The vents to the sleepers were closed. Well, Brunhilde had finally found my bypass then. It was really too bad they hadn't thought to check the security bot; if they had they would have seen that it had orders to patrol the sleepers with regularity, as well as send it's sensor feed log to one of the old common computer drives, where I could view it with no more than twenty seconds worth of time delay. It wasn't as good as actually being there but it would suffice, so long as Brunhilde kept up her own inspections.

I was certain there was a trap there, and I really wanted to spring it. But so far, I was at a loss as to how. And thinking on the problem while outside one of the newly welded grates, in the vent system, was probably not the best idea.

I backed out and turned around in the intersection; There were no sensors or drones in sight down any of the vents, and a quick check of my pad confirmed there was nothing in range. I turned the scan on myself; I hadn't tracked through any dyes or radioactive substances. So I fought down the nagging feeling that I was missing something, and kept on.

I still took a random circuitous route to my current hiding place, a small nook near engine number three. Brunhilde actually walked past it on her rounds every day, something that struck me as a little odd; I used a different path, which I felt was more efficient. But either way it was a fun coincidence – I waved to her every time I saw her go by, not that she could see it.

The stranglehold on the ship was getting tighter; I could no longer safely travel to certain decks and my loving crew were searching for me even now. I knew it was only a matter of time, but it was too soon. They hadn't caught me yet however, I had more cards yet to play.

A beep from my pad brought home how few I had left though; a quick wave brought up images of small exploration rovers, some used for repair, some tasked for eventual planet exploration, and all with motion sensors affixed to them.

They were scanning the vents in teams of two, and I thought I saw taser weapons like the security bots used. They had just entered my own motion detection field, and for all that it was set some distance away from me, the images showed an all encompassing net reaching front to back. A little more investigation showed the hunters themselves, also in teams of two. Checking all the halls and then somehow coaxing the blast shield doors behind them, even though there was no emergency calling for them. Well it seems even Oddball was finally getting into the act. He couldn't have been in computer 'working' hell forever. It lasted longer than I had expected, but not as much as I'd hoped.

I dressed and geared up. I included a few weapons of my own in that, as well as a nice novel defense I'd read about against electricity. I would not make it easy on them; not now, not ever.

.........................................................................................................................

Mouse had avoided the trap; it was really too much to expect her not to see it I guess, but it could have easily solved all this. Unfortunately this wasn't going to end bloodlessly at all. Oh, I wasn't sure she had been by to see the sleepers, but I was fairly sure she had.

Each end of each vent had been capped, then a small plate added to the roof of each in a very low tech trap. If mouse had moved to the end of the vent to physically look out, the plate should have dropped. They were heat based, with the heat of a hand or other body part activating it. But it hadn't happened, and all the effort to set it up had been useless. I knew it had been a mistake not to include the radioactive tracking dust. She would have seen it, neutralized it, and come ahead, thinking she had countered us.

But she would have likely spotted the ruse anyway.

So plan B, the lengthy one. Anyone not on shift would be walking the halls, using remote drones to check and seal the vents. And Oddball had finally come back from it's lengthy vacation, and agreed to seal the halls after the hunting parties passed so that Mouse couldn't circle behind us. I wasn't too thrilled about the fact that the search had been forced to start at the front of the ship to the back; that meant that the final showdown was likely to occur on Mouse's home turf, engineering. Where there were many highly breakable things that, once broken, could ruin us all.

A good twenty of us cutting the ship into manageable segments and cutting off all retreat. Success was all but assured, but the cost to be paid by next morning would be significant. I didn't want to declare it a sick day or anything similar because Oddball would be relatively unwatched for a day. Knowing what I know now, I couldn't claim that the paranoia of previous generations regarding Oddball was unfounded. Future generations, reading my log, would be doubly warned. Mandatory reading for our mandatory civics class, but the logs of earlier generations had nothing on this. It was even worse than the accident that actually led to this entire situation.

“Captain. Sector 8 clear.”

Right, time to focus. Sector 8 was the section in the upper deck and just before the bridge; it contained many of the back bone systems and their access points. With it secure we didn't have to worry about the bridge sensor systems dying to sabotage. Not that that helped; they were blind anyway, at least when it came to spotting Mouse.

“Understood team 4. Next assignment is sector 12.”

We were actually using paper copies of the schematics of the Magellan to co-ordinate this; I didn't consider our pads secure. I didn't want Mouse opening a hole in the net by sending two teams to the same sector, and this way even if Mouse attempted to hack into our secure communication line and impersonate me. I did want her to try and hack our comm line and attempt to impersonate me so that I could trace her.

No such luck, though I expected our conversations were already hacked into. I also expected Mouse had other means of tracking us all, but I'd had the ship's internal sensor package checked multiple times by everyone who had a chance to detect tampering, and they had found nothing.

“Captain, come on. We'll be behind.”

I turned to Marion, my partner for the day. She was hugging herself, while appearing to check her clothes. She was tense, anxious; she had not been a target of Mouse yet, but she was all but certain she would be now. As one not hit by Mouse yet, she was now in the minority. In short, she felt she was due. That or she felt Mouse was rapidly becoming irrational. I thought that out of any of us, she was safe. But she had requested to work with me, citing worries over violence. I was a big guy after all.

I didn't believe it of course, Mouse was much smaller than Marion was, and while she was an undisputed master at hand to hand, she had no history of real violence. It was far more likely that Marion was hoping her presence would protect me. She wasn't alone in thinking I would be targeted at some point.

“Right. Sector 9 clear.”

As soon as we moved across the blast door threshold, the normally well hidden door slid from the ceiling and rolled shut with a loud locking crash. With the vents closed by grates and motion detection, and all of that patrolled by security bots like the one following us, that section of the Magellan was now as secure as we could make it.

With that door rolled into place, the ship was effectively cut in half at this point. And there was still no sign; not even an old bolt hole. Our next section was sector 22, which was Marion's turf; the cafeteria and pantry behind it. I had assigned everyone who could be, areas of or near their usual stomping grounds, in the hope they knew more about the area and it's hiding places than the Mouse.

The cafeteria was closed, the electric sign showing declaring it closed for the day due to the search. For the first time in my memory; the one place on the ship normally open to all and at all hours was closed. Well, I didn't count medical; normally the doctor or nurse on duty slept there I couldn't remember if it had been closed before, but it wasn't that important. The detail seemed sad somehow, as if it were a statement on how everything was falling apart, and so quickly.

It had had few hiding places, at least in the main hall. The kitchen had a few, but those were easily and rapidly checked. The scanner in his hand didn't chime once, Marion and he had already been programmed into it, and no one else was supposed to be active in the area. He had made sure that all awake hands were pressed into service or on the bridge, and the rest knew enough to stay put unless they had an emergency.

Sure they were all programmed into the system, but without the network they normally used, there could be precious seconds spent chasing a signal only to find out it was someone we didn't care to catch. And I didn't dare plug them unto their network, or it would be hacked in under an hour. Even if Oddball sat on the system itself, I didn't deem it safe.

“Alright, next up, the pantry.”

I was not looking forward to the pantry, it was almost as big as Claire's territory. An absolutely huge section of the ship, where most of our food was kept, the freezer unit alone was four times as big as the mess hall itself. The refrigeration section was even larger. Rows upon rows of netted racks bolted to the floor, storing frozen and non frozen foods. The displays at each rack contained dates the item in question would spoil, all linked to the computer in the kitchen. I didn't think any of it was tampered with, and Marion had double checked all the dates and agreed with me.

There were even some canned and vacuum sealed things; We had our own small machines for each. All Marion's job now. Some people had more time consuming jobs than others. And she hadn't once spit in the soup, which was probably more than anything else, why she had gotten the job, family affair or not.

After a week making food for all of us, despite the help we gave, and cleaning up what the janitor bots couldn't handle, I likely would have done something impolite.

“What is it?”

She was looking at me, a decidedly unfriendly look, and I realized I had been staring.

“Nothing, sorry. Was just thinking about how I wouldn't like your job.”

She laughed in my face.

“Yours is worse. You couldn't pay me in strawberries to take over this tub for a day.”

“Well I can't deny that, though the idea of taking care of all this isn't a pleasant one.”

She grinned, her earlier look melting from her face as the warmth of the expression hit it.

“Not to you, maybe. But I like it here.”

We went down every rack, leaving the bot to watch the door and motion detectors in front of us. I insisted we go in a pair down each row, and Marion didn't argue. For some reason it was silent and subdued, save for random assignment check ins from other groups. Maybe it was what we were doing, maybe it was the atmosphere, or maybe it was just me. The place took almost a full hour to canvas just by walking around with the detectors and peering into random darkened corners at Marion's direction.

No Mouse, and no missing food.

We walked out and I crossed another sector off the list; next up for us was sector 25, otherwise known to the crew as the gym. We wouldn't be leaving that area for two hours, at least. I didn't expect that Mouse would be in the gym either, it was too crowded, too often used. It was supposed to be empty now however, which was why when the motion detector chimed in my hand I almost dropped it. I raised it up, so that both Marion and I could look at the display.

Forward, around 10 o clock, and at just over 300 yards something was moving. That put the subject in the female rest room. Our motion detectors had no problem penetrating walls. I heard some of the early ones used to, but it was a silly limitation; after all, if the current ones had that limitations, we'd never find Mouse. Or really anyone or anything. Generation 1 had a real mouse/vermin problem at one point, until these detectors were employed.

We rushed to door silently by mutual consent, but I had to motion the bot back to cover our entrance in case whoever it was, or someone else, snuck around us. Luckily the bots were programmed to understand the most common hand gestures and respond accordingly.

The signal was moving a bit, and it looked to be hunched over in a shower stall. Just as if someone was trying to be sneaky in a shower. A quick check showed no stall on, but that could easily be spoofed. I wasn't happy; I would have to send Marion in. I could override the system as captain, but if I walked in on one of our own nude and prepping for a shower, it would be... awkward. If it was Claire or my sister for example, I likely wouldn't walk straight for a week.

A few tense minutes and Marion emerged, grinning.

“It's safe.”

She was hiding something behind her back. Whatever it was, she could hold it with one hand; her other hand was still holding her taser. She pulled it out with a broad smile.

“Mouse got us good.”

It was a small rover, much like the ones we were using to try and track her... and in the shower, no doubt running circles. In order to create movement for our sensors, and maybe rovers, to pick up. Clever, and we couldn't use the bio-sensors to eliminate them beforehand. An idle thought; how many did Mouse make? She couldn't have made many, rover parts were actually tracked. Though knowing Mouse, she'd made them from the ground up to avoid that. I'd guess no more than six.

What the plan could be involving no more than a dozen of these motion makers, I couldn't say. There had to be something more to this plan than Mouse just annoying us before we caught her.

“All teams be advised. We have caught a little something made by Mouse designed to trip the motion detectors. Be cautious when investigating odd signals. Do not let her circle behind you. That is all.”

Marion was resting her face in her palms.

“You really need to work on your delivery there, captain.”

She opened her own comm channel.

“All teams, this is Marion. Mouse is up to her usual tricks, she made a type of rover to spoof the detectors. If you see something making motion, don't automatically assume it's her.”

Then she turned back to me and walked past with that odd strut women seemed to have. Hadn't she just said what I had?

“See? Simple.”

All in all, over the next six hours, we methodically cut the ship in half, then thirds, then fourths. Our teams had found a total of eight rovers built by Mouse. She had been busy, but all they were doing was driving around randomly, which made no sense at all. They didn't even have remote computer networking gear, which meant they couldn't hack anything. There seemed to be no purpose at all. But soon only engineering was left.

We were all tired by this time, but we had to push to get this done. I handed out assignments on the fly, since there really weren't any of us that knew engineering better (or even as well) as Mouse did. At this point we needed to trust to luck.

Surely Mouse knew it was over by now? Once all the areas were closed, even the zero gravity areas thanks to our resident EVA geniuses, the game was up. It had to be. So why did it feel like she had a few more cards stacking the deck? Why was I so nervous about this? Maybe I needed a good psychiatrist. Maybe Mouse and I could share appointments with Jen. That is if she didn't kill us all somehow; or me.

All teams were hungry and thirsty. I hadn't thought to bring water, and while Marion had I didn't dream of asking her for some of her own squeeze bottle. It was a good lesson for me in the future. Despite that and despite our fatigue we had to press on. Another good four hours or more before we could all sleep.

..........................................................................................................................

I had to wait. I knew they were tired and most of them were hungry and thirsty. I knew they were bored and their motivation for finding me was flagging. I had two rovers left in my arsenal and a plan. It probably wouldn't work, but I had nothing to lose.

I couldn't deny the flutter in my heart when I found out who was actually checking out the area my last hideout was in.

It was Eric. With Lissa backing him up no less. The two people on the ship most happy to see me. If I had known how they had divvied up assignments, I'd have made it a point to be somewhere else when cornered, but Captain traitor had seen fit to make that impossible. Not that I blamed him for that... just a fair amount of everything else. Still, I wasn't about to quit or make it easy on them; I just needed to choose my moment.

Lissa was the one running the motion detector; when she passed it near me I didn't breathe or twitch. From behind a false wall created by an exhaust port for a dynamo not in use (used to feed atmosphere back into the ship; even if it a waste byproduct for the engine it still had a value) I could see them, but they couldn't see me. And thanks to a bit of tampering, it looked like it was still firmly bolted in.

It wasn't part of the ship wide vent system for obvious reasons, and was therefore safe from their rovers. I had briefly considered using my rovers to attack theirs, but that would have given the teams clues to where I was; I wasn't sure I could make it out of an area before they caught me. Besides, my rovers really weren't good enough for it, and I wasn't fond of the idea of damaging potentially valuable resources we would need later. This spot did have one thing going for it though; it was fairly close to one of the blast doors the rest of the crew was using to demarcate their search grid.

I hated being hemmed in by my own sense of honor; I kind of wished my parents had been a bit less diligent in my upbringing. Then an idle thought about what that would mean for the ship as a whole entered my head. I almost missed my chance.

When Lissa was facing away from Eric, and Eric was near my vent port, I knew it was time. I triggered my last two rovers; one directly in front of Lissa but a wall of machinery away, and the other, my best one and secret weapon, on a time delay. It worked like a charm. Lissa sounded more than bored, she sounded half asleep.

“Movement, 3pm-ish, heading away from us.”

Eric's response was just as bored sounding, and as lazy.

“Probably another rover. Go check it out; you wanted the scanner.”

Both Lissa and I stared in disbelief, but she spoke where I dared not.

“You do realize she can beat me in hand to hand, right?”

Eric smirked like the ass he was.

“Then you better tase her before she get close.”

She took off at a good clip towards the intersection she needed to hit to catch to my rover. Another seven count since the dynamic duo here took longer than expected to get their act together, and my last rover broke from the opposite hall, and whirred off.

It looked like me, or as close to me as I could make it. In the dim lightning I'd created by disabling certain lights, it looked as if I was taking advantage of the split up and was running away from their team... further into engineering, my own stomping grounds.

Eric went for the bait immediately, zipping past my hideout so fast that for a moment I'd doubted he was there.

“Mouse, I've got you now you little bitch!”

I wanted to jump out and beat the attitude out of him more than anything; after all it was his fault that unflattering word could even be used to describe me, if only in part. Instead I waited a three count and jumped out, heading towards the lowered blast door, a good distance away, As usual, Eric turned out to be my undoing, because Lissa turned at the yell.

“Eric behind you! It's Mouse!”

Eric trusted Lissa more than I expected, and I heard him skid to a stop. I poured on the speed. I was woefully out of shape but sure I could outrace both Eric and Lissa... but the problem is I needed time to hack open the blast door, so I needed some separation. I was perhaps a footstep from gaining it when the voltage poured in.

The copper chain mail did it's job, routing most of the voltage into the deck and grounding me; however I ate enough of it to force a stumble, and that was enough for Eric to keep me in sight. Heck he was even gaining. I could hear Lissa calling in the confirmed sighting.

“Team 7, Mouse confirmed in sector 52, headed towards sector 46. All teams converge.”

Lissa must have been the one to shoot first, because even as I was regaining steam and starting to pull ahead, I got zapped again. The suit again did it's job, but all the electricity did it's own. The leg Eric tagged me in went stiff and twitchy. And at most a full second later, he was on me, fists leading.

I dodged the first punch by ducking to the side, and blocked the second one with my hands... but I could only bleed that one of momentum; it still tagged me in the stomach. Luckily it wasn't enough to put me down. I saw the follow up kick coming, but it still managed to nick my temple. I forced my leg to work and spared Lissa a glance. She was there, watching and wringing her hands, shocked at the violence.

I don't think she's actually seen two guys fight before; not really. Not all out like Eric likes to do. And if anything, he as bigger than the last time we played like this. I could stop his punches before. At least Lissa was just watching, and wasn't reloading.

I couldn't let Eric pin me against the wall, so I charged him. My flying knee connected, twitchy leg or no, and bought me some space. If I turned he would be on me in a second... and getting me on the floor would be much worse than the wall. The knee rung his bell and I wasted no time, following it up with a palm strike to the cheek and an elbow strike to the temple.

None of that put him down. What had he been eating in the last month? Was he on drugs or something? I'd heard from my mother that some drugs made people resistant to pain and stronger than normal.

I could hit him at will, but where before I'd hurt him, now I just wasn't hurting him enough. Eric grinned at me though bloody lips.

“Spars are different than real fights.”

He waded right through me, taking the best punishment I had to offer, and somehow I was on the deck. He continued talking.

“When we spar, you get a hit in, and a point is declared. I have to hold my punches, and you never do. This is a fight Mouse, a real fight.”

I covered up just before he started pummeling. He didn't seem to be aiming for my face however, which was odd; He instead chose to work my body. I got in one good shot and broke his nose, but didn't have the leverage to do more than slow him down.

I wasn't about to give up though, not to Eric. It was Lissa that stopped things.

“Eric, enough! She's not going anywhere with you sitting on her, stop!”

Behind Lissa the security bot that had been shadowing both lowered it's own taser, a multi-use deal capable of lethal voltage in a pinch, with a loud clank that had to be manufactured, as Oddball's voice crackled through it.

“I concur Crewman. You will cease your assault immediately.”

He stopped, never looking away from me.

“You done?”

I nodded and lowered my hands, since I couldn't breathe. As after most fights, I was so tired I could barely move. It would take a good few minutes for me to recover. Longer this time then in the past, I suspected. My ribs creaked as he shifted, and actually got off. I couldn't help myself; I curled up. It seemed to help. Eric could probably dent steel with those punches.

“Good fight; that was for turning me blue.”

I gave him a look. He didn't seem to be lying about that, or holding a grudge. He was even smiling.

“You've been wanting to do that for awhile now.”

He nodded with a warming smile. Something was wrong here. I felt almost compelled to ask the next question.

“Why didn't you go for the jaw? You'd have likely knocked me out, and wouldn't have gotten your nose broken.”

I was under no illusions anymore that my jaw could take many of those punches of his. I was tough, but not that tough. He thumbed his nose then checked his split lip, spitting out a gob of blood like the crass barbarian he is.

“Simple. You're a girl. It isn't right to hit girls, and it's especially not right to hit girls in the face. I had to do one, but I didn't have to do the other.”

That son of a bitch. Before I knew it I was pummeling him again. Without technique however, it was over quickly. He wrapped me in his arms, pinning mine, and while it wasn't uncomfortable, I couldn't break free at all.

As the haze lifted from me I was half surprised the bot hadn't fired at me.

Lissa walked over and bopped him on the head with her empty taser, hard.

“Pig. You did that on purpose. Now let her go.”

He didn't right away, so Lissa bopped him again, this time so hard the taser broke. It was enough for him to look over her way with some clear annoyance.

Lissa and I shared a look. Just what was this jerk made of?

He kept staring and smiling at me like a dope. He seemed happy I'd busted him open, if anything. I couldn't figure it out, but it looked like Lissa had some idea. It was an awkward wait for the person I least likely wanted to see.