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“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.

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!”

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