Read 3. A Second Chance for Free Online

universities do surprises me very much.
    We were within about ten feet of the pod. So near and yet so far. Some citizens had drawn back, leaving four or five of their braver brethren to tackle the woman and the old man.
    If I’d had Peterson, or Clerk, or Van Owen, or any of them, it would have been a piece of cake. This sort of thing happened so often it was practically the standard end to most of our assignments.
    I heard the professor shout, heard another shriek as someone got a face full – with luck not the professor himself – jabbed an elbow into someone’s midriff, swung a fist, and caught something hard. And, once again, I’d forgotten to untuck my thumb, and, once again, it hurt.
    It really wasn’t one of those nice, clean, carefully choreographed Hollywood fights where the stunningly beautiful heroine – that would be me – tastefully attired in skin-tight black leather and impractical heels, destroys an entire platoon of heavily armed opponents without even breaking a fingernail.
    I slipped and slithered in whatever the good folk of Cambridge had been happily tossing into their streets that morning, aimed punches that missed, got tangled up in my own cloak, was nearly sprayed by an excited Professor Penrose, zapped another one, and worried I would run out of charge.
    Then, suddenly, I was free. Two men lay on the ground. One still stood but had his hands to his face, moaning. Two men still had hold of the professor and as I looked, the nearer one let go and reached for me. I zapped him and twisted past. At the same time, Eddie let loose with the spray. All the other citizens had fallen well back by now, but I could hear distant shouting and running footsteps.
    I shouted, ‘Door!’ and seized Eddie, who squirted again, following through with the classic knee to the groin. I made a note never, ever to mess with a septuagenarian theoretical physicist.
    I whirled him into the pod before he could victoriously trample on his fallen foe. Someone caught my cloak again and tried to drag me back out. I lashed backwards with my foot and caught him, painfully, I hoped, on the shin. But we couldn’t get the door closed and in a few seconds there would be others and once they were inside the pod, we were finished. I reached up to my hair and pulled out a wickedly sharpened hairpin. Always my weapon of choice. I jabbed viciously – once, twice, and someone cursed.
    The professor knotted his hands in my assailant’s hair and tried to pull him off me. We all staggered backwards and fell heavily across the console.
    Which was not good.
    Lights flashed. Alarms sounded.
    The computer said, ‘Emergency extraction requested.’
    I shrieked, ‘No. Abort. Abort.’
    I yanked the man off the professor and shoved him towards the door, all the time screaming, ‘Abort. Computer, abort extraction,’ and completely forgetting the authorisation code.
    The door was open. We can’t jump with the door open. We shouldn’t be able to jump with the door open. And we certainly didn’t want emergency extraction. We were about to be ripped out of Cambridge at nose-bleeding speed …
    I heaved the man out of the door – although actually, I don’t think he could get out fast enough. None of his friends had followed him in and here he was, alone in this talking box … he took to his heels.
    I slapped the manual switch. The door closed cutting off the noise of the angry citizenry of Cambridge baying for our blood, albeit from a safe distance.
    ‘Professor, hold on tight! Brace for impact!’
    Too late.
    The world went black.

Chapter Three
    I rolled over. Every bone in my body hurt. I’d done this before and it still wasn’t any fun. That’s why emergency extraction is for emergencies only.
    I remembered I had a passenger.
    ‘Professor Penrose?’
    He stirred.
    ‘Lie still, Professor. Don’t try to get up just yet. They’ll open the door in a minute and we’ll get you up to Sick Bay.’
    I was wasting my