I transmatted into the lower floor of the Skywatch array, the water pooling on the muddied ground lapping at my feet. It was deserted, and there were no foes to be seen. I stepped forwards through the muck and derbies, my boots splashing across the inundated floor. I raised my hand cannon as Ghost appeared over my shoulder to provide some light.

"Ace, be careful. I'm sensing a unidentified biosignature in the rooms above us, and there are Fallen past that doorway."

I nodded, and swung my gun barrel around the corner. Nothing. Not even a single fallen growl. Then, I saw a shimmer rushing towards me. I jumped back as a Vandal with four electrified blades leapt from thin air with a growl. I parried a blade with my arm guard, and dropped a solar grenade at my feet as I jumped back. The vandal looked down in surprise, and then looked back up with it's head cocked. The grenade then went off as more shimmers rounded the corner. I stepped back as they prowled towards me.

"Ghost, some music please," I said calmly. "Preferably something to my tastes."

"Certainly," said Ghost, disappearing. "One moment please."

…Back in black

I hit the sack

I've been too long I'm glad to be back

Yes, I'm let loose

From the noose…

I smiled as AC/DC's classic rock song 'Back in Black' from the 20th century blared from my helmet speakers. I began shooting in time to the classical rock guitar riffs, each shot blowing a chunk from a enemy Vandal. A few dregs rushed in with a combination of pistol and shortsword. I blew each of their heads in while humming the lyrics in time to the song.

…Well, I'm back, back
Well, I'm back in black
Yes, I'm back in black…

I proceeded to fight off a few more vandals as the music spiked. With all enemy threats finished, I rushed through the doorway, putting a round into a stray Dreg cowering behind a rusted vehicle. I then ran up the metal staircase, arriving in a old computer room. Inside, crusty layers of some unidentifiable substance covered several surfaces. Ghost shone a light around the room, picking out several armoured aliens who looked like a cross between a crustacean and a insect.

"Those are Hive!" exclaimed Ghost. "Quick, kill them!"

…Number one with a bullet, I'm a power pack
Yes, I'm in a bang
With a gang
They've got to catch me if they want me to hang…

I wiped the floor with several smaller, faster and less armoured Hive (which Ghost labelled as 'Thralls" in my HUD), before moving onto a group of ranged fighters that Ghost called 'Acolytes'. I then spotted two bigger Hive, both extremely armoured. Ghost popped up a banner calling them 'Knights'.

…Nobody's gonna get me on another rap
So look at me now
I'm just makin' my play…

I managed to take down the Knights pretty easily with some blasts of my shotgun. A few stragglers came into the room, but were quickly wiped from mortal existence by my Imago Loop. Finally, I shot the last remaining Hive in the head in time to the last riff of the music. The shot reverbed for a moment, before perfectly ending along with the guitar. I stood up, panting. I then reloaded my pistol, collected some engrams dropped by the Hive (probably looted from some other place in the Cosmodrome and regarded by the Hive as just nice-looking gems) and headed up the rest of the stairs. Eventually, I arrived in a central control room at the top of the array, where a few Fallen milled about. I took them out, and then commanded Ghost to access the primary control console at the back of the room. Ghost flitted about for a bit before turning around in apparent alarm.

"Fallen! They're coming in hot!"

I rushed to the open roller door at the front of the control room and stared out at the fleet of dropships inbound to my position. There was at least four that were currently landing their troops, and another two that were charging their weapons ready to lay down fire at me from above. I jumped behind a thick concrete pillar as the two dropships blew craters in the floor where I had previously been standing. The ground shook as the dropships continued pounding that spot with their weapons, both deceived and blinded by the cloud of dust rising from that spot. I smiled as they fired into the dense smoke, unaware that I had moved out of the way. I rolled through the smoke and through to the other side, using the cloud as cover.

As a result of this, the enemy troops moving round the pillar I previously was hidden behind found nothing of me. They must have been quite shocked when- the minute they turned around the march back to their dropships- I leapt through the smoke and fired my shotgun into them. It was a total slaughter. They were completely unprepared, and I only took a few glancing and badly aimed shots from a few panicked Dregs.

By this time, the enemy had truly noticed that was still present, and the other dropships were now landing their troops. I pulled my Imago Loop, and fired several precision shots into the heads of the first wave. By now, the Array transmitter was beginning to unfold, mechanically rising from the hardpoint it occupied and beginning to power up. I noticed two fallen dropships breaking off to attack the array. Ghost chimed in over my communications system.

"Those dropships are trying to destroy the Array! Take them out!"

"No shit, Sherlock!" I exclaimed, taking out a few Vandals with cloaking tech. I jumped up onto a cargo container and began unloading my shotgun into a hoard of Shanks approaching below. Then my shotgun clicked empty. I pulled my Imago loop, and diverted my attention to the dropships. However, my helmet rangefinder showed that the attacking craft were too far away for my revolver to be any use at all.

"Ghost, any ideas on how to harm those dropships?"

My companion bleeped for a bit before falling silent. However, a outline appeared under some fallen bodies: a rocket launcher.

"Excellent!"

I dived back into the hoard, picking up some ammo engrams as I did so. My belt-housed Ammo Decoder turned the cubical engrams into useable ammo as I did so. I reloaded my shotgun and pumped a few shells into a group of Dregs. I took out the immediate threats, and then dug through the massive sheet of bodies lying on the ground for the rocket launcher. The dropships near the transmitter were already firing their plasma weapons into the transmitter array. Luckily, the array was military design, and was built to survive a beating if the Cosmodrome (and by extent Earth) came under assault. Luckily it had not already taken such a beating in the collapse. I finally extracted the rocket launcher, and found it loaded with three rockets. Perfect.

I aimed the launcher at the first dropship, and pulled the electronic trigger. The launcher bucked in my grip as the rocket inside leapt towards the enemy ship. Problem was, a dreg just deploying from a new dropship fell right into the path of the missile. The resulting explosion caused the Dreg's dropship to slam right into a nearby building. Before falling on top of the other ground troops.

"Oops…" I said. "My bad."

I primed the next rocket, and aimed it at the dropship I had been trying to hit before. The launcher shook backwards as the rocket flew on a pillar of smoke towards the dropship. It hit right on the main engine array. The dropship spiralled down, trailing smoke. It smashed into a group of what I hoped were maintenance huts at the base of the array. I aimed my last rocket at the other dropship. The other ships had already deposited all their troops, most of whom were currently dead, the others running like hell away from the ether-covered madman I must have looked like. I internally sent a prayer to some benevolent god who might still be looking out for humanity. With a deep breath, I pulled the trigger, just as the dropship charged it's weapons for the burst of plasma that would finally break through the broken armour plating on the transmitter and doom my hopes of saving humanity. The rocket impacted the dropship, and plunged right into the belly of the bulbous ship.

Unbeknownst to me, the rocket failed to hit anything of any importance. It actually just hit a fluid tank that was part of the dropship's backup hydraulic drop-door system, and failed to destroy the armoured component. However, the tank's armour plating had been accidentally damaged by a Dreg's weapon before he dropped, and as a result, the tank's usually rocket-impervious armour was already weakened. Not rent though. In fact, it was still in pretty good condition when the rocket hit. The tank contained a substance which was both highly acidic and highly flammable, which was why the container had been constructed from a highly durable material that was designed to contain any leakage. The initial blast from the rocket would have melted the normally 50mm armour down to about 15mm- if the tank hadn't been damaged. The blast actually melted the armour down to 8mm, and the concussive shock opened a tiny hole in the metal: enough to allow a trickle of acid to burn through the untreated core of the armour, and widen the hole. The blast also unfortunately caused a electrical short circuit, igniting the acid.

Now, this less-than-normal acidic hydraulic fluid was very volatile. It contained the chemically-stored energy equivalent to 30kg of TNT, using earth measurements. The crew bay, along with the rest of the dropship, disintegrated. Disintegrated in a violent, spectacular and (thankfully) undamaging fashion. There was pretty much no wreckage to speak of.

"You're lucky that didn't damage the Array," said Ghost, appearing next to me with a flash of light. "If that ship had been any closer than it was to that transmitter, we'd be looking at a useless pile of scrap. Instead, we're looking at a golden age marvel!"

I stared at the fully extended array, which was glistening in the rising sunlight. It looked like a giant metal tulip, with a narrow set of angular, petal-shaped antennae stretching up into the sky. The armour plating on the 'petals' was seared and rent in places, but- as I watched- a beam of light shot up into the sky. However, this lasted for all of three seconds, before the array shut off. I frowned at Ghost.

"Shouldn't that have stayed on? I remember that when the warsat network was fully active and under the Array's control, the beam was pretty much always on. Made for some great late-night snapshots, but it was always on."

"Something's not right," Ghost said worriedly. "Rasputin said he wanted the array active. He never said to us what he intended to do with it once it was active. Hmmm…I wonder if he didn't actually intend to activate the warsats. Hang on a moment. Bring me back to that console. I want to check out what he sent out with the array."

I rushed back into the control room, Ghost bobbing in the air beside me the entire way. He began scanning the console, the screen flashing through diagnostic windows and data fields. He increased the frequency of his scans, his polygons clicking faster. Suddenly, he shut his beam off and turned to me.

"It's Rasputin! He's locked me out of the Array. But from what I gather, Rasputin was actually sending a activation code to old Warminds on the outer planets. Mars, Venus, Mercury, Ceres and Pluto: they all were installed with Warminds. Mercury's Warmind was lost when the Vex turned the planet into a machine. Pluto got hit hard during the end Collapse and was destroyed. Ceres was obliterated by a enemy battle fleet in the opening engagement of the Collapse. Which leaves the Warminds on Mars and Venus. I wonder what Rasputin is up to…"

Ghost twitched a bit and shuddered. "Wait…we're being called back to the tower. The Speaker wants to talk to us. Wow! We're going to meet the Speaker!"

I smiled. "Well come on then Toto! We're off the meet the Speaker!"

Author's note: Well there's another chapter down! I was so sorry I hadn't posted for long that I sneaked in this second chapter for this week! Thank you for all your positive reviews people! Even the negative ones were pretty helpful. I tried to slow it down slightly this time round and linger a bit on some of the scenes. Did I do a good job of that? Please respond!

In other news, my work on the first chapter of what I'm calling "The Smegging Early Years" is going well. I'm already got a basic plot down, but struggling with the protagonist. For those who have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about, I'm writing a fanfic about the British cult-classic sci fi sitcom Red Dwarf set aboard the titular JMC Mining Ship 14 years before the radiation leak that sets the series going. There will be no Lister, no Kryten and no Cat.

Which brings me to the protagonist. I am having trouble deciding between a random crewmember or Arnold J Rimmer from when he started serving aboard Red Dwarf. Rimmer worked aboard the Dwarf for 14 years, four of which were spent with Lister. So 14 years before the leak, he was just starting his career. So please, Private message (not review) me with your say on it. I want to keep the reviews free of discussion about other stories, and would appreciate you using the PM system.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thank you for reading this story so far. Chapter 8 comes out next week!

Copyright Note: Back In Black by AC/DC is the property of Atlantic Records, Copyright 1980. The lyrics to the song are used under the Fair Use act 2007. All rights and lyrics belong to AC/DC and associated business partners.