The newly cut 'door' fell inward, producing a loud crash that echoed down the corridor up ahead. Gauss rifle ready, Captain Dalton stared down the dark corridor. The shoulder mounted lights on his combat armor revealed a long empty metallic corridor. Not a single light was on in the corridor, not even the red emergency lighting.

Dalton stepped through the opening, his huge armored boot striking the ground with a loud metallic clang. Turning quickly to check his sides for a possible ambush, Dalton noticed something to his right. A marine battlesuit, similar to the one he wore, stood near the door. It was in the position where an airlock guard would normally be posted. The suit faced down the corridor pointing a readied gauss rifle in it's hands. Dalton could clearly see through the helmet; there was no one inside.

Sergeant Mason was next in. The long corridor up ahead was empty for at least 200 feet. Mason slowly turned from side to side to size up his surroundings. Mason turned to look at the empty combat armor and examined it for a few moments, studying it until Dalton interrupted him.

"The suit, sir. What happened to the man inside?", Mason said with a slight hint of fear in his voice. Mason had always feared that which he didn't understand. He could stand face to face with a dozen hydralisks without flinching, but something that didn't make sense always made him uneasy. This certainly didn't make sense.

Mason did as he was ordered, remembering stories he had heard about Dalton.

Captain Dalton was universally accepted to be one of the best soldiers in the entire Terran Dominion. His impressive tally of 67 confirmed kills greatly exceeded that of any other infantryman. What wasn't included in that score was the six subordinates he killed for failure to follow his orders. Most of Dalton's commanders ignored this little list of friendly fire casualties in light of Dalton's effectiveness. His accuracy was near perfect and he wore his battlesuit as a second skin. He had better knowledge of military tactics than most generals. And best of all, he'd never lost a battle. Dalton was the perfect soldier, or so everyone believed.

The other two marines, private Daniels and private Belvedere, entered behind them, carrying a large steel container roughly in the shape of a cube. It had handles protruding from the front and back, so that two men could transport it. The symbols on the sides of the container clearly marked it as a nuclear device. Behind them, the SCV followed with it's hovering thrusters.

Dalton was leading the way, heading down the metal corridor of the installation. With the reactor offline, the inside of the installation was cold, dark and as silent as a morgue. The marines proceeded cautiously, examining the walls for evidence of a battle. No blood stains, no bullet holes, not a single person anywhere to be seen. Everyone was somewhat nervous, except Dalton. To Captain Dalton, this was just another mission and a chance to increase his already impressive killscore.

The group trudged on with only the sound of their footsteps and the quiet thrust of the SCV echoing through the desolate installation. The whole installation was obviously new construction, the outer wall panels were well polished and shined as they were struck by the marine's lights. A few deactive computer consoles were up ahead on the right wall. Nothing was moving, even the air was stagnant with the ventilation system offline. The station was dead.

After another hundred feet the group came to a four way intersection. Mason's light shined on something on the floor about 50 feet away.

It was a pair of clothes. Some jeans, a long sleeved shirt and some shoes, just lying there in a pile.

Mason inspected the clothing. He lifted the shirt with his huge gauntleted hand. A bit of white powder fell to the ground as he moved it. Looking at the jeans, he saw the inside was coated in patches of white powder. Searching the jeans he found a pair of underwear, as well as a wallet in one of the pockets. He handed the wallet to Dalton.

Dalton flipped it open, noticing the usual access cards, ID cards common to any Terran adult. He took a quick glance and then closed it.

Dalton continued straight down the corridor and everyone followed. Up ahead, they saw a set of doors on each side. According to the signs above them, they were storage bays three and four. The airtight security seals were in place, making them inaccessible without explosives. The seals only activated if the station set to red alert, or had a depressurization of one of the storage chambers. There was no external damage recorded on the Orion's arrival, indicating that a red alert must have been in effect before the loss of power. Dalton continued past the storage rooms. There was an open metallic door up ahead.

Beyond the doorway was a large room which appeared to be a viewing room of some kind. Above them was a transparent domed ceiling, which shown through to open space. A giant red sphere could be seen, the planet Xreth, and to its right half eclipsed, was the Xreth system star, a small white dwarf. Xreth was covered in bright red gases that constantly swirled around the outer atmosphere of the planet. Most peculiar of all, Xreth produced its own light, giving it an odd glow even when facing away from it's sun.

Mason and Daniels stopped and were looking up at the planet, slightly in awe at the impressive sight. Private Belvedere, the other man carrying the nuke with Daniels stopped as well, unable to move it alone.

Dalton was searching the large room for any threats. Though the middle of the room was lit from the Xreth system star and Xreth itself, there were many shadows on the edges which could hold threats. Dalton's quick efficient room check revealed no enemies. However, Dalton noticed a few more sets of abandoned clothes in various places around this room, mostly near the walls. Around a few of them he noticed a bit of white powder, similar to what was found on the first. Dalton made a small comment to the commander about his findings and then continued his search. Most doors leading out of this room were sealed. Dalton cursed as he noticed that the planned route to the main stairway was blocked by a security seal and was impassable. The SCV would take many hours to cut through the seal.

Dalton activated his navigation computer and started searching for an alternate route. Meanwhile, Mason and Daniels continued to stare at Xreth. Private Belvedere stood around with his rifle trying to look important.

Mason reeled back as Dalton's steel gauntlet slammed into his chest. Even with the heavy combat armor, the hit hurt and stunned him for a moment.

Mason took a moment to recover and control his instinctual desire to retaliate, knowing that Dalton almost wanted him to try something as an excuse to kill him. He then proceeded, following the captain. Dalton headed down another side corridor, crushing another abandoned pile of clothes with his massive boot. Up ahead, Dalton's lights illuminated an elevator door. On either side they could see a battlesuit. The one on the right was lying on the ground, still clutching his rifle, though it wasn't in a position to do any damage. The one on the left stood there with gun ready and aimed towards the marines. Mason and Daniels just stood there not sure exaclty if they should fire back. Dalton stood there calmly. Belvedere was in the back and didn't see what was going on.

Dalton halted at the door, and then waited a moment before looking at the SCV with annoyance.

It took five minutes or so of cutting before the SCV sliced a hole in the door. An empty elevator shaft was revealed. A steel ladder ran along the back of the shaft. Dalton was the first to start climbing down. The battle suits were a bit oversized for climbing a ladder like this, but Dalton had little trouble with it. He moved down with almost super human speed.

Mason was next. Strapping his rifle to his back, he proceeded down the elevator shaft. The immense weight of his suit threatened to drop him down the deep shaft. Keeping his grip was extremely difficult with his oversized metallic gauntlets. Using extreme caution, he started down.

The SCV was next, it easily hovered down with its built in hovering jets, not even requiring the ladder.

They proceeded down seven levels. Dalton easily made the climb, but Mason had a great deal of difficulty. The SCV could have beat both of them, but preferred to allow them to lead. At Dalton's order, the SCV cut through the elevator door. Another corridor. A pair of empty marine suits stood back to back here in the center of the corridor, as though ready for an attack. Dalton noticed a set of small penetrations in the walls, consistent with that of a gauss rifle burst.

The angry look Dalton gave him convinced Mason not to ask any more questions and proceed. Dalton hated questions. A soldier's job was to follow orders. Questions were a challenge to the chain of command. His command.

They proceeded into a large room containing roughly cylindrical objects suspended on the back wall. Control panels were scattered all over the room. Mason guessed this was secondary reactor control. The plan was to reestablish power here and hopefully figure out what happened here. He warily glanced over at an empty set of clothes near one of the control panels, as he did the standard procedural visual room sweep. As usual, The marine group was alone.

Dalton looked over to the SCV and said "Get to work on getting the emergency power online. Activating the elevator is your first priority." Dalton paused for a moment and then said harshly, "Don't trip the security systems."

Being alone with the SCV, Mason decided to strike up a conversation with the SCV operator. First, he switched off his communicator's transmit mode, since he knew Dalton would disapprove of him talking to a lowly SCV operator. Dalton insisted that everyone in his unit treat the poor SCV operators like maggots, since Dalton refused to respect anyone who lacked military training. Under normal circumstances Mason wouldn't risk pissing off a dangerous man like Dalton, but he had a growing desire to know more about what was going on here.

While the SCV continued working Mason tried to think of a rational explanation for what they had found thus far. Was this the work of some renegade group of Terrans? No, it had to be someone official to possess that kind of advanced EMP technology. Maybe survivors from the UED. Yeah, it had to be the UED, it was the only explanation that made sense.

The SCV pulled the switch and the red emergency lighting came on. They dimly lit the whole area with a dim red ambience, making vision slightly better, but by no means perfect. Mason heard the atmospheric controls come online as well. The vents began to circulate the air. The silence was broken by the calming humm of machinery and for the first time on this mission, Mason began to relax.

Mason saw two sections of wall starting to move. Within the opening, Mason could make out automated sentry guns. Mason realized he would have to move fast if he wanted to stay alive. He had been taught that the targetting system is the most vulnerable spot. If targetting was damaged, the internal programming would automatically cause the guns to deactivate. Unfortunately, it was a small target and would be a difficult shot at their current range. Mason raised his gauss rifle with lightning speed, took a quick breath, aimed and fired, all in one fluid motion. His first burst disabled the first sentry gun, but the other automated trap started firing at him. He felt his armor shake as it was taking hits. Focusing himself under fire, he fired another burst, disabling the second gun.

Mason made a quick check of his suit. No internal alarms were going off; The vital systems were relatively undamaged. Good. There was definitely some cosmetic damage to it, but his suit pressure was good, and the powered movement systems seemed undamaged. He would be fine.

After making his inspection, he checked the communicator. He could hear shots coming from the other end. Then everything went dead and he was in silence. The SCV operator was left frozen, Mason couldn't be sure if it was just in a daze of stupidity or if it was fear.

Then Mason heard the elevator coming down. The door opened slowly, revealing Dalton aiming his gauss rifle.

The SCV operator managed to give a short cry, but was interrupted by five metallic spikes firing rapidly through the helmet area of the SCV and into the poor man's skull. Dalton continued obliterating the body until his clip ran dry. All that was left after the massacre was a pile of metal and blood from the destroyed SCV and small bits of what was once a man.

Daniels approached the computer console and started to enter commands. Mason hoped he knew what he was doing.

Mason and Daniels knew better than to question the order and headed for the elevator. Mason punched in the '6' on the elevator control console, and the elevator began to shake and then lurched upward. They could hear the sounds of scraping metal on the outsides of the elevator.

Daniels approached the elevator control panel and pressed the emergency stop button. The button lit up for a moment and then went dead, as the elevator continued it's course. Daniels pressed the button a bit more frantically, but to no avail. In a panicked burst, he struck the elevator control panel, breaking through it to the wiring below. Realizing he couldn't manipulate the wiring without taking off his armored gauntlet, Daniels reached for the controls that would depressurize his power suit.

Before he got a chance to finish the task, the elevator screeched to a halt, almost throwing both of them to the ground. Smoke rose from all sides of the elevator and from the control panel. The doors slid open slowly. Both scrambled to their feet and exited the elevator. They were in a metal corridor of some sort. Both sides were partially illuminated by the emergency lights and appeared empty in the dim red light. Somewhere there was the sound of electricity crackling in the background.

They walked for about 200 yards, passing two security sealed doors. The access way to main control was up ahead. Oddly enough, the door wasn't sealed; it wasn't even closed. It was wide open, as if inviting them in. Gauss rifles ready, the two marines slowly walked in.

They scanned the room quickly. The first thing that caught Mason's eye was the six empty power suits, all with weapons ready. The room was essentially one large computer access terminal, with screens circling the room, and control panels at every 3 foot increment. However, like the rest of the station, the control room was devoid of life.

Daniels started on the main computer, while Mason nervously stood guard. He was now searching for the air distortion that marked the passing of a cloaked dark templar, while still trying to convince himself that this whole thing was the work of the Protoss.

No response.

No response.

Suddenly, the red emergency lights deactivated. Shortly after, the computer monitors all turned off. Then everything was silent.

The group proceeded toward the main stairwell, back to illuminating the way with only their built in shoulder mounted lights. Mason moved quickly, his gauss rifle in hand and ready. The two of them entered the stairwell. Everything still looked deserted, but Mason could swear something was watching them. Mason gave the signal to stop. Daniels quickly halted and the two of them paused.

Everything was silent for a moment. Then they started to hear a distant thumping sound, like a heartbeat. It echoed quietly in the background. Mason thought it was coming from below, but he couldn't be sure. The more he listened to it, the more it seemed to get louder, as if it was burrowing deeper into his skull with each beat. Slowly Mason turned to look at Daniels.

Mason continued on, somewhat relieved that their destination lay above their current position, and thus farther away from the sound.

They climbed quickly, trying to make the sound of their footsteps block out the awful heartbeat. After they climbed to level 8, they could no longer hear it. Both breathed a sigh of relief.

They moved out of the stairwell into the Xreth viewing chamber and looking above saw that Xreth totally blocked the distant white dwarf star. They could still see Xreth's glow and the moving vapors that made up the outer part of the planet. Mason kept moving, but Daniels stood there frozen in fear.

The two of them quickly ran down the corridor. For the first time in his life, Mason wanted to activate his stimpack. Normally he disdained it, preferring to rely on his natural reflexes. This time it was different. If the accursed thing could make him go an extra 50 feet, then he would sell his soul for it.

Mason restrained his fear, bringing in another wave of anger. Through some godly act of will, he kept himself from hitting the switch to activate the stim.

Finally they approached storage bay two. With the security seal opened, only a normal door remained. While it would keep out civilains, it was an easy obstacle to bypass with powered armor. Mason quickly ripped it open using his technologically enhanced strength.

Up ahead, Mason's lights reported the whole bay was empty, except for one object, a cryogenic freezing chamber. It was a small coffin sized chamber that was typically used to freeze a person for long space voyages. Some like this one were kept around for medical purposes. The rest of the room didn't look so bad. In fact, it appeared that the only damage was the cameras which were apparently shot up to the point of nonfunctionality.

Mason approached cautiously and saw that the chamber was active, shown by the blue mist which covered its interior. He could barely make out a figure frozen within. It looked like a Terran but he couldn't be sure.

Daniels got to work on the simple control panel. With the press of a few buttons, the cryo-restoration process started to reverse. The mist slowly cleared to reveal a Terran man. He was middle aged, and had a short black beard. He was wearing clothing similar to that of a Terran scientist. Mason guessed he must be on of the station personnel.

The man looked at Mason for a moment in confusion.

Mason turned, but saw nothing but empty air. Scrutinizing the air, he looked for any air distortions, but saw none; No dark templar.

"Help me please!" The man desperately called out. Mason could see the look of terror on his face and he immediately knew that this was a very real threat. Mason didn't know what to do, all he could do was just stand there and watch.

The man gave out one more cry and then Mason saw him start to disappear. It started at his right shoulder and quickly worked its way through his body. Mason watched helplessly. In an instant, where once there was a man, there was only clothes and a white powder. Mason and Daniels looked to each other in horror, not knowing what to do.

It took about five seconds of silence before either said anything.

From their current location their initial entry position wasn't far from here. Daniels followed Mason.

Mason moved quickly, no longer thinking of anything but escape. He was blindly running now, hoping to outrun whatever it was that he was up against.

Mason stopped short as he reached the airlock. The entrance they used originally was blocked off. The secondary airlock door automatically sealed when they reactivated the ventilation system. Without explosives or a fusion cutter, they couldn't get through. Mason looked to Daniels, as though he might be able to perform a miracle.

Dalton approached the console at secondary power control, determined to solve the problem himself. However with his limited training there was little he could do to try to restore power. He didn't know anything about the power system and it could be any number of problems, none of which he was equipped to fix.

Turning away from the control panel, Dalton tried to repair his battlesuit communicator. It was working perfectly according to the diagnostic program, there just wasn't anyone out there to recieve the message. Dalton knew there was a problem however since he couldn't even send a message to Belvedere. There was only one cause, their transmissions were being jammed. But Dalton knew there wasn't a jamming system in existance powerful enough to shut down communication to Belvedere or the rest of his team. It didn't make any sense.

Dalton, realizing he did all he could, just waited. He would give Mason time to complete his mission and report back. Terran military protocol demanded that Mason return to his unit commander upon losing communication. Since the station was obviously empty, there wasn't any threat. Mason should be returning shortly.

Dalton waited for about a half hour before he began to suspect something was wrong.

He tried to move but he frozen in mid movement as his power suit suddenly deactivated. Dalton could see him struggling to try to move. Without the automated strength enhancements his body couldn't move the heavy weight of the power suit and all he could do was struggle pointlessly. His eyes were fixed on something ahead of him. Dalton looked in the general direction but saw nothing; the room was empty.

Belvadere continued to struggle though there was no way he could get out of the suit without help. Dalton could see his face become ghostly pale under his suit. His gaze turned to Dalton in a look of pure desperation. Wordlessly Belvedere begged Dalton for help with every fiber of his being. Dalton began to realize that all was not right.

Belvedere could do nothing but gaze at Dalton in helplessness, not even managing a single word. Belvedere then went totally still... and in a fraction of a moment his body was eaten away by an invisible force. Only his battle armor remained.

If he had been a good soldier, Dalton would of blown the nuke, but instead he turned to flee and tried to save himself. He ran as fast as his suit would take him, even kicking in the stimpack for an extra burst of speed. Dalton's heart began to race as the stimulant took it's effect and he sprinted much faster than any normal man could with chemically heightened speed. The burst would only last a few seconds but hopefully it could carry him beyond whatever killed Belvedere.

Dalton didn't want to risk the elevator shaft, as he would be too vulnerable there, so instead he decided to make the tactical choice of heading for the main stairwell. He hoped Daniels and Mason got that door open. He ran down the corridor at full speed knowing this was a moment in which his life or death might be decided. When he felt the stimulant jolt giving out, he stopped, turned around and opened fire down the corridor to stop whatever was pursuing him.

He fired a hail of metallic spikes but they didn't seem to strike anything except the metallic walls of the corridor. A near deafening sound of metal bouncing off metal resounded down the corridor, quickly replaced with a deathly silence. He was alone. Dalton pressed onward, fatigued a bit from the after effects of the stimpack, but driven with renewed vigor by fear and survival instinct.

He reached the main stairwell and found it to be unsealed. Dalton immediately heard a loud thumping, like a heartbeat. It was coming from a level below his current position. It bored into Dalton's head like a jackhammer causing blood to drip from Dalton's nose in only a second or two. With each beat of the infernal quasi-heart, it attacked the force of the living within Dalton. Dalton couldn't think rationally, there was only the instinctual will to survive now. Fighting the natural impulse to turn back, he hit the stim pack again. As another rush of stimulant solution was fed directly into his blood stream, gnashing his teeth, Captain Dalton made a run through the torturous gauntlet of death.

Using every ounce of willpower and marine training he had, he ran up the steps. He almost stumbled on the stairs a few times, as he was rapidly growing weaker and weaker. The vampiric heart drew more and more from him as he climbed with all the force he had in him. Everything became a blur as his vision began to go out on him. His pulse raced, his heart beating fast enough to make him wonder if it might explode and his brain felt as though it was being chopped up in a blender. In a haze of half death, he got to a point where the sound could no longer be heard. Any other man would of collapsed there, but Captain Dalton stayed up.

Struggling to remain conscious, Dalton could do nothing to stop the flow of blood from his nose which now ran all over his uniform beneath his armor. Vision in his right eye was gone, and his left only gave him a barely recognizeable blur. His ears relayed distorted sounds, as they too were rapidly going out on him. His whole body felt like it was made of lead. He wasn't certain if this was due to his own weakness or if his suit's artifical strength was giving out. It didn't matter to him now, there was only one direction to go. Up. Every action was a struggle, even breathing.

As he reached the top level he crashed into something. Another marine battle suit. He could barely make it out with his blurred vision and when he finally saw it, he couldn't stop in time. Both his own suit and the one he collided with fell over, sending both down the stairs halfway down a level. A rumbling crash echoed through the main stairwell. Fortunately, it was only a minor impact, anything harder would have knocked out Dalton in his weakened state. Pausing a moment to recover, Dalton's vision in his left eye slowly cleared up a bit. Examining the other combat suit, he found it empty. He noticed however that the unit insignia bore not the insignia of the Xreth station, but was one from his own unit. He struggled to read the words "Sgt. Mason" painted on the side.

Dalton regained his footing with a second wind, sprinting into the main room, pushing the speed of the battle suit and his own fatigued body to their limits. Suddenly, the suit came to a grinding halt near the center of the main room. The power reserves went dead. All the suit interior lights flickered off and the artifical strength was gone; Dalton was paralyzed. The room was only lit from the eerie light coming from Xreth visible through the ceiling. With his one eye, Dalton could see a shape emerge from the darkness of the edge of the room.

It was a human shape, a woman. She was dressed in the clothes of a Terran scientist, with long blond hair that remained completely stationary as she moved toward Dalton. Her body was somewhat unremarkable, save for her face. Her face bore a peaceful expression, as though she were asleep. However it was her eyes that drew Dalton's attention. Her light blue eyes were frozen in the non-blinking state of a dead man. And Death looked back in Dalton's direction. As she approached Dalton in absolute silence, Dalton saw more, and in that instant he knew he was going to die.

There was more than calm death; there was a dark malevolence in her eyes. Something unlike Dalton had ever seen. Pure evil. The eyes seemed to stare at him now, and he knew with absolute certainty that the opponent he faced could not be defeated. It was the bane of life itself, a combatant which no mortal man could hope to defeat. Dalton's heart froze and he could not avert his gaze from the evil eyes. There was no escape. He just stood there, awaiting the open arms of death.

The woman reached out to touch his right arm, her hand passing through his armor as if it wasn't there. He felt a burning sensation in his arm. Time seemed to stand still as his body slowly disintigrated. Each instant became an eternity. He could feel the presence chew through his flesh like a thousand burning hot teeth. Painfully it tore to the bone. His bones dissolved as though being pulverized into powder by a large hammer. Intense pain shot through to his very soul as he was slowly devoured.

Dalton wished for death; his fate would be far worse.