Season 1 - Episode 6: Phage (part 3)
May 13, 2371 (1 Month, 28 Days in the Delta Quadrant)

"Just so we are clear," Janeway began, her voice strained but firm, "Not only is there absolutely no dilithium down there, but you were attacked by an unknown species, unprovoked, from behind, in what I can only describe as an ambush. Currently you have one of them under guard, they appear sick, and Mr. Neelix is unconscious. And, if that weren't bad enough, in all likelihood there are another dozen aliens inside what appears to be a hidden starbase."

Chakotay's voice crackled slightly, their location deep inside the planetoid likely throwing up some minor interference, "That is about the short of it. I'm requesting orders on how you want us to proceed."

"Stand by," she directed.

I was standing next to Tuvok, he and I having been in the middle of an interesting conversation about the recent upgrades B'Elanna and I had made to the ship's weapon systems while we'd been working on our other projects. They weren't major things, just a smidge more than a percent upgrade in targeting accuracy and energy output, but he was curious about the specifics of what we did and how we came up with them. I had found that I liked talking with the Vulcan. We may never be friends, per say, but we at least understood each other and trusted the other enough to at least perform our duties effectively.

When Chakotay called in a moment ago and explained the situation, I hadn't exactly sighed in relief but if anyone had been watching I wouldn't doubt they'd have seen me relax slightly. While I wasn't as concerned about the Talaxian's health, I had actually found myself honestly worried about what might happen to Bell and Harewood. Unlike the Talaxian, we could replicate replacement organs fairly easily, but I still didn't want them even temporarily injured. I supposed that, over the last few weeks, I'd started to get more than just a little attached to their well-being. Shepard wouldn't have, but I wasn't exactly him, no matter how much I leaned on his knowledge and abilities.

It wasn't like I was talking out my ass when I preached how everyone needed to work together, or how every life on this ship was valuable. But, at some point, I think I'd begun to believe that myself. Maybe a little too much. Security lost people on ops, that was an almost universal constant. Not every ops, but it was going to happen, whether I liked it or not. I couldn't be the squad leader, with every loss being personal, I had to be the general, spending the lives of my men like a miser does gold, while making my enemies spend theirs like water.

Perhaps it was all the mornings eating breakfast with the Security crew? Spending time with the boys and girls in engineering? My projects with Torres? Maybe I needed to find a way to establish more distance, if I was getting this concerned over a simple op where I knew they were going to almost certainly be fine.

Janeway looked over at the two of us, her eyes quickly darting back and forth, before asking, "Tuvok, how do you think we should proceed?"

I kept my expression the same as it was before at this obvious snub. I was the head of Security, which included ground-based operations. By the book, by standard operating practice, by every metric that these decisions were normally made, this should be my call. Tuvok, as my superior, could overrule me if he thought I was making a mistake, but even I knew this wasn't how Starfleet worked. By the looks on the faces on some of the bridge ensigns, the ones pretending not to watch as they sat at their consoles, I wasn't the only one who realized this.

The Vulcan, ever the pragmatist, thought for a moment, then declared, "Seeing as how we came here for the purpose of finding dilithium, and there does not appear to be any, it would seem the logical course of action would be to recall our people and move on to other opportunities."

I looked up at the ceiling bulkhead, staring at it as I let out a heavy frustrated breath from my nose. While speaking could be considered out of line, there were always other ways to make my displeasure known. I couldn't exactly argue with the man, he was right after all. The logical, and, it could be argued, correct course of action would be to pack up and leave. None of ours were injured and we didn't have the resources to waste sitting here trying to squeeze blood from a stone.

The fact that it would mean leaving with absolutely no knowledge of a hostile alien race, a threat that had already attacked our people once and had access to advanced technology, wasn't even being considered. However, until they actually, explicitly showed they had ships with which to attack us with, the Captain could tell herself that leaving this random planetoid would obviously mean we'd never see them again.

"You disagree?" Janeway asked, raising an eyebrow.

I noticed most of the bridge crew were looking at me now, not even bothering to hide their interest, and I had to admit that was a little more intimidating than I had expected. Especially unarmed, with only a knife, phaser, and hidden baton. "No ma'am." I answered, much to her obvious surprise, if Janeway's blatant look of shock was anything to go by. "I think Lieutenant Tuvok's answer is both logical and well-reasoned. I just don't agree that it is the correct thing to do, considering the other factors at play here."

"How so?" Tuvok asked, quirking his eyebrow at me in a way I'd come to know meant he was curious, and open to new information.

"That," I pointed at the viewscreen, the image of the planetoid's horizon filling it as we orbited the rock, "is bait. I don't see what else it could be other than bait. When we scan the rock, we don't see an outpost, or anything else that says we should move on. What we see is a highly valuable source of raw materials."

"Your point?" Janeway asked dryly, as if I was wasting her time. I wondered if she really didn't understand the implication, not used to warfare as a science officer, or if she was trying to anger me by only appearing ignorant, to try to push me into doing something more in opposition to her seemingly obvious incompetence.

I frowned at her, "My point is that this is a trap. If they wanted to be left alone, they could have done any number of things to avoid us. If they really didn't want people showing up, they would have masked the dilithium signatures with just average rock, but instead they mimicked something that valuable in the hopes that people would come by. Add in the hidden forcefields, and the fact they attack from behind, unprovoked, without a single word, and I don't see what else it can be."

"You can not be sure that was their goal." Tuvok declared. I could also not be sure that their guns fired medicine and they were just giving the Talaxian a surprise booster shot, but other than baselessly questioning my statement with irrelevant, if true, statements I didn't see the Vulcan's point.

"Be sure?" I asked, "Not until we talk to them. But I can infer what they want from their actions. They didn't need to reveal themselves to us, and if they did, they could have hailed our ship from somewhere that wasn't their hidden base, if they wanted it to be secret. Instead, the very first thing they did was shoot at us."

"Actually," I corrected, "the first they did was separate Neelix and Harewood from the others by lowering a camouflaged forcefield, which they then raised to cut them off from any support. That indicates they were well aware of not only our people's presence, but also of their exact positions in the tunnels to trap them effectively. That makes their attack on our people premeditated."

"For what purpose?" Janeway asked incredulously, gesturing at the viewscreen like I had, not arguing, but not admitting I was correct either. "Why lure people to this place. Neelix told us that this area was far off the normal trade routes, and most species in this region actively avoid it."

I shrugged, "Only going to know that if we talk to them. We have one stunned, why don't we beam him up to sickbay, and place him under quarantine until Doc can tell us what's wrong with him? In the meantime, me and my people can go down there and secure the site. If we aren't leaving immediately, then we need to make sure our people down there won't be overwhelmed, maybe even secure the site completely in case they have weapons, similarly hidden down there, that they'd turn on Voyager if we tried to leave."

Moving her gaze to Tuvok, the Vulcan took a moment to think things over before nodding once, "What Mr. Shepard says does have merit. If these beings are setting traps for unwitting starships, it would be irresponsible of us to simply leave and allow them to continue on, assuming they allow us to leave at all. The best course of action would be to follow the Commander's advice, interrogate the captured attacker while holding position on the surface."

Janeway glanced around at the rest of the bridge crew, most of them faces I knew as crewmen she trusted to do their duties but not dispense advice or ideas. It was obvious that, with Kim and Chakotay on the surface, the two of us with gold on our uniforms were the best advisors she had. I'd found that sometimes Ensigns had insightful advice, but if her behavior on the show was any indicator, Janeway didn't share my opinion.

Of course, that assumed that she would actually listen to said advice, and not just did whatever she wanted, rationalizing it away after the fact.

"Ordinarily," she began softly, in what I'm sure to her seemed powerful, working her way up to a full speech as she turned to face Tuvok and I, "if one of my people was attacked I would want to go down to the surface and find out first hand what was going on. But I get the feeling if I tried, I would be facing the both of you strongly objecting. And while I could just override your concerns, I think we would all be better served if we split up what needed to be done. We're out here on our own, and if we're going to make it out here, I need to listen to my subordinates."

I didn't say anything, betraying no objection to what she said. The bridge crew looked towards her with admiration, seemingly ignoring the fact that she'd both snubbed me less than a minute ago, and that she only asked the two highest ranking officers after herself, not the rest of the crew as she was implying. I idly wondered if they'd remember this speech, the next time Janeway went 'Damn what everyone else wants, I'm the captain and I'm saying we X!' Probably not. Seeing her adoring fans, her position at the top of the pecking order re-established while expressing her magnanimity, the Captain called out, "Voyager to away team."

"Away team here," Chaokay answered after a few seconds.

Janeway ordered in a firm voice, anger leaching into each word, "I want Kim, Neelix and the alien transported back to the ship and directly to sickbay. Maybe the Doctor can find out what's wrong with him. I'll speak to this person when they awaken, and get an explanation for their actions. In the meantime, Mr. Shepard and a security detachment is being sent down to support you in case of further attacks. We aren't leaving until we get an answer to why they went after my people."

As the First Officer acknowledged her orders, she turned and looked at me. It was a searching look, as if she were trying to impart some message, or searching for something important in my expression, though I didn't know what it was. I knew her anger was forced, a charade for Chakotay and the bridge crew. She was willing to turn tail and run a moment ago, so the level of anger at being attacked she displayed didn't connect, though I supposed I might've been the only one, save Tuvok who noticed. Dealing with how people who were actually as angry as she seemed was something that only experience with actual, in your face, danger could teach, and most of Starfleet dealt with threats at a remove, only seeing ship captains blustering at each other instead of real, in your face, knife you in the gut, menace.

Focusing on the task at hand instead, I gave the Captain a firm nod, turned around without being dismissed, and rushed over to the turbolift. With the doors opening and closing around me, I slapped my comm badge as I moved and called out, "Shepard to Security. Teams Alpha and Beta are to report to Transporter Room One in full kit at once. Prepare for battle."

==/\==

It took a few minutes for everyone to make it to the armory get equipped. Forgoing handing out the badge upgrades to everyone was an easy choice, so that wasn't really a problem in the rush. No, it came down to simple physics; only so many people can go through doors or exist in a room at any one time, and the ship's Security section obviously wasn't meant to handle the full complement gearing up at once. Considering that, in the event of a boarding action, that's exactly what would happen, I made a mental note to either re-distribute the supplies, or change procedure to fix this in the future.

That said, it was a lot faster to get all the weapons passed out than I expected from these still undisciplined crewmen. In Tuvok's drills it usually took a few minutes longer than this, which kind of annoyed me because that meant my people were sandbagging because they thought the drills didn't matter.

Whatever. I'd deal with that later.

Since you can only get so many people onto a transporter pad at any one time, it took three more minutes to move the fifteen people from the ship back down to the Away Team's initial entrance point. Gamma squad was gearing up as we beamed down, ready to repel boarders, and would not leave the ship, no matter what happened to us.

As soon as our transports completed, the omni-tools on our arms updated with a three-dimensional map of the caverns in a dull blue, along with a bright orange path that showed the fastest route to where everyone was gathered. With the interference in the ship's sensors, transporting someone out from the Vidiian base was easy, but transporting someone in would be both difficult and risky, thus ultimately not worth it. Andrews and Dalal were already getting their people in order when I arrived, so everyone made quick time to enemy territory.

Entering into the last chamber, my people fanned out around me, weapons at the ready and scanners active. It actually made me feel a bit proud of all the work I had put into them already, and I looked forward to what was to come in the coming weeks, if only to see how they'd completely overturn the incompetence driven rickshaw that was the plot at times. I'd like to see Paris get framed for crimes and given a death sentence with my people there to object with deadly force.

My eyes sought out Bell and Harewood, standing like sentries at either side of the tunnel entrance, covering it while mostly hidden from view. Chakotay stood slightly off to the side with a tricorder held up to a pronged device. 'The organ harvester,' my brain supplied after a moment of confusion.

With most of the men and women I brought with me set up on either side of the tunnel entrance or behind various outcroppings of rock for protection, I walked over to the First Officer. "Backup has arrived. Before we beamed down I got word that Kim was okay, no bugs picked up in the biofilters. Neelix is awake once more, much to the Doctor's annoyance, and bitching up a storm about someone kicking him."

I heard Harewood mutter, "Ungrateful asshole," but ignored it.

"And the prisoner?" Chakotay asked, his usual anger when in my company apparently being coolly smothered under his professionalism.

I had to admit, when he wasn't thinking with his dick, either around Seska or Janeway, the man was a competent commander. Riker might be the more beloved First Officer of Trek, but if I was being honest, Chakotay had his good points as well.

"Still knocked out." I answered. If he was being professional, then it was up to me to return the favor. "Preliminary data was actually a little amusing. Their biology is so screwed up that our normal low-powered stunner shots from the type-two wouldn't do more than annoy them."

"Then how did Ms. Harewood manage it?"

I chuckled softly, "Because the '71 isn't low powered, and it hit him three times in the chest." I turned to the woman in question and smiled at her, "Nice shooting, lieutenant."

"Thank you, Sir!"

Looking at the device in the First Officer's hands, I inquired, "What can you tell me about that?"

Chakotay held the device carefully, making sure it wasn't pointed at anyone while he waved his tricorder over it. "Not too much right now. It appears to be more than just a weapon though. I'm seeing a neural resonator that stuns the victim, and a quantum imager that begins a microcellular analysis of the person's entire body, and more besides."

I waved my own Tool over it, quickly constructing a three-dimensional model of the device and its internal mechanisms. It was the exact same thing that a normal tricorder did, but with the holographic features added on it made it easier to see what your scanners were looking at then if you relied on the smaller two dimensional screen.

"Gods," I sighed, genuinely surprised by the information I was being fed even as I knew from memory what the device really did. Working with the knowledge that it remotely removed organs, the image spun and came apart with a wave of my fingers, showing the inner workings clearly. Seeing it first hand, with Shepard's knowledge of technology, and imagining it being used on someone you know, made that knowledge much more horrifying. "The amount of information this thing can gather puts our tricorders to shame. You fire this at someone, and you learn everything about their anatomy. Right down to the DNA sequencing."

"See this here," I pointed at a component with my free hand, and isolating and making it glow with my Tool'd arm to draw the Commander's attention. "This is a transporter buffer. And over here is what looks like a small energizing coil."

"You're saying that it not only stuns people, and scans their biology, but can be used to transport them?" the man asked, brows knitting as he considered the implications.

"Not all of them," I replied somberly. "The buffer is too small to hold more than, I would guess, fifty percent of a person at most."

The First Officer scowled, "Would make an effective weapon. You hit someone with this, you learn everything about their biology while also removing their arms or legs at the same time."

I offered a noncommittal shrug, agreeing, "Less of a mess than putting a hole through someone, I suppose. Just beam out someone's heart or brain, and the result is the same."

"Sirs!" Dalal nodded at us as she approached, her own Tool active and displaying an ever-increasing map of the area. "Ensign Kim has returned to his post and is using Voyager's sensors to help us increase our scanner range, forwarding the data on to us.

"Good man that Harry Kim. I should send him a fruit basket," I only half-joked. The area on the other side of the entryway was fuzzy, but now that Voyager knew what to look for, we were starting to get a map.

Andrews joined us, the large black man pointing at his own map as he declared, "The expanded range's showing a lot of movement inside the base. They're picking up structures that look like three starships docked further inside. None of them are overly large, but if the readings are right, they're well armed."

"If our goal is to get some answers," Dalal picked up the conversation, glancing at the black man, "We need to decide to do it now rather than after they begin to leave. If they haven't already, Sir."

As I watched their maps, all of the lifesigns were deeper in the base, moving around rapidly. Glancing upwards, considering how to handle the assault, I caught a flash of movement. From where we were standing, we couldn't see all the way down it - none of us was stupid enough to stand out in the open and wait to be shot at - but I could see a meter or two inside at this angle. There, peering around the corner and looking like he'd barely escaped Hades, was one of the aliens. I could see out of the corner of my eyes that I wasn't the only one in the room who could see him, Harewood and Bell tensed and ready to fire, but he was out of sight of most.

"Apparently, the scanners aren't picking up all of them." I quietly said, not directly staring at the newcomer.

When the other three around me spun around, the alien turned and ran before anyone could say anything to him.

"Fuck," I growled out, raising my weapon just I heard what could only be an alarm start to drone on from inside the base. The fact they hadn't been ringing before likely meant that what happened to Neelix wasn't something the others here agreed on, but that didn't make it right. It also meant there was a lot more here than we'd been shown on the show.

Chakotay tightened his jaw, frowning hard as he looked at the map and the lifesigns, the ones we could actually see, moving in our direction. Loudly, he ordered, "Alright, we are taking this base. Shepard, up front with me. Bell, keep in contact with Voyager."

I look over at Dalal and added, "I want Beta to hold this position, you are our reserve." To the black man next to me I ordered, "Alpha Team, you're on our six. Let's move people, but stick to your training. They missed the Talaxian, I don't want them to hit you."

Bell and Harewood remained where they are at their sides of the tunnel entrance, now with their weapons pointed down the corridor to cover us. Chakotay and I strode up and stepped into the brightly lit space corridor, moving quickly without charging blindly, while Lt. Andrews and Gonzalez move up behind us and formed two columns. Ensigns Amka, Parsons, MdCowell, and Yaso fell in line behind them while CPOs Jarvis and Briggs brought up the rear. A single, wide angle burst would hit us all, but the Vidiians weren't thinking like soldiers, they were acting like pirates.

As soon as we reached the end of the tunnel, each turn without a single defender to my growing disbelief, we came into what I could only guess was a storage bay. There were several large metal containers stacked on four-meter-tall steel racks that lined the edges of the room. In the center of the space was what I could best describe as a anti-grav forklift, while overhead and crossing the ceiling right beneath the structural roof supports was piping that my scanners identified as some kind of super efficient HVAC.

Spreading out, we barely made it to the center of the room before six of the aliens rounded the corner at a run, took one look at us, and all Hell broke loose.

Chaktoay and I, hearing their approach, had dived toward the forklift while I sent an alert to the squad's Tools. The rest of the squad dropped to the floor and took positions against enemy fire while bringing their own weapons to bare. When the Vidiians came in guns blazing, they hit nothing.

All that training was really starting to pay off.

That was where our new weapons high rate of fire was proven to be more than just adequate. While the aliens were firing off white lances of energy every second, the three that remained standing in the initial exchange, our combined nine TS-71's were unleashing forty-five bolts of energy in half that time.

It was over just as quickly as it had begun. It didn't matter that most of our attacks missed, firing harmlessly into walls or containers, we had put so much weapons fire down range that it impossible for the other side to respond in kind after the first volley, the Vidiians firing blindly. Less than ten seconds later, we had six more prisoners, only two of which showed up on our scanners until they were all right in front of us, and while there were a few close calls, none of our people had been hit.

"Jarvis, Briggs, watch our prisoners until we beam them out. If they wake up, stun them again," I ordered as we secured the aliens. We didn't have any zip ties or cuffs with us, something else I needed to address, but fortunately you don't need to tie prisoners up if they're knocked out. All we had to do was secure their weapons and beam them to Voyager, where Gamma was ready to receive and hold them. The brig wouldn't be big enough, but I'd claimed a small storage room and cleared it out just for something like this. "Then meet back up with us."

As we moved on to the next room, Chakotay opened the door and held back as the rest of us moved inside. With the rest of the team moving further inside to secure the other two entrances, barely pausing for a moment, I hung back and examined what we'd found. Couldn't say I was really happy about the sight that greeted me.

The Y-shaped room had rust colored metal walls on the side that we entered, but plain grey bulkheads lined the rest of the room. Overhead was what appeared to be a stainless-steel grating, with dim lights hanging from the rafters that cast an ominous shadow over us and the blue-grey floor. It gave the impression that the base was patched together from cannibalized ships, maybe a cargo vessel or two, and the rooms weren't originally intended for their current purpose.

Said purpose being the reason for my current unease. As my eyes scanned the room, I could see large and small devices of unknown designs or purposes placed around the room. There was an obvious medical bed placed in the center, with various tubes leading from the surface down to various bags and containers that ran along the side near the floor. On each of the grey walls were a series of shelves, and placed atop them were large identical ellipsoid jars three-quarters full of some viscous liquid. In almost every single jar was an organ, large and meaty, though they were so varied that I could only guess the use of maybe a third of them.

I ran my scanner across the room, frowning as my fears were confirmed. Looking over my shoulder, I called to the First Officer, "This room is the source of the dilithium signature. The power systems here are running on an unusual matrix that makes it seem like there is a vast amount present." I'd hoped that their systems used dilithium that we could cannibalize for Voyager, applying the golden rule to full ironic effect, but the systems used something else entirely that just gave off the same byproduct emissions as the raw materials.

"So there was never any here?" Chakotay scowled. "Figured as much. I was hoping there was some here at least. Make all of this worth it," he grumbled, echoing my thoughts.

He looked around the room, and then glanced at his own tricorder readings. "Some kind of biological storage facility?"

I nodded slowly. "I'm seeing a liver, maybe Kazon? We didn't get deep enough scans for me to tell. While I can't tell you what other species are here, there's a variety. Some of them look like pulmonary organs, epidermal tissue, and even ocular nerve fiber." At Chakotay's inquisitive look I waved the Tool, "Medical Tricorder."

"Something tells me they didn't get the owners' permission." The First officer frowned even harder as his eyes took in the various tools and medical implements. "Maybe we should save the cataloging for later. We need to secure the rest of the facility, then we can worry about shifting through what they have been doing."

I gave the man a nod, chiding myself for getting distracted, the sight of the Vidiian's crimes having put me off, and moved back up to the front of our impromptu assault force. "I'm picking up another ten life signs now. Three are gathering near the top, while the other seven are gathering near one of the ships in their hanger. Let's cut them off first, then do a sweep of the upper two levels. Andrews, take Briggs, McDowell, and Parsons to take those three down, though there's likely more than that. Dalal, move your people to my current location. If we need reinforcement or covering as we fall back, be ready."

Looking to Chakotay, he nodded, and I took point as we double-timed it to the hanger bay. A pair of Vidiians were waiting for us as we turned a corner, but their movement stepping out to shoot us gave both Chakotay and I the time needed to drop down to a knee and fire. My TS-71 raked one, taking him down, while the First Officer's phaser darted into the other's leg in a blast that burnt it black the alien going down with a scream of pain.

My second burst stunned it, and we moved on. I saw, out of the corner of my eye, Chakotay watching me, waiting for me to comment on what I'd just seen, but there was nothing to say. He knew his weapon couldn't stun them, and, denied the ability to take them down softly, was taking them down hard. For possibly the first time since I'd met him, the man was acting with the certainty and ruthlessness that made the Maquis a threat, instead of like the Starfleet Officer he'd retaken the mantle of.

We moved further into the compound, and the collective sensors built into the Omni-tools continued building a more complete model of the structure unobstructed by the Vidiian's sensor jamming. A three-level outpost, it contained a small hanger for holding, at most, four of their ships, assuming they were all the same size as those currently docked, and contained several living areas for upwards of thirty people at a time. For whatever reason, there were a dozen different biological storage rooms like the one we had just left, but if I had to guess it was to prevent all their materials from being ruined if one of the rooms suffered a catastrophic event. That, or the rest of this place was built from the captured ships, none of which had a large enough storage area to do the job.

I wondered why this place was so different from the small outpost I remembered from the TV show. On it, there were only the two aliens, and they hoofed it as soon as they had the lungs in one of them. Here, there were so many more of them and the base seemed so much larger. What was the difference here? Production value? I doubted my presence on Voyager resulted in a butterfly wing flapping so hard that it caused a small two-man outpost to turn into something two-dozen would be comfortable in.

With a great deal of effort I put the questions behind me for now. I could consider the differences later, I had a job to focus on.

One room after another we cleared on our path to the hangers, not finding any resistance after that first pair. Chakotay and I had both called back to Tuvok on Voyager, updating him on our progress as well as informing him about our belief that the rest of the aliens were making preparations to flee, which he acknowledged. The Vulcan told us they were moving Voyager into position to intercept the ships if they tried to get away, which made me feel a little better. Given how Voyager always seemed to be strong, but weak enough to be taken down or captured on a regular basis, I really didn't want to have Janeway overestimate her capabilities, get boarded, and have any of our people ending up with missing organs.

That fear was gnawing at me.

When we reached the hanger, finding no guards at the doorway, the Vidiians hurriedly loading up a transport, I tapped Chakotay on the shoulder. He turned and looked at me as I whispered my plan of attack.

==/\==

As the room around him disintegrated piecemeal, one violent torrent of energy following close upon another, Motura threw himself over a crate and flattened himself against the floor. On the far side, he could see several of his kinsmen talking rapidly into their communicator behind a pile of containers, calling for help from those already on the transport, but he feared it was already too late.

Motura wasn't like the rest of his kin here. He was a flesh-sculptor, an individual of note on his planet, not one of the Honatta who sought out and harvested new organs. He was only supposed to be here for another week while Dereth helped him locate a new pair of lungs, not be neck deep in the middle of a firefight on one of their more isolated stations.

A cadre of Hottan - private security - came pouring out of the ship and into the hanger, taking cover alongside Mortura and firing through gaps in the damaged supply crates the Honatta had been moving on board. The distraction forced the attackers, a race of aliens he'd never seen before that had attacked him unprovoked, to momentarily shift their aim, several of them quickly breaking off to the side. As one Hottan aimed carefully at the running aliens, those that stayed layed down a withering barrage that blew through his cover, sending him to the ground, unconscious, or worse. The concentrated fire gave several of the senior Honatta time to escape the blinding carnage for the safety of the ship. Mortura ran for the spot they vacated, grateful for the sturdier cover. He'd never seen combat before and never wanted to see it again.

As a Vidiian, Motura was used to being shunned by other species. No one wished to be near one who so obviously wore the scars and reconstructions of a Phage-bearer, not even other Vidiians. But never in his life did he ever face such a violent response to their presence. Even the Haakonian Order never reacted with such anger at their mere existence, but these aliens had taken one look at his people and began firing.

Captain Salma was knocked down near him, and Motura could only watch as a dozen pale yellow blasts of energy from the aliens weapons impacted his prone figure, leaving the older man unmoving. Medical personnel, aids to the Honatta who had accompanied the rush of Hottan, dragged the injured man down behind an improvised wall of crates and back towards the ship. Fortunately for them all, the aliens' weapons didn't hit with enough force to rupture the containers, or they would've all been killed already.

The dull gleam of one of the dead Hottans' weapons caught Motura's eye. He snatched it up on impulse, scrambling from the room as the barrage of energy only seemed to increase around him. Unlike his colleagues who had successfully managed to flee towards the ship, he was forced to race away from the hanger, and into a corridor.

Sharply turning a corner, he pushed his way into an empty office suite, the station commander's personal office. Through the security cameras of the hanger and the monitors on the walls, Motura could see the homicidal aliens mechanically and methodically sweep out like the fingers of an angry hand around the bay and closed into a fist as they reached the ship.

As they moved they would pause over one of his downed kinsmen, firing another of their hateful energy bursts into the fallen to ensure they were dead. Rapidly flashing lights from the ship's open cargo doors caught his eye, and he watched two more of the aliens charge inside even as the ship shut its doors and rose from the ground.

Motura took dark comfort in knowing that the two aliens, facing the twelve onboard, would soon be dead, their organs harvested and used to save the lives of others. At least some of his people would live just that little bit longer.

So absorbed in his thoughts and fears, he didn't see a pair of the aliens moving down the corridor. Didn't hear them when the doors to the office opened. Didn't feel it as their weapons impacted, sending him to the floor, the darkness of death enveloping him.