[ WP ] Tell me the middle of a sci-fi epic . No beginning or introduction to the setting or characters , nor any context to what 's going on , and no resolution of any kind .

It worked, and the Courier at last closed on the Naked Lady, coming in only a scant meter above the corsair ship. It was still going too fast to moor the vessel without causing a tug on the Lady that would surely alert the corsairs to his presence ( if they weren ’ t already ) and so Ambrose climbed down through the maintenance to the ventral engine, stamped hard once on the metal casing in the customary last symbolic gesture of good faith for the ship ’ s bearing him through the skies of the surface-less planet, and made the small leap onto the gas envelope of the Naked Lady. For a moment Ambrose watched the Courier drift peacefully off into the oncoming storm to ensure that it would not be blown back on him, then put his knife in his mouth and slid down one of the ropes on the side of the zepship facing away from the Albatross. 
 
 Ambrose found himself dangling aside the pilot gondola, a corsair inside and barely a meter away with pistols of some sort in each hand, but his eyes glued on the Albatross. In the ball turret toward the fore Ambrose spied another pirate pretending to aim the twin cannons at the Albatross also ( Ambrose was willing to bet that after their use during the raid on Condor Station they were totally or almost totally out of ammunition ). Undoubtedly Darius was presently somewhere inside the Albatross dealing with the prospector. Without further consideration, he opened the door on the gondola as quietly as he could with his feet, thankful for the noise of the wind, and swung himself inside. He put his hand on the shoulder of the corsair to steady his blow. 
 
 “ Darius? ” the pirate asked, turning around in surprise. Ambrose answered by plunging his knife into the man ’ s head with one terrible strike. He took the pistols from twitching hands as blood began to spray the cabin in lunatic pulsing arcs and sank down to the floor with the body, working his knife out of the scalp and stabbing him again in the heart to ensure his death. Ambrose thought he felt a weird ghost-arm within his own guiding the entire act, releasing its ice-grip only once the man was surely dead. Henrietta. Yet Ambrose agreed with all of this. He did not shudder as he rose up and quickly ascended the ladder into the Naked Lady ’ s maintenance crawlspace. 
 
 Detritus and random tools and parts were strewn about everywhere like the warren of some disgusting bird, indistinguishable in the darkness of the crawlspace but undeniably the plunder of previous victims. Ambrose did his best to ignore the trash as he worked his way toward the loading mechanism for the ball turret at the front end of the crawlspace, where he discovered that indeed the Naked Lady was unarmed. This accomplished, he headed back to the far end of the crawlspace that allowed access to the fuel cells, a RePEC and Zinc-Air combination. Working quickly, Ambrose sabotaged both of them as best he could, took what critical parts he could carry and then began searching for spares in the detritus of the tunnel. The few that there were he also took with him as he returned to the gondola, and threw the whole collection out the open side door. Then he ascended up the side rope again and waited on the far side of the top of the zepship, safely out of sight from both Darius in the Albatross and the other corsair in the turret. Minutes later, the engine on the Naked Lady gave out as the last dregs of energy from the cells wore out. As the Naked Lady began to lag behind the Albatross, Ambrose could hear a violent commotion coming from the Albatross. A moment later its engines also shut off, leaving only the distant shuddering of the storm and the wind. Exactly what Ambrose wanted to hear. 
 
 He waited until he could make out the top of the Albatross ’ gas envelope pulling alongside and close as the two remaining corsairs presumably attempted to regroup and decide what was going on. Once he felt the slight vibration of the two ships bumping up against each other in a gust of wind, he dashed over the top of the Naked Lady and made a leap onto the Albatross, almost slipping off of its rain-wetted surface and down into the valley between the two gas envelopes. Below he heard the Traitor Pirate crossing over whatever contraption of ropes they were using to traverse the gap between the two gondolas. He also heard the opening of the Naked Lady ’ s side gondola door and a long resulting silence. He had discovered the dead pirate. 
 
 Ambrose didn ’ t have time to wait and see what their response would be; he could guess at that anyway. Instead he found a cupola atop the Albatross with a ladder leading down to the gondola and descended into it. Halfway down he encountered a lengthwise crawlspace that presumably ran stern to stern. As he was peering down the dark corridor, Ambrose thought he saw something move slightly – and ducked involuntarily as a bullet exploded through the air by his head. 

