"Which way?" Alyssa asked, before bringing her rifle to her shoulder and firing a burst into the chest of the wounded shock trooper who was attempting to stand up. The insectoid fell to the floor, its chitinous limbs thrashing wildly before it finally lay still.

“ALL the human Life readings were that way" John said pointing to the archway closest to them, as he readied his rifle and led them out of the room.

They entered a wide corridor that continued the odd hexagonal tiling in the hangar bay. Each tile pulsed with light and the lighting in the hall throbbed, as though in time with the hive ship's pulse. They passed sealed doorways occasionally, but there were no sounds coming from within the adjoining rooms, so John led them on quickly, hoping to maintain the element of surprise. The corridor ended in a set of ornate double doors, so they darted up to them, getting ready to storm through. John listened intently, but all he could hear was an odd chirruping noise, so he cautiously eased the door open while Alyssa covered him with her rifle.

The big door swung open smoothly and the disconcerting chirruping noise became more intense. It seemed to fluctuate, getting alternately Louder then softer and sounding utterly alien and extremely creepy. Now that the door was open, they could see that they were looking in on a hexagonal shaped room. There was a curving ramp that Led both upwards and downwards and the strange chirruping noise seemed to be coming from the lower depths of the ship.

*The life readings all came from the lower decks, so I guess we go down* John thought to Alyssa, allowing them to maintain their silence.

She nodded her agreement and followed as he began to lead them down the curving walkway, spiralling downwards a good three or four full rotations around the central axis before they finally reached the bottom. The ramp opened out into a big room, big double doors at the end with smaller entrances on the flanking walls, the entire right hand side darkened after the loss of power.

An upraised curved dais sat in the middle of the room, with a bulky six limbed Kirrix operating hexagonal buttons on the odd looking console. Before they could react, John's communicator watch flashed with an incoming call. Unfortunately the Kirrix noticed the flash of Light and looked up, spotting them. It pushed some kind of button in front of it and the hexagonal tiled walls started to glow red instead of white, plunging the room into crimson shaded gloom. A strange squawking noise sounded shrilly and reverberated around the chamber, echoing ominously.

John raised his rifle and fired a burst, but the insectoid moved with a speed that belied its size and it leapt for cover. It ducked behind the dais and began to take potshots at them with a Neutron blaster. Feeling exposed in the middle of the room, John sprinted forward, whilst Alyssa dropped to a crouch. Seeing the charging human, the Kirrix reared up to take a shot at him, only for its head to be ripped apart by armour piercing rounds as Alyssa opened fire.

The scratchy sounds of many clawed feet began to make their way into the room, coming from both side doors. Alyssa and John jumped up onto the dais and ducked behind the long, oddly shaped console that surrounded the upraised platform and stayed down low, staying out of line of sight as two squads of Insectoid soldiers appeared from each hallway. There were six Kirrix soldiers per squad, each group led by a hulking Overseer Insect. John furtively passed one of his grenades to Alyssa, taking another for himself and began a mental countdown.

The two of them lobbed their grenades in nice gentle arcs, so that they landed right at the segmented legs of the alert bug troopers. John and Alyssa ducked down, hugging the console wall and covered their ears in preparation for the upcoming explosions. Neutron weapon fire zapped overhead for a second before two tremendous detonations blasted through the room, still sounding deafening to them even though their ears were muffled. Cautiously they raised themselves up and glanced over at the two groups of soldiers in the aftermath of their grenade strike.

Each Kirrix patrol had been ripped apart by the grenades. The doorways were blackened, scorched ruins, with billowing black smoke pouring out of the incinerated tiling and a few more shattered tiles sheared off the wall to clang to the floor. The Kirrix forces had been annihilated by the powerful explosives, chitinous appendages were scattered all over the floor and viscous green Liquid dripped from where it had been sprayed all over the walls. Miraculously, one of the bulky Overseer bugs was still moving, even though it had Lost two of its leg limbs. It screeched a piercing squeal of rage as it tried to level its neutron rifle in their direction and John and Alyssa both opened up on it, sending round after round into its armoured body. It took an alarmingly high number of bullets to finally stop it twitching, the tough Insectoid able to take a surprising amount of punishment.

They reloaded their assault rifles and prepared to move out again, neither seeing nor hearing any further signs of reinforcements. John's watch communicator flashed again, forgotten in the excitement of the combat.

“Yes Lieutenant, what's the problem?" John said, fighting hard to keep any irritation out of his voice. The brunette had no way of knowing how much danger she had accidentally just put them in.

We've got company!" The holographic image of Calara's face said, grinning excitedly.

“What, more pirates?" John asked, wondering why Calara would be happy about that.

“No, it's a friendly! Its Captain Flintlock and the Indomitable" she said happily.

“Can you put me through to him please?" John asked, unable to directly contact the other ship from his watch.

Calara nodded eagerly and her image disappeared from view, to be replaced by the frowning face of Captain Flintlock.

“Command Blake! What's going on here? My tactical officer tells me that's a Kirrix hive ship!" he said, shock clearly showing on his older features.

“The pirates were selling slaves to the Kirrix and we're on board now, trying to rescue the human captives" John explained quickly.

“Do you need reinforcements?" the Captain asked grimly.

"Yes please, liaise with my Tactical Officer and she'll apprise you of the current situation" John said.