Static crackled. The images on the screen lagged across space and time. The bridge crew watching from the Lion, safe in their padded seats, crash restraints like mother’s hugs, watched as witness to an alien hell.

The 3-4-1.Marcus’ cam. The main display, a mosaic of moving people. Each showing effectively the same landscape with different perspectives. The interior of Hangar 5 looked like the hangars in the Lion save for two key differences. The floors were bright red. The crew were long legged, spindly creatures. Not a human in sight save for the 3-4s. Blaster fire, heavy projectile shells, smoke from grenades, concussive explosions. The hangar was a firefight.

Marcus’ voice cut across the live stream. “3-4-1 push forward. We need those far doors. I can see them forming a defensive ring there. Push, push. I need Goliath’s grenade launcher on that door. Now!”

A series of concussive whumth whumth wumps broke across the red floor. Shell fragments, supersonic compressed air ripped into the spindly legged aliens. Demons in Auberje’s eyes. The bodies broke into biological and technological pieces like paper in a shredder. Thin bits of flesh and bones flew this way and that. The carnage was almost too much, but 3-4-1 pushed through it. They reached the door, now clear of living aliens.

Auberje watched silently as Kettle threw a pair of thin cylinders through the small gap between blast doors. A flash of light and smoke, then the team was pulling the doors open and heading through. The hall was filled with running aliens. No one had returned fire yet. It was as if they were completely taken by surprise.

Auberje was glad. He knew from his Tactics class that starship hallways were hellish battlefields. The enfilading fields of fire were narrow and easy to man. Two soldiers with automatic weapons or automated turrets, without the two soldiers, could hold a hallway against an army. Marcus took 3-4-1 through at a breakneck pace, pushing the alien remnants ahead of them.

Auberje realized he was deliberately letting most of them live. Only shooting near them to keep them moving. “They could be leading him to a trap,” Mae broke the silence, “I hope he knows they may not be taking him to a place he wants to go.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” Jeremey’s voice cracked in its adolescent state. He swallowed, cleared his throat, and spoke again, “There is something really off about these aliens. I don’t like the look of them. Seems… wrong somehow.”

“Agreed,” Riley, Miranda, Minden all mirrored his thoughts.

“Probably just cognitive dissonance,” Auberje commented with the authority of a 7-year old.

Mae laughed softly, “What do you know about cognitive dissonance? And how does it apply here?”

“I could be wrong, but I read ahead in our psychology class. I think it means the state of inconsistent thoughts about attitudes. I think we are too used to human images and shapes. So our minds are trying to grapple what these things are. I keep seeing demons, but I have to remind myself we have no idea what they are really like, how they think or anything about them.”

“True. We will learn though if we have to keep seeing them. What do we call them?”

“Maybe, it’s in the data core we had to capture? Have we opened that yet?” Auberje asked.

“Opened it?” Jeremy looked at him askance, “Isn’t it just a flag? Are we not just playing a more complicated, expensive, extensive game of capture the flag?”

Riley, “I don’t know what that is?”

Jeremy shook his head, “City kids. It’s a game you play in the backyards and woods of my world. You put a pair of objects in the woods, doesn’t matter what they are, except they have to be unique. Then you break up the group of players into two teams. If you tag someone you are frozen or out, and then you can be tagged back in, but that’s beside the point,” he waved away his unnecessary details blanking the conversation’s screen, “the point of the game is to get the object and bring it back to your side. When you have both, you get a point and win the round. The objects don’t matter themselves.”

“I disagree, this is more than that. Get the data cores to our scientists and let’s get them read,” Auberje ordered, “Can we play capture the flag back in 3-4s barracks?”

“Probably! Good idea.” Jeremey was energized by the suggestion. The bridge staff was still watching the progression of 3-4. The other squad was camped in Hangar 5, holding it as a clear means of retreat.

The carrier’s alien crew led 3-4-1 into an ambush, but Marcus forewarned the squad. He noticed the aliens moving slower, giving their compatriots time to set up the ambush. Marcus seemed determined to take the fight to them.

Holding up a hand, 3-4-1 stopped in the hall before a sharp bend at the edge of the carrier. They were a half-mile of corridors from Hangar 5. “Okay, 3-4-1 time to end this chase. I want you to hit the crew with everything you can. I don’t want survivors in this hallway. I expect stiff resistance around that bend they just ran down. But, we are going to fire a pair of heat-seeking missiles. I checked, these aliens are the hottest thing in the hallway. Fire at your leisure, Kettle.”

“Helmet’s sealed folks. If we blow the outside bulkheads, this is going to suck out the atmo,” Kettle and the others ordered their helmets to seal. The pneumatic pressurization sounded like 10 vacuums all turned on at the same time. Kettle and Goliath took small squares from their backs, folding them in half, positioning them on the ground pointing down the hall from them.

“Igniting missiles,” Kettle screamed into her mic to overcome the sudden shrieks of two MK Eridani IV heat-seeking personal deployment missiles.

Seconds later, the ambush was done. The team went through the bend with guns blazing. Prefiring to make sure the hall was bathed in additional projectiles.

They need not have worried.

The entire hall was a broken wreck of carnage. Foam from anti-fire systems poured out from the walls. Dozens of broken bodies littered the floor. 3-4-1 stepped over them gingerly, treating the aliens like eggshells.

The team broke through the dozens of corpses, most armed, a few armored, and came to a set of blast doors. Locked and sealed.

“Kettle, who is your team’s cyber expert?”

“That would be, Sandwich, sir.” The skinny kid mentioned walked forward. His sallow skin and thin grey-white-blonde hair made him look sickly. He was anything but. He pulled a small laptop from his bag. It was effectively a series of processors designed to use quantum localization to hack through any type of encryption available. He pulled it open, held up a cupped hand, using his suit to detect any waves that might be data related. “It’s alien tech, boss, I don’t think I’m going to be able to… wait. I’ve got something. Lots of data on these waves, smaller amount of bandwidth here and… yes. I think this might be it. Trying to open it now.” His gloved hands flew across the keyboard until he stopped and stabbed a finger to an enter key.

The doors split open with a suddenness that made Goliath jump. He fired off a grenade accidentally. The shell split through the open doors like a thrown knife. Then detonated in the next room. The room looked like a bridge, or an infirmary. Unknown.

Tables, maybe beds, with screens above them filled it. A dozen white and gold clad aliens lay at these stations, hands with three thin fingers sliding over the screens in blurs of motion. Auberje tried to mimic their speed but realized he could not. These were truly alien life forms.

The things, whatever they were, looked up and over at the open door. The humans saw horror in their faces.

“Hands away from consoles, unstrap yourselves, surrender,” Marcus spoke harshly, but it was to no avail.

As one, the beings hit their right hand to their right hips and… popped. It was disgusting to watch, Auberje had no idea what the team on sight was thinking. Most of them threw up. A few of them backed out of the room, and Auberje heard a sob or two.

“Was that strictly speaking necessary?” Marcus’ voice was clipped and even. No one answered, it seemed as though no one knew who was supposed to answer.

Auberje, “Well, headmistress, answer him.”

A sigh escaped from their headsets, her soft voice following, “No, perhaps that was somewhat overdone. They will not surrender to you and will continue to die like this. I can’t easily change that, unfortunately. In the future, I will modify their deaths.”

“Over… done…” White rage was seeping through Marcus’ control.

“Thank you, headmistress. We appreciate that. This was a bit too spectacular… err… horrific,” Auberje said, buying time for Marcus to get himself under control.

“A bit is understating it,” Riley said, head held high and defiant.

“Yes, I see that now. I apologize.” The headmistress apologized to every fighter on the ship as well as the bridge crew, “You will encounter no more aliens on this vessel. It is yours now. I’ll send in the cleaning bots to remove… the gore, from the bridge.”

“Thank you,” Marcus replied, tapping his helmet cam twice to indicate he was thanking Auberje back on the Lion.

The away team quickly gathered themselves. Cleaning up what they could, they went to work on the ship, finding the controls alien, but not outside their ability to translate and ‘crack.’ Sandwich created a translation interface and uploaded it into the carrier’s database. The system wasn’t perfect but it was surprisingly easy to take control of the ship after that.

“Auberje, I’m going to transfer my headquarters to this ship. I’ll ask my squad to come over, you’ll be our protector and our forward attack ship. This ship, I’ll rename her, Den Mother, will be the platform for our fighters and whatnot. I’m not sure if we can squeeze into their fighters without serious changes to them, but we will try. Sound good?” Marcus was surprised he was asking the boy for his permission, but it felt right. Auberje was something special.

“Sounds perfect, boss. I’m sending them to you now, along with maybe a 1/3rd of the crew. The Lion can be run with a much smaller crew given all of the androids.” Auberje waved as if that would magically make it happen. Minden was surprised as it did. Soft voices in microphones gave orders from the bridge seats and klaxons wailed as different parts of the ship were sent to work. Soon numerous vessels were sailing back and forth between the two ships.

Their fleet was growing.