"They"re all dead," said Lisa bitterly. "All the Sontarans and most of my crew. I take it Mari and the real Zorelle are dead as well?"
"Death is inevitable in war," said the Rutan in Zorelle"s form. "Do not attempt to harm us unless you too wish to die."
There was a crackle of energy and a tentacle of light sent the blaster in Lisa"s hand spinning across the corridor.
Lisa rubbed her tingling hand. "I shouldn"t dream of it."
"We could kill you now with ease, but we share a common enemy," said the Rutan. "We shall spare you. We go now, in our enemy"s ship, with the secret that will save our people and in our natural form."
The Zorelle shape blurred and vanished, and a glowing sphere of light, trailing fiery tentacles, hovered before her. It floated away down the airlock.
Suddenly Lisa heard a faint voice. "Destructor bomb...airlock tunnel..."
It was Steg.
Without conscious thought, Lisa hurled herself into the tunnel. She s.n.a.t.c.hed up the cylinder from its place inside the door and ran to the far end of the tunnel where the door to the Sontaran ship was just closing.
She thrust the cylinder through the gap and ran back down the tunnel. The door at the far end was closing too.
Short as the distance was, Lisa saw that the door would close before she could get through. She would be trapped in the airlock tunnel which was just about to depressurize.
She flung herself at the fast-closing gap, knowing that she was already too late. A ma.s.sive three-digited hand curled round the edge of the door, holding it back for a few vital seconds.
Lisa squeezed herself through the gap, Steg released his grip, and the door closed.
On the other side, Steg looked up at the closed door, eyes blazing with triumph. "I win, Rutan. I win!"
His head slumped forward, as if the effort had been his last.
Lisa went over to Kurt who was beginning to revive.
"Quick. We must see the end."
With Lisa"s help, Kurt managed to get to his feet and make his way to the control-room. There, on the monitor screen, they watched the Sontaran a.s.sault craft curve away from their ship.
Moments later it blew up.
It was some time later. Kurt was in Robar"s seat, Lisa in her command chair. She was spraying plasti-skin onto the deep groove burned into Kurt"s shoulder. It stung, and Kurt yelled in protest.
"It"s only a fringe-burn," said Lisa dismissively.
Kurt grunted, shrugging back into his coveralls.
"Told you Steg would try to blow up the ship."
"All the same," said Lisa, "he saved my life." She sighed.
"Some shakedown cruise. A damaged ship and a dead crew.
That"s the end of the Inter-Systems Solar for me."
"Not necessarily."
"With a ship full of dead bodies to explain?"
Official enquiries held few terrors for Kurt.
"You worry too much. There"ll be an enquiry, sure. We"ll come out of it heroes."
"Maybe so but I"m still out of the race. I"ll never get a new owners" syndicate together in time."
"You"re looking at it," said Kurt complacently. "I persuaded the others to make the syndicate a tontine."
"A how much?"
"Anyone died, the rest shared the money." He tapped his chest. "Sole survivor, sole "
"Owner!" concluded Lisa. She smiled at him. "This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship."
"When we get to Station Beta we"ll have a full refit, hire a professional crew and sail the socks off every other s.p.a.ce yacht in the system!"
Lisa"s face lit up with hope. "If we can only be ready in time ...
"Call up Beta and get things moving."
Lisa flicked a switch on the sub-s.p.a.ce com-unit. "Solar Yacht Tiger Moth Tiger Moth to s.p.a.ce Station Beta. to s.p.a.ce Station Beta. Tiger Moth Tiger Moth to Beta..." to Beta..."
Slumped back in his chair, Kurt looked affectionately at her eager face. He reached out and touched her gently on the cheek.
Lisa gave him a wary look. "This is just a solar racing partnership. It doesn"t mean we"re s.e.xually pair-bonded."
Kurt put on his innocent face the one he always used when he was lying. "Never entered my head."
Lisa turned back to the com-unit. " Tiger Moth Tiger Moth to s.p.a.ce Station Beta. to s.p.a.ce Station Beta. Tiger Moth Tiger Moth to Beta. This is Lisa Deranne..." to Beta. This is Lisa Deranne..."
Battered and bruised, but undefeated, still a contender, the solar yacht Tiger Moth Tiger Moth moved on through s.p.a.ce, heading for s.p.a.ce Station Beta. moved on through s.p.a.ce, heading for s.p.a.ce Station Beta.
BOOK THREE.
AFTERMATH.
16.
Breakout "Right," said the Doctor. "Here"s my plan."
Two pairs of eyes gazed hopefully at him.
"Well?" said Roz.
"What plan?" asked Chris.
The Doctor sighed. "Joke!"
"Nothing to laugh about," muttered Roz. "How much longer do we have to take this?"
"Not long," said the Doctor.
They were still imprisoned in the refectory of s.p.a.ce Station Alpha. It was as good a location as any to be held prisoner in, with food, drink and sanitary facilities all readily available.
Half a dozen Sontaran sentries stood guard over them.
"So what are we going to do?" demanded Chris.
"I keep telling you," said the Doctor testily. "We wait."
"For what?" asked Chris.
"For events to take their course."
"What course?"
The Doctor sighed. Sometimes working with Chris was like dealing with a seven-foot toddler, full of insatiable curiosity.
"The Sontarans came here after Karne," he said, "just as you did. As a species, they"re not the greatest brains in the galaxy, but they"re single-minded and extraordinarily thorough. So what do they do first?"
"They round up everyone on the station and check them out," said Chris. "Like they just did."
"As they just did," agreed the Doctor. "If they don"t find him and somehow I don"t think they will then what?"
"They"ll search the s.p.a.ce station in case he"s hiding somewhere," said Roz.
"Exactly," said the Doctor.
"And if they still don"t find him?"
"They"ll search again. As a matter of fact, I rather think that"s what they"re doing now. And if that doesn"t produce any results, they"ll conclude, just as you did, that he left on one of the ships that came and went between his arrival and theirs."
"So they"re stuck, just like we were," said Chris.
The Doctor shook his head. "Brilliant as we undoubtedly are, there are only three of us. A full-scale military expedition has rather more resources. They"ll get a list of the ships concerned, go after them, and stop, board and search every one."
"That"s a pretty formidable undertaking," said Roz.
"The Sontarans are a pretty formidable species."
"So we sit here and wait for them to go away?" said Chris.
His expression made it clear he thought it a pretty feeble plan.
"We wait for most of them to go away," corrected the Doctor. "This s.p.a.ce station is swarming with Sontarans at the moment. Far too many for us to tackle with any hope of success. When they"ve convinced themselves the Rutan"s gone, they"ll go too. But I think they"ll leave a small crew just in case it turns up somewhere and to make sure we don"t send out any warnings."
"Wouldn"t it be simpler just to blow up the station?" asked Roz.
"It would," said the Doctor calmly. "They may still do it.
But there are diplomatic reasons against it. They can probably get away with a few missing ships, especially if there"s no real proof. Accidents happen in s.p.a.ce. Missing s.p.a.ce stations are rather harder to explain away."
Since then they had waited and waited.
Considerable numbers of Sontarans had come and gone.
Occasionally members of the s.p.a.ce-station staff were taken off for interrogation. Some returned in a shaken state, others didn"t return at all.
They"d eaten several tasteless prepackaged meals, and Chris had tried every drink and snack in the dispenser. Their fellow prisoners sat around listlessly, some brooding alone, others muttering in groups. Roz and Chris both found the waiting hard going, and even the Doctor seemed affected by the monotony.
He wandered over to an ornamental stand in the corner, lifted down an elaborate steel sculpture of a solar yacht, and carried it over to their table. Fishing out a pocket-knife with every imaginable gadget on it, he began taking the model to pieces.
Chris watched him in puzzlement. "What are you doing, Doctor?"
"Deconstructing a solar yacht," said the Doctor.
Chris gave up.
They heard the sound of some kind of craft taking off from the landing bay.