Alone and Silent by Kate Orman (G)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Fandom: BLAKE'S 7
Pairing: none
Author on LJ: Unknown
Author Website: none, but she has two stories on Penny Dreadful's site
Why this must be read:

Hi, I'm vilakins, your B7 driver for October.

This story is one of the first I found when I discovered B7 fiction on the web. It's a tight, tense little tale of near-death avoided only by the faithful determination of a friend.

Vila's cleverness lands him in an undercover assignment in an asteroid mining company, where an accident sends him to a slow and lonely death in space.

Once upon a time, clocks ticked. Vila Restal had even seen a real ticking clock, its casing transparent to show off the complex works inside. Gears of metal interlocking and turning. Counting out the seconds.
The suit's wrist chronometer had been shattered in the explosion, along with its radio. The only clock Vila had now was his own heartbeat,counting out the seconds until the suit ran out of air.

However another member of the crew refuses to leave him there. There are flashbacks to his assignment as Vila spins helplessly in vacuum and it's good to see him using talents and skills other than lock-picking. Here, Vila is clever, capable--and valued; Cally will not give up.

Vila. I know you're there.

The voice was suddenly much more than a voice. It was such a strong sense of her presence that she might have been touching him, breathing the same thin air that he was breathing. For a moment there were no stars, there was no Vila, there was only Cally.

I know you're still alive, Vila. I can sense you. We must be close by. You must hang on, Vila.

He was drowning in the voice. Or perhaps he was just drowning, breathing his own carbon dioxide as his skin turned blue and his fingers tingled and his field of vision began to melt into blackness.

NO! Don't you dare!

The voice gripped him, forced him to breathe, breathe, breathe. Forced him awake, tiny droplets of cold sweat randomly patterned across his forehead.

Don't you dare die, Vila, not when we're this close.

It looks like a happy ending, but there's a little sting in the tail.

Alone and Silent