Date Point: February 8, 2437

Interstellar Space

Private Contracting Ship (PCS) Mistral

The sleek destroyer shot out of warp space at a fraction of light speed. Purple and red lighting arked from the event horizon and jumped onto the warship. The normally smooth transition into real space was replaced by horrific shrieking and shuddering as the Mistral tumbled into the universe.

“What the fuck just happened!” Michael demanded, wiping scalding hot coffee from his face, “Dammit I want answers yesterday!”

“Something pulled us out of warp.” the navigation officer said.

“NO SHIT!” He roared back, “where the fuck are we?”

“Systems are still rebooting Captain. We’re going to be blind until they’re done.”

“Fuck! Get me a sitrep on the ship, that was not a smooth transition.”

“Reactors are green across the board, life support is online, sub-light engines are within acceptable parameters. Warp engines, status unknown. Navigations computers online, ballistic computers, online. All systems online checked and accounted for.”

“Good, get those monkeys from engineering down to check out the warp engine. Fuck, we just got those recalibrated.” he sighed, “right Rodriguez, how the hell did we get pulled out of warp?”

The man worked quickly, talking with several other people, “There’s a massive gravity well half a light-year from us. We think it caught us in its gravity field and pulled us out.”

“Pull up the sensor data on the main display.” Michael said, “What could pull us out from half a light-year away?”

“Could be a black hole.” the comms officer suggested.

The navigations officer shook his head, “No way, there’s no blackholes for hundreds of light-years around.”

“Sensor data coming up on the main display now.” his tactical officer said.

For a moment, everyone was silent. The only sound was the near-silent hum of the sub-light drive life support systems.

“Jesus H. Christ, that’s a fucking graveyard.” The display was littered with dozens of gutted ship hulls. Many were barely held together by strands of metal. Debris floated aimlessly throughout the area.

“What’s causing that gravity well?”

“Unclear, but whatever it is it’s movi-” the display flashed to an angry red.

“Activate Emergency Evasion System!” The crew didn’t even wait for Michael to confirm the order. Explosive latches covering the EES thrusters were blown, igniting the huge chemical rockets within. The ship shot through space, quickly accelerating to several kilometers per second. The display showed three missiles correcting course and giving chase. They closed at alarming speeds and within seconds were almost directly on top of the Mistral.

“Turn 197° to port and 48° down.” Michael gritted out as the G-forces exceeded the capacity of the inertial dampeners. The bow of the mercenary ship sliced through the vacuum, turning so that its thicker bow armored belt was facing the rapidly closing missiles.

The motion was so abrupt that the armored hull slapped the lead missile, hitting it like a tennis ball and taking it out of commission. The other two detonated before the Mistral could get firing solutions on them. The first missile exploded in a nuclear fireball, charing the surface of the ship but doing only superficial damage. The second, triggered several thousand kilometers away, firing a bomb-pumped laser at the Terran warship.

The beam cut a perfectly circular hole from bow to stern two meters in diameter. The Mistral shuddered as half the ship lost power. Michael let loose a torrent of curses that would have made a sailor blush.

“Damage report!”

“Reactors 2, 4, and 5 are offline. All weaponry on the port side above Deck 6 and past Frame 53 are offline. Life Support Systems are fully operational, MARS cannons are fully operational.” The list went on but the Captain had already shifted his attention.

“Do an active sensor scan. Light up this whole fucking area, I want to see exactly what the fuck is shooting at us.”

“They’ll know exactly where we are as well.” the info officer warned. An active sensor scan was like using a flashlight in a dark room. You would be able to see into the darkness. But whatever was in that darkness would also be able to see you.

“They already know where the fuck we are!” Gigawatts of power were beamed into space, painting a ten-light day radius area. The ship’s stupidly powerful supercomputers processed the data in an instant. It sorted the wreckage, looking for reactor outputs and the massive amounts of heat that comes out of radiators.

Four sleek agile ships were marked from the debris. Each was tagged with a codename and highlighted in a different color. They circled around the debris like predatory sharks. One was barely three light minutes out from Mistral and closing at combat speeds. It was still going on a perfect intercept course to where the Mistral would have been if it had been destroyed. As most xeno’s lacked FTL comms, the alien captain mistakenly assumed that the Mistral had been taken out of commission.

It would pay dearly for its arrogance, “weapons, load up one of the special rounds for the MARS cannon will ya?”

“Aye captain!” The weapons officer grinned from ear to ear, “I’ve always wanted to use one of these.”

“Just don’t miss,” he grunted. Each special round costed twenty times the price of a normal one and for that reason, the Mistral only carried five in its internal magazine.

“Fire when ready.” the weapons officer made his final few adjustments before shouting.

“On the way!” the ship shuddered and alarms flashed again. The lights inside the CIC went out before emergency lights kicked in.

“What just happened?”

“Capacitors just had a catastrophic failure. There are fires in the B and D banks, damage control is already on the way.”

“Fuck, have them check out the rest of the capacitors. No belay that, something must have screwed the damage control unit. We’re going to have to do this the old fashion way. I want every single goddamn marine on this ship out there checking every last fucking screw, nut, and bolt.”

“Understood.”

“Weapons, how much longer till that round hits?”

“543 seconds.”

/-/

Oscar swore he’d never drink again as he slammed his helmet in place. Alarms screamed from all across the ship and dozens of marines scrambled in and out of the armory.

“Andrew, what the fuck happened!” he demanded as they sprinted out into the corridor. The older man stumbled slightly, almost as hungover as he was.

“Not a fucking clue, we’re supposed to still be in warp.”

Oscar looked at the Taclink display, noting the stars and gravitational pulls, “doesn’t look like warp space to me.”

“Either way it’s not important, we’ve got orders to check on the missile silos on Deck 2.”

“How the fuck are we supposed to do that?” He asked, “I have no idea if a missile is good or bad?”

“Nope, but that’s why our suits have their own scanners. All we’ve got to do is be there.”

“Then why are we even here? Shouldn’t this be automated?”

“Why the fuck do you have to ask so many questions!” Andrew asked, irritation clearly obvious in his voice, “Like holy shit, just do what the Captain says and we’ll all get out of here paid.”

“Fine, whatever.” Oscar said, “this is why I wanted to be in Yang’s squad.”

“What was that?”

The two floated up the stairs and into the massive ammo depot of Deck 2. Millions of rounds of ammo for everything from handguns to MARS rounds were stored in huge magazines and crates. In total, several billion credits worth of munitions were stored in the zero-G environment.

Their HUDS led them through the vast cavern of crates and into a separate closed-off frame. Huge hermetic doors guarded the entrance. Each massed in at several thousand kilos and shielded from the outside, making them impossible to scan. Andrew fiddled with the screen on his arm and tapped away on a prehistoric manual keyboard. The keypad flashed red and he swore. He tried again and the keypad flashed him again.

“That’s not good.” he said and turned to Oscar, “there’s something wrong with the keypad, I’m going to radio in with the bridge. Keep an eye out. We don’t know if something could’ve gotten inside the ship.”

“Understood,” Oscar said and flicked the safety on his rifle off.

Andrew cleared his throat and opened a channel to the bridge, “Command, this is Housekeeping 16. Can you confirm this access number?”

“Housekeeping?” Oscar asked, “what kind of-”

“Shut up.” he hissed, “yes I did try it twice... no it didn’t work the second time, why would you ask that?”

There was a bang from the inside of the missile silo and both of them froze, “Oscar, that wasn’t by chance was it?”

“Nope.”

“Wasn’t me either.” he said nervously, “Command, this is Housekeeping 16 requesting immediate backup.”

A couple of seconds passed before Michael’s voice came over the channel, “Oscar, what’s going on down there?”

“I don’t know sir, but The doors won’t open, and there is definitely something inside that fucking silo.”

“Shit, fine.” he sighed, “help is on the way. In the meantime, your task is to get into that silo no matter what. Blow off the doors if you have to. If there is something in there, we could all be a cloud of superheated plasma in a blink of an eye.”

Oscar gulped and cut the connection, turning to Andrew he asked, “how are we going to get in there?”

“I’ve got a new access code, if this one doesn't work then we’re just going to have to wait for a demo team,” Andrew said and began punching in a new set of numbers. Oscar held his rifle up, setting the fire rate to its highest possible value. Andrew clapped his gauntleted hands together causing him to flinch.

“Are we in?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok, take my rifle too. You take point, I’ll pull the door open for you. If you see something so much as move, light it up and I’ll shut the door again.”

“Right,” Oscar said, reaching for Andrew’s gun, “I’ve never dual-wielded anything before.”

“It’s nothing too difficult. Just hold down the triggers and try not to catch me in the spray.” He said, punching in a new access code. The lights flashed green and he gave Oscar a thumbs up. Grasping the door with both hands Andrew started heaving.

Null gravity or not, the massive door still carried a huge amount of mass. That mass really did not want to go anywhere. “Fuck this is heavy.”

The second a crack appeared in the doorway, Oscar fired a tight beam scan into the room. It bounced off every single millimeter of surface inside the silo before returning back to his suit.

For a second, nothing happened. Then all at once, every single alarm in his suit went off. They filled his HUD, blinding his vision before one message overrode all others, “Alert, Class 18 Deathworlder detected-”

“Oh, shit,” Oscar swore, “close the fucking doo-”

A single thin fluorescent purple tentacle shot out like a viper. It cracked against his helmet like a whip. He stumbled back, magnetic boots keeping him from floating away. The freakish limb wrapped around his neck and began squeezing. Oscar felt the titanium alloy vibrate and he prayed that it wouldn’t fail. For if it did, his head would pop like a fucking pimple.

Thankfully, Andrew managed to force the door shut again, severing the tentacle at the base, leaving three or four feet of the stuff to dangle and squirt green goo. The goo sealed the cut almost instantly and Oscar ripped the flesh rope off of him.

He turned to Andrew, “next time, you’re taking point.”

Back on the bridge, the crew watched as the MARS round closed in on. When the round was exactly five thousand kilometers from the Xeno warship its internal ballistics computer activated. Sending out a magnetic pulse, the round split into nine smaller sub-munitions that quickly spread to cover a square kilometer of space. Then at one thousand kilometers, each sub-munition split into another nine. Inside every single one was a sophisticated networking system that connected to each other. At barely a kilometer away, the whole system activated.

One moment, the Xeno ship was cruising through space. scanning debris. The next, it was gone, along with an exactly 3.14159-kilometer cube of space. What remained was a perfect void. Not even a single hydrogen atom remained.

“Splash one.” tactical said with a grin, “standby for post-combat analysis.”

Michael snorted, “what analysis? There’s literally nothing left of that ship.”

The comms officer took in a sharp breath, “shit! Captain, you might wanna come take a look at this.”

He walked over to the woman and looked down at her display, “huh, how did that happen?”

/-/

Oscar and Andrew scrolled through his sensor data, “well that’s not good.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely an understatement. Those fuckers breed like rabbits.” he swore, “Tanner and I got our shit pushed in fighting one of them.”

“And now there’s like ten in that silo,” Andrew said. Suddenly Oscar got an idea.

“What if we just eject that silo?” he asked, “then we don’t have to deal with it at all. Just vent it out and blow it up.”

Andrew shook his head, “No way. For one, we can’t eject it. Military ships aren’t built like that. If anyone could just drop parts of a ship over electronics then hackers would dominate the battlefield. That’s why almost everything is still manual to some degree. Also, we can’t be certain that they’ll get flushed out by vacuum.”

Both their comms systems cracked and Michael’s voice growled, “Change of plans. Disregard all previous objectives, wait for reinforcements, and flush out those deathworlders.”

Two pairs of eyes flicked to TacLink, two dozen marines were converging on their location at speeds well above regulation. The first to arrive was Tanner, foul-mouthed and still missing his arm. “God damnit Oz! What’d you do this time?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Oscar demanded.

“Ever since you arrived on the Mistral, everything's gone to shit. First the war, then the station, now we’ve got fucking ET’s on board ship. We never had anything like this before you got here.”

“Lick my balls, Tanner,” he said, giving him the finger. By then most of the marines had arrived. Including a pair wearing Terminator loadouts. Terminator suits were the beefier version of the regular Guardian armor. Thick exoskeletons that went over the normal suits They weighed several tons and had their own nuclear fusion plants to power them and their plasma throwers.

“Boys, boys, boys,” A familiar voice said, “maybe save the arguing for after? That is if you're both still alive by then. Hopefully, you won’t be, more cash for the rest of us.”

“Fuck you Yang.” the two said in unison. That got a chuckle out of the others

“That’s ‘fuck you ma’am’ thank you very much.” she corrected. Oscar checked the TacLink. She was the highest-ranking member of them and it seemed like she’d received a field promotion, making her Master Sergeant, “right, lock and load ladies. Let’s get this show on the road.”

A pair of marines pried the door open again as another pair tossed fragmentation grenades. Six grenades rolled across the ground for just a moment, just enough time for one of the deathworlders to bat one back at the door. They went off with muffled bangs that were followed by pained shrieks.

“That sounds promising.” Yang grinned, however, Oscar looked much more skeptical. Back on Outlook, one of those beasts had fished a grenade out of his hands and detonated it on purpose.

“They could be faking,” he warned.

She looked at him, “Oh I know for a fact they are, a couple of frags wouldn’t even scrape the paint off one of our suits. No way in hell is it going to do shit to one of those.”

“So what’s the plan?” one of the Terminators asked, revving one of the multi-barreled machine guns of his arm.

“We’ve already sealed off the entire deck, so we’re going to go in guns blazing.” she pointed at the two at the door, “Neals, Philbrick, on my signal pull that door back all the way.” Then to the Terminators, she said, “Archer and Gus, you two take point. I’m assigning the rest of you to two fire teams. Alpha’s going in with me. Bravo’s staying outside and making sure none of these hentai monsters get out. Got it?”

Confirmation lights flashed across her HUD and she nodded, “good, and I swear to God if one of you little shits shoots me. I will haunt you for the rest of your life.”

Oscar silently prayed, hoping that he’d get to stay outside and away from the crushing grips of the deathworlders. But his hopes were dashed when his name lit up in blue and assigned him a position right behind the second terminator.

It took barely more than a few seconds for the marines to stack up. Bravo team formed a second firing line twenty meters out, more than enough distance to give their suits targeting systems time to work.

“Pull those doors,” Yang said calmly and they ripped the doors open. Instantly, Bravo team started firing. Tungsten darts ripped through the air at thousands of feet per second. Much to the surprise of just about everyone, the three deathworlders that tried to slip away were quickly turned into minced meat. Thousands of tiny holes punched into their main spherical bodies.

“GET YOUR STUPID ASSES IN THERE!” Yang roared at the surprised marines, she even went as far as to kick the man in front of her. The deck shook as a dozen armored boots pushed off the ground and into the silo. The view from inside Oscar’s visor was entirely synthetic, the buttons and consoles on the walls, the tools, and latches, to the honeycomb of organic material that coated the ceiling and just about every surface. The fact that it was pitch black inside meant little to the hyper-advanced sensor technology of the suits.

Oscar held his rifle in a death grip, tracing every square inch he could with the internal laser designator on his suit, ready to blast away at anything that moved. But nothing did, the silo was silent and the troopers were unnerved. Their suits flashed with warnings and alerts of high-class deathworlders that went ignored. From the honeycombs, the barest hints of movement could be seen for split seconds before they disappeared.

A silent order came, ‘fan out and wait for my signal to fire. 1A’

Acknowledgment lights flashed and Oscar quickly found his place next to a terminator. He stayed well away from its front and back, the backblast from any number of its weapons would be enough to turn his brains into jelly inside his skull.

Every single marine kept their eyes firmly locked onto the honeycombs and fingers on the triggers. Waiting for their HUDS to flash angry red lights.

“Close the door.” she signaled and panic swept through Oscar. Their one way out of the silo was gone. Only one group was going to be leaving that silo.

A countdown appeared on his screen, followed by beeps that got louder and louder. When the count hit zero, his HUD switched to full combat display. The coloring of the room shifted. Everything turned into different hues of blue and green, only hostile lifeforms were displayed in red.

Oscar heard the distinct pop of a plasma torch, followed by flashover as twin lances of fire heated the room to well above 1100° celsius in an instant. It was so hot that even the oxygen in the room ignited in a massive explosion that rocked the entire ship. The fire died a moment later as all the air in the room was gone. Leaving nothing but CO2 in a room that was a fifth of the temperature of the surface of the sun. It was so hot that even the walls began to glow orange and red with heat.

The marines ignored it, most were completely unaware of the hellfire that burned to their flanks. Their suits had deemed that information unimportant and had filed away the sensor information. Instead, they laid into the deathworlder’s hive, shooting indiscriminately at anything that moved. 4.7mm sabots didn’t do much damage on their own but fired at over two thousand rounds per minute, they could shred through just about anything. Oscar didn’t even aim, holding his rifle in a vice grip. He sprayed in the general direction like he was using a firehose.

After almost a minute of consistent fire, Yang signaled for them to stop. Oscar eased off the trigger and checked his ammo count, 756 rounds remaining.

“Jesus fuck, there’s no way anything survived that,” Tanner said over comms.

“Don’t nobody go on opening their helmets for a smoke break right now.” Andrew said, “it is a toasty 800° in here. You’d melt like butter in this heat.”

“Oscar,” Michael’s voice cut in, “give me a sitrep.”

Oscar looked around, the honeycomb hive was gone. As was just about everything else that hadn’t been made of military-grade metal or ceramic. “Comand, this is Os-Housekeeping 16. Scratch, literally everything in the silo. We’ve got no movement or biological warnings coming up.”

“Copy that. Have the rest of your team verify.”

“Understood, Housekeeping out.” he cut the connection. Yang looked over, the carbon fiber mesh that she used as a dump pouch was burning a purple fire on her hip.

“What you looking at?” she demanded, “Like what you see?”

“Comand wants a full sitrep from you and a verification that we’ve cleared out all the Xeno’s.”

She sighed, “Nothing could survive like this, it’s biologically impossible. But just to be safe, we’re going to comb through the area one more time before we get out of here.”