With Niamh and Idas flanking him, Darien crept quickly and quietly through the empty, twilit corridors of the vessel. Every passage was sectioned off with thick rib-like supports and the whole vessel seemed to be constructed of a dark metal alloy he didn't recognise.

They had yet to encounter any of the crew and no alarms had started blaring to signal their discovery. So far, so good. Still, he felt thoroughly uneasy. The halls were eerily quiet without the rumble of a normal engine to fill the void, and the lack of windows meant he didn't have any idea where the ship had transported to.

Working their way through the dim-lit passages they moved aft for several minutes, turning through a series of gridiron junctions. No bulkheads barred their passage – another oddity of design. If the ship suffered a hull breach the whole deck would decompress without the protective airlocks. Perhaps another quirk built into the vessel to accommodate its mode of travel.

After a dozen more corridors of sneaking they still hadn't run into another living being. He moved up to a turn in their path, tucking his body close against the wall. Raising his Compac he peered around the bend only to find another empty hall.

"Clear," he whispered. Niamh slipped past him, catlike and silent, Compac locked against her shoulder as she scanned left and right. She stopped at the next junction.

"Did they do a life signs scan of this hulk?" Idas said quietly, moving up behind him.

"Couldn't get a clear reading," Darien replied. "With the inference this thing spews out, they only managed to drill through with hull-down sensors to get us a reading of that hangar bay."

"Well where the hell is everyone?"

Darien shrugged but he didn't have an answer. He too was beginning to wonder where the ship's crew was hiding.

"Guys," Niamh hissed from up ahead. "Come look at this."

Nodding to Idas, he stepped out into the corridor. Side by side they scuttled over to where their comrade stood. She was looking up at the ceiling, her brow creasing into a puzzled frown. Following her eye line, Darien saw what appeared to be a cylindrical power conduit embedded in the roof, running in both directions to disappear into the honeycomb. Bands of red throbbed faintly along its length. He'd never seen anything like it on other ships, navy or otherwise.

"That's sure not standard equipment," Idas murmured.

"Must be feeding from whatever they've got stuffed in the trunk." Niamh pointed down the corridor with her cannon. "But at least now we've got a trail to follow. Whatever it is must feed out from that aft section to power those emitters on the outer hull."

Darien nodded. "Alright, on me. Idas, watch our six. Just because we haven't run into the crew doesn't mean there's no-one here. This ship wasn't flying itself."

The trio fell into formation again with Darien at the head. They moved one by one, corner by corner, passage by passage. They continued to follow the snaking red-lined conduit as it wound through the decks, and it became quickly apparent that Niamh's guess was correct. Other lines intersected with the main strand the closer to the aft section they got. All the corridors and conduits were converging in one direction.

Peering around another bend, Darien jerked back sharply when he finally saw the first member of the ship's crew. He motioned furiously for the others to backtrack until they could duck into a shadowed alcove further down the passage.

The new, bulkier armour made it more of a challenge to shrink up against the wall, but Darien did his best, keeping his breathing shallow as he stared intently towards the growing sound of footsteps. A few seconds later a guard strolled past without so much as a glance in either direction. Evidently the man didn't expect there to be anyone else around. He was only in sight for a moment, but Darien saw enough; jet black armour and a colonial issue assault rifle.

After listening to the footsteps recede for a moment, he slipped out of cover, feeling Idas and Niamh fall in behind him. He craned his neck to look around the corner and saw the guard disappear through another passage toward the front of the ship.

"Clear."

The three operatives slid out of cover and continued on. Twice more they encountered randomly patrolling guards, but none of them seemed particularly alert. Apparently they never thought their ship could be boarded – a lapse that Darien would make sure they regretted.

Eventually the conduit they were following joined with a hallway that sloped upwards, feeding into another, thicker power line. Darien led the way, staying close to the walls and scanning every side passage for signs of life.

After several more minutes he halted without warning, listening intently. For a moment he thought he'd imagined it, but his sharp ears picked up the faintest murmur of voices up ahead.

"You hear that?" he whispered.

"Company." Niamh padded up behind him. "Around that corner."

"Stay on me," Darien ordered. "Quick and quiet. And hold your fire until I give the word." With painstaking care he glided up the corner as quietly as he could and sank down into a crouch. The voices were clearly audible now – two men talking in low tones. Moving slowly, he peeked out from behind the dark metal wall of the corridor.

It seemed that they had reached their destination. Thirty meters down the passage a huge circular door barred the way, a gleaming construction of burnished silver plating that stood out from its drab surroundings. Two other passages reached it in a t-shaped junction and from each one a fat power conduit ran, disappearing through the wall above the door.

In front of it stood two black-armoured guards conversing quietly, both armed with assault rifles. They weren't taking a great interest in their surroundings, however, much like the other guards they'd come across. He supposed that guarding a door on a seemingly uncatchable ship got boring after a while. Slipping back out of side he turned to his companions.

"Crap," Niamh muttered. "All the conduits run down into that passage. We need to get through that door."

"Could we make a diversion?" Idas suggested. "Draw them away somehow?"

Darien shook his head grimly. "Can't give them a chance to radio in any disturbance. We need to get rid of those guards and do it fast."

For a moment silence hung in the air as the implications sank in. They weren't carrying any non-lethal weapons with them on this operation.

"Guess it's time to put these puppies to use," Idas whispered, patting the barrel of his Compac.

"Don't take any chances," Darien replied. "You take the one on the right."

"Got it."

"And, Idas?"

"Yeah?"

"Shoot to kill."

Idas's jaw tightened but he nodded his understanding.

With silent gestures he directed Niamh to watch the passages behind them and then took up his position. He looked at Idas, took a steadying breath and then whipped his body around the corner, aiming down the short-range scope of the Compac. He locked the cross-hair on the chest of the first guard and squeezed the trigger.

The muted thump of the cannon's discharge echoed dimly down the passage and an instant later a hole the size of a jam-jar exploded through the man's torso, spattering blood onto the wall behind him. He collapsed to his knees then pitched forward, dead before he hit the ground. The other guard had just enough time for a look of surprise to flash across his face before a second thump sounded from Idas's cannon. Another hole cratered the remaining guard's chest and he too crumpled lifelessly to the deck.

Darien stood for a second staring at the two corpses, unease roiling in his gut. Taken completely by surprise neither man had uttered so much as a sound. In a big empty ship like this he just had to hope the echo of the Compac's firing didn't raise any alarms.

"Wow," Idas murmured, straightening up and gazing at his Compac. "That's one helluva field test." He let the barrel drop, his broad shoulders sagging as though a weight had just been lifted from them.

Darien exhaled a long, slow breath and stepped out, tingling all over. It wasn't the first time he'd taken a life, but he never stopped being amazed by how quickly human existence could be snuffed out. He reminded himself that these men had picked their side, whether they were mercenaries or madmen, they were part of this twisted game of cat and mouse. Walking slowly with his Compac raised and ready, he crept forward.

Niamh stepped past him, dropping down to give the two bodies a cursory examination. Up close the wounds smoked, instantly cauterised by the tungsten-cored rounds, and the black armour plates had been vaporised by the impact. She wrinkled her nose and looked up at him.

"Very dead."

"Get the bodies out of the way," Darien muttered. "Then let's get this door open."

Idas and Niamh dragged the two dead guards out of sight while he examined the locking mechanism of the door. A rounded panel with a keypad and small display, it looked like a standard colonial design – about the only thing on the ship that was.

Digging into his combat vest he freed a hack module. He plugged the little rectangular console into the keypad's auxiliary port and it quickly synced with the lock's system. It whirred softly as the code-breaking program kicked in. Niamh walked over to stand beside him as he started punching in commands to bypass the lock.

"You'd think the security would be a little better," she mused, staring at the door. "We've seen what, half a dozen people since we boarded? No alarms, no sensor sweeps, a handful of lazy rent-a-cop guards. It doesn't add up."

"Building this thing would have taken a lot of resources," he replied, still keying in commands. "Maybe they couldn't afford a mercenary army along with it. As for security..." He paused, tapping a finger thoughtfully against the screen of the hack module. "Whatever is through this passage is using up a lot of power. Maybe they had to sacrifice internal security nets to accommodate it. Seeing as the whole ship can Blink they probably didn't think being boarded was much of a concern."

"I guess that's lucky for us."

"I guess so." He smiled thinly, looking her in the eye as he typed the final command sequence. A bleep of acceptance sounded from the locking mechanism followed by the low hiss of hydraulics.

"Alright then." He stepped back and raised his Compac. "Let's see what they're hiding."

The massive circular slab rolled aside.

And behind it stood Tannis Brock.