Ah, I don't have alot of time. This is Lieutenant Minerva Rocha on board the Pandora. I repeat, this is Lieutenant Minerva Rocha on board the Pandora. This ship has been overrun by creatures that have captured the crew. I'm the only one left. I have to tell you before its too late, that they can't stand the cold. I repeat they can't stand the cold.

Nallia stared out the viewport of her ship, the lights off as the message was repeated over and over from the comms channel. As she watched the mutated ship she let the message repeat, wanting to hear what many were believing to be the last words of Minerva. Nallia refused to believe it, but she wanted to listen to Minerva's voice. To hear every change of tone, every inflection of emotion. To get an understanding into the other agents state of mind, and get some indication of what she had been through.

Nallia could feel a red mist swirling inside her mind, a vicious brutality that lurked behind her eyes, threatening to burst out at any moment. Her race wasn't one that suffered from anger problems like so many species in the galaxy ... but she was on the edge of it. If it wasn't for the knowledge that she had, and the training that Yautja had put her through, she would of lost control completely.

Nallia knew that she was lucky that she hadn't been close when the message was first broadcast. Her anger had had time to simmer down after she had been relayed the message. Now it was a cold rage that made her hands grip the control stick of her modified fighter tightly. She would get her Yasu from the infested ship ... and she would hunt down and kill every last xenos that dared touch her.

Her ship was a custom design ... the first true 'blend' of Human and Kaji technology. A covert boarding pod, designed to slip past even the tightest sensor net without even raising a ripple in the web cast out by the sensors. A single ship, especially one as large as an ADD warship, had no chance of detecting the fighter that was homing in on it. There was a few hangers that she could probably hack into and board via ... but that approach was far too obvious for someone like Nallia. Instead she orbited the apparently derelict warship, scanners sweeping through it, identifying the various points of interest, Nallia's brain racing as she worked on the problem. She had already warned the other ADD ships back, ordering them to not approach it, and instead set up a 'siege' around it and prevent anything from escaping or reaching it.

Finally she moved her ship in close, spinning it around so that the access hatch of her ship was lodged up against a section of ship hull that connected to a hallway. She shut the few systems that she had been letting run down, leaving only the security system of her ship active to ... discourage intruders, with all the ingeniousness of a Kaji hunter being employed to ensure that anyone who wasn't her tried to enter the ship they would meet a rather vicious end.

Nallia moved to the hatch, slipping her visor on, feeling the familiar sting of wires fusing into nerve endings, and the flood of sensation and infomation that was provided by the high tech visor. Her form shimmered and vanished as she cloaked, her Katana tip moving down and cutting a precise hole in the armour of the warship, even the heavy plating of a warship couldn't defend against the razor edge of a Killith weapon. She cut a perfectly sized hole for herself, and than slipped down into the Pandora, taking her first steps inside the infested warship, sensors stretching out as her invisible, and almost undetectable form started to move, the hatch of her fighter closing behind her, and sealing the hole shut.

Whatever she might have seen before in her travels and in her battles against the ADD's enemies, few things could have compared to the way the interior of the Pandora now looked like, as if it were some sort of lost, alien world. Inhuman flesh seemed to have grown over absolutely everything, effortlessly invading the machinery and spreading everywhere unobstructed. Even the lights were blocked, casting virtually the entire ship into darkness.

Only those with special equipment or the Harvesters' superb sensory abilities would have been able to navigate this labyrinthine world of the Harvesters. Though there were none of the Harvesters around at the moment, it was a safe assumption that they were now more at home aboard the warship than the crew that had manned it for months, perhaps even years.

And not only that, there were far too many open vents and torn holes in the walls that had been converted into fleshy tunnels in order for the Harvesters to move around easily. And the way the flesh had grown over everything, any map of the ship was sure to be nearly useless, as very few of the identifiers remained visible to lead the way. Still, in a way, the Harvesters were overconfident in their ability to sense and defend against enemies. They had never expected to come up against an enemy that could not be seen. Though, there were those who had a sense of smell so extraordinarily sharpened and strengthened that they could detect and dissect pheromones at three parts per million, enabling them to track down even the most faint of smells.

These, for the time being, were the greatest dangers to the unseen agent's mission. And it was fortunate that there were only a few of these sorts aboard the Pandora. Still, there were plenty of other Harvesters, if they were given the opportunity, that were more than a match for a lone agent, no matter how skilled she was or how advanced her tech happened to be. They had sabotaged an entire warship, after all, what was there to be scared of a mere agent?

Nallia was, surprisingly enough, more than familiar with such an environment. On Dalli III she had encoutered a 'living nest' of a species of large insectoids. And while they were no-where near as dangerous as the harvesters were, it meant that she understood the rules of this particular hunt. Her visor included a tracking device, and had a map of the ship stored on it. That, combined with her very acute memory of where she had been, and where she was going, meant getting Nallia lost would be near impossible.

Her hand rested on the hilt of her Katana, the weapon sheathed on her back as her other hand drew the side arm she carried. As she did she flicked it onto 'silent', settting it to fire at sub-sonic speeds. The main threat of the weapon wasn't the velocity of the darts it fired after all, but the highly advanced poison that tipped them. She expanded her visor's view range, letting it scan into the walls, as well as measure sound levels and pheramones in the air. She procedded carefully, every step calculated, not making a noise as she snuck through the infested ship.

Nallia's first objective was to try and reach the life support system ... to turn this ship from the haven for the xenos that it was ... into their own living tomb. She kept careful watch for her first encouter with them, doubting that the xenos would have no sentries posted at all. Every passage practically screamed a trap to her ... unfortunatly for the xenos, traps were what Nallia was best at. And she was not going to fall victim to things so obvious as sensory deprivation and concealment.

Thankfully, for Nallia at least, her armour also served to limit the rate at which her scent escaped her body, adding automatic adjustments to it that made it so very similar to the air around it, limiting even that means of tracking her. The hunter was on the loose aboard the Pandora. And now it was the harvesters turn to be stalked by something they didn't understand, or even know was there.

It would have been disappointing if it was that easy, but unfortunately for the agents of the ADD, the Harvesters were not one to allow for structural weaknesses in their hive. Where there should have been doors, Harvester flesh had covered up completely, cutting off direct routes. Where there should have been walls, tunnels had been formed to allow the Harvesters move around quickly. Where there should have been ventilation shafts, there were pheromone factories, pumping out more of the monsters' poison.

And it was not as if the Harvesters would stay out of sight forever. She was bound to stumble across one soon or later. Or worse yet, one was bound to stumble onto her. Even if she was cloaked and her scent kept in check, it did not change the fact that she was still solid through and through. Solid enough to be crushed by Harvesters. And with the Harvester flesh everywhere, pulsating with life and blood and chemicals, it would have thrown off any scanners looking for lifesigns. With Harvester flesh everywhere, it would have been very difficult to discern whenever what one was looking at was just living flesh or a Harvester within its resting niche.

For all she knew, she could have walked over a dozen Harvesters so far. Well, that was not the case, as even the slightest disturbance in any of their sensory detectors would have alerted them to unexpected interlopers. And if she had passed by two or more Harvesters 'conversing' in the language of the pheromones, the alteration of the flow of the airborne chemicals would have been a telltale signal for them. It did not matter what precautions one took, it was always a danger to underestimate the Harvesters, just as it was a danger to expect that systems were foolproof against a life form so uniquely designed to dismantle systems.

Nallia didn't even blink when she encountered the first obstacle, a door being turned into a wall that forced her to find another route to her objective. She kept her body calm, her emotions in check to prevent any sudden variation in her scent. She was right to order the ADD grunts to hang back ... this place was a death trap to the unwary. Or more accurately, to anyone who wasn't a hunter, with every sense heightened to an extreme, and training in noticing even the most subtle of differences in the enviroment around her. Even with the readings from her visor being warped as they were, ambushing the Kaji agent would be difficult. She could 'see' the pheromone levels, and it was simple enough for her to 'spot' her first pair of the xenos that had taken over the Pandora via the pheromones they were using to talk to each other. She herself couldn't smell anything, her nose plugs preventing that. A fact that she was rather glad for, considering how strong the scent of human women, and sex, was here. But her visor could 'see' the changing scent patterns.

Nallia could of slipped away and tried to find another route, but she doubted that one would exist. Or at least, would exist without her having to face this particular problem. All she could do was trigger the trap, and hope that the two xenos jumped her so she could kill them before reporting back to whatever was controlling them. She knew nothing of the Hive mind that meant the moment one harvester encoutered her, they all would know about her.

She kept one hand on the hilt of her blade, dropping back till she was out of sight, and then shimmering into existance. No doubt they would notice her passage, and so she would try to avoid revealing her ability to cloak.She walked calmly forward, her eyes forward as her Katana remained sheathed. She would pass between the two aliens, not even throwing a glance towards them, senses strained as she listened for them to pounce, and hoping that they took her for face value, and knew nothing of her reaction speed.

The agent's decision to cast aside her cloaking technology for the sake of keeping it as a trump card was a calculated risk, and one that was a very good risk to take. With her visible, it did not take long for the Harvesters to notice her, sniffing the air as she had passed by them. Though, they did not pounce at her. Lacking any sort of tentacles or physical features to fight with, these Harvesters were little more than stunted creatures, incapable of posing a threat to anyone but the most fragile of beings. However, in a sense, they were quite dangerous because unlike any of the others, they had a very unique ability, and a very specific role. That of sentries.

Aptly named, the Shriekers swelled up as they drew in air through their porous flesh, rapidly growing to be two, three times their size. Then, in an instant, an ear-piercing shrieking could be heard all around, bouncing off the fleshy walls and being funneled throughout the immediate vicinity. Even after tripping the alarm, the Shriekers did not cease their activities, their irritating shrieks continuing unabated unless one were to deliver a slash across what appeared to pass for a throat for the Harvesters. Either way, the damage had been done. By now, those near the chamber had been alerted to the presence of an intruder. Already, Raiders and Warriors skittered along hallways and tunnels, closing in on the offending presence, though she still had some time left.

The worst part, however, was yet to come as another creature awoke from its slumber, something that was of the same strain as the Guardians but had branched off into a different direction, one that made it even more dangerous than the Guardian breed. The hunter was about to become the hunted.

Nallia winced and screamed at the sound, as if trying to drown it out. She struggled to draw her Katana or pistol, appearing almost completely incapacitated by the sudden ear splitting sound. She finally drew her pistol, firing a few shots into the hiding place that each one was lodged in, shooting the vicious metal darts until the sound stopped. She pauses to shake her head to try and clear it, her expression one of pain as she acts like someone who has just been almost deafened.

It was, of course, an act. Just in case there was something else watching and observing. Her visor extended over her ears, a fact that is hidden by her sandy hair. The sound had been dampened, although even without the visor she would of been almost completely unaffected by the sound. Her ears could handle sound variations that were much more complex than humans, and what was painful to them was simply another fluctuation in tone for her. But she knew all about this sort of hunt ... a sustained hunt in a hive generally meant she would be very heavily outnumbered. No matter how good she was, the xenos would learn and try to send things that exploited her weaknesses. But if she pretended that she had weaknesses, it gave her an ace to use later. When the xenos thought they had her cornered, she would simply break out until they were left reeling, unsure what they truly knew about her.

She moved on soon afterwards, re-activating her cloak after checking and making sure via her visor that nothing was observing her doing so as her form shimmered away. She moved on, resuming her passage towards the life support control room of the ship, visor scanning every possible spectrum of light, analysing every sound, every fluctuation of temperature and scent, and giving her a very accurate picture of the environment around her. If anything was coming, or waiting for her, she would know about them long before they even realised they were no longer alone.

Even if one were to track the Harvesters by keeping tabs on life signs, it would have proven impossible as much of the ship was fused with living flesh, which reacted the same as the creatures themselves, for they were fashioned from the same genetic materials after all. Even the heat spectrum would not have helped much, as the creatures and the ship itself gave off the same temperatures, leaving only the remaining metal aspects of the Pandora to show contrasting temperatures.

Still, it counted for nothing as the Harvesters made no attempt to hide themselves nor disguise their approach. Raiders swarmed faster, being less valuable than the Warriors, who in turn moved in behind their comrades. Yet, because of the number of oncoming Harvesters, there were several different forms mixed in, their approach screened by the lesser Harvesters. And there was still the hidden Harvester, well beyond conventional range and staying out of the sights until it was the time to strike.

<gah stupid rl ... sorry for the massive delay in this>

Nallia could hear the approaching horde, even over what must of been a vast distance of corridors, turns and doors. They were obviously making no attempt to conceal their approach, charging like dumb Kayloths at the first sign of an intrusion into the Hive. She paused at that, backtracking towards where she had killed the two sentries that had detected her. Something about this seemed wrong ... and she had to check her suspicion.

She wasted plenty of time backtracking, and than extracting one of the ruined corpses of the sentries. She laid it out carefully on the ground, her visor tracking the volume of the approaching aliens, giving her a range and the rate it was closing. Even for those who were intimately familiar with ADD technology, her own visor was capable of almost unimaginable feats of sensory enhancement.

The Kaji were the greatest hunters in the universe, and their prey was everything, sentient or not. Even the might of bio-weapons, species designed to be the perfect weapons of war, would be stalked and taken as trophies by the Kaji. And even though she was female, not male, Nallia was one of the Kaji. She had their technology, their instincts, their senses, and their mind. She studied the dead alien, dissecting it with cold fast skill and than extracting a sample of muscle tissue from the brain and inserting it into her visor for analysis before placing the body back as it had been found, the careful cuts of the dissection hidden under it's bulk, hopefully from discovery.

With her research into her foe finished for now she turned back around and moved on, cursing silently at her own foolishness for not suspecting it sooner. The sound of the aliens was minutes away from her when her visor finished it's analysis of the tissue, giving Nallia some more information on just what the Harvesters were. She remained invisible as the sound grew closer and closer, jumping up and clinging to the roof. When the rushing harvesters reached her position there would be nothing to mark her being there. No trace of a foreign scent, no disturbed air from her breath, and no sound from her lungs or heart. She was as hidden as it was possible to be, her body perfectly calm and controlled, planning on letting the xenos simply rush past her.

((No worries, bro. I fully understand!))

There was nothing for them to find save for two fresh corpses, nothing to guide the Harvesters that had come toward the offending foe. And in the midst of confusion, pheromones were blasted into the room in sheer volumes as they sought to find something to go on, some sort of lead. It was only when the Warrior forms had arrived that the Raiders began spreading out from the chamber, disappearing down tunnels and slipping through vents. The Warriors, however, focused upon the dead Harvesters, and instead of examining them, the creates began devouring them, pieces of the Shriekers disappearing down their gullets.

And from behind them, a much larger life form entered the chamber, similar to the Guardian strain, but of a far different nature. Instead of tentacles, it seemed to be bristling with claws and pincers, moving with a purpose that demanded attention, as if it had been bred for nothing but bringing war to its enemies. Once in full sight, the thing appeared to have some sort of large protuberance upon its back, one that seemed to be of a much harder substance than the Harvester flesh all around them. It was clear that the Warrior forms deferred to the newcomer as they backed away from the approaching Harvester, allowing it to take the center stage.

Without warning, the protuberance upon the Harvester's back began buzzing, almost angrily, as fissures appeared and grew wider and wider. And it was then that the source of the buzzing became apparent as insect-sized Harvesters began swarming out of their host, the much larger Hiver. At first few, the tiny Harvesters' numbers soon grew into the dozens, then into hundreds as they swarmed out around the room, moving into the area surrounding the chamber, seeking out the interloper. The Hiver soon followed suit, moving down the hallway the agent had come through earlier, leaving behind only the Warriors and several dozens of the insect-sized creatures.

Nallia watched as the aliens scurried into the room below her. She let her gaze scan the lifeforms that passed by her, ignoring the rapidly growing clouds of pheramones. As long as she didn't move her armour would give nothing away, and she would be effecivly undetectable. She was preparing to drop down and move away while she could do so without disturbing the pheromones, but then the Hiver stepped into view.

The hunter couldn't help but admire it's size, and the lethal genetics that seemed to make it up. If she hadn't been in the mindset of a hunter she could very well of swooned at the sight. And in that moment her plans changed.

Even knowing that Minerva had been here, Nallia had no idea if her red headed lover was still alive. She had come here in the futile hope to rescue her yes, but suspected in the bottom of her heart that all she could achieve was vengence and confirmation. And even if she was still alive ... such a trophy could not be passed up. She watched on as the insect sized aliens buzzed out of the Hiver, remaining motionless in her hiding spot. The spot she had picked was carefully chosen, not only was it plainly visible and illuminated, it was also completly out of the way of any other hiding spots, ensuring that the chance of any of those insects flying into it was minimal.

Nallia watched and waited as the Hiver moved on, wanting the swarm to die down a bit before she moved as they spread out. A few remained, but she was confident of her ability to deal with them. She was already forming an idea of how the Hive worked, how it communicated, and how it thought. And now she was going to test just how good it fought.

She dropped down, shimmering into visibility, her Katana coming free from it's sheathe as fell. Her blade lashed out at a warrior who was right next to her landing point, the weapon that could cut through a tanks, or a starships, armoured hull moving with her inhuman speed and grace.

As the woman dropped into their midst, slicing through one of the Warriors that had been taken by surprise, and catching the attention of the remaining Harvesters. Whatever surprise they had been struck with did not delay them for long and they were already moving into position to attack the interloper. In numbers as few as theirs, it would not have been much of a problem to finish them off. Except, the constant buzzing of the insectoid swarms were beginning to grow louder, as they began their return. Against the armor of vehicles and vessels, they were worthless. But against a lone foe, even one as dangerous as her...

The stingers of these wasp-like Harvesters would have meant the end of her mission if their paralytic poison were to invade her veins. It was for this reason, naturally, that the Hiver had been one of the few special Harvesters brought along by the good doctor. A loud snarl rang out from down the hall where the said Hiver had gone through, as it was alerted to the situation developing behind her. Soon enough, there would be no place for the agent to go, except for forward. Of course, that was only if she could get away from the Harvester swarms.

Nallia's movements were fluid and graceful, like watching a dancer. Although this particular dance was one of death for those who saw it. Her blade sliced through armour, bone and muscle as fluidly as it did the air between her various victims, and her reaction speed made her on another level entirely to what they would be used to. Even as the buzzing of those smaller insects grew larger she showed no sign of slowing her deadly dance, and as they buzzed in to try and sting her her blade lashed out with uncanny precision, slicing the small bugs in half in skilled swings. Her blade followed a perfect pattern, cutting everything that got in its way apart, be they the larger warriors, or the small bugs launched by the Hiver.

But even for Nallia, it was impossible to block all the bugs. Once the warriors were gone she started to move after the Hiver, her blade still cutting down the insects. For the most part she was succesful, her armour helping by leaving only a few places of her body exposed. But when one finally did manage to sting her she screamed, her body spasming as she collapsed to the ground, body unmoving.

It was a ruse of course ... Nallia's immune system had purged the poison within moments of it invading her blood stream. But the xenos wouldn't know that ... and when they came to pick her apparantly paralysed body up she would strike before it realised what was happening.

The buzzing only grew louder and louder yet, even after the agent had struck down many for more were still returning and filling up the room. It was only inevitable that she would fall victim to the Harvesters' poison, and once the interloper had fallen to the ground, overcome by the paralytic poison, the wasp-like creatures began to withdraw, filtering back into the Hiver that had finally entered the room, their duty completed. The massive Harvester then merely remained where it stood, waiting until its swarms had all returned to it.

However, the rest of the Harvesters did not move to apprehend the fallen female, instead they appeared to have decided that they were no longer needed and instead began to leave, returning to their positions. Instead, what did come to pick the deceptively collapsed form of the Agent was another special case, one that had been hunting the hunter, remaining out of sight for so long. Suddenly, an extremely long appendage sprang out from the creature's hiding place, stretching to its utmost in order to cross the large distance between the two as a spider-like creature came out of a sizable hole. The appendage was in fact its tongue, slicing through the air to wrap around the woman's throat, intending to drag her to its mistress, who would surely reward it for performing so well.

Nallia's visor gave her perception far beyond what any xenos would be expecting, and she waited calmly as the bait in her trap. She had done such traps before, an ambush where the jaws of the trap was the bait itself. She watched and listened as the bugs returned to the Hiver that stored them, her body relaxed as if effected by the venom, but her mind and senses watching and waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

When that tongue suddenly lashed out towards her neck she sprung into action. Her blade sliced through the tongue, cutting part of it off as her spare hand drew a gun in a single fluid movement as she flipped up onto her feet. She opened fire with a true predators instinct for aiming, the razor sharp bolts propelled at just below the speed of sound towards the spider like thing, aiming for key nerve clusters and muscle groups, trying to cut off it's ability to move and leave it helpless against her blade. She rushed towards the Hiver as she fired on the spider like hunter, trying to bring her blade across it's vocal chords and prevent it from crying out an alarm to alert the other harvesters that their trap had not gone as expected ... and had in fact been turned on two of their most deadly life forms.