“Is it active?” I asked.

  “No, the transit drive only activates at the beginning and end of the transit. You can technically use it while in the void to drop you out of the void, but if you are not near the end of the tranit you have no idea where you can end up.” Hook exposited.

  “Wait, like you'll drop somewhere on the path between the transit points?” I asked for clarification.

  “No I mean you could end up anywhere. Anywhere there is a transit point I should say. Also the process invariably causes ship-wide damage. Many do not survive, and there are stories of hulks found in newly explored systems that show signs of damage consistent with such 'emergency' warp jumps.” Hook told me.

  “Okay... what happens if you trigger the transit drive when you aren't near a transit point.” I asked.

  “You get dropped into transit space with no destination, and you are forced to use the tranist drive again to get out, damaging your ship and potentially stranding yourself in the process.” Hook explained.

  I blinked.

  “Wait does that mean every ship out there has a get out of jail free card?” I said.

  That was big. Theoretically any ship that didn't want to battle it out to the end could just pull the ripcord and get out.

  “I would not call it a get out of jail free card, there are many mitigating factors, the transit drive is very delicate, and routinely becomes damaged during maneuvers. Thankfully most transit points are far enough out that any repairs can be done en route. Then there is the fact that you could be destroyed or stranded when you use it to escape back to real space.” Hook said.

  “Wait, have we damaged it?” I asked.

  “Yes many times.” Hook replied.

  “Why didn't you tell me?” continued.

  “Because it was not relevant and such regular maintenance is not included in the reports given to the captain, would you also like to be informed of the sludge gathering on the internal water lines that the repair drones routinely clean out?” Hook said, not quite testily but I could see a shade of Hook's former attitude there.

  “Fine... fine I'm getting off topic. So something about the transit drive is drawing it in deeper into the ship. I wonder why it doesn't draw them in from further out.” I wondered.

  “It could be it didn't pick up the 'scent' as it were until it got inside our hull.” Hook added.

  That sounded plausible. But...

  “I'm going to run a diagnostic on the transit drive... see if there was anything abnormal with the last jump.” I said to Hook and began said diagnostic.

  It was not a very in depth one, there was another option for a full diagnostic but that would require spinning it up, and after what Hook had told me I was wary of that. Didn't want to wind up on the other side of the... galaxy? If I did something wrong. There had to be a limited range to the random jump they were talking about but Hook didn't state one.

  The diagnostic finished and I read it.

  Something was off with the drive, more than our previous jumps. There had been a spike in several emitted types of radiation that was more than an order of magnitude greater than our previous jumps.

  “Have any parts of the transit drive been replaced since we jumped?” I asked.

  “One.” Hook replied.

  “Is it still intact?” I asked.

  “It is currently being transferred to the fabricator's for recycling.” Hook responded.

  “I need it. Show it to me.” Hook brought my attention to the part, which was currently mixed in with a batch of other parts currently in a hopper in the fabricator.

  I quickly tasked a repair drone to dig it out and bring it to the girls.

  I dropped my reference frame down to normal and contacted the girls.

  “All right, I think I have something that can lure it to you... the fire extinguisher does work, but I'll have to sacrifice some repair drones for it, and I am starting to run low, this thing is shredding my insides.” I said.

  It may have sounded like hyperbole but the more this thing damaged the internals of the ship the sicker I felt. Again, I felt no pain, but it was like I was being hollowed out, I could feel the ships capability diminishing as it wrecked me from the inside and it reminded me of bad food poisoning... only I couldn't make myself throw up to feel better.

  A few minutes later the repair drone with the part came scuttling past Megan and Hwang, who watched bemused as it scuttled past them, a piece of... conduit? Mag-clamped to it's top.

  It hurried past them and up on the wall, where it pressed the part against the bulkhead with it's body.

  I ordered it to have a little surprise for the Lindwurm if and when it emerged.

  If it didn't... well I still had a worm in my guts.

  I had another flash of it's location, and it had changed direction again.

  I plotted the new point in my little map and found that it had deviated from the spiral pattern, and appeared to be heading closer to the 'lure' I had set up.

  “It seems to be taking the bait.” I told Hwang and Megan, who at this point were starting to look very uncomfortable in their ready stances, they had both lowered their weapons and Megan was shifting her 'weight' from one foot to the other, while Hwang had dropped to a one kneed crouch.

  And... I realized that they didn't have to be uncomfortable.

  “I can lower the fake gravity if that would make the waiting easier.” I said over the intercom to them.

  Megan looked up and smiled, and looked about to answer, before Hwang cut in.

  “No. We don't have time to get used to new gravity and Megan hasn't been trained in micro gravity. Suck it up.” Hwang said harshly, though what she said did have merit. From the way the two of them stood I could tell Hwang was obviously the more experienced of the pair, if her higher rank hadn't given it away. Megan was shifting uncomfortably, but Hwang was scanning her head back and forth, the target point always in her field of view while she maintained awareness of the corridor and both side branches of it.

  I watched the corridor they were in, keeping a vague awareness of where the lindwurm was, and I, briefly, looked through the sensors on the outside of the ship, expecting to at least be able to passively see where the bounty hunter ship was.

  It was gone.

  I felt a chill.

  From what I could tell I should be able to see it with ordinary sensors with how close we were...

  We had put one of those giant blood cells between me and it, but from all I had experienced so far it should be completely transparent to us, I should be able to see through it.

  No something had completely removed the Bounty hunter ship, consumed it.

  Or...

  Maybe they managed a random jump.

  I remembered the swarm converging on the bounty hunter ship.

  A part of me hoped they had jumped, rather than die to... that.

  It would make my conscience feel better at least.

  Though... they had been trying to kill me...

  I had a flash.

  I couldn't see the bounty hunter ship anymore. They were definitely gone.

  I made a note to talk about this later.

  “Cofey, I think it's coming through.” Hwang's voice cut into my reverie and I focused in on where they were watching the target point.

  The bulkhead had bulged out, and I got ready to activate the little surprise I had gotten ready in the little repair drone that was holding onto the piece of conduit.

  I could see Megan flinching every time the bulkhead bulged out further, blinking each time.

  In contrast Hwang was breathing very deliberately, and her only response to each bulge and the screech of metal that came with it was to retarget her aim to the newest bulge. She was also keeping one eye closed, unlike Megan, which I thought was weird but... I'm not a soldier.

  I had another flash and suddenly I could see the Lindwurm coiling behind the bulkhead.

  With a final rending screech of metal the creature burst through the wall... or at least I assumed it did, as none of us could see it.

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  At that last flash I had dropped myself into a high reference frame, so everything was suddenly going very slowly, but even so so many things were happening at once.

  First, Megan had already opened fire, and I could see the pixelated bullets through my camera, though I doubted their accuracy.

  Second, I sent the command I had prepped to the repair drone, and it detonated in a cloud of lubricant and extinguisher foam.

  Third, a ruptured conduit from where the Lindwurm had forced it's way through made contact with the deck and and began arcing into the surroundings, forcing all the lights to a staggering level of luminence before burning them out.

  The shockwave of foam and fluids from the little repair bot met the Lindwurm, and finally the girls had a target.

  Megan's finger had tightened on the trigger the moment that the opening had appeared in the bulkhead, but none of the bullets had struck. The thing was long and sinuous, and did not take up the majority of the hole it had torn open, which meant the majority of Megan's bullets zipped past and into the superstructure, those that didn't ricochet off of my bulkhead that is.

  Megan's eyes had instinctively closed at the flash, but Hwang had, apparently instinctively at the flash, closed one eye and opened the other, and as soon as the splatter of extinguisher foam impacted the Lindwurm she was firing, and unlike Megan, the majority of her shots were on target.

  I watched as a half dozen bullets zipped into the creature.

  And in slow motion I saw one of the oddest things happen.

  The bullets stopped, deformed and looking like they had lodged in something, and then immediately began to blacken and... warp. Like it was still tumbling inside something and was denting and deforming despite being still.

  The Lindwurm whipped about, or at least the foam covering it did, and patches of bulkhead around it blackened and warped, very similarly to how the bullet had.

  Megan finally got her gun on target and started getting her shots to hit when Hwang's weapon clicked empty.

  “Falling back!” Hwang said, as she turned and... not quite ran, but trotted back, most of her concentration seeming to be on exchanging magazines in her weapon while Megan was unloading into the Lindwurm.

  Megan's rounds were far less accurate than Hwang's, but I could tell at least some were hitting due to a handy counter I had thrown up, that showed number of detected impacts on the wall behind the lindwurm, and number of shots fired. Even accounting for some going into the hole behind the Lindwurm and not being counted by the system, it was a decent way of determining how many rounds were on target. Trying to count the rounds that were floating in space in the creature was too difficult with both the movement, the warping effect, and the foam coverage.

  I clocked Megan's accuracy at about 10%, pretty good considering her first burst had gone wildly off target.

  Hwang was sitting at a comfortable 30%, her first burst of six rounds had all been on target, but afterwards her accuracy had suffered.

  Also, I added to myself as an aside, their weapons seemed to hold roughly one hundred rounds before they required reloading. Neat.

  I realized, as I watched all this in slow motion, that I was keeping score and cataloging all of these minor details to keep my mind off the fact that there was literally nothing I could do now.

  My fate, heck all of our fates hinged entirely on the girls now. Whether that thing broke through their line and killed them, me, Ricky, Smith, Carolina...

  I felt a real twist in my heart at the though of Carolina.

  Huh... that's something to explore later.

  Maybe.

  When we're not fighting for our lives and racing against the clock.

  Sure.

  Frame-Jack gave me far too much time to think about things.

  Megan's weapon clicked on empty and she just sort of stared down at it for a moment, before moving to reload.

  Unfortunately that moment was all the Lindwurm needed to get it's bearings and lunge at her.

  Megan stumbled back, falling onto her ass as the Lindwurm stormed towards her, or rather the remnants of the extinguisher fluid and a cluster of bullets floating in midair lunged towards her.

  When suddenly a metallic tentacle whipped out from around the corner and smashed right into the center of the cluster of rapidly warping and churning bullets floating in midair.

  The Lindwurm smashed into the bulkhead with a thud, denting it in, as Dog-bot came around the corner, it's ID sending a string of error and damage messages to my hud and carrying itself on only two of it's tendril's, the remainder dragging lifeless behind it, while the third active one menaced the spot where the Lindwurm had been thrown.

  A massive metal ribbed conduit was jammed into Dogbot's back and looked like it had been torn directly out of one of my bulkheads, and I could see the area where it had been crudely welded into place on the back of Dog-bot was glowing red-hot.

  Dog-bot's fighting arm flowered open at the end into it's claw like manipulators, and a few spurts of fusing plasma flared out of the end before it finally coalesced into a coherent beam of white hot death, that it then jammed down on the spot the Lindwurm had just been thrown.

  Unfortunately, it appeared the Lindwurm had moved, and the impact had either dislodged or forced the bullets out, and the extinguisher fluid had finally wiped off, ran off or been forced off, causing the jet of high energy plasma to dig into my hull instead of the creepy abomination.

  Dog-bot retracted it's fighting tendril and set itself in a ready stance, the metal iris around it's main camera narrowing to the point it looked like it was scowling as it scanned back and forth for the Lindwurm.

  The next indication of the Lindwurm we got was Dog-bot's tendrils buckling over a sudden increase in weight.

  “Megan, Hwang, get out of there!” I said over the PA, having to slow down my voice so they could understand while I was in such a high reference frame.

  Dog-bot and the Lindwurm were rolling down the corridor, Dog-bot had wrapped it's tendrils around the invisible creature and was holding it tight against the drones chassis... which was quickly sprouting rents and tears from the Lindwurm's attempts to fight back.

  I took a moment to take in just how surreal it was that this was happening in... not silence, I could pick up the movements and actuator noises that Dog-bot was making, but the Lindwurm wasn't making any noises. The only thing that made noise was the metal that screeched when it was bent and warped out of place. A part of me kept saying it should be roaring, snarling, or hissing, but nothing. Silence.

  A silence broken by more gunfire as Hwang and then Megan began opening fire. It was much easier for them to hit their target at this point as the Lindwurm was very obviously silhouetted by Dog-bot's tendrils.

  Unfortunately this meant that dog-bot was also in the line of fire, and I could see the bullets sparking off it's carapace and combat arms, eventually causing one to go limp, leaving Dog-bot with only two limbs to attack the Lindwurm.

  “EVERYONE TAKE COVER!” Carolina's voice rang down the hallway. I admit I didn't realize she was saying something till about halfway through with how accelerated my perception was, but she was standing by the conduit that was trailing out and connecting to dogbot, and had what looked like a giant wrench attached to … some kind of valve.

  As I watched she cranked the valve, and Dog-bot twisted it's body to face the Lindwurm in it's clutches.

  And activated it's main gun.

  Plasma sprayed out of Dog-bot in a torrent, cutting through the Lindwurm in it's grasp and filling the corridor with fusing high energy plasma, it was like an explosion without the shock wave, fire raced down in a wall down each of the junctions.

  Before I lost image from the camera's in the area I saw Megan diving out of the way, dragging Hwang who appeared to still be in a firing stance into cover, and Carolina had once again disappeared from my view.