The Voyage of the Star Wolf by David Gerrold Read Free Book Online

could get the ship home. That wasn’t in doubt any longer. It might take four months, limping all the way, but it was doable. Could he fight back? Now? No. With a refit? Definitely.
    What was he going to do?
    Korie grinned.
    â€œWhat I’m capable of doing, what I want to do, and what I’m going to do . . .are all the same thing.”
    He touched the button on his headset. “Now hear this—” His voice was amplified throughout the ship. “This is First Officer Korie speaking. We’ve been hit, we’ve taken damage, but we’re still afloat. We don’t know how badly the fleet’s been hit. We don’t know how badly the convoy’s been hurt.
    â€œI am going to assume that a state of war exists now between the Terran Alliance and the Morthan Solidarity and I am going to act accordingly.
    â€œIt’s going to take some time to bring all ship systems back online. It’s going to take even more time to get home. But we will get home, I promise you that. We’re going to rebuild this ship, and then we’re going to come back out here and put a missile into every Morthan ship we can find.
    â€œKorie out.”
    He thought he could hear the cheers of the crew echoing throughout the ship, but it could just as easily have been his imagination.
    The hard part would be keeping them believing that . . .

A Situation of Some Gravity

    Light had been restored to the corridors of the LS-1187 , but not much else. Most of the desperately wounded were in sick bay or the mess room. The lesser wounded were spread across the forward half of the shuttle bay. A makeshift morgue had been established at aft starboard corner; a partition hid the bagged bodies from view; they were tethered like cargo.
    A decision was going to have to be made about that soon, Korie knew. Do we space them here or do we take them home ? He didn’t know how he felt about it yet, and he didn’t know who he should ask. Fontana probably. He knew the thought was irrational, but didn’t like leaving any of his crew floating alone in the dark so far from home. There was also a military consideration. As unlikely an occurrence as it might be, what if one of the spaced bodies were discovered by a Morthan cruiser? It would be evidence that the LS-1187 had not been destroyed.
    And yet . . . he also knew that it unnerved the crew to have those dead bodies tethered there. It was damning evidence of their failure in battle. It was as if the dead were pointing an accusing finger at the living. “If you had not failed, we might still be alive.”
    Korie shook his head sadly. This was not a problem that he could solve immediately. This decision could be postponed a while longer. It went against his grain to postpone a decision; the unfinished business seemed to lurk in the back of his skull gnawing at his consciousness, but—
    He pulled himself forward, into the starboard corridor, then left into the shallow chamber directly above the starship’s engine room. This was Chief Leen’s office and auxiliary control station. At the moment, it was also functioning as the starship’s Bridge.
    The chief was strapped into a chair before a work station. He was running diagnostic programs, frowning and muttering to himself. “Nope. Nope. That won’t work. That won’t work. Nope. Shit.” Then he’d lean forward intensely and order a new set of routines to be run.
    Korie hated to interrupt him, but—“I’ve thought of something else,” he said. Leen pushed back from the screen and swiveled to face Korie.
    â€œWhat now?”
    â€œWe’re on minimum life support. How long can we maintain?”
    Leen thought for a moment. Korie could almost see him running thesubroutines in his head. “Six days,” he said, finally. “If we use the LOX for the fuel cells, we can buy ourselves another three weeks, but then we’re out of power unless we recharge.