stardrive

For Commander Ripley Jones, it was becoming more and more troublesome. It had been said that nothing is infallible, Antares apparently being the proof. After hastily recalling all crew and leaving Spacedock 7 thirty hours ago, there had been nothing but problems. Breakdowns in the sensors and telemetry, system failures of a wide variety and finally _ the Last Straw: a coupling seal in the stardrive engine failed. Fortunately the cut-out worked, or the whole of engineering would__e disappeared in a flaming ball of anti-matter. Five crewmen were seriously injured as it was. Commander Smith, the Chief Entech, had the offending unit stripped down and under repair. They were currently on conversion drive - which could only propel them at sub-light speeds _ and Ripley was currently in an elevator with a very pissed Captain Falconer.

But it__ a hundred and twelve years old!_ He protested.__he still works pretty good._ Deire maintained. __tardrive gets a mite twitchy at warp 4, but that__ just a dodgy plasma injector.