Blake closed his eyes and waited for the flash of sudden, blinding light. The heat. The noise.
It didn’t come.
‘I’ve got control!’
At first Jenna’s words didn’t register, but the sudden motion that followed did. Blake found himself pitching forward where he stood, grabbing hold of the nearest seat just to keep on his feet.
Jenna’s face was flushed with the exertion of wrestling with the ship’s controls. On the viewscreen, the image of the space station was moving off centre, dipping into the corner of the screen.
They were changing course.
‘Firing retro thrusters,’ Jenna hissed through gritted teeth. ‘Hold on!’
*
For a second, Vila thought he had died. The next he realised that being dead probably wouldn’t hurt as much as this. He remembered standing beside Avon, smiling down at the damage they had caused, watching as Avon’s hand plunged into the wreckage of the computer console. It was safe to say that the servos were unlocked. In fact, they were in a dozen or so pieces.
Avon’s hands had become a blur as he worked against the Liberator’s self-repair systems which were trying desperately to put right the damage they had done. Then the universe had lurched violently to the right, propelling him head first into the wall.
Always best to have a soft landing.
And here he was, crumpled in a heap on the floor.
‘Are you going to lie there all day?’
Villa looked up at the hand being offered by Avon. Typical. The man didn’t even have a hair out of place.
‘Did we save the day, then?’ Vila asked, accepting the help gratefully and scrambling back to his feet.
‘Something like that.’ Avon moved back to the control console and thumbed the comms channel.
‘Avon to Blake. I’m assuming our work down here is done for the moment. Can we return to the flight deck?’
‘That was close, Avon,’ Blake responded through crunching static.
‘You’re welcome,’ said Avon, voice dripping sarcasm.
‘Yes, get back up here. Both of you.’
The channel went dead.
Avon shook his head in disbelief, snapped the telescopic probe shut and stowed it away in his toolkit.
‘I do so love being appreciated.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ complained Vila, following Avon out of the control centre. ‘It’s been a while.’
*
On the flight deck, all eyes were on the screen, which was showing the flickering image of the space station. Before the engines had cut out again, Jenna had managed to bring the Liberator about to where the structure hung lifelessly in the swirling cloud.
It was clearly of Federation configuration; Blake recognised the two-ring superstructure design, encircling a central support tower. But the collection of needle-like masts, reaching out into space from the top of the tower were something he’d never seen before. More startling was the damage: an entire section of the primary ring had literally been ripped away, jagged lines of metal marking where it had been shorn from the station.
‘Life forms?’
Cally checked the detector readouts but shook her head.
‘There’s no way for us to tell. The sensor array is offline.’
‘And will be for quite some time.’ Avon strolled onto the flight deck, Vila shuffling after him.
‘What do you mean?’ Blake asked.
‘I mean that the ship’s auto-repair systems have gone into overdrive.’ Avon strode down the flight deck to join Blake. ‘They’re functioning, adapting to whatever effect is acting on the ship. But for now, all available power is being used just to keep life support operational. Non-essential systems have automatically shut down.’
‘Including the drive systems?’ asked Jenna.
‘So it would appear,’ replied Avon. ‘Propulsion. Defence. Weaponry. Teleportation. They’ll be back online eventually.’
‘I don’t know what you’re all moaning about,’ Vila chipped in, flopping gratefully onto a chair in the lower deck. ‘I’d much rather Zen concentrated on keeping us alive. I like being able to breathe.’
‘So we’ll be able to get off this cloud? Do we know what’s causing the effect?’
Avon shook his head, never taking his eyes off the viewscreen.
‘Sorry, I was trying to stop us ploughing into that thing. Are there any life signs?’
‘Until the detectors are back up and running, there’s no way of knowing,’ Cally replied dejectedly, obviously feeling as redundant as the systems she was trying to access.
‘Yes there is.’ Blake jumped to his feet. Enough was enough. They weren’t just going to sit around waiting for the ship to repair itself. ‘We can do it the old-fashioned way.’
‘A boarding party?’ Avon didn’t exactly sound thrilled at the prospect.
‘Exactly. Jenna, see if you can persuade the systems to extend a docking tube. Avon, Vila and Cally—you’re with me.’
Blake hadn’t even started walking for the exit before Vila sheepishly raised his hand. He could guess what was coming.
‘Someone should stay and keep an eye on Gan. Monitor his progress and so on.’
Blake didn’t have the energy to argue. Ignoring the frustration burning in his chest, he indicated for Avon and Cally to walk with him. One day, Vila would be forced to step up to the plate. It couldn’t come quick enough in Blake’s book.
*
‘Status report!’
The deck listing beneath him, Travis struggled to be heard over the shrieking engines.
‘Detectors off line,’ shouted the navigator, hands flitting over the control board. ‘Massive power drop off to all systems. Life support failing.’
‘What’s causing it?’
‘Unknown, sir.’
‘Get us back on a steady course, now!’
The pilot pulled back on a switch. ‘Controls are unresponsive.’
‘Well make them responsive,’ screamed Travis.
‘Sir.’
Ignoring the tingling, burning sensation in his shoulder, Travis shifted his eyes to the viewscreen, which was shrouded in interference. This damn nebula, whatever it was, was playing havoc with their systems. Had Blake tricked him into coming in here?
The tingling in his shoulder intensified, becoming a dull ache. Travis gritted his teeth and flexed his cybernetic arm. It felt heavy, leaden. What was happening?
The ship bucked violently. The pilot displayed no emotion in her pale, impassive face as she wrestled to bring the ship back under control.
Pain exploded across his shoulder as his cybernetic arm fell limp to his side. Travis cried out against the agony, an unforgivable show of weakness before the mutoids, but the pain was unbearable, hot needles burning where the nerve endings were fused to the mechanical limb.
‘Plot a course out of here,’ he barked, trying to regain his composure.
‘Sir,’ said the navigator calmly, ‘detector contact with units two and three.’
Travis glared up at the viewscreen. Through the static, he saw the shadowy image of a pursuit ship looming out of the cloud. It was coming straight for them.
‘It’s Alpha Three, sir.’
‘Evasive, now!’
The pilot stabbed at controls, but the ship didn’t move. ‘Drive units have lost power.’
‘What?’ On the screen, the pursuit ship span over and over, plummeting towards them. ‘Get those engines running now!’
‘Trying, sir.’ Both the pilot and navigator operated controls with dazzling speed, but nothing responded.
Travis pushed himself to his feet, prepared to face his fate with as much dignity as he could. As the ship sped closer, he was about to close his eye when Alpha two, its hull burning with incandescent fire, ploughed straight into the other stricken pursuit ship. Both craft burst into a blossoming explosion, their hulls vaporising in a hail of tangled metal.
Travis’s feet were snatched from beneath him as the floor fell away, his command ship pounded by the impact. The air boiled, control boards erupting in a shower of sparks and flame.
Pulling himself to his feet with his good arm, Travis leant forward to see the helm blackened, his mutoid crew slumped where they sat, unmoving. Travis hauled the navigator backwards. Charred, burned flesh hung from her face, eyes staring sightlessly up at him. Thick green blood serum oozed from a tear in her uniform.
Travis released her, and the mutoid thudded back onto the controls. They were both finished.
Mind racing, Travis glanced back to the three narrow hatches ranged at the rear of the small deck.
One chance.
Brutally shoving the pilot aside, Travis’s eyes scanned the scorched control banks. Sweat glistening across his face, Travis activated a series of switches, diverting power away from failing systems. With a grim, satisfied smile, an alert signal blared around the deck, and one of the rear hatches snapped open.
‘ESCAPE POD PRIMED,’ intoned a recorded message as Travis turned and bounded through the flames that now engulfed the command deck, diving through the slender hatchway to squeeze himself into the cramped escape pod. He toggled a switch with his good hand and the hatch slammed shut, blissfully cutting off the blare of alert signals.
Bracing himself, Travis raised his one good hand and yanked at the pod release.