“When Hearts said this thing was deserted, she wasn’t kidding,” Lucas Moody said. The only illumination in the Dunkerque airlock was from the Argent Marines and their helmet lights.

“Yili–?”

“I’m on it, sir.” The engineer pulled one of the junction boxes loose and patched in her diagnostic unit. “Reactors operating at mass maintenance temperature only, sir. Just enough to emit a signature, but not enough to produce excess power. All energy damps are in. Vessel is operating on battery power only. Life support is down. Air temperature minus two one zero. No oxygen content. All systems off-line.”

“Battery status?” Hunter asked, a tone of annoyance already creeping in.

“Seventeen percent and stable. Makes sense. There’s nothing running on this vessel.”

“Sir?”

“Yes, colonel?” Hunter was busy training his lights on the bulkheads and ceilings, checking for structural damage.

“There are atmospheric compounds in this ship incompatible with human life. Five percent of the gas mixture here is sulfuric acid. I’m also reading bromine crystals.”

“Will that affect our tac suits, engineer?”

“Negative, as long as you keep your anti-static and temperature fields up, your suits will repel all non-ionized elements in the atmosphere,” Yili replied.

“It shouldn’t affect communications either,” Zony added. “I recommend we stay off the intraship until we secure engineering and the bridge.”

“Good call, Lieutenant,” Hunter replied.

“Where would elements like that come from?” Moody asked.

“Unknown. Bromine is used as a sealant in high-pressure lamp assemblies. The sulfuric acid could be coming from anywhere,” Yili said.

“Colonel, run a life signs check again.” Hunter said. The Captain couldn’t shake the suspicion there was something about this situation that just wasn’t right. Everything was too well organized aboard the Dunkerque. It was as if...

“Scanning. Affirmative, Captain. I have respiration readings on Deck 12 aft. Whatever they are, they’re not breathing oxygen.”

A shudder swept through the boarding party’s marine contingent. Some of the men clutched their weapons tighter.

“How many?”

“At least a dozen, possibly more. Volume and temperature readings indicate alien life forms in the 300-pound range.”

“Hunter to Argent.”

Nothing.

The Captain activated his commlink’s permanent connection to T-Hawk Eight. The signal was not returned.

“What the hell–?” Hunter looked out the airlock’s port. There was nothing visible on the Dunkerque’s starboard side. In fact, the stars were completely different than Hunter remembered them.

“We’re not in Gitairn any more.”

“What?” Moody asked, checking the port nearest him. “Where is Argent?”

“A better question colonel is where are we?”

Just then, the thrum of approaching footsteps echoed outside the airlock.

Captain Hunter hefted his weapon, set the power output to maximum and pulled the bolt. He spoke calmly and efficiently.

“Weapons free, ladies and gentlemen, maximum power amplification. Target anything not wearing an Argent insignia. Fire at will.”

Every order was by the book. In fact, the orders were issued in the recommended order from the book. The Argent marine squad quietly and quickly configured their equipment and engaged their tac-suit magnetic and power deflectors. Colonel Moody was as impressed as anyone else in the squad.

Jason Hunter had made a career out of seat-of-the-pants decision-making, but it always seemed when the time came to lead by example, he was able to set aside the hip-shooting frame of mind and do things so as to satisfy a regular line officer his duty had been done. Then again, this wasn’t the first time Moo had served alongside the Captain in a crucial situation and it certainly wasn’t the first time he had seen Hunter switch from maverick to regulation Skywatch.

Yili had stowed her engineering equipment and had a heavy blaster in each hand. Zony was equally well-armed, except she settled for a single pistol. For a few moments, the sound outside stopped. The Argent landing party waited and listened. Only the hum from their equipment’s power packs was audible. Even their highly sensitive Triple-S antenna were silent. There was simply nothing inside or outside the room to translate into audio-visual or tactile information.

Still they waited.

Hunter watched the tiny chronometer he had set. Twenty-six seconds had passed since the sound had stopped. There were no other anomalous readings of any kind. Things were beginning to exceed reason. Only a mechanism would be capable of remaining motionless long enough for the sensitive Triple-S circuitry to completely lose track of it at such short ranges. Even through a ship’s bulkheads, there would be respiration, heartbeat, circulation, weight settling, weight shifting. Something.

“Colonel–”

It happened so fast no human being would have been able to react in time. A calamitous explosion of sound, metal, energy discharge and organic brute force obliterated the airlock’s inboard bulkhead and filled the room with an enormous dark vaguely insect-like shape. Whatever it was, it had a hard, chitinous shell of some kind. A razor sharp combination of claw and pincer slashed across the chamber, slamming three marines against the metal wall. It’s bulk twisted and it prepared another attack.

Colonel Moody was far enough away from the creature to take aim. He pumped at least nine conc rounds from his TK40 into the creature’s side. Each shot strobed white in the suddenly crowded space. Hot fluids, wispy smoke and broken pieces of the creature’s shell exploded in all directions. There was a high-pitched, dissonant scream consisting of at least a half-dozen different voices followed by a spasm that crushed Moo, Yili and two other marines up against the opposite wall.

Once the creature careened to the opposite side, Captain Hunter was able to pull himself far enough out of the way to move. Realizing he didn’t have room to aim his weapon, he drew two seven-inch sonic knives from his tac harness and raised them as high as he could reach. Using all of his strength and weight, he plunged both weapons into the creature’s shell. The contact blades energized the moment they hit the solid carapace.

It was the melee equivalent of setting off two shaped charges against a solid obstacle. The shell cracked and shattered in all directions. Blue and white electrical energy arced across its back. Hunter held on to the two knives’ hilts as long as he could. The vibrations rapidly became unbearable, and threatened to transmit dangerously powerful sympathetic vibrations into his skeletal structure. Moments before the bones in his hands shattered, he released his grip and fell back.

The knives continued doing what they were designed to do. Once in contact with a solid object, their internal power systems poured more and more energy into a narrow-field sonic envelope carried by the gas synthesis produced from the weapon’s electrical capacitors. The destructive effect was terrifying. They operated on roughly the same principle as an underwater welding torch, producing all of their own chemicals, power and destructive motion. The sound rapidly became unbearable. The marine tac suits compensated by producing and amplifying a counter wave. The knives bored their way into the creature, causing more screams and more spasm-like slamming attacks against the Argent squad.

The creature threw itself back in Hunter’s direction, which freed the colonel’s weapon again. He and Yili opened fire with brutal effect. The TK40 blasted two ragged wounds the creature’s side. Yili’s weapons punctured two of its legs and the muscle structures where they attached to its body. It swiped at them weakly but missed. Finally it sank to the floor, twitching.

Hunter retrieved his knives. “Did you say a dozen, colonel?”

“If we don’t count the ones that just appeared on Deck Six, sir.”