Buccari looked at Rhodes. The engineer threw back a thumbs-up with one hand and an «okay» signal with the other.

"Have faith, Gunner," Quinn said. "Control sequence is manual and power's being transferred on the aux bus. Stand by."

Buccari, floating above her station, stole a look at tactical. The alien ship irrepressibly passed the apogee of its turn. Screeching adversary warnings steadied out.

"Back to your seat, Sharl. Fire control stations," Quinn ordered.

She grimly complied, calling up weapons status as she strapped in.

"Engineering's talking," Rhodes said, punching intercom buttons. "Goldberg patched the circuit. I'm going back to main control." The engineer clambered across the flight deck, hitting both pilots with sundry parts of his body.

"Mr. Hudson, you've got the EPL," Quinn ordered. "Take charge of the evacuation. Get the Marines and non-required crew away from the corvette."

"Sir?" Hudson blurted. "I'm not apple qual'ed. I—"

"You heard the skipper," Buccari said. "You've just been qualified."

"But—" Hudson protested.

"Now, Ensign!" Quinn snapped. "Move!"

Hudson stuttered a response, released his tethers, and sailed from the flight deck. Buccari shifted her attention to the chatter on the fire control circuit; Rhodes and Wilson were discussing preparations for manually firing the energy weapon.

"Okay, gentlemen," she interjected, overriding their transmissions. "Full manual. Pick up the checklist at pre-sync."

"Rog', Lieutenant," Wilson responded. "Ready for checks."

"Power's too low for capacitance alignment, Lieutenant," Rhodes reported. "Need twenty seconds. We're only going to get one shot out of this mess. After we discharge it'll take a half hour to regenerate. Maybe a lot longer."