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have demonstrated just what happened.
    “What we do know is that it was violent enough to shatter at least one of Odin ’s mass-driver spines and send shrapnel through most of the entire vessel. Most of the Odin ’s crew, I am afraid, died within minutes of the explosion, as the shrapnel penetrated most of the living quarters in the ‘hab ring’ around the vessel. The damage also severely impacted the radiation shielding which led to further casualties. Intra-ship communications were almost completely wiped out, and even in the areas of the vessel that remained liveable immediately afterwards there was little to no way to communicate with other components, nor to reach them unless the people in question were fortunate enough to have their EVA suits with them. The vessel’s magnetorquers apparently malfunctioned along with some of the other systems, and this caused a spin in the ship; this eventually revealed that serious structural damage must have been done, because in the end Odin broke up into two separate pieces.”
    “My God. How did any of them survive?” The involuntary question came from Diane Sodher, once a NASA information specialist on the Nike project, now main IT for Phobos Station and freelance ‘stringer’ for CNN.
    The question fit into his narrative, so he went with it. “Fortunately, on the far side of Odin from the explosion was the bay with its remaining landing craft, Munin . Even more fortunately, General Alberich Hohenheim had directed that Munin be kept prepared for use at all times, even though arrival at Enceladus was not projected for many months to come. Because of this, the few survivors who were able to make it to Munin found themselves with an excellent and well-supplied ‘lifeboat.’”
    “Excuse me, Dr. Glendale,” Giliam Maes said, “but…was the General one of the survivors?”
    “I am afraid not,” Glendale answered regretfully. “According to the survivors, he was still alive but remained onboard to make sure that, in fact, the Munin could launch successfully.” And that much is, in fact, true.
    The two successive questions had succeeded in breaking the briefing into a question and answer session, but that didn’t bother Nicholas; he’d gotten the main introduction out of the way and the rest could be presented in this format as well as any other. “Nick,” Glenn said, “I’m confused by this. The Nebula Storm ’s dusty-plasma drive isn’t really limited by mass as such, and even if we assume that Munin , fully loaded, was maybe a thousand tons—I think it’s considerably less—there’s no reason for them to have landed anywhere. If the two ships could rendezvous at all they should have just made sure they were secured together and then headed home. It might have taken a little longer but…?”
    “That would indeed have been the plan,” Nicholas said, acknowledging Glenn’s question with a nod, “but apparently fate was not quite through with our friends yet.” Time for the next part of the big lie. “As they had slowed down to match with Odin and—later—with Munin , something struck Nebula Storm and penetrated the hull It’s possible that this was purely coincidence, or it may be that one of the fragments from Odin managed to take Nebula Storm with it. Be that as it may, whatever it was managed to damage the ship’s reactor core.”
    “Christ Almighty,” Glenn muttered, and similar sentiments rippled around the attending group.
    “I see you understand. Without an operating reactor the Nebula Storm could not continue operation of the dusty-plasma drive, especially at full size and with full control.”
    “Dr. Glendale,” Yoko Hyashibara, the Japanese representative, spoke up with an apologetic tone. “Forgive me for bringing this up…but as I understand it, the Nebula Storm and the Odin were, in truth, the only vessels currently capable of outer-system travel—even if, for instance, the Nike or Nobel could be spared from their current