Sandworms of Dune - Brian Herbert [137]
Teg feverishly bent closer. “A loophole?”
“If only we could move!” Racking his brain, Duncan stalked back and forth in front of the controls. “It would be quite a drunkard’s dance to get through that maze—if this ship could fly at all.”
“If we all worked together, the entire crew, it would take a week to make repairs. We don’t have that much time.” The Bashar gestured to the tactical screens that displayed data from the long-distance sensors. “Enemy ships are closing in. They know they’ve snared us.”
Duncan accepted the grim reality. “Holtzman engines are dead. No way to make the repairs in time, no way to escape.” He hammered his fists on a panel next to the tangled, pulsing loophole on the console’s projections. “But I know I could do it. Why won’t this damned ship fly?”
Teg glanced at the sensor blips that indicated the encroaching Enemy, saw the automated damage reports streaming across the display, and knew exactly what had to be done. Only he could do it.
“I can fix the ship.” He had no time to explain. “Be ready.” Then he simply vanished.
MILES TEG ACCELERATED his metabolism, kicking himself into the hyper-fast speed he had learned after surviving unendurable torture at the hands of the Honored Matres and their underlings. Around him, time slowed. This would be dangerous to him because of the extreme energy requirements, but he had to do it. The rapidly strobing alarm lights became a slow pulsation that seemed to take an hour for each cycle, brightening and dimming. Re-accessing the archival records of the ship’s systems would take too long, but Teg had examined them before. As a Mentat he remembered everything, and now he set to work.
By himself.
Even at his accelerated speed, Teg exerted himself to run as fast as he could. On deck after deck, everyone aboard stood like statues, their expressions showing concern and confusion. Teg flashed past them to the nearest damage sites.
Where the first mine had gone off, he stared in amazement and consternation at the twisted metal, the melted craters in the machinery, the vaporized systems. Teg hurried from one explosion to the next, determining how far the damage extended and which systems were crucial for their immediate escape. The Face Dancer infiltrators had planted and hidden the eight mines well, and each detonation had resulted in a crippling blow: navigation, life-support, foldspace engines, defensive weapons.
Teg made snap decisions. His life had primed him for emergencies; on the battlefield, one could not hesitate. If Duncan couldn’t manage to fly the Ithaca away right now, they would never again require life-support systems. He, or someone else, could fix those later. An acceptable gamble. The no-field generators were off-line.
Engines. Four of the eight mines had been set to damage the foldspace engines. The Face Dancer saboteur had deliberately flown the no-ship close to the Enemy’s stronghold, and the detonations had left them crippled and stranded.
With hyper speed Teg studied, analyzed, and compiled a plan using his Mentat abilities. He inventoried spare materials, replacement components, emergency equipment. He needed to work swiftly with what he had; there was no one to help him. First, he rerouted and reprogrammed the weapons, and prepared them to launch a volley of blasts at the oncoming ships. That might grant them an extra few moments.
Teg continued to hurry. The pulsing alarm lights flickered on to off, like a sun rising and setting. Another hour gone in his own frame of reference. In real time, only a few seconds had passed since his disappearance from the bridge. Next, he turned to the engines, which were essential to their escape.
The primary linkages had been disrupted, with Holtzman catalysts shaken from their cradles, shoved out of alignment, made inoperable. Two reaction chambers were breached. An explosion had nearly broken through the hull. He stood stunned, his arms shaking, thinking he couldn’t possibly fix this. But he forced such thoughts