‘Oh my God!’ murmured Lucy. ‘We’re being attacked!’
At that moment, The Journalist suddenly burst onto the Captain’s Bridge.
‘The ship’s on automatic!’ he panted. ‘But the central intelligence core is missing some of its parts. We can’t control the ship unless we can locate all the missing bits of the system and get them back into place!’
‘Too late!’ said Lucy and nodded out of the window. The Starship was now entirely surrounded by the smaller spacecraft.
The Journalist muttered: ‘Holy Pangalin!’
A voice suddenly boomed over the ship’s loudspeaker system: ‘You are surrounded. Give up at once or we open fire!’
‘Quick!’ yelled Dan, pushing The Journalist over to the console. ‘How do we give up at once?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea,’ returned The Journalist.
‘If you refuse to give up, we shall open fire in thirty seconds,’ said the voice from the enemy spacefleet.
‘WE GIVE UP!’ yelled Lucy, but her voice merely echoed round the Captain’s Bridge.
‘DO SOMETHING!’ screamed Dan.
‘I told you! The ship’s missing essential bits! I don’t know what to do!’ The Journalist was flipping controls as fast as he could but to little effect.
‘Since you refuse to co-operate…’ boomed the voice.
‘WE’LL CO-OPERATE! JUST GIVE US A CHANCE!’
Lucy had climbed onto the console and was waving her arms at the spaceships in a desperate attempt to attract their attention.
‘… since you refuse to co-operate you give us no choice but to open fire,’
The space outside the Starship suddenly exploded in light and a terrific noise battered the mighty hull – deafening those inside. Lucy fell off the console and Dan and The Journalist both dived for the floor, where they lay trembling with their hands over their ears.
There was then a pause.
The voice boomed over the loudspeaker again: ‘Do you surrender?’
‘YES! YES! WE SURRENDER!’ screamed all three occupants of the Captain’s Bridge.
‘Very well! You leave us no choice!’
Another almighty din broke out around the Starship, and this time they could feel it shudder with the impact of the explosions outside. Then there was silence. The smaller spacecraft edged in a little closer.
Then the voice was booming out again. ‘Look! We don’t want to damage the Starship, but if you refuse to co-operate you will leave us no choice.’
The Journalist had by this time found a sort of microphone. He pushed a switch and bellowed into it.
‘STOP! STOP! WE SURRENDER! STOP!’ His voice deafened everybody on board the Starship Titanic, but elsewhere there was a terrible silence. Then they heard the enemy for the last time:
‘We shall hold you responsible for any damage done to the Starship!’
With that a wave of the smaller spacecraft peeled off from the main fleet and swooped towards them. Points of light spattered out from their guns and the sound of ripping metal shook the great Starship.
‘Oh my God!’ screamed Lucy.
None of them could have told you how long the attack went on for, but it seemed like several lifetimes to the three figures huddled on the Captain’s Bridge. The noise, the vibration, the crashing and bucking of the giant Starship went on and on. Lucy found The Journalist had his hands on her breasts, but decided not to say anything.
When it was all over, they waited and then stood up, trembling and shaking. The first wave was returning to the main fleet meanwhile a second wave was peeling off.
‘Here they come again!’ yelled Dan, and he and Lucy ducked down once more beneath the console. But The Journalist remained standing, with a curious expression on his face.
Lucy and Dan braced themselves for the gunfire… but it didn’t come. Instead there was an odd – rather unmartial – banging on the hull of the ship.
‘Yassaccans!’ muttered The Journalist. Lucy and Dan both assumed this was another alien expletive, and remained under cover, but then The Journalist nudged Dan and said: ‘Look!’
Dan cautiously put his head above the console and peered out of the window: the second wave of spaceships had pulled up all around the Starship, and an army of short and stocky space-suited figures were swarming over the hull, hammering and welding as they went.