A heavily shielded shuttle dropped from the hanger bay onboard the Vestron, and with a burst of acceleration went into a long curve toward the Viscount.

It had been decided to send the two strike teams over one at a time. Ten men sat in the back of the Delta-Class DX-9 transport, each armed to the teeth with their preffered weapons, and protected with both armor and personal deflector screens. Holo representations in the helmets of each showed the condition of each of their teammates armor suit, as well as a mini map of the ship they were preparing to board.

“Contor 1, check”

“….. check”

“Contor 2, check”

“Roger, roger”

“Contor 3, check”

“Bingo alpha”

“Contor 4, check”

“Yup”

“Contor 5, check”

“I’m here, no thanks to you…”

“haha. Contor 6, check”

“Here”

“7, check”

“here”

“8, check”

“Present”

“Contor 9, check”

“I’m here. Now, Contor 10, check”

“I just did roll call, of course I’m here.”

“Just checking”

A slight chuckle, muffled by the com systems arose. The joke was old, but it helped to relieve tension. They had all been briefed on the mission. There wasn’t much to remember actually; a distress signal that appeared to be forged, an old hulk of a battleship that had once dominated the field, and those fazing body signatures.

“Fire up your sensor detection systems people. Heat detection, Infrared, hue, and ION systems, check.”

A murmur of assent came through the intercoms of each strike team member. They were ready to rock and roll.”

The TDY soldiers fired on the creeatures to almost no avail. Skai was stumped. He'd never seen anything like this before.

"What the hell are these things?"

--------------------------------------------
Outside the ship, the TJE fighters began targeting all of the weapons systems on the ship. Those posed a large threat to the vessels in the area. They began to systematically eliminate them.

(Kas... that checking joke was bad)

The shuttle outside came around. It started to come towards Kas's ship. A distress call came from it, beggin to be let in, before primary systems failed and life support gave in.
________________________________________________________________

In the vessel the Azguardians' sacrifice blew a hole in the creatures. The survivor lead the bewildered humans out quickly. But suddenly they encountered yet another block of black figures.

One stepped forward, and in a semi robotic voice, said "Come with us and you will not be harmed"

Tha Azguard sighed "He's got a point. I don't think theres' much we can do..."
____________________________________________________________

Outside the ship, an ancient turret turned suddenly and vaped a Jutraalian fighter, in a spray of fire and shrapnel. But the jutraalians were successfu in disabling the last of the ancient hulks' weapons.

Landing on the vessel was easy, enormous holes in the hull made entry smooth. The DX-9’s weapons systems scanned the decks immediately around the gaping orifice, checking for life forms. To the left, a group of phase shifting forms was spotted. Light flooded the area, emanating from a brilliant spot beneath a quad laser cannon.

The sight before them horrified the gunners. It was a mishmash of beings; they were partly covered with a strange black amour. They walked hesitatingly, as if forced autonomously. One of the beings stretched its arms toward the DX-9, and leapt. The young gunner twitched, and training kicked in.

His left trigger finger squeezed the trigger, and his cannon bucked. Everything seemed to move in slow motion, the flying body, and the ten-foot laser beam hitting the body dead center, and passing through without even loosing length. The body exploded, its midriff completely vaporized. The chest floated toward the outside of the ship, the legs continued toward the DX-9.


“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH” The young gunner screamed as two legs flopped onto the barrel of his cannon. He could see the flesh, and how it was rotting in places. His left hand squeezed again, and the pair of legs were vaporized instantly.

“Oh… did you have to do that here?” A veteran gunner, sitting two meters down the hall cursed as the smell of vomit made its way to his nostrils. “It’s dead, ok? Dead. D – E – A – D.”

“I know” came the weak reply.

“………………aft gunners, fire at will upon the beings. Sensors register them as non-living. We want to put our men down safe………”

“Let ‘em have it lad”


The First blaster bolt sizzled down the deck the beings were standing on. It caught two of them, one in the shoulder and another in the head. Both lost their respective appendages, and flopped to the ground. Twelve more two-meter long bolts shot town, eliminating the rest.


“Wish we had weapons that powerful” One of the strike team members muttered. His partner patted the heavily customized E-WEB he carried, and grinned. “We have something close.”