The next day Mike was drinking his first coffee of the day in the ship's galley, alone with his thoughts. Jack strolled in looking like he had just fought a major battle with his pillow and the pillow won. Jack poured himself some coffee and sat down across from Mike, looking like he wanted to go back to bed.

Mike looked out on the scenery that was the moon. It was kinda bleak for Mikes' tastes; it just looked like a large sand trap that you would find on a golf course. Everyone had donned surplus uniforms found in one of the storage closets on board the ship. The uniforms themselves were color coded for different departments of ship operations.

Red - Command staff/ship operations.

Blue - Medical/Science.

Gold - Maintenance/Engineering.

Green - Security.

Brown - Fighter Operations.

The uniforms are basic black on the outside with the department color trimming the sleeves and collar of the uniform. Rank insignia was located on the collar of the uniform, while patches could be sewn on to the sleeves or shoulders later if needed. Mike liked the uniforms though they kind of give you a wedgie every once in a while. Sam could probably adjust them.

Mike asked Jack how he slept. Jack look at Mike for a minute, then said he slept well but he kept having a really intense dream that was driving him a little batty. Emily walked in looking very chipper and Mike hoped that she would drown in her coffee for being so chipper. Apparently Jack was thinking along those lines too since she walked in. No one had the right to be that chipper in the morning, it went against the natural order of things.

"Wow, isn't this just exciting, we're on the backside of the moon." Emily chirped out at them.

Jack responded with "Cram it Blondie, it's too early for the sun shine brigade to make an appearance."

With that comment Emily's chipper mood deflated faster than a balloon flying around a room. Mike was having a hard time restraining the laugh he got out of that, while Emily made her early morning report. Her mood quickly soured, and threw a seething look at Jack, who just shrugged it off like it was nothing.

"Everything is running smoothly, no problems whatsoever. I went to wake up Mitch five minutes ago, but he wasn't in his room. Sam told me he had gotten up at five a.m. EST. Then went straight to work after only having some dried toast and tea for breakfast. He's been working five hours straight on those upgrades. Sam informed me that he was not to be disturbed till at least noon. That's about it for now."

Mike was satisfied with her report and decided to go for a walk. He said he'd see them later; he wanted to check out the hanger bay while on his walk. Mike left the galley and proceeded towards the hanger bay. Mike was impressed with the work that Jack and the maintenance droids had done, the ship look almost brand new. None of the corridors had the slightest blemish. While admiring the handiwork of the Chief Engineer, Mike noticed that he was slightly lost.

Just ahead of him on the right side of the corridor was a simplistic diagram of the ship. After getting directions from the diagram Mike was at the hanger bay in no time flat. The doorway to the hanger bay opened with a slight hiss and the inside was dark. Mike stepped through the doorway and activated the light switch. Overhead, artificial lighting came to life and showed the hanger bay in a peculiar sort of way. The fighters within the hanger were sleek works of art.

A thin lay of dust covered the entire hanger bay, evidence that this area of the ship has been unvisited since the departure of the original crew. Maintenance equipment littered the floor of the bay and fighters were perched along the walls with the exception of one sole fighter. Mike slowly walked towards one of the fighters in the middle of the bay. This one seemed a little different from the rest of the fighters.

This one was somewhat personalized by the original pilot, strange glyphs were scrolled along the side of the hatch, while an indigo stripe cut across the nose diagonally. Mike decided that he would take this one for a test drive, it seemed as good as any of the fighter craft here. He hoped that by the time he returned Mitch would have good news to report on those upgrades. But Mike was going to get into his combat suit first just in case, and it wouldn't hurt to bring Crimson along for some company. After donning his suit and grabbing Crimson, Mike headed back to the hanger bay.

Mike opened that hatch to the fighter and climbed inside. Once he was comfortable, he slid the hatch shut. Mike activated the ship' and banks of lights sprang to life. He retracted the landing struts and the ship floated in mid-air as if on an invisible cloud. He asked Sam to open the hanger doors and a crack appeared on the far wall as two massive doors retracted. Mike maneuvered the small fighter craft through the opening. He had to admit the little ship handled pretty well for being ten thousand-years-old. Stars filled the canopy of the little ship as it left the hanger.

Mike was in awe at the sight, he realized just how small he was compared to the rest of the universe. He steered the fighter in a smooth arc towards the moon's surface, keeping the fighter between the ship and the moon. The moon reminded Mike of a golf course sand trap. Craters pockmarked the surface, which gave way to shallow ravines and expansive valleys. All and all it was pretty boring.

Mike decided head the fighter towards the outer reaches of the system and check out Pluto. He plotted his course and headed out. Pushing the engines to their maximum, they glowed an intense blue. The fighter was cruising near one of Jupiter's moons, Europa. Mike had learned about this one back in high school, it supposedly has an ocean of water underneath its icy surface.

A beeping from the sensors brought Mike back to the present. The sensors were picking up something up on the edge of the system. Curiously Mike set the sensors to their maximum setting. While he was still too far away to get a clear reading he realized that if he went to investigate whatever it is alone it would be extremely stupid. Although Sam and the ship were nowhere near ready to investigate anything at the moment.

Well, sitting between Jupiter and Saturn wasn't going to solve anything. Mike activated the cloaking device and the small fighter simply disappeared from the visual spectrum. The fighters' transponder was not active at the moment and turning it on might alert his presence to someone. Five minutes passed slowly as the fighter passed Pluto, which kind of looked like a misshapen potato. Mike was approaching the edge of the system and he could barley make out a speck in the distance. He focused the sensors on the speck and they reported it to be a ship.

Fear slowly crept its' way into Mike's stomach, but he would need to get a lot closer to get a clear reading. Mike edged the fighter towards the ship, trying not to draw attention to his fighter, even though it was cloaked. He closed the distance between the two ships and the sensors reported that the ship was heavily damaged. Mike looked at the ship and he had to agree with the sensors, this ship was beaten to hell. The ship was drifting into the system and probably caused an incident down the line.

He checked the reading and saw that there was still some atmosphere on the ship, but most of it was concentrated in what appeared to be the cargo bay. Their shields, weapons, and engines were all off-line. The ships' hull was pocked marked with black scorch marks and chunks of hulls were missing. This ship was at least half the size of their ship and looked like an angular box with the wings located at the rear of the ship.

The sensors couldn't tell him if anyone was a live or not, too much interference. Mike sealed his suit and brought the fighter right long the aft side of the hull near an airlock and magnetized the landing struts to the hull. Mike shut down power to the fighter and opened the hatch while all the air was sucked out. Mike climb out of the fighter and held on to the little fighter until he could magnetize his boots, once that was done Mike reached into the fighter, retrieved Crimson and strapped him to his back.

Mike' progress was slow and after seven minutes of walking reached the airlock. He bent down and activated the airlocks' door. The airlock door was circular and rotated clock wise to the opened position. Mike then swung into the airlock and closed the door so the airlock would begin to repressurize the small room. Of course that wasn't really needed with the suit Mike was wearing. Artificial gravity was still operational, so he demagnetized his boots, and walked to the door that led to the other parts of the ship.

He had a clear shot from here to the cargo bay, his suits' sensors indicated that this air was breathable, but decided against taking off his suit. He switched over to stealth camouflage, activated his shields and proceeded to the cargo bay. It was deathly quiet inside; no one seemed to be around. Mike figured if the crew was dead that their bodies would be scattered around. As he approached the cargo bay he could hear muffled noises coming from the other side of the door. Activating the door switch Mike watched as the doors slid silently open.

What he saw next would haunt his dreams for the rest of his days. There was a fairly large group of people huddling in the corner of the cargo bay, wearing cloths that are torn and close to falling off altogether. All of these people were battered, bruised, bleeding, and shackled to each other. Most of them looked to be in a state of shock and were covered in various kinds of filth, some obviously their own waste. Standing in the middle of the cargo bay was an alien humanoid, seven feet tall, reptilian in nature, green scales and razor sharp black claws. On its' face was a sort of snout and had two rows of gleaming fangs.

Another shorter version of the alien approached the bigger one and knelt down to one knee.

"My Lord," it hissed, "the ship is too heavily damaged for us to make repairs. The ship has been drifting for too long and we do not know where we are. We are too far away from the shipping lanes for a distress beacon to be useful. We can only hope that one of our ships will pass by and pick up our transponder. Sir, we are dangerously low on food. In a few days we will not have enough to feed the slaves over there. In a week we will be out of food for our selves. What are we going to do?"

The taller alien looked down on its subordinate with a look of "loathing" on its face. Then it looked back up at the slaves and, well, smiled for lack of a better word.

"Hmm, when the slaves' rations are gone they will no longer be useful to use. We won't be able to get them to market for the next auction and they are pitiful specimens as it is." said the taller one. A few seconds passed and the taller one began to speak again in a louder voice.

"Well, I guess we will just have to eat them, and hope that we are rescued before we run out of slaves to eat." It laughed when the group of slaves cried and whimpered in the corner, knowing that their fate was sealed.

Mike had enough of this. Slowly he crept into the cargo bay and scanned the bay; there were eight of the reptile aliens. Mikes' odds weren't the greatest, eight hostile aliens vs. one six foot Human. "Yeah they don't stand a chance." Mike thought sarcastically. He did have Crimson on his back, along with the element of surprise. Mike was slinking along the far wall trying to keep his movements slow and steady. Another alien came rushing into the cargo bay and knelt before the taller one.

"Sire, there is a strange craft attached to the hull. It was not there the last time we secured the ship."

The leader didn't seem to like this one bit. "Everyone into attack formation! If there're intruders on board they will eventually come here. If we can take them by surprise we can use their ship and retrieve help for us. Remember this is for the good of the clan!" All of the aliens began to take flanking position by the cargo by doors, nine in all now.

"Not looking that great now." Mike thought.

They didn't appear to have weapons in the cargo bay, and were just going to rip apart whoever came through those doors. Mike looked over to the slaves and watched them for a few moments. He could barley feel the two tears running down his face. Two of the aliens detached themselves from their position and crept towards the group of slaves gesturing back and forth between themselves. As they got closer Mike could hear what they were arguing about.

"Let's make this quick. We don't want the Prime catching us playing with these little pieces of genetic trash." One said. The other nodded in agreement. As they neared, the slaves cringed from the slavers approach. Mike watch as they grabbed what looked like a small child. She couldn't have been more than eight years old. At that moment something inside of Mike snapped.

Like a switch being thrown all of his anger and rage boiled to the surface of his being. Mike felt oddly detached from the scene like he was watching a movie or a TV show. The alien had muffled the child's crying with a dirty rag that was once part of her clothes. The look on that kids' face was all it took for Mike to go into action. He proceeded toward the would-be-rapist, not bothering with keeping his movement quite.

The rest of the slaves notice his movement from the corner of their vision. They could see something moving towards the slavers, but didn't know what it could be it was practically invisible. Mike was ten feet away when the little girl noticed his approach with obvious confusion.

"Yes, we're going to have fun with you little one." Hissed one of the slavers.

"Wait, she's stopped struggling already, its more fun when they struggle and squirm." Said the other. This one poked her in the ribs earning a muffled cry of anguish from the child. Mike was closing in now and one turned his head in Mikes' direction, hearing noise made by his movements. That was the last thing the slaver ever did in this life.

Mike landed a sharp roundhouse punch to the neck of the alien as it died from suffocation. The other slaver was so surprised by his comrade death that he dropped the girl he was tormenting to the deck floor. Mike then switched off both the shields, stealth camo, and confronted the other slaver. He quickly lashed out at Mike with his claw hand hoping to slice him into ribbons. Mike saw the strike coming and grabbed hold of the aliens' wrist. The alien could not break Mikes' grip on his wrist and he was surprised at the strength that Mike possessed.

Mike could see the shock on the aliens' face as plain as day and a cold smile was on his face as he realized that the alien was up against an opponent that was far stronger than he was. Mike snapped the aliens' wrist like a twig and lifted the slaver up by his throat stopping any call for help to the others on the other side of the bay. The slaver thrashed about clawing at Mikes' arm hopelessly, as Mike slowly crushed the bones and sinew in his opponents' neck.

The thrashing stopped as the bone cracked under the pressure and his limbs fell lifelessly to its sides. Mike was finished with this one and threw him one handed fifteen feet into a support girdle with the echoing sound of his backbones cracking throughout the cargo bay. Mike was amazed at what he just did; he should not have been able to have done that. He was strong, but the alien felt like he weighed less than forty pounds and his bones were as brittle as an eighty year old man. Mike filed that thought away for later, now he had to deal with the rest of the aliens, who were charging him head-on.

Mike reached for Crimson on his back and pulled him from his sheath. Standing in attack stance Mike waited for them to get close. The shortest of all the alien reached him first, snapping a kick out aimed for Mike knee. Mike quickly raised his leg to avoid the kick and snapped a front kick to the aliens' chest. The small alien was launched off his feet and landed on his back. He quickly stabbed the alien in the chest with a downward strike.

Two more slavers were approaching fast, one did a slid tackle to sweep Mike off of his feet. Mike leaned heavily on Crimson and jumped to avoid the tackle. The blade sunk three more inches into the small dead alien, blue blood gushing through the open wound. The second slaver was surprised that Mike had jumped to avoid the tackle and seconds later received a devastating kick to the face. The kick breaking his snout and driving the bones straight into his brain, he was dead before he hit the ground. Mike was on his feet again breathing heavily.

The slaver that had tried to tackle him was on his feet and came at Mike with an overhead strike aimed for his jugular. Mike shifted Crimson to block the strike and sparks emitted from the blade as the claws came into contact with the blade. With the slavers' momentum still in play, his claws continued on down the blade as his fingers were cut off. Mike spun bringing Crimson around to cut off the slavers' head. The head was cut cleanly off of the aliens' shoulders, as blue blood began to gush out where the head once was.

His head rolled towards the remaining four slavers', their faces showed first traces of fear. Suddenly Crimson started to pulsate in Mikes' hands, three of the subordinates rushed to take defensive positions to protect the Prime. Crimson was glowing wildly now, bathing the entire bay in an unsettling blood red. Mike knew by instinct what to do next and made a horizontal slashing movement towards the would-be-defenders.

A wave of pure red energy lashed out at the three burning away flesh where the energy came in contact. They fell to the floor, acidic smoke hissing from there wounds, the Prime standing stock still unable to move as the rest of his confidence ran down his leg to form a puddle on the deck. Mike stalked forward and did a rising vertical slash cutting the Prime from groin to gizzard. What remained fell to the floor in a squishy heap. There were no more enemies, the adrenaline rush was finally taking its' toll. Mike staggered towards the far wall where he first came in. He leaned up against the wall and slid Crimson back into his sheath. He slid down the wall in utter exhaustion.

"Crimson, activate shields. I'm going to close my eyes for just a few minutes. I'm so tired." said Mike as he feel asleep with his head in hands, wondering what in the hell he was going to do with all these people. But that could wait for later, as darkness greeted Mike at last.