He awakened to the sound of blaring alarms. The moment he straightened, the cacophony dimmed. He squinted, trying to figure out what was going on, and gradually his surroundings resolved. He was in his cockpit, in the fighter, and from the indicators things were very wrong.

 

Memory started returning, but he quashed it; no time for nonessentials. He ran through his checklist and came to an immediate conclusion: He was totally screwed.

 

All three engines were blown, but that was okay because he was out of fuel anyway. Weapons were functional, and he was on battery. A switch reset the generator; at least he wouldn't die of the cold. The cabin had been holed, which meant near-vacuum outside his suit, hence the dull sound of the alarms. He must have been in a dogfight--

 

Memory flooded in: heading home from patrol they'd been ambushed. Reflex had saved him; his wingman hadn't been so lucky. Somehow he'd made it through the enemy formation intact, slammed the afterburner, and made for home and safety. A missile had caught him; he must have blacked out with the impact.

 

He checked his scope; nothing within range. The fighter was tumbling, which he could fix and did; at least the maneuvering jets still worked. Speed was... oh, crap; he must have passed out with the burners still on. 65 kps meant he was a very long way from home by now. Small wonder his scopes didn't pick anything up.

 

At least the rescue beacon was broadcasting. Eventually, Search and Rescue would come after him, but this far out, his odds were poor. Somehow he had to head back along his line of movement; with no engines, that seemed unlikely. Maneuvering jets had nowhere near enough power. All the generator could do was keep his suit going; theoretically, he could survive for weeks, but he had no wish to try.

 

He made a quick mental list of propellant sources on board; when he got to the thruster in his ejection seat he stopped. Better save that. Next was mass reduction, since that would increase the acceleration of any force he could apply. Two tons of fuel was already gone. After that was the gun ammo, the guns, what was left of the engines... right. Plenty of mass to shed, and no time to lose. Every second carried him another 65 clicks from base.

 

He fired off all the ammo in long bursts, using the maneuvering jets to correct for spin. Four minutes later, his craft was almost fifteen hundred kilos lighter and... moving three kps slower. He'd hoped for more.

 

The next step was one he dreaded, but it had to be done. He strapped on a safety line, then a backup. Fighting down a moment of panic, he hit the canopy release and watched as it slowly drifted away. Eighty kilos, he thought. He felt naked.

 

Then he crawled over the top of his craft until he saw what was left of his engines. The enemy missile had ripped the cowling right off, and the skin was peeled back clear to the firewall. He was lucky to be alive.

 

He got to work.

 

* * *

 

Four and a half hours -- and a million kilometers -- later, he was ready. The fighter had been stripped, with a single engine cone bolted directly to the firewall; including himself, he figured about six hundred kilos, about a fifth of what the craft had originally massed. Firmly attached to the inside of the cone was the body of one of his two missiles. He settled himself in his seat, closed his eyes for a quick prayer, and aimed the fighter. Then he punched the ignition.

 

Even expecting it, he was unprepared for the sudden g-force; it was greater than anything he'd ever felt before. His hands were bloodless; trying to steer would have been a joke, and he was glad he'd set the automatics. He concentrated every scrap of will on not passing out. By the time the rocket burned out twenty seconds later, he no longer cared.

 

He emerged from his private world of pain long enough to check his velocity. He was still moving at well over 50 kps in the wrong direction, and the effort had nearly killed him.

 

* * *

 

More hours went by. He'd had an idea about a set of restrictors to channel the force of the second missile, and another about using several kilometers of monofilament and a massy object as a virtual pulley. Hypothetically, they both ought to work, but he was fairly certain he had a couple of broken ribs, and he'd never survive the extended acceleration. Still, he constructed the apparatus for something to do, and then worked on the rocket's combustion nozzle between naps that were growing more and more frequent.

 

As he worked, his attention kept getting drawn to the missile's warhead. He'd read that the human body was far more resilient to shocks than extended periods at high acceleration, and just maybe setting it off inside the engine nozzle, using the remains of the first missile as an ablative surface... It was an insane idea, complete madness, but he couldn't let it go. There was next to no chance it would work and every likelihood that setting it off would simply destroy the remains of the ship and him along with it.

 

Forty-six hours later, he'd finished installing the warhead. The rebuilt missile had been stowed back on its rack and the monofilament spool in the tool kit. He closed his eyes and pushed the button.