Blake’s 7: Warship Read online

  Or talking.

  ‘Vila, can you hear me?’ Her own voice echoed inside the helmet. ‘Vila? I got on board the alien ship. I’m safe.’ She gave the area around her a wary inspection. ‘Or at least, safer than on the hull.’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Vila?’ Not even a static hiss over the comms. ‘Liberator? Are you receiving? Can you hear me, Avon?’

  Nothing.

  Her hull suit made it hard to navigate the uneven corridor. In particular, the helmet – designed for a good all-round view when inspecting the Liberator‘s exterior – was not so useful in the confines of this alien vessel. She dared not remove it, because it was unclear whether the atmosphere was breathable. Or whether there was any atmosphere.

  Ahead was a star-shaped mark on the wall. Jenna approached it cautiously. It was an odd combination of machine and creature. When she got close enough to examine it properly, it twitched. She took an involuntary step backwards, but the thing had activated. The central point of the star split apart, and it irised open into an aperture.

  It was doorway from the corridor, into what Jenna recognised as a flight control deck. A transparent forward screen offered a view of space – the satellite defence grid shimmered ahead, and the flashes of conflict flickered fleetingly in the distance. To either side were banks of inscrutable alien equipment.

  And in the centre, facing away from her, was an equally inscrutable alien.

  The noise of the aperture opening drew its attention – so, there was an atmosphere of some kind, then. The alien twisted around on the spot.

  The thing was barely humanoid. Its bulbous head throbbed with cranial veins. Six eyes nictated in sequence as it surveyed this intruder. The eyes glittered hypnotically. Jenna almost didn’t see that the creature had extended a pseudopod arm that reached left towards the controls. Or maybe a weapon.

  Jenna surged forward. She thought the eyes may even have widened in surprise. She plunged her hand at its pulsing forehead, twisting the switch on the device that she clutched between her gloved fingers.

  The alien’s maw opened wide, revealing a dark gullet full of curved teeth. Jenna’s helmet visor spattered with vile mucus. She felt the vibration of the alien’s dying roar just before it slumped sideways, twitched briefly, and fell still.

  Jenna clipped the device back on her belt. ‘Vila was right,’ she told herself. ‘This sub-atomic probe can be dangerous.’

  She braced herself as the alien vessel lurched sideways. Its pilot was no longer in control. The strange door sealed behind her. She had no way of telling whether there were other crew on board. And just like the dead pilot, she would have no advance warning of any arrivals.

  She tried a few of the controls in front of her, and was surprised to find that they were almost intuitive. A pilot’s instinct, she told herself

  ‘Liberator, do you read?’

  Still no comms in her helmet.

  ‘If you can hear me… This ship is already heading back to the alien fleet. By the time I’ve worked out how to steer this thing, I’ll be a long way from Liberator. Well beyond the range of this hull suit’s communicator.’

  She surveyed the controls again. Through the view screen, many alien vessels grew larger as the ship approached them.

  ‘Liberator, I hope you understand why I’m doing this.’

  Jenna seized the controls, and felt a deep vibration around her as the alien engines responded to her command.

  Chapter 18

  Return to Danger

  Avon paced up and down on the empty flight deck. He would never have let the other crew members see that he was this agitated. It didn’t suit him to let them suspect he had uncertainties or doubts. And usually, he’d prefer to be on his own anyway. It wasn’t unusual for him to spend plenty of time alone, away from the others, with only Orac for company.

  This was different. Despite his clear desire to keep the crew together for this confrontation, they had ended up scattered who knew where. Cally off with Blake in the forlorn hope of finding salvation for them on some icy rock in the middle of nowhere. Jenna in the clutches of the enemy. Even Vila was taking his own sweet time getting back from his excursion outside the ship.

  Avon stared up at the fascia of the ship’s computer. It flashed pensively in response to his most recent command.

  ‘Come on, Zen. Jenna can’t be all that far away yet. Can’t you get a signal from her?’

  ‘NEGATIVE.’

  Avon glared at the computer.

  ‘Can you locate Blake and Cally?’

  ‘NEGATIVE.’

  ‘Damn it, Zen. What can you do?’

  ‘THAT QUESTION HAS TOO MANY PARAMETERS.’

  Avon laughed at this. If he hadn’t known better, he’d have assumed the computer was being sarcastic. But it was, after all, only a computer.

  He pressed the ship-wide intercom. ‘Vila, what’s keeping you?’

  There was a pause, presumably while Vila located a wall communicator. And then presumably tried to operate it.

  ‘Vila?’

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want to know where you are.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ Vila replied evasively.

  ‘Where?’

  There was a telling pause, before Vila replied. ‘I’m in the weapons section.’

  Avon grunted in disapproval. ‘That’s an odd route to take from the airlock to the flight deck. Did you get lost, or are you taking the scenic route?’

  ‘I had a few things to… er… locate on the way.‘ The intercom conveyed an apologetic cough. ‘Tidying up.’

  Vila didn’t sound any more convincing than usual, decided Avon. But there was no time to berate him further. Zen was interrupting with an important update.

  ‘INFORMATION. THERE IS AN INCOMING MESSAGE FROM THE FEDERATION FACILITY ON MEGIDDO.’

  ‘Put it through,’ snapped Avon.

  The main view screen crackled and spat, resolving itself sporadically into an image of Blake. He was crouched close to the camera, and his tone was urgent. ‘Come in, Liberator! This is Blake. Two of us to teleport up. Quickly!’

  The sound continued to crackle through the flight deck speakers, but the image had frozen. Blake’s earnest face stared across at Avon.

  ‘All right, Blake.’ Avon switched back to the ship’s intercom. ‘Did you hear that, Vila? You’re needed in teleport.’

  ‘I heard him.’

  ‘That means now, Vila. No detours.’

  * * *

  No matter how many times Vila had run through them, the Liberator corridors never seemed any shorter. His heavy boots weren’t helping. Avon’s insistent voice continued to squawk demands over the intercom system. Hounding him along to his destination.

  ‘Oh, hang on, won’t you?’

  He stumbled across the final junction, and raced into the teleport room.

  ‘Vila, what’s keeping you?’

  ‘Keep your hair on,’ he muttered breathlessly. ‘I haven’t even had time to get out of my hull suit.’

  He stumbled to the control desk and dumped himself heavily into the nearest seat, his heart thumping. After a moment to catch his breath, he flicked the intercom switch. The comms connected with a chime.

  ‘All right, I’m in teleport.’

  ‘Not before time,’ said Avon. ‘Bring them back. Get a move on!’

  The comms chimed off again.

  ‘Thank you, Vila,’ grumbled Vila to himself. ‘Very grateful, Vila.’

  The teleport controls were still set for the surface of Megiddo. He patched the communications connection from Blake into the coordinate tracker on the desk. Not from Blake’s teleport bracelet. That was odd. Some unfamiliar Federation channel instead. A weak signal, but it should do.

  The coordinates aligned, and he left the rest to the automatics. He pressed home the teleport controls, and a shimmer of power filled the arrivals alcove.

  Blake’s shape had barely finished coalescing before he was stamping ove
r to him. ‘What kept you, Vila?’

  ‘Much appreciated, Vila,’ muttered Vila to himself.

  At least Cally looked pleased to see him. Her smile of thanks melted into a look of puzzlement. ‘Why are you wearing a hull suit?’

  Vila thought about some smart rejoinder about the grimy-looking thermal suits that Cally and Blake both wore. Instead he indicated his own torn suit. ‘Jenna and I went out to do some repairs.’

  Blake stood over him at the desk, ‘Where’s Jenna now?

  ‘Not sure,’ Vila explained guardedly. ‘Can’t get a signal from her suit comms. She must be out of range.’

  ‘Then fix it!’ demanded Blake. ‘Or get back out there and look for her.’

  Easy for him to say, thought Vila. ‘Bit of a problem with that, actually.’

  ‘Such as?’

  Vila waved his hands in a vague approximation of the devices they had been facing out there. The devices that, until a few minutes ago, he had been hunting in the weapons section.

  ‘Infestation of aliens,’ he said.

  Blake was looking increasingly suspicious.

  ‘On the hull,’ added Vila. ‘Well, mostly on the hull… you see…’

  Suspicion had changed to incredulity. ‘What about Jenna?’

  Blake’s shouting provoked a coughing fit. He clutched his hand to his chest, as though he was in considerable pain. Cally moved to his side, placed a calming hand on Blake’s shoulder, and took the opportunity to turn down the heating dial on his suit. ‘Let me try to find Jenna,’ she said soothingly.

  ‘There’s something you should know about the aliens…’ Vila began.

  ‘Not now, Vila!’ snarled Blake. His coughing fit had subsided, but his temper hadn’t. ‘Just let Cally concentrate.’ He was quieter when he spoke to Cally. ‘Go on, try now.’

  Cally sat at the teleport console with Vila, and closed her eyes in concentration. Vila recognised the signs of her entering a trance state, just as she had earlier on the flight deck when she had picked up the thoughts of the human fleet.

  Her eyes fluttered behind her closed lids. ‘Jenna?’ she said softly, barely audible. ‘Jenna?’

  There was a pause. Cally’s lips moved wordlessly, until she said clearly and distinctly. ‘She is not on the hull. She is some distance away.’

  ‘I could have told you that,’ grumbled Vila.

  ‘Hush, Vila!’ Blake moved closer to Cally at the desk. ‘Where is she? Is she all right?

  ‘She has control of an alien space vehicle,’ Cally said softly. ‘The original pilot is dead. I sense Jenna is… so alone. So determined. She cannot contact Liberator.’ Cally’s serene expression was hardening, and her brow furrowed. ‘She is steering the ship… away from us… towards…’

  Cally’s eyes snapped wide open. Her expression was appalled. ‘No!’

  Vila was startled by her explosive change of demeanour. ‘What is it?’

  ‘I think Jenna is steering into the alien fleet.’ Cally stared at Blake and Vila, an anguished look on her face. ‘It’s a suicide run.’

  Chapter 19

  Suicide Run

  The hull suit gloves hampered fine control, so Jenna removed them. Her helmet stayed on, because there was no way of telling whether the atmosphere in here was breathable. She just had to hope that it wasn’t toxic when in contact with skin. Well, she’d know soon enough. If that turned out to be important, anyway.

  The alien controls felt unnervingly like warm flesh fused with cold metal. But in her experience, the basics of space flight were the same whether it was a space skimmer or a planet hopper or an interstellar cruiser. The fundamentals of yaw and pitch and roll were the same across the known universe. And if she wasn’t familiar with the environment in which these aliens usually operated, well she knew for certain that they were in her galaxy now.

  A pirate she’d once known had tried to teach her the rules of space flight, but the explanations of angular velocity and integration drift, hyperbolic trajectory and inertial reference frames had meant little or nothing to her. And he’d soon realised what she had always known – that her piloting skills were innate, instinctive. She was born to it.

  Jenna had got to grips with an alien ship once before. She’d boarded the vessel after escaping from a prison transport. And she’d named it the Liberator. Had she known the ship, or had the ship known her? Something of both, of course. But it meant this latest alien vessel in her hands was nothing to be afraid of.

  It just relied on complete concentration. Giving herself over to instinct once again. Nothing would get in her way. Not the many irrelevant controls that remained out of reach. Not the oozing remains of alien on the floor beside her. Not the glittering threat of the satellite grid that grew larger and larger through the view screen.

  Nothing was going to distract her from the only option left to her.

  The engines thrummed in response to her commands. The alien vessels loomed ahead.

  She was going in.

  * * *

  Blake stared in desperation at Cally. ‘A suicide run?’ He could barely dare to contemplate it. ‘You must stop her, Cally. Tell Jenna we’re coming for her.’

  Cally closed her eyes again in contemplation. Her frown did not fade, and her jaw clenched. It was clear she was not making the connection she needed.

  Her shoulders sagged in defeat, and she opened her eyes again. ‘Jenna cannot hear me, Blake. She is too focused on what she is doing.’

  Blake exhaled a long breath of frustration. ‘There must be something we can do. There must be.’

  Cally manipulated the controls on the teleport desk, gesturing for Vila to move aside and give her more space to work. Blake watched the tracker lines converge on new coordinates as she completed her adjustments.

  Cally stood up, checking the bracelet on her wrist. She stepped over to the recharging unit, and picked out a second bracelet. ‘You must teleport me across to her.’

  Blake wasn’t sure he understood. ‘How?

  ‘Those are the coordinates of Jenna’s spaceship.’ Cally indicated the marker point on the teleport desk.

  Vila shuffled back along his seat, and studied the display more closely. ‘And those are the coordinates of the alien fleet.’ He tapped an adjacent area on the screen. It zoomed to show a shoal of bright points of light swimming into view. ‘It’s another suicide run, Cally. Only this time, it’s yours!’

  She strode into the teleport alcove, waving away Vila’s concern. ‘I am ready.’

  Blake could see that Cally was utterly determined, but she was being unnecessarily reckless. ‘You don’t even know if there’s air in that ship,’ he argued. ‘At least put on a hull suit.’

  Cally shook her head. ‘There is no time.’

  ‘What are you going to do,’ asked Vila, ‘hold your breath?’

  ‘Vila!’ She glared at him, and pointed an unwavering finger at the teleport controls on the desk in front of him.

  Vila shrank under her accusing gaze. ‘All right, all right.’

  Blake didn’t have time to add another protest. Vila had already pushed forward the teleport controls. Cally’s shape shivered and shimmered and dissolved in a ripple of energy. She was gone.

  Blake stared at the empty alcove. ‘Be ready to bring her back, Vila. I must get to the flight deck.’

  He turned on his heel. As he strode towards the exit, his toe kicked against something unexpectedly. A flat disk covered with odd markings skidded away from him until it bumped to a stop against the wall. He walked over, and was bending to pick it up when a couple of eyes on stalks popped out of the top of it and looked around the room.

  ‘Keep away from it!’ called Vila. He hurriedly got up from the teleport desk, and tugged urgently at Blake’s sleeve.

  Blake didn’t get any closer to the thing. It had started to make a chittering noise. ‘What is that?’

  ‘I tried to tell you,’ wailed Vila. ‘It’s one of the aliens.’

  ‘Oh.’ Blake conside
red the innocuous creature that seemed to be cowering by the wall. The complex organisms he had encountered on Star One had been able to assume the appearance of humans. This wasn’t at all what he had expected in his subsequent alien encounters. ‘It looks like a machine.’ He decided it required a closer look.

  ‘Don’t get too close!’ Vila had not released his grip on Blake’s sleeve. ‘It’s also a bomb!’

  As they watched, the disk rose up from the floor, raised on half a dozen thin legs underneath it. The antennae stopped moving, and pointed directly at Blake.

  * * *

  The glittering array of the satellite grid lay dead ahead. Jenna made a fine adjustment at the controls, and rechecked her forward view.

  To starboard lay the human fleet, a motley assortment of civilian vessels and Federation pursuit ships that weaved a determined pattern towards the enemy. The alien fleet stood before her, a collection of shapes that seemed to defy the conventions of space flight. Yet, from her most recent experience, Jenna knew them to be extremely manoeuvrable and lethally quick.

  She renewed her grip on the flight controls, and prepared for her final manoeuvre. This was it. ‘Here goes nothing.’

  The engines vibrated all around in response to her coaxing. The ship angled as it made its last approach.

  And then there was a disconcertingly familiar flash of light. An outline snapped into focus to her right, and slowly solidified. It was Cally, wearing a tatty thermal suit and no helmet. Wasn’t she going to asphyxiate?

  Cally seemed to have her lips tightly closed. Perhaps she was holding her breath.

  ‘How did you get here…?’ Jenna’s words stumbled to a halt as she listened to her own echoing voice. Cally would be unable to hear her words. Jenna reached for the clasps that held her helmet in place.

  ‘I’m glad to see I have got your attention now,’ said Cally’s cheerful voice in Jenna’s mind. As Jenna raised her hand to her helmet, Cally reached out and clipped a teleport bracelet around her wrist.

  ‘No!’ Jenna called. The cry echoed unheard within her helmet. She shook her head, and mouthed the word again.

  ‘Do not argue with me, we have no time.’