A/N: Apologies for the wait; originally I intended for this chapter to be the last of this scenario, until it grew to rather gargantuan proportions and I decided to cut what I had roughly in half and upload this whilst finishing the rest.
Separation
A microsecond after the ship's artificial gravity had carried him out of Ross' line of sight, Shepard's tactical cloak flickered into operation, and enabled him to pass over a dozen hijackers as they rushed up the stairs towards the lone, increasingly panicked journalist, before Thaddaeus deactivated the stealth device once again. The first to become aware of his presence, if only in the most general of terms and then only for a moment before he lost consciousness, was the thug the assassin used to break the fall, increasing the duration of the impact and thus reducing the potentially lethal force transferred. Given that he was the final pirate in the formation, and the last left on the lowermost deck, it was unlikely he'd be awakening any time soon, or consuming anything other than soft foods for the rest of his inevitably dreary existence.
His nearest comrades heard the muffled thud and grunt behind them and turned to check on their colleague, only to see the indistinct shadow looking in the same direction for the source. Or so they thought until they discerned the inert form on which the man stood, which was incidentally the moment at which Thaddaeus span, omnitool glowing, Karpov raised, and opened fire. Softening his targets up with an intense burst of electromagnetic radiation, he felled one with a flurry of quick shots to the face, before overburdening the next man's shields as he dropped to his knees below the replying salvo. Then, it was the hostile forces who were encouraged to seek refuge from a barrage as the N7 scavenged the first criminal's fallen assault rifle and, bracing it awkwardly with his pistol-wielding right arm, let loose a prolonged burst of suppressive fire, rolling for the relative cover of the stairway as he did so.
Ignoring the shots coming in around him, but careful to keep an eye on the power source supplying his kinetic barriers, Shepard stowed his Karpov and dropped the stolen rifle, hands occupied with the holographic display of his microcomputer as he rapidly decoded the encryption safeguarding the opposition's communications, linking the transmissions to an earpiece and allowing himself a pleased twitch of the lips as he eavesdropped on their sudden confusion.
"-the fuck is going on? Boss said the pair of them were up top!"
"Are there more? I thought we got all the ship's security?!"
"Too good to be one of those wankers; this is the N7. Orders are to take him alive. Moore, Volkov, move around and put some fire in over his cover, take his shields down but don't shoot to kill; force him into the open. Saunders, put a flash bang down there the moment he's vulnerable, then take Mensah and Gallo; get in close and put him out, tazer blasts and CQC. Weapons free, but shoot low and only if you have to. Morin, Khan, Cheng, hang back and assist as needed, the rest keep going up and take the journalist. Schäfer has command."
A string of acknowledgements rattled through the earpiece in the seconds it took for Thaddaeus to absorb the intelligence, note that they wanted him alive and intact too, for whatever reason, and concoct his own countering moves to the enemy leader's reasonable, if rather conventional, battle plan. Nine for him; by his count that left five for Ross not including forces coming in from behind. Their best chance for overall success was a sustained blitzkrieg, which meant they had to retain strategic momentum and not get bogged down where they could be swarmed by reinforcements. No prolonged firefights; this would have to be quick.
The notion of depending on their unwillingness to apply lethal force grated with him, but as their key strategic flaw he'd be a fool not to exploit it. A final motion with his omnitool activated a protocol that disabled the automated cooldown of the power source that ran his shields; a risky move under ordinary circumstances, as whilst there was no danger of exhausting the power supply, overloading or overheating it would damage the generator irreparably. These weren't ordinary circumstances. Picking up the rifle again in a more stable two handed grip, as rounds seared in over his cover to be deflected by his barriers, Thaddaeus made his move.
Not out into the open killing ground, as was desired and expected, but up, a hail of fire from his weapon felling the nearest of the hijackers and sending the others back diving around the next corner to make their escape. Shepard let them go, for the time being; released one hand from its grip on the rifle and moved his aim to suppress others on the levels above, halting his advance for an instant to snatch an object from the hand of the most recent corpse he had made. Priming the flash-bang, he cooked it for a second, judging his throw, then leaned out and tossed it up into the space through which he had fallen moments earlier. Turning away, he buffered his ears as best he could, keeping a mental count-
"Watch the centre!" He barked into the enemy comm channels, less than a second before the grenade detonated, nearly perfectly in the centre of the enemy squad. Oaths and cries of dismay replied as a dozen pirates were blinded and disoriented, but the grenade ought to have been low enough to leave Ross unscathed, if not his attackers. The assassin allowed himself an instant to further loot the body of the man next to him, apparently an explosives and ordnance specialist, finding another flash bang and three other grenades of a less identifiable variety in that they had been tinkered with to disperse a payload of an unknown substance that could be anything from plasma to shrapnel or knockout gas. The appropriate moment quickly came to satisfy his curiosity when the dead man's companions, apparently not having been fooled by Shepard's ploy, stood up out of cover and unleashed a hail of close-range fire that strained his shields dangerously. Thaddaeus threw the device as soon as he activated the fuse and darted back to ensure that he was out of range of whatever would be released, risking a peek as-
A blue explosion of the kind one usually only associated with biotics blossomed outwards from the weapon, preceded by a concussive force that sent the two thugs flying. The N7 considered the sight for a moment, and concluded that the detonation must charge a payload of eezo before dispersing it, distorting the mass of anything within the blast radius and applying a displacing force whose effects would be vastly amplified. A good choice for shipboard combat; it had the potential to devastate the battle order of hostile infantry whilst causing minimal collateral damage to sensitive infrastructure like the hull of a vessel. He pocketed the remaining devices before snatching his rifle and moving up to finish his targets before they were able to regroup.
As he ascended, time inexorably passed and his opponents gradually regained use of their faculties. The first to be killed of those that had been poleaxed by the original grenade had yet to recover their full senses of sight or sound, or even any level of movement that required balance, and as such were stirring flaccidly, not even capable of finding their weapons let alone picking them up or using them with any degree of success, though given their opponent, Shepard felt that whether they would be successful even with full use of their faculties or not was not a matter truly open for debate. The next were aware of their surroundings, but unable to respond to the stimulus their senses provided. Still partially deafened, their loudly spoken curses and pleas for mercy only irritated the assassin as he approached to silence them. Up above he heard sporadic signs of a skirmish and quickened his pace.
This proved to be to his disadvantage when he was four decks up, hastily executing foes at point blank range, and he failed to make a rather key observation. The voice begging for clemency was the very same one that had not so long ago been coolly strategising to bring about his downfall, not a man to be broken by a mere flash bang, or to be fooled so easily by the command to stare in the direction of the device, in particular as the command didn't come from him. What's more, there was a note of falseness in his speech and ineffectual attempts to stand that Shepard didn't entirely process before-
The man suddenly glowed blue, and then so did Thaddaeus as he was hauled into the air and yanked sideways over the guard rail, towards a drop that would be rather more painful without a convenient buffer to break his fall. The squad leader's inner ear was still suffering from the effects of the earlier detonation, however, and he misjudged the movement, giving the assassin an ever so slight excess in velocity that allowed him to find a handhold one level down, at the cost of his assault rifle. Shoulders jarred by the impact, Shepard heaved himself back up and wrenched his Karpov out of its holster, directing precise, rapid fire at the enemy biotic as he clumsily got up to confirm that his attack had been successful. Reacting quickly, not trusting his shields or intending to save them the strain, or perhaps simply attempting to intimidate, the hijacker caught the rounds with a shimmering barrier before pulling a volatile blue orb out of the air and hurling it at him. Far from eager to be the means through which he discovered what the projectile did, Shepard was forced to make a somewhat undignified dive away from the sphere's destination, before rolling to his feet up the ridged incline.
Spinning to face his adversary once more, the assassin ducked into what cover was offered by the banister, seeking refuge from the projectiles launched by the shotgun that the pirate had retrieved with his moment's window of opportunity. Careful to keep his extremities within the narrow angle of shelter his cover provided, the N7 carefully sidestepped upwards, closing with the enemy; his intent to overwhelm the biotic's concentration and defences long enough to detonate a grenade within his immediate vicinity. Taking a moment to ready the 'incineration' subroutine on his fabricator, Shepard then surged into the open, and managed to visually process two things in the fragments of a second that followed.
First; even as he discharged his weapon and the payload of plasma, the target of his offensive did nothing whatsoever in response. Didn't make a single move, just continued standing where he was, consumed by a cerulean field of energy, head tilted in such a way as to make Thaddaeus certain that beneath that helmet was a dangerous grin.
Second; suddenly the man wasn't there anymore, replaced by an indistinct blur. Shepard tensed to react in the attosecond between his realisation of what was about to happen and the event itself-
And then the enemy commander's charge connected and he was smashed backwards, colliding headfirst with the wall with brutal force and tumbling down several metres of stairs before coming to a halt. Adrenaline coursed through Thaddaeus' system alongside the pain, and he clumsily forced his body to its feet, his shields whining in protest at they took a spray of shotgun fire at point-blank range. A second one followed it, though the N7 managed to limit the damage done, lurching to one side and nearly losing his footing on the treacherous ground. It didn't take an intellect of Thaddaeus' calibre to realise that the biotic's weapon gave him a decisive tactical advantage that would need to be removed from the equation if victory was to be achieved. Inwardly cursing his own tinkering with his shields, the assassin attempted to shake off the lingering effects of the head trauma as he detonated an overload.
His opponent's electronics shut down before their components could be reduced to sparking slag, immediately beginning to reboot the moment the pulse ended. Shepard's shields, however, modified by his own hand, failed to activate the failsafes, and shut down permanently. His adversary chuckled as his helmet's HUD informed him of this, before glowing blue and launching himself again-
Except this time, Shepard was ready, and in far too much danger to consider anything other than the most viciously unadulterated and brutal response available to him. A trick he recalled from an old acquaintance, an old victim. Charon, as a matter of fact. At the moment of impact his left hand, encased in the orange hologram of his omnitool, was planted firmly against his armour, running a powerful electrical current through it, overcoming the insulation, scorching and shocking the wearer simultaneously. The side effects of throwing concentrated nodes of element zero into the mix in the form of the charging enemy biotic, however, made these consequences seem positively mild in comparison.
The flow of charge, free from the manipulation of the human nervous system, unrestrained by the brain's leash, produced mass effect fields as it made contact with the deposits of foreign mineral in the foe's flesh, blooming out in all directions, robbing the charge of its lethal momentum. These fields also seemed to rip the man apart from the inside. The gore and viscera were imprisoned by the man's heavy armour, of course, but the man's agonised shriek spattered signs of it from his mouth that were sufficient to obscure the sight of his pleading eyes through the visor. Despite himself, Shepard winced. He might actually have been grateful for the fact that his own eezo deposits were so evenly distributed, were it not for the fatal implications of any attempted conscious use, or the fact that there was no-one to be grateful to. Mutation like this was random, causeless, and couldn't even be credited to his biological parents.
Groaning as he moved to retrieve his weapon, Thaddaeus' distorted senses suddenly screeched that he was under fire, and he realised that he had failed to adhere to the objective he had formulated earlier; that of retaining strategic momentum. The remaining criminals had been afforded time to recuperate and were once again on the offensive. Still unarmed, the now unfortunately unshielded assassin went for the grenades in his pockets, spinning to seek the enemy as he ducked out of their now considerably more dangerous line of fire-
Which slackened for a moment and then ceased entirely as an intense barrage targeted the assassin's aggressors, sending them scrambling for cover, though not quick enough to escape the hastily thrown eezo grenade which knocked them down once more, easy targets to be finished by the journalist-
Who instead advanced on the two fallen hijackers, instructing them to kick their weapons away down the stairs with a terse jerk of his rifle, before abruptly unleashing two further bursts that, judging by the outraged cries of pain, shattered one of the kneecaps of each. Whilst the thugs were occupied with their writhing, Ross deftly relieved them of their omnitools and a couple of doses of medigel, despite the fact that a treatment wouldn't mend bone or cartilage or repair the joint, before continuing on his way downstairs to join his ally. Shepard gritted his teeth; he didn't want to leave any witnesses behind at the end of this fiasco, but Simon had removed any legitimate justifications for executing them besides that, which would to all intents and purposes amount to a confession that after the hijackers the Canadian would be his next victim.
"Nice work." He commented mildly, not having to force a note of surprise into his voice, though he struggled to fake any hint of pleasure. He might have enjoyed the prospect of a little intrigue were it not for the annoyance of the pain that had infested his system that was admittedly his own fault – and all the more aggravating for that. "Are you injured?"
"I'm fine. Thank you for your assistance," Ross replied blandly, suppressing his breathing and ignoring the pounding in his ears, looking entirely as if he were on a gentle stroll. Both men knew that to the casual observer, it would be the N7 who seemed the weaker and the worse for wear.
"And you yours." Thudding footsteps and indistinct voices sounded above them, and both men hastened downwards, Thaddaeus stooping mid-stride to retrieve his Karpov. "I wouldn't expect more than token resistance down here; the numbers behind us have to constitute the majority of their forces or they'd be hitting targets bigger than this with that kind of manpower. That said, keep your eyes open. It can only take one shot to reverse the momentum of an entire campaign." He ought to know; after all, he'd been on the receiving end of a couple, and delivered a few more.
"Just one thing," Ross began as the pair reached the bottom and headed for the hatch that would leave them on the lower deck proper, the marine directing him to pause in cover on the left with a quick gesture. "How exactly do we find this hacker now?"
Air was expelled from Shepard's nose with an inaudible hiss, before he gave the reply that neither of them wanted to hear. "We look. Search pattern, check every room, fast and thorough." The duo each glanced, of their own accords, back up at the reason that answer was so daunting; the reason that would be snapping at their heels momentarily.
A quick nod was exchanged. Thaddaeus twisted so that half an eye peered into the gap, for half a second, then moved back, eyes shut against further stimulus so that he could analyse what he had seen. He pulled out the final eezo grenade, primed and tossed it through the opening, into enemy territory. All without looking, his eyes still shut. A second that felt like aeons passed, before at the exact moment of detonation, without pause or hesitation or any sign that he needed to nerve himself, the N7 slid out of cover and through the hatchway, squeezing off a two-shot burst mid-motion. The journalist's throat contracted briefly, and then he followed.
The barrier he crossed seemed more fundamental than a partition between spaces with different purposes, or even critical structural support. Suddenly, the journalist couldn't help but perceive it as a barrier between two separate universes; one, his point of origin, where the moments crawled, the other where time accelerated to the point that every motion was a blur too fast to follow. The world itself took on this peculiar quality as Ross copied the motions of the nearest animated, indistinct shape, the shape that he hoped against hope was a friend, not just an ally of temporary convenience.
To the best of his ability, Simon could discern three other such objects. These would be the opposition. Presumably all had been sheltered in the cover of doorways, positioned to produce something of a crossfire to discourage any who would advance out of that hatchway at approximately eleven, twelve and three o'clock. Three o'clock lay in the open, wisps of blue light dissipating around him, scrabbling for his weapon. That was the way the friendly (or benign at least) blur went. It followed the path of least resistance without hesitation or compromise, as remorseless as a river carving its path out of the landscape or some other inhuman force of nature. And Ross ran the wake of the eye of the storm, just outside of the zone of crystalline clarity, his human mind screaming at every lethal shard of metal he could sense ripping through the air around him, making him fire back wildly at Eleven and Twelve for the forever and the fragment of an instant that he ran through their line of fire. It didn't seem to do much, but then if it had been likely to, the N7 would have been doing it himself. Instead he directed his own projectiles at Three, rattling him and removing his shields as the duo approached. The criminal managed to recover himself and his weapon, if not his footing, with a precious few feet separating him from his foes-
And then that distance shrank to nothing at all as Thaddaeus dropped into a skid, legs reaching out in order to grasp the firearm pointed at himself and his companion and wrench it around into a less harmful direction, his momentum carrying him forward as his coat extended out behind him, the leather held back by friction with the floor, Karpov pistol supported in two unwavering hands that waited until they could touch the enemy if so directed, before one finger contracted and the hijacker was just a collection of various organic compounds contained in a reinforced ceramic coffin that was shaped like a man. Without even having come to a halt, Shepard surged to his feet and slammed into the nearest alcove, the one that had been occupied not fifteen seconds ago by the corpse at his feet. The journalist staggered to a halt beside him, and took cover on the opposite side of the corridor, not two seconds before either Eleven or Twelve appeared around the corner and sent another flurry of fire down the corridor between them.
Ross, seeing that his companion was occupied with cutting his way through the first door, clipped off several bursts from a stable kneeling position, and as such was able to drive the hijacker back into cover, keeping him there with further suppressive rounds. Then, the elements of the criminal forces that had pursued the two men from the upper levels advanced out into the lower deck and it was Simon's turn to be suppressed as one thug with a riot shield provided mobile cover to two other hostiles.
"Give yourself up, Mr Ross. Surely you can now see that your position is hopeless. You cannot possibly hope to locate me now, and matters will run smoother and a great deal less unpleasantly for all concerned if you lay down your arms willingly." The infuriatingly smooth voice of the hacker somehow reverberated in the journalist's ears even above the thundering retorts of firearms. A frustrated growl tore itself from his throat; whatever the true status of his supposed ally and assassin, he wouldn't cooperate with the scum whose criminal status he was actually certain of.
"Grenade out!" The marine barked, and tossed out his final item of heavy ordnance, the explosive clipping over the top of the thick slab of metal that was making its way towards them and detonating with a searing flash and concussive report immediately afterward. Turning his back to the empty room in order to meet Ross' expectant gaze, Shepard jerked his head in a disgusted order to retreat further back down the corridor. Ignoring the other doors that lined the passage due to the need to put some distance between them and the enemy force, which was already contracting to deploy thugs unaffected by the grenade, the two men sprinted for the next junction, the next corner which would offer them maybe a dozen seconds of movement unimpeded by enemy fire. All the while, Shepard was brainstorming strategies, finding a critical fault with each and every one and casting it aside to begin the process anew. The duo altered their vector by ninety degrees and found that their arrival had been mirrored by two further hijackers, one of whom Shepard recognised from the group that had welcomed them to the lowermost deck. Unlike the assassin and the journalist, their opponents had their weapons already raised and readied, failing to hesitate even for a trice before they sent rounds cutting through the air at knee height, playing to maim and incapacitate and no longer simply to subdue. Their targets had no choice but to weave and meander to throw off their assailants' aim, before being forced to abandon their advance entirely and make use of the nearest shelter.
Thaddaeus reviewed his options once more and found none that could allow him to secure the hacker and deal with the boarders whilst he was being herded into ambush after ambush. There was only one advantage left to him that the hacker was not yet aware of and thus couldn't counter, just one device remaining that offered a means to victory. Sacrificing his surprise contingency was not a move he wanted to make lightly, but the situation required it. Now the key question was one of how to drastically alter the dynamic of the battlefield with the window of opportunity offered, and in their current environment the most extreme approach was an obvious one...
Twisting out of cover, he clipped off a few rounds at one of the hijackers, easily causing his shields' cooldown protocols to activate, at which point his intended victim retreated out of the line of fire to allow his barrier to recover. The reduction in volume of suppressive fire offered Shepard a window to lunge across the corridor for the journalist's cover. "I've got an idea," he announced laconically, forestalling any questions. "Our current approach will not bring success; we need to clear the corridors of hostiles before we'll be able to perform the kind of systematic search that will allow us to locate their hacker. We need to split up." Immediately, suspicions began to race through Ross' mind, though he was careful to keep his face rigidly unresponsive. "Cover me whilst I hack this door, then after I've gone, hold them back as long as you safely can before sealing yourself in. I'll send you an encrypted transmission, and if you aren't in already I'd advise you rectify that quickly, else you'll shortly be breathing hard vacuum."
"An airlock..." Simon realised. "But how-?"
"State secret." The marine replied with a sardonic smirk, bringing up his omnitool. Ordinarily it would have been a quick job, but with the hacker in control it wouldn't be as simple as circumventing a commercial standard firewall, particularly if he wanted to retain control of the door mechanism. And yet time was something of the essence, so he was forced to resort to pre-programmed bot subroutines that ought to be good enough to buy sufficient time as opposed to completing things to what he would deem to be of a proper standard. Behind him, Ross traded rounds with the pair before them to little avail, looking for the arrival of the main force at a frequency of about one hertz and seeing their arrival on the seventh repetition. Hearing the sudden increase in weapon retorts, the N7 leaned out of cover mid-hack, and fired at the lower concentration of boarders, freeing the journalist's automatic weapon for more effective suppression of the enemy group composed of greater numbers.
They couldn't have endured the situation for long.
They didn't have to.
A light on the cabin door blinked from red to green, and it hissed open. Stepping in so as to be fully out of the hijackers' line of sight, Shepard met Ross' gaze steadily. "When this is over, you will be required to sign the Official Secrets Act." He deadpanned, and with a gesture on his omnitool, disappeared. It was all the journalist could do not to gape openly, a cold void settling at the pit of his stomach with the revelation of what that kind of technology could mean for the government – and what it would mean for their citizens' freedom.
"Mi scusi," The assassin muttered mockingly, in monotone, soulless Italian, as he brushed past his target out into the corridor, ducking the rounds the enemy unknowingly sent his way as he strafed away from their target. Opposite the pair that had greeted them earlier, their pursuers had deployed across the passage, two legionaries sheltering four armed thugs, carefully moving up whilst maintaining their formation. If that wasn't dealt with, Ross would be forced to seal himself in long before a minute had passed, at which point the hijackers would be free to attempt to breach, which they might be able to do before Thaddaeus could breach the airlock's security protocols and let in the hostile void in which the vessel was immersed.
The key was to break their formation quickly, without losing the advantage cloaking would offer him in the pursuit of his second objective. This in mind, the N7 stowed his Karpov, which would be unable to circumvent enemy shielding, and drew a pair of lightweight non-metallic combat knives from sheathes concealed beneath his coat. The leftmost man in the formation, currently leaning around the side of the legionary's shield in order to keep Ross' head down with a steady stream of rounds, had neglected to don a helmet. It was an unfortunate decision for him.
Within the space of a second, the weighted blade that had been held in the assassin's left hand had relocated to take up residency in the thug's right eye, the tip firmly embedded in neural tissue, the hilt protruding straight up into the air at a perfect ninety degree angle from where the man had fallen, and its owner was tearing forwards to exploit the situation. A metre from the portable metal blockade, Thaddaeus leaped up into the air, angling his jump to the left to collide with the wall, limbs contracting to cushion the impact, before with a grunt of exertion, he launched himself back off of the hard surface, in doing so gaining the altitude to clear the top of one of the metal slabs and fall into the space created by his latest victim. On his way down, he had utilised some of his kinetic energy to drive the point of the dagger straight through the plating on the shield-bearing criminal's shoulder, shearing through skin, muscle and sinew to leave the implement lodged in the cartilage of the joint. Needless to say, the legionary dropped his burden with an agonised yell, staggered sideways into his colleague, clutching at the injury.
Objective completed.
The hijackers around him reeled at the realisation that an adversary had breached their tight formation and incapacitated two men whilst remaining completely unseen, giving them no opportunity to respond. By the time they had closed ranks properly to let loose a volley, still under fire from Ross and jostling to avoid the shots that came their way, Shepard had nearly completed his advance on the opposite pair, snatching one of the men by the arm before dropping in order to throw them over himself, interposing the thug between his unshielded form and the deliberately low bombardment from the other end of the corridor. The exposed face of the pirate was shredded as his kinetic barriers were brushed aside and his armour rent in a dozen places, but only the odd stray round made it past the assassin's cover, and none had the remaining force necessary to breach his own lightweight protection.
The moment the enemy fire slackened, Thaddaeus released the corpse, and scrambled into a run at the remaining criminal, noting the sealed rebreather unit protecting the man's head and deploying his pistol as he did so, veering to the side in a conservative effort to avoid the thug's blind, panicked fire. Left hand knocking the weapon aside before seizing at his target's throat, Shepard slammed into his opponent and unloaded several rounds at point blank range into the vulnerable join in the armpit of the armour that allowed movement, quickly penetrating the defensive layer and ripping a destructive path through heart and lungs. Dying, the man fell backwards around the corner, still being pushed by the N7, who quickly relieved the corpse of his helmet before continuing on his way.
In front of the monitors linked to the ship's surveillance systems, the hacker stared at the footage, deep in thought. Unsurprisingly, this N7 had proven to be rather troublesome, yet even the damage he had already inflicted would be more than offset by the value of obtaining him alive – and damage control wasn't yet enough of a concern to outweigh the loss of value associated with settling for him dead. Particularly if they could obtain this stealth technology essentially intact...
Absently, the man gazed at the recently expired corpse of one of the men he had set to waylaying Ross and the marine, now missing his headgear. Why would this assassin (the man had no doubts regarding the purpose of such a formidable individual on this ship, apparently unlike his target; he and his associates had been far too circumspect to attract that kind of attention) scavenge such an item now? Perhaps as protection in light of his unshielded state, but equally he could have done the same in the aftermath of the skirmish on the stairs. Perhaps, then, the key was both the nature of the helmet and the man's intentions-
With a pang of realisation, the infiltrator opened a channel to the ship which now hung alongside the transport in the void, in a state of co-dependent symbiosis.
"Get to the airlock. Now."