Futuristic The Dogs of War

[Vumpalouska]

At the outskirts of the Niose System...

The object was big, dark and obviously artificial. And it had most definitely not been there yesterday.

For an instant, something very wrong had happened to local spacetime approximately 6.2 AU from the small red star, and now there was a new astronomical object in the system, already past the orbit of the outermost ice giant and falling towards the inner system. At its current speed and direction, it would pass the ecliptic plane in three weeks and leave the star system behind in two and a half months. At its closest, it would come within 400,000 kilometers of the habitats orbiting the system's largest gas giant.

The object was roughly conical in shape and larger than most mountains; even by careful estimates, its mass was in the order of one billion metric tons. It was covered in armor plates made of dark grey material, with a huge parasol-shaped frontal shield on one end and a bulging engine cluster on the other. Even a cursory observation revealed that the object - ship? - was badly damaged: huge scorch marks darkened its surface and many of its armor plates were cracked or missing. It was slowly rotating as it fell, leaving behind a trail of debris that, if left unattended, might eventually end up being pulled into the gravity wells of the inner system planets and strike their surface with potentially destructive consequences.

And yet, despite the seemingly catastrophic damage, the object was not completely dead. There was still some power inside, and the object was radiating in all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum, from deep infrared all the way to gamma rays. Parts of it were covered in what looked like shiny metallic mold, slowly growing over the most damaged parts like eschar covering a wound.

So far the object had made absolutely no attempts to contact the residents of the Niose system. If there was anyone alive inside, they were either unable or unwilling to initiate communication.

 

[Beetlelion12]

Admiral Alexanderus Niose, founder of the Settled System named after himself, Niose, stared at the newly captured images of the hulking object.
It had given the system quiet a startling wake up when the image of this hulking ship had been reported.
While new recordings of this from gas giant satellites and habitats were being sent to him, Alexanderus and his council presumed it were a ship; And a large one at that.

He could only think of the Granda Unu, Sol League’s largest warship at 12.5 Kilometers in length, to be it’s superior in terms of size. Granted, size didn’t matter when it came to potential fighting.
Fortunately for himself and the colonists the thing didn’t appear to be making any aggressive moves towards them.

Granted, it also appeared to have taken a seemingly substantial amount of damage from wherever it came from;
And however it got here Alexanderus thought to himself. The monolith wasn’t there one second and the next it was already past the sixth planet away from the Star.
It didn’t appear to have a Warp Screen Drive or even a Warp Pulse Drive or else the Warp Matter would’ve been detected fluctuating the spacetime it was confined to.

Whatever this was this was clearly alien in nature.
“Have our messages been sent to it Roswell?” The Admiral asked the council member made in charge of contacting and studying the craft.
“Yes Alex, but either these people are unable or unwilling to contact us at the time” Roswell stated.

Alexanderus kept down a groan of irritation.
This is how the Lizards down on the planet must have been feeling right now; apprehension as can be.
“Send a small ship with a couple people on board Roswell. I want people studying it up close” The Admiral ordered.

Roswell nodded to the head council member and acquaintance as he called up David Evans, a close colleague and someone he knew personally would more than love to get his hand on an alien spaceship.
When Roswell was gone he sighed ever so softly, making sure that no one outside the room would hear him.
He was their leader and they would need someone strong in case things were down the tube.

 

[Vumpalouska]

There was no initial reaction from the object as the Niosean craft approached it. But then, that was hardly a great surprise: judging from the object's poor condition, it was unclear if any of its sensors remained functional; there was a good chance that it was as blind and deaf as it appeared. As the local vessel got even closer, a sizeable chunk of charred hull material detached from the object's hull and went tumbling into space. Unless someone would be willing to waste fuel and propellant to retrieve it, its current vector would take it to deep space and, after an immeasurably long time, into the vicinity of some distant star where it would be someone else's problem.

Or maybe it would travel forever without encountering anything at all, eventually bearing witness to the heat death of the universe.

Up close, the occupants of the Niosean craft could see with their own eyes what remote scans had already all but confirmed: the object was definitely a huge ship. And judging from the weapon ports and missile tubes visible on its sides, it was a warship. Numerous large hangar bays - some protected by sliding armored doors the size of city blocks but most blasted open to vacuum - suggested it had once carried a complement of smaller craft as well.

Ionizing radiation levels rose sharply in the alien ship's vicinity. It was nothing a properly shielded craft couldn't take, but an unprotected human would absorb a lethal dose in under four minutes. The ship's oversized main engine cluster was glowing like a small sun in the infrared range. There was clearly some kind of reaction going on inside it - possibly a runaway nuclear or even a total conversion reaction. If it was the latter, it would be a bad thing. Very bad. It meant that a significant percentage of the ship's mass could end up annihilated at once, which, if it happened too close to an inhabited planet, could irradiate an entire continent, not to mention blasting the ship's remains in all directions with a relativistic velocity. If the Nioseans decided to board the alien ship, trying to fix whatever was wrong with its reactor would be one of their top priorities, or their visit might end up being a really short one.

Suddenly, there was an ominous beep from the Niosean craft's control panel. A lone laser beam, too low-powered to be mistaken for a weapon, had just reached out from the immense alien ship and briefly scanned them.

Someone was home after all.

 

[Beetlelion12]

Admiral Alexanderus stared intensely at the screen in front of him.
It was almost an hour behind in terms of how recent it had been filmed but like everyone expected the giant derelict was a spaceship.

Its weapon systems were like that of a Sol Spacecraft so they fortunately would know how to deal with them if things came down to it.
Well, if it had to come down to fighting.
“Roswell, have me received any other messages from the Rendlesham?” Alexanderus asked the head of contacting and researching.

“That’s the last video they sent so far” Roswell said, rubbing his chin harshly, a clear sign the scientist was stressed out.
Alex could understand that. The pressure was immense right now.

“Wait… I’m getting something” Roswell said, putting it onto the big screen for all to see.
It only was for about five second but the Rendlesham picked up a low powered laser peer over itself.
Apparently if someone or something was in there, it was alive.

The Admiral received a quick feeling of relief and then immediate stress.
However, he put that on the back burner, making sure the nanobots in his head did their job.

“Contact Lance Corporal Taylor to prepare herself and Professor Eisen for potential contact from these people” Alexanderus ordered, getting a few nods from Roswell and his staff.
While they did that, he told his defense fleet, a measly 25 Patrol ships and 3 Corvettes for more heavy firepower, granted this also didn't include his cruiser Ashur, to be prepared to fire weapons just in case things got aggressive.
Granted, he highly doubted any of that would be useful against a ship like that.

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Lance Corporal Taylor stared at the screen lazily while she let the Professor go about his work, studying the little information that the ship could get from the unresponsive ship.
She had no idea why she specifically had to go about being this scientist bodyguard.It was understandable that someone had to go and potentially protect the smart one, but they should’ve known better than to throw her out here.
She wasn’t any good with diplomatic situations, even when just the second hand.

Taylor would have preferred stay in her home habitat sip on some nice Sol wine or even Tau Cetian Vodka.

“Anything new happening Professor?” The Lance Corporal asked for what seemed like the 100th time.
The smartest man in the Niosian system sighed, staring blankly at here.

“Save for that how laser presumably scanning us, no. It might as well be dead as a rock” Eisen said, his surprising rough and tumble voice coming out of a relatively skinny body.
“You know as well as I do that, I’m just bored Professor Eisen” Taylor said, giving what was closest to an apology for her.
Eisen just softly shook his head and went back to his work.
This was going to be a long trip.

 

[Vumpalouska]

Followed closely by the Niosean exploration vessel, the damaged alien ship continued its long fall through the star system. The runaway reactions going on in its reactor were slowly intensifying, but according to Professor Eisen's current calculations, it would be several days before they reached a critical point. There were no further detectable active scanning attempts from the alien ship, almost as if it had lost all interest in its tailer.

Further analysis of the data pouring in from the Rendlesham's own instruments revealed relatively little. There were massive but controlled power fluctuations inside the alien ship, which suggested that energy was being actively directed to different places at a time. The metallic "mold" growing over the most damaged sections seemed to consist of advanced nanites that were busy repairing the hull. The tiny machines were apparently cannibalizing less vital parts of the ship itself in order to get the raw materials they needed to repair more important ones. The damage inflicted on the alien ship was almost certainly deliberate, probably the result of massive space battle: Eisen could identify holes most likely caused by shaped kinetic impactors, blast marks consistent with nearby fusion missile detonations and clean cuts made with high energy lasers. The fact that the ship was still in one piece was quite remarkable.

Then, he noticed something very interesting. On the parasol-shaped frontal shield of the alien ship, almost completely obscured by a large scorch mark but just visible in high-resolution images taken up close and ran through the most advanced analysis programs aboard the Rendlesham, was text - possibly the name of the ship. And it was not written in some incomprehensible alien hieroglyphs but in very familiar Latin letters. Even after a tenfold sharpening with the best image reconstruction programs aboard, some of the text was simply too badly damaged to be visible, but what could be retrieved read:

D.. ..YS

Further high-resolution visual scans revealed that some of the airlocks on the outer hull were numbered with equally familiar Arabic numerals.

The ship, it seemed, was not of alien origin after all.

 

[Beetlelion12]

Admiral Alexanderus Niose stared at the behemoth of a ship projected in front of him.
This is how the rest of Humanity felt when they first saw Unue for the first time Alex thought to himself.


Considering the size of the ship the power requirements had to be huge, especially if it carried a good amount of passengers or residents.
“Are we getting any life signatures” The admiral asked, once again getting a negative.
“The armor of the ship, while expected of something that size and foreign of any known Sol design, seems to be able to repel any microwave lasers” Roswell said, pulling up a diagram for himself and the council members to see.

“What of the ticking time bomb of a reactor?” Cal Inridu, the head of Niose system’s defense, asked somewhat irritated.
For the most part the man was as calm as they came but considering the added stresses of an unknown ship along side the fact that it was due to explode in a few days leading to who knows how much destruction to civilian lives and infrastructure it wasn’t difficult to see why he was a tiny bit riled up.

“Once we have the Lance Corporal and Professor get inside and scan for a short cut to the reactor we’ll follow their path and do what we can to deactivate it” Alexanderus stated in a matter of fact tone.
“And if worst comes to pass I’ll personally transport the thing on my cruiser as far as possible from the colony and set off a couple Warp Matter Warheads to spaghetify the thing like it just went through a black hole. I presume you don’t have an issues with the idea?” Alex asked the head of defense, getting only a silent nod in reply.
“Good, now Officer Inridu, please order a detachment of marines and engineers to prepare boarding as soon as the pathway is found”

"What about the clearly visible battle scars of the ship?" the Head of Defense said more than asked, as if trying to make reasons .
Though not saying anything Roswell and Alexanderus were just as curious about how such a big ship of seemingly human creation had been so badly damaged.
"We will ask any survivors who can recount their tale about them and if no one is on board then we will look through the computer logs for data on the situation" Alex said.

"Now Officer Inridu I do disdain repeating myself so just do what I ordered and let this thing get on it's way" The Admiral said and this time there was words uttered , just a curt salute and a walking out the door.
Alexanderus sighed, guessing a situation like this would not be a one off thing.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eisen stared at the holographic projection of the ship, feeling like he'd been doing this for days now. However, according to the ship chronometer only One Earth Hour.
He would have sped up his subjective rate of time but Councillor Roswell told him to stay ever vigilant in case something new appeared that could be reported.
However, somewhat thankfully, the seemingly pointless staring came to an end from Taylor's word.

"Admiral Alexanderus wants us to find an airlock we can fit the door into or some area in the hangar bay" Taylor said, getting a tiny eyebrow raise from Eisen.
"He said that he wants us to scan the ship for a path way to the reactor so they can get it out before it malfunctions" Taylor said, as if reading the professors mind.
Eisen mentally nodded understand the logic in that.

"Ok, I'll suit up for this, give me a minute" Eisen said as he got up from the seat and walked towards the locker containing spacesuits.
Though he personally didn't enjoy being in a spacesuit it did beat sitting on his butt all day and watching video feds from drones surround the ship.
Plus, he'd get to see the inside of a newly designed spaceship, that couldn't be too bad could it?

 

[Vumpalouska]

It took several additional scans from the drones swarming around the unknown vessel, but eventually they were able to identify a large, relatively undamaged hangar bay that could accommodate the Rendlesham and seemed to have a functional airlock as well. The hangar bay was located in the barrel-shaped midsection of the vessel, around halfway down from the frontal shield. The distance from the airlock to the engine cluster and the main reactor was still several kilometers, but it seemed very likely that this was as close to them as they were going to get... unless they were willing to attempt to cut their way in.

The hangar bay was mostly empty and open to vacuum, its armored doors having been blasted off. The walls were damaged by shrapnel, but otherwise the bay was mostly intact. Threre was only one other ship in the bay: a dark, elongated craft about 65 meters long, with a massive fixed forward-facing main gun and four bent radiator panels mounted on thick spars that jutted out from its hull. The craft had been gutted by the shrapnel and would probably never fly again. The airlock at the back of the hangar bay was still intact, however, and, judging from the dim lights around it, still had at least emergency power. The airlock was numbered "A-331".

 

[Beetlelion12]

Eisen looked around the hangar bay, staring at the decent sized shuttle mostly as Lance Corporal Taylor walked out of their own shuttle's door, carrying a standard, albeit more outdated, portable railgun riffle.
"Are you sure we're gonna even need that? This is a human ship after all" The Professor said as he turned to look at the soldier.
"Better safe than sorry. Besides, considering how damaged the ship is, we can't be sure if a boarding didn't happen" Taylor said as she walked towards the door that lead into the ship.

Eisen almost snorted at the idea but quickly realized that could be the case.
Immediately after that thought he did his best to catch up with the soldier as soon as possible.

Once at the door leading out of the hangar they could see emergency lights fill the hallway, giving an ominous feeling to the whole thing.
As the two walked down the hall they started to pass by doors, however when it trying to open them they stayed suck, most likely sealed with locks and vacuum seals.
Eventually the managed to find a door that would open. When it opened a vertical cylinder shaped room appeared, and a set of holographic buttons appeared on the wall.
"An elevator" Eisen said allowed. "I'm quite surprised it's still working."

"We'll see about that" Taylor said as she briskly walked past Eisen and into the presumed elevator.
Fortunately the room didn't attack her, at least at that moment.
The words that came out of a stereo were foreign to them, yet they could tell from the sounds that it at least appeared to be human in origin.

Fortunately the numbers, arabic numerals, were understandable.
"So, what floor is the reactor?" Taylor asked as she stared at the panel.
"I think it's on forty-two but..." Before Eisen could finish he sentence Taylor pressed the projected button.

The doors quickly shut after that, closing slowly as the pod was transported to what was presume to be the reactor room.
However, what was seen next could not have been prepared for.

 

[Vumpalouska]

The elevator opened to an intersection of tube-like zero-gravity corridors, illuminated by dim emergency lights. Directly ahead, the large main corridor led - presumably - towards the reactor, while half a dozen smaller corridors and side entrances branched off to other parts of the ship. Holographic signs above the various side entrances were now dark and without power, so it was hard to tell where they would lead. Some of the entrances had metal plaques as well, but the language was unknown; there were some familiar aspects in it, however, which suggested that it was related to or derived from modern languages.

There was no detectable gravity, so in order to move around, Taylor and Eisen would either have to use their spacesuits' reaction packs or the small handles placed along the corridors at approximately one-meter intervals. Upon closer examination Eisen noted that the handles didn't quite look like they were designed with human limbs in mind, although his attention was almost immediately directed to a much more alarming phenomenon: The large corridor ahead was almost completely filled with black, oily lumps ranging in diameter from a few centimeters to over two meters. They appeared to be growing from the corridor itself, having in some cases broken through its metal plating. The lumps' surface looked soft, wet and fungus-like in texture. Some of them pulsated and oscillated slowly, as if breathing. Seemingly at random, broken pieces machinery and vein-like tubes were sticking out from the mass of lumps. Some of the tubes were leaking oily black substance, which coalesced into small floating droplets in the corridor's microgravity.

Unlike in the hangar bay, there was a thin atmosphere in the corridor, with a pressure of approximately 0.5 atm. While the atmosphere consisted of the standard Terran mixture of oxygen, nitrogen and argon, it was heavily contaminated with various impurities, and Taylor and Eisen's suit sensors reported that it would probably be a bad idea to try and breathe it. The air was cold and humid, causing their spacesuits' faceplates to fog up.

They had barely had time to take in the unsettling scene when they heard movement ahead. Something big was pushing its way through the black, oily mass towards the soldier and the scientist.

 

[Beetlelion12]

"Eisen and Taylor have both reported going into the spaceship via shuttle communication devices" a soldier under Admiral Alexanderus Niose said, getting a nod in response.
"Good , we need to know where that reactor is asap" Alex said, leaving out the part of Inridu bothering him constantly about it.

"How deep are they into the ship?" the Admiral asked the Scientist Council Member.
"From what information we could gather they appear to be heading close to it, maybe a few minute at maximum until they get into it" Roswell said, getting a nod of approval.
Then, all of a sudden, the face of the usually stoic Roswell changed to that of one of confusion

"Admiral, it appears that there is a unidentified... thing going towards Professor Eisen and Lance Corporal Taylor" Roswell stated with a bit of perplexity in his voice as he pulled up the video feed.
Sure enough the image of something big, around half as big as the room as far as Alex and the rest could tell, was trying to get to the two through a tar-like looking mass surrounding them.
Almost immediately Alexanderus wanted to order the marine to make sure that she wouldn't fire upon immediately.

However, he knew that was a stupid idea seeing as it would be around an hour and a half before a message would be received.
For now, all he could do was wait and watch; and pray they weren't killed from the unknown.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eisen could only stare in a mix of curiosity and fear towards the unclear looking thing.
However, Lance Corporal Taylor was quick to react.
Pulling Eisen and herself behind the closest thing to cover, some toppled over broken piece of machinery that only came up to the knees when she and Taylor bent down, she aimed her rifle at the thing,

"Stand down.... whatever you are. I will be forced to shoot if you get too close to us" Taylor said, doing her best to order whatever the thing was.
Though she highly doubted it would understand her, she did think that it might understand her tone of voice.
She hoped that would be the case at least.

 

[Vumpalouska]

What emerged from the oily mass of lumps and machine parts was unlike anything they had seen before.

It consisted of a bloated, wire and tube ridden cancerous mass with at least a dozen mismatched limbs. A few of the limbs looked vaguely human, but most were just protrusions of bone, metal and cartilage. Some looked broken. More of the black, tar-like substance was dripping from hundreds of wart-like pores all over the thing's main body. By far the most unsettling aspect, however, was the mouth: an impossibly wide but otherwise almost obscenely human-like gash with fleshy lips, full of jagged, serrated teeth, permanently bent into a huge deranged smile. Other than the mouth, the creature had no clear features and no visible eyes or other sense organs. It was making a moaning, electronically distorted sound which suggested it was in pain. Or in ecstasy.

The thing moved with alarming speed and precision in spite of its bulk. Once it had fully emerged, it convulsed rapidly and turned to face Taylor and Eisen. Despite its seeming lack of eyes, the two humans immediately got the feeling that it was staring at them.

For a few seconds it did nothing.

Then it let out a blood-curdling scream. Several thin metal whips burst from its main body and uncoiled like snakes.

Still screaming, the creature lunged at Taylor and Eisen.

 

[Beetlelion12]

Eisen would've puked, and then most likely been killed by the creature, if it weren't for the quick reaction time of Lance Corporal Taylor.
She quickly pulled the Professor out of the way of the metal whips connected to the thing.
"You've got to be shitting me" Taylor muttered under her breath as she sent rapid bursts of rifle fire at the thing while running to the elevator.

Though she did hear screaming and moaning, she couldn't tell if it was being damaged by the rounds.
With her current luck, most likely not.

She then quickly shoved Eisen inside the elevator, pressing the button for the floor they were originally on.
"Get back to the fucking Rendlesham. I'm buying you time to get out of here" Taylor quickly said as she turned back to the thing. narrowly dodging the metal whip as the elevator door closed and the professor plummeted down the elevator shaft.

Taylor then, mostly out of emotion than any logic, spared the beast with tungsten rounds, hearing the somewhat satisfying noise of bullets tearing through flesh.
However, even with a full clip of rifle ammo it didn't really seem to affect it.
Once again a moan left the mouth of the creature.
She then sighed in irritation, reloading the gun with expert speed.

However, that didn't help much as she was grabbed by the beast in it's whips.
She felt its unnatural warmth coil around her waist as Taylor pulled at the thing to release.
Whatever this was it was stronger than her enhancements could deal with.

Spraying another clip around the mouth, a liquid she hadn't noticed before oozed out of it, dripping down the body and some even covering the screen she looked through.
Losing her sight she quickly felt her weapon being ripped out of her hands, as if an adult was taking a match from a child
She heard the muffled impact of the rifle against the wall and she gritted her teeth, preparing what was to happen to her.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alexanderus, Roswell, Cal, and the others of the Council watched the classified footage of what happened to Lance Corporal Taylor.
It was definitely grotesque to say the least, and it had caused Roswell and a couple others to regurgitate their lunches.
Everyone sat in silence, not really sure how to take in what they had witnessed.

However, Admiral Alex knew he needed to speak first.
"Inridu, contact the marines. Tell them they'll need incendiary ammunition and a flamethrower" The Admiral said, getting a curt nod from the Head of System Defense.
"Continue as you were Ladies and Gentleman; If anyone needs me I shall be creating a video for the parents of Lance Corporal Taylor."

 

[Vumpalouska]

Angry red icons flashing in Taylor's HUD reported that her suit had been ruptured in at least three places. Its internal atmosphere was leaking out and quickly being replaced with the ship's own, technically breathable but very likely contaminated atmosphere. Moments later a sharp, pungent smell assailed her nostrils. It resembled a combination of rotten fruits, raw sewage and crude oil. The smell was easily disgusting enough to make most humans retch immediately, but after a few moments Taylor could tell that - since she was still alive - the ship's atmosphere was, at the very least, not immediately fatal. In her current situation that knowledge was a small mercy, but a mercy nonetheless.

The monstrosity that had grabbed her with its metal tentacles had not killed her yet, either - a fact that could probably be counted as another mercy. Nor not; the creature was returning the way it had come, dragging Taylor with it. It appeared to be injured from her earlier gunfire: several bullet holes in its bloated main body were leaking what looked like very dark and viscous blood mixed with the black, oily substance. The injuries didn't seem to hinder the creature's movements in the slightest, however, as it moved among the lumps filling the corridor with fluid, practiced motions. It was constantly moaning as it moved.

The deeper the creature took her, the more infested the corridor became. Soon it was almost impossible to see even small batches of the corridor's original panels; everywhere she looked, Taylor could see only more lumps, strangely organic-looking tubes and decaying machine parts wrapped in slimy black strings. Her surroundings almost reminded her of some kind of nest. In the distance, almost out of even her enhanced hearing range, she could hear a repeating, thrumming sound that resembled the heartbeat of a slumbering god.

Eventually the creature came to a halt. They had arrived at a clearing that had possibly been an intersection of several large zero-G corridors. In the middle of the clearing was a twisted, tree-like structure composed of cartilage, metal and various pieces of junk, all held together with black slime. Large, translucent pods with a wrinkled surface were growing from the structure like fruits ripped out of a sadist's fever dream. The pods were filled with murky brown liquid, and, Taylor realized after a few seconds, humans. It was hard to make out any details, but the human figures inside the pods were all unmoving and curled into fetal positions. The still functioning sensors in Taylor's suit suggested that none of them emitted any body heat.

One of the pods was empty, its top split open like a flowering corpse lily. Incredibly rancid stench was emanating from it.

The metal tentacle's grip tightened around Taylor's torso.

Then the bloated monstrosity spoke.

"Helllppmmmeeee..." it whispered in a voice that was barely more than distorted static. "Dreemwithmmmeeee..."

It began to move towards the tree-like structure and the open pod that quivered like it was preparing to embrace Taylor.

* * *

The elevator where Eisen was, now alone and without the reassuring presence of a trained soldier, stopped suddenly and several floors too early. No amount of pressing the elevator's buttons could make it move again. Someone - or something - had apparently overridden the controls remotely.

The doors slid open, revealing a dark room with several closed doors - some of them too small for humans. As far as Eisen could tell, the room was clean of the black slime or any other nasty substance.

 

[Beetlelion12]

Alexanderus Niose continued to watch the video of the creature.
He'd never seen anything so strange before in his life, and he'd been around for centuries.
He remember his grandfather telling him war stories about the Sol System War.
Alexanderus smiled somewhat at the memories though the video of the creature snatching up Taylor before it went dark caused it to go away.
The admiral needed a drink but knew he couldn't risk be under the influence in such an important situation.

"I see you're still at work sir" Roswell said, giving the unofficial leader of the Solar System a cup of joe.
Though he didn't really need it, he appreciated the offer none the less.
"Thanks Roswell, coffee is definitely a boost for a soldier" Alex said in a somewhat inattentive manner.
Fortunately the Scientist didn't appear to mind.
"I'm just doing what I can to help and make sure that whatever this thing is that it won't kill us all" Roswell said a tiny bit sheepishly.

"It'd be a pain in the ass to have to wait months just to get reinforcements in case we have to go to war with whoever made it.
Alexanderus snorted at the comment.
"If it's one of our own we should be able to fight back whatever they can throw at us, even if they have some weird ftl device" Alexanderus Niose stated.
"From what we gathered they don't appear to have any unconventional weapons, save maybe some antimatter warheads, on them. A few Warp Matter warheads would be able to destroy the ship easily enough."

"However, since we have to worry about the damned ship exploding and sending relativistic pieces of material everywhere I'm not exactly inclined to do such a thing" Alexanderus stated.
Roswell just stood there for a minute, not really sure what to do.
"You can leave Councilor Roswell, thanks for the coffee" the admiral said, somewhat so the man could leave without it being too awkward but also so the admiral could work in peace.
Alexanderus wanted nothing more than to study whatever the creature was at that current moment and time.
No distractions could appear.

"Admiral Niose, the marines have arrived onboard" Cal Inridu told Alex, his face replacing the video feed that had been before him.
Alex wanted to get mad but contained himself, knowing that it wouldn't do any good.
"Good, have someone tell Colonel Wells to be extra careful of this ship in case anything like that thing is on board. Also have them informed they have 6 hours before they are to return back to their ship or their sorry asses are being left on board and whatever or whoever is that ship is going to die with them."
Head of System Defense nodded, quickly leaving the admiral alone again.
After a couple seconds later the video appeared in front of him again and he began his studying once again.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eisen studied the room with some surprise.
Unlike the rest of the ship this place at least appeared to be clean. Like a figurative oasis in a desert
From what he could tell the doors at least did not appear to be made for baseline humans.
"This is quite a strange place" Eisen said to himself as he walked down the halls of the place.
All he found was more of these doors.

Eventually, getting bored of just glancing over the doors he tried opening one.
When he opened he he was surprised to see what appeared to be a weird looking bed or couch of some sort.
Were this where whoever flew in this slept?
His mind flashed to a story about the Cult of the Forbearers buying a FTL capable ship some time in the past and sending themselves off to start the conversion of the galaxy to their new religion.
Was this their ship? However, when Eisen turned around, all uncertainties went to rest.

 

[Vumpalouska]

Before him was a small black and white dog that looked very mixed breed. It was staring at him intently with its big brown eyes, head tilted slightly to one side. When it had his full attention, it approached him carefully and began to sniff at him. After a few moments it seemed to decide that he was not a threat and proceeded to lick his gloved fingers. Then it turned around and walked towards one of the hall's larger doors, which was tall enough for Eisen to enter without crouching. Eisen noted that the dog wore a sleek metal harness with half a dozen small pouches and some electronic devices of unknown purpose. It didn't have any outward signs of genetic or cybernetic modification - in appearance, it really was just a normal mutt, something one might encounter on the streets of almost every city on almost every world ever settled by humans.

The doorway was sealed by some kind of hardened membrane, but it turned translucent and insubstantial as the dog approached it. Before entering, the dog turned to look at Eisen over its shoulder and whined softly. It clearly wanted him to follow.

It was at this point that Eisen's suit sensors chose to helpfully remind him that the air pressure in the hall was barely 0.1 atm and the temperature around -37 degrees Celsius.

* * *

The marines who had entered the huge ship through one of the blasted open hangar bays found the elevators unresponsive and most doors electronically locked. It seemed that the unseen masters of the ship - or whatever form of intelligence now controlled it - were not quite willing to let a team of heavily armed soldiers proceed freely further in. One door, however, opened for them without any input. Someone or something apparently wanted to lead them somewhere. It was so obviously a trap that even the most paranoid soldier expecting an ambush any moment had to stop and wonder if it was really a trap after all.

 

[Beetlelion12]

Eisen stared down at the dog as he walked through the doors.
Had this dog, along with unknown amount of other ones, been used as test subjects?
Though he couldn't personally know for sure at the moment he knew something was wrong with this ship.
Well, if the giant black-tar like monster was anything to go off of anyway.
Perhaps someone had done some weird biological testing of sorts?

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________


Sergeant Vercin Inridu gave a quick glance at his power armor's HUD.
So far, at least as he could tell, nothing seemed to be trying to attack them.
They had landed mere minutes ago and tried working the elevator to get to Lance Corporal Taylor.
After a minute of trying to get the thing to work it was clear that whoever had control of the ship didn't want them going in that direction; at the very least in that way.
However, quickly after that an unseen door opened revealing a dark hallway that clearly screamed trap is here!!!

Granted with no other options available and needing to find a way to the reactor the Sergeant had to face whatever would come their way and go down the hall.
Walking in a somewhat spread out square, giving them a 360 degree view of the surroundings while making sure nothing could kill them all, they moved forward.
The hallway seemed relatively normal, no sign of the black tar creature or any sort of biological creation though still foreign looking none the less.
A minute later another door opened and on everyone's HUD an infrared signature showed up, putting the marines on high alert.
"We are Marines of the Niose System Defense Force. Slowly move forward. Any signs of hostile behavior will be met with painful if not lethal force" Sergeant Vercin stated, pointing his arm forward.
What came forward was definitely not something he or his men expected.