Part 2: Visitors.

"Okay guys lets take it easy," Nabiki commanded, "No kneejerk reactions okay!" She was sat in the command chair of Nemesis's repaired bridge watching a fresh drama unfold. "Bring them in nice and slow."

"Nothing I can find implies duplicity" reported Go's electronic voice. "Hyperwaves and scans all show no hostility."

"Thanks" Nabiki muttered, knowing the ghost would catch the quiet words. Outside a close cordon of heavy fighter-bombers could be seen escorting a chunky looking brown vessel through the drone field. The vessel itself was almost tubular, broken only by a smattering of blister arrays. It's variegated hull was a patchwork of browns and golds, looking amost as jury-rigged as the station it approached.

Steadily it passed the orbiting weapons platforms and came into a stationary orbit around the modified Alien base station. From its side a small X-com boarding vessel detached. In turn it headed towards the maw of Nemesis's flight deck.

On the Bridge Nabiki crossed her fingers and stood, casting one more glance around the bridge she headed for the lifts. Behind her a close cordon of senior officers fell in. Together the lifts sped them to one of the most momentous meetings that the Human force would ever have.

O

o

It all started a week ago when a long range patrol probe spotted an unidentified signal. A flight of interceptors had been dispatched to investigate and soon details began to arrive. First came better pictures, then detailed scans of the craft's capabilities.

The craft was heavily armed with out-dated alien tech, its engines similarly powerful but antiquated. In contrast the battle damaged hull was practically pre-flight, whoever was on board blatantly relied on faith more than armour. It was certainly of no hull design the human force knew.

Then the interceptors had discovered a signal, it was on a very old visible light based system, and was completely unintelligable. Nabiki immediately put her best onto decoding but was just as quickly assured that without a frame of reference any attempt at decoding would be pure guesswork.

So Nabiki had sent Gos. Using a broad carrier wave projected by a hurriedly modified rescue vessel. He had been projected close and started attempting deep scans, only to find himself suddenly thwarted. The vessel was projecting some sort of psychic dead zone, stopping every attempt. There was much swearing.

The situation stretched out. The vessel halted outside the defensive screen and continued to broadcast only its basic signal. Its escort patrolled and evryone waited. Aboard the base the mentally susceptible sectoids were evacuated to a shielded bunker deep within the earth ship. Everywhere security ramped up and up. Torches were shined into the darkest corners, crewmembers' status constantly monitored and psychic sweeps all but constant.

Then, a little over five days later, Nabiki was awoken in the middle of the night by a call from Misato on the bridge, "We've got a possible slution" she informed the sleepy leader.

"Talk to me" Nabiki ordered, untangling herself from her sleeping children. Padding quietly across the room she pulled on a jumpsuit and dropped down into her desk seat.

"It appears to be a request for help" Misato informed her.

"How sure are we?" Nabiki asked sleepily.

"Kodachi claims that this sort of message is one of her specialities" Misato informed her, a trace of distaste in her voice.

"Uh-huh" Nabiki agreed, refusing to let her mind travel that path. "Can we respond?" she asked.

"She thinks so, but not with any certainty of what we say.."

"It'll have to do" Nabiki said. "Give me fifteen and I'll come to the bridge."

"Momma?" asked a sleepy Kimi.

"Sshh baby," Nabiki replied, moving over to stroke her child's brow. "Mommy's got to go to work" she explained, "call if you need me."

"Okay momma" the child replied, closing her eyes and drifting back to sleep.

O

o

"What do you want us to send?" Misato asked, knowing full well that the question was unfair.

"What can we send?" Nabiki asked, passing the buck.

"Not a lot" Kodachi replied. "Basically only what is in the message"

"Details," Nabiki demanded.

"It's really not that simple" the doctor replied. "We don't have the individual words or anything."

"So this is really just a guess?" Nabiki asked

"An educated one" Kodachi supplied, wincing a little

"Great" muttered the woman on whose shoulders the situation ultimately rested. "Well we're not going to learn anything new like this. Number one get me the marine deck."

"Yes Ma'am" Misato replied, placeing the call.

Nabiki called for volunteers, and received them. Minutes later a commando was assembled in a launch bay, readied for the mission.

They blasted off trailing blue light as they went. On approach to the vessel they repeated what they hoped was the 'help' part of the message, before warily shifting under the guns of the intruder. They waited and waited. Then a hatch opened on the side of the vessel, but nothing else, no beams of deadly light, no missile locks and nothing else.

"Nabs" Gos's voice broke into the commodore's head.

"Yes" she demanded.

"I'm in" he whispered.

"And" she prompted, tense in anticipation.

"Fear" he replied quietly, "anxiety, fear and outright dread."

"Send them in" Nabiki ordered, knowing full well she was gambling with the soldiers' lives.

The boarding vessel laboriously docked and aboard the Nemesis all eyes were glued to the live feed from the campods of the commando's soldiers.

Through the blue-grey images the bridge watched as the inner door cycled, revealing a squat humanoid figure at the other end of the agent's weapon. The figure was dressed in a heavy reflective suit from head to toe. Around its broad waist wrapped what was plainly a toolbelt but that also sported an old style plasma pistol. Its face was revealed through a clear panel in the suit's helm, but only dimly so, and far from fully.

It reeled off some gibberish but made no move to reach for the weapon at its side, and then it stepped back, plainly inviting the agents in deeper. The okay was given and in they went. Piece by piece the alien vessel was revealed, lacking even basic atmosphere or gravity it ranked as way down on the scale of technological development, yet the interior sported devices that were plainly more advanced. The interior also showed significantly battle damage, and on the way to the bridge the lead fireteam was led though a corridor lined with what were plainly covered corpses.

The language barrier obstructed all meaningful communication during that first meeting. The only real breakthrough came when a frustrated squat showed an agent a picture of a Muton and then, after desperately trying and failing to explain something about it, smashed his fist through the screen.

The hyper wave decoder's latest variant was tweaked and re-powered up, and concentrated on the vessel at hand. It was capable of analysing the internal communications of most alien vessels, but proved completely unable to find any signals from this one. So they shifted it again and again, unsuccessfully. The system worked by intercepting the semi-psychic scatter from alien com systems and once again these aliens proved there were significant differences between their tech and a standard alien intruder.

Another day came and went, a pair of teams of scientists working full time on attempting to break the language code of the new visitors and another team of engineers poured over the scans of the vessel.

Everyone was stalling.

Eventually everyone had to admit that they had accomplished ll they could as the situation stood. So carefully, and with much repetition the next step was agreed on and the ship began its trip inwards.

Which is why Nabiki was standing in a lift on her way to meet them, with her fingers silently crossed and feeling like she was leaning out over a precipice.

"How much are we going to be able to understand?" Nabiki asked.

"Quite a bit" Kodachi replied, "with their help we have cracked most of their main lingual structures."

"But?" Nabiki prompted.

"But" Kodachi began, "their frame of reference is almost entirely different to ours. They associate symbols so very much differently from us."

"Example?" Nabiki demanded.

"The whole culture appears to be geared towards agoraphobia," Kodachi explained, "Open spaces are considered threatening, enclosed ones welcoming. Sending people into the open air, or even on a space walk, is considered borderline inhumane torture, shutting them in a box no larger than a coffin is a standard way of calming them down."

"How does this effect us?" Nabiki asked, "other than making talking a bleeding nightmare."

"Sorry" Kodachi replied with a smile, "No idea."

"Just great" Nabiki muttered.

O

o

o

"Roger" Ranma called agian for the umpteenth time. He was sat in his coomand chair wound tighter than a coiled spring. For what seemed the first time he found himself watching as others deployed for war, while he was fixed to a chair.

Breakout had come hard. The Corsair's sudden deceleration causing more adverse G's than their somewhat more lesuirely drive towards Lift. As the universe had swum back into focus every station was already blaring information across the Tac' channels. Across her exterior a full wing of interceptors had blown their clamps and flared their thrusters, deploying at full tilt.

They had jumped into an occupied sector, one that they had tracked as the end destination of many of the damaged craft from the battle for Tarterus. Intelligence claimed the area would only be lightly defended by craft unable to make longer Lifts. On the other hand the system should posess not only an advanced repair facility but also a deep space monitoring station. Any venture deep into alien space would require the station disabled or else the Corsair would be met with Alien Dominion vessels at every breakout. There was also more than a small chance the X-com vessel's approach towards this system had been watched by that same station.

For a few seconds the bridge was quiet, the whole ship appeared to be holding its breath. In comparison to even the battle bridge of the Nemesis the Corsair's fighting heart was far from salubrious. It was cramped, dark and close; gun-metal grey reinforcing struts crisscrossing the headroom. The only lights came from the various instrument panels, all manned by blue and grey jumpsuit clad X-com personnel with faces set in grim concentration.

"All birds clear" Lt Gaeta, Tac-ops reported the news straight from Cmdr Ripper the Commander Air Group, CAG.

"Nothing on close scans," reported Petty officer Dualla.

"Lets get a fix on the red stations" Ranma ordered, wanting an update on the enemy positions, "And get the second flight out."

"Sir?" Gaeta agreed dubiously.

"They're out there" Ranma replied to the unmvoiced question.

"We have a dozen bogeys on an attack run," Dualla reported, "Coming in fats."

"Type and armaments?" Ranma requested.
"Light interceptors with a bomber core" Dualla reported, her face lit up green in the sensor screen luminance.

"Skull and Black to high intercept" Ranma ordered, "set blue and bronze to an open net defense." The drill was well rehearsed and the changes readily expected.

"All flights confirm" Gaeta responded, his fed coming direct from the CAG.

"I have fixes on the stations" Dualla chimed in, "Both are firing up for full alert."

"Strike team to launch stations," Ranma ordered, "Assign Gold to crack the door."

"Aye aye" Dualkla and Gaeta replied.

"Sir" Commander Tigh cut in from the second bridge, "the area is not secure." His voice was hard and preaching. Ranma did not dignify the comment with a reply.

"I want blow by blow on the dogfight," he demanded, calling up a new window on his tac screen..

o

o

"All teams break and engage" CAG 'Ripper' ordered as the two top flights squared up opposite the incoming aliens. "Any of these so much as scare the paint on Mother and you all get dropped to basic." Even as the first questing locks of the Alien interceptors started to light alarms across X-com interfaces his flights fanned out, breaking into fighting pairs.

The aliens had no such order, relying on their literally inhuman reaction speeds and tolerance to high-G turns.Their equipment was not even cutting edge for the aliens, but they were driven by the same reckless disregard for their own existance.

The first few alien flyers were almost instantly dissolved into scattered sparks, hard thrusting missiles having disrupted the integrity of the aliens by virtue of high explosive. The aliens' missiles were smewhat less effective, an old type they were quickly foiled by the ECM systems aboard the X-com interceptors. Nevertheless one of Black flight was hit and quickly found themselves desperately stalling to give themselves time for their shields to recharge.

"Yee-hah!" cried Flight Lieutenant Kara 'Starbuck' Thrace. The fierce blond, despite being the 2i/c of Skull was hardly what they would call disciplined. On the other hand wioth that cry she splashed her second bug. She was indisputably the best pilot in the flight, with the kills to prove it, only Yuri and Ranko had even challenged her.

"I could use a little help here" called 2nd Lt Sharon 'Boomer' Valerii. She was new to the flight, and despite having proven herself time and time again in her old assignment she was feeling like a rookie all over again.

"Break hiugh and roll" her partner, Hielo, ordered. She obeyed without question and the bug on her tail was suddenly forced to peel off as heavy light stripped its shields. All its dodging was for naught however, Heilo wasn't that forgiving, instead he fired a charge of the particle cannon, just ion time to peirce the hard shell over the ship's reactor. Soon it too became another multi-coloured spray across the star-field.

Sometimes however even the best don't get a fair deal. Ripper did nothing wrong, every manouvre he pulled was text-book perfect, he and his wingman operating in well honed tandem. Then a stray missile l;ocked onto him as he passed. When fired the onboard computer had failed to asccept its target. It had been launched anyway. It had been deperately searching for a target since the first seconds of the fight and it was pure bad luck that his craft passed close enough to reactivate the faulty guidance systems. The missile hit his craft at precisely the moment he least wanted it to. The resulting flash blinded hius screens just long enough for a pair of bugs to turn on him. His remaining shields failed in fast order and soon the aline ordincane was hammering his hull. His Wingman peeled around to help but simply lacked the ordinace to help enough. One bug splashed and the other soon fell victim but not before he fired the fatal shot. Commander Jackson 'Ripper' Spencer was torn apart by the flying shards of his own interceptor and its suddenly freed drive energy, there wouldn't even be enough left of him for dental recognition.

The dogfight wheeled on.

Meanwhile Gold was pulling into a tight spearhead formation. At the base of the point the very latest derivation of the multi-function strike team delivery craft. The "Raptor VI" was fast, hard and heavily shielded. Mounted below the nose was a purpose built launcher, fusion powered, high explosive sealed into a shaped charge designed specifically for hull breaching. On board her were the cream of the suriviving Marines, armoured and ready for a 'hostile insertion.' Each one wore a black armoured hard-suit, with its details brought out in bright red. The team's weapry was tactically designed for the roles they were expected to require but based around the 'Katana' personal weapon, a hybrid gauss and phaser rapid fire rifle capable of extreme applied force.

On the Bridge Ranma felt like crap. It had been years since he had been forced to watch a team go in without being along, and at the time he was all but crippled from an earlier injury. It had also cost him the life of his dearest companion, the only woman he had ever loved before his wife.

The Spearhead carved through the defenses of the twin stations. Each successive craft launched twin missiles at the installations' defences, cracking the way wide open for the Raptor. Despite the sudden storm of explosive energy the installations still managed more than a token reply. The Raptor found itself rocked by blast after blast.

"I got a bad feeling about this" muttered Hudson, ominously.

"You always got a bad feeling" argued Drake, with an edge.

"Light em up" ordered the sarge, and the commando fired the switches on their weapons, rediying them for use, "and somebody wake Hicks up!"

Each and every member of the team felt as the so called 'sledgehammer' deployed. Heartbeats later the shaped charge tore a hole into the side of the Alien sensor facility.No sooner had the blast wave passed than the Raptor smacked alongside, clamping on and firing oipen its doors. The commando literally flew through the hole, weapons leading. A lone sectoid found itslef flung to the floor, bounced off a wall and then pulled back to its feet by the successive explosions of the start of the boarding action. It was also unfortunate enough to be getting up just as the first scouts deployed. Thre rounds tore its body tpo pieces, pushing through its hide to explode within. The team bareley even registered the twiching mass of viscera that reamianed as they fought deeper into the facility.

Outside Gold flight turned on the second installation, hammering it with blast after blast of hardened energy. Steadily the damage began to show. First pockmarks then holes appeared. Within seconds the station, and its docked vessels began its own catstrophic end, bright yellow and orange blossoms of fire bursting from its weakened hull.

Far from relaxing him this latest development seemed to push Ranma closer to the edge, his fists clenched around the ends of his armrests, his face creased still more. "This is too..." he muttered. "Turn the scanners round" he ordered, "there has to be something else."

"Aye aye" Dualla agreed, knowing better than to doubt the veteran.

"And recall Gold for close defence" he added, not waiting for the results.

"Aye aye" agreed Gaeta. No sooner had the order been relayed than the scanners flashed an alert.

"Sir" Dualla began, in a voice that was somehere between awe and anxiety, "we have multiple readings on an intercept."

"I knew it" Ranma replied, "we never catch that sort of break." he finished. Then standing he turned to the others, "Okay, until we know otherwsae we are going to treat these incomers as a full strike fleet. That means maximum deployment and powering of the main gun."

"Get Starbuck to break off her flight and move to engage, then oder the latest launches to follow her in, Gold can defend when they get here."

"Sir?" the colonel argued.

"It'll be tight" Ranma conceeded, "but if we don't draw them in some might escape." It was at that point that the lingering fear slipped away from the brdge crew.

The Alien strike force had been lying in wait for the Human vessel on the surface of one of the nearby moons. While they had been hidden from sensors as a result the ships had also found themselves too far out to help the stations. The small flight of Alien interceptors had no doubt been aimed to provide the delay needed for full deployment, but once again the aliens had underestimated X-Com. The aliens had failed to see the incoming X-Com strike as it was, instead believing the carrier was a single over-large battleship.

"Skull, Bronze and Blue report engagement" Gaeta reported. "Alien ships are within expected parameters." That at least was good news, every new engagement with the aliens always held the fear of a new alien technology, an improved way of killing the human forces; this time however the aliens appeared to be using known techs and the fear unrealised once more.

"Brace for impacts" Ranma ordered, seeing before the computer than a small section of the alien attackers would break free for an attack run on the carrier, "and line us up on their big job."

"Aye Aye" agreed the bridge crew.

"Point defence reports all stations green" Colonel Tigh called, in a profeesional tone. Ranma nodded an acknowledgement, and hit the confirm button.

"Fire at will!" Ranma commanded and his screen flshed up the rapidly spining circles of the targetting omputers. In the centre an orange cog coulkd be seen resoving tighter onto the icon denoting an alien mothership. Just as the icon denoted a lock Gaeta reported a firing solution and Ranma was already tapping confirmation.

Just like the Nemesis the Corsair had a ventral cannon, not as big by any means, and significantly harder to power but present none the less. Across the carrier the lights dimmed, warding against feedback, and just for a split second the damners failed. The cannon fired. A tightly bound Armourr piercing, high tech, high explosive round, propelled by energetic particles so small a microsope couldn't oick them up, hurled itself at the enemey vessel.

"Damage report" Ranma requested from the edge of his seat as the icon flashed a positive hit. The information was relayed to his screen, but a bright flash proved the execise futile. The Alien Mothership tore itself o pieces, rupturing at every seam as it was unable to conatin the sudden nova within its form.

"Suck on that" Ranma muttered, turning to the rest of the battle. "We've got 'em" he said aloud, relaxing for the first time since breakout. "Got the lot of 'em."