Marissa, was at it again shouting blasphemous rhetoric as a black sphere appeared, having dropped its cloak.

"Jesus Christ!"

But this time, her words came more out of shock than for effect and her instinct was to duck for cover when seeing the ripple on the monitor disappear, it was clear this was no container but as predicted it was heading directly for their Raider, like a perfectly spun curve ball. After a dozen or so rapid adjustments to the alignment controls, the ship's docking bay and the sphere were perfectly aligned. Even so, it was too early to celebrate, they would have to wait until their prize was safely on board before they could even think of gloating. Alonso, the machine guy was already sitting at the controls of the landing bay's cargo grappler; they had no previous experience of loading either an invisible ripple or what was now a sphere, so whilst flying by the seat of their pants, were doing their best to prepare for the unknown. Now the sphere was adjacent to the ship, it looked for all the world as if it were a huge black balloon, which lacked only the piece of string, needed to pull it aboard. Even though things were running smoothly, Fortuna still wasn't happy and began moaning, but this sort of behaviour wasn't unusual, for she had a penchant for playing the prophet of doom, so the crew simply laughed.

Thecrew's nerves were highly strained, and it felt like an age had passed beforethe Sphere finally completed its predicted curve, and then it was therehovering only two or three metres distant from the ship, drifting parallel toits bay doors. Alonso thought it was a delight to behold, especially when as ifby magic it floated unassisted into the landing bay, but sadly it was only hewho witness the elegant entrance, being the only one in the right place at theright time. Their concerns that it might begin to roll after it came under theinfluence of artificial gravity, were unfounded. However, it was obvious thatit was under some form of self-control, as it landed without a bounce or aslide, it came to a perfect halt and was floating millimetres above the deck.Things remained perfectly calm, well that was until they threw the switch andclosed the bay doors, the became a cacophony of noise as every alarm on theship began ringing out a warning for one thing or another. But now was not thetime to panic, and the only possible conclusion was that the Corporate Cruiserhad also been monitoring the Sphere's ripple effect on the gravity wave.

Because in a split-second response, the Cruiser launched an array of missiles at the exact point in space, where the ripple had vanished when its blip disappeared from their monitors. The Cruiser's reaction was quite clearly premeditated, there was no doubt it was an automated response, pre-programmed to occur if any deviation from its flight plan was observed. Naturally, Marissa and the crew had pre-planned for such an event, their tactic was simple, all they had to do was turn tail and run, knowing they had time to make good their escape. But to the pilot's surprise, there was no reply to his helm instructions, all the ship's controls had mysteriously gone dead, and it didn't help when his co-pilot began poking at the controls like a frustrated dick, as it set Fortuna off again and she began to rant.

"I told you so and as usual you idiots thought my concern was a joke."

No one was laughing now, but Marissa ignored her tantrum, for she wasn't one to stand on ceremony and was first into action. It was just as well that as a precaution the crew had already suited and booted in preparation for the Sphere's arrival, although not even Fortuna had been expecting this. To avoid the Hypervertic missiles there was only one recourse they had to beat them into ort clouds, where the missile's automated controls would be next to useless, but for that they needed power. Marissa quickly concluded that the Sphere's presence was responsible for the failure of the ship's controls, and began manually opening the bay doors and shouting at Alonso.

"Push that ball of shit through the bay doors with the grappler."

But was astonished when Alonso shouted back.

"Captain, I think you'd better belay that order."

"Why, she yelled?"

"Because the base of the Sphere has merged into the cargo deck, and to do so would rip the ship apart."

"How on earth, is that possible, it's made from Magnatollium Alloy, the hardest material manufactured, which has been designed to survive a crash landing."

"I know that cap, I helped install it, but it's happening just the same, come and take a look."

In a matter of moments, both Marissa and Fortuna stood side by side, with hands-on-hips watching how with comparative ease the Sphere melded into the deck, but although bewildered, she insisted that Alonso give it a shove before it disappeared below decks. It wasn't as if they had anything to lose, so without any form of disagreement Alonso drove the grappler toward the Sphere as fast as it would go, but it got no closer than ten metres before it too ground to a halt, stopping abruptly where its tracks had melded with the deck. To avoid the risk of being absorbed into the meld, Alonso lept like a man possessed from the Grappler onto the deck and ran for his life. They had run out of options and the final warning was sounding, and now was time to pray if you had a god. But the crew was made of sterner stuff, their blood was made of ice, and they had no such compunction, believing that it was never over until their guts were splattered in space to become frozen crystals of stardust.

A robotic voice spoke calmly.

"Thirty seconds to impact."

The atmosphere was surreal, the crew stood, sat, or walked around aimlessly awaiting their inevitable end.

From the detonation pattern, it was obvious that the missile programs had been set to perform a scattered attack, which would obliterate everything inside the radius that any known ship could have travelled. It was now obvious that no matter what, they or any other pirates who were unfortunate enough to find themselves inside the explosion radius would be destroyed no matter what. They watched with little or no emotion as the armada approached and with every detonation the darkness of space was illuminated until there is nothing to be seen but a massive ball of light. They knew they were done for, then everything went dark and apart from the sound of their hearts beating in their brains, there was an unholy silence, not exactly what they expected at death, but perhaps there was an afterlife.

The next thing Marissa saw was a sharp light shining above her head, as her vision cleared, she realised she is laying on a hospital bed, presumably in some medical facility, and apparently by some miracle she had been saved. She was feeling far from good and completely incapable of moving or talking and therefore unable to ask the questions which were quickly formulating in her mind. Marissa had no idea how long she'd been unconscious but did have a vague awareness of drifting in and out of consciousness on numerous occasions, and how dreadful she's felt. However, on this occasion, she must have been showing signs of awareness as someone, presumable a nurse began talking to her in a compassionate voice, telling her not to worry, you are in safe hands so relax and we'll have you as right as rain in no time.

She struggled to believe the voice, but very soon she passed out again, but this time instead of visiting a dark place, she drifted into a blissful dream-filled sleep, where she was back in the bosom of her family as a child, revelling in the sound of her mother's caring voice.

"Come on Marissa, it's time you woke up."

She finally stirred and awoke to find it was Fortuna, not her mother sitting next to her bed, with a caring face full of smiles and relief. Marissa had no idea that more than two weeks had passed, while she was indisposed, and although she was the captain, Fortuna could not resist the temptation to bend forward and kiss her on the lips and was pleasantly surprised when Marissa responded to her kiss with an affectionate smile. It was clear even in her waking moments, that Fortuna was itching to fill her in on what had happened, of course, she knew it was something remarkable, for she knew full well that she and the crew should be dead by now. Marissa tried to ask about the crew but found she was still unable to form words, and a concerned Fortuna told her to take it steady, indicating with a sign that she still had a tube down her throat.

Fortuna was about to explain but was interrupted by a nurse, who insisted that leaving Marissa to rest was for the best, it wouldn't aid her recovery if you used up her energy with your story. The nurse meant well, but Fortuna felt offended, as she knew damn well that the captain would have insisted on a debrief if she had been able to speak, but in here the nurse was God and she made it clear who was in charge, and that was that. Fortuna said a sad and reluctant goodnight and still dressed in her visitor blues; she slumped out of the medical facility with her tail tucked uncomfortably between her legs. The nurse was experienced and had seen it all before, she simply smiled and pulled the curtains close for some privacy and turned to Marissa and whispered into her ear.

"That young woman cares a lot for you, and I think it's a lot more than just her obvious respect for you as her captain.

I can assure you that she has been by your side every day since her revival and was among the first of your crew to recover, she is one tough cookie.

And just like a dutiful Number 2, and irrespective of the fact that she's been here for six hours straight, without a break, she will go straight from here to the mess and gather the crew.

Where I'm confident she'll use her frustration toward me, to find the right motivational words to debrief your crew and inform them of your obvious signs of progress and imminent recovery.

Youprobably don't need my advice, but if I were you, I wouldn't let your positionof authority ruin a good thing, having had my say I'll leave you to get thatrest."

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