A cadet sprinted down the hall, wind whipping through his hair as screams and gunfire echoed behind. He had dropped his pistol and left it to rot in some intrepid coroner of the ship. He only had one focus now reaching the bridge. He saw a red lever protruding from the wall and pulled with all his might. One by one more blast doors dropped behind him as he ran. Solid walls of steel crashed down upon the hull. Pulling out a device he attempted to contact the General however the screen shone red with a blocked signal. Ducking through the engineering corridor he jumped over an array of dead bodies to trip on a shattered rifle.

  His nose hit the cold rubble as he clutched the bridge access codes in his hand. A pool of blood now stained his grey uniform, blood that was not his own. Picking himself up to his feet he saw a warm glow in the further corridor. The light's flickered overhead as the entire Epsilon ship shook. An explosion had riddled the halls. Slowly edging his way to the sparks he held his breath careful not to make a sound. To his surprise, he stumbled upon ten Collective specialists, sixteen crewmen and an officer desperately trying to open one of the maintenance hatches, a direct route to the outside. A welding tool and assortment of weapons lay at their feet.

"Get this damn door open now" The Luitenant cried. Her voice echoed across the halls as she stood pistol in hand.

"I'm trying, the entire network was hacked, I have to do it manually" he replied.

The Specialist was rewiring the panel, slowly and carefully attempting to open the latch. His movements were slow and articulate, calculated to every essence.

They all spun in horror as the Cadet walked in, his dark skin was plastered in sweat, eyes squinting in the emergency lights. A bullet whizzed over his shoulder but they stopped when he shouted his name, spit flying from his mouth.

"Cadet Loal don't shoot! Not the creature!"

Relief spread across their faces as the Luitenant pulled him forward, hand resting on his shoulder as she scanned him for injuries.

"Any survivors in the decks?" she asked eyes pleading for answers.

Loal shook his head a tear streaking down his cheek.

"The entire hangar fell in an instant, people scattered everywhere, I heard gunshots as I was running, I activated the secondary doors, that may buy us time" He breathed.

The Luitenant shook as she cast a look towards the thick steel doors.

"The main one's hardly bought us minutes, why hasn't a team come to our rescue were in the middle of Moal for heaven's sake" She cried.

A specialist turned and remarked.

"It's only been twenty minutes since it boarded, they asked for updates every thirty, it could be an hour before they even know something wrong, besides the thing, went straight for the comms, killed four of us in the blink of an eye"

The entire room fell silent, atrocities dancing in their haunted eyes. The officer spoke breaking the silence.

"We need to find a way to turn off this lockdown, were sealed in and being hunted in here" The Luitenant remarked.

The cadet fell back, leaning against the wall, he kept his senses tuned. The entire group sat in the darkness, emergency lights causing shadows to dance among the walls.

"What's that in your hand?" Another soldier asked, his armour was chipped and bent, obviously taking the brunt of some explosion.

"Bridge access codes, the only ones on the ship, I took them from engineering, figured there's no way it can end the lockdown without them, they're useless unless we get to the main consoles" He whispered.

The Lieutenant nodded, a glimmer of hope spreading across her face.

"Good work, how's the hatch going?" She asked.

"Almost through" The soldier grunted.

Sparks flew through the air as the hatch blasted open falling twenty feet to land in the sand below. On the ground a few T-52 soldiers battered and bent stood, staring up into the opening. They motioned with heavy arms for some kind of response. A specialist jumped out, landing in a tuck roll to collapse into the sands.

"What's going on?" A soldier asked. The rest of the crew jumped, one by one into the safety of the sands.

The crewman started to exit, standard protocol. One broke his leg on the fall, but they seemed relatively unhindered. In the end only four specialists, the lieutenant and cadet remained.

"If we use those codes we might be able to wipe the drives and ensure the ship remains clean" She cried.

The cadet stood eyes wavering. He looked at the ground below to see the sand-whipped clouds overhead. Peace in the shattered plains of war.

  Suddenly, the blast door behind them began to bend. A loud clang resounded as the metal stretched and tore. A white hand protruded from the opening. The Luitenant shoved a specialist into the hole to hear him land softly below and then approached the opening's side console. Tearing the codes out of Lola's hand she threw him outside as well and punched in the numbers causing a secondary hatch to take the place of the opening. At the last second, she threw the codes into the desert below, they floated gracefully to the surface as the opening sealed. Three specialists and the Luitenant stood, eyes fixed as the monster shredded the remains of the steel. Boot stepping forward, the creature smirked as it cast a glance across the room. Red light glinting across its blaster-scorched armour the Sent lumbered forward. The Luitenant pointed her revolver and fired, constantly unleashing pulsing attacks into the creature's armour. Bullets deflected from the plate mail to ricochet into the hull, leaving gaping hopes to the interior in their wake.

  A specialist charged forward, exoskeleton bending to throw him into the Sent's path. He fired four times with his rifle as he sprinted the projectiles piling into the enemy's shoulder and sending it tearing backwards. The Sent grunted in pain as it grabbed the barrel in front and twisted it into submission. Then with lightning-fast reflexes, it grabbed the Specialist's arm, blocked his energy blade with his own hand and twisted. The soldier screamed in agony as the monster then punched through his helmet and into the wall behind. Blood pooled onto the ground as the two other specialists screamed in horror. Snapping out of shock they both tackled the monster, exoskeletons pounding and kicking the creature to the ground, The Luitenant continued to fire, this time at the Sent's eyes. Aiming for the weak spot, the being screeched in horror. Green blood oozed from its helmet as it clutched the ground wheezing. For a moment all stood silent, had they done it, had they killed the beast?

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  The monster grabbed the Specialist's leg, crunched the exoskeleton and then began to kick repeatedly. For a moment it seemed evenly matched, the pain too much to bear. The two soldiers fought, blocking, jabbing, and striking at their enemy. Like demons interlocked the three engaged in deadly peril. At last, the creature rose, eyes seemingly healed. It grabbed the specialist's leg and cast him to the ground. The second soldier punched the Sent in the chest. The creature flew back pinning itself against the wall. The Luitenant banged against the door running towards the elevator. Fear struck her eyes. Recovering from the fall the first specialist swiped at the enemy, energy blade drawn and ready. It singed the armour turning it black but not penetrating.

   The Sent punched him in the head, knocking him out cold. The other kicked the creature and shot with his pistol causing shockwaves to ripple down its chest. The Sent stood shocked before reaching out and grabbing the Specialist. It thrashed him about, to throw him into the wall. Casting a glance at the three corpses it stood firm, cold eyes scanning the mesh of blood. Then raising a firm hand, the beast set out a single salute. As it stood, a pillar of might among the dead, admiration glazed its lifeless face.

Ten minutes later blood splattered across the command deck's empty floor, the array of consoles littered with bodies and pieces of smouldering rubble. The sent stood towering over the cold lifeless corpse of the ship's general, her blaster lay smoking a few feet away, her body littered with countless bullet holes. Next to her, three soldiers were sprawled, their scorched remains decapitated by swift blaster shots, their amour cracked and split. A sword sat plunged into the hull, blood dripping from its blade. The Sent bent over lifting the general's cold corpse gently in his arms. His hand ran along her vest, searching for the access codes. To his demise, none could be found,

In front, the glass could be seen to be partly shattered, a fracture in the impenetrable solution. The mutilated remains of two hundred collective soldiers watered the tarnished halls of the once great warship, every single noble face now a rotting carcass, perished through an enemy's blade. One by one they had fallen, one by one massacred by the harrowing emotionless creature which now loomed over the ship's controls. It sat, fighting against the ship's firewall. The Sent's fingers danced upon the keys as it cursed.

They had fought with honour and dignity down to the last rooms and service tunnels. They had never given up courage or fled in disbelief, yet that was their weakness, they were unable to see when death itself rode with the enemy. they failed to tell the difference between a time to run and a time to turn and face one's foes. Their pale exanimate faces were strewn across the battleship, all hunted and killed within moments. It was a sad sight to see all these lives lost and for almost no reason, souls violently torn from their bodies for an unseen ultimatum. Minutes passed as it bashed and rewired, skillfully and meticulously cutting into the vessel and reshaping it as his own.

   After ten minutes, he got the shield online, an invisible ray streaking across the vessel and cloaking it from the world above. In thirty, the lockdown ended. Light returned to normal as alerts blared overhead. Deck's four through six had been completely destroyed. The engine was crippled and communications were gone.

It stalked along the controls and executed series after series of commands, the ship now in complete control the Sent ran its plated hand along with the keyboard with glee. Raising from the crumbled sand, the Sent howled as the ship sped, pieces of metal crumbling off its corroded hull.

Below the survivors, few in number watched as their vessel departed, horror set into their hearts as they awaited rescue.

The Sent sat back in the Commander's station, feet resting as he waited for the ship to reach its fated destination. He ignored the warning lights, and screeching alarms to close his bloodshot eyes for some well-earned rest.

In a matter of hours, the craft juddered and shook as it reached the military compound. Ash and smoke billowed from its shiny towers, swirling around the ship, a cascade of fighters and bullets formed a storm of destruction, their vast blows shaking the great craft every few seconds. The Bridge shook, wires and cords bursting into flames around him. A shockwave rippled through the hull.

The pilot of the destroyer ignored the piles upon piles of burning metal that were being lacerated from his ship, taking no care of the fact the very ground he stood on twisted and cracked with the burning heat of hellfire. He simply gazed into the vast beyond, his unseen eyes daggers sweeping through the landscape to survey for his elusive prey. With one single swift motion, he punched a hole in a nearby panel, his fist breaking the steel with ease.

Taking a small square device from his belt he placed it upon the scurried coils and frayed electronics, the moment the box grazed the surface of the silicon it began to expand, its own coils and wires sprouting from concealed openings, the wires spreading out to cast a firm web over its predecessor, it was taking over, spreading its blackened trail through the ship’s mainframe, a deadly virus maliciously tearing away piece by piece at the vessels imperceptible lines of code.

The beast was morphing the software of the ship to be its own, it wiped every trace the ship had belonged to the collective and was turning its controls into ones of his own familiarity, within a matter of seconds, the ship turned off, still hovering, yet the entire system sputtered to a halt, the humm of the electronics no longer protruding through the walls.

Outside the attackers were amazed to see the shield of the ship disengage, their fighters swarming in to kill, like vultures hovering over a piece of carrion, they fiercely layed waste to the spacecraft, showing no intention of mercy only a bleeding desire to annihilate.

Following these few seconds of putrid darkness, the vessel suddenly powered on, crippled by the damage it sustained in those mere moments, in the eyes of its enemies it was a miracle the vessel even stayed afloat, pillowing towers of smoke gushed from its open veins, its thrusters sputtering to keep control, it's very hull no longer shining bright but blackened and corroded almost split in two by the sheer might of its opponents, but something was different, something wasn’t the same. On the ship's bridge, an entire section of the ceiling had fallen down, fire sweeping through much of the chamber, the sent took no notice of his surroundings, his eyes fixed on the computers, no longer a vibrant green and orange projection, the colour had changed to a startling red. The linguistics of the ship transformed from an array of common letterings to a captivating swirl of runes and exotic symbols.

The sent placed its slender gloved hand upon the touchscreen and engaged the targeting. Using the human biosignature it scanned every last ship in the vicinity for its quarry, the scanners prying eyes stabbing through the vacant air and scouring the regiments of prey. At last, the computer halted its search stumbling upon a gleaming visage of an orange and white speeder. The sent smiled beneath his layered mask, a grin spreading ear to ear. Pressing twice on the screen he laid in a new course, his hands flighting upon the assemblage of buttons.

Outside the forces below were startled by the change of attack, the Epsilon ship turning its tarnished back to the barrage of bullets and tailing a newfound challenger. The sent laughed, tearing its head back in a bone-chilling spurt of sound.

This would be easy, it cried, this would be fun.