"Arna!"

"No!"

"Arna, you're safe, you're fine!"

"Go away! Get away from me!"

"Arna, if we don't get back to the bridge we're gonna' die!"

Arna Deridet had scrambled backwards like a startled spider who had suddenly been bathed in bright light. Her dark hair hung in a disheveled mess over her face, obscuring eyes that streamed with tears. She kept one shaking hand extended firmly outwards to prevent Jax from coming any closer.

"Arna, this is ridiculous! I saved you, he was gonna' kill us both!"

"Shut up!" She barked, her voice amplified in the first truly peaceful silence to settle aboard the ship. She choked back an involuntary sound half between a cough and a sob, "You wanted to kill me too, Jax. I saw you, I saw you pointing that gun at me don't even lie."

The worst part about all of this, the mutiny, the takeover, the battle, and now the escape, is that he really did save her. It might have only been one person, but if nothing else it proved to him that he wasn't the monster he thought he was. It meant he could save another. It meant he could save himself.

"You were going to kill me to save yourself. I know you, Jax."

Jax shook his head and dropped Triple Regret to the floor. He turned to leave for the bridge and Rocky came in from the level below. The golem stood silently as he always did, letting the context of the situation dictate the way that Jax and Arna would formulate their individual ideas of how he might reply. Arna got to her feet with startling speed, tripping over one of Four-Arms' splayed out limbs and catching herself on her sprint to Rocky's side.

The beast of stone put a single rust-colored arm over her like a protective father, and stared at Jax. The Outlaw took a few wild guesses at the kind of derisive and lecturing statements a barely-sentient rock man could make toward him, like a statue of a disappointed parent.

"Warning! Blackwatch Destroyer opening fire!" The AI shouted for the first time in a long time, just before the ship was thrown downward and sent slowly listing from the imparted force of the sudden volley of rapid shots.

"Hull integrity at thirty-nine percent! Retreat advised!"

Jax shoved past them and made a break for the elevator. Maybe if he saved them again, he reckoned, he could prove to them what he had finally proven to himself. He closed the doors of the elevator and got one last look at Arna crying into the dusty rock that made up the ever-silent guardian.

"Hey, whatever your name is," He said to the speaker at the top of the elevator car, "AI gal."

"Yes, captain?"

Captain. He thought to himself. Captain Jax, that's a new one.

"Raise the shields and get me a status report on the EMP."

There was silence for a while, followed by a deep electric buzz. The elevator doors slid open to the hallway to the bridge, which was littered with the bodies of conscript, Blackwatch, and Krazoran alike. There was space for Jax to make a joke about how 'we all die the same', but he wasn't feeling like comedy. 

"Shields online! The electromagnetic pulse weapon is at ninety percent charge. Estimated completion time at current power drain is nineteen minutes."

He stepped over the bodies around the captain's chair and felt the knife of sorrow briefly cut across his lower gut. Marten had been shot at his post, but he left something behind. Jax pulled Marten's corpse from the seat and laid it out as nicely as possible next to the navigation computer and looked at the soldier's final work.

With the last strength of a bullet-riddled body, Marten had locked in the nearest planet outside of the Blackwatch's sphere of influence that isn't within the Krazoran territory. An Earth-like where Jax had cut his teeth after fleeing the Hundred-Days Siege known as Soria. 

"I wish I'd'a appreciated you while I had 'ya." Jax gave Marten a short goodbye before making sure that Soria was firmly locked in the navigation system. 

The Trench where the majority of the ship's system's were controlled had become a bowl filled with a stew of cadavers and blood. The Outlaw tore off a scrap of a Blackwatch uniform and used it to wipe clean as much of the consoles and controls as he could under the reprised drumbeat of Blackwatch anti-ship weapons. 

Why the hell are they shootin' me! Shoot up that big motherfucker first or he'll sink both our asses! He thought while scooting as many bodies to one side as he could, allowing himself access to the gunnery, engineering, and tactical stations. 

While he worked it briefly crossed his mind that he hadn't seen Jacobson in the pile of mixed carnage, but another bass-drop from outside evicted that notion from his mind. He grabbed the two joysticks for the main fire groups of the Prototype and tilted them inward, moving them at least on-target with the Blackwatch Destroyer. 

In his mind he had two things going for him, those being that the Interdictor could likely only activate its tether in one direction--which was just a guess, admittedly, and if it were proven wrong would spell disaster--and the second which was the idea that Ferantyl might leave him alone if he leaves an offering. He had just the ship in mind. 

The groups of turrets swiveled laboriously around and eventually settled on their target, highlighting it in a red outline on the monitors for each group. Instead of firing, Jax climbed out of the trench and ran over to the captain's chair. He pressed the key for the intercom and cleared his throat. 

"Arna, I just want you to know I'm gonna get us out of here but I need your help just one last time, okay? Can you do that for yourself? Don't do it for me."

He let go of the button, his knees weak more from addressing the woman who had gone from a stranger all the way to partner and now back to stranger again in the span of less than a month rather than facing down the Blackwatch. There would always be a black-coat to fight. There might not always be a partner to rely on.

He tilted his head upward to address the AI again, "Hey, EMP status!"

The empty water-drum sound of artillery against the shields echoed the thumping of his heart. The disembodied voice of the ship would soon develop a reputation for always taking too long to reply to the more important requests, especially when he needed something addressed quickly.

"The electromagnetic pulse weapon is at ninety-seven percent. Estimated completion time at current power drain is four minutes."

Perfect! All he needed was that number to hit one-hundred and then it was lights out for the Fifth Fleet's General. There was only one simple problem left to address while the shields held. He had no clue how to fire it.

"Hey! How do I shoot the damn thing when it's done?"

A noise like a water-drum falling down an upward escalator cut through the ship, and the shield flared with a blue so intense it blotted out everything on the forward projection-window. Jax rapidly tapped his foot against the metal floor. That shield couldn't have much more in it.

"The electromagnetic pulse must be initiated from the fire control center. The functionality for remote triggering has been removed."

That was going to be a problem. The fire control center was two decks down, and for Jax' gambit to work he needed to be able to hit the KNIGHT ERRANT with everything he has before running away like any good thief. Of course, this left the survivors with one final act of necessary cooperation.

He pressed the intercom button again, "Arna, if you want to get outta' here I need you to do something for me. One last thing, okay? Get to fire control and pull the trigger on that EMP. That's it. Then you never have to do anything for me again."

With his message finished and hopefully heeded, he took a seat at Marten's old post at the helm. A few uncertain presses of the random extra keys outside of the standardized keyboard eventually led to the navigation pane blinking away to a fixed forward-camera view. He pulled the steering wheel of the ship toward him and felt for the throttle control and vector thrusters at his armrests. 

"Do I need to shoot those guns by hand too, or can ya' do that for me?" He asked the disembodied computer.

There was that water-drum noise again, followed by a defeated whine. 

"Warning! Shields offline!" It shouted, ignoring his question.

It didn't ignore it completely though, and piped up again right before Jax punched the nearest mechanical object to him, "I am capable of automatic targeting, however the remote triggering has been removed."

"Can it be restored?"

The hallmark silence. "Yes, it can!"

"All cannons target the engines, all of them, main, vector, auxiliary. Every single one! Any gun left over, focus on the life support."

The AI didn't reply, instead the cannons ground against the upper hull as they turned. He checked over his shoulder at the moving reticles all migrating to the aft of the ship as more streaming artillery shells struck the prototype. An alarm began to wail, and Jax almost missed the AI's triumphant announcement that the EMP was ready to fire.

"Targets locked. Fire at will."

Jax vaulted into the trench and got over to the turret controls. He grabbed the joysticks, but didn't squeeze the triggers. He took a breath in. The lights flickered and an electronic warble followed by the sound of a thunderstorm happening all in an instant. The ship bucked sideways as the EMP was let loose.

The particle wave that the EMP device created was completely invisible. The only thing that indicated Jax' attack hit home was the simple fact that no more shots came from the Destroyer, and some of its outer lights had gone out. He squeezed the triggers and nearly went deaf from the unmuffled conductive sound of the cannons. All of the screens displaying views of the outside filled with outgoing fire of all colors, flashing like a deadly rave.

The Blackwatch Destroyer didn't stand a chance. Every shot exploded into vivid sprays of color, heavy clouds of burning plasma hung close to the hull of the KNIGHT ERRANT, heating the hull to fierce colors even after the vicious bombardment came to a rapid conclusion. Jax nearly laughed out loud at the devastation left over, almost the entire rear side of the Destroyer had been pounded to a glowing, seething pulp. 

"Goddamn! This thing his like a hammer!"

He got up and out of the trench, sitting at Marten's helm. He pushed the throttle forward and the thrum of the engines with their bass-drum beat underscored the scream of the alarm. Had focus not taken him, he may have made a remark that in the end, Arna really did come through for him. Once the gauge that signified the engine output hit a denoted zone near the 75% mark he yelled to the ship's consciousness.

"Warp, now!"

There was a click, and the ship left Calhoun and Ferantyl behind.