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Calvin knew he should have gotten used to being on warships, with the fragile metal hulls the only thing keep the entire crew alive but he didn't. The wolf hated it.

Eighteen planetary bodies surrounded this star, with the moons numbering in the hundreds but not a single body of mass had any significant rare element. The guardians chose this insignificant system to hide their mobile home and the bulk of their fleet.

The system that once moved in formation, with no light other than from the star, was now a frenzied hive mixed with fire. Redding could only watch the hive that was kicked try to fight back with thousands of capital warships.

Redding stood on was armoring himself up in the armory of a medical UDAS ship, but he was also watching the battle outside through his active heads up display. The Guardian moon-sized ship, and the escort capital warships, was at the focus. Nearly a hundred ships surrounded the base, each in active combat. The vanguard fired an endless stream of missiles and cannon projectiles against the Creeper wave. A dozen winged serpents moved like smart missiles, charging and circling the nearest ship cutting off any escape route. They closed in on a Guardian destroyer and rammed into the ship, breaching the hull and melting it with acid.

One serpent's venom had triggered the fuel source of the ship, causing an explosion that ripped the ship in half. Two serpents were engulfed by the blast, but the others had a mist of those small insect seeds spread into the corridors of the ship before they disengaged. The ship was completely destroyed burning while it was being infected, along with its crew.

While the serpents pulled off, three ships risked sparing some of their ammunition by firing upon them. One was killed but they quickly went into formation to attack the next capital ship.

Between the smaller ships were Guardian single fighters engaging with infected ships, a unique form of Insectoids and other forms of creepers that threatened to infect the capital ships. Fighters escorted their capital ships, firing at each Creeper form that crossed their path. Some even sacrificed themselves to protect their home ships.

The battle was total chaos with no formed lines, but the fleets still fought desperately to protect the moon-sized base. It had defenses and was nearly impenetrable but it was large and difficult to power up to move at faster than light speeds. And even then it could not travel far, which is why the Creepers had caught up to them. These Creepers travelled much faster than the others, which had taken everyone by surprise.

The battle wasn't going well against these new enemies. It expanded beyond what anyone could see, across nearly the diameter of the solar system. No matter how many billions of Creepers were engaging in the battle, their reinforcements continued to arrive in the tens of thousands.

Watching the hopeless battle Calvin willed for the structure's engines to hurry and warm up. The medical ship, and the UDAS fleet had stayed behind to help cover the Guardians retreat. That could not be said for every alien ally. Every minute they stayed risked losing the base, causing million to be infected and would efficiently demoralize every surviving race.

In the distance, a speck was noticeable by an excessive amount of fire blossoming around it from the Guardian missiles. It quickly grew larger, unfazed by the fire however. Calvin quickly recognized it as a Klienestov, longer in body and less stocky than the usual mountainous creatures. Thousands of small infections, including the winged serpents surrounded it to sacrifice themselves to the fire. It did not slow for any ship, and even rammed into one to keep its momentum. It was going straight for the base.

The reckless behavior cost it its escorts and started to take damage itself but it was too late. The creature was intent on ramming the moon base. The base focused all its fire on the Klienestov as it rammed into it. The creature could not withstand the sustained fire and trashed around as it died. Its head crashed into the weakened base and sheared it open while it burned as bright as a star.

The other Creepers realized the weakness and moved in to attack but every ship within range immediately fell back to protect the base. An intense point blank exchanged followed, costing thousands of causalities on both sides within seconds. The cluttered firefight grew visibly brighter, with debris becoming more common than ships and missiles.

Before the firefight could die out, the Guardian based accelerated suddenly and disappeared from sight going at faster than light speeds. Its escorts quickly followed and vanished from the battle. Every ship that could still run from the battle, did but not without leaving something to cover their tracks.

Moments before the medical ship left the battle, several new stars flashed within the Creeper lines and consumed everything nearby. Those ships too damaged to travel faster than light did their best to flee the blast.

Calvin didn't know if those ships escaped or not as the battle suddenly disappeared from view. Relieved the wolf sighed but still didn't feel safe enough to remove his armor. He sat back on a bench and connected his PawPad to his heads up display to check for messages.

"How long do you think it'll take for them to catch up this time?" asked a familiar hare. Redding glanced to the entrance of the armor to see his spotter entering, still unarmored. "The Guardians took a hard hit. If the Creepers catch up to us again we might not be able to hold them off."

The wolf shrugged and made a gesture for Gale to suit up as well. Calvin had no new messages on his PawPad, but a rough battle report came in from the commander of the medical ship. It declared that they had successful fled the battle, even though there was no way to check how many were left behind.

"Admiral Alexander really chose the wrong time to go back home," the hare continued to complain. "I would have liked to have been on Drach'n Fury for when it returned home. I guess there was no way that we could know--"

Before the hare could continue to complain, the ships alarms blared and filled the room with the sound.

"All boarding parties prepare for launch," the commander of the vessel ordered. "Hostile forces boarded Guardian Moon. Prepare to defend their vessel."

Redding knew that the Moon was damaged and no doubt had been boarded but they were to give aid at the rendezvous site. They were clearly not there yet so why had the Moon stopped going at faster than light speed?

Despite his confusion, the red wolf stood and walked by the hare that hurried to finish suiting up. Redding navigated through the corridors down to the hangar of the medical ship. It obviously didn't have very man boarding crafts available but with all the wounded that has been dropped off here, and the lack of medical evacuation ships, there were a few being bordered with the recently recovered soldiers.

He glanced back briefly to see the hare rushing toward him, now fully armored. Weapons in their armored paws, they joined the parties gathering on the small vessels. Before the wolf and hare could step on the vessel, they felt the ship's floor beneath them shutter every so slightly, a sign that the ship was firing its main guns.

"Launch immediately," ordered the commander.

"Hurry up," yelled the pilot at the soldiers. Redding and Gale weren't the last two on the ship but with a dozen soldiers, the dropship sealed itself and started to take off. While the wolf waited in the small ship, outside was a large portion of the fleet that was engaged in battle not more than a few solar systems away. While few capitol ships fired their guns, it was evident that battles were being waged inside many of the ships through the fires and explosions that still blossomed along the hulls of many ships. All the ships that have been infected were still struggling with purging the infection.

One ship in particular was having obvious trouble, the Guardian Moon itself. The original gash that the Klienestov sacrificed itself to make now showed signs of infection that grew across the outer hull. Large chunks of the ship near the infection looked to be missing, as if the base had ejected heavily infected areas in an attempt to contain the infection. Toward that gap those was headed over a hundred vessels to help contain the alien, or what many of them knew would become a delay mission for an evacuation.

They were met with minimal resistance from small arms fires of those infected but Redding's ship managed to land unscathed inside the ruined corridors of the Guardian Moon. The wolf followed the other soldiers out of the passenger bay to catch his first glimpse of the Guardian's main vessel. The corridors were heavily infected, having used the ship's power to increase its growth rate. The power had been shut off in this part of the ship though, which offered no light, no heat and no gravity.

Redding had no orders other than to kill the Creepers. The squadron he arrived with moved forward into the dark ship with the same intention. The wolf trusted them to handle themselves so he moved to an adjacent corridor and moved parallel to the team, to prevent them from being flanked.

Redding had received updated systems, along with the whole military force of the rough alliance between aliens, from the Guardians that identified infections on personnel. Making it easier to kill the infected, without killing their own allies who haven't been infected yet. There were several dead bodies around but the system did not detect any infections on them; too burned to have been used by the Creepers.

His spotter followed him through the dark corridor, both relying on their suits' and weapons' lights to illuminate their path. Before their light could shine on the first infected Guardian they came across, Redding's heads-up display alerted him of it and with a precise shot through the neck of the tall alien, the threat was neutralized.

The wolf continued moving forward at a quick rate, keeping updated through the battle channel and personnel tracking. The fire teams arrived and started turning all Creeper infections into ash.

Before the first report of the parasite's warriors came in, Redding came across an Insectoid. In the dark, the creature sprinted right for him, crawling over the walls even though it was almost too big to fit in the corridors. Redding fired but then it moved up to ceiling, so the wolf repeatedly pulled the trigger until the third shot caught the Creeper by the join of a leg, causing it to slow. Gale stepped up beside the wolf and fired as well and with a few dozen projectiles, the Creeper was floating lifeless in the corridor. It provided a mess obstacle for the wolf and hare.

"It's a-- ahh!" one soldier yelled over the radio. His screams were accompanied with the rest of his squadron.

"It moves too fast!"

"Queen! It's a queen!"

Gunfire could also be heard over the radio until they all went silent.

Redding stopped in his tracks though, before even reaching the mess the dead Insectoid's entrails had caused. A queen. He has only met one queen before and he doubt any normal queen would be capable of taking out an entire squadron alone. Checking the personnel trackers, he could see where the squadron was killed.

Look at his spotter, he gave one wave of his paw and they started to backtrack. The queen had limited maneuverability in these cramped corridors; it was his best chance to kill it.

"It's going after the fire teams!" another soldier yelled. The voice was only intelligible through the translator since it was a Guardian's voice. "All fire teams retreat."

Moving as fast as he could without any gravity, Redding hurried back to the breach where he was dropped off. A Perfected Infection was onboard, no wonder why the Guardian's couldn't wait until they reached the rendezvous.

Following the path of dead left in her wake, Redding was able to track the Queen.

"You again!" her shrill voice sounded with in his mind. Having reached the breach, Redding stopped and looked around and across the destroyed corridors in search of her. The fire teams had fled off of transports, and their work had charred the infection that had grown here. "I recognize the music of your thoughts, unworthy one. You destroyed my nest!"

I intended to destroy you, thought Redding. Within his suit, his lip quivered slightly in a growl. He knew this was a bad spot to engage the Queen so he slowly backed toward the corridor.

"You cannot destroy me!" responded the Queen. "I am Blessed and never has one of us fallen to the likes of you."

I know of a small fox who has slain one of your kind, Redding thought snidely, his eyes searching the darkness for any sign of her. Kazamde is the first to fall, and will not be the last.

"Weak words from a weak species."

A strong vibration was felt through the walls of the corridor, and debris reflected off of the wolf's armor. Turning, he saw the Queen had broken through the corridor from above. Gale jumped back and fired, but Redding stood his ground and took aim. With debris still shattering and bouncing off of everything, the Queen quickly darted for Redding but he fired and forced her to evade rather than attack.

His heart raced with adrenaline pumping through his veins and feeling like fire. With so much adrenaline forced into his blood, each heartbeat felt like it was separated by ten seconds. Everything he saw moved slowly, except for the Queen but his reaction was on par.

He pulled the trigger as fast as his claw would allow, which seemed too slow to him but it fired faster than many automatic weapons. When his path of fire left a small opening, he realized the mistake the same time the Queen did. Before she even moved, he was already reaching for his sword. He pulled it free just as the Queen reached him, but she was still faster.

One of her limbs scraped through his armor and the side of his leg as he barely dodged the attack.

Time resumed to its normal rate with the sharp feeling of pain overriding his adrenaline rush. His suit sealed automatically, so that the vacuum of space wouldn't kill him but the damage was significant for the split second it was exposed.

Redding was thrown into the nearby wall, as the Queen kept her momentum and attacked Gale. The hare could not react in time and had the Queen's limb pierce through his armor and spear out the hare's back. The hare's vitals displayed on Redding's visor, as they quickly flat lined.

The wolf's fur stood on end as he watched his long time spotter be killed in front of his eyes. Ignoring the pain he raised his rifle and fired again but the Queen dodged the projectiles too easily. Behind her the breach was still visible and sudden bright blossoms of fire illuminated parts of it.

The Queen turned back to Redding. "Fool." Before she could say anything else, the fires getting closer distracted her. She suddenly jumped back as a large cauldron of fire blasted where she had just stood. The flames swirled around and burned intense enough that Redding's suit was overheating instantly, even though he was three meters away. When the flames disappeared, it left the metal of the corridors twisted.

Fire shot at the Queen again but she moved out of the way easily enough. This time when she did, something jumped at her so fast it was just a blur to Redding. The Queen was ripped in half instantly. Her shrill silenced by the vacuum. Fire enveloped her, burning bright as a star before all that remained was her ashes.

When the fires faded, Redding saw the strangest abomination he has ever seen. Fur covered the body, but it appeared as if scales were growing out of the fur as some sort of infection. The scales were a dark red, and looked to be thick. Red wings sprouted out from the bipedal body, made fully of the scales.

The sight of the tail made Redding flinch. The tail of a springhare. The abomination was no hybrid since the scales were acting as some sort of infection, similar to how the Creepers operated but a completely different species. Turning around the abomination faced him, with the same eyes he remember belonging to the springhare pilot, Nishant Gerbo.