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“You know what I meant! We need to move swiftly and efficiently,” Jack responded tartly. “Which means… you should give me control.”

No.

“Back to the one word answers?” Jack shook his head when the cursor merely blinked. “Dai?”

The put-upon engineer appeared on one of the screens. “No, Jack, I haven’t figured anything else that would give us enough power for a third use of the weapon. And I even looked at shutting down all life support as an option.”

“Which I’m sure the Osiris wouldn’t be interested in as it would put us in danger,” Jack said.

The cursor simply blinked. Jack narrowed his eyes at it.

Jace is not aboard so that could be an answer; however, Dai is correct that it would not give the ship enough energy to send another blast, the Osiris finally answered.

“Oh, I’m so glad that our deaths don’t matter,” Jack deadpanned. “Just yours.”

“Actually, we have suits that could sustain us at least for a while,” Dai said helpfully. “Killing us all was not a viable plan in my opinion regardless if Hal 9000 would have been okay with it.”

That would work, too, but again there is not enough power generated by such a sacrifice, the Osiris sounded sniffy. And, as I told Jace, Hal 9000 is a pitiful comparison to me.

“I think that Jace is going to need to have another talk with you about your bedside manner for certain,” Jack said. He shook his head as much to clear it as for anything else. “Okay, Dai. If you think of anything--”

“I will be sure to let you know, Jack,” Dai finished for him. “Give the Khul Hell.”

“Served on a platter.” Jack smiled and signed off.

“All three Hives are attacking, Flight-Commander Parker,” Matzen’s voice still cool and calm as ever got Jack’s attention.

His head jerked up and he straightened as he caught sight of the three Hives coming from three different directions, guns blazing as they went after the cluster of Thaf’ell ships and Diane’s.

“Osiris!” Jack cried as he found his hands trying to fly the Osiris with the railing acting as a joystick. It was not working. “Get between them and the starboard Hive!”

Matzen had put the most beleaguered vessels in the center while those that had some maneuverability and shields left were orbiting around them. The Hives were coming in fast. Jack knew what they intended to do. Despite their size they were very maneuverable. They would strafe the vessels and arc back out away from them.

“Move, Osiris! Move!” Jack barked.

The ship did move, but it seemed to be going at half speed in comparison to the Hives that spun on their axis as they raced towards them. Laser blasts flew out of the Hives in a wild scattershot. They weren’t going for accuracy, just sending off as much as they could in the hopes that one or two hit. And that’s all it would take for some of the Alliance’s ships to go down.

“Let those blasts hit us broadside!” Jack commanded.

But as soon as the Osiris moved in, the nearest Hive broke off and spun away from them. The Osiris started to chase.

“NO!” Jack cried. “Protect the other ships!”

He saw Diane’s ship sent out a flurry of missiles towards the nearest Hive, but it was at great cost as two glowing green lasers carved a line across her forward shields, which fluttered and went out. Jack’s mouth went dry as he saw an array of more blasts coming towards his wife’s ship, but she had turned tail and was running.

“Forward shields gone! Rear shields down to 12%!” Diane cried.

Her shoulders were hunched and her eyes were huge, but she was keeping it together. He was not. If she got hit one more time…

But he didn’t have time to complete that thought for even as the Hive that had caused her such damage had somehow lined itself up with the third Hive that had just spun into view.

“Osiris, FIRE!” Jack commanded.

Yes!

That time there was an exclamation point at the end.

And fire the ship did. The main weapon flared to life like the light of a thousand suns. The gold laser beam punched through the first Hive and sliced through the second. Two Hives for the cost of one were down!