Tiff jumped in, quickly followed by Kirby.

"We all in?" Gabriel shouted.

"Yeah - GO!" roared Kirby, jumping into the hold of the ship.

The ramp slowly raised, the hydraulic whine drowned by the aft thrusters. Kirby picked himself up and hurredly covered the rear arc,halting the door sealing in case of any threats. A jugger shattered through the outside doors, the sheen of its hull glinting through the airwash. It started firing, but was in turn struck by numerous shells, blowing chunks out of its metallic hide. It scuttled into cover, a trail of biofluid leaking from numerous holes. Kirby trained his fire over the doorway, stopping any more 'things' emerging.

"Kirby, move! Salvo's hit, I need to treat him." Kirby looked down and saw Trace desperately holding a salvpatch to the sniper's leg. He snarled and swatted away spent shells and moved.

"Crith it, Trace, you'll have no-one to patch if we get shot down! Are we going to get moving or what?"

"Kirby, I'm in the turret now, get that door up." As if to confirm this, another jugger appeared and was promptly blown to smithereens.

Kirby slammed the hold seal and dropped to the floor. The door seal locked and immediately, the transporter pulled away. The big man was thrown over once again. He picked himself muttering an obscenity under his breath, face glistened in sweat and breathing hard.

"They were mightily unhappy, is this what got them riled up?", indicating the limbless torso. Trace ignored him, and finished his temporary patch on Salvo. He moved over to the unfortunate, and carried out an appraisal. He then got to work on some cuts, that the person had picked up. Trace tapped his earpiece and contacted the helm.

"Gabriel - I dunno what they've done to this - girl, but there's very little I can do. I can stabilize her until we reach the ship, but we need proper facilities."

" Ok Trace, you keep her alive until we get there."

Trace motioned to Laady to assist, and the pair of them strapped the person into a stretcher. Trace glanced at Kirby, looking intently at his arm.

"You OK, Kirb?"

Kirby nodded. "Took a hit in the arm, it's not bad."

"Let's have a look - yeah, you'll live. We'll get that sorted on the ship, just apply some pressure, slow the bleeding. You need a tranq?"

" Don't need that rubbish, got my own!", and pulled out a bottle. " Here's to a successful mission!"

"We ain't done yet. Tiff! We got incoming vessels, watch out!"

Laady clamboured up to the cockpit and sat behind Gabriel. She leaned in close.

"What happened with that temporg? You getting sloppy?" She mused.

"Crith off."

The assasin laughed, and twisted jumping down into the hold. She strode over to Kirby and sat down.
 
" Stratch Alex; he isn't coming back."

"Why? Did you see what happened?" asked Kirby sipping his beer.

"Saw his body, his head was removed."

" Crith, that's too bad," muttered Kirby. " I was beginning to like the lad."

He raised his bottle. "Well, here's to you Alex and Marko", he gestured, and downed the remainder of the bottle.