Disclaimer: Right, forgot to do this earlier. Anyways, I don't own Naruto or anything affiliated with it, etc. etc. Same goes for StarCraft.

Chapter Two: Infiltration

"Okay, so, we need to get inside that golden … whatever it is, and find out what it is and what's inside it. Once we've done that, we just gotta get back to Konoha and report it to Naruto. Shouldn't be too difficult right?" Kiba said softly to his comrades.

Hinata and Shino nodded silently. Akamaru sniffed the air, then whined and growled.

"Whatever's in there, Akamaru doesn't like it," Kiba observed, "From what I gather, whatever is in there isn't human either. Hinata, use your Byakugan. See what you can find out."

Hinata nodded, and activated her Byakugan. She stared at the great metal thing for a few minutes before speaking.

"There's things in there all right, but I can't see them properly. There's something around them all that's blurring my vision. They're big though, bigger than us for sure, and there's a lot of them."

Kiba and Shino nodded.

"Okay, let's get in there and find out what they are then."

"How?" Shino asked, "The thing is huge, where would we get in?"

"There's a big hole in the side, right over there," Kiba pointed to a large jagged cut about 2/3's of the way up, "We'll use the trees, and get in through there."

"Got it."

The 4 of them withdrew from the tree line where they had been hiding, and stealthily made their way around the edge, towards the middle of the big thing. As they climbed up into a large tree near the edge of the hole, something caught Hinata's eye. Three patches of shimmering air were exiting from one of the rectangular holes a few yards from where they were. Hinata looked back, but they were gone, and she assumed it had just been a reflection from the object.

They all made it to the edge of the tree, where a branch nearly touched the large tear in the object. One by one they silently jumped in, and landed on a metal floor. Looking around, they were in a large metal passageway, with pipes running down the inner side wall. Steam issued forth from them periodically.

They silently crept down the passage, wary of anything they might run into. They turned right at a fork in the passageway, and entered a larger room, filled with strange golden objects. On racks on the walls were golden suits, but they were far too big for any shinobi to wear. There were also golden things that resembled armor for the arm on a shelf nearby. Kiba was about to pick one up when a funny clicking and beeping sound came from behind them. Something was coming down the hall they had just come from.

"Hide!" Hinata whispered urgently.

She and her team quickly ducked behind a large counter with more sets of armor on top of it. Hinata poked her head out from behind the table to see what it was that was coming. It looked like some sort of hovering golden robot with four wings with blue fins on the ends. A big blue orb occupied the back, with a metal scorpion tail supporting it. There seemed to be what looked like a blue eye in the very front. The robot paused and looked around the room. With another beep it continued on through the room, through another open door in the back. Hinata motioned to her teammates silently to follow the golden robot.

They followed it down two hallways, and then onto a large walkway. Every member of the team gasped. They were in a very large room, big enough to fit several houses in. Far below them more of those robots roamed about, and it looked like there were conveyer belts going up and down with odd bits of metal all across the floor. None of them were moving however, and the only sounds came from the beeping and clicking noises the robots issued every now and then. They would have stayed longer, but that same beeping sounded from very close by, from one of the walkways to their left. Quickly, the team crept up a ramp, into the higher levels of this strange place.

They found themselves in a large hallway, with glass windows down one side. The shinobi could see the forest for quite a distance from the view they provided. They continued to another ramp, until they reached a large open room, with large glass windows up front. There were tables below these windows, just layered with buttons and images on panels of glass. Operating each one was an ….. alien.

There was no other word for them. They were easily 8 or 9 feet tall, very slender, but each wore the golden armor they had seen earlier. They all had odd looking skin and they were colored blue, green, and even purple. Each and every one of them had long braids of hair in dreadlocks coming out of the back of their heads. The shinobi looked at a table in the middle of the room, where four of these aliens were gathered around. They looked at their faces. These aliens had large orb-like luminescent eyes, no nose, no mouth, and no ears. When one placed their hands on the table they saw these aliens only had four fingers.

"What's our situation?" one of them, a female, said.

Only they didn't say it. The words echoed in the shinobi's heads as if they were spoken, but these aliens had no mouths with which to do so. These aliens were telepaths!

"Executor, the Gantrithor II took heavy damage during the battle, and the crash has disrupted power to all parts of the ship. We're running on emergency back-up power, but that's only enough to keep the ship alive," a male one responded.

"As I feared," the female one said, "The corrupters did more damage than I originally thought. What of our combat situation? Is this ship capable of defending itself in any way?"

"Unfortunately no. The psionic matrix is offline, as well as most of the carrier's internal structures. The forges miraculously still have power, but with the matrix down, they're not going to be very useful. We do have a number of functional warp prisms, but many were damaged in the battle. Until we can restore power, they will be the only way to get our forces on and off the ship."

"Hmmm. Very well. Get that matrix back up and running as fast as possible. As soon as it is, I want pylons surrounding this ship; the Gantrithor must be protected at all costs if we want to have any hope of seeing Shakuras again. Is there anything out there that could be a threat to us?"

"Our observers have detected a sizeable native population close by. It appears they are terran in origin. We've received a few images from the observers on them."

"Hmph," a younger male spoke up, "These may look human, but they cannot possibly be terran. Look at their settlement; it's laughably primitive. I doubt we have anything to fear from them."

"Do not be so quick to judge," the older male said sternly, "The humans have proven themselves to be quite resourceful and inventive. If they are anything like their terran counterparts, they could prove to be cunning and dangerous foes indeed."

"The Praetor is right," the female one said, "We should exercise caution around them. Get the forges constructing photon cannons immediately. Once the matrix is back online we'll need to erect defenses around the ship quickly in case the natives prove hostile. Do we have any stalkers to support the cannons?"

"Dark Prelate Mohandar had our Nerazim brethren under his command in the battle. We have around one hundred stalkers, but Mohandar had the rest, and most that we have need to be repaired before they will be ready for combat again."

The female made a sound equivalent to a mental sigh.

"Very well; we'll just have to rely on our sentries for now. We're going to have to work from the ground up; once we have power we must construct a photon cannon grid as a primary line of defense. Luckily we're on elevated terrain, so we have a height advantage in that regard. We also need gateways down on the ground to send our troops through to support the cannons. While that's happening get the cybernetics core back up and running; we'll need to repair our stalkers and construct more sentries to ensure our ranged defenses are adequate."

"As you wish Executor."

The female alien straightened up, and put her hand to her temple. Her mental voice rang out, louder than Hinata or her teammates expected was possible.

"This is High Executor Selendis, captain of the Gantrithor II speaking to all crew members. All personnel are to be on high alert, and are expected to assist the ship's engineers in repairing this vessel to the best of their abilities. Report to your superior officer for further instructions."

Hinata motioned to her teammates to start backing out. It was time to leave before they were discovered. As they turned, they came face to face with one of the floating robots with the blue orb. The thing started to beep very loudly, sending out an alarm. Hinata looked behind herself to see every alien in the room behind them staring at them.

"Run!" she told her teammates.

They ran, as fast as they were capable of. They raced down hallway after hallway, back the way they had come. They rounded a corner, and found yet another one of those robots blocking their way. It fired an odd black beam at them. All four of them dodged it, but the robot's attack was continuous, it simply kept going. Kiba and Akamaru charged at the robot, not caring that it was easily Akamaru's size. Hinata wasn't surprised when the two of them used their Gatsūga technique, as it was a favorite of theirs.

However, before they hit the robot, they collided with a blue barrier that surrounded it. The two bounced off, knocking them both backwards. However, the robot was knocked back too, and whatever that blue barrier was, the technique seemed to have broken it. Shino quickly took advantage of this, and used a bug swarm to engulf the robot entirely. Through the cocoon of insects they could see the robot's black beam whipping around, cutting through insects indiscriminately. Finally, the beam cut right through the middle of the swarm, causing the insects to scatter to the sides. The four shinobi could practically see the robot's surprise as Hinata came flying towards it, Hakke Shishō jutsu at the ready. The jutsu struck the robot right above its eye, and the poor thing shattered into a dozen pieces. Its blue orb rolled away forlornly, but they didn't notice as they kept running.

They could hear more of those robots behind them, though, and they kept running. They could see the exit they came in through, and they all started sprinting towards it. Just as they were about to reach it though, a shimmering energy barrier appeared right in the middle of them, cutting Hinata off from the others. Somehow, these robots could use some sort of barrier jutsu!

"Keep going!" she yelled to her friends, "I'll find another way out."

"We're not leaving you!" Kiba argued, as he and Akamaru pounded against the barrier that separated them.

"There isn't time for this, just go," Hinata yelled at her friend, "I'll be fine, just get back to Konoha and inform Naruto. We cannot fail the mission, no matter what the cost!"

Kiba looked like he was going to cry a little, and Akamaru was whining frantically.

"We're not going to abandon you," he swore to her, "We're coming back for you, and nothing's going to stop us when we do. You just keep yourself alive until we do okay?"

Hinata nodded. Kiba, Akamaru, and Shino took one last glance back, then ran on, through the hole in the ship from which they came, and out of sight. Hinata turned to go back, but no less than five of the robots, she assumed these were the sentries the female alien spoke of, had closed in behind her. The barrier faded, and she rushed to follow her friends, but another three sentries blocked her. She looked around for some way to escape, but she was completely surrounded. She took a deep breath, and prepared to fight, to the death if need be.