NationStates Jolt Archive

OOC: Just as a warning, if you have any characters you would rather not die, don't bring them. This thread will have a lot of people dying. Also no giant fleet s of doom, one ship should be enough to send for this.

IC: The Karos Trade Outpost 34-I, a busy place on the outer skirts of Initiative space. It was a bustling station that had representatives from all over the Union of Galactic Federations. Coredian Jedi and Shinobi, Anagonia Jedi ambassadors, Tanaran traders, Terran producers, they all came here to set up shop and begin their business. That was how it was supposed to be; people would come here to begin the process of flowing their products into the GDI and they could also get a foothold on certain markets, since most of the trading with the GDI was done throughout a network of these stations. They were guarded, of course, by a local garrison of troops. They were not the best of the best, they manned the planetary garrisons, but they still were competent soldiers.

But still, there were days they wished they weren't on this duty station, and Private Karin Smith was having one of those days. The cameras had been going strange for the past week, randomly fuzzing out, their circuit breakers being somehow drained of energy. They kept fixing them but they kept going down. The commander was about ready to go nuts from the expense of fixing them. To boot, they kept getting shipments of machine parts from a Nijai Corp. that insisted on using the cargo space they rented. It was a pain in the butt, but they had to do it, else they risked a lawsuit. So, it was with yet another groan when the call came from Security about yet another camera. Grumbling, she put on her security armor, grabbed her rifle and headed down to Storage Area 3C. She didn't even bother taking the safety off the gun; aside from the occasional brawl, which they broke up with stun guns, they didn't even need the damn things. So she walked along, muttering to herself, down the corridors. As she headed to the storage area, she noticed some of the lights flickering, and she shivered as she felt a cold breeze tingling her skin.

"What the fu- Oh come ON, man! The damn heating systems are failing too?! Who the fuck makes these things?" Grumbling to herself, she walked into the storage room, and looked around. Nothing, aside from the four large crates from Nijai Corp. Looking over, she saw the circuit breaker and she was stunned. Someone had taken the entire casing, wiring and all, and had pulled it out, severing most of the wires. Shivering as it got colder in the room, she walked over and picked up the casing, looking at it. "Who the hell would do this?" As she turned it over in her hands, she heard a noise and she turned around to see nothing, simply the hiss from one of the valves. She sighed in annoyance. "Damn bloody pipes. Nothing works in this fricking place." She turned around began to try and put the casing back in as best she could, while fumbling for her radio. Suddenly, the room seemed to quiet down all of a sudden. It got incredibly cold and her neck hairs pricked. Something didn't feel right, almost like someone was watching her.

She counted to three and whipped around, her rifle flashing up. A shape slammed into her and forced her into the wall, a cold hand crushing her jaw. She furiously slammed her finger on the trigger and realized that she had forgotten to take the safety off. She felt really cold...really...really. cold. Her vision blurred and she swore she saw glowing yellow eyes. Soon, the darkness took her and she knew nothing more.

*************

Security Deputy James Morrison glanced at the camera for Storage Area 3C. It was still static. Dammit. It had been ten minutes now and Karin had yet to reply. He knew she hated this part of the job, but come on, they all had to do it. Growling in annoyance, he keyed her com and spoke. "Karin, this is Security. What are you doing? We've been waiting all day for you to tell us that another circuit went." There was no response. Oh, she was ignoring him still. Win one game of strip poker and suddenly you're the most hated man on Earth. "Karin, come on. The boss will be ticked if you don't hurry up soon." Nothing but quiet. He checked the signal; yep, she was getting it. She should be hearing it. He leaned back; this was odd. She normally answered him. Shaking his head, he sighed. She was just being stubborn, probably trying to fix the damn thing herself. James leaned forward and tried again. "Karin, this is Security....."

*****

"....-at's going on down there? You haven't called in yet.....Karin, for fuck's sake, respond!" A shadow obscured the wall, with the circuit breaker laying to one side. There was a pause,and then the shadow moved off down the corridor, almost with a purpose. Lying there, obscured, was Karin Smith's body, her face horribly dessicated as if it had been drained off all water and laid in a desert for years......

****

"Oh fuck it." He threw the transceiver down and turned it off. If she wanted to buck authority and play Ms. Mechanic, that was her own damn business. Cursing under his breath, he reached for his pile of Maxim magazines when he heard a thump from the wall behind him. "Hey, keep it down back there, alright." He reached for his magazines again, but there was another thump, along with some scratching. He whipped out of his seat and walked up to the wall.

"Hey, if you guys don't keep it down out there, I'll shove those damn guns of yours up where the sun don't shine. Got me?!" The scratching continued, intensified even and he could hear some muffled sounds, as if someone was talking. He gritted his teeth. That was IT! He went over to the door and opened it by punching the key. Turning to face where the wall was, he started to speak. "What in the HELL do you-" He was cut off when he saw two things.

One, both the bodies of the guards slumped against the wall, the faces dessicated and dry, horrible signs of death.

The next being the dark blue....thing standing in the hallway, wielding what was obviously a weapon. Atop its head, it had a single round place where the head should be and a light glowed from it. Turning to face James, it made a chittering noise and paused a moment. He shifted his glance to his office, the door still open, with the alarm button on the control panel. Looking back, he saw the thing still studying him. James leapt for the safe confines of his room when he heard a distinct low-key sound and something slammed into his back. Air rushed from his lungs and his heart faltered as he felt a sudden nausea overcoming him. Stumbling, he reached a faltering hand to the doorway when something else hit him in the back. His skin felt strangely dry and he was hit with an urge to sleep. Slumping to the floor, strangely feeling very weak and having a hard time breathing, he heard the footsteps of the thing behind him. He struggled to move his head and managed to turn it enough to look behind him, to see it gazing at him. After a couple seconds, it raised its rifle and fired.

The now fully dessicated corpse collapsed on the floor and the humanoid thing gazed at it, until it seemed to sense something. Turning around, it saw a shadowy figure hovering there, followed by three other humanoid things who looked exactly like it.

"Have you taken control of their security systems? A soft yet menacing voice came from the loose form of shadow. The thing nodded and pointed at the door. "Good, shut off all their security systems and wake the other Nijai on this level. I'll get the ones on the upper level and then we can finish phase one. Now, go!" The thing nodded and walked into the room, while the shadow made a twitch and began to move forward, followed by the three behind him.

************

Twenty minutes later..."

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, SHIT!" Lucas pumped his legs as fast as he could, his Jedi robes flapping about him as he ran. He could hear the screams of the GDI security guards as they held off the enemy to give him time to run to the communications center. He had taken two of them, Gary and Michelle, as his escort. The GDI Station Security had already lost too many of their members, he didn't feel the need for them all to die. The sound of dying rifle fire meant they had already been overwhelmed by those...things. He gritted his teeth.

"Master Jedi, the communications center is up ahead." Gary pointed to the door ahead, which had three turrets swiveling around and a barricade with a fully decked out fire team in military gear. Lucas sighed in relief; finally, a base to hunker down and hold out against this new enemy. The fire team saw the Jedi robes and quickly opened the door for them, escorting them in. Commander Samantha Perkins stood gazing at a holo display, her eyes still red from the tears she had shed for the men and women who had died today, and for those who were still dying. Gary and Michelle walked up and saluted, while Lucas bent over, trying to get his breath. Samantha looked up to gaze at him.

"I didn't think any of the Jedi escaped the trap in the Recreation Area." Lucas stood up and sighed.

"No, ma'am, they didn't. I was out getting somethings when I heard the doors click and the alarm go off. I headed down to the Recreation Area, to tell them to move it, when I found the doors...and the screams." The commander nodded and gestured for the two guards to relax.

"I have only been able to get jumbled reports and some recordings of what has happened in the last half hour. What is going on, Master Jedi?"

He shook his head. "I don't know, Ma'am. Some strange robotic...things are stalking the halls and hunting down any sentient being they can find. Terran, Coredian, Anagonia, GDI, anyone. They have weapons that appear to leave dessicated corpses, and although the security forces managed to down a couple, they weren't equipped to handle what they were up against."

Samantha's eyes narrowed. "Why were their corpses dessicated? I don't see why they would want the little water we have in our bodies to risk such an attack here?" Lucas looked around nervously; being a Jedi apprentice had not prepared him for this.

"Well...ma'am...that's the thing. T...The corpses...I can't even sense them in the Force." She looked sharply at him.

"What do you mean? Do they have those rat creatures?"

He shook his head. "No, ma'am, there's no Force bubble. I mean, I can detect their victims when they're alive and when they kill them, they....vanish from the Force. I don't understand it. I also have sensed a strange....void, which absorbs the Force around it, moving around the ship." Samantha stared at him and was about to speak when an A.I. appeared.

"Ma'am, I am ready movements all over the station, and it's headed here. It would appear they've finished their.....sweep of the station and have found where the survivors holed up." Samantha nodded.

"Understood, Maria." She turned to the rest of the soldiers in the vast control room. "Alright people, these bastards are coming to finish us off, thinking we have only security armor and low-grade rifles to fight them with. What we do have is military grade armor, rifles and grenades. We show them the depth of human mean, and we show them they won't be allowed to get away with what they have done. Are you ready?!"

They gave a loud roar and she waved to the doorway. They piled into the defense fortifications put up around the door, in case the barricade and the turrets were overwhelmed. They would surely have a hard time getting through that tight and well-defended space. She turned to Lucas. "Alright, you go and get a signal out. Maria has already prelocked the message to go out to all members of the UGF, as well as to blast out towards occupied space and along the FEDBED. All you need to do is inform them of our plight and tell them to hurry, we-"

"INCOMING!" She whirled around to hear the turrets open up and the sound of energy pulses being exchanged with rail fire. She pushed Lucas towards the console. "The message, send it now! Go!" She pulled out a pistol and stood near the back, where Gary and Michelle were. The barricade and turrets held well, as they tore through the strange beings whom wielded the energy rifles, which spat black beams at them. A stray shot hit a soldier but his armor took it, although a large slash went through it, almost down to the skin. She shouted. "Grenade!" Someone tossed a sonic grenade and it vaporized those firing at the door. More came up and were cut down.

As they fought, Lucas started up the program and watched as it connected. Maria was on the pad beside him. "Come on, come on, come on!" He cursed under his breath as it took too long to start up, although it was moving as fast as possible.

Suddenly, no more of the beings appeared at the doorway. The soldiers waited for a possible rush or new attack, but nothing came. They let out a sigh of relief; they had beaten back an assault. "Wait, what the hell?" The soldiers looked to see they could see their breath; the room had gotten colder. "Oh shit, LOOK!" They turned their guns to see a shadowy figure of...something appear in the door and look at them. If there was one thing they knew, anyone who had seen that thing on the station... had died. It gazed at them for a long time, its glowing yellow eyes looking as if it was....amused It then began to slowly glide forward. A roar came from the soldiers and they poured fire into it. To their horror, bullets simply passed through it and it continued on, unabated. Lucas felt the void and looked behind him to see it getting close to the barricade.

"SHIT SHIT!" He turned to the computer. "Come on! Work! BY the Force, WORK!"

The shadow paused, ignoring all the fire and gazed at the turrets, who were firing at them. The soldiers would then see their hopes die as a hand formed from the shadow and gestured at the turrets. With a loud screech, they were ripped from the wall and came to float beside the being. Samantha gazed at it, fear rising within her. It couldn't use the Force which meant..."Shit, PSIONIC!" The shadow moved and hurled one of the turrets at the barricade, where it exploded in a large fireball, throwing men back into the room. It then launched the other two into the fortifications inside the room,sending more soldiers flying. It then calmly proceeded to float into the room, bringing its aura of cold with it. Soldiers rushed to engage it but it merely picked them up with its powers and fling them about the room, or ripped them apart. It bore down on Samantha, ripping and flinging obstacles out of its way. Gary and Michelle stood their ground, stubborn and determined. She looked at them.

"NO NO, GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" The shadow seemed to paused, as if surprised at their bravery....then two hands reached out into their chests and with shrieks of pain from both soldiers, it ripped out two glowing orbs, leaving dessicated bodies to fall to the ground. It pulled these orbs into itself and a sickly sound of what had to be consumption was heard. Then it turned to Samantha, who was rooted by terror as it approached. It was at this time that the other beings began to rush in, taking advantage of the distracted, scattered soldiers, and began to slay them, methodically using their black beams to leave more dessicated corpses. Also, the computer pinged and Lucas began his desperate message.

"All UGF, GFFA forces, hell anyone who gets this. Please send help to the coordinates, we are under attack by a foe who cannot be stopped by conventional weapons. Please, hurry we need-" As the signal was open, those who received the transmission would hear the final, long, death scream of the Commander as the shade closed in on her. Maria had vanished and was nowhere to be seen. Lucas turned desperately to the screen. "Please, send help, anything! They need to be stopped, before they reach-huAGHHHH!" A black claw came through his chest holding an orb of bright white light. The Jedi's eyes rolled up into its head and its body quickly became dessicated and slumped to the floor. The claw, seen on the transmission, would then close around the orb and the same, disgusting sound of eating would be here. Then, one of the strange beings (http://me-korea.wikispaces.com/space/showimage/geth.jpg) would come into view, look at the screen and then fire at it, cutting off the transmission.

Now, it was simply a matter of time before people came to find out what had happened to this cut off GDI station....

Definately tagging for participation. That is some of the best writing I have read in a while.

OOC: Kaldari - you have a TG

OOC: I already talked to him LOL I think he might have a lot of TG's Excellent opening post Playing as the Lady of Cats Keep
_______________________________________________

Any one who investigated Karos Trade Outpost 34-I would know that there had been Jedi there, and more than likely other users of that esoteric emanation known as the Force. They had died. Readily available information gave the facts that the Outpost had a local garrison of troops. They were not the best of the best, they manned the planetary garrisons, but they still were competent soldiers. And the digging was deep enough to let the researcher know that the reposts on the troop’s qualifications had not been inflated. They were as advertised, competent troops. They had died.

Every one had died. It sounded like the end of Hamlet, or maybe a bad slash and gore fest manga. But dead was dead, and Karos Trade Outpost 34-I wasn’t answering. Nor was the transponder of Imperial Heir to the Phoenix Thorne of Tanara, one Captain Gregor McKenzie of the trading vessel Mandarrien Venture. The first of the nine Imperial Heirs to be appointed – and the only one so far, so shortly into the new Empress’s reign.

The Empress had told her senior most Hand to look ‘Solve It’, and Peregrine Omega intended to. Quickly she had come to the conclusion that the last message out wasn’t a hoax, wasn’t an invasion by known but disguised military force, wasn’t an outbreak of a known, or currently unknown, disease. A missing and have to be presumed dead – Imperial transponders just didn’t stop transmitting Imperial Heir…

While she pondered whom to send she received a Ping, alerting her to a real time FTL communications transmission from Earth. And even with the relays that was a small fortune and a half every second, considering that she was currently on Midgard, some six hundred million LY from Earth. As she was asking Sha’do, her ever cynical CS to bring activate the exchange, the system changed the flagging to a recorded message. One recorded ten hours earlier, or so the time stamp read when she opened it.

“Peregrine, Shalamar. I need you to provide me transportation to Outpost 34.” Played the message word for word. But then again the Lady of Cats Keep wasn’t known for explaining her requests, much less her orders. And that was definitely an order. Peregrine judged her more dangerous than any Nietzschean Pride Matriarch she’d ever heard of and that was worth noting.

Millions of Light Years away...

Shalamar slept, she would need to now, for there would not necessarily be time later her precognition – always the most unreliable of a psionics arsenal.- advised her. Her sleep was deep and dreamless…or was until the first notes played (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zt09A-Xd7o). And after twenty five years she knew instantly what was happening. And knew she could not prevent it, could not wake,,,

She tossed restlessly now in her sleep, reliving what the music heralded…

Shalamar, Lady of Cats Keep, sighed and shifted irritably on the hard seat of the throne. ‘I think it’s time for new cushions’ she grumped to herself. ‘Why can’t I have a nice comfortable EZ -Boy instead of this monstrosity?’ She answered herself ‘Because your people made this to honour you and what you represent, a gift that you had not the hardness of heart to refuse, you big marshmallow’. Sighing inwardly once more, she gritted her teeth and firmly turned her attention to the petitioners before her. Their case was easy enough to see the answers to, and with thoughtful discussion she mediated a settlement that all three parties were content with. This was the last but one as the pseudo sun of the Shadow Realm began to settle behind the Storm Wall that marked the boundary of Cats Keep’s domains. Soon the first of the three moons would be rising, tiny green hued Lyriel to speed across the heavens, to be followed more sedately by rosy Fionne, and battered Ti’ain.
As the trio now chatting amiably among themselves in low voices departed, she turned to her herald, Corwin. Her look signaling him that it was time to call the last group forth. He returned her smile and looked at his notes. It was just habit, for he had perfect memory and had never, in the over eleven thousand years that Shalamar had known him, made a mistake when speaking before the court. ‘That I' aware of...thank the Divine I’ve not had to endure the boredom of court for most of that time. I can remember when Jo left - as if it were yesterday, ‘stead of near twelve hundred…it doesn’t seem to have been that long. Goddess I miss her. She’d give me one of her patented looks and we’d both be fighting not to giggle and ruin the ‘solemnity of the occasion’…damn it boss I never wanted your job! I’ve got to stop wool gathering, but something, something is niggling at me and…Pay attention, these youngsters are here to be officially noticed by you so DO SO!' Shalamar chastised herself as Corwin’s rich baritone, unchanged by the years, sounded through out the vast, high ceilinged hall, carrying to every nitch and corner clearly.

“Will Evard, Lord Bjornsburg, present himself before the…” Corwin’s voice was drowned out by the reverberating bass peal of hard struck metal filling the Hall like thunder and making the very foundations quake. The unexpected echoes that followed silenced the sudden flurry of gasps and half formed questions. The Great Hall of Cats Keep had been specifically designed to damp echoes and conversations but now the gaily clad throng were darting stunned looks at one another, their peaceful afternoon visitations abruptly ended, flirtations and conversations stilled.

The Bell of Challenge had been rung. The silence that followed was deafening.

It had been a long day for Admiral Anderson, the commander of the Second Fleet. The one whom had suffered such a horrific defeat at Jurai, he had been the commander who had to deal with the horrific casualty list, the shattered ships, the despairing soldiers. They had prevailed, but it had taken a lot of work. And after all that had been done, he had continuously been crushed under by paperwork. You'd never think a simple action as a reassignment could create so much paperwork, but it did. Shaking his head, he set aside the last stack of papers and sat back. Rubbing his eyes, he glanced at the clock. It was one in the morning, here at Mars anyways. He picked up his hat and set it on his head when the light on his desk came on and his A.I., Lucifer, shimmered into being. The archetype of the Devil seen in many movies, he wore a sleek tie, white suit and pants, and had the look of a bad boy about him. He was a bit arrogant at times, but he was still a very good help to Anderson.

"Sir, the FEDBED just received a distress call. From one of our remote trading stations."

He grunted, as he slipped on his jacket. "You mean one of those little dots we put out in space where people can trade and all that? Why is this supposed to be news to me? Simply have someone send a ship to go investigate."

"Well, that's the thing, sir. The message....it isn't quite normal." Anderson paused in mid-click as he was buttoning up his jacket.

"What do you mean 'not normal?" The A.I. waved a hand and the desperate last message of the Coredian Jedi played, screams and all. Anderson's blood chilled as he heard the screams, and at how a single hand ripped out something that had completely dried up the Jedi's body. Then how some strange cyborg construct had shot the screen. He sat down and looked at Lucifer.

"Alright, let's get to work. You file a report to High Command and let them know about what is going on. I'll have a frigate sent with a full debriefing on that message. Tell them to be heavily armed and ready for anything. I will rustle up what reinforcements can be sent, in case things go bad."

Lucifer nodded. "Any specific captain you want on this mission, sir?"

Anderon paused a moment. "Schaffer. Captain Schaffer." Lucifer grinned. Schaffer was one of the oldies, a man who knew the book by heart and didn't use a single page of it. He did things his own way and they worked.

"Very well, sir." And he vanished. Anderson picked up his phone and began to dial a number....


***********

Several hours later....

There was a ripple and the vague outline of a ship appeared. Within moments, it coalesced with a flash into the form of a Hawk-class frigate (http://i91.photobucket.com/albums/k308/Nirokasa/hyperion.jpg), the GDIS Pearl. It was a simple name, but Schaffer liked it that way. However, there was nothing he liked about the mission he was on. He glanced back down at the report InOps had given him. A desperate and horrific message sent from a tiny trading outpost in the middle of nowhere. The perfect place for an attack the GDI could not really counter. But why the hell a trading station? Probably had something to do with how the Jedi in the video had become dessicated. Whatever it was that had its hand in the Jedi's chest had wanted something with the people. It didn't sound good, though. Conventional weapons weren't able to hurt that thing, so what WAS able to? He shook his head; nonsense, there wasn't anything that couldn't be hurt by good ole firepower. It may take some time, but they would go down.

He turned to his crew and spoke in a gravelly voice. "Alright, what do our eyes see?" As was standard procedure, they had deployed SkySentry drones to disperse throughout the system and scan for any sign of the attackers, as well as scan the station. The bridge crew quickly scanned the information.

"Well, there is nothing out here sir. No planets, a bit of a gas cloud at the edge of the system, but nothing much. Aside from our station, there ain't nothing here."

Schaffer's eyes narrowed. "Alright, what do we know about the station?"

"Well, sir, this is Karos Trade Outpost 34-I, under the command of a one Commander Samantha. It had a decent garrison of troops, along with the bodyguards of the traders and the Coredian Jedi. They even had military equipment there, to repel any invaders. We are detecting three docked ships, one Coredian, a Tanaran, and an Abh. The station is still running, although there are power outages in key areas. I am detecting no life signs. No people, no animals, nothing. The place is dead."

"Any radio traffic?"

The officer shook her head. "None, sir. We also don't detect any of those strange beings we saw on the video. Orders, sir?"

The Captain rubbed his chin, he had a bad feeling about this in his gut. Something wasn't right here. They didn't have any Intel, they had no idea who or what they were going up against was. They only knew what that video had shown them. He sighed, letting go of the building frustration. "Make do with what you have, Jim. That's all you can do sometimes."

"Alright, Have five assault pods readied, with the commando teams ready to go. I want all of our standing forces ready to be mobilized at the drop of a hat. If anything goes wrong, they'll be sent in. Also, get me some more detailed scans on those ships. I want to know why they haven't left yet." He didn't say what they all thought, that the crews had all died too. They sent out the orders and the interior of the ship was soon swarming with running soldiers as they organized into their regiments, getting their gear and reporting to their sergeants. Although they hoped they wouldn't have to fight whatever this shadow of a threat was, they still prepared for it, nonetheless. As they prepared, five elite squads of commandos, five soldiers each, shot from the Pearl and headed for the station. These were assault pods, armed with heavier hulls, a few weapons and a metal spike for piercing enemy shields, hulls, etc.

They slammed into the station at various points, the loud screeching of tearing metal filling the corridors. The commando squads, wearing their armor painted black, spread out throughout the station. The harsh calls of the sergeants rang out and the clatter of booted feet could be heard. The five squads made a sweep of the area, looking in the rooms and shops of the station. The station was pitch black, with the night vision HUDs of the soldiers being the only thing allowing them to see. One squad, Alpha Squad, walked into the command center, to turn it back on and get an assessment. Sergeant Peterson held up a hand, and the squad paused, guns at the ready. He waved one of the men forward,who came up and quickly pressed the open key. The door shot open, and they all tensed, rifles ready. But there was nothing but a dark room. The soldier by the door moved in and turned on his suit flashlight. It washed over the room, as they took in the sight of the bodies. The dead, dried up skin.

"Good God....."

"Cut the chatter. Look for a command console."

The soldiers quickly covered the area and found the command console....with the body of the Jedi they had seen in the transmission. "Sergeant, over here!" Peterson, looking down to close the eyes of the former commander Samantha, jerked up and ran over. Glancing at the dead Jedi, he looked at what they had found. Yeah, it was the command console alright. He nodded.

"Boot it up. There should be an A.I., have it tell us what happened."

The soldiers began the power-up sequence, and the computer stayed dead. "Sir, it has no power." Perterson growled and put a hand to his helmet. "Beta thru Epsilon Squads, status!"

"Nothing yet. I've secured the power systems, but they're fried. We're pulling in replacements. Power should be on again soon.

"Same here, nothing. No sign of that shade thingy, nor of that robot. All we have is a lotta dead bodies."

The others reported similar stories. "Very well, keep looking." He then switched frequencies.

"Pearl, this is Sergeant Peterson, do you copy over?"

"This is Pearl, we copy. What is your status?"

"We have found the command console, but are waiting for Beta Squad to restore power. Once it is, we will be able to talk to the station A.I. and find out what is going on."

"Understood. Report back if you find anything new. Pearl out."

The commander turned and looked at the body of the Jedi. Whatever had done this, they would pay big time. They may have overwhelmed the guards of this station, but they would be encountering the military might of his commandos, and nothing had survived that yet.

The Bottom Line (http://www.doga-resource.com/BelDragos%20images/freighter3.JPG) cruised through Jump Space. The eerie immaterial forms of energy fractured around the ship’s navigational shields as it rushed through the energy forms. The prow of the vessel jutted above the general plane of the ship’s body, elevating the crew quarters and the command bridge of the old freighter. The superstructure of the ship arched over the external cargo pod racks, reserved for large containers that would hold merchandise that was not climate sensitive and would survive without an atmosphere or even environmental controls, mostly construction equipment for colony worlds. The rest of the ship contained internal cargo bays and the huge tanker could actually carry a lot as it did when it was new several decades ago.

The immense vessel was a throwback to days long gone and the wear and tear on the ancient hull showed it. Scores of carbon scarring showed across the hull, a testament to the ship withstanding a history of pirate raids.

“Captain, we are loosing containment in reactor seven.”

“Dammit, if you cannot restore containment, eject the damn thing before it takes out the whole ship.”

One of the other crew, the comm. Officer, was taken aback by the prospect of jettisoning the reactor core. “But Cap’t, without Reactor seven, we will lose long –range comms.”

“Would you rather the ship is damaged so you can call your girlfriends? If that thing blows inside the ship, she would be damaged severely, probably killing us all from decompression. I know you are green, but not that green.”

“Sir, I cannot get the reactor to reset, she is going to begin cascading. If it starts it might take out the other reactors.”

“Eject it immediately. All hands, prepare for emergency maneuvers. Get us away from that implosion.”

On the aft section of the main superstructure, four explosive bolts blew, releasing an emergency hatch. Immediately, a wash of air was vented, pushing out the reactor. The jet of air propelled the glowing device clear of the ship and moments later the huge vessel was rocked as the reactor blew. Emergency alarms sounded throughout the ship as hull joints were strained.

“Captain, damage reports throughout the entire ship. We have hull breeches on deck three and engines. Environmental is holding and emergency bulkheads sealed the damaged areas. I have reports of eight injured and two dead. Comms are out and the jump drives have become unstable.”

“Damimit, what is the nearest place we can get to that can handle repairs?”

“There is a small trade center run by the GDI about an hour away if the engines can hold out that long.”

“Put on a suit and go down there and coax everything out of her that you can. We need to make it to that station or we will be lost out here for years.”

Almost an hour later, the massive freighter appeared with a flash of light. The damaged freighter either drifted or flew to the automated docking stations, it was hard to tell but probably a little of both. The coms were curiously empty and any attempts at initializing communication would fail due to the damaged communication systems.

The warShip (http://www.atddm.com/warshop.jpg) had swum through the weirding vortices of light that were the otherSpace that the Ships used to traverse the depths of space at many times the speed of light. A million Light Years in but ten decands -a passage of time equalling ten minutes as recognized by the Interstellar Atomic Time Commission - was cruising speed to the living beings born and bred deep in the hidden congeries. It had been easier for the warShips, awoken after several hundred of millennia of dreamless oblivion to take up the current standard of speech and thought rather than try and force their new partner races into the ancient, no longer living ways. Even the Xa had changed. But change was to be expected and the beings that were the warShips accepted it, with outward good grace. Then it was at it’s destination and it eeled forth from otherSpace with an agility no vessel constructed of inert metals or advanced composites could emulate.

Shalamar stood on the bridge, cinnamon amber eyes locked on the forward holovue, her eyes wide as she took in the glory of a stellar system laid out before her. “Simply magnificent” she breathed. Shalamar, Lady of Cats Keep (http://www.atddm.com/Shal1a,jpg) was over twelve thousand years old and had seen and done much. but this was a new and unique experience for the tart tongued elder. Tall with dark auburn hair and fair skin she certainly did not look her age. But she didn't look - and more to the point 'feel' a wholely human. There was a barely perceptable, but constantly shifting, almost a mirage of an image overlaid...But then again she'de left 'human' behind a long time ago.

The warShip’s Av’self and it’s Bonded smiled in unison at her marvelment.. For them it was commonplace, but they could well remember their own ages long ago wonderment that had mirrored hers now.

“My sensors are registering an Initiative Frigate, though I am not certain of the specific class, Karos Trade Outpost 34-I with three docked ships, seemingly a one Coredian, another apparently an Abh, and the Mandarrien Venture. I am also seeing assault pods attached to the station“ The warShip brought the area about the station into magnified view. “Twenty five life signs aboard the station, I would guess from the assault pods. This station is on the edge of the system, planets in normal orbits…but there is a gas cloud at the edge of the system… and a damaged freighter of some type not in my data banks that has just made’ The wince was obvious “hard dock with the station”

“I probably have seen too much Star Trek but take a good close look at that gas cloud. This might be shades of ‘Day of the Dove’ or ‘Wolf in the Fold’, though of course it’s not going to be that easy, And let that frigate know who we are and why we’re here. I ‘d rather they not try and put holes in you. As I understand it there is some sort of agreement between Tanara and the Initiative.”

“Yes we are both part of the UGF and introductions away” The warShip’s Bond announced softly as the communications a array initiated the hailing of the Initiative’s ship.

“This warShip Noh’ Vinh of the Fleet of the Claw, seconded to the Phoenix Empire of Tanara. We are here to investigate a distress call and the loss of contact with the Tanaran merchant registry vessel Mandarrien Venture. We request permission to send a shuttle either to you or to Trade Outpost 34-I.

Schaffer stood on the bridge of the Pearl[i], drinking a cup of hot coffee. The reports from the squads had been good. The power had been fully restored, and the scanners reported that nothing, aside from them, was in the base. The computer was being coaxed into working,but that was taking time. Suddenly the alarm went off, and he jerked his head over the tactical screen. "What do we have, Lieutenant?" The officer looked at her screen and began typing.

"Uhh...lets see. It's some kind of damaged freighter. Putting the I.D. into the databanks...." She then replied. "It's some kind of trading ship, I.D. Doesn't match our databank data." He watched as it began to drift towards the station. The officer turned to him. "Orders, sir?" The captain glanced at the screen then looked at her.

"Well, that thing is way too damaged to put up a fight. However, we can take no chances. Have Gamma and Theta Squads quit their search and get to Airlock...." He checked his datapad. "32-A. And tell the boys at the command console, to activate the automatic docking systems; they'll make sure the ships docks without tearing a hole in the station." She nodded and began to work on it.

The station, when the ship came into range, activated its gravitic beams and held the ship in its control, then deftly maneuvered it into an empty docking area. Then, as it docked, ten fully-armed and armored commandoes waited behind cover in the room of the station containing that airlock.

Before Schaffer could relax, there was another alarm and another ship appeared. It was of decent size and most definitely NOT damaged. He immediately ordered for shields to be raised and weapons armed. "What am I looking at, Lieutenant?" There was a pause and then a sigh of relief.

"Don't worry, sir. It's Tanaran." Schaffer relaxed a bit. He ordered for the weapons to be put on standby but keep the shields up. With all these arrivals, he didn't know what to expected. "incoming message." He waved.

"Put it through."

“This warShip Noh’ Vinh of the Fleet of the Claw, seconded to the Phoenix Empire of Tanara. We are here to investigate a distress call and the loss of contact with the Tanaran merchant registry vessel Mandarrien Venture. We request permission to send a shuttle either to you or to Trade Outpost 34-I.

He nodded to his communication officer, who opened his part of the channel. "Greetings, I am Captain Schaffer, aboard the GDI frigate [i]Pearl, Second Fleet. We have come in response to the signal as well. We understand why you are here and if you would send a shuttle over, we would be happy to discuss the situation. Coordinates to an open hangar are included with this message."

"Greetings, I am Captain Schaffer, aboard the GDI frigate Pearl, Second Fleet. We have come in response to the signal as well. We understand why you are here and if you would send a shuttle over, we would be happy to discuss the situation. Coordinates to an open hangar are included with this message."


"They have replied promptly and ask that you come aboard their ship, the GDI Pearl." The warShip's Bond (http://www.atddm.com/wsbond.jpg) said in her unnaturally calm voice.

Or maybe I'm just hearing it as such. I thought few things gave me the willies any more but the Bond sure does. I know she used to be hum, and I'm well used to people who aren’t human any longer, but she raises every hackle I have Lady Shalamar thought deep in the most heavily shielded part of her mind, while she nodded with a pleasant expression on her face. "Excellent. Please, if you would, prepare a shuttle. I have to admit no knowledge of piloting one though."

"That will be no obstacle. It will be a part of me, and I will direct it." The warShip’s Av’self spoke for the ship.

"Then I will go at once." Shalamar turned to follow the guide light as Noh’ Vinh replied to their communication from the Pearl, thanking them for the permission to send a shuttle and announcing that the shuttle would be away in three minutes.

And in exactly three minutes a smaller replica of the warShip was darting agilely away from its parent to loop toward the frigate. Soon it was settling to the deck plates of the Initiative ship. Lady Shalamar stood, and once the ramp had been lowered strode down it, the deep crimson of her silk robes and veils – warning and protection both – swirling around her.

The Bottom Line drifted toward the station. The giant freighter seemed to be completely out of control and actually traveled at a slight angle instead of straight. Wisps of vapor leaked out of the ship at several locations, namely midsection in the upper crew area and from a deep hull breach in the aft section where the engines were obviously located. The ship was washed over by the GDI sensors and they could tell from the power fluctuations, the ship was in trouble. There were no EM emissions indicative of any form of active communication system. Furthermore the power systems seemed to be in a constant state of fluctuation as if part of the generation systems were missing and the rest was destabilizing fast. This amounted to the ship being nearly an uncontrollable hulk of metal that was closing upon the station.

The power fluctuations caused some sort of bizarre interference so it was hard to tell the size of the crew but there were at one time or another several dozen life forms detected at various points around the ship. These points of life seemed to be in a hurry as they scurried around the ship in and out of detection zones. Any teleportation technology would not be ensured of retrieving all the crew.

Aboard the ship’s bridge, the spartan and aged equipment was truly showing their age. Klaxons were blaring accompanied by flashing red lights. Several panels were still smoking while others were covered with flame-retardant foam while the crew were bust tossing aside the empty extinguishers.

“Damage assessment”

“The power backlash blew through the surge protectors and took out the internal com system. Navigation blew and we have no engine control. We are completely adrift.”

“What is our heading?”

“”Sensors are out but if we are still on our last known trajectory, we should be headed right for the station.”

“Shit… Turn off those fucking alarms. I can’t think clearly.”

After a few moments, the klaxon was cut leaving the bridge suddenly too silent. The sizzle of the control panels, pardon me, the now useless control panels was the only sound. The Captain was pacing back and forth across the bridge while the crew watched him, hoping he would come up with an idea.

“…Navigation out, Comms out, Sensors out, Life support holding, Engines out, we are blind and deaf. We have no way to communicate and our power is barely holding but could fail at any moment. The reactors are critical but holding at the moment…”

“Captain, we got a sensor flash before they went out as we left Jump Space. I have compiled the data and there were signs of a warship in the system. There was no indication as to who’s it was.”

“Damn damn damn! If we don’t get some sort of communication out to them then we are completely fucked. They will open fire on us before we can endanger the station. Unless we come up with a way to communicate with them we will be eating plasma torpedoes.”

“Sir, that is impossible, the ship’s Comm System is completely shorted out. It is nothing but fused metal at this point.”

The captain stopped and looked funny at his comm. Officer. “What did you say?”

“I said the ship’s Comm System is comple…”

“That’s it! The ship’s systems are fried but not the EVT suits. Thom, get one of the environmental suits up here right now. Steve, take the radio out of it and rig up some way to boost the range. If the gods are with us, we might get enough out of it to tell them not to fire on us.”

Thom rushed out of the bridge to the nearest airlock to retrieve the suit and Steve started to scrounge the bridge to make a make-shift signal boost.

“Sir, what about stopping?”

“I am still working on that one. First we have to get them to keep from firing at us until the last moment.”

Thom rushed onto the bridge dragging the suit and the utility belt. “I thought we might need some of the tools so I brought it along.”

Steve hurried over to Thom and they began to dismantle the radio from the suit while Thom dismantled the power supply for the power tools…

Several minutes later…

“…so I crossed the power supply from the radio with the extra boost from the tool pack. I had to canonize part of the circuitry to make the booster but it will send a signal, it just will not be able to receive any because I had to use that part of the circuit for the signal boost.”

“Good work, let’s crank it up to see if it works.”

“Power is on; nothing seems to be burning out. It is working but I can’t be sure how long it will so you better hurry.”

Attention all area vessels, This is The Bottom Line. We are attempting repairs but have multiple system failures. Please do not fire at us, we are attempting to make repairs but …

The make-shift radio rig suddenly flared with white sparks as the transmitter which was taxed beyond design specs failed. The message suddenly cut off and the ship was silent again.

“I hope to god they got the message before the transmitter fried. If not, we are next.”

“Captain, I’ve been thinking. We need backwards thrust to stop the ship, right?”

“Yes, but we don’t have time to rig up any engines. If we did we could fix ours.”

“We already have an engine and it is facing in the right direction. We only have to charge it.”

“Huh?”

“What is most of this ship?”

“Cargo holds. I don’t see what you are getting at…”

“Well, we can isolate the crew onto decks one and two. Then use Environmental Control to pump the atmosphere from the remaining decks into a single forward cargo hold. When we approach the station, we just vent the forward hold and the venting will apply backwards thrust. It might be enough for the station to use their tractor beams to capture us. We don’t have to actually stop, only slow down enough for their systems to be able to stop us. Once the umbilical connects, we can resupply the decks below so we can use them.”

“How will we know when to do it? We are completely blind.”

“We know our speed and the direction we were heading. We can calculate when to open the forward hatch based on that information.”

“I see, start pressurizing the forward cargo hold and have everyone evacuate to these two decks.”

“We need to pressurize the surrounding decks to about half the forward so there is less of a chance of an internal failure. We also will be able to add those atmospheres to the thrust ratio. Environmental systems have started diverting all available gasses to the forward holds. We don’t have much time but it will be close.”

Everyone on the bridge watched the two readouts. One was the countdown clock to when they had to open the airlock and the other showed the progress from Environmental. When one of the other crew suggested dropping the external cargo pods the captain gave him a sharp look while John explained that they would become multiple kinetic missiles. It would be the same as attacking the station with slow moving kinetic rams. They would punch holes through entire sections. Connected to the ship, the whole thing would only make a single large hole and not twenty smaller ones.

“Thirty seconds…”

“Twenty...”

“Ten…”

“Five…”

“NOW!”

The forward cargo hatches slowly began to open. Visible jets of air could be seen rushing out the hatch. The ship groaned as it experienced forces from a direction it was not built for. Several bulkheads warped and klaxons began sounding again. The ship visibly began to slow until the air jet stopped, the surrounding cargo holds vented their atmospheres into the forward and the second and final wave of air rushed outward into the void. A number of cargo crates was caught by the rushing air and torn from their moorings to float off into the black emptiness.

The ship again slowed until it was just creeping toward the station, which at this point was very close. The gravitics of the station kicked on and multiple tractor beams lashed out to push against the incoming ship. The automatics were putting every bit of power they possessed into trying to stop the runaway ship.

The hull of The Bottom Line struck the station sending a reverberating shock through the station followed by a laud groan of metal that was felt more than heard. Alarms went off as multiple force fields snapped into place moments before the impact to absorb the immense stress of the collision. As everyone both on the wayward freighter and the station’s docking ring held their breath, the emergency systems of the docking ring held. Slowly the tractors shifted the bulk of The Bottom Line to a nearby docking arm and then the umbilical snaked out to attach to the ship, drawing it closer to connect the ship’s systems to the station. The magnetic seal was activated and the arm filled with atmosphere. It took several minutes for the Environmental Systems to refill the ship and the boarding team waited patiently. Aboard the freighter, the crew were cheering and shouting. They survived and now all that was left was to go down and apologize for the rough meeting.

Several minutes later, the airlock opened and the captain was greeted by armed guards.

"All UGF, GFFA forces, hell anyone who gets this. Please send help to the coordinates, we are under attack by a foe who cannot be stopped by conventional weapons. Please, hurry we need-" As the signal was open, those who received the transmission would hear the final, long, death scream of the Commander as the shade closed in on her. Maria had vanished and was nowhere to be seen. Lucas turned desperately to the screen. "Please, send help, anything! They need to be stopped, before they reach-huAGHHHH!" A black claw came through his chest holding an orb of bright white light. The Jedi's eyes rolled up into its head and its body quickly became dessicated and slumped to the floor. The claw, seen on the transmission, would then close around the orb and the same, disgusting sound of eating would be here. Then, one of the strange beings would come into view, look at the screen and then fire at it, cutting off the transmission.
"--and that's all that's left of the transmission, sir." An aide reported to me on the loss of the station.

"Troublesome." I grumbled. "Lucas was a fine Jedi. Thank you, Robert. Dismissed."

The man bowed and walked out.

"We'll need to send someone out to investigate this. Heavily armed as well." Sarinon noted.

Tsunade only smiled a bit about that. "I believe the Errant Story is in the area."

"Travis' first ride?" I smiled slightly. "Well, I suppose it couldn't hurt to contact him about it. We'll also need to send an assault shuttle with Demonhunters as backup. Just in case."

"Demonhunters?" Tsunade asked.

"Yeah. I got the impression from that transmission that we're dealing with something supernatural. Sending those guys should help." I nodded. "And then there's the nature of Travis' powers..."

"Indeed." Sarinon nodded. "Very well. I'll send the transmission. You'll write to Mrs. Lucas about her husband's loss."

I sighed. "Yeah, I know. It seems I'm writing to mothers and wives more often of late..."

=====

A clunky old YT-1300 puttered its way through space, belching smoke like a dragon...or more like a last rate ride that happened to be held together by spit and duct tape.

But it had a spot of sentimental value as it is Travis Masaki's first ship that's owned by him and him alone. If it wasn't so temperamental...

"Oy! Don't conk out on me!" Travis banged the computer with a vengeance. Fortunately, the banging seemed to have a positive effect. "There! That's better!"

"Hehe!" Hunny-senpai snickered. "When Al's Shipyard said it was a bargain, it really was a bargain. You're so gullible!"

Travis scowled deeply. "Don't remind me. I'll wring that guy's neck if I ever see him again!"

"Don't be so grouchy. It's good to test your mechanical skills on this ship. Besides, you went for the first ship you set your eyes on when you could have chosen something better." Another voice showed up to the bridge. Shinji clapped his hands full of dirt as a mouse-sized chibi ran in behind him. "The hyperdrive's working now. Cody's a really good help with the smaller parts."

"Glad to hear that." Travis nodded.

A warbling occurred and Travis slapped his hand down on the comm signal.

"Greetings, young ones. The Council has requested your aid in investigating a trade station that just went offline." King Sarinon said in a recorded message. "Karos Trade Outpost 34-I has gone offline about two hours ago and it is up to you to find out what happened. But beware. What we do know is that at least one Jedi has fallen to whatever attacked it. Stay alert and may the Force be with you."

"Hmm...the trade outpost isn't far from here. Just ten lightyears rimward from our current location." Cody said, pulling up a map. "It'll take a few minutes to get there."

"All right." Travis nodded. Typing in the coordinates, the navicom hummed happily as it digested the meal and then they jumped into hyperspace...and almost right back out.

"Hey, looks like the party's started already. I'm getting at least one GDI vessal plus a couple of others." Travis smirked. He began hailing the GDI ship.

"GDI vessel, this is the Errant Story. The Council has ordered us to investigate this incident. Where should we land?"

Meanwhile, the Coredian assault shuttle Dimetrodon-10 arrived a few minutes later and more or less said the same thing.

OOC: If you're wondering why Travis is here as well as in the past, this is a time before that major RP occurred.

The station resounded with a bell-like sound as the entire placed shuddered, sending many sprawling on their faces, while others grasped onto anything they could as they stumbled about. Sergeant Peterson swore sulfurously as he clung to the command console, which was finishing up its power-up sequences, and preparing for user interface. The guards at the airlock, after having the intense shock of the impact fizzle out, quickly reassumed their positions and waited as the environmental systems kicked in to pressurize the middle are and then when it opened and the Captain walked out, he saw a series of ten rifles pointed at him. After several moments, when the scans were finished, they lowered them. One of them stood up and walked over, his helmet pulling down into his suit. "Greetings, I am Sergeant Watson of Theta Squad. You gave us a real scare there. We are from the Galactic Defense Initiative, this is one of our trade stations. Mind telling us what you're doing all the way out here?"


************


Captain Schaffer looked at the message and nodded. "Let the station know they're good guys and just in need of repair. Meanwhile, have the Tanaran tended to. I want her ready in meeting room 4A in five minutes." He heard an affirmative and then turned to look back at his screen. The alarm rang out again and the familiar sight of a Coredian ship, albeit beaten up and crappy looking, came into being. He chuckled at the sight of it; he didn't even need to say anything. Everyone who beheld it was overcome with giggles, not terror. They must have gotten the signal too. Well, better accommodate them then. He read the message and then opened a channel. "Greetings, Captain Schaffer here of the GDIS Pearl. You can dock your ship on the station, coordinates being sent now. I ask you send a shuttle to my ship for a meeting. The Tanarans are already here and we're about to begin." After sending the message, he got up and after retrieving his coat and hat, began to make his way down the meeting room.



***********

As Shalamar descended from her shuttle, she was met with an escort of eight armed soldiers whom saluted her, with their commander stepping forward. "If you'll follow me, milady, we will take you to the Captain." Turning, he made a gesture and they formed up around her, and in no time at all, they were at the meeting room. The door opened and she saw the Captain sipping a glass of whiskey. He nodded to her and waved to a seat.

"Please sit down. Have some refreshments. We have food and drink in ample supply if you need it. The Coredians have arrived as well and we should be receiving a delegation from them shortly."

The alarm rang out again and the familiar sight of a Coredian ship, albeit beaten up and crappy looking, came into being. He chuckled at the sight of it; he didn't even need to say anything. Everyone who beheld it was overcome with giggles, not terror. They must have gotten the signal too. Well, better accommodate them then. He read the message and then opened a channel. "Greetings, Captain Schaffer here of the GDIS Pearl. You can dock your ship on the station, coordinates being sent now. I ask you send a shuttle to my ship for a meeting. The Tanarans are already here and we're about to begin." After sending the message, he got up and after retrieving his coat and hat, began to make his way down the meeting room.
Travis sensed the laughter from the Captain and scowled as he replied again. "Um...can't this little YT-1300 class transport and that assault shuttle (which is a bit smaller) land in your hangar bay? We're the size of shuttles, you know."

"Please sit down. Have some refreshments. We have food and drink in ample supply if you need it. The Coredians have arrived as well and we should be receiving a delegation from them shortly."

Once she'd returned the Captain's nod Shalamar took a seat, but politely declined the food or drink. Behind the crimson robes and veils, all that could be seen were her dark cinnamon brown hued eyes, and a bit of her eyebrows, which given their tint suggested that her hair might be auburn.

"Greetings Captain Schaffer, I am Lady Shalamar Thorskald. Tenerista of Cats Keep." She seemed to be slender and tall beneath the heavy silk robes, just under six foot in height, and limber. She wore the robes sith the comfortableness of some one who had for many many years. One could also see that she wore long gloves of the same material and hue.

The airlock door opened allowing entry into the boarding gantry. The captain and two of his crew had waited anxiously while life support had restored a breathable atmosphere into the ship between the upper two levels and the rest of the ship. It had taken several minutes and relied heavily upon the supply from the station The Bottom Line had just forcefully docked with. The freighter sustained damage to her port hull where it had contacted the station but nothing had breached the hull, thankfully.

The three made their way onto the gantry and the airlock closed behind them. As they walked the several meters, they could look out the windows and see the long expanse of the ship as it lay alongside the docking ring of the trade station. The captain winced as he saw what could only be damage caused by his ship as it struck the station. At least it only looked superficial and nothing serious. He hoped his insurance would cover the damages. He paid enough to those bastards so they better.

Stopping at the airlock door leading into the station, he took a deep breath. Whatever lay upon the other side he knew he was not looking forward to their reception. He fingered the data fob he had in his pocket containing a complete copy of the logs so they could back up his story. Reaching out a hand, he triggered the door and stepped forward with his “most honest” smile he had.

The guards at the airlock, after having the intense shock of the impact fizzle out, quickly reassumed their positions and waited as the environmental systems kicked in to pressurize the middle are and then when it opened and the Captain walked out, he saw a series of ten rifles pointed at him. After several moments, when the scans were finished, they lowered them. One of them stood up and walked over, his helmet pulling down into his suit. "Greetings, I am Sergeant Watson of Theta Squad. You gave us a real scare there. We are from the Galactic Defense Initiative, this is one of our trade stations. Mind telling us what you're doing all the way out here?"

Even expecting the presence of some sort of authority did not lessen the shock of coming face to face with ten rifles pointed at him. He could see indicator lights showing the things were loaded and powered up. If one of them had an itchy finger he was toast. He could not see their faces, their EV suits completely covered them so he could not tell their mood but another guard, presumably an officer since he was not holding one of those guns in his face, was holding a hand-held device that appeared to be a scanner. After several minutes where he could only see his own frightened face reflected in the EV faceplates the officer finally spoke.

"Greetings, I am Sergeant Watson of Theta Squad. You gave us a real scare there. We are from the Galactic Defense Initiative, this is one of our trade stations. Mind telling us what you're doing all the way out here?"

“Um, you gave us quite the fright there. I am Captain Sierra. The freighter out there is The Bottom Line. We had some difficulties with our power core about an hour back and had to eject it to save the ship. When it cascaded, it took out part of the starboard hull and ripped a sizable chunk out of the engines. We lost navigation, communications, and several other subsystems. About the only thing we had was environmental controls. Lucky that, without them we would have pasted ourselves against the station. If it wasn’t for the air braking maneuver we would not be talking right now.”

“I have a crew of about fifty that needs to have some time off that ship. What facilities do you possess for them and what is your dry-dock capable of? I would like to get repairs done so I can try to make it to by port in time for my delivery. I lost eight…”

Captain Sierra stopped when he noticed a funny look cross the face of Sergeant Watson.

“What’s wrong?”

Schaffer glanced back at the Coredian message. They did have a point. He opened the channel to the Coredians again. "Understood, sending coordinates of our hangar now. Come in on, you'll be met by an escort." Soon after the message, the Coredians landed and were met with the promised escort and moved to the meeting room. Soon enough, Travis and any of his entourage walked through the door to see the Captain and a strange robed woman sitting at a table. He waved them in, pointing to the refreshments on the table.

"Do feel free to eat and drink as much as you like. This is probably going to be the only moment of peace we'll have before we get this party started." He turned and nodded at the woman. "This is Lady Shalamar Thorskald, some kind of ruler of a place known as Cat's Keep, I guess. She is from the nation of Tanara, our fellow ally as I am sure you are aware." When he had sat in a chair, he took another sip of whiskey and looked at them. "Alright, before I begin, is there anything you want to ask or mention to me?"


As they all talked aboard the Pearl, Watson listened to the human traders report on his ship and what happened. It made sense, why they couldn't contact them, why the near collision had happened. He was about to answer his question on facilities and a dry-dock when a message hit his ear set. "Sergeant, we have the main computer online. We have...found something odd. We need all squads to report to the command center ASAP." The Sergeant narrowed his eyes. Something was wrong. What could they have found to warrant such an action. Turning to the captain, he spoke again.

"Sorry, I was getting orders from my commander. We do have facilities for your men, if you go down that hall and follow the signs on the walls, you'll find the recreation and cafeteria facilities. However, I will give you a warning. We are here in such battle array due to a distress call that has left the entire crew of this station dead. If you see any dead bodies, do not touch them; we have crews arriving soon to pick them up. As for your dry dock, there should be a couple of docking areas next to where your ship is. Now, I must go." He turned and motioned to his squad, whom followed him as he ran to the command center.

All the while, something stirred in the shadows; a single red eye opened and gazed at the unknowing forms of the human traders.


Good, more had come to the Hunt. They would feast plenty today....

"Do feel free to eat and drink as much as you like. This is probably going to be the only moment of peace we'll have before we get this party started." He turned and nodded at the woman. "This is Lady Shalamar Thorskald, some kind of ruler of a place known as Cat's Keep, I guess. She is from the nation of Tanara, our fellow ally as I am sure you are aware." When he had sat in a chair, he took another sip of whiskey and looked at them. "Alright, before I begin, is there anything you want to ask or mention to me?"
"Not really." Young Travis shook his head. "Let's get down to business. My name's Travis Masaki."

Hunny was already filling his plate with any sweets he found and eating them so quickly you'd think he inhaled them. His tiny voice piped up, adding a few flowers to his cute aura. "So, did you ever find out what's going on so far? By the way, I'm Mitsukuni Haninozuka, but everyone calls me Hunny. The quiet one over there is Shinji and the tiny one eating the chicken is Cody."

"Yo." "Hey."

"Sergeant Talbot." The gruff soldier scowled at the idea of his superiors sending brats to do a man's work. Well, orders were orders. "At your service."

As they ate, Travis noted that the Coredian soldiers that were sent by his father were led by a Sergeant Tabot and his ten men. Although they were carrying regular blasters, he noted that the Sgt. and two favored men was also carrying the same type of rifle his friend Nick liked to carry: a Holy Rifle. Something told him that this was not an ordinary search-and-rescue mission. His other friend Shinji also picked up on that.

Alright, before I begin, is there anything you want to ask or mention to me?"

"There should be no 'guessing' about it Captain Schaffer" Her voice was firm, cold and carried the weight of ancient, powerful Presence with it. Deliberately "That is, sadly, most likely what created this incident, in the form of not enough information." She looked away from the Captain, no little angered, behind shields none could penetrate or ever recognize as being there. by his cavalier attitude. There were people dead and he was drinking, and didn't bother to ask for elucidations or explanations for what he didn't know?

She let her eyes fall on the Cordians, then closed them - for just a moment- then opened them, hoping that her first view had been some sort of camouflaging illusion. Nope, they were what they were - powerful yes, but children. No worse, ‘tweens. Part of her was utterly aghast, but it was very deeply buried, utterly hidden. Baby Jedi Knights? The Universe had to be kidding her. It knew she had no sense of humor and was paying her back. But she was nothing if not a professional and began a more coherent explanation.

"I am Lady Shalamar Thorskald, Tenerista of Cats Keep. Roughly translated that means I am the senior psionic adept. The robes I wear are silk, a natural insulator for psionic energies. However they are not for my protection, but yours. I am an ally of The Phoenix Empire of Tanara and they upon seeing evidence of strong psionic activity ...and my own precognitive sense " Oh but she was reluctant to admit that. Psionics mostly loathed precognitive incidents. It was the most untamable, unguideable, of all the Donas, gifts, and thus most suspect. "Requested my assistance."

She looked back at the Captain “I have only one question. How soon can we start”

She'd let them guess as to how many she included in the 'we', for she had a small group of Tanaran Cadre with her, all vetrans of the Shadow Realm war, and thoroughly used to dealing with the more ...mythical side of life, and death, and unlife.

"Sorry, I was getting orders from my commander. We do have facilities for your men, if you go down that hall and follow the signs on the walls, you'll find the recreation and cafeteria facilities. However, I will give you a warning. We are here in such battle array due to a distress call that has left the entire crew of this station dead. If you see any dead bodies, do not touch them; we have crews arriving soon to pick them up. As for your dry dock, there should be a couple of docking areas next to where your ship is. Now, I must go." He turned and motioned to his squad, whom followed him as he ran to the command center.

“But if the engines don’t work how can we move the …”

Captain Sierra stared as the men literally ran away while he was talking. After a few moments the words of the sergeant hit him full in the face. A cold chill ran down his spine and he looked around to make sure everything was safe. He turned suddenly and put his hands on the chest of both his men and pushed none too gently. One of them had to reach out with a hand to catch himself to keep from falling.

“What the fu..?”

Sierra interrupted him speaking in a low voice, barely above a whisper.

“Men, back into the airlock and get into The Bottom Line, now! I don’t know what we have gotten ourselves into but if soldiers in full military gear are running like that you best take cover immediately.”

It took a moment for the two to think about it and they turned and hurried back along the gantry towards the safety of their own airlock. Captain Sierra was trailing behind them to make sure nothing was following.

Schaffer nodded at Travis, bowing his head in respect as he took another shot of whiskey. "Nice to meet you, Travis. The Initiative has not had much personal contact with the Coredians, so this is first time for everything scenario. So I apologize for advance for any mistakes I make. Same goes for you, Lady Shalamar." He nodded at Hunny, Shinji, and Cody. He glanced at the Tanaran, as she replied to him. Although she hid her anger well, the words were rather obvious in their meaning. He glanced at her and set down the whiskey.

"Now, look here. You have a title, and just because I don't get it right don't mean you get to bite MY ass on MY ship. If you're that huffy over something like that, you may as well leave now. Since my soldiers aren't too keen on titles anyways. Actions speak louder than those fancy words." He took a breath and then spoke again. "As for information, yes that we are lacking. I sent in my commando teams to secure the station as best they could and turn on the main computer. Hopefully they can get something from it. All we know is that that....thing which killed the Jedi in the message caused them to become some kind of husk, and it took something it wanted from them. Some kind of energy; I have no idea what. I deal with the practical and this breaks any laws I work with."

He heard her question and chuckled. "As soon as you'd like, Lady Shalamar. I merely was inviting you here to give the situation which isn't much. We also have some traders who have....I suppose had an accident with the station and are currently trapped. They are going back into their frigate until we have more of a handle on the situation. My commandos should be giving my a report any time now..."

"Pearl, this is Sergeant Peterson. We have a complication."

Schaffer sat up, eyes sharp. Pressing a key, he began to speak. "What do you mean, Sergeant?"

"The A.I. in the computer, sir....It's gone."

The Captain blinked once. "You mean they ripped out the A.I. core?"

"No sir. They appear to have hacked it out, somehow. The damage to the software in the A.I. core is immense. We have only managed to get bits and pieces out from the thing. Nothing intelligible yet; we're working on defragging it to get it into some kind of cohesive order."

Schaffer sighed. This was bad; they faced an enemy who knew what they planned to do before they even did it, implying loads of experience. This was bad. "Alright, I want you to do another sweep of the station, find any clues on where the A.I. might be and-"

Before he could finish, a voice on the other side interrupted him. "Sergeant! Power readings all over the base! There has to be dozens of them!"

"Dammit, Carson, calm down! Where are they?"

"Everywhere sir! All the sections! Reactor Room, Power plant, Security, the Cafeteria, everywhere! I don't know how we missed them in the initial sweep!"

They heard the commander swear and then begin to bark out orders. "Alright, break up into teams again. Alpha and Beta, stay here with me and fortify this area as best we can. Gamma and Theta, head to the two main corridors that lead to this part of the station and hold them. Epsilon, go cover the hangar bay that we came in from. That's our ex filtration and reinforcement point. If that goes, we go. Pearl, any back up you can send right now would be nice."

Schaffer turned and pressed another button. "Bridge, this is the Captain. Sound the alert; have the 21st send five squad of troops in to help the commandos." He turned to face the other members of the room. "I say now is the time to get in there and face whatever caused this, cause it looks like its ready to strike again." He got up and was about to head for the door when the channel squawked.

"SWEET MOTHER OF MARY! Fallback! Fallback!"

Sergeant Peterson's voice could be heard as weapons fire sounded over the com. "What the hell is going on? Squad, report!"

"This is Theta Squad! We've ran into that shade thing! He killed the captain of the human traders! Dammit, go down you fucker! Ion weaponry is ineffective, I repeat Ion weaponry is ineffective. Throw a grenade over there and then book it. We have to find a way to get away from this thing." There was then a pause and the firing stopped.

"What the hell? It vanished...Wait...what the-GAAK!" There was a soft hissing sound and the intense screams of the commando who was just speaking, following by sounds of gunfire and shouts from the other commandos. Then the channel fizzled out. Schaffer gazed at the thing as if it was a snake for a few moments, before opening the channel again.

"Sergeant! Fall back, get your men out of there!"

The channel was buzzing with static as the reply came through. "Impossible....squads...engaged....falling back to secondary tunnels....three men down....strange weaponry....Shade's everywhere.....need backup." The channel then squelched again. He gritted his teeth and then left the room, moving to the bridge to coordinate his efforts to save his men.

******************

Two minutes earlier....

The Hunter had watched this entire time. He had been watching for so long now. He had personally picked out the station for attack, scouting it out with the populace being unaware of his presence. Once deeming it a vital point to hit, with all the Jedi and other delicious souls there, he had worked in the shipments of Nijai in crates, and then masterminded the attack on the station, holding his attack back enough for the station to send out a distress signal, to draw ever more souls into the trap......

And now, he could feel the bounty that awaited him. The humans known as the Initiative had countless souls on their ship, but he had to wait until he had drawn off enough soldiers to surprise them and to get those delicious beacons into his hands. Yes, those delicious souls which had arrived from the depths of space to come here. There was....several beings whose auras reminded him of Jedi, but they seemed very different. And one exuded an aura that had enough power to actually give him a challenge. He smiled; it had been so long since he'd had a challenge. Then there was that other being.....hmmm her aura was one of great years and much power. She'd be the real threat...and the real prize. The battle to come with this being would be one to enjoy. But for now, he had his first target....this little crew was his first target. Yes, it was time. It was time for the trap to spring.

Awaken....Awaken my Nijai and strip the life from their bodies...for your gods.

The Nijai, hiding in various containers and crates powered up instantly from that command and the containers busted open to reveal entire squads of Nijai. As the commandos discovered this and began to go into action, the Shade dropped his shield, opening his void presence to all whom could sense it and appeared from the Captain's very shadow. Before he could even turn, a hand clamped over his face. Sierra's eyes would widen as he felt the cold, burning power of the Shade literally ripping out his life with every second, rapidly getting weaker and weaker. He would struggle, they all did in the end, but it would be in vain for the Shade was much stronger than he. The crew, whom had walked into the airlock, turned at his muffled screams and were terrorstruck as they saw him struggling. What was even worse was the fact his skin began to pull back, to darken and peel as if the liquids of it were drying up, and then he finally become a husk of its former self, as the Hunter briefly enjoyed the flash of pure life force before it was crushed into nothingness as it fed his eternal hunger. Smiling evilly at that, he waved a hand and he closed and locked the airlock.

Now to face those special warriors....he heard running footsteps and turned to see the commandos of Theta Squad bear around a corner and then skid to a halt when they saw him. There was a brief pause and then the Shade began to hover over to them, enjoying their futile resistance as they fired their weapons at him, doing no damage. He could have attacked from their very shadows, or even ripped them apart with his psionic abilities.

But where was the fun in that.....he had to have some sport with his prey. After all, what was a Hunt without some sport?

Now, look here. You have a title, and just because I don't get it right don't mean you get to bite MY ass on MY ship. If you're that huffy over something like that, you may as well leave now. Since my soldiers aren't too keen on titles anyways. Actions speak louder than those fancy words."

Shalamar ignored that. His misunderstanding of what about him had her angered meant nothing to her.

" I deal with the practical and this breaks any laws I work with."

"But not the ones I work with. Captain." came the simple, unrattled reply.

The minute that ...
"Pearl, this is Sergeant Peterson. We have a complication."

She heard that, her hand went to the hidden jewel at her throat and her powers, now massively augmented - not that they wouldn't have been sufficient unto themselves, but sometimes 'upping the gain' so to speak brought more to light- sprang forth, reaching out to the station.

Her first broad sweeps laid out where the human life forces were, those were simple bright gleams, the batteries that were their bodies pulsing with each's unique bioelectrical signature.

Then came the communication and fight with the newly appeared, or reappeared invaders...and Shalamar's head tilted to one side, she was not ...

"I say now is the time to get in there and face whatever caused this, cause it looks like its ready to strike again."

As the concerned captain left she sat back shaking her head in frustration, muttering under her breath...."There towards the last I felt something, I think...but whatever those invading entities are. I didn't pick them up, or simply don't recognize the signature as a signature."

Anderson watched with wide-eyed terror as the shadow thing grew from the Captain’s own shadow. The thing grabbed Sierra and the last thing he heard from the man was a dry rasping as if the shadow thing was stealing his very life’s breath away. Then the Captain began to dry out and deflate as if he was a balloon over a skeleton. The airlock door slammed shut with a KLANG and Jefferys slapped the emergency seal.

“Did you see that? What the fuck was it? I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Both men stood and looked out the thick Glassteel port and saw the thing let Sierra’s body fall. It bounced like a literal sack of potatoes in the low gravity of the gantry and his dried white eyes stared at the crewmen lifelessly. The black shadow looked up at the two men staring in horror at it and waved in a friendly manner. The casual wave made the whole apparition that much more horrific and both men ran screaming back into the only thing they knew as safe. The only thing either could remember was Anderson trying to shut every door behind him as he ran and Jefferys endlessly repeating, “Fuck, fuck, fuck, what are we going to do…”

Several minutes later both arrived at the bridge of The Bottom Line with white faces and scared shitless. Jefferys mind had cracked and he was reduced to a blathering idiot.

“…the shadows…they grabbed him…I can hear them coming…the shadows…”

Melinda was startled by the sudden entrance of the two and began to speak to them before noticing their faces.

“That was fast. Are they going to let us fix… What happened? Where’s the Captain?”

“…the shadows…they grabbed him…I can hear them coming…the shadows…”

Anderson grabbed Jefferys and slapped him, driving the insane man to the floor where he lay babbling. Anderson turned to Melinda and tried to talk between gasps of air.

“The Captain…was taken down…by something. It was…pure black, pure evil…and drained him dry.”

“…the shadows…they grabbed him…I can hear them coming…the shadows…”

He kicked once at the drooling man on the floor and was rewarded with a wet grunt. For the time being the unconscious man had stopped blabbering and only drooled saliva and a little blood. Melinda was horrified at Anderson’s actions.

“What the fuck? Why did you fucking kick him like that?”

“To shut him the fuck up.”

His violent and sudden reaction caused her to back away.

“What do you mean he is dead? The guards shot him?”

“NO! The guards ran away and then when we were returning back to the ship, something attacked him.”

“A Xeno?”

“I don’t have any fuckin’ idea what the hell it was. It reached right the fuck out of his own damn shadow and drained him fuckin’ dry. Right before our eyes.”

A moan from the floor captured Melinda’s attention. Jefferys was beginning to stir and muttered in his sleep.

“…the shadows…they grabbed him…I can hear them coming…the shadows…they’re coming for us all…”

“He is hurt, we need to get him to the Med Bay.”

“He’s lost his freakin’ mind is what has happened to him. We need to keep him medicated before he hurts someone.”

“You mean before you hurt him again.”

“Yeah, whatever. He needs something alright… Besides, it is safer in Medlab for all of us.”

The two began to drag him down the hall to the Med Lab.

Five minutes later the two entered the Med Bay dragging Jeffreys. Doc was there seeing to the eight injured from the explosion an hour before. In a separate room was the two who were killed, draped with a heavy cloth. Doc, upon seeing them directed an assistant to finish whatever he was doing and came over to help the two. They put Jefferys into one of the beds.

“What happened to him?”

“He kicked Jefferys in the face to silence him.”

Doc gave Anderson a look that would cause milk to curdle.

“You what?”

“I had to shut him up. He was fucked in the head and would not stop babbling about the thing that killed the Captain.”


“What?”

“I said he would not stop babbling…”

“I know that part, I meant the part about Captain Sierra.”

“He is dead.”

“How did it happen?”

“Something grabbed him out of his own shadow.”

“Bullshit, this is a joke.”

“Seeing that thing make him flip out. Jefferys is fucked in the head.”

“He also had a broken jaw because of you too. While I wire his jaw shut, get the crew up here. I want everyone to meet on the bridge in fifteen minutes. Get going while I take care of Jefferys.”

Schaffer turned and pressed another button. "Bridge, this is the Captain. Sound the alert; have the 21st send five squad of troops in to help the commandos." He turned to face the other members of the room. "I say now is the time to get in there and face whatever caused this, cause it looks like its ready to strike again." He got up and was about to head for the door when the channel squawked.
At the same time they listened to the panicked cries of the soldiers, Travis and company felt a strange and unsettling disturbance in the Force. "This isn't good. We gotta help them..."

"Not without a plan, kid." Sergeant Talbot replied. "You may be the Heir, but you can't go around galloping off to save people on the fly."

"I guess so. Um...they've got an army by the looks of it. I guess if we can take out their commander, they should be disorganized and we can take 'em all out. But I don't know..."

"Hmm. Either way, we'll have to be careful." Shinji said. "We know next to nothing about this threat."

"Aww, don't worry! Usa-chan can take care of 'em!" Hunny grinned.

"You don't mean your stuffed rabbit?" Travis rolled his eyes.

"It's not really stuffed." Hunny chuckled secretly. "You'll find out soon enough."

"Uh...ok...at any rate, we don't have time to waste. Let's go!" Travis ordered.

Peterson looked around him as ion blasts and dark energy beams criss-crossed the hallway and realized the commandos were in a bad situation. He couldn't report his location, so the Captain would have to rely on their homing beacons in their suits. However, even that was going to be hard as the battles going on in the station were making scanning a bit difficult. Especially with the power going out. He glanced down at the two bodies, the remainder of Gamma Squad. They had held off the strange synthetic forces while Alpha, Beta, and Epsilon teams set up a defensive position. He was forced to watch as they had their lives drained by strange black beams. It cut through their armor with repeated shots and then drained them. Just like the crew of the station had been.

"Here they come!"

He whirled around and saw more squads of the robots coming up from behind. Alpha, manning two rail machine-guns, began to pepper the hallway with rail shells. The bullets slashed into the enemy, cutting large holes in them and sending strange, tan liquid spewing about the floor. They began to try and charge, firing their weapons. But the Initiative warriors kept their heads down and the volume of fire was too much.

"They're coming over here too!" They were holed up in a section of a hallway, blocking the door to the reinforcement point. They were being hammered from both sides. Beta Squad had been sent to fight their way to the armory and get ammo and weapons, so they could hold out. He hoped they could do something about the Shade, because his soldiers simply couldn't hurt that thing. He hoped the Captain would be able to do something about it; otherwise, they'd have to blow the station to try and stop the damn thing. The commandos opened fire, Epsilon firing their Ion Rifles with great precision. Black and white blasts cut through the air of the hallway and filled the air with energy. A soldier was hit on the shoulder and grunted in pain, but he brought up his gun and continued firing. Peterson threw a grenade down the hall and was satisfied as he watched a group of them disintegrate from the sonic grenade. He saw more coming down the hallway, filling it to the brim. He gritted his teeth. Where did they keep coming from?

"Sergeant. Sergeant Peterson, do you copy?"

He turned to the radio they were using for communication and turned it on. "Yes, Control, I hear you. Any updates on getting my soldiers out of here?"

"Don't worry, Sergeant. I have a couple of allies whom have arrived whom can handle that shadow thing, and five squads of soldiers are on their way. I am mobilizing more just in case, but for now, I am going to abandon that station. Until that Shade is dealt with, I cannot risk any more lives. What's your status?"

He grimaced. "I think Theta Squad is dead, and we lost Gamma Squad when establishing a defensive position. The rest of the squads, Alpha, Beta, and Epsilon are still intact."

There was a pause and then a sigh. "Understood, Control out."

Peterson sighed and turned back to the battkle. More were coming and they needed to be held off. "Commandos, at the ready. Reinforcements are coming in, and we NEED to hold this point!" They gave out a cry of acknowledgment and then the battle was upon them.



*************

Shalamar, Travis and the rest of their group were escorted to the hangar bay, where a five squads of Initiative troops were loading onto some shuttles. The commander, upon seeing the Coredians and the Tanaran, turned and saluted before speaking. "I don't have much time, so I'm going to lay down the plan and then we can go. My soldiers are going to bust into the area where the commandos are trapped and ambush the enemy attacking them. Shalamar, you and Travis along with the rest of his squad are to hunt down the Shade and take him out, or at least drive it off. We can't fight the overwhelming numbers of these attackers and deal with that thing. That Shade isn't harmed by any weapon we possess, so only the powers you hold can drive it off. We're counting on you. After driving back the enemy, we will be retreating into the hangar bay of the station and fortifying it while you handle the Shade. It's minions may try to cut you off from escape and we will prevent that. Any questions?"


*******

Beta Squad was in the Armory, gathering up what weapons they could. They had managed to ambush the units that had come their way and made sure they weren't followed. The more they killed, the less the rest had to deal with so that helped too. However, the amount they were seeing going down the halls were terrifying. It was as if an entire invasion force had been somehow hidden in the station. The Sergeant of the squad didn't like it and he urged his squad to finish up grabbing what they could. He gazed around the Armory. It had been hit apparently, since the lights were flickering. The power wasn't working in this section, apparently. Damn, this was going to make things harder, especially if that damn shadow appeared.

"Sir, we're almost done. We're just grabbing some rockets now." He turned and nodded, making a motion for them to hurry up. They began to grab the cases of rockets and rocket launchers; they were going to need these especially if the enemy started to use their full numbers. He glanced at his HUD, noticing the temperature of the room was going down. The hell? He tapped his helmet, nothing changed. Growling, he ran a diagnostic. Nothing, it checked out. The hell? Frost was collecting on his helmet and there was fog in the room.

Wait...his eyes narrowed; his instincts were blaring for him to run. The lights began to go out, one by one. He swore. "Forget the rockets; RUN, get out of here!" He turned and ran, making for the only door into the room. Just as he was about to reach it, the door slammed shut and the control panel was ripped out by some unseen force. He backed up, bringing his rifle up to bear. The lights, as they slowly flickered out, shined their dying light on a rising form out of the shadow of the door. Red eyes opened and stared malevolently at Epsilon and a chilling laugh was heard.

"Now now, we can't have that...." It paused and closed its eyes, as it raised an army and the air around it began to swirl. "The fun has only just begun...." The lights went out and the slaughter began.

That Shade isn't harmed by any weapon we possess, so only the powers you hold can drive it off. We're counting on you. After driving back the enemy, we will be retreating into the hangar bay of the station and fortifying it while you handle the Shade. It's minions may try to cut you off from escape and we will prevent that. Any questions?"

"No" Shalamar's voice was strange as her farseeing took in what was happening on the station, then it went fierce and hard..."They're dieing NOW"

In one swift move she skinned aside her veils, discarding her gloves with an equally rapid maneuver as she moved to unsheath the crystal, sliver, blue and gold radiance of the starstone, a Matrix, that hung about her neck.

She spun towards Travis "Yes, I know. Look this good when you are thirteen thousand years old you will not." Shalamar chuffed in amusement as her mane of deep auburn hair tumbled down past her shoulders.

"Willing to be a battery pack?" The Lady of Cats Keep asked bluntly.

"13,000 years old? That's really old!" Hunny mentioned.

"Uh...what? What are you talking about, old lady?" Travis asked Shalamar.

Shalamar just snorted at Hunny's comment - she really looked no older than her mid thirties, though to them that probably put her back with the dinosaurs. She kept her attention foscused on Travis.

"I can save those lives easier if I use some of your energies, adding them to my own. So you game, or should we just let them die?' She didn't need to add he had damn all little time to think it over.

She'd give him a mental five count, then just do it alone...but that would reveal a lot more of her ability and power than she'd like to have observed. But in the end her like or not was nothing next to those lives.

Incidently, the dinosaurs have returned with a vengeance, but that's neither here or there.

"Uh...I suppose. How am I supposed to do that?" For a kid who's supposed to have a great destiny before him, Travis' kinda clueless...

Lady Shalamar was watching lives vanish into a maw of absolute hunger faster than she though possible, and took Travis's comment s assent; there wasn't time to answer more questions. Though she let him see how she did it, though she doubted he'd ever be able to replicate it. The Force and Psionic Gifts looked similar from the outside, but internally they were Vastly different.

Part of her stepped into a place where time and distance did not exist, a place were only the mind could go, a reality that touched all realities but intertwined with none of them. It was as much a construct of her own will and desire as anything that existed separately. Her mind sorted the life signatures from location they were and brought them, with their attendant current masks, the raiment’s of mortality, to were her avatar, her mask, was.

There was no 'try' there was only do, and thou she was expending energy at an enormous rate, it was still within her capabilities. Though she would admit later to being glad that Travis had been there. He'd be a power to be reckoned with some day... If he survived being a teen, and bought a few clues.

Bruised, bleeding, most certainly disoriented and perhaps terrified the survivors collapsed upon the hanger bay's deck plates about them

The crystal, silver, blue, and gold lightning of her Matrix played across then all, then ebbed.

But before she left the station completely, she reached for the bottomless hunger that was the Shade.... and flipped it the finger. She'd dealt with vampires of all stripes, including those that snacked on souls before.

It felt a bit like Force Drain, but Travis couldn't be sure. Still, he was winded from Lady Shalamar using his energy as a boost to teleport a bunch of troops onto the hangar bay.

"You all right?" Shinji asked him.

"Yeah. I'm fine." Still, Travis wouldn't allow himself to be weakened and forced himself to recover quickly. "I still have a lot of energy to go. Let's take on that Shade thingy!"

The teleportation technique of the Tanara was shocking to the soldiers whom were clustered about her, but it was a god-send to the commandos. Although it was nearly too late for the ones in the armory. There was only one left, and he was pinned to the wall by the Shade's psionics. He grinned as he reached up with a hand for the mans face, even as he struggle vainly against his invisible bonds. The soldiers holding the doorway to the hangar were struggling hard, with only falling back with a cry as he was severely wounded by one of the beams. They were about to be overrun. The Shade's first, albeit minor victory, was at hand when Shalamar's power struck. An enveloping field surrounded the Shade's last meal and the struggling commandoes, and shoved them all away. The Hunter blinked for a few moments and then smiled. He saw the gesture sent to him by the Tanaran and only a single message was sent.

"How immature you lesser beings are." He then told the Nijai to go secure the station and then sank into the shadow of a wall, seeking to find what had become his inner sanctum. He would be waiting for this motley band to begin their assault on him. It was all going according to plan....

Meanwhile, the soldiers collapsed on the deck and the commander turned groggily to see the Coredians and the Tanaran. He grumbled. "About damn times. Thanks for the lift, we thought we were goners." The one from the armory squad sat huddled up against a crate, his breath came in fast and shallow, his eyes dilating and expanding quickly as his body shook. His run in with the Shade, seeing his comrades die and hearing their screams had been too much for even this soldier....

The commander of the other soldiers looked at the situation for a moment, then began ordering his soldiers to get all the commandos to sick bay. Turning to Shalamar, he began to speak. "So, what do you intend on doing now? I cannot support you in any way; if we sent massive numbers of soldiers in to deal with this robots, we'd get slaughtered by that Shade."

“Where are the others?”

Doc looked around the bridge seeing less than two dozen of the crew present.

“They are in the damaged areas and without the internal comms we could not reach them in time. The Comm system is designed for the suits to interlock with the ship’s systems to save on battery life. Without the Comm system operational, they don’t have the range to be able to hear us. Down there it is suit to suit comms of about 40 meters at best, take away some for interference and signal blocking.”

Damn, he wanted the whole crew present for the meeting, better to talk to the superstitious lot instead of the rumor mill informing them of what happened to the Captain. This was bad enough already without their imaginations causing more problems.

“I guess it can’t be helped.”

Doc turned to the crew and addressed them, looking each person in the eye as he spoke to captivate their attention and hold them.

“About fifteen minutes ago I received grave news. Captain Sierra is dead.”

Doc waited for the expected wave of murmurs to pass through the room as well as several inquiries about how it happened. He held one hand up to quiet the room again.

“No, it was not the marines aboard the station nor was it any suggested mechanical failure caused by the explosion. Frankly I have no idea what it was. I had Smithers pull this from the security camera on the Gantry. I haven’t seen it yet so bear that in mind when you watch it.

Doc nodded at Smithers who quickly typed a command into a keyboard. On the main screen the pixilated view of the Gantry could be made out. The feed was bad but enough could be seen to make out the three crew, heading towards the hatch at the far end. Sierra, Jeffreys, and Anderson’s backs were easily identified because of their familiarity to the crew. They stopped at the far end and the Captain punched in his access code into the safety lock. The door opened and they stepped off the Gantry, leaving the door open. Through the doorway, the three could be barely seen as they were at first held at gunpoint then after the weapons were lowered; they spoke to one of the men. After a minute, the marines all ran away into the station. The three crewmembers stood there, bewildered for a few seconds before Sierra pointed into the Gantry and they began to move back into the ship very quickly. Then things became weird. As the Captain turned and locked the door, a black blur was seen to rise out of his shadow. The grainy picture made it impossible to see any detail but a blob could be seen. Sierra staggered toward his men, seemingly held back by something that was unseen. As Anderson and Jefferys stopped at the near end of the Gantry, they turned back to look at their struggling leader. By this time the black blob was larger and coming more into focus as the Captain staggered closer to the camera. The autofocus tried to settle upon Sierra but no matter how hard it tried, the blackness would not come into focus. In the video, the Captain was plainly shouting to the two men hesitating at the inner door. The ebon blob swirled around the captain as the camera taped his aging face. His skin became leathery and all life was drained out of his eyes. The dried husk that was their beloved captain fell heavily to the floor of the Gantry, breaking off one arm in the process, snapping like a dried twig. The blob rose from the body and formed a humanoid form that the camera still could not focus clearly upon, only getting two red flickering spots where eye would be. The form came at the two men who scrambled through the inner Gantry door and slammed the airlock shut. The form flickered at the bottom edge of the camera for a few moments before turning and heading back off the Gantry, disappearing into the shadows at the far end as the camera refused to focus upon anything. It was impossible to determine where the blob went in the blur that was the far end of the walkway. The camera suddenly refocused upon the desiccated corpse lying broken in the middle of the Gantry and held there, showing the expression of horror forever frozen on the dried-out lifeless face of Captain Sierra.

The silence that permeated the room felt like a wall as everyone was left staring into those dead eyes, the eyes of their beloved Captain who had died the most horrid of all deaths. There was not a sound as everyone stared at the screen, numb from the horror displayed there but unable to tear their eyes away. For several seconds, not even a breath could be heard. Sobbing began in the back, breaking the silence followed by a murmur. Fear took the place that Silence held reign for so long and Doc could see in the face of several people he knew go into shock, their minds refusing to accept what they have seen and shutting down instead.

The silence was finally broken by a distant alarm. The Doctor instantly recognized it and rushed out of the room, letting his well trained instincts take over his clouded and numb mind. He rushed room the Bridge and ran down the hall, several crew following seeking comfort in the presence of authority. Doc ran until he came to the closed door of the Med Lab. The alarm could be heard through the door as he thumbed the biometric lock. The door opened and he stepped in, stopping as he saw the scene before him.

The smell of iron assailed is senses as he stood there breathing heavily. The room smelled of blood and pools of it was everywhere. The supply refrigerator was sitting with the door ajar, the white light illuminating the room dimly. Blackness filled the corners and shadows clothed everything. Blinking red lights flashed their emergent status above the sill forms of the eight wounded as a figure was huddled over the furthest one. Doc reached over and thumbed the light on and saw the mess in the room. Each of the patients lay with their blankets ripped off them, clothed in their gowns. Their pale flesh shone livid in the stark white light of the ceiling lamps. In a contrast, the deep red floor made everything seem that much brighter as bags of blood were torn open and the plastic lay within the pools making hard bubbles of air in the uniform red fluid. The sound of dripping blood from the patients was only overcome by the sickening slurping and giggling of the hunched figure at the far end. The sudden turning on of the lights make the hunched figure look up and Doc saw Jeffreys covered in a blood soaked sheet as if it was a robe. Red blood dripped down his front from where it was smeared across his face. Seeing Doc, Jeffreys began gibbering incoherently and it took a few seconds to realize what he was saying.

“I can hear them coming…the shadows…they’re coming for you all…but not me…I am one of them now…I am a Shadow…I feed on life just like them…I am one of them…”

Overcome with the reality of what he was seeing, something switched in Doc’s mind and he pulled out his sidearm and the impact of the slug tore off the top of Jeffreys’ skull. He flew backwards as the impact threw him to the floor.

“…the shadows…they’re coming…”

The shallow breath of Jeffreys rattled in his throat as he lay there dying. The crew that followed Doc stared in horror at what they just witnessed.

So, what do you intend on doing now? I cannot support you in any way; if we sent massive numbers of soldiers in to deal with this robots, we'd get slaughtered by that Shade."

"I've got soldiers trained to deal with the robotic demons, just as I suspect that those Travis brought are the same. Leave ours to deal with that, Travis and his comites and I will deal with the Shade." Shalamar replied promptly.

She looked at the group of young Jedi and mentally gave them what she had learned of, and experienced about, the Shade.

Travis and company learned what Shalmar learned of the Shade. They shared looks. 'This is gonna be a tough one.'

"You guys are gonna be alright, right?" Travis asked the Coredian troops.

"It's what we've been trained for, kid." The sergeant grunted in reply and waved them away. "You go and do what you have to do."

"Right, we've got some bucket of bolts coming our way!" The sergeant shouted to his troops. "Let's show them what Coredian Marines are trained for!"

"Hoo-rah!" The troops bellowed back and checked their weapons and equipment.

"Guess they're ready." Hunny grinned. "Let's go and deal with this Shade thingy."

Shalamar looked over at the sergeant in charge and he responded much the same as the Cordeans had - and his troops too checked their weapons - while the sergeant moved over to introduce himself to the Cordeans and exchange commo freq.’s with them. Now was not the time to have friendly fire incidents. Plus the Shadow Dancer had done full sensor sweeps. The layout of the base was in all his troopers info packs, and he had data crystal in case the Cordeans needed or wanted such schematics.

Shalamar looked at the young Jedi, and shook her head. "Enthusiasm can get you killed. Caution is better." Then she sighed and added “Okay lets bring it”