Free Blake’s 7: Warship by Peter Anghelides

repairing. Or if Avon needed them to calibrate the Liberator ‘s equipment into a new configuration. Zen could be unhelpfully reluctant to facilitate any change other than the presumed factory defaults. And that was when the crew had to suit up and go out to handle the adjustments manually.
    Perhaps, Vila thought to himself sourly, that was why there were so few safety features. No attachment lines, for example. He dreaded the prospect that he might be separated from the hull in mid-repair and float off into the void. Though even that might just be preferable to Avon’s brutal mockery if Vila had to be retrieved and brought back safely.
    Jenna was completely ready, and Vila had only just stripped off his shoes and tunic. ‘Hurry up,’ she insisted. ‘We need to remove those things from the hull.’
    ‘They’re not going anywhere,’ he said.
    ‘Neither are we. Here…’ Jenna thrust the nearest hull suit into his hands. ‘Put this one on, or I’ll open the airlock and you can go out there in just your underwear.’
    In the end, she helped him into the bulky suit. She clipped the helmet shut and, sure enough, he could hear the steady hiss as a cool stream of oxygen played over his face.
    They stepped through the nearest door, and the antechamber door slid silently shut behind them. Vila knew it was foolish to feel claustrophobic in the small airlock, when he was already fully encased in his hull suit.
    Jenna’s voice crackled over the comms in his helmet. ‘Ready, Vila?’
    ‘No,’ he replied.
    ‘Good. Here we go. Don’t forget your toolkit.’
    The outer airlock door dropped away to one side, and the darkness of space beckoned them.
    Jenna led them out. Vila attached the toolkit to his belt, and used both hands to haul himself out onto the hull.
    Frightened as he was of the prospect of another space walk, Vila had to admit that the view it afforded was beautiful. The last time he’d done this was to realign the rear sensor array. They had been in orbit around an uninhabited world. The force wall was deactivated at the time, and so there’d only been the transparent shell of Vila’s suit helmet between him and the swirling green surface of an unknown planet. When he had worked his way around the hull that time, and looked back out into space, the stars had glittered back at him from the pitch blackness with a clarity he had never before witnessed. Even the burnished orange-gold surface of Liberator ‘s hull could look beautiful in the unfiltered illumination of a nearby sun.
    Today was very different. Way off to the one side of the ship, the satellite grid shimmered behind the silent sparks of distant conflict. The other direction revealed an even more isolating view of their home galaxy, impossibly far away and yet looking like he could reach out and touch it with his glove. It was a giddy thought.
    ‘I don’t like this, Jenna. When I look up, all I can see are stars. Distant stars. They make me dizzy.’ His own voice reverberated in his helmet. He was conscious again of the air hiss. He looked at the stars again, and knew he was alone. ‘Jenna? Jenna! Where are you?’
    ‘I’m right beside you, Vila .‘ Even over the comms, he could hear the exasperation in her voice. ‘Don’t shout. Just speak normally into your helmet microphone.’
    Vila squinted at the device at the front of his helmet. ‘Oh. Yes, all right.’
    ‘And there’s a solution to the stars making you dizzy.’
    ‘It it drugs?’
    ‘No. Just stop looking at them. Keep your eyes on the hull.’
    Vila adjusted his tool holder, and reached out for the next handhold. Jenna was right. If he just looked at the hull, it would be like a simple crawl along a corridor inside Liberator . He’d done that once or twice, depending on what sort of night he’d had.
    Yes that was a helpful comparison. Only this was a very wide corridor. With a pronounced curvature to the floor. And no ceiling. The more he thought about this, decided Vila, the