He glanced down at the readouts and his mood quickly dropped — he had used up most of the charge in the emergency batteries.
He cursed, and gazed about the wrecks now that he was out in the open. The passage of the Luminal ship had caused them to scatter, ploughing a corridor all the way back in the direction that they needed to go.
He double-checked his heading by the Viridis sun in relation to the dim glow of the system’s planets and then — with his heart in his mouth — he hit a sustained burst on the thrusters. The Raven inched forward painstakingly slowly, then picked up speed, drifting between the dark silhouettes of the wreck-field. He watched in concern as the battery levels dipped down into the red, and he held out until the last second before releasing the power.
All fell silent throughout the ship. He hoped that he had got the direction to the Ibis about right, and that he had kept back enough power for any course alterations that he might need. He wondered absently whether, even if they did make it to the other ship, he would have enough battery power to slow the Raven down. But there was little more he could do now. All he could do was wait.
He glanced back as the Luminal ship slowly receded into the distance. At least it had caused so much chaos with its passage that elsewhere, the wrecks were still spinning and crashing into each other like some slow-motion explosion. There was little chance of them being spotted amongst all that movement.
He hoped.
CHAPTER SIX
OUT OF TIME
By the time that Ryann finally spied a pinpoint of light reflecting off the hull of the Ibis, he was barely conscious. Carbon dioxide levels in the cabin had reached critical levels and he didn’t know how much longer he could fly the ship. His head swam as he sat slumped in his flight-seat, barely able to manoeuvre the Raven towards the disabled vessel.
He willed his ship on, desperate to close the distance, but already his vision was dimming and he felt nauseous and was bathed in sweat, his breathing now reduced to shallow gasps.
“Come on,” he urged himself, but it came out no more than a slurred whisper.
Those final few hundred metres seemed to take a lifetime to cross. Ryann fought to keep his eyes open, but he kept drifting off as his thoughts returned time and again to Angelique, still waiting on the far side of the cabin hatch. He didn’t know if she were still alive — surely the reserves in her helmet would be used up by now? he thought hopelessly.
His hand fell limp from the flight-column in a moment of despair as the Ibis came closer, spinning lifelessly in space, revealing the main airlock hatch that he made for. To his horror he saw the door had been forced open and there was only darkness beyond.
The Patroller must have blown the doors when it landed on her, he thought to himself in alarm, and a shot of panic drove him back into the moment. He forced his eyes open and fumbled for the flight-column, trying to manoeuvre the Raven as they came nearer, but his movements were drunken and clumsy. With a deep boom the Raven slewed into the hull of the Ibis, bringing it to a shuddering halt.
The view-screen swam before his eyes as he tried to guide the Raven back over the Ibis’ airlock, but he was slipping in and out of consciousness now, and again he struck the hull of the larger ship and the Raven rebounded away.
This wasn’t how he had imagined running out of air might be like, he cursed as he willed his numb hands to guide the ship towards the airlock once more. He had imagined that in the final moments he would be snatching his last breaths as he fought to fill his empty lungs. But even though his heart raced and his breathing was shallow, this insidious dulling of his senses was much less dramatic as the carbon dioxide poisoning overwhelmed him. If it weren’t for the searing pain in his head this slide into oblivion could almost be a pleasant process, he thought grimly.
With a final effort he edged the Raven back over the Ibis’ airlock and he smiled drunkenly as the two ships came to rest alongside one another.
“Angelique,” he croaked, but he couldn’t be sure if he even spoke. He dragged his body forward, sliding downwards, grasping ineffectually at the armrest as he crawled back towards the hatchway.
“Angelique, I’ve done it. It’s down to you now — get to the airlock.”
Somehow, he managed to crawl across the cabin floor — it might have taken him minutes, but he couldn’t tell anymore, he was delirious by now.
He fumbled for a wrench that lay amongst the debris, hitting it against the hatch; but his strength had left him and he could barely make a sound.
“Angelique,” he mumbled again. “Angelique — the airlock, the airlock. I did it Angelique.”
Slowly, his head fell forwards to his chest and he blacked out.
CHAPTER SEVEN
BACK FROM THE DEAD
“Ryann! Ryann! Wake up dammit! Wake up!”
Dimly, Ryann heard the words come to him as though in a dream, and he realised that his body was being shaken.
A wave of pain washed over him and he screwed his eyes tighter shut as the returning light felt as though it were burning through his skull.
“Ryann dammit! Wake up!”
With a final effort, he forced his eyes open to see Angelique’s face looking down upon him.
“Jeez, I thought, I thought you were dead for a minute back there,” she sighed, slumping back against the wall of the cabin in relief. “You were blue.”
Ryann just smiled weakly and managed a shaky thumbs-up.
“I managed to patch an emergency air-line from the Ibis.”
