Sergeant Grays

Well, the crazy plan cooked up by command had worked. The stealth craft we had been given was able to get us right up to the Indomitable Crusade, and latch our ships to the hull, with no sign that the Yalayans were any the wiser. Private Collins was religiously scanning the their radio chatter, but there was no mention of any Terrans in the area. I popped the hatch on my fighter as the rest of the marines popped theirs. After a short spacewalk, we convened where we knew the maintenance hallway was. I signaled for my breachers to start cutting through the hull while the rest of the marines started putting up a tent that could be used as a sort of airlock. If they see there’s a breach in the hull, they will absolutely check that, but if they’re not leaking air, then they’re less likely to check. The tent was finished and filled with air that was Yalayan standard pressure and composition long before the plasma cutters were able to cut a sizeable hole in the hull of the ship. Once that was done, the piece of hull was shifted into the tent and secured. Some of the marines took this time to lift their faceplates to get some “fresh” air, but most of us, myself included decided it wasn’t worth breathing in the byproduct of the cutters.

“’Bout to make history, eh sarge?” came a remark from one of the other marines.

I gave a small chuckle. “If you want to make history so bad, then you’re going first private! Now move! We don’t have much time.”

“The sarge is right,” said Collins, keeping an eye on his tablet as he made his way to the breech. “Engineering is sending down a team to investigate. We have maybe five minutes.”

“You heard the man! Move!” I shouted. One by one, the marines activated their stealth exosuits and jumped into the breach. Before long it was my turn. I took a deep breath and jumped in, subconsciously reorienting myself to the new down of the corridor. I looked around. This is an alien spaceship if I’ve ever seen one. The corridor itself was cylindrical, with handholds everywhere at every height. They must be prepared if there’s ever a loss of gravity. Smart. The corridor also split into different hallways across the length of it, the closest being ten yards away. There were also cameras placed at regular intervals of about thirty yards or so throughout the corridor, some even pointing towards us and where a couple of marines were prying open the access hatch to the vents system.

Thank the good Lord for optical camo. Optical camo had been around for a while, but it wasn’t until about twenty years ago that it got as good as it did. While it wasn’t perfect, it worked well enough that it could fool even the most high-tech cameras. Eyesight, on the other hand, was a different story. The best it could do was make it seem like your camouflaged marine look like heat waves coming off hot asphalt. We didn’t know how good these xenos’ eyesight was, but it would be better to be safe than sorry.

Everyone was at high alert, with weapons pointed down either side of the corridor. I walked over to the vent and nodded at the marines trying to pry it open. “Private Collins, what’s our timetable looking like right now?” I asked.

“About one minute, Sarge,” replied the private nervously.

I then turned to the marines and saw that they were still prying the vent off the wall. I joined in, throwing the whole of my strength into the task. Even with the help of the exosuit, it wasn’t making much of a difference. It wasn’t long before we started to hear the telltale sounds of several aliens making their way down the hallway towards us. Pretty soon, the entire group was at the vent desperately trying to open it. Don’t let this mission end like this. I silently pleaded. After exerting all our energy into opening the vent panel, it finally relented and an opening just large enough for us to slip through was made. Marines started piling into the opening, until it was just me remaining. I was about to enter the vent when out of the corner of my eye, I saw one of the Yalayans round the corner as it chittered absentmindedly to its group.

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To describe a Yalayan would be to describe one of humanity’s worst nightmares. It looked like a praying mantis, but that’s where the similarities ended. First, it’s chitinous exterior was jet black, with accents of red along the joints and the eyes, which were a slightly lighter shade of black. Oh, and it was also six stories tall, how could I forget that? “Shit!” I shouted as I dove into the vent and sprinted to catch up with my men who had already rounded the corner. The Yalayan bent down to inspect the hole in the hull.

It chittered irritably to itself before turning to its companions and chittering some more. I silently cursed the translation software for not working in this moment, because that could have been vital intelligence. I peeked back around the corner to see the Yalayan grab something from a pouch on its abdomen and fill up the hole that we made.

“What do you see Sarge?” asked one of the marines.

“Those damn xenos plugged up our exfil! Damn it, Phil! Why’d you have to screw us over like this?” I practically shouted.

“So what’s the plan?” someone asked.

“The plan never changed. We’ll just have to cut our way out or wait for the mech squads to get here.” I pulled out my holomap. “Alright, we’ll be splitting into two groups, Team A and Team B. Team A will be going for the sensor suite, while Team B is going after the early warning system. You all already know what team you’re on, so split up and give ‘em Hell.”

I got an oorah from the marines as they separated into their teams, going in opposite directions. I went with Team A, but I couldn’t help but look back at Team B, knowing that this will probably be the last time that I will see some of those brave bastards in this life. “Semper fi,” I muttered under my breath as I jogged after my team. Semper fi.

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High Commander Tussus

I sat in silence as I continued to survey the crew of the bridge. Everyone was working in concert, just as protocol dictated. The head engineer finally got a response back from the engineering team that he had sent and was receiving the report now. After a few more moments, he ended the call with his subordinates.

“Status report,” I demanded.

“The engineering team got to the breach and found nothing there except for a hole in the hull and an access panel for the vents system damaged slightly. They were able to fix the hole in the hull with quickcrete and are fixing the bent access panel as we speak, High Commander.”

I thought for a moment before finally responding. “Was there any sign of the Terrans being there?”

“No, High Commander. There aren’t even any signs of the Terrans operating in this solar system.”

A sudden thought hit me in that moment. Even if there was no chance of the Terrans showing up here, it’s better to be secure with knowledge that they weren’t, than not knowing at all. “Perform a sensor sweep of the entire vents system of the ship. We don’t know if the Terrans are here, but if they are, then I want them found,” I practically shouted as I slammed an arm into the armrest.

“As you command, High Commander,” the chief engineer said with a deferential bow before giving the orders to the engineering crew at the sensor suite.

If they are here, then we will root them out and learn all their little secrets. Then they will have nowhere in this galaxy left to hide. But we’d have to find them first.