Chapter 31: The Die is Cast

Six hours later Bolton and the Caretaker were still on the bridge sitting at command stations, but it did not seem so large and empty now. Noncom techs sat at the boards and officers crowded around the nav console just in back, making the space seem more compact with activity. Not all the boards were occupied, but enough to make the Caretaker breathe easier. The ship was the thing for him, to get her moving again, out of this well, to skate ... it was all the same to him if a fiery death awaited them the other side of now. It would be a more fitting end than to quietly snuff it out sitting in a junkyard.

"We're warm," he said as the last of the system confirms came up on his screen. "On your order, sir."