Zorba looked around the command table and tapped the screen again. No matter how he looked at it, it was still the same. Two good nights of sleep had made little difference.

  “We don’t have the H5 to make it to the Nebula.” Mag said what everyone else was too afraid to say.

  “Not entirely true.” Bores shook his head. “Using three jumps we can sling shot out of the last leaving enough H5 five to five up the auxiliary generators for life support but we would have to ‘glide’ the last section to save enough fuel for deceleration.”

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  “How long would this take?” Zorba asked dreading the answer.

  “Three months.” Bores answered.

  “Well I don’t see we really have a choice.” Zorba cringed. Mag lowered her head, it was like an impossible training exercise that she had not yet cracked, she looked back over the information, looking for something that they have missed, she would not allow herself to be beaten.

  Zorba himself was having his own personnel challenges. Almost a third of crew had not graduated, another third were in their first probationary year whilst the rest were mixture of academy staff or seconded experience mentors. Although it had very real weapons, this was also a non-commissioned training vessel deep in Mecoid space. In every decision he made he needed to consider that.