Cylon Basestar #411-090-091
System # 427-566
Protecting Mining Outpost #331-012

Raiders erupted from the fleshy hangars of the basestar in an endless stream as the alien ships closed in on the mining facility. The basestar had been assigned to watch over the facility as news of the Covenant spreading through Cylon territory had reached the homeworld.

Consensus had been reached that the newest basestars would protect the bases and facilities closest to the homeworld whilst the older, circular basestars were assigned to those that were further away. No one had expected the aliens to find a facility so close to the homeworld so fast - they had bypassed almost two dozen other facilities to reach this one.

Small teardrop shaped fighters from the two Covenant frigates raced out to meet the Raiders , but despite their shields and energy weapons ,they were so massively outnumbered that the fight was over in just a few minutes. Pulse lasers swept over the closing Raider formations, annihilating whole squadrons in the blink of an eye as the frigates aimed their bows toward the basestar.

As the Raiders closed in on the frigates, anti-fighter and anti-ship missiles streaked from their fuselages, detonating against the ships shields and causing them to flicker and strobe as they absorbed and deflected the energy from the warheads. The missiles had no appreciable effect, so the bio-Cylons on the basestar sent the Raiders in closer to pummel the ships shields with cannon fire while the basestar turned itself broadside on to the incoming warships.

High Explosive missiles poured out of the racks along the sides of the basestars long arms, with a modest number of nuclear warheads mixed in for variety. Pulse lasers switched from targeting the annoying but non-threatening Raiders to the inbound missiles, the powerful multi-purpose weapons taking a heavy toll on the basestars fire, but inevitably some got through.

The targeted frigate lit up with explosions across its shield seconds before disappearing behind a blinding light as a trio of low-yield tactical nukes struck. Though the ship disappeared from sensors, the basestar was taking no chances and fired a second salvo, this time weighed down with nukes. The frigate emerged on DRADIS from behind the intense radiation burst, pulse lasers firing quickly as they tried to take down the missiles.

"They're not shooting at us," a Three on the basestar said, observing the fight.

"What?" a One snarked. "So what? God is on our side."

"Don't be a fool," a Six replied, sneering at the One. "If they aren't shooting at us, there must be a reason. We're well within their effective range."

"There is a reason," One said smugly, prompting the Six to send him a filthy look. On the view screen, the frigate faded from view behind nuclear detonations and radiation fuzzed out the DRADIS readings again. The Infiltrators observed the fight outside closely, watching as the two alien ships ripped through the attacking Raiders and shot down incoming missiles, their shields shrugging off the few that got through.

Fresh fighters spawned from the alien frigates, this time staying close to their motherships and supporting the pulse lasers in taking down the Cylon ships. Raiders were dropping like flies under the renewed fighter assault, and One made a decision.

"All Raiders, suicide attack those ships," One said, the orders relayed quickly and the remaining Cylon fighters instantly accelerated and rammed into the shields of the Covenant ships as the basestar fired another salvo of high-explosive missiles.

"What are you doing?" Six protested. "We should have recalled them and jumped out. How long until we can use the FTL?"

"We won't be doing that," One replied. "Those ships aren't a threat to us, so we're going to stay here and finish them off."

"What?" Three said, surprised. "You can't do that! We have no idea why they aren't shooting at us, but that doesn't mean they're not a threat."

"You have to have consensus," Six said. "I vote we leave, and so does Three."

"We can't have consensus," One answered. "Because our three models are the only ones onboard."

"And who engineered that, I wonder?" Six growled "There are protocols for this kind of situation. You have been outvoted; we're jumping."

"Wait," Three interrupted. "Look, new contacts coming from the bigger ships. They're heading right for us."

"What are they?" Six said, turning to face the DRADIS screens as Three punched up an external view from one of the basestars hull-mounted cameras. Maybe two dozen long, cylindrical ships were streaking across space towards the Cylon ship, each accompanied by a pair of alien fighters.

"I think…I think they are some kind of troopship," Three replied, squinting at the image.

"Boarding craft," Six realised, horror overcoming her features. "They weren't shooting at us because they want to board us."

"Spin up the FTL and get us out of here," she said, turning back to face One and the Hybrid in its tank. A slight shudder ran through the deck beneath their feet and a muffled clank echoed through the halls of the ship.

"Too late," Three murmured. "Activate the Centurions and tell them to get ready to fight off boarders."

&&&&&

Zora Zomanee clacked his mandibles in anticipation as he checked his plasma rifle again. His boarding craft contained himself, a fellow Sangheili, four Kig'Yar and a dozen Unggoy, all ready to board the Unclean vessel.

The craft made contact with the hull of the ship and plasma cutters began coring through the metal, making an opening through which the warriors of the Covenant would spill into the alien vessel, ready to take the control centre and hopefully retrieve the navigational data that would allow them to annihilate the human infestation in this sector of the galaxy, allowing them to concentrate on the other humans.

The circular doorway of the boarding craft slid open, revealing darkness on the other side of the hatch, and Unggoy streamed out of the craft to form a defensive line while the Sangheili and Kig'Yar followed. The little creatures tittered and chattered excitedly as they waved around plasma pistols and needlers.

Zomanee clambered out of the craft behind them, followed closely by the red armoured unit commander, grasping a carbine in his large hands.

"Zomanee," the commander growled. "Take your unit and head left, I will be going right with mine."

Zomanee bowed slightly to the senior Sangheili, then gestured for the two Kig'Yar and half-dozen Unggoy that made up his unit to follow him. Zomanee had been a warrior only a few short months, and had seen precious little combat in that time. His dark blue novice's armour attested to that fact.

Still, he was a Sangheili, as well trained and eager for battle as any of his kind, and the darkness and stale air of this area of the ship was not going to dissuade him from his task. He rolled his tongue, mandibles flaring slightly in distaste. Was this a little used part of the ship? What other reason could there be for such stale air?

The Kig'Yar took point, the Unggoy close behind with Zomanee in the middle of the standard formation, protected from fire by the bodies of the lesser species. The unit made swift progress through thew wide corridors, glow of their weapons emitters and the Kig'Yar's shields banishing the darkness with the aid of small lamps that each Unggoy carried and a shoulder mounted light on Zomanee's armour.

The lamp packs weren't standard kit, but it was a common tactic for defenders to cut power, gravity and even life support to areas of a ship during boarding actions, and as such the boarding teams had been equipped with magnetic boots, rebreather units and the lamps.

Somewhere ahead, covered by thick darkness, there was the clatter of metal on metal. Zomanee tensed as he heard it, checked his rifle again, then gestured the Kig'Yar forward.

"Tread carefully," the warrior hissed. "Be prepared to engage the enemy."

The Kig'Yar hissed and squawked in response, their heads swivelling in quick, jerky movements as their large eyes strained against the cloying shadows. Zomanee's lamp played over one of the walls, the strange material shining dully under the light, and he reached out a massive hand gingerly, touching the material.

His hand recoiled and he growled in distaste; the wall felt damp and fleshy, almost like it was alive.

"Leader!" one of his Unggoy said. "Look!"

The diminutive creature pointed its stubby finger into the darkness ahead, gesturing to a red light that strobed back and forth. Another appeared beside it, and another and the clank of metal on metal began anew as the strobing lights crept closer.

"Me have bad feeling 'bout this," another Unggoy whimpered, just before a series of loud reports rang out and the hallway ahead lit up with yellow fire, projectiles ripping into the Covenant team.

A heavy round struck Zomanee's shield as he raised his plasma rifle and fire a burst, aiming for the flashes of chrome revealed by the gunfire. A pair of Unggoy were cut down shrieking as the Kig'Yar opened fire as well, safe for the moment behind their shields.

Plasma boiled down the corridor, striking metal and melting through with apparent ease - some kind of body armour? Zomanee shook the question from his thoughts and crouched behind the Kig'Yar, allowing their shield gauntlets to take the fire. A lucky shot got past the shield and struck on of the Kig'Yar's hands, the alien crying out in pain and shifting the shield enough for several more rounds to get through, punching holes in its chest.

Zomanee's rifle whined in his hands, blue plasma lashed one of the attacking metal creatures, melting through armour and exposing circuitry. The things strobing 'eye' flash once and it tumbled backwards. High calibre bullets punched into Zomanee's shield and he rolled to the left, coming up spraying plasma at his attackers as more Unggoy fell under the barrage. Several bolts hit the wall, and the stench of burning flesh invaded the warriors nostrils.

Another of the Unclean abominations fell under fire from two Unggoy, and Zomanee brought down the last one with a burst of fire to the head. He stood cautiously, his shield recharging, and sneered at the smouldering beasts.

Machines, he realised. The damned apes were using machines to fight for them. Had they no honour?

"Gather anything useful," he ordered. "And let's keep moving."

The remaining Unggoy hurried to comply, picking up dropped weapons and lamps from their fallen comrades. Zomanee stepped over a corpse and examined the wall where it had been struck by plasma. Blood oozed from the impact site.

He clacked his mandibles in surprise. The inside of the ship seemed to actually be organic. As far as he knew, no human had made use of such technology before. This mission was rapidly raising quite a few questions, but as a warrior of the Covenant, it was not Zomanee's place to ask them.

"Excellency, we ready," one of the surviving Unggoy reported, and Zomanee nodded and gestured for them to move out. They didn't need to be told twice. The group made good time through the wide corridors, encountering no further resistance but occasionally coming across evidence of a fire fight. Without warning, the deck heaved beneath Zomanee's hooves and he lurched forward, barely retaining his balance. What was that?

&&&&&

"We've jumped to empty space in between star systems, hopefully they won't find us long enough for us to deal with the boarders," Three reported. "The aliens are making swift progress; their weapons appear to be very effective against the Centurions armour."

"Of course," Six responded. "They weren't designed with energy weapons in mind. Once this is over, we must gather up as much technology as possible. It could advance us hundreds of years."

"Fool," One snarled. "We have all the tools and technology we need, as God intended."

"With the aliens technology," Three snapped back. "We could push the Covenant back and wipe out the Colonials once and for all."

Gunfire echoed throughout the room from what sounded like a short distance away, followed by the whine of alien weaponry answering in kind. The Control Centre was well defended by Centurions, but the bio-Cylons themselves were unarmed, and it would take only one of the aliens getting into the room to kill them all. Six cursed.

"They're right outside, we need to get out of here."

"And go where?" One asked. "This is the most secure area of the ship."

"He's right," Three added, looking pained to actually be agreeing with the other Cylon. "I'll redirect some more Centurions here."

As Three went about her business, the gun-battle outside seemed to cool down as the aliens retreated, no doubt preparing to regroup and make another push for the Control Centre.

"We have to consider the possibility that we may not survive this," Six said, listening anxiously to the commotion outside. "Prepare to purge our navigational database as a precaution. We can't let them find the homeworld"

One snorted, but went to it anyway, pressing his hands into the shallow pool of liquid and fleshy construct just below the surface of the fluid that served as a keyboard. An explosion, right outside one of the doors to the CC, made the Cylons jump and redouble their efforts.

&&&&&

Zomanee cried out in rage as he grappled with the machine. The thing was strong, almost as strong as him, but with the advantage of never getting tired. His arms ached as he held the wrist mounted machine gun away from his face as it opened fire, almost deafening him.

With a roar, Zomanee slammed his armoured helmet into the machines 'face'. It staggered back a little as Zomanee's head throbbed with pain, and he cursed himself for doing something so stupid. His grip loosened a little on the machines left wrist, and its clawed hand broke free and raked down the side of his face.

The razor-sharp claws scraped deep ravines in his helmet before making contact with his flesh, and a squirt of blood sprayed across the machines strobing red eye. Zomanee reared back, slamming his fist into the machines chest as hard as he could. Alloy dented and it stumbled away from him.

Twin hearts pounding in his chest cavity, Zomanee swung up his plasma rifle and put three bolts straight into the machines head. Molten metal erupted and rained down around the machine as it dropped straight onto its back, and Zomanee heaved a sigh of relief. That made seven kills for him, but just two of his Unggoy remained.

The diminutive creatures had taken cover behind the wrecked hulk of another machine and had kept a small number of them at bay with their plasma pistols whilst their leader fought with the machine in their midst. Most Sangheili would have punished them for not coming to his aid, but Zomanee knew that the Unggoy would have been next to useless in a hand to hand situation and they could not risk shooting at the machine and hitting him by accident.

Zomanee breathed deep, fired a long burst down the hallway at the advancing machines and let out a snort of approval as one of them tumbled over backwards, a glowing hole in its chest plate. The Unggoy fired green bolts back at the other machine, bullets raked the carcass they hid behind and a single round struck one of them in the face.

The last surviving Unggoy overcharged its pistol, sending a large green bolt hurtling into the chest of the last machine. The bolt passed straight through it and scorched the wall behind as it toppled over.

"Excellent," Zomanee praised the underling. "Come, we must keep moving, the others are already deep into the vessel."

"Yes, Excellency."

Zomanee trotted down the corridor, turned a corner. He was moving briskly, but slowly enough that the underling could keep up. Out of his initial unit of six Unggoy, two Kig'Yar and himself, just this one Unggoy and he remained.

"What is your name?" Zomanee inquired, carefully checking the corridor. The air here was fresher and there was better lighting, which suggested they were in a part of the ship occupied by living beings rather than the mechanical abominations they had been fighting. Somewhere ahead was the distant chatter and whine of a small arms fire exchange.

"Manawa, Excellency," the diminutive alien answered hesitantly. The Sangheili nodded.

"Stay close to me, Manawa, and we will come out of this alive and victorious," the much larger warrior told his companion. "You fight well, for an Unggoy."

"Thank you, Excellency," Manawa preened at the praise. "You honour me greatly."

Sangheili and Unggoy rarely got along well with each other, what with the larger aliens being at the top of the Warrior Castes and the Unggoy being at the bottom, but since the Jiralhanae had been given positions of power within the Warrior Castes, warships even, the Unggoy had decided that they'd rather be under the command of the warrior Elite than the brutish simians. At least a Sangheili wouldn't eat them.

"The battle ahead grows near," Zomanee said, checking the power cell of his weapon. "Steel yourself, I have a feeling this will be fierce."

He wasn't wrong. Gunfire lashed the air ahead, and the pair turned a corner to find a small group of Sangheili crouched behind a makeshift barricade of machine corpses firing a mix of plasma rifles and carbines into a seething mass of inexorably advancing machines. There were few Kig'Yar and Unggoy who had made it this far, but what few there were added their own fire.

A bullet struck Zomanee in the gut, setting his shield aglow and forcing him to duck back around the corner as more rounds struck the wall. His plasma rifle bucked in his hand, streams of blue energy bolts answering the projectiles and melting away the head of one of the machines. He kept the trigger mechanism pinned, waving the rifle back and forth over the machines and roaring in satisfaction as two more fell.

He released the trigger seconds before the weapon would have over heated, tapped a button to expose the cooling vents. He gestured Manawa to cover him, the little alien nodded and Zomanee burst from cover, charging toward his brothers at the barricade. Bullets struck his shield and he ducked a little lower as the Unggoy behind him sent a stream of green bolts past his head.

He ducked in beside a Sangheili with a carbine, his brother warrior firing radioactive armour piercing pellets into the red eyes of the machines with precision. Zomanee waved Manawa forward, rising as his shield recharged and sending plasma downrange as his companion skittered forward on all fours. A large calibre bullet struck the methane tank on his back, sending up a shower of sparks as it ricocheted away. The tank was not penetrated, but by the startled look on Manawa's face it was clear that the close call had terrified him.

"Excellency," Manawa panted. "We deep enough into ship to use grenades?"

Zomanee tilted his head in surprise; he hadn't thought of that. They had to be far enough away from the outer hull to safely use grenades by now. He nodded.

"Toss when ready," he ordered, gripping his own plasma grenade. He poked his head over the barricade as the warrior beside him fell back with a cry as his shield failed and he was pelted with projectiles.

"Now!"

Zomanee and Manawa tossed their ignited plasma grenades, the small blue spheres trailing comets behind them. Zomanee's landed somewhere in the back of the machines, Manawa's struck one in the arm. The machine looked at the grenade for a moment, then tried to tug it off just as it detonated.

Plasma washed over the machines in a twin burst, destroying those closest to the explosions and melting the armour of others. As one, the Sangheili roared a challenge and leapt over the barricade, charging the machines as they fired their weapons as fast as possible.

Zomanee glimpsed an ignited energy blade as he charged, saw a machine fall as it was cut in half and chuckled. The fight for this ship had been a good one for the novice warrior, but it was almost over now.

&&&&&

"That's it, purge the nav data," Six said as the door to the Control Centre began glowing as the aliens burned through it. Three nodded, plunged her hands into the interface and sent the command to purge the data.

"Should we set the destruct?" One asked, eyeing the door warily as the metal began to run as it melted away and a rapidly widening hole appeared. Six caught a glimpse of a reptilian alien sneering at them through the gap.

"Do it, quickly," she replied. They never got the chance. A pink needle flew through the hole and struck One's left arm, the Cylon cried out and tried to pull the needle out.

The shard exploded in his hand, ruining the muscle of his bicep and shearing off two fingers. One staggered back as another needle hit him in the stomach, face pale. Blood dripped to the floor around him as the needle in his stomach detonated, bursting the Cylons stomach and making him shriek in agony as Six and Three watched on in horror.

One of the aliens vaulted through the hole, shield shimmering as molten metal dripped onto it, rolled to its feet and charged Six, its blue armour glowing dully under the soft lighting of the room. Six raised her arm to strike the creature, but its massive hand shot out and grabbed her wrist in a vice-grip, making her gasp in pain.

Three moved to help her and was rewarded by a blue plasma bolt to each knee. The massive alien laughed as more of its kin clambered through the ruined doorway.

"Human," it snorted in her face. "You are mine."