Orillion Space, Tralis

The guards were surprised to see Klora.

She was immediately recognizable standing next to the humanoid guard, under the hall's yellow lights.

As a female Avalian she was a 5ft tall feathered humanoid. Her feathers were blue except for a strip of red running down the middle of her body.

She wore black flex-vest and pants, marked with her rank. Light enough for her species to move comfortably in, but not built to offer protection in combat.

Her wings were stunted, her hands were tipped with sharp thrusting talons, and her legs were feathered down to the beginning of her scaled claws.

Klora’s face, too, was lightly feathered, and beakless.

So, as the guards turned the corner and saw their first officer next to one of the spies that Nedrius had smuggled aboard, they couldn’t help wonder just what the Reave was going on.

They had been rushing to the power core to stop Nedrius from crippling the ship.

Their coms weren’t working so this team of four, silver-armoured humanoids, decided to head to the power room themselves.

Various thoughts flashed through their minds in an instant.

However, they were well trained, they weren’t going to be hesitant in an emergency.

The leading two automatically raised their blasters and fired.

When an enemy is in sight, you don’t hesitate, they thought.

Klora flapped to the side, a swirl of high powered air was left in her wake as she removed herself from the blasters’ line of sight.

Bright green laster bolts hurtled down the corridor, but they weren’t aimed at her.

The spy sucked in a startled breath.

His personal energy shield rippled orange over his body as it absorbed the blaster bolts.

He raised his own and sent scorching laser back down the corridor, without any room to dodge two of the leading guards were struck in the chest.

Knocked backwards they counted their blessings. Their heavy chest plates had saved them from the bolts, the silver metal was scorched by the laser.

Before they could relax two more precisely aimed shots followed and struck them in their exposed faces, exploding through their skulls and killing them instantly.

The two guards behind had taken the opportunity to dart back around the corner into cover.

They stuck their blasters down the hall and loosed ill-aimed bolts.

One crouched and one stood, allowing them to fire around the wall simultaneously.

The spy, grinned. This was the kind of battle he enjoyed.

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Orillion fools, he thought.

He wasn’t worried. The gear that the Terrans had supplied him with was far above anything these Orillions had.

A weak infiltrator gets killed, but a powerful one escapes, that was the motto drilled into him during training.

After graduating, he believed himself to be one of the powerful.

He stood brazenly in the middle of the corridor and let his shield absorb the incoming lasers.

First officer Klora, had no idea what was happening, until she saw the orange shield glitter around the guard.

That was Terran technology! She realized.

The Orillion Union lacked personal shields. The energy shields they had required a large power source, so they could only protect their vessels and surface bases.

Seeing 2 of her crew killed in front of her, sent shivers of anger through her body.

There was a time for pretty words and a time for action, Klora didn’t need long to figure out what this situation demanded.

She acted immediately.

When the guards ducked back behind cover after firing a burst of laser into the spy’s shields, the first officer leapt towards the spy.

Caught off-guard, he didn’t have the time to point his rifle at this new threat.

Klora swung her leg around and struck the blaster with her claw, knocking it from his hands.

She saw the guards at the end of the hallway pop out once more.

In a moment she had flapped her wings and pushed off with her powerful legs.

She jumped out of their line of fire and allowed them to send a stream of buzzing laser into the distracted guard.

She didn’t know when those lasers would break through.

Eventually the shield would fail. But Klora knew she had a better chance of finishing him off with a direct kick, as energy shields couldn’t defend against physical attacks.

The guards had no time to mourn their dead comrades.

They knew that Nedrius was most likely already inside the power room. And they hoped to kill this spy quickly with Klora’s help.

The first officer was so fast!

That was their thought when they saw her diving in and disarming the spy and then leaping out of their line of fire.

Klora had dived back and allowed more laser to break over the shield.

The spy cursed to himself. He felt safe for the time being, but he couldn’t let them sustain their fire for much longer.

He plucked a disk from his belt, it expanded into a cylinder.

Klora saw the spy throw the cylinder of white metal down the corridor towards the guards.

First officer Klora suspected what it was, there weren’t that many possibilities.

She knew she couldn’t let that reach them.

‘Take cover,’ she yelled.

Pulling out her pistol she aimed and fired at the small chunk of metal.

The thin blue laser from her sidearm connected with the disk just before it passed the corner sheltering the guards.

They had heeded Klora’s warning and had ceased firing to duck behind cover.

On impact the disk exploded prematurely in a green ooze of corrosive gel.

It sprayed over the corridor walls, eating through the metal sheeting, sizzling and staining it a bubbling yellow.

One of the guards screamed, the gel had splattered randomly, some had splashed onto the ceiling and dripped down onto the guard.

He had a sizzling hole in the back of his armour, by the time he had screamed the gel had already passed through his body.

His choked cries and sobs died out.

The guard died where he had crouched for cover.

Klora knew his death wasn’t an easy one. At least it was quick though, she thought.

She had to stay focussed. Running forward she continued sending blue bolts into the rippling orange shield of the humanoid spy.

The spy drew his knife and ignited the blade.

Klora eyed the 12 inches of flickering grey laser with surprise.

They were rare weapons.

One mistake and it’ll be over, she thought.

Klora kept running, closing the distance in an instant. A smile was on her face. If I win that’ll be mine, she thought.

As she neared him, she heard something behind her.

Without thinking she moved aside. Just as a bolt flew through the place she had previously been and smacked into the spy.

The other guard was charging down the corridor, firing his blaster rifle as he ran.

He was screaming. All 3 members of his squad had died in front of him. The last guard, who he had seen die so painfully, had been his son.

Klora didn’t know any of this. And saw the guard as a soldier that had lost his mind under pressure.

She was tempted to send a bolt into him herself after he had nearly taken her out.

Instead she kept firing into the spy’s shield from the flank as the guard threw down a green barrage of laser from the front.

The spy had turned to face the guard. The constant thumps of laser fire would distract him from handling the first officer.

Rather than stopping as he approached the guard continued to charge.

The spy was perfectly confident in taking out the enraged guard. What he didn’t anticipate, however, was a suicidal dash.

Klora watched as the guard barrelled into the spy.

His orange shield had held out against their laser fire, but it provided no defence against the heavy collision of the guard’s body.

The spy shoved the laser knife through the glistening silver armour of the guard, the chest-plate barely held back the point of the knife a moment before it was rent apart. The spy viciously twisted the laser knife inside the guard, slicing apart his insides.

The spy was faced with another crisis and couldn't enjoy his kill for long.

He had been knocked off balance and the collision with the guard had broken something inside him.

He could taste his own blood in his mouth and felt himself lifted off his feet from the impact.

The spy fell back as the guard’s body continued with its momentum and landed atop him, smashing the wind form his lungs. He gasped and spluttered, blood dripped from his mouth.

This can't be the end for me, he thought, I'm one of the powerful, I have a destiny! Dying at the hands of these Orillions filled him with rage, he wanted to prove himself to his Terran masters.

But, Klora Ascip wasn’t one to miss her chance.

She felt no sympathy for this creature, he had killed her crew, and damaged the Damas. She relished the chance to end him.

In a flash, of feathers and the screech of her claws against the metal floor she appeared over the spy's fallen body.

He hadn't regained his feet or raised the knife to defend himself. Klora was thrust her taloned fingers like an arrow toward his throat, unmoved by the hate she saw in his eyes.

Time to die, scum, she thought.

‘Stop!’ A deep, powerful voice boomed from the opened door to the power core.

First officer Klora recognized the voice, it belonged to the security officer, Nedrius.