The big door swung open smoothly and the disconcerting chirruping noise became more intense. It seemed to fluctuate, getting alternately louder then softer and sounding utterly alien and extremely creepy. Now that the door was open, they could see that they were looking in on a hexagonal shaped room. There was a curving ramp that led both upwards and downwards and the strange chirruping noise seemed to being from the lower depths of the ship.


    *The life readings all came from the lower decks, so I guess we go down* John thought to Alyssa, allowing them to maintain their silence.


    She nodded her agreement and followed as he began to lead them down the curving walkway, spiralling downwards a good three or four full rotations around the central axis before they finally reached the bottom. The ramp opened out into a big room, big double doors at the end with smaller entrances on the nking walls, the entire right hand side darkened after the loss of power.


    An upraised curved dais sat in the middle of the room, with a bulky six limbed Kirrix operating hexagonal buttons on the odd looking console. Before they could react, John’smunicator watch shed with an iing call. Unfortunately the Kirrix noticed the sh of light and looked up, spotting them. It pushed some kind of button in front of it and the hexagonal tiled walls started to glow red instead of white, plunging the room into crimson shaded gloom. A strange squawking noise sounded shrilly and reverberated around the chamber, echoing ominously.


    John raised his rifle and fired a burst, but the insectoid moved with a speed that belied its size and it leapt for cover. It ducked behind the dais and began to take potshots at them with a Neutron ster. Feeling exposed in the middle of the room, John sprinted forward, whilst Alyssa dropped to a crouch. Seeing the charging human, the Kirrix reared up to take a shot at him, only for its head to be ripped apart by armour piercing rounds as Alyssa opened fire.


    The scratchy sounds of many wed feet began to make their way into the room,ing from both side doors. Alyssa and John jumped up onto the dais and ducked behind the long, oddly shaped console that surrounded the upraised tform and stayed down low, staying out of line of sight as two squads of Insectoid soldiers appeared from each hallway. There were six Kirrix soldiers per squad, each group led by a hulking Overseer Insect. John furtively passed one of his grenades to Alyssa, taking another for himself and began a mental countdown.


    *3*


    *2*


    *1*


    *Go!*


    The two of them lobbed their grenades in nice gentle arcs, so that theynded right at the segmented legs of the alert bug troopers. John and Alyssa ducked down, hugging the console wall and covered their ears in preparation for the uing explosions. Neutron weapon fire zapped overhead for a second before two tremendous detonations sted through the room, still sounding deafening to them even though their ears were muffled. Cautiously they raised themselves up and nced over at the two groups of soldiers in the aftermath of their grenade strike.


    Each Kirrix patrol had been ripped apart by the grenades. The doorways were ckened, scorched ruins, with billowing ck smoke pouring out of the incinerated tiling and a few more shattered tiles sheared off the wall to ng to the floor. The Kirrix forces had been annihted by the powerful explosives, chitinous appendages were scattered all over the floor and viscous green liquid dripped from where it had been sprayed all over the walls. Miraculously, one of the bulky Overseer bugs was still moving, even though it had lost two of its leg limbs. It screeched a piercing squeal of rage as it tried to level its neutron rifle in their direction and John and Alyssa both opened up on it, sending round after round into its armoured body. It took an rmingly high number of bullets to finally stop it twitching, the tough Insectoid able to take a surprising amount of punishment.


    They reloaded their assault rifles and prepared to move out again, neither seeing nor hearing any further signs of reinforcements. John’s watchmunicator shed again, forgotten in the excitement of thebat.


    “Yes Lieutenant, what’s the problem?” John said, fighting hard to keep any irritation out of his voice. The brte had no way of knowing how much danger she had identally just put them in.


    We’ve gotpany!” The holographic image of Cra’s face said, grinning excitedly.


    “What, more pirates?” John asked, wondering why Cra would be happy about that.


    “No, it’s a friendly! Its Captain Flintlock and the Indomitable” she said happily.


    “Can you put me through to him please?” John asked, unable to directly contact the other ship from his watch.


    Cra nodded eagerly and her image disappeared from view, to be reced by the frowning face of Captain Flintlock.


    “Command ke! What’s going on here? My tactical officer tells me that’s a Kirrix hive ship!” he said, shock clearly showing on his older features.


    “The pirates were selling ves to the Kirrix and we’re on board now, trying to rescue the human captives” John exined quickly.


    “Do you need reinforcements?” the Captain asked grimly.


    “Yes please, liaise with my Tactical Officer and she’ll apprise you of the current situation” John said.


    “John, we’ve gotpany!” Alyssa said, as the sounds of more wed feet came from the ramp behind them.N?velDrama.Org: owner of this content.


    “Got to go Captain!” John said and closed the call, as Captain Flintlock saluted him goodbye.