Helium3 Box Set by Nick Travers
Chapter 17
The blinding darkness of the globulus ended abruptly.
Loren screamed, ‘Look out,’ They were right on top of the Naga’s warship.
‘We’re going to crash,’ Tarun cried, being brief for once.
‘Dive!’ Aurora shouted, but Mervyn was already ahead of her. Both sleds skimmed under the stationary warship.
The proximity alarm blared out its warning, ‘Target lock! Take immediate avoiding action.’
‘Quarks, they’re powering up their guns,’ Loren said.
‘We’re done for,’ Tarun groaned.
‘Abandon ship!’ Mervyn instructed. ‘Set your pinions to fire on automatic as soon as you are clear.’
‘No. We need a way back,’ Tarun shouted, ‘only in the most extreme circumstances Cage said.’
‘This is extreme,’ Aurora snapped. ‘You wanted to do this. Executing now!’
‘Aurora. No!’
Mervyn grabbed his helmet, snapped it over his head, and lifted the cover off a red button. He stabbed his finger down hard. The mechanism would have worked just as well if he had applied a light stroke, but his adrenaline fuelled body seemed incapable of delicate actions. His seat embraced him in a vice-like grip; hugging him so tightly he could barely move his eyes. Flames filled the cockpit as the canopy above his head blew apart and his ejector seat ignited. He rocketed clear of the sled. Without propulsion he ripped back through the light barrier and passed under the hull of the warship. The force shield, thrown around him by the ejector seat, sparkled as microscopic dust particles slammed into it -- particles travelling so fast they would have killed him as surely as a speeding meteorite had the shield not protected him. Then his suit’s pinion bolt fired.
Nothing in Mervyn’s training had prepared him for the sudden deceleration as the pinion attached itself to the warship’s hull: the line snapped taught, the ejector seat snatched backwards, and the seat struggled desperately to retain its grip on its precious cargo. The seat restrains began to give. A sudden fear of drifting all alone space filled Mervyn’s mind. The immense forces at work on his body were too much and he felt his mind slipping away from him. There was nothing he could do but pray. Vaguely, two explosions registered in his mind before he passed out -- the sleds, he thought.
When Mervyn came round, pain exploded in every muscle of his body as though he had passed through a wringer. The ejector seat was gone. He glanced up quickly, terrified his pinion might have missed. With relief he saw it buried in the hull of the vast ship above, though the movement sent daggers shooting through his head.
The hard white light of the neutron star threw everything into stark relief. In front of him, he could see two pale figures attached by lines. Aurora and Tarun, he guessed. One disentangled itself from its ejector seat, and as he watched, the seat floated slowly away into space. The other was reeling in its umbilical cord towards the warship. Behind him, Mervyn could see Loren already sailing up towards the hull. He realised he should follow their example before someone started shooting at him, or worse: activated the defence shields. To have survived so long only to be locked out would be a disaster.
Gingerly, Mervyn ran through an integrity check of his spacesuit -- no damage, good. ‘Thank you,’ he breathed to no-one-in-particular, and fumbled for the winch control. Silently, his pinion line reeled him towards the warship. The hull loomed above like a vast grey cloud. He scoured the surface for entry points, but all he could see were smooth hull plates and grab handles. Loren reached the hull first and stated hauling herself towards him.
He waited for her, then they touched helmets to talk, ‘Nothing this way, Merv, have you seen anything?’
‘Nothing.’
‘I guess as we have no biolink the sleds are gone.’
‘I saw them explode just before I passed out.’ He could see Tarun, or maybe Aurora, waving a gloved arm for them to come over. He guesses it was Aurora because one leg looked much thicker than the other -- the inflated splint, ‘I think Aurora’s found something. We’d better move before someone turns on the defence shields.’
Mervyn grabbed a handle and released his pinion line -- if he let go now he would drift off into deep space forever. The though made his stomach churn. Making sure at least one hand was clasped around a grab handle at all times, he hauled himself off towards the others. He felt so small against the vastness of space, just a spec on a spec, in never ending blackness. Loren followed. It took an age to crawl along the line of grab handles, but eventually the four friends clustered round a service hatch with their helmets together.
Mervyn glanced at Aurora, she looked deathly pale through her visor, she must have lost more blood then she admitted. Now though was not the time for sympathy, they had more urgent matters to contend with, ‘Loren, how do we open this hatch?’ This was the first gamble, if Loren’s security override had been compromised they were trapped.
‘There’ll be a manual override under one of these flaps.’ She flipped flap. Nothing. Desperately, Mervyn searched for another flap, but Loren had already found it. Mervyn could feel butterflies in his stomach. Loren keyed in a code and a lever popped up. ‘I guess that means Squiggles is still good,’ she said breathlessly.
Mervyn grabbed the lever, ‘Once I pull this, every alarm on the ship will go off. Are we ready?’ He glanced at each of his friends is turn. They all gave a thumbs up. ‘Go.’
Mervyn popped the hatch and one by one they slid into an airlock. This time, for the comfort of his friends, Mervyn remembered to enter feet first. Loren brought up the rear and locked the hatch behind them. Then they waited for the chamber to pressurise and opened the inner door. Mervyn snapped his helmet off and poked his head into the corridor, ‘Someone’s going to come and investigate any moment now,’ he pointed to an air duct. ‘Come on, down the ventilation shaft.’ He yanked a strap off his helmet and attacked the bolts on the grating, just as Loren had taught him so long ago. Tarun and Loren followed suit. Aurora just propped herself weakly against the wall -- she was in a bad way. He shoved Aurora in the duct first, determined to travel at the pace of the slowest -- if they were going to get through this they would do it together.
The sound of pursuit echoed in the corridor outside as they rounded the first bend.
‘Keep going,’ Mervyn whispered, ‘follow the wind.’ They passed into progressively larger ducts, but crawling through a tunnel in a full spacesuit is far from easy, even without a gashed leg and a splint. Progress slowed to a crawl as Aurora struggled to keep going. They would have to rest soon. She made it to the central service well, then collapsed in a heap by a maintenance hatch. It was far enough.
They stripped off their spacesuits and air packs, and stuffed them in another duct, but not before retrieving all the useful tools. Aurora’s leg was a mess. The injected sealing gel, mixed with blood, had coated everything below her waist.
‘Sorry guys,’ Aurora gasped, ‘I’ve got to rest.
Tarun looked from the mess of Aurora’s leg to Mervyn, ‘What now?’
‘Now we contact Guthrik.’