Fiction Home - More by Nick Fel - More by Corry Vrecken - More in Other Stories

Date: 48:7 (13 years after the Battle of Yavin)

"There it is." Nick Fel hit the shuttle's spotlights and played the beams across the scarred hull in front of them. The vessel drifted through the nebula's thick purple gasses, its engines seemingly dead despite lights flickering across its decks that suggested power. Probably the size of a typical frigate, it was the kind of ship a civilisation built early on during its career in space travel; thin-hulled, cramped and spewing nuclear waste into space behind it. "Think you can fix it?"

Beside him, Corry Vrecken leaned closer to the viewport and squinted. "Sure. NASA had dozens of these old things," she replied coolly.

Nick cracked a grin. "That's what I thought. We'll take a look and see if we can help. If we can't we'll send for something with tractors to drag it out of the nebula."

"I'd like to check out that distress message again, if you don't mind, sir." Corry was already working with the comms equipment. "There might be something we missed."

"Only if you drop this 'sir' business," he said. "It makes me feel—"

"Old?"

"—stuffy." Nick frowned. "Just play back the damn recording."

The face that appeared on his display was, for the most part at least, humanoid. Only around the mouth did it deviate from the norm, with a wicked-looking set of mandibles encasing an otherwise normal mouth.

"This is a distress signal. Our engines have failed, stranding us in this nebula and our crew is falling into protective comas caused by the nebula's radiation. We beg any passing craft to tow us to safety. Repeat: this is a distress signal…"

Nick sighed quietly. He'd volunteered to fly their resident Stargate expert out to look at Kurava's broken DHD to get himself out of the office and into the cockpit, not get caught up in an episode of a bad holoadventure.

"We won't fit in there," he noted as the ship's cramped docking bay came into view. "Looks like we're suiting up."

* * * * *

"You don't really have to come, sir... er... Nick." Corry triple checked the lock on her helmet and peered apprehensively through the small airlock viewport. They'd secured the shuttle against the ship's side, and were now facing a cold jump across to the bay's far wall.

"Don't worry. Our ship won't fly off without us. I give you my personal guarantee." Nick closed the inner hatch and the pressure dropped.

The sight of the swirling vapours of the nebula, viewed through a thin transparisteel face shield, was enough to make Corry's insides tighten up. It was certainly beautiful, but oh-so-very eerie. Add to that the memory of her last experience in an enviro-suit and she definitely felt queasy, but there was no need to let the Admiral know that.

Resolutely, she followed as he pushed through the outer hatch and quickly set her thrusters to make the short trip to the stricken vessel. Ahead of her, the Admiral did a lazy barrel roll on his way over. Corry paused and laughed softly to herself. She really should relax a bit more. After all, wasn't this every Earth child's dream come true? She should count her blessings.

Once through the ship's airlock, they ran the scanner twelve ways from Thursday before removing their helmets. The air smelled slightly musty but was certainly breathable. With a wave Nick headed forward to check on the crew and Corry took the narrow corridor aft, stripping off her gloves and enviro-suit as she went.

"Oh, dear Grohl," she whispered as she pushed her way into the cramped engine room. "It's an Edsel."

"What was that?" Over the comm, Nick's voice echoed dully in the overfilled compartment.

Corry pushed aside a bundle of tubing that hung haphazardly from the ceiling and almost slipped on several small, loose metal bolts as she pushed her way into the crowded space. Any metal that didn't have a generous coating of dirty black grease had oxidized to variegated shades of rust and green.

"I'm not sure I can adequately describe this," she answered. "It's rather like an engineer's version of the Seventh Level of Hell."

"Any idea what's wrong with the drive?"

"To be honest, it's going to take me some time to find the drive."

* * * * *

"Great," Nick muttered, switching his comm off. "Just kriffing great."

The ship was a million miles away from a Star Destroyer—or at least a good few hundred years. There wasn't a patch of bulkhead not covered in pipes, cables and old-fashioned analogue displays. He ducked through another low hatchway and banged his head regardless; he was still getting used to the below-average gravity and was yet to negotiate a single hatch successfully.

At least he'd reached his destination now, he thought.

The first concentration of faint life signs had led him to what, judging from the arrays of barbaric-looking devices, must have been a medbay. A handful of the crew, no doubt the first to lapse into comas, were crammed into its few beds, but seemed to have subsequently been abandoned. Now he knew why.

The ship's mess was filled with bodies.

They were laid out on top of tables, under them, across rows of seats and serving counters, every one of them motionless and breathing shallowly. A handful wearing enviro-suits had clearly been operating the triage, and the last of them lay slumped where he'd been carrying one of his comrades to a spare space. Nick suppressed a shiver as he checked them over, but the whole crew appeared to be sleeping peacefully.

"Nick, I think I've found the drive," Corry panted into the comm.

"What's wrong? You sound out of breath."

* * * * *

Corry dragged the huge alien mechanic over the hatchway combing and deposited him, as gently as possible, on the decking outside the engine room. "Gee. Wonder why that would be?" she muttered.

But when she spoke into the comm again, she tried for bright and cheerful. "Everything is fine. I've made some headway. I'll check in with another report as soon as I have anything solid."

Crawling back through the maze of machines in use, machines in parts and machines that had somehow gone to seed, Corry found the place where the unconscious alien had been lying. There were several blackened resistance bands near the scatter of tools.

"You can tell a workman by his tools," she commented to the ship, seating herself cross legged in the clear space the mechanic's body had left amidst the clutter. "But maybe it wasn't his fault. If he'd been as far gone as the other crew members…" With one hand thrust into the opening she carefully started peeling back the sheathing on the drive mount. "…it says something that he was here, trying to restore power…" Bits of blackened sheathing crumbled in her fingertips, but she scraped them away and was able to grasp a large chuck, easing it aside. "…instead of just lying in bed like the rest of… youch!"

The sheathing burst into flame as the oxygen hit it and Corry pulled back scorched fingertips. The next few minutes were spent in a desperate search for a fire extinguisher.

* * * * *

The glowing purple gasses of the nebula cast an eerie glow across the entire bridge that made Nick realise this was the only viewport he'd yet to see on the vessel. It was funny how no shipbuilder could ever bear to build a bridge without one, despite their limited usefulness on a capital ship.

Every inch of the bridge was crammed with instruments, from radars to helm controls to consoles Nick could only guess at. One crewman, who he thought he recognised as the sender of the distress message, lay comatose in his seat in front of the comm station. Another was dressed in greasy overalls and slumped across a display showing a ship schematic. The writing on the display wasn't in any script Nick had encountered before, but the flashing red lights across the engine sections were fairly universal.

He stopped at a similar display with a different configuration of lights and quickly realised it must be some kind of internal biosensor. Large clusters of lights roughly corresponded to the medbay and mess, with smaller lights in the bridge and engine compartments. But the fifth blotch…

Nick was staring so intently at the schematic, trying to figure out where onboard the fifth concentration of readings was that he physically jumped when the cluster of lights slowly began to move.

He spun to face the bridge hatch, blaster drawn on the way.

Whatever it was, it was coming right at him.

* * * * *

Sputtering, Corry cut off the flow of the fire suppressant and waved away a dense cloud of what she hoped was only carbon dioxide. As it started to thin she peered into the charred remains of the drive. The mount was blackened and warped, but she'd seen worse. Probably.

Before she could assess the real damage, there was a clatter somewhere behind her.

After nearly thirty minutes inside the ship's guts, Corry thought she was getting a feel for the ship's normal sounds, and that, she decided, was not a normal ship sound.

"Who's there?" Belatedly, Corry realised her blaster was somewhere across the engine compartment with her tool belt and she hefted the empty fire suppresser instead. "Nick?"

"Corry?" The Admiral's voice sounded strained and slightly panicked. "Corry, I have a problem here!"

"You have a problem? I just… oh!"

Corry's hand went to her mouth first in shock, then to suppress a giggle as Nick waddled—definitely waddled—out of the cloud of fire suppressant. Clinging to each leg and hanging from both arms were small children, humanoid children, all of them probably under five years old. A fifth child hid behind his legs, dragging a blanket along the grated deck.

"Oh, my gosh! Where did you find them?"

"They found me," Nick admitted through gritted teeth. "Get them off, will you?"

Corry reached out her arms to the nearest child and smiled reassuringly, but the little one ducked further behind Nick's back and grabbed on tightly to the seat of the Admiral's pants.

"Well, I would..." She grinned. "But they rather seem to like you. Are there any more?"

"Kriff, I hope not. Come on Corry, take charge of them." Nick's voice was a shade between a command and a plea, and that caused Corry's eyebrows to rise.

"Why? Because I'm a woman, so I should be the babysitter?"

"Yes. I mean, of course not. But you're much better suited to... I mean…"

Corry had never heard the Admiral stumble around like that before, and somehow that took the sting out of his words. It also made her realize something—the man was scared.

"Look, sir... Nick. They're just children, nothing to be worried about. They've survived this long, so they aren't utterly helpless. All you'll need to do is keep them entertained, or at least keep them from damaging themselves or the ship, while I finish up. Then we'll give them back to their parents. Okay?"

"But…!"

Corry sighed and got to her feet, holding up filthy, grease-smeared hands. At the sudden movement, several of the children gripped Nick tighter, their big dark eyes peering out at her from tear streaked faces as they tried to burrow into the folds of his enviro-suit. "Alright, I'll be happy to take care of them while you fix the engine."

Nick groaned and lumbered around in a small circle before heading to the door, dragging the children with him. "You win! Just work as fast as you can!" He disappeared down the corridor, a faint thumping sound marking his progress. Corry bit her lip and waited until the sounds fell away before she burst out laughing.

"I so wish I had a holo of that!"

Several minutes later her comm buzzed. She had to grab for it twice before she could stop it from slipping out of her hands. "Yes?"

"I have to admit that I don't know much about the care of children," Nick's voice sounded strained. "Could you give me some pointers?"

Poor guy, she thought. Not many men would admit there was something they weren't innately good at. "Give them something to eat. Wash their faces. Tell them a story—but nothing too violent!"

"What do they eat? What if I poison them?"

Corry sighed. "They'll let you know what they want. Have they said anything?"

"Not a word. And I've tried six different standard languages."

He sounded a bit more relaxed as they talked, so Corry set the comm to wide range, propped it on the inductor coiling and got back to work.

"I don't know this species, Nick, do you? Those kids, are they the larval stage of the adults? Will they suddenly grow huge muscles and mandibles when they hit puberty?"

"Here, get down! Don't do… ok, go ahead and do that."

"Nick?"

"What? No, I'm not sure. Stranger things have happened, but—uh oh!"

The signal cut out and Corry bounded up, heading for the door. But on second thought, she forced herself to kneel right back down and continued rethreading the inductor. Nick would call back if he really needed help.

Twenty minutes later she locked down the inductor housing, carefully sealed the engine room from the rest of the ship and started looking for containment bottles. This was going to be the worst part. She'd have to bleed off the old contaminated plasma.

A tiny footlocker held what looked like a hazardous waste suit and she pulled it on with misgivings, then looped several lengths of spare flexible wiring around her waist to hold the thing in place. The beings who inhabited this ship were much more muscular than she was, but she refused to go back to the shuttle for a standard hazard suit without first doing a full decon. That would leave poor Nick with his charges for an additional hour or more, so she decided to make do. The helmet was enormous, probably to house the engineer's mandibles, and the gloves at least five sizes too large for her hands.

"Join the Navy. See the galaxy," she sighed as she kitted up and wormed her way toward the rear of the plasma cell.

Twenty more minutes found her sweating and with a definite cramp in one side, but victoriously holding a full bottle of the most noxious substance in the galaxy.

Well, almost the most noxious.

"Corry!"

She nearly dropped the containment bottle.

"What? Are you alright?" She yelled to be heard through the confines of the helmet.

"One of them has had… an accident."

She stared at the comm, then back at the containment bottle. "I'm right in the middle of a similar procedure, sir. Good luck with it!"

"Wait! What do I do with it once I…?"

"Jettison it, sir. That's what I'm going to do. That's what their garbage system will likely do. Unless you can find an incinerator, jettison it. Vrecken out."

* * * * *

Corry trundled along the deserted halls, the oversized hazardous waste suit flapping about her and the containment bottle held at arm's length, headed for the nearest airlock. The nearest airlock on the side opposite their own shuttle, that is. She had no desire to run into this containment bottle again while she was transferring back, which would happen very, very soon if she had any say in the matter. This ship was just a bit too eerie, with its comatose crew and silent, waiflike children. The faster she got the engines back up and running, the happier she'd be.

Her borrowed booties slapped, clown-like, with each step. The crew had big feet to match their big heads and Corry had to take extra care not to fall flat on her face and risk spilling the noxious substance she carried so gingerly. But the thin suit was the only protection she'd have if she did fall, so she kept the suit, the enormous gloves and booties and the huge helmet firmly in place.

Ten minutes later, when the airlock finally voided with a whoosh, it echoed her own sigh of relief. One problem down. One more to go. Now that the fuel blockage was siphoned and the fire put out she could begin…

Corry stopped in her tracks and slowly turned to face the corridor behind her. A reflection had fluttered across the helmet's faceplate, breaking her reverie.

"Hello?" Her voice echoed oddly from inside her cavernous helmet.

At the far end of the narrow corridor a being stepped into view, black clad with an armoured helmet and gleaming faceplate. Shorter and with a compact elegance, this being couldn't be one of the crew. Before she could say anything, the figure raised its arm and a pulse of hot blue-orange weapons fire seared down the corridor. Three of the oversized fingers of Corry's left glove melted off before she could throw herself behind a bank of pipes lining the nearest bulkhead. The clang of boots rattled off the grid metal decking and she took off running, the flailing suit now a deadly impediment instead of a comic inconvenience. More fire erupted behind her and the boots clanged along after her.

"Nick! There's someone else on board!" she screamed as she ran—and then remembered that her comm was sitting atop the inductor coiling, along with her blaster and everything else useful. "Oh, frell!"

The command areas, the Admiral and safety were at the fore of the ship and she headed there at an ungainly run, ducking her helmet under dangling piping and skirting oddly placed control stations and metallic crates. She caught one knee on a jutting release valve and the hazard suit snagged, ripping as she fell awkwardly, skidding along the gridded decking on her back. But the sharp stab of pain cut through her panic and she suddenly thought clearly. She couldn't go forward. Without her comm to warn Nick, she would lead this threat directly to him, and to the children.

Scrambling to her feet, Corry took the next turning at full speed, grasping at exposed pipes to swing her around the corner as her booties tried to continue in a straight line. She slewed heavily but didn't go down and squeezed through the tight passageway before more blaster fire could hit her.

She needed to reach engineering and her comm. If she could warn Nick, perhaps he could get the children hidden, or even offload them to the shuttle. She'd just have to find a way to keep the small deadly figure busy.

* * * * *

"Come on, Blondie, you must be a little bit hungry?" Nick waved the ration bar in front of the youngest child, but her face remained stoic, her blanket held over her lips. He took a bite to demonstrate that it was indeed food and grimaced. "No, can't blame you."

It was all he had on him, and he couldn't exactly drag them down to the mess hall full of comatose bodies. Nick sighed, pressed the bar into her tiny hand, then turned his attention back to the rest of the children. The two eldest boys, one with a mop of ginger hair and the other a smattering of spiky brown, were bashing joyfully at the cockpit controls. Fortunately, the controls had lapsed into a power saving mode while he was looking for Corry and the pair hadn't managed to vent the atmosphere. Yet. The final two, both with hair as dark as deep space—twins he thought, and nicknamed them Jaina and Jacen after the famous Solo children—sat quietly in the corner, Jaina fighting back tears as her brother clutched her protectively.

Laughter and sobbing, the universal languages. The children hadn't said a word to him or each other, not even in their own language, but they laughed and cried plenty.

Nick knelt down in front of the girl and adopted an expression he hoped was comforting. "Everything's going to be okay, your parents will wake up soon," he said. "Don't cry. Please?"

Suddenly, the cockpit controls came alive and Nick was on his feet, desperately trying to get Ginger and Spike to keep their hands to themselves before they caused any damage.

"Hang on…" He stopped dead in front of the biosensors, each hand clutching a struggling child. An extra two or three blotches had appeared since he discovered the children, and they were moving. Quickly, he locked the heavy, mechanical bolt across the cockpit door and grabbed his comlink. If they were still in the nebula, there was no way that could be the crew moving around.

"Corry?" Silence. "Sithspit."

"Sithspit!"

"What did you… oh, kriff, I've taught them to swear," he muttered. "They're practically mute but they can still swear."

"Kriff!"

"Don't say that!" he said, turning back to the biosensors. Two of them were in the cockpit access corridor, moving towards them. He needed to get these kids away from here quickly, at least until he identified the boarders. They could be rescuers, but there were a lot of unsavoury characters in the galaxy who'd happily plunder a helpless ship. He was willing to bet the latter outnumbered the former.

Maintenance hatch. There was always a maintenance hatch.

He found it behind an unsecured set of shelves, a heavy hatch on stiff, rusted hinges that would only open halfway. A fist pounded against the cockpit door and Nick clamped his hand gently across Blondie's mouth to stifle a whimper, then took a step back across the cockpit and kicked the hatch open, just as the first energy blast sounded from outside.

"Through the hatch!" he yelled, gesturing into the tunnels. "Go!"

* * * * *

Corry began stripping as she ran.

First to go were the oversized gloves, which she dropped in the middle of the corridor hoping the invader behind her would slip on them as he rounded the corner. Then came the bulbous helmet. She took a deep breath before removing it and threw it backward at her pursuer just before she jumped over the engineering room cowling and pulled the door closed behind her, kicked the locks into place and began ripping the huge booties from her feet.

She'd had no time to decontaminate, and the thought occurred that exposure to the contaminated plasma might make her lose fingernails. Or hair. Or the ability to bear children.

The door began to ring with blows from the other side. Corry grabbed her comm and wriggled through the mass of pipes to hide behind the drive housing.

"Nick!" she hissed into comm. "Intruders!" But she got no further. The locks failed and the door swung back, bouncing against the outer bulkhead. She switched the comm off completely and tucked into as small a ball as she could.

Under the housing she could see grey clad legs enter the bay. The intruder stopped and retreated to the door, then advanced again, this time doing a systematic search of every cubby hole.

"Frell!" Corry whispered, clamping a belated hand over her mouth. Once the intruder started to search in her direction, the hazard suit's comparative cleanliness was going to be a dead give away in the filthy compartment, but the twists of wire that she'd use to belt in the suit defied all of her attempts at unknotting. Suddenly, hiding wasn't such a good plan.

On hands and knees, Corry quietly scuttled under the housing, peeking out at the back of the intruder's knees. If he would only move in a bit further, she could race him for the doorway…

Cosmic luck dictated that he stood fast, his feet planted as he used the barrel of his weapon to move swaying pipes and exposed wiring to check in every nook along the outer bulkhead. The engineering compartment wasn't large, and he could conceivably stay right where he was until he decided to check behind the drive housing. And then it would be too late.

Corry gritted her teeth and slowly reached a grease smeared palm up the outside of the housing above her head. Straining, her fingertips finally found the lockout switch. She took a deep breath, gathered herself and pressed the switch closed.

The burners roared to life. Without the injectors initialized they spewed a geyser of steam into the small crowded space. Both the intruder and Corry cried out as the super heated gas filled the compartment.

Corry rolled out from under the housing and was on her feet, headed for the door. She paused just long enough to engage the injectors, then raced out the door and slammed it back into place. The locks were destroyed and she searched desperately for something to jam the door closed.

"Sorry about this!" Gasping for breath, she pulled the still unconscious alien engineer's body across the decking and let him fall against the bottom of the door. She winced as the door slammed into his muscular body, holding it closed. "Really, really sorry!" she cried and fled down the corridor.

* * * * *

Nick was worried. There were armed boarders on the ship, the children wouldn't stop whimpering, and he hadn't been able to raise Corry on the comlink since her last stifled message. Unfortunately, he didn't have enviro-suits to get the kids out to the shuttle and go looking for her, so for the time being they stayed in the cramped tunnels and settled for making their way back towards the engine compartment. He'd hoped that they would lead all the way to the aft of the ship, but it seemed the engine systems were kept separate from normal ship's systems and the tunnel had finally come to a dead end around the ship's middle.

From his vantage point next to a ventilation grid, Nick could see a pair of boarders guarding the hatch into the aft section, both carrying unfamiliar rifles. One thing was for certain: they were no rescue party. If their heavy-handed approach towards opening doors wasn't enough, their black armour-padded tunics and reflective black faceplates immediately identified them as commandos. The question was why. Had the ship drifted into their territory, or were they scavengers, or slavers?

That final thought was the reason he was staying hidden. The children would probably be an advantage in defusing almost any other situation, but for slavers they were a treasure haul.

Not on his watch.

He crawled back a few meters to where he'd left them, close enough to see but hopefully far enough away not to be heard. Blondie had gotten more upset the longer they stayed in the dark, cramped tunnels, but the twins seemed to have adopted her and calmed her down a little. The older boys were clearly upset, but were steadfastly refusing to cry. He still hadn't heard any of them say a word, but at least they were quiet.

"I need you to stay up here until I've shot these two guards," he said. "Understand?"

He surveyed their blank, tear-streak faced and sighed. Of course they didn't understand him. Instead, he hushed them, gestured for them to follow him back towards the ventilation grid and indicated for them to stop there.

Nick knew he'd never be able to stun the guards from up here with the shaft limiting his range of fire, but he needed to even up the odds a little before he could think about dropping down. He found the multitool from his enviro-suit and began carefully unscrewing the vent, holding it in place with his spare hand, then collected the screws and hurled them over the children's heads down the shaft.

Both guards snapped to attention and spoke quietly to each other, before one started moving cautiously down the corridor towards the source of the noise. Right under the vent.

Nick thrust the vent cover downwards with all the force he could muster, hitting the guard's helmet with a metallic clang and sending him to the deck plates. He jumped down from the shaft, thankful for the low gravity, and fired a single stun blast from his rifle towards the second guard.

Before he could reached for the heavy manual lock on the door, he felt his breath catch as a black-clad forearm wrapped around his throat, pinning him against an armoured torso. Nick struggled against the first guard's grip, cursing himself for not making sure he was unconscious before turning his back. The pair staggered around the corridor, slamming into the walls as blackness started to creep into the edge of Nick's vision.

Suddenly, the pressure vanished and Nick dropped forward, gasping for breath. He grabbed for his rifle before turning to see his attacker covered from head to toe in children, kicking his shins and clawing at his tunic, one of them hanging from his helmet.

"Get back!" Nick yelled, hefting his rifle and hoping the children would get the idea.

The guard dropped unconscious as the children scurried to safety behind him. Nick sighed a breath of relief as the thick hatch slammed shut behind them, but it quickly started to give way to worry. That guard wouldn't be stunned for long, and once he came to, they'd know Nick was onboard.

Worse, they'd know about the children.

* * * * *

"Weapons locker. Weapons locker. Weapons locker!"

Corry poked her head into each recess as she hurtled along the corridor, but with no success. Fire fighting equipment, some kind of graveyard for well used cargo straps, even a cache of fairly new grav boots. But no weapons.

"What kind of ship is this?" Corry cried in frustration. "All I want is a nice little blaster."

The muffled thumping behind her spurred her on and she ran down to the first turning.

"Okay, forget weapons. I'll take a plasma torch. Even a hydrospanner!" she growled, as she rummaged through a small supply locker. "Isn't there one offensive weapon around here?!"

Suddenly she froze, listening. There was definitely someone coming. Carefully she squeezed into the locker, pulled the door closed behind her and waited. She counted the seconds in heartbeats, hoping that no one else could hear the thumping from her chest. A shadow blotted out the tiny line of light around the door and she stopped breathing entirely.

It lasted only a moment and the figure moved steadily onward, his boots clumping on the metal grids as he moved towards engineering. She waited as long as she could, until her lungs ached for air, then she rammed the door open. But there was no one waiting there and she sagged back in relief.

Carefully she secured the locker and ran onward, thoughts of weapons gone. She needed to find Nick. Nick and the children. Once they were together, then they could fight. Or run. Or whatever. There would be safety in numbers.

She slid to a halt next to a tiny view port. Outside the ship, the vapours of the nebula were distinctly thinner. They were moving! The engines were pushing them out... A smile flickered across her face.

"I'll give them numbers. Just watch this!" She ran silently to the nearest cross corridor, scanned it quickly and slipped along it. The corridor on the far side of the ship appeared to be empty and she ran aft until she found it—an auxiliary control panel near the starboard airlock. The controls were normally used to do the final manoeuvring while docking, but they were just what she needed.

Thirty seconds later the engines hit quarter burn and the ship leaped forward.

"Yes!" Corry whispered. As if in answer, a cry echoed from across the ship.

Corry glanced quickly around. This was no place to be found. She pulled a small torque driver from one of her pockets and rammed it in place behind the acceleration lever, holding it open.

"Just two more minutes of burn! That's all I ask!"

The clattering of boots followed her as she fled again, but this time Corry had a destination in mind. She ducked through three side corridors evading pursuit, and finally found what she was looking for. The mess hall was draped with the bodies of the crew. They lay unmoving, not even appearing to breathe.

"Come on, wake up!" she pleaded, kneeling beside a muscular specimen. She slapped the crewman's face, avoiding his bony mandibles, but his eyes remained frozen shut. "We're almost out of the nebula. Wake up!"

Quickly she moved to another, a taller, beaky looking crewman. He too was still deep in the coma. Frustrated, she slid between tables, surveying each of the bodies, looking for some sign of consciousness.

Finally her shoulders slumped in dejection. She lifted yet another crewman's large, flaccid hand and dropped it back across the being's chest. It might take hours for them to wake, she realised. Days even.

Something clattered in the corridor outside the mess hall and she ducked down between the tables. Crawling along on hands and knees, she found two of the large beings lying side by side on a table. It was tight, but she levered up the bodies and slid between them, stretched herself full length on her side and let the unconscious beings fall back to cover her.

This close, the bodies smelled as if they had been ill for weeks, but Corry held her breath, her eyes squeezed shut.

Muffled clanking came from the doorway and she willed herself to go limp, blending in with the rest of the bodies. The dull mutter of words uttered behind faceplates reached her, but she couldn't understand them. Boots scrapped and more words were exchanged. They seemed to be staying near the door.

Suddenly, light and pain knifed across her eyes as a gloved hand yanked her head upwards by her hair. One of the bodies that covered her rolled to the floor and she used the distraction to kick outward, but she stopped very quickly when the muzzle of a weapon ground into the base of her throat.

A black faceplate loomed above her and asked a question in harsh tones. She tried to shake her head, but her captor hauled her head backwards, arching her neck and repeated the words.

"I can't understand you!" Corry gasped.

More black faceplates crowded around and she was pulled to a clear space in the decking, roughly searched and forced to her knees.

One of the figures thrust something toward her—her comlink. This time the query came through in broken but understandable Goa'uld, his helmet speakers adding a metallic tone. "Where are they?"

* * * * *

Two more boarders lay unconscious at Nick's feet as he rummaged through a weapons bin, looking for anything that might give him the upper hand while he tried to find Corry. Unfortunately, the array of weapons was quite spectacular and he couldn't be sure which of them might stun, which would kill, or which might pierce the hull and vac everybody onboard. He didn't even know how much piercing the hull would take. On the up side, there were several boxes of grenades that he suspected might be gas rather than explosive and some kind of stun net.

That's an odd piece of kit for a shipboard armoury, Nick thought, fiddling with the net's controls. Still, anything which could take out multiple hostiles at once would be useful right now.

"What are you kids looking at?" They were clustered around a tiny viewport, standing on tiptoes to reach it. "It's just the nebula, same as you could see from the bridge."

Nick stopped. Not just the nebula. Stars.

He dropped the weapons back in the bin and joined the children in pressing his face against the viewport. It was grimy and several inches thick, but the stars outside were just visible through the nebula's thick cloud for the first time—and they were moving.

Before he could decide, his comlink came to life with a harsh, filtered voice. "Attention pirate scum, this is Commander Fendris."

Pirate scum? Nick thought. That's rich.

"We have your companion," Fendris continued. "Listen."

"Sorry, Admiral," Corry sighed, dejectedly.

"Bring us the children and she will not be harmed," the voice said. "I believe you are outnumbered, 'Admiral'."

"For now," Nick said, his voice icy. "But you take them today and there's not a planet in this galaxy where I won't find you."

"Those children are ours."

"The hell they are," he muttered, shutting his comlink down angrily. He pocketed the gas grenades and decided to rely on his own blaster for the time being, strapping a few of what he hoped were stun weapons to his enviro-suit just in case he needed them. "I'm going to need you kids to hide somewhere until I get back. You're not going anywhere near those goons."

There was a collective squeal from behind him and without warning, two of the children latched onto his legs, pushing him towards the weapons bin. He twisted as he fell, landing on the deck plates with a huff and looking up to meet a trio of well-armed figures.

"Ah," he said, lowering the weapon carefully. "Hello."

* * * * *

Kneeling on the grated decking, Corry could feel Nick coming even before she heard him. The vibration wasn't an even tread; it came from many pairs of feet.

"Oh, no," she moaned. He had the children with him.

A cold muzzle pressed behind her ear, warning her to keep quiet. She really did not want to find out what that weapon could do to human flesh. But she couldn't imagine living with the knowledge that she'd been bought with the freedom of children. Her mind raced feverishly, trying to think of something that she could do—launch herself at the boarders, tell some amazing lie, offer something else in trade. But there was simply no time.

Nick stepped cautiously through the mess hall doorway, surveying the scene in front of him. Corry felt her cheeks flush with shame but Nick was focused on Fendris. After a second of silence he turned to the corridor behind him and nodded.

He wasn't joined by the children. Instead, three tall ferociously-mandibled crewmen stepped to his side, each armed with an enormous power rifle. A murmur rippled through the group of soldiers at Corry's back.

Nick said clearly, "I decided to call your bluff. Release my companion and you can leave without further questions."

The weapon at Corry's ear hummed to life and she smothered a gasp, her eyes widening in fear.

"The children," Fendris demanded. "Now! We will not ask again."

One of the giant crewmen shrugged. "You will not take the young ones. Kill your prisoner, she means nothing to us."

"What?" For the first time during the exchange, Nick's calm expression faltered as he looked round at his new allies. "Yes she does!"

"We will compensate you for the loss of your female," the crewman assured him casually, "but the young ones are not negotiable."

"If you do not value her, what about these?" Several of the soldiers turned and levelled their weapons at the unconscious bodies which filled the room.

With a roar the crewmen brought their own weapons to bear. Corry shied as the whine of charged weapons filling the room. She would have flattened herself against the decking except for the hand gripping the back of her neck. Instead she had a clear view of a tiny blond figure which ran into the room and wrapped her arms around Nick's leg, hidden except for one blue eye and a cascade of blonde hair.

Fendris froze and his hand fell away from Corry's neck. He fumbled to unseal his helmet, revealing a handsome human male with thick blond curls, then dropped to one knee on the deck, arms spread wide. "Natja?"

"Daddy!"

Nick and Corry exchanged identical looks of shock. "Daddy?" Corry mouthed, but the Admiral didn't wait to reply. He threw himself to one side, toppling the bulky crewman next to him and firing a stun blast into his side as a hail of energy blasts from the boarders showered over them, dropping a second crewman.

The third, with lightning fast reflexes, reached down to scoop Blondie up from the floor as she ran toward her father, carrying her out of the mess hall with surprising speed and agility. Before Nick could separate himself from the unconscious crewman he'd taken down, Fendris leapt over him after his daughter and her kidnapper.

With a grunt, Nick was on his feet and following them.

"Corry, stay out of trouble!" he yelled behind him, turning down the corridor just in time to see the commander disappear round a corner.

Slavers, he thought. How much stupider could I possibly be?

If the obvious physiological differences between the crew and the children weren't enough to tip him off, the surprising variety of stun weapons onboard should have been, yet he'd blindly gone ahead and attempted to deliver the children back into the hands of slavers. There was no wonder they were constantly terrified.

Nick came to a dead stop as he rounded the next corner, seeing the remaining crew member pinning Fendris against the wall, his mandibles snapping around the commander's neck as the other tried to dodge them. Blondie was nowhere to be seen.

He lifted his blaster rifle, but his hands were shaking from adrenaline and the pair were too close together for him to get a good shot. Quickly, he flicked the weapon to stun, but paused again. This could still go very badly were he to stun the rescue party's commander.

"I'm going to enjoy this," Nick muttered, taking his rifle in both hands and charging at the pair, bringing the weapon down against the slaver's skull in one swift motion.

Suddenly, there was a cacophony from behind him as five children hurtled down the corridor, piling on top of the relieved commander and wrapping their arms around his limbs. Nick stood for a moment as the children chattered away in their own language, watching the embrace awkwardly until the commander finally extracted himself from the pile of children and looked up.

"You've been protecting them?" Fendris asked, his relieved voice unrecognisable as the commander who'd held Corry captive. "You have my thanks… and apologies."

"Not necessary," Nick said. "Just stop dressing like bad guys."

Fendris only had a moment to look confused before Corry came hurtling round the corner with the rest of his team.

"The rest of the crew are starting to stir," she said. "We need to get off this ship quickly."

The commander nodded, lifting his daughter up with her arms still wrapped firmly round his neck. "This ship must be destroyed before they can escape."

That made Nick pause; he hadn't had time yet to consider how their situation had changed, and what they would do with the ship now. "As much as I would enjoy that," he said. "There may be others trying to trace captives. Destroying this ship could ruin their chances."

"You want to leave them to prey on more children?"

Nick shook his head. "I think I have a better solution."

* * * * *

Their shuttle backed away from the slave ship, until they could see the entirety of its ungainly, patchwork engines in the forward view screen and the targeting computers indicating they'd reached a comfortable firing range. Calmly and in silence, Nick powered up the shuttle's laser cannons and raked them across ship's bulky aft section, severing fuel lines, blasting away chunks of weathered armour plate and trashing the engine beyond any hope of repair.

"Don't think you could fix it now," he muttered, as the soft glow of the sublight drives finally extinguished.

Corry nodded, wincing slightly as her afternoon's work literally evaporated.

For a moment they sat in silence, watching the slave ship lumber helplessly back into the gas cloud, carried by inertia that the nebula's wispy resistance would take years to bring to a halt. Their last action onboard the ship had been to reverse its course, ploughing the vessel deeper into the incapacitating nebula where the crew would lapse back into comas.

To their starboard side, a larger troop transport turned in the opposite direction and leapt into hyperspace, satisfied that the slavers were incapacitated. The children were onboard, back in the loving care of their own kind. It was funny that he'd done nothing but curse their existence onboard the ship, but now they were gone…

Slowly, he realised Corry was looking at him strangely from the co-pilot's seat. "I think we're done here," he said gruffly, calling up the navcomp to plot their course out of the gas cloud and finally glanced across at the engineer.

"Next time, it's your turn to look after the kids."