22 BBY

Darrious Ordo, a Mandalorian warrior and very well known bounty hunter walked into the personal quarters of his friend and partner Tarson Gale. In truth, the man had kept Darrious against his will after saving him from and Confederacy Banking Clan frigate brig. After a few weeks of being on Gale's personal Lucrehulk-class cruiser, the Pillager, Darrious had come to respect and even like the pirate captain. Now Darrious watched as Gale poured himself a glass of Telos Brandy with rather shaky hands. Darrious cleared his throat and said, "Tars, we need to do something about these creatures aboard your ship and about the other eggs. Did you have them sealed up tight? Are you going to keep them?"

Gale took a couple drinks before wiping his mouth on a handkerchief and speaking. "I have every one of my crew and every combat droid on board looking for those monsters. The eggs are sealed up tight in durasteel containers and I am gonna space them as soon as possible." and after several moments of Darrious' piercing gray eyes staring at him, he blurted out, "Kark it, Darrious! What else can I do? I'm about to loose my ship to a bunch of mindless…mindless…" he searched for the write word for the strange serpents that had burst out of nearly twenty of his crewmen's chests. Darrious walked over to him saying, "Xenomorphs. That's what they are. I have never seen the like of them before. But one thing is for sure - as long as I am here, you may lose your ship, but you will survive."

Gale sighed and said, "You should leave while you can, Darrious. I won't leave my ship but I will not hold you here either. Take the fancy new shuttle of yours and those weapons and take your leave." Darrious shook his head, saying "A Mandoa never leaves his friends in danger like that. I'm staying until every last one of them is dead or we are."

Gale finished his brandy and sighed. He gripped Darrious by the shoulders and said from the depths of his soul, "Thank you Darrious."

Darrious smiled and said, "First, we need to space those eggs. Let me grab my armor and weapons. You should arm up too, Tars. Meet me in the cargo hold in ten minutes." Tars grinned and saluted saying, "Yes sir. I'll jump right to it."

For the first time since running into Gale, Darrious donned his gold and red armor. With it went a jetpack, a custom blaster rifle made for him by his father before he died and a blaster pistol to match. With these, he also took the other weapons he had looted from the Venator-Class star destroyer that had brought the strange alien serpent creatures onto the ship. He had taken three weapons systems and a melee weapons that was very unique. The first blaster was a DC-17m weapon that could be fitted with a blaster rifle attachment, a sniper rifle attachment and a grenade launcher attachment. The second was a WESTER-M5 assault blaster rifle used mostly by Republic Advanced Recon Commandos. The third and final one was new blaster rifle on the market, a BlasTech A295, capable or one hundred rounds per energy sell and very accurate and powerful. The melee weapon was one he had not seen since leaving the True Mandalorians to hunt bounties. It was a blade made out of Mandalorian Iron, or Beskar. It's very unique feature a power vain inside the blade that emitted and energy field which allowed it to cut through almost anything. It was made to combat lightsabers. He slung his personal rifle and holstered his blaster pistol. He also sheathed the beskar sword at his hip. The rest he took to his new shuttle, leaving his jetpack there as well. That done, he ran to the cargo hold.

Gale met up with him in the turbo lift that led to the hold. When they arrived, they ran quickly in the direction of the containers holding the rest of the eggs. Upon arrival, both men stopped dead in their tracks. Perched on top of one of the durasteel containers was a large, beetle black xenomorph. Its head was long and curving and round. No eyes were visible but it had a row of ugly sharp teeth which it bared with an angry hiss. It's body was covered in a sharp exoskeleton and it had four strange spines on its back and a long tale with a sharp barb at the end of it. Behind it, almost a dozen more popped up, hissing. The first one jumped down and approached Darrious and Gale while the others hoisted the containers into massive rents in the ventilation shafts. The xenomorph opened its mouth and revealed a secondary one that snapped out aggressively. Within the blink of an eye and without any sort of warning, it sprung at the men. Darrious shoved Gale out of the way and rolled in the opposite direction in one fluid movement, yanking out his blaster pistol at the same time. He came up and fired three fast shots. Two missed the creature but one caught it in its back leg, blowing it clean off at the knobby knee joint. With a swift move, Darrious pinned it to the ground by stomping down on its neck and was about to put two fast shots into its head when he was knocked off of his feet by a sharp blow from the creatures tale. It continued to hiss and crawled toward him. Suddenly, a snap-hiss was heard and a blade of pure energy speared through the creatures long head. Gale stood over the now dead creature holding a lightfoil. The smaller cousin to the JedI weapon was white in color and had a long purple tassel on its pommel. Darrious leapt to his feet as Gale deactivated his weapon. "Where did you get that, Tars?" he asked. Gale smiled and patted it fondly. "I learned to fight with Ichani foils a long time ago. This was a gift from my teacher. He said that a JedI had made it for an Ichani general during the Mandalorian wars."

Darrious was about to reply but instead unslung his blaster rifle and began to fire rapidly towards the egg canisters. Gale turned, pulling out his own blaster pistol and firing. He noted with dismay that many of the egg canisters were gone already. The xenomorphs retreated into the vent, hissing angrily as they went. Running to the vent, Darrious sent a gout of blue flame into the shaft from one of his gauntlets. Gale looked at him and asked, "What now? Most of the eggs are done." Darrious answered quickly, "Get some of those loading droids and have them put the rest of these in the airlock and space them. I'm gonna study these things."

As Gale remotely summoned and gave commands to the labor droids, Darrious knelt down and took his helmet off. The xenomorph he studied was from snout to tale almost four meters long. Taking a small knife from his belt, he attempted to cut into the creatures head to take a look at the brain. Almost yelping in surprise, he dropped the blade. A stream of green blood spewed from the head and began to melt through both the floor and his knife. Quickly, he looked down at his armor to make sure it was free of the green acid blood. A tiny drop had landed on his bronze colored Beskar breastplate. Taking a metal probe from his medkit, he prodded at the little drop of blood. Immediately, the probe began to sizzle and melt. With a smile, Darrious pulled out a ten inch combat knife made out of beskar and finished his cut, using the flat of the blade to peel aside the hard exoskeleton . Using a scanner on his helmet, Darrious learned a great deal about the neurological structure of the creatures long brain. It was covered in strange sensory nodes that allowed it to 'see' in a matter of speaking. After a few minutes, Gale come up to him and said, "That takes care of the last eggs. So, how does this thing work?"

Marlo, Gale's blue skinned Chiss first mate and helmsman lead his team of four down one of the lesser used hallways of the ship. They had not come across any of the strange serpentine creatures as of yet but Marlo was way to smart to even hope that they had lucked out. Each one of them carried a blaster rifle and a blaster pistol - two humans, a zabrak and Marlo. As he rounded yet another bend, the sounds of a ventilation grate clanging out of place and the scream of one of his men caused him to turn. One of the humans was looking down at his chest, which had a long, black, spike-tipped tale speared through it. Thinking fast, Marlo aimed and fired at the tale once, twice, three times. The last bolt struck it, causing the creature in the vent to scream and jerk its tale, sending the man flying into the wall with a sickening crunch. The sound of skittering came from behind Marlo. He whipped around, ready to blast another of the strange creatures, only to have a spider like face hugger wrap around his head and neck, knocking him to the ground. The last thing he heard before he blacked out was blaster fire and the screeching of the large, black serpents.

Darrious and Gale started at the bridge, checking every vent and exhaust port. Every closet and side storage room. Each time they finished, they would seal it up - doors, vents and hatches. In this way, they cleared much of the administration and control level of the ship with no sites of the large xenomorphs, though they found and blasted nearly two dozen of the little spidery face huggers. After nearly an hour and multiple com checks, which proved to be less than encouraging seeing as a quarter of the crew squads and less than half of the droids responded, the two found themselves in one of the ships turbolaser batteries. It was dark and empty of droids and crew members. The silence was horrible as the two men checked with each weapon, each tiny crease or vent, each and every energy shell ejection port. In one of them, a face hugger leapt out, fastening to Darrious's helmet but neither its little appendage nor the acid it secreted to get through could penetrate his armor. With a swift move, he stabbed the little creature in the spine with his knife, causing its limbs to go lax before throwing it on the grown and stomping on it with a metal boot. Gale was wide eyed and looking behind and slightly above Darrious. Darrious cocked an eyebrow inside his helmet and asked, "What?"

Without a word, Gale pointed. A dark greenish brown mass of ooze was covering the wall behind Darrious. It dripped and oozed down onto the floor and even over several of the large gun turrets. The worst part was seeing more than thirty forms stuck into the ooze, either with face huggers on them or gaping holes in their abdomens. Among them, Darrious noticed the blue skin of Marlo. He removed his helmet and sighed. He had liked the Chiss. A loud chorus of hissing came from behind them. Putting on his helmet, whipping around and unslinging his blaster rifle in one motion, Darrious knelt and opened fire on the horde that approached them. Gale stepped back until they were side by side, firing bolt after bolt into the teaming masses. As he fired, Gale yelled into his com for any of his loyal crew to answer. No response was forthcoming. Switching frequency, he called for any remaining combat droids. Again, the line was dead. Fear gripped Gale as he realized. He and Darrious were alone aboard a ship filled with these creatures, these xenomorphs, whose only purpose seemed to be to kill and reproduce using the host of their pray. Something inside him seemed to relax as he realized this. With his crew gone and his last friend beside him, he realized he had nothing left to loose. Switching his blaster pistol over to his left hand, he pulled out the light foil with his right. With a snap his it ignited and he stood, a look of pure determination on his handsome features. Beside him, Darrious re-slung his rifle and pulled out his blade and pistol. As the increasing horde approached them, they stood side by side, firing round after round, waiting for the swarming hosts to fall upon them.