Raymond Price's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The barrier fell behind them, but the win felt thin. Price watched the fuel gauge drop to six minutes. Ahead, the nebula ran on, black and endless. He held the plasma control and faced the same trap as before. Every pulse he fired to see the rocks stole burn from the engines. He could light the field or he could move through it. He could not do both, not now. "Talk to me, Reid," Price said. "How far does a pulse carry us blind?" Commander Reid bent over the science panel, her dark hair swinging forward. She was his first officer, and she gave him the hard number without flinching. "Fire one pulse, we see a clear path for maybe ten seconds. Then the glow dies and we're dark again." She checked the gauge. "If we keep pulsing and crawling, six minutes buys us almost no distance. We'll die lit up and stalled." Price stared at the screen. Slow meant safe and dead. Fast meant blind. He needed a third choice. Counselor Clark stepped to the chair. She was the ship's counselor, steady when the bridge went tight. Her blonde hair caught the panel light as she leaned toward the screen. "You keep spending plasma twice, sir," she said. "Once to see, once to move. What if one pulse did both?" Price turned. "Explain." "Fire one long pulse. Read the path all the way out while the glow holds. Then cut the jets and coast on the drift. No burn. No light. Just fly the map you already saw." Reid's head came up. "Momentum carries us forward. We ride it dark through the clear lane." Her mouth tightened. "But if you misread one rock, we hit it at speed with no way to steer." "Then I don't misread it," Price said. "One pulse. Everything you've got." Reid keyed the panel. "Full jet, three seconds." The plasma fired. The gas blazed bright and deep. Price read the field fast. He traced the path, marked every stone, burned the shape of the lane into his eyes. A wide dark channel opened straight ahead, clear for a long run. "I have it," Price said. "Cut plasma. All of it." The jets died. The glow faded to nothing. The ship went black and quiet, coasting on its own weight. Price flew by memory now, hands light on the helm. A rock slid past to starboard, right where he'd seen it. Then another. The hull held clear. They rode the drift through the dark, engines silent, and no crash came. The coast ran long. When Price finally called for a check, Reid read the gauge and stared. "We saved fuel, Captain. Coasting cost us nothing." Then her eyes lifted to the sensor board. A faint reading flickered where none had shown for days. "Sir. Something's ahead. It's not rock. The sensors are catching an edge."