Kidnapped

by Reilly Lexington

  "We wait," Angela replies.

  "I'm not waiting for two opposing forces to converge on the bridge and start fighting over the starship," I say. "With us sitting duck right in the middle of the battle."

  "Does the ship not have any kind of defensive weapons?" Julie asks.

  "This is a commercial trade ship," Angel says. "Not a warship. We don't have any weapons."

  "Not yet," I mutter under my breath.

  "Sorry?" Angela says.

  "Oh, nothing," I reply. "I was just..."

  All the lights and screens go out and an eerie silence descends around us. A moment later dim emergency lighting flickers on.

  "The power is gone," Julie says.

  "Yes," Angela confirms. "All the controls are dead."

  "What's going wrong now?" I ask.

  "I suspect that one, or both, of the boarding parties have sent out an electromagnetic pulse to disable the ship's systems," Angela says.

  "What can we do?" I ask.

  "Can't you, you know, connect," Julie says.

  "Hmmm," I say. The thought scares me, but not as much as sitting here while the invading armies fight over the ship. Reluctantly I close my eyes and press my hands onto the control panels on the arms of my chair.

  It is like sinking into warm treacle. Everything is slow and sluggish. And all I can feel around me is warm goo. All the ship's systems are dead and unresponsive to me. I can feel nothing of the space around me. None of the sensors are functioning.

  I search deeper and try to touch the engines with my mind, but they feel inert too. "Angela is right, everything is completely dead," I say as I open my eyes. "We can't even jump into hyperspace at the moment."

  "We should hide," Mary says.

  "Where?"

  "In the shuttle," I say. "We've got to cut and run. It's our only chance."

  "I don't know." Julie looks at her blaster.

  "OK," I say. "How do you reload it when it runs out of charge?"

  "Hmm," Julie concedes. "OK, let's make a strategic withdrawal to the shuttlecraft."

  We all stand up and head to the door.

  I step outside first and skid to a halt as I come face to face with a wall of humanoid robots.

  I have just enough time to say, "Oh Fuck!" Before a hail of projectiles sweep down the corridor towards me.

  It feels like I have been stung by a thousand wasps, each with titanium tipped stingers, as I am literally swept off my feet and slammed into a bulkhead.

  # # #

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