*   *   *

“Okay, tell me the good news.” Gold had finally given in to temptation and wandered up to the Dancing Star’s bridge, though he’d refused the command chair from Gomez—his was down in the hold, and sitting on this one wouldn’t have felt right. Besides, she’d earned it.

“Two of the Androssi ships have left,” Gomez replied.

“And the Dancing Star is holding up just fine,” Stevens added from his station. Gold acknowledged that with a brief nod. It was true—the da Vinci was not experiencing any problems from the heat or radiation, and walking the corridors of this ship it had been a little warm but no worse than a spring day in San Francisco.

“And the bad news?”

Gomez glanced away, and Tev took the opportunity to respond. “The third Androssi ship has remained behind, and has taken up a guard position just beyond the sun’s outer corona.” At least he didn’t seem to be crowing about it—several times before the Tellarite had taken great pleasure in pointing out other people’s mistakes. This time it seemed like he was just reporting the facts.

“Okay, so we’ve got one out of three left. That’s not too bad. This ship can take him out, can’t it?”

“Definitely,” Stevens said. “But we can’t risk it.”

“Why not?” But he already knew the answer to that one, and held up a hand. “Let me guess—they’ve got an open comm line with the other two. So if we emerge and go after them, they’ll have enough time to call it in before we can wipe them out.”

“Right,” Gomez said. “And those first two will come running back here. Plus, once they know this ship can survive in a sun, they won’t be fooled twice. They’ll just wait us out.”

“How long can we stay in here?”

“Three-point-seven days,” Tev said. “After that, the engines will suffer another overload and we will be forced to vent—a process that will incinerate all life within the Dancing Star.”

Gold nodded. “Okay, so we’ve got one guy guarding us, he can call in reinforcements, and we can only sit here for a few days before we get deep-fat fried. Any more good news?”

“Well,” Blue said, “at least power isn’t a problem.”

He considered glaring at her, but knew it wouldn’t be worth it. Instead he turned back to Gomez and folded his arms. “All right, Gomez. You got us into the mess—get us out of it.” He did smile a little to let her know that he wasn’t really angry at her, but at the same time he wasn’t going to let her off the hook here. Besides, if past experience was any indication, he knew she and her crew would think of something.