Print least thirty percent of our people were back there, he thought as he looked at the blank spot. The ship's image morphed as it began to make the necessary changes. Flaps extended to increase drag as thrusters on the bottom of the ship shot out energy. A sidebar showed the power being generated by the ship's occupants. It was well below half capacity.  Even if the engines were saved by some sort of miracle, we wouldn't have enough power to run them.

He finally reached the bridge. It was a round room located in what used to be the center of the ship. Instead of the normal input band on the ceiling, the room's walls were all veneered with the conductive interfacing material. Several stations were scattered around the room, with the captain's antigravity platform floating in the center. A holograph identical with the image in his mind floated just in front of the platform. The status bar on both images were showing a massive amount of energy depletion.

<<Computer, how close are we to an acceptable crash site?>>

<<Thirty-five minutes, engineer Tsorach.>>

Not enough power, he thought. <<Computer, I want you to turn off all life support in the ship's corridors. Bring the hibernation pods' life support down to emergency levels. Keep everything on in here, but everywhere else, it goes.>>

<<Complying, sir.>> As he watched, the energy bar surged up significantly.

<<Do we have enough energy to make it now?>> Tsorach was hoping against hope.

<<We have just enough energy to take us to the staging point for an acceptable crash. After that, inertia will provide.>>

Tsorach ran a hand over his smooth scalp and then pulled one of his shorter tentacles, fidgeting. There was nothing he could do now until after touch down. Though the time would be short, the dread of what was coming caused his stomachs to cramp. If he could see what was coming, he might be able to face it with a small sense of ease.

<<Computer, I want to see where we're heading.>>

<<We are in the planet's nocturnal cycle. Visibility is at a minimum.>>

Tsorach's temper flared. He quickly did a few breathing exercises to keep himself in check. It would not do to fry his connection with the computer. <<I don't really care about that. Enhance it as much as you can.>>

A ball of darkness appeared in front of him, giving him an unobstructed view of what surrounded Nekhual. An altimeter readout joined the energy bar, constantly dropping. It won't be much longer now.

Tsorach had never really expected to wake up. Everything had been calculated precisely by the Elders. They had chosen a trajectory that would take them to a class one planet that existed several light years outside the boundaries of Tamed Space. This planet had been a candidate for a colony when the Gezhuan had instigated hostilities. Thousands of ships had been sacrificed so Nekhual and its sister ships could escape to their various planets. The captain and crew had only needed to pilot them until they were out of harm's way, and then they went into hibernation like Tsorach and the rest.

Come to think of it, how far away were we? Tsorach quickly called up the log and looked at the date. His tentacles wilted in shock. They had missed the class one planet completely. They were several light centuries off course.

He quickly began paging up through the log entries. Most of them were short, just measurements of energy and oxygen levels. Energy had never been a problem, since Nekhual was propelled by the latent electricity released by its passengers. Oxygen had been provided by self propagating bacterial gardens that had been in the latter quarter. Energy had taken a major drop when a random meteor had shorn through the ship's midsection a few hours ago, but oxygen levels were holding steady at seventy-eight percent. Well, if we survive the crash, I should be able to breathe for a while.

He kept going through the entries. He finally found what he was looking for about twenty light years into their voyage. A star had collapsed upon itself, creating a black hole. It was far enough away from Nekhual's location that it did not pull the ship into it. But the gravity shift was just strong enough to yank the ship