The lights came on. Tortured metal shrieked above me. I twisted to look at the hatch and got a face full of hot metal shavings tossed away from the glowing red patch only a dozen meters away. I brushed them away as quickly as I could, coppery fear filling my mouth when I recognized what was happening.
I opened my mouth, hesitating just long enough to be sure the Hullborer hadn't emerged. "Open channel to all hands. Hullborer on main bay hatch. Penetration in under sixty seconds. Loop message until Tiamat recovers."
The ship's automated systems would transmit my words until the ship's AI could take over. My warning to the crew sent, I focused my thoughts into a single coherent message and thrust it outward.
Guy! Doctor Andrews! Hullborer on the main bay hatch! Please respond!
The reply came quickly, even though Guy's whiskey smooth baritone tasted wrong.
Right behind you. Brace for impact.
I tensed, sending out another message as I did.
Doctor Andrews, please relay the Hullborer message to the captain when she recovers and organize response teams.
Guy's arm wrapped around my waist, and I twisted to wrap myself around him as he did. With me secure, he spun in place, coming to rest against his hangar alcove. I scanned the Bay; nothing moved except the metal fragments still spinning through the air.
Get us into your hangar, Cadet Delnot.
The door irised open beneath our feet, and I slapped the manual controls to close it again as we dropped to the floor beside Guy's scarlet and gold armor. Above our heads the Hullborer's beak forced its way through the ship's armor, its tongue waving about, seeking a target. The moment the door sealed I spoke, unwrapping myself from him as I did so.
"Armor up and take that thing out. I'll be stuck in here; I may need you to coordinate response until the Bay is secure. By then the Captain will be back in charge. Your three priorities, in order, are to keep any Hornets from getting into the ship, to kill that Borer and get it off the hull, and to sweep the exterior of the hull for any other parasites. Understood?"
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Guy set me down on the floor and frowned at me. "Understood, sir." He snapped a salute and spun to face his armor. It slipped open and closed faster than I could see, his body spinning the whole time. The floor trembled beneath my feet as its systems activated, and no more than two seconds after he'd acknowledged my order the door snapped open, and a rush of displaced air sucked me to the center of his hangar alcove. I leapt back and slapped the manual door controls again, closing the door before I could do more than catch a glimpse of a single atrophied Hornet sneaking from the Hullborer's tongue.
I turned to the manual controls themselves; on a standard Imperial ship they might not even exist, given that Imperial troops had augments allowing them to interface directly with ship systems, but Tiamat had manual controls for everything, allowing students too young to have proper augmentation to do for themselves as often as possible.
I blessed that feature now as I slid open the antiquated visual display. A few moments of poking got me a feed from a similar setup beside the main bay doors, the big ones protecting access to the interior of the ship. Guy's scarlet and gold armor hovered halfway down the bay, facing the outer doors. Nothing remained of the Hullborer except a gaping, blackened hole in the ship's outer skin, one Quick worked even now to fix, his armor holding a patch plate with one claw. He used a welder extended from his arm's weapon pod to weld it with quick, straight strokes.
Delnot, why aren't you doing that scan?
One benefit of telepathy; emotions could be sent with amazing clarity. I tasted Guy's frustration as if it were my own.
Quick won't let me out until he's sure the doors will shut again, and he says he can't check that until we've got hull integrity.
I realized the wisdom of Quick's decision almost immediately. If we opened the bay doors and couldn't close them, any 'Sects waiting outside would have a far better chance of overwhelming the two sets of armor before they got reinforced.
Wait for him to finish his weld and check, take him along as your wingman when you do your surface scan. Pass along my compliments on his quick thinking. See if you can contact me via radio while we wait, this is exhausting.
Guy didn't reply. I watched, scanning the compartment for any stray Hornets, as Quick finished his patch, slid over to one side of the main hatch, and ran his tests. Before he finished, Imperial Marines swarmed out of the interior of the ship, spoiling for a fight.
Reality melted around me again.