Natasha was quite the elite as far as the ADD went, being skilled in many forms of combat and very capable and independent. Of course, she was also very knew, inexperienced... and potentially vulnerable, for many reasons...

But those weren't concerns of her own. It was why minor investigation missions might be irritating to the skilled woman... after all, wasn't there a better use of her time?! Still, her ship had been traveling not far from the system; a matter of convenience as far as the A.D.D was concerned. It involved traveling five hours out her way, though, to investigate the strange readings and behavior from a communications node.

Finally now, the last of the hours were fading away. Her systems beep, warning her of her imminent arrival in the Betralo system... a solar system with a yellow sun and half a dozen planets... including two gas giants and one abandoned world of woods and mountain. Because of it's location not far from major transit routes, and the potential benefits of using the system, the A.D.D left the node there to both watch the system and transport information along the travel-route.

Recently, it had been acting buggy, with the occasional 'phantom blip' being detected, reading strange and erroneous signal activity. She wasn't a tech, but there were replacement parts stored right on the satellite, and all she would have to do is follow the instructions from it or her own ships' systems. Of course, if there was something malicious at work... then she would be there to check it out, and end it if she could.

Finally, her sensors pick up the communications node up ahead. The machine responds to the immediate protocols, returning an automated 'ping'... but that's one of TWO things she is picking up! A small interstellar A.D.D craft is floating nearby the satellite, dark and unresponsive... strange. Did someone else respond to the mission request? But why does it look to be powered down, its engine off and its communications closed?

"Repeat. This is the shuttle craft Calypso of the A.D.D. ship Apollo. To anyone on board: Please respond." I pleaded again.

Having given up on receiving a signal back from the seemingly dead hulk, I leaned back in my chair, rubbing my neck in apprehension. I knew I had to board the ship, although it looked dead, there could still be some of the crew on board. Unfortunately I was alone and not properly equipped to secure a vessel its size.

With a brief sigh, I leaned forward to take the controls again. The fact that this ship appeared on the communications buoy at all suggested that there must be some signal being sent, and someone to send it. I wasn't going to abandon them as there was no way of knowing how long they have been left without power. Without life support, it would be impossible for anything to survive in space for long, and I couldn't wait for support from the Apollo to arrive.

Once I had entered the request for the computer to initiate docking procedures with the derelict, I turned and rose out of the chair, not having the training to pilot the shuttle I left it to the computer. The shuttle slowly crawled along the vessel's side as I began to remove my battle armor, pulse rifle, remote computer interface device, and a few grenades from various storage areas inside the cramped shuttle.

Taking a seat back on the cockpit chair, I began to remove my uniform; dull silver coloured pants, plain red sweater, and a matching silver plain jacket. I never really cared for the uniform, it always felt too formal for me, being far more comfortable in my battle armor as it felt almost like a part of me after wearing it so much. I folded the "Star Trek" uniform neatly, setting it aside in one of the storage compartments I had retrieved my equipment from, unable to tolerate a cluttered living-space.

As I turned to walk back to the cockpit chair, my eyes caught the spotlight from the nose of my shuttle craft roaming over the hull of the ship, and the letters painted on.

"Hermes." I quietly repeated to myself after each of the letters had been revealed.

Taking a moment, I recalled that the vessel was actually a comm. ship that positioned the bouys similar to the one I had been sent to investigate. Moving to the computer I cycled through the registries to discover that the ship was listed as lost after a garbled message had been recieved stating that they had been attacked, but nothing more.

It suddenly occurred to me that this could be a trap. The ship wasn't well armed and would not be capable of fending off a fleet of Alliance ships and escaping. So, how could it just miraculously be here? Unscathed.

As the shuttle began to position itself to dock with the outer hatch, I gathered the various components of my armor and began to dress. Still wearing my uninteresting black sports bra and panties, I slowly eased myself into the form-fitting black re-enforced body suit. It reached from the middle of my neck to the tops of my ankles. I was always embarrassed to wear just this layer as it did...fit my form a little too well. It seemed to hug my small breasts and sink into my bottom displaying both rather lewdly. I've never really been comfortable naked but this suit seemed to be worse than being without clothing. However that didn't bother me after I had added the alloy chest, leg, waist armor, and the matching metallic boots. With those, I was no longer a vulnerable and nearly naked woman, I was once again the soldier I am.

With a light thud and a audible hiss, the pressure had equalized at the airlock. With my R.C.I.D., I moved toward the door and attached the device to the door's interface point. After a few streamlined windows displayed that both the life support and gravity were functioning, I requested the computer to transfer power from the backup systems on my shuttle to the Hermes to allow it basic functions...like having the airlock door open.

With a rather pleasant "ding" that was inappropriate for such an ominous situation, the PDA sized device announced it had completed it's task and the door finally responded. A cone of white light burst down the corridor of the ship; projected from the lamp attached to the top of my pulse rifle. Taking another quiet sigh, and reaching to my shoulder to brush my ponytail aside to hang behind me and took my first steps into the blackened corridors of the ship.

The A.D.D. ship Hermes, a light and small spacecraft, needed at least a couple of people for a skeleton crew to operate it. And it looked dead... but as she knew, it didn't mean the crew was too. It was strange though; it was a light craft, meant for communication buoy distribution and repair, as well as other interstellar infrastructure maintenance. It hadn't been mentioned in her report... but it might have happened across the buoy by chance and decided to work on it. Maybe.

The dark, round shape of the starship looked just broad enough to be unwieldy, just narrow and sleek enough to be passable in flight. It was probably like trying to fly a space-hippo... the blunt 'head' didn't help either, with two recesses where manipulator-arms could extend from and a covered sensor panel sitting between them. It allowed ship operators to perform a number of engineering tasks without going EV... in Natasha's case, she would have to use the space-suits and external tools to conduct any repairs, though maybe if she could get the Hermes's systems working...

As Natasha slowly suited up, she could hear the first sounds of the docking clamps setting against the ship. Hollow, metal 'thunks' and 'clongs' echoed through her shuttle as the docking mechanisms met... adjusted, and clamped together slowly. The docking system on the Hermes was not reacting, but as the clamp of her ship extended into its', power couplings connected... and triggered the system to do the same, locking each in place. Drawing power from her own ship, the docking-couplings also allowed her to provide emergency power to the Hermes.

Enough to power the life support... air lock... gravity. Basic control-systems. Not much else. The Apollo's readouts showed that the Hermes's primary power was blown, and the emergency power was almost gone. Almost, but not completely... maybe minimal life support had been supported. The computer systems, however, are spouting gibberish and seem to be scrambled. Damn... seems like a heavy, hard computer-system crash. Maybe another hard-reboot will help it, though it's hard to say.

With her outfit clasped tightly around her body, with the armored alloy attachments, she was suited up and ready for battle. It was tight, but it was protective and easy to move in... and with the reassuring feel of her pulse rifle in hand, she was ready for anything.

Slowly, the airlock opened, revealing the bland, gray walls of the hallway beyond. The bright light of her gun-lamp reflected off the metal bulkheads and illuminating more of the interior. It was dark... even her light didn't seem to cast as much light as she wanted, as the hallway quickly opened up into an oval room... here is where people would be brought in, introduced to waiting crew... or where desperate civilians would put up a desperate defense against Alliance ships if they were boarded. A thick panel rising up to hip-height was in the center, where someone would examine and control the airlock from this side... or check the readouts on docking ships. A blue glow was cast along the opposite wall as the readout displayed snow and random garbage, constantly filtering through some sort of chaotic mess that the computer system couldn't interpret. Looks like there was definitely a problem with the Hermes's systems... possibly why their engines weren't even functioning.

There is one thing, though. The image on the display, slightly garbled in blocks, was not a readout of her ship. It looked like the readout of a space station... a disc-shaped thing with a thick outer ring. Although the image data was partly corrupted and the resolution poor, it was almost shaped like some of the older A.D.D. space stations she had seen... the sort of thing that was no longer safe for use without extensive maintenance. She hadn't picked up such a station on her sensors, though... maybe it was an old file, brought back up during the system scrambling.

"Damn. No one's here." I stated with a sigh after completing a brief scanner sweep of the ship with the hand held computer device.

I took a moment to look around the bridge, using the rifle's lamp to search for any clues as to what happened; instead finding more questions. There was no damage, no blood, no torn clothing, and not even a blast point across the entire bridge. It was difficult to imagine the crew just surrendering to whomever had boarded them; A.D.D. agents wouldn't give up without a fight.

I then turned my attention to the pixelated image on the viewscreen. It resembled one of the old A.D.D. outposts, used as a resupply station or even a defensive station. I thought they had been all decommissioned and replaced, obviously one was missed. That could have also been what happened: the crew detected the station, went to investigate, boarded the station, they were ambushed when they arrived, and then the ship was simply detached and drifted here.

"Well if that's where they went, that's where I'm going!" I stated, setting the rifle down against the navigational console.

I attempted to restart the computer, only to find it unresponsive. With a groan I retrieved the R.C.I.D. from my belt and requested the device to interface with the navigational console. Unfortunately, the device was not programmed to access a navigational computer's logs, so they needed to be unlocked manually. Groaning to myself, I leaned onto the navigational computer, resting my forehead into my hand, realizing I had to remember the tech classes I've taken during my initial training.

"Oh...how do I do this again?" I quietly asked myself in an almost defeated tone.

After a few minutes I began to recall how to use the device to manually access the navigational logs. Using the small keypad on the device I began to type in the code, only to hear the computer squak in annoyance with the sloppy result. The second attempt yeilded smilar results; followed by a third that's only difference was the anger surging through me. I took a few moments to try and calm down, hoping the training would come back to me. Luckly after I had taken a few deep breaths, it did.

I rolled my eyes as I suddenly realized what I had been missing, and after a few changes to the coding, an equally humilating chime sounded, as if the computer was patronizing and belittling my success in remembering basic computer coding. I grumbled to myself for a few moments while the device downloaded the flightpath the ship had taken and the co-ordinates of the station. Once the information had been collected, I set the device to activate the ship's emergency signal and, after I left, transfer all remaining power to keep the signal running until Apollo arrived.

Gathering my equipment and returning to my shuttle; I detached from the Hermes and set a course for the station.

Natasha navigates the vessel quickly, searching it, finding no one at all. It was a... ghost ship, as some would call it. There was no sign of struggle anywhere... leaving her only to theorize. The low-res image had associated data, badly corrupted...

Messing with the navigational console took her some time; restarting the system didn't seem to work... not at first. Natasha wasn't a techie by any means... she had been trained (as with all her peers), but it took her a lot of stumbling about before she finished.

And while the computer still seemed to be badly damaged, the reboot at least made it USABLE. Even better, she found data associated with the image of the station... an intergalactic location point and a flight path! They were not far... this probably marks where the station was encountered, apparently en-route to the communications buoy. They encountered it while heading along this route, logged the passage in their computers... if they had been sent to the buoy itself, it should still have been mentioned, but the Hermes could have simply been traveling along this way...

Maybe. There were a lot of if's, and she couldn't fully say if any of it was accurate. She wouldn't know until she found them... or found some sort of data or recording that wasn't scrambled. But now she had a location.

Natasha was able to set the emergency beacon, and set forth in the Apollo again... back out into space. Out... to the station.


She finally found it after almost an hour of looking; it had drifted off-course, leaving her scrambling to try and track it back down! It was barely noticeable on sensors too, just a dull, faint reaction that was easily lost against the rest of the space 'noise' her systems picked up; she had to wonder why it was so hard to detect, maybe due to chance or design... it made her suspicious, wary... but she already was.

The noticeable thing was that most of it seemed to be unpowered; as bad as the Hermes, it seemed like the station was completely dark in areas. It was round, large, but most space stations were. It actually was thick as well, though, having about half-a-dozen apparent floors, although the docking clamps only lead into one; right in the middle... probably the third floor, going from the top. Instead of connecting to the computer system to transfer power, her Apollo actually has to connect to the clamps itself, activating them manually and giving them power. Enough to run the cycle and prepare both sides to open...

...but for this, she might need a full EV suit, overtop of her armor. It's protection was not good, but if there was no atmosphere, it would protect her from that. It was a foreboding thought, one she did not want to focus on... and to her relief, the systems reported there was air on the other side, and pressure. Good. Temperature was low... oxygen levels were low but normal, high enough; slightly-high carbon dioxide, but safe. It might be a bit cold, but she could manage it...

Through the armored-glass, she could see beyond the doors as they waited to be opened... into a dark, empty hallway that lead into the station... no lights, even tiny ones, lead the way, just a hallway, metal grating floor and all, and dark ceiling lights that lacked any power. And the blackness beyond what she could see...

The airlock door slid open with a brief but loud hiss and heavy metallic thunk, announcing my arrival. Cautiously taking my first steps into the station, my eyes darting to all angles of the hallway as my rifle was held steady forward, unmoving, unflinching as I moved into the station.

After that, it was a slow and methodical movement down the hallways. I would continue to survey every crevice that was revealed by even the slightest glimmer of light, I wasn't going to end up like the crew of the Hermes. Whatever had captured them, was going to be ridden with plasma wounds before it would ever reach me. I would stop at every door and take a moment to scan the room beyond; unable to scan the entire station from the Calypso as the station must have been altered to deflect scanners. It made sense: placing a trap that any ship could easily scan and detect that there were thirty odd ravenous aliens waiting to gang-rape or....enslave unwitting investigators, wouldn't be very effective.

So, I continued my slow pace down the corridor, taking no chance to leave myself open to attack ensuring every area behind me was safe. I began to make my way to the command center, trying to remain calm in the thinner oxygen environment, in spite of the rather unnerving atmosphere of complete silence and thick unrelenting darkness.

Natasha's footsteps were loud, the metal grating and flooring in the hallways noisy against her boots. The place was not new or sleek-looking on the inside; it didn't have the sterile, gray or beige walls and smooth surfaces with floor carpeting of some of the stations she had been on. This resembled the stations-less-traveled, with rough, pocked metal flooring, open bulkheads exposing pipes and wiring in many places, and small lights, panels, tiny alcoves and twisting walls... like an engineering or maintenance level on some of the science vessels she had been on.

It meant that the interior cast a lot of shadows, with narrow crannies and dark holes all over the place. Parallel grooves, vents, holes spewing forth dozens of narrow pipes that snake every which way. There was just enough bulkheads to feel like there were corridors and rooms, holding most of the electronics and pipes out of sight, but there were enough gaps and breaks that only a beehive would have more crevices and holes for tentacles to lurk. With literally hundreds of shadows moving with the light of her flashlight, her nerves were being rubbed raw.


Much of the station had almost no power; the occasional light glowed or flickered weakly, or LED indicators showing that this display or that circuit-board had some power. It wasn't a surprise that the Calypso couldn't run a deep scan of the place... many Alliance ships interfered with scans in some way for that very reason. If this was a trap, then that would be necessary... but it gave some warning. That something here was amiss.

Her footfalls echoed throughout the long, dark halls, and every place she turned had more empty rooms and crevasses where monsters may lurk. Her hairs were standing on end, and she KNEW... there was something watching her. Somewhere around her... but there were no targets for her plasma gun to blast, and every archway and corner revealed nothing beyond them but more passages and rooms.

As she looked about, she heard a sudden, loud 'whoooooorl'. The air ventilation fans suddenly came on, sending a blast of cold air into the room she was in. The noise continued to rumble quietly, her nerves working on getting used to it... but it didn't help her pounding heart. Something turned on the air circulation... either with a control nearby, or in the environmental control. If this layout was anything like the way the station was supposed to be... it'd be a floor down, two-thirds inwards on the ring.

It had been turning out to be a bad idea, trying and secure the station by myself. No matter where I turned there were endless positions that were perfect to launch an ambush. Every shadow seemed to morph into creatures watching me behind every corner, or tendrils slowly reaching out to me. I clutched my rifle a little more tightly as I felt knots twist and pull in my stomach. Every time I felt fear pulling me back to the Calypso, I reminded myself that I was here for the crew of the Hermes. If I went back to the shuttle to signal the Apollo, I may loose the trail of who captured them.

Then again...I was trained to handle situations like this. Trained to ignore my fear and press on, so I did.

Grunting and groaning, I managed to force open another unpowered door, reeling from the harsh screeching of the unmaintained rusted metal. Continuing into the room, I searched it in much the same as all the others; and much like the rest, found nothing. A new fear began to grow, the fear that I had already lost them.

Suddenly a roar filled the room. Sharply turning around, I dropping to a knee in a defense posture. I thought the trap had finally been sprung and I was now about to face the thing that had taken the crew of the Hermes. With adrenaline pulsing through my body and my dagger like jade eyes staring down the barrel of my rifle...that was pointed at a now functioning ventilation shaft.

Sighing to myself in annoyance on how jumpy I was, I lowered the rifle and stood up once more. Walking towards the vent, I raised my hand to feel the fresh air flowing freely, enjoying the cool breeze that seemed to ease some of the tension I was feeling. After a moment composing myself I realized that the only way the vent would activate is if there was still power left in the main computer, or someone had activated the environmental controls. Either way, it could mean I found the trail that would lead me to the Hermes' crew. Racing out the door I made my way through the station, down to the engineering wing and environmental controls.

Creeping along slowly once I had entered the engineering wing, I once again resumed my coiled posture, staring down the barrel of my rifle as I took careful, quiet steps towards the environmental wing. Once the door was in sight, I slowly moved to press my back against the wall, following it along until I had reached the edge of the doorway. Silently retrieving my R.C.I.D., I lifted the hand held device and set it to scan for lifeforms beyond the door.

Natasha was in over her head... that much she could say for sure. The shifting shadows of the dark halls and silent rooms seemed to taunt her, playing at her uneasiness and fraying her nerves even more. The cool metal of her rifle in her grip helped steady her...

She needed a lot of steadying. Still shaky from the vents, it was action that spurred her spirit and will! Navigating through the maze of dark halls, she found an emergency stairwell and hurried down deeper into the dark bowels of the station. But although her heart was pounding at every sudden turn, something else was on her tongue... the taste of a solution to this foreboding place!

Natasha moved past another rumbling vent, loud squeaks escaping it as a fan wobbled. A winding pipe hissed with the sound of water and another with steam, and flickering lights reflected in the metal beyond the doorway... the lights in the environmental wing were off, but the machines were definitely active.

Set against the door, the combat expert began her scan... she barely had time to look at the device though, as a white tentacle suddenly erupted from a vent above her! It looped as it fell and then closed, coming in around her arms and shoulders as suckers clamped to her lithe form!

The scanner fell from my hands as I felt the horrifically familiar sensation of a tendril wrapping around my arms. I began to thrash and pull wildly at it, trying to use what training was offered by the A.D.D. against tentacles. Unfortunately, that not being much as it was difficult to combat living ropes. I groaned constantly as my athletic arms pulled relentlessly at the ghostly white restraint.

My eyes widened as I saw the two suckers descending from high above me, as if born from the darkness, seeking to secure themselves somewhere on my body. It was as if I was watching the crew of the Hermes fading away into nothingness. If I was captured by whatever this was, they were lost.

"Damn it, Let me go!!" I yelled as I found new strength against this thing. Swinging and pulling with my legs, twisting in every direction to try and find some leverage against it. "I'm not losing the crew of the Hermes to some...perverted mutant!!"

Natasha's feet scrambled for purchase, something to set against to let her use her strength to pull against the tentacles entangling her wrists. But her feet found none; the walls were surprisingly smooth below the vent and the opening set high in the wall and extending back into the station... and what the wall had that wasn't smooth and flat didn't give her enough purchase to catch! Pulling down at it while she was slowly hefted into the air, she couldn't stop it from drawing her into the conduit in the ceiling!

Swinging back and forth, her shoulders banged noisily against the metal frame. Although she was lithe and lean, this cramped quarters made it even harder to struggle! Even if she freed herself, could she defend herself in this thing?! At the least, she could brace her knees against the sides... finally bringing her slow passage to a halt!

Finally, she began to hear a voice speaking from the other end of the shaft. "Oh... you aren't, are you? Who are you then... to take my catch?" She could see another two tentacle sliding down the vent towards her now! Damn, she couldn't hear them coming over the fans... she could feel the suckers on her body, making her skin tingle and her heart race. At least she was covered in that bodysuit... for all the good it may do.

I could barely think as my body thrashed against the unrelenting steel of the vents. Constantly unnerved as I bounced from once side to the next, being dragged through the cramped shaft. My heart raced as I desperately tried to brace myself with my feet, trying to form some sort of ledge, indentation, rusted hole, something to grab onto to fight back.

I could hear it taunt me, laugh at me from where I assumed it was dragging me to, sending more of it's "hands" to restrain me. Although it was like a nightmare, I was more enraged than terrified. This thing was not going to take the Hermes crew and me along with them.

My knees ground against the steel walls, screeching from the metal to metal contact as I put all force against them, struggling to slow the dragging tentacles. I pulled relentlessly against the white restraints, still griping my rifle tightly, knowing if I were to break free, it was the only way I would stop this thing. Yet my plan was not going to so well, nothing caught the textured leg armor, it just echoed the almost deafening screeched through the vents, carving directly into my spine. My resistance doing nothing but slowing the speed at which I was being captured.

The peircing screech did not help the trembles running through my athletic form, my body still under the toying manipulations of the two suckers attached to my clothed form. They were no where vulnerable, but they were unnerving, feeling them sucking at my firm skin, pulling on my clothes, as if foreshadowing what was to come if I couldn't break free.

Struggling and fighting had helped her stop. But now, it only left her more vulnerable. Tentacles slid along her legs, teasing her calves and working towards her hips. Natasha was trapped; if she moved her arms or legs, she'd begin being pulled down the vents again. If she didn't move her arms or legs, her entire body was vulnerable to this monstrous thing.

And the tentacles knew her vulnerability well. They tasted it in her thighs as suckers clasped to tight bodysuit, tickled it in her stomach as they slid past her hips and towards her shoulders. Others slid between her legs, grinding and exploring the barrier that was her only protection from being invaded.

Over a dozen of them were searching her now... two still holding onto her legs, while the rest seemed to be exploring, checking, every precious part of her. Seeking, she realized, the breaks and folds in her garment... the places where they could slide beneath, and truly begin her torment...

Panic reared it's head as the suckers continued to explore my body. It was obvious that they were not simply toying with me or trying to find my more sensitive areas, but were looking for the edges of my suit. Since it ended at my wrists and ankles, all secured and fastened under my gloves and boots, it would take some time for them to slip inside, however that did not change the revulsion I felt as they probed my clothing.

With the motivation provided by the suckers, demanding I free myself, I struggled vainly to look down the vent where I was being dragged off to. Although it was too dark to see where the vents ended or what was pulling me, I could see the tentacles that secured my wrists.

With only one hand still holding the grip of my rifle, with shallow panic-stricken breaths, I struggled to aim the barrel at the two white tendrils extending from the darkness.

"If I can just...get...one hand free..." I whispered to myself.

Quietly hoping to myself that my trained eyes could make the connection, I squeezed the trigger and fired several times.

The shots were unsteady, punching holes loudly into the vent. But there were many. One catches one of the tentacles holding her legs, splattering purplish-green gunk, and then the ruined end slides away swiftly. Another three are hit, damaged or severed, and retreat quickly.

Just one now, holding her. Except the ones exploring her, those that were not shot, seize her anew. Her gun, pointed down along her body, is shoved up against the top of the vent. And then they pull again... and she is slid down. Fast now, she's being pulled to her fate, her weapon being pinned and pulled above her head as she's firmly entangled!

"And there... we are..." Pulled free now, she feels a sensation of falling for a second. Then the tentacles secure her in the air, holding her suspended. A dark room, too dark to see, except for the faint glows of LED lights, machines scattered about showing their presence and awareness by those means. The voice was close... just in front of her, in this shadowed room.