Normally, I'd have spent more time on background for the Marines, the mission, etc, but this's been sitting around my works in progress folder for ages due to my story-hopping. Anyways, here's the story so far, sans any form of proofreading. Odds are I'll be focusing the most on this and my Fallout story, seeing as those are the two I've not yet written myself into corners.

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Gunnery Sergeant Charles Bass flipped himself over the side of his bunk, planting his booted feet onto the metal floor of the on-ship barracks. He'd gotten in about three hours of sleep. It was enough. Stim packs would take care of the rest for him.

The Marine wasn't in his armor, leaving him with just his fatigues, boots, and gray t-shirt with 'Bass' stenciled on the breast. Aside from his rank, there was little to separate Gunnery Sergeant Bass from the privates and lance corporals around him. Just over six feet, brown hair, and brown eyes. No distinguishing physical features to him, but he had an air of command about him that his men had come to respect.

The USM Valor's crew was made up of the best and the brightest. And by Marine standards, that was saying something. A nearly spotless record adorned each man's record, and every soldier had the finest technology and training that the Earth Defense Force could offer. See the galaxy, defend mankind, and get paid while you do it.

"What's the scoop, Gunny?" Private First Class Joseph Dean called over the din to his commanding officer. The comparative rookie was in the process of lacing up his boots as Bass looked down at his wrist-mounted computer, punching several keys and bringing up the holographic display.

"According to Lieutennat Hikowa…" he paused, "We've got a downed planet cracker, USG Ishimura, dead in the void. Distress signal's been put out, and we're the closest help available."

"Why's it dead?" Dean asked, slapping a hand on the side of his boot and climbing to his feet, "Hardware problems, pirates?"

"You think we're getting called in for tech support, Dean-o?" PFC James McNeal laughed, "We're the corp, not Geek Squad."

"Huh," Bass tapped a few more keys, "Hikowa's being vague as hell. Could be a colonial revolt, or pirates. Gimme a few, I'll see what I can find out." Bass keyed in the bridge's frequency, brining up the holographic screen with his lieutenant's face.

"This is Hikowa. That you, Charlie?" the image asked.

"Yeah, it's me," Bass replied, jumping right to the point, "Mission specs are a bit unspecific. What're we up against?"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Hikowa's image shrugged, "I'm not sure if anyone really knows. It might explain why you're going in with full combat loads." Bass whistled as he scrolled down on the specs list. Hikowa was right: they were going in loud and hard.

"Holy shit," Lance Corporal Stanislaus Kaczynski chuckled, "Looks like we're going to war. You seen this shit, Dave?" The Marine gestured to PFC William Sherman.

"Damn," Sherman muttered, "Sixes for everyone, and hot guns? We walking into a pirate cove or something?"

"Alright, stow it," Bass finally quieted the speculation, then turned back to Hikowa, "You sure we don't have anything else to go off?"

"Sorry, Charlie," Hikowa smirked apologetically, "Best I can do is tell you to suit up and I'll try to get more intel."

"Fair enough," Bass sighed, "Bass out." The other two dozen Marines of the wing looked to the Gunnery Sergeant for further orders. Bass thought for a moment, then called out,

"You heard the El-Tee. Full combat loads. Op officially begins in two hours. Be ready." The other men snapped crisp salutes and gave a chorus of affirmatives. They knew how to do their jobs. No need for anything further for the time being.

Elsewhere on the ship, other Marine groups were doing the same. The Marine presence in the ship was spread out in three groups of ten to twelve as to ensure that they would be readily present for any given crisis. The armories were generally right beside the barracks for convenience's sake. Bass was in charge of Omega group. The other two, Alpha and Beta, were under Sergeants Willis and Campbell, respectively.

Bass was first in, approaching one of a dozen chambers aligned along one wall. The door slid open with a pneumatic hiss, revealing a form-fitting chamber within. Bass stepped inside as the doors sealed shut.

Within the chamber, mechanical arms worked overtime to suit up the Marine officer, dressing him in his Level Six Military Armor. It had a fully integrated heads-up display, communications system, light amplification, and countless other technological innovations. And, of course, it was the best personal body armor for its weight. The skull-shaped helmet of the Level Six was a feared image among all those who might oppose the Marines.

Bass stepped from chamber as his RIG synchronized with the new suit and began to run the diagnostic tests. The other dozen men were following suite as Bass approached the adjacent wall where the bread-and-butter of the Marine's strength was: the rack of high-powered weapons.

Bass's weapon was the standard issue tri-barreled SWS Motorized Pulse Rifle. He took several extra clips, slotting them into his suits magazine grips. Next was N99 'Divot' handgun, a sidearm capable of both semi and fully automatic fire. Modest caliber, good accuracy, and minimal recoil. But it was still easily upstaged by the pulse rifle.

But not every Marine took a rifle. Kaczynski was one of two who took a large case from the gunrack, flipping open the latches and assembling the weapon within. Tri-barreled, like the pulse rifle, but significantly larger and hooked up to an ammo feed leading to a back-mounted unit.

The M31 'Grinder' was a heavy-duty support weapon, possessing a rate of fire superior to even the pulse rifle through the virtue of its extra power supply and rotating barrels. Kaczynski, along with Private Jared Wallace, were the wielders of these powerful weapons, capable of firing nearly 3000 rounds a minute as opposed to the pulse rifle's 1500 RPM.

Bass, Dean, and six other Marines were armed with the basic pulse rifle. High rate of fire, good accuracy, and just as reliable as an AK-47. McNeal and Sherman took different routes: the Pancor Jackhammer 12 gauge shotgun. Comparatively, it had a dramatically lower firing rate when compared to the pulse rifles, firing 240 shells per minute due to its automatic design, but it could still drain its ten-shell drum magazine in just under five seconds.

The Jackhammer's were ideal for shipboard combat, being most at home in the cramped corridors and enclosed spaces. Their 12 gauge 'Magnum' shells had superior penetration to most other shotgun ammunition, but were still inferior to the armor-piercing pulse rifles. Thus, the presence of two was added to the dozen men to balance out the advantages and disadvantages of each.

"Mags out and safeties on," Bass called out, voice slightly warped by his helmet's speakers, stating what the Marines were probably already doing for protocol's sake. Kaczynski and Wallace had already hooked their ammo belts up to their Grinders, but they'd yet to activate the power supply or switch off their safeties. Friendly fire accidents out of firefights were for amateurs, and these men were professionals.

"ETA to Ishimura is one hour," Bass checked his gear once more as his HUD superimposed itself over his surroundings, "Be ready for anything. Commander wouldn't be sending us in if-" A rumble spread through the ship, light, but enough to make the assembled Marines glance to one another.

"The fuck was that?"

"Asteroid field?"

"We've got cannons for that. What's the word from bridge, Gunny?" Dean finally cut in. Bass opened up his frequency again, hailing Hikowa once more.

"Just felt a tremor down here, Lieutenant," Bass began, "Got anything for us?" Hikowa was visibly agitated, but not by Bass' transmission.

"We took a hit from one of Ishimura's escape pods. The idiot hit us near C21. We're sending an EMT team to check it out. They'll cut them out and see if we've got a survivor."

"Need us in C-Block?" Bass asked. Hikowa shook his head.

"Cadigan says that Beta's got it under control. Ten Marines should be more than enough to chastise a shitty pilot."

"-chastise a shitty pilot," Lieutenant Jacob Hikowa replied from his chair on the Valor's bridge. Around him, a semi-circle of pilots, navigators, and officers sat at their respective chairs before holographic screens and solid-light keyboards, controlling every aspect of the ship.

The hull breech had already been sealed off almost immediately after the impact. The passengers aboard the escape pod hadn't responded to efforts to hail them, and it had slipped through an asteroid belt to prevent the crew from taking any countermeasures until it had already hit them. No one had been killed, fortunately, so the pilot would probably be chastised at most.

Then again, to be running that scared from the Ishimura to ram straight into a destroyer, something must be up. Hikowa opened up a new channel on his communications screen.

"Campbell, you there?" he addressed the sergeant of Beta squad. The helmeted head of Sergeant Campbell appeared on the screen.

"Roger, lieutenant. Engineer's cracking open the pod now. We're making our way through C-Block."

"Good. Give me a sitrep once you're on site," Hikowa nodded, "I'll get in touch with the engie on site. Who is it?"

"Vernes, sir."

"Alright. Hikowa out. Radio if anything new comes up."

"Roger, lieutenant." The line clicked shut. Hikowa did a quick check of the escape pod's registration, confirming the origin. You could never be too careful. The Ishimura's comm channels might have been down, but he could broadcast them a loop to let them know the Valor had the escape pod in safe hands.

He hailed the Ishimura's main line. Still no response. They'd be in deep shit when they got their act together and got back into unrestricted space.

"This is USM Valor, broadcasting on all frequencies to USG Ishimura in response to your SOS. We've…" he paused a moment, "…picked up your escape pod Number 47, and are en route to your position." No need to give them extra reason to worry about their situation. The crash was on a need-to-know basis, as far as Hikowa was concerned.

"This message will repeat every thirty seconds until you respond." That was that. Now to check in on the recovery team. Hikowa keyed in Julius Vernes frequency.

"Julius, this is Lieutenant Hikowa. Any progress on cracking open that ship?" The engineer's distinctive faceplate lifted to reveal his face as he looked up from his work.

"Working on that now, door's about half off. I should have it done in-guh!" Hikowa furrowed his brow as the line went dead, Verne's last noise puzzling him further. Was the crashed ship somehow causing problems with the communications grid? He would try to contact Campbell or Bass to confirm the problem.

"Jesus Christ!" a nearby ensign looked up from his screen, "Commander! We've got problems with the rescue team!"

Near the floating model of the ship in the center of the bridge stood Commander Frank Cadigan, an aging man with graying hair, a nearly trimmed beard, and a right breast full of the bars of his position. He placed both hands on the guardrail and leaned forward.

"What's the problem, ensign? Talk to me!"

"It's Vernes and Elliot, sir, they both-" he glanced back down to the screen as if to confirm, only for his eyes to widen further.

"They both what?" Cadigan demanded, "Out with it, man!"

"Mendoza and Freeman, too," the ensign returned eye contact with the commander, "They've all flatlined, just like that!"

"That's impossible," Cadigan brought up the crew roster on his screen, "What could have-" The roster appeared in the form of a square subdivided into some seventy other squares, each one with a picture of a crewman or soldier. Four had already gone from green to red. Then another. And another. There were only six people in the rescue team, including the accompanying engineer.

"Shit," Cadigan swore, turning to Hikowa, "Lieutenant, get those Marines down there as fast as they can. And warn them, Goddamnit. I won't have any more dead men on my hands."

"But what killed them?" the ensign tapped several keys, "It could have been a secondary explosion, or-Gods in heaven." He stopped and stared at the screen as the security feed came up: the deck was awash with blood and limbs. The remains of the six crew members were strewn about on the ground, and the half of the door that had yet to be cut away had been ripped from the escape pod's hull.

"Christ almighty," Cadigan breathed, then addressed Hikowa once more, "Get to those men now." Hikowa nodded and began to punch in commands, only for Campbell to beat him to the punch.

"-therfucker! Get Walker up here, ASAP! Stop the bleeding!" Campell's helmeted face appeared on the screen, looking left and right before actually addressing Hikowa.

"Lieutenant, we've got hostiles onboard. The thing practically ripped Jenkin's head off, and I've got three men wounded. This thing isn't human, sir. We put it down, but I don't know how many more ther-"

Cut off again. Hikowa only now noticed that sweat was beading on the back of his neck. In the climate-controlled bridge, that certainly shouldn't be happening. Perhaps the cause was the series of green pictures that turned red as more of the crew of the USS Valor lost their lives.

"Get me the security feed, and get contact with them back up!" Cadigan barked, "I want to know what's on my damn ship!"

The screen in front of Hikowa flickered, giving a jumpy image from the squad, and garbled audio. It sounded like the entire squad's chatter had been patched through to the channel, the background filled with gunfire.

"-ck! Fuck! Put it down!"

"Stay dead alre-agh!"

"Fall back! Get the door shut!"

"Close it! Close it!"

Deathly silence followed, finally broken by heavy breathing. Hikowa keyed open his side of the channel.

"Sergeant, are you there?" he asked, "What's your situation?"

"Sarge's dead," a clearly frightened voice replied, "Fuck, they're all dead, now. It's on the other side of the door now."

"What is?" Hikowa stood, half-aware of what he was doing, "What did this, soldier?"

"But it's not gonna get me," the Marine continued regardless, "I'm not dying. Not like that. Not like them. Not-" A sudden stocatto of gunfire cut through the transmission.

"Soldier, what's going on?" Hikowa almost shouted, "What's your situation?"

"It's stopped…" the man murmured, "It stopped banging. Now it's all around me. In the walls. It-" A metallic bang was heard in the background, followed by a fully automatic spray from the Marine's pulse rifle.

Then everything was silent once again. As quickly as that, the noise subsided, and the bridge was left with only the sounds of the crew's whispers. Cadigan was the first to recover from the shock. Thirty years in the corp had given him the ability to adapt to new situations, if nothing else. He keyed open his own comm channel, this time a general frequency.

"This is Commander Cadigan," he began, almost not believing his own statement, "We have hostiles on board. This is not a drill! Hostiles are alien, repeat, alien, and extremely dangerous! All personnel have weapons ready and fire at will!" He closed the comm, then looked around the bridge and drew his sidearm.

"That applies to all of us, too," he said, sliding a clip into his weapon and priming it, "Be ready for the worst."

"You gotta be kidding me," Bass shook his head, then waved to his team, "You heard the commander, we're going in loud and hard. Stay together and check your fire."

"But sir," McNeal half laughed, "Aliens? Since when do we fight aliens?"

"First time for everything, private. Fall in," Bass' tone prompted McNeal to avoid any further protest. Now was no time for jokes.

The armory doors hissed open, and the twelve Marines moved into the hall, shotguns on point and rear. The Grinders weren't prepped yet, but could be online within seconds should they encounter hostiles. Hopefully that wouldn't be too late.

"Hikowa, you there?" Bass opened his comm to the bridge. The shaken image of the lieutenant appeared after a moment.

"I'm here," he wiped sweat from his forehead, "Be careful, Gunny. Whatever's onboard just took out Beta team." A long silence followed as the Marine squad looked to one another, all silently posing questions as to how any hostile could kill an entire Marine squad.

"All of them?"

"Yes, Gunny," Hikowa finished, "All of them. Be careful. We're not entirely sure what we're dealing with."

"Roger. Moving to C-Block. Bass out." Bass closed his side, then waved his team forward. Non-Marine personnel were already gone, leaving only the Marines and their quarry moving on the ship.

But what was their quarry? Bass couldn't help but wonder what they could possibly be up against. This could very well be humanity's first contact, and it seemed like they were hostile. There could be hundreds of them flooding into the ship, right on the other side of any door they opened. Bass was virtually blind, and that was disconcerting.

Door after door, room after room, and empty corridor after empty corridor. Nothing so far, and nothing was somehow more terrifying than whatever they were looking for. Radio silence had come naturally, and each man felt himself checking beside him to affirm that he was not alone in the corridors.

Omega team had reached the barren mess hall when the ship was suddenly plunged into darkness. A chorus of metallic clacks followed as the men fanned out their guns, scanning all possible points of entry. Red emergency lights flickered on after a moment, bathing them in the eerie crimson light.

"Headlamps," Bass ordered, reaching up to the side of his helmet and tapping the side, igniting the lights mounted on either side of the brow. His men followed suite, and scanned the messhall once more. Nothing to be seen.

The sound of chitin on steel skittered through their ranks. Weapons were primed, but no one fired. Everyone looked around them, trying to find the source of the noise. The helmet lamps could find nothing until Bass finally looked up.

"The vent!" he shouted, "Perforate it!" Several pulse rifles opened fire, tearing through the air duct and peppering their target within. An inhuman screech of pain echoed through the mess hall, presumably from their unseen foe.

"Hold up," Bass raised a hand, cutting off the steam of fire, "Cease fire!" The cry ended, too, and the now hole-riddled ventilation duct began to seep blood.

"Looks like a kill, Gunny," McNeal clicked the safety back onto his Jackhammer. Bass couldn't help but agree, but the unearthly silence still disturbed him.

Bass felt something heavy hit his head as a scream of tearing metal cut through his eardrums like a razor. Bass was knocked to the ground by the impact, and the chorus of cries and gunfire indicated that whatever they were after wasn't dead.

"Shit! The hell is that?" McNeal shouted, frantically priming his shotgun and taking aim. The clawed abomination pulled one of its long talons from a fallen Marine's throat, pouncing on another as McNeal pulled the trigger.

The twelve-gauge magnum shell punched the beast off the bleeding Marine. Now, the entire squad's firepower was turned on it, minus the two Grinders and the guns of the fallen. The creature seemed to fall apart under the barrage, tearing off a good third of its head and both of its clawed arms. It stood for a moment longer, the collapsed as its shredded legs gave out.

"Fuck," Dean breathed, looking at the mutilated corpse, "McNeal's got a point. What the hell is that thing?" Bass had pulled himself to his feet, shaking his head to clear his vision.

"Whatever it is, it's what did in Beta squad," the gunnery sergeant replied, "And I can see why." Two of his men were dead, the long talons thin enough to slip between the cracks of their armor but long enough to cause enough damage to be fatal.

"What now, sarge?" McNeal voiced what they were all thinking. Bass actually had to pause a moment. They'd just dispatched a clearly inhuman enemy, he had two men dead on his hands…

"Hang on," he motioned, "I'll hail the El-Tee. Secure the area." The Marines moved uneasily about the mess hall as Bass keyed open the bridge's frequency.

"Lieutenant, I've got a dead hostile and two dead men. I'm unsure of how to proceed without a sitrep for the rest of the ship," he paused, waiting for a response. Nothing came.

"Bridge, I'm not reading you. Am I getting through?" A few of his men glanced over to their superior, overhearing the one-sided exchange.

"Fuck, Hikowa, are you there?"

"-owa, are you there?" the control console buzzed, muffled slightly by Hikowa's prone form draped over it. A pair of ragged holes were punched in his Navy RIG's chest, emerging through his back, proving instantly fatal injuries.

The entire bridge was pock-marked with bullet holes where the crewman that had stayed had made their last stand. Even the commander was among their numbers. Hikowa had met his fate whilst attempting to remain on the two remaining squad's lifelines.

The console clicked on again. A transmission from the Ishimura. Their communications interference had just been lifted, and their response to Hikowa's signal had finally come in. Too little too late.

"USM Valor, this is Kendra Daniels on the USG Ishimura, come in! Do not open the escape pod. USM Valor, this is Kendra Daniels on the USG Ishimura, come in! Do not open the escape pod. Dammit, respond!"

Charlie Bass and his men had killed the beast, but not before it had found its way to the bridge. And now the USM Valor was flying blind directly towards the looming form of the USG Ishimura.

Usual routine, read and review. Anonymous reviews are accepted, too.