Jas, the smallest, most agile of them, squeezed through a gap into the med lab. He found one dead doctor and one dying nurse whom he put out of his misery with a quick jab through the central nerve cluster at the back of the skull. In near total darkness, he searched the rest of the area, but couldn’t access the rooms beyond. They would’ve needed tools to cut through the compacted metal, but the burners had been in the equipment room next to the armory, which was situated next to the sleeping quarters, all of which had been squashed flat. Whoever might’ve survived and was trapped back there, they couldn’t get to them. Still, they spent some time searching for a different way in, checking air vents and supply chutes. Their efforts were in vain. The tail end of the Widowmaker had become a mass grave.

They did find some survivors in the end. The bridge was partly intact, but the systems failure had kept the shields from coming down over the huge, see-through front wall and the force of the crash had shattered the material and rained razor-sharp shards into the room. Two of the officers had been skewered in their seats. The commander had been lucky: he’d only lost a leg and was currently holding on to the belt he’d used as a makeshift tourniquet with grim-faced determination. Kir and Cen covered the broken window wall with the seat cushions and started the slow, painful process of moving Kom and his unconscious second-in-command out of the

downed ship. They didn’t worry about whether or not they could survive in the environment outside. There were so many tears and holes in the hull they’d been breathing planet air practically since touchdown. It hadn’t killed them yet. Frankly, exposure to an alien biosphere was the least of their problems at the moment.

Jas and Rik went back into the bowels of the ship. The small hangar section was almost undamaged. Unfortunately, it had been empty when System Six’s sabotage programming had kicked in. They had to use a lever to force open the doors to the weapons center and Jas would’ve dislocated his shoulder if not for System Five’s hasty intervention, but it was worth it.

Two of the four members of the weapons crew had made it through the crash more or less in one piece. They were wounded and only half-conscious, but breathing. It took some time to get them outside, but finally the small band of survivors settled on the scorched ground next to the broken body of the Widowmaker and took stock.

It didn’t look too good. They were sitting at the bottom of a huge, circular crater, a dazzling white sun burning down on them mercilessly from an azure-blue sky and rendering everybody but the armor hosts blind.