[color=a2d39c][h1][center][u][i]Captain Maria Thorne & Andrea Malkis[/i][/u][/center][/h1][/color]
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There were no words to describe the sinking feeling in Maria's stomach as she saw a beam pass through where their shields used to be, and collide directly with the ship's hull, ripping away some of the beat-up plating. Now they had to worry about hull breaches, on top of everything else. Every blast seemed to make the ship rock and shudder even worse than the last, and the captain was half afraid the ship was going to shake apart before this battle was through. They were outgunned, out maneuvered (despite Andrea's excellent piloting), and there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell that they could outrun the other ship in their current state. This was bad. This was very, very bad. 

"Cap, we've got another ship incoming!" Andrea's voice sounded over the captain's headset. No sooner had the words finished, a small fighter popped out of warp, right in the middle of their battle and started dodging shots fired by both ships. 

Fighters were much smaller and maneuverable than both of the other ships, and thus posed a larger threat. The pirate ship may have had bigger guns, but they were also easier to hit back. At the moment the other ship's alliances were unclear. However, Maria didn't have much time to worry about it, as another shot wracked it's way over the ship. At least Ansgar had managed to get the fuel line fixed. Even now, Maria could hear the Veritas' engines humming to life, and a small ray of hope that they might survive this started to grow. If they could run, they could survive. 

Andrea was doing her best on the bridge to make what little engine power they did have work, though throughout the course of the battle she yelled quite a number of colorful expletives. Most of them were aimed at the "bastard engine goblin." The figurines sitting on the dash had long since been strewn across the floor, and Andrea was hunched over her console, busily flipping switches and multitasking between making the ship dance clumsily through the sky and firing back at the vultures trying to scavenge their loot. She'd be damned if these pathetic bastards were her end. 

"It took you long enough!" She hurled at Ansgar once he announced the line was repaired. Well, his version of repaired anyway. Given the amount of time he had, there wasn't much chance it was a five-star job, but it didn't have to be right now. 

Their mystery ship still hadn't made their intentions clear, but Andrea had no doubt that they were some kind of backup for the bigger ship. A little parasite to finish off what the vulture couldn't. Hopefully they'd be able to outrun both of them, but Andrea wasn't going to get optimistic about the situation. It was taking the engines a couple of minutes to warm up, and the other ship was definitely taking advantage of it. Error messages were starting to pop up left and right, and a split second later the automated red alert siren started blaring out across the ship. Andrea was cursing. Among all of the other alerts going off, one in particular caught her eye, and she leapt to her feet, grabbing Kevej to drag him along with no explanation. She then shoved him in front of her and off the bridge. Immediately an explosion erupted behind the woman, propelling her forwards at an alarming speed and even lifting her off the ground. She literally flew off the bridge just as blast doors closed behind her, and then slammed into a wall with a sickening [i]crunch. [/i]

Andrea went limp. 

The entire ship would have felt that explosion, but it was doubtful they would differentiate between it and the other countless explosions in the past few minutes. The only reason Maria knew something was wrong was because there was a distinct lack of motion in the ship, though the engines were still running. They were no longer flying. They were drifting through space.

"Andrea, what's going on?" 

There was nothing but white noise. Maria switched to ship-wide comms. 

[i]"Andrea![/i] Kev! What the hell is going on?"