‘That looks very close,’ Vila muttered, never taking his eyes off the viewscreen.
A spinning pink hemisphere took up the entire left portion of the screen. Vila held on to his chair as the flight deck shifted slowly. Blake didn’t seem to have noticed, his booted feet planted firmly on the deck plating. ‘Zen, distance from moon.’
‘LIBERATOR IS IN PARTIAL ORBIT OF PLANETARY BODY AT A DISTANCE OF 963 SPACIALS.’
‘Like I said,’ Vila cut in, ‘very close.’
‘It pains me to say it, but I share Vila’s concerns,’ said Avon evenly. ‘A spacial or two either way and we’re dead in the water.’
Blake didn’t even bother to look round. ‘We were anyway.’
‘At least this way we have a fighting chance,’ called Gan from the rear station.
Avon let slip that flicker of a smile in Gan’s direction, a smile that left you under no illusion that you weren’t in on the joke. ‘Well, Gan, I’m all for a fighting chance.’
‘Jenna.’ Blake cut through the banter of his crew, bringing their concentration back to their precarious situation. ‘Maintain this course heading and prepare to break orbit in…’ He stared intently at the viewscreen. They were so close to the moon that mountain ranges were visible across its surface. Blake began to count. ‘Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Now, Jenna! Break!’
Jenna pulled back sharply on the control arms. The deck listed back as the drive units propelled them onto a new course heading, the moon dropping away like a stone.
‘Good work, Jenna,’ Blake shouted back over the roar of the engines. ‘Keep us on this course heading for now. Zen increase speed to Standard by five.’
‘CONFIRMED.’
Avon stepped down from his station and approached Blake. ‘I have to admit, I’m impressed.’
Blake forced a smile. ‘I’m impressed that you’re impressed.’
‘Don’t worry, it won’t last long. But,’ Avon spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture, ‘fire a broadside straight down Travis’s throat, slingshot us round a moon, gaining speed with no loss of power reserves, while also confusing our pursuers’ detectors. As tactics go, I would even go as far as to call that audacious.’
‘We’re not out of the woods yet. It won’t take Travis long to figure out where we’ve gone. Cally, any sign of them?’
Cally’s head was cocked as she listened to the information relayed through her headset. She shook her head. ‘Not as yet,’ she said. ‘The fleet appears to be in disarray.’
‘Good,’ said Blake decisively. ‘That should keep them busy.’
‘Still want to go through with this?’ asked Avon.
‘Unless you have a better idea?’
‘For once, no,’ conceded Avon.
‘All right, let’s do it. Jenna, stand down, we can do this on automatic. Zen—’ the lights on the dome began to blink faster, ‘—take us into the restricted area, speed Standard by six.’
‘WARNING,’ the computer pronounced gravely. ‘THIS COURSE OF ACTION IS NOT ADVISED.’
‘Not advised, or you won’t do it?’ demanded Avon. Zen made no reply, the lights dancing across its dome in dignified silence. ‘Zen, respond,’ Avon snarled.
When the computer continued to ignore Avon’s commands, Blake stepped in. ‘Zen, your caution is noted. Please maintain requested course heading and speed.’
There was a moment’s pause as if the computer was weighing up its options, before issuing a simple, curt ‘CONFIRMED.’
If Zen was sulking, thought Vila, things must be bad.
*
Set against the black carapace of space studded with the jewels of distant stars, the Liberator turned, the pulsing green bulb of the drive section glowing brighter as it powered onto a new course heading.
Thousands of spacials away, the Federation pursuit ships that were so desperately searching for the Liberator were unaware their quarry was slipping away even as they darted across the sector in three-pronged formations.
*
‘Where are they?’ Travis gripped the backs of his pilot and navigator’s seats with a vice-like pressure, the material straining against his grip.
The mutoid navigator deftly activated a sequence of controls. ‘The Liberator does not appear on any of our detectors. They must be out of range.’
‘Impossible,’ said Travis, his anger subsiding. ‘The Liberator is fast, but not that fast. They’re cloaking themselves somehow.’
‘Intelligence indicates that Blake’s ship does not possess cloaking technology,’ reported the pilot.
‘I know that! But how else are they doing it?’
The two mutoids remained dispassionately silent as Travis turned briskly to sit in his command chair, ramrod straight as he brought his comm-unit to his mouth. ‘All units, continue full spectrum detector sweep of the sector. The Liberator is out there. Find her!’
Travis let the comm-unit fall into his lap and watched his mutoid crew communicate with the fleet. All the while, the heat of seething rage ran through his veins. He could hear it surging in his ears, chaotic, deafening. It was always there, roaring away in the back of his mind, a monster snarling to be let out. But he controlled it, kept it in his place, used it when necessary.
He needed it now. He needed to channel that fury into direct action, as any experienced officer would, to spur him on to victory. And when that victory came, it would be all the sweeter.
*
‘LIBERATOR IS NOW 50,000 SPACIALS FROM REQUESTED CO-ORDINATES AND WILL ENTER RESTRICTED SECTOR IN 3.6 MINUTES. REPEAT: COURSE OF ACTION NOT ADVISED.’
‘Noted, Zen,’ said Blake. ‘We keep going. Maintain course and speed.’
‘CONFIRMED.’
Vila looked up from the forcewall controls. ‘Why’s he so jumpy?’ Nobody had seemed worried that the computer wasn’t happy about the current state of affairs. In his book, that wasn’t good. If Zen said something wasn’t a good idea, it probably wasn’t. Vila could be a slow learner at times, but one thing he had learned since coming aboard the Liberator was that he trusted Zen above anybody else on the ship.
Avon caught Vila’s look. ‘It’s a computer. Logic dictates its actions and, right now, logic is dictating that we shouldn’t proceed.’
‘Perhaps we shouldn’t, then?’ Vila glanced hopefully round the flight deck.
Avon ignored Vila. ‘But not to the point where logic dictates it refuses to carry out those orders.’
‘That’s reassuring.’ Vila frowned glumly and returned his attention to the forcewall controls.
‘It’s good enough for me,’ said Blake, striding forward to the very front of the flight deck. ‘I think it’s time we had a look at what we’re up against. Zen, bring up the viewscreen, external view.’
The bright hologram appeared above the deck with a burble of power. Six pairs of eyes looked up expectantly. Stars swept across the screen as the Liberator thundered through space. And then it was there, hanging in the dead centre of the screen.
‘It’s beautiful,’ breathed Jenna.
Vila had to agree.
Nobody else spoke, they were all entranced by the image on the screen. It was as if some insane, visionary artist had splashed paint against the canvas of the heavens. The glistening field of stars was blotted out by a whirl of vivid colour that blossomed like a flower from a dark centre. The colours became lighter the further out the nebula expanded, shading from deep, inky black, through intense purple, to lighter and lighter hues of powdered, watery blue. Here and there, slashes of contrasting red highlighted with the purple and blue. Vila couldn’t take it all in, his eyes darting from one splash of colour to another.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Cally, breaking the silence. Even Avon looked impressed.
‘I wonder what happened here,’ Gan asked, smiling gently at the beauty on the screen.
Vila sat back on the padded seat of his station, that feeling of redundancy creeping in again. Any imminent need to activate the forcewall had clearly gone and he was back to feeling useless.
Blake turned away from the colourful vista hanging above them. ‘Cally, any communications activity from within the nebula?’
Cally replaced the headphones and carefully turned a dial on the comms board. ‘I’m trying to focus the comms circuit across all frequencies, but so far…’ She gasped out in sudden pain and ripped the phones from her ears. Even from the opposite end of the flight deck, Vila heard the raucous blast of static from the speakers and winced involuntarily.
Jenna leaned urgently across from the pilot’s seat, placing a concerned hand on Cally’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right?’
Cally breathed out and opened her eyes, nodding and holding up a hand to show she was unhurt. ‘I’m fine,’ she said shakily, then looked across the information relayed from the comms board. ‘There are massive waves of interference across all frequencies. If there is any activity, I can’t find it.’
‘Negative space,’ Avon mused quietly to himself, still looking up at the screen.
‘Zen.’ Blake turned to the computer. ‘I want a full scan of the nebula. I want to know everything there is to know about it. What effect will it have on the Liberator’s systems if we go in there, and just why the hell is it restricted?’
‘ALL SCANS INCONCLUSIVE. IT IS BEYOND THE CAPABILITIES OF THIS SYSTEM TO PREDICT HOW THE LIBERATOR’S SYSTEMS WILL ACT WITHIN THE NEBULA.’
‘And the restricted status?’
‘FEDERATION NAVIGATIONAL BUOYS MARK THIS SECTOR AS RESTRICTED. STANDING ORDERS FOR ALL MILITARY AND CIVIL VESSELS TO AVOID AT ALL COSTS. RESTRICTION WAS PLACED 20 YEARS AGO ON THE HIGHEST FEDERATION AUTHORITY.’
‘But why?’ said Blake, frustration beginning to show.
That feeling of creeping dread gripped Vila as Avon joined the discussion. ‘I suggest the only way to find that out is to take us in there. You’re going to do it anyway, so let’s stop this charade.’
Blake looked questioningly at the pilot’s seat. ‘Jenna, think you can do this?’
‘As long as the flight automatics and back up systems don’t fail us, I can handle it.’
‘Good. I’ll be relying on you all to keep automatic systems online. Avon, I want you and Gan on standby in the main systems room in case anything goes down.’
‘Let’s hope my skills won’t be needed,’ said Avon, moving across to the exit, where Gan joined him.
Vila watched as Blake took one last look up at the screen, their leader making his final decision. ‘Zen, maintain speed Standard by one. Take us in.’