“What the space-blasted hell is taking so long Herschel?” Faust screamed over the tele-wave.

“Do you have any idea what kind of mess there is down here? I don’t even know if this thing’s going to work.”

“Well you’ve got about two minutes to find out, the energy signatures are getting pretty close to the airlock.”

As Herschel and the other men worked frantically he could only think about how irritated the captain would be that they had been so callous in ripping apart his ship. They’d had to knock through a bulkhead and with only minutes to work explosives had been the only option. There was also no time to go through proper procedure and deactivate the power conduits, he was seconds away from grabbing hold of a live wire with enough juice running through it to turn a starwhale into a charcoal briquette.

“Sir we’ve got the connection severed.” one of the auxiliary crewmen yelled out.

“Ooh....here goes nothing.”

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“You deal with Von Braun?” Ansul asked.

“Let’s hope so. What’s the situation?”

Jones, having been so rudely interrupted previously by Essa’s KA7Z now explained, “You see these?” he pointed to some kind of machinery and conduits that ran up the length of the wall. They were now at the airlock and the ceiling went from a mere ten feet or so to about thirty to accommodate large incoming cargo. The equipment he was pointing to was recessed into the wall and located behind glass panels, perhaps for easy access in case repairs were needed. “I think these are power regulators, of course I could be wrong.”

“I think so too captain, at least that’s what they look like.” Ansul chimed in.

“Your point?”

“That environment field sir, that’s gotta take a lot of power to run. They probably have to dump massive amounts of energy from the main core into those towers to get them to work...I’m thinking these are regulators to keep them from overloading.”

“That’s nice...” the captain said as he rubbed his sore sternum, “I’m still not following you though.”

“Well...” Ansul stepped in, “Crewman Jones here seems to think that if we blow one of them that a surge of power might overload their controls and permanently activate the whole system.”

“Uh huh, and what do you think Ansul?”

“If it works sir I’ll eat my socks...but what the hell else choice do we have?”

“I see your point.” he then turned to Jones, “Didn’t you say you could rig one of these pistols to explode Crewman?”

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“Herschel we’re not picking up any fire aboard the station anymore. That either means that they’re dead or they’re waiting at the airlock. It’s now or never.”

“You heard the lady.” Doctor Ramus declared. He was standing by in case Herschel got zapped but he knew better than anyone there that if the worst happened there’d be nothing he could do except go fetch a broom and dustpan.

Herschel took a deep breath and reached out with thickly gloved hands for the now severed power cable. He released a tiny sigh of relief when he touched it and didn’t instantly burst into flames. It took two hands however to pry it free of where it was attached to the bulkhead and one false move could spell disaster. He took a deep breath and pulled with everything that he had. If he wasn’t bald he would have thought the hair on his head would have visibly stood up for all to see. All around him he heard a sigh of relief as the conduit broke free of the wall without incident. He stood there for a moment in silence, surprised that he was still alive.

“Mr. Herschel we’re all delighted that you didn’t get electrocuted but time is of the essence.” the doctor reminded him.

Sam cautiously, but with undue delay, moved the cable from where it was originally located to where the TAP device was mounted a few feet away. It made a little spark as he lined it up with the connector on the ovoid shaped TAP and everyone jumped but he hesitated no longer and simply pushed the cable into place. Several green and yellow status lights began to come to life on the antiquated device which was still covered in a heavy layer of dust. Herschel waited for the light labeled “ready” to stop blinking and to illuminate a solid green. Quickly he ripped off his heavy gloves and tapped the tele-wave on his belt.

“Faust this is Herschel, you should have targeting control of the TAP.”

The tele-wave was silent for a moment and then Faust came back, “Got it, locked onto the tower. Let her rip.”

No one was certain as to whether or not the machine would even work at all let alone if it would power up the environment field. Herschel grabbed the large metal switch on the back of the TAP and slowly raised it into the “on” position.

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“That should do it sir.” Jones had taken three of the stunners’ power cells to compensate for the fact that most of them were fairly exhausted.

“Great, what about that glass? If that’s alumi-clear we’re never going to...” The captain’s statement was cut off by the sound of shattering glass.

“Guess it’s just regular glass sir.” said Ansul with a grin. He’d used the butt of one of the pistols to smash a nice large hole into one of the panels.

Jones fiddled with his improvised bomb just a bit more before walking over and tossing it into the opening that Ansul had created. “Here goes nothing.” he took off running in the opposite direction and neither the captain nor the first officer questioned him, they simply followed suit. About twenty yards down the hallway he squatted and covered his ears, again the two more seasoned spacers did likewise.

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A massive surge of energy from the Honshu’s fusion core surged through the TAP and pummeled the station’s tower with more power than it was able to deal with.

“Whooo! You did it, that tower’s lighting up like a nova!” Emily Faust yelled into her microphone, this time speaking to the entire ship instead of just Herschel.

Her solo celebration high up in the cockpit was short lived though as she felt the ship unexpectedly rock beneath her, nothing overly violent but something had definitely happened.

“What the hell?” she spoke to herself as her fingers began to fly over her controls. The ship’s scanners had picked up a large sudden release of energy right in the vicinity of the airlock and then it was gone. An explosion?

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Despite having covered them all three men still found their ears ringing a little. The blast had been quite spectacular and had knocked the lot of them from their crouching position to their knees. When they turned back and saw the dust settle, however, the large light over the inner door was glowing green just like it had when they’d first come onto the station.

“I seriously cannot believe that actually worked.” Ansul said, probably mostly to himself.

“Get to your feet gentlemen. Let’s get out of here.” Captain Tarsik fumbled through the junk they’d collected from the guards and found the familiar device with the glowing crystal. As they approached the door it began to glow with a faint white light just as the captain had expected. It was a unikey and bonded with whatever device was nearest at the moment. He pressed the little crystal and sighed in relief when it instantly turned blue and the sound of the door’s inner workings coming to life began to fill the air. The men made their way through the inner and outer airlocks as quickly as they possibly could, which wasn’t very quick since the doors were painfully slow. Had they been in less of a hurry they might have winced in terror as that outer airlock seal opened, about to discover if the environment field was actually active or if the green light had just malfunctioned due to the explosion. When it finally opened they paused for just a moment to throw one of the stunners out in front of them to see if the automated sentry gun was still working, it apparently was not. With that they ran out onto the platform at full sprint. A little more than halfway down the platform Tarsik’s tele-wave lit up, “Pilot Faust to Captain Tarsik, are you okay Captain?”

Struggling for breath the captain replied, “Get that loading bay door open pilot and be ready to lift in 60 seconds!”

“Aye sir.” Emily was a true professional but having known her for some time the captain clearly picked up on some emotional relief on her part at the realization that he and the others had made it out all right.

The loading bay ramp had not even hit the deck when the captain, Ansul and Crewman Jones jumped up onto it. “Faust, close the door.”

“Aye sir.”

Gravity on the Honshu’s loading bay deck pulled everything toward the stern of the ship but all of the other decks had gravity that pulled everything toward the keel. From the loading bay floor one had to climb a set of steps that curved up the rounded wall and for anyone standing on the bottom that person then appeared to be walking on the wall. It was a strange sensation but it was a fairly standard layout for most rockets.

The only other part of the ship that had gravity that ran along the vessel’s long axis besides the loading bay floor was the access tube that ran all the way from the bay up to the cockpit. It also provided access to the other decks. It was basically a tunnel with a ladder inside of it and climbing the entire length of the ship was a hell of a workout but in emergencies it could be necessary. Tarsik stepped into the tube and slapped his tele-wave, “Faust reverse the gravity in the tube.”

“Sir?!”

“Do it!”

Faust grabbed the microphone from above her head and pressed the button, “All crew clear the access tube immediately, reversing gravity polarity in five seconds.” She hung up the microphone in haste and tapped a few commands into her controls.

Captain Tarsik, twelve decks below, had attempted to brace himself but that was a very iffy proposition when gravity suddenly flip-flopped. He spun around in an instant and began to “fall up”. Only slightly losing his grip and bashing his left elbow into the side of the tube he managed to regain his grip on the ladder and then placed his feet along the sides of it and let himself slide. When he finally reached the top where the tube went into the cockpit he skidded out and ended up coasting on his bottom halfway to Faust’s chair. Not the most dignified entrance but he’d had more embarrassing moments.

“Sir I’m reading heat signatures from Prometheus. She’s powering up, I’m assuming with orders to pursue us.”

“That would be my assumption as well.” he grabbed the overhead microphone and announced, “All crew we are blasting off immediately, grab onto whatever you can.” then to Faust, “You heard the order, blast now, I want us at full burn as quickly as possible.”

“Aye sir primary engines firing in 3...2...1.” the ship shuddered as her engines pushed against the station’s platform. Without a large gravity well like a planet it took only seconds for the Honshu to be well clear of Aeolus.

“Captain! The Prometheus has a weapons lock on us!”

“Swing us around the station, I want our guns right on her port side you got that?”

“Aye captain.” Emily manhandled the controls just like she’d been taught, the Honshu had been upgraded with a very modern array of maneuvering thrusters and she handled much better than most ships of her size and mass.

“That sucker’s got a full complement of atomic torpedoes, I don’t think they’d use them on us but if we stay close to the station we guarantee that...not to mention a vulcan cannon.”

“What?!”

“She’s a rocket-buster Faust, let’s just stay at her flank and hope like hell they want us alive.”

In the view through the front window the station loomed large as Faust circled in close and came around under its docking platforms. Their rocket was indeed much more maneuverable than the hulking Prometheus. As they rounded one of the platforms their target came into clear view. Tarsik’s surprisingly agile fingers danced over the weapon controls located on the captain’s console that was just behind Faust’s chair.

“Locking onto one of her engine pods, we’re going to cripple her. Powering up the Mark IX...”

“Captain...” he expected her protest to be that firing the Mark IX was likely to blow out a bunch of the ship’s systems but what she said instead floored him, “we can’t fire the Mark IX, we had to divert power from it to get you off the station.”

“What?!” he yelled, half in anger and half in utter confusion. Why had they had to bypass his big gun to get them off of the station? That made no sense. They’d escaped all by themselves. “Shit! Locking on Mark IIs.”

They both watched out of the window as their full complement of smaller proton cannons unloaded at the Prometheus with practically zero effect. They were closing too fast to load any of the torpedo tubes let alone avoid the blast themselves when it went off. Besides, even conventional torpedoes could do a lot of damage and Tarsik didn’t want to take any lives unless it was absolutely necessary. It’s not that he was a pacifist, in fact he had a policy of killing those who tried to kill him, but he didn’t want to be held on murder charges since they were already involved in such a questionable situation.

“That’s it Faust, take us to full burn. Give me everything, everything that you’ve got is that clear?”

“Aye sir.” she complied and lights all over the ship dimmed as she transferred every last joule of available energy to the neutron rockets. Just as they roared past the hulking enemy vessel the vid-wave circuit beeped.

“Put it on pilot.”

This time the screen was already warmed up and had been in use most of the day so the image appeared pretty much instantly. The signal shifted momentarily and then came into tune.

“Captain Tarsik this is Captain Deutron Cal of the IPHS Prometheus, you are ordered to stand down and surrender your vessel.”

“Oh come on Captain you know I won’t do that.”

“Tarsik I don’t have anything personal against you,” the man’s face seemed to indicate that he was telling the truth, he didn’t seem very happy with what he had to do, “but my orders are to take you down if you don’t comply.”

“Orders from whom? Von Braun?”

“Yes, Station Commander Von Braun.”

“Look Captain, I wouldn’t worry about her. Very soon she’s going to be back in a prison cell where she belongs for killing one of her own men with an unlicensed weapon.”

Duetron Cal’s face went slack and he turned to someone off-screen. He must have hit a mute button because he had a quick conversation with whoever it was and none of it was audible. Too bad Captain Tarsik had cheaped out and not gotten the lip reading feature for his vid-wave. A moment later the serious look returned to Cal’s face and he spoke again. “I’m sorry Captain but as of this moment my orders stand. Cut your engines and prepare to be boarded.”

“We both know that’s not going to happen.” the captain attempted his special blend of sarcasm and charm.

“Then I’m truly sorry, you don’t leave me any choice.” and with that the screen went blank.

Captain Tarsik’s expression immediately changed to one of concern, “Faust?” he asked like a coy little boy about to be spanked, “What are they doing?”

Again Faust’s hand rippled across her controls, “I’ve got a large energy build up on scanners...Captain I think it’s the vulcan!”

Tarsik calculated his options in a nanosecond and he really didn’t like any of the alternatives. He slapped the tele-wave at his side, “Ansul where are you?”

“Making my way up...down...whatever, to you without breaking my neck. Why? What’s going on?”

“What level are you on?”

“Just passing six.”

“Get back to down to five asap!”

“Why?”

“Unlock the NC, immediately Ansul!”

“Sir I....”

“Do it! That’s an order!”

“Copy that.”

Faust had been biting her tongue for a couple of seconds when the conversation ended. “Sir I think they’re getting ready to fire.”

“Patch the Prometheus energy readings through to my console.”

“Aye sir.”

As soon as the readings came up on his tiny little screen he reacted, “Faust, emergency blow of all starboard maneuvering thrusters on my mark....MARK!” The ship heaved violently as it lurched to the left, less than a second later a glowing reddish-orange ball of plasma tore past the ship and out into the abyss. They watched for just a few seconds as it seemed to fade, certain that they had just ever so narrowly missed their own demise.

“They’re charging it again Captain.”

“Copy that Faust. Ansul where the hell are you?”

“In the drive room sir, I just need a second, I nearly cracked my head open just now when you maneuvered.”

“We don’t have a second Ansul, now!”

“Give me just a....” the Martian entered his security code on the five-digit pad that was on the end of the rod that was stuck through the NC’s vortex core. As quickly as he could he grasped the rod and pulled it from the magnetically levitated ball. “...got it!” The ball, perfectly spherical with a hollow center and sixty four holes in its surface, sprang to life and began to rotate and hum. Ansul had followed orders as he always did but he knew very well that they couldn’t activate it, not inside the Crux. “Now what? We can’t activate it.”

“No choice Ansul, get out of the drive room now!'

“They’re preparing to fire sir!”

“Oh I am so going to regret this....engage NC drive.”

Faust was in no mood to argue, she knew every bit as well as he did that they were likely to either vaporize themselves or be flung off into some far corner of the universe but that vulcan cannon staring up their backside was about to do them in regardless.

“Engaging.”

From the command center of the Prometheus Deutron Cal watched as the vulcan’s plasma ring shot forth, felt the slight shudder of the deck beneath him from the energy of firing the deadly weapon. Their second shot would not miss. Then, a flash of light and the Honshu disappeared completely. It took several moments for him to realize that his mouth was agape.