the repair team could work in a vacuum
without spacesuits,
'cause it wasn't a vacuum any more,
if you see what I mean.
Very clever, those old prison hulk skippers.
Slave, activate force wall.
Pressurise it with our air reserve.
That would be most inadvisable, Master.
I'm terribly sorry
but our force wall generator is in a poor condition.
Slave's right. We'd lose the lot.
It's a great pity we didn't bring Orac.
But I could manage a small force wall,
a blister force wall,
around the damaged part of the hull.
Then do it!
- Let's go.
- Hurray!
Out of the mouths of drunks...
- Drunk? Who's drunk?
- DAYNA: You are.
Show me how to get drunk on plain water
and I won't waste time.
Well, then why pretend?
Because, my lovely Dayna and Soolin,
no one ever tells someone who's drunk
to volunteer.
I don't like working in main drive chambers,
especially main drive chambers
that are separated from space
by one of Slave's force walls.
We're in the main drive chamber.
It's going to take about an hour.
SOOLIN: Right. We'll stand watch.
- See if you can sober up Vila.
- SOOLIN: We'll try.
It's weird. Like being in space without a spacesuit.
Regeneration will take about 20 minutes,
while we deal with the coil.
SLAVE: I'm very sorry to disturb you,
but I think I've detected a patrol.
If they detect us, I have this feeling
that the last thing they'll do is surrender.
SOOLIN: Avon, Tarrant, we've got company.
Three ships, possibly interceptors,
range 200,000 and closing fast.
Have they detected us?
It doesn't look like it,
they're not on an interception course.
AVON: What class are they?
That's just it, none of us are sure.
But they're maintaining
a standard Federation patrol pattern.
We can't leave what we're doing.
AVON: Make a recording of them.
We'll look at it later.
DAYNA: Right. Hologram recorder rolling.
Slave, keep the recorder sensors
zeroed on those ships.
- Soolin, Dayna, what's happening?
- The three ships just exploded.
- They what?
- I know it sounds crazy,
but they just blew up by themselves.
- Well, it should get us back to base, anyway.
- Sounds good to me.
AVON: Well, Orac, what do you think?
I think you have brought back
a most fascinating recording.
AVON: We are looking for conclusions,
not critical acclaim.
Two conclusions.
First, the Federation have re-established their
shipbuilding program ahead of my prediction.
Second, the early design of the main drives
indicates that they have lost their top designer.
Orac, we'd worked that out already.
What we want to know is how three ships
can suddenly blow up by themselves?
If that had happened I would want
an answer to the same question.
So what you're trying to tell us, Orac,
is that those ships did not blow up by themselves.
I am not trying to tell you anything.
I am simply not interested in attempting to
compensate for your amazing lack of observation.
All right, Dayna, play the recording again.
This time at half-speed.
VILA: So what's that supposed to tell us?
That recording told Orac something.
If we want to know what it is,
we have to check every frame.
What, at 10,000 frames per second?
It'll take us hours.
- So?
- So let's at least patch through a link
- to the crew room.
- And do it in comfort.
A waste of time and effort.
We will do it here, and we will do it now.
All of us?
We'll take it in shifts.
You may as well start,
Dayna.
Thanks a lot.
Avon, I've found something.
Look, there, near the bottom of the screen.
From its movement across the frames
it's possible to calculate its velocity.
TARRANT: About standard by 12, at a guess.
In real time? That's not possible.
ORAC: Standard by 12.6 to be precise.
Well, as Vila says, nothing can travel
at that speed in real time. It is impossible.
Nothing could and it was impossible.
It is necessary for your statement to be rephrased,
using the past tense.
So whatever it is,
it fired three bolts at those ships
before it