Siege of Orbitor [antikvár]

That's odd, Louis Richards thought as he watched his forward screen carefully. The flames jetted out of pods one, three, and four, but pod two was dead. It should have flamed like the other three, but it did notthere was no glow whatever inside the blackened tube. Louis's sea-blue eyes glanced at the captain's empty chair beside him.' 'Where is Vern now?'' he muttered. "He's never around when a problem occurs."For a never-ending moment, he studied the flickering panel. There were dozens of rows of blinking lights, and other rows containing knobs and switches in on and oppositions, assuring him that all would be fine. This was not the first time he had had a pod go out shortly after liftoff. In his ten years as Co-captain, he had seen a lot of things go wrong in a ship. True, most of them could have been prevented somewhere along the lineusually in the mechanics' hangarbut there were a few classified under the term freak occurrence.Louis adjusted the trim on his pod setting, his eyes glancing back and forth from panel to screen. Too much trim with the number two misfire could mean