A holographic emitter slid out of the surface of the probe, and Pip’s image appeared, glowing in monochrome blue. She was a diminutive woman with the same ashen white skin as the soldier.  Her hair was cut in a black bob with two long bangs of white that framed her face. The hexagonal patterns on her skin-tight data suit glowed with patterns of running light.

            “Got your message honey,” the image said, “we should be arriving in about an hour and a half, less if the captain opens the taps on the grav’ syphon.”  The hologram turned and yelled at something unseen, “Of course it’ll work, just gun it; we’ll be fine! Yes, I’m aware of how old the spaceframe is.  She can take it.” The hologram clenched its fists in rage, “You know what? Fuck it do whatever you want!” Turning back to face them the image of Pip suddenly changed from angry to wide eyed embarrassment. “Oh shit, this thing’s still on! Ahem, I sent this probe on ahead. That shit you sent us hard core babe, proper invasive, seriously high end biotech, never seen anything like it. Put simply, without me, honey, you were screwed.”

            “Get on with it, squeak,” Tyger murmured, folding his arms.

            “The analysis you sent wasn’t a hundred percent clear,” the hologram continued, “but from what I could piece together in the short time I had, these creatures are made of a malleable, metamorphic material with bio-mimetic properties.”  She shrugged. “Some of it just doesn’t register on any known database.”

            She made a small grimace as her voice lowered to a slight groan. “I hate to admit it, but Kairen had to help me put it all together –and he still won’t stop gloating over it.”

            A second and third hatch on the probe sectioned away.  A weapons rack extended from the first, with a MAG rifle and three MAG pistols, in addition to a set of five ammo clips loaded onto its frame. A black canister with a biometric seal on its top was softly ejected from the third hatch. Tyger stepped forward and removed one of the pistols. He chuckled with amusement at the fact that Pip was forced to give credit to her own live-in intellectual rival.

            “Okay, we came up with a disruptive nanogel that basically targets and dissolves the bonds between the molecules specific to the creatures. It won’t affect metal, but I suggest you avoid getting it on your skin. I loaded some weapons into this probe along with some modified ammo,” Pip’s image prattled on as Tyger examined the weapons, “ There’s a can of this shit for coating blades and sharp sticks and anything else pointy you can find to use.”

Again Pip’s image turned to address something invisible, “No, no I got this, we’re almost wrapped up here. No seriously! Aww Come on!”

A ghostly detached arm appeared and dragged the image of Pip out of sight replaced with that of a taller woman sporting a similar bob with the left half shaved. Tyger immediately recognised it as the Shadow Star’s captain, Paige.

“Despite what that little shit might have said about our speed, we are making our way as fast as we can. All I need you to do is stay alive until then,” she pointed a finger forward as the recording knew where he’d be standing. “If you die, you’ll never hear the last of it, understand?”

            Tyger, taken somewhat aback by the captain’s parting words looked up just in time to see Pip shoving her way back into the image and wave goodbye, then vanish into a shower of pixels as the emitter slid back into the probe.

            “She sent you quite the arsenal,” the soldier remarked, leaning over the probe to reach for the rifle.

            Tyger fastened a set of three spare clips across his belt. They felt solid, and the guns were a slight comfort to have. “I’d have preferred heavier weapons,” he said.

“They had limited time and resources with which to manufacture these special rounds furry fighter,” the soldier said, wagging a finger as though he were a naughty child.  “Be grateful for what they did send.”

Feeling suitably admonished Tyger smiled.  He sighed loudly, checking the weapons once again. “Shame we have to get so close,” He said.  “What I’d give for Miranda’s sniper MAG right now.”

The soldiers head whipped around and stared straight into Tyger’s eyes.

            “Who?” the soldier asked.

            “Miranda, she’s a tank, ground tank like you. But  kind of ... well ...” Tyger fumbled about with his words, trying to find a way to put what he needed to say in as delicate a manner as possible. “I think Maria defected with her because she’s broken or something.”

            “Broken?” The soldier raised an eyebrow, which Tyger, to his discomfort, did not know how to interpret.

            “Well, she acts like she’s in space most of the time,” Tyger said, “disconnected, you know. But she can make calculations with speeds that I’ve only seen in A.I. systems. She can rattle off complex calculus and assess every possible strategy in a mission briefing with only the barest of details. The crew seems used to it, but it blows me away every time.”

            “Wait. You have her as a member of your crew?” the soldier asked, voice aghast.

            “Yeah,” Tyger said, slowly. 

            She’s not broken,” the soldier spoke in a brittle tone, fixing Tyger with a look that was a cross between incredulity and restrained anger. “She’s the prodigy, far beyond any of our kind mentally. She was once the greatest general of our armies. Combined with the Juggernaut, our forces were unstoppable. We annexed worlds in record time, long before I was even spawned. She doesn’t need to understand social nuances; her job was to plan. And, when necessary she would take up her rifle and lead by example. She is legendary, and mourned as a great loss to our forces.”

            Tyger, now put well out of his conversational comfort zone let another long period of silence pass between them, before finally responding in a small voice. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

            “Well, now you do,” the solider replied. Her tone had softened, but still retained a slight terseness whose sting Tyger could feel.

            “We don’t know much about you,” he said after another calculated pause, “or your kind, for that matter.”

            “You could have asked.”

            “I’d have too many questions, to be honest,” Tyger admitted. “I’ll be frank; I’ve been holding back a lot since I met you, mostly out of respect, and the fact that I didn’t know what I could ask you.”  He raised his hands and shrugged, “I mean I have an idea from stories that Maria told me but, you know, she chose to leave that life behind her so I never really pushed her for more details.”

            The soldier stood silent for a moment and then let out a quiet ‘hmm’. She then watched Tyger open the seal on the canister, remove his machete, and coat the blade with the bluish-gray nanogel. The soldier extended her vajra and allowed Tyger to apply the remaining fluid to its sharpened edges. As she did this, her next comment came out in a tone that was a strange combination of offhanded and sultry. “If we make it through this, I’ll have to reward you.”

            “Really?” Tyger said. “What for?”

            “Your honesty,” the soldier replied. “It seems there are things about you that I still need to discover. And I would like to discover them.  But before that …”  Tyger noticed her shrewd grin as he fought down a massive grin of his own.  He watched as she patted the rifle. “This ‘shit’ is yet to be tested. Let us focus on the mission at hand, furry fighter.”

             “Took the words out of my mouth,” Tyger said, following closely behind.

***

 

            Tyger felt his confidence wane considerably as he and the soldier arrived at the barricade about the hangar. Things were considerably different from yesterday. Most of the surrounding trees appeared to be dying, blackened leaves littered the forest floor, and it appeared that some trees had even fallen. Fresh pods hung from the material of the barricade. Like black, mottled eggplants they hung there, nearly fifty in all by his count, grown from branch-like projections in the alien material.

            “These shouldn’t be here,” the soldier observed grimly.

            “My thoughts exactly,” Tyger said, “Safe to say the timetable has been scrapped.”

            Tyger raised his pistol and took aim at the biomechanical wall before him.  “Well, if we’re gonna do some damage, we’d better do it now,” he said as the soldier came to his side. He pulled the trigger.

            The shot fell just short of its target, wedging solidly into the material of the fence. At first, he was annoyed at the waste of valuable ammo, but then he heard a delighted noise from the soldier.

            “It actually hit!” she exclaimed.

            “What do you mean ‘hit’?” Tyger asked, gesturing towards the barricade. “I missed it by a mile.”

            “No, look, the shot hasn’t been immediately absorbed! There is a wound.” the soldier said, pointing at the spot where his bullet hit. Quickly, she took aim with her rifle and shot a hole clear through the pod that Tyger had been aiming for. The pod shook violently from the shot, and a moment later, exploded in a shower of ichor.

            “Shit!” Tyger drawled. “Remind me to buy the pipsqueak a drink!”

            “So, shall we go hunting?” the soldier quipped, smiling at the broad grin Tyger now sported.

            “Absolutely.”  Tyger then made short work of a second pod, which exploded with the same spectacular effect. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

***

            The work was more tedious than cumbersome, the bullets doing most of the job, and the pods exploding as expected from the first trial. They made a full sweep around the barricade. Pod after pod fell to their newfound ammunition. There were a great deal more than any they had encountered before and they had used a significant amount of ammo dealing with them.

            Once they were finished with that boring task, Tyger at last gathered courage enough to take a swing at the barricade.

            The machete sliced through the material of the barricade like a knife through wax. It resisted somewhat with every swing, but that resistance did not amount to much and to his delight, he was able to hew out a section of the barricade that was large enough for him to crawl through.

            “Look out!” he heard the soldier scream. Before he could react, he was unceremoniously knocked to the ground by an agonizing blow to his lower back –thankfully, it missed his tail. Through the stars and spots that clouded his vision, he received a glimpse of one of the creatures that had crawled through the opening unseen, sporting a flail with knots upon its surface. Reeling with pain, Tyger crawled backwards, putting several feet between him and the barricade, teeth bared, shirt torn from the blow, his back a throbbing bruise.

            The creature leaped forward with two of its companions, one with another saw blade, the other brandishing serrated set of metal-like jaws. Furiously twitching legs on their undersides glinted with smaller bladed instruments, reaching out for his very pliable flesh. Tyger slashed blindly, succeeding in knocking one creature back into the barricade, but the others were nearly on top of him. Choosing the pain of ripping flesh over blindness, he shielded his eyes. Waiting a moment more for pain that never came, he dared to look, and saw the two creatures skewered on the edge of his mate’s rounded vajra blade, like a nightmarish kabob. He watched as the nanogel corroded their bodies and disintegrated them into pools of frothing, foul-smelling liquid.

            “Get up, furry fighter!” the soldier hissed urgently, reaching down and hauling him roughly to his feet. “There are many more!”

            Gritting against the combined pain from his back and tail, Tyger groaned, gaining his balance once he stood fully upright –then sliced at a blur that appeared in the corner of his eye. Two halves of another creature fell to the ground, its twisting limbs transforming into jelly, and then a puddle.

            He paused for only a moment, still overcome by combined fear and surprise at the sheer effectiveness of the nanogel before a bladed appendage from another creature his mate had dispatched flew over his head, breaking his reverie. Working through the pain in his back, he reared back, ready to hack down a couple more sections of the barricade. But before he could make the first cut, the soldier placed a gentle yet firm grip on his arm.
            “That would not be wise,” she said, and led him back through the forest. Pausing at a nearby tree she climbed up and motioned for him to follow. Gritting his teeth Tyger climbed up, it wasn’t as high as the lean-to but enough to make him feel uncomfortable. They had a full view of the area, even with some of the what lay beyond the barricade visible.
            “As I suspected, there are more pods beyond,” the soldier said. “It wouldn’t be a good idea to just break into the barricade, but I have a plan.”

            She gestured down one of the neighboring branches. Tyger noticed how it interwove with the branches of the next tree, which connected to another, then another, leading to an undamaged tree that stood very close to the barricade about the hangar.

            “Do the ion drives on that probe still work?” his mate asked.

            “They should,” Tyger replied, “they’re made to be reusable.”

            “We’ll need one,” the soldier said, and gestured again towards the path of interconnecting branches. As they moved through the trees Tyger asked about her plan.  “What do you need an ion drive for, exactly?”

            “Your friend gave us more salve than we’d need,” the soldier explained, “and if we can rig a drive to the canister, we could fire it inside the barrier and overload it.”

            “I like it,” Tyger said, the plan coming together in his head. “But the hangar might not survive the explosion.”

            The soldier stood silent, mulling over the situation. Finally, she looked at him, her pale eyes hard and sincere. “Do you want that ship?” she asked.

            “More than anything-” Tyger began, and then stopped himself, an obvious gaffe coming to mind. “Well, almost anything,” he said, correcting himself.

            “Risk and reward,” the soldier said with a mischievous smile. “It is the way of war.”

            Tyger had to work quickly, fear over just when the rest of those pods would open lending swiftness to his hands as he worked on removing the drive from its moorings. Despite having only a knife to aid him, the controls of the still functional ion drive and the drive itself were thankfully modular in design, and easily removed from the ship. The soldier provided a good jury rig and attached it to the canister of the remaining salve with several thick vines, and afterwards used another set of vines to strap it to his shoulders.

            “You’re better at climbing trees,” she said. “You will need to drop it into the barricade. Don’t miss.”

            Tyger returned to the interconnected trees and climbed up anxiously. Reaching the branch closest to the barricade he removed the rig, set the controls, and switched on the power feed beyond its maximum capacity. The exhaust fired into life and the rig shot towards the gap in the barricade nearly knocking Tyger off of the branch as it went. Grasping for dear life onto his perch, he made his way back, hearing the humming crescendo of the drive’s power feed reaching critical levels. When the explosion happened, the compression wave still knocked him some distance on the broad branch he was traversing. Grasping with his claws, he steadied himself and looked back to see his handiwork.

            Where the barrier once stood were charred, blackened splinters, and several very angry creatures, prematurely awakened. They were not as numerous as ants, as they perhaps would have been had they gone in guns blazing, but they were still numerous, and angrier than hornets in a wounded nest.

            He heard his mate scream, and he wheeled his head in her direction. Some of the creatures had already crossed the length of the treeless waste. She skewered one that had taken a rather gruesome purchase on her back, burying its claws into her paper white flesh. Seeming to ignore the pain of her wounds, she held her ground in the fray, taking out the approaching creatures. Seizing the opportunity, Tyger took potshots at the small army. Multiple times, the creatures tried to rip the weapons from the soldier’s hands in order to digest them, but no sooner had their tendrils hit their surfaces, then they lost cohesion and melted into a liquid, along with their owners. Soon, the pathetic attempt at an attack ended.

            Tyger dropped from the tree and joined his mate’s side as she wiped her vajra on the closest untainted patch of ground he could find. 

            “You think that’s all of them?” He asked.

            “Didn’t see any coming from the clearing wall,” the soldier replied. “But If you think I’m going back there to check ...”

            “No, no,” Tyger waved dismissively. “I was just wondering.” He took a few steps forward towards the now exposed hangar. “We’d better go in. If more of those creatures are out there, I think the safest place will be in the ship.”

            Wordlessly, the soldier followed Tyger into the hole, both of them with weapons drawn. Inside the barricade, Tyger’s eyes adjusted to the subdued light. Once he could see, his skin crawled at his surroundings. Whatever this lifeform was, it had certainly been busy. Tendrils of its black material covered the outside of the hangar like veins of hardened tar; open pods sprouted everywhere on its surface as well as the inside of the barricade, their contents divulged –and hopefully dispatched by himself and his mate. There were no signs of movement in the still darkness, but this was of little comfort, knowing the creatures’ knack for stealth. Ahead of them, the hangar’s entrance gaped open like a threatening maw.

            “I really don’t want to go in there,” Tyger muttered under his breath. Nevertheless, he moved forward, keeping in step with his mate. He switched from his machete to the pistols, counting the ammo still in the chambers and holstered about his waist. It was a good thing MAG’s held about fifty times the ammo of your typical chemically fired handgun. But in a frenzied battle, ammo went fast if you weren’t judicious with how and where you shot.

            “Lights are off,” the soldier said as they approached the entrance. Tyger watched her signal him with her vajra to hold back. He obeyed and she poked into the darkness before stalking slowly inside, where she vanished into the shadows. Then, a moment later, she screamed her battle cry, nearly scaring him out of his skin. Several other, frighteningly familiar sounds accompanied: the metallic clicking noise of monsters, and the sibilant whirring of whatever instruments of death they carried, followed by the whistling and shrieking of bladed instruments cutting the air and striking each other. Stunned at first by the sudden noise, Tyger steeled himself and leaped into the open door, tumbling on the ground to avoid any projectiles, rising to a crouched position, pistols ready.

            He was welcomed by an almost deafening silence, followed by the flicker of lights as they at last switched on, revealing the El Tigre, unharmed, as he expected and hoped. He saw the soldier near the entrance, her hand on the light switch panel. Beside her were two familiar black stains.

            “There were only two,” she said. “But I appreciate the bravado.”

            “There may be more hiding out inside,” Tyger warned, deciding to recover some of his dignity. He gestured in the way of the ship’s still open personnel door. “That’s where I got that injury to my tail.”

            He took point this time, moving slowly up the ramp into the ship’s cargo bay, listening for more noises of unpleasant things. Satisfied that all was clear once he was fully inside, he looked back towards the opening –and screamed a curse that probably would have had him excommunicated from the faith back home. Reaching over the shoulder of his mate, he fired shot after shot of his MAG pistol at the creatures that had appeared in the entrance and skittered inside. Ducking down, the soldier joined him in the defense, picking away at the creatures, but the sheer number flooding across the inside of the hangar was beyond counting.

            “It laid a trap for us! Clever,” the soldier said.

            “Hold them off,” Tyger shouted to the soldier as she kept firing at the approaching swarm, backing up onto the steps. Taking as many shots as he dared along the way, he dashed back towards the hatch and slammed his hand on the closing controls, retracting it just in time to avoid another crushing blow from one of the creatures. Slowly, the hatch began to close, but its pace was agonizing as the swarm of creatures attempted to scramble inside. The steps lifted from the floor, and the still-surviving creatures took hold of its edges with whatever appendages they had, or tried to squeeze inside from the corners. Tyger slashed at those closest to him with his machetes, while the soldier fired away taking a position at the opposite end of the bay. The door continued to close, and more skittered inside, only to be severed in half by the crushing force of the door as the hatch lowered inexorably to form its airtight seal with the steps. The creatures maintained their relentless assault to the bitter end, however, clawing and squeezing their way in until the very last. Once the final inches between the hatch and its frame had been closed, and the booming of the seals marked their security, there was only one particularly crafty creature left among the pool of slime that was its companions. It bobbed and wove, avoiding the soldier’s shots until it appeared to take a gamble, and launch itself wildly in her direction. Tyger closed the distance and eviscerated it just inches from her face, right before slipping on an errant patch of ichor and falling unceremoniously to the ground. Crawling to his hands and knees, he met her face to face.

            She kissed him, and he laughed. It was the only thing he could think to do after such a harrowing escape. But then he recalled something incredibly important.

            “Furry fighter?” the soldier said, confused as Tyger stood up.

            “We’re not out of it yet,” he said, hopping onto the ladder and ascending to the cockpit. “They might think this ship too valuable to tear apart, but that won’t stop the turning it into Swiss cheese to reach us.”

            “You have a plan?” she asked, following him through the access port and catching up with him as he leapt into the pilot’s seat.

            “The ship’s defenses are still intact,” he said, running his fingers over the control panel. “Guns are useless, but the shields ...” He looked forward through the view port, covered with a roiling mass of skittering monsters, and flipped a switch. With a blue haze, the creatures exploded, vaporized into a black mist. 

            “Shields will keep the creatures off of us,” Tyger said, finally feeling safe enough to sigh, “but they won’t sever the main body’s connection, I’ll bet.” He looked down at the open cover to the astronav unit, and regarded the still present tendril, pulsing just as maliciously as before.

            Slipping out of the pilot’s seat, he grabbed a nearby fire extinguisher and took aim with his machete. “But I’ll bet this will,” he said, and stabbed at the appendage.

            To his fright, it seemed to emit a blood-curdling scream before shuddering and melting into the circuitry, which sparked and sizzled with the intrusion of the foreign substance. Hurriedly, he doused the burgeoning fire with the extinguisher.

            “Well, that ends one problem,” he said, still shaken by the appendage’s reaction.

            “But what about the part still attached to the ship?” the solder asked.

            Tyger reached over to the controls, and switched on the rear sensor grid.

            “That shit moves fast; look!” he said, gesturing to the image. It was still connected, but it was looking different. It sagged, and particles of black ichor were dripping onto the floor. “I guess we’re safe for now but the shield is a major power draw.” He glanced over his shoulder at the console and hit a series of buttons. “Beacon’s lit; it should give Pip something to aim for.”

            He slipped down to the floor, and the soldier slipped down to his side, leaning her head on his shoulder in the momentary calm.

            “Well, that was certainly an adventure,” she remarked. 

            Suddenly, the ship gave a horrible lurch: a massive jerking motion that slammed both Tyger and his mate into each other, and then into the panels with violent centrifugal force. With several massive booming noises and violent heaves that shook the craft from top to bottom, light flooded the cockpit from the open sun. In spite of the forces hurling the El Tigre this way and that, Tyger used his claws for purchase and inched his way back into the cockpit, adjusting his movements for when forces threw him one way, and then another. He fumbled with the gravity harness and secured himself into position before shifting his attention to the view port. It showed him what he figured, yet still couldn’t believe. They were no longer inside the hangar, but hanging above it, about fifty feet by his reckoning, but it was hard to tell as the ground below shifted back and forth as they were swung in the air. To his right, far below, was the clearing, still cordoned off by a wall of impenetrable black. The main body, now grown seemingly higher than before had sprouted multiple ebon tendrils, all suspending the El Tigre in the air.

            The tendrils shook the ship back and forth, and they lurched one way, and then another, giving Tyger very little time to gain any kind of control or purchase. He heard his mate cry out with every shift in direction as she was slammed helplessly from panel to ceiling. His mind desperate, he reached out towards the controls and on a prayer, primed the engines and inertial dampeners. In spite of the forces pulling the ship this way and that, he grabbed the steering controls and pulled back as a corresponding roar caused the panels to rattle. Miraculously, his father’s ship, which had lain dormant for around two decades, fired to life and straightened out, pulling defiantly against its captor. The lurching ended and he heard a groan from the soldier.

            “Are you okay?” he asked.

            “Not really,” she answered in a painful voice, “but nothing’s broken.”

            “Better than nothing,” he said. “I’m just glad this thing still works.”

“What about the piece attached to the ship?” the soldier asked.  “Perhaps you pissed it off?”

            “Point taken,” Tyger said, looking into the rear sensor grid. The tendril was still there, but weakened as he expected. It was barely holding on, pieces of its inexplicable material fraying as it desperately tried to maintain its grip. Tyger opened the throttles a little more and it snapped. The ship fired forward, but only for a moment, before a counter force pulled them back, pressing him painfully against the gravity harness.

            “It’s got us with another part of the main body, as far as I can tell,” Tyger said. “Looks like we’re in a stalemate,”

            “Have you tried the weapons?” the soldier asked, crawling into the console chair beside him and locking down the gravity harness.

            “Good idea, but I don’t know how effective they’ll be,” Tyger replied. “You know how to operate them for this kind of ship?”

            “We’re given knowledge of just about every military vessel there is,” the soldier answered with bravado that Tyger couldn’t tell was false or genuine.  “I know this thing better than you.” After several moments checking over the weapons systems, she spoke with somewhat less certainty. “We have no missiles, and the guns are only forward facing. It’s a waste of time trying to shoot it.”  She snarled through gritted teeth.  “Fucking thing is impossible!”

            All the while, Tyger tried to strain the engines to get away. But the main body had them in a proverbial death lock. Still, he had no wish to give the creature slack to toss them about again.

            The horizon and sky now even in the forward view port, Tyger began to make out a fast-approaching sight, coming from high above, and closing in fast. As it came to a distance where he could make out the white skull and crossbones motif proudly painted on the tip of its flat nose, the sight of it, in the midst of their trouble, filled him with thunderous relief.

            The Shadow Star.