Alcor hung against the backdrop of stars like a diamond sparkling in a light outside Jack Morris' cockpit dome. It was not the only close star in this part of space. The four stars which dominated the Mizar system that he had just left were directly behind him. But he could only see them in his rear scope.

There was a centuries old dispute on earth as to whether Alcor was actually a part of the Mizar system or not. It was never clear if they actually orbit each other, but it is clear they move in some way together as all five stars dance their dance across each other in space.

None of this was much concern to Jack at this moment however. He was eager to put as much distance between himself and the Mizars as possible. His "Condor" spacecraft had been damaged by a weapon that was commonly called a "Zipper," and what was foremost on Jack's mind was getting back to friendly Skies as fast as he possibly could.

He'd been flying with a squadron when they were attacked back in the Mizar system. It was supposed to be a simple three day patrol, which was supposed to simultaneously give the newly promoted Lieutenant Wallace Jackson his first flight as a lieutenant. (As well as giving his fleet a chance to update their information on a colony of humans making a home in the system.)

Normally Jack's best friend Prince Raymond would be flying with him in a two seater Condor. But he'd convinced Raymond to fly with Jackson for training purposes. as a consequence this flight was the first in almost two years where Jack was flying alone.

Once he was damaged on the first day of the flight, Jack ordered all the others to go on ahead of him to the prescribed emergency coordinates on the other side of Alcor. At the time Jack figured that with his ship breaking he could simply eject and float till he was picked up, if worse comes to worse.

Not that time was really against him, Jack's Enviro-suit could theoretically keep him alive for months even years. In fact he was certain that the longest float on record was nearly five years. But after thinking that over Jack had decided that if it came down to it he would rather die in his ship. He'd much sooner blow his own helmet off, than float for years in space.

You see, he figured that as long as he was still in his ship he had at least a chance to make it to Alcor. With a whole pirate fleet behind him in the Mizar system, it was not likely that his fleet would be able to come after him. So he could end up floating in space for way longer than he cared for unless he was picked up by the pirates which would be even worse.

Problem is that Alcor hangs more than three light-months away from Mizar. So even for a fully functional "Condor" flying with it's squadron at a cruising speed of Light-twelve (Twelve times the speed of light) it would be a real chore to make it all that way.

But in the shape Jack was in he was not sure what would happen.

His best chance would be if his squadron could somehow get help to him, whenever they reach the transmission buoy. That would be great, but he didn't think he'd last that long. At the very least the others needed to get the prince back to safety.

Jack's scope "beeped" as the Condor entered the Lagrangian point between Mizar and Alcor. A Lagrangian point is a point in the middle of two massive objects (in this case star systems) where the gravity of both objects act equally.

Lagrange points have a nasty habit of collecting debris. In the case of stars that are a quarter light year apart that debris could easily get planet size. But right at that moment it was the orbiting asteroids that had Jack's attention. Weaving in and out between them all was a stressful affair.

This brought his thoughts back to the what-if scenario of his ship not making it. The Condor is naturally designed with a lot of back up systems in case of destruction of the ship. (Aside from the Enviro-suit mentioned before.)

There is the seat the pilot sits in. It has thrusters that can be used as a maneuvering unit when it ejects. With all these asteroids he could bounce from rock to rock till located. He'd still be stuck in the suit, but the asteroid field might at least be more tolerable than floating however long in deep space.

You see humans rarely take off their "Enviro-suits" outside of their artificial environments anyways for fear of "Wells-syndrome" Which is just a common name for bad effects of any human caused by being in an environment other than Earth's or an earth simulated.

The suits were designed to give it's wearer food, oxygen, water and anything else to make him/her as comfortable as possible. This is along with recycling all of it as much as possible, while adding as little bulk as possible. So it was not wearing the suit per-se that bugged Jack. It was prolonged floating in deep space.

There may be a third option that Jack had not thought of. If so his P.I.D. (Personal Intelligence Device) would be able to think of it. Every officer has a personal computer on his recessive artificial arm. (In Jacks case it's the right arm.)

This computer is often used as a sort of copilot, though Jack had his shut off. It has an artificial intelligence that can help the officer make life and death decisions, as well as the ability to mimic many human behaviors. But to Jack it's not much of a conversationalist.

Jack had considered turning it back on to ask for an analysis of the situation. But he had decided against that because it would just argue the best option would be to eject and float. No thanks!

The Jovian at the center of the Lagrangian was roughly Jupiter sized and gaseous. It also had far more orbitals than what is typical for planets in star-systems. (That was a side effect of being in the Lagrange.)

Suddenly an alert beeped again. Jack look his instruments over, apparently the pirates had found him.

As the Condor slowly drew towards it, the ship started losing power. Jack managed to maneuver it into a partially stable orbit, but he had no way of adjusting the trajectory to avoid hitting one of the moons.

If he ejected now he could use the maneuvering unit to stay clear, but then he's back to the whole decision of floating in space for years. That was the one thought that truly disturbed him. No! He thought. I'm not going to do it.

The last of the Condor's systems started shutting down, and time was running out to make the decision. He began to muse about how his life had led to this. He finally decided he would destroy the Condor himself.

Just as he leaned to activate the self destruct, his communicator blinked with the familiar sound of Prince Raymond's voice asking if he was alright. With surprise and relief Jack looked up to see the beautiful gold wings of a star-frigate from his fleet.