O'Graugh took the nod as the highest accolade that it undoubtedly was. He picked up his fried equipment and smiled, patting it softly. "Good job, girl", he said with a touch of sadness in his voice. He shouldered the pack, unwilling to discard what still might have some salvageable parts in it, and trotted after the LT, back the way they had come.<br/><br/>Back at the infirmary, he cringed, and tried not to throw up. Time for that later. And again, the LT demanded a hard line. Pat went hunting, taking an escort with him. This would never do. He had an idea, The ships hardened internal coms ran through conduits in the bulkheads that went through almost all the ships compartments. He found a hard-line handset on the wall of what looked like a medical supply room, a short way up the corridor.<br/><br/>Instead of sending for the LT, though, he reversed his rifle and used the butt to hammer the handset off the wall. The private he had dragged along as escort stared aghast at this wanton vandalism of the very thing he'd been sent to find. But The Paragraph had a plan. He demanded the soldier's comm pack and smashed the casing open. There, and that. Fasten it there. The battery there. Cut that wire, and that. The transmitter aerial would serve as an induction coil. Fasten it there and there. His soldering iron still worked and he soon had the handset back together, with a new back glued on, cut from a plastic box lid. He placed it against the conduit and pressed a button at random.<br/><br/>"Engineering, who's this, keep this line clear."<br/><br/>"Sorry sir, testing new equipment". He released the button and headed back to the LT. "Sir. Induction handset sir, hold this bit on the conduit here and it works the way a hard-wired handset works. It can't take an incoming call, but you can call any major station."<br/><br/><hr/><br/>The tendril parted, spewing acid over the orcs that were manhandling the thing. Kerry grinned. even as she did she heard the charges going off on the other side of the transport.<em>LT got one</em>, she thought. "Good shooting, Dust, now as you were. You and you with me." She pointed to one of the grunts with the demo charges and another one of her squad. "This is where it gets ticklish".<br/><br/>She checked the charges and was relieved to see they had timers as well as remote detonators. "Set these all to sixteen minutes. If we aren't out by then we aren't coming out..."<br/><br/>As soon as the last charge's timer was set, she led her team through the open hatch, skirting the pool of acid and followed the tendril back into the ship, taking out the orc guarding the hatchway.<br/><br/>Fourteen minutes and thirty two seconds later she and one man scrambled back and dived down  beside Dust. "FALL BACK! FALL BACK!" She yelled, beckoning the forward units to come to her. The soldiers began retreating and dived down into the meagre cover of the baricade Dust had made for hios SAW. "QUICK AS YOU..." her words were cut off by the repeated concussions of the charges killing the Orc ship. The lights went red and a sudden gale howled past. "COME ON!" She yelled.... three men were still on the wrong side of the seal... ten seconds before it came down. Two men, five seconds. One man... SLAM! The gale shut off as the corridor was sealed from the rest of the section. Catlow didn't make it...