[h3][b]Virginia Sokolova[/b][/h3][hr]The maintenance access shaft was not far from atmospherics, and by the time Ginny had patched her damaged suit and reached it, the screeching of the master-less metacer had ceased. It was likely that there was a new control bug in the area, but it seemed that she had gone unnoticed for the time being. 

She had taken what she found most valuable from the engineering pack, the station schematics on the drive was useful, along with the manuals and other data that the colony ship may lack. At the very least it would be good documentation. 

Far more useful for her purposes, however, would be a plasma cutter. A bulky handheld thing with five emitters in a cross pattern. It was a surprisingly uncommon piece of technology, even among the Society. The small screen jutting out of the left side of it enabled the operator to program and manipulate a pattern that the high-energy bolts will shape themselves into. 

Looking at the screen, the schematics overlaid behind the vision, she could ‘see’ through the bulkhead and the access shaft behind it. Using the buttons on the side of the device, she manipulated a rectangular cut. A low hiss would fill the air as it charges, the housing warming before a shriek of shaped plasma streaks out, bubbling and sublimating the steel plate in seconds. Ginny would attach the cutter to her belt, and begin peeling away the detached plate, bending it along fused metal at the bottom, the ventilation air flowing out oppressively warm. 

Before she embarked, she would call over comms “Lockman, on frequency Seven-Four-Seven-Seven-Zero.” she would tap the code into the beacon before putting it back into her pack “Coordinates for your shot, Only take it after I make the call.”

She would click her heels against each other twice in something resembling a prussian salute, the magboots becoming active. She would step up, the locks disengaging, and enter the breach she had made. Walking perpendicular to the hallway, and down towards the reactor chamber. 

The access tunnel was a wreck, clearly the Metacer were using it as an access tunnel, the puncture marks of hundreds of insectoid limbs making clean steel look like swiss cheese. For now none of them were in the shaft looking behind her and to the reactor chamber ahead.

About half way to the reactor, one of the ant-like bugs would emerge, its gaze locking with the ranger. Eyes would widen and pulse would quicken as adrenaline surges. Drawing instinctually, she would point and fire at the Metacer, only for there not to be a discharge of blaster fire.

Instead, the whine of the plasma cutter would cause her grip to falter briefly before tightening. The insectoid creature would scramble up the walls of the vertical shaft towards its adversary. In a series of flickering pulses, the same rectangular pattern that gave Ginny access to this tunnel was now mapped onto the approaching alien, and as limbs were sundered in green gore, it fell back towards the glowing core.

Now the clock was on: the bugs knew she was here.

She would disengage her magboots and take a short fall, dropping to the frame of the bulkhead. She would repeat this twice before more metacer emerge from the core. Another hail of plasma and gore as limbs were severed and carapace fractured, they were closing on her, and she didn’t have time. 

Looking into the reactor chamber, there was a red slick of biofilm over the stainless steel walls, flesh merging with metal in sinewy egg sacs. In the middle was the queen, a gargantuan thing that even her plasma cutter would likely not do much to. Bulbous eggs would be spat from orifices on her abdomen into a disgusting insectoid hive of squirming maggots. A few warriors and a control bug were skittering towards her.

She would take a baseball-sized beacon out of the engineering bag, prime it, and throw it towards the corner of the reactor chamber with all of her childhood ball skills: it needed to be at a strong point of the container to absorb most of the energy of the shot and avoid damage to the core itself. It needed to make an opening, and hopefully send most of the reactor atmosphere into space. The device would float straight and true, catching under a grate.

Once the beacon was in place, she would call over the comm “John, take the shot!”