Like i said, Ch 21 would be up A.S.A.P. and it took only 90 minutes to write! I hope you enjoy this quick suspense read, following Gofer placing the plant into the escape pod and launching Wally within it. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: i do not own Andrew Stanton's Wall-E or Jack McDevitt's technologies (You'll know what i'm talking about when you read this chapter).

CHAPTER 21. EXTRA-VEHICULAR RESCUE

Gofer hurryingly shuts off the launch alert system, not wanting to draw attention to a jettisoned escape pod. All is quiet as he takes one last look at the A.E.V. shrinking in the distance of the void. Just a little bit longer and his task will be complete, the pod just needs to get out of plain sight before that happens though. But he can't stay here to watch it, should the Captain take notice in the Bridge or any passengers or crew are watching outside. They hardly ever do, but better safe than sorry.

He turns to leave, but he freezes; did he just hear a sound? He runs out of the launch bay to avoid any witnesses. Eve emerges from behind cover; she's too worried to be relieved of avoiding detection after calling out to Wally.

"Oh, no." She dashes over to the viewport hatch; she looks on in horror to see Wally rapidly dwarfing and disappearing into space. She tries to think, what should she do?! He's getting farther and farther by the second, what should she do?!?!

Eve looks around in desperation, her mind too stressed of the situation for quicker coherent thinking. She spots the service airlock. That's it! She must go after him! As fast as she can move, she accesses the extra-vehicular survival gear, Eve frowns when she sees there's nothing but bulky spacesuits. No, too time consuming to put those on, and not very useful. She begins to panic. Come on, Come On, COME ON!! Hurry!! Her mind races for another answer. She finds that other answer; In the stock of E.V.A. equipment, were…aha! Flickinger Field generator gloves. They are small plasma-window emitters built into a special glove that create an invisible energy shield around a person's body, that encloses a breathable atmosphere and allows the wearer to operate in the vacuum of space without a full-body pressurization suit.

Eve dons one of the gloves, and activates the force field; a faint aura of energy surrounds her whole body, sealing her from the outside and equalized with normal air pressure. Not wasting any time, she enters the service airlock; Eve bypasses the depressurization sequence and, without a moment's hesitation, manually opens the outer hatch.

She blasts out of the instantly decompressed airlock, the escaping air catapulting her into the vacuum at high velocity. Eve straightens her body like a skydiver, her nanosuit's spaceflight mode automatically activates. Her HUD shows the A.E.V. is already 20,000 meters from the Axiom, and is rapidly accelerating at an alarming rate. She neurally diverts more of her suit's power to the antigrav boots, leaving a contrail of blue light in her wake.

She surpasses the A.E.V.'s speed, slowly gaining on it. 19,500 meters, then 19,000 meters...18,000...

She pursues him like a bat out of hell, she had to save an innocent victim…

Wally had no idea what just happened, one second he was closed off from Eve, and now he was pinned to the hatch, screaming his head off as the A.E.V. rocketed away, almost snapping his neck from the g-forces of the sudden speed burst.

The A.E.V.'s onboard computer decelerates the pod. "CRUISING SPEED, YOU ARE NOW FREE TO MOVE ABOUT THE CABIN."

Wally falls to the deck, he's not the least too relieved; he's still gathering his situational awareness. "Uh, oh" But as he sees the great flagship starliner begin to dwindle in the distance, he's realizes he was launched, and was getting farther and farther away from the Axiom, from Eve! He has to do something!

He scrambles to his feet, looking around for what to do. Wally sees the control column, and looks back at the Axiom. He dashes for the piloting controls, he has to get back to ship. Wally grabs the steering yoke, but it won't bulge. He pulls harder, still nothing, after slamming the controls it still doesn't respond to any of his commands. "Come On!!" He fights the controls, but realizes that Gofer must've set them to autopilot. "Dang it!" Wally looks around the controls to regain steering. He has no idea how to fly this thing. The control column displayed incomprehensible amounts of useless information. No overrides, no communications, or manual controls displayed on the touch-sensitive panel. Gofer really screwed this thing up; he obviously didn't want this thing to return, but why?

An alarming instrument screen caught Wally's attention. He looks closely at it, an already pressed button surrounded by a red pulsating dial counting down from sixty to zero, already approaching twenty. Wally's expression freezes in terror when the computer reads it out.

"SELF-DESTRUCTION SEQUENCE ACTIVATED, T-MINUS 20 SECONDS."

"Aaaaaaah!" Wally's heart pounds like a jackhammer in his chest, he was going to die! He frantically presses the button, trying to stop the sequence, nothing happens. "Uh-Uh-COMPUTER, DEACTIVATE!! DEACTIVATE IT!!" That doesn't change it either. In desperation, he presses every button he sees, there's got be a way to shut it down. But all it does is launch flares, inflatable rafts, parachutes, windshield wipers; nothing can stop it. The sequence is set in motion and irreversible.

"DANGER: T-MINUS 10 SECONDS TO SELF-DESTRUCT."

Wally is beyond terrified; only ten seconds left…Wait! There's still E.V.A., he can jump into space!

"10…9…8…" Faster than he's ever moved before, Wally grabs a Flickinger glove from the spacewalk equipment; he feverishly slips it over his hand and activates it. He grabs a halon fire extinguisher and prepares to exit.

"…7…6…" Wait! The plant! Wally whips around and grabs the most important thing he came for. Not bothering to put it in his bag, he dashes for the hatch with the fire extinguisher at the ready; with any luck, he should clear the blast radius in time.

"…5…4…" But luck takes a turn for the worst as Wally can't pry the hatch release open, he pulls with all his might, nothing; he bangs on the hatch with the extinguisher, screaming. No dice, he was trapped inside!

"…3…2…"

...4000 meters…

Eve's nanosuit has diverted all it's circuital energy to propulsion, her antigrav servos were beyound maximum capacity but she was soaring through space at a thousand meters per second. She's gain on him.

...3000 meters…

Her hope is building as she gets closer and closer.

...2000 meters…

The pod is clearly within a few second's reach.

...1000 meters…

Eve is ecstatic, she can save him. Yes! Almost there!...

A flash of bright light stops Eve dead in her tracks. Her eyes went wide in shock and despair when Eve can't believe what she just saw.

The A.E.V. has exploded.

Uh oh! Prepare yourselves for the next chapter (to those who haven't seen the film of course). To those who have, it's going to be good;) I hope you all enjoy the idea of the Flickinger Field energy suit based off of Jack McDevitt's The Engines of God, Deepsix, Omega, etc. ; for it will be such an important factor for the next chapter.