Alucard worked the hydro-spanner busily. The alien was working on something, something big. The alien wiped its brow, not because it was sweating, but because it was raining. Alucard had been working like this for two days straight, not stopping to eat or sleep the whole time.

The sixteen-foot alien pushed a metal bar into place on the framework of its creation. Currently, it was not finished. For now, it was a mere skeleton of what it would be. Alucard had started work on this machine far from the civilized section of the planet, knowing beforehand how big it would have to be.

After another fourteen hours of effort, the frame was completed. Alucard looked at it with a grin. It looked promising to the giant alien.

The work took the alien another five days to finish completely. When it was done, Alucard looked at its creation proudly.

It was a spaceship, so large that it made the sixteen-foot-high Alucard look miniscule in comparison, which was a rare thing indeed for the massive alien. It looked at its ship with satisfaction as the rain stopped, the clouds rolling back to allow a single ray of sunlight to hit the alien's creation.

"Now it only needs a name," thought Alucard aloud. It immediately began thinking of possible names for it, and decided on one that went hand-in-hand with Alucard's nature.

The Hunger was born.

Ensigjn Kate Tyler had just taken her ADD scout out of space dock and was in orbit around one of the ADD industrial colonies when just before she jumped to lightspeed she got a strange reading on the surface of the colony far away from the civilized section of the planet. It looked like a ship was preparing to take off from the surface. But what intrigue Kate more about this ship was the fact that it was unregistrated that was weird she was taught in the academny that even slavers had some sort of registration.

So Kate locked her small scout ship into a standing orbit above the unknown ship and continued to watch it on her scanner for any sign of movement.

Hours later, Alucard was happy with its inspection of the ship. Now the alien would take it for a test run...

Alucard observed the large halls it had built inside its ship as it walked them. Walking along to the massive chair it would use, the alien had a seat in front of the controls. A small display revealed to Alucard that the ship was being scanned by another ship. Alucard did a quick reflection scan, viewing Agent Piper's small craft. The alien immediately recognized her ship as A.D.D., the group that was constantly a thorn in the side of those hardworking slavers who were just trying to make a living.

The Hunger rose, lifting off a few inches from the ground. It continued its ascent slowly, lazily, the massive ship moving as if it had all the time in the world. With a grin, Alucard activated the cloaking device, hiding its ship from the agent above.

In a stationary orbit Kate Piper light scout ship still sat observing the unknown ship on the ground. Suddenly the ship started to move, it was trying to break the planets atmosphere and achieve a stable orbit. Kate plotted in a intercept vector into her navigational computer and fired up her ships engines.

Alucard watched as her ship moved. The alien altered its ship's path slightly, turning The Hunger, which was now fully cloaked from both the agent's view and her ship's instruments. Alucard's ship increased slightly in speed as it prepared to leave the atmosphere.

As Kate watched the ship ascend on her scanner she suddenly saw disappear completely, "damn it," she swore, "I lost my first catch." Before she was going to leave the area Kate decided to run another scan of the area to make sure it wasn't her inexperience that let the unknown ship escape.

(You called your character "Beth", by the way...)

Turning itself toward the A.D.D. ship, The Hunger hung in the vacuum of space, Alucard at the helm. The alien grinned as it observed her ship. It gunned the engines, moving it towards her ship. Faster and faster now, The Hunger approached Kate's craft.

Kate had finished carrying out her last scans, there was still nothing on the small scout ships sensors. So she shut down her sensor dish and fired up her hyperdrive all she needed to now was plot her jump co-ordinates which would only take a few minutes.

Alucard chuckled as its ship suddenly let loose hundreds of thick metal tentacles, moving to wrap around Kate's ship. The Hunger continued to move closer to its intended prey, and Alucard wondered how many were on board the small vessel. The alien supposed it most likely carried only one agent, but that would be enough to sate the monster.

Kate was inputting the final hyperspace co-ordinates when something grabbed her ship. She didn't know were the attack was coming from there was still nothing on her sensors but she wasn't going to ask any questions. Kate powered up her ships lasers and started to fire them randomly hoping that they could hit something that her scanner couldn't see.

Only one tentacle was severed by her efforts. Alucard quickly used the uninjured tentacles to immobilize her ship as The Hunger got closer. It finally flashed into visibility when it was extremely close to her small vessel. More tentacles emerged, wrapping about the ship. Soon her weapons were disabled by the massive ship's efforts, and the entrance to her ship was lined up with the entrance to Alucard's.

Her ships systems were shutting down right in front of her, but Kate didn't panic her training saw to that even when the huge ship decloaked of her ships port side and lined her up for boarding, all she did was abandon the bridge and run down to the armoury.

Down in the armoury she picked up her two ADD fusion autmatic handguns and her wrapped the gun belt around her waist. She was lucky in on respects in that there was just enough time to get her skin armour on which would cover her body in grey skintight suit of armour.

When Kate was finished she ran to the air lock the only way she could escape now was by fighting her way on to the alien ship and finding a escape capsule, so she had to meet this enemy head on as she stood outside the airlock.

Alucard stood in the hallway as it awaited the agent. Alucard knew of their training, and was expecting her to be armed to the teeth when she came aboard. The alien grinned.

Alucard's eyes glinted as it watched for her in the hallway, waiting for her to emerge onto The Hunger.

The robotic tentacles that had attacked Kate's ship now held it steady, pressed against the alien's ship, entrance to entrance.

Kate opened the airlock door and walked forward into the alien ship with both of her pistols held high out in front of her. She scanned the alien ship's dark corridor and walked down it slowly her senses alert for any kind of movement in the darkness.

As Kate walked cautiously down the hall, there was a beep to her left. A metallic sphere floated in mid-air, with a ridged surface, thousands of tiny valleys cut into its surface like a fingerprint. In the midst of it was a single blinking light. It was blue most of the time, occasionally flashing green for about a second before returning to blue.

Meanwhile, Alucard wondered how the drone would fare against her, or if she would even attack it.