Puck cracked his knuckles. “North better un-dispose soon, or it’ll be ‘Optio Puck’ before he knows it.”
“Yeah, yeah, Circitor. Just get on it, please.”
“Yes, sir.” He leaned over the display. With one swipe, he dismissed every notification, then flicked open the positioning and sensor menus. “We seem to be drifting outward at a pretty rapid pace, sir.”
Adequin’s heart raced. “Rapid? How exactly would you quantify rapid?”
“Honestly, I have no idea. How close do we normally sit?”
Adequin was pleased she actually knew the answer. She didn’t know the specifics, but she’d memorized that stat years ago. “1.284 million kilometers.”
Puck’s face fell.
“What?”
“Ah, nothing. This estimation is just reading wrong, clearly.”
She opened her mouth to let him know it probably wasn’t wrong at all, but stopped herself. That would inspire a long line of questioning she wasn’t ready to indulge.
Puck shrugged. “Not sure what’d be pulling or pushing us out so fast, but I’ll engage thrusters to get us back inward.”
“No—” Adequin began, but he’d already swept open the thruster control screen.
“Oh.” Puck pressed his lips together and turned to look at her with acute alarm. He lowered his voice. “What the hell, sir? The thrusters are already pushing us inward at max speed…”
Her eye twitched as she mediated her anxious expression. “Any ideas on how to push us in a bit quicker?”
“Maybe, but … the Divide’s gravitational influence isn’t that strong this far out.” Puck shook his head. “What the hell’s moving us?”
“We don’t know,” she said, and a sharp pang of guilt fired in the pit of her stomach. Though, it wasn’t precisely a lie. They truly didn’t know what had caused it, Puck had simply assumed incorrectly about which had moved toward which.
She shoved the guilt aside and took a deep breath. Explaining it all to Puck was uncalled for. Knowing wouldn’t change anything, other than that it would most assuredly cause him to panic. Which wouldn’t help anyone.
“We need a temporary solution,” she said. “Something to kick us back inward until Jackin can finish up with his permanent solution.”
“Okay…” Puck crossed his arms. “Well, I might be able to, uh … trick it.”
“Trick it?”
“Well…” He diverted his gaze and cleared his throat. “Hack it.”
Adequin raised an eyebrow. “How so?”
“It’s not really a Legion-sanctioned procedure, but I could reroute some of the life-systems power to the thrusters, push them beyond their specified limits and get a bit more kick out of them.”
“How far can they be pushed?”
“From a strictly theoretical standpoint—”
“Puck. I’m the EX. I’ve read your file. I know exactly why you’re here.”
“Right.” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Well, when I did a similar hack on the SCS Somnium, I got about two hundred percent more out of the engines before it—er, well. Before it stopped.”
Adequin sighed. “Did they explode?”
“Little bit. Implode, really.”
“I’d rather our thrusters not implode.”
“It’s totally different,” he said hurriedly. “Trust me, this’ll be fine. These old dreadnoughts have incredibly thorough output sensors, assuming everything’s still in working order.” With a few hurried taps, he opened another screen on Jackin’s terminal and scanned the display, nodding. “Yep, we’re good—everything’s nominal on the last diagnostic—run just yesterday. I’ll be able to tell when they’re at their max.”