The shattered edge

[Pacific]

While running, Steele and Dimitrov heard the plea for help from the AI Baal. They stopped and Petko turned to Steele.

"That BAAL thing needs us, it just contacted us from its TAC comms, It says its in trouble! "

Steele replied

"Alright Petko, you got that fancy Shoulder-Mounted Tachyon Cannon. Lead the way"

Petko and Steele shifted their running path towards the BAAL. When they got there, Baal was was under attack by some sort of flying creatures. Steele directly opened fire. While Steele was having fun shooting down the bird creatures, 2 much larger creatures were eating the Hull of the BAAL and causing it pain. Petko took His Dragunov sniper rifle and fired two shots each one of them, killing the creatures. But from the dehind Petko a flying creature was stalking him. it attacked Petko. Petko lost his Dragunov and he reached for his knife and guted the creature.

Steele laughed and sais to Dimitrov.

"Hey, Dimitrov *laughs*, nice moves!"Steele continued to laugh but when Petko saw a creature about to take off Steele Head he grabbed the Shoulder-Mounted Tachyon Cannon he fired at the creature. The projectile went just a few inches from Steel's head and hit the creature. Steele got shocked, and said:

"Are you crazy!? You could have blown my head off with that thing!"

Petko laughed and replied

"Now you know how I felt Steele. Now lets secure BAAL and get us a TAC link to someone".

---

<3 Omicron <3

<3 Chuba<3

[Yuveraj Khan]

Everyone on the bridge of the Kerimov heard the Premier's final words. And Razin shifted uneasily as he stepped forward.

"Commissar Khan," He cleared his throat. "It might be best if we tried a more coordinated approach?"

The senior Commissar turned his head to cast a withering glare at the Colonel.

"Then maybe you should join Colonel Broch on the assualt, but then a member of the Premier's inner circle..." his lips quirked. "Would never be put in such a risky position."

Razin folded his arms, looking annoyed. "My friendship with the Premier has nothing to do with my duty. I am here to liase and to monitor this operation..."

"Then monitor it, Comrade-Lieutenant Colonel... from over there," Khan pointed across the bridge. "Away from men that actually know what they are doing."

Razin glared, as he returned across the bridge to stand by Santorini. "That man is going to get us all killed if he keeps going like this!" He said in a muted whisper.

---

[arvg]

Katz sat pensive after the screen went dark, his fingers tapping against his chin. His eyes flicking over to where Commissar Mendel was standing out of visual radius of the screen.

"Your thoughts, my friend?" Katz inquired.

"My thoughts are they've created a complete mess, as per damn usual," Mendel was fumbling through his pockets for a cigarette. "And Khan's probably launched himself off of the deepend, if he thinks we don't actually know what's going on out there. Bloody typical though, this is what we get when we place our lives in the hands of those muppets."

Katz nodded, "They are out of their league. I agree there... it's time we called in some... specialist help, I think."

He turned to the screen, pressing the red comm panel on his desk to activate the direct line to the Battleship Isis, and Order High Command.

"Gentlemen," he said, folding his hands in his lap as he rocked back in his comfortable chair. "I think we have finally found a way to... repay some of the help you have been giving us of late. Allow me to transmit some data records and scans to you."

He transmitted the Kerimov's sensor logs. Looking up at the screen expectantly.

"As you can see, this is of some interest," Katz smiled warmly. "The question is, where do we go from here?"

---

[Rodent]

Robert D'Souza's little office aboard Lisbon station was plain, and little-adorned. There was a plain table and chairs, made of matching mahogany wood. The walls were a dull drab steel, unadorned save for the Eye of Horus behind the table, and a picture of a woman opposite. There were a lot of consoles on the Table, and that was where Robert D'Souza now worked. The fighting man, now relegated to a backseat role. It still irked him, but dutifully he trudged on.

It was with practiced ease that he drew up yet another communications channel request addressed to him, but he was rather taken aback to see Premier Katz. The information he supplied was even more startling. Apparently they had found something of an alien nature, and were now asking for assistance.

Took you long enough to come to us with this He started with a smile. The humor faded from his voice as he continued though.

This is an interesting thing you have found, possibly another alien threat. The main question is, what kind of help do you require? We can send you a couple of troop transports loaded with Order marines, and scientists to investigate that wreck. We can also mobilise some of our bigger guns, if they are available. What do you need?

[arvg]

Katz stood slowly from behind his desk, his hands balling behind his back. "I have some... experience in Alien matters, as the Order well knows. But I have never seen anything like this. What we should do is continue with extreme caution."

He gestured, "I feel that we should send a full science team to assist Doctor XiaoBei who is already on site. I would also recommend an Osiris equipped for deep space salvage, if you have one. To properly get a handle on what this thing is, we are going to need to study it up close."

He smiled his characteristic winning smile. "It feels good to actually offer you something, for a change, Admiral."

---

[Rodent]

Robert's brows furrowed in concentration.

Give me a moment Premier He said. From his screen, the Premier could see the Hispanian furiously working on consoles, first one, and the other. At times, speaking something to someone. He was obviously trying to gauge and collect information.

After a jam-packed fifteen minutes, Robert finally looked up at the screen, and smiled. Reclining in his chair, he put his hands behind his head and began.

Marine and Science teams we can arrange Senor, but we have currently no Osiris that can effectively salvage. Retrofitting one for the purpose will take a while, and I think we should secure the location first anyway, which will take some time.

I will direct Transports Renenet and Rabiah to ferry the Science and Marine teams to your transmitted location, along with escort. Santos Bolevara will oversee the mission from our side. You should be aware it will take us a little while to move units to your location,so until then...you're on your own.

He breathed deeply, and pressed a few more buttons, supposedly finishing things.

[arvg]

"Ph...phantoms..." XiaoBei croaked out.

It was like someone had dropped a nuclear bomb in the room. Every single Coalitioner went pale, each of them checking their weapons and looking around the derelict like it was something far more dangerous now.

There was no time for caution. Alvarez slung XiaoBei over his shoulder, hoping the man wasn't radioactive of something else contagious. "We need to get out of here Hermanos... if this is a Phantom ship, and they catch us messing around with it..."

All of them remembered the events surrounding JiangXi, and that had been concerning the remains of a single Phantom corpse. They were aboard a massive starship, arrayed like a temple. Their bullets, bodies and blood desecrating the Phantoms property...

Xiaobei was stirring on Alvarez's shoulder as they hurried back to the platform, and Alvarez was getting a better grip on him, distracted when Brooks hollered, "We got bodies over here!"

Alvarez gestured to Winters, "grab the muppet, and don't touch those corpses, ese!"

XiaoBei struggled, and Alvarez let him down. "Are you all right Doctore?"

They gaped at him. XiaoBei's eyes had changed. His irises a deep purple. He had the look of a man in rapture, gazing around himself with measureless approval.

"Yes, yes," XiaoBei said, nodding in comprehension. "I see!"

There was no time to find out just what it was he saw, Alvarez grabbed the doctor by his coat and hurried him along. The group bursting through a door way, into a sub chamber, filled with golden boxes of varying shapes and sizes.

"Come in anyone?" Winters was calling into her TAC, suddenly thankful when Broch answered.

---

[Jayce]

Jayce was rather surprised at everyone's apparent discomfort at the word "Phantom." He had met a Phantom named "Harlequin" back in his days as a Rogue, but that one appeared to be nothing more than a rather deranged humanoid. Everyone else in the room had either had more contact with them, or they had succumbed to the rumors that everyone hears about the Phantoms.

"Hey, boss, why is everyone flippin' out? What's so dangerous about being on this ship, anyway?" Jayce said, while he was fiddling with one of the consoles in the room. "I mean, yeah, it looks like the temple of doom, and it's got scary alien things, but---"

"MAIN POWER IS NOW ONLINE. MAIN POWER IS NOW ONLINE. MAIN POWER IS---" A voice screeched out of the panel.

"Oh... Crap. I don't think I should've pressed that..." Jayce said, firing a round from his shotgun into the panel.

"Brooks! What are you doing?!" Alvarez screamed.

"Nothing, boss! Just... Err... It just turned on when I came over here." Jayce said, noticing that power was being diverted to the weapons systems. The turrets of the vessel soon came to bear on the Kerimov, spitting gouts of plasma into the reconnaissance vessel's hull. "Oh... God... GUYS! GUYS!" Jayce screamed, but he noticed that the group had moved on to another room. "Ooooh... Boooy... This... This is beyond bad... ALVAREZ! RICARDO! HEY, RICKY! HEEELP!" Jayce trailed off...

---

[Yuveraj Khan]

It only took seconds for things to go from somewhat peaceful to utter chaos.

To Razin, everything was happening in slow motion. He stepped forward from his station, his hand raising towards the screen, and the wave of brilliant purple light washing towards the Kerimov, before they were hit.

The deck literally turned upside down, inside the crew were flung like pingpong balls, bouncing off of consoles, as the battleship tore through the bow of the Kerimov, holing it stem to stern. The fire raked to one side, sheering off the port side RECON booms, as the Kerimov tried to turn, to get distance, crashing into the repair ship alongside, the secondary vessel smashing into pieces as the Kerimov took it down with her.

Razin didn't know how, but he was up on his feet, grabbing the first person he could find, Santorini, and dragging her with him towards the doors. The alarm klaxxons roaring through the ship, as she died.

They had mere seconds till the battleship tracked a second salvo, and they had no other choice.

Razin stuffed Santorini, protesting the whole time, into the escape pod, as he banged shut the door, triggering the emergency lever that shot them away from the stricken Order warship.

Other pods roared away as the Kerimov spun lazily, weapons fire blowing great chunks out of its hull, as seconds later, the ship exploded into atoms.

Done with the first threat, the Derelict seemed to turn in space, aiming for the CPW-Trotsky.

---

[Violette]

"I need Marines at..." Stacy placed another Nav point down by the boxes, "Nav point bravo"

Brooks began shouting something from the other room, "Not again..." Stacy muttered,

She grabbed Jayce's collar, pulling him away from the console. Frantically, she began pressing buttons and flipping switches.

"What are you doing?" Jayce buzzed, poking his head over her shoulder,

"Trying to fix... what... you..." then she stopped, "Nope, didn't work... time to leave!"

She grabbed Jayce by the arm and pulled, the console flashing and beeping away.

"JUMP DRIVES ACTIVE, FIVE PERCENT" the voice around them droned.