Authors note: well here's chapter 2... I would like some reviews here please, I want to know if people like the story so far. Anyway, this time you get the first small glimpse of the enemy (its not much though since I plan to explain them more at a later time, I also plan to explain some more of the Sycorian civilization later too incase people were wondering) and a little insight into some main characters.

Anway, here it is, Chapter 2 of my Fanfic.

Chapter 2: An unknown threat

RSCS Tachyon

The Fenris drop ships reached the Tachyon and quickly began disgorging their marine complements onto the crippled ship. 10 of the drop ships managed to get into the Tachyon's main hanger and from there the 200 marines could gain easy access to the main arterial corridors throughout the ship. As the marines advanced they saw signs of intense close combat and a fair deal of structural damage, the holes in the walls were completely smooth and looked as if they had been cut using a, grossly overpowered, surgical laser.

The marines made it to the bridge without seeing a single body, living or dead. They found the defensive doors to the bridge, 2.5m of duranium battle-plate, in pieces with a ragged hole, a meter in diameter in the centre.

"S-Sir? How the hell could something do that to a defence door? Those things are almost 3 meters of battle-plate and have void shield reinforcement." Asked 'the new kid', a marine in Squad Beta and only recently out of basic training.

"That's a good question Private, and one I intend to find an answer to." Replied Lt. Maiborgh "Squads Alpha and Bravo, secure the bridge! Squads Gamma and Epsilon set up a perimeter and wait for the rest of the squads. Squad Delta, you're with me, we're going to the core to try and get some of the data recordings and to see if the enemy found Polaris."

Five hours later

"Admiral, this is Lt. Maiborgh. We have cleared and secured the Tachyon, there are no survivors and strangely no bodies either, all the escape pods are still docked though, so it's doubtful anyone got off this ship alive unless they were prisoners. The good news is that we found Polaris; she's in a bad mood though and won't let us into the computer core, although she has given us access to the rest of the ship.

We are ready to move the Tachyon into a better location in the fleet and to begin looking over the data recorder for the past month, which Polaris, oh so kindly, dumped into one of my tech's pads while he was working on the navigation systems, apparently they're totally fried. We await your orders Admiral, Maiborgh out."

"Very good Lieutenant, I will be coming over to the Tachyon to talk to Polaris myself and to have a look at the data recorder. Move the Tachyon into the centre of the fleet and I'll be right there."

Bridge voice data recording; 4 days earlier

"Warning, unknown vessels have opened fire. Shields activated, estimate 2 minutes until shield collapse. Escorts have opened fire... no effect. Enemy has launched boarding torpedoes... point defences overwhelmed... 3 torpedoes have breached outer hull, security teams prepare to repel boarders."

"Security contingent Omega to the bridge; All Personnel, report to emergency boarding stations!"

"Captain, boarders are attacking with an unknown laser weapon system. It is extremely concentrated and can burn through our barricades and armour with ease; our security teams are being overwhelmed.
Escorts Tribald and Dauntless have been severely damaged. Escort Ragnar has been destroyed. Captain, we must activate the self destruct mechanism, there is no chance that we can win this battle without massive reinforcements."

"Very well... Polaris, begin the self destruct sequence, set the timer for 5 minutes. Try to get us as close to the enemy ship as possible, maybe we can take them with us and save the civilian ships and what remains of our escorts... put me on ship-wide once we're on the way."

"At your command captain... and captain, it's been an honour serving-"

*Noises identified as rapid high energy impacts and shearing metal*

"They're on the Bridge! Take cov-"

*Noises identified as rapid high energy impacts, human screams and standard issue las weaponry fire*

[Primary recording device destroyed, switching to secondary recording device]

[Secondary recording device activated, 3 minutes elapsed since destruction of primary recording device.]

[All passengers and crew confirmed dead, Polaris confirmed disabled, self destruct sequence confirmed disabled, enemy ship and boarders are retreating, sensors indicate all escorts and civilian ships destroyed by hostile vessel. Standby mode activated, awaiting rescue.]

RSCS Tachyon; data core

"Polaris, I know you can hear me, this is Admiral Nemanor Grant." The Admiral waited for a response "Look, just unseal the doors to the data core and let me in alright?"
Again there was no response
"Recovery operations are going to be the death of me." The Admiral muttered "Damn it Polaris, open the door!"
A minute passed
"Fine we'll leave then, just give us access to all data recordings on the ship and we'll leave you here to wallow in self-pity for not being able to save them."
With that the doors hissed open.
"Thank you Polaris, now let's get off this ship shall we?"

"This ship is my home Admiral; I have no wish to leave it."

"I understand Polaris, but you can't stay here and I can't allow you to stay here, not after what happened; you know that."

"Yes Admiral I do know that, it is explicitly stated in RSM General Order 66092 section 5 that any mortally damaged ship must be stripped of all technologies and crew before being towed back to port."

"Good, now if you would be so kind as to head to the RSNS Norfund under your own power I would be very grateful. If you refuse I'll have a tech yank you and I understand that hurts a great deal."

"Very good Admiral, I will transfer to the Norfund and transmit all new data in the core to Regulus."

"Thank you Polaris, for what it's worth, I'm sorry about what happened. Do you know who it was that attacked?"

"No Admiral, I have no knowledge of who launched the attack against the fleet, their weaponry was far in excess of that available to us and, once they boarded they were able to overrun all defensive positions in a matter of minutes. Their ships were also partially impervious to our scans; all we could see was an outline and a very basic schematic of the enemies' outer hulls.
However, we fared much better in ship to ship combat, with our small escort flotilla managing to cripple one of the attackers.
All data on this will be transferred along with the memory core to the Norfund of course."

"Ok Polaris, off you go to the Norfund and try not to piss of Regulus, he's in a bad enough mood as it is, one of the civilian ships was carrying Iliana... try not to bring her up if possible.
Oh and Polaris; if you do anything that endangers my crew, including goading Regulus into doing something, I will have you ripped to pieces."

End of Chapter 2, Chapter 3 should be up by the end of the month, PLEASE REVIEW. That is all :)