Ghosts of the Past...

[Dab]

Raf'el took the controls of their shuttle as the freighter beside them lifted off. Flown by remote from the commando in the co-pilot seat, it was being sacrificed to give the shuttle more of a chance of reaching the target, intact. The freighter exited the hanger bay somewhat wobbly, followed by the shuttle with Raf'el and his commandos on board.

The two ships entered cruiser and flew off towards the cruiser-sized ship. When they reached a distance of three kilometers, they shut off the cruise engines and activated the thrusters. Raf'el reduced the speed of their shuttle and the freighter jumped ahead of them. At two kilometers his co-pilot sent the freighter into a weave, or inward spiral, to make it more difficult to hit. He also initiated the freighters missile launchers to start random shooting, in an attempt to attract the attention of the ship.

Raf'el goosed the thrusters and quickly closed the distance between them and the ship, as it moved to attack the freighter. By the time the ship had destroyed the freighter, he and his commandos had gotten within a few hundred meters of the ship. Already they were preparing to eject themselves and their equipment out into space.

He and the commandos grabbed the handle grips on the portable rocket booster and one of them gave a command on a hand held control unit which began the cargohold's door to open. The commandos and Raf'el in space gear drove the rocket straight at the large ship's hull. When they had almost reached the superstructure they shot a powerful adhesive that stuck the rocket to that spot on the hull.

"Sir, we can't find any seams in the hull, and we can't cut through that material." During the time they had taken to try getting into the ship, it had again fell silent, having destroyed the shuttle and freighter, and apparently unable to identify the small group around its hull as a threat. "Keep trying!" They did. And half an hour later they were no closer than they were when they had begun. "Sir, we are running out of time. We have twenty, maybe thirty minutes left of air." Raf'el floated there, trying to think of what to do.

His eyes grew wide in shock and recognition as he recalled the reaction from the chunk of crystal when he had touched. The cold of space bit into his hand as he pulled his airtight glove off, exposing it to the vacuum of space. He pressed his bare hand to the side of the ship. As he expected, the hull around his hand started to pulse green on the blue background of the ship's hull. He kept up the pressure of his hand as the green glow grew outward from his hand. After he had a circle of two meters that now pulsed green, the speed of the pulsing decreased. Slowly the pulsing became a solid color of green.

He jerked his hand back in surprise as it started to move into the crystal, which had now become a jelly-like substance. Cautiously he pushed his hand in again, farther this time. Suddenly he could feel air, warmth, as his hand encountered oxygen again. Quickly he moved the commandos into the ship through the green area, then entered himself. He removed his helmet and breathed fresh air. Slightly surprised to find it clean and fresh, instead of the usual stale air common on vessels this size.

"You four, search the ship. the rest come with me." Four commandos headed down the ship's 'spine' as Raf'el and the other eight commandos took off in the direction of the bridge. They were entering the bridge as the other team contacted them. "Sir, we have searched the ship. No lifeforms, it must be running on autopilot as we thought." That thought was confirmed as Raf'el walked into an empty bridge. Pale tan metal-type consoles lay in a circle around the perimeter of the room. In the center of the room, where a much larger console wrapped in a circle around a chair. The commandos spread out among the terminals. He had personally instructed this commando unit to read the Miralukan language that would be displayed by these terminals. He took his seeat at the center terminal, giving him a tactical map of the ship's area. The Oblivion showed as a ruby-gold dot on the screen, meaning a moderate threat, with tactical information displayed on terminal screens on the rings above and below the center ring.

"Whats the status on the engineering equipment?" He asked. One of his commandos answered, "Engineering states all systems are ready and on standby." "Good, navigation, status?" "All systems ready sir. It seems the ships shared information. We have half of Sirius on the maps, along with a fair amount of systems outside Sirius."

"I want you to set a course to a system named Malier. Send its location to Oblivion." He said. "Done sir, course set and ready to jump." The commando on the navigation console replied. "Open a channel to Darkstar."

"As you can see we have managed to gain control of the ship. We sent you coordinates for our destination. You'll arrive in a couple days with the C'tan warp drive. We will be using this ship's warp mechanism, instantaneous travel. I'll be sure to make it all nice and safe for your beloved Oblivion," he added sarcastically. "Just make sure you are not running any C'tan IDs when you jump in." Raf'el's face disappeared from the Oblivion's comm screen as his newly acquired ship warped out.

To be continued

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