Unknown foreign forces were spreading over the interior of the ship. Belkhodja had locked himself on the bridge, with his four remaining bodyguards. But he was losing control, again. And this time even he had no hope. "Send an SOS", he ordered one of his henchmen. He had not sent one before because if it was discovered that a large mutiny broke out on his ship and he could not extinguish it himself, he would have lost his position. Perhaps his head, too. Now he certainly will. "Move me there", he pointed towards a ruined control board. When he approached it, he closed his eyes. His head slowly sank into his left palm. All of the interface was molten, torn and shattered, except an aluminium plate, which had an inscription. It read, in uppercase: "AUTODEST". The rest was molten. The control board was completely unusable.
"Do you want to kill me and surrender to them", he asked as he composed himself. "Yes", one of them put it bluntly. Others looked at him suspiciously, although they were, quietly, close to nodding. "But those are Crayterians. Do you not recognize the sound of their weapons?" If it was the Council, then they would accept any Gaul's surrender, and use him to bolster their own forces. But it was well known that Crayterians did not follow any international conventions when it came to Gallic prisoners of war. It was less painful to die in combat. "Fine for me. Merge with the bodies. If they blast the door, the bridge will fill with smoke, and you will have the element of surprise. Attack on my mark."
The captain left his wheelchair and hid beneath a corpse. And so they waited.
"EN GARDE!", the half-man sprung from the smoke and corpses. Richard's reflex blocked his rapier. Several bursts of fire came from unspecified corners of the bridge. The Crayterian marines ducked down. Four of them never rose again. Belkhodja struck low, and cut Richard's left knee -- the one that was not synthetic. It sent off a jolt of pain, a sign that it was no longer able to support his body. The admiral fell down, dropping his sword. Belkhodja dropped his own, too, and, with the speed of a cockroach, crawled over Richard and started strangling him. Richard managed to reach his pistol and fired a shot into Belkhodja's abdomen, but the bloody, demonic grip became no weaker. He fired again, to no change. He was losing oxygen. He was about to be killed in close quarters combat by a cripple. But unexpectedly, Dumont, who had almost been freed from his straps before, now managed untie himself completely, and jumped over Belkhodja -- only to lose consciousness as both fell on a pile of corpses. In this moment of respite, Richard managed to find his sword and rise to his knees. Before Belkhodja could regain a defensive stance, Richard managed to strike him in the neck, sprinkling his face with blood, which, when it touched his skin, appeared to be hot enough to boil. Fueled by bestial rage, he struck the dead body three more times, until Belkhodja's head rolled away. The unshapely mass of flesh shivered and flailed over the pile of corpses for about a minute, when rigor mortis finally calmed it down.
Richard rose from the smoke of explosives, plasma and molten plastics, the smell of blood, the haze of sweat. He used his trusted sword to support himself. Around him, save groans of pain and sparks of damaged instruments, everything was silent. The shooting had stopped. Four of his men stood on one side. None stood on the other. Another two of his own were rolling over the floor in pain. Dumont lay besides the shivering pulp that used to be the ship's captain. He was motionless, but breathing. The smoke was gradually settling down.
It did not come cheap. But it was a victory. Richard's body stopped pumping adrenaline. He finally felt the full impact of the pain in his left knee, and his neck.
He collapsed. As he gradually sank into delirium, the ceiling watched the smile on his face.
![[Image: 396AUfe.png]](https://i.imgur.com/396AUfe.png)