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Then the third grappler struck.

The impact rattled her teeth, and warning lights flared across the board. Hull stress. External attachment. Portside damage. A whole list of things she didn’t have time to read.

“We’re surrounded,” Stevie said behind her, voice clipped and calm. Which meant that she was scared shitless.

“No shit,” Blythe muttered.

Rann hauled on the controls again, firing the thrusters in sharp bursts. The old ship rolled, straining against the cables, but another clamp locked somewhere near the aft cargo section, and it stopped dead with a wrenching jolt.

Rann’s jaw tightened. “They’ve got us.”

Her stomach sank. No way out.

Rann turned in the pilot’s chair for a second, his eyes hard and focused. “Get into the corridors. Block the airlock, then lock down every bulkhead door you can. Make choke points. If they breach somewhere other than the airlock, I want them slowed down.”

Layla stared at him. “What about you?”

“I’m going to make footing really unsteady for them to board, to give you time.”

Stevie and Blythe exchanged a look over Rann’s shoulder.

“Do you have a lot of experience in ship boardings?” Stevie asked.

Rann shrugged, firing the maneuvering thrusters again as another grappler clawed for the hull.

“Yeah, not my first rodeo, ladies. Now get your asses out there, I can’t keep these draanthic off us forever!”

None of them waited for Stevie to repeat herself. They just ran.

Blythe was the last out of the cockpit and slapped the emergency bulkhead control beside the door. The warning light flashed amber.

“B!” Rann barked from behind her.

“Sorry, handsome. Just following orders.” She winked at him as the heavy door dropped between the corridor and cockpit with a deep clang.

Stevie sprinted down the corridor ahead of them, one hand out to brace against the wall as the ship lurched again.

“Seal the airlock!” she yelled. “Emergency bulkheads down! Move, move, move!”

Blythe ran the other way.

“B, where are you going?” Layla shouted after her.

“Engineering!” she yelled over her shoulder. “The loading ramp bulkheads!”

Which were bloody manual, because nothing on this old crate could just be controlled from one sensible panel. The deck tilted beneath her feet. She caught herself on the bulkhead, shoved off again, and raced through the door to engineering.

Then she stopped so hard her knees nearly folded.

A circle of hull plating glowed dull orange near the loading ramp controls, sparks spraying across the deck as a cutter screamed through metal.

The side wall. Not the airlock.

“Oh, fuck.”

The circular section dropped inward with a crash.

“Boarders!” she yelled, backing out through the doorway. “They’re in engineering!”