Final Flight of the Horizon

[Kane]

"Please stop! We have done nothing to you!"

The commander of the medical frigate screamed out over the comms. An Osiris, unmarked save for the single IFF decoded as 'Oblivion', was not far behind the fleeing ship.

"Not to us, no. Not directly, at any rate." The Osiris responded. A man sat in the commander's chair here, grinning like a shark that's spotted a bare behind.

"What do you want then? Our destruction!?"

"Of course not my dear captain. It's the information and doctors on your ship we want."

The frigate dropped out of cruise at last, and the Osiris opened up with the full force of it's Inferno Cannons. The shield failed in three salvoes, and the purple energy of Nomad cannons lanced up to rupture the ships hull. Boarding craft, launched from the missile tubes on the top and bottom of the Osiris, flew and smacked onto the hull of the frigate. From there, they spilled their holds of hardened Phantom Marines into the ship. Like the tendrils of death itself, they spread into the ship.

"All hands, report to defensive positions and prepare to repel boarders!"

***

"Sh*t! What the hell was that!?"

One Phantom squad took cover behind walls and crates in one of the hallways. Down it lay what seemed to be a Bretonian ship-mounted Splitter stuck on a tri-pod and powered by a direct link to the ship's core. The weapon had just reduced the fifth man of the squad to so much charred bones and ash.

"Well, that seems to pose a problem. Gas 'em!"

One of the marines pulled out a green marked grenade and pulled the pin. A quick toss to the side, and the grenade rolled down the hall, spewing out a noxious gas. The gun crew began to cough and wheeze, gasping for breath as their lungs were burned out by the gaseous poison. In seconds, the other four Phantom Marines ran in and put the crew out of it's misery with a few blasts from their Flechette cannons.

"Clear. Let's move on! Bridge is this way!"

***

The Osiris had pulled up next to the frigate now. Another salvo of Inferno's and the shields failed again. A second wave of boarders slammed home and deposited some new toys. The Heavy Assault Armor took up a whole craft by itself and began to sew death across the ship. Even the heavy weapons of the gun crews could not stop the metalic floating beasts. Most were never given the chance, a simple rocket being directed down the hall and into the midst of the gun crew. The Bridge was not far away...

***

Hacker Roger Feindus looked over his shoulder at the Phantom Marines guarding him. The Phantoms hired him back on Mactan, saying they had a special job. Get in, grab all the info from this ship, bug out. Simple enough, right?

Roger was a wiz at hacking accounts. Arguably the best Hacker, no pun intended, in Sirius. It didn't take long to hack the info banks here. A quick glance over the information being downloaded and...

Roger looked back. This was a medical ship, for God's sake! The Phantoms were raiding a medical ship! He looked back and swallowed. Sure, pirates loved these things but they generally just showed up, took off the shields, said 'Hand over your cargo' and then leave. But this?

"Something wrong?" One of the Phantom Marines growled out from under the Powered Armor helmet to Roger.

"Uh, no... This will be over soon."

"Good! Finish that and you get paid and we're off."

Roger simply nodded and kept his mouth shut. These Phantom guys sure were heartless. Ruthless, bloodthirsty, and utterly heartless... But they always paid their bills, so Roger just pushed aside his morality and kept his mind on the job.

***

"Mission complete! Charges are set and we're off!"

DarkStar smiled. "Good! Sergeant, detonate that ship and get us out of here."

"Aye sir!" The sergeant turned and pressed a stud on his wrist armor. The Horizon, once the most advanced medical frigate in all of Sirius, was reduced to component atoms. 'Scuttling Charges' in the Phantoms meant a 500 kiloton Cold Fusion Bomb.

"Fade out Phantoms! We got what we came for!"

With that, the Osiris engaged cruise and left the Templars trying to shoot it down behind. Within the wreckage, what little there was of it, an escape pod drifted about. The Phantoms captured all but one of the doctors, and that last one made it out alive.

A one Jeff Kerrigan.

***

The Osiris moored at Trafalger for a while. A bomber recently docked with the Osiris, and a Nomad Cruiser was also moored.

" 'Return them, unharmed and in the same mental state'?"

"Yes, he actually said that."

"Hah!" The harsh laughter of the three Phantom commanders echoed out the empty cargo bay.

"He also asked that we leave his missus alone. Something about him already giving her more then we ever could." DarkStar never stopped smiling.

"Really? I'll just have to flit on down with a box of diamonds then. I bet she'd love some of the ones I nicked out of Dresden." Bloodfrenzy rubbed his hands together in glee.

"Now now... I promised him that we wouldn't touch any of them." DarkStar never stopped smiling, even as Bloodfrenzy's face fell a little.

"-We- mind you... Never said anything about our friends." DarkStar's smile just got bigger. Bloodfrenzy and Glock also picked up on it, and all three broke into a very disturbing laugh.

Oddly enough, about the time that conversation was ending, the doctors were screaming. Nomad Infesters had been let loose amongst them and the humans didn't exactly like that. Of course, they didn't have any option in this particular exchange.

The two Greater Nomads, guests of DarkStars, watched the carnage below.

-Perhaps the Dark One is sincere.-

*Yes... Perhaps... We must be careful though. Humans are never to be trusted.*

-But the Dark One is not human, is that not so? He and his brood... They do not fit the human profile.-

*A valid point. We shall have to bring this before the council regardless.*

-And with a sweep of new hosts for us... The Council will be very happy, and the Broods even more so.-

Not long after, the three Phantom ships undocked from Trafalger and moved away. Each was enveloped with a bright light, almost like a star, and then vanished through the temporary hyper gates into parts unknown.

---

This is the real true story of rock and roll; it was not about anything more then, how to live your life, as a gangster, in sartorial splendor, and turning the world into a place where normality would never return again...- Malcolm McLaren