We were an interesting bunch: 

The green lizard man with his pirate sword. 

The Gila Monster with his bear tooth necklace. 

The camouflaged giant muscle hulk wearing a samurai helmet; carrying a rusty leaf blower. 

The two all-black assassins. 

Two Greenpeace aficionados in rusty robot armor. 

The naked tattooed woman with the green mohawk spiked up for the occasion. 

The skinny human-sized rust-covered robot pilot and the huge square Sentinel droid with double electric battle axes.

A whale in a tank controlling a humanoid marionette, with a back up four-armed avatar at the ready. 

A bunch of monkeys; really lizard food. 

A ferocious monster polar bear to be used as a lizard horse. 

And me. 

***

Blunt went back to the Brick. Everyone else boarded the transport. I walked onto the Sunshine scout and took the pilot seat. Styx sat waiting for me. 

"Ready. 4. Take. Off. Blikdrod." 

I had no idea what a 'Blikdrod' meant.

The next message came over my transmitter and the scout's communication system. 

"Everyone will be disconnected from the Banga's computer system. From this point on and until you are back inside the hangar you will have no communication with the Banga, nor make any reference to her or your affiliation with us. You're on your own. No one will come for you if you fail. This mission was never ordered and for all intents and purposes never happened. Now, go get that little guy back. Vronsky out." 

I hadn't heard from Vronsky in a while. He kept things to the point. I was disconnected from the Banga's network. 

As soon as the scout's door closed the airlock lights turned red. The interior door opened and the three ships all moved out of the hangar. The airlock depressurized, the lights went green, and the outer door opened. We moved out into space. The Brick glided along next to the transport ship. It didn't have half the speed or handling of the other two ships. I took up a position above them. 

We set course to loop around the outside of the Varan system and connect to with the Morning Star on the other side. We swung wide around the planets, moving at the transport's top speed. We knew the Banga would resume its course to the wormhole immediately. We'd have to catch up to them after. If we failed, it was a one-way trip. 

We circumvented the asteroid belt and watched the two Varan worlds drifted in the distance. I enjoyed the sunlight of Varan. It lit up the diamond ship with a soft red glow. We refracted light beams in all directions, a sun catcher zipping across the solar system. Rainbows streaked out into thin lines.

The comet trailed a shower of sparkling ice and gas behind it. It looked peaceful and serene passing far above the Varan system. The planets appeared very distant. We moved closer and closer to it in a perfect triangular formation. Eventually, we were close enough to spot the Magus gliding in the wake. Unmoving and silent. 

I had a moment of inspiration. "Mox, what do you think about me jetting ahead and testing the waters?" 

Our transmitters were all working. There didn't seem to be any communications jam. 

X responded. "Let's wait until we're a little closer, dude. At this range, if you accelerate away from us, you'd be on your own." 

We proceeded on in silence. It was slow to overtake an object running away from you in space. We left the Varan system and even its sun was reduced to a star in the distance with planets no longer visible. 

It seemed safe to assume there would be no way for them to know we came from the Banga. It would appear that we came from Varan. Which would be an obvious place for Mox to pick up a transport ship. 

We got into scanning range and I focused the scout's array on the Vedma ship. It was considerably bigger than us. A large-scale ancient battle cruiser covered completely with fighter crafts. It had a single bay door on its underside. We could easy dock all three ships. Inside the white tail of the comet sat the black ship. Unmoving. 

They must have known we were there. 

"Klamgortist. Communications. Jam."

We were getting some kind of interference, lost most of our sensor ability, and ship to ship communications were gone. 

"Transmitter check." Mox's voice came into my mind.

"Veronica, check." 

"Hands, loud and clear." 

"The Brick's communications are still intact. I think Hands' little recon plan would be a good idea right about now." Blunt suggested. 

The Magus had a strange allure. It lay ahead, a dark spiky porcupine of death in the shadow of an interstellar snowball. I wanted to get closer and really see it.

Mox via transmitter: "I concur, go."

X from inside the Rust-a-gogo: "Yes, go. Werner, Forklift, and I have communication from inside our Robo units."

I looked over to Styx. "You ready?" 

He armed the weapons system. "Glime. Affirmative." 

I punched it away from the others. The Magus came into view. It was somewhat oval-shaped under all the spikes. We headed straight at her, full speed. No motion. No activity. No communication. 

The comet was massive and dwarfed the ship. It slowly rolled through space, encompassing our field of vision. The space around us filled with drifting ion particles. 

They activated the light beam. It was a bit like they shined a giant flashlight on us and it had about that much of an effect. 

"Styx, is it getting into any systems? Is it affecting you?" 

"Blorstag. Negative. Beam. Refracted. Off. Hull. Styx. Immune." 

"Fantastic!" 

I felt like firing a rocket at them. 

Communications suddenly became unjammed. A visual message was being sent. I activated our cockpit display. It flickered to life and the screen was filled with the head of an expressionless humanoid robot. 

"Greetings faithful pilgrims, the Vedma welcome you. To enter the fold, prove your worth." 

The Magus fired a volley of laser blasts from unseen cannons. 

I've said it before and I'll say it again. There is nothing like the handling capabilities of a Varan spacecraft. I swerved around, dove under, and dodged an impressive number of blasts before they hit us. The laser blast reflected off our hull and they blasted us several more times just to make sure. The bursts pushed us around a bit and forced correcting our trajectory but with the navigation interface, I was able to maintain control easily. 

The robot still on my screen turned his head slightly. "Impressive craft pilgrim. You may prove yourself yet." 

For the first time, I saw movement from the ship. I suddenly felt in the pit of my stomach a sense of being worried. A wave of fighters launched off the surface, like a porcupine firing off its spines. 

The robot continued to pester us. 

"The Mega Therion welcoming party comes to greet you. The Morning Star will be your everlasting resting place." 

The laser blasts broke for a second and I saw ten fighters barreling down. I raced between them and looped around to face them. They spread out around me and started in with the missiles. I dodged the first three and the fourth slammed into our side. It shook the ship so violently it threw me out of my seat. I jumped back into my chair, strapped myself in, while simultaneously charging at the Magus. The lights on the dash were going wild. We had taken some damage and were tracking sixteen objects heading at us. I pulled up at a nearly 90-degree angle to the Magus and the first few missiles exploded on impact causing a chain reaction that drew the attention of the other missiles. I turned back toward the Vedma fighters and engaged my blaster cannon. I was able to destroy one. The others flew off in every direction; half running from me, the other half firing at me. Rockets exploded around us and we took another missile hit. 

"Haqwauz. Fighters. Ineffective. Against. Us." 

Styx was right but they would tear the transport ship apart. I fired and fired again. I held off using the diamond missiles. This was a test round. I disabled three more fighters. They floated helplessly in space. The others continued to attack. The dogfight consumed me. I caught a glimpse of the transport ship and the Brick. They had stopped advancing and orbited the comet, sitting a good distance away from the action. 

I was on the tail of two more fighters. I took out the first with my cannon and the second I managed to wing and send spinning out into space. The others continued to hammer me with rockets. The Sunshine scout was beginning to show signs of strain. The impacts were damaging systems and they had figured out that aiming at the thrusters was a good idea. I flipped around got a missile lock on the lead fighter and fired. The light beam immediately came out of the ship and lit up the missile like a firecracker. It did nothing. The rocket hit home and completely destroyed the Vedma fighter. The other ships seemed to be enraged by this and they all turned and charged me, guns a-blazing. The number of hits we took was uncountable and I just dodged two collisions. The next ship crashed right into us in a suicide attack. The proximity of the explosion and the impact was enough that I thought it might kill me. 

If my ship was as hard as a skull, I felt like a soft brain inside with a concussion. I locked another rocket and destroyed another fighter. I managed to take four more out of commission before they got a new idea. 

The robot on my monitor antagonized me further. 

"Very impressive indeed pilgrim. Let's see how your timid friends fair." 

The ten remaining fighters tore off in the direction of the Brick and the transport ship. There was no way the transport ship would be able to fend them off. I took down one with my cannon and missile locked two more and destroyed them. The transport ship fired its two front-facing cannons on the approaching fighters. 

In an amazing series of angular motions, the Brick engaged the oncoming ships. First, it shot straight forward, then without physically turning, changed direction, and moved to its left in another straight line blindsiding five of the oncoming Vedma fighters and destroying them on impact. It was like an oil tanker crashing into a group of paddle boats, they didn't have a chance. 

The Brick stopped, remained stationary for a moment then moved directly to its right absorbing missiles fired toward the transport ship and delivering a destructive collision to the remaining fighters. There were no more functioning fighters.

X: "Hands, kick-ass piloting. Way to fuck 'em up!"

The bay door on the bottom side of the Magus opened. Two larger sized ships came out. They looked like construction vehicles with large claws coming off the front. They raced toward me and fired the claws. I was able to shoot one claw down but the other clasped across the entire scout. It was out of the path of my blaster cannon and when they retracted, there was nothing I could do. The big metal claw plucked us from the sky.

I fired the engines and spun us and the claw ship around. The second claw ship came around and butted up against us like a tugboat. They were dragging us in. I gave the thrusters everything they had. They had pinned us between them and were using their engines to stabilize. 

Before I knew what was happening the Brick blasted past, connecting with the ship that had its claw on us. The ensuing explosion lit up the diamond scout. I felt like I was inside a light bulb. The scratching sound of the Brick rubbing against our exterior was that of a million fingernails simultaneously dragged across a chalkboard. I pulled away from the tug on our other side and the Brick smashed into it with such a force that it tore the ship in two. 

I was caught up in the battle, acting on instinct, moving and firing with deadly accuracy. Had the battle downloads changed who I was? Did they give me some kind of murderous mindset? I only had a moment to think these thoughts. 

The Magus moved. It angled itself just far enough away from the comet to send the beam out to the transport ship. 

"Oh shit!"

The transport ship lunged forward. Its engines ignited. It was gliding right toward the Magus, which had now repositioned itself back behind the comet. The Brick followed along. They didn't even bother shining the beam on it.

Mox: "They got us in the beam. We've lost control of the transport. Everything is gone. All systems show the virus language. We're going in."

I looked at Styx. He sat there a motionless robot, his electric red eye glowed unwaveringly. 

"I'll follow them in."

Blunt from the Brick: "We'll maintain position outside. They can't do anything to us."