So we eventually made it to the disabled ship. The human command hailed them and got no response. I was able to watch events unfold through monitors in the safe room.

Sergeant Gerrick was thankfully alright. He had been grazed by a projectile on his abdomen, but was refusing treatment until the more critically wounded were taken care of. When I found him, he was wiping blood off of his knife onto his sleeve.

I watched helmet camera footage from a soldier escorting a medical team on a transport ship. They were going to board the enemy Frigate and look for survivors. On their way to the ship, they were not shot at. Any communications devices must have been located at the back of the Floriacian ship, as no calls for aid or surrender could be detected.

It was difficult to dock. The ship had begun moving at full power before it had been hit with the railgun. Now it and all of its debris from the mangled engine portion of the ship were still moving at that same momentum. This forced the human cruiser to keep pace with it.

I knew one thing now though, just because the humans were saving these creatures, it did not mean they were friends. Every single gun on this cruiser was trained on the frigate.

I switched to another helmet camera. This time on a first entry soldier. They were going to make sure everything was clear before the medical teams boarded. They attached and cut their way through a thin portion of the hull. When they entered, they were greeted with darkness. Much of the ship's power supply had been destroyed, smaller functions like lighting had been reduced to favor life support and gravity. The squad turned on portable lights on their guns and helmets.

Slowly, they moved through hallways. They had yet to see a single sign of life. Were it not for the furniture and personal effects around, one might have thought it had been abandoned long ago. There was simply no one here.

Before the boarding process, the U.S.S. Indianapolis had done a scan of the frigate when it was close enough. It was done to determine if the ship would stay intact long enough for boarding. It also was able to locate important parts, such as where the command crew was most likely to be.

This squad was moving for that position to hopefully find a command crew, and force a surrender if they hadn’t already. They were moving toward a large door, their firearms swaying, checking every corner. They had two humans stay back on the hallway entrance, covering their exit.

The door to the command room was locked shut, either on purpose, or a malfunction after the engines were hit. One of the humans, who was carrying a different, bulkier looking firearm compared to the others approached the door. He took off a bag on his back and retrieved some sort of rectangular device that he stuck on the door. He then motioned for everyone to get back. They all retreated behind the walls of the hallway entrance, peeking around the corner with guns aimed at the door.

The man pulled out a smaller device, and with the other hand, counted down from three on his fingers. When he reached zero, he squeezed the device. Suddenly the door they were working on exploded! Gods, had they fallen into a trap?

I looked around frantically, but no one seemed concerned. Sergeant Gerrick was simply looking at the monitors.

“What was that explosion?”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“Breaching charge.”

“You mean that was deliberate? I thought it was a trap!”

“Got to get through the door somehow.”

He was of course correct, as usual. When the smoke cleared, the door was definitely open. Or well, more like there was a hole where a door used to be. There were lights still on in the control room. No signs of enemy contact yet.

The humans prepared to breach the room. One took out a small, cylindrical device from a pocket on his chest. He laid his gun down and pulled something off the device. Once he did, he yelled “Stun, going out!” and threw it through the door. Everyone put their heads down.

Seconds later, a loud bang and a flash of light came through the door, then all the soldiers rushed in, firearms trained forward.

They got in and swept the room, only to one by one see what had happened, some dropping their firearms in their slings, the first to enter dropping to his knees. No one said a word, all the humans in the safe room stared in shocked silence at the monitors.

Before them sat an entire Floriacian command crew. Or what was left of them. All dead. Every one of them dead with a wound to the head, and their own coilguns laying beside them. They saw us coming and committed mass suicide.

The soldiers composed themselves. One who was in command faced the rest, “Nothing we can do for them now, let's continue sweeping.”

One radioed back to an operator, still on the cruiser. “Did results from a bioscan come in yet?”

“Only got two blips in a lower level, one in what looks to be a brig, and another in the room adjacent.”

The human squad began moving to the designated area. Now that they had passed the control room, they kept seeing more and more bodies, all seemed to be victims of their own weapons. However, I noticed that all the individuals who had killed themselves were dressed differently than those that boarded us. They had different uniforms, seemingly more formal in nature. I had yet to see any designated for combat.

The way the humans moved was fascinating. Every visible spot around them was constantly viewed by at least one of them as they swept the rooms with their rifles. They clearly were very experienced. I then noticed something that may just be myself reaching, but I was fairly certain that these soldiers were aiming slightly higher than normal, compensating for the extra height the Floriacian soldiers had on them.

They slowly and methodically made their way toward what was expected to be a brig. Many areas had lost power to the lights, as well as some doors that had to be forced open by the humans.

They finally got to the entrance of the brig. It laid in front of them, the room was pitch black. The adjacent room was down the hallway, which also had life signs. They had to get through the brig to get to the next room. The flashlights showed that the room was a long hallway with individual doors lining the sides. The soldiers spoke in hushed tones now.

“We need more visibility… Carson, throw in a flare.”

The larger human from earlier, that I now knew as Carson, took out a thin object from a pocket on his waist. He took a piece off the top, dropped it, and struck the main object on a pad located on his thigh armor piece. This caused the stick to combust in a bright, light blue light. Carson then threw it into the hallway, illuminating all the doors, including the bulkier looking one at the end.

Carson had a weapon I hadn’t seen before. It didn’t have a long rectangular ammunition holder on the bottom like the rifles I had seen. It was larger, with some sort of sliding object on the bottom of the barrel.

They began slowly moving through the hallway. Carson addressed the squad leader, “Should we check these doors first or go for the other life sign in the next room?”

“These look to be holding cells, shouldn’t be a threat to us, the next room may have combatants in it. Let's blow the door open.”

Another human sighed loudly and turned around, “Jesus, Mike, just try to open the fucking door first before you go blowing shit up again.”

“Shut your hole Jackson, Carson, try to open the door.”

My first experience with what must be human slang or at least American slang. They seemed to use the words for emphasis. The sentence would have the exact same meaning if those words were removed.

Everyone stacked behind Carson as he made his way to the door.

“Breach in three… two… one…”

Carson pushed the door, and it opened. Then he was immediately struck in the shoulder plate by a projectile and knocked to the ground. The humans scattered and dragged Carson behind the wall. They were preparing to engage whatever was in the room when something happened.

Frantic screaming came from inside, a language no one understood. It sounded like multiple voices arguing with each other. Then a sound of a struggle. Then silence. Seconds later, a coilgun was thrown through the open doorway, where it landed on the floor in front of the confused humans.

“Are they surrendering?” The squad was confused about what to do.

One of the humans looked through the door and spoke, “Guys, look.”

When they turned the corner, they were greeted with this scene. Four Floriacian individuals. Three dressed in combat gear, one in the formal wear we saw in the command room. However, the one in formal wear was unconscious or dead on the ground, and the three others were standing around it, and looking at the humans. They were unarmed.

One of them slowly moved over to a control panel on the wall, being aimed at by multiple human weapons. They pressed something on the panel, and all the cell doors behind the humans opened.