Ellis and Cornel Caraway sat at the desk in his office and got down to business.

"Is I told your daughter I am from a planet rather far away." Ellis said. "Our planet has been colonized my black skins or Xenomorphs as you call them. However the ones you have here are different than the ones we have."

"Yes I can understand that." Caraway said. "Depending on the race inhabiting the planet that they are on the Xenomorphs adapt to their DNA structure. But you look human to me."

"I am." Ellis said. "I live with the Tarken clan they are Yautja's most of them are at least 9 feet tall and very powerful. We are a warrior race."

"So why are you having such difficulty defending yourselves against the Xenomorphs?" Caraway asked.

"We were not prepared for the attack that they mounted and most of out major cities were destroyed." Ellis said. "The Tarkan that I called mother was killed in the first attack. My father, brother, 2 sisters and I escaped with our lives but my father was gravely wounded and cannot fight."

"How many Xenomorphs are you talking about?" Caraway asked.

"About 20,000." Ellis said.

"My God." Carraway said. "There are only 5,000 battle ready Marines on this ship. 6,500 if we hand everyone a weapon. We would all die."

"We have about 8,000 Yautja warriors standing ready for one final fight." Ellis said. "Our weapons will be able to hold them off. But we are evenly matched in terms of battle. They have the numbers we have the skill. You're Marines will tip the scales of the war in our favor."

Caraway leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes and looked at the ceiling.

"I understand your situation." Caraway said. "I will speak with my Generals and let you know of the decision as soon as we have one."

"Thank you." Ellis said. "I will pray for good news."

Ellis stood and placed her hand to her chest which was the salute for the Gurock Army then turned and left the room with Sara right behind her.

"I think your chances of getting help are good." Sara said.

"I hope so." Ellis said. "My clan would lose all our honor if I fail my mission."

"Let's go get something to eat as we wait." Sara said and led Ellis to the mess hall.

Ellis heard her stomach rumble at the thought of food and smiled.

"Food will do us good." She said as they entered the mess hall.

There was a combination of smells in the room from MRE's too actual food that the cooks had prepared. Almost everyone in the Mess hall looked at Ellis some with shock, some with wonder and one with fear.

"Oh no it's her." The Marine that she made piss his pants said in fear and got up and ran out of the other door.

Ellis and Sara walked to the buffet line and grabbed a tray. Sara was talking idly about things that she had seen in the Marines as Ellis looked around the buffet for anything she recognized but there was none. She looked at a brown meat that looked good and decided to try it. Soon she had her tray piled as high as she could with a verity of meats and vegetables. Sara also had lots of food on her tray but mostly vegetables. She grabbed 2 cans of Pepsi and walked over to a table and sat down with Ellis behind her.

"Oh man I'm starved." Sara said as she started shoveling food into her mouth.

Ellis unclipped her helmet and set it on the table by her tray. She picked up the fork that resembled the tool she used for eating and used it to pick up a small piece of the brown meat and smelled it.

"It's roast beef." Sara said. "It's good."

Ellis placed the meat in her mouth and smiled at how good it tasted. Next she picked up an orange vegetable and looked at Sara.

"A carrot." Sara said. "A little bland but good for you none the less."

Ellis and Sara ate and talked talked and ate. Even though Ellis had a hell of a lot of food on her tray she finished it with ease.

"Well I like your food that much I'll say." Ellis said leaning back in her seat.

"Yea it's not bad is it?" Sara said.

"So now what can we do?" Ellis asked.

"I'll give you a tour of the ship if you want." Sara said.

"Yea I'd like that." Ellis said standing up.

Sara led Ellis through the ship showing her everything from the lading bay to the cockpit. The last place Sara took her was to the Armory and firing range.

"This is where we tune up our weapons and make sure that their not gonna fail in a firefight." Sara said picking up the 30mm pulse rifle that was assigned to her and grabbed a pair of headphones and shooting goggles.

"Want to take a few shots?" Sara asked.

"Sure." Ellis said.

They walked up to the firing line and set up a target and set to back 30 meters. Sara put on the earphones and goggles and loaded a mag into the rifle and stepped forward.

"I put it on single round so all you have to do is pull the trigger once and you'll fire one round." Sara said bringing the weapon up and firing one round. "It's that easy."

She handed the weapon to Ellis who stepped to the line and put the weapon to her shoulder.

"Now look down along the barrel." Sara said. "You'll see two lines near your eye with a white dot on each of them. And another line with a white dot on the front. Line them up so their strait and fire."

Ellis looked along the barrel and saw what Sara was talking about and lined the dots up and fired. The kick of the rifle shocked her at first but she soon got the hang of it and was putting 10 rounds in a target 50 meters away.

"Not a bad weapon." She said. "But how many rounds will it take to kill a Black skin?"

"Depending on where you hit it about 3." Sara said.

"I like mine better." Ellis said handing the weapon back to Sara and bringing up her targeting system on her helmets display.

Sara saw 3 red dots on the target and looked at Ellis in wonder.

"What are those?" She asked.

"Targeting beams." Ellis said as her shoulder plaster unfolded from behind her and tracked the beams. "My blaster will follow the beams where ever they are. That's why the beams are on my helmet."

Ellis sent the mental order for her blaster to fire and a blue ball of matter burst from the blaster setting the target on fire. And putting a hole in the wall."

"Wow." Sara said. "Effective."

The door to the firing range opened and a Marine ran in with a fire extinguisher and ran to the target and put out the flames then went and inspected the wall.

"That wall was over a foot thick of steel." He said looking through the hole.

There stood the Marine that pissed himself looking at his locker that now had a hole in it. He turned his head and looked through the hole and saw Ellis looking right at him.

"Oh not again. Is she following me or what?" He said and ran out of the locker room.

Ellis smiled beneath her mask and put her blaster away.

"Ok that's all for weapon training." Sara laughed as she removed the mag from her weapon and the round from the chamber.

They walked back into the armory and Sara quickly cleaned her weapon and put it back on the rack. They were just about to leave the armory when an alarm sounded.

"This is Cornel Caraway." Caraway said. "Colonial Marine Expeditionary Unit Bravo Tango Zulu is being overrun at base camp by Xenomorphs and have requested immediate help. C.M.E.U. 127th and 128th are to assemble at the docking bay full battle gear in 5 minutes for deployment. Your first priority is to see that the civilians and wounded are evacuated. Second secure the base if you can or destroy it if you can't and your last order that must be followed is some back alive."

"That's me." Sara said running back to the rack and grabbing her weapon and armor from the rack.

She was in full armor before anyone else even got to the armory and started gearing up.

"Ellis lets go we could use your help." Sara yelled as she ran out of the armory.

"I have vowed to protect you." Ellis said. "It is my duty to go with you."

"Ok lets go." Sara yelled.

Ellis ran right behind Sara and soon they were in the docking bay.

"Sergeant over here." Cornel Caraway yelled.

Sara and Ellis ran to him and stopped.

"I have several crates to ammo that needs to be loaded I want you to help with the loading then get ready to drop." Caraway said.

"Yes sir." Sara said.

She ran to one of the crates and she and another marine lifted it and ran it into the APC. Ellis picked up 2 of the crates and ran in right behind them and set them down.

"Ok  that's all of them." Sara said strapping herself in.

Ellis sat down and was strapped in by the Marine that had a full tactical helmet on covering his face. His back was facing Sara and the name on his back was Dallas.

"Jack get ready to go." Sara said as the rest of the team ran in.

All but Sara, Jack and Tim being the only survivors from the 128th. They were all green and had never seen combat.

"Ok on my mark." The pilot said. "Five four."

"We're on an express elevator to hell, going down." Jack yelled.

"One, Mark." The pilot said and the ship dropped from the hanger and was on its way back to LV. 187.