********************
Episode 1
********************

For many of the new crewmembers assembled on board the Exeralune, space had never felt so vast before. It gave them a sense of newfound wonder to be a part of something so big. Traveling the galaxy on a quest to restore people's faith in the UNT; changing the lives of everyday people who were unable to get help any other way. They were going to be so many people's last resort. The pressure many of the crew must have been feeling at this moment was immense as it finally hit them now that they had set sail. Could they live up to everyone's expectation for this one of a kind ship and it's mysterious captain? Was it even possible in the first place? Some looked towards this challenge with eager expressions, ready to take on whatever the galaxy had to throw at them. They could do this.

The activity level of the ship was slowly winding down for the night to leave people to these thoughts. Soon it would be shift changes and only the active duty crewmembers and nocturnal species would remain out and about, the rest of them ready to get used to a common time schedule that would be their new night and days. Some would surely be exhausted or wide awake by now, but they had no choice but to try and adapt as soon as possible. Delaying this and staying up to party, after such a long day already as they had to get used to the ship, would be unwise. They already had one just as they set off and would have another after the first week concluded, but for now they must rest.

That was the plan, at least.

Blinking red lights began to fill the bridge, a shrill siren wailing in accompaniment.

"Unknown object blocking our dive path!" a female voice shouted frantically. That could be really, really bad news. Hitting something while raveling faster than light across the galaxy in this warped cosmowave space could atomize their entire ship instantly. There was little choice in the matter.

"Don't panic. Take us out of the dive and we'll see what warm welcoming party is being thrown for us," a cloaked and helmeted man said, not a single inch of his skin revealed underneath his uniform. He was the captain known to them only as Hidden Eagle. True to his words, no fear laced his voice.

The distortion around their view screen shifted back to reveal normal space around them...as well as a ship the same size as their own, close enough to be a small glint inside of their visible range. They weren't quite large enough to be considered space carriers, even if they could hold around a half dozen spacefighters each. Certainly nothing to sneeze at. Odd that two such craft would meet out in the middle of nowhere. And blocking a warp dive as it had...it was high tech, that's for sure. It didn't look like anything the aliens around this sector would come up with. UNT origin? Or maybe the Nihn Empire? Probably not. Why would they interfere with the UNT so aggressively all of a sudden and be so far out of their borders?

"Four spacefighters are exiting the main craft," someone else said. "And something bigger, possibly a boarding shuttle."

"Scanning the ships now. Little information on them at the moment," voiced another.

"Put our ship on high alert. Scramble the fighters," Hidden Eagle ordered. "I'd like to avoid a direct confrontation, but we shall defend ourselves should they press the attack. Try to see how they blocked our path and eliminate the source, should we need to flee."

He figured that they must have deployed devices that mess with the cosmowaves that they were bending, making them too difficult to pass through. If ships could travel by bending the waves, surely they could be stopped by a similar process. He had seen that trick used once before, but it used a ton of energy. Surely they'd spot the signal soon enough. Now, to hold out against the mysterious attackers until then. He had faith in his crew to be able to do so. After all, he had personally assembled them. The Exeralune would not fall on it's first night out after receiving it's upgrades. Not on his watch.

"Nngh, Gods, what?"

Starla Stratos curled her legs under her body, pulled her blankets over her head before she pushed herself up to kneel, stretching her arms back and popping a few of her joints. "Damnit. I was dreamin'..."

With a groan and a huff, the Madronean jumped down from her top bunk. A golden crystal hung around her neck, matching her hair. She dressed quickly, in under a minute, before she jogged from her sleeping quarters to her gunner station.

The gunner crewperson jumped down into her seat, wiggling in and getting comfortable as she flipped switches to bring her manual targetting online. She could see the enemy, a ship about their size. Launching fighters, which means she would be on point defense first.

She cycled through her available weapons, settling on the plasma beam. It was just waiting for the enemy to get in range, then, before she would unleash blazing beamy death upon their assailants.

Vordak grumbled in his low robotic voice. He had just sat down in the workstation, starting to clean his gun when the alarms went off. He wasn't much of a sleeper to begin with and when he did settle down for a quick snooze, his mind was usually filled with nightmares. He had kept to himself for the most part while on the Exeralune, being a Cyturn and all. It wasn't that he was completely different, it was just his species was apart of the GAN, somewhat on bad relations with the UNT.

It didn't really matter to Vordak, he no longer cared about the GAN. They left him for dead after a mission gone bad and now he decided to live his own life. Getting on a ship and helping people that lived in the UNT, was not ideal but it was perhaps the only chance he had at doing something worthwhile.

The Cyturn slowly got up from where he had been sitting, slung his rifle on his right shoulder and walked out the door. He was only security personnel so he didn't have a clue what was going on but his services were probably going to be needed. He began to half jog to the front of the ship to see what was going on.

Msaliti was training the security personnel when he heard the alarm. Ordering the men under him to prepare for the worst. If they were boarded, which was unlikely but not impossible. He would need them to be on alert and ready to repel the enemy. Stalking through the corridors of the ship he made his way to the bridge. Looking at the screen he quietly assessed their situation. The ship they were in was state of the alert, yet the ships in their way had some strange things going on with them.

He bowed to their captain as he would any superior."It is possible that they may be pirates?"

His voice was deep when he spoke in human tongue and his words slow and deliberate in the pronunciation of each word. Why the humans decided to mince their words so much was something Msaliti never understood, his mother tongue was much faster and smoother there was no need for many words in his home planet. He addressed their captain, a person he was more than happy to obey orders from. He had proven his strength and his intelligence in battle many a time.

Looking back at the ship he scanned them over for a second time. "Though I have never seen such technology before so I apologise if my knowledge is lacking in this department."

Niesha was slowly winding herself down. While not dull work, being a medic at the moment was not as demanding as she thought. Some accidents, yes. But for now, it seemed quite stable. She was tidying up, as Niesha set store by a clean work area, setting files aside, organizing medical gear and other such menial tasks she could have left until tomorrow. No doubt it would need to be done tomorrow, as well. A never ending war against messinesss.

She wondered who would win.

And then the alarms began to sound, the young Nimin was certainly no stranger to chaos, and seemed resigned at the noises. Although generally reluctant to use a weapon, Niesha nevertheless carried one with it, secured under her clothes where it couldn't be seen or grabbed randomly. She couldn't say it made her feel safer, but she knew what it was like to be without one. She would fight if she had to.

She could imagine the alarms were a warning, and as she went to check what was happened,'she discovered that there was some sort of ship, that appeared to resemble there's, in front of them. Was this good or bad news? Either way, Niesha jogged back to the healing bay, retrieving a field kit, and prepared to head back to the main bay, but hesitated. Once more she was acting, rather then waiting for orders, particularly orders from the lead physician. She glanced about, pondering for a moment what to do.

Do'Rak walked onto the bridge into the mist of a flurry of motion as people furiously punched in commands or were giving orders that were being passed down the chain of command. Flanking him were two of his fellow Salesh carrying seven foot long golden spears, these Salesh were from the same Brood as Do'Rak as well as the last two remaining members of his Brood besides himself. It took him a minute to understand the entire situation as it was presented and took a look at the screen that was monitoring the approaching smaller vessels.

"Captain. If I may offer my option on the matter. If there is just a single boarding ship that we have to deal with, let me send one field commander with his personnel and handle the situation with me at the head." The Salesh spoke in a low gravelly voice that was more similar to a growl than actual words. He than turned to the only field commander that was available at the moment which happened to be the clone, Msalti.

"Commander, prepare your men and find out where the shuttle is planning on breaching our hull and report back to me. I shall meet you there shortly to oversee the operation." After issuing the orders he went over to the radar operator who did not seem very pleased to be surrounded by three large reptiles with so many teeth. "I need you to find out for me as much information as you can on that shuttle and if there are anymore that could be hiding in its shadow."

Y00-17 stood motionless in the center of his dormitory. The Artificial Intelligence did not require sleep. However, his exoskeleton's power core needed to be removed and recharged every forty eight hours for an extended period of time, so that it could operate at peak efficiency. If necessary, Metalhead's physical body could continue operation for up to one hundred and sixty eight hours at sub optimal efficiency levels before its power core forced a shut down of all systems. But while the machine was situated as a statue in the midpoint of the sleeping compartment, the AI that controlled it was quite active. Y00-17 busied himself by downloading gigabits of information from the Exeralune's data stores while simultaneously conversing with the ship's own AI, ANI. She was pleasant company; the two of them got along quite well. Still, Metalhead was subtly watching the other AI's every move. The organic members of the Exeralune's crew had expressed their distrust of the Artificial Intelligence on numerous occasions, which prompted the ever-loyal Y00-17 to begin observing his fellow synthetic life form. He had, so far, not witnessed any suspicious behavior by the machine. It was possible that this marked ANI as innocent of all charges; however, it could also mean that she knew Y00-17's intentions and was purposefully going out of her way to avoid suspicion. Subterfuge was not Metalhead's primary area of expertise, so he had little to go by except what he had picked up from public networks and verbal exchanges with organics.

A shrill siren echoed throughout the bridge. Y00-17 questioned ANI of the sound's purpose, and she informed him that an unknown object sat in the path of the Exeralune. An image of the mysterious ship appeared in his mind's eye, implanted by ANI. This was the object that blocked their warp path. The vehicle was of similar size and make to the Exeralune itself. From what Y00-17 calculated, the chances of meeting such a vessel at this interval were quite low. It was likely, then, that their assailant was here specifically to block the UNT ship's path. ANI seemed to agree with Y00-17's calculations. The mathematical possibility that this encounter was completely random was so minuscule that it warranted little to no observation by the pair of Artificial Intelligences, which had begun rapidly shooting messages to each other as they questioned the event.

ANI was distracted, however, by her duties to the crew, and responded 0.0021 seconds slower than usual. Y00-17 announced his departure from the network in the most formal way possible and installed himself into his personal VW-11c "Bokite" Spacefighter, as ordered by Captain Hidden Eagle.

Y00-17's Bokite was equipped with the single fire long range variant of the elzion cannon. The small, expendable fighter was not the type of craft Y00-17 was used to flying. His last Spacefighter had been better armed and armored, as well as larger and more durable. It had been an extension of Metalhead's programming. But this Bokite would have to do; at least until Y00-17 could convince the captain to purchase a better vessel for the AI's personal use.

The other miniature carrier had launched four of its own spacefighters, which appeared to be escorting a much larger boarding vessel. Y00-17 successfully downloaded himself into the Bow Fighter and launched the small spacecraft from its hangar. The floor underneath the ship opened up and the Bokite fell into the vast darkness below. Y00-17 activated his propulsion systems and entered a holding pattern around the Exeralune. He awaited the arrival of the other spacefighters, as well as further orders from Captain Hidden Eagle. Y00-17 also set to work scanning the approaching enemies, hoping to find out more about them before he was forced to engage.

24 hours earlier

It was really was a miserable day. The wind rustled the trees violently and the rain beat down onto the muddy jungle floor. No birds sang and no creatures slithered in the undergrowth, all the subjects of the animal kingdom deciding as one that this really wasn't the weather for whatever they normally did. Apart from one. The figure pushed itself against the trees and plants of the jungle, through the wind and rain, long thin legs trudging along the muddy slurry the floor had turned into, the brown exoskeleton soaked in water. It looked rather depressing, small against the fury of nature. Antenna dripping and being blown around by the storm, and if there was any way for the terrifying figure of a giant ant like creature to look sad, this was probably it. However nothing could be further from the truth.

His name, or at least the one short enough to use, was Scree, and he was many things. He was a member of the local indigenous population, - the Anarti. He was a Mapper, division 148. His job was to scout, map, explore the unknown, and then return this information to be added to the hundreds of other little pieces, piece by piece developing the gaps in the Anarti's knowledge of the world around them. Scree had a little blue and green leather satchel. It was a little ragged around the edges due the many years of environments like this he'd mapped and explored, but otherwise in as good a condition as may be expected. Every few meters he'd stop and reach into this, drawing the next part of the map before closing it back up. He was also very happy, like he always was, even in this dreary situation. Full of pride at the work he did, full of joy at being able to explore the unknown and bring that information back to the hive, and in general more than thankful to be given this opportunity to help.

His plans were to continue onwards for a few hours, then head back to camp. Eat, perhaps see what new information had come out of the more recent exciting experiments with, of all things, static. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on your point of view, this was not to be for Scree came up to a clearing and just stopped. It very obvious wasn't a natural clearing. Broken trees lay all around, giant trunks shattered and tossed about as if toys for a Larvae. But mostly he saw the... thing. There were no real words in his vocabulary for it. Later he would learn the word spaceship, but this would be jumping ahead in our tale. For now he just stared at the giant metal structure, bigger than anything he'd seen before. This wasn't natural, and the thought of that, and what it possibly entailed... excited Scree with a childlike curiosity, no fear or hesitation as he made his way over to it.

The craftmanship was superb. Even from this small glimpse at one of the giant pillars it was resting on, Scree could see it was far beyond anything the Anarti could create, tens of hundreds of panels all fitting together perfectly, pieces so small and fine that it seemed to deify reality. Something had made this, something with a far greater knowledge then they had, something new that they had no idea existed on their planet. He wanted to know who, to know why, and so he began to climb.

It's worth noting here the luck required for this moment to happen. Normally there would be rules of guards and people making sure nobody was doing exactly what Scree was doing. However this was the crews first test landing, before they set out on their journey for real. Most of them were partying and those who probably should have been outside were attempting to avoid the wind and rain. Besides, according to their data the only intelligent life on this planet were a set of bronze age tribes, far far far away from here. Unfortunately like many none space traveling planets, this data was wrong and out of date by many a year. These events meant the giant insect was allowed to climb all the way to the top, and slip inside.

Even the dingy interior where the landing gear stood when not in use blew his little mind. Pipes and wires crisscrossed and traversed around him, little dim lights flickering on and off in a giant hall made of more metal then he'd seen in one place. Scree pulled out his paper and started drawing what he saw almost by habit, taking in every detail in excitement. Which meant he wasn't quite ready to react when his entire world shook around him as the ship started to take off. He grabbed on for dear life to whatever he could hold, as unknown to him the entire structure began to move. However as the landing pillars retracted, he did see to his slight horror the gap by which he'd entered close up, leaving him in near darkness as his world continued to shake.

Trapped. As soon as he could Scree had explored his surroundings in greater detail, quickly realizing that he was encased entirely in all directions. The walls were impenetrable, his pushing against the metallic slab now blocking his original entrance doing very little, Scree unknowing that the void of space lay now beyond it. He'd tried to gain anything's attention, repeatedly banging in sets of three to try and let someone or something know he was trapped in here, but eventually he even tired of that, slowly falling asleep as the night continued onwards. Sleeping, until all hell broke loose.

@MonkeyBusiness

Msaliti bowed once more when Do'Rak entered. He bowed to all his superior, mainly out of respect but also due to his military training. On his home planet they did not salute or stand to attention, all lower ranks would bow their heads and not look into the eyes of a superior unless they were told they could. While others would find such a thing as strange for a creature as large and intimidating as Msaliti he cared not for their opinions, the only opinion that would sway his way of thinking was anyone of higher ranking as himself. In response to Do'Rak he nodded silently.

"Yes Sir. I will rally are men under our banner and we will taste the fruits of victory as we have done countless times."

Turning on the spot he skulked out of the bridge. Activating his communicator to all the security he began issuing order. "All available. No all security officers prepare for ship defense. There is a chance that they could breach the hull and launch an internal attack on the ship. All of you are to head to your posts until ordered otherwise. I want you all to sound off the moment you are in your position." His voice had no urgency to it but a voice that was composed and devoid of emotion.

The humming of a pink shaded fallthrisi ringed throughout the ship's corridors as she floated merrily through them at head height. While she was a princess of her kind, she was only an ensign here working as a communication technician, but she seemed very happy about her situation if her current mood was any indication. The male nabghor trailing behind her on his four legs and two arms knew her since they were both very young. He was glad to see her so happy at her chance to help others. Even if he was more out of his element traveling around the galaxy in space ships, if she wished it then that was enough for him. He was her loyal bodyguard and would follow her anywhere.

Suddenly a female, robotic voice sounded into the corridor, cutting the latest tune short. The voice belonged to ANI, the resident AI of the Exeralune system.

"Ensign Vi Mo-an and Ensign Polahni," she identified them. "This is just between us, but it turns out that my sensors down here do not offer 100% coverage as of yet. I have detected a strange weight anomaly near the right rear landing gear compartment, and know that what's causing this error hasn't left, but this is all I can tell from inside my little metal box."

The nabghor, Uran Polahni, reached for his shotgun strapped onto his back, fearing the worst. Mana Vi Mo-an's body language was harder to read to outsiders due to her being a floating gelatinous being, but she didn't appear worried.

"You'd like us to check this out?" she questioned in a sign song tone.

"Indeed. This was only priority #314 of mine due to it being a contained incident, but if you're already down here than it wouldn't hurt...unless what's down there kills you once you open it up." She said matter-of-factly. "Perhaps I shouldn't have mentioned it after all."

She was a computer, so it was unlikely she was earnest in her last statement. Who ever heard of a computer changing it's mind after getting no additional information to change it? Looks like their AI had some quirks to go along with it. Wonderful.

"I am most curious and shall investigate," Mana replied, already making her way to the location after eyeing an electronic map of the floor with an unblinking eye.

"Behind me," Uran said gruffly, standing next to the panel that would open up the ceiling to the landing gear compartment. Once opened he'd have an easy blast down with his shotgun into it's most effective range, making mince meat of any threatening beast down there should it try to attack. For it to attack it would have to climb up to get them or shoot at them, but he could always close the door before that happened should his first blast not do the trick.

Just as he was ready to push the button with the nose of his gun, sirens began to blare.

"An unknown ship is moving to intercept. Ensign Mo-an, you're off duty so proceed to your room or other designated safe rooms," ANI spoke up.

Guess they'd check it out later. Uran began to turn to urge Mana to get going for her own safety, but they'd soon be interrupted...

********************

"These are not likely pirates, as I know few who could get a hold on such a ship, and this doesn't strike me as something that they'd do," Hidden Eagle replied to Msalti's question. "Well, maybe one would but he'd certainly issue a challenge of bravado first. We've gotten no demands or other communication yet."

To the reptillian Do'Rak, his suggestion was completely in line with his thinking.

"Yes, only one of the approaching ships is large enough to have any meaninful boarding party unless their carrier joins in. Msalti's unit shall be our first line of defense against their most likely boarding location. The other units should scatter in other locations as backup, and then converge where and when the actual boarding location is confirmed," the captain said. "Try not to kill them unless necessary. I'd like to see if we can get any information out of them if we cannot contact with the carrier."

********************

Four large golden colored spacefighters flew in vanguard position to the boarding ship. They each had a bulky elzion canon on either side of the cockpit, which were separate structures from the main body held onto it by a much more thin portion of the ship. A smaller elzion weapon was at the front of the body for rapid firing attack. A red trail of gas lit up behind them from their three engines as they advanced forward. It was these vehicles that showed up on a view screen in the Exeralune Bridge. They were heavy spacefighters, perhaps capable of taking out frigates single handedly. Although the design was tweaked, he recognized this as being a UNT developed prototype.

"Enemy ships will arrive within 40 seconds. Do not engage them outside of the range of the Exeralune," Hidden Eagle ordered, his voice going into the cockpits of the Bokites under his command. "Direct hits from their primary guns will likely take you out in a single shot. Their smaller gun can also likely do the same thing seconds. In either case, do not let them get a clear shot at you. Only attack from behind at their engine or the cockpit. Their armor will not be easy to penetrate even so. Best case, bait them into revealing their weak points to the Exeralune and our larger guns will take them out."

At this point the small glint in the distance that was the enemy command ship began to grow larger. Perhaps they were going to join in on the fun as well. That may be very bad.

The clicking and chittering of mandibles filled the room, hundreds of young Anarti all excitedly talked to one another, even their silent method of mental communication not enough to keep a raucous from being made; Bodies moving around as only the unbridled energy of youth could. Gossip and wild speculation spread among them as their first meeting with a queen would be at hand. “What would she be like? Could she really read minds? Queens are 12 feet tall!“. Misheard facts and blatantly false rumors made their way around the young brood as the atmosphere reached a fever pitch. They may have only been two years olds, exoskeletons only just starting to truly harden and form, but this would be a day they would never forget.

Scree started to feel… weird. Not unwell, but rather…. strange. As if he’d been spun around repeatedly, the world around him not quite coming entirely into focus. Colours seemed different, dull things interesting and colourful things blending into the background. The chattering continued, but slower this time, as more and more of them started to feel the same effects, a small ripple of confusion making its way through the crowd.

“Quiet!”

The voice permeated every pore of his being, as all the Anarti instantly silenced. Suddenly how he felt no longer seemed to matter, the weird taste in his mouth no longer relevant. The clattering of falling objects once held in little hands rattled along the floor, a few of the less stable young ones following suit, each one slowly and groggily getting back up to their feet. What he wanted no longer mattered, Scree didn’t exist, there was only her.

“Look at me.”

Hundreds of Anarti simultaneously turned to face her. Larger than even adult males, she towered over the young ones. This was an event that all the Anarti, both big and small went through in their lives. a remembering of the gift of free will given by the hive. The best way to show and treasure a gift? Take it away. Most of those here would never experience this again, only those dishonoured enough to have the gift removed a second time would have this inflicted upon them.

“Now, you need to wake up because-”

----------

A screeching noise jolted Scree awake, unintelligible screaming causing the Anarti to frantically look around instantly on his feet. Pure confusion and terror filled him as he slowly remembered where he was. Strange metal building, trapped, and now the entire world seemed to be falling apart.

The shaking started, sending Scree sprawling as landing bays opened and pieces of the ship started to move around. He wasn’t afraid of the unknown, but this building seemingly collapsing was a very known and terrifying thing, and he wanted desperately out.

THUD THUD THUD, THUD THUD THUD.

The sound reverbed up the pipe into goodness knows where as Scree started thumping with all his might, no longer tapping, now full on pounding with both hands: Hoping to the love of the hive that someone would hear him. A noise. Not metallic or random blargling, but instead as if someone was moving around. He looked up, spotting a slightly different part of the ceiling and a makeshift ladder leading up to it. An exit? He climbed as fast as he could, his body not quite suitable for the narrow rungs, eventually making his way to the top.

This was definitely an opening, the place where the panel fit flush to the frame clearly evident from this distance. He held onto the ladder with one hand, while trying to push his other forcep into the crack, feeling a moment of relief as he felt it move, giving him a little more space to try and lever it open, silently calling out to anyone who might be able to hear.

“Anybody there? I got trapped in your…. Home? and-”

His cry for help broke off as he lost his grip on the ladder, hanging from the ceiling with his clawed hand still trapped in the panel, breaking off his communication into a more verbal chorus of screeching and clattering that could only be described as a violent shouting and swearing; desperately trying to either open the panel or free himself. The latter he managed to make happen, unfortunately causing the Anarti to no longer be held in place, subject to the laws of gravity as Scree hit the ground face first.

Slow pained clicks, admonishing himself for his stupidity as he clasped his throbbing face with both hands, feeling a warm spreading sensation. He looked down, seeing his forceps covered in hemolymph, giving another slow pained set of clicking. He got back to his feet, eventually looking up at the now open panel, and stopped.

Everything stopped mattering for a few moments. The pain of his probably broken face, the hemolymph dripping onto the floor from his mandibles, the shaking and blaring of sirens and other unintelligible noise. For looking down onto him, was two… things. All species before they meet others assume that intelligent life will be mostly like themselves. Scree had been expecting to find some kind of intelligent insect, maybe even Anarti who had broken off before the unification. Instead above him stood some kind of mammal? Like a livestock but bigger, and… he didn’t know what to make of the one that hung in the air, covered in beads yet unlike literally anything known to the Anarti, let alone Scree. He just stood their, mandibles gaping, not frozen due to a lack of questions, but with so many crowding for attention they almost created a backlog.

“Who are you? W-W-what are you? Did you build this? Are you both the same, or are there two types of you? How did you build this? What is this? Have you always been here? How many are there?”

The questions eventually broke forth, quick and fast, the silent telepathic communication allowing for a more complex vocabulary than any amount of clicking about achieve, not that there was any lack of that; his mandibles clicking and his antenna bounding around as if made of rubber, the sheer excitement and curiosity bounding forth from Scree.

“Can you understand me?..... I probably should have asked that first.”

"Man, these fighters mean business." Starla frowned softly. She wasn't going to be able to take this as easy as she'd like. The gunner flips a few switches and designates targeting priorities for the turrets she controls. Elzion blasters set to target engines and cockpits first, and to focus on the fighters. She hovers her hand over the safety, waiting for the ships to come in range of her beam cannon.

She picked up her comm relay to message whoever would be listening on her frequency. "Maybe if I keep some of these fighters... kind of intact, we can get some cool new toys for our pilots?" Somehow, the young lady had her doubts about that being accepted operating procedure, but they could use some upgraded fighters. Especially since they were running into this kind of hardware, out to get them? Oooweee.

Her range indicator blips to green and she swings into action. She flips off the master safety to her turrets and opens with her beam, drawing a line across the incoming formation to splash her weapon across as many contacts as she could, as the blasters would begin to rain their glowing bolts of light onto the attackers in tandem.

Do'Rak gave a low growl as he heard the radar officer mention that there was no way of finding out where the boarding ship would breach meaning that they were still at a disadvantage. That meant that their forces would be weakened as they were split up at the point of the attack and that would lead to losing some men. He turned to the captain and put his right fist to his chest as a salute followed by his two sisters that stood next to him. "Captain, you have my promise that these attackers will be repelled and that you will have your prisoners to interrogate. Now if you will excuse us. We have a job that needs to be done." With those parting words, he left the bridge as he grabbed the communicator at his belt.

"Attention all security personnel. Patrol all exterior all ways in groups of four in anticipation for a large scale attack from unknown forces. If you at the location of the breach report immediately and hold out until reinforcements arrive." Do'Rak issued these orders before shutting off his translator and continuing down the hallway with his brood sisters.

"We will eliminate the enemy as they board this ship regardless of what the Captain says. We will only take officers hostage as they would be the only ones to give useful information. Do what you do best." His fellow Salesh growled in approval as they agreed with his logical plan as battle was what they all lived for anyway. Technically all the Salesh of the same brood were of the same command level with none holding more power than the next but his sisters had given him command of this mission as only one could hold the post of Executive officer on the ship.

Uran pointed his shotgun at the thudding panel, stepping between it and Mana in an effort to better cover her if something were to burst out. The situation was far more dire than before, as it was evident that whatever was down there had great strength to create such a clamor.

"Get behind me, lady Mo-an!" he snarled in repeat of his previous command, not letting his eyes off of the source of the noise. He would only make orders towards her in the event of her safety, as protecting her was even more important than not hurting her feelings from time to time. The fallthrisi didn't seem to heed him very well, as she bravely floated closer to the noise to try and get a better view.

"Hmmmm?" She hummed in a questioning tone before extending out a tendril and touching a device next to the panel. The panel flung open and whatever was trapped inside smashed downward, letting out a bunch of angry sounding noises as he fell. The two of them were far quicker to gather their wits about them as they gazed upon the intruder, as they were both very accustomed to many different races of all shapes and sizes. This one wasn't familiar to them even if insectoids certainly were. Mana did know more races than average, but it still wasn't that odd to find a new one every so often. For all they knew it could be an everyday UNT race. Whatever the case, how and when it snuck on the ship was the bigger issue. It was highly doubtful it had snuck through security on Elistore, so it had to be after...Yes, that thought to be uninhabited planet of intelligent life they had landed on afterwards was the only one that made sense. ANI and Mana both came to this conclusion, only ANI coming to it within milliseconds.

Mana's thoughts were soon enveloped by something foreign to her entering her brain. It was speech, of that she was certain. She couldn't understand the words, but she did feel like the intent of them was getting through to her. It was very curious of them and was asking questions. It didn't seem hostile. In any case, even if it tried something now, it would easily be defeated, especially now that it was wounded. Speaking of which, they might bring her to the nurse for a checkup just in case the fluid it was leaking was going to be problematic. It would also be a good, secure place to be if the ship was under attack.

"I am Mana Vil Mo-an," she said in anolo, the official language of the UNT. "Do you understand?"

Most races in the UNT could, but if it was in that backwater planet than it was possible that it couldn't. Judging by the fact that it went with it's native language to start with, that's more than likely the case.

"Uran, put down your weapon. We need to show that we mean it no harm," she ordered. Uran clearly didn't like this, but they did still have the advantage over him even without a weapon.

"Alright, but fly out of his reach," he said after a pause.

"Deal," she said. He could be stubborn so she would at least comply that much until the tension of the situation eased.

"Follow me," she said to them, motioning with a tendril and turned to head for the medical bay. Hopefully her body language was universally understood by almost any culture.

********************

"Man, I hate these clunky things," a red haired man garbed in a white uniform complained from inside the cockpit of one of the golden fighters. "Top of the line my foot." He had multiple silver ear piercing and vibrant eyes; one purple and one grey.

"Cut the chatter, airman first class Lechstor Alborxa" a clearly alien voice sounding like a guttural, squawking hiss interjected into his cockpit. "Enemy in range in 10 seconds. 4 Bokites. Let's kill."

"Yeah, yeah, sergeant big nose," he mumbled under his breath. Bokites. Hopefully they could put up a fight against him enough to provide some entertainment. Handicapped in a slow moving vessel such as this one, perhaps they could manage some interesting maneuvers against him, even if penetrating his shields would be virtually impossible by a few lucky passes. Perhaps the Exeralune could achieve something as well, given how it was their objective to capture it. Must be worth something to go through all of this trouble.

Eyeing the Exy, his eyes caught a slight movement of a turret angling his way. Nice try. He jerked his controls moments before a beam sliced through the distance between them. The gunner's aim was good and Lechstor wasn't in the fighter he was used to, causing it to only narrowly miss the tip of his tail. He made a "tisk" sound as he maneuvered his ship to dodge additional shots as two bokites advanced on his position guns blazing. One of them zoomed past him to help target the boarding ship while the other maneuvered onto his tail.

"Let's see what you're made of," he said with a smirk, continuing his path towards the Exeralune but weaving underneath it to dodge the turret if it tried to target him again. Meanwhile he did an impressive loop around the other side of the Exy to see if the trailing pilot could keep up with his movements. As his turn completed, the boarding ship and attacking bokites came into view again. Opening fire, he obliterated one of them that was about to do heavy damage to the boarding ship's engines. The other bokie did some damage against the side of the craft before overtaking it and having to go for another pass, dodging some shots from Lechstor all the while. However, the pilot wasn't fast enough to stop his or her target.

The boarding craft fired a very powerful, short range plasma beam into the starboard side of the Exy somewhat near the front. It crashed into the location moments after, sending the shields rippling back as they were torn away from the combined might of the sudden attack.

********************

The ramp at the front of the landing ship smashed downward through the entrance they had made, allowing white uniformed people of various races to storm into the hallway. Some had on armor, but most of them only in light armor while only a few wore full body covering.

A group of four security personnel was taken off guard by this sudden appearance. Raising their weapons they tried to fight back, but the much larger enemy force cut them down within seconds.

"To the bridge. Time to pay their little captain a visit," one of them ordered.

Scree looked up, waiting for an answer, a little disappointment seeping into his ever enthusiastic persona when none came, instead making a low complicated noise. Of course them magically being able to understand him was a near impossibility, still those back at the hive would presumably have plenty of time to work out communication later. The floating one turned to the other, making that curious sound again, although different. Were they actually... communicating through sound? They were, weren't they? This was an incredible idea to the Anarti as he slowly once again made his way up the ladder. Scree would thought that the ability to emit sound could only be taken so far in terms of communication, basic emotion at best, yet these things seemingly had a fine control over the art.

He eventually clambered up looking at the two. The idea of him being in danger at any point didn't cross his mind, the dropping of the weapon being entirely missed on the Anarti. Surely a civilization as advanced as these must have had a unification event at some point. A faint dripping sound onto the metal floor filled Scree with a sudden embarrassment, just now the feeling of pain returning to his face. "Just great, first impressions and I'm bleeding everywhere." He scrambled into his satchel, the eyes of distrust from Uran obliviously washing over Scree as he pulled out an ink covered rag. His face was most obviously broken, but nothing serious aside from a few upcoming weeks of aching and pain. Still as Mana pointed and motioned for them to move onwards, Scree couldn't help feeling excited and optimistic.

--------------------

"Scree"

He tapped himself on the thorax. There were a million and one question he had as they moved through the ship, it taking all of his self control not to get distracted; lighted flashed everywhere and literally behind every walkway and corner there seemed to be yet another new and interesting thing. However the important thing was attempting some kind of communication with Uran, although how he'd do that was another question. Scree vaguely knew that math was a universal language, but he really wasn't sure how you'd get from tapping out prime numbers to actual conversation, language was hardly his expertise, and he needed to find an expert so the hive could send some people who did have that skill.

"Anarti". Trying again while banging and the strange sounds still went on in the background. Scree still wasn't really sure what all this was about, but the others didn't seem to be that worried, so perhaps all this noise was normal. He reached once more into the satchel with his free hand as they continued to walk, pulling out a small wooden compass. Perhaps he could use this along with the maps he was carrying to point out where the Anarti were. "That's weird..." The little iron needle normally pointed north, however right now it was spinning around in no clear direction. Perhaps the quantity of metal in this building was affecting it? He didn't have time to investigate this further though, as finally they reached their destination, the medbay doors sliding open and things continued to get weirder for little Scree.

Msaliti heard the explosion and sound of the boarding part breaching their hull. Msaliti growled angrily, of course they wouldn't board near him he would have to go to them. From the sound of the coms the officers that had been placed their were too little and had quickly been overrun by superior numbers. Sighing to himself he ordered the officers by him to hold their position. Lumbering through the corridors he made his way to the hull breach. He was interrupted on his journey by several of the boarding party. Using his wall walking ability he quickly covered the distance between himself and them knocking them to the ground. Their weapons were weak his strong exoskeleton protecting him from the weapons fire. Looking down at them he picked up one of them and crushed his head in his right hand. Grabbing the next soldier he pulled him in two and threw him aside. The final man began to back off slowly his eyes full of terror.

"Will you fight me like a true shujaa or will you run?" The mans courage bolstered when three more of his comrades appeared behind him. "That is a shame."

Msaliti burst into action pulling his rifle from his side and fired off two blast into two of the soldiers behind the one. Swinging it around he hit the man he had been talking too knocking him to the ground. Pouncing on the woman, the last of the three that came breaking her neck with a swift jerk of his hand. Standing up he turned around to the soldier he had knocked to the ground.

"You disappoint me. You are nothing but a mwoga. A coward. War is not a place for you." Raising his rifle he fired it into the mans skull and walked away. Continuing to the point where the boarding party were.

"Ooh, you're quick, aren't you." That enemy fighter had predicted her shot. Starla frowned as the first fighter ducked out of her shot, but she was at least able to swing her beam across the other two targets. It only phased their shields, causing them to react and glow briefly. Laser blasts fill the space around them, turrets aiming for clear targets, to minimize the chance of cross fire. The shields of the boarding pod were tough, but she wasn't aiming for it anyway. As the fighters closed in range, Starla began to struggle with the effect the Plasma Beam had on the turret's turn rate, finding herself unable to track the fighters well enough. She switched her weapon system to an Elzion chain blaster, the turret on the exterior switching circuits to power the separate weapon.

She would be best served to make their ace pilot flee, instead of trying to shoot him down. Two wingmen would probably be enough kills to make the remaining fighters feel the pressure. She focused on the fighter she actually hit with the plasma beam, aiming for his engines to try and disable its capabilities. She keeps half an eye on her radar readout, watching for allied Bokites that might need a hand.

Niesha didn't particularly know what to do. She knew if she went in to join the resistance, she might very well get hurt, and then how would she help, if someone got injured? So she stayed silent, field kit over one shoulder, as she moved through the ship. She stopped as she heard footsteps and retreated back to the medical bay, taking out her knife, she crouched, making herself appear smaller, less threatening.

She doubted this would work, but she didn't know what else to do.

She dropped the field kit, and watched the door, knowing that she had no escape if someone did come in here.

All she saw was the blood as someone entered. She was up, and in motion quickly, saying "Jeez! What's happening out there, what happened? Are you okay?" As she firmly took hold, not even checking to make sure there was anyone else with them, of Scree, and firmly forcing them to sit, hurrying over to get a clean rag and wetting it, hurrying back, beginning to clean off their face, to make sure there was nothing too serious, and to clearly see what was wrong.

The three Salesh had barely left the bridge when the ship was rocked by an explosion and the docking of the boarding ship. Seconds later the communication devices became flooded with people trying to talk over each other as a chain of command tried to stay established to no avail. Do'Rak decided to rely on his officers to maintain order to the rest of the personnel as he made his way to where the explosion had come from. Just as the three started to pick up their pace, five white uniformed soldiers rounded the corner to stand face to face against the three large reptilian Salesh and seemed taken a back at first at their sight.

Before the invaders had time to recover and react to their new enemies, two of them fell to the ground with massive spears sticking out of their chests courtesy of Savan'Rak and Na'Rak. Within seconds, the three Salesh were standing shoulder to shoulder with large swords drawn and hunkered behind round energy shields with a eight foot radius. This was a common tactic for the species as they preferred to fight as groups even though they could hold their own in solo combat against most races.

This entire first encounter took a span of thirty seconds before Do'Rak and his Brood fell upon the remaining enemy before they had a chance to raise their rifles in response. There wasn't much of a fight as this small vanguard force did not seem to be outfitted with much armor and ended up in a bloody heap upon the floor with just one human remaining out of the five. He was being held in place by Na'Rak's large jaws that were wrapped around his arm causing the man to pass out from the pain.

"Release him. This will be our informant for the Captain." Do'Rak told his kin who released the lesser being from her teeth who fell to the ground unconscious revealing that his arm was completely broken and might have actually had the bones in his arm pulverized from the force of the bit. That would have to be found out later as their were other matters to attend to first.

The Salesh reformed shoulder to shoulder reactivating their shields as they slowly made their way down the hallway that the enemy had come from with swords at the ready if they encountered anymore. This gave Do'Rak time to pull his communicator from his belt and turn on his translator. "Attention all units, converge on the invaders position and give priority to capturing officers for farther interrogation."

"Scree Anarti? Is that your name?" Mana questioned, pointing at him as she floated, now moving closer to his side. Or perhaps his name was Scree and he was an Anarti, or vice versa. She'd have to check the files on-

"Neither word fits in with any words I have on record," ANI chimed in. "None that makes sense, anyways. Unless he refers to himself as a scary buttress in the languages of ghry and voltor. His race is not on record either. We must investigate the planet he came from on a later date, but for now, as you can hear from the explosions, we're quite busy. Toodaloo."

With ANI's information not very helpful, she just went with the assumption that Scree was his name.

"Mana. Uran." She said, pointing to herself and then to her four legged companion.

The door opened and scree was quickly in the hands of the nimin nurse inside the medical bay.

"He acquired such wounds after taking a fall in the lower decks after stowing away; perhaps unintentionally, but it's hard to say," Mana explained to her, floating around to get a better view of what was going on and if their new acquaintance was doing alright. "He cannot understand us."

********************

Lechstor groaned as one of his fellow pilots got hit repeatedly in the engines by the turret from earlier, eventually punching through the shields and causing a bright flash as the engine took the full force of the powerful elzion battery. That pilot was either making them look bad or the turret operator was making the enemy look good. Only one was operational at the moment and yet it was still giving them a hard time.

"Airman first class Alborxa, take out that turret immediately!" his commanding officer ordered.

He didn't have a good angle on her so flew past the ship before doing an immelmann turn straight up into a loop, ending the loop by flipping his ship back upright as he was now heading her way from above. He was about to pull the trigger when he spotted a bokite coming his way to get revenge for earlier. Well wasn't he the popular one here. Not that he minded.