"Well it will either solve our problem and get us out of this mess, or it would kill us much faster than their current status of starving to death in the void," Sayeeda said with a grin. Neil started and turned back to look at her as though she had spoken some strange language but before he could speak the console began to beep a proximity alert. Neil turned back to the control and adjusted the attitude jets with a series of quick motions. They didn't have excess power for the grav pumps so each maneuver drove their chairs into them with significant force, the form fitting polymer doing its best to mute the impact.

"Five seconds to range," Sayeeda reported watching her own console and keying the commands to ready the external grapples. The grapples were meant to secure two ships for a zero-g cargo transfer and not for anything as violent as this.

"Range," she reported and tumbed the trigger on her flight yoke. Metallic bangs resounded through the ship as the grapples fired, moments later they struck the surface of the asteroid tethering them in place. The ship matched speed perfectly as Neil verniered the thrusters expertly.

"Dropping power," he reported slowly easing back, the ship began to sink relative to the asteroid and the cables began to take up tension. This was a critical moment, the rate of change was what was important. The cables would hold two ships together in normal circumstances but the differentials in speed at this order of magnitude could part them like cobwebs. The ship groaned as the power slowly trailed of, only once was there an unpleasant jerk as one of the cables came too snug. Neil cursed and adjusted throttle. At last he shut the engines off completely, allowing the asteroid to pull them along at an equivalent velocity.

Junebug blew out a breath.

"Great, now all we need to do is gather up the most unstable element in existence and use it to give enough energy for a blind RIP jump. Situation is improving."

[@POOHEAD189]