She edged over to Luizs corpse, which had come to rest against an instrument bank, and carefully pulled the torch gun from his hand. It was sticky with his blood, but then everything in the cockpit was sticky with his blood. She wiped it on her jacket, then pocketed it on her way out. She forced herself to stop off at the head to see how bad she looked, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She was caked in blood, like something out of a nightmare. She got the water running and frenziedly splashed it on her face and hair, scrubbing with her hands until she had washed off the worst of it. Then she stepped back out into the passageway and yanked open random doors and lockers until she found a pair of spare overalls that just about fitted.

She went back to the head and changed quickly before checking herself again. She still looked like a disaster but, with luck, she didnt look as if shed just killed someone.

Working her way to the external hatch, she discovered to her vast relief that it was secured with only a default access code. It was a moments work to get it open.

She then pulled herself along the docking extension that connected the dropship to the Liberias interior, and soon emerged into a brightly lit passageway stretching for some distance fore and aft. Here and there up and down its length, she could see any number of entrances leading to other docking tunnels. There were even signs and advertisements telling her where on the ferry she could find a place to eat or sleep.

Making her way over to an observation window, she found herself looking down at the surface of Redstone for the first time in a very long while. The sight generated a variety of conflicting emotions within her, few of them good.

Things would have been so much simpler if she had been able just to steal Sifras dropship outright and take it down to the surface. But a cursory examination, once she had freed herself, showed the crafts guidance computers to be remotely slaved. Sifra would therefore have had no trouble assuming command of it remotely.

That meant she had to find some other way of getting herself down to the surface.

She walked quickly, putting some distance between herself and the dropship, terrified that she might literally run into Sifra on his way to see what the alarm was about. He was without doubt already hurrying back to investigate.

She spotted a figure coming towards her and slowed down, her whole body tensing. As the figure came closer, she saw it was only a member of the Liberias crew. The man came to a halt, staring aghast at her as she drew closer to him. Clearly her attempt at cleaning up had been less successful than she had thought.