John washed the sticky green blood off his face, then went to join Alyssa to get geared up. They put on theirbat armour and collected several more clips of armour piercing rounds, which they attached to their utility harnesses. John also collected a few of the grenades he had picked up from the Griffon that he hadn’t used yet. He had just finished attaching thest of them securely to his harness, when Alyssa leaned in and gave him a big kiss.


    “I owed you that one from earlier!” She grinned up at him mischievously.


    Johnughed happily.


    “Look at meughing” he grinned “You’d never think we were about to storm a Kirrix hive ship!” he said incredulously.


    “Come on you” he said to the stunningly beautiful young woman, shaking his head in amazement.


    They headed down to the hangar bay and approached the parked dropship. It was a yellow-brown colour with a number of bulky pods at the back and sides and with a bulbous armoured cockpit at the front. It looked like some kind of sickly insect to Alyssa and she decided she was definitely not a fan of the Kirrix style of ship design.


    “We better haul out those dead bugs” John said regretfully. “We don’t want to risk tripping on body parts if we have to make a fast exit”.


    Alyssa nodded ruefully and they put aside their rifles so that they could haul out the Insectoid corpses. The Kirrix were big, bulky and very scary looking, with their six limbs, segmented bodies and frighteningpound eyes over sharp mandibles. Fortunately though, their chitinous frames were deceptively light and the two of them were able to quickly remove all ten of the dead soldiers and stack them in a pile. The decapitated pilot was the cherry on top of an invertebrate cake.


    They left the Kirrix weapons stacked neatly to the side, an odd array of bizarre looking pistols and rifles.


    “What type of weapons are those?” Alyssa asked curiously.


    “The small ones are Neutron sters, the long ones with the side mounted grip is a Neutron rifle” he exined. “They are nasty weapons and hurt like hell if you get hit by one”.


    “Ok I’ll give that a miss then” Alyssa said impishly.


    John smiled, rolling his eyes at her and the two of them collected their rifles before boarding the dropship. Alyssa sat in the pilot’s seat and fired up the engines, while John used a device on his armoured vambrace to open up the hangar bay doors remotely. The ship rose smoothly under Alyssa’s skilful control and they glided out of the hangar bay as though she had been flying Kirrix craft all her life. She banked and pulled up so that she was heading towards the hive ship.


    “Any idea where their hangar is?” She asked John curiously.


    “There in the middle, aim for those big slots in the side” He replied.


    The dropship rose and headed towards the much bigger alien vessel like a bee returning to its hive. They received no iing fire from defence grid type weaponry, so John figured that the Kirrix must have fallen for Alyssa’s cunning ruse. They were hailed as they approached, but they decided it was probably best to let that one go unanswered.


    They entered the hangar slot for the hive ship unchallenged and Alyssa carefully glided into the big open hangar bay without causing suspicion. The hive ship was brightly lit by glowing hexagonal walls that surrounded the entire bay, all throbbing with a strange pulsating luminescence. The hexagonal panels directly in front of them, which were on the port side of the ship were all dimmed. Figures swarmed over another dropship, probably ground crew John guessed, as a squad of ten more Insectoid shock troops marched down from an overhead ramp to get ready to board their transport.


    Alyssa gently rotated their dropship, as they came forward on their final approach to an unupiednding pad. As the marching soldiers swung into view, Alyssa pulled the trigger on the odd shaped Joystick and twin streams of sickly green energy bolts sted out and scythed through the lined up soldiers. The Kirrix trooper’s chitinous bodies exploded as they were hit by the powerful energy pulses, causing limbs, antenna and pieces of armoured exoskeleton to be sted about the Hangar bay as the troopers were struck by the neutron bolts. The Insectoid forces were caughtpletely by surprise and by the time the survivors tried to react, they were picked off by a second deadly volley of urate shots.


    “Oops!” Alyssa eximed, holding her hand over her open mouth in mock surprise.


    “What happened to stealthy?” John grinned wryly.


    “Sorry John I’m still learning the ship, idents will happen!” The mischievous blonde informed him.Têxt belongs to N?velDrama.Org.


    She continued her sweeping turn until she faced the ground crew, who were desperately trying to get the other dropship operational. Alyssa pulled the trigger again and the Heavy Neutron guns on her hijacked craft opened up, blowing apart their segmented arthropod bodies and devastating thended dropship. The repeated neutron impacts knocked it on its side and the yellow-brown hull of the ship began to smoulder in several ces.


    “Very nice…” John said, surveying the carnage. One of the wounded Kirrix troopers was dragging itself off the bloodbath on the gantry, but none were still standing.


    Alyssa carefully set their dropship down on the centre of thending pad and then pushed a button that caused the airlock to slide apart.


    “Ok let’s move out” John said and led the way out of the back of the ship. He nced around the glowing hexagonal tiled room and noted three ways to leave the hangar. Up the gantry and then through doors at the top of an overhead walkway, or through ornate arches at either end of the hangar. He stopped for a moment to get his bearings.


    “Which way?” Alyssa asked, before bringing her rifle to her shoulder and firing a burst into the chest of the wounded shock trooper who was attempting to stand up. The insectoid fell to the floor, its chitinous limbs thrashing wildly before it finallyy still.


    “All the human life readings were that way” John said pointing to the archway closest to them, as he readied his rifle and led them out of the room.


    They entered a wide corridor that continued the odd hexagonal tiling in the hangar bay. Each tile pulsed with light and the lighting in the hall throbbed, as though in time with the hive ship’s pulse. They passed sealed doorways asionally, but there were no soundsing from within the adjoining rooms, so John led them on quickly, hoping to maintain the element of surprise. The corridor ended in a set of ornate double doors, so they darted up to them, getting ready to storm through. John listened intently, but all he could hear was an odd chirruping noise, so he cautiously eased the door open while Alyssa covered him with her rifle.