Welcome to Gaia! ::

Two turrets were nearby, firing a stream of plasma into a corridor that suddenly turned inky black a few feet away from the guns. This part of the ship's lighting was damaged, and the charred remains of a white-armored soldier lay nearby, the armor's shoulder pads emblazoned with S.P.I. on them. The armor itself was undamaged, but whatever killed the soldier obviously didn't care about the armor. A wrist computer on the armor kept blinking a message. It only said one word: Run. The soldier's rifle was something else entirely, no warning labels, no instructions, just a smooth white gun with a few transparent tanks in it, which were filled with a greenish-blue glowing substance. The handle had the words "Miberuim Blaster-automatic" written on it. The tanks showed that the gun was loaded, and a round counter showed that this gun had at least a twelve hundred shots. The belt of the dead soldier also had what appeared to be refill canisters, the only instructions on them were on the lids: Insert canisters into loader on Miberium weapon. Do not open these canisters under any circumstances.

Another charred corpse lay down the hallway, farther from the blackness. this gun was totally spent. By the scars in the wall, these guns were energy weapons, but the damage to the walls (which seemed intact near another solder, who had an empty missile launcher in a hallway that was tinged gray) showed that these guns, whatever they were were incredibly powerful, and highly advanced.

These three soldiers were all in sight of each other, and it looked as if they attempted a crossfire attack, but failed... and it appeared the blackness was moving...

The tags, if you'd call them that, were in fact a removable clear holographic card of an unknown material. The card of the soldier with the loaded gun read, "Private Althen G. Long. S.P.I. Security Guard of the Luxury Starliner S.S. Stellaluna."

The other card of the one with the empty gun read, "Colonel Jethra A. Haller. S.P.I. Military of the 1034th Regiment. Starliner Stellaluna"

The missile launcher's card was different entirely, "Commander Nexxal Fatheros. S.P.I. Specialist Extraction Team 3. Zeta-class warship Silent Predator."

On each card it displayed the exact time they all died... and only Althen's was different. It was 1 exact minute ahead of the other two.

The darkness of the hallway hissed, and seemed to surge slightly towards Gerath, but the plasma turrets kept back whatever this thing(s?) was...

Nearby, a terminal flickered. It was in the more well-lit area of the same hall, about five feet from Jethra's corpse. It was also to be noted that Jethra had pulled down a red handle, and was still holding onto it. Above it, it said in glowing red, "Defenses Activated." this is what probably kept the ship from being overrun. A power meter was blinking nearby. It showed that there was about an hour before the nearby turrets had to recharge.

A map near Nexxal's body showed that there was another turret system about forty feet up the hall. Beyond that a half-mile lay elevators to other floors. the areas in the black extended for a mile, and stairs to engineering lay in this area, as well as to higher floors, but the map showed that those doors were sealed, as well as the elevators in the darkness.

Looking down the hall, it appeared to be empty. It would be assumed that any other bodies found like this would be in the darkness itself, but the darkness seemed alive...

The gun fired a barrage of teardrop-shaped incandescent blue energy into the inky black, the gun was relatively silent as well, maintaining it's cool temperature. the firing sound was more of a soft ta sound. the impact sound it made was more of a loud Chak!, the first of these had no response, but the others were followed by squealing and hissing, the darkness falling back slowly, like a swarm of ants, to avoid fire, showing blast marks that his gun made and the other guns as well. the bullets only stopped at the ship, they went through whatever he was hitting, as the corpse of some bizzare spiked demon-like monstrosity showed (briefly revealed by this black swarm...) the squealing had stopped shortly before the corpse had been shown, but the hissing continued as the impacts flew into the darkness.

the darkness surged back in liquidlike motions. The bullet counter, however, was dropping fast. within seconds, there were only two hundred shots left. the gun was powerful and fast, but the shots depleted the gun quickly. It was the downside of such a deadly, quiet, and fast weapon. As the darkness surged back, another copse of a soldier could be seen. this one, was not human, however, but wore the same armor.

the darkness was held back by the plasma fire, luckily, and the gun blinked up a full charge (of 2k shots) on the counter. Up the hallway the other direction, behind the next group of turrets, the glow of a screen, a ship terminal with the letters INFO overhead, as well as windows into the white emptiness of the void this ship sat in...

The terminal display was in english, a series of holographic buttons floated above. in order, there was: Search for Data on SPInet, Ship Map, and Ship History. from the looks of it, it was a touchpad. the screen display was white with a rendering of a crest containing a black pheonix on a sheild with blue trim. S.P.I. was displayed above it in bold gray letters.