She ran, ducking low and aiming for the door to the hoist platform. Las-blasts scattered across the deck behind her. She reached the opening and darted inside. The hoist platform swayed under her.

‘Come on!’ she shouted back at the Navigator. The spider machine had paused, its gun tracking to get a clean shot at her. The Navigator glanced up and sprinted towards her, hands still held to his ears. The spider-machine pivoted its gun and fired. Las-blasts left glowing splashes on the walls. Mersadie jammed the key medallion into the hoist door controls, hoping that they still had enough power to function. The floor under her feet lurched and began to slide downwards. The Navigator gave a cry, rose and sprinted towards the hoist opening. Las fizzed in his wake as the spider-machine scuttled after him, firing wildly. He dropped onto the descending platform beside her, yelping with pain as he landed.

The spider-machine reached the lip of the opening as the roof of the hoist came down. Its gun rotated down to fire an instant before the edge of the roof crushed it into the floor. Something in its body exploded. Bits of metal and rubber showered down onto Mersadie.

‘Whatever luck you bring seems to be holding,’ laughed the Navigator.

‘If the shuttle is there, can you pilot it?’ asked Mersadie as she gasped for air.

‘Yes,’ said the Navigator, ‘I can.’

Mersadie coughed, and gulped breaths as the hoist juddered down through the dark. Every now and then she felt the shaft shake and the groan as the metal of the ship strained.

The shuttle was there when they reached the bottom. Three shuttles, in fact, red and black, their wings swept forward, held silent in the cradles above the hangar deck. Everything else was carnage. Mangled servitors lay on the deck, crushed by machinery that had tumbled through the space and now lay in smashed heaps. The reek of fuel hid the smell of blood, and her feet splashed in puddles of promethium as they ran to the remaining craft.

‘No…’ hissed the Navigator, glancing at the first shuttle, and then moving on. ‘No…’

He reached the last, gave a snort, keyed a rune on the cradle and pulled himself up onto the ramp of the machine. Mersadie followed. He was already strapping himself into the pilot cradle, muttering and keying controls.

‘I am going to need your help,’ he said, eyes moving over the console, as Mersadie strapped herself into the second cradle.

‘What do you need me to do?’

‘Hand on the controls and hold her steady,’ he said, his fingers moving over buttons and dials like a clavier player’s.

The shuttle lurched, and then began to hum. Engine noise rose.

‘I don’t know how far this will get us,’ he said, ‘but so far our luck is holding… Now, hold steady.’