Chapter 45: Shadow Warfare.
The Nightmare Assassins charged right at them as one, it was like a tide of darkness washing towards them, Aiden felt the savagery of their intent pulsing off them in waves and he steeled himself for what he knew had to be done, he silently prayed for the souls trapped in their own minds who might not make it out of here today, he just hoped what ever light deity favored them took pity on them today and he raised his blades to his sides and as the Seekers began to charge he calmly walked towards his foes.
He felt the energy he was gathering crackling between his feathers like huge superconductors, he didn't want to tip his hand till the right moment but this would take time to pull off as Nightmare Assassins were not like the foot soldiers they'd fought, he still didn't understand how this stuff was coming to him as easy as breathing, he kinda felt like he didn't have clue what he was doing but it was like it was somehow hard wired into his brain somewhere, he just looked at a situation and instincivly knew what had to be done, call it Dark Angel instinct.
The energy hit fever pitch just as the first blades crashed together around him and he could actually feel the world slowing around him to the point where the waves of sound became visible as they moved through the air causing it to vibrate like ripples on an invisible pond and suddenly he understood perfectly what he was and why it had to be him that did this.
It was his connection to the light that was required for this to work, the choice he had made had marked his soul, choosing love over paradise had marked his soul like a lighting strike marks a tree trunk, he felt it burning within him now fueled by the Angelic power charging through him, it yearned to be set free to seek out darkness around him and to destroy it with light.
"I am the Reaper of Souls chosen to carry the burden of the gods, to those I call friend feel my strength and let it carry your heart, I am your strength, your shield, your sword, In the name of Paya goddess of the hunt and of all those who sit in judgement of us, let their strength flow through me!" Aiden roared and golden arcs of energy flew from his wings seeming each from one of his feathers seeking out a Seeker that it was intended for and striking them in their chest.
"Feel your purpose my friends and let me carry your fear" he said softly, as each of the Seekers was connected to his network of light it began to pulse like Aiden had become a giant beating heart sending pulses of light along the network, the effect was incredible, he could feel them all at once and he felt their hearts soar as his power lifted them, he released them, unlocked the truth of their powers in one move and acting like a giant connector he connected them all to the divine.
A Scalathor Nightmare Assassin leapt at him with her twin wicked looking daggers high above her head and her face twisted into a dark mask of pure hate and determination to strike him down, but it was like a choreographed dance to him, like each and every move they were making was somehow scripted, Aiden simply lifted both hands and caught her wrists wrenching them outwards forcing her to drop them and shriek with pain as both her arms broke, Aiden planted a boot into her chest and sent her flying backwards slamming into the wall behind her so hard that she embedded into it, infact it was only when he saw the burning boot print in her chest that there was so much energy flowing through his body that his footprints were on fire.
Hunching down Aiden broke into a run moving so fast that even his turbo charged Seekers seemed to slow to a crawl, his first target was a huge Yautja female with oil black skin who was trying in vain to hit Rose who interestingly seemed to have both her rabbit ears and tail glowing now, infact each of the Seekers seemed to have something changed and glowing about them.
Jack's hair and eyes were lit up like a he had a mane of gold and sparkling sapphire jewels jammed into his skull, his son Ryan seemed to have the light stripes in his skin lit making it look like his skin had fractured with fissures of light, even his beloved Macha had her claws, tail and her dreadlocks glowing.
Rose sensed Aiden's coming and through the link the pair communicated faster than mere thought, it was like they were one being of pure understanding, as he reached her Rose dodged out from under the female and jumped at him Aiden caught her swung her and launched her like a Rabbit/human missile right at the surprised Yautja, who looked even more surprised when the flying rabbit torpedo smashed right into her face with her cybernetic fist extended in a devastating flying punch that peeled mer mandibles right round to the back of her skull taking her skin with them.
Suddenly Aiden became aware of something else as he saw the dead Nightmare Assassin falling her chest was a black kernal of dense black energy, infact it was like her entire being was made of ink blackness but he noticed that some of them didn't have this, in some of them there was a kernal of white and with a powerful realisation striking him like lightning he realized that he now knew which of the Nightmare Assassins were there through choice and which ones were slaves and he also knew what to do about it.
Looking across the sea of fighting bodies he locked onto each and every one of the white kernels focusing on them and feeling their collective pain as his own, he reached out his arms like he was trying to embrace them, "Brothers and sisters you are not alone, I am here with you I have heard your prayers and now they are answered, take my strength and let it be your own, feel my heart beat for you, hear it call to you, feel the warmth of my arms and my wings around you, let me be your shield from pain and torment, come to me" he said and like shockwaves his voice tore through the very souls of the imprisoned as they each felt the power of an Angel's love permeating them.
It was like like someone struck a bell and the sound wave upon reaching each of these souls it started a cascade, each of them stopped fighting, it was like they just froze like a robot that had just been switched off, thats when he felt it, the fight for their souls had begun and he saw the darkness of the deity trying to hold them twisting and fighting like two color oils trying to mix, but this just served to reveal the true darkness holding these poor creatures to Aiden, "I see you fuckers" he said and like before the red lightning began to spark and crackle around his wings, jumping from feather to feather in little red arcs as the feathers extended like little daggers from his wings.
"Lets change the odds shall we?" Aiden said and with a roar of power lighting arced from his finger tips as it ran down his arms twisting and writing as it went before arcing out and slamming into the effected beings and seizing the dark spots in a web of red, then with a roar he litteraly tore it out of them like yanking in a finishing line with a net on the end full of squirming fish pulling that darkness out of them and into him.
He felt ill instantly, like the darkness spoiled and infected everything it touched, but he managed to erect a barrier of light all around it, he could feel the minds and the arrogant rage of the deities trapped within the bubble of blackness, pulsing it out the bubbled took form right infront of him like a liquid ball of oil floating infront of him, Aiden opened his wings and encircled it sending red lightning into it from all sides containing it in a huge web of lighting as it pulsed and spiked trying in vain to be free.
Aiden roared as he fought with it holding it contained but it was strong, like nothing he'd ever felt before, pure hate, pure rage, pure evil just pushing against him with everything it had, there was no saving this, he couldn't hold it, he had to burn it.
Focusing his energy he felt fire surging through him like surface of the sun in both his hands and wings projecting streams of golden light directly into the orb and it began to screech and wail with a thousand different voices, like a chorus of pure pain, "Burn you evil motherfuckers! How does it feel to be the ones in pain rather than causing it huh!? How does that feel!?" Aiden roared as his own hatred began to burn inside him lending him its strength as well, the head of the golden orb intensified as it encompassed the oil black orb entirely hiding it from view in a bigger orb of pure gold hat with a flash exploded and burned the blackness to nothing but dust.
For a moment the freed Nightmare Assassins stood there in utter confusion untill Aiden reached out to them, "Join us brothers and sisters, fight for those who fought for you, lend us your strength and let us lend you ours" Aiden said and in an instant those freed souls turned on their former comrades and hit them from behind, the remaining Nightmare Assassins didn't stand a chance, caught now between the anger of the Angelic enhanced Seekers and the righteous anger of the betrayed and now freed Dream Warriors forced into a life of servitude as Nightmare Assassins they were slaughtered to the last man.
"Holy shit! T-T-That was incredible! It felt like I was connected to the goddamn universe! Like I was looking into the soul of creation itself! Is that how you feel all the time?" Rose exclaimed looking at Aiden who just smiled at her wistfully.
"Just when I'm with the ones I love" he said reaching up and stoking Macha's blood stained helmet as she stepped up next to him,.
"I have to say I never imagined something like that in my deepest dreams Reaper, you truely are an Angel of Darkness, the way you wield light like a weapon is utterly incredible" Jack said looking at him in awe.
"I just do to them what they do to others" Aiden said with a smile, then he turned to look at Tank and Spike, "Report guys how we doing over there?" he asked.
"Good to go boss, bomb's armed and Spike's got the data" Tank said.
"Roger that set the anti tamper and lets bug out, Reaper to Queen Bee requesting emergency pick up, we are bugging out" Aiden said into his comms.
"Roger that Reaper hold tight bringing the hammer down on the anti air and then were going to dust down for pick up get ready to move" Queen Bee said.
"Roger that Reaper out, everyone pack the fuck up we are moving!" he called and everyone began heading for the doorway, as they arrived streaks of light were already screaming down from the heavens as the plasma cannons hammered the anti air into dust clearing the air of anti air fire before the Sword of Silence descended into the atmosphere to perform an emergency pick up rather than sending landers to collect the team, the huge black dart like shape descended fast blowing up a huge storm of dust and debris as Pegasus performed yet another of his incredible high speed decent slash landing combos, the Seekers rounded up the now freed Nightmare Assassins and herded them towards the ship as the loading ramp descended on four struts.
The team formed a perimeter as everyone was loaded onto the ship, "Timer triggered we have five minutes to get clear before that bomb goes off, it cannot be disarmed and any attempt to do so will trigger it" Tank said as they headed for the bridge.
"Roger that, Reaper to the bridge blast off immiditely we're all aboard samples on their wat to the lab for the doc to work on and the anti matter bomb is ticking down" Reaper said
"Pegasus here, roger that Reaper taking us up" the reply came and they felt the shift as the engines went hot and lifted them off the ground heading back to space, the team fractured heading to verity of places on the ship, the Seekers taking their new found friends for debriefing and reintegration training as they called it, others just going to remove their armor and to rest up.
Boh Jack and Tik were issuing orders on the move as they headed to bridge, as were Sela eleth and Ryan, they arrived on the bridge moments later and they saw the planet from orbit from the bridge's huge window, "Ten seconds" Tank said reading the count down timer in his HUD, from the planet's surface there was a flash, a tiny pin prick of incredibly bright light, miniscule on the grand scale of things but even from here Aiden could feel the destructive power of the anti matter device as it went off, its destructive energy being focused into the bunker vaporising everything within before the remaining energy being released out onto the planet's surface with enough power to be easily seen from their high orbit.
"Retreat to a safe distance and then fire at will" Queen Bee said and Pegasus nodded adjusting the Sword's orbit before turning the long sleek ship so her broad side guns were aligned as were her side mounted torpedo tubes, in one move the power of the mighty ship unleashed a fury rarely seen this side of hell raining death down on the planet splitting the plant like an egg hit by a sledge hammer.
"Scratch one big ass production facility and one planet" Tank said as they watched huge chunks of molten rock cooling in the vaccum of space as they shot out in every direction towards the depths of space.
"Spike make getting that data you collected your top priority, Jack see what your team can get from the new comers, if we can narrow this bastard down we can finally end this thing" Queen Bee said and both Jack and Tik nodded in agreement.
"This has been a long time coming, finally we can send the darkness back to hell where it belongs" Jack said with true fire in his voice and Aiden nodded in agreement.
The debriefing come interrogation didn't last very long at all, the freed Nightmare Assassins were only to happy to help in any way they could but they didn't have the location of the planet on which the darkness resides, it was a closely guarded secret known only to the inner circle and the dark deities themselves, they didn't know if the secrets would be found in the encrypted archives they'd seized but they did believe that it would at least reveal the locations of others like them who could possibly reveal his location.
That's when it hit Aiden, he had the power to pull the dark deities out of Nightmare Assassins by sheer force of will and had the power to contain them, at least temporarily, now with the help of some of the deities of the light they may very well be able to extract the intelligence they needed out of them.
Suddenly two huge and rather excitable Praetorians burst onto the bridge looking for their loved ones, both Rose and Ice suddenly found themselves being scooped up and unceremoniously cuddled to death right infront of everyone, it relived the tension that had been invading the bridge to see both Ice and Rose getting wrapped up in a whole lot of happy Xeno.
"Come on you big softy put me down" Ice said laughing as Liquid cradled her protectively against his broad armoured chest, he complied and put her back down on her feet infront of him.
"Why do you have rabbit ears and a fluffy tail?" Jet asked Rose and the young human scowled and pointed at Spike who was trying to slip away silently till T'Kell grabbed his collar and hauled him back.
"Hey come on it was just a joke! Hey I even enhanced your aural sensors so that you'd have hearing five times that of any human on the field, I mean sure the tail was just cute, but the ears were functional" Spike said apologeticly.
Jet lifted Rose up like she weighed nothing and turned her around to take a closer look at the tail which made everyone on the bridge laugh because it chose that exact moment to give a little wiggle.
"Hey! If you wanna look at my arse could we at least do it in private?" Rose exclaimed in embraessment as her big beloved Xeno girl eyed the wiggling little tail, which caused little chuckles to escape all around them.
"I like it, it's cute just like you" Jet said in a very matter of fact voice and Rose twisted around to look over her shoulder.
"Wait, you do?" she said and Jet nodded her large head.
"It suits you, it's not like I needed an excuse to have something draw my eyes to this part of you, but now at least I have an excuse to stare" Jet said playfully and Aiden stifled a laugh, Rose really had brought his adoptive daughter out of her shell, quite literally in the sense of her becoming a Praetorian.
Jet hugged her girlfriend tight and then put her down, "You really are one of a kind you know that Jet, gods above I'm so lucky to have you" Rose said hugging her big Xeno round the neck.
Liquid turned to Ice after watching this and she gave him a wry smile, "Don't even think about it lover Xeno" she said stroking his large face and the big Xeno cracked a wry smile of his own as she read his mind, then she kissed the side of his cheek, "And besides it looks much better without the armor on and I'm not taking that off here" she purred so quietly only someone with his enhanced hearing would pick it up.
Liquid cracked a huge smile as he obviously remembered what her rear end did indeed look like sans armor covering it and who could blame him, his mate was a mighty handsome woman and he was a very lucky male and he knew it.
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The team split up to go and do their work, Spike headed down to the computer labs with T'Kell in tow, even though she didn't really understand his work she loved to watch him work, he never imagined he'd find a female who would be not only fascinated by his work but positively turned on by it, she reveled in his intelligence just as he reveled in her strength, he couldn't believe just how well they meshed and complimented each other.
He set his best decryption software and algorithms against their encryption but it would take time, so he figured out something else to help him pass the time, T'Kell was sat on a work bench kicking her long legs back and forth looking just as cute and sweet as a nearly nine foot tall battle hardened veteran huntress could be, he smiled at her when he saw her watching him, "How would you like to help me build something? A present of sorts" Spike asked and T'Kell cocked her head curiously.
"Well I was kinda hoping that we might have chance to how do you oomans put it...fool around, yes thats it, fool around" she purred bringing her incredibly long leg up to rest her chin on her knee giving him a both predatory and sultry smile.
Spike swallowed hard, when T'Kell got that look in her eye she was getting what she wanted, though to be fair he was only ever to happy to give it to her because what she wanted was always always good for him in oh so many ways, but an idea tickled his head and a wry smile cracked his face.
"How about this, you help me with my present and in exchange I will do what ever you ask of me, what ever fantasy you wish to play out I will do happily and willingly, well you know as long as it doesn't involve pain or humiliation" he said and her eyes looked both intruiged and then a little guilty.
"You know I would never ever do anything like that to you again" she said softly and he rolled his chair over to her and laced his hands n her knees and looked up at her.
"You know I trust you my love, you are the huntress of my heart and the keeper of my soul, the first and last woman that i will ever love, I was only kidding when I said that last part, you know I know you would never break your word and I'm sorry, I thought it would make you laugh as I thought you'd know I was joking" he said softly stroking her huge thighs and squeezing them as his remorseful huntress took his hands in hers.
"You are forgiven my ooman, you know what your love means to me and what your safety means to me" she said and Spike stood up and kissed his emotional huntress gently.
"I do an which is why I offer myself to you freely my love, to play a game of your hearts secrets, because I know I can trust you and I know how you love it so, my core purpose in life is to revel in your happiness by making it happen my sweet huntress" he said softly and she wrapped her long arms around him tightly and clung on.
"I have not the words to describe how deeply I love and adore you my heart" she said softly and he nuzzled her softly.
"I know I feel the same way" he said.
"C-C-Could we play mighty huntress is beaten by ooman warrior and he spares her life on one condition?" she asked softly and hopefully and he chuckled softly.
"Not what I thought you were going to pick, but you really like that one don't you?" he said and she nodded looking a little embaressed.
"We still have the Yautja sized manacles I padded for you don't we?" he asked and she nodded.
He smiled and nodded, "I'll polish up my armor for you" he said and she beamed from ear to ear giving him a radiant smile.
"What must I do to earn my joy?" she asked and he grinned now.
"Grab a laser cutter and follow me" he said.
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There was a knock at the door of Rose and Jet's room and Jet went to answer it, when she opened the door there was no one there and she stuck her large head out and looked around, but the corridor was empty, that's when she spotted something sat on the floor by the door tied in a big bright pink ribbon, it appeared to be a metal ball of some kind, she picked it up and noticed a card attached.
"Someone left this on our door for you" Jet said bringing the metal ball back into the room and showing it to a rather confused looking Rose who took it and read the card.
"Sorry bout the ears and the tail, made you this by way of an apology" Rose read aloud and then looked at Jet, "It's from Spike" she said and suddenly the little ball began beeping and Rose very nearly dropped it untill it suddenly unrolled and clambered up her arms and onto her shoulders.
"Ahhh! What the hell is it!? Some deviant sex torture device!?" Rose exclaimed trying to dislodge the metallic this that was shifting its surprisingly light weight around on her shoulders, a large but confused smile broke out on her face, "Its a metal Xeno, or at least I think it is, it appears to have two long ears like you have on your helmet and a fluffy pom pom on the tip of its tail spike" Jet sid curiously reaching out her hand to touch the little robotic Xeno, it screeched and hissed at her but not agressivly and it jumped from Rose's shoulder to Jet's in a single bound running up her and perching on top of her head to look down at Rose.
"Mistress Rose Identified, Mistress Jet identified, registration of ownership complete, please name unit to complete imprint process" the little metallic creature said in a robotic feminine voice in perfect English.
Rose looked at the creature and it did indeed look like a miniature Xeno but with large rabbit ears and a fluffy tail tip, it looked like a cross between a Xeno and a rabbit, "Umm a name eh? How about Bun Bun?" she said wonderingly.
"Unit's name is Bun Bun registration complete, now only Mistress Jet and Mistress Rose may command me, rabbit Xeno protection and recon unit Codename Bun Bun operational" it said before letting out a cute little screech and leaping back onto Rose's shoulders again.
"Holy shit Spike made us a robo rabbit Xeno!" Rose exclaimed lifting the little robot down and looking at it as it squirmed in her grasp like it wanted to be petted, so she ran her big metallic hand over its long domed head brushing back it's ears and it hissed happily, "It's got an A.I module, damn Spike really does go all out on his apologies doesn't he?" Rose said smiling up at Jet who smiled down at her.
"He is probably used to having to deal with Princess Inferno's temper when he used to play pranks on her, from what my king says he has always been a prankster, he never plays pranks that will in anyway harm anyone, it about making people laugh" Jet said and Rose smiled and sighed.
"I guess I will forgive him then and thank him for this, I've never had a gift like this before, I wonder what it can do?" Rose said tickling the small robotic creature.
"Codename Bun Bun can do many things Mistress Rose, I am capable of preforming stealth infiltration and recon of enemy compounds as I can climb on any surface and am equiped with enhanced sensor packages that can be tied into your HUD to display in real time what I detect, I am also equipped with the latest in Yautja optical camo technology to remain undetected" the little creature said leaping from her to stick to the wall before becoming nearly invisible as it moved silently up and onto the ceiling above her head.
"I am also equiped with weaponry to allow me to defend you or to perform tactical take downs at your request" Bun Bun said leaping from the ceiling onto the bed extending large razor like claws and stabbing with its tail that revealed the sharp needle like tip hidden in the fluff but retracted when not in use, so the thing wasn't just cute, it was fucking deadly.
Both Jet and Rose looked at one another in surprise, as the little metallic Xeno went from little killing machine to little ball of cuteness that curled up and laid on their bed like it was going to sleep, "Well I for one am very grateful, it mean now there is even more reason to feel secure in the knowlage that the one I love is coming home to me from any and every battle she fights" Jet said sweeping Rose up into her arms and the pair kissed deeply.
"I will always come home to you my heart, there isn't a force strong enough in this world to keep me from your side" Rose said softly holding on to her tightly and kissing her softly on the mouth.
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"Yeah your welcome, look it was just a prank yeah and I just wanted to say sorry and I knew how lunch you love Xenos and rabbits so I thought I'd combine both elements to say sorry you know?...Well I'm glad you like it, I hope it serves you well...ok no problem...bye Rose" Spike said hanging up the comms connection, then he smiled and turned to the bed, "Ok where were we? Ahh yes...So you thought you could hunt me for your prey did you? Oh how the tables have turned, but i did not expect it to be a huntress that was chasing me and I must say such healthy and fine example of your species, i maybe convinced to let you live, if you can be a good girl" Spike said turning to look at T'Kell who was restrained on the bed on all fours, her hands manacled to the foot rest at the bottom of the bed and each and a second set around her ankles threaded by rope through her legs to force her onto her knees and her rear into the air, the manacles were designed to be extremely comfortable and were padded with lush velvet inside, a compromise T'Kell had allowed Spike to make after their first time playing one of these games and he'd spent an hour rubbing an ointment into her wrists after the restraints had marked her, it had nearly broken his heart and that concern and love had set her heart on fire with love for her male, she adored these games they played, they made her feel so alive, she adored making love with him normally too but these things just added that little extra spice that she craved to set their love life ablaze for both of them.
Looking at Spike with eyes shining with defiance and desire she growled at him and Spike smiled, brightly, he was going to enjoy this, both of them were he'd make sure of it.
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"Did Spike send up the data he decrypted?" Jack asked joining Aiden at his terminal and Aiden nodded as he and Queen Bee poured over the files.
"Yeah but its gonna take a whole team pouring over this, there huge amounts of data, shipping requests, analysis reports, star charts, we're going to need to sift though it to make sense of it all" Queen Bee said.
"I can help with that, if we transmit if back to my home world we have an entire section of specially trained intel specialist who do just that and nothing else, it's their job to see the patterns that blind everyone else" Jack said and Queen Bee nodded in agreement.
"I think we should get Section 5 in on this as well, those lot absoultly excell at data mining" she said and Jack nodded.
"Let's set up an electronic conference between the two and get them working together and we'll get through this in double quick time" Aiden said and the pair nodded.
"Funny to think that in here some where could be the final answer to all of this, the hidey hole of this vile evil that we have sought for so very very long" Jack said.
"Yeah a final chance for peace in the universe, or as near as damn it anyway, there's always going to be evil of a lesser scale for us to fight, but at lest it won't be an actual devil pulling the fucking strings" Aiden said.
"Yeah by this scale fighting drug dealers and slavers not to mention pirates is actually going to feel like a fucking holiday" Queen Bee said causing her two companions to chuckle softly and nod in agreement.
"I hope they let us keep the ship afterwards, It's kinda nice having the council flagship under ut thumb" Aiden said and Queen Bee laughed.
"Somehow I very much doubt that the council will want to piss off the Dark Angel who fought a devil for everyone, so yeah I think it's fast to say this puppy is ours" Queen Bee said.
"We're going to need to muster more people for the final battle, the devil will have set themselves up in a extremely well protected and defended location that is going to need some serious fire power and skill to bust into" Jack said and the other two nodded.
"The council have already informed me that all the other Spirit teams are on call to us and will RV with us at any co-ordinates we send them, plus we have two whole carriers of Colonial Marines at our call" Queen Bee said and Jack nodded approvingly.
"I have as precaution readied the remainder of the Guardian Core as well, all remaining Hunters, Saviors, Battle Angels and Seekers stand ready to join us" he said proudly.
"We'd better send out the same invite to the Halkrath and Section 5, when this hammer comes down I want it to be a fucking hammer" Aiden said and both nodded in agreement.
"Yeah this is one part they are not going to want to miss, this devil is not going to know what hit him when we litteraly shove the entire universe up his fucking arse" Jack said an Aiden laughed, but in truth he was dealing kinda nervous, it wasn't every day you were going to face down evil incarnate no was it?
Jack over saw the arrangements for his intel teams who were part of the Saviors so they also had their Matriach Sela bounding about checking their work and reading reports while Jack stood on ever the bit a proud father as he watched his daughter work, Section 5 were indeed happy to get stuck in on this action too and Paul Twenty and his people were hard at work at their terminals and even Spike who seemed to have some odd scratches that Aiden hadn't seen when they got changed out of his armor though by the glazed look and dreamy smile on T'Kell's face it didn't take Sherlock Holmes to work out where he'd gotten them was now stuck into the giant puzzle as well.
The groups all worked well together, tirelessly sifting and checking and filtering through the reams and reams of data and Aiden couldn't help but think of a Xeno hive with all of them working together harmoniously, data was flying around and the whole thing had be divided up among all the participants and each was working through their own little section all while gathered around he huge table which Spike had converted into a data centre with the help of the Saviour's.
It took them a total of several hours to fish the useful date out from the reams and reams of useless collections of reports and worthless psudeo data designed to throw off anyone attempting to read the files without authorisation, but Spike was very good at designing algorithms on the fly designed to weed this stuff out and with the help of Section 5 adding some A.I imput into it they managed to weed out exactly what they needed.
"We got it!" Spike exclaimed suddenly and a load of head popped up to look at him, both Jack and Aiden appeared at his shoulders almost instantly.
"What have you got Spike?" Aiden said looking at his screen.
"I keep seeing a recurring pattern here in the charts and the paperwork, it refers to this planet, it's a long way out from us in a compeltly dark region of space and by that I mean no sun, but by their logs they had ships coming and going from there for quite some time, I think it's a rogue planet" Spike said and Jack's eye brows went up.
"A rogue planet, how bloody perfect, an utterly dark planet following no set orbit moving through space, how the hell didn't we think of that, it would never be in the same place, plus nothing would have no reason to go to it as it would be utterly dead, like an over sized asteroid, but its also two hundred and fifty light years away, its going to be quite a trek to get there" Spike said.
"Reaper to Queen Bee, looks like we got them, sending you the co-ordinates" Aiden said into the comms.
"This is quite a ways off, lets hope this isn't a double bluff of some kind" Queen Bee said but somehow to Aiden he just knew somewhere in his soul that this was it, they'd found the root of the creeping darkness, it was time for the final battle to begin.