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[Milky Way Galaxy/ Valor Controlled Territory/ Sepress Cluster/ Ares Battle Cruiser/ Medical Ward/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

Arjun winced as the medical android took a piece of metal shrapnel out of his left shoulder before it placing it in a medical waste bin. Arjun was glad to have made it out of that hell hole in one piece, aside from the several stiches and scars he was now left with that was up and down his body.

The entire medical bay an absolute bloody mess; panicking medics who had just finished their training had to deal with wounds they never thought were possible, each part of the med bay was occupied with the wounded and dead, groans and the wailing of the masses only added to the level of death and anxiety that clung to the air like a fog. Arjun sat up he could see the rows and rows of the stretchers that had to be taken in just to accommodate so many wounded, when he stood up from the medical bed the android handed him an ice pack which he took graciously in one hand and placed it on his forehead where he felt a wave of relief go over him.

"Thanks..." Arjun said groggily.

"It was a pleasure sir." The android answered politely and formally.

"So...you didn't find anything unusual?"

"Aside from your high cholesterol...? No. Nothing out of the ordinary, I did not detect anything that would result in as what you described as... "The android began to play a recorded message it had archived from the human. "I should be a goddamn super hero, did you see that!?" "However I do think you should continue regular check-ups only as a precaution, I took the liberty of scheduling an appointment this coming Thursday."

"Alright, just send a reminder to my v-mail."

"Of course, sir."

Arjun slid off the medical bed when two combat medics came running in holding a stretcher in their white and red colored power armor. The two armored doctors took the stretcher so they could quickly place it on the now unoccupied bed almost pushing Arjun out of the way.

He preferred not to look back at the injured crew member who was screaming out in pain like the hundreds of others onboard the ship as he easily had his fill of mutilated friends to last him multiple life times. The doors that led out into the main corridor of the deck opened a few steps before he was even close to triggering the mechanism and a medical staff member who only wore their white doctor's uniform was helping a macrial marine move into the med bay, the marine's face was bloodied as she took quite a beating from her attacker but she moved in the bay steadily still holding her combat rifle in one hand that she was almost dragging across the ground, too weak to lift it.

When Arjun entered the hall way he followed two armed marines, both humans, who were taking one of the blade limbed undead down to the nearest air lock where another marine this one a macrial who waited for them.

"This thing is a lot less scary than my ex." The marine who was holding the undead by the legs joked.

The other marine laughed, "Bet you argued with it less as well."

The two marines chuckled and tossed the body into the open air lock where a pile of its kind laid in a disorganized fashion. Arjun still kept his ice pack on his forehead when he passed by the kangaroo marine who was more content on making sure the bodies in the air lock didn't decide to get back up.

"Medical Bays one through six are now full... please report injured to offsite camps" The ship's male monotone A.I announced.

Arjun was joined by two marines but like him they were not in their battle armor as well. The three entered an elevator that had opened to have five doctors all of them human come rushing out in which the marines got of their way quickly before they walked in.

"You were on the ship when it happened?" The marine to Arjun's left ask. The white skinned male had a scar above his right eyebrow and he was just a little bit taller than he was.

"Yea, I'm not even still sure what even happened though." He answered back, "Administration." He said right after to the elevator computer.

The elevator lift jerked as it began to go up several decks at a time in mere moments talking them to their destination as quickly as possible.

"We just transferred from Earth to the 'Ares' and we didn't get told much on what had happen, only that some hostile alien force had been repelled." The marine to his right stated.

"I think hostile is the biggest understatement of the year." Arjun chuckled slightly but he winced at the pain that it had caused in his forehead.

"No shit, we passed by the medical bay and got a few glimpses at the enemy." The marine added, "Fucking hell some of them had swords for limbs."

"One of them wiped out my squad." Arjun said quietly as he looked to the floor.

The other marine who was of Asian descent sighed, "Fuck...sorry 'bout them..."

"Thanks."

The marine on the left added to the conversation, "Personally I thought the rebels got creative with their recruitment policy, but...now these are just rumors, but apparently High Command has sent one of those Psi-op guys here."

"That's some heavy shit, if HC sent a psychic officer here than this must be bigger than we are let on about."

Arjun turned to both of them half wondering why the elevator is taking its sweet ass time, "Psi-op?"

"You know, Psychic Operations, pirates call them the 'thought police' but I can see why. These guys can read your mind, access your memories without moving a finger, hell some can even make you do certain things like some kind of fucked up puppet master. I never saw one myself but all I know is that if you meet one chance is you are getting a one way trip to a Tartarus prison planet or a mind wipe, sometimes both."

"That's reassuring." Arjun stated.

"Every word they saw is calculated and they judge every aspect of your body language to strip you down to your core, no one is really the same after being near them let alone being talked to by one. "

The elevator opened to show the deck level Arjun needed in which he stepped out into before giving a nod to the two marines who then casually waved back before the doors shut. Like the medical bay the administration level's air was soaked in anxiety and depression. Engineering crews had set up their various means of repairing the extensive damage along with janitorial staff washing away the blood spatters from the various cadavers that were once there.

Arjun passed by a trio of Valor auto-troopers, mechanized infantry that patrolled the same hallway he was now in. He never fought alongside the robotic soldiers himself as they were normally deployed to hostile environment planets or to act as a security force in colonies. No doubt they were transferred here along with most of the relief force.

After one more turn Arjun found himself in the office area of the deck level where he found Lieutenant Highcastle sitting at his desk, he still wore his highly decorated battle armor but his helmet was resting near the paper work he was filling out. Jonathan had fiery red hair that was matted down from his own sweat and his skin was a lot paler than most marines from so much time he wore his battle armor.

"John?" Arjun asked when he came up to his friend's office as he stepped through the broken window.

"Just a minute" He answered who was at his work desk writing a letter.

A janitorial droid was cleaning up the glass around the office that was joined by a macrial with a broom, Arjun moved to the side in order for them to clean up around his feet and when their job was done they exited through the same broken window.

"Clean bill?" John asked still focused on his task at hand, he was gripping his pen incredibly hard and Arjun saw as he looked closer there were tens of broken pens no doubt snapped by himself.

"Yea, just a couple scars nothing bad." Arjun answered when he cocked his head at the letter and pointed at it, "what's that?"

"Something I wish I didn't have to do." John answered with regret. "This is the eleventh letter of condolence I had to send out..."

Arjun scratched his head, "Don't you have someone higher ranked to do th-"

"I'm not sure if you noticed Arjun but everyone is fucking dead!" He snapped with the pen breaking in his hand. "Sorry." John apologized shortly after, he sat back in his chair as he let out a long sigh "How am I supposed to tell their families that I can't release their bodies because either they are nowhere to be found or there is simply nothing left to give a funeral for!"

"Hey man it's not your fault that they are de...not here anymore." Arjun comforted.

"We had an entire goddamn ship full of us, a crew of over twenty thousand slaughtered down to only a couple hundred within a few hours and you know what the fucked up part is?" John asked rhetorically, "I looked into the body count a while ago and most of our casualties came from friendly fire just like what happened to Bravo not from those cybernetic freaks."

"It was an unforeseen event Mr. Highcastle." A third party spoke.

Both Arjun and John looked towards the entrance to see a high ranked official enter the office this time through the doorway. The officer wore a different version of the marine battle armor as his was much more slender with no shoulder pads or ammo pouches. Instead of blue and white his power armor was pure black with his helmet's visor a dark red, he wore a large black trench coat around his power armor that was buttoned up, and on top of his helmet was his black officer's cap where a small silver skull was adorned in the middle.

"Sir!" Both of them saluted.

The human officer had his hands folded behind his back while talking a slow walk around the office until he stopped to wipe a finger across a shelf that had all of its contents knocked to the ground, his black glove picked up the small amounts of dust that was still there.

"You did an admirable job, Highcastle, in your duties and you as well Mr. Fiaz I have watched the security feed on your battle against the attacker's leader...most impressive. But allow me to introduce myself; I am Major Charles Wareman, psychic operations"

"I just want to say sir that all my previous mistakes on my past missions were not my fault!" Arjun quickly panicked.

"Don't worry Mr. Fiaz your loyalty is not in question here or your service but I did come for the both of you." The Psi-Op officer pulled out a folded parchment from his trench coat and placed it on the table for Jonathan to read. "I have personally come to congratulate you on your starting career on being a Black Star, Highcastle, once you are done with your paper work we will leave within the hour."

"Thank you sir!" Jonathan stood up

"Your one of the best soldiers we have Highcastle and I fear with this new enemy Valor is going to need every edge we can to defend the Core Worlds..." The imposing officer turned to Arjun, "As for you Fiaz the report given by your lieutenant here tells me that you killed the enemy leader with its own weapon and given the circumstances I didn't believe it myself until I watched the feed for myself...would you care to explain?"

Arjun began to stutter "Well...I-its...I just got really angry and next thing I know the thing is dead, maybe the weapon gets heavier when the user is dead...I don't know."

The officer nodded at Arjun's answer, "I see...but I would like for you too to come with me as since you two are one of the few soldiers that have a much combat experience against these attackers and even fewer who are still mentally sound."

"What do you need us for sir?" John asked.

"Intelligence has been studying these creatures and I would like your insight as you two have seen their combat capabilities."

[Milky Way Galaxy/ Valor Controlled Territory/ Sepress Cluster/ Ares Battle Cruiser/ Medical Ward/ Science Laboratory/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

Both Arjun and Jonathan waited inside the decontamination room that connected the hallway they entered through to the autopsy room where entire teams of macrial surgeons and engineers worked diligently. The two marines were watched by the psi-op officer who stood behind a reinforced glass window as a vulphus marine in full body armor was typing away at her holo-terminal to start the decontamination program.

"Decontamination program in effect, please remain still." The ship A.I

"Are you going to be ok John?" Arjun asked as he turned his head to face his older commander.

"Yea...yea I'll be fine..."John then cleared his throat, "...Will's family is having a closed casket funeral in a couple weeks they asked me to invite you."

"I'll come, Will was a good man..."

John nodded, "I don't think our enemy will just stop at attacking the outer colonies...if they make it to the Core Worlds..." The high ranking marine shook his head to get the horrible thought out; there were tens of billions of people on a single Core World and to think each man, women and child was a target for the undead to turn them into their ravenous horde.

_ "Decontamination process, over."_

As the sealed door opened up to reveal the sterile laboratory the psi-op officer greeted the marines at the door way, his trench coat was now not buttoned up showing the high quality red fabric that made up the inside of his coat.

"This way if you please..." He ordered for the two to follow him.

Several of the robed undead laid on operating tables were teams of doctors were performing autopsies including engineers who were examining their primitive yet highly effective forms of technology. The air was filled with a sickening smell from the amount of cadavers in one place as not only did it smell of rotting meat but a strong industrial odor also hung in the air from their mechanical components.

Arjun overheard two macrial surgeons as they worked on one of the linen wrapped undead variant,

"Are you sure this one is dead?" The macrial on the left spoke with her eyes fixated on the creature.

"Yea I'm positive..." The male doctor answered as he was busy making an incision into the undead's chest cavity.

"Well they thought the one in the other lab 'A' was dead..."

"Let's not talk about that can we?"

Arjun continued to follow the officer through the rather large science lab, Jonathan was just ahead of himself who carried his ornate helmet under his right arm. The trio came up to a final area of the lab were a couple of legionnaire auto troopers stood guard when a macrial surgeon came out to greet the group.

"Thank you for you all to coming on such short notice." The doctor stated, "We have been learning a lot on these creatures, the last few hours have been very exciting." He said with enthusiasm.

"Exciting?" John said out loud that Arjun recognized in the tone in his voice that he was furious, "People have died today I think you should show them a little more goddamn respect."

The doctor gulped, "I meant nothing of it sir...but we have been treated to a form of technology that we haven't seen before!"

Arjun looked at the doctor with a raised eyebrow, "Last time I checked these things just shoot spikes out of their arms, I would hardly call that advanced."

The macrial shook his head, "I think it's better for me to show you, this way please."

The group went past the security droids into the operating area where four cadavers laid on separate tables; the surgeon led them to the closet one to the left. The corpse was that of the robe wearing undead; its mechanical components were stripped clean leaving only the soulless husk in its place, its flesh and bones were mutilated beyond recognition as the Frankenstein esque surgery needed to construct the monster made no attempts to make the fusion of flesh and metal attractive.

"Our friend here we speculate to be the common foot soldier of our enemy and we see this through the lengths of machinery used to enhance their physical strength. When we took out the wiring and armored areas we found that all these creatures have no organs, who ever done this must have replaced the needed functions, like eating and such with their technology but..."

Arjun cocked his head as the surgeon pointed for the group to look at a nearby table where all the weaponry and metal parts were laying still covered in black bile.

"None of their technology seems to replace an organs function; they ripped out all the insides like some kind of jack-o-lantern for a lack of a better term and replaced it with weaponry. Their chest cavities we found were filled with ammunition in fact their entire body served as a crude ammo loading system for their ranged weapon. In fact all these creatures we found were either completely hollow on the inside or had a loading system.

Jonathan spoke next, "That's insane, these things aren't fully machine they would have to eat and drink unless the robotics parts are just using the body as a shell like some kind of robot using an organic skin."

"We originally thought that as well thinking the mechanical part was its own system like a droid with an artificial intelligence but..." the head doctor walked back over the corpse, "The machinery besides for weaponry purpose is to add protection over the organic material and the organic part of it is so far badly damaged that it would be impossible for this thing to still be alive after the surgery."

"So you're telling us that the machine portion has no A.I capabilities while the organic component could not function as well having no organs to sustain it." Arjun stated.

"Correct."

"Well clearly something is making this hollow thing move."

The doctor moved to the next body with the three standing behind him, "So we tried looking into the organic material more and studied it which is where things got really interesting...these things are not only species from Valor but also a few that we have not seen yet."

"What?" John and Arjun asked in unison.

"This one here is the first that we discovered..." The surgeon said as he carefully lifted up the left arm of the cadaver showing its scaly form and sharp talons. "...this one is reptilian in nature from what we could tell, before the surgery I can imagine he was flesh and blood like you and I; heart, lungs, stomach, breathes oxygen but now this is all that remains."

Arjun had a hard time looking at the mutilated bodies all of them were different in both race and gender but each one of them seemed like clones with the same surgery in all the places that once turned these living individuals into nothing more than a heartless shell.

"With no brain or artificial intelligence we have no clue how these things even move let alone fight...just flesh and metal haphazardly sewn together and thrown into a purple robe. "

"Jesus..." John said looking at the four cadavers.

The psi-op officer was deep in thought as his gaze was fixated upon the unknown race that was turned into one of the undead. "Creating soldiers out of the fallen...by using some kind of technology not yet thought of, most interesting."

"We will of course be looking into the method of how our enemy creates its soldiers but the more we learn about them the more we don't understand them."

The psi-op officer turned to Jonathan who was still looking at the hollow men, "I'll be on the bridge John for when you are ready to leave." He said before taking his leave with his gloved hands folded behind his back.

John crossed his arms while still intensely focused on the one of the undead that wasn't taken apart, still in its full gear with its spike rifle replacing the monster's right arm at the elbow, its other arm have two jagged metal blades jetting out from its wrist. Its purple ornate robe was filled with bullet holes that had scorched the heavy fabric around the points of impact. Half the former vulphus' face was covered in a metal plate that had damaged circuitry jetting out of it while the other half was its exposed sickly white skull.

"What do you think these things want? Arjun asked, "Turn us all into them?"

"Who knows who or what is behind these things but its clear Valor was not their first target and if we don't stop them I doubt we will be their last."

Arjun let out a long sigh, "I just don't know if I can do this 'J'."

John turned sharply in shock. "What do you mean?"

"I know you want for me to do great but I only joined the Marine Corps to fill out my mandatory two year service and the best way to do it I found was just get my ass assigned to some star base in a backwater star system and wait it all out." He answered, "Did I expect to fight pirates? To some degree I guess but..." Arjun gestured to the bodies,"... I'm sorry John but this is far too much for me, you or Marco may be able it handle this but I as sure as hell can't."

"You took the oath to defend Earth and her colonies, Arjun, all marines are supposed to fight and die for the freedom of others!" John answered like a propaganda poster on legs.

"Yea against pirates or rebels, but what the fuck are these 'hollow men' you saw what they could do, shoot of their head and they still run at you like nothing. This all feels like one big nightmare...Will, Jake....we've been together since boot camp."

"I know Arjun, but on the bridge when we were fighting their commander there was fire in your eyes for the first time, I'm aware that sounds incredibly cliché but you changed when you fought him. Valor needs you Arjun as you have the potential to be a great soldier, don't let that go to waste man."

"Fine...but if I die, I want the biggest fucking gold statue of me smack dabbed on Earth."

"Best I can do is plaque."

"Close enough." Arjun smiled.

As Arjun turned to the lieutenant he was interrupted when he heard the entire staff outside was leaving the lab incredibly quick with all of them exiting through the same doorways. The two marines came out quickly where John grabbed hold of a running surgeon.

"Where is everyone running off too?" John asked

"You didn't hear?!" The macrial said shocked, "Geneva is under attack!"

"What?!" Arjun yelled in disbelief trying to keep up with the crowd. "But no pirate army can reach the Core Worlds not unless..." Arjun paused with the thought occurred to him"...oh god."

Both John and Arjun looked at each knowing that Geneva from their location was the closet Core World, almost twice the size that of Earth in both population and mass. The two marines joined the massed crowd leaving the laboratory and into the packed hallways where they were joined by other out of uniform marines, engineers and other staff workers. Everyone was pushing and shoving and soon Arjun realized that the crowd was heading to the largest briefing room on the entire ship.

Jonathan was just ahead of the private thanks to him still being in his power armor and was soon leading the crowd to the briefing room where they joined several other gatherings. The main hall was overflowed with the entire crew and military detail trying to get into one room but there were several holo-screens placed out sight for the majority to watch. Arjun was out of breath by the time he reached the holo-screens to see the emergency news for himself. Arjun stood shoulder to shoulder with various races with several staff workers and marines, some covering their mouths out of shock. All the holo-screens showed Valor's only news network with the head anchor in complete despair...his mouth trembled trying to read the words from the camera drone that hovered past his desk.

"Under and hour ago at eighteen-fifty nine, unknown hostiles shock jumped over Geneva and have attacked. Estimated reports that millions are dead within the first few minutes of the invasion and this number...continues to grow. Defence forces are reported to be overwhelmed as the invaders have established a landing zone on the eastern continent" The head news anchor continued trying not to choke up, "The military council has authorized full scale retaliation against this unknown enemy we have footage of this attack...a lot of you will find this disturbing."

The news proceeded cut away to reveal the recorded footage of an amateur camera man whose hands were shaking the camera incredibly. The scared civilian caught glimpses of the smoke filled sky that was choked with plumes of thick black clouds from the amount of burning wreckage, where Valor hawk fighters zoomed overhead in an attack formation where the camera brought into focus to reveal a massive star ship hovering over the city that covered the majority of the area in darkness, its hull was armored in massive slabs of bone and under its rib cage poured forth hundreds of skeletal winged beasts that descended upon the city, suddenly the footage jerked to the left to see a crowd of citizens rushing past. Behind them all were several robe wearing undead their spike launchers firing into the innocent gunning down anyone that wasn't them.

The footage jerked upwards to see one of the winged beasts zooming towards the large crowd but under the beast's rip cage was a massive version of its smaller foot soldier cousins that was hanging onto a bone with one hand and hefting a massive chain gun with the other. The skeletal beast continued to fly past the crowd but the giant let go and smashed into the ground below. The person filming fumbled and dropped the recording device to the ground showing the ankles of the massive undead whose chain gun spun up and soon the loud bursts of its weapon was only drowned out by the terrified screams of those around.

A Valor fighter was ripped from the skies when one of the skeletal beasts clutched the machine within its talons and threw the aircraft into a nearby building forming an orange fireball. Soon more and more of the hollow men star ships appeared over the city where an even greater number of their winged transports descended more of their undead into the populace. The footage ended when the heavy gunner undead crushed the recorder underneath its boot.

"All attempts at contacting these attackers have met with zero success...we do not know what they are here to accomplish but one thing is for sure is that they are extremely hostile and all military forces are being deployed as we speak."

The feed cut back to the news anchor with Arjun's having a sinking feeling knowing that this was going to be the first day in a very long war.