It didnt take long before Tarrant came barrelling into the drop shaft, twisting around sharply so that he hit the opposite side of the shaft with one shoulder. He glanced wildly around until he spotted her, then tried to bring his own pistol to bear on her.

Megan shot first, having the advantage, and hit Tarrant in the shoulder. The recoil slammed her against the ceiling with painful force. The impact, meanwhile, sent Tarrant spinning down the shaft and away from her, cannoning off the walls as he went. A trail of blood arced through the air behind him.

She pulled herself back through the passageway that Tarrant had just emerged from, making her way towards the command deck as fast as she could. Once there, she pushed Sifras override card into a slot on the primary command console. Its display shimmered and changed as she locked into the ships AI.

<Requesting top-level command of primary navigational systems.>

Top-level command cannot be granted without permission of senior crew members or a report of null status of same.

<Confirmed, dammit. Anil Sifra and Gregor Tarrant are injured and unable to command. The ship is under attack.>

The ship shook around her, even more violently than before.

Warning. Hull integrity has dropped to mission-critical levels. I am issuing automated remote alert signals.

<I know that! Give me control or were finished.>

Primary navigational control is granted.

She had full control of the Beauregard; it was now hers to do with as she pleased.

Dont screw this up, she told herself. Not when youve got this close.

She tapped back into the ships net in time to receive a message from Tarrant. Im coming for you, Megan. Do you hear me? Im going to take a long time to kill you.

<The ships mine, Gregor. Youre not going to be doing anything.>

She climbed into the astrogation chair, the petals quickly folding around her. The external monitors revealed that something had melted a deep gash into several hull plates, triggering catastrophic depressurization across three of the decks. Things were a lot worse than shed realized.

Something dark flew past the Beauregard, gone almost as soon as it had appeared. Bright light flared towards the aft, revealing multi-legged things, like something out of her worst nightmares, which began cutting through the hull plates directly over the engineering section.

Where the nova drive was.

God damn you, Tarrant snarled. Ill kill you, do you understand me? Ill flay you alive while Bash watches.

She brought up a visual, and saw that Tarrant had found and pulled on an emergency pressure suit, his face white and bloodless behind the visor as he made his way back along a passageway towards her. She brought a hull-section door slamming down, blocking his way.

<Bash is dead,> she sent back. <He was dead the moment you hooked him up to that machine of yours.>