These ships could accelerate up to 2,000 kilometers per hour which was 100 times slower than Dana itself. So, riding them practically meant being stranded in this cold and merciless vastness forever, alone. Only to go back to Mother Earth, from where he started, it would take those ships more than 3,000 years. He would rather die than spending eternity alone.
"Reverse thrusters have been repaired; however, the engines have not been fully repaired." Dana informed.
"Good. How much can we decelerate if we were to use these thrusters now?" It was good news.
"We can reduce the speed to around 180 kilometers per hour." Dana informed.
"Good. Good. That means we can extend the time to impact by more than 50 minutes." Daniel got excited.
"How much time will it take to repair ship after applying reverse thrusters?" Daniel inquired.
"The repair time will increase to at least180 minute." Dana responded. Signs of distress appeared on Daniel's face.
"Can we stop the ship, if we wait for a little while?" Daniel knew answer to this question, but he still asked.
"No. Without fully functioning wing engines, we cannot stop. Any harsh attempts may result in damage to ship structure that might be irreparable with our current resources and in our current situation. Also, once reverse thrust was done, the engines will not be available until full repair." Dana verified his opinion. His facial expressions became more intense. He stood there for a while contemplating over what should he do.
"Okay! Dana! Turn on the reverse thrusters and reduce the ship's speed." There was resolve in his voice. He had made up his mind. This will give him time to investigate the matter more attentively and to figure out best possible solution to this puzzling situation.
"Preparing to blast off reverse thrusters. Please have seat. There will be a severe jolt."
Daniel moved towards the lounger and sat in it.
"The reverse thrusters will blast off in t minus 10 seconds." Daniel sat tight.
"Five seconds."
"Three Seconds."
"Two Seconds."
"One second."
The ship felt a massive jolt and it felt like ship halted. Daniel was feeling sick from the jolt. He felt like his gut would come out of his mouth.
"Ship has been successfully decelerated. No major damages sustained." Dana informed.
Daniel looked at the timers on his left. Now there were three timers showing time as follows:
"Time to contact enemy: 5 Hours: 35 Minutes: 39 seconds"
"Time to reach Disappearance spot: 1 Hours: 1 Minutes: 9 seconds"
"Time required to repair ship: 3 Hours: 10 Minutes: 59 seconds"
Daniel sat in his chair idle until he started feeling better.
"Dana! Activate all the telescopes onboard and integrate them. I will control them manually." Daniel commanded. He wanted to take a closer look at that specific point.
"Installation in progress. Please wait for a few minutes." Dana informed. A compartment in the middle of the roof of the ship opened and a huge telescope came out of it. 5 more telescopes came out; one from floor of the ship, one from the right side, one from left side, one from nose of the ship and one from tail of the ship. All the telescopes were focused on different directions. As soon as the telescopes stopped moving, the red lights on them turned on.
"Installation complete. Checking fitness and condition of telescopes."
"Telescopes are fit to use. Adjusting Direction." Dana continued.
"Direction adjusted. Connecting telescopes and linking them to manual control." Daniel was patiently waiting. He was the one who would use these telescopes. When bored, He would scan for any moving objects or indicators of different celestial events with the radar. If anything grabbed his attention, He would then look at them with isolated telescopes. For example, he discovered a comet yesterday. It was huge; the biggest comet he had ever seen. On top of that, it had hundreds of rainbows surrounding it and Its tail was illuminating with all the colors.
The comet was approaching at extremely high speeds and was about to cross over them in less than 30 minutes. He was going to witness rarest event with naked eye. Daniel had already created a memory log for this.
"The telescopes are ready. Please use controls in command chair. Dana announced. A picture of a particular point in space was displayed on right. Daniel's log was also visible on screen. With sound of click, the weapon control stick went inside right arm of chair and a tablet screen took its place. This was the integrated telescope control. Daniel put his hand on it and started adjusting the telescopes at right angle and point.
"90 seconds for the comet to become visible." Dana informed Daniel.
"What?" Daniel looked in the air thoughtlessly. He was immersed in his research.
"It's already been thirty minutes. Wow." He was surprised. He did not notice the time slip by. He had been intensively looking at the area with telescopes, but he found nothing out of the ordinary.
"Maybe I am being paranoid about all this situation. Maybe they did not fire any weapons at me. Maybe they were not enemies and they were releasing some sub-ships to escape his deadly attacks." He became suspicious of himself.
"But all of this does not explain disappearance of projectiles. The only rationale that explains the disappearance of missiles is that the missiles exploded after reaching certain distance. But this seemed improbable as well: who would design attack missiles on such stupid grounds. Blow off whether you hit the target or not." Daniel smiled on his thought.
"Dana! Move the telescopes back into observatories." They were 103 kilometers away from the spot. It was near. If there was anything, he could have already seen it with bare eye.
"Raise my seat high so I could see the comet from afar." Daniel did not want to waste even a moment of such sight.