Refuge.

[Exile]

'God damnit! More of these idiotic beasts! Fire everything! And I mean EVERYTHING!



'Captain! Incomming hostiles bearing six-twelve! Thirteen boogies! Bomber and Gunboat classes!'
'F*ck! Keep firing damnit! Double the shifts on those missile batteries and divert all auxillery power to the aft shield! It's hanging in the balance people! Give'm hell!'

The crew of the ZJ.Refuge.II ran from one station to another, from gunnery positions to shield and armour repairs. It was madness. In his heard, Captain Price knew the outcome. Despite the efforts of his crew, his men, his...family, despite the ferosciousness of the cannons and strength of the armour, his ship would fall. The hull would shatter under the neverending pounding of the Nomad lasers and cannons and every man and woman would be sucked into the cold and brutal vacuum of space.

The ship shook with power as the shield collapsed under the full fury of the Nomads. Dozens of VoidArchon's and Runners fired relentlessly at the ship's shield generators. And one by one, they fell. One by one, the Nomad's ferosiousness devoured the generators. Until...

Warning! Shield ruptured!

'Captain! Generators one to six are offline! They're going after the armour next!' One of the officers shouted across the bridge.



And so they did. The ship started to shake even more now that the armour was being devoured. Conduits and concoles started to explode all over the ship, the main powerflow started to fluctuate and the weaponry started to breathe their last plasma.

'Sir! They've almost breached the plating! We can't take much more of this!'

No engines, failing weapons, no shield and wrecked armour. What is a man...A captain, to do?

'Graves! What's the status on the pods?'
'Pods three to fourtyeight able and ready, sir! It should be enough to carry all of us out of here!'

Price looked down at the local comm set. Would they have to abandon ship? Keep on figthing? Hope for a miracle? What? He reached down to the horn, and picked it up.

'This is the captain speaking...All hands, abandon ship! I say again, all hands abandon ship! Set your stations to automate and make a run for the pods! Get the hell out of here! We'll see eachother one the other side of the Jumphole! Godspeed!'

The Nomads kept on comming and comming, more every minute, every second. Bombers, figthers, gunboats, everything. From the bridge, Price could see the pods slowly starting to move towards the nearby jumphole. He felt...reliefd by the sight of two jumping through. What he did not realise, however, was that these two pods would be the only ones to leave this system...This hell in space.

Four more pods closed in on the Omicron Delta jumphole. They would have succesfully jumped through, if it wasn't for that ship. That ship of darkness uncloaking right infront of them. A prison liner. It's bays opened up and ready to launch figther craft. And so it did.

Avangers, Defenders, Wraith's and Valkyries flew out of the Prison liner and into the warzone, disabling any and all pods approaching the jumphole. It was clear that no one was going to leave this place.

One by one the pods halted their engines and were swooped up by this dark prison liner. It started to slowly approach the battle taking place a few klicks further into the system, towards the half exploding Juggernaught.

'Captain! Unkown contact right infront of us! It's moving towards us!'

'Great. More f*cking hostiles. What's the status on those we-'
Weapons offline
'GOD F*CKING DAMNIT! NO! This can't be happening! Not to us! Not now!'

Moments after the destruction of the weaponry, the Nomads halted their fire and sat freigtingly close to the Juggernaught. The dark ship however, did not halt. It moved towards the ship. Closer..Faster...Untill it finaly latched onto its cargobay.

Ten dreadfull minutes later

*Thomp**Thomp**THOMP*. The door of the bridge blew open and something resembling a woman could be seen through the thick smoke. As the smoke cleared, the figures could finaly be made out. A woman, black hair and a black robe decorated with red markings walked into the bridge, followed by Incubi like Nomads slithering towards the unconscious officers.

'No! You f*cking animal! Get away from-AAARGH

As Price tried to stop the creatures from getting near to his men, he felt an incredible pain course through his entire body. His skull felt like it would explode there and then. The woman raised her right hand, pointed at Price and telekeneticly threw him against the back of his own chair. An Incubi approached him.

The screams heard then would have wrecked the spirit of any Human. But the woman, however, turned around and walked back into the hallway to the dark ship latched onto the cargobay. Her work was done.

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