Maria sat on the bridge of the New Horizon staring out at the specks of light from stars in the distance. The New Horizon is currently over one hundred thousand light years from the closest Pact system. Maria stared calmly into the blackness of deep space while sipping a steaming cup of coffee. She'd been on this ship for almost a month flying further and further out in the hopes of finding a new civilization. The New Horizon wasn't the only ship seeking a new civilization, but it was most definitely the furthest out.

Why was the New Horizon out so far looking for a new civilized system? Fame and money of course! It had been four months since the launch of StarPath and no one had discovered a new species in the galaxy so far. The goldmine would be to not only find a new sentient species but to also find one with an adequate technological level. Maria mused over it with a smile, it had taken them months of effort to get to this point.

Her mind wandered through her memories. Three months ago she and her then best friend Zenna had decided they wanted to do something unique and new together. After talking they decided they wanted to be the first ones to not just discover a new sentient species, but one with a high technological level that could be introduced to the pact system. It would not only make them famous celebrities but it would also make them filthy rich.

The biggest problem was getting a ship, deep space exploration means needing a large ship and the bigger a ship gets the more expensive everything becomes from the armor plating to the power systems and beyond. There were methods to gain money, but to get a truly worthwhile ship that could store the supplies they would need and have enough defensive and offensive power to survive a battle with not only pirates but anything else they could run into. There was also no guarantee that any sapient species they discovered would be friendly.

Missions, bounty hunting, and capturing then selling pirate ships were all good ways to make some credits. It just would take months or longer to earn enough money to get a large enough ship for their needs. So together they had come up with a plan. They decided the best option would be to approach a corporation and try to make a deal. Normally that wouldn't work but they had something to offer that most people didn't. They were travelers. If the absolute worst should happen, they would respawn and be able to tell the story of what happened. A distinct advantage an NPC couldn't provide.

Naturally, it didn't go smoothly. It took several weeks and over a hundred meetings with different large corporations until they finally found one that was interested in making a deal. It took a week of negotiations until they came to a mutual understanding. In exchange for the Valtek Corporation providing all the funding they would need, Maria and Zenna would get a twenty-five percent commission from sales of all technology related to their discovery as well as being recorded as the discoverers.

According to Pact law whenever a new sapient species with advanced technology is discovered the discoverer gets a full monopoly on the sale of the new technology. Provided they could negotiate a contract with said sapients. The contract negotiation would be up to the Valtek Corporation, it was Maria and Zenna's job to find the sapients for them to negotiate with.

It took another month for their ship to be modified and made ready for deep space exploration. Maria had never been told how much the ship cost, but she guessed several hundred million at least. Everything was top of the line packed into a heavily modified carrier hull. They had thick armor, heavy weapons, and even a few small fighters to run point if needed. Then there were all the systems inside of the ship to keep them alive during the long haul into deep space such as the hydroponics bay and storage space for ridiculous amounts of non-perishable food.

As for the crew it was comprised mostly of slave NPC's, people who could stay on the ship twenty-four seven. Some of the crew, the main command structure, was made up entirely of players that needed to log out for their real lives. Still, they had gotten lucky and managed to get the crew set up so that there were usually two or more players online and on the ship at all times. Currently, there are seven player characters on board the New Horizon.

Maria sips her coffee and then looks up as her new wife, Zenna, walks onto the bridge and gives her a smile. They'd gotten married, in the game, a couple of weeks ago by one of the players playing a priest. Zenna walks up to Maria and gives her a playful salute, "Good evening captain."

Maria grins and even blushes a little while she salutes back to Zenna, "Good evening to you too captain."

Maria and Zenna had both chosen to play as beast people. Maria is a leopard-kin with short black-spotted golden ears and a matching tail. Otherwise, she looked like a slim Hispanic woman. Zenna, on the other hand, had chosen to play a dragon-kin. Particularly a gold dragon. She was slim like Maria but she had soft golden scales on the backs of her hands and going up to her shoulders. From there the scales connected and slide down her spine until they met her long slender lizard-like tail.

Maria scoots over as far as she can to one side of the oversized captain's seat she's sitting in and pats the newly vacated space. Zenna giggles and moves over to sit down next to Maria. It had only been a couple of weeks since their shipboard wedding and they were still very firmly in the honeymoon phase. Both women blush lightly as their bodies are smooshed together in the chair. Maria offers her cup of coffee to Zenna, who gladly accepts it and takes a sip. If anyone saw them together they would probably vomit rainbows.

After handing back the cup of coffee to Maria, Zenna speaks up while looking out into the endless expanse, "Just another couple of hours and we can leave this abyss and move further into space."

She turns back to face Maria, "One of the remote scout vessels sent back data on a possible contact. It picked up unnatural radio waves."

The remote scout vessels were a necessity when traversing unmapped space. They were essentially compact spacecraft that only consisted of a power core, an A.C.C., a navigational computer, and a sensor suite. Their job was to jump ahead of the ship in multiple directions scan the systems for signs of life, and then jump back to the New Horizon. They also served the purpose of gathering astrogation data that could be sold when they returned to the pact systems.

Maria perks up at the mention of unnatural radio signals, it was a potential sign of a civilized world. They'd chased a few signals before but they'd led to nothing. Still, every signal was a chance at finding a new civilization and it gave Maria a rush every time. Maria grins at Zenna, "I assume you have the data already?"

Zenna nods and pulls out a small datapad handing it to Maria. Maria eagerly accepts the pad and reads through the data. It wasn't much, just an unnatural pattern in some radio waves that appeared like it could possibly be from some sort of civilization. They would need to go where the radio waves have been detected and then trace them back to their source to know for sure if there was a civilization there or not. But that was the entire reason they were out here!

As Maria continued to read the data one of the smaller consoles off to the side of the bridge beeped. Leaving Maria to continue her reading Zenna climbed to her feet and walked over to the console. It was a proximity alert, there were a couple of small objects on a collision course with the ship. After seeing the alert Zenna turned it off. The New Horizon had the most powerful shields available for its class, objects that size would just bounce off with no real damage done so they could easily be ignored.

With that done she walks back over and sits down with Maria once again. The two talk about their plans for when they get to the location of the signal when a loud alarm goes off throughout the entire a ship. Maria and Zenna both leap to their feet and run over to the console that displays information about the integrity of the ship. One of the sections of the ship was flashing red, Maria immediately turned on the internal communications, "Captain Vasquez to all crew, hull breach in section ten, repeat hull breach in section ten. Repair crew get down there and see what the hell happened!"

After issuing her orders she moves over to another console and checks the proximity sensors. Her eyes immediately widen, there were hundreds of readings, but all of them were tiny when compared to the ship. Each reading couldn't be more than four to five feet and were moving slow enough that they should easily bounce off of the shields of the ship. But as she watched one of the objects easily passed right through the shields as if they weren't even there.

Running over to another console she double checks and the shields are up and operating at full capacity, there are no readouts on damage taken or anything even happening. It didn't make sense. If something hit the shields there should be a readout, even if it was something that small and no damage had been done there would still be feedback of some sort. One of the machines had to be lying, either there were no objects or the shields were malfunctioning, she was leaning towards the shields malfunctioning given the hull breach.

"This is repair crew seven. We're at the hull breach.", there's a pause before the male voice continues, "Captain, it looks like something melted through the hull with something extremely corrosive. There are no signs of whatever caused the damage, we'll begin repairs right away."

At that moment another hull breach alert went off, then two more. Whatever was floating out there in the dark was dangerous. Maria immediately runs over to the pilot's station and pushes the thrusters to the maximum while using the controls to make the ship dive down. She needed to avoid hitting any more of the things outside ripping holes in her ship. Their repair supplies were limited, they couldn't afford to sit still and get hit by whatever the hell was out there. In the time it took for the hunk of mass that is the New Horizon to get its fat ass moving in a different direction there were three more hull breaches.

Maria grimaces as Zenna informs her of the damage and calls for additional repair crews. Fortunately the affected areas, for the most part, were spaces without much in the way of supplies or personnel inside of them. One had been a very devastating loss though, one of their MCU storage areas had breached and about three million credits worth of MCU's had been dumped into the vacuum of space. That loss represented about a fifth of their materials for repairs and replacement parts.

Leaving the pilots seat to let the ship just continue on its current course Maria runs over to another console and helps Zenna guide the other repair crews to the damaged areas of the ships. The emergency bulkheads had done their job so not much atmosphere had been lost to the damage. As the other repair crews got to work Maria called the first repair crew to respond, "Repair crew seven, status report."

"This is repair crew seven we've almost got a basic patch on the hole. It will take longer for a full GUH!", the crew leaders words were cut off by a sudden exhale of air followed by the sound of something gurgling.

"Repair crew seven?", Maria asks in concern for the odd noise.

Maria calls out to the repair crew several more times but there is no response. Growling she hits the button for ship-wide communications, "All hands report to your stations. Main bridge crew to the bridge, NOW GODDAMNIT!"

After shouting the last part she runs over to the security station for the ship. The bridge really was too large for just two people to be running. While Zenna was guiding and working with the repair crews it left just about everything else to Maria. Finally making it over to the security console Maria quickly scrolls through the different areas of the ship until she gets to the section repair crew seven had been working on. Selecting that section she flicks through the video feeds to see what is happening.

The images on the video feed cause Maria to immediately turn her head to the side and vomit out the coffee she just drank and her breakfast. On the screen is a scene of pure, unadulterated, carnage. Repair crew seven was scattered everywhere, literally. Pieces of them were thrown all over the room, arms, legs, torsos, pieces of torsos, heads, organs, offal, and blood. So much blood that it was like the whole room they had been working on had been repainted in crimson red. The shock of seeing the glistening masses of meat chunks that had once been human, or humanoid at least, had been too much for Maria.

Seeing her wife distressed Zenna runs over to check on and comfort her. When she sees the carnage on the video screen she stops and turns deathly pale, "What the hell?"

As she stares at the horror on the screen someone arrives on the bridge, a large Rexaurian male with deep red scales. He rushes over to the still sick Maria and pale Zenna, "What's the situation?"

Saying nothing Zenna points to the security screen, when he looks he lets out a deep bass rumble. A sign of deep displeasure. The Rexaurian is Velos, the head of security for the entire ship. After getting over the shock on the screen he immediately gets to work. He skips backward on the records of the video feed in five-minute intervals until he sees the crew alive and well while working on the breach. Then he speeds up the playback. He watches intently for the moment of their deaths to figure out what the hell of happening.

As he watches there's intermittent static on the video, which causes him to frown, nothing should be able to interfere with the video. The static gets worse and worse until it complete obstructs the whole screen blocking any sight. He sets the video to normal playback and hears the conversation between Maria and the crew leader. A few seconds after the abrupt cut off from the crew leader the static on the video clears up and the scene of carnage is once again on the screen. Letting out another deep bass growl of frustration Velos pushes the intercom button himself, "This is security chief Velos to all crew. We have an intruder on board. All crew arm yourselves, all security crew get into armor and secure your weapons, DOUBLE TIME!"

As soon as he lets go of the button a voice comes over the channel, "This is repair crew three there's something down here! We need secur....", the sentence is cut short and replaced with static.

Pandemonium breaks out on the ship. Calls begin to come in from several sections at once, all of the calls end up getting cut off before the speaker can give any indication of what is attacking the crew. Every time Velos checks the video records static blocks him from seeing whatever is attacking the crew. One moment they are alive, static appears, and a scene of bloody carnage is left behind when the static clears. Whatever it is clearly had a way to manipulate their security, and there was more than one.

Fights begin to break out on the ship as the security crew, in full battle gear, meets the enemy. As they report while fighting it becomes clear to Velos that the enemy isn't just manipulating the video feeds, but also the very lighting of the ship. What kind of B grade horror movie were they in? According to the reports whenever a security crew met one of the enemies the lights would go out and the enemy would attack from the dark. It cost the lives of thirty-two of his security officers to get just that little bit of information.

The crew on the ship was dropping like flies as the main command crew tried to reorganize and rally the ship's crew from the bridge. There were a dozen people on the bridge now, all at their assigned stations and performing their assigned tasks. The pilot, an elven man, was doing his best to avoid the things floating in space that caused the breaches, but every maneuver he made was countered, and even at full speed the things on the sensors were catching them and causing more and more hull breaches.

Even with the sensors saying there were now hundreds, perhaps thousands, of the things out there they couldn't see a single one in the darkness of space. There was absolutely no visual confirmation of a single one of the things ripping their ship and crew to shreds. Maria gives the order to spin up the ACC and get the ship out of there, they could deal with the borders while in the corridor and avoid getting any more. Following her orders to procedure commences, but it will still take about five minutes for the calculations to complete.

Those five minutes are hell. Several more of the things manage to breach and board the ship and over a third of their three hundred and fifty man crew has been slaughtered. But eventually, the star-studded blackness of space is replaced with the sheer blackness of the corridor as they make the jump.

Once in the corridor, Velos began to give orders to the crew, having them split up and meet at various rally points with the security personnel. The situation was not good, there were at least a dozen of the enemies on board and no one had been able to confirm if one had even been hurt, let alone killed, during all the fighting so far. As the crew moved through the ship to get into their positions Velos opened up the weapon locker on the bridge and began to pass out various weapons to the bridge crew. After that was done he got one of the other officers to help him into the suit of power armor that he kept on the bridge for emergencies.

For the next hour Maria, Zenna, and Velos coordinated the security crew and ships personnel in an effort to beat back and defeat the enemy that hard boarded them. Despite their efforts, they still had no indication of the way the enemy looked, all they knew for certain was the enemy was brutal and anytime they met with the enemy it was their side losing. By the time the full hour had passed the ship was down to less than fifty crew members. Pieces of the crew were liberally covering sections of the ship while blood of various colors flowed like a river.

As they continued to try to coordinate the members of the crew there was a loud bang as something hard slammed into the sealed door of the bridge. Everyone went silent at the noise and stared at the door. The lights closest to the door began to flicker on and off as another loud bang echoed on the bridge. Everyone looking at the door could see a small dome had appeared on their side of the door from being dented in. Being the first to break from the shock Velos began to shout orders out to the crew on the bridge having everyone ready their weapons.

As the bridge crew moved loud bangs kept repeating over and over as something strong hammered away at the sealed door. Given how thick the door was and the materials it was made from, whatever was slamming against the door had an insane amount of power. Usually, it would be easier to just cut the door open with a plasma torch or something instead of brute forcing through.

For the next few minutes everyone on the bridge sweat bullets as whatever was outside hammered away at the door, there were dozens upon dozens of dents in the metal of the door. They all watch in horror as the next blow to the door pierced through. They could all just barely see a sharply pointed scythe-like appendage before the lights on the bridge completely cut out and plunged them into darkness. Everyone turned on flashlights and trained them at the door, but even the flashlights began to flicker and eventually died.

Whatever this thing was it had the ability to interfere with the lights of the ship and their flashlights. Velos couldn't help thinking that maybe it was some sort of EMP like interference? If that was the case... He quickly stored the massive gatling plasma cannon he had and swapped it out for a good old-fashioned lead spitting gatling weapon. He also pulled out a massive box of ammo and quickly fed the chain of ammo into the weapon readying it for the fight.

There was a horrendous screech as the door to the bridge was torn by whatever was out there. No one on the bridge could see in the dark, none of their races had darkvision. An oversight Velos would be sure to rectify in the future. They all watched and listened as the metal screeched in protest at being forced to bend and tear out of the invader's way. The sudden silence was all the more staggering after those loud sounds.

The entire crew strained their eyes to see in the glow of the few working panels on the bridge. As they stared they all saw several small glowing green somethings coming from the direction of the door. No one hesitated. Everyone opened fire. The noise wasn't quite as loud as you would expect, in fact, Velos' gatling gun was making the most noise out of all of the weapons. The multiple barrels of his weapon fired out lead projectiles at a prodigious rate. Every explosion of gunpowder provided a burst of light, and there were so may burst that the barrel of his gun almost provided consistent light on the bridge.

In the light of Velos' gatling gunfire, everyone trained their eyes on the black shape near the door and fired their weapons. Lasers and plasma bolts flew through the air while they all aimed at the creature. The creature let out a toe-curling scream and seemed to vanish from sight. As it vanished everyone's gunfire stopped. They all looked around for signs of that green glow they spotted when the creature first entered the bridge.

There's the sound of the beginning of a scream followed shortly after by the sound of something wet thunking onto the ground and rolling. Maria looks down at her feet as something round bumps into her. Maria lets out a shriek as she realizes the round object is someone's head. She stumbles backward until she's pressed up against the bulkhead of the ship.

Velos swings his weapon around looking for any signs of something moving in the glow of the working panels on the bridge. As a shadow passes in front of one of the panels everyone that see's it suddenly opens fire in that direction. The room lights up once again as plasma bolts, lasers, and good old-fashioned lead fly through the air. There's no sound as the shadow vanishes into the darkness once more.

Maria crouches down on the floor and covers her head with her hands. This wasn't supposed to be happening. They were in the middle of nowhere, not in any space with known entities that would attack! She just wanted to explore. As Maria closed her eyes and cried while trying to deny the reality before her screams of pain and the flashes of light from weapons fire were all ignored.

Velos stood back to back with one of the other crew members, they'd gotten into this formation to watch each others back. As Velos' sight moved all over trying to find the monster attacking them a sharp pain erupted from his back and traveled through his entire body. As he looked down at his chest he could see the sharply pointed scythe-like limb sticking out and covered in blood. The last thing he sees is the scythe limb sliding rapidly up towards his face.

Velos's body collapses to the ground bisected from the bottom of his chest and up. Even his power armor had been cleanly sliced in two by the limb. Seeing their security officer dead other members of the crew begin to panic and run towards the ripped open door to try and flee somewhere else inside the ship. Zenna runs over to Maria and crouches down in front of her, "Maria! We have to run!"

Maria looks up at her new wife, tears streaking her face. She gets a grip on herself and nods. Zenna nods in return and starts to stand up. There's a soft whoosh as a light breeze caresses Maria's face. Something hot and wet splashes onto her cheek. Confused she reaches up to touch the sticky wet substance. Pulling her finger away she can see the red gleam of blood in the dim light of the panel nearby. Confused she looks to Zenna as Zenna falls to the side, her head rolling a few feet away from the rest of her body.

Maria inhales suddenly and is about to scream when something lands right in front of her. All she can do is stare into multiple sets of glowing green eyes that stare at her. She swallows her scream and horror as she slowly tries to lift the gun in her shaking hand. This was the thing that killed her crew. This was the monster that had killed her wife. She desperately wanted to shoot it dead. As her shaking hand rises the thing stares at her, a couple of its eyes flick to the side to assess the weapon in her hand. All Maria can see are those soulless glowing green eyes. They are the last thing she sees before...

You have died!

Time until respawn: 11:59:59.

Maria, or rather Angela the woman playing Maria, sits up in her bed and pulls off her headset to slam it onto the soft comforter, "FUCK! Goddamn mother fucking FUCK!"

She screams obscenities for a few minutes as she calms down from the adrenaline rush of the encounter with the monster in space. Her frustration vented she climbs out of bed and heads for her desk, she needed to report what had happened and talk with the other players who were members of their crew. She tried not to think about how financially fucked she was in the game for losing that ship and the entire crew.

In the darkness, something feasts...