'As you wish.' he replied through gritted teeth before taking out all his anger on the unfortunate Lieutenant in front of him. 'Full speed ahead, or I'll have your guts for garters!'
Despite not wishing to become an extremely impractical item of clothing, the Lieutenant nevertheless had to protest the action. 'Sir, the engine room reports that even the sub-light engines have been burnt out from evading the Voravians for so long.'
'Target the shuttle's engines then!' Anne shouted at him, clearly intimidated by the Professor's dire warning.
The security officer on the receiving end of this didn't look to Darwin before accepting the order, plotting in a course for the fire so that it didn't destroy the shuttle, merely crippled its engines.
'We have enough energy left for a few shots, sir. That should be enough to take the shuttle out at this range. Firing now.'
Darwin scowled at him, unhappy that things were proceeding without his say-so. 'This had better work, or you'll not step foot on my bridge again.'
The lasers shot out into space and scored a direct hit on the vessel in question, slowing it considerably and preventing it from reaching the rogue vessel.
'Excellent!' the Captain crowed. 'Now we just need to...'
'Captain!' yelped the Lieutenant, cutting him off.
'What now?' Darwin seethed, spinning round in his chair and nearly falling over.
'The rogue vessel sir, it's moving to intercept the prone shuttle!'
'Fire all weapons!'
The security guard gave him a rather sour look. 'Sir, I just told you that we have expended our energy with those final shots.'
Darwin stared helplessly out at the ship in question, grinding his teeth together. 'We can't just sit here and do nothing!' he turned to Anne then. 'Are there no other ships nearby that could aid us?'
It was Anne's turn to scowl. 'You were warned, Captain Darwin. All of this hinges upon you, there are no ships that can return quickly enough to prevent what will happen now.' she addressed the security officer then, almost as if the Captain had ceased to exist since becoming beneath her recognition. 'You will divert energy from life support to sustain a final blast at the enemy.'
The usually stern-faced officer blinked. 'You can't be serious... that will kill almost all the crew!'
Anne stared at him, patting the pistol on the side of her hip.
'Very well then.' the mollified officer coughed. 'Preparing for one final assault on the rogue vessel.'
Darwin watched on, completely forgotten about and totally out of control. The damn ship had docked with both the shuttle and the escape pod that had shot back into it.
Now it turned.
Now it was heading toward him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
'Their ship is dead in the water, and the crew are safely onboard, Captain Semaj.' the floating cheesecake gurgled at him. 'What are your orders?'
The Captain looked as if he was coming out of doing a rather odd yoga stretch, his eyes still transfixed by the fishing game that constituted the ship's entire system. 'Very good. Now watch this!' he replied, sounding as if he was about to pull off a particularly difficult trick in front of a nearby friend rather than the omnipresent computing system.
'Weeeeeeeeeeee!' Semaj squealed as he dove forward into the viewscreen that displayed the game, vanishing from sight.
'Captain... what are you...? Captain?'
'Yes computer, what is it?' came the sound of Phil Jones on the intercom.
The computer ran a quick diagnostic to assure itself that its systems weren't malfunctioning, then quickly dissimulated the cheesecake facsimile before any of the crew witnessed it.
'I think you had better come to the cockpit immediately.' it finally said. 'I'm not sure what has happened.'
The communications system crackled off in a burst of static that caused Annika to raise her head in groggy surprise.
'That sounded distinctly ominous.' Phil said, still at a loss as to why the ship was here at all but not complaining. The crew had reconvened just outside the airlocks and Smith and Terry had immediately been sent to the medical bay in the arms of RJ and Trigger. That left him in conference with a wounded but surprisingly stubborn Annika.
'I guess we should get to the cockpit and see what's going on.' he prompted to his Lieutenant, who was swaying unsteadily on her feet. 'Are you sure you don't want to join the rest of them in sick bay?'
Annika shook her head. 'You need more than one person to run this ship, Captain. I will be fine.'
Phil knew he didn't have time to argue, and they made their way to the cockpit to find it much as they had left it.
Except for the bubbling pond that was on the viewscreen.
'Computer, what is that?' Annika asked, sinking gratefully into her seat behind the communications desk.
'A generated integration facsimile for the operation of this ship.' the sweet voice chimed.
Phil stared at the bubbling pool. It really didn't look very operational. 'What is it making the ship do?'
'As far as I can tell, the ship is currently on target to collide with the SC Scavanger.'
'What do you mean, as far as you can tell?' Annika pressed, clearly surprised at the computer not being the font of all knowledge.
'The actions of the individual designing and running the facsimile can only be interpreted so much without asking him directly.'
'The individual? What do you mean?' Phil said, voicing the question already on Annika's lips.
'Acting-Captain Semaj designed this program so that he may better interface with the computer, it suits his... sensibilities.'
Semaj. They had forgotten about Semaj. None of them had even thought to ask about what to do with the Doctor while they were gone, they had all either forgotten about him or silently assumed that he would loiter around doing nothing in his medical bay.
Apparently they had been very, very wrong.
'Acting-Captain Semaj?' Annika asked, finding the man's title almost too inexplicable to voice.
'Affirmative.' the computer said. 'In light of there being no other members of the crew on the ship, the power to become Acting-Captain fell upon Doctor Semaj.'
'So you're telling me that this whole thing was Semaj's idea? Flying here to rescue us? Fending off the Voravian fleet? All of it?'
'Affirmative.'
Phil shook his head. It was far-fetched, but then was it any further-fetched than his rise to Captain?
Right now they had other priorities, they needed to get in contact with their missing Doctor and determine both where he was and what he was doing by flying the ship directly into Darwin's vessel.
'Computer, open up a link to wherever the Doctor is now.' Annika demanded, tapping away furiously at her console.
'Huh? What?' the confused voice spluttered out of the intercom.
Annika nodded at Phil, apparently he was supposed to handle this.
'Doctor Semaj, this is Captain Jones. Just what do you think you're doing?'
A pause and further bursts of static.
'You will have to give this some time, Captain.' the computer informed him. 'Transmitting your words to the Doctor requires some complicated processing.'
Phil nodded and steepled his fingers, trying to picture what the other Captains would do in this particular situation.
'You're just going to have to trust me, Captain.' came the comical sound of the medical officer's voice.
Then there was nothing.
'Computer, have you any idea what he's doing yet?' Annika asked.
'Negative.'
'Switch the view screen to forward. I'd rather see what we're crashing into instead of waiting blindly for it to happen.' Phil said.
The bubbling waters were replaced with space, and Earth glowed before them like a huge fluorescent marble in the darkness. It would have been beautiful but for the Human Genome station and the large ship they were heading directly toward.
Oh, and the lasers that were flying in their dire
ction.
'Computer, evasive manoeuvres!' they shouted in unison.
'Negative.' the computer informed them. 'Piloting controls are locked out.'
Doctor Semaj had doomed them all.
Captain Darwin watched as the lasers shot out, and the rogue vessel made no effort to dodge the incoming blast. The taste of egg nog was thick in his mouth now and the glove felt heavy on his clammy hand. Soon it would all be over though, soon they would be rid of Jones and his insipid crew. Then the Scavanger would be repaired and restaffed and those Voravians that remained would get a damn good thrashing. Yes, he would show them all.
'Five seconds until impact!' the security officer informed them, breathing heavily due to the life support that had been sacrificed not only from the ship as a whole but the bridge too.
Then in an instant the ship blinked out of existence, causing the lasers to fly harmlessly through their target and out into the vast emptiness behind them.
'I... I don't understand.' the baffled officer reported. 'They just... vanished!'
As he spoke that final word the ship in question re-materialised, this time much closer to them than before. Still they withheld weaponry. Had they also burned out with their savaging of the Voravian fleet?
Still the ship grew closer, and Darwin was at a loss for words. They couldn't move, they couldn't shoot, they were running out of oxygen and their arch nemesis was fast approaching.
In fact it almost looked as if they were...
'Sir, at their rate of approach it looks as if they are planning to ram us!' the Lieutenant shouted, losing his composure whilst simultaneously voicing Darwin's own suspicions.
'Evasive... oh, yeah.' he said, realising that they were dead in space. 'Shields?'
'Negative sir, we sacrificed all the shield power we had left in that final blast.' the security officer told him.
'Don't just sit there!' Anne screamed, levelling the pistol at his head. 'Do something!'
Darwin looked down at the glove for some inspiration, for some way out of this dire situation. For anything.
The glove remained silent, and all that was left was the strange taste of egg nog in his mouth.
'Open hailing frequencies, Lieutenant.' he said, causing the pistol to lower from his head. Not that he had been paying it much attention given that he was about to die anyway. 'Let's see if we can't talk to Jones one last time.'
'Incoming hail, Captain.' Annika said, sounding reassured at being able to say something routine in such a crazy situation.
'From the Scavanger?' Phil asked, licking his tongue about the inside of his mouth and trying to get the taste of egg nog out of it.
'Yes Captain, it looks like Darwin wants to speak to us before we ram his ship.'
'On screen.'
Time had not been kind to his fellow Captain. The lights were dimmed to a lurid red glow and he was sweating heavily underneath them and struggling for breath as he lay slumped in his chair.
'Jones...' he slurred, fighting for breath. 'It is useless to kill us both, you will accomplish nothing...'
He paused and lifted up a shaking hand upon which the pink glove was still resting. 'I still have the glove, Jones... You cannot best me!'
Phil looked on at the sad state of the man and the wilted crew that surrounded him. They were no threat to anyone right now. He didn't want to tell them that his Doctor had taken control of the ship and he couldn't stop it.
No, let them think he was a hard man, a man of justice without mercy. A man who had a continent bladder in high-pressure situations and wasn't quivering from his boots up at the thought of a fiery death when they collided.
'No. You deserve what you get now.' Phil informed him, trying to keep his voice steady with a hint of menace and a dollop of resolve and not knowing how well he was doing any of it.
Apparently it worked, as Darwin chose that moment to break down into tears.
'Please Jones, please! I'll do anything! Just let me live!'
The woman next to him looked utterly disgusted and took over proceedings.
'Mr. Jones, I was your neighbour for three long months, and I know that not even your stupidity is capable of killing us both.'
Phil squinted at the screen. 'You were my neighbour?'
The woman sighed. 'Cease this pointless exercise and return to Star Command for judgement.'
The way she phrased the process of judgement made dying in a fireball deep in the vacuum of space sound a much more compelling option.
'I think I'll just ram your vessel instead, if that's alright with you.' Phil replied shakily, barely managing it over the increasing flavour of egg nog that pervaded his throat. What was wrong with him?
The transmission terminated. Apparently this woman had heard enough.
'It has been an honour serving under you, Captain.' Annika's soft voice floated over to him. 'Permission to spend my final hours in sick bay with the rest of the crew?'
Phil nodded. 'We'll both go, there's nothing left for us here.'
With that, they both abandoned the cockpit to Semaj's mad devices.
'Their vessel is closing Captain, estimated time of impact is one minute and thirty-five seconds.'
Darwin looked up from the glove on his hand, as if noticing the man for the first time. 'Very good Lieutenant, you may leave the con and do whatever last preparations you see fit before the collision.'
He stood then, staring at the rest of the crew with an expansive sweep of his gaze. 'That applies to all of you, abandon your posts and spend the next minute as you please.'
Whether it was a credit to their incredible courage or more the fact that they only had a few seconds to spend, none of the crew left.
'None of you leaving then?' Darwin asked his silent crew as they stared back at him. 'Very well, prepare your blindfolds... this could get messy.'
The communications officer piped up then. 'Sir, incoming transmission from Grand Admiral Burroughs. Shall I patch it through before donning my blindfold?'
'Belay that suggestion. I don't feel like talking to the insufferable old windbag right now.'
He half-expected gasps of outrage from the crew at such an insubordinate display of emotion from their Captain, but from the looks of things they were in agreement and quite resentful of the Grand Admiral for letting them get into this most likely fatal situation in the first place.
'You're just going to sit there blindfolded until the ship collides?' Anne asked him, only now deigning to accept that Darwin existed.
He shifted his blindfold slightly and rubbed his eyes. 'If you have any better ideas then by all means let me know.'
Anne fell silent, there were no other options. She was out of sprinting distance from any of the escape pods. In her certainty that the final barrage would nail the ship she had cost herself the one chance of escape.
'I guess this is it then. It's a shame we only have a few seconds left before the collision.'
Anne looked down at him as he sat firmly in his chair, no longer lost or out of control. A confident and firm commanding officer that was no doubt the best candidate for the flag ship of Star Command.
'Why do you say that, Captain Darwin?'
He flashed a smile at her then, displaying pearly whites underneath his sweat-streaked face. 'Because my dear, I would most certainly have asked you to join me in my quarters for a time.'
The sharp crack of the slap was loud enough to make several nearby crew men jump and shout as if the ship had struck them. Upon realising that the vessel hadn't hit a few of them tentatively raised their blindfolds in confusion.
'Twenty seconds until impact, Captain.' the Lieutenant informed him.
Darwin's smile was still etched on his face, if anything it had broadened. 'I like feisty women... a real shame we won't be getting better acquainted my dear.'
The second slap was followed by a pistol raised at Darwin's head. 'I may not have the satisfaction of surviving this collision, but I can damn sure have the joy of killing you bef
orehand.'
'Five seconds, Captain.'
The charming smile had gone now, but it had been replaced by a grin. Realisation had dawned on the Captain that this woman genuinely wanted him dead, and that it didn't matter in the slightest. 'Go on then, shoot me.'
Darwin waited as the gun remained pressed firmly against his skull. Any second now and the ship would explode into a million fragments and they'd all die. Then that would be it, no more stupid orders from Burroughs, no more insane ramblings from Hanniman and no more femme fatales with the wrong attitude.
This was an awfully long five seconds, then again he had heard that high pressure situations did funny things to a human mind including but not limited to the expansion of time itself.
He was getting oddly scientific now that the end was drawing near, and he wasn't overly pleased about it either.
'Lieutenant, is it my imagination or have five seconds passed already?'
The exasperated man tapped at the computer console but nothing happened. 'I can't tell Captain, this console has gone dead.'
'Well try the other one then!' Darwin said, voice rising and in his irritation momentarily forgetting his would-be murderer and the gun pressed to his head.
The Lieutenant – it was pointless trying to learn his name now they had mere moments to live – ran over to the next console and started tapping away at it to no avail.
'Perhaps the systems have been compromised by the excessive energy use.' the security officer suggested under his flowery blindfold.
Whatever it was, they were dead in the water.
'How is he holding up?' Annika asked Trigger as they came through the double doors of the sick bay.
The nervous Ensign blinked, as if wondering why she had aimed the question at him and not RJ. 'I... er... which one?'
She cursed herself for being so distracted as to forget that Engineer Stevens had taken serious injury. 'How are they holding up?' she amended.
'RJ has done his best at stabilising Engineer Stevens, I haven't been much use though.'
phil jones2 Page 42
