Large, that's what they were, large and determined. At least that's what they had to be to continue rushing Captain Nelson as he continued to dismember each 'thing' or whatever they were in the boarding party in front of him. He didn't think about it, he just hacked away at whatever wasn't familiar until there was nothing left to hack at.

"Scan the bodies... find out what you can..." Nelson ordered between heavy breaths as he looked down at one of the more intact bodies.

These creatures averaged 2.5 meters in height, but their weight didn't match their height. Their skin was an exoskeleton and they only had 3 fingers, including an opposable thumb. Needless to say these bastards were ugly as hell once you got the helmet off. Disproportionally sized heads compared to their massive bodies. Over-sized eyes compared to their mouth, though the fact that it was a mouth was only given away by the fact that the empty hole near what resembled a chin had sharp teeth inside.

"Semi-compound eyes and no noses either..." Nelson mused quietly to himself before kicking the nearest severed head out of the bridge and into the empty vacuum of space where the rest of the bridge was floating in pieces.

"Joshua, get me a damage report." Nelson ordered silently as the new ship continued to float in space just barely a hundred kilometers away.

"The Spirit is going to need a full two day overhaul at the dockyards at Aurek Site, or 'New Mandalore' as the populous recently agreed on." Joshua replied, causing Nelson to smirk a little; a fitting name to the capital planet of a rising military republic. "Engines, down; weapons, almost gone; shields are recharging and are still at full strength; the explosives didn't hit the shield generator. Stealth measures compromised due to newly added hull breaches here, here, and-"

"Here... I know..." he said as he looked at what was left of his bridge.

"We're also being hailed by the enemy vessel."

"Put it on sc-" Nelson started before letting out a sigh, "On the holotable please, Joshua..."

It had taken them almost a full hour of running through brush, but the team finally made it to the main door. Again, the doorway seemed to be larger than what it needed to be but that wasn't for them to complain about, especially since unlike all the other Sites, the door to this one swung open easily after Izzi input his security codes.

That was when the easy part stopped.

The team made their way inside and barely got two steps in before the doors slammed shut so loudly that most of the members of the strike team almost fell over from the shockwave of sound. It took them a few minutes to all fully recover and be able to hear each other again, but by that times, lights all along the facility started turning on.

"I've got a bad feeling about this..." one of the few women, a corporal who was the team's heavy weapon specialist, said quietly.

"That's a lot of lights." The Lieutenant said as they started walking down the main hallway.

"Not lights..." Izzi corrected, "Holorecords... millions of them. But... if this is a Library then there should be guardians keeping this knowledge safe should anyone break in.

"Do those count?" the Twi'lek Lieutenant asked, raising his rifle and taking aim at a few large metal machines hovering towards them a few meters above the ground. They was about 2 meters all around and looked somewhat like an Imperial Interrogation droid, just minus the random bulges of torture devices and three glowing blue eyes instead of a single large red one.

It wasn't until the bottom of the triangle of lights on one of them started getting brighter that the entire team realized that each machine only had two eyes. They all scrambled for cover as a beam of pure white energy blasted the ground where they were only moments before and continued on for a few feet before the Guardians turned to try and find their lost prey.

"Yes, Lieutenant." Izzi replied over the team's com channel, "Those count."

The talks with the Crandolian leader were interesting, to say the least. As it turned out, the aliens Nelson had killed were only the warrior caste of this strange insectoid species. The hierarchs and commanders looked more like humans than the rest of their species and even had eyes resembling humanoid ones.

The only main difference was that their skin was still chitinous and their legs hinged backwards.

"Still creeps me out a little." Nelson muttered.

"As does your form, Captain Nelson." Captain Hrrkkril (Or simply Kril for when his name was uttered by an 'inferior species'), "But that doesn't mean I'm still not willing to work out a deal, you need only be reasonable."

"Reasonable doesn't cut it. You've already seen that we can take out your shields and your ship; give us the information we want and we'll let you get out with your lives and a nice bit of spending money." Nelson quipped back for what must have been the fifth time in the last hour.

"We do not reveal that kind of information lightly, Nelson." Kril replied. getting a scowl that he couldn't see thanks to Nelson's visor.

Luckily, that wasn't the only thing that Kril couldn't see. Joshua was busy while the negotiations were taking place. While most of him remained on the Kindred Spirit, a good amount of his intrusion software was busy going through every file the Lover's Quarrel, or at least that's what he thought it translated to, had in its archives, including the location of the Lumarian home world, and the Crandolian hive.

One piece of information stuck out though, a footnote in the historical records that had the same date stamp as many other files he had sifted through in Lumarian and even Black Moon systems.

"A cataclysm... or great war... same as with the others." the AI thought while part of him continued to collect data. "All saying it was lead by a creature of great power of mind... The Abyss... interesting; I'll examine it in full later." he continued, giving the AI equivalent of a smile and then going on his merry way towards the ship's systems to wreak some havoc the only way he knew how.

"If we cannot reach an agreement then I'm afraid force will have to do." Captain Kril finally said, the exasperation in his tone painfully obvious.

"Very well then..." Nelson replied before looking at Joshua. "Get all the files they had?"

"Every file they had in their archives. I'll also be shutting down their shields in five seconds, sir." Joshua said, his avatar grinning. Kril's on the other hand, looked more panicked than anything. That was until the transmission cut and the Kindred Spirit was buffeted by a large explosion, courtesy of the 14th Starfighter Squadron based on the Alderaan. 'Double Dealers' was the name they chose to call their squadron, Nelson never understood why but he was glad that a newer squadron finally got a notable kill.

Explosions always did seem beautiful to him in space.

"Keep running! I'll try to find the security terminal!" Izzi ordered over the coms as he continued to sprint.

"Someone get us on the horn with the fleet and get us some reinforcements!" someone yelled, he couldn't tell who though, he was busy searching for that damn terminal to shut the Guardians down. It took him a full two minutes of the platoon running and hiding before he was able to update everyone's HUDs with the proper coordinates and finally open a channel to Nelson.

"Captain? Nelson, are you there?" he asked.

"I'm here, we had another spot of trouble up here but it was taken care of. Have you found out what Dorn is yet?

"Yes, actually." Izzi replied, "Your race has a long standing joke about librarians and silence, yes?"

"For the most part...why?" was the answer Izzi got.

"I do not find it funny anymore." he said, taking a peek from around their hiding spot and immediately ducking back down as another Guardian floated past. "I do not find it funny at all."