IMPALA (Farside Saga: Book One)

One hour, twenty seven minutes later, Jason, Jess, Danny, and the four visitors, were seated in the Captain's private quarters reviewing today's battle. Kurie was impressed by the fist, Pelik was impressed by the weapons system, and Udar by the ship's design, but all were mesmerized by the whole event.

"Thank you, thank you." Danny said as he stood up to take a bow once the video ended.

It went back to a better angle of the ship riding the back of the creature. Jess stood up and walked towards the holoscreen as Danny sat back down.

"I've worked with Arron and Magi on the archives, and..." She paused, then looked at Danny.

"...How did you translate some of this stuff, because ive ran it through every know language processor out there and still couldn't get anything from it." She asked as she crossed her arms under her breast.

Danny opened his mouth to answer, but stopped as he thought about it. How did he translate it.

"To be quite honest, i really don't know." He said as he, from an A.I.'s point of view, mentally replayed his trip in the loop.

He remembered his core processor being scanned. That's what caught his attention, but before he realized what it was, it started transferring the information back to the ship along with his holomatrix. His processed information was too much to be taken at once so it recycled the loop absorbing small bits until it had it all. It was during the third loop when he started to understand some of it's language. He managed to reach a feed into its central core and grabbed a good handful of information about them. He saw it started gaining information on the humans so he quickly tried to put firewalls in place but it was absorbed so quickly that he couldn't catch them all. Suddenly he felt the equivalence of pain. Not much, but enough to back him out of their central core after a while. They must have detected him and tried to use an antivirus to get rid of him. Thankfully they needed to update their software or else he wouldn't be here now, but he still couldn't pinpoint exactly how he was able to translate the language. Suddenly he had a thought.

"I don't think i did translate it. I think it was already translated, just converted back to their language. I must of just crabbed a catche file on their history. Almost like i was in a librarial storage, but let me try something." He said.

Internally, he brought up the archives and compared the translated parts to the alien language as Jess continued on.

"As i was saying, from the translated parts, this isn't the original species." She said as the image changed to a 3D image of a bi-pedaled K9 looking creature with the same black and purple smooth surface over it's head and back.

The two domes were placed one on the back between the shoulder blades and the other aligned on the chest. The rest of it's muscled body was covered in dark tan and white fur. It's four fingered hands had short metal looking claws. It wore a type of skin tight shorts with what appeared to be a starburst emblem on the buckle and a pair of black biker gloves with the finger tips exposed.

"It's a Hagonite...i think. They're farmers and traders by nature but since the farside war broke out, they've made a formidable ally, but, whats that thing on its head." Vira asked as she studied the image.

The image slowly spun around as Jess pointed at the smooth surface.

"I cant explain exactly what it is," she started. "but its like some sort of biomechanical parasite or symbiote. The domes im guessing must be the central nervous system or power source if not both. We couldn't see it on the dragon thing at first because their ship was on top of it, but look here." She spun the image so that the Hagonite's back faced them.

Taking her fingers, she pinched the part she wanted them to see and enlarged the section. She then removed it's fur from the bottom half of the dome where the black and purple surface covering it's back ends at, to reveal pink and purplish pulsating veins coming from the edge of the dome digging into the Hagonite's back.

"I think this is where we were supposed to hit it at." She said as she pointed to a few of the veins.

Pelik got up and walked over to the image. His short frame only allowed his head to clear the table as he turned and look at Jess. Catching on, Jess chuckled to herself as she bent and picked Pelik up, placing him on the table. Thanking her, he turned to the image to get a closer look. He adjusted his visor to scan the biology of the veins, but to no good as the image was holographic. He stepped back and looked at the captain.

"Im not exactly sure, but i think i know this lifeform. If it's what i think it is, this is what we were also fighting on outpost 3." He said.

He brought up a connection line and tried to interface with the ship. Danny, looking like he was lost in thought, suddenly snapped back and looked at Pelik. Scanning the signal and finding nothing malicious, he allowed access, then continued with his processing but keeping a sensory node on Pelik's connection. Pelik found the feed for the holoscreen and played the video from the battle on outpost 3.

Not really wanting to see his team die again as he thought about his brother, he fast forwarded it to the image of the pinkish purple pulsating orb floating in the center of the crater. Jess seeing the comparison to it's tentacle striking a kregorian soldier. He placed that image to the side, then fast forwarded to the dragon like creature just as the yellow beam struck it.

"I think its one of these things that operate the host." He said as he walked across the table to his seat, dropping into it and sitting down.

He was just about to say something else when three things happened. He was interrupted by the ship's sirens followed by Vanessa on the intercom and Danny, suddenly snapping out of his daydream, simultaneously saying

'prepare for impact'

As soon as the statement left their lips, the ship was rock violently as the room started tilting to the side for a second, then straightened back up.

"Hull damage sections 13, 14, and 15 decks 1 and 2. Intrusion alert. Atmospheric pressure loss 7.1%. Damage assessment complete. Repair in progress." Danny said as the central core data poured in.

The holoscreen switched to the front right side of the ship's exterior just behind the front delta wings. A small jagged yellow and black cone like object penetrated the ship's hull before the shielding could cover it, but were now surrounding the object lifting it out at the same time covering the hole. The object engaged it's thrusters and tried to wedge itself back in. The nanites suddenly streamed up the object towards the rear. After a few seconds, the thrusters shut off and began to float off into space. After a few more seconds, the object floated off behind them as the nanites returned to the ship once again covering it.

"Intruder alert. Section 13 deck 2. Six life forms detected." Danny said.

"Already on it" Vanessa said over the intercom just as Jason was about to alert security.

The four visitors armor lit up as they hopped out their seats. Vira's wrist blaster and hand pistol emerged from her armor's storage pockets, Pelik's equivalent to an assault riffle formed on his back as he reached over his shoulder and disconnected it, Udar and Kurie both had plasma cannon's and an assortment of grenades and gizmos appeared out of nowhere along their waist. Pelik turned to the captain.

"With your permission captain, we would like to join in this battle..." Pelik started. "...These are called Kregorians. They're our natural enemy and must have sensed us on your ship. I do... apologize, but a small contingency such as this can be easily dealt with. Hint of advice tho, don't let them touch you if you're not wearing armor. They convert organic material into their DNA structure. Sort of an assimilation."

Vanessa, hearing this over the intercom, warned security and grabbed a full body armor suit as well.

"Right now they can't convert your technology or their ship would've just spread across yours, but I suggest we act quickly." He finished as everyone started heading for the door.