What May Come

Please see chapter 1 for author's notes. Just to let people know, there are between four and eight chapters left…they're outlined, just working on fleshing them out.

Chapter 20: In the Meantime…

Bova leaned back against the wall, blinking his eyes as he awoke from his nightmare. He tried to remember if he'd mentioned the possibility that the Spung could always lose control of the tethers hauling the Christa and send the ship careening into a sun on their way past. Probably. Either the Spung had figured out that no one but the crew could control the Christa and didn't trust the students to do as they were told, or—more likely—thought they'd done something to freeze the controls in place and found it simpler to tow the Christa wherever they wanted it to go rather than trying to fix the problem. Or they'd blown the command post to pieces and were just towing them to the spacial equivalent of a garbage dump to sit and float for the rest of eternity. There weren't that many Spung left on board…a bunch had left at the same time they'd taken Suzee away. They didn't even know if she was still onboard and locked up elsewhere or if she had been taken to a different ship. The three of them had been locked in the team room since then. Once a day a food tube was delivered for each, but it was the only contact with the outside world they had. And since the food wheel dispensed food for whoever turned it…even he had trouble digesting what the Spung considered a meal. He glanced over to see Rosie leaning on Miss Davenport, both still apparently asleep. Rosie hadn't said much since the Spung had come onboard, but then again there wasn't that much to be cheerful about. Thelma was deactivated, Suzee was missing, and Commander Goddard, Radu, and Harlan…for all they knew, they were still stuck back on that stupid station. What were proof-of-ownership papers, anyway? No one used hardcopy anymore. He rose, beginning to pace again.

"Bova, you're awake." He glanced over again to see Miss Davenport, now with her eyes open. "Rosie? So we've all had a quick nap. I'm sure now that we're refreshed we'll be able to come up with some better ideas."

"They're probably just going to pump poison gas in," Bova felt he had to point out.

"They would have done that already," Rosie said quietly. "They're planning something else."

"That's right," Miss Davenport agreed. "And we'll be ready for them. Now, we've figured out that Bova can't short the doors from here, and Rosie can't burn through them, and I can't get to any important computer systems. What do we have?"

"Bad food and Harlan's video games."

"Mr. Bova, we're brainstorming."

"We have model building materials…glue," Rosie volunteered.

"Good, we could use that. What else?"

"Heavy furniture? If Radu was here, he could throw it at them."

"Unfortunately, Mr. Radu isn't here, but it's still a good suggestion. We've figured out that we can't climb the jumptubes, but we still have these ropes we made also."

"We should use them to hoist the furniture? We'll either rupture something or crush ourselves!" Miss Davenport was handling this much better than he'd ever have expected, but maybe she was closer to the edge than he'd realized.

"I'm just pointing out the materials available."

"Maybe we could find a way to call a gizbot," Rosie suggested. "They aren't critical systems…the Spung probably don't even know about them. One of them could probably let us out of here."

"Contact them how? Miss Davenport spent a whole day trying to hack into the communications systems…all she got was a headache."

"We don't need the external array though…that's not how Thelma calls them, is it?"

"Well, no," Bova admitted. "At least I don't think so." They didn't really know how Thelma did much of anything, but using the external array was about the most inefficient way he could think of. "I think she must talk to the Christa…ask her to send them."

"So we just have to figure out a way to talk to the Christa." Rosie was starting to brighten. "I'm sure the Christa will help us…she likes us."

"And if she's the 'excellent judge of character' Thelma claims, I doubt she likes the Spung," Miss Davenport agreed.

"We're talking about the same android that once referred to a group of people trying to blow us to spacedust as 'polite killers', right?" He held up his hands at her glare. "All right, all right, just pointing out that Thelma's own opinions are sometimes…skewed."

Miss Davenport moved back to the V.R. equipment they'd spent the morning before manipulating to allow her an interface from which to hack into the rest of the ships systems. It hadn't work, but they hadn't disassembled any of it. "All right, the matrix is activated. Ready to call the Christa. Um…any idea how I go about doing that? Rosie, if she can understand us, why don't you try? She'll recognize you as a crewmember, and you're good at talking to people."

"I…okay." She slipped on the headset. "Um, hi, Christa. Can you hear me?" There was no response, and she gave a weak giggle. "Well, I guess if she could talk directly to us, we wouldn't be having this problem anyway. Christa? If you can hear, me, we could really use your help. See the Spung have boarded—you probably know that already. There aren't very many of them on you anymore though, so if we could just get out of here, we might be able to get away. If you can't open the door yourself, could you maybe send a gizbot to do it?" Again, nothing, and she shook her head. "I don't know, Miss Davenport…I'm sure she heard us, but I don't know if she can do anything."

"Now, now, we mustn't lose hope. I'm sure the Christa will do everything in her power to help. After all, I doubt she wants to be disassembled or used as a warship or whatever they have planned."

"So we sit and wait for a machine that may or may not be coming depending on whether our semi-sentient ship happened to understand us?"

"No, Mr. Bova, we keep thinking. We want as many options as possible available to us."

Unfortunately, Miss Davenport didn't seem to have too many more ideas either. They'd been able to hold off the Spung when they'd first boarded, and then spent some time chained to a wall, but shortly after the Spung had taken Suzee they'd tossed the rest of the crew in this room and they'd been working to get out ever since. For people who didn't know anything about the Christa, they'd managed to block most of the crew's escape attempts pretty neatly. "We could try going up the jumptubes again," Rosie suggested. "We almost made it, last time."

"And we almost gave ourselves concussions when we fell back down for the fifth time."

Miss Davenport rubbed her shoulder. "I think I agree with Bova on this one…we'll save that option for last. Perhaps one of you could get out through the ventilation ducts."

"So we can be first in line when they start pumping in the gas? Besides, I think the most any of us could fit into a shaft would be our arms."

"Mr. Bova, think positively please."

Well, someone had to keep pointing out the flaws in their plans…. He shook his head. "I could try shorting the door controls again…maybe a higher voltage would do something." It was their turn to wince. The last time they'd tried that the currents had been routed around the room and all of them had gotten zapped—fortunately mildly—at least once.

"How about some new ideas?"

"Okay, how about…" Rosie fell silent. "I can't think of anything."

"Well…." There was a noise, and all three turned to see the door open. One Spung threw in a pack of foodstuffs while two others waited on either side, weapons ready. They'd learned their lesson when Bova and Thelma had been knocking them out back on command.

"Joy, dinnertime." Bova couldn't bring himself to be excited about what the Spung considered good food; even gruel would be better than most of it. At least he wouldn't have to kill that before he could eat it. Rosie refused to touch any of it after her first meal had tried to climb off her plate when she stuck a fork in it.

"Now, now, we have to try and keep our strength up. I'm sure there will be something in there that we can eat."

"I'm holding my breath."

"Mr. Bova…"

He reached out, opening the first tube since it didn't appear that either of them was that eager to touch it. Some kind of worms…they'd seen it before. None of them had tried it—or wanted to. The second was dark mush. A possibility. The third he rehydrated and found something furry and moving sitting on the plate. "I'm still curious how the Christa has managed to dehydrate living matter."

"I'd rather leave that a mystery," Miss Davenport muttered, followed immediately by a sneeze. "Um…put it back in the tube."

"No, don't do that!" Rosie reached out to lift it off the plate before Bova could point out that it wouldn't fit in the tube anyway. "It's cute."

"It's not cute, it's someone's din—ah-ah-ah-choo! Just…put it somewhere away from me."

Rosie wrapped it—whatever it was—in a blanket and put it on the far side of the room. "The poor thing must be terrified."

"Well, we've done our good deed for the day…now what do we do about the Spung?"

There was a whirring, clanking sound, and Rosie turned. "It's a gizbot! She heard us!"

"This is excel—ah-choo—excellent. Get it to open the door again."

"But it didn't come in through the door," Bova pointed out. "We were looking in that direction…it came in behind us."

"Well, get it to open something, just get us out of here!"

He left it to Rosie to talk to the gizbot…if one of them needed to sweet-talk the thing, it sure as heck wasn't going to be him. Whatever she said apparently worked, because it whirred its way over to the door and went to work with some sort of laser tool. "What's it doing?"

"Well, the Spung can't control the Christa…they must have put some sort of clamp or latch on the other side to hold it closed and defeat Rosie's heating powers," Miss Davenport theorized. "At least it looks like he's getting through."

"Where are we going when we get out?" Rosie asked. "Command?"

"I think we'd better find somewhere to hide and observe first. To plan our next move. If we go to the primary engine room…"

"We stopped using that when we found the other one," Bova pointed out.

"Exactly…the Spung probably haven't found it yet. We can observe their movements from there and if we need to we can activate the hyperdrive."

"A blind hyperjump when we aren't even on command to steer!"

"Only as a last resort, Mr. Bova, but at least it will be an option."

The three of them began to move quickly through the corridors, trying to be as quiet as possible. There weren't many Spung left on the ship as far as they knew, unless more had come onboard in the days they'd been locked in the team room, but the Spung were armed and they weren't. And for all the three of them knew, the Spung could be hiding around the next corner. He charged up his antennae as best he could after having not eaten for several days, and he could feel the radiation as Rosie allowed some of her internal heat to come to the surface. No one was going to grab her again. They were almost to the engine room when the gizbot leading them began to squeal. "I just knew it."

"Radu?" Rosie's astonishment was her downfall as a Spung rounded the corner directly behind the Andromedan boy, leveling a weapon in their direction. Two other Spung were on his heels, one male and one female, both armed.

"Who are you and what do you think you're doing?" the first demanded in flawless Standard.

"Who are you?" Miss Davenport demanded in return.

"The ones with the weapons. I'm guessing you're the crew they captured. One human, one Mercurian, and one Uranusian. Hm. Dahak, take them and lock them up…I don't care where. Somewhere out of the way. And get rid of…that thing."

He gestured sharply at the gizbot and the Andromedan boy—on closer examination a little taller than Radu and with much narrower features—moved forward. And slapped the gizbot into the wall hard enough to crumple a good portion of it. "Go. I'll follow."

Bova didn't wait for Miss Davenport or Rosie to make the first move—as soon as they were out of sight of the three Spung he turned and fired the strongest blast he could manage at the boy who followed behind them. Who spun out of the way and brought up one leg for a kick.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/

"Bova? Bova, are you all right? Wake up…please wake up."

He blinked as Rosie's voice penetrated, trying to bring his arm down to rub at his eyes. And found that they wouldn't move. "Wha…? Where…?"

"You're okay. We made it to the engine room," Rosie offered. "We're…kind of chained up, though. And I don't think the gizbot will be able to help us this time."

"I…are you okay? Is Miss Davenport okay?"

"She's unconscious, but I think she'll be okay. She passed out when he hit you. You hit the wall so hard and just slid to the floor…" she trailed off.

"I'm okay, Rosie. Well, I probably have a concussion," he frowned as he thought. "And maybe some internal bleeding. It's hard to tell. How long have we been in here?"

"About an hour, maybe a little more." Rosie glanced around at the controls. "At least we're in here. If we can figure out a way to get free, we won't have to sneak anywhere else."

"Yeah. Right. Miss Davenport? Miss Davenport, wake up. Did she hit her head when she fell?"

"No…he caught her, actually. Then he said he'd break one of your necks if I tried anything…he said to lead the way to an unoccupied room, and since everything in here was powered down I thought—"

Her voice was steadily rising in pitch, and Bova figured he'd better cut her off before she overheated. "Yeah, that was a good idea. Can you melt through the restraints?"

"Not without bringing the temperature in the room to dangerously high levels. Maybe you can blast them off."

"I'll give it a try." He summoned the strongest charge he could and aimed a blast at the cuff on his right wrist. It warped slightly but didn't open as current flowed through it. "I don't think that will work. You can't slip out of them?"

"No…he bent the metal down tight against my wrists."

Both stopped trying to pull out of the wall as the door opened and the female Spung they'd seen earlier stepped through. "Not even think to blast me…Dahak will hear and my brother will not like."

"The Andromedan is your brother?" Rosie asked.

"Dahak is Ashrach. He belong to…family." The girl shrugged, glancing around the room. "Not smart…he not even know this engines here. Still…you have chains. And nothing to do as power is not here." She shrugged. "Your crew defeats Warlord Shank three times? Would believe not likely."

"Mmm." Miss Davenport shook her head, blinking. "What happened?"

"You fainted when the Andromedan hit Bova," Rosie supplied. "Don't you remember?"

"Rem—oh, dear! Bova! Are you all right?"

"I'm chained to a wall with a Spung staring at me, so I suppose that depends on your definition of 'all right'. My head only feels like it's been cracked rather than split all the way open."

"Ah…good," she said after a moment. "Who are you?"

The Spung shrugged. "Malee. Tactics, special squad three. We interrogate you."

"Interrogate us?"

"Find how ship works. Why we not can use the controls. Those things. Not worry, we are not start now…need to clear out sector first." She shrugged. "Will send Dahak down with food."

"Could you possibly make it edible?" Bova asked. "Even I can't manage what you people eat."

"Not biggest of your problem." She turned, tail knocking against the doorframe on her way out.

"Um, this is bad," Rosie said. "They know who we are…Warlord Shank probably knows where we are."

"Well, I suppose we have more incen—," Miss Davenport broke off suddenly. "I think…this restraint is cracked. I can move my hand in it." She tugged lightly.

"Can you get out?"

"Not…not yet, but I might be able to loosen it some more. Have you tried yours?"

"No luck," Rosie reported. "But he must not have been being careful when he tightened your restraints…gripped a little too tightly. We'll be able to get out of here in no time!"

"Keep your voice down!" Bova hissed. "Who knows how close the Andromedan—Ashrach—whatever—is."