"Slugs? More then one?!"

Beff was almost shouting to be heard over the emergency sirens howling across the bridge. Off to the left, KTaruuk was barking orders even as the very floor under their feet trembled with the massive concussive force of the slugs massive teeth. Clearly the hull had been compromised.

"High Eld... KTaruuk!"

Hollering the name of the High Edler, Beff weaved his way across the bridge to t he commanders side. With full attention and determination the High Elder swung his head towards Beff...

"Mr.Pike, may I help you?"

With patience and calm that belied the situation he paitently waited for Beff to go on. Less educated men the Beff would not be aware that despite the High Elders seeming lack of attention was only a front for the workings of the Hive mind.

Unphased, Beff continued on.

"All ahead full. We have to get deeper if the hull is punctured. We've no choice now. Ram this ship down it's throat... We can work from there."

Though his words sounded as if an order, it was clear that was not Beffs intention to be curt. This was simply not the time for diplomacy.

K'taruuk turned from Beff to the helmsman, bellowing another order over the groaning from the hull plating.

"Full reverse, we'll tear through this creature's end!"

"Sir, the engines, they're not responding. We have a feul leak on the starboard junction. We're losing feul and coolent rapidly.

Sir, we're not going anywhere."



"That's not something I want to here leutenant." frowned Beff.

"Looks like someone will have to go down there and seal the leak before we totally loose our ability to get this rig back out."

Beff turned, grabbing two random ensigns, and headed for the turbolift.


"I shall accompany you, perhaps I will be of some assistance." said K'taruuk, who was coming whether or not Pike would allow it.

Together, the four gentlemen headed down into the bowels of the ship and back once again into the belly of the beast.

The four bounded down the ships corridor towards the aft engine room mounts. The two Swarm crewmen ran ahead while Beff and K'Taruuk held up the rear. And though they remained silent the trip, each shared a bond with the other commander that only those who lead men shared.

"K'Taruuk, the ship is yours. You know her better. I need to round up a few of my men... I might just have a surprise for this giant slug."

Pausin for but an instant, the High Elder thought on the matter, then nodded his affirmative. Though he imposed a few ideas of his own.

"The wounds are worst in the belly. Meet us there."

With that, the three continued down the corridor, leaving Beff behind at a junction. Time, however; would not last forever.

In swift fashion he continued down the left corridor towards while activating his subdermal comm unit. As he walked, he spoke a few quick orders.

"Krsssh, Msssri and, Gnnnug... Meet me at junction I-88 and, bring along your toys. I plan to rig up a bit of a shock for our celestial rest-stop."

A grin pressed across his lips, Beff continued towards the meeting point.

The three warriors crept down the darkened hallway in the deep innards of the ship. Ahead, coolent fizzed and blew out of broken conduits in the walls, clouding the corridor in a gasous aura of whiteness. Other panels and broken fissures in the wall crackled away as the electricty from thier embedded wires now lit up the smokey walkway with an eerie blue glow.

Slowly they inched forward, edging ever closer to the next doorway, the last barrier of skin of the ship. Beyond that the hull had been breached, beyond that door all thier problems stemmed, beyond that door, lay the trial they had to overcome not only to get the ship moving, but to dig themselves from a pit of death that seemed inevitable at this point.

Thier taloned feet clanked upon the deck plating but with all the surrounding noise and distemper, thier once ominous footwork seemed overshadowed by the ship, as it cried out in pain, ruptured from within, and bleeding its life force out into the great beyond. The coolant continued to leak, pouring out its hissing overtones unto the entire ordeal.

K'taruuk sent a signal to the minds of his men to remain composed, despite the intimidating surroundings.

Finally they reached the final bulkhead, after this, the atmoshperic pressure inside would intensify. The emergancy force fields in this section had been seriously damaged and it was only a matter of time before the section became exposed to the unruly inner conditions of the belly of the slug.

Suddenly, before K'taruuk's hand came down upon the hatch release panel just in front of him, a dark mass darted out from a cravace in the wall and attached itself to the face of one of his officers, sending him rolling to the floor. Another shadow shot out from the wall, attaching itself to the other guard, and within a moment had him subdued on the floor writhing around.


"Mynocks!" Said K'taruuk regretfully.

He reached around into his blood red sash, and produced a circular blade that curved around like a serated knuckle duster. Holding the blade akimbo, he came down with one almight slice, and with extreme precision hacked the mynocks from the face's of his two men, cleaving the beasts from thier faces. After quickly tending to his fallen friends, he turned his attention to the cloudy surroudnings, in the depths of which he could hear the scurrying of the foul winged creatures, as they crawled and scraped inside the viens of the ship.Suddenly a flurry of five beasts came flying out of a ruptured conduit directly at the ready and able warrior, who brought his blade to bear, and slashed through the remaining flying foes, dropping them to the floor in quick succession.

Another flock of the ferocious creatures flew out, these few bigger than the rest, horrible, fully grown monstrosities of thier kind, more deadly and rare than the average grotesque flying vampires that were the everyday Mynock.

He slashed again, however this was more difficult, the beasts were larger than the last, and a noticable mark tougher. One flying creature, knocked straight past, and took a tight grip of the throat of one of K'taruuk's guards, slicing the usually tough scaled skin with its beyond razor sharp claws. K'taruuk, picked himself up, and lept at the one remaining creature that had claimed one of his men, and brought down upon its head an almight skull-shaking strike from his blade, cleaving its brain into two distinct, bloody halves which fell to the floor with an uncerimonious thump. The remaining creatures retreated back into the ducts and cracks in the walls, and K'taruuk and his remaining guard, continued onwards, towards the danger zone.

KTaruuk had his own ways of dealing with the situation... Beff had another. He always did and, always would. It always paid to be prepared, after all, as the saying goes; better safe then sorry.

The High Elder had gone off his own way to deal with the situation and, were he interested in betraying himself, Beff would have offered closer attention to the emanations in the force produced by KTaruuk and his men. This was not the time for such things however; this was a time for action.

As they had been instructed, his Barabel hench-men-men would meet him where and, with what supplies Beff had requested.

They were waiting for him at the junction and even before Beff could catch sight of them he could hear them hissing words in their native tongue. Even with only a limited exposure to their language, Beff quickly picked up on their agitation. Something had them more worried then he.

"You have my things?" Beff spoke with impunity now, as if the situation around him really had no bearing on his future. Everything about his manner remained calm, passive.

One, the largest of the three, nodded his head to the affirmative then hissed something in his native language. His words apparently had quite the affect on the two female Barbel that followed. It was obvious that they were less then comfortable with the situation.

"Yes. I am well aware of the situation. My things?"

Krssh, the male, nodded yet again then handed Beff a medium sized duffel-bag from which Beff tucked a few items under his jacket then slung over his left shoulder. Not ones to waste time, the Barabel likewise used the moment to check their weapons and supplies.

Seemingly pleased with the way things were working out Beff started down the corridor opposite the way he'd come, the trio of Barbel following behind him, their guards up for any dangers that might arise.

They walked some way before Beff came to a stop near the crafts forward bulk-head. There, he tucked himself tight against the durasteel that comprised the ships hull and braced tightly into a corner.

With a glance at his men, Beff indicated that they might wish to do the same.



Engines burning bright, the Swarm Gunship fought desperately to free itself but, to no avail. The slug had simply been too large and too bent on destroying the poor craft that stumbled into its way.

The slug tried its very hardest to close its massive jaws around the ship. With every ounce of the slugs being, it had sought to drive gargantuan teeth through the still resisting hull of the captured gunship.

Slowly the situation turned grim. With each passing moment the ship and crew found themselves deeper in harms way. With engines ready to give and bulk-heads and hulls ready to crumple, it was all the small craft could do not to be crushed into and beyond oblivion.

Then, something unexpected happened.

From where there had been nothing, from otherwise empty and devoid space, appeared a distortion. Nothing more then a vague outline in the starscape, it quickly closed on the giant vacuum breathing slug. Swiftly bursting into full view, the slug had not seemed aware of this newly arrived shape.

Fully 900 meters long and vaguely reminiscent of starship designs once common to the galaxy, the cloak-capable craft ran directly towards the behemoth head of the slug. With engines blaring at break-neck speed the ship bared down on the creature, its forward tubes and launchers suddenly alight with action. Trails burning bright, some 20 various missiles and torpedos had dove towards their mark.

Each warhead hit its mark with pin-point accuracy, reducing the mass that had been the creatures head to vapor and debris. Stricken and damaged the Gunship had floated free of the remaining carcasses and cleared the debris and blast radius without complication.

The damage was extensive, to both slug and ship and, though the slug was now much less of a concern, the concussive force of the torpedo volley had further damaged the ships already dying systems.

It had been clear that the smaller ship was in need of assistance but, whatever the motivations of this ships arrival and sudden help, it left no indication of its intentions and had simply sat in silence over the damaged ship. There the larger craft had remained until recieving contact from one aboard the smaller damaged craft.




Edit: Yes, my mistake. All of those referances to a "gunship" or such-like were wrong. I'm aware now that we's aboard one of the old bummer skummer ships... So, just imagine I know what I'm talking about.

K'taruuk's party edged toward the aft of the cruiser and into a section that had been almost completely blown out into space. As he peered outward through the temporary force field into space, it was fairly clear they had been blasted free from the creature's innards with great precision.

With imminent danger averted only momentarily, K'taruuk did not hesitate to continue on towards the leaking feul lines located in engineering. His quest however took him directly across a haggered gangplank which dangled precariously over a fizzling section of the protective energy field, that was no doubt unstable. and ready to collapse at any given time.

There was no way that the rickety walkway could hold the weight of two, five hundred plus pound swarm behemoths, they would have to take turns, and as the seconds whizzed by, each passing moment could not be wasted.

K'taruuk, electing to go first began his perilous trip across the walkway. Throwing his arms out to his side in order to gain a semblence of balance, he edged forward steadily, one foot in front of the other.

The twenty seconds it took him to cross seemed to pass like an eternity as the seldom anxious K'taruuk breathed a sigh of relief before motioning for his remaining guard to follow.

His aid did as K'taruuk had and began edging slowly across the ramp, however, the far larger Irakashee's weight tore some structure bolts from the walkway, causing it to collapse, and the Irakashee to fall onto the unstable force field below.

The instant the huge warrior impacted with the highly charged force field, and insermountable electric shock ravaged his body.
HIs blood boiled under the stress, his skin broke and his being thrashed to and fro.

Using his strong foot claws, K'taruuk kicked into the wall, tearing himself a makeshift footing in order to drape himself over the edge of the gangplank and rescue his endangered comrade.

"Hold . . .on . . .!" He cringed, reaching out with all his might, but to no avail. In a rush of light, the field sparkled and utterly collapsed out from under the poor Irakashee warrior, sending him hurtling out into the vacuum of space.

K'taruuk now found himself in one of the most unsightly positions, dangling unknowingly from the edge of starship, about to be sucked into space.

As the air speadily withdrew from the section, K'taruuk's body was subjected to the harsh depressurization that followed. A rush of icy coldness shot through his body, his viens curdled and contorted. With all his will and concentration, K'taruuk depressed every last cubic inch of breath from his lungs in one forceful breath.
He was lucky not to have been flash frozen.


Struggling with every fibre in his soul, K'taruuk fought through the torture to unfold his eyes to tiny slits, bringing his precious vision back.

Simply swinging his body around to come back onto the gangplank racked his entire being with a monumental agony.

Somehow, the huge beast garned enough inertia to catapult his tremendous form toward the airlock ahead, where he slid in, his body crumpling into the door on the opposite side.


<font size=1><font color=yellow>Repressurization process initiating . . .in . . in . . .in .. .initiating.</font>


<font size=2>The computer in this section was evidently damaged, it's speach stuttering like a repeater blaster.


<font size=1><font color=yellow>Re . ..re. . rieporrperpor**********r . . .pressurization complete</font>


<font size=2>As the last element of gravity was restored, small floating bloches of his own blood spattered down from above, dripping onto him and the floor. His skin was on fire as he wormed his way across the engineering floor.


<font size=1><font color=yellow>Fuel cells critical, initiate emergancy ejection procedure's in thirty seconds . . .twenty nine seconds . . .</font>

<font size=2>With his eyes hurt as he peered up toward the control desk that lay only a meter away. The hook-thread carpet underneath raped his skin like sandpaper, shredding his the flesh from his belly.


<font size=1><font color=yellow>Fifteen Seconds . . .</font>


<font size=2>A hand . . .an arm . . .a torso.

K'taruuk slowly heaved his pulsating carcass onto the command chair, its usually silky fibres tearing his charred remains.

<font size=1><font color=yellow> Nine seconds.</font>

<font size=2>With every inch of strength he had left, K'taruuk brought his mighty fist crashing down onto the manual release switch . . .and he collapsed back into the chair, watching through the plexi-glass before him, as the ruptured fuel cell that brought him here, plunged out of the ship and into deep space, where it detonated safely, gently rocking him into unconsiousness.

Beff stormed abruptly onto the bridge, a wave of smoke following him from the turbolifts. All around him blared the sounds of emergency sirens while crimson lighting threw the whole of the bridge into a blood-red glow. His clothes were marred by dust and a couple scorch marks but, otherwise he appeared just fine.

"Get me K'Taruuk on the comm now," he snarled the command to no one and everyone at the same time, something in his tone conveying the urgency of the matter.

Without wasting a moment, he quickly shoved the communications officer aside, despite the vairiance in bluk, and took control of the con.

While awaiting word from the captain, fast fingers opened a private channel to the ship lurking in silence above the striken Swarm craft. Ordering them, in short order, to begin boarding and expect to recieve wounded. Already a haze of TiE Phantoms were swarming the area, valliantly warding off danger.

K'taruuk was torn from his slumber back into the world of pain and sensation by a overwhelming clunk that echoed through the hull surrounding his section of the ship. A section that was rapidly loosing its oxygen and atmoshphere. His position, floating atop the command console corroborated that theory.

The clunking continued, moving in steady paced interupptions until across from him, he made out through his scarred vision, the outline of a large suited being peering back at him through the airlock porthole. The pressurized door swooshed open hurling the person toward him who was clad in a spacesuit, complete with oversized gravity boots and thruster pack.

As he strained to make out any noticeable features, his vision could not make it past the thick, black plexiglass of this thing's helmet.

The spaceman approached steadily, speeding toward him through the air, and as he came to a halt, K'taruuk slipped blissfully back into the pain-ridden sleep.

Two figures stood quietly in the brightly lit office of the ships chief medical officer, quietly discussing the current condition of K'taruuk and his damaged craft.

One was a tall Retak, obviously uncomfortable with the smaller corridors aboard the Mercenary-class battleship, he had accompanied his captain as well as Beff Pike, who stood quietlty at K'taruuks side, and a few executive medical officers to the other ship.

The other was a diminutive Chadra-Fan, one of the most trusted Medics in service to the Guild. Dressed in the surgical whites he had only finished working in some minuits ago, he was still washing the grime from his hands.

"He's a mess," the small bat-like creature was saying, "extensive burning to 98% of his body, countless cuts and scrapes. Broken ribs and a cracked... femur? Sorry, I don't understand the anatomy all so well yet."

A hiss had rolled from the lips of the Retak standing behind the Doc, followed by a sneering jibe, "You are lucky for our medics. Had he died..."

The rest of their discussion quietly faded into the background as Beff stood quietly over the large, scarred up shape of K'taruuk. He had clamored into a Retak vac-suit and hauled the giant to medical attention, knowing full well that the death of his silent partner would result in the total demise of any Guild/Swarm relations. Since that time, Beff had not left the operating table.

It was not until some hours later that the slumbering reptile had made any motions of life, and even that had been no more then a word. Though, enough of a word to alter their course to Kalzon III.

"Tekkit..."

The emergency crews had been buzzing around the depths of the ship for sometime now, too busy to notice a passing Retakkenari.

Too, busy to notice the tiny light on the engineering console that would light up whenever some kind of illegal transmission was being broadcast out with the ship's on comms equipment.

Too busy to notice that their computer security system's had been bypassed, and that someone was transmitting their position to a, different kind of enemy.


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

The bio-mechanically hollowed chambers of the Retakkenari Hive Imperius were a new and startling sight on the newly uncovered world of Tekkit. The atmosphere of the planet wholly breathable and pure, but the Imperius had grown accustomed to living underground in the cave's of Retak for so long, that he had still yet to adjust properly to his surroundings, and so had an underground throne room drilled out of the thick quadrocite ore that made up the planet's surface.

While it was certainly not an easy task, through persuasion and a lofty propaganda machine at his back, the Imperius was able to gain most of the support of his Retakkenari brethren on Tekkit, although he kept public appearances to a minimum as he had developed a dislike of the 'strange looks" he received on a regular basis while in public.

On Retak, all Retakkenari have a mirky, off-brow skin pigmentation, while on Tekkit, the Retakkenari skin is highlighted by a bluish tinge, and is dominated by dim, dark speckles of brown, a strange divergence that can be attributed to the Retakkenari on Tekkit's exposure to sunlight.

The second reason for his apparent choice of location was tied, in part, to this divergence of race. Since reaching a shaky agreement to garner a prominent seat on Tekkit's elder council, the Imperius received numerous death threats, attempted assassinations and all sorts of frightening anti-sentiment toward his person, most of which had been tied or traced back to race crime.

Race crime.

A word that was seldom used on this world. There were only a few instances of such crimes being committed, as the Retakkenari of Tekkit differed only slightly as you went region to region.
The swarm of Retak's first contact with Tekkit had unwound from a simple quest for knowledge into a avalanche of steadily snowballing hate and violence.

Perhaps the Imperius, had gone on this journey with a little more naivety than common sense, disregarding his sense of leadership for a sense of adventure.

K'taruuk, on the other hand, had kept a reasonably low profile the entire time, attending only the events that strictly warranted his attention. For the most part, the Imperius' hand had kept well out of the public eye.

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

A transmission buzzed across a glowing holoscreen on the desk of the Hive imperius. His eyelids blinked wearily, trying in vein to stave off momentary sleep.

Suddenly, with an abrupt jerk, his eyelids widened and his back shot up to attention as the video message began to play before him.

"My lord, the renegade K'taruuk's presence here is confirmed. We await your arrival."

The hologram's blue projection lines fizzled and crackled, the quality of the image was far from perfect, but perfection, in this case, was unnecessary.

"Along with this holo-message, you will also receive technical read-outs for this vessel, its last known co-ordinates and its shield command codes.

We will have the rebel caught sir, and the Empire will once returned to a whole under you, as it was and should be.

My team and I will ensure that the traitor is kept alive until your arrival. I'm sure you will take great pride in killing him for yourself.

This will be my final transmission for some time.

Jeh'kra out."


After hearing such important news about the sighting and impending demise of one's arch enemy, any ordinary man would expect to be filled with a lustful revenge and satisfaction.

However, the Imperius was no ordinary man. Hardly 'ordinary' by Retakennari standards. Weak mentally and physically as a child, and even more so as a fully grown adult -the imperius stood a meagre six feet and eleven inches tall- he never did reach the entirety of his people's support, and was having an even harder time on Tekkit.

He sought no battle, or thirst for killing like almost each one of his race did naturally, in fact the thought turned him off.
He did, better the lives of his people, socially and economically, which gave him a semblance of support among the masses, but was viewed by most as an unfit ruler.

As rumours of the Ktaruuk's escapades in unknown space grew more vast and sensational by the day, his own support and following slowly ebbed away with each glamourous headline. His Rebellious second in command had gained more in the eyes of the people for his treacherous, self-serving actions than the Imperius had through his genuine acts of kindness and leadership.

K'taruuk's appeal to the people, whatever their racial affiliation was unsurpassed, and by each passing day, the Imperius grew weary of fighting this battle of the personalities.

To destroy K'taruuk would be to make him a martyr, and condemn himself to death or exile at the hands of his own people.
However,the imperius would track K'taruuk down, and when he found his traitorous old friend, he would do the only thing he could do, he would do the right thing.