I was stunned at finally finding members of Aegis, but the condition of their armor and the look of hope all three were giving me told me enough to be afraid of what was to come. "Hi, um, what happened to all of you?"

Hope immediately transformed into suspicion. "Who are you?" Asked the man to my right. He was of middle-eastern descent and his accent was thick. Though his body was covered by the armor, his gray hair, the lines on his face and the muscles in his neck told the story of a hardened veteran.

"My name is Jonathan Kaine, and this is Madison Brightwood."

"You're not reinforcements?" Asked the other man. He was the youngest of the group and had a country American accent. Short dark hair and a ragged goatee contrasted his alabaster complexion.

"Richie." The other man held up a hand to silence the younger one. "You're obviously not with Aegis. How did you get that armor and this ship? And how did you know to come here?"

"It's kinda complicated and a really long story," I said. The cannon in the older man's armor immediately folded out over his hand. He didn't point it at me but the threat was obvious.

"Uhhh, I was lost in space when I stumbled upon a decommissioned starforge from Aegis. The A.I. on board, Zeveriah, said I was a blood heir of James Malaki and leant me the Tempest." I gestured to Madison, "her mother was a Seraphim and in the journal she left were the coordinates for this place."

All three looked stunned. "There is a lot more to the story, but that's the quick and dirty of it." I said in the silence that followed.

The older man turned to Madison and said, "do you have abilities? If you do, please show me." Madison held up one hand and a black orb with purple flecks appeared above it. "Thank you. You two must have more questions than we do but unfortunately time is not on our side. I am commander Yusuf Hawkim. This is Richie Rice and Valentina Castillo. We are all that is left from this outpost." His cannon retracted as he spoke. "I know you must have many questions but first I must ask, your ship looks damaged. Can she fly?"

"We were going to fix it, that's one of the reasons we landed. We got hit by a Starforce torpedo right as we made the jump here. The blast did mostly superficial damage to the hull, but a number of capacitors and the starboard warp drive blew." All three deflated.

"That means it won't be able to jump. And an old model like this won't have a good cruising warp drive." Richie said with disappointment

"Taimia is the shipboard A.I. and she said it can be fixed with parts she can manufacture," I said

"It'll take too long," Yusuf said. "It might take the five of us three or four months to effect those types of repairs. But, we only have a few days before it will be too late. The Skree that overran us will be able to call for reinforcements. If that happens, we are all dead and so is every living thing in this system."

He glanced back at the others and then looked at me again. "We are going to need you two to help us destroy the Skree that overran us before it's too late."

"Commander!" The woman gasped. "They are a Blood Heir and a Seraphim." It was the first time she'd spoken and her raspy accent was latin American. Curly brown hair framed a hard face and a longtime healed scar down her right cheek stood out in the bright sunlight.

"I know the laws." Yusuf said with a raised voice. "But what other choice do we have? I'll take full responsibility for this." When he saw the look of confusion on my face he explained. "In Aegis, it is illegal to recklessly endanger a Seraphim or Blood Heir."

Valentina huffed. "Illegal, is a very mild term for it."

"She is right,"Yusuf said. "Seraphim and Blood Heirs are incredibly rare. We have fewer than two million Seraphim across the whole of Aegis. But you are the first Blood Heir to be found since my grandfather wore Templar armor. "

I was shocked at that. "If I were to ask you to fight with us, and you died, even if we were successful. I would most likely be executed."

"Then I won't die." I said in jest, but I was unable to bring any levity to the conversation. "What can we do? How can we help?" I asked more seriously.

"It'll be easier to show you. Follow us," Yusuf said before he and Richie fired grappling hooks up to the top of a large flat hill above where we landed the ship. I did the same and held out a hand for Madison. Yusuf frowned, "you don't have armor?"

"The ship said that as a Seraphim I would require a very specific armor it couldn't provide, because the armor has to react with my powers.” Madison said

“I’ll take you.” Valentina said as wings unfolded from her back.

Madison’s eyes went wide. “You have wings? That’s amazing,” I said

“She is a Valkyrie,” Richie said with a shrug and began sprinting up the side of the nearly vertical hill as if it was flat. Valentina had Madison stand on her toes then they held each other and lifted off the ground and headed for the top.

“Valkyrie?” I asked Yusuf with a raised eyebrow.

“There are many types of Templar. Richie and I are both Dragoons for example. I’ll explain in more detail at a later time, but let’s get up there.” The old warrior replied and began running up the hill.

I placed a foot against the wall and started running up the side while retracting my grappling hook. It was awkward at first but once I found a groove to the motion it became easier, almost natural. There was clearly a lot of training I would need with the armor. At the top I found all four, belly down, at the far edge of the hill. Crouching down, I slid along the ground to join up with them.

“There, you see it?” Yusuf asked, pointing at the next valley over. “That was our outpost.”

There were a number of demolished structures scattered around a larger building with an upside down pyramid shaped antenna on top of it. On the roof of the building was a nightmare incarnate. The creature was massive. It was nearly thirty feet long from snout to tail with black scales that shimmered in the sun as it moved. Three sets of limbs were broken up by individual torso sections. It was kind of like a centaur, using four limbs to walk and two to grip the antenna. But each limb had grasping claws large enough to wrap around my waist.

As we watched it stood up on the hind legs and lifted the antenna up to the top of a radio tower. After it attached the antenna it came down to six limbs to walk across the rooftop as it attached multiple sets of wires. When it turned around I finally saw the head, what there was of it. Definitely not humanoid. There was no eyes or ears or nose. The head was just neck and mouth that it couched in an ‘S’ shape nearly two meters long. Madison gasped with horror and I had to agree.

“How does it see?” I asked

“Eye stalks. Mounted to the forward set of shoulders.” Richie whispered, and I could see two foot long somethings sticking up from the shoulders. “It breathes through the holes along its back between the middle shoulders. Their scales are tough as our armor and they are smart, even the little ones. He was pointing to the right now and I followed his finger. Three more Scree, these about the size of a large dog, were putting together a console of some type.

Yusuf spoke up. “If they complete that antenna and call for reinforcements, everything in this system will die. But, I don’t think we can destroy them all by ourselves, let alone do it before they finish.”

“Why don’t we just use the Tempest’s weapons to destroy the entire site?” I asked

“We can’t. That big one is called an Overseer and it would shoot the Tempest out of the sky before it could ever fire.” he said

“With what?” Madison asked. “I don’t see any weapons down there.”

“All Skree have the ability to shoot beams of energy from their tails and teeth from their mouths.” Looking closer I could see an odd pentagon tube at the tip of the tail. “Those teeth are the size of your thumb and will punch right through light armor. The beam is more deadly. It’ll melt through ship armor in a fraction of a second.”

“The little ones are called Skreelings, and they can do it too, but only the teeth.” Richie added, “We also encountered Enforcers when fighting them. Those are kinda in the middle. They’re about eight feet tall. Some of them can use the beam but not all.”

“Yes, they are very dangerous, all of them are. Make sure when you fight them to keep your armor at maximum at all times, and use a thick shield too. I’m afraid Madison I'll have to ask you to sit out. With no armor, it’s a death sentence for you to attempt to fight,” Yusuf said

“I can still be helpful,” She countered

“No, not without armor. Even a Skreeling could put one of its teeth through your skull before you could react, they are terrifyingly fast.” Yusuf said firmly

“How do they communicate?” I asked “I don’t see their mouths moving but they are working together as if they were talking, I even see some arm gestures.”

“They are psychically linked. That’s another problem with using the ship to shoot them. If that big one dies quickly it will alert the Skree species where it died.”

“Huh?”

I squinted at him with confusion and Valentina spoke up. “The prevailing theory is that the overseers, all of them, are linked psychically. But at extreme ranges, such as between starsystems, they only have the ability to ‘feel’ each other. If one dies abruptly, it creates a vacuum on their psychic net and the others know of the death and come running.” She held up a finger, “But, on the other hand, if they were to die slowly. It lets them gently disconnect from that net without causing ripples.”

I sighed, “So if we were to use the ship weapons and basically obliterate him, all his friends would know he died and come running to see why he died”.

“You got it man.“ Richie said with a pat on the shoulder.

“Obviously you haven’t been able to call for backup either.”

“No, we had thought a signal got out from the attack when you showed up, but we don’t have any super-luminal communications devices or any ships,” Yusuf said

“You guys have another base in the system? Or are there any alien civilizations in the system that might be able to lend some kind of hand.”

“No, it’s entirely uninhabited.”

I thought hard for a moment. “Then why don’t we just take the Tempest and go? Let them have it. We can find a planet in a neighboring system to repair the jump drive and-”

“Absolutely not. Look, Jonathan. I understand this is all new to you, but they must not be allowed to complete that antenna. The ramifications would be catastrophic, not just here but across the sector. There are things I am not telling you because I can’t. Things these two don’t even know about.” He said, gesturing towards Richie and Valentina. “We must not lose this planet.”

“It’s an Atavistic Kheru isn’t it?” Richie asked

Yusuf grunted with anger. “Damn it Richie. You are not to talk about such things.” he whispered with anger clear across from his face. before he crawled backwards away from the edge.

We followed him away from the edge and back down the hill. Once we reached the bottom Richie confronted Yusuf. “It is an Atavistic Kheru isn’t it? That’s what this entire outpost is here for isn’t it?” Richie accused Yusuf heatedly. But the old man just looked tired and didn’t respond. “You’ve known about this the entire time haven’t you?”

“It’s classified information and it needs to stay that way.” Yusuf replied

Valentina had gone white, but I had to know. “What's an Atavistic Kheru?”

She closed her eyes and replied slowly. “It’s a creature. Hundreds of millions of years old. They feed on life, all life. There are thousands of them sleeping dormant deep inside of various planets throughout the galaxy. It’s been theorized that Atavistic Kheru are behind the Ordovician/Silurian and Permian/Triassic extinction events back on old earth.” She turned and looked at me. “If the Scree come, they will wake it. The Scree worship them, like gods. It will consume this world and move on to others to feed, sucking the life out of everything.” her voice grew steadily weaker as she spoke. “Every person, creature, plant and insect on countless worlds will die in terrible agony before it will be sated enough to slumber again. And the Skree will follow in its wake, claiming dead world after dead world for themselves, stripping materials and precious resources, even atmospheres to fuel the expansion of their horde.”

A shiver ran through me and my brain spun at the concept. It was horrifying to contemplate. “Jonathan.” I snapped my head around to look at the older man. “It’s not something we talk about, especially with outsiders; but, she is right. If we don’t destroy those Skree before they can complete that antenna, it will mean the death of far too many.”

“Mar Tarona?” Everyone looked at me confused. “Mar Tarona. It was the world that James Malaki found ravaged like that. It’s why he first brought the races together. This is what happened to it right, what he was trying to prevent from happening to the allied homeworlds? When the alliance refused to put together a force to counter it, the Scree I mean, that’s when he created Aegis?”

“Yes. Though it was over three centuries before Aegis actually encountered the Skree and another two before the Atavistic Kheru were discovered.” Yusuf said.

I looked at all four around me and said “What we need now, is a plan; and I think I have an idea.”