The Lifarla zoomed through omnispace. It was a fast ship, having room for a large drive and a lot of fuel. It was currently at maximum cruising speed, but had been rigged for running at up to maximum emergency speed. Alice didn't like that. The Nijayias had no reason she knew of to hurry. Whatever they were looking for had to be of incalcuable military value. The only problem with that theory is that nobody, not even the deluded, drunk rumor-mongers in the spaceport bars, credited the first empire with anything significant in terms of military tech.

Kharadd had given her the detailed breifing. After "the area is ready" she and her team would dig up a square km until they found the symbol in the picture he had given her on ANYTHING. The strange part was that, as soon as they found it, they were to immediatly run 20 meters away from it. If "nothing unusual happened", they would tell Kharadd. Otherwise, they were to seek another one.

Alice didn't like any of this. It didn't make any sense, but once again she'd been caught up in some kind of crazy adventure. The students would need to be watched carefully, as soldiers carrying unusual quantities of weapons is an automatic danger sign. There shouldn't be anyone on the planet to shoot at, all reports list it as uninhabited. The fact that a major warship was providing the transport indicated that they would probably be shot at.

The shear quantity of the military force assigned indicated the massive danger. She'd have to stop being so foolish. Next time... if there was a next time!

------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit

Mr. President.

Enclosed is the full report of our surveilance of the known Salrillian and Cantharaan Shipyards that were on your lists, along with numerical counts, the raw scan data, and our analysis of it. It seems that if the Salrillians are masterminding this, they are doing A VERY good job of it. Although we didn't scout Salril Prime, I doubt a large, Vindicative class ship would make it through such a heavily populated area without one of my sources leaking it to me.

The Cantharan starbases have not produced anything other than standard Cantharan hardware in months. Although we have not checked any Gaitori facilities, I do not know of any that any of them are capable of produceing an advanced battlecruiser like a Vindicative. I believe that we have eliminated the DGA as a prime suspect for the attacks, however, it is still not clear where a small terrorist group could find the manpower and resources necessary to construct such a ship while remaining undercover.

I am afraid that we are missing an important piece of this puzzle. If the Golden Dawn is actually being run by the DGA, then we must have overlooked a starbase somewhere, and we should be scouting Nebulae and other anomalies that would hide such a secret facility. If the Golden Dawn is working on its own, then we should be scouting the strandless sectors and the regions at the edge of government controlled space.

There is a third possibility as well. The assault on the Ishiman convoy could simply have been an attack by the DGA, useing the Golden Dawn as a cover. Of course, this would be an act of war, and the UNS would have reason to question the DGA representatives. Unfortunately, the Salrillian Ambassador was recalled just a few weeks ago, and it may be difficult to reestablish conflict. Once again, this is the most unlikely scenario, as the Golden Dawn bombed Salril Prime, and the DGA wouldn't do something so drastic simply as an excuse to withdraw an ambassador.

Without the critical piece that seems to hang just outside our grasp, I can only offer these scenarios as my conclusion. I have decided that further investigation at this time would be risky, as the shipyards are on alert, despite our best attempts at stealth. The Andalusa will keep a low profile for the next few days. However, if you wish to contact us, please use the enclosed Cipher Pads. Each one is single use, and will only work with the duplicate disks we have aboard the Andalusa. As long as the pads are used only once, the code is unbreakable. Please contact me if you need my services again.

Captain Mark Pharris,
Master and Commander,
SV Andalusa.

President Wade paged through the attached documents, skipping the Data, reading the analysis. He tossed it down on his desk and leaned back in his chair, thinking...

------------------

95309 moved the singularity from in front of the ship to behind it, bringing it to a stop very quickly. 6655321 floated out of the isolation container, and floated to the galley. It pierced the container and squeezed the Lithium into its body. Thus refreshed, it read its orders off of the magnetic strip.

"6655321: Arrive 8872(milky way). Search for and Destroy 980334(another ship from its galaxy)"

"how dull, espescially for its first assignment." it was not very amused. "No matter" it thought. "I shall be home before the next moon(roughly 10,000 earth years). Then they will give me my bonus and a more engageing assignment."

It projected a slightly smaller singularity ahead of it, and rocketed off in search of 980334

The primitive creatures of the galaxy attack with no provocation. I shall make short work of their archaeic transport devices. They hinder me in my task.

95309 projected a tremendous gravity well that pulled the six gaitori cruisers into eachother, at which point they fused into a large clump of metal that proceeded to explode violently as the singularity dissapated.

6655321's lamp flashed in amusement.

How marvelously their ships disintegrate. They must cary many combustibles and oxidizers on board. Now to find 980344. 980344 is devlish in his fighting.

Garrion Retoe studied the viewscreen. Somewhere in the field ahead of them lay a large military complex of the ancient Phylydion rebellion that was almost extinct. A faint glimmer appeared in between two asteroids, then vanished. "Did you see that?" He asked the sensor operator.
"Yes, sir."
"Magnify that area six times." A red square appeared around the area on the screen and enlarged it. Sure enough, a small satellite was orbiting an asteroid there. "We're near. Communications, notify the fleet and tell the Avenger to take out that satellite." The comm officer nodded and spoke into his headset. In moments, one ship left the formation and fired on the satellite, which was torn to shreds by a light salvo.
"Sir, detecting ships approching. Four or five of them, class unknown. I also now detect a large power source near them activating. It's got to be the station's shields powering up."
"Move in, trident formation."
"Aye, sir." The ships approached in three rows. One kept going straight ahead, one veered left, and one veered right, forming a V. "Enemy ships in visual, sir. They're old-type destroyers and picket ships. Nothing overly threatening."
"Tell all ships to fire when at optimum range."
"Sir." One of the rebel ships fired a pair of capsule missiles at the leading Kiojea. The missiles hit its forward shields, doing some damage. The other rebels also fired salvos, some hitting. The Kiojeas returned fire, and two rebel picket ships were blasted apart. Another compressed projectile passed just feet from an enemy ship's hull, and the hull was pulled after it, tearing a hole in the ship that was quickly sealed by emergency bulkhead doors. The fleets exchanged fire a few more times, crippling one of the Kiojeas and destroying all but one of the rebel ships.
"Don't waste your compression guns on him. Take him out with flare turrets." The flare bolt turrets of the flagship rotated and fired several salvos which tore up and down the remaining rebel ship. It hung dead in space. "Proceed." The battlegroup proceeded to the station, one staying behind to guard the crippled ship.
"Sir, station has powerful defenses but very light shielding. I suggest we board it."
"I agree. Prepare a boarding team."

The ships fired on the station to attract the attention of its defense turrets and three small transports slipped through. The transports attached to the hull of the station and cut through it. Twenty Taeskor Commandos entered from each one of them and in seconds grouped together. After taking out initial internal defense troops, they split up. One for the control center, one for engineering, and one for the docking bay.

The barrage destroyer exited omnispace in the abandoned system.
First instruction: go to 7 of 3??
Kharadd immediatly scanned the sytstem. The 3rd planet had 10 moons, so the ship went to number 7.
Second instruction: play the first part of the message.
Kharadd sent the short sequence of tones. From the planet emanated another series. This was the request for the intruder to provide conformation, for the first sequence was simply telling them that we knew they were there.
Third instruction: burn your way in. The system, once it determined we didn't know the confirmation, wouldn't let us escape with the knowledge something was there.

Darkk had spent a great deal of energy probing the racial memories of the Nijayias network of minds for even this. It wasn't enough, they still would have to face a test of firepower. Darkk hoped his men were up to it. The Lenkk would have gone instead, but it still needed repairs after the second battle of Sol.

Back in Thingle, swarms of ancient crusiers poured out of the asteroid belt and the third planet, a gas giant. The Lifarla readied itself for the test...

------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit

Meanwhile, a solitary fighter shot towards Cicion Station, in search of Sundered Angel. Surely he would recognize him...

Somehow...

------------------
The Fury

"If I had a rocket launcher, I'd make somebody pay. And my fighter has a rocket launcher."

The first ships were of course the fastest and lightest.
When they had been designed, a photokinetic cannon would have been considered a superweapon. The tacyon cannons managed to clean out the first wave of attackers without wasting flack ammo.

Those, however, were only the fighters from the closest area. The remainder was massing for a giant surge that would be tough to beat back. They weren't shielded, and the UNS had better weapons at the time of the Cantharan invasion, but there were certainly a lot of them. If it came to ramming, they would win easily. Kharadd hoped that wasn't in their programming.

The ships waded in firing, wasting ammo. This part of the programming was easy to interpret: the drones started firing the instant the enemy does, and back then the effective ranges were much lower.

As the massive wave of ships closed, the flack turrets began to work, filling the sky with deadly projectiles that downed multiple ships with their spread. The multimissles carved into the enemy, but ammo was limited for all but the tacyon turrets, and the enemy was not.

The wreckaged had increased to the point that the flimsy automations were taking damage from that alone. The Lifarla's shields hadn't taken much in the way of damage, and were holding at 67%. The final wave of attackers was closing, though: concussive asteroids with built in rocket engines. Kharadd didn't have any idea how the rocket engines had been attached. He didn't care. The flack turrets destroyed the first 5 but ran out of ammo. The second five were taken out with multimissles.

The last 3 closed. The Lifarla was out of ammo, and a hit from those would be fatal. The tacyon turrets fired hard, and took out 2. The last one almost hit when Kharadd did an "Omnispace Stand" which is essentially engaging and disengaging the Omnispace drive at maximum power so fast that it wouldn't provide propulsive force. The resultant shockwave detonated the asteroid, but wrecked the Lifarla's FTL systems.

The sensors chief had located the central command nexus for the defense forces: dead center on a large, barren plain on the third planet. The planet had an oxygen atmosphere, so it was time to go dig up some special help...

------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit

The Phylidia 2 retrofired, once more dropping into the outer atmosphere. Several Missile ports opened, and another salvo of Antimatter missiles sped down towards the planet's surface. The Phylidia continued firing the high compression, jacketed projectiles into the atmosphere. Pharris saw streaks as they burned through the atmosphere, bringing up clouds of dust and debris that soared miles high. Even through the choking black clouds, several blinding flashed could be seen on the surface as the antimatter missiles detonated on the surface. Cloaked, a hundred thousand kilometers away, the Andalusa slowed into orbit. Pharris looked from his screen to the planet outside the windows. He could see the flashes from here.

"What could possibly make them do that to one of their own colonies?" Pharris mused aloud.

his helmsman looked forward, past him, at the tiny blacked sphere.

"I can't possibly imagine. There was no rebellion, no wars, nothing. They didn't even try and evacuate... maybe it was a disease?"

"I've never seen a virus worth wrecking a planet for."

the bell rang, and as the officer of the third watch came on the bridge, Pharris relayed the instructions for the next eight hour crew shift;

"Stay out until the Phylidia leaves orbit. Then drop down to LO, and start surface scans. I want to know what happened. I'll be back on for the first watch. Goodnight Lieutenant."

Pharris lay on his bunk, unable to shake the image of the Phylidia II ravaging the poor hapless planet. He couldn't help but shudder at the thought of something that could drive the Phylidions to that extreme action.

------------------

Once again, Sundered Angel sat in Cicion's Bar, darkened again. As usual, he was thinking. Everything was fine- the Phylydions and Salrilians discussing peace terms once more, the world The Dark had taken was already being bombarded into an ice age, and everything was ticking over nicely. Now why was he worried?

Letting his mind wander backwards in time, he mulled over the last few years. The last few seconds of his long existence. They had been successful... so why was he worried?

He searched back through his memories of the past few weeks, and paused. There was something... only a day or so ago, a blink in his eye, no more. A brief area where he could not remember.

Sundered Angel continued to sit there, mind spanning the happenings of the past and the possibilities of the future.

------------------
Sundered Angel ,
The One and Only
Ares Webboard Moderator, and all-around Nice Guy

The three Salrilian Battleships approached the Hatares Nebula, which had been saturated with the evil presence of The Dark. They swerved and turned untill they were in a long string formation. They approached the nebula one by one.

The first one came into range. It fired a single Magno shot deep into the nebula. It pulsated and flared and disappeared into the clouds. The Battleship's commander watched the pulse die out, having no effect on the nightmare creatures lurking within the nebula. He sighed and a tear fell from his one good eye. He was old, obsolete, useless. Salril often discarded it's toothless dogs on suicide missions "for the glory". He knew the real purpose of his mission along with the three other commanders: Guinea Pigs to test whether The Dark had finally resurrected "the great one".

He watched another magno pulse flar into and dissipate in the nebula. At least Salril had given him the dignity of knowing what exactly was going on. So far, The Dark were masters of the energy realm. They could feed off your ind, mold their shapeless forms into the apparitions, but they couldn't hurt you unless you let them. However, that would all change once they resurrected and merged with the great one. They would mold themselves into your deepest fears, and could physically hurt you. The commander focused, trying to uproot his fears.

He watched as the battleship behind his pulled ahead and approached the nebula bravely. He watched the nebula suddenly come alive as the hundreds of millions of the Nightmare Energy Beings read it's commander's mind. They came together, morphing into their first display as they merged into a giant serpentine creature, millions of scales and ferocious spines and teeth protruding from it's body. It writhed and wriggled. It was the first commander's worst nightmare: St'gmr , a beast from ancient Salrilian mythology. It lashed out, slicing the Battleship cleanly in two with a glint of kilometer-long teeth. The serpentine creature lost it's shape and bubbled back into the origional form the dark naturally stayed in as the battleship was destroyed.

The Second Battleship moved ahead, into the nebula. Passing the wreckage of the first one. The Dark creatures again remolded themselves into the worst nightmare of the second battleship's commander. A gigantic bolt of lightning lanced out and atomized the second Battleship. The lightning too splashed like a puddle as the Dark got ready to shape themselves one final time.

The third and final Battleship moved into position, passing both fields of wreckage; it's commander puffed and sweated as he forced the mental images of inexplicable horror out of his mind. He breathed slow and steady breaths and cleared his mind. No mythological beasts. No unexplaned phenomina. No gods. No dreams. No nightmares. No people. No soldiers. No salt. No bombs. Nothing to be feared.

Unless... he suddenyl realized his mind had slipped. The Dark fed on his fear as they began assembling into that final shape. No! he panicked not that! his one true fear became a reality as The Dark shaped into a perfect recreation of of a huge ship. It's forward section began to glow and it's three disruptor nacelles powered up with Green sparks ans it turned to face the Battleship.

The StarLance fired a single simultaneous barrage, then lost shape as the third Battleship disintegrated. Meanwhile back on Salril, the Oracular Council recieved the result of the suicide mission: The Dark had found and resurrected the great one. They had only to merge and become one with him left.

980334 is crafty. it eludes me. Where it may be hiding is unclear. I have found nothing. There are many large disturbances in which to conceal a small vessel like 95309. I shall search them all. I believe it still does not know who has been dispatched to destroy it. I shall search the nearest disturbance and proceed from there.

Satisfied with its plan, 6655321 had its ship, 95309 project an intense gravity well ahead of it, hauling it at great speed towards the intense disturbance that the residents of the galaxy call the Hatares Sector.

Piemur1 had been thinking about spiders since the incident at the bar he was currently running. Spiders. He remembered a time when taking heavily guarded planets in his universe, there were some units called "spiders". Similar to their namesake, they were simple multi-legged robotic creations that were immune to EMP shockwaves. They were programmed to reprogram computer-controlled units taken out by EMP. They were quick, but very fragile. He was also thinking about Darkk's swarmer space units. Intoduction of the swarmer design with spider-type tactics, they would cause absolute havoc in between computer-controlled units. It didn't matter if it had a human...or whatever...pilot. If computer programs controlled the engines and weapons functions, the spiders would simply reprogam it and the craft/ship would would be under the spiders' control. And whoever controls the spiders, controls the ships. He saw that most of the ships here, not to mention that almost everything here, were controlled mainly by computers. Same as in his universe. The 10 frigates he got from the pirate battle would be useful for carriers of the "spiders". Arm some of the "spider" units with EMP shockwave cannons, Piemur1 would soon have a huge fleet of his own...Piemur1 didn't want to annoy anyone here too quickly, and he was peaceful by nature, so he would start his enterprise on pirates. After all, they deserved it.

He called up his engineering team and told them of his ideas. He then contacted Darkk to ask for the swarmer design specs, not giving away any of his plans. Since the swarmer designs were so simple, Darkk saw no problems for selling the plans. Piemur1's alcohol industry was giving him ample funding, and he bought the plans for a much higher price than they were worth. Darkk was a hard bargainer. But he got the plans, and implemented the "spider" technology. EMP shockwave cannons were harder to come by, and retrofitting them to the small swarmers was a painstaking task. Next the hardest task was programming the spiders to reprogram all the different types of ships there was in this universe. They had to compensate for any possible safeguards they might encounter, and the possibility that the ship's pilot may have a backup system which could ruin any chance of capturing the ship. This took several days of work, but since the program could be duplicated, he only needed one functioning program. He tested it out on some willing pilots, paid of course, and had them re-reprogrammed back to the original status. So far so good...

The EMP part of the swarmers was very bulky, but functionable. The spiders were also working well. He set the engineering team into an assembly-line like production status, and soon the 10 frigates were filled with the swarmer-spiders. Now to set a course to that big nebula nearby...surely there were some pirates there...

------------------
Your Horoscope for Today (Wierd Al):
Aries
All Virgos are extremely friendly and intelligent - except for you
Expect a big surprise today, when you wind up with your head impaled upon a stick

(This message has been edited by Piemur1 (edited 12-16-2000).)

Garrion Retoe stood in the corridor as several dozen prisoners were lead to the brig. They would be questioned upon their return to Dominus. As he oversaw the work, his comm unit beeped. "Yes?"
"Bridge, sir. You'd better come see this."
"I'll be right up." He ran to the lift tube and was whisked up to the bridge. "What's going on?" The sensor officer beckoned Garrion over to his console, where a massive power reading from only a few parsecs away glowed like a lighthouse in a midnight desert. "What is that?"
"I don't know, sir, but it's near a trio of Vindictives, in a nebula. Kadt..." The reading grew in magnitude fivefold once, subsided, then again, then again. "The battleships are gone." Garrion stared for a few seconds, then stood up.
"Bring our formation together. Power up all shields and charge all weapons. Let's get out of here!" The elite force started to pull away from the station as the three transports took off and entered the Silent Blade's docking bay. "Wait! We may well not have captured all of them, and a few of the filth may still be able to get the station back online. As long as any of these rebels remain, the Imperium is not safe. Target the station and take it out." The Silent Blade turned its guns on the station as the rest of the fleet started to pull away. Three compression salvos and a few flare salvos left only a mass of floating scrap. The Silent Blade then joined the formation and headed out of the asteroid field. Seconds later, they cleared the field. "Engage." The twenty Kiojeas engaged Omnidrive and disappeared in a multi-colored flash.

The Andalusa dropped rapidly out of orbit,, losing speed as it entered the atmophere of the decimated world. After several minutes and a few hundred miles, the ship slowed and began circleing the charred pile of rubble that had once been a city.

"Look at that. It's gone..."

"I can't believe it. Helm, take us in closer."

the ship dropped several thousand feet and leveled off just a few hundred above the deck, cruising through the twilight over the wrecked city.

"I see stuff moving." Helm said.

"Impossible. Where?"

"Shadows and stuff. See there! crossing the road."

"Are they people? Where?"

Pharris turned back to his helmsman. The helmsman's chair had the holographic image enhancement on, The helmsman's head was hidden in a holographic sphere that represented what both cameras and the sensors were picking up outside, giving him an excellent view.

"What are they? Can you tell?"

"No sir, but whatever they are, they have a pretty strong EMF trace. Other than that, they're just blurs, maybe five, six feet."

"Could they be Survivors? Phylidions?"

"Can't tell, they disappeared into the rubble."

"EMF, what do you have?"

"Not much sir, the readings give em a dozen or so emissions lines above and below our visible spectrum, but not much else. It could just be getting dark out, sunset tends to be a bad time to look for life signs-too much EMF interference from the atmosphere. I still should be getting something, this is weird..."

"They must be what the Phylidions were after... How could they have survived?" The helmsman asked, pulling the ship slightly lower.

"I don't know, but I want to know what they are. I need a few volunteers to help set up a sensor grid down there. I'll be in storage."

As the XO picked up the intercom, Pharris slid down the gangway to the lower decks

By the time he got there, five crewmembers were there. Two humans, a Phylidion, a Cantharan, and an Ishiman. They had already unpacked the sensor gear, and were deploying the gangway. Agatha "Dag" Banson and Matt "Bernsie" Berns were both engineers. "Myrk", the Ishiman was the chief gunner of the third watch, the Cantharan and the Phylidions, Mat Su and Maeer Mendeya were EVATs. All of them had been aboard for years, except for Dag, who had been picked up just before the Starlance incident. She was eager to prove her ability and her devotion to the rest of the crew, she had already shown great ability in engineering, but they hadn't had much of a chance for hand to hand training yet, and she was green as far as small arms were concerned.

"Suit up. Powered suits, shield belts too. These things were badass enough to kill an entire colony. We are going to be very careful. The Andalusa will drop us, and pull off a few hundred feet to get us out of the engine wash. ECM will be watching us, and Tac will have the guns up and ready to cover us. Helm will standby to pick us up if anything goes wrong. Either way, we are going to do this real cautious like. Dag, Mendaya, Mat and I will form a perimiter. Myrk, Bernsie, you set up the sensor net. I'll talk helm down onto a good placement point. we won't have to move far at all. Once we're set up, the ship will get on top of us and drop the collar. We get in, we set up, they pull us out. No more than ten minutes. Questions?"

The crew leaned on their guns.

"Good. Into the airlock."

Pharris sealed the airlock and extended the stairway from the bottom of the ship.

The team walked down the steps, Pharris, the assault element, followed by the sensor team. Pharris held the handrail, his feet on the last step over the void.

"Helm, pan left 250, down 100"

"Left 250 down 100 aye."

The ship slid closer to the ground, nearer to a landing spot.

"Aft thirty, right fifty. Too far, back slow... There. Down, real gentle like. There. We are go!"

The team jumped the last five feet, their powered suits cusioning the landing, Dag came behind, then the two EVATs. They moved out in a circle, as the two others jumped down with the sensor module.

"We're off. Clear! Go for set up."

Through the four inches of armor, Pharris felt the jet wash die away as the Andalusa lifted up and circled. Myrk and Bernsie opened the cases and started setting up. Deep inside, he felt an all too familiar twisting deep within him. He looked around. His intercom crackled, it was the Andalusa;

"Movement to the north. Best traces in microwave-range"

"Copy, microwave range."

Pharris tuned his visual scanners to pick up the microwave area of the spectrum. He saw the others doing the same. The inside of his faceplate tinted red. Suddenly, he saw them. They definitely weren't Phylidions. They were walking on all fours, pouring out microwaves. On his goggles, they were glowing. Deep inside, he felt the knot settle deeper, as it had many times before. Two hundred yards off, around fifteen of the things were approaching.

"Contact, i count 15, NNE. Dag, get over here."

"Moving." He could hear her voice quiver.

"Still approaching, range one-fifty. Establishing contact."

He raised his Gauss Rifle and fired several tight controlled bursts. He watched several of the creatures fall and disappear in a cloud of high frequency radiation.

"Dag, suppressing fire. Tight sweep over the group."

"Aye."

He heard it in her voice. He looked at her. Through her faceplate, he could see her trembling. He saw the huge suit lift the Chain gun, and start firing. The suit's powered arms easily absorbed the shock from the gun, and she traced the fire over the approaching group of creatures. Suddenly there was a deep rumbling, and the entire group exploded in a huge cloud of debris. The Andalusa's Phase busters swiveled back to their neutral position as the XO come over the intercom.

"Taken care of, Skip. More movement on the south, larger group this time. Moving to intercept."

The Andalusa rumbled overhead, to the South. Pharris looked at his team.

"Report."

"Bernsie, here, Complications in the setup. We need five more minutes."

"Myrk, clear"

"Mat Su, clear"

"Dag, clear"

"Mendeva, clear"

Pharris was shocked. He heard something in the ex-Taeskor's voice that he had never ever expected to hear. He heard fear. He turned around, and stared at Maeer. He looked ok, but the quiver in his voice had been entirely unexpected. Off to the south, he saw the Andalusa kicking up huge clouds of wreckage as it poured fire into the ground.

"Alert Team: incoming from northeast. Medium signal. Will dispatch southern threat before lending aid."

"Thanks for the warn. Mendeva, watch south. Mat Su, cover north."

Mat Su moved north, just in time to see the horde of beasts approaching.

"Engaging"

The three of them fired, but the enemy kept on coming. Pharris felt the knot pull tighter. It closed around his body, the familiar pangs began to hit him, he let them come, and kept on firing. He heard Mat Su start to screech. The natural Cantharan reaction to fear is extreme anger and uncontrolled aggression. Mat Su began screeching louder, firing longer bursts, pumping grenades out almost aimlessly.

Pharris looked at him, then to his left, Dag was staring blankly, her gun poised but silent. She was staring blankly at the approaching enemy. Pharris hit her, screaming "SHOOT!" She snapped out of it and began firing, but they were getting closer still. Pharris turned to see how the grid was coming up. Myrk was still working diligently, but Bernsie was crouched, clutching his knees to his chest, rocking back and forth, whimpering. Behind him, Pharris saw Maeer. Pharris couldn't believe his eyes. The Taeskor was crying. He had never seen him give off any emotions, and there he stood, with tears running down his cheeks, staring past his captain. Now it was even stronger. Pharris knew fear. It was almost comforting in its familiarity. He had lived most of his life with some twang of anxiety lurking somewhere. He thought of fear as his friend, and he always knew it was there watching his back when he was in trouble. Now, all semblance of order was gone. His disciplined men were losing control. The Taeskor, usually like ice in the tightest situations was crying. And his old familiar friend was turning against him. He felt like a helpless child again lost and alone, on the lifeboat, watching his father bleed. The world was spinning around him. He saw Mat Su Firing wildly, screeching and shooting, he saw Dag's face frozen, blank, her finger clutching the trigger on her empty gun. He looked at the tears on the Taeskor's face, then spun as he heard something behind him.

The shadow hung in the air for a brief second.

Pharris raised his rifle and fired.
As the beast vaporized in mid air, Pharris screamed into his comlink.

"Alec! Get us the hell off this damn rock! NOW!"

He spun and began shooting the beasts. It was with him again. Keeping him on his guard up. The world shook as the Andalusa hovered forty feet overhead. The long EVAT deployment collar extended down to the ground as the anti missile turrets began spraying fire down around the LZ.

"Get up there! Go!"

Myrk looked up

"Wait, the grid isn't finished!"

"Grab the Taeskor! Move!"

Pharris grabbed Mat Su, only to be shrugged off harshly. He screamed at him, and pushed him up the collar, followed by Bernsie. He climbed onto the ladder pulling Dag behind him, as the Andalusa lifted off and cleared to a higher altitude.

The docking collar retracted, pulling them up into the EVAT deployment dock. The ship's doctor was already there with the medstaff, but there were no physical injuries. Pharris looked around the room. Except for the Ishiman, all of them looked as if they'd just woken from a horrible nightmare. Pharris looked out the open hatch, and saw the creatures swarming. He wondered if they had.

He took off his suit and spoke into his comlink. "I've seen enough X, get us out of here."

------------------

A swarm of shadows pursued the twenty Phylydion war vessels int he parallell position equal to their position in Omnispace. Unbelievable as it was, the swarm had crossed nearly eight hundred lightyears in a matter of seconds! They spotted their next target.

They stopped near the Ishiman outpost parallel to the Hatares Nebula, and after taking the care of eliminating and feeding off of the colony, nine trillion of the nightmare creatures rained from the skies like a hurricane of terror, adding the planet to their ever-increasing list of infested worlds.

But this planet was different. It wa not just another world to be infested and exterminated. The Dark had a far greater prize with them. They brought with them a single organic creature, deceased and bloodied, salvaged from deep space amidst a historic field of debris. The Dark had also claimed six massive derelict ships of Salrilian design: The three Vindictive with their crews tortured and slain. Their destruction had only been an illusion as the crews' minds were ripped apart and swallowed by the hive. Alongside the three battlecruisers, drifted the memorial derelict heavy destroyer and it's two carrier escorts, released in memory of the death of their commander. They bore the insignia of Admiral Slug.

The still-moist body The Dark had salvaged was enveloped in an envelope of pure energy, boiling in forces of evil. The Nightmare Creatures flowed in and out of it. Then, only slightly at first, the body twitched. It was merely a tiny movement, but inside, past the many layers of Salrilian flesh, life breathed back into the body.

The pure evil now flowed, pulsed, coarsing through the veins and a soul was twice-born. Then, a single, glowing eye opened....

Communiqué
From: Sundered Angel
To: Sargatanus, Haruspex of the Divine Galactic Axis

You've left intervention too long. Cease this disturbance now, or soon it will be your people paying the price of your inactivity.

I think you understand what I refer to.

The Lifarla came in low over the third planet, destroying some ground-to-space batteries a thousand years obselete. The ground was now apparently thoroughly cleared of defensive machinery. Time to start the dig.

Alice didn't like it a bit. The Nijayias psychopaths must love fighting their way in, blowing up stuff like it was fun. She didn't understand why they couldn't just sneak in, and the "guards" standing around her with repeating lepton rifles weren't helping. The dig was getting underway, as the students and the machinery moved volumes of dirt at an astounding rate, given the care needed.

In 9 hours they found the image pictured on the top of some kind of metal pole. As per procedure they ran 20 meters and turned to see if anything unusual happened. The implosion wave starting 20 meters from the pole ceratainly qualified. A large boulder, and everything else within the radius of the sphere was crushed against the top of the pole. Then a huge laser emmited from the top of the pole, scanning across the sky, smashing pieces of wreckage as though searching for a ship. Thankfully the Lifarla had moved to the other side of the planet.

"That's good. The one we want is within 50 meters and is exactly 200 meters down." came over the comm in Kharadd's voice. Alice set the machinery to work again.

40 meters
80 meters
120 meters
160 meters
200 meters

Alice didn't know where the Nijayias had gotten such precise data on this without getting the codes to convince the defense system they were friendly. However, the data was off slightly: the second copy of the image was at 203 meters. In any case, Kharadd and a group of men arrived with some radiation suits.

"Put these on" Kharadd ordered, tossing the suits to Alice and her people.
"Why would you not need them if we do?" Alice asked, putting hers on.
"Because the systems are configured not to attack Nijayias. The drones wouldn't have attacked if we had been flying a Nijayias ship of their era, but we couldn't get any."
"If you say so."

Kharadd pressed the plate with the image and concentrated. A groaning was heard, and a door on the other side of the pillar supporting the laser opened. Kharadd stepped through.

------------------
Error: target is violating the laws of physics
Error: target is locally exceeding c
Error: unable to determine if target exists or not
Error: target cannot be hit

The armored and armed troop transport approached the former Phylydion colony. Twelve of the first batch of Taeskor Rangers were aboard, in light armor beneath their fiery crimson capes. They, unlike stadard Pure Taeskors, were each armed with a Burst carbine in addition to a Keutae. The pilot looked back at Cicion. "Sir, Pharris's ship just left the planet and it's headed to leave the system."
"When we picked up traces of Darks still alive on the planet, I didn't figure there'd be enough to make someone like Pharris hightail it. Everyone ready?" The others nodded. The transport plunged into the planet's atmosphere in the center of where the main complex had been before it had self-destructed. The transport hovered a few feet above the surface and the twelve jumped out, instantly assuming a circular formation, carbines raised. The transport lifted into low orbit. Cicion extracted his sense tendrils. They detected an unnatural cold in the air. Suddenly, the cold intensified. A few others noticed it, too, and turned in the direction he was facing. A dark form sprang over a pile of rubble ten feet away. Cicion thrust his fist forward, and the creature was flung backward and desintegrated. Cicion turned to look at his little unit. "Follow me. We'll take a look at the wreckage over there." He indicated a scorched section of Durantium plating that had survived the bombardment. The group moved forward.
When they reached the large space the armor covered, they spotted a few more inside. Several Burst shots took them out. Cicion surveyed his group. They still all looked calm and concentrated. He focused his energy to recharge himself, and moved on.

------------------
-Traek Cicion of the Taeskor
"Never tell me the odds!"
-Han Solo
"Then we'll do it real quiet-like."

Every single one of the nightmare creatures on the planet became aware of the presence of the "delicious-minded ones", the Tćskors. They lept and swarmed, flowing like a rampant stream loosed by a burts dam. Rifle shots echoed throughout the valley, but were unheard by the tćskors trapped in their own nightmares.

The sky boiled, the ground shook, the whle planet seemed to come ablaze to the tćskors as the shadow creatures morphed into their worst rampant nightmares. Giant combat drones, massive expanding lava pools, plasma lightning storms, suits of armor, swarms of insects, vacuum, swirling, swirling, swirling in agony and terror. A veritable tornado of the shadow creatures enveloped the Tćskor commandos.

Amidst the confusion, the creatures seemed to turn even on themselves. Radiation levels were reaching lethal levels. Cicion rabbed him comm unit "Transports: get us out of here!"

The three transports shot a path through the swarms of The Dark and proceeded to land. The first transport landed and half of the tćskors boarded it. It lifted off and shot for space at the same time the second and third were touching down. The rest of the tćskors boarded them and the transports lifted up and cleared the planet.

- - - - -

Having cleared he planet, the transports moved for space. Cicion watched the other two transports from hs window. They had all survived, but many wished they hadn't. Half of the Tćskors were shocked to the core, never to speak again.

Suddenly, one of the transports exploded, showering a cloud of atoms! Cicion turned to face the direction of the attackers. A second bolt blew the second transport to dust. Cicion strained his eyes to focus onto the attacking ships.

Three vindictives, two carriers, and a heavy destroyer.....