origin by Jasper T. Scott Page B

dark transpiranium dome over their heads. Still absent was the faint blue glow of the reactor’s outer shields, which meant his entire crew was going to be baked alive if they didn’t either shut the reactor down or get the shields up soon.
    Activating his comms, Brondi put a call through to the bridge.
    A young woman answered, “Brondi!”
    Brondi could barely hear her over the whirring of the dymium core and the droning of his zephyr’s radiation alarm. “I need you to shut down the main reactor!” he said.
    “We don’t have any control from up here! Have you tried the manual overrides?”
    One of the Lokis began pounding on the doors, demanding to be let out.
    Of course! The manual overrides! Without bothering to reply, Brondi ran around the dymium core, searching for the manual controls. He found the control box on the opposite side of the core, and quickly fumbled with the latch to open it. The panel swung open, and Brondi couldn’t believe his eyes. The lever was sheared off at the base. A moment later he noticed the broken lever lying at his feet. “No!” he screamed, and kicked the handle across the deck. He began struggling with what was left of the lever, but it was twisted and the mechanism was jammed. Brondi strained with all of his zephyr’s augmented strength to force the damaged lever. A metallic groan came from the control box, and then the entire assembly tore free of its mounting and hit the deck with a thunk. Brondi stared at it incredulously.
    We’re frekked, he thought.
    *  *  *

    Commander Loba Caldin leaned over the captain’s table coughing on the thick clouds of acrid smoke wafting through the bridge. IMS was out, main power was out, shields were down and offline, guns likewise. They were dead in space. Only the grav gun on Caldin’s equipment belt kept her feet rooted to the deck. “How long until we have the main reactor back on line?” she asked through another cough.
    “Five minutes, maybe ten . . .” the engineering officer reported, shaking his head. Caldin eyed him through the shifting veils of smoke for a moment, watching his hands fly over the controls. He looked frazzled. She turned to the gravidar officer. “Any sign of another volley from our Sythian friends?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    “What are they playing at?” she wondered aloud, her eyes scanning the grid.
    “Maybe they want to take us alive?” Deck Officer Gorvan suggested from the gunnery station.
    “Perhaps. . . .” Caldin waited to see alien transports come flying out at them, but for long minutes nothing happened. “What are they waiting for?” Then another Sythian cruiser appeared on the grid.
    “Contact!” gravidar said. “It’s the Interloper. ”
    “They’re hailing us,” comms reported next.
    “Didn’t they leave already?” Caldin asked.
    “Apparently not,” gravidar replied. “Hoi! The Gors are bailing out of their ships!”
    “You mean they’re coming to board us?” Caldin asked, trying to see what the gravidar officer was talking about. She had to set the zoom on the grid to maximum in order to see it, and then she gasped. The Gors were literally bailing out of their ships.
    “They’re going EVA, ma’am,” gravidar replied.
    Caldin shook her head. “What in the nethers is going on? Put the Interloper on screen.”
    A moment later the dark, glossy deck of the Interloper appeared, overlaid on the main viewport. Captain Adram’s vulturine face dominated their view with his long, hooked nose and arching brows. His wispy white hair and wrinkled skin put his age around seventy, but his dark eyes were still as lively and keen as a teenager’s. He must have received longevity treatments to keep him so full of energy at that age. “Commander,” Adram said in a strong voice. “It would appear that the skull faces have agreed to surrender.”
    Caldin shook her head. “How did you get them to do that?”
    “Not I—your Gor did it. Tova, I believe her name is.”
    Caldin smiled