Blake’s 7: Warship by Peter Anghelides Read Free Book Online

well,’ said Blake. He indicated the dial on Cally’s suit. ‘Turn that thing up. It’s going to be cold.’
    Avon wasn’t yet convinced. ‘You can’t be spared to nursemaid him, Cally. We need everyone on board.’
    ‘Everyone?’ Blake’s eyes sparkled with amusement.
    ‘You cannot stop me, Avon.’ Cally wasn’t amused. ‘This is not your ship yet.’
    ‘Thank you for “yet”,’ said Avon.
    ‘I know that Liberator is what you want most of all,’ she said. ‘But my people have a saying, Avon –’
    ‘I was afraid they might.’
    ‘They say: Before you desire, you should deserve.’
    Avon placed his hands palm-down on the counter. ‘I have a saying too: Blake can handle this alone.’
    ‘It’s her choice, Avon,’ Blake observed mildly.
    Cally moved over to join Blake in the teleport area. ‘Avon, there will be no requirement for you to remain here on station.’
    ‘I have no intention of remaining here on station.’
    Blake and Cally stood, side by side, in the teleport area. Their faces were turning pink as the thermal suits boosted their temperatures, in anticipation of Megiddo’s freezing conditions. They didn’t say a word. Avon wondered if he should let them turn lobster red before he made a decision.
    Instead, he enabled the teleport activation switches on the desk before him. ‘Very well,’ he said briskly. ‘I’ll teleport you both down. If for any reason Liberator has to leave the area, and the auto-repairs are complete, we will not wait for you. Either of you. We will be gone. Your ship will have sailed.’
    Blake seemed amused. ‘ Whose ship, Avon?’
    Avon didn’t answer. He had already activated the teleport. Before his eyes, Blake and Cally rippled out of existence.
    ‘Goodbye, Blake,’ he said to the empty room. ‘And good luck.’
    The words had barely left his lips before a howling alarm sounded throughout the Liberator , echoing and re-echoing down the corridors.
    Avon leapt to his feet, looking around himself in apprehension. ‘What the hell is that?’
    As if in answer, the intercom chimed, its insistent note cutting through the cacophony.
    ‘Avon?’ Vila’s panic was evident through the speaker. ‘Avon! Get back here! We’re under attack!’

Chapter 8
Cold Welcome
    The surface of the planetoid was nothing that Cally had anticipated. Blake had been right about their preparation. Cally was shivering, despite the heat in her thermal suit. She fumbled awkwardly with its dial through the fingers of her thick gloves.
    ‘Are you all right, Blake?’ she shouted. Her words were snatched away by the howling wind even as she spoke them. She turned to see if he could see she was talking, but he was staring off into the distance. Or what distance there was – the marked curved of the horizon was barely visible through the sheets of water that swept across the pitted white surface of the planetoid. This lashing rain seemed to whip horizontally at them. The noise of the wind ebbed and flowed. It was oddly like the sound of a crowd, she thought.
    She yelled again, just as Blake turned in her direction. His eyes were wide behind his goggles, and his lower face was masked, so it was hard to fully discern his expression. He pulled the scarf away from his mouth clumsily. Cally wondered why, until she saw him lift his teleport bracelet up to his mouth. The device chimed faintly beneath the continued shriek of the wind.
    ‘Down and safe,’ he said, then sighed in exasperation when he worked out that his voice was inaudible. His breath sparkled into condensation, before even that was blown away. ‘Down and safe,’ he yelled again. ‘And freezing!’
    Cally leaned in closer to him, sheltering the teleport bracelet between their bodies in the hope they might hear the response better. There was no answer from Liberator .
    ‘Avon?’ shouted Blake. ‘Avon!’
    Even with the volume cranked right up on the bracelet, Cally could only hear the faintest static crackle from it.