BioCybe by Imogene Nix Page A

face.
    Her eyes searched his gaze and saw concern. When she raised
her hand, it was only with the intention of placing it on his shoulder. Nothing
more.
    A clang sounded through the shuttle, and she grimaced. “I
need to check that.”
    Turning back to the console, she noted a red light shining.
It wasn’t one that usually shone, and she frowned.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “The fuel… For some reason, the shuttle is struggling to
consume the fuel and—” She loosed a swear word and hauled herself away from the
console. “Hail the ship, and have them meet us. Do it quickly. I’m heading down
to see if…” She shrugged. If someone had tampered with their fuel supply, they
probably only had an hour or two of power. They needed the Echo here
now.
    She hurried away, down the short corridor, all the while
accessing the data chip in her brain—she needed to work out what had happened.
If their fuel had been contaminated, she might be able to bleed the line,
ascertain what the foreign body was and fix it. Maybe.
    At the rear of the cabin, she pried loose the cover of the
crawl space and shoved herself inside. She needed to get down to the transport
bay where the main filters could be accessed. The space was small, narrow, and
though she wasn’t large, it was still difficult to maneuver within the confines
of the walls. Dropping into the bay meant going head first, so she had no time
to protect herself as she dropped. Landing on her shoulder had excruciating
pain radiating. She swore loudly.
    “Levia? Are you okay?”
    She didn’t realize he’d activated the tiny communications
link in the shuttle and closed her eyes. “Yeah.” It was a lie of course. More
than likely she’d damaged something in her shoulder, but right now wasn’t the
time to tell him that. “Did you get hold of the Echo ?”
    “Yeah. Vestang is powering her up and moving as quickly as
possible. He expects to be here in about an hour and a half.”
    Silently, Levia wondered if they had that much time. “Good.
I’m checking the lines now.”
    A chill had invaded her body, and she glanced around,
looking for evidence that anything else had been tampered with. Dragging back
the cover from the conduit and filter access points, she breathed out and a
wisp of steam escaped her mouth. Steam?
    “Sandon?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I need you to replace the hatch cover now.” He wouldn’t
likely understand what she was alluding to. At least she hoped not.
    “The hatch cover? But that seals the decks.” He sounded
confused.
    “Do it, Sandon. Do it now.”
    If her worst fears came to pass, there was a tiny
re-breather facility down here and her suit would give her some protection. If
what I think is true…
    “Levia, I’m not going to seal you down there!” The anger
told her he’d worked out what she was thinking.
    “You have to. If they’ve tampered with the seals too, the
oxygen will leak out. We’ll both be dead before the Echo can arrive.”
    “No. Don’t ask me—”
    “I’m not asking, Sandon. I’m ordering you. Do it now.”
    “But—”
    “My suit pressurizes and there is a re-breather. I can
access that from any location down here while I bleed the lines. I’ll be fine.
With my enhancements, I’m better equipped to handle the situation than you’d
think. Just do as I told you.”
    She’d stashed a set of pressure gloves and headset down there
when Sandon had demanded she fly him to Omega V. Now she hurried to access
them. One of the first things they’d been taught was to always prepare for the
worst, and it seemed that advice would save her life.
    Once she’d tugged on the safety gear, she located the fuel
line and nicked it. Carefully capturing a small amount of liquid in a
container, she’d just finished resealing it and rubbed her hands across her
face when she felt the loss of oxygen. Realizing she had little time, she
hurried through running the tests on the fuel and snarled as she worked out
that water had been added to the