(Fallon)

"GET YOUR ASS OUT OF THE HALLWAY!" I yell as I fire my M66 in short bursts from around a bulkhead. I see a small group of what I assume to be UEC marines come streaming around a corner. A TA trooper scrambles to his feet and comes around before Levoy releases a gout of violet flame setting the entire hallway on fire. The air circulation is at least good enough to clear the smoke leaving the hallway bathed in violet light.

The UEC's differences have been caught completely off guard, and it shows as forty heavily armed soldiers are able to lay siege to the ship. However every now and then the UEC troopers get a little fight in them, like right now. Out of nowhere a squad came around a corner and pinned us down, Lavoy is behind me and I see red threat icons all around us as our tactical plot is updated. On another deck I can see the flashing yellow icons of friendly units, indicating injured troopers. We're in a leapfrog retreat back to an atrium where third squad is hold up.

"SQUAD! FALL BACK!" The LT yells from behind where i am kneeling. The Squad of UEC troopers we are facing are leagues better than those we fought in the colony.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" I yell as i load a frag into the grenade launcher on my rifle. There is the sound like someone hitting a pillow with a baseball bat and the grenade sails through the air detonating short of my target.

"FUCK, JAM!"

"GRENADE!" I hear, as a kneeling SI trooper pushes Lavoy away and smothers the grenade with her armored bulk. The resulting explosion lifts her a full foot off of the ground and she lands with a wet crunch. I don't need the flashing red icon to tell me she is dead. Lavoy is lying on the ground clutching at his leg next to her body.

"FUCK! COVER ME!" I yell dashing out of the relative protection of my wall and sprint towards him, skidding the last few feet on my armored knees.

"CAN YOU FIRE A WEAPON!"

"MMMGH! YAGH." He grunts out, I hand him my M66 and pick up his laying on the deck behind him.

"COVER THE SARGE!" The LT yells, and as one the rest of first squad point their weapons around corner using their rifles on board camera feeds, and begin letting loose.

"Come on Lavoy!" I yell as I grab him by the back of his armor and begin dragging him back to the safety of the intersection. When we make it back around the corner I support him one arm over my shoulder.

"LT this is second squad, we have found some kind of control room. Mike what does that say... collar control. could be docking collars?"

"Pull it." The LT orders and almost instantly the ship's intercom lets out a screech so loud our helmets cut our audio input to protect us from going deaf. When I look down the hallway I see that the UEC troops have there hands clamped tightly over their ears. Lavoy taps me on the shoulder pointing at a junction one deck below showing two flashing yellow friendly icons.

"LT" I flash over the squad channel he looks over to me and i make a two with my free hand before pointing down. He nods gesturing to take Lavoy, I hand him over and pat Forbes on the shoulder. The firing picks up again as we make it to the next intersection and our hearing returns.

==============================================================================
(Space)

"This is Manitoba actual commence attack."

"This is fleet Commander Polar route these savages."

As the two fleets begin a deadly dance bringing their weapons to bear, two of the UEC ships breaks formation and heads straight for the Manitoba. The Sovereign breaks formation to interdict the space between them, Sovereign begins launching her anti-ship missiles in quick succession. Two, eight, twelve, sixteen, thirty-two, sixty-four missiles leap from their launch tubes, on the tactical plot the space between the three ships begins to be filled with blue inverted v's as the Sovereign saturates one of the incoming ships point defense systems. The tactical plot flickers as one of the two advancing UEC ships is blotted off of the map dieing silently in space. Then the other UEC ship begins to flicker and a golden bubble appears around it absorbing the few remaining missiles. The shield flickers and warps before leavening out, the UEC ship only slightly slower than before but not ceasing her advance.

"HELM COME ABOUT, PORT 3.5 STAND BY FIRE!"

"Copy that, port 3.5"

The Human ship fires her aft starboard retros and swings her ass out in a sort of drift bringing her side long rail gun batteries to bear. It can fire straight on sure but Hammerhead class ships have more guns on the side for orbital bombardment. Rail guns all around the human fleet began to swivel to track targets with their targeting computers. As the UEC ship nears, the Sovereign lets loose another volley of missiles. This volley is less effective because they are expecting it and with those shields up they are able to destroy most of them, with only five impacting the shield.

"Fire Broadside."

"Firing for effect."

The Sovereigns six port side Railguns flash in brilliant little pops of light, this time the result is much more extravagant as the shields of UEC ship are shredded with the first volley, and the ship is smacked down her center line with various railgun rounds. But the UEC ship is to fast, faster than our ships and too fast for the Sovereign to make a third volley before the UEC destroyer is on them.

"Sir energy spike from the UEC ship."

"Fire re..."

The captain is cut off as the UEC ship goes straight over the Sovereign, activating some kind of energy blade that carves into her amidships tearing the cruiser in two, the UEC destroyer then begins targeting the two halves with her own guns, and missiles. However the Sovereign don't die alone because now the UEC destroyer was in railgun range of the NAC fleet and is promptly blown to fine shrapnel. First blood goes to the NAC but at the cost of four hundred sailors, and one hundred marines and TA troopers. Now with 40 thousand tons of star ship destroyed, five hundred people dead, and with so much UEC radio traffic there's blood in the water.

"VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE, INCOMING MISSILES!"

"Countermeasures! Scramble Shrikes. Fleet this is Manitoba actual don't let them get close to you. Leathy respond."

"This is Leathy."

"That Enemy that cruiser is getting a little too close for comfort."

"Copy, we'll handle it. Step aside. All ships this is Leathy, Firing for effect" the Captain of the Siege breaker ship responds.

==============================================================================

(UEC)

"They just took out the Appleusa, and the cloudsdale."

"Talk about fire power, those guns went through the Cloudsdale's shields like they weren't even there."

"Fleet raise shields spearhead formation" Commander Polar says wide eyed from his command chair. The Fleet begins to move spearheaded by the super Destroyer 'slave master'.

"Sir the enemy fleet is moving."

"What do you mean?" he asks leaning forward fascinated by the humans tactics and weapons.

"Sir they are moving out of the way of that Huge behemoth." the tactical officer reports.

"What could they be..." He was cut off as the 'Slave master', the ship his destroyer is right next to goes up in an explosion so bright it was like the system had a second star. When the light died down enough for him to open and un-shield his eye, he sees that what was once one of the most heavily armed and defended ships in the fleet, with a state of the art shielding system has been pulverized. What had once been the pride of this fleet and their best hope has now been reduced to an expanding cloud of glowing debris and expanding gas.

"Commander. What sort of weapon could have done that?" The helm officer asks, pointing to a magnified screen showing the behemoth had a section of its bow glowing like the barrel of a gun, no exactly like that.

"No, That ship IS the weapon! All ships scramble fighters Destroy that ship or it will tear us to pieces."

"Vampony, Vampony! Incoming missile barrage! They are launching Fighters"

"Shields to maximum, Return fire."

The two fleets are only a mere twenty million miles from each other now. The two four hundred meter long ships beside the Behemoth move into a closer covering formation around the large ship as it began to lumber forward beside the Manitoba.

==============================================================================

(Fallon)

"Damn did you see that!?" Forbes yells as we watch the Leathy cream the UEC cruiser. When we get to the location of the two injured troopers their markers are a steady flashing red. Then an explosion knocks me off of my feet blowing the rifle from my hands. I land on my back the armor computer blacking out my visor and cutting the audio to protect my vision and hearing. I black out from the shock of having my helmet slammed into a bulkhead.

I wake up to feel my helmet get yanked off of my head and look up to see a UEC trooper a gryphon i think they're called pointing some kind of shotgun at my head. I look to my right to see Forbes in a similar situation. We are pinned to the ground by these two and there is another UEC trooper behind them.

"SAAAAH"

I hear what sounds like something big scuttling down the hallway coming from behind the UEC squad, and the next thing I know there is a big ass white eyed spider thing grabbing the gryphon by a the back of its head with one big clawed hand. The thing then grabbing the gryphons arm and bites down onto the base of UEC troopers neck with its massive fangs, the trooper spasms before going limp. As the other trooper, a pony brings his shotgun to bear he is grabbed from behind by a red eyed spider thing and has his throat torn out by the spiders clawed hand. I look under the thing’s legs to see a three clawed reptilian foot come down on the throat of a dragon who I would assume was thrown to the ground by the spiders.

"Get up human." The red eyed spider's deep baritone voice says to Forbes and I, who are dumbfounded by what just happened. In response a red scaled reptilian comes from around the white eyed spider, it is female I would assume given the body shape is the same as a human female. She gracefully walks over to retrieve my helmet from the deck as I am helped up by the white eyed spider. All two hundred pounds of Forbes's armored bulk is picked up bodily by the red eyed spider and placed on his feet like a toy.

"Thanks for the assist. Why did you help us?" I ask retrieving my rifle from the deck and checking it for damage.

"We helped you because we have no more love for the UEC than you do. On top of that you deactivated our bomb collars, an.." she begins bends down to pick up my helmet from the ground.

"You don't have a ship." I cut her off and she freezes in place with my helmet in her hands.

"We don't have a ship no. They lock the slave cast out." ok that makes sense.

"Ok well let's go, we came for information on the slave cast and you three know how to use their computers. You can come with us if you like." I offer as she hands me my helmet.

"Very well human." she says getting nods from the spiders who pick up the fallen UEC soldiers weapons and we head out, after collecting the dog tags of the two dead SI marines.

"I'm Sergeant Avery Fallon, this is Corporeal Michel Forbes." I offer as Forbes and I peak around a corner. The way I see it we have the battle armor and these things don't so it only makes since that Forbes and I lead the way.

"I am a Tymerian, I am called Miiora" the red scaled reptile says

"And these two Kleese are the Zaltule warrior Durge, and Poggel." Pointing to each in kind first the red eyed Kleese, then the white eyed one.

"LT, this is fallon."

"What is it? we lost you for a second their?"

"The marines are KIA, but we have picked up some help and are continuing their mission."

"Copy"

==============================================================================
(Miiora)

Miiora watched in morbid fascination as the one known as Avery Fallon used his strange rifle to set fire to a room from the doorway, even after the one known as Michel Forbes threw what was obviously a grenade of some kind in beforehand. They were met with screams and a pony came running out of the room on fire only to be shot twice in the back by Frobes. The burning pony ungracefully slammed face first into a bulkhead before crumpling to the ground.

A dragon came around a corner next only to be torn to pieces by the combined fire of their improvised squad. She could hear the hoarse reports of the Humans strange weapons echoing throughout the ship. Glancing out of a window she could see that the human and UEC fleets were going at it taking at least two UEC ships to destroy one of the humans. The humans were meeting them tit for tat however, because while the UEC have destroyed four of the human ships while managing to damage two more. The humans have managed to destroy five of the UEC's and their two big ships the Manitoba she believed the slightly smaller one was called and the unnamed behemoth that destroyed the Slave Master in a single shot were un damaged.

Between the two fleets swarms of fighters and missiles danced, and she could see that while the Pegasus attack craft were lightly shielded and slightly faster, the Human fighters were heavily armed, and more maneuverable. Almost to make her point a Human fighter came streaking by the window backwards destroying two Pegasus fighters before flipping over and banking off. The humans were a force to be reckoned with, and a truly ferocious enemy to be had if the changeling being beaten to death by the butt of Fallons rifle is any testament. We continue passed a door and stop in a hallway as Fallon stopped dead in his tracks, uneasiness in his body language.

"WE ARE LEAVING! LET'S MOVE!" he shouts before the improvised squad begins sprinting down a corridor unsure of what is going on.

==============================================================================

(Space)

"This is Manitoba actual we have taken damage, breaches on aft decks five through nine, we are venting atmosphere on deck twelve, and our tertiary engines have taking a hit."

"Manitoba this is Leathy actual fallback. Leathy and Acheron will cover your retreat. Styx stay with the rest of the fleet."

"Copy that Leathy actual."

"CAPTAIN! Radiation spike from the alcubierre node... my god." On the tactical plot the alcubierre node begins to pulls before four orange threat icons appear and begin burning towards Trappist-B. The Four oblong ships begin accelerating at speeds that would despite the artificial gravity fields would turn the crews of any NAC ship to soup.

"SIEGE WARNING, SIEGE WARNING, ALL NAC SHIPS SIEGE WARNING. BREAK OFF ANY ENGAGEMENT, RECALL THE FIGHTERS, CARSON, DEFIANT RETRIEVE BANSHEE TWO FIVE FROM THAT UEC SHIP..."

Advancing towards the colony world of Camelot in a figure-four formation, is a force so powerful that if it weren't for the Leathy just one could tear the NAC fleet to shreds. The UEC fleet watches the NAC fleet fall into chaos breaking off attacks and swarming for deep space. They wander what is happening to cause the Humans to start panicking and show their true colors now. Unknown to them Now passing the gravity well of Planet of Trappist D at a speed of 15 gravitates, their Black carapaces like hulls absorbing all light and radiation making them almost invisible...

are Four Lankie Siege ships.

Author's Notes:

Let me know what you think of the space battle