The admiral whirled to the bridge crew.
‘Seal all decks and shut off the landing bays! Despatch the Marines in to guard the bulkheads around the impact point!’ he roared, and then he turned to the XO. ‘Order the fleet into firing position!’
Olsen hesitated. ‘Schmidt said that if we blasted the alien ship it could risk contaminating the rest of the fleet.’
Marshall’s reply was calm but forceful. ‘I’m not going to ask them to target
just
the alien ship.’
Olsen stared at the admiral for a long moment as he realized what Marshall was intending, and then he relayed the order as the rest of the bridge crew continued in silence with their duties, every single one of them fully aware of what Marshall would do if Titan could not shake off her attackers.
The Tactical Officer called out across the bridge. ‘Emergency distress signal from Tethys Gaol, admiral! They have no escape vessels available and there is evidence of a riot in progress!’
Foxx heard the call and her world seemed to stop moving. Tethys. Riot. Nathan. She looked at Marshall, aware of the burden the admiral was bearing but unable to hold her silence.
‘I need to get to the gaol,’ she said. ‘Nathan and Allen are in there alone in the middle of a riot. We can’t abandon them.’
‘We can’t help them,’ Marshall uttered, preoccupied with the battle. ‘Ironside knew what he was getting himself in to when he insisted on meeting with that criminal.’
‘Who may be innocent,’ Foxx reminded him.
‘
May
be,’ Marshall agreed, his voice rising, ‘while we are
definitely
facing a major invasion of our space! I don’t have time for this, detective. As long as this ship is locked down, so are you!’
Marshall stormed by her as he made for the Tactical Officer’s position. Vasquez moved alongside Foxx, Betty right behind him.
‘He’s not going to budge,’ Vasquez said. ‘Nathan’s got Allen with him, and if Reed really is innocent then they’ll join forces.’
Foxx glanced at Vasquez for a brief moment and then she whirled and marched off the bridge.
‘That’s not a risk I’m willing to take. How long do you think they’ll last in that gaol with the other prisoners running riot?’
‘We can’t leave,’ Vasquez pointed out as he hurried after her. ‘The ship’s on lockdown.’
‘Not yet it isn’t,’ Foxx shot back. ‘The Phantom fighters are still out there, which means the launch bays are still open. You know your way around this ship, you wanna go for a ride?’
‘You’re going out
there
?!’ Vasquez gasped. ‘There’s a battle raging!’
Betty hurried up alongside Foxx. ‘There’s a battle raging in that prison too, and your partner and Nathan are caught up in the middle of it with no weapons.’
Vasquez held her gaze for a moment and then glanced at the Marine guards nearby as he lowered his voice. ‘What did you have in mind?’
Foxx glanced back into the bridge, where she could see the captain monitoring the main display as the battle raged outside.
‘The fleet’s moving into attack position, and Marshall will let them blast Titan and that alien ship to hell if it halts the attack and protects the rest of the system,’ she said. ‘We need to get to Tethys first.’
‘How?’ Vasquez asked in confusion.
Foxx did not reply as she hurried through the ship’s corridors, crewmen rushing this way and that as they rushed to fight fires or repair damage to the ship’s battered hull. She saw a troop of Marines jog past, weighed down by their heavy armor as they headed with grim expressions toward where the alien material had entered the ship.
She reached the sick bay and dashed inside to see Schmidt’s glowing blue form hunched over a data display as he continued to scrutinize the samples he had taken.
‘The ship’s been breached,’ Foxx announced as she walked in with Vasquez.
‘I know,’ Schmidt replied without looking up. ‘I’m working as fast as I can, but this form of life is not like anything we’ve seen before.’
‘I need to get to the prison before the ship’s locked down.’
Schmidt looked up at her. ‘Ironside?’
‘He’s trapped there with Allen and the prisoners have started a riot,’ she replied. ‘We’re no good to him if Marshall has Titan blasted to pieces.’
Schmidt stared at her for a long moment. ‘What do you need from me?’
‘Access to a shuttle,’ Foxx said. ‘Can you clear us through?’
‘Marshall will have us strung up for it,’ Vasquez warned.
‘Marshall won’t be here if Titan is forced to sacrifice itself for the greater good,’ she pointed out. ‘If we succeed, you’re golden.’
Schmidt appeared to curse under his breath, although technically he didn’t breathe.
‘Ironside creates as many problems as he manages to solve.’
‘He went over there to defend an innocent man,’ Foxx reminded the doctor in a stern voice. ‘The problem was with the system, not Nathan.’
Schmidt’s apparent irritation dissolved into a warm smile as he looked at Foxx.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ Schmidt said, still smiling, ‘nothing at all. I have accessed shuttle
517
, but you’ll have to hurry to reach it before the ship is locked down and you don’t have a pilot.’
‘Yes, we do,’ Foxx replied as she gestured to Betty. ‘If you’re game for this?’
Betty shot Foxx a disapproving look. ‘Are you kidding, honey?’
Foxx grinned as she dashed out of the sick bay with Vasquez and Betty close behind.
‘Marshall might have you blasted out of the sky for this!’ the former Marine said as they ran, dodging between Titan’s many crew all hustling this way and that through the ship’s corridors.
‘The battle is no excuse for leaving Nathan and Vasquez to die down there on Tethys!’
They hurried to an elevator shaft and boarded one heading down to the launch bays, the elevator travelling smoothly through the ship although Foxx could hear the blasts from outside reverberating through Titan’s immense hull and shuddering through the elevator shaft.
The doors shimmered out as the elevator reached the launch bays and Foxx hurried out with Vasquez close behind. She strode to the main entrance to the bays and saw two Marine guards snap to attention as they watched her approach, the lights around them flickering weakly under the barrage of fire from outside.
‘New Washington Police Department,’ Foxx said as she and Vasquez flashed their badges at the guards. ‘We’ve got a flight leaving.’
‘Launch bays are locked down ma’am,’ one of the Marines replied crisply. ‘Nobody goes in or out and all pilots are on Search and Rescue or reserve fighter pilot duties.’
‘We have our own pilot,’ Vasquez said, ‘and clearance from the captain himself, who right now is in the middle of a battle and trying to stop this ship from being blown to hell. If we don’t get aboard that shuttle, he might not make it.’
‘Orders are orders,’ the Marine replied.
‘Yes they are,’ Foxx said, ‘and Marshall gives them. You wanna call him up on the bridge in the middle of a battle and query the command you go ahead, but it’s your funeral.’
The Marines looked sideways at each other, and then they stood aside as the launch bay doors opened.
Foxx marched through into the bay, which was filled with ranks of
Phantom
fighters all being swarmed upon by technicians and service personnel, the bay filled with the sound of machinery and whining engines and the smell of burning electrical devices and smoke as damaged vessels were turned around by the laboring crews.
‘About time!’ Betty chortled as they walked. ‘Are we getting the hell out of here or what?’
‘Let’s go!’
Foxx sprinted across to the shuttle with the tail number
517
, which detected Betty’s approach and automatically opened its side access door. Foxx dashed up the ramp and into the cockpit as Vasquez closed the door manually and Betty joined her to take the captain’s seat.
Betty started the shuttle’s systems and then began running the engines up as she called for departure clearance from the signals officer. Moments later, Foxx saw the launch bay doors thunder closed as two more Phantoms landed nearby, an entire squadron using the adjoining bay to recover aboard Titan as quickly as possible.
‘They’re cutting us off!’ Vasquez cried as he pointed out of the windshield at the huge blast doors rumbling downward.
Foxx heard the reply from the landing signal’s officer to Betty’s request.
‘Negative, clearance denied, all vessels to remain aboard Titan until further…’
Betty tutted and hit the magnetic landing clamp switch and the shuttle lifted off as she kicked in a boot of right rudder. The shuttle swung sharply around as Betty shoved the throttles wide open and the shuttle lurched not toward the launch bay exit, but directly toward the landing bay entrance.
‘Holy mother of crap!’ Vasquez uttered as he gripped his seat.
Foxx winced as she saw technicians and other service personnel waving frantically at the shuttle as it broke every launch protocol in the book and soared over their heads toward the rapidly closing doors.
‘This is gonna be close!’ Betty hooted as the shuttle roared toward the sliver of space remaining beneath the solid doors.
‘We’re not gonna make it!’ Foxx yelped as the shuttle roared through the bay, technicians leaping aside to avoid the ship as it rocketed along barely a meter above the deck.
Foxx winced and threw her hands up uselessly as the huge doors slid down before them, and then Betty deliberately pushed forward on the control column and the shuttle’s belly slammed into Titan’s deck. The hull shuddered and Foxx heard a screech of metal on metal as through the side windows she saw a vibrant plume of orange sparks flare either side of the craft as it slid along the deck at full throttle and then the huge bay doors flashed past above them with scant inches to spare and the shuttle shot out of the bay and out into space.
‘Like a glove!’ Betty chortled as she hauled the control column to the right with a whoop of laughter and the shuttle rolled gamely, as though it too were enjoying itself for the first time in its career. Foxx peered through hands still up in front of her face as she saw Titan’s huge hull loom before them and beyond it the tremendous arc of Saturn and its glorious rings.
Foxx got her breathing under control, her heart hammering in her chest as she leaned forward and saw the distant glow of the gaol in orbit around the vast disc of Saturn’s rings.
‘Can you make it there?’ she asked Betty.
The pilot looked at Foxx with a disapproving gaze.
‘You may be a lieutenant young lady, but I’ve been on the job for thirty two years. Do I tell you how to do your job?’
Foxx raised an eyebrow but said nothing as Betty turned back to her controls and the shuttle soared over Titan’s broad stern.
‘Incoming, point two oh five,’ Vasquez said as he pointed out a pair of alien fighters sweeping in from their left.
Betty nodded as she spotted them, and to Foxx’s dismay she turned the shuttle toward the incoming fighters.
‘What are you doing?’ she asked. ‘We’re not armed!’
‘You don’t have to be armed to defend yourself,’ Betty shot back. ‘Detective, the grappling lines if you will?’
Vasquez stared at Betty in amazement. ‘Are you kidding me?’
‘Grappling lines,
now!!
’
Vasquez was propelled back into his seat as he scrambled to obey and he deployed all eight lines as ordered. Used to dock with ships that may be in distress and without power, the grappling lines allowed a rescue vessel like a shuttle to anchor itself to a hull and access the vessel from the outside.
‘Those fighters are filled with some kind of alien species,’ Foxx warned. ‘If we attach ourselves to them, we’ll be infected.’
‘Watch and learn, lieutenant,’ Betty said without taking her eyes off the two fighters rushing toward them. ‘Detective, prepare to detach the cables on my mark.’
Vasquez’s fingers hovered over the relevant switches on the panel as the shuttle closed head–to–head with the onrushing fighters. Foxx resisted the temptation to throw her hands in front of her face again as Betty charged fearlessly at their enemy.
‘They’re gonna fire!’ Vasquez gasped in a high pitched tone.
Betty grabbed the control column and suddenly she threw the shuttle into a tight roll as she slammed the engines into reverse thrust, the star field spinning before them as she yelled at Vasquez.
‘Detach now!’
Vasquez hit the switch and Foxx saw the eight cables detach from the shuttle, spinning in a wide arc as the shuttle slowed and the eight cables continued on their way. A blaze of gunfire rocketed toward the shuttle as Betty pushed forward and the shuttle dived down beneath the salvo, and all at once Foxx saw the two alien craft fly straight into the spinning mess of grappling lines.
The heavy lines were designed to hold tremendous loads and the grappling hooks were big, talon–like devices that weighed hundreds of kilograms each. The cables tore into the fighters and slewed them sideways as the center of gravity of each craft was shifted by the sudden extra burdens. In a flash the two craft were caught in the same mesh of lines and suddenly they slammed together and exploded in a bright burst of flame and burning gases that shimmered out amid the bitter vacuum of space as the shuttle shot past beneath the fading fireball.
Foxx looked back out of her window at the shattered hulks of the two fighters as they receded swiftly behind the shuttle, and then at Betty.
‘That was…,’ Vasquez began.
‘Amazing,’ Foxx finished the sentence.
‘I know,’ Betty replied as though it were obvious.
Titan’s hull rushed past beneath the shuttle, her massive plating edged with clouds of escaping gases and debris, slivers of orange glowing between them from fires within.
‘She’s beat up pretty bad already,’ Vasquez said.
As if in reply, a crackling communication broke across the radio frequency.
‘Delta Compa.., request immediate…, release, Deck Four, zero–five…,charlie!’
‘You hear that?’ Vasquez said. ‘That’s a Marine company inside the ship somewhere.’