When she had woken up in the morning Allison had not anticipated she would be attacking what for all intents and purposes appeared to be an enemy of biblical proportions.  She’d referenced David & Goliath to her aunt when she’d described her nanotech weapon as her stone.  Right now, she had no sling, stone or clue what they were going to face.


    Perhaps the Cataclysm bombs would be their stone, and the Phoenix would be their sling.  She assumed Aryni had developed them with knowledge she’d gleaned in her time as an incorporeal entity.  Where they came from didn’t matter.  What mattered was the crystalline matrix at their center.  Once the unstoppable reaction was initiated the bombs would briefly exert a force and expel the energy of a star, like one of those that lived in the core of the Bhiras ship.  When deployed near a star her xenotech team had postulated would either initiate a stellar collapse and cause a supernova in stars capable of them or would blow off the star’s fusible shell.  Either way the solar system they were at the center of would cease to exist either by cold death or be incinerated by stellar plasma in the ensuing nova.  She predicted all they would manage with the Dyson sphere would be to put the stars out and breach their containment.  She might take out some of the closer planetoids.  One of which she was about to occupy.


    She was slipping her recently blessed Qual’sa pistols into her armor’s holsters when she heard the shuttle bay door open.  In walked a grizzled looking older human with grey hair and brushy mustache wearing a Commonwealth engineering uniform.  He had to be long past retirement age.  She didn’t recognize him.  The man had a bundle of what looked like collapsed pylons in his arms.  Allison motioned to one of the deck crew to go help the man.  He was huffing as his burden was offloaded.  He saluted in the way Allison was used to the people she’d rescued from the twenty and twenty first century might.  The man’s accent and demeanor reminded her of an old scifi show she’d watched on Winter Wolf.


    “Chief Engineer Callum McAllister reporting for duty.”


    Allison raised an eyebrow as she stood up from sliding her vibroknife into a sheath.  She reached for her utility belt.


    “No offense but aren’t you a little… uh old for field work?  Also, I can’t bring you along, you’re Commonwealth they did not authorize this mission.”


    He huffed.


    “Lassie, just who on your crew knows how to use transport enhancement beacons?”


    Allison was unfamiliar with the Scottish parlance that was so frequently used by the humans of the Commonwealth but she was fairly certain lassie was not a reference to the dog.  She glanced at Widow and Thomas who both shrugged.  She looked the tall gray-haired Callum up and down.


    “You have a valid point, why do we need them?”


    He pointed towards the Bhiras ship that was now visible through the open, force field covered hangar bay door.


    “That ship there is a transporter operator’s nightmare.  Yer gonna need enhancement beacons on both sides.  Now my assistant is setting them up in your port cargo bay, and I’m going to set them up or’er there.”


    Allison sighed.  She had no real idea how the transporter technology worked so she had to take his word for it.


    “You were asked to get off before we left…”


    He laughed.


    “And you thought we would?  You’re here coming after our people.  I’m here to help you make sure any survivors get home safe, now lassie are we going to keep talking or are we going to do this thing?”


    Allison motioned to one of the armory crew that was present checking over the goliaths.


    “Get this man weapons, armor, a comm unit and armored environmental helmet.”


    She looked at the biggest member of the deck and armory crew, a burly alien from the LSR who was the size of a wolf-born in their hybrid form.


    “Corporal, you get kitted out too.  You’re with Chief Engineer McAllister, carry the beacons and do what he tells you.”


    The Corporal did an LSR salute before starting to pull on a suit of armor designed for him.  While she was strapping on some additional holsters and sheaths, she spoke.


    “Chief Engineer, Corporal, you need to let us clear a path.   If these beacons are so important we need them and you to reach our objective in one piece.  Bravo team will escort you once Alpha team has a foothold and have found the crew.  Rose, Plutonia…”


    She noticed Veronica was in a suit of System’s Alliance armor.


    “What are you doing here, you’re not a combatant.  You’re not a vampire anymore!”


    Veronica had a sword, two pistols and a sniper rifle.


    “Where my sisters go, I go.”


    Rose and Plutonia both nodded in agreement.  Allison frowned.


    “Fine, Rose, Plutonia and Veronica, you’re on Charlie team, our reserve.  Guard the transport and her crew.  They are our exit plan.”


    The teenagers looked disappointed.  Widow was about to say something, and Allison just held up one finger.


    “No.  I’m not doing this to keep them safe.  I know they can all fight. Which is why I’m giving them the most important mission with the Goliath’s.  Guard our way home.  If we need to call them in, they will be our ace in the hole.”


    Allison had no idea where that saying came from, but it felt appropriate at this moment.  Widow nodded.  She looked at the arrayed special forces team, she was intimately familiar with this team.  She considered it her strongest special tactics unit.  She finally spoke, she knew she wanted her Alpha team to move swiftly and silently, she selected her adult wolf-born, one of the vampires and their best human infiltration specialist.


    “Team Alpha is, Widow, Elk, Smith, Lance and myself.  Bravo is Cash, McAllister, Etash, Quaker, Bott, Tanner and Stone.  Charlie is Rose, Veronica, Plutonia, Garret, Jacobs, Norton and Johnston.  Alpha we’re going in quiet we need to avoid detection while clearing a path with silent take downs if possible.  Bravo once we give the all clear you follow.  Charlie, guard the transport if we call you in, come in hot.  We’ll reassess for the next stage of the mission once we know more about our kill target.  No supernatural abilities or shape changing until I call it better if they underestimate us.”


    Everyone started to board the Wraith.  The Wraiths were an FTL capable armored troop transport.  They weren’t heavily armored they relied on shields and their stealth capabilities to reach targets.  They were the fastest and most maneuverable transport in the Alliance, they were also ungodly expensive, especially for the budget conscious System Alliance.  That meant in any given fleet there were no more than one or two.  Allison would need to fill out several forms after this deployment explaining why she thought this was a justifiable risk for one of them.  Thus, she’d never actually flown a real one during her training, only during simulations.  She wasn’t technically authorized to fly one under normal circumstances.  These were anything but normal circumstances.  She was about to go take over the pilot’s chair when Widow grabbed her shoulder.


    “Leshy handed me this case and left to prepare for casualties.  She told me that you ordered her to create these but under no circumstances should I let you use them.  I’m not sure what she made you, but I have a feeling you wouldn’t have asked if you didn’t think you’d need them.  I’m not going to question your decisions in battle.”


    Allison opened the hardened case and the AR HUD on her contacts lit up with an analysis of the contents.  They were filled with the super blood and pure human adrenaline that the Commonwealth doctor had whipped up.  The mass was off slightly, and she realized the unaccounted for mass was likely nanites to reinforce hers and handle the damage she would do to herself once they were injected.  She closed the case.  With the injectors she would have several minutes of superspeed and strength beyond her normal capabilities she probably wouldn’t be conscious afterwards though.  Allison nodded.


    “Dhampir Supernova.”


    Widow’s eyes went wide.


    “What?  You can’t use those.”


    Allison slipped the case into a belt pouch.


    “If Enid had trouble keeping up with these things when she fought them, I’ll need it, I’m not a full vampire or a goddess.”


    Widow frowned.


    “If the side effects are the same once you burn through it, you’ll be unconscious and dying.”


    Allison shrugged.


    “What else is new?”


    Allison left it at that and headed towards the cockpit.  She saw Callum hunched over in his seat.  The old man was working on something with his hands.  She tapped him on the shoulder.


    “Better strap in Chief.  Those compressed stars are going to have one hell of a gravity field, and we can’t use our antigrav’s they’ll give us away.”


    He chuckled.


    “Shouldn’t you be strapping yourself in?”


    Allison smiled.


    “I will be once I get to the pilot’s seat.”


    He looked up from what he was working on.


    “Maybe I will strap in then.”


    Allison made a face and headed into the cockpit.  The pilot was one she recognized.  He was good, not as good as her though.  He looked up at her and without a word he unstrapped himself and stood up.  She motioned to the jump seat at the back of the cockpit.


    “You’re still coming with us; They’ll need someone to fly them out if something happens to me.  There is a large debris field around the core.”


    The former pilot nodded to her.  He understood what she was getting at.  If he could see her navigate it, he’d have a better chance on the way out.  Allison started her pre-launch checks with her copilot.  Finally, she was ready.


    “Bridge this is Shadow.  We’re launching.”


    Wesva responded.


    “May the Tree Father watch over you, Battlelord.”


    Allison glanced back when she heard a new set of armored footfalls on the deck of the Wraith.  Allison was shocked to see her seemingly mild-mannered ship’s chaplain in a suit of black armor with blood red highlights and Dark Mother iconography engraved on it.  It was obviously power armor.  She had a vibrosword at her waist, a bolter assault rifle and vicious looking helmet in her arms.  On her back was a jump pack.  She strapped her weapon and helmet into a cargo bin, magnetized her boots and grabbed a hand hold.  The priestess wore the armor like she’d been born in it leaving little doubt about her actual skill set.


    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.


    Allison turned back to her console, activated the cloak, and other active stealth systems.  The black Wraith vanished from sight, and she launched.  The flight to the third planetoid was easy and rather boring.  That changed very rapidly once she entered the debris field caused by the sphere’s most recent meal.  She weaved through the very condensed asteroid belt while fighting against the gravity field from the nearby artificial stars.  The pilot and copilot were sweating bullets.  Allison was calm.  She’d figured she’d done worse in the past.  She punched through the debris and entered the deflector shielded sector around the third planetoid.  It was like they’d hollowed out a gas giant’s planetary core and turned it into a part of their ship.  She skimmed the metallic surface which by all appearances was superdense.  Their weapons wouldn’t have a hope of penetrating it.  No wonder the Bhiras hadn’t bothered with shields, they didn’t need them.


    Allison made her way to the opening they had spotted in the visual scans that they had declared the Alpha landing site.  It was a circular hole covered by some sort of force field that kept the atmosphere inside.  The readings her copilot was getting indicated the atmosphere was breathable.  Allison got up from the pilot’s chair and the actual pilot replaced her.  Allison spoke quietly.


    “Any emissions could give us away.  If I give you the order you are to launch immediately with whomever you have with you.  If the Phoenix is destroyed make all possible speed towards Commonwealth space.”


    The pilot nodded.  Allison moved to the back of the shuttle.  She motioned to Charlie team and gave them the move out signal.  The goliaths and teenagers went out of the ramp.  Veronica peaked back in a few minutes later and made a come out motion.  Allison and her team joined them.


    The massive landing bay which was several square kilometers in size was empty, save for discarded escape pods in various states of decay which had been piled up in the corners.  Each had been torn open violently.  The most recent of them were the forty or so from the Commonwealth Cruiser.  Allison motioned to Master Sergeant Georgia Lance, the vampire she’d selected for Alpha squad.  She was an Imperial and one of Isis’s great grandchildren in vampire terms.  She was turned in the twenty-seventh century and was a highly skilled combatant and a science/scanner specialist.  The vampire was in a shaded visor to protect her from the star’s radiation which at this range would be deadly to her and they were facing the suns from this landing bay.  Georgia was interacting with her AR HUD, likely projected by contacts just like Allison’s.  She gave a thumbs up and broke the silence.


    “No life signs in the immediate vicinity and I’m reading numerous Commonwealth communicators in scanning range.”


    Allison breathed a sigh of relief.  Widow shrugged when Thomas looked at her.


    “I could have been right.”


    Thomas grinned.  Allison started issuing orders.


    “Seal up the Wraith, won’t do to have it seen by a patrol.  Charlie team take up defensive positions out of sight.  Bravo join them until we send for you.  Callum make sure those beacons are ready to go Corporal Tanner should be able to provide you with any data you need on conditions in local space that might interfere with signals.  I want to be clear Bravo and Charlie you are not to engage with the enemy unless you come under fire.  There is a time to be loud and this isn’t it.”


    She looked at her team.


    “Alpha with me.”


    The priestess militant as she’d called herself formed up to go with Alpha team.  Allison raised an eyebrow.


    “Sorry, sister, this is a stealth mission.”


    The priestess smiled, pulled her helmet on, tapped her wrist and vanished from sight.  Allison couldn’t even hear her foot falls.  She was slightly jealous that the Dark Mother’s priestess had better stealth tech then she did.  She pondered what corp had developed it and why the military didn’t have it yet.  Allison shrugged and tapped her AR HUD to turn on her own personal cloak.  Each member of Alpha team vanished from sight one after another, except Georgia who simply followed them.  Allison knew of vampiric powers that could conceal their presence in the shadows, she also knew the vampire could choose not to be invisible to allies.  The wolf-born had performed a quick ritual to conceal themselves.  Allison spoke softly over comms.


    “Alpha team sync up tracking systems.  I’ll mark out targets when we find them.  Widow, black, Elk, white, Lance, red, Smith Blue, Sister, Green, I’ll be purple.  Silent take downs only.  Lance I want you doing low power scanning for any vulnerable locations on the Bhiras.  Don’t be overeager people.  We’re not sure what kills these things quickly.  Wait for data from the Master Sergent.  Move out.”


    Allison’s AR HUD displayed silhouettes of all her team as they moved in formation out of the large hanger and into the spacious hallways.  They looked like they’d been hollowed out by some form of acid thousands of years ago.  It wasn’t well lit which led her to believe the Bhiras had good dark vision.  They had zero data on what the Bhiras looked like, or if they were carbon based.  They came to a cross intersection of tunnels which seemed to be bored out of the outer edge of the metallic sphere they were in.   Georgia pointed left.  Allison motioned for her team to follow that guidance.  They didn’t run into a soul, nor did there seem to be any form of internal sensor they could find.


    As they progressed deeper into the tunnels, they started coming across cocoon like pods recessed into the walls.  They were empty to begin with.  Then they started running into cocoons that still held… living sentients, though the term living was a very loose one in this case.  Georgia scanned several and shook her head.  Allison nodded.  The husks, which was all that was left of these sentients.  They seemed to have had every bit of vitality sucked out of them.  They were skin and bones.  None of the team could have guessed what they might have looked like before their encounter with the Bhiras.  The husks seemed unaware of Alpha team’s presence.  Allison swept a message to Smith after typing it out.  She was ordering him to set charges.  She had already planned on a loud distraction, now she would use it to put these poor souls out of their misery.


    She motioned the team forward once the fusion charges were set.  Georgia indicated they were on the right track and nearing their objective.  They started seeing more and more aliens in the pods in various stages of desiccation.  They couldn’t help these ones, and they just didn’t have enough explosives for all of them.  She silently hoped her Cataclysm bombs would save them from this lingering death.


    They were within a kilometer of the Commonwealth survivors when they met their first Bhiras.  Only they were not the same species.  The only thing the pair had in common were that they were twisted in some fashion.  They were both bipedal, but the similarities stopped there.  Widow waved them back.  She sent a message.


    Demon possession.  They are feeding on the souls.   The demons are corrupting the bodies.  They may use some of their prisoners as new hosts, the rest they feed on there could be billions escaped from hell!


    Allison was having trouble believing the whole demon thing, but she wasn’t going to argue with the elder wolf-born.  Georgia indicated the location of their target’s hearts.  Allison marked targets for the sister and Widow.  The Bhiras didn’t get a chance to warn anyone as flashes of red light burned the demons out of their hosts with the blessed weapons.  The hosts collapsed on the ground dead.  Allison felt bad, the hosts were innocent.  She swept a message to Widow.


    Can’t we do an exorcism or something?


    Widow responded via text.


    Not when they’re that far gone.  We need to confirm that the Commonwealth survivors are demon free or they’ll just spread to our crew.  I’m glad the sister is here.


    Allison motioned her team forward.  They entered a new chamber.  This one held five similar aliens, these ones were large and green skinned, bipedal.  Georgia wasted no time in providing the team with the location of their vital organs and vulnerable spots.  The aliens were wearing some form of black ritual clothing and started to surround one of the Commonwealth crew on an altar of some kind.  Allison swiftly marked the targets and was about to order her team to execute them, but she quickly sent an abort when a black skinned being with smoldering chains wrapped around its limbs and body as one might wear armor or clothing entered.  It was nine feet tall and had vicious looking talons.  The cultists or that’s what they appeared to be to Allison fell to their knees immediately the leader of the group spoke, it was a woman.


    “My lord.  We are proceeding with the new batch.  We have finished the recently captured vessel’s preparations.”


    The black creature’s mouth opened revealing several rows of vicious teeth that moved around in its mouth almost like opposing chainsaws.  It spoke, but no one but Allison understood its language, its voice sounded and felt vile.  Oozing acid dropped from his jaws


    “High priestess.  The master has sensed his eldest sibling have your forces alert for any signs of her presence here.”


    The high priestess seemed almost excited by this news.


    “Then another of the great ones has freed themselves from their shackles we shall prepare to greet her gloriousness.”


    The black-skinned entity sneered at the priestess.


    “No worm, you should prepare to die.  She was the one who trapped the master and his allies in our prison as a show of mercy.  It seems she is no longer being merciful.  The master is the last of his original army remaining.  The scar on his face and his burned wings are her doing.  Mortal insects you will be the doom of us all.”


    Allison saw Thomas’s muscles starting to ripple.  She put her hand on his wrist and shook her head.  The high priestess’s tone changed from servile to angry.


    “We are the master’s vanguard.  He has an army of billions!  Because of my people.  He and the Grand Design will smite her and whatever pathetic forces she can muster.  We will finish the war for him then he will have his dream!”


    The toothy demon leaned close, his acidic saliva almost dripping on the high priestess.


    “You will do nothing, because you can do nothing.  This monstrosity the master provided you with is nothing compared to her.  You can harness stars and devour planets.  That power is insignificant to her.  She created the universe insect.  You and yours brought her attention to us before we were prepared.  Before the master was prepared.  Your pathetic need for power has undone us.  For millennia we prepared for this moment, and you’ve ruined all of it with your impatience…”


    The demon waved his talons towards the unconscious ritual subject.


    “You have led your people to this fate.  You ignored me when I told you that the way it has always been is the way forward, keep a breeding stock to provide us with sustenance.  No possessions only full summoning’s.”


    The high priestess wasn’t backing down.


    “The master demanded his army, and I have delivered I have increased your number a million fold!  We have consumed millions of star systems!  What have you done?”


    The demon waved his talon dismissively.


    “I would delight in rending your soul from your body slowly over centuries alas the master thinks you’re valuable to our cause.  So, you yet live.  If there is any justice in the universe you will come face to face with Seraph before I do.”


    Allison’s ears perked up when she heard the name Seraph.  Enid’s hologram had mentioned that name and indicated her daughter do anything in her power not to get the being’s attention before she’d reached her full potential.  Whatever her full potential was.


    The demon walked off.  Allison gave the go signal as soon as the demon was out of sight.  She was hoping to stop whatever this ritual was from being completed.  In unison each of the muscular, green-skinned aliens collapsed as vibroweapons pierced their hearts or slit their throats.  Allison had taken the high priestess and cut her throat so deeply the high priestess couldn’t get any sound out besides gurgling.  The quick movement had briefly caused her cloaking field to fail.  The high priestess met the gaze of her executioner and in those golden eyes she saw true divinity, something she thought her master had, but in the moment of her death she realized he never possessed.  Tears dripped down the green woman’s cheeks as Allison laid her head down gently.  Allison gave the high priestess no more thought.   She was the enemy and had been dealt with like one.  The sister was already slicing through the bindings of the woman who they’d saved from a pretty grim fate.  Widow spoke quietly.


    “She’s clear.”


    Allison reached for the ritual book and started leafing through it and she found she understood the language inherently, much like the demon’s words these felt vile to read.  The language was an abomination, a corruption of something of pure light.  The preparation of the vessel was a four day ritual.  It made them vulnerable to possession.  Allison looked up from the book.


    “They take four days to prepare the hosts.  If this was the first that should mean the rest are clear.  Smith, Elk, secure the two entrances.  Lance, return to the ship as fast as possible and lead Bravo team here.  Sister you and I will start bringing survivors here.  Widow, do that wolf-born sniff thing you do to make sure they are not possessed.”


    Widow grabbed Allison’s arm as the teenager moved to walk away.


    “Allison, what were they saying?  You looked… uncomfortable.”


    Allison shook her head and was about to say nothing but then she remembered the holographic Enid’s words, all she could do was remind Allison that she was not alone here.  Allison sighed.


    “Whoever their leader is thinks I’m his sister or something.  A being named Seraph.  The demon is frightened.  I can only assume they are mistaking me for Enid.  Apparently, he sensed my presence like you were afraid of and they’re putting their forces on alert, so we are on a timer.  Or hell, maybe they think it is Veronica, I don’t know.  We need to move.”


    Widow nodded.  Allison ran off.  By the time Bravo team had arrived Sister Kline and Allison had gathered up forty-six of the two hundred and twelve survivors.  No one had come to the ritual chamber.  Allison had assumed as much when she set it up as their rendezvous point.  It seemed to be a secure space.  Likely limited to the high priestess and her ritualists.  With the addition of Bravo team their rescues they gathered the rest of the survivors in record time.  Sadly, their good fortune would not last forever.  Once they started with the actual exfiltration, they would light up their opponents’ scanners like it was Christmas morning and the Phoenix would be vulnerable.  They could only handle forty transports at a time with their set up on the Phoenix, according to Chief McAllister, a Commonwealth capital ship could have transported everyone out, along with the Wraith.


    Allison looked around at the weary and starving Commonwealth crew before she looked at her explosive’s expert.  She looked at Alpha team who had assembled around her, and had let Bravo take over their positions.


    “Well, time to show them some of our hand.”


    She opened a comm relay to address her team.


    “Send a laser comm to Phoenix tell them to prepare for incoming survivors.  All teams, weapons free, do not shift yet, let’s keep that in our back pocket.”


    She motioned to Smith, her explosives expert and infiltrations specialist, who started the festivities with a series of explosions from the charges they had laid out on their way here.  The planetoid near them was rocked.  She spun her hand around her head.


    “Go, go, go!”