said, smacking the bar, making their glasses jump. “And
tell her exactly how I feel about her. And then I’d get down
on one knee and we’d make sweet, sweet love all night
long-”
It hadn’t been too long after that night that Tripp had
married his Rosie. Up had stood beside him as best man.
He thought of Taz, wondered how she was passing the
long hours til morning. She too had faced death, but never
quite like this. Not waiting helplessly for it to come to them.
He should be there with her, he knew he should be. But if
he went to her now, admitted his fears, told her what his
heart truly wanted...
Wouldn’t that be giving up hope?
Taz and Pedro walked the length of engineering, making
sure that everyone was out. Even with the leaking core, it
was strangely quiet down here, oddly detached from the
battle raging around them. Their footsteps rang on the metal
walkways.
“I’ve been looking at that chain of robot ships,” said
Pedro. “You know, I think that if you hit one with a big
enough missile, the reaction might just ripple out down the
line – destroy all the bastards at once.”
“I believe they’ve thought of that,” Taz said. “That’s
why they have a monstrous forcefield surrounding them.
One our cannons haven’t been able to penetrate.”
“I was reading the other ships’ transmissions on the
bridge. The Brighteye has pinpointed the shield’s frequency,
but it’s scrambled. They’re working on it now –
Commander Li has good people on that ship, they’ll get it
eventually.”
“Okay, next problem,” she said. “Say they do
unscramble the frequency and are able to disable the robot
shields. The whole fleet is out of cannons, and not one of