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– Chapter 6 –
‘Thanks Aurora -- you stuck your neck out for us there,’ Mervyn said later when the Misfits were alone in the ship’s brig.’ He stared at his friends through the shimmering bars that separated them.
‘Yeah, thanks for getting us into this mess Aurora,’ Loren muttered from a corner of her cage where she fiddling with the probe. ‘If we’d stayed with the rest of the class we’d be safely back on Academy One by now.’
Aurora glared at Loren, but her voice was contrite, ‘I was just curious.’
‘That’s usually Mervyn’s vice.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself, Aurora,’ Tarun said through the bars, ‘they would have got us sooner or later.’
‘How do you mean?’ Mervyn asked.
‘They knew who we were before they’d even seen us, remember. They weren’t just trawling for any old victims, they were lying in wait for us -- hunting us. If they hadn’t caught us today, then they would have got us on another trip, these people don’t just give up you know.’
‘And that’s going to help us how?’ Loren asked from her corner. The others ignored her.
‘We will soon be missed. My uncle will rescue us,’ Aurora said confidently.
‘Ah, got it,’ Loren exclaimed. Mervyn turned to see her holding up the probe. Somehow she had managed to split it open. She held up a hair slide, ‘Useful little things aren’t they? Don’t suppose you use them any more, Aurora.’
Aurora ran her fingers through the spiky clumps where once luscious curls had hung, ‘Can you get us out of here?’
‘Hmm, maybe, but I can’t do it alone -- I’ll need some help,’ Loren dived into the electrical components and began to disassemble the probe.
Mervyn peered closely at his friend, ‘You mean us... help you?’
‘Of course. We are a team, aren’t we?’
‘Yeh, sure.’ He was so used to Loren doing her own thing he sometimes forgot she couldn’t do everything.
‘Mervyn, would you mind standing between me and that camera? Thanks, and pass this to Aurora, she needs to hide it about her person somewhere,’ Loren slid a circuit through the bars.
‘Why me?’ Aurora asked.
‘Because as soon as they realise what I’m doing they’re gonna come running in here and search me.’
‘And not search me?’
‘What, and risk damaging the Naga’s goods? I don’t think so’
Mervyn thought he understood the logic of this, but it didn’t sound very convincing. Still, any plan was better than none. Loren seemed to have great difficulty with the probe. She spent a lot of time scratching her head, perhaps only having a hair clip to work with was the problem. It took a lot longer for the guards to become curious that Mervyn expected. By the time a couple of guards came crashing through the door, Loren had stripped down the probe to its casing. All four of them had pieces stuffed up their sleeves, in their pockets, shoes, and anywhere else they could think of.
The guards were velcats, an aggressive race, but not famed for their intelligence, which might account for the delay. The fury beings levelled their guns at Loren and ordered her to surrender the probe. Their ears twitched as they waited, and they eyes swept round the room as if expecting her to conjure up a rescue party. She snapped the case closed and handed it over without complaint. One of the Velcats snatched it through the bars. If Loren had booby trapped it the velcats wouldn’t have stood a chance. They were even thicker than Mervyn had been led to believe.
‘The tool too,’ snarled one of the velcats showing its pointed teeth. Loren handed over a pointed piece of metal from the probe clever, Mervyn thought. The velcats produced a portable scanner and waived it around Loren’s body, searching for whatever might be hidden. Every time something showed up on their screen they put a gun to her head and demanded she hand it over. It was an effectively simple way to search their victim. Once Loren had handed over a small pile of components the velcats moved on to their other prisoners. Mervyn and Tarun reluctantly handed over all the electrical bits and pieces Loren had passed to them. Only the items in Mervyn’s shoes escaped detection. Finally the velcats searched Aurora. At first she gamely refused to hand over the electronics, even when they pointed a gun at her head. She must have been scared, because Mervyn could see a vein pulsating in her temple and beads of sweat on her brow.
‘Go on then,’ Aurora said, ‘shoot me, see what the Naga has to say about that.’ The velcats didn’t even hesitate: they shifted their aim to Loren instead. Aurora deflated before Mervyn’s eyes and meekly handed over everything the velcats demanded.
‘Well that worked well then,’ Mervyn muttered once the velcats had left. A growing tide of helplessness threatened to overwhelm him. Loren’s plan had given him the hope that somehow they might just be able to escape. Now, with a rising sense of panic he realised they were trapped and powerless.
‘Loren, I though you said they wouldn’t dare search me,’ Aurora said.
‘I lied. It wouldn’t have worked if you’d known you were the decoy,’ Loren said with a wink, ‘Don’t worry, they didn’t get anything important.’ Mervyn wondered what she meant, then noticed a thin wire poking out from under her thick curls.
‘Uh Loren, there’s something....,’ and he indicated the spot on his own head. Quickly she wound the wire into her flaming locks until it disappeared.