Only time saved them.

The ship had spun away wildly, damaged and barely under control. Inside alarms screamed, lights flashed and the team yelled. Within minutes, they would have been sitting ducks for the fighters, but the time they'd bought earlier proved decisive. The fighters simply reached the limits of their range. Two more minutes pursuing the team would have left them without enough fuel to get back to Mars. So, with a few parting shots, they broke off pursuit, turned in formation and headed home.

Hannibal had smirked as he saw it. Not only because it left them free, but also because it made him happy to know Decker didn't engender the kind of loyalty that made pilots ignore protocol, go beyond their range to complete a mission and then wait and hope for pickup before their life-support power faded.

Now the team's ship drifted in space. Only dim light from the view ports showed it wasn't dead. Inside, in the blue glow of the emergency lighting the team all crammed into the flight deck.

"Nothing on sensors." Face said. He looked up. "The fighters all left. But you know something long range is going to come out to mop us up."

"Then we have to get moving," Hannibal said, "BA, how long?"

"About three hours." He looked around, a look of regret on his face. "But, gonna have to do some of the repairs from outside."

The others groaned.

"I can do them on my own," BA offered.

"No," Hannibal shook his head. "No-one goes extra-vehicular alone. Anyway, it will speed things up if someone hands you your tools." He looked at Face and Murdock, who both seemed to be trying to pretend they were someone else and had never heard of the A-Team. Hannibal smiled. "I think it's Face's turn."

"Aw, Colonel, please," Face moaned. "You know I hate going EV! The damn suit makes me claustrophobic. Anyway, if it's just to hand BA his tools, well," he turned the Smile on full blast. "Amy, honey, how'd you fancy your first spacewalk?"

"In what?" Amy asked, "All the spacesuits are male."

"You wouldn't be out there long enough to need to use the -um - " He looked embarrassed for a second, "the plumbing."

"Don't know about you, Face," Murdock said. "But when I'm out there in vacuum with just a thin layer of plastic between me and certain death, I tend to use the plumbing pretty much continually."

"You know I could have lived the rest of my life quite happily without ever knowing that," Face said, scowling at Murdock. He brightened suddenly. "Wait, Amy does have a space suit, that one I got her last month."

"Face!" Amy protested. "You'd better be kidding! That's not a real spacesuit! I wouldn't go out in the rain in that thing!"

"What do you mean not real?"

"You got it for me to wear to that costume party."

"It's a spacesuit isn't it?"

"It's got high heels and an under wired bust. You stole it from one of Hannibal's movie sets."

"I did not steal it!" Face protested, and then looked shifty. "I mean, I could still return it."

"Okay," Hannibal said, "much as I'm enjoying the cabaret, if we don't get moving you kids will be doing your double act for Decker. Face, BA, get suited up."

-o-O-o-

"Aw, man, look at that." BA moaned as he and Face floated across the side of the ship. He pointed at the scorch mark that almost obscured the ship's name: 'Chicago'.

"Sorry, BA, I didn't think to bring any paint with me," Face said. "We'll fix it up later, when we're not impersonating a bull's-eye."

BA grunted. "Yeah, I guess." They moved on, using rungs set into the hull, and then activated their magnetic boots to walk across the underside of the ship. There they found more scorch marks and the damage that needed repairs before they could get underway. BA fixed his toolbox to the hull with a couple of magnetic clamps and set to work. Face stood beside him, handed over tools and kept a watch on the levels of their air tanks.

"Face," BA said, after a while. "You're real quiet."

"Mmm?" Face said, looking away from the stars and turning to BA.

"Normally I gotta shut down the comms channel so I don't have to listen to your jibber jabber."

"You shut down the comm?" Face said, outraged for a moment. Then he smiled. "Guess I've done a lot of talking to myself out here then."

"Yeah. I usually listen to music instead." BA turned away again, bending over his work. "You worried 'bout meeting Kyle? You two got a history."

Face didn't answer right away, just looked hard at the side of BA's helmet, at the stencilled letters 'Baracus' and rather more crudely hand written in marker underneath. AB—

AB negative. He'd had that painted on the side of his helmet the day Face met him back on Venus. Face asked him why, when the medics could scan all your medical data right off your I.D. chip. BA, wearing an engineer's patch on his sleeve, had sneered at the idea and said, "Any man trusts a machine, that man's a fool."

BA turned his head, so Face could see his features behind his visor, thrown into deep shadow by the light on the front on his helmet.

"Face?"

"I doubt Kyle even remembers me."

BA snorted.

"After we done with him he'll remember you."

-o-O-o-

Murdock lifted noodles from a serving bowl with the tongs and piled them on his plate, dropping several and leaving a trail of sauce across the table.

"Quit making a mess, fool."

BA sounded grouchier than usual and Hannibal looked up at him. He looked tired. Face too. Doing a space walk left you drained, Hannibal knew. Not just the exertion, but also the tension of being out there, with so little protection. However, the repairs were done and the ship underway, a course plotted for Ganymede.

"What's the final estimate on travel time?" Hannibal asked Murdock.

"Sixteen days," Murdock said, provoking a round of groans.

"Hey, it coulda been two months, quit complaining." He sighed. "Man wait till those new experimental drives they're working on go into production. This trip will take two days. Three tops!"

"Gonna be ten years at least 'fore they're ready," BA said.

Murdock sighed. "Yeah, I guess. But the outer solar system will really open up when they do."

Hannibal decided to head off the looming discussion about spaceship engines, which he feared would send Amy, Face and himself into a coma.

"Well I guess we'll all get plenty of rest."

"Yeah, in shifts," Face said. "Since we have four bunks and five people." He grinned and winked at Amy. "Looking forward to sharing, kid?"

Amy shot him a dirty look, still mad at him for the spacewalk suggestion, even if he had been kidding.

"I could sleep out here on a couch if you like," she offered.

Hannibal shook his head. "We need someone on watch all the time anyway."

"I'll take the first night watch," Murdock said. He paused to suck in a long noodle. "I'll play chess with Billy."

BA glared at Murdock. "Don't start that nonsense. I told ya, the computer ain't got a name."

"BA, it's a B.I.L. 9000. What else am I supposed to call it?" He appeared baffled that anyone could think he had any choice in the matter.

"You don't need to call it nothing." BA insisted. "It's a machine."

"The ship's a machine," Murdock pointed out. "It's got a name."

"A ship's gotta have a name, it's the law."

"And we're such law abiding citizens," Face muttered, winding noodles around his fork.

"Ship's gotta have a name," BA repeated. "That's not the same as calling the computer 'Billy'. Sentimental fool."

"Oh," Murdock countered, "Because naming the ship after the place you were born, that's not an act of sentiment?"

"And you been messing with Bil - with the computer." BA pointed his fork at Murdock. "You programmed it to sing some dumb song about a bicycle."

Murdock grinned.

"Yeah," Face said, "and are you by any chance responsible for the way it keeps on randomly asking me 'what are you doing, Face?' in that creepy voice?" He shivered while Murdock giggled. "It's freaking me out."

"Okay, I'm sorry. I'll teach Billy to do something useful I swear." He looked thoughtful. "Do you think we'd ever need him to be able to read lips?"

"Fool."

Sixteen days, five people, four bunks, Hannibal thought. He wondered if he should open a book now on how many of them would still be alive by the time they got to Ganymede.