"Breath," Zero tells me, "Try and calm down, you got this Leo." Zero tries to soothe me, my heart pumping wildly. Controlling my breathing. The soldiers ran past my hiding spot without noticing me. They came from the cargo hold, heading towards the elevators. The gym sliding doors automatically sliding open as they pass by them, shouting and more gunfire. I slowly peek from my position, see if I could help at all. Most of the black-clad soldiers keep moving past the gym, towards the elevator to get deeper into the vessel. "Just hide, and don't make a sound." "I can't just stand here and do nothing," I say. "You're doing something, staying alive." "Frack this," I say, coming out of hiding and creep towards the gym. Most of them have taken the elevator, leaving only a couple in the gym, seeing the door start closing. "When it's completely shut, I'm taking these ones down," I say to Zero. "Affirmative, aim for the neck, they're decently armored." I peek around the corner again, the two are outside the gym doors, holding position. I fire hitting the first in the neck and dropping him. The other looks from their fallen comrade back to me. He begins sprinting at me, sword raised. I fire, but my rounds bounce harmlessly off their armor. "Fuck" I say. "Quickly, swap ammo back to the APE (armor-piercing explosive)." Zero commands. Turning on my heel, I sprint away to ducking the corner of the gym and lounge. Taking the couple seconds, to quickly reach back and pull a clip of APE from the pouch and lose a mag, falling uselessly to the floor. Not skipping a beat, I reach for another. Hitting the magazine eject on my rifle, and swap the mag in and pull back the charging handle. Hearing the footsteps right on me, I round the corner and spray a burst into the soldier's chest, he stops in his tracks, Small bursts of pressure pop inside his chest, he finally drops, sword skidding across the ground to my feet. I dart into the gym. Four bodies greet me, all hacked to pieces by these monsters. Moving to each on and checking for survivors, none. I hear more movement and aim at the door. The two enemy soldiers step through, they use little to no tactics as they walk right in. Switching to burst fire, I spat a burst into the one closest to me. 3 rounds hit dead center and the 4th misses, hitting the bulkhead behind him. The rounds that hit the first guy detonate inside of his chest cavity, simply looking like he belched. Lining up another burst on the second guy. The tall soldier pushes out his hand towards me and I go flying back, smashing against the wall behind me projecting a mirror. The light panels break and shatter, distorting the image, as it flickers. "Frack, what was that?" I ask Zero, "Psionics, he's using a type of psychic energy, rare in most Gaian species. I think in your language he used a form of telekinesis to throw you." "You're telling me he threw me with his mind, like using the force or something." "Yes, like the force, now shoot him before he does it again," Zero says, I can almost see him shaking his head at me. Getting back to my feet, swapping the fire mode to full auto. I spray in his general direction. Using its psychic power, he pulls the body of his comrade in front of him, the bullets harmlessly explode inside the corpse, then unceremoniously drops it between us. Raising its sword to its shoulder taking and changes stance. "What do I do, I have 3 rounds left in my rifle." "he's good, okay, drop your weapon, and take a step back." "What, why?" "Just do it." I comply, stepping back towards the now sparking panels. All that was between me and this space ninja was some gym equipment and a few dead bodies. The enemy soldier stepped towards me slowly, keeping its distance. "Okay, when he turns around shoot him in the back." Before I could ask what, one of the machines near the door slammed down, making both the soldier and I jump. He turned to look at the door. I quickly pull the rifle sling back up, he was already beginning to turn back around by the time I had it up. Pulling the rifle to my shoulder, the world seemed to slow, as the rifle touched my shoulder the enemy already extended his hand towards me. "Fire, Leo" I put the last 3 rounds I had downstream, then all went black. Coming too, the back of my head hurt throbbed. "Get up Leo, move." Zero shouted at me. Slowly getting up, all I remembered, I was fighting a space ninja Jedi, quickly look around. Finding right across from me was the enemy soldier, with its head almost completely blown off. Moving past him to the other. Looking for a way to remove its helmet. "Try this." and a diagram popped up in my HUD. Opening the helmet, revealing a very human-like face but the bone structure was a little more square with long sharp features, it's skin was alabaster white almost translucent with pure black markings covering most of his skin around his neck like a tattoo. Upon his forehead looked like oddly shaped marks that where surgically removed and hard to the touch and its hair was pure black tied into a bun. "Horns?" I ask zero. "Yes, this is a Ghul, an aggressive and territorial race, they live far from here." "Ghul, why haven't I ever heard of them?" "You probably have, they're part of the introduction between the other races. Taught by the Arbiters when you first reached this part of the galaxy." Zero explained. "Oh, right, ah the Ghul and the elder, right?" I ask. "Eldrea, but yes, but your race probably forgot since you have never actually met them since you have lived in this system," Zero said. Quickly looking around, the door to the hall still wide open, one of the attacker's weapon lay in the path of the door, preventing it from shutting. Reloading my magazine, and grabbing the one I dropped earlier, my vision kinda hazy on the edges. "Leo, you need to breathe, take a breath, and relax." I didn't even notice my breathing was erratic. Closing my eyes, taking in a deep breath, slowly filling my lungs, then slowly releasing it. Feeling better. Walking out of the room, passing the remains of the crew and the Ghul attackers. "Has anyone tried making contact yet?" I ask zero. "No, communications are still being suppressed. I have been trying to stop the interference but I think it's coming from their vessel." "Okay, then what should we do, should we stay here, move to help the upper deck, or try and take out the jammer?" I ask. "Well, I would say staying here is the safest, but knowing the others on the ship won't be able to hold off the boarders, only for a while in groups at least. If we take out the jammer than we might be able to completely turn it around, being able to rally the whole ship. But ultimately the choice is up to you, Leo." "Do we know where the enemy ship is?" I ask. "It's docked against the main airlock in the cargo hold. We see all of them pass by us from that direction so far, but while you were unconscious another group of Ghul went up the elevator. I am not sure how many their ship holds, but I'm guessing that craft isn't much larger than a dropship." Thinking through my options, helping the others would be helpful but I didn't want to be pinched between two groups if another one came up after me. I'm guessing they went to the command floor to take over the bridge, bypassing the crew quarters for now. Making my decision. "Okay, let's get to their ship and disable that jammer. Grabbing a few more APE clips from the weapons locker I had opened before. Moving to the door of the cargo hold, trying to keep the door from sensing me to automatically open. Placing my hand on the door. "Can you tell if anyone is inside?" "One second, this might hurt," Zero said, shortly after I heard a piercing sound for a split second... "There isn't anyone on the other side of the door, but I am not sure about the whole cargo hold, proceed with caution," Zero advised. Folding the stock of my rifle into its compact form and moving towards the door, the doors slides soundlessly into the walls, revealing the dim gray walls, and metal shelving along the length of the entire hold, from floor to the ceiling. Each filled with containers and crates of all different sizes, metal nets securing them, hundreds covering one corner of the shelf to the other just in case, there is a loss of gravity or a breach in the hold itself. Bright white lights illuminate most of the space from above by massive light tiles. The cargo bay was the largest area of the ship taking up most of this deck of the ship. Two other ship airlocks as well as the main cargo hold doors lined the exterior of the room, with ramps to the second-floor scaffolding above, some repair bays, shops, and so much more was crammed into this section of the ship. My HUD lit up with red around the main airlock, showing the one I needed. Slowly moving across the room towards my destination using everything from cargo containers, heavy loader frames, and rolling tool chest as cover. Still not seeing anyone. I was about 4 meters from the airlock doors, when the airlock doors opened, quickly using a tool chest as cover. Twelve more Uzal soldiers marched out, moving past my hiding spot. Moving to get a better vision of the airlock itself. I see another soldier turning around and heading back into the airlock, I could tell he wasn't just another soldier, he held an ornate sword at his hip. He wore no helmet, he was the only one out of all the Uzal I had seen so far without one, he was also the only one with a full set of black horns. They curled up from his forehead into two sharp spikes about half a foot long. Black markings crossing his eyes and chin, turning into patterns down his neck, showing only white skin in the negative space of the tattoos. "That has to be the commander Leo, he will be stronger than the ones you have already fought." Zero informed me. "Why do you say that?" "The horns are a status to all of the Ghul, gaining them when they achieve honor for the Ghul. The longer they are the higher their station within their ranks. The tattoos also show how strong they're in using psionic energy." Zero said. Moving up to the airlock, I must have been seen by the sensors on the door as it slid open on my approach. Swapping to full auto and kept moving. The element of surprise was all I had against these invaders. The second door of the airlock opened, and I moved through. Their ship was dark, almost pitch black, the path went to a tee. I moved to go left when I heard footsteps. I ducked behind the other corner, hoping they wouldn't see me. They didn't pass my way, instead of going for the airlock. I was about to begin again when I heard gunfire coming from the way of the airlock and Njord. Taking a look, I see that dozen Ghul pushed out of the airlock and into the open cargo hold but they were caught in gunfire by marines, and not just any marines. My team. They pinned them against the airlock door and the heavy loader right outside the airlock. Some of the Uzal soldiers had short rifles in addition to menacing black swords most of the soldiers held. Their rifles shot what looked like metal spikes, each one digging into the floor by a couple of inches each, about each was almost a foot longer overall. The Ghul would fire and move into better cover, similar to suppressive fire. Val, Hale, and Marko had used cover similar to me to set up this ambush. I slowly crept closer to the airlock door, using the gunfire to mask my approach. A bolt flew through a thin spot of the container Marko was using as cover. I heard him cry out from the pain. Something inside of me was raging, to see all these bastards dead. I felt pure adrenaline hit my system as I charged out the airlock, perfectly flanking these bastards. Unloaded a spray into each one as I ran. The one nearest me slumped over dead after my initial spray, two more already dead from the initial ambush from Val's team. I wounded a couple more that were either dead or severally injured. I didn't have a second to confirm as I ran out of the airlock. All eyes turned on me. Hearing Val's voice shout out "Leo!!", a Ghul soldier turned my way and quickly made a small hand gesture. similar to what looked to be a far away slap. A wave of pressure hit me, and I flew sideways, slamming into the wall of the airlock, between both doors. Pain shoot through my arm and leg on my right side. Both must have been broken. I feebly tried to push my way up, too try and see what was going on. My helmet visor had cracks running through it. Breathing seemed harder, with each inhale, I felt a sharp pain lance through my side. Two more soldiers turn toward the airlock doors. "Leo, I know it hurts but you have to get up!" Zero urged me. I crawled into the airlock, doors separating the cargo hold and airlock firmly shut, separating me from my team. Pulling the sling of my rifle into my working hand, finally getting it into my shaky grip. Pointing it at the door waiting for the Ghul soldiers, hoping to at least take one out or push them back into the cargo hold for a small reprieve. "I'm injecting you with sedatives to help with the pain," Zero announced. Instantly the lancing pain became a dull throb, with my next breath. The pain was still there but felt more like an afterthought now. The doors slid open revealing both of the Ghul heading towards me with swords held low, looking for a quick kill, in gaming sometimes referred to as a coup de grâce. They didn't expect me to be alive or still armed, but they quickly found out, I unloaded the rest of my clip into them both in a spray of bullets. Rounds penetrated their armor from thigh to head in an uncontrolled spray, seconds later small explosions ripped through them both, severing limbs, and even one of them their helmet exploded outward spraying the wall with offal. The team must still be pinned, the handful of enemies still in cover outside the airlock doors, but I couldn't do much now that I was so injured. Positioning myself against the wall of the airlock. Trying to reload the rifle, but I couldn't do it with one hand. Turning my attention to inspecting the damage to my limbs but the damage was mainly inside the suit, which sealed around the injuries insulating them in case of blood loss. Reaching into a pouch, I pulled out a frag grenade. If I'm going to die here, I would rather take out these bastards then let anyone else die. I began to slowly crawl towards the enemy vessel. Vision partially blurring as I did, the pain was coming back worse with each passing breath. "Leo, do you trust me?" Zero asked, his question seemingly out of the blue. "Yes, yes I do Zero, more than I thought I could with an AI, to be honest," I said, through ragged breaths. "I don't want to die, and I don't want you to die either, I can do something to save us, but only if you give me permission to do so," Zero said. "If it can save us, then do whatever you need too," I said, already giving up hope. AI Designation: Zero has been granted full body augmentation by user. Warning: This is an experimental function and risk of damage or brain death is high. Do you wish to proceed? My mind was racing, two permissions to activate a single protocol, risk of injury and brain death, whats does it mean by high risk, just activating it can kill me, quickly suppressing the anxiety welling up inside of me. I will probably die without Zero's help either way. All of these thoughts spanned only a split second before I sent the mental command of my approval. "Let's do this thing... also, this may feel weird, but don't fight it," Zero said. It felt like my body and mind was in the middle of being pulled into a VR session. Then in my vision changed, like I was a passenger looking through my own eyes. I got to my feet. Broken leg under me but my body wasn't even shaking from the pain. The pain was completely suppressed now, I couldn't feel it or anything. Zero was in complete control over my physical body. He braced the broken leg and shoved it back into place, securing it with the point sling I used for my rifle. Limping on it he turned to the airlock door and as it opened four Ghul soldiers turned and looked at us. Zero tossed the live grenade into the group. I heard off into the distance, Val. "Leo, hide, we are coming, don't listen to the AI whatever it...." Val was cut off from finishing when Zero turned back into the enemy ship, the airlock closed with the enemy Ghul inside when the explosion went off, shaking the ship. "What does she mean, don't listen to you?" I asked Zero. "They probably found out I changed, faster than I imagined." Grabbing the arm hanging limply at my side. "Just dislocated," He said, using my voice, it was odd hearing your own voice like this. Grabbing the arm he braced it against the wall and rammed the socket back into place with a pop. It was hard to see from this perspective. Zero didn't even flinch when he did it. He grabbed the rifle and reloaded it with fluid precision. He pushed into the enemy vessel, going right past the airlock heading for the tee. Hearing more footsteps heading towards us. "Zero, someone is coming," I say. "I know." He said, raising the rifle one-handed, the enemy Ghul looked up as he came around the corner, his masked looked into my own, then got shot point-blank in the face. The round went through his unarmored head and ricocheted down the hallway. Zero still moving without losing a single step. The broken leg barely affecting his movement. Lights illuminating the corridor every few feet instead of having light panels, they had small light fixtures. Many footsteps could be heard heading our way. I was getting nervous now. "Zero, we got to hide, we can't fight a full squadron of them," I say. "No," Zero said. Something adjusted in the armor, the injured leg felt more stable now. Zero started running towards the footsteps, the Ghul came into view, and they began to charge towards us. The corridor only allowed 3 of them to move shoulder to shoulder, and only 9 of them were there, each holding a black sword. "Zero!!" I shouted, thinking we would be cut down without even a fight. Zero raised the gun and fired as he ran, the first 3 fell in the barrage. The row behind continued forward walking over they're fallen. When the Ghul reached us, Zero ducked under a swinging sword, and pushed the muzzle of the rifle into his armored chest and fired a single round. Pulling the rifle free, then the whole scene seemed to become slow motion. The sword swing seemed to move at half speed, but Zero was moving even faster than before. He ducked, dodged, parried the blades, using the rifle to attack and defend. Shot point-blank into enemies, going for either heart and headshots in the melee. Firing into the last guy the gun finally ran empty, before the guy fell, Zero ejected the empty mag, reaching back he didn't find another mag. Ahead of us was the bridge of this vessel. I could clearly see the consoles lit up with green hieroglyphs, projected out of a panel. If we dropped a grenade in there we could make it back to the airlock and be done with this. Zero started jogging ahead towards the cockpit. Movement from our right caught Zero's attention, a door slid open. Seeing the horns before I saw the blade come rushing for our throat. Sparks flew as Zero blocked and deflected the blade with the empty mark two. "Made you all this way, how many did you kill?" The tall Ghul commander asked. "Enough, care to join your fallen?" Zero said, holding the empty rifle. The Ghul commander looked relaxed, placing his sword against his shoulder, gently tapping it against his armor. "Sure, why not, that is if you can beat me." He said, lowering the blade one-handed taking up a stance that showed little defense but aggression instead. Showing only his side like a skilled fencer with the long blade pointing towards us. Zero just stood still like a statue. "I'll make the first move then." He lounged forward blade flashing, he was fast, but Zero kept dodging the slashes and lounges just barely. A low faint put us in the path for a lethal strike, Zero barely put his hand out to dodge the blade, slapping the edge away with the back of his armored hand. "Let's finish this!" The horned commander said as he pushed off the ground, moving faster than before. The blade held poised to lounge into our chest. Zero placed the rifle up to block the blow just barely. Then the commander's free hand made a flicking gesture and we were sent flying down the hall. Zero spun and landed daftly, but the broken leg dropped hard, not able to take the strain. Zero looked at it and grimaced. "Shit," he said. "Good skills for a human," The commander said. Moving forward again without even replying. Zero went on the offensive. With each dodge of the sword, Zero counter-attacked, hitting the commander, the attacks looked light, and wasn't doing much damage to the tall Ghul. "I thought you were stronger than this, human." He said with a sneer. The commander moved at us again, dodging the attacks but the commander sacrificed his many fast attacks to take damage in return for hits on ours. Small cuts lined up and down my body. "We are losing, he barely looks hurt Zero, we must run." I pleaded. "We finish this now." is all he said to me. The Ghul went for the same attack before going for a kill while actually lining up a psionic attack to throw us again. Zero didn't block the lounge but deflected it with the rifle. The Ghul eyed us but still proceeded with the flick of his finger. Zero underhand tossed the rifle between us and the rifle flew across the corridor exploding against the bulkhead. Zero twisted in place and punched out connecting squarely in the chest of the Ghul commander, he didn't even try and dodge the strike. The fist met the chest of the Ghul, instinctively he looked down, while the fist penetrated the armor of the commander, crushing his ribs and continued into his rib cage. Blood leaking down our arm still inside the chest cavity of the Ghul commander. The commander locked eyes with us, and he didn't see any emotion run through them. A small smile played across his lips. "Well fought," the commander coughed.."All-father, I am coming back to the cradle..." the horned commander fell to his knees and slumped over. Zero looked at the bleeding mangled remains of the arm covering in blood. Pulling the blade out of our already deflated lung, and tossing it away. "How did you do it?" I asked. Zero was spraying the medical foam on our mangled arm. "I was reading his moves and used them against him, it was simple but I had to show that we are weak," Zero said. "No, I mean how where you able to keep up with him, and how did you punch through his chest?" I asked. "Oh, I was using a form of body manipulation. Using the full power of your muscles on top of a martial technique, I was able to pierce the armor but sustained minor injuries in the process." Zero said simply. Most of the serious damage was fixed with the medical spray, limping towards the console, Zero sat down and started hitting the controls, not knowing Ghul or their language, the whole process seemed foreign as swiftly worked. Static entered the comms channel, Val's voice came clean and clear through the comms channel. "LEO, LEO are you there, we are pinned down still, your AI is rouge, don't listen to it, deactivate it, we just had comforma..." the line went dead. "Zero, what is the meaning of this?" I shouted. Zero didn't stop typing away at the console, "I'm sorry Leo, but this is the only way for us both to be free." A holographic display appeared, hundreds if not thousands of images across the display flashed by. The last projection to stay on the screen was that of the Ghul ship separating from the Njord. We moved away creating some buffering room. The Njord began firing on the small Ghul ship as we separated. Currently only using the point defense turrets. Thankfully the main weapons array sat under the bow of the ship, but they where slowly coming within line of sight, knowing the triple rail gun would shred the ship if given a chance. The green Ghul shields still flickering, somehow holding against the barrage from the many point defense turrets. "We have to go now, I'm sorry again, Leo" Zero said. The shield rippled around the ship, space shuddered around us than the ship went completely black loosing power, followed by coldness seeping through my armored suit. Seconds after the Ghul ship vanished, a fleet of Arbiter ships appeared off the bow of the Njord. The Njord survived the first Ghul attack on the United Gaian Federation, followed by more attacks shortly after leading to the UGF and Uzal declaring open war on the Ghul. Leo Connors and the AI known as Zero are wanted by the Arbiters, UGF, and Ghul. The Arbiter fleet came to discover the warp jump recorded in that sector of space of the Njord. They aided the Njord and discovered that a rogue AI was on board the Ghul ship and had escaped. The UGF declared that Leo and Zero stole lost-tech from the hidden cache within the Garden of moons, declaring him a traitor to the state. Years went by and no one heard of Leo again, the war slowly raged on, the UGF grew and expanded getting aid from their close ally the Uzal.