“That’s great Angelique! I told you you’d get us out of this!”
Angelique flinched for a moment then shook her head and smiled.
“Well, the clock’s ticking,” she sighed, taking Ryann’s helmet from him. “I’m going to need to borrow this, I’ll go down to the engineering deck to re-route the power. How much air did you say it has in it?”
“Not long,” mumbled Ryann. “About an hour and a half an hour at most.”
“You’re going to lose a lot of air into the companionway beyond the cabin when I open up this hatch. You may end up with less time than me, but I can’t think what else to do.”
“Do do you think we’ll have enough to get to the Ibis?” asked Ryann, helping her on with her helmet; she brushed him off impatiently.
“We’ll find out in about half an hour,” she replied with a grim smile. “I’ll stay on the other side of the hatch after I’ve re-routed power to the thrusters,” she said, grabbing a few more tools from a stowage bin. “We can’t afford to lose any more air in opening up the cabin again. But the moment those thrusters are online, just get us straight to the Ibis.”
“Take care Angelique,” said Ryann softly as they stood before the hatch that led to the rest of the ship. “Don’t take any risks. If it looks too messed-up down there, just come back and we’ll find another way.”
“It’s you that’s the risk-taker,” she said with a weary laugh, her voice muffled inside her helmet. “Get ready — I need to get through and seal the hatch before you lose all the air that’s left.”
She took a deep breath, closing her eyes for a moment.
“Okay, ready?” Ryann held his hand out to her and she gripped it tightly before taking hold of the hatch’s locking-lever.
“Three, two, one…”
CHAPTER FIVE
COUNTING DOWN
Ryann sat with his ear pressed against the hatch for what seemed like an eternity. His mind span in endless scenarios as he ran through lists of possible dangers that Angelique might face as she traversed the darkness of their wrecked ship.
He jumped at the sound of three sharp bangs on the other side of the door.
“Ryann? Ryann, can you hear me?”
His heart leapt and he almost cried out in relief.
“Angelique! Thank God! Are you okay? Did you manage to re-route the thrusters?”
“Yes, you should have power to your flight-station now,” came back her muffled reply. “But it won’t be much — the emergency batteries will drain fast, so use the thrusters sparingly. The solar array is completely destroyed so once the batteries are dead, they won’t recharge. I just hope you’ve got enough power to shake us free of all this wreckage.
“Everything’s pretty messed up out here — I thought I might find some more emergency air-tanks kicking about but no luck.”
“Well, great work Angelique,” Ryann called back through the hatch. “I knew you’d come up with something — I just knew it!”
“We’ve got a long way to go yet Ryann,” he heard her reply in a sombre voice.
“How much air have you got left?”
“Probably more than you. About thirty minutes, maybe a little less. You better get going, let me know when you reach the Ibis and I’ll get an airline attached — assuming that she’s still got any air. Are you sure that you can find your way back to her?”
“I’ll find her,” he replied, his hand pressed against the cold metal. “I wish you could come back in Angelique,” he finished hesitantly.
“Yeah, you really wouldn’t want me to open up this door again though would you? Go on, get going — you don’t know how much air you’ve got left in there. I’ll be waiting right here — I’m not going anywhere. Just tell me when we get to the Ibis.”
“Okay Angelique,” he said in a quiet voice. “Just take care — I’ll get us there, I promise.”
He got to his feet and picked his way back through the debris that littered the cabin floor then slumped heavily into his grav-seat.
“Come on baby, don’t let us down,” he muttered under his breath as he tentatively brought the flight-controls back online.
To his relief, one-by-one he saw green lights flashing into life across the board.
“You did it Angelique!” he called back over his shoulder. “It’s working!”
Dabbing lightly at the attitude thrusters, he felt the Raven shudder slightly. A low screech of metal ran throughout the hull and the ship came to a stop with a jolt.
Gingerly, he backed the ship up again, but it was no use, the Raven had become lodged in the tangle of metal. It appeared that the star-liner in which they hid had been crushed by the passing of the Luminal battleship.
“This may take a bit of time!” he called back towards the hatch, even though he doubted that Angelique would hear him through the bulkhead. There was another grinding of metal as he tried to roll the ship away from a girder he could see was resting upon the hull.
Backwards and forwards he went, painstakingly manoeuvring the ship inch by inch out of the tangled wreckage.
And all the while, the ominous silhouette of the Luminal battleship hung stationary in space upon the far side of the wreck-field. With each crash and scrape of metal, Ryann almost expected that the great craft would somehow hear them and return, ploughing its way once again through the wrecks.
But
