Black Star

Chapter Twenty-seven

"Where the hell is he?" Juliette was running up and down the shuttle stairs for the tenth time. He rushed back down and into the cockpit once more. "No sign."

Leroy sat cross-legged inside the door of the electronics panel inside the cockpit. He was now busy trying to undo the sabotage he had committed over 2 months ago. A small screen illuminated his face as he simultaneously touched both it and pins in a board. As he probed lights switched from red to green and back again. He noted and tested until he had a complete set of four and pulled a pin from the board and shifted it along. The grey screen burst into colour and the text became discernible.

"I think we are done Mr Juliette," he said calmly.

"Don't ever call me that again," sneered Juliette, "there's still no sign of him."

Leroy stood up. "I'm going to have to start booting up before he gets here, we won't have long before the Lazarus work out what's going on."

"Can't we wait till he's aboard?"

"No, we have to start the sync sequence right now, if we go without syncing, we will be catapulted into who knows which direction."

Juliette went through the cockpit door into the main cabin and was standing at the base of the stairwell up into the roof into the main ship. He gazed upwards hoping to see Touchreik behind him, between the empty seats into the cockpit. The door stood open and Antoine was now strapping into the pilot's seat. The main dash was lighting up and screens were going through initiation and the synchronisation sequence. The Lazarus was a huge spinning tin can and just as they had done when they landed, they would need to catch her up under their own power. This meant when the shuttle detached from the Lazarus she could pull away.

"We have started sync, we need to start locking down Mr," shouted Antoine

"Where the hell is he?" Jak was staring up from the bottom of the stairs, nothing.

Antoine's voice came over the passenger tannoy. "Will the final remaining passenger please make his way." Antoine stopped speaking. "Oh, shit."

"What?" shouted Jak down the cabin. "There's still no sign of him."

"The Lazarus have initiated the artificial intelligence sequence, they are going to recommission the shuttle," shouted Antoine over his shoulder.

"Meaning," asked Jak.

"Meaning we have to detach, we are hard-wired to the Lazarus. If we are going to get away, we go now. Once we detach, it will be harder for them to get us back."

"What can we do?"

"We have no choice, we have to get ready to leave."

"What about Touchreik?"

Antoine jumped from his seat and ran down the shuttle. "Now Jak," he said using his real name. "We're hard-wired to the Lazarus, we have to start the release or we are done for."

"Touchreik has the Black-Star."

"If he doesn't make it here in the next 60 seconds, we go." He grabbed Juliette by the collar and dragged him back towards the cockpit.

"If we wait, they can lock us in here and we are done for. If we go, then we live to fight another day. We fucked up man, that element is indestructible, it will always be there. We won't." They were both frozen in place as Antoine looked at Jak. His eyes were wet as he shook his head slowly. Jak screamed as he hit the airlock button. There was a hollow thud from above. They both ran forward between the rows of empty seats and into the illuminated cockpit. The lights had dimmed and the coloured displays were flashing up with detailed information.