Mitchell's Revenge

Lauri watched as the Guardian Angel approached the shipyard. Jake and Lucy stood beside him in the control room. Em lay stretched out on the floor behind them.

“Ugly is an understatement!” said Lauri. “I’ve never seen anything quite like that.”

The ship was blackened down one side. Antennae and coms dishes were crushed and hanging off her skin like broken insect legs. One of its tarmac pads was protruding slightly from the belly of the ship. Lauri could see the fuschia salvage pod fastened with cables and grappling hooks to its rear.

“What the hell is that?” he murmured, indicating the salvage pod. Jake and Lucy examined it.

“No idea!” they said together.

“Hello Universal Starship Enterprises shipyard,” came a young male voice. A sandy haired boy appeared on the screen. “This is Rufus Yaap of the Guardian Angel. Can you hear me?”

“Yes, we hear you. Lauri Peltonen here,” Lauri replied. “Go ahead.”

“We have a buckled landing strut which might collapse when we dock,” said Rufus. “We had a rough exit from Tiberion which hasn’t helped. Do you have an emergency crew at hand?”

“Yes,” replied Lauri. “I’ll let them know you’re coming in. Bring her in to repair pod three. It’s got the most equipment available. Here are the coordinates.” Lauri tapped the control board in front of him. Rufus nodded and his image disappeared.

They watched as Rufus eased the Guardian Angel into the repair pod. Lauri saw how skilful he was with the ship. As the Angel began to settle onto the tarmac the sound of rending metal rippled through the yard. The front landing strut suddenly collapsed and the ship began to slide towards the rear of the pod.

“Shit, shit, shit,” Rufus’ voice came clearly over the coms. “I can’t stop her! Lauri get your people out of the way. Seal off the access way. We’re going to hit the wall.”

The emergency crew were already sprinting away from the repair pod, sealing the access way behind them as they went. Moments later the ship squealed to a halt as it connected with the rear wall. It bowed but did not break. Cracks appeared in the wall as the vibrations continued to reverberate throughout the shipyard.

“We’re going to lose pressure!” Lucy shouted as she bolted from the control room. “I’m going down there to help close that up.”

Seconds later Lauri saw her on the internal vid feed with a canister of emergency filament working to seal the cracks on the inner wall. The cracks seemed to be growing as fast as she sprayed the filament. An alarm went off as the yards’ internal monitoring systems tried to make sense of what was happening. Lauri jammed the repair pods’ space door shut.

“Pressure’s dropping Lucy,” Jake shouted through the coms. “Give it up and get out of there!”

“Just a little more,” she shouted back above the noise of the metal. “The cracks are slowing now. I think I can stop it.”

She continued to work the filament onto the wall. Sure enough, the cracks were slowing as the filament bonded the metal together. The air pressure in the access way began to normalise. Lauri overrode the alarm as he watched Lucy work.

“She seems to have developed a death wish,” he said quietly to Jake. He nodded.

“You should have seen her and Em when the Eridanians attacked us,” he said. “She couldn’t wait to get into the fray. And she killed them without hesitation. Have a look at the vid archive when you get on board Mitchell’s Revenge. You’ll see what I mean. Your military mates have done something with the bionics code. It seems to take over in emergencies.”

“Hmm, is that such a bad thing? It saved your bacon out there.”

Jake snorted. “Admiral Bokkveld saved our bacon! If the Cygnus hadn’t arrived when it did we’d be space junk. But I have to say I’ve never seen Lucy handle weapons the way she did then.”

“You don’t like what’s happening to her do you?”

“I’m not sure,” Jake replied. “She’s been better since Matt adjusted the code after Anja was taken. She was really in danger of hurting us all then. She only just managed to control it herself.”

Lauri looked at Jake in surprise. The military software developers would not be pleased to learn that their work had been overridden by the strength of will of its subject. He watched Lucy finish her work in the access way. Her responses were incredibly fast now. He wondered how she would perform on the pylon course. He turned his attention back to the Guardian Angel.

Now that the ship had come to a stop and the space door had closed the vacuum off behind it, the crew were disembarking. Lauri watched as four men and two women gathered at the front of the ship to inspect the damage.

“Let’s get down there,” he said to Jake. “You invited them here after all. Let’s see what can be done.”

Em padded silently after them as they made their way to the repair pod. Lucy greeted them in the access way. The emergency crew were now working to shore up Lucy’s fix. The lights flickered in the walkway as they moved along it. The shipyard creaked around them as the damaged metal settled into its new state. They felt the main computer system adjusting the air pressure and the orientation of the shipyard after the blow it had taken from the crashed ship.

Flex McElroy greeted them cheerfully as Lauri, Jake, Lucy and Em stepped onto the tarmac. He introduced himself and his crew. They were shaken but unharmed by their unorthodox arrival. As they shook hands Em padded straight to Lou Pejic and butted her head against the tall young woman’s thigh. Lou reached down to stroke her head as the others backed away in fear.

“What the hell is that?” asked Rufus. “It looks dangerous!” Em turned and snarled at him.

“Please educate the poor boy,” came Em’s voice in Lucy’s mind. Lucy smiled at Rufus.

“This is Em,” she said, indicating the panther. “She’s a black panther from Menageron. She’s my partner and a valuable member of our crew. She’s quite friendly as long as no one threatens me in any way.”

“You’re very lucky to have such a partner,” said Lou, continuing to stroke Em’s fur. “She is a beautiful big cat.” Em rumbled her satisfaction. She pushed against Lou’s legs.

“I’m sorry,” said Rufus. “I’ve never seen one before. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

“Apology accepted,” came Em’s voice. Lucy and Lou laughed. Lucy looked sharply at Lou.

“Can you hear her too?” she asked. Lou looked embarrassed.

“I can,” she said. “I’m an empath. But this is the first time I can actually hear the thoughts. I’ve always loved cats, maybe that’s why.”

Lucy turned to Jake. “See, I’m not crazy after all!” Jake laughed in response.

“I’m glad of that! Now I suggest we leave Lauri here with the technical people, and we escort our guests inside. I need answers to a few questions if you don’t mind,” he said looking pointedly at Flex. Flex grinned at him.

“Bolter and Rufus’ll stay here,” said Flex. “The rest of you, come with me.”

They filed off the tarmac behind Jake as he led the way into the shipyard. The three women brought up the rear. Flick was last in line. She examined Lucy’s back as they walked. She thought there was something odd about her but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. She sensed that she was very strong and competent, but there was something else too. She suddenly realised it was Lucy’s eyes that were odd. It was as if she could see straight through everything around her. Flick found that unnerving.

Jake led them to the main boardroom. He dialled up food and drinks from the servery and waited while they dished up what they wanted. They settled around the table. Em sprawled on the floor between Lucy and Lou.

“So,” said Jake, turning to Flex. “Is it true that you fitted a salvaged FTL drive to your ship?”

“Yes,” replied Flex. “It came from one of your ships. Ripley’s Revenge I believe she was called. Damn near killed us too.”

“What happened?” asked Lucy.

Jake, Lucy and Lou sat motionless as Flick and Flex related the story.

“So we left Natasha Orlov and Bot Ramsay on Tiberion. Snatch Upp left us there too, but as Lou decided to join us we’ve still got the right number of crew,” concluded Flex.

“Snatch had enough of Grabb behaving like a pig,” said Flick glancing at Grabb across the table. “His attitude gets up some peoples’ noses.”

Grabb snorted and spoke for the first time. “Natasha threatened to kill me after we survived the first jump. So I was glad to see the back of her. She sure can dance though,” he said wistfully.

“She can do a lot of things,” said Flick. “And she’s as dangerous as the mercenaries she abandoned at Topernicus. I’ll be happy if I never see her again.”

“So what’s she doing on Tiberion?” asked Lucy.

“Working for her father,” replied Flick. “I don’t know exactly what that means. She said he had some interests he wanted her to take care of.”

They all laughed nervously. Jake looked at Flex.

“Alright,” said Jake. “So why are you really here?”

“We want to make a trade,” said Flex, grinning back at Jake.