Kerry knew all about the tradition of the Captain going down with the ship. And in her case, her response was 'Fuck tradition'. Besides, the real captain was already gone. She had no intention of dying. Not if she could help it. But suddenly the place was swarming with Orcs, who knew something was up and wanted to retake the bridge. With the keys broken off in the self destruct console, the only way to abort the destruct would be to jettison the reactor, and that would leave the ship pretty damn dead anyway, so far as Paige was aware.<br/><br/>Not that she was any kind of expert...<br/><br/>But her biggest problem was that there were only a few escape pods anywhere near, enough for the bridge crew, not a reinforced platoon of grunts. Fighting their way to more escape pods wasn't an option. Sure they could do so, but the moment they found some, their force would be depleted. The last few would be committing suicide. As far as Paige could see, she had two options. The first was to fight their way down to H deck, as a cohesive unit, and try and take one of the landers, if there were any left intact and anyone alive who could fly one. And that would involve fighting their way down eight decks. She had lost enough men fighting up two. Of course, she could simply rejoin her unit on C-deck, but with the abandon ship call, that pocket would be collapsing fast as the LT got as many off as he could.<br/><br/>That left only one option. "Okay, ladies. We are turning pirate!" She grinned. The nearest target was literally just outside the entrance to the bridge. She directed her heavy weapons teams to lay down covering fire and quickly outlined the plan. Everyone was totally shocked, except Dust, who shrugged and Stern who actually grinned.<br/><br/>They burst from the bridge on three fronts, Mowing down the Orcs, who were not expecting an attack, and actually stumbled back in confusion.<br/><br/>"There, to the left." Paige pointed to the throbbing greenish hatchway that was blasted through the outer hull of the ship just aft of the bridge. Her men dived through, carrying as many of the wounded as they could. Paige waited by the access way with a fire team, and laid down covering small-arms fire to get the SAW teams across. As soon as they were set up inside the hatch, she let the last of her men into the bioship.<br/><br/>One took an arrow through the leg as he skidded in, but other than that, she lost only two in the transfer, plus one of the wounded who died from being moved.<br/><br/>"Anything comes in, kill it," she told the Saw teams, "But for fucks sake if the sphincter starts to close, let it, and get back into the ship..." She headed deeper into the bioship. This was not her first time aboard one by any means and she knew where she was heading. There had been only three Orcs on board, and her men had killed them quickly. She made it to the control room and hauled the body of the goblin captain out of the pool of gloop. Then with an expression of extreme distaste on her face, she stripped herself naked, to a chorus of whistles and catcalls, then slid into the pool herself. As she disappeared under the surface she heard a voice in her head.<br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: ColdSpaghetti BTN;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">Captain... Oh, you are not the captain, who are you?</span></span><br/><br/>Paige concentrated on the voice and thought as loudly as she could,<em>I'm the new captain. The old captain is dead. This is the way of the Orcs.</em><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: ColdSpaghetti BTN;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">The old captain was not weak, therefore you must be very strong. What is your command?</span></span><br/><br/>Kerry had not imagined it would be that easy.<em>Disconnect from the Human vessel and move as far away from it as you can, as quickly as you can. Do not send any communications to any other bioships or orcs.</em><br/><br/><span class="bbc_font" style="font-family: ColdSpaghetti BTN;"><span class="bbc_size" style="font-size: 18pt;">At your command, captain.</span></span><br/><br/>Paige felt gravity lurch and change and sat up. The green gloop streamed from her body. She coughed it out of her lungs and took a welcome breath of the stale, foetid air.