Contact: Chapter 10

[Arthur Talon]

Arthur was panting as he raised the visor to his sallet helm with a gauntleted fist, "Bridge is secure. We need shields so they can't beam aboard reinforcements. That is our number one priority."

He pulled out a square of cloth and wiped his blade clean before sheathing it and pressing the button on his buffer band and the armor vanished as suddenly as it appeared.

Lilith was back at the helm, "Art I have thruster control."

"Take us out of here, and the other ship?"

"They are a bit worse off than us. They have emergency power, but are adrift."

Arthur vaulted over the tactical station and swore as the display clearly showed that their weapons were down as well.

* * *

One the Prophet's men turned to look at Diana as she approached. He looked her over and grinned, "Well hello little bird. I don't suppose I could convince you to take the Prophet into your heart. Pity I suppose. You are a very pretty girl. I wouls rather destroy stain glass."

[Diana Talon]

Diana scoffed. "Typical zealot... destroying art." she extended her hand and used the iljuna to push him against the wall. "Your 'Prophet' is a bastard twisting religion to suit his needs and you're too dumb to realize it." she cocked her head. "I'll even wager you think you and yours are martyrs for this... when all you are just the next group that thought they could rule the galaxy."

[Livvy Sandoval]

He recovered quickly and rose to his feet. "You have the gift? I had heard you had people who could perform miracles for your false prophets. I didn't expect to see it in person.

He closed in on deflecting her attacks, as he got within arms reach his eyes rolled back in his head showing only the whites in the empty unblinking expression. He used the ijulna to draw her to him and his hands clamped around her neck.

"I... know who you are!" The voice had changed somehow. It came out in a rasp and in much higher pich now. There was a detached sinister quality to it, as if spoken by a snake. "I... I know who you are! Blood of flame and rose."

He pushed her against the wall and lifted her off her feet with super human strength. "You shall not take the throne. Your family will die, and your friends will be slaves to the one true Prophet." His hands clamped tighter around her neck, her throat closed cutting off the air. "I know who you are. I know who you are."

"Di!" Livvy screamed in terror. Her feet thundered down the corridor, and yet the Prophet's man was singular in his attention towards Diana.

Livvy came down with all her strength and a full 148 pounds of a full sprint behind her bat'leth. The blade sunk deep in the man's back cracking bone and punctuating the lung and heart. Yet he stook as stong as ever ignoring the death blow.

"I know who you are!" He repeated, but this time his mouth was full of blood. Livvy wrenched the bat'leth free, and swung a second knee chopping strike that sent the Prophet's man and Diana to the deck in a crumpled heap. His hands clamped as tightly as ever around her neck, still repeating his line over and over like a demonically possessed record player.

"Help!" Livvy screamed, as she clawed at the fingers around Diana's neck. "Help!"

[Nick Ryder]

"I'm... fahhk... gahhhk..." Diana tried to breathe as she. "I'm not... fghhhkk..."

"I've got it Liv." Nick said as he materialized from a Miki ball. "Remote assistance Nick Ryder at your service." reaching down he changed the hand's density and it slowly moved from Diana's throat. "Okay that was just... weird. I popped in to just see how you kids were doing but what in the every loving fuck was that?"

"Damned if I know..." Diana said before coughing and rubbing her neck. "He knows who I am."

"Blood of flame and rose. You know I'm shocked you didn't manifest pyrokinesis during that." Nick mused. "All my kids have had that as a last resort, 'dying or not' kind of thing." he gave Livvy a look. "Maybe she knew she wasn't going to die because you were around."

"Of course." Diana said and tricorder scanned herself. "I knew my story wasn't going to end at the hand of some psycho demon zealot. And Livvy's always had my back."

"Well, let's figure out how to get Phoenix back up and running, I'm ordering the Miki's to repair the primary systems. Let's hope that Nanotech you've developed works like we've been experimenting with." Nick said as he helped her to her feet. "By the way, who's bright idea was it to invite Gale and Alex? They're like gasoline and fire when it comes to diplomacy. I love my boy and I love my grandson but bloody hell..."

[Rebecca Talon]

"It was mine," Rebecca said appearing in the same way Nick had. She looked around the ship blinking, "Whoah this is weird." She shrugged, "Those two need to get out. They will never learn how to keep their mouths shut or their words polite if we continue to coddle them."

[Diana Talon]

"And they're two of our better pilots and have extra skills..." Diana said before coughing again. "Gale and his flame and Alex and his telepathic telekinetic ability, that he keeps very much hidden from his mother. His grandmother keeps egging him on." she chuckled lightly. "Sounds like another grandma I know." she winked at Becca. "Have to say... I'm glad you both came... in your own way. Modulate your frequency a little Nana... it'll feel less weird with the interface. Glad to see it worked and the hard light phasing. These will be incredibly useful in rescue ops when we can't get real people in."

"Yeah, us meatbags are entirely useless." Nick teased. "The AI version of me has gotten into this habit of calling me 'Fleshsack Ryder' which sounds just incredibly dirty... like some bad porno name."

"Uhm... should we tell him?" Diana winced. "There... kind of is and... Fleshsack Ryder... in porn. And he... kinda looks like you in the dark."

"Sonofa... it was Tana's mother's doing right?" Nick rolled his eyes.

"Oh it gets worse... there's a Lacey Ryder that looks a bit like Alice..." Diana cringed. "But y'know... bigger up top."

"Why am I finding out about this now? And when we just had to save your life?" Nick sighed and crossed his arms.

"Because I may have some partial brain damage from the lack of oxygen?" Diana shrugged her shoulders. "I really need to get to sickbay. We DID get all the boarders off?" she looked at Liv. "Tell me we got everyone that shouldn't be here off."

"PHRASING!" Nick threw his hands up. "I tell ya Becca, this generation..."

[Livvy Sandoval]

Rebecca smirked, "Let them be Nicholas."

Livvy glanced at Diana confused, "Engineering is secured, and Art and Lilith have taken care of the bridge, but I haven't heard from Xander, Astrid and the others."

[Diana Talon]

"We have to get internal sensors and comms back online." Diana said as she tried to get her wits together. "We can't have come this far to lose it all now." she said and steadied herself against the wall. "Even though I feel worse than that one time Simon and I got really drunk on Romulan Warbird ale and got into that bar fight... " she chuckled lightly. "At least the night ended up more enjoyable than it started. I am so having his baby someday..."

"Riiight..." Nick winced as he looked at the internal sensor display on a wall panel. "Livvy... a word." he motioned to a corner and whispered. "I'm not picking up any life signs besides here and the bridge. Which mean a couple things. One, everyone else is dead or close to death. The internal sensors are entirely shot to hell which is completely likely in which case, we may need everyone to get into armor or EV suits or something with an independent life support system or... you need to abandon ship and take over that Earth ship that attacked you. Which may mean... a bloodbath."

"Phoenix will rise Granpa Squared." Diana said and nodded her head. "Trust the system."

[Livvy Sandoval]

"Let's not resort to the nuclear option just yet. We are breathing, gravity plating is working, and at least two of us are alive."

She glanced uneasily down at the Earther who was still noiselessly mouthing his, "I know who you are" and his hands balled into tight fists. She shuddered involuntarily.

She cleared her mind by shaking her head, "Taking the Earth Ship will fail. Let's get to engineering and go from there. There are more engieers here in one place than an engineering convention."

[Nick Ryder]

"Oh you did not go there Liv." Nick rolled his eyes. "ScottyCon should have been epic and huge and hugely epic... not my fault the promoter put the wrong date on the tickets and then ran off with the latinum where it was literally the four of us."