Chapter 21
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.’
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.’ Then he laughed to himself, ‘Win or lose, Mr Bright, you’re working for me now.’
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.