Jenna surprised them with a laugh. ‘I was steering straight at their fleet. The last thing they’d expect.’
‘The last thing
we’d
have expected,’ said Vila.
‘I would have done a slingshot around the back at the last minute. And we’d now have control of one of their ships.’
‘Hmm.’ Blake was surprised by that. ‘Rather dangerous.’
‘An old smuggler’s trick,’ Jenna snapped at him. ‘I knew what I was doing. I didn’t need rescuing by Cally.’
‘Well, I am sorry,’ said Cally. Vila didn’t think she sounded very contrite. She also seemed to be half-listening to something else. ‘What is that noise?’
It was an all-too familiar chittering sound. Vila’s head jerked towards the far wall, but the alien lay there as still as it had since Blake shot it. Besides, the noise was coming from…
He leaped away from the teleport controls. On the side of the desk, just where he had been sitting, a second alien was stretching its legs. ‘Another one of them!’
‘Another one of what?’ asked Cally, and moved nearer to look at it.
Vila pushed her unceremoniously aside, and dived for cover.
‘Vila!’ Jenna towered over him, glaring. ‘You let them in?’
‘Only one or two,’ Vila protested feebly. ‘I was trying to tell Blake that I was…’
The end of his sentence was lost in the sound of the alien exploding. The lights dimmed. A mushroom of smoke surged towards the ceiling and curled its way across to all four walls.
The sprinkler system surged into action, and everyone in the room fled into the corridor, hacking and coughing. A fire screen dropped down between them and the teleport area, cutting them off from the conflagration and the choking fumes.
‘Thank goodness for the fire safety system,’ said Blake. He peered through the filthy glass of the transparent partition. ‘That seems to have done it.’
‘It seems to have done for the teleport, too,’ moaned Vila. ‘That’ll take forever to fix. You know what the auto-repair systems are like. Aaagh!’ Something had caught his eye across the corridor. He stumbled away from it, pressing the back of his thick hull suit against the wall in a hopeless attempt to put distance between himself and another of the limpet mine aliens. ‘Another one!’
A shot from a handgun rang out. Vila wheeled to see Blake had taken aim at the creature. But he had missed. The alien lifted itself up onto its scrawny little legs as though it was hoisting its shorts, and scuttled away around the next junction.
Blake chased to the junction. His furious expression told Vila that it had already vanished from sight. ‘Lost it!’
‘But it’s gone, thank goodness.’ Vila looked eagerly at Blake, who glared back at him. ‘It has gone, hasn’t it, Blake?’
‘Into the ship somewhere.’ Blake’s furious expression was still there. Now it told Vila that he was in big trouble. ‘How many of those things got inside
Liberator
?’
‘Only a couple.’ Vila watched Blake’s reaction. He didn’t look convinced. ‘Or three. Maybe three.’
Blake took an ominous step closer. ‘We’ve seen three already.’
There was no point lying any longer. Vila knew how many he had seen scurrying away from him in the corridor outside the airlock antechamber. ‘Oh all right! There were five.’
Blake didn’t look any happier. He exploded almost as loudly as one of the aliens. ‘Five!’
‘One blew up in the airlock. Another was already damaged.’ Vila was babbling. The others were looking at him with growing incredulity. ‘I tried to track the others…’
‘Well?’ asked Blake.
‘I lost one in the weapons section. And it…’ Vila hesitated. No point in pretending otherwise, he decided, and plunged on. ‘Well, it blew up before I reached it.’
Blake turned away in despair.
‘I had everything under control,’ Vila pleaded. ‘Until Avon made me come and rescue the two of you.’
Cally glowered at him. ‘Thank you, Vila,’ she noted pointedly, and walked off. She began to peel off her thermal suit to reveal her regular tunic underneath, and ignored Vila’s fumbled attempts at an apology. She was making an exaggerated effort to concentrate on hanging the suit back in the storage cupboard, beside the entrance to the wrecked teleport area.
‘So…’ Blake was working out what to do next. Vila was relieved, because he himself didn’t have a clue. ‘There’s just one of those things left?’
‘I think so,’ wavered Vila.
‘You
think
so?’ Blake looked intently at him, urging him to remember. The staring wasn’t helping Vila focus. ‘Come on!’
‘Yes. Er…’ Vila racked his brains. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’
‘Well, you’d better get after it. I have a bigger bomb to worry about.’ Blake thumbed the wall-mounted intercom control at the corridor junction. ‘Flight deck?’
The comms crackled in response. ‘
What’s going on down there?’
asked Avon.
‘Zen says that the emergency fire systems were activated.’
‘Some of those things on the hull followed Vila through the airlock,’ said Blake. Vila shrank under his condemnation. ‘Caused a bit of damage around the ship.’
‘That explains it.’
‘The damage?’
‘No, the fact that it was Vila’s fault.’
Vila shrank under the pitiless gaze of his assembled crewmates.
‘It’s all under control,’ lied Blake.
‘Are you all back on board now? We need to move.’
‘Not yet, Avon. Megiddo is an orbiting bomb.’
‘It’s an orbiting…’
There was a furious pause over the comms link.
‘Did you not think to mention that when you first got in contact?’
‘I’m telling you now,’ Blake replied placidly. ‘It’ll detonate when it reaches the alien fleet.’
‘Oh.’
Another, more thoughtful pause. ‘
And your problem with that is what, exactly’
Blake grimaced. ‘It’ll cause the biggest plasma explosion you’ve ever known. And probably the last you’ll ever witness. It will take everything with it.’
‘Well, thanks for the update.’
‘We have to destroy it, Avon.’
‘With what? Those things that Vila let in have disabled our weapons systems.’
Vila bridled at the relentless accusations. ‘Oh, it’s all my fault, as usual!’
‘He has a point, don’t you think.’ Blake turned back to the comms unit. ‘Avon, do we have enough power to deflect Megiddo instead?’
Avon’s sarcasm was evident even over the intercom.
‘Not unless you’re proposing to crash this ship into the planetoid.’
‘Maybe I am,’ said Blake harshly.
Everyone in the corridor stared at him. Jenna and Cally exchanged nervous glances.
Eventually, Avon said:
‘Are you serious?’
Blake looked like he was pondering an answer. After a moment, he simply said: ‘I’m coming up to the flight deck.’ And switched off the comms.
Jenna touched him gently on the arm. ‘If you
are
serious, Blake…’
‘Yes, I know, Jenna. I’ll need you to steer
Liberator
.’
Jenna didn’t question his decision. ‘I’ll get out of this hull suit,’ she said, and started off down the corridor.
Blake indicated Vila’s hull suit. ‘You might want to do the same.’
‘All right,’ said Vila. He was pleased to have an instruction to obey, something to show willing, anything to redeem himself in the eyes of his crewmates. With the added advantage that taking off a hull suit wasn’t remotely dangerous.
‘Cally,’ Blake continued briskly. ‘You’d better help Vila to track down that alien… thing.’
The suit slipped to the corridor floor from Vila’s nerveless fingers. Chasing after an exploding invader wasn’t very high on his list of things to do next. In fact, thought Vila, it was the last thing that would be on his schedule, if at all.
‘But… but…’ he protested feebly. He indicated the torn and crumpled remains of his hull suit on the floor. The rips and scorches on that were evidence enough that he should be steering well clear of incendiary aliens. ‘I’ve only just taken that thing off.’
Blake’s look was withering. ‘Get a move on.’
‘What do you want me to do – hunt for it half-naked?’ He was already regretting stripping off. This corridor wasn’t as warm as he’d expected.
‘Well, get some clothes on!’ shouted Blake. ‘And then get after the one that scuttled off. Here, take this.’ He unbuckled his gun belt and handed Vila the weapon. ‘I’ll get another when I’m on the flight deck.’
Vila took the gun reluctantly, fumbled with it until he found the buckle, and fastened the thing around his waist. Cally looked at him curiously. Perhaps it did look a bit stupid to have a gun belt strapped over his underwear.
‘Those things have taken out our weapons,’ Cally said. ‘And our auto-repair systems.’
‘Precisely,’ agreed Blake. ‘So what would
you
go after next? Hmm?’
Even Vila knew the answer to that one. Suddenly the corridor seemed even colder. ‘Life support!’
Avon had no idea what the others had been doing, and he didn’t like that. The displays on his flight deck console continued to flash warnings at him, but it was hard to piece together a bigger picture.
Another caution light winked from amber to red on his screen. ‘Zen, what is the status of the weaponry systems?’
‘OFFLINE.’
He went to check a different display console. To reach it, he had to navigate a pile of debris that had fallen from the ceiling when a support beam had dropped onto the floor. A grey layer of grime covered most of the equipment. Avon brushed a chair clean with his hand before he sat down, and dusted his hands.
So much for their strategic retreat to let auto-repair catch up. Vila’s carelessness had let the alien devices into the ship. And that had set them back to where they were before
Liberator
had disengaged from the war. Maybe even worse. The prospects of them returning to engage the enemy were diminishing by the minute. And the battle computer projections were pessimistic about the human fleet’s chances of holding back the invaders. At which point, the aliens would seek out
Liberator
, and the ship would be helpless.
They were fast running out of plausible options.
‘What about the teleport system?’
‘OFFLINE.’
‘Estimated repair time?’
‘THAT INFORMATION IS NOT AVAILABLE.’
‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘THAT QUESTION HAS TOO MANY–’
‘Never mind, Zen.’
He spun round at a clatter of footsteps from the entrance to the flight deck. Blake and Jenna jogged in. Jenna slid into her seat, and began checking the pilot’s controls.
Blake immediately cast a proprietorial eye over the flight deck, noting the damage. ‘What
have
you been doing with the ship, Avon?’
Avon pretended to be fascinated by something on his display screen. ‘I’ve had a busy day.’
‘So I see.’
Blake tugged at the sleeves of his thermal suit. He’d obviously not had time to remove it since teleporting up from Megiddo. The effort made him wince, but the suit was eventually off. He dropped it over one of the empty flight seats, raising a brief cloud of powder. Avon thought that Blake’s face looked as grey as the dust.
Blake sat down carefully, holding his injured side. ‘Jenna, can you steer us closer to Megiddo?’
Typical Blake, thought Avon. He’s only just back on the flight deck, and already he’s issuing orders.
Jenna didn’t seem to mind. She tapped a few commands into the flight controls. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
Blake was reviewing his own display screen. ‘The human ships seem to be holding the line out there. Even if they only have forty percent of the Federation fleet engaged.’
That couldn’t be right, could it? ‘Forty percent?’ Avon asked. ‘What about the others?’
‘Servalan said she was holding the rest back,’ Blake said casually.
‘Servalan?’ Avon’s head snapped in Blake’s direction. ‘Is this yet another thing you’ve neglected to mention?’
Blake smiled. ‘I’ve had a busy day, too.’
‘INFORMATION. ALIEN VESSELS ARE APPROACHING THE STAR ONE DEFENCE NETWORK IN SEVEN SEPARATE VECTORS.’
‘On screen.’ Blake stood in front of the main viewer. Indicator lines traced a pattern across the schematic. The alien movements were marked in blue, while the satellite grid showed as a twisted skein of interconnected white lines separating Federation space from the unknown depths of deeper space. Seven different blue lines slowly arced towards disparate parts of the grid. ‘What are they doing?’
Jenna looked up from her console. ‘It’s a suicide run.’
‘Like yours?’ asked Blake.
Jenna looked exasperated. ‘They seem to mean it.’
Avon wasn’t sure what the odd little exchange between Blake and Jenna had meant. But he was sure what the evidence on the viewer told him. ‘Of course!’
He got up to join Blake at the screen. He pointed out the nearest of the blue lines on the schematic as it edged closer to the satellite grid. ‘The first ships that reach the barrier will be destroyed by the blast.’ His outstretched hand encompassed a crowd of other, static blue marks on the display that represented the rest of the alien fleet. ‘But a dozen others could get through the gap before the satellite generators have reset.’
Blake had his hand to his mouth, engrossed in the evidence before him. His eyes flicked from point to point on the schematic, pondering the implications. ‘Zen, show me the actual ships.’
‘CONFIRMED.’
The visual representation faded away to be replaced by a live feed.
‘Hybrid view,’ Blake said. ‘Overlay the schematic.’
The diagram reappeared, superimposed over the image of the distant battle.
‘And now, zoom in on grid nine five.’
The picture refocused again. The satellite grid at this point appeared as a silvery haze, with hundreds of alien ships massed behind it. They all hung in space, apparently immobile, except for one. A globular shape with one end tapering to a sharp point, like a vast teardrop. Its hull shimmered with a rolling movement of changing lights as it approached the grid.
‘Here it comes,’ breathed Jenna.
The teardrop edged closer and closer. And finally splashed against the satellite array.