Nine

The stand-off seemed to stretch into infinity. Ianto felt his desperation grow exponentially with each passing moment. He mentally prepared himself. If this was his final moment of freedom he was not going without a fight and he going to take as many of the bastards with him as he could starting with the man in front on him.

As each moment stretched out Ianto realised the man standing before him hadn't moved and seemed to have locked his gaze. Looking into the man's eyes Ianto saw them flash from terror to hope.

It made him pause and really look at the man. He was not dressed like a slaver. In fact the man before him he was wearing something that vaguely looked like a uniform and a slave collar.

Ianto slowly lifted his finger to his lips and the man nodded so imperceptibly he almost missed it.

A voice startling them both called out. 'Olaf get back where I can see you.'

'Yes Sir,' Olaf shouted back. 'I was trying to find the pad I need to remotely access the main frame.' Olaf threw the pad in his hand at Ianto.

'Your usefulness is becoming less and less,' the voice shouted.

'This ship is thirty years ahead of the the Tsiolkovsky. I need to keep searching the tool locker, there has to be one in there,' Olaf shouted back

'Get on with it,' the reply grumbled back.

Moving first Ianto stepped into the tool locker and Olaf followed, closing the door and locking it.

'What do you need?' Olaf asked in a whisper.

Ianto held up the pad. 'Magnetic catch release, universal tool kit, metal cutter and a piss.' Olaf raised his eyes and started to gather the tools.

'How many slavers?' Ianto found a large lidded container. With his bladder screaming for relief he only just made freeing himself without covering himself with urine.

'Twenty-eight. Twenty-five are currently subduing the crew in the cargo hold. One here, two on the bridge. This ship is adrift because someone in the command crew threw the system into shut down. The senior officer with the codes is being held in the captain's office on the bridge. So far he has resisted all attempts to get him to hand over said release code.'

'This ship is years ahead of anything they've ever seen. Commodore Sebol has sent for a more senior tech specialist and a wrecking crew. They are sending two tugs from the main base which is deep within the system. Due to the nature of the system it will take them six days to get here.' Olaf took back the pad and typed in a series of co-ordinates. 'If they can't get the ship to function they will tow it to their base then take it apart. Your crew are being taken to one of the closer moons. There they will be processed…'

There was a bang on the door. Ianto slammed to the floor lying flat behind a stack of containers around half a meter deep.

Olaf threw the tools he had gathered Ianto's way then closing the lid of the container Ianto had used, then he opened the door.

Just as the door opened Olaf hit the floor writhing in agony.

The slaver stood astride the downed man. 'I want this ship up and running,' the man bellowed. 'You know the rules: you have to prove your use. If you can't it's the slave markets for you and I can't guarantee your new masters will have my caring disposition.'

Olaf scrambled out. The slaver took a sniff. 'Little fucker had locked the door to take a piss,' he said to himself. Looking around he kicked the lid off the container Ianto has used and relieved himself. Ianto could hear every splash as he tried to will himself to merge with the floor.

The man had the bladder of a camel and it seemed he would never empty it. Finally after what felt like several thousand years the man zipped himself up. A hoick and scratch later he finally left, the door closing behind him. Ianto sat up and his back creaked. Pulling himself to standing he gathered together the tools Olaf had thrown his way and found a small backpack had been included.

'So the the Tsiolkovsky had been a victim of these predators as well. It would their last,' Ianto vowed. Opening the door a crack Ianto could hear voices over by the power core. Olaf sensing Ianto's next move had moved his supervisor across to where it was impossible to see the door of the tool store.

With as much speed as he could Ianto used the access tool to release the magnetic catches and opened the panel next to the lift. Unlike the panels on other ships these one had an organic seal and unless you knew there was a panel they were invisible. Now inside the opening he closed and sealed it.

Closing his eyes in relief he allowed himself a moment to take stock. He was hungry and his was mouth dryer than the Sahara but he was safe for now.

Switching the pad if filled with a maze of confusing lines. Looking around he found a location indicator inscribed on the wall. Using this as his location the screen cleared. The nearest portal was on the next floor up.

Shuffling down the tunnel he came to' main system portal one hundred and thirty four'. Flipping the panel open he plugged himself in.

Ianto ground his teeth as the system refused to allow him anything but the most basic of access. It was only a step above his attempt via the holo-suite panel. He could send a distress beacon but not programme it. He checked again to ensure he hadn't made a mistake due to frustration combined with exhaustion. Nope, he was blocked. It wasn't clear if it was due to the command lock down or the effect of the energy that had struck the ship. If the lifts were affected then it was possible.

Biting his thumb nail he stared into the distance as he went over his options. There was nothing for it he needed to make it to his quarters.

Before opening the access way to his home corridor Ianto double-checked the position of the slavers within the ship. Listening into the chatter via an ear plug which was standard issue with pads, suggested the deck was empty of invaders. The slaver's communication system was a boon beyond measure and revealed more than they realised. Like everything else their communication equipment was a mix of whatever they had managed to scavenge from the ships they had stolen. So outdated they didn't have any way to preventing an outside source from listening to every conversation. The status quo hadn't altered on his climb to the level where his quarters were located. Except for three of their number everyone else was in cargo bay two, loading the crew. Currently they were discussing the slave transports. Apparently the transports had never been filled to capacity and the slavers were gleeful about how many of the captured crew they could jam in.

Regardless Ianto opened the panel with extreme caution. Moving along the corridor he opened the door to his quarters. From the evidence of his few possessions scattered around the place, it had been ransacked. Nothing was damaged just strewn about. Reaching down he picked up the framed picture of Craig and Liselle and checked it for damage. Opening a drawer he laid the closed frame carefully down then placed several items of clothing around it for good measure.

Moving to the replicator he requested two one litre bottles of water and as many energy bars that would fit into his backpack.

As the replicator fulfilled his request Ianto entered the bathroom. Kneeling he opened the drying cabinet. Carefully he removed a panel exposing a small compartment. Reaching in he pulled out his image holder.

Running his finger down the sides he smiled as he saw the broach. The replicator pinged its completion. Taking one of the bottles he opened it and drained in a series of gulps. Once empty he went to the bathroom and refilled it. His thirst now sated he felt his stomach roil with hunger. Taking one of the food bars he ate it in three bites. Taking a final look around he opened the door and checked the corridor was clear. Making his way back to the portal Ianto plugged himself back into the operating system.

Waiting for the broach device to insinuate its way into the system Ianto thought back to this same moment on the Diligence. Thenhe had literally had to fight himself to use it, dreading the implications of such a traitorous act. Now he was doing it in the hope he could save the entire crew.

He pulled open his pack and ate another bar and felt mildly better. Checking the progress on the pad it was evident by the time it was taking meant the device might have met its match. From the activity it was trying to overcome layers upon layers of firewalls to prevent anyone access to the system via a back door. He couldn't afford to fail; everything depended on gaining access to the ship's system. No access, no way to send a distress beacon with all the data needed to set up a slaver hunt and rescue the crew. Biting his nails and tapping his feet to expend his nervous energy that seemed to infect his entire body as a massive fidget.

An age later and with extreme hesitancy the device reported back. Reading the message his worst fears were realised. There was an encryption format based on a very sophisticated algorithm to create an unreadable ciphertext. It meant without the release code it would take the ship's return to a space dock to unlock it. Navigation, the ship's core, and life support, access to weaponry in the armoury, were denied.

Right now he didn't give a damn about navigating the ship. What he needed was access to secondary systems, probes, beacons, and to use the sensor array to plot a route to the nearest navi-buoys.

He now asked the device to try again, this time aimed at the secondary systems.

His request was rewarded as immediately a menu appeared.

Two hours later hunched over the pad Ianto's hand dropped in relief as the third beacon launched. Unlike the first two which were aimed at different navigation beacons, this one would drift and only activate after several weeks. It was a longshot, no better than casting a bottle with a message into an ocean, but it was one he had to play.

His smile faded as he thought of the fate of the crew. If the slavers thought they were going to be able to take this ship apart without some payback they were much mistaken. Flexing his fingers he pulled the pad towards himself. He couldn't flush the bastards into space but they were going to be hungry, thirsty and find walking extremely difficult for starters. Add setting off every alarm it was going to get ear splittingly noisy.

Pity he couldn't turn the internal gravity to fifty times earth normal but in lock down it had a pre-set limit so he could only turn gravity off. 'Let start with zero and at the same time turn up the heat,' he said out loud and wrote up the sequence.

He stopped himself just in time. 'What was I thinking?' he berated himself. Right now he was just a crew member, AWOL, rank unknown. If he started to affect systems like gravity it would alert them to the fact he was far more of a threat than they supposed him to be. If he was in their shoes he would tear the ship apart to find the rat in the system.

Ianto's hands shook from the near miss and he put the pad down. He had been so focused on remaining free and on his mission he had never considered what his next move might be. Capture yes, finding it impossible to send the beacons yes, with plans B, C and D. Success meant he was faced with 'what now.'

He could make the lives of the slavers difficult but to what point? In the end the result would be the same: the ship would be taken apart or just as likely their techs would find a way to override the shut-down protocol. Ianto's head pounded as the stress of the past hours caught up with him. His grief surfaced and he swallowed it down, there was no time for that now either. The reality was, as of right now he was a liability to himself. He needed food, and some rest to clear his head. Pulling his backpack towards him he took a long drink and ate two food bars. Making himself as comfortable as he could he closed his eyes.

'Beta Alpha Charlie…Boon-dog…tech needed…ship still un-operational adrift co-ordinates 458.58. 'Moon Echo Delta….static eta…static…gravitational pull…Comet Astra…adjust your position...communication…spot….Moon…gravity well use …Moon….Moon…MOON'

Ianto woke with a start his heart pounding and his inner ear aching. Reaching up he removed the ear piece. Picking up the pad he accessed the sensor network, his head still buzzing with slaver chatter. Three strokes and he accessed the sensor net.

Staring at the current ship's position in relation to the nearest large body he sat deep in thought. In truth the object they were drifting towards was a large asteroid not worthy of being called a moon. In six days the ship would pass behind the object breaking the communication between the slavers on the ship and the slaver tugs heading towards them and the Slaver base. It was only a window of two hours but it might be just enough. If his calculations were correct the tugs would be arriving almost simultaneously which added an extra complication. Then what? He would have to deal with the tugs then rescue the crew while their main base thought their own people were experiencing communications difficulties.

Ianto knew he had done the impossible, stayed alive and sent the beacons but he knew he had been lucky, nothing more. What he was proposing was crazy barking mad…he wrapped his arms around himself and closed his eyes in an effort to calm himself.

Truth. It WAS only a matter of time before the ship was taken apart. It would be weeks before help came, if at all. The stark reality was he would be captured. Right now he was trapped on a ship where he was being hunted down or soon would be with rescue hanging on the infinitesimal hope one of the beacons would make it. Right now he was the only person on board with any freedom to act no matter how limited.

Opening his pack he took out the water and took a long drink, followed by two food bars.

Sitting for several moments he calmed himself then using his pad laid out a potential plan.

Rescuing whoever was on the bridge was his first priority. 'It might be Harkness,' he thought as the name flashed through his mind and he paused. He mentally berated himself momentarily angered by his own thoughts. The man as a human being and a fellow crew member doing everything he could to protect the crew.

'You save whoever it is. Then what?' he asked himself. The officer had lasted twenty hours. Moving that person would be a logistical nightmare. They would need medical attention and lots of it. Sick bay came to mind. Ianto snorted. 'That's the first place they would look.'

Even if he could complete a rescue they would have to remain hidden for six long days; maybe longer if the officer didn't have the release codes.

Each action he needed to take was a single point of failure. He wondered if Owen would think any of the crazy shit he was thinking of doing could be considered a level six activity and immediately sobered.

His first step: attempt a rescue of whoever was on the bridge. Ianto felt the same resolve he had in engineering; if he was going to die he would do to take as many of the bastards with him as possible. Being taken alive was not an option. If rescue of the crew member was impossible and he had no other choice he could end the captured crew member's torment.

Taking the pad he grimly began to list the equipment he would need.

Finishing he took another food bar from his pack and read down the list and came to the conclusion he was certifiable.

He had an idea of how to get the crew member off the bridge. Finding a hidden space was easy because all ships have sealed off areas of redundant space. It was the next part that was causing him difficulty and Ianto groaned at the list of equipment they would need once they were sealed in. They would need a life support unit along with an oxy-generator and replicator, medi-kits, healing wands. Some like the oxy-generator were so heavy it would need a null field transport device. Brute strength could be used to shift one a few centimetres but there was no way he could drag one through the maintenance tunnels.

If only Eugene's transfiguration idea had worked he could transport exactly what was required to the exact spot. A pang of regret hit him as he recalled the last attempts. It had taken every ounce of power this ship could generate to get one square inch of hydrogen condensate to dematerialise but there was just not enough to hold the information in the sensor array for longer than 3.2 milliseconds let alone re-materialise the object.

The entire process was dominated by its need for massive amounts of energy. Infuriating because they had proved the concept worked. If they could scan-deconstruct and convert matter to energy the reverse was equally true. Matter and energy were interchangeable: E = MC2. Taking the pad he hit himself on his forehead a couple of times for good measure. The answer had been there all along. Energy could easily be inserted as part of the process or use the matter intrinsically inherent in this instance Keeping it simple Ianto reasoned that adding a basic element like hydrogen would suffice.

Sitting back he looked at his workings. They weren't pretty or elegant but if these were right he should be able to transport what he needed to exactly where it was wanted. Checking the ship's systems he double-checked the sensor array was not including in the level one system shut down. He held his breath as he checked over Eugene's test programme. From what he could tell Eugene had set up the array for his next test run; it was just waiting for the enact command. Working at speed he added the lines and lines of code he needed along with instructions on how and when the process should break down and utilize the added energy source.

Fear his fatigue and stress had led to a mistake Ianto went carefully over every line of code he had inserted. There were no second chances. Failure was always on the cards but he didn't want it to be because he had missed a comma or a dash.

Rubbing his sore eyes he did a final check. Entering the save function he downloaded the programme to the main core and the array with instruction it to go into wait for each set of coordinates he would input as he gathered equipment. Easing his sore body along the maintenance tunnels he made his way back to his quarters.

Ianto opened the panel of his replicator and he re-configured it. Now he punched in a new request. A few seconds passed as it hummed away and several disks around the size of dog tags began to form. While he waited Ianto tried to stretch out some of the ache in his body. Hours of programming and searching through tech specs for somewhere to hide had taken its toll and he was sore and mentally exhausted.

The replicator pinged its completion and Ianto took out twenty disks. Moving across the room he pulled off his bed mattress fully onto the floor. Taking a laser cutter he slit it down the side and filled the interior with the blanket and pillow from the floor and stuffed them in. Taking a disk he peeled off the backing. Reaching in he stuck it to the inner surface.

'If he was going to ground in arat's lair it might as well be a comfortable,' he reasoned to himself.

He suddenly found the entire situation hysterical and fought not to burst out laughing.

'It was mental because this was never going to work mattress or no mattress'

Still struggling to stop himself laughing Ianto used his pad to triangulate the exact location of the mattress and save its position and assign it a number on a list.

Pulling out the tablet to check his growing list he opened the medical storage room on the lowest deck on the ship. He needed a medical healing and examination wand, along with an emergency medi-kit. Choosing one medical kit he added a second for good luck. Stacking them up in a corner of the storeroom he added a disc to each then marked their location from top to bottom. Taking a look around to see if there was any other equipment that might prove useful, his mind went a complete blank so he moved on to the next storage area.

As impossible as the improbability of this mad venture was one look at the equipment and he knew he was not going to shift and be able stack the replicator and recycle unit, or the life support unit. A search for a null field generator was out of the question because every second he took condemned the officer on the bridge to continuing abuse.

The stress was not helping his dilemma. The issue was he was asking the system not just to transfigure matter to energy and back again he was asking the programme to transfigure matter from one location and reform it at a new one.

This was complicated enough and he had tried to simplify it by making equipment was in groups at a limited number locations in this case three. Could the array cope with two items so close together not stacked? Secondly the life support system was too big it would fill the entire space he had located. Hurriedly checking the inventory he found a much smaller life support unit against a wall on the other side of the storage bay. Sticking on the disc Ianto again marked its location and assigned it a number.

Checking for what seemed the thousandth time he tried to figure if he had forgotten something vital. If this was correct he only needed two last pieces of equipment: a portable field power source and replicator.

Using his access code Ianto called the lift to the storage deck. Stopping the lift and standing on the now familiar rail he opened the ceiling panel and pulled himself up. Then using a cord he had tied to the backpack he pulled it through the gap. It was heavy and his back strained until he could reach down and pull into onto the top of the lift. Before sealing the panel he used the remote engineering wand he had commandeered. He had come across it during his equipment hunt and knew it would prove perfect for what he was proposing. He pointed the wand at the lift floor indicator panel and sent an embedded programme that would only enact on his signal via its main operating system.

Opening the pack he took out a pair of magni-boots and unrolled them. Divesting himself of his light shoes he pulled them over his feet. They had to be a perfect fit so wiping his hands from his mid lower leg feet and ankles he eliminated any crinkles or greases. Now satisfied he enacted the fit sequence that would mould the boots to his feet only. Now there was no chance they could slip of inadvertently. Kneeling, he now took out a climbing harness, rope, spring-loaded cams, nuts, and two hold-fast sheer face fasteners. The lift moved and he lay flat waiting until it was empty. Sliding the panel open he pointed the engineering wand. and gave the lift a second set of directions. As it moved into position he held his breath.