[h3][b]Virginia Sokolova[/b][/h3][hr]Ginny was already in motion after she made the call for the shot, silently praying that Lockman was smart enough to put together everything and willing enough to listen to the words of a stranger to fire on the last bastion of Eden. Her doubts and concerns would be put to rest as she stands atop the bulkhead, shielding herself and getting sturdy for what would come.

The missile would slam into the shielding, shaking the entire station with its impact, and a jet of molten metal would bore through it, a flash of white-hot material breaking into the compartment before a vast [i]woosh[/i]ing filled the maintenance shaft. The concussive force would push Ginny into the wall she was braced against, concussion ripping through her head as she struggled to remain conscious.

The explosive decompression of the reactor chamber would cause the few metacer chasing the Ranger to screech and be pulled from the walls, their chitinous bodies crunching loudly as they are forced through a pressure differential all too rapidly. The eggs and the queen would remain sturdy as air rapidly escaped from the chamber.

The louder reeling of the queen would become more quiet and distant as the air thinned. Metacer could not survive hard vacuum, nor could their eggs. Ginny looked down at herself, the hole in her soft-suit that was mended with copious amounts of duct tape was holding for now. In the moments after the air began to still, the lights in the shaft would go out for a few seconds. Sirens would echo throughout the station as emergency power came online, the halls being bathed in a dull red. The station which had been their sanctuary had only a couple hours until it became as lifeless as the world beneath them.

Ginny, for her part, would stay there for a long minute after that experience, the stillness of a lack of air giving a certain meditative quality to the contemplation [i]How fucking stupid am I, they’re going to panic.[/i] her ears would be ringing for some time, and while her head was swimming some, she knew she wasn’t out of the woods yet. 

A slurred “Good shot, Lockman.” would come from her comm. Another long pause “I’m gonna… go back to the ship, give me a ride?”

She would jump back into the dark husk of the reactor, toward the black streak of void visible between softly-glowing metal of the blown-away housing. She shined her comm’s light towards the dead core, the lifeless husk of the queen standing watch over her motionless brood. With any luck, they had bought everyone some time by disrupting the bugs. 

She’d emerge from the side of the station, seeing the world below. She could only imagine the countless queens there she could never have hoped to stop. Using her magboots, she would click her heels along the hull, and flag the shuttle.