A/N:

When I started writing this story, I didn't give a lot of thought about when it fit into the timeline of the series or the books, but now with season 5 airing, I feel I need to. For those of you wonderful readers that have read the books, you know there is a significant time gap between books 6 & 7. I believe this story best fits somewhere early in that gap. I hope this helps those of you that need to know where it fits in.

Thank you for all your support!

Chapter 30

"Now what?" she asked Tinsley. "This was the only plan I had."

Tinsley just looked out at the empty bay. Nik grabbed his arm and shook it to bring his focus back to her.

"The Roci is out there waiting, I've just got to get to them somehow." She thought about it for a moment, "how far can someone go in spacesuit?"

The Doctor frowned, "the suit is only limited by its air supply. The thrusters only have a short lifespan, but you only need them for maneuvering once you get going. And slowing down once you get there."

She chewed her lip, thinking, "so you're saying I could make it to the Roci from here as long as my air doesn't run out?"

"Well, that and you need to know where they are, which is impossible with all the systems down."

"But if I could see them?"

Tinsley shook his head with a smile, "you haven't been out here much, have you?"

"No. Why?"

"Because distances out here are deceiving. On the scanner, the Roci could be so close that the icons overlap each other, but we are talking hundreds, sometimes thousands of kilometers, separating them. At a hundred clicks, the Roci would be invisible to the naked eye. Especially if you didn't know where to even look for her."

Deflated, she sighed, "do you have any better ideas?"

"Let me think a moment."

Nik left his side to explore the bay. The locker with spacesuits was open and the three suits that were left floated in the space above it like puppets. The small-arms locker was also open, but empty. Debris floated in the air throughout the bay. Someone had ransacked the place before taking the shuttle.

Nik giggled. The whole thing reminded her of a kid's toy that Maggie had in her collection. A miniature scene from earth inside a globe filled with liquid. When shaken, tiny bits of glitter floated around the scene. Maggie called it a snow-globe.

Once she started giggling, she couldn't stop. Soon she was laughing so hard her sides hurt and tears pooled on her cheeks, held to her skin by the cohesion of the liquid. Starting to feel light-headed, she tried to stop the laughter and found it difficult.

"Doc?" she called out, hick-upping.

When Tinsley didn't answer, she turned to look for him. He was in the middle of the bay, playing absently with a floating piece of debris. That sobered her up immediately. He was supposed to be coming up with a plan.

"Doc?" she called again and walked over to him. Despite the end of her giggling fit, she still felt light-headed.

Knocking the debris away that was occupying him, she stood in front of him.

"Doc? Something's not right."

He looked down at her blankly, then frowned as understanding came to him.

"It's the air. The bots convert non-living organic material into CO2. Plus, I think the scrubbers are off-line. The oxygen in the air has dropped low enough to start causing cognitive dysfunction."

In short, they were out of time, Nik thought. One of the suits bobbing in the air caught her eye and she had an idea.

"Come on," she tugged at Tinsley's arm to pull him over to the locker. "Grab a suit and put it on."

"These aren't going to solve the problem," he protested.

"No, but we can think better if we're breathing good air," she told him as she grabbed on and proceeded to put it on.

Tinsley stopped arguing and followed suit. Soon, both were suited up and Nik's head cleared up as she breathed in the suit's air. But the Doctor had been right, these suits wouldn't solve the problem and they were using up the air in them while they came up with a plan.

Think, Nik, think. She thought. The Ando was almost identical to the Roci so she racked her brain about the Roci's systems. What backups did the ships have for comms? Everything on the two ships were routed to the comm array outside on the hull. There was an emergency comm panel mounted on the array with its own power source, but it was tied in electrically with the rest of the system. If the Bots had destroyed the wiring for the system, there was no reason to doubt that panel was also useless.

But...

She pulled out her handheld and pulled up the last schematic she had loaded for the Roci's comm system.

"Yes!" she did a little jump of excitement.

"What?"

She showed him the schematic.

"What am I looking at?"

"There's a port on the antenna where you can plug in an auxiliary unit. If I can connect the comm unit from my suit to the antenna and use its power for the transmission, then I can talk to the Roci. I can get them to come closer and we can use our suits to go to them."

Tinsley shook his head, "that doesn't change the fact that we're contaminated and could be carrying bots on us. We can't risk it."

He was right. The crew of the Roci had already evacuated their ship, their home, once to purge it of the bots she had brought onboard. She couldn't recontaminate it.

"I still need to tell them about Vesta so they can warn the station."

"What do you need?"

Ten minutes later, she was outside the Ando making her way towards the comm array. This was the first time she had been outside without Amos at her side and she desperately missed his presence. She was saddened that she wouldn't get to see him again, or any of them. She pushed that maudlin thought aside. She didn't have time for pity; she had a job to do.

Tinsley had been right. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't see the Roci. The power needed for the transmission would practically drain her suit and it wouldn't be very strong, but the calculations on her handheld assured her that, if the other ship was within a thousand clicks, her signal would get to them.

Climbing up the support to the access the antenna was difficult in the spacesuit. Whoever had designed these ships hadn't taken that into consideration. Or maybe they just thought no one would ever have to. Either way, the two-meter climb was awkward, but after a couple false starts and nearly falling off it once, Nik reached the platform where the antenna was mounted and the emergency comm panel.

Using the tools she brought, she opened the panel on the off-chance that the bots had spared it, but no, she sighed, the wires inside were just as bare as the ones throughout the rest of the ship. Releasing the panel to let it float away, she pulled out the jumper she had fashioned ahead of time, opened the small panel on the arm of her suit, and clipped the jumper to the contacts. Next, she located the port at the base of the antenna. Prying the port free of the assembly, she clipped the other end of the jumper to the two bare wires extending from the port into the antenna.

"Here we go," she said quietly as she opened a channel.

"Rocinante, this is Nik. Do you copy?"

She waited five very long seconds before trying again.

"Rocinante, this is Nik. Can you hear me?"

The seconds ticked by.

"Niki girl!" the excited voice of Alex couldn't be disguised by the static over the channel. "We were worried about you."

"It's good to hear your voice Alex," she smiled to herself. "But I don't have a lot of power."

Another voice came over the channel, "Nik, are you alright?" Naomi asked.

"I don't have a lot of time. You need to know that Vesta has been infected by the bots too. That's where it started. You need to warn them."

"Right," Naomi answered. "As soon as we get you, we'll be on our way."

"I can't come back, Naomi. I'm contaminated. I would just bring bots back onto the Roci and you'd be back where we started with this mess."

"No, we figured it out. How to detect them and get rid of small batches of them. We can decontaminate you before they have a chance to get back into our systems."

That was the best news Nik had heard in days, possibly weeks. She found herself grinning like a fool inside her helmet.

"Then come get me," she told Naomi.

"When we get closer, we'll send the shuttle. We can't dock, so you will have to come to us."

"Hurry, then," Nik urged, "the air on the Ando is toxic and we only have three suits."

"Nik? Nik? Are you still there?"

"I'm still here," she answered. "Can you hear me?"

"Nik? Alex, she's gone. Can you get her back?"

Nik looked down at her comm unit. It was completely dark. She had used up all the power it had. She had to hope it was enough.

"Shit," she muttered. She didn't tell them about the doctor.

Back in the shuttle bay, she told Tinsley the good news, but he didn't seem as excited by it as she was.

"Didn't you hear me? We're going to be alright."

"Yes, I heard you. And so did anyone else onboard that was in a suit."

"Felota," she breathed as the implication hit her.

"If that means what I think it does, yeah," he agreed.

One of her friends was blindly flying a shuttle to a ship full of people that were not only desperate, but also thought of them as the enemy. With the visor darkened, there would be no way to tell it wasn't her approaching until it was too late.

"Once they get close, they'll be able to pick up the signals from the comm units of the suits. We can warn them."

"Your suit is dead. You can't warn anyone."

"There is a third suit," she turned to find it, only to come up short.

Behind them were several crew members, spread out between her and the exit. All of them with weapons drawn and pointed at her and the doctor.

"I should have known you'd turn on your own," one of them sneered over the channel. A shudder ran through Nik as she recognized the voice of her interrogator. "Like sister, like brother."

Tinsley straightened at the insult, "Lilly-Anne was trying to save the system from Martian arrogance."

Only then did Nik make the connection. The last piece of the puzzle fell into place. With her co-conspirators dead and being pursued by the Martians, Lilly-Anne had hidden Nik and the prototype bots to keep them safe while she led the Martians away only to be caught by them anyway. Despite being tortured, she hadn't given away Nik's location or anything about the bots. Her actions had probably saved Nik's life.

The comm-link on one of the crew member's suit beeped, drawing her attention back to the current crisis.

"Sir, the reactor's containment is failing."

The lieutenant turned slightly towards the speaker, "how long?"

"Maybe fifteen minutes. Possibly less."

"Then it's a good thing Holden is bringing the Tachi to us." He turned back to Nik and Tinsley, "shoot them and prepare to abandon ship."

As three of the crew members raised their weapons, Tinsley spun and slapped the airlock controls. Blocking her with his body, he shoved her through, taking the first shot in the back.

"Go!" he grunted and keyed in the sequence for an emergency decompression of the airlock.

Nik could only watch helplessly as the doctor fell forward against the airlock door and slumped to the floor as more shots were fired into him. A slight hiss was the only warning she had before the airlock opened and she was violently sucked out and flung into the void of space.

She struggled to control her breathing and not panic.

Think, Niki girl, she thought to herself in silent imitation of Maggie. As the distance between her and the Ando grew, she needed to turn so she could try to spot the Roci or its shuttle. She had no power for comms or thruster control, so what did that leave her to work with? Keenly aware that the slightest movements had exaggerated effects, she twisted her body slightly in the direction she needed to turn. Her time spent on the float on the Roci paid off as her body rotated slowly away from the Ando and outwards. As she rotated, she thought she caught a glimpse of something on the edge of her vision, but her momentum continued, and she lost it quickly.

Stamping down the urge to turn to look at it, she waited impatiently for her spin to bring it back into her field of vision. This time, she knew approximately where to look and got a better view of the Roci before it was again lost to her.

Now what? How would she signal them? She only had a few more seconds before the crew of the Ando came out that airlock behind her.

Another spin and another view of the Roci. It was closer, but not close enough and she was going at approximately a sixty-degree angle away from its heading.

Another spin and she caught sight of the airlock door opening to release the Marines.

Spin. Roci.

Spin. Marines.

Two of the crew's thrusters flashed as they came after her. She was torn between relief and alarm.

Spin. Roci.

Spin. The Marines were closing the gap quickly.

Think, Niki girl. Think. What do I have that I can use?

She still had the tool pouch belted on and the wire she had used to connect to the comm array. Slowly, she retrieved the screwdriver and length of wire but even then her movement changed her rotation slightly.

Spin. The Roci was at a different angle. She was spinning on a new axis.

Spin. The Marines were almost on her, their weapons at the ready.

Spin. The Roci was out of her line of sight now.

Even expecting it, the collision of the first marine into her was jarring. She fumbled and lost her hold on the length of wire. Her rotation stopped, then she was turned to face her captors. She could see that the one holding her was talking, but without her comms, she couldn't hear him. The other marine was firing his weapon, but not at her. A blast came from behind her to her left and sent the marine to that side tumbling head over heels backwards leaving a trail of blood droplets in his wake.

Nik remembered the screwdriver in her hand as the marine holding her fumbled for his weapon. Thinking quickly, she blocked his arm, deflecting the blast wildly to her left then jabbed the screwdriver into his left arm and ripped it towards her, tearing a jagged hole in his suit.

The marine was well trained and didn't release his weapon, but he did release his grip on her and shoved her away from him straight back towards whoever was firing on him. By this time, the other marines were moving into position to aid their comrades and were firing at the threat.

Nik thudded against a hard object and bounced. Before she could do anything to stop herself from flying back towards the marines, her arm was grabbed, and she was yanked into the Roci's shuttle.

"I got her," Amos' muffled voice yelled. "Get us out of here!"

Nik was thrown once again as the shuttle accelerated away with Amos still firing at the marines from the side hatch. This time, when she hit the wall, she grabbed a handhold and clung to it while she engaged her mag-boots. She was through tumbling around.

Once they were far enough away, Amos shut the hatch and pressurized the interior of the shuttle. Pulling his helmet off, he went forward to the cockpit, leaving Nik alone in the back. With shaking hands, she pulled off and secured her helmet then found a chair and sank into it gratefully. The adrenaline in her system still had her heart pounding and she felt like she was going to puke. She struggled to take a breath to slow her breathing.

"Put your head down," Amos said beside her and pushed her shoulders down until her head was almost between her knees. "Breath in through your nose and blow out through your mouth."

Nik knew this routine; she had used it on several occasions over the years to help calm panicked children. Following his orders, she was able to slow her breathing and her racing heart. She no longer felt nauseous, just shaky and tired.

"That was a smart move out there," Amos said in a conversational tone. "I didn't have a shot with you there."

"Thanks," she mumbled.

"We'll be back at the Roci soon and get you checked out."

"I'm fine, just shaken."

"If you say so."

"I do."

"Okay."

With that, Amos strapped himself in, keeping a close eye on her, but she was too exhausted to care. She was back with the crew of the Roci and all was right in the universe.