What was certain, however, was that it was under the command of Servalan.
She peered from the screen at them, like she was conducting an unannounced inspection. ‘Oh dear,’ she tutted. ‘You are in a spot of trouble.’
‘Servalan,’ Blake said. ‘We are unable to control our approach vector, but pose no threat to you. We advise you to keep away.’
Servalan smiled broadly. ‘I advise you to surrender, Blake.’
A fresh rattle shook the flight deck as the ship picked up speed. ‘You need to listen to me, Servalan.’
‘No, you need to obey me, Blake.’ Her smile and fake bonhomie had abruptly dissipated. ‘Escort Group Nine is ready to take control of the Liberator.’ She leaned to one side, beckoning to one of her subordinates. A short, nervous man with a thin moustache trembled in anticipation of her next order. ‘General Howells, target that ship. It is unarmed, and it is mine.’
Blake struggled to his feet. He felt that he had to stand right in front of the view screen. To confront her directly. To show her that he was in command. That he was not afraid. ‘The aliens are right behind us.’
‘And my fleet is right behind me.’ She looked to General Howells, who confirmed whatever she was looking for. ‘So, consider Liberator to be… the spoils of war.’
Blake felt the moment weigh down on him more pressingly than before. ‘Which side are you on, Servalan?’ he asked quietly.
‘Her own, as always.’ Avon had come to stand next to him. He too stared defiantly back at the main view screen. ‘To Servalan, everyone and anyone is a potential enemy. More so than ever, now.’
Servalan merely smiled back at them from the screen, utterly unmoved.
Behind them, Cally suddenly gasped. Blake whirled around just in time to see her clutch her temples. Her eyes rolled up into her head and, with a further cry of shock and pain, she slipped from her seat and onto the rubble-strewn floor.
Blake hurried over to her, checked her pulse, and put her in the recovery position.
He didn’t have time to do more, before Zen’s announcement filled the flight deck.
‘INFORMATION. THE PLANETOID MEGIDDO HAS REACHED THE ALIEN FLEET, AND EXPLODED. PLASMA EXPANSION WAVE IS APROACHING AT SPEED STANDARD BY FOURTEEN.’
‘Here it comes!’ yelled Vila.
Blake hurried back to his seat. ‘Zen, on screen!’
‘CONFIRMED.’
Where previously the view beyond the defence grid had been a black, almost starless vista of space, now there was a violent flow of undulating yellow-white energy surging towards them. Megiddo no longer existed, and in its place was this concentrated hub of pure energy. It roiled and churned and bloomed to fill the whole of the screen.
The image zoomed out to provide the wider context. Between Liberator and the plasma explosion, the alien fleet looked like a scattering of dark specks against the approaching firestorm. One by one they winked out of existence, bursting even brighter for a transient moment before vanishing forever. A few at first, then handfuls, then swathes of the fleet.
‘INFORMATION. THE PLASMA EXPLOSION WAVE WILL OVERTAKE LIBERATOR IN THIRTY SECONDS.’
‘The aliens were too close to escape it,’ gasped Vila. ‘But can we outrun the blast?’
The screen cut back to reveal Servalan. She was studying the scene on the Liberator flight deck with an indulgent smile.
‘You think you have us,’ Blake told her coldly. ‘But you’re wrong.’
‘Ah,’ she nodded. ‘The famous Blake optimism. Well, you really have no option. You must surrender.’ She faltered at some fresh interruption. ‘Oh, what is it now, Howells?’
The General was whispering something urgently to her. Her smug smile faltered, then vanished.
‘There’s a what…?’
‘Your apocalypse device, Madam President,’ Blake explained. ‘Megiddo has destroyed itself, and everything in its vicinity. And the plasma explosion is still expanding. So even if you survive this shock wave, you are not getting your hands on my ship.’
Servalan had stood up now. She appeared to be clutching at objects around her, slapping away the attentions of General Howells and her crew. ‘No!’ she muttered. ‘No!’
Perhaps she was also clutching at straws, thought Blake. Making an attempt to flee. Though he had no idea where she thought there was left for her to run.
‘Goodbye, Servalan. I wish I could say it had been a pleasure.’
He jabbed a finger at the comms, and cut the connection.
‘I think that’s the last we’ll see of her,’ said Avon.
‘INFORMATION. PLASMA EXPANSION WAVE WILL OVERTAKE LIBERATOR IN TEN, NINE, EIGHT…’
‘It might be the last we see of anyone,’ said Blake calmly.
The countdown continued as Avon faced him. ‘She’s not getting her hand on whose ship?’
Blake put his hand on Avon’s shoulder. ‘Our ship.’
Avon smiled. ‘That will do for now.’
Blake seized the console in front of him, and held on tight. ‘Brace yourselves!’
‘… THREE, TWO, ONE.’
And the plasma wave struck.
Chapter 24
Abandon Ship
The hull suit felt suffocating. Jenna tried to heave in another deep breath, but it hurt her lungs. There was a pressure on the side of her face, but when she squinted sideways in the restrictive helmet she could see nothing.
What she could see was Liberator, spinning silently on her axis in the distance. Jenna reached her hands out towards the ship, but it slipped further and further into the distance.
There was a tugging sensation on her outstretched arm, though she saw nothing in front of her now except the emptiness of space. Her suit was rotating her away from Liberator, slowly, slowly. She twisted her head in the helmet to keep her eyes on the ship, until she had turned too far.
When her body had revolved back to face the ship, it was too far away to identify. Just another brilliant white dot indistinguishable from the surrounding stars.
She needed to call out to the ship. She wanted to let the others know where she was. But there was a strange kind of peace inside her, and the words would not come.
‘Jenna! Come back!’ Vila’s voice was loud and insistent in her ear.
‘Don’t shout, Vila,’ she mumbled.
‘Cally, come on!’ Vila shouted.
‘Don’t shout,’ she insisted. ‘Just speak normally into your helmet microphone.’
The alarm sound in her suit was more insistent, dragging her back.
Alarm sound?
‘Jenna!’
She awoke to find herself slumped over her own console. She was still clutching the flight controls, her face pressed awkwardly against one of the arms. That was what had prevented her being thrown to the floor of the flight deck. The warning alarm continued to sound out across the room.
‘Oh, Jenna!’ Vila was right next to her, shaking her by the arm. He grinned with delight as she stared blearily up at him. ‘She’s all right, Blake!’
‘Good,’ called Blake from the other side of the room. ‘Zen, shut that alarm off. We know there’s a problem.’
‘CONFIRMED.’
The insistent alarm squawked into silence. Now Jenna could hear the fizzing and sparking of loose electrical cables. The scoosh of fire extinguishers wielded by her crewmates. The wavering, uncertain note of the Liberator‘s failing engines. Vapour hissed in thin lines from fractured conduits across the ceiling of the flight deck.
Blake was beside her. ‘You did a brilliant job. You steered us away from the worst of the plasma blast.’
‘We caught the edge of it,’ Avon explained, ‘but we think the worst of it has dissipated.’
Jenna stared at the wreckage of the flight deck. ‘Doesn’t look like it.’ A jolting memory made her sit bolt upright. ‘Where is Cally?’
‘I’m here. I’m all right.’ Cally walked around to see Jenna, pale but evidently unhurt.
‘You collapsed,�
�� Jenna said.
Cally gave her a thin smile. ‘It was the Megiddo operators. For a moment, I was overwhelmed by their thoughts. Their final purpose. Or their final farewell, I’m not sure.’ She closed her eyes briefly. When she opened them again, her smile had faded sadly away. ‘They are gone now. I have lost them.’
Jenna rose from her seat, and embraced Cally.
‘Their work was done,’ Blake observed briskly. He stood before the main computer display. ‘Zen, what’s happened to the alien fleet?’
‘THE PLASMA EXPLOSION FROM MEGIDDO DESTROYED THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN ALIEN VESSELS.’
‘And the Federation fleet?’
‘SIXTY PERCENT DESTROYED.’
Avon brushed dust from the sleeves of his tunic. ‘The remains of the plasma explosion would have washed right past Liberator and over the fleet like a tsunami.’ He tapped at a display, and registered the data with bleak satisfaction. ‘I’m reading scattered remains over the whole quadrant.’
Cally was checking her own instruments. ‘The rest are on a hunt-and-kill along with the civilian craft. They’re pursuing the few remaining enemy vessels.’
‘Then we can get after them. Help them finish the job.’ Blake gave a great laugh of delight that broke down into a coughing fit. He hugged his sides to stem the pain. Jenna could see he was struggling, so she went across to him.
He hugged her in delight. His legs faltered a little, and she held him closer for support. There was a sheen of sweat across his face. He smiled weakly. ‘We’ve done it!’
A fresh shower of sparks scattered across the front of the flight deck. The main view screen flickered and went dark.
‘I think you mean we’re done for,’ said Vila.
Blake’s brow furrowed as another thought crossed him mind. ‘What about Servalan?’
‘Who the hell cares?’ Vila said. He seized an extinguisher and began to attack the fire beneath the view screen. A further furious flash of light and smoke sent him scuttling back out of the way again.
‘Vila’s right,’ Avon snapped. ‘Liberator is spinning out of control. All the instrumentation on the flight deck is failing or unreliable.’
Blake’s eyes narrowed. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying it’s time to leave.’
‘What do you mean?’ Blake insisted.
‘INFORMATION. NAVIGATION COMPUTERS NOW AT SIX PERCENT EFFICIENCY. LIFE SUPPORT IS AT ELEVEN PERCENT. AUTO-REPAIR SYSTEMS REMAIN CRITICAL.’
Avon smiled grimly and pointed at the flashing display of the main computer. ‘Zen is saying it’s time to leave.’
‘You mean abandon the fight?’
‘I mean abandon ship.’
‘Abandon ship?’ said Vila. He’d retreated from the fire at the front of the flight deck, and dropped the extinguisher to the floor. ‘What, just run away?’
‘Think of it as playing to your strengths,’ Avon told him.
Jenna felt Blake tense. He gently disengaged from her embrace, but his voice was anything but gentle. ‘We can’t run.’
Avon rounded on him. ‘Then stay here and die on your own, Blake. A glorious death, witnessed by no-one, signifying nothing. Hardly your style.’
Blake was furious. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
Their argument was interrupted by another insistent alarm.
Jenna scanned the readout quickly. ‘System malfunction. Blocks four through six are offline.’
Vila peered at the readout too. ‘That’s not good, is it?’
Avon was already moving across the flight deck, checking additional displays and making swift decisions. ‘The evacuation protocols are cutting out.’ His tone was crisp, efficient, calm. As though the argument had never happened. ‘Vila, you’ll need to prepare the life-support capsules manually.’ He looked at Vila, who was frozen with indecision. ‘Go on!’
‘You don’t have to tell me twice,’ Vila said. He took a few steps towards the exit, then spun round again. ‘Er… wait a minute. Port or starboard?’
Avon glared at him. ‘Does it matter?’
‘All right,’ admitted Vila, ‘you do have to tell me twice. It’s all very confusing.’
Avon was no longer in any mood to argue. ‘Port side,’ he snapped. ‘Go on!’
Jenna heard a further alarm ring out. Cally was already rushing to check the indicators. ‘It’s getting worse. System malfunction on blocks two and three.’
Avon stared at Vila, who was still hesitating by the exit. ‘Vila,’ he ordered coldly, ‘go and check the life-support capsules.’
Vila’s seemed to shake himself into action. ‘On my way.’ And then he was gone.
Avon didn’t even watch him leave. He was already looking at the main computer. ‘Zen, status report.’
‘DAMAGE TO THE NAVIGATION COMPUTERS IS BEYOND THE PRESENT CAPACITY OF THE AUTO-REPAIR SYSTEMS. THE TELEPORT MALFUNCTION IS NOW TOTAL. AUTOMATIC SHUTDOWN HAS BEEN IMPLEMENTED.’
‘Jenna, bring Orac.’
Jenna watched Avon slide Orac out from the side cabinet. It had protected the computer from the worst of the beating that Liberator had received. Her quizzical expression must have told him she didn’t understand why he was entrusting Orac to her.
‘I’ll go and fetch the protective case,’ he explained, and started for the exit.
There was something missing, thought Jenna. Something important. ‘Wait! Where’s Orac’s key?’
Avon waved the thin transparent block at her over his shoulder as he left the flight deck. ‘Where d’you think?’
Blake sat down heavily at a control console next to Jenna. ‘Did you suppose he’d trust anyone else with that?’ he grunted.
The grunt became a groan. Jenna saw that he was in a very bad way. His face was ashen, and sweat plastered his curly hair across his forehead. A bright red patch had seeped through the side of his tunic.
‘Your wound is bleeding again, Blake.’
He gestured to dismiss her ministrations, but she eased his hands aside. ‘Stop waving your arms around, and remain seated.’
Blake’s shoulders slumped in acquiescence. ‘We can’t just abandon Liberator,’ he protested. ‘Not after all this.’ He unwisely chose to gesticulate around the flight deck again, and winced in agony.
‘Here.’ Cally crouched down beside them. She held a flat blue box with a small indicator screen and attachment clips. ‘The portable medipack will stabilise the wound, until you reach the life capsule.’
‘No,’ coughed Blake.
Jenna was pleased to see that Cally accepted no nonsense from her patient. She placed the medipack across Blake’s injury and affixed it to his tunic with brisk efficiency. The device activated with a shrill warble, and Blake sighed deeply.
‘All right, it’s working.’ Jenna watched Blake’s face relax, the tension seeping away from him as the medipack took effect. She knew that it could give patients the illusion that they were less injured than they actually were. Blake would need to be supervised closely, or his over-exertion could kill him.
Jenna put her hand on Cally’s shoulder. ‘You take Orac. Please. I’ll make sure Blake gets off the ship.’
Cally hesitated for a moment, looking at her earnestly. Jenna hoped she wasn’t going to quibble.
‘We’ll see you soon,’ Jenna insisted.
‘Very well.’
Cally straightened, and went over to pick up Orac. She hefted the computer in her hands, getting the balance right before she left. Jenna thought Cally might make one last attempt to argue with her. To persuade Jenna that she should stay.
Jenna shook her head. Cally smiled sadly, and walked quickly up the steps from the flight deck, on the way to her rendezvous at the life capsules.
She didn’t look back. Jenna watched her disappear through the exit. She almost called after her, but then she heard Cally’s soft voice in her mind.
‘Good luck, my friend.’
A fresh explosion rocked the flight deck. Sparks rained down from the ceiling
like a summer shower. Jenna leaned over Blake to protect him from the debris, which scattered over her shoulders and back.
‘All right, Blake. We can’t stay on the flight deck any longer.’ She helped him carefully to his feet. ‘And just for once, do as you’re told!’
Chapter 25
The Way Back
Blake stumbled through the Liberator corridors, half supported by Jenna. He didn’t want to lean on her too heavily. That would slow them both down. But the knifing pain in his side meant that he could barely stand. He hardly liked to think what it would be like without the medipack. It continued to trill its warbling, high-pitched note against his ribs.
Nor did he like to think what they were doing. Abandoning ship. It had been all he could do to let Jenna lead him from the flight deck. He’d fixed his eyes on the route ahead of them, determined not to look over his shoulder. Not to take a final glance. He would see it again, he was sure of that. Once the auto repairs had been given time to do their work.
And there would be plenty of work to do. The corridor lights around them flickered and failed. The sounds of explosions rumbled through them, distant echoes of the rumbling destruction wrought by the alien attack and the plasma wave.
The pain in his side stabbed again. Blake staggered to a halt, gasping.
‘Not far now,’ Jenna said.
He took his weight off her for a moment, and slumped against the wall. It felt hot through his tunic. They couldn’t wait here much longer.
Jenna smiled encouragingly, but her eyes suggested she had doubts. ‘You can make it.’
‘Or die trying,’ he muttered.
‘Where’s that famous Blake optimism?’ Jenna’s scolding look made him smile.
Above their heads, the ship-wide intercom chimed, a distorted version of its usual cheerful sound. The speakers crackled, and Vila’s voice was barely audible over the growling of Liberator‘s dying engines. ‘Avon?’
‘Speaking of optimists…’ Jenna said.
‘The life capsules are operational!’ Vila was saying. ‘Let’s get out while we still can! Avon? Avon!’
Blake’s 7: Warship Page 13
