“Somehow, someway, I need to get off this ship,” I mutter to myself as I head off down a dark corridor.

The MPU tracker is feeding information into my heads-up display. The HUD shows that I am the only living thing within twenty metres of my position, but I know that information is iffy at best. All I can do is keep moving.

Time for another heart-to-heart with the MPU .

“Mission time: 1230 hours Zulu. I am proceeding aft towards the docking bay and the drop ship. No sign of my unit nor of the ThroGs that infest the ship…”

I spoke too soon.

In the corridor ahead of me are the bodies of my unit, each one showing definite signs of a hand-to-hand battle with one or more ThroGs. The damage to each body was definitely inflicted by a ThroG weapon.

In the hope that one or more were still alive, I survey the scene in infrared mode. Yep, one of the bodies, Sarge, is still hot. As I look down at him, he opens his eyes and tries to speak: “They have her,” he whispers. “They have the Princess…”