Talia tuned them out. The Odyssey was tumbling, its main engine dead. She needed to match its erratic spin—not perfectly, but poetically. She fired the lateral thrusters in short, percussive bursts. Left, right, then a long, desperate burn that made the Skipper shudder like a dying animal.
“ Odyssey , this is Fleet Auxiliary Skipper . I’m coming in,” she said, her voice steadier than she felt. the rookie talia
“Exactly,” Voss said, not looking up from his console. “In a gravity well that chaotic, your precious instruments are useless. Instinct is all that’s left. Move, Rookie.” Talia tuned them out
She killed the nav computer. Its frantic beeping was a lie here. She closed her eyes for half a second, feeling the subtle hum of the star’s gravity waves through the hull. Most pilots saw chaos. Talia saw patterns. She fired the lateral thrusters in short, percussive bursts