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

‘He said he would not remain on station,’ she shouted at Blake.
    ‘Or it may just be this storm,’ Blake replied. A huge shudder seemed to shake his whole body. ‘Oh, it’s worse than I’d expected. So cold it stings !’
    Blake was stooped over. Was it his injuries, or was he just trying to compensate for the brutal, disorienting weather that swirled around them?
    Cally tugged her scarf away from her mouth, and leaned in closer to Blake. ‘We have to get under cover.’
    He nodded vigorously to emphasise his agreement. He positioned his face close to hers, so she could hear him better. ‘Avon managed to put us down close to an access shaft. You can see the hatch, over there?’
    He pulled away from her, and made a broad, clear gesture to indicate what he was talking about. So, that was what he had been staring at when they first arrived.
    A raised lump of rock jutted awkwardly from the surface of the planetoid, about forty metres from where they stood shivering. A curving line of smaller boulders led towards it, around a flat white expanse of ice and slush. Fixed into the rock was a stark round metal door, with an old-fashioned hatch wheel set in the middle. Even from here, it looked rusted.
    Blake took a couple of steps towards it. Above the noise of the storm, Cally could hear an ominous cracking sound. A stark line appeared by Blake’s feet, tapering away from him towards the access hatch.
    Cally tugged at Blake’s thermal suit. ‘Careful!’ she shouted. ‘The ice is breaking beneath you.’
    Blake staggered away from the crack. He huddled close to Cally again so that they could hear each other better. ‘We must be too heavy for it.’
    ‘You must be too heavy for it,’ she teased him. ‘It was fine until you started walking.’
    Cally thought of the information that Avon had been able to glean about Megiddo. Everything they had reviewed back on the Liberator flight deck. She remembered an image that illustrated the planetoid’s eccentric path through this sector. ‘Megiddo’s orbit has brought it back near its sun,’ she said to Blake. ‘The surface temperature has risen very quickly. That’s started to melt the ice.’
    Blake gave another big shudder. ‘I can’t see an alternative route.’
    The hoods on these suits made it difficult to simply turn your head. Cally shuffled around to look for a different way to reach the entry hatch. Even this slight change of position was enough to crack the ice. She felt it move beneath her feet, and staggered back in surprise. As she did so, Blake abruptly dropped half a metre into the ice and slush. He flung his arms up in alarm, though there was nothing to cling on to.
    Cally reached out her hand, and helped him struggle to a firmer surface. Together, they watched the ice where he had been standing rise up again.
    ‘That’s very unstable,’ yelled Blake.
    The storm seemed to be worsening, which Cally hadn’t thought possible. The stinging rain was turning into a vicious hail. Her goggles were frosting over, and her lips were numb.
    ‘We can’t just stay here. We have to get to that access shaft.’
    Blake shuffled cautiously to his right. He tentatively probed the ground in front of him with an outstretched foot. ‘This way,’ he shouted back to her, gesturing with his arm. ‘Come on! We can lean against these boulders.’
    Cally hesitated.
    ‘It’ll take our weight,’ he reassured her.
    A further alarming crack in the ice beside her was what convinced Cally to move. She scuffed her way cautiously after Blake. Every step made her wonder if the surface would suddenly give way and plunge her into icy water.
    The short journey felt like it took forever. Even the thermal suit wasn’t coping with this environment, and by the time they reached the hatch she no longer trusted the impression of the ground beneath her feet because she could no longer feel her own feet inside her boots.
    There was a clear patch of icy water between them and the hatch.