The wedge shape of the Stellar Class Star Cruiser Paramount emerged from hyperspace close to the asteroid field. Its three large ion engines awake with a dull shudder and a brilliant ejection of a blue ion emission. Shields went up almost as quickly after four dark shapes exited from its hanger bay. These rectangular shapes accelerated quickly away from the ship in different directions.

As they did the massive bulk of the 1,450 meter long ship pushed forward and slowly slid to port. Its blackened wedge shape turned towards the asteroid field and moving closer. From all respects the ship looked to be a shortened Imperial Star Destroyer with a missing command tower. This was, however, were all likeness stoped.

The newly completed ship was the pride and joy of the Stellar Enterprises Defense Fleet. She was one of the most advanced and capable ships in the galaxy, but she was built for defense and not attack. Her sophisticated sensors reached deep into the asteroid field, far beyond anything capable by other military powers. She was also recieving data from the four EagleEye drones that had just been launched.

The Paramount was now well on her way of mapping the whole asteroid field. Powerful computer banks inside the ship processed all the information they recieved and plotted detailed maps that would later be used by the miners that would inhabit this field. These maps were not just about mining, however. They were going to be used for a specific search operations.

These new maps would be compared to older ones purchased at a high price. The older chats and details were from the Galactic Civil War times. Back then the Rebel Alliance called these asteroids home. That was until the Empire found its location. A great battle had been fought here and against great odds that Alliance had emerged victorious.

They did, however, have to evacuate the vacinity and it was hoped that perhaps they had left their base intact somewhat. That find would save the corporation a lot of money it would have needed to spend for a new base facility. If this old Rebel base was still here and was located it could be quickly upgraded and used as a base of operations for this sector.

As the large ship slowly moved along the edge of the field its hanger once more buzzed with movement. This time three more drones flew out and quickly turned towards the asteroid field. All three moved inside it to inspect likely locations. These were newer model drones upgraded for asteroid surveillance. They had more maneuvering thrusters and a faster reacting computer system that would lead them out of harms way while monitoring all the asteroid threats in the area.

As one of the drones flew deeper inside the field its sensors picked up metallic debris in a large dispersed cloud. It was a wonder they hadn't been collided with after so many years. The location was maked inside the Star Cruiser as the drone proceeded on with its mission. The location would be examined thoroughly later on by engineers.

Flying over one of the large asteroid close to the possible battlefield, one of the drones opened up a small hatch and ejected a small star shaped objected. It fell in the light gravity and settled on the surface, kicking up some dust. As it settled, four sharp spikes fired off from the sides and dug into the asteroids surface, anchoring the thing in place. The top of the starshape suddenly flashed red and fired a beem into the black sky.

The beem started to combine with different colors from a colorwheel inside the object and formed into the color of a flame. Just like a flame it started to flicked slowly and stayed lit. On the casing of the star was a plate and an engraving, "Maybe you rest in peace and may the force be with you."

It was an eternal light that tired to honor the brave men that had fought and died inside the Silken Asteroid Field.

The Xliona system lay in the Outer Rim Territories not far from the impoverished planet called Sump. This particular system was mostly forget in the known galaxy after travel through the region had been restricted by the Old Republic. No one really knew the reason for why this happened, but there were rumers aplenty for why this new law had been put in place.

One of these rumers had to do with the system's mysterious past. The mysteries all started after a large mining consortium established a base in the system's asteroid field. They had found the asteroids to be rich in minerals from which durasteel could be manufactured and becuase of this had invested countless resources in order to build a large mining operation. Within a matter of months the asteroid field proved to be more profitable than anyone could have imagined. With war looming between the Republic and Sepratist forces durasteel was in high demand and its cost rose tremendously.

The Xliona asteroid operation had worked non-stop to fill all the orders, but than one day, suddenly, shippments from the asteroid field stopped arriving into the processing plants. Communication with the Xliona base had also ceased and no replies were recieved. Because of this, it was feared that enemy forces might have taken the asteroid field and a battle group was assembled to investigate. This group of ships, however, never reported back and was never heard from again.

Many other expiditions were sent out in search for answered, but every one of them had never reported back. From that moment on it was decided that no more resourced could be spent on missions into the system. In cooperation with the Old Republic the mining consortium stripped all records from its databanks that mentioned the system in question. All travel through the region was prohibited in order to save lives.

People, however, still tried to pass through the system as a shortcut to various destination and were never heard from again. This led the Old Republic to do something drastic, something had only been done a few times. The government ruled in favor of deleting the system from all star charts and forbid anyone from mentioning the system. It was hopped that over time people would forget about they system and never venture into it again.

Over the years people did indeed forget about the system. It was left alone for so long that even newer governments and military forces left the place untouched because it was unknown to them. The fact that officials didn't know the place existed was a godsend to criminal organizations everywhere. The knowledge of this system had somehow been passed down through the years and all unlawful groups tried to search for this system in order to establish a base which would be away from the prying eyes of law enforcement.

One of the largest crime organizations, called the Lornars Syndicate, was rumered to have made one of the asteroids a long time residence. This Syndicate had called one of the large asteroids home for many years and had used the base to stage numerous attacks on shipping lanes. The history ended there, however. After their move into the region and a few interception of convoys, they were never heard from again. The region was like a black hole, anything that went into it never came out.

Stellar Enterprises had learned about the Xliona system and its rich asteroid belt by accident really. They had acquired the same mining consortium that had ones called this place home. After the acquision that taken place, the consortium's records recieved a once over by a staff from Stellar Enterprises and a system was mentioned in one of the oldest records. A system that had not shown up on any star chart, but one that was indicated to contain a fortune in raw materials.

This was partially the reason why the modified Stellar Enterprises Dreadnaught had emerged near the Xliona Asteroids. Around this ship were three EagleEye Drones in their single triangular formation. Upon coming out of hyperspace these drones disengaged and split off as they start recieving commands from the Dreadnaught. All there quickly veered towards the asteroid belt and flew inside without a single worry.

There will not that many moon sized asteroids inside the field and it was estimated that the search should not take long. Each of these asteroids would recieve survey pass before the Drones moves on to other locations. These passes were being recorded onboard the heavy cruiser floating outside the asteroid field.

It was difficult to locate a single base, but the task was even more of a challenge to accomplish when the base was placed inside a massive asteroid field. For precisely this reason the images received were recorded, so that teams could go over them all more thuroughly later on. There was no doubt the base would be located, the only question was when.

The question, however, was answered as short time later when one of the drones flew around a large asteroid hundreds of kilometers in diameter. While monitoring the images streaming through the drone, one of the analyzers noticed something different about some of craters on the surface. When she zoomed in on them the craters had traces of glass like substance and black carbon scaring around them.

This turned out to be the stroke of luck needed to find the base. It was an indication that something important had been there and was bombarded. With this information the drone was sent to survey the asteroid more closely. There were many caverns to search, but after four hours a large opening was located at the side of a deep canyon that seemed to lead into the asteroid interior. What gave the opening away was its smoother edges, a sign of obvious man interaction.

Once located a message was sent to Stellar Enteprises Headquarters.

It had taken over three days of searching the vast Silken Asteroid field, but in the end the hoped for base was located. Once enough of the field had been surveyed a holo map was contructed by the Paramount's massive computer banks. These banks took in all the information gathered by the drones and reconstructed each asteroid that was recorded on a large holo map. Over the days a scaled down map of that sections of the asteroid field had been pieced together and crossed checked with the charts that had been acquired before.

None of the asteroids had matched the positions given until the charts were remade to compensate for drifting of the asteroids. Suddenly one after another asteroids started to appear over the charts and the computers could start to plot estimated guesses as to where the base could be. Each time a guess was generated drones would be redirected towards that asteroid to take a look. At times it was each to tell that the guess had been incorrect because of the small size of the asteroids, however, other times it took hours to search the massive rocks before finally not locating anything.

It was on one these surveys that a drone picked up something unusual inside a crater. When it was instructed to close in and take a clearer look, the object was found to be some sort of shaft. From that moment one that asteroid was made the priority and the other drones were recalled to scout it fully.

During these scout missions more vents were discovered. Along with these vents a few desguised weapons emplacements were also located. These looked almost like the rock formations around them, except for the barrels emerging from them. Some of these weapons emplacements had scoring on them and parts of there exteriors missing from what looked like direct laser hits. No doubt a fight had taken place here a long time ago.

The asteroid contained many tunnels running into it and all these would have to be searched. There had to be a way inside the base and most likely it was inside one of those tunnels. Into each one a drone was sent and from almost everyone they emerged without locating anything but a dead end. During one of these inspections, however, one of the drones flew into a deep tunnel and discovered what they had been looking for all along.

This drone's progress was monitored onboard the Paramount's internal bridge. Displayed on one of the walls was a large picture of everything the droid craft was seeing in real time. It was in front of this display screen that Captain Thomas Wilkinson stood in his blue uniform. He was placed in charge of this operation and was finally happy to see some results. As the image moved through the tunnel Captain Wilkinson glaced down at the displays corner and realised the drone had traveled over 600 meters into the asteroid.

Wondering when the search would terminate, the Captain got his answer moments later when the drone's forward cam focused on a solid rock wall directly in front of the craft. Thomas's first thoughts were of another failed survey when the drone tilted up slowly along its vertical axis. Its sensors must have indicated something because directly above it was a large cavern that had obviously been excivated from the solid asteroid. Upon seeing this the Captain smiled and turned back towards the crew and looked at one of the ten bridge crew members.

"Commander Medarn, please instruct the drone to search that cavern fully and inform the exploration team they can start getting ready."

The Second in Command, Commander Medarn, acknowledged the order and turned to carry it out. Captain Wilkinson could see the man's actions transfered to the display in front of him as the drone proceeded to move inside the large cavern.

The shuttle slowly easied forward, moving through the hanger enterance and past the freighter reckage one the right side. Its floodlights filled the dark empty asteroid hanger with a scattered white glow as the light bounced off the metallic surfaces of the rear of the hanger. Inside, the walls were rocky and carved, but at the rear was a man built control structure. To the left of this structure was a large closed blastdoor.

As the shuttle touched down near this massive door, its hatch opened and out came figures dressed in all black with large assault rifles in their hands. These weapons were held against their black armored chests, but were still ready for use at the first sign of danger. The first of these helmet covered warriors rushed out and took up positions around the shuttles hatch in a loose box formation, covering all angles.

Their rifles scanned their designated zones while their helmet mounted displays showed everything clearly, even in the darkness of the hanger. The sophisticated vision systems of the helmet allowed the troopers to see in all environments as well as gave them tremendous zoom in ability. One the corners inside the helmets armor faceplate illistrated a real time map of the surrounding area and small greens dots which indicated the locations of other friendly troopers. More of these dots appeared every second as the others pilied out of the shuttle and onto the deck of the hanger before turning on their locator becons.

"Lets get this door opened gentlemen and see what we can find inside." Came the voice of their Commanding Officer, Colonel Ilmus Stevenson as he gestured towards the men.

He turned towards one of the troopers and grinned, "And of course ladies."

The person inside the covered suit chuckled. "Aw shucks, thanx Colonel. I'm glad you remembered this time."

Stevenson laughed and shook his head. "How could I ever forget Diller?" He paused and looked over at the large blast door at the side of the hanger. "Now get your ass over there and open that door."

"Yes sir!" The woman trooper replyed and jogged towards the controll panel beside door.

As the team moved slowly towards the door, she turned towards them and shook her head slowly. "No good, sir, sorry. This place doesn't have any power and that door is sealed shut."

The Colonel thought for a moment and looked over the large blastdoor. It was a massive hulk of durasteel and judging by the impact dents that coved its exterior, was probably over a meter thick. He slowly looked around the hanger to try and find another way inside when his eyes settled on the control structure on the side of the hanger. It had a row of reinforced windows, but he knew they wouldn't be hardly as tough to get through as the door.

Colonel Stevenson grinned and kept looking towards the structure now before him. "Oleffson!"

"Sir!" Came the instant reply.

"Your brought the LSR right?"

"Of course sir. Never leave home without one, my mama always said." The man said as he stepped foward and lowered his rifle aganst his chest, letting it hand on the strap.

"Oleffson, you mama's boy. Get that LSR out and put a round through that window up there." The Colonel instructed as he mentally commanded his helmet to zoom in the window he was looking at and take a digital picture of it. He instantly sent the picture to everyones helmet displays through the squad comminication system.

Oleffson looked at the image and was a little confused as to why he was being ordered to do that. As he thought about it he reach behind into his attacked rucksack and pulling out a round metallic tube no longer than 1/3 of a meter. He pulled on one end a little hard and the tube extended out to almost double the length as before. The Light Single Rocket launcher was now ready to be fired and the trooper raised it up towards the window. He sited the weapon using his helmet display and held it at the ready, finally realizing what the colonel planned to do.

"Fire in the hole!" He shouted and squeezed the trigger at the top of the tube.

The small rockets booster instanly ignited and launched the rocket straight out of the tube and into the marked window. Upon impact the shaped charge went off and shattered the reinforced viewport into small thick peices which showered down towards the hangers deck. Colonel Stevenson tapped the man on the shoulder and nodded slowly as he moved towards the command structured followed by the rest of the team.

As they moved Oleffson tossed the tube on the deck and gripped his rifle again, moving after the others. Ilmus looked up towards the new opening and had his helmet calculate the distance towards it. After he found out it was just over eight meters, he stepped back a little and bent his knees. The inner skin of the armor suit recognized the actions and primed the suit for a jump. When the man jumped into the air, all the microsynthetic muscle fibers sprang loose and increases his strength many fold, allowing him to jump the whole distance in a single leap.

When he was close to the window, Ilmus reach out and grabbed its edge. He used the assisted strength the suit offered to pull himself quickly inside the control room and landed soundly on his feet. In a flash his rifle was up and moving across the room, scanning for hostiles. When none were found he moved aside and signaled the others to join him.

The Rebel base inside the Silken Asteroid Field was now mostly in Stellar Enterprises hands. Inside this large asteroid were teams of engineers and survey droids. They moved thorugh all the corridores and looked into every room, maping the whole complex in order to better understand it.

This place would soon be the Stellar Enterprises base inside the sector and it was necessary to know everything about it. It was also imporant to inspect the base for structural flaws before all the personel and expensive equipment was brought inside. After the heavy pounding the base had recieved as a result of the Imperial assault it wasn't too unlikely to find cracks and broken support bulkheads inside the asteroid base. It wouldn't be good to move everyone into the facility and have it collapse around the workers inside.

Structural engineers and droids combed the inside and outside of the asteroid base. They finally concluded that only a few sections of the interior would benifit from supports, however the rest of the structure looked in working condition. The Rebellion had been very experianced with building facilities that could withstand heavy bombardment and this one was no exception. Even from the heavy pounding it had recieved, most of the base was still standing in good order and did not need any reinforcing even after all these years.

As soon as these experts found something it was taken care of quickly. Crews worked around the clock to get the base operational, but it would still takes days for the complex to be able to start receiving and controling miners. The Rebel Allianced had removed everything from the base before it had had evacuated and now everything had be to be brought into the Asteroid. This work could be seen with the many heavy repulsorlift carts that went up and down the secured hallways.

These carts carried new generators deep inside the structure and these were soon hooked up to power the facility for a long time to come. Shields were also brought inside and secured within reinforced rooms inside the complex. The shields were heavy units that were almost as powerful as planetary systems in order to defend the base from asteroid strikes or other attacks. It would be able to withstand a conciderable pounding before even loosing strength.

For the control of these systems as well as others, banks upon banks of computers were transported inside and stacked along the walls faster than they could be hooked up. A brand new internal network would be created and linked to a master computer that would be able to automate most of the station's duties. Some of the computers would be linked to a sensor net that was being stroon all over the sector by Stellar Enterprises ships. This sensor network would give early warning of anything approaching the asteroid field in or out of hyperspace. It would also control the defensive platforms that would be brought in system and the countless mines that would protect this interest of the Corporation.

The Silken Asteroid Field would soon belong to Stellar Enterprises and would serve it well in its endervor to become a bigger and larger player along the galactic corporations. It would feed its need for more and more resource and at the same time help to expand the Enterprise.

The rifle poked out of the corner and turned to scan the entire hallway. Upon completion of the sweep an armor clad trooper stepped out into the hallway and slowly kept scanning with the rifle at the ready. As the soldier slowly moved on more figures emerged from behind the corner and followed him. The whole group proceeded slowly in expert order with their rifles covering every spot in front of them.

They were moved through part of the Vergesso Asteroid base on a seek and destroy mission. For weeks now the moon sized asteroid had been a bee hive of activity. Countless frieghters had landed inside the large hanger and had dropped off tons upon tons of cargo. Droids and technicians off loaded these necessary systems and moved them throughout the complex to install them.

The internal systems of the asteroid base that were still in place were so old and degraded that none of them could be used. For this reason everything new had be brough into the base and installed. So far only a small portion of the base has been upgraded, but this was the most needed area. A control center was now operational and the hanger had been upgraded for easier access and offloading of cargo. Also the powerful shields were now installed and were capable of protecting the entire facility.

All had been moving smoothly until two engineers and a number of droids went missing. This group of beings and droids had been exploring and working on a newly opened sections of the base when contact with them was lost. After some time a droid was sent to locate them and bring them back, but this droid went missed as well. Finally the Vergesso's new commander ordered combat droids to be brought in and to search the entire area. During this decision Colonel Stevenson asked to be included in the mission so that his team could get more training.

The commander agreed and so here they were moving through the asteroid's former computer center. It was all but stripped of all systems before the past owners had left, leaving an empty section that would be put to good use later. Now, however, was no time for thinking about the future. It was all about the now and about finding the people and droids that were lost.

Colonel Stevenson had taken full control of the situation and had instructed the droid team to search out in all directions from the team's last point of contact. Now as he moved through the long hallways, the Colonel could see his other teams moving slowly on his in helmet map. He had taken point this time and moved along the hallway, which looked exectly like the last one they searched. They had searched one room after another, but still after hours they found nothing. The same was true for the other droid teams.

Ilmus was about to order his team to take a rest when rifle swept over a large hole in a door that had been shut for years. The hole looked as is one made from some explosive devise except that it was forced out from the inside of the room and was not uniform. This was something reather strang that he had not seen before. Calling his team over with a hand gesture, Colonel Stevenson leaned against the hallway wall and pushed his rifle out into the hole.

The heavy assault rifle felt almost weightless in his powered suit. It also had a small multiview cam attached to it and feed all the images into the trooper's helmet. He moved the rifle from side to side and slowly up and down, scanning the entire room. Inside his helmet the entire viewport had turned into a display screen and showed everything the rifle saw in nightvision mode.

The room appeared to be a storage room for dried food stuffed because there were boxes of food all over the place. These boxes appeared to have been ripped open and half devoured. Some of the racks has also been turned over and twisted by something powerful. Zooming closer the Colonel could see puncture holes in parts of the metal storage racks which seemed to appear in threes.

A quick scan of the room revieled another gapping hole on one of the interior walls. This one, like the other in the door, looked to have been ripping from another room into the storage one. When the scan revealed that the room was clear, Ilmus stepped away from the wall and moved slowly into the room, stepping through the opening in the door. He thought about turning on helmet lights and instantly they flashed on, showering the room in light from the two flashlights attached to either side of this helmet.

The others followed him into the room and turned on their lights as well. They quickly followed proceedures without even having to be told and spread throughout the room to cover all angles and search it systemtically. As Ilmus studied the hole on the side wall, one of the troopers stepped to his side and lowered his rifle a little.

"What do you think did this sir?" That trooper said in a tough femanine voice.

The Colonel slowly shook his head and kept looking towards the hole. He had a bad feeling like something was out of place and was soon going to go wrong. "I have no idea and that bothers me. Whatever did this was strong and very tough..." He paused to measure the size of the whole in front of him. "And big."

Ilmus looked over at the soldier standing beside him. "I have a feeling that those people and droids were taken and we probably wont locate them alive."

"I think your right sir, look over here." Came a voice through his comm system, interrupting his thoughts.

He turned and moved towards the man that had called him over. Colonel Stevenson saw the trooper looked down at one of the room corners and followed the man's flashlight beams into the corner. There, beside the wall, lay droid parts. Part of a hand and leg were scattered around that part of the room, but to be sure Ilmus mentally instructed his suit to scan the remains. Within seconds a picture of the parts was taken and quickly matched the suit's database. A display appeared within the helmet screen and showed a rotating droid figure of the exect model droid they lost. Concidering that these parts looked fairly new and these droids hadn't even existed years ago, it could be pretty certainly said that these were parts of the droids they were looking for.

"The question is where is the rest of these droids." Ilmus said, but quickly stopped when his helmet picked up traces of sound coming from the room attached to the storage one.

The Colonel turned towards the hole in the wall and mentally issued a command to recall one of the droid teams for support.

The Silken Asteroid base was still full of activity even after almost a month of work. Every area was getting expanded and upgraded in order to host a large mining facility. As with all over Stellar Enterprises installations, this one was getting many defensive systems installed. Rob Stellar had invested large sums of money in this endevore and it wouldn't do much good if someone would be able to easily attack it.

Weapons emplacements were getting placed all over the asteroid and in key locations heavy weapons were installed. One of these heavy weapons was a massive Hypervelocity Cannon that could hit ships far away from massive shells. These shells could travel at such speeds that their impact magnified their strength many fold allowing them to quickly overwhelm defensive particle shields and slam into a ships hull.

During preliminary trials the heavy solid durasteel sheels were able to pierce heavy shield armor and move through the whole ship before coming out on the other end. They could create huge holes inside a ship's structure and greatly weaken it, even when not hitting major systems. Small ships could be reduced to rubble in only a few firings of the heavy weapon while larger ships could be disabled with a couple well placed rounds.

To suppliment these defensives it was desided to equip other nearby asteroids with defensive weapons and in effect turning them into defense platforms. Internal power systems, targeting computers, and shield generators were installed inside the asteroids. These were laser linked together and to a central computer bank inside the main base complex.

The asteroids were capable of providing firepower all around the Silken Base Asteroid and in all directions. These were all also linked to massive asteroid wide sensor net that was being established. This net would be capable of detecting enemy ships and sending targeting data to the defensive asteroids. Also, along with these defenses were large hangers that were added to the exteroid of some of these asteroids and most importantly the main one. These hangers could throw up over 288 fighters and bombers.

With these defenses getting up and running the facility was start to get operations underway. Miners had been brought into the field and were not moving from asteroid to asteroid, searching for minerals to mine. Some asteroids were already marked and getting mined. Their ore being brought back into the Silken Asteroid Base facility for processing.

They moved into the pitch black room in pairs and quickly spread out in front of the torn wall opening. Their rifles were up at the ready and their heads moving to scan the room continuously. This time they had only used their night vision system and kept the lights on their helmets off. This decission was one that probably saved someones life.

The enhanced vision systems made it possible to see inside the dark room as if it was lit. Moving quietly the team started a full inspection of the room before them. It turned out to be a computer center of some sort with large banks of old deactivated computer cores. Some of these looked to have been turned over and mawled by something fierce. Wires and circuits had been torn from inside the banks and were strune all over the floor. Also, the same puncture marks that were in the door and racks inside the storage room, were visible here on the computer cores.

As the rifles swept the area movement was detected on the other side of the room. After some mental commands, the whole team spread out and slowly moved towards that side of the room while still covering all the other areas. Colonel Stevenson's helmet moved slowly from side to side as his display changed, monitoring the room conditions and always indicating where his team members were. It was when he looked down at the ground that he saw a trail or something still warm leading towards where the sound was coming from.

The team moved through the maze of computers in a long line formation. They would make sure that whatever it was inside this room would never get passed them. Following orders they all moved as one and turned slowly towards one of the corners. It was finally at almost eighty meters away from the corner when Stevenson saw the trail end. This end happened to be a small pool of fluid running out of a dead body slumped in the corner.

The body wasn't just dead, it was riped in half with the lower portion missing. Internal organs were all out in the open, laying before the dead torso. Ilmus swept his gaze over the corpse and zoomed in the man's face. Within seconds his suits computer matched the face to a file in the databank. It was one of the very same engineers that went missing and that they were here to find.

HQ, this is Alpha Team. We have located one of the missing personel. Sorry to say the man is dead. We are not alone here in this base. Request permission to conduct a full security sweep and hunt down those responsible. Colonel Stevenson mental thought into the helmet after activating the communication system.

The reply came almost instantly. "Alpha Team, this is HQ. You have a go, repeat, you have a go. Full weapons free is allowed. Find those who did this. Out."

As soon as the Colonel acknowledged the order, the motion sensors on his suit went off. A three dimentional pointer and instantly appeared on this helmet display and pointed towards the sound that was detected. Ilmus turned to look next to the body, but there was nothing there. He switched over to thermal and still there was nothing. No sign of any person or creature.

Suddenly the dead man's arm moved a little and disappeared for a meer instantly. As it did the was a sound of cracking bone and tearing flesh before half the arm fell free, the small amount of blood still left in the viens and arteries leaking out onto the already stained floor. Whatever was there couldn't be seen by the nightvision systems on his suit meaning that they would have to use light and give up their advantage.

It was as soon as the team turned on all their lights that the creature could be seen. The whole area flooded with bright light, revealing a large over one meter long insect like animal. Its legs all ended in sharp talons that almost ripped into the hard floor as the creature sat there devouring the person laying before it. Inside its mouth as the half eaten arm it was just torn off.

As soon as the lights turned on the creature's large head quickly turned towards them. It let out a tremendous high pitched sound made all their ears hurt. Before the sound even ended the creatured launched itself towards them.

Acting as a highly trained team, the whole squad fired their weapons instantly upon the attack. Blast after blast of heavy laser rifle fire hit the oncoming creature, however, for a short time it looked to have little effect on the insectacoid. Parts of the exoskeleton evaporated and cracked under the intense fire, but the thing kept on coming. It quickly closed the distance between it and the team, but finally feel to the ground in a bloody mess as it succumbed to the defensive fire directed at it.

With adrenaline coursing through their systems, each of the special unit breathed heavy as they looked upon the creature laying dead at their feet. Countless charred punctures could be seen all around its body with orange blood seeping out. It could be seen that this creature's carapace was unusually thick and it had been only thanks to the high power of the rifles that the team managed to bring down it down.

One of the men moved his rifle down as he looked upon the dead animal. "Sir, you think this is the one that was making all the trouble? Is the mission complete?"

Colonel Ilmus looked around the room slowly, making sure it was secure before answering the trooper's questions. "I think it was one of them, but I believe there should be more. I mean this one looks like it's not even fully grown yet. If that's the case, where are its parents? Whatever left those marks on the doors was bigger than this one."

He paused and stared towards the open doorway to the right of the room, it led to another room as seen on this helmet display. "Looks like the job isn't done yet soldier, we'll keep sweeping room to room. Reinforcements should be here soon."

Ilmus mentally gave orders for his men and woman to get ready to move out. Under his command two troopers took the lead with the rest previding cover and moved towards the opened door. Knowing what these creatures were capable of would help the team be more alert. They would also be completely visible now since the creatures could not be seen through night vision, meaning that the team would have to keep on using their lights.

They all moved slowly and steadily through the doorway into the pitch black room on the other side. As their rifles swept over every inch of the room, they could see that this one was completely different from the other that they had all come through. It appeared to be a narrow conferance room of some sort with a large metallic table bolted into the floor in the middle of the room. All of the chairs had been taken, but a massive wall sized holotelevision had been left.

It seemed that the room was empty and the whole squad slowly turned to move back out of the room. The two rear guard troopers moved back towards the door slowly, their rifles faceing the dark room and their flashlights sweeping across it. Just as their light beams made a final pass over the large display unit mounted on the wall a chilling and horrid shreek filled the room. It was almost the same as the one they hear before, but was louder and more pronounced.

Not even two seconds after the sound started to fill the room, the display shattered out all over the room. The whole squad turned in time to see two giant insect like creatures jump through the wall. They looked to be related to the one they had killed in the computer room, but these were over two and half meters tall and were much bigger in mass. Each one move on two massive legs and had folded wings against their backs. There were also a pair of smaller arm/legs emerging from the creatures sides, each with thick large talons.

These two creatures stood up on their two legs and bellowed out again as their stretched out their wings. As if acting together, the moment the squads rifles were brought to bare on them, the creatures fell forward and set them arms to the floor. They seemed to be a mixture between an insect and animal as they moved towards the group of troopers, spreading out like pack animals on a hunt.

As the two animals insectiods advanced forward slowly, the whole team took a step back. Their rifles were trained at both of the creatures and they all awaited the Colonel's orders to open fire. He had never seen anything like these two creatures and ventured a guess that the small one they had killed earlier was probably their baby. Ilmus hoped that if that was the case there were only one of those around. They would have to conduct another sweep of the whole base after this was oven.

Knowing that the opertunity to study these new creatures was too important to give up, he mentally issued orders for each trooper to switch their weapons from kill to stun. It was true that the Colonel was a warrior, but he wasn't stupid. He didn't kill just for the sake of killing, but because it was sometimes necessary. These creatures were probably just defending their marked territory and if possible they should be neutralized and removed to a safer location.

With that last thought, Colonel Ilmus Stevenson gave the order to open fire on both the creatures. Dozens of bolts were ejected from the groups rifles and sped towards the two advancing animals. All but a small few hit two creatures dead on, but to the amazement of all the troopers, not one went down. The only thing to happen was that both paused in their movement for a second and let out a deep growl before shreeking out as the younger creature did. Their sound was so intense that it took all of the troopers will and training to hold onto their weapons and not try to cover their ears.

"Move it! Get out of the room on the double!" Shouted Ilmus, knowing from the last encounter that an attack was imminent.

Without protest the team began their evacuation of the room they were in. Half turned to run through the doors while the other half sayed on guard. All switched their weapons back to full power and prepared to use them. When the others ran out they formed a semicircle around the doorway and awaited the ones still inside to run over in order to provide cover fire.

In this situation, cover fire was indeed needed. Right after the last troop ran through the door on of the large creatures jumped through. On orders, the whole team opened fired at it instantlly. Even on full power the bolts didn't bring down the animal. Some cracked and dented the exoskeleton, while most just bounced off and burned the outside layer of natural armor. No one could believe the toughness of this animal, its skin was like thick durasteel yet bent and moved with the animal.

They creature before them roared out again and stood up on its hind legs while extending its wings. As it did the deck rang with the sound of charge cartriges falled to the floor before new ones were inserted into the blaster rifles. Before the animal could lower itself back down, however, something small, black, and round rolled under it. Not even a second after the object reached the animal, an explosion occured. One powerful enough that it pushed everyone back with the concussive force.

This explosion tore the creature almost completely in half. The floor was an orange mess as the hind end of the animal lay still and smoldering in the same place it had been. The front, however, was flung over 10 meters forwards and landed right before Lieutenant Diller's feet. It was a chared mess like the other half and still bleeding out all over the metal floor plate. It looked thoroughly dead and motionless.

Before she could even say a word the front legs of that part of the animal tensed and pushed the head out towards her so fast that she didn't have time to move. Everyone could hear Diller's scream and turned in time to see her fall back onto the floor with half of one of her legs missing. The creature's razor sharp teeth and powerful bite had completely penetrated through her armor and had cleanly torn the leg from the knee down from Diller's body in one final attack before its death.

Diller was in complete shock instanly as she looked down to where the rest of the her leg used to be. Her brain could not yet respond to the pain that flooded it and her shock kept Diller from screaming out more. As she watched streams of blood squirted from her knee and mixed with that coming from the animal laying before her. Within seconds, however, the squirts stopped and she could feel her whole thigh squeeze tight.

This feeling was the suit doing its job to save her life. It had detected the life threatening injury from the moment it had occured and knew the exact area that had been hurt. To prevent Diller from dieing of massive blood loss, the synithetic muscle fibers that made up the suits inside sink received special instructions to tighten at the thigh. This tightness squeezed the large arteries inside the leg shut so that blood could not travel through them quickly.

They rest of the team was on her quickly as well. They pulled out a med kit one of the team started to apply a specilized clot patch to the gapping wound. This patch soaked up blood and hardened around the wound quickly. As it hardened the patch also became tighter so that it could stay on by itself. Along with these properties the clot patch promoted the blood to clot faster and prevented it from flowing out.

As this was happening, the team had completely forgetten that there was one more creature left besides the one that had just died.