******************************
– Chapter 8 –
Flight of the Skitterbug
Mervyn led them through the network of air ducts until he found their way blocked by another grill. He kicked at the grill until it shattered. Before him stood the towering fusion reactor which powered the ship at super-luminal speeds. Loren opened another service hatch and logged on. ‘Mervyn, there are four bolts. To undo them you turn the wheel on the bolt, wait for the piston to rise, then turn the piston anticlockwise until it clicks. Then wind the piston down again until it locks home. Got it?’
‘Check. We’ll take two each.’
Mervyn squirmed through the opening in the grill and stood in the engine room.
The towering fusion reactor dominated the room: millions of clear marbles stacked in a hollow cylinder and held together by magnetic forces. A skeleton of lasers flickered at the column of marbles, heating the specks of plasma at the centre of each ball to millions of degrees -- a galaxy of miniature stars in a gigantic jar. Magnetic fields, around and through the centre of the column, simultaneously channelled the heat and the super-luminal particles away from the generator. This fusion engine provided the warship with power and propulsion. Four locking bolts, spaced at equal distances round the generator, held the marble column in place.
‘Come on, Loren, but mind yourself on the edges of that grill.’
Mervyn whirled at a sound behind him. The main doors snapped opened. To his horror, the Naga stood in the open doorway backed by a squad of puncheon.
‘You’re good I’ll give you that, kiddies, but too obvious? I could have destroyed you in the air ducts, but I need to know who you’re working for.’
‘Loren, he’s guessed our plan,’ Mervyn hissed over the bionet.
‘Hang on. Merv, let’s see what a level five security can do.’ She tapped frantically at the display. The main doors snapped shut again trapping the Puncheon outside, ‘Gotcha. Uh oh, someone’s trying to override my command.’
‘You stay here and fight them off while I unlock the bolts.’ Mervyn sprinted towards the first locking bolt. He almost made it too, but the sight of a blaster levelled at him from the other side of the room brought him skidding to a halt.
‘Nowhere to run this time, Runt. Tell me who you’re working for and I’ll let you go.’
Mervyn doubted the Naga would ever let him go. He backed away slowly, ‘Why do you want to kill me?’
‘I don’t, I just want to know who you are working for -- then you, and your friends, can go safely on your way,’ the Naga said reasonably and followed.
‘You’ve been trying to kill me since you first saw me. In fact, you waylaid that Silvin trader just to find me. Why? What’s so important that I must die?’
‘It’s nothing personal, kid, just politics. Anyway, now I have your father I no longer need you.’
Mervyn backed away again; ‘You’d already captured my father when you picked us up near Pershwin, yet you still wanted rid of me.’
‘How little you understand. There are forces at work in this Galaxy you know nothing of, and they fear you.
‘I’ve not done anything.’
‘They fear what you might do in the future.’
‘You tell me who these forces are that want me dead, and I’ll tell you who I’m working for,’ Mervyn lied.
‘Just give me the name, Muon, or I’ll finish you right now!’
Mervyn bumped up against a control consul -- trapped. Beads of sweat budded on this brow, but he felt strangely calm -- detached from the scene of his imminent death. They had tried, and so nearly succeeded -- if only they’d been a few seconds faster. He glanced down at the console and a single word leaped out from a button beside his hand: gravity. Without stopping to think he punched it.
Instantly he was weightless. So was the Naga. One moment he stood firmly on the deck the next the slightest movement sent him drifting. Surprise flicked across the Naga’s giant face, chased away by fury. The Naga fired, and the console beside Mervyn exploded throwing him, the Naga, and the blaster in different directions across the chamber. The Naga flailed wildly after the blaster, desperately trying to control himself in the zero gravity. Mervyn was in his element -- the engine room had become an enormous swat pool. He pirouetted towards the wall, pushed off gently, and sailed behind the reactor, hiding himself from view.
He somersaulted down to the nearest locking bolt and turned the small wheel attached to the side of it. A shining piston rose slowly upwards. When it would rise no more he grabbed it with both hands and turned it. Clockwise or anticlockwise? He tried both until a solid clunk sounded round the chamber. He wound the piston back down until it clicked home. The top of the piston turned red -- unlocked. Without warning, a photon blast scattered a shower of white-hot marbles from the fusion column. They seared across the room like bullets -- something else to avoid. The hole filled instantly as the marble column collapsed to fill the space.
Mervyn’s jump took him right to the ceiling from where he could look straight down into the white-hot centre of the reactor. It was so bright he had to shield his eyes from the glare. The Naga had retrieved his blaster, but was still struggling to control his movements in zero-g. He jerked the blaster up for a shot at Mervyn, but the movement threw him backwards into a cartwheel. Mervyn grinned and took the opportunity to sail right over the reactor and unlock a bolt on the opposite side. He was out of sight again before the Naga recovered control.
As he tried to leap to the third bolt, but a photon blast sizzled past his ear. He retreated and tried the remaining bolt. The same happened again -- this time the blast threw him into a back flip. The Naga wedged himself into a cavity where he could cover both the untouched locking bolts. For the moment Mervyn gave up his attempts on the remaining bolts: it was too dangerous. He needed a distraction -- something to occupy the Naga long enough for him to unlock the remaining two bolts. While he was thinking the door jerked open, but slammed shut again almost immediately. How long could Loren hold off the Puncheon?
‘Come out, come out wherever you are,’ the Naga taunted. ‘Do you hear me, Runt, it’s only a matter of time before that door gives.’ Mervyn ignored the Naga’s goading and thought. He searched the engine room for inspiration. Besides the cooling marbles an assortment of other tools hung in the air. He grabbed a passing spanner, but nothing looked as if it would distract for long.
‘My Puncheon are eager, Runt -- they’ll shoot you down as soon as they see you,’ the Naga said reasonably. ‘Best you buzz down here and tell me who your sponsor is, and I’ll let you live.’
‘Your Puncheon? What happened to your humans?’ Mervyn had an idea and reached into a pocket.
‘Unreliable -- ideas above their station. I’ll deal with them when I get back. Now come here!’
Carefully, Mervyn extracted the contents of his pocket. Hardly daring to breathe, he opened his fist, and held the Skitterbug on the palm of his hand like a large jewel. The little mechanical insect looked around as if startled by the light. A superluminal Marble floated past-- now cooled to a dull red. Mervyn closed his fingers on the Skitterbug, took aim, and batted the marble with the spanner. It whizzed towards the chamber wall and rebounded with a thwack towards where he guessed the Naga was hiding. Then he steadied himself, concentrated on controlling every muscle, and gently released the Skitterbug.
‘Loren, whatever you’re doing stop it. Stay perfectly still.’
‘Why?’
‘Just do as I say.’
‘Blast!,’ the Naga’s voice sounded from the other side of the generator.
The bug perked up its head, scuttled to the end of Mervyn’s hand, and took flight. ‘That’s it, off you go,’ Mervyn thought. It buzzed off round the stardrive untroubled by the lack of gravity.
‘Think you’re smart, don’t you, Bright? Well it’ll take more than a hot marble to get you out of this one
. What the... Arrgh!’ The Skitterbug had found its target. He just hoped it was the right target.
‘Loren, are you ok?’
‘Yes, but the Naga’s gone crazy. What’s happening?’ The door opened a crack then slammed again.
‘I’ll explain later. Just keep those Puncheon outside that door.’
Now he moved. He dived towards the remaining locking stations; turn wheel, raise piston, turn, click, wind it down, snap home. One more lock to tackle. He could hear the Naga screaming somewhere above him. He glanced up. The blaster floated tantalising close to the Naga’s grasp, but every time he reached for it the Skitterbug attacked. The more the Naga struggled, the more determined the bug’s attack became. Taking care to move slowly, so as not to attract the Skitterbug’s attention, Mervyn reached the last locking station -- wheel, piston, turn, click, wind, lock.
‘Stardrive unlocked complete. Initiate immediate evacuation,’ intoned a mechanical voice, as unconcerned as if announcing the time of day. ‘Ten seconds to Stardrive ejection’ Mervyn glanced about to get his bearings.
‘Nine.’ He located the shattered grid behind which Loren still fought to secure the main door, though now a white-hot flame puncture the metal.
‘Eight seconds to Stardrive ejection.’ He grinned, nothing could beat Loren’s computer skills and her level five security, so the Puncheon had resorted to cutting their way in.
‘Seven.’ Mervyn launched himself towards the grid.
‘Six seconds to Stardrive ejection.’
‘Look out, Loren, I’m coming in!’
‘Stardrive ejection imminent. Blast door unlock in five seconds.’ Loren grabbed Mervyn and pulled him through the grid into the air duct.
‘Four.’
‘Mervyn, we need to tie these to each other’s jumpsuits -- the other end’s already secured to the ship.’ Loren handed him a bunch of fibre optic wires, their ends glowing where she had cut them out.
‘Three.’
He grabbed the cables out of Loren’s hand and started threading them through one of the grab handles on of her jumpsuit.
‘Brace yourself!’ He jammed himself against the walls of the air duct and continued threading cables. Something knocked against his head. It was Loren’s abandoned multi-tool, several long thin blades projected in different directions. He knocked it away in annoyance and continued tying.
Loren looked past him and screamed. Mervyn spun round and dropped the cables. The Naga’s head appeared at the grill, upside-down -- his dangling mane of hair now matted with blood. One eye looked horribly mutilated, the other burned with madness. He held the blaster in one hand and the struggling Skitterbug in the other: the Naga had them cornered.
‘Two.’
‘Tell me who you’re working for, Bright, or your friend dies right now,’ he levelled his blaster at Loren’s head. She ignored it and finished tying the cables to Mervyn’s jumpsuit.
The Naga frowned as Mervyn too ignored him, grabbed the floating cables and continued tying them to Loren’s suit: one loop, cross over, another loop, and tuck the end under. He hoped the half-hitch would work -- it was the only knot he knew. The multi-tool bumped against his head again.
‘Did you hear me, Bright?’
‘One.’
‘I heard you, but it’s too late.’
‘Blast door unlock complete. Stardrive ejection in progress!’
The Naga glanced around, as if hearing the countdown for the first time. The wild look in his eye dissolved into panic. He looked desperately from the blaster to the Skitterbug trying to decide which to drop.
The warship shook as the Stardrive catapulted into space.
The Naga decided which hand to free up and threw the Skitterbug into the air duct. Then he made a wild lunge for the grill. The Skitterbug obeyed its programming and attacked the most frantically moving object: the Naga’s hand. Desperately, the Naga threw away the blaster, fended off the Skitterbug, and grabbed the grill.
Anything not fastened down followed the stardrive into the vacuum of space. The main doors chose this moment to cave inwards. The squad of Puncheon flew scrabbling into the chamber and disappeared out the blast doors before they knew what was happening.
Mervyn unfroze as a hurricane of escaping air ripped past threatening to suck him along the duct. He jammed himself even harder against the walls.
‘My multi-tool,’ Loren yelled and stretched for the tool as it rocketed along the duct in a torrent of escaping air.
‘Loren, no!’ Too late: Loren lost her grip and followed the multi-tool down the duct like a rifle bullet.
The sudden lack of oxygen cut short the Naga’s shrieks as the blades of the multi-tool embedded themselves in his forehead. In shock he let go of the grill, and still fending off the Skitterbug, followed the stardrive through the blast doors.
The breath whooshed from Mervyn’s lungs, and he found himself unable to breathe. His eyes felt as if they would explode out of his head and his ears ached beyond bearing -- this is what it’s like to suffocate in space.
‘Mervyn!’ Loren tried frantically to brace herself against the air duct again, but the storm of escaping air was just too strong. She shot to the end of the duct, smashed through the grill, and tumbled into the engine room. A hollow sick feeling grasped Mervyn’s stomach as he watched his friend follow the Naga towards the open blast doors -- he wished he’d spent longer learning about knots. The umbilical of bunched optic fibres snapped taut, and Mervyn’s half-hitch held. In relief he watched Loren spin like a tethered kite in a hurricane: she was safe. Then, he noticed the cables rubbing madly against the edges of the smashed grill. He watched in horror as one by one they parted.
‘Loren!’ He screamed wordlessly and launched himself down the duct. He burst through the grill, like a sled blasting into space , and grabbed the slippery cables as the last one separated. While he still had a little slack he looped Loren’s umbilical round and round his wrist.
Agony lanced through his shoulder as his own cable snapped taut. He tried to scream, but there was no air left in his lungs. He knew instantly his shoulder had dislocated. He glanced down -- his hand was numb, and turning purple, but the cord had not slipped: he still held the end of Loren’s kite string. Pain fizzed into every part of his body: gas escaping from the blood in his arteries as the pressure dropped -- the bends. Soon his blood would boil and he would die.
Still unable to breathe, and in danger of blacking out, he glanced up. In horror he saw the jagged grill now slicing through his own umbilical. Even as he watched the last cable parted.
‘Noooooo.’ The pain in his shoulder abated as the umbilical yielded. The terror of open space rushed towards them.
‘Stardrive ejection complete.’ The blast doors ground slowly shut as the friends hurtled towards the sliver of space. Terrified, Mervyn knew the doors were too slow -- nothing could save them now.
Lights suddenly exploded in Mervyn’s mind as unbearable pain erupted in his shoulder again. The whipping umbilical had snagged on the skeleton of lasers -- now devoid of anything to heat. Agony had never been so welcome.
‘Blast doors secured. Air pressure equalising. Auxiliary power diverting to life-support.’
A few moments later the ship shook again. The marbles of the stardrive, denied of the cooling effects of the magnetic helix, and able to crowd together at last, turned critical. Mervyn took great gasps of oxygen as the air pressure returned; the pain in his ears subsided, his eye’s sunk back into his face, and his blood liquefied again. His throbbing shoulder floated uselessly at his side, but they were alive.
They had worked Guthrik’s miracle -- they had crippled a warship. He just hoped the human acted on the signal. He needn’t have had any worries on that score because a few moments later the mechanical voice calmly called the warship to battle stations.
‘Poor Skitterbug,’ Loren panted. ‘She deserved better than that.’ br />
Mervyn struggled to free himself from the optic cables that had saved their lives, ‘Come on, we’d better find the others.’
Suddenly, the sound of clapping, echoing round the chamber, made him freeze. He searched for the source of the applause and jumped in surprise as Lord De Monsero strode towards him.
‘Bravo, Master Bright, bravo. Quite the son of your father, aren’t you -- he would be proud of you.’ Rage clouded Mervyn’s mind and despite his useless arm he readied himself to spring at De Monsero. ‘Please do not trouble yourself, Master Bright, I am not really here – though I am not far away.’ As if to confirm this fact, the image flickered, then solidified again.’ Mervyn relaxed, De Monsero was just a hologram. ‘In fact,’ De Monsero continued, ‘there is nothing what-so-ever to connect me to this time, or this place, or this little misadventure.’
‘Your misadventure,’ Mervyn flung back.
De Monsero grimaced, ‘Quite.’
‘Except the spybot, of course.’
De Monsero held up an orange canister, ‘This spybot?’
‘You’re bluffing.’
De Monsero frowned in disapproval, ‘I do not bluff. That worthless rodent, Valna, was in my pay all along.’ He registered the look of shock on Mervyn’s face, ‘Yes, he betrayed you.’
Mervyn had no stomach for a speech so he interrupted, ‘What happens now?’
‘The humans and pirates fight for a few hours, then the pirates surrender. Without their energy core they cannot possibly win – a stroke of genius I had not anticipated.’
‘And us?’
‘You can take your chances waiting for rescue, hopping this rusting battleship does not break up under the human’s pounding, or you can steal my personal shuttle in bay six. Your choice.’
Mervyn could not hide his puzzlement, ‘You chased us half across the galaxy trying to do us in and now you’re just going to let us go? It doesn’t make sense.’
De Monsero pulled his face into a grimace which Mervyn suspected was as close to a smile as that face would ever get, ‘Right now you are worth more to me alive than dead.’
Loren struggled to her knees, ‘It’s Rufus, isn’t it? You need people to stand up to him and you know we are the only ones who will.’
De Monsero ignored her and continued to address Mervyn, ‘if my good-for-nothing son is to grow into the leader Ethrigia needs he must cut himself on some worthy opponents. Your so-called, Misfits, are the stones on which he will grind himself until he becomes the incisive instrument required to save Ethrigia.’
‘By allying Ethrigia to the Centaph?’ Mervyn scoffed, ‘that’s not survival, that’s a life worse than death. Better to grow the Galactic Alliance until it becomes strong enough to stand up to the Centaph.
‘Fool,’ De Monsero snapped, ‘That will only draw the Centaph’s attention towards us all the quicker. Your father suffered the same romantic delusions.’
‘That’s because he’s right,’ Mervyn shouted back, losing his temper at last. ‘Anyway, I ...no, we – me and the Misfits -- are going to grind your son into star dust so he never becomes Patriarch.’
De Monsero grinned again, ‘You do that, Mr Bright, you do that – if you can.’ Explosions rocked the battleship and the image of De Monsero looked nervously over its shoulder then disappeared.
Loren struggled to her feet, ‘To the shuttle?’
Mervyn hesitated, unwilling to accept help from De Monsero. There was no way to take De Monsero’s shuttle without him knowing. It represented a defeat, an humiliation, but for the sake of his friends did he have a choice? For a moment Mervyn considered giving up the Academy just to spite Lord De Monsero, but only for a moment. He still wanted to become galactic champion and the Academy was the only way to achieve that aim. Now though it wasn’t the most important thing. He had responsibilities to his friends, to his team, to the Misfits. Better to swallow his humiliation and let the Misfits fight another day – who else was going to stop De Monsero and save the alliance?
‘To the shuttle,’ he said helping Loren towards the ventilation shaft.
‘I take it you have a plan,’ she said.
‘What do you think?’ and together they grimed like conspirators despite the pain of their wounds.