With the column of marines and the warbot behind her, Angelica marched through the cryptic halls of the massive vessel. The Gothic architecture seemed unnerving and cryptic, but the only thoughts of fleeing from the marines remained only that. These men were well trained; the only thing that would stop them was death.
Shadows seemed to creep and slither along the walls, their ghastly forms twisted and warped by the alien metals and panels that jutted from the passage they walked down. Occasionally, a marine raised his rifle at one of the shadows, the soldier obviously spooked by the ship that they were trapped within. It seemed to be nothing of great concern: It was a spooky and unknown ship and they were mere men and women with guns. It could throw an inter dimensional being at them and there was nothing they could do to it. Who knew? Angelica sure didn't.
Her attention quickly focused on a man two rows down. Timidly, he raised his weapon and approached one of the shadows, breaking rank to inspect the ghastly form that danced amongst the wall. Stupid man, she thought. She should shoot him to make an example to the others about satiating one's curiosity, but her thoughts were cut short. The shadow jumped violently from the wall and snatched the man, the dark figure slithering amongst his body. The man screamed, dropping his weapon and pulling at the invisible entity that had grabbed him. Weapons were raised and the column shifted back from the helpless marine, their expressions hidden by their EVA masks, but if they were anything like her, they'd be grimacing in horror.
There was a sickening crack as the man doubled over, folding in half like a slip of paper. His screams only intensified as his arms and legs were twisted over one another like a pretzel. In an instant, he was crushed, much like a grape squashed in a hand. The twisted piece of meat that used to be a man fell to the floor, the marines backing away.
The remaining marines looked to Angelica, their weapons readied to fire at the spot where the man had met his violent end. She gulped, not quite knowing what to do. "Well this is a setback," She began, celaring her throat, "Let's get out of this place as fast as we can! Double time!" Without a reply, the marines began to run down the hall, their fear showing as they pushed past one another to get out of this death room. Quickly, Angelica sprinted ahead of them, not allowing them to get past her.
"THE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THESCIENCEIS LEAKING OUT!"
Despite receiving some support from the ground there simply was too many of the bats, they just kept comming like a nest of Sol Wasps that have been disturbed. BAAL wouldn't last long in this hanger bay, quickly it started scanning for a way out, locating a corridor on the far side that was JUST wide enough and tall enough for BAAL to slip through. After calculating the risks he decided it was better than staying here.
"Abandon Position Meatbags, possibility of being overrun is at 90%, initiating Tactical Withdrawl." The AI Droned over it's speakers so the soldiers outside could hear. After firing several more shots the ship lifted off the ground, lifted it's landing struts and made a beeline to the corridor, barely five centimeters off the ground, any error would be hazardous to BAAL's structual integrity. The Corridor in question was long, BAAL's scanners couldn't even locate the end due to interference. It was dark, suspicious and uninviting, for most this would give them pause, however as BAAL was an AI with only simulated emotions this did not concern him. Nearly clipping itself on the wall on the way in the Storm sped down the wide corridor, likely used to transfer Cargo from the Hanger Bay to other sections of the ship...
Jayce sprinted down the corridor, Stacy at his heels, grabbing anything and everything he could. Specificaly, the small triangles that he had found originally. Perhaps, he thought, they could help the Coalition to construct something like the behemoth of a warship they were trying to escape.
"Hey! Hey! Jayce! We can't leave Alvarez and everyone like this!"
"Like hell we cant! I'm gonna' beat feet back to the Credit and get these things back to High Command! If they're not smart enough to haul ass out of this boat and get back home, then they deserve to get stuck back here!" Brooks screamed over his shoulder, filling a duffel bag with armloads or what looked to him like storage devices, grabbing Stacy's arm and tugging her along with him.
"Jayce... Wait up! You're-" Stacy half yelled,
"Look, I know how you feel, I feel the same way too, but we are not going to die here, we are far too young and attractive and-" he spluttered,
"No, Jayce, hun, you're pulling on my arm, and it's bleeding really heavily..." Stacy winced, shaking her hand out of his,
"Oh... well we gotta' get out of this bucket before it---" Jayce's sentence was cut off by the sound of klaxxon wailing, an a voice coming over the ship intercom:
"JUMP ENGINES ONLINE. JUMPING IN 5 MINUTES. SILENT COUNTDOWN."
"...jumps. Crap. We have no time for awkward! Come on, Stacy! The Credit is just down this corridor!" Jayce finished his sentence, sprinting through a corridor, Winters hot on his heels. However, as he came through the door into the hangar bay, he tripped on a turret component that had fallen off of the Credit. Soon after, Stacy tripped and fell on top of him.
"Ahem" Stacy winced again, as a small smile crept over Jayce's face.
"Well... isn't this comfy?" Jayce grinned,
"No... I'm bleeding on you" Stacy shifed, patches of blood visable on the two of them,
Staggering to his feet, and trailing Stacy up the loading ramp and into the Storm, Jayce clambored back into the pilots seat, rubbing the cool steel of the chair. "Alright, this aint no Valentina, but she's got a few tricks up her sleeve, like this!" Jayce said, firing the rear razor into the hull of the vessel, propelling it out of the hanger bay as the cruise engines charged. The cruise engines came online as the ship scraped out of the hanger bay, the leviathan warship's turrets unable to track the small ship at such speeds.
"Jayce... I know you try... but you're an absolute moron sometimes..." Stacy jeered over the roar of the engines.
"I do try, babe" Jayce said through his trademark smile.
She took a two handed grip on her weapon, now actively running through the ship with the light machine and the marines in tow. In the bizarre 'shadow room', they had lost nearly a fifth of the squad, all of them being turned into human pretzels. A horrible fate. They couldn't even attack their assailants. It was how it had happened that nagged at the back of her mind. What was that? Spirits? A new weapon? A force field? She shook her head, small droplets of sweat flinging onto her HUD.
A split in the corridors came up, the devilish forks twisting left and right. Her weapon raised and trained down the curving paths, wary of what may be around the next corner. "Viatcheslav, I need a ping of the area," She spoke softly into the microphone.
"Acknowledged," The voice spoke back. After a moment, it returned, "The metal composition of the vessel neutralizes internal scans. Radar and lidar are ineffective."
She sighed heavily. "Acknowledged. What of the tracking beacons of the boarding party?"
"Signal is scattered. Multiple signatures."
"Alvarez?"
"Same location as XiaoBei. Indicating on your HUD." A miniature of the starship showed up on her HUD, a small green dot indicating her position, and two blue ones indicating the doctor's and Alvarez's. It was to the left and a few decks above.
"Thank you, Via," She turned to the marines, "We're moving! Weapons at the ready!" Quickly, she turned about and ran down the left corridor in search of any method to get up the ship to Alvarez. She had to hit him for being an idiot.
"THE HULL HAS BEEN BREACHED AND THESCIENCEIS LEAKING OUT!"
Alvarez turned, suddenly surprised by the fact that Brooks, Winters, et al were gone... one minute they were there, and the next, poof.
He tapped his TAC-link, "Alvarez to any unit, come in..."
Lang was sagging against a large golden box, punching in an access code into the strange surface.
Alvarez turned to snap at him, and gaped as the box seemed to fold in upon itself, compacting down, the ones around it doing the same, compressing from their original sizes down into small cubes about a foot across each.
"Doctore, how did you?" He asked.
"It's a simple matter of spatial physics," XiaoBei countered. Scooping up a few of the cubes and stuffing them into his pack. "You should be helping me Captain."
The far doors banged open, and Alvarez brought his gun up, sighing in relief as Broch, the Marines, and Via all stormed into the chamber, following the TAC distress beacon.
"There is no time," XiaoBei snapped, "tell the men to grab as many of these boxes as they can, and we should get back to the ship."
Alvarez holstered his pistol, gesturing to the men to do as the Doctor had commanded. Each of them quickly clearing the room of the now more portable crates.
Alvarez nodded his thanks to Broch, as he marched to the door, "we need to get off this ship Hermanos... Doctore, do you have a suggestion?"
XiaoBei, pale and wavering, nodded his head. "There is an shuttle bay a few chambers over. We can fit into it, and the IFF should prevent the automated weapons of the Battleship from tracking us."
Alvarez nodded, as the marines formed up. With a nod to Broch, they moved out, jogging through the deck, each of them very aware of the ever present dangers around them.
The Phantom shadow was dark, spiky and menacing, but XiaoBei triggered the door mechanism with little effort. Causing Alvarez and Broch to both look at each other worriedly. Once aboard, the Doctor took the pilot's seat, his hands dancing over the controls, as if knowing exactly which ones to press...
The Shuttle roared off of the deck, screaming into the midst of the firefight between the CPW-Trotsky and the Alien warship, as the Coalition cruiser covered the shattered remains of the Kerimov.
"Damn," Alvarez murmured, staring at the carnage, and looking at the sheer volume of damage that the Trotsky was absorbing at such close range.
Behind them, there was a flicker, a sweeping rush of light, and the alien warship was gone, leaving only a few broken sections behind, and the damage it had wrought.
In all the chaos, no one noticed the Krasny Oktyabr moving towards the Warship, expertly dodging the weapons fire. They would also not of noticed the Krasny docking with the Warship and then exiting just in time to get clear of the Warship before it jumped. On-board was Steele and Dimitrov, just nearly escaping death at the hands of those bat-like creatures and just barely escaping from the Warship before it sent them to parts unknown thanks to Jayce's incompetence.
Steele looked to the area where the mighty warship once was, all that was left was debris.
"Get me the Kerimov on the line" Steele barked to his XO.
"Sir... The Kerimov's down."
"What the hell do you mean it's down Josef!"
"The Warship's weapons turned on and decimated it. The Trotsky is also heavily damaged."
"Jayce... THAT IDIOT!"
Steele contemplated finding and killing Jayce, but was interrupted by his XO.
"Sir, we've got an unknown contact."
"Get us in close."
"Looks like a Phantom Fighter, shall I dest- wait. Multiple Life-signs onboard, looks like it's what's left of our Marine Teams."
Sure thing Ra Control. It's all dead on the other side. Detecting faint anomalies on long range scanners.
A lone Nephthys fighter was looking at the blank expanse of space, and behind it, was a Jump hole. Soon, it changed, and pulsed, and then out of the night of hell came fighter after fighter, and then finally three transports and a ship that could be called a Gunboat.
Once they were all assembled, Commander Santos Bolevara asked for a count. They had all made it.
All fighter wings, reconnoitter the area.
He sighed. Weren't the nomads enough, without the Coalition hitting yet another possible alien threat? The blue menace threatened to engulf all, and now this was added to this. That he was not amused would understatement. Still, what had to be done had to be done. He asked the communications officer to set the transmitter on system wide, and spoke.
Coalition Units, this is Order Taskforce Ra, Come in please. I repeat, This is Order Taskforce Ra, come in.