Down on deck twenty-three, the Horizon’s launch bay doors opened and a large, boxy troop transport came roaring out of the Heavy Cruiser, which had long since cleared the asteroid field.  In the troop transport’s forward compartment, Tanner and eleven other soldiers wore environmental suits and fidgeted anxiously in their chairs, eager to go into action as the pilot brought them closer to the damaged Calvorian ship.  As one of the lieutenants handed out VK-12 BlastRifles to the troops, Tanner activated his suit’s comlink.  “Matthews to Horizon.  Captain, did you want us to bring back any Calvorian prisoners?”

     “Negative.  More trouble than it’s worth to actually capture one, and we don’t have the time to interrogate.  Maintain radio silence until you’re ready to return.”  The comline clicked off sharply, and Tanner grumbled under his breath.  As he accepted one of the machine gun-like weapons, he stood and faced his troops.  “All right, check it:  we’ve got two dead Calvorians, five alive within the prisoner bay.  By now, they’ve all grabbed weapons and are hunkered down, expecting to be boarded.  For anyone who hasn’t experienced one-on-one target practice with the enemy, I’m telling you now, it doesn’t make much of a difference we’ve got them outnumbered.  Calvorians live to fight, and they are deadly shots in close quarters.  We’re gonna have an argument on our hands, no doubt about it.  But we’re gonna bogard our way in and get their prisoners out fast as we can.  Any questions?  What is it, Hauptman?”

     “Sir, our transport doesn’t have umbilicals, so I guess we’re depressurizing to go in...”

     “That’s right.”

     “How are we getting the Cuscatians back in here, sir?”

     “Cuscatians are partially amphibious, they can go without oxygen for brief periods,” Tanner explained.  “All they have to do is clamp their mouths tight and they can survive on their interior air bladders long enough to get through the vacuum and on-board again.  Their exterior shells will give them some protection from the vacuum.  They can wait it out ‘til we re-pressurize.”

     “Approaching target at point-oh-four,” the pilot announced.

     “Click ‘em in,” Tanner told his people.  The forward compartment momentarily filled with the whine of a dozen BlastRifles charging as pellets of charged antimatter slid into their firing chambers.  Tanner turned to look out the forward viewport; the prisoner transport loomed ahead, its egress port facing them.  “Knock on their door,” he instructed the pilot.

     Troop transports were built for one purpose:  to get soldiers in and out of combat situations quickly and safely.  Built for

efficiency rather than style, they were bulky and unattractive, with heavily armored plating and the capacity to travel only at the speed of light.  However, they were well armed, with twenty laser cannons mounted around their exteriors.  The troop transport slowed to a near halt, maintaining a safe fallout distance as its forward cannons fired, blasting the prisoner transport’s egress port into free-floating debris.  After a moment, the remains of a Calvorian’s body floated outside the ship—obviously someone not bright enough to stand away from the door of a vessel about to be boarded.  Tanner didn’t mind; one less obstacle to deal with.

     The troop transport moved in and pulled up parallel to the slightly larger vessel, until its own door bumped against the entry hole it had blown in the enemy ship’s side.  Tanner nodded to his pilot, who in turn flicked a switch.  For a moment, Tanner imagined he could hear the rough sound of metal scraping against metal as the troop transport’s doors opened against the torn shards of the Calvorian vessel’s hull.  He realized the impossibility of this however, as the vacuum of space whipped up around them, trying to fill itself with the bodies of him and his soldiers.  But as he had planned, there was hardly any space between the two ships’ hulls, and the troops tightly gripped the overhead grappling bars while their magnetic boots held them in place.  Eventually, the angry vacuum gave up, content instead with simply depressurizing the compartment, and Tanner led the majority of his troops forward, with only three remaining behind to keep the transport itself secured.

     The interior of the Calvorian vessel was extensive and dark.  Tanner knew that for whatever reason, Calvorians seemed to prefer darker settings, but in this case several of the overhead lights had been blown out or destroyed by his own transport’s cannon fire.  As he activated his suit’s connected shoulder lamp, a coherent beam of light suddenly bolted out of the darkness to his left, cleaving the lamp in half and passing through the faceplate of the soldier behind him!

     “Incoming!”  Tanner screamed over his com as he dodged further to the right, wishing his eyes would adjust faster to the darkness as he fired off his VK-12 in the initial shot’s general direction.  The packet of concentrated antimatter struck a wall, the flash of disintegration briefly illuminating a crouched silhouette in an E.V.A. suit who instantly returned fire, just missing another of Tanner’s people.

     Tanner and two of his soldiers let go a brief fusillade, catching the figure in the crossfire.  The antimatter cut the Calvorian in half, and the upper portion of his body floated down the length of the corridor, while his lower torso remained in place, held to the floor by its magnetic boots.  Tanner breathed an exhalation of relief, but gave the signal to hold up as one of his people started to proceed forward.  “All units, signal check,” he ordered, then proceeded to do a flash-diagnostic of the sensor pad attached to his wrist gauntlet.  The pad registered the correct number of blips remaining in his unit:  seven, not including himself.  The Cuscatian prisoners wouldn’t register yet―they were at least two compartments to the rear―but the fact that the Calvorian hadn’t been picked up, and in such close proximity, was a problem.  Wrist sensors in E.V.A. suits only had a range of 15-20 meters, but the alien soldier definitely should have registered in such an immediately confined area.

     And this wasn’t the first time Tanner had heard of an occurrence like this one.

     He turned, looked into the faceplate of the still-standing body of his fallen comrade, and grimaced; the face was a cratered hole, and if not for the suit’s name tag, he wouldn’t have known the corpse was Sarah Ferris, one of his best marksmen.  “All sensors functioning in parameters, Commander,” Corporal Grace reported.  “All right,” Tanner replied as he turned away from the standing corpse.  “We’ll pick up Lieutenant Ferris on the way back.  Hopefully that Calvorian not registering on our sensors was a fluke.  Either way, we’re gonna have to be more careful.  Let’s move, people.”

     Aboard the Horizon, Rand ticked away the passing seconds and minutes in his mind as he watched the two transports sit side-by-side on the main viewer.  His concentration was broken by a trickling sensation at his temple.  He brushed reflexively, then looked at his index finger:  sweat.

     He had been unaware that he was perspiring, and turned to look at his first officer.  Although Mara wasn’t sweating, her face was a mirror of the tension and concern he felt.  Their eyes met momentarily, but he looked away first, and turned back to

the viewscreen.  The ODC clicked on, and Rand somehow sensed what was coming before a word was spoken. “Lieutenant Guzman to Captain Rand,” the tactical second said anxiously.

     “Go ahead.”

     “Sir, long-range sensors have picked up an attack force of seventeen Calvorian cruisers and dreadnoughts headed in this general direction, approximately two light-years off our starboard side.”

     Rand pondered this new problem a moment, then asked, “How long until we’re within scanning range of their long-distance sensors?”

     “They’re traveling at sub-light, sir,” Guzman replied.  “If they maintain course and speed...twenty-four minutes.”

     “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Rand said as he half-turned to look at Mara...but she was already standing at Tamberlane’s console, observing as the communications officer activated the transpace comline and spoke into her headset:  “Horizon to Commander Matthews, urgent.  Come in, Commander Matthews.”  A brief pause, then Tamberlane cocked her head quizzically as she said, “I’m sorry, Commander, I didn’t pick that up.  Say again?”

     Inside a still-pressurized compartment of the Calvorian transport, a coherent beam of light just missed Tanner, and blew a sizable hole in the wall beside his head as he yelled into his comline, “I said I’m in the middle of a firefight, here!  Can’t this wait a second?”  He returned fire, catching the Calvorian who had shot at him squarely in the chest, then listened carefully as Mara’s insistent voice cut in.  When the commander finished, Tanner replied in a more subdued tone, “Yes, ma’am.  I understand, Commander.  We’ll double-time it outta here.”

     As his comline shut off, he watched as Corporal Grace’s shot took out the last of the Calvorians standing between his people and the prisoner bay.  As the alien fell dead to the floor, Tanner led his six remaining troopers over the three E.V.A.-suited corpses, to the final door before them.

     There was a complicated-looking code-pad beside the door.  Tanner didn’t understand the alien symbols on the keys, nor did he have the time to try and break the entry code.  He shot out the pad and the door unlatched, sliding open a few centimeters.  He motioned to three of his people, who dug their E.V.A.-suited fingers in between the frame and the door and pushed hard, finally forcing the door open all the way.  Tanner stepped forward, leading the way into the prisoner bay...and was appalled at what he saw.

     There were several groups of Cuscatians―all male, as far as he could tell―their ankles and wrists chained, all of them naked and huddled together fearfully in cliques of two or more.  The light from Corporal Grace’s shoulder lamp reflected dully off their blue-red exoskeletons, and the crab-like aliens, some of them caked in their own feces, stared at the humans wide-eyed, not yet comprehending they were being liberated.

     Tanner stepped forward slightly; suddenly very relieved his air was filtered and pure within his suit.  “Esal Ca Tila?”  he

asked, hoping at least one of the prisoners could understand the Terran language, and that he wasn’t mangling their own dialect too badly.  He was about to repeat the question, when one of the Cuscatians closest to him tentatively raised a hand and cautiously stepped forward.  “H-humans―?”  he nervously asked.  “Humans―?”

     “Yes,” Tanner replied firmly.  “I’m Lieutenant-Commander Tanner Matthews.  We have to get you out of―”

     “Humans!”  The Cuscatian suddenly exclaimed, as he gripped Tanner’s hand tightly in both his own.  The security chief grimaced as he glanced down at the alien’s serrated fingers, hoping they wouldn’t puncture his suit.

      “Humans,” the Cuscatian cried again.  “We’re saved, we’re saved!  Oh, thank the First Spawn!”  Before Tanner could say anything, the stocky alien turned to his fellow prisoners and said something to them in their native tongue.  One by one, the expressions on their faces turned to wearied relief and awe.  The groups began to shamble forward slowly, muttering the word “humans” as they cautiously approached.  Tanner did a mental spot-check, making certain there were indeed forty-three of them before returning his attention to the Cuscatian grasping his hand.

     “We’re going to get you all out of here,” Tanner began, “but the compartments past the adjacent one are all depressurized.  Your exoskeletons can handle the vacuum, can’t they?”

     “Yes.  Yes.  Yes, yes,” the Cuscatian repeated automaton-like, still trying to take all this in.  He then looked at his shackled

wrists, offering them up to Tanner as he pleaded, “Aren’t you going to free us?”  Tanner gently patted the alien’s shoulder plate, trying to be reassuring as he replied, “After we get you back to our ship.  We don’t have time to do it here.  We’ve got to get moving.”

     The stocky, crab-like alien looked up at Tanner mutely. The security chief couldn’t tell whether the Cuscatian didn’t believe him, or it was taking him a moment to assimilate and understand the human language.  After a long moment, the Cuscatian nodded in resignation and said quietly, “I will tell the others what you have told me.”