Colonel Moody roused himself from a deep sleep to sounds of confusion. There was shouting and banging somewhere nearby. In the darkness of his quarters it wasn’t entirely clear what the status of the ship was until a lightning-like flash strobed from the space-facing ports on the opposite wall.

Heavy weapons fire!

The colonel stumbled out of bed and swept everything off his nightstand to the floor in an attempt to retrieve his commlink. A moment later the deck heaved and he stumbled back, trying to break the fall by grabbing at his bookshelves. He landed hard and the impact dazed him. Another heave slammed him against the bulkhead. The entire contents of his quarters shattered against the floor.

The deck fire alarm began to sound. More shouting from outside Moo’s door gave him the energy to at least try and get to his feet. Argent was off her axis by a good ten degrees, which made the journey back to his commlink more of a climb than a crawl.

Weapons fire flashed anew. The orange light of an oxygen-fueled explosion lit space all around the port side of the ship. Finally the colonel got to the opposite wall and pulled himself up to see what was happening.

He could see Argent’s new fleet mates Minstrel and Jefferson. They were maneuvering into a defensive position along their flagship’s port quarter aft. It wasn’t until Moo saw the Jefferson launch a full spread of anti-ship missiles that he realized just how serious the situation was. Although he could see the Perseus escorts, he could not see their targets.

What bothered him more than anything else was the fact there were no deck alarms aside from the fire klaxon, and nobody had tried to contact him yet.

The decompression alarm sounded.

What the hell?

Finally Moo scrabbled his commlink out of the rubble that had accumulated on his floor. He noted all of the alarm channels were active but the signal indicator was dark. At least now he knew why nobody had been able to contact him. He hurriedly donned minimal clothing and pulled a blaster pistol out of the holster stowed with his fatigues. He set the weapon on maximum and went to the door.

The sounds outside were still muffled, but they were quieter. Moo couldn’t tell if it was because of the audible alarm or that the fight had moved on from his front porch, so to speak. He decided to risk it and opened the hatch. The hall was empty but filled with acrid smoke from an overhead electrical junction. The colonel peered in the other direction. Nothing.

He aimed his blaster and moved to the cross-corridor instead of braving the smoke. He knew there was an intraship console only a few yards around the corner. If he could get to it undetected, he’d be able to access Dominique and get a sitrep.

A shadowy movement made him turn. From out of the smoke a knife slashed at his face. His attacker lunged and Moo caught him by the wrist and elbow. The smaller man was slammed unconscious against the bulkhead by the colonel. His knife clattered to the deck an instant before he did. Two blinding white shots from beyond the smoke impacted behind Moody. The colonel retreated around the corner and moved quickly towards the intraship console.