It was a truth she had not permitted herself until now. For a moment, grief threatened to overwhelm her. She was abandoning him, after all; leaving him here to die. That he had been reduced to little more than an ambulatory corpse made no difference to the fact that it was the hardest thing she would ever do.

I knew you were lying, you stupid little bitch. I knew youd done something to Anil. Take a look outside the ship.

She checked the externals and saw that he had launched the anti-matter missiles. But how could he have . . . ?

You might have taken Anils override card, but that still doesnt give you sole control over everything aboard this ship, including the missile-launch systems. And once Ive dealt with the Wanderer, Megan, Ill deal with you.

Megan watched as the missiles receded with astonishing speed, heading towards the Wanderer, which was clearly boosting its way towards the Beauregard. No more than a few seconds later, light bloomed out from the Wanderer, throwing the moons every crater and valley into brilliant, stark contrast. Filters kicked in, showing the Wanderer glowing a deep orange that shaded into yellow. Parts of it began to break off, drifting away from the main body. She watched, stunned. Surely it couldnt be killed so easily?

She switched her view back to the Beauregard, where the strange alien machines she had seen earlier were still trying to dig their way through the hull.

Itll be your turn soon, she heard Tarrant bellow.

She set the modified lifeboat to prepare for immediate launch, then stepped down from the chair, its petals folding back into its base.

<Trigger emergency core dump now.>

Acknowledged. Core dump in three hundred and sixty seconds.

She made her way back out of the command deck and down a different drop shaft. Following a route that would allow her to work past Tarrant, it took her long, precious minutes to get to the engineering section and the modified lifeboat hidden inside it.

She found it prepped and ready for launch. Part of its hull had been replaced by a hollow cage almost as large as the lifeboat itself. Her heart nearly broke when she saw the pair of life-support units integrated into its hull.

She pulled herself inside one of these units, the opaque lid closing over her almost immediately. For one brief instant, she was in absolute darkness. Some part of her thought: This is what it feels like to be buried alive.

She pushed the thought away as soft lights came on within the unit. She pressed her hands against the inside of the lid and noticed they were shaking. She felt on the verge of hysteria. The sooner she got under way, the sooner she could sink into blissful unconsciousness.

She linked through to the command deck and triggered a launch sequence. She watched through the onboard surveillance systems as two massive hull plates swung open immediately below the lifeboat, revealing blackness beyond.