Toby DeMay crawled into Dunkerque’s command chair. The only light source on the bridge was the emergency beacon at the signals station. He was dizzy and felt as if his extremities were faraway weights held together with thin ropes and hastily tied knots.

“Emergency lights!”

A stark white brightness illuminated the deck one hatch. DeMay saw the rest of his crew still semi-conscious and sprawled all over the floor of the bridge. He activated the intraship. “Engineering, report!”

The entire ship shook violently with another blast from the Barker’s Asteroid Sentinel.

“That’s three, Captain. We have sixteen percent power left. After that, we’re dark and dead in space,” Yili replied.

“Cut power to the asteroid and retract all moorings!” DeMay shouted. “Austin, take the helm! Prepare for evasive maneuvers! Engineering, release navigation and engine control to the helm!”

Zony was groggily trying to climb into the bridge signals station shock seat. She powered up the autosystems and was relieved to see the vessel’s communications systems were fully functional. She oriented herself to the console as before and found a headset. She dropped the alien device on the intraship control viewer.

“Spades is a genius,” she muttered.

“Affirmative, Captain! There’s just enough left to get underway. I can’t give you full power until I de-scram the reactors,” Yili replied through the intraship. “Send Zony down to engineering with that device as soon as possible!”

“I have weapons fire at Scorpion One Three! Incoming!”

“Austin, veer us off! Evasive course! One one mark eight.”

DSS Dunkerque dove to port and rolled away from the enormous asteroid and its lethal weapons system. Seconds later, a bolt of energy the size of a city block pulverized the field-side reinforcement of the asteroid’s internal structure. The station lost pressure and a catastrophic decompression caused the far-side outer surface to buckle. The Sentinel disappeared from view moments before an explosion lit up the far side of the asteroid.

DeMay’s crew watched sickly as Barker’s Asteroid rapidly imploded. Intense fires burned just below the rock surface while pieces of the station broke free and tumbled into space.

“Best speed to X-Ray Tango. Zony, bring up the transponder on its original configuration. Make sure we don’t trip anything dangerous in here. As soon as we’ve got the power, raise Argent.”

Zony finalized the settings at the signals console, retrieved the alien device and stood. “Permission to report to engineering, Captain?” She smiled. Both DeMay and Tixia knew Yili’s insightful little plan had given them the ultimate trump card. Now it was just a matter of getting the power and the technology into their captain’s hands.