Four minutes. Not enough time for careful extraction. Not enough time for anything except impossible choices.
I activated the team channel. "Emergency extraction protocol. Get those stasis pods to the shuttle immediately. Security, establish a defensive perimeter. We hold this position until the survivors are secured. No one gets left behind."
"Commander," Er'dox said, his voice tight. "The derelict's structural integrity is degrading. The raider weapons fire could trigger collapse."
"Then we move faster."
Elena had already unhooked the stasis pod's connections, and was working the manual release mechanisms with the kind of focused intensity that meant she'd shut down everything except the mission. I helped her, my strength compensating for the pod's weight, and together we maneuvered it toward the airlock.
"Going to be tight," she muttered. "Pod mass plus two beings in environmental suits. Corridor width is?—"
"We'll make it work."
We did. Barely. The corridor walls scraped against the pod as we moved, Elena calling out measurements and vectorswhile I handled the physical labor. Behind us, the rest of the team secured Lisa Tran's pod and began the same desperate race toward the shuttle.
The first plasma blast hit the derelict's exterior hull.
The entire structure shuddered. Warning klaxons blared, ancient Liberty systems trying to alert a crew that was mostly dead. Elena stumbled, caught herself, kept moving with Will's pod like nothing else mattered.
"Shuttle bay, thirty meters," she panted. "We can make it."
Another impact. Closer. The corridor's emergency lighting flickered and died, replaced by the dim glow of our suit lamps and the eerie phosphorescence of degrading power systems.
"Commander!" One of my security officers, Jov'eth, his voice urgent. "Raiders are boarding the derelict. Multiple breach points. They're coming for the survivors."
Of course they were. Survivors meant potential ransom, potential intelligence, potential leverage. Raiders didn't care about rescue. They cared about profit.
"Defensive positions," I ordered. "Pel'kra, Jov'eth, hold the shuttle bay approach. No one gets past you. Everyone else, move those pods. Double time."
We hit the shuttle with one minute to spare. Er'dox and the medical team secured the stasis pods, their movements efficient despite the chaos. Elena supervised, calling out technical requirements, making sure every connection was stable.
The raiders breached the corridor behind us.
I saw them through my helmet's tactical display, five hostiles, armed with plasma weapons and boarding equipment, moving fast toward our position. They hadn't spotted us yet, but they would in seconds.
"Elena, get in the shuttle," I said.
"Not without?—"
"Now." I physically lifted her, moved her toward the airlock despite her protests. "That's an order."
"You can't fight them alone!"
"I'm not alone." I gestured to my security team. "We're trained for this. You're trained for survival. So survive. Keep those people alive until we get them to Mothership. That's your mission."
She understood. Hated it, but understood. Nodded once, fierce and frightened and absolutely determined.
"Don't die," she said.
"Not planning on it."
I sealed the shuttle's exterior airlock, turned to face the approaching raiders, and did what I was trained for.
Protection through violence. The oldest Zandovian tradition.
The firefight lasted ninety seconds. Plasma bolts and returns fire, tactical positioning and controlled aggression. My team moved like we'd trained for years, because we had. The raiders were good, but they were opportunists, not soldiers. When three of them went down, the remaining two retreated.
"Commander, the shuttle is secured and launching," Er'dox reported. "All survivors aboard. You need to extract now."
