Warrant Officer Lil Damascus jumped around the corner, with her force pistol in hand, and her mouth dry as cotton. She shouted at the Cyclops, "PUT YOUR HANDS UP, you MUTINEER!" The red alert was sounding and the lighting was red as a layer of hell. The crew had just been notified of the Cyclops male plotting to take over the ship. In battle against humanity's fiercest foes, the Asurans, no less. "Jalisco-Upsilon, I hearby place you under arrest!" Her off-hand waved his hands up, as his younger adopted human sibling, put his hands up. Cadet Andromeda shouted at his older brother,"THAT'S just great, Upsilon! Did you tell everyone, as well as calling Admiral Bison an IDIOT, we were abandoning ship?" Upsilon, or as he was known now, Jalisco, said levelly to Lil,"The Admiral is an idiot! The Asurans used particle weapons to get the Admiral to clamp the RIF field to the hull. The ASURANS are a FTL species! Their TSMD cannons will tear us to pieces..." Lil shouted, "SHUT UP,YOU, robot-guy! Explain at your court-martial", Lil was trying not to shake. She just noticed the 'Winged Swords' decal on his armor. That meant he had one of the new Relative Inertial Frame units built into him. He was Special Forces, and younger brother of that Cyclops mad-woman commando, Slicey-Dicey, too. He shook his head. He said, "We won't live that long. I'm hacked into the security cameras and tactical system. We're turning for a missile fusilade against the Asuran Battle-cruiser." A voice came from the Escape Pod, " 'We'll show them this time! We're better armed and armored. We're ready for them!' TELL THAT WOMAN SCREAMING IN MY MIND TO SHUT UP!" Andi turned in shock to look at the young Esper rocking on the floor in a crouch. He exclaimed, "Ginger! What are you doing here?" He turned to his older brother and opened his mouth. Jalisco shrugged. "She was on the way. After I shoved your big, fat head into a vacc-suit helmet, and brought you here, I ran over and grabbed her. My black-glass capacitors are flat-lined right now." Jalisco's green light of an eye flicked over to the esper. "I detect no cyberlinks or such devices on her person...however, that IS word for word what the Admiral was spouting when he ordered my arrest when I objected to his orders. Perhaps he was subverteded, not an idiot." There was a lurch, followed by a sound that shook the whole ship. Lil turned to see a huge wall of flame billowing down the corridor right at them. Jalisco blurred into super-speed and hit the fire-control bulkhead controls and took Lil's pistol from her in one eye-blink. Jalisco said loudly from in front of her,"Command and habitation blocks just got ripped open by TSMD cannons! We just lost fifteen hundred crew! Stay and die, or come with us and live." Lil knew her twin sister in the data core in the middle of the command deck must have just died. She blinked at Jalisco in numbed, heart-sick shock. He nodded. "I'll take that as a 'yes'." He grabbed her and shoved her into the Escape Pod seat, next to Andromeda and the pink haired esper. He slammed the door and ejected the pod, giving it full power. It's small RIF came on for a moment to boost them clear of the hull. The three humans in the back had a ring-side seat to watch the UCSF Mauler get torn apart by the Asuran Time-Space-Matrix-Distortion Cannon. Andi choked out,"I think two other Escape Pods got out." Jalisco said grimly, "One was Perro and Professor Girtset. I don't know about the other one. Maybe fourteen total out of a crew of two thousand five-hundred. My god. What a waste." He hung his head as Andi and the Esper wept. Lil looked at Jalisco and whispered, "I never heard such sadness from a machine before." Jalisco said,"I'm not biological life, but we Cyclops DO feel. The Asurans have a new weapon. We are a billion kilometers from ANYTHING. We have problems." --TO BE CONTINUED!--