"Yes, sir." Rico finished his programming and jabbed the firing keys, and through the crackling and jolting of the Kinshasa writhing beneath him, Pheylan felt the lurch as the missiles launched. "Salvo away," Rico said. "Sir, I recommend we abandon ship while the honeycombs are still functional."

Pheylan looked again at the status board, his stomach twisting with the death-pain of his ship. The Kinshasa was effectively dead; and with its destruction he had only one responsibility left. "Agreed," he said heavily. "Hauver, signal all hands: we're abandoning. All sections to honeycomb and eject when ready."

The damage alarm changed pitch and cadence to the ship-abandon signal. Across the bridge, board lights flickered and went dark as the bridge crew hurriedly disconnected their stations from the ship and checked their individual life-support systems.

Pheylan himself, however, still had one task left to perform: to ensure that those alien butchers out there would learn nothing about the Commonwealth from the wreckage of his ship. Getting a grip on the underside of his command board, he broke it open and began throwing the row of switches there. Nav computer destruct, backup nav computer destruct, records computer destruct, library computer destruct—

"Bridge crew reports ready, Captain," Rico said, a note of urgency in his voice. "Shall we honeycomb?"

Pheylan threw the last switch. "Go," he said, pulling his hands back inside the arms of his chair and bracing himself.

And with a thudding ripple that jerked Pheylan against his restraints, the sections of memory metal whipped out from the deck and ceiling, wrapping around his chair and sealing him in an airtight cocoon. A heartbeat later he was jammed into his seat cushion as the bridge disintegrated around him, throwing each of the individual honeycomb escape pods away from the dying hulk that had once been the Kinshasa.