Nettie was the first to throw herself onto one of the fallen weapons and without hesitation she turned it on the mercenaries. Considering she had never even handled a shotgun, back on Earth, Nettie seemed to master the Yassaccan 'blaster' with remarkable ease. It seemed obvious to her where to hold it, and she'd noticed the trigger just below one of the firing chambers. She aimed it, squeezed the trigger, flame blasted out of the barrels and two mercenaries fell to the ground.
'No! No!' yelled Corporal Inchbewigglit in alarm. 'Aim above their heads!'
'Not on your life!' yelled Nettie, and brought down another Blerontinian. By this time Lucy, Dan and The Journalist had each grabbed hold of another of the spare weapons and started blasting away at their attackers.
Their Yassaccan guards were clearly shocked. The Blerontinians, for their part, were taken totally by surprise. They were used to standing up to the fury of Yassaccan SD guns, and - in extreme circumstances - they were used to Yassaccans firing over their heads with real weapons. But this was something new! It was also very alarming! The few Blerontinians who remained standing looked at their fallen comrades, they looked back at their adversaries who even now were blasting straight at them, and - without waiting for another volley to hit them - they turned and fled.
The Yassaccan guards were flabbergasted. Never, in the history of their nations, had Blerontinians fled before Yassaccan gunfire!
Nettie, meanwhile, had raced forwards to the doors of the Embarkation Lobby. There she continued to blast away at the retreating Blerontinians - this time firing above their heads. But the mercenaries were in no mood to stick around to see what she was aiming at - they were already back in the airlock and had slammed the door shut.
'Mind the paintwork!' gasped Corporal Inchbewigglit.
'Well done!' cried Dan, who had just reached Nettie, She was breathing hard and Dan could feel the heat coming off her body as he stood close behind her. Suddenly she span round.
'Oh my God! The bomb!' she exclaimed and pulled the mobile phone from her pocket.
'Two...' said the bomb. 'One... '
'Hi, bomb! It's Nettie!'
'Hi, Nettie...'
'Are you all right, bomb?'
There was silence. For a moment, Dan thought they'd lost it.
'Bomb? Are you there, bomb?' Nettie called into the phone. But still the bomb didn't reply.
'Bomb!' Dan had grabbed the phone.
'Oh! Of course! Let the man do it!' said Nettie.
'Bomb? Are you there?' Dan wasn't listening to Nettie. 'Speak to me!'
'I was speaking to Nettie,' said the bomb in a sulky voice.
'Oh,' said Dan and handed the phone back to Nettie. 'Sorry,' he whispered.
'This is Nettie,' said Nettie into the phone. Again the bomb remained silent. 'Bomb?' she repeated.
Again silence.
'Bomb!' a note of urgency had crept into Nettie's voice. 'Speak to me!'
Then the bomb spoke... very quietly... 'I'm a Mega-Scuttler...' it said.
'Is that your name?' asked Nettie.
'Yes,' said the bomb. 'I'm a bomb.'
'I know you are,' replied Nettie.
'I like hearing your voice, Nettie,' said the bomb.
'I like hearing yours, bomb,' replied Nettie.
'You're not... just saying that?'
'No, I'm not. For an electronic voice you have a very soft one. It's nice.' For a moment Nettie thought the bomb was crying; 'Won't you start counting down again for me?'
'If you'd really like me to,' said the bomb.
'Yes,' said Nettie.
'Very well,' said the bomb. 'I'll count - just for you, Nettie. But this is the last time. One thousand... Nine hundred and ninety-nine...'
Nettie had been so intent upon her purpose of stopping the bomb that she hadn't realized how terrified she'd been, but the next moment she found out, her knees gave way, and she fell into Dan's arms that were suddenly there to catch her.
Bolfass stood on the Captain's Bridge of the Starship Titanic and could not believe his eyes, as he watched the Blerontinian mercenaries beat a retreat into their boarding craft.
'What on Yassacca's going on?' he exclaimed. 'Blerontinians don't just give up like that - they usually fight to our last man!' But, for good measure, he ordered another salvo of space-fire and the blackness around the mercenaries' craft exploded again with light and noise. In less time than it takes for a snork to poop on a plate, the rag-tag flotilla had turned about, and with a blast of white-hot rocketry the loss adjustors' spacefleet disappeared into the stars beyond the beautiful green planet of Yassacca.
At that very moment, Dan and Nettie burst onto the Captain's Bridge again.
'You should be in the cells!' snapped Bolfass,
'They shot straight at the enemy!' Corporal Inchbewigglit appeared behind them. 'That's why the mercenaries ran off!'
'We've got to do something about the bomb!' cried Nettie. 'It says this will be its last countdown,'
'That's terrible!' exclaimed Bolfass, looking very grave indeed.
'Yes! It says it will explode this time!'
'You aimed directly at the Blerontinians?'
'Isn't that what you're meant to do?' asked Nettie.
'Not it is not!' exclaimed Bollass. 'We have a strict moral code! My dear lady! I'm sure you didn't mean to actually aim at them?'
'Well of course she did!' Dan was getting a bit short-tempered. 'It was the only way to stop them. What are we going to do about the bomb?'
'They ran off like zippo as soon as they realized Nettie was firing at them!' exclaimed Inchbewigglit enthusiastically.
'I shall have to put you all under arrest!'
'Captain Bolfass,' said Nettie in her most charming voice. 'We are ignorant of your ways on Yassacca, and can only react as Earth people, and on Earth, I'm afraid people aim to kill and maim each other. That's what weapons are for. I don't like it - but that is how it is. We didn't mean to infringe your code of honour - we just tried to save you and the Starship from the loss adjustors. Now listen...' And she flipped on the mobile phone.
'Nine hundred and twenty-two...' The bomb was still counting.
'We've got about thirteen minutes!'
'Very well,' said Bolfass, still stern-faced. 'We shall have to apologize to the Blerontinians.'
'But they were trying to kill you!' exclaimed Nettie.
'That is because they have no moral code that forbids them,' replied Bolfass, with undeniable logic. 'I shall write the letter of apology as soon as I get a spare moment.'
'If we don't do something about the bomb,' exclaimed Dan, 'we're all of us going to be nothing but spare moments!'
You are right!' said Bolfass. 'I shall have it defused at once!'
Nettie insisted on being with the bomb while it was defused. 'I feel I owe it to it,' she said, when Dan tried to dissuade her. 'Besides, if it goes off, it doesn't matter whereabouts on the ship any of us are.'
The Yassaccan bomb disposal expert agreed, as he put his tool bag down beside the bomb.
'Four hundred and thirty-four...' said the bomb.
'Hi, bomb!' said Nettie.
'Four hundred and thirty-three...' said the bomb. Nettie somehow knew that it was not going to let itself be interrupted. This was the last countdown.