CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ex-Space Commander Travis didn't have much choice in the matter. With out a hearing or trial, he didn't have to wait long before he was being hauled away from Earth and 'sentenced' to spent the rest of his natural life mucking out the stinking sulphur pits of Labora Alpha.

He could imagine the supreme commander Servalan relishing the fact she had every failure of the ;Blake affair' pinned firmly on him, and now she had got rid of that failure and without a proper court sentence, he was at the was point of no return.

Travis refused to lose face and when he was marched off to the space port ready to be shipped out to that far flung quadrant.

On the prison transporter ship, Travis took his seat, Officer Spageffi took great pleasure in the fact that Travis still wore his trademark leather Federation uniform, he leaned into him and said, "you will be a target Travis...I'm sure a few of the others here will not tolerate the likes of you when you when we reach our destination"

Travis wasn't phased, he looked up to him, "they can all but try Spageffi, but I'm sure their back bones would make useful tools for digging up all that ore"

During their journey through the constellations as Earth became a distant memory, the inmates were freed from their seats. Anya, a young blond woman was the first to approach Travis looking him up and down, "So...Ex Federation huh? Whose sick idea was it for you to keep wearing that uniform?"

"Who's to say it was their idea?"

Anya tilted her head considering him, "You don't look that stupid"

A young black man wasn't so pleasant, he was the first to push Travis up against the metal walls of the confines, "So, you are Space Commander Travis - you are the monster that looked on and watched your troops massacre all those people on Auros"

Travis met him in the eyes, "The Federation's Administration have just as much blood on their hands"

"Yes, but I can not kill them can I? But you...", he teased.

Travis chuckled, then in a blur, he managed to overpower the black man, flip him around and held him in a head lock. Travis's mouth was close to his ear, "threaten me like that again and I'll happily kill you...I'm a space commander and one of my gut instincts is to survive - and that means by any means necessary"

Travis then threw the man to the floor, Anya was at his side, "Strevan is out for blood"

Travis watched as Strevan scrambled to his feet, "Then I'll happily spill it"

As the journey continued, Travis watched Anya through the corner of his eye. After eating the muck that was the excuse for food, he approached her and sat next to her, "So...what did you do?"

Anya looked at him, "Rude question"

Travis shrugged, "I'm a murderer of thousands, I'm sure even by your standards you cannot be compared to that"

She looked at him and there was a hint of a smile, "You'll be surprised"

As the prison transporter hit the outer quadrants, Captain Fellmar adjusted the controls at the dash. Sat next to him, Officer Spageffi looked up to the monitor and pointed to the comet streaming through the distant stars, "What is it?"

"I don't know, computers cannot verify, but it is not on a random trajectory", checked Fellmar.

"It could be that super ship, Blake's craft, the one that's causing all the chaos for space command", countered Spageffi.

Fellmar looked up from the dash controls, "The so called Liberator? Lets hope not, the fire power on that thing is becoming legendary"

The comet got closer, Fellmar keyed in the navigational readouts, "It's heading this way!"

Spageffi took the spiral-scopes and peered through, "I can just make it out..."he looked up from the lenses, face draining of colour, "it's a Lexan warship!"

The Prison transporter took a direct hit from the alien vessel, Nobody ever saw a Lexan, but every encounter ended with the aliens being on the winning side in an assault.

Travis knew that something was wrong. All inmates took to their seats. As Anya took to hers, she saw Travis stride up to the door of the flight cabin, he hammered his fist on it. Fellmar came through and pointed forward, "back to your seat Travis"

Travis didn't move, "Lexan is it? A squadron of high powered mark 4 pursuit ships can't out run them, what chance has this piece of junk got?"

Fellmar gave him an affirmative nod, "have you any ideas?"

Travis was amused and it showed in his tone, "but surely I am but a mere criminal"

"A criminal with a space command background...if this ship can't outrun them, what can we do?"

Travis pushed past him and entered the flight deck. Just as Officer Spageffi was about to object and stop him, Fellmar shook his head, "let him to the controls"

Travis shoved Spageffi aside and sat at the flight controls. There was another direct hit , but Travis managed to ride the shockwave with his first class piloting skills. Fellmar managed to pick himself off the floor, "we can't sustain too many of them blasts, the shockwaves will break us apart"

Travis relished the control he had and put the ship into a spiral formation, Fellmar tried to cling on to a console bank but was thrown across the cabin and hit his head that rendered him out cold. Spageffi came forward and tried to grab him, "you're a maniac Travis, you are going to get us all killed!", he cried,

In the back, Anya managed to struggle past the panicking inmates and reached the flight cabin, she was thrown to her knees when another blast hit, and from nowhere, Fellmer's weapon slid across the smooth floor to her grasp. She looked up to see officer Spageffi trying to wrestle the controls back from Travis, without thinking she raised the weapon and blasted Spageffi in the back.