They're here. - An opportunity to RP.

MARS TRANSPORT HUB -

2:03 AM

Sgt. William Perry was tapping his stylus against his console desktop, following along with the rythymn that was streaming out of his earplugs. Sgt. Louie Keyes was seated next to him with an annoyed look on his face.

'Bill.'

Tap, tap, tap, tappity, tap, tap.

Sighing deeply Sgt. Keyes repeated, 'Bill.' He could hear some old country song blaring into Perry's ears. 'Fucking Dixie Chicks...BILL!'

Perry and Keyes were on the night shift, not that they'd ever notice up on the Mars transport hub floating around the dead red planet. They were space traffic controllers and the hub was the last Earth Prime run station and the closest to their home world. Keyes had come on duty, along with Perry, and it had been a quiet shift. The majority of transports from Prime had stopped in the past month - those who were leaving Prime for Alpha and Omega were gone. Even Keyes family had left Prime some six months earlier. Nothing was left there now except stragglers, killers and thieves. It was his job to make sure no illegal transports made it passed Mars and to cater to the last of the refugees leaving.

'BILL FOR FUCK SAKES.'

Keyes shoved Perry hard - hard enough to knock his earplug out and push him off balance.

Perry glared at Keyes. 'What - FUCK. WHAT??!'

Keyes looked at his shift mate and in a monotone voice, 'Did you make coffee?'

Perry looked at Keyes with narrowed eyes and then leaned back to see behind Keyes - and the coffee pot next to him. With an equally monotone voice he replied, 'Yes you fucker, I did.'

And this was most evenings for Sgt. William Perry and Sgt. Louie Keyes - fresh coffee, empty scanners and the entire universe stretched out before them and at exactly 2:15am on September 18, 2173, that would all change.

*****

2:11AM

Lt. Caitlinn V'bran walked her perimeter along the glassed in hallway of the Mars Hub, laser rifle slung on her shoulder and guns holstered at her hips. The station had been quiet the past month and killing her time meant walking her perimeter which was pointless with the sensors and monitors everywhere but it was better than sitting in her office. Violence outside Prime had become almost nonexistent, much to her dismay, but she had been born into a world of universal peace and brotherhood.

Fucking shafted, if you asked her, and the very reason she was now the rank of Lieutenant, not Captain like she was 3 months ago. 'Agression Issues' - that's what her file said. Her request for a squad on Prime was revoked due to an incident. Gone were the days of violence, but not for hairy drunk men who didn't take no for an answer. Didn't help that the hairy man in question was her superior.

Or that she beat him within an inch of his life.

Caitlinn shrugged at the thought and smiled as she stopped her walk and leaned against the tempered glass, looking out into the universe. Reaching into her arm pocket she dug out a few bits of candy corn and watched the brilliant shooting stars sail by.

****

2:14:45 AM

The shooting stars display were usually larger dust particles that would hit the station and trigger the sensor alarms. There was a resounding BANG as one of them hit the far aft section of the station. The station itself was approxmiately 10,000 square feet, but most of the work done was outside and the docking bays were 10 times larger than the station itself. All computerized and self sustaining in repairs and upgrades. Still...

1. 2. 3.

Keyes and Perry hit their balled up fist into their opposite open hand and Keyes let out a 'WHOOP'.

'Scissors gets your dynamite. Go.'

'No, this isn't dynamite, this is a lead bar. Scissors can't cut lead.'

'Are you fucking retarded? You can't have a lead pipe - this is fucking Clue all of the sudden? GO.' Keyes held up his hand as Perry began to argue. 'Fuck you, fair and square. Your turn.'

Perry stood up and put his cap on with a disgruntled sniff. He stepped down off the main platform and headed out of the main bridge, running his hands through his thick bushy brown hair and farted as he passed the first bay door. The docking bay was quiet but there was a noticeable smell coming from the security door that led to the outer space door.

As he approached the door, he could see the security door had indeed been damaged and the outer door it protected was disengrated. The ships shields had closed the hull breach as part of the normal protocol, but the morning crew was going to have a helluva time fixing the damage.

Perry turned and looked at the computer console, activating it and calling Keyes. 'Do you see this?' He moved out of the way and showed Keyes the damage.

'Yeah I'm reading that,' the console chirped back at him. 'That's no dust...' Suddenly Keyes eyes went large.

Perry leaned closer to the console, 'What, do you see something...?' Perry turned to look behind him and was suddenly very aware of the warm wet feeling near his crotch.

*****

Lt. V'bran made her way to the nearest console and located the sound and ultimately the damage. With a sigh she started to walk quickly towards the aft docking bays when the alarm started to blare loudly in the corridors. Suddenly the 'shooting stars' began to barrage the station, tripping alarms all over the station. People pulled from their slumber came out of their quarters to see.

Caitlinn turned and ran towards the bridge just as one of the glass panes shattered, sucking a group of people she had just left in the corridor. The station's shields immediately secured the breach, but not before it let in something red and big.

It had to have been nine feet tall and at least found hundred pounds. Caitlinn twisted her rifle off her shoulder and pointed it at the creature. Overhead the station was announcing the presence of a unknown life form on sector 4...but she was on sector 15. Then another on sector 3...5...7...10.

Just then the creature reached out and grabbed a nearby station worker and ripped their head off in a single swipe of its clawed hand. Caitlinn raised her rifle and shot at the creature, getting direct hits in the chest as she walked quickly back to it, but it wasn't going down. Stopping mid stride, the creature threw the lifeless body at another group of workers and let out a howl that made her drop to her knees in terror.

In her career, Caitlinn had been the clear agressor in all her fights, but this one...this time the little voice in her head that told her that everything was ok, that everything would unfold in the universe as it should was screaming at the top of its lungs, telling her to run.

And fucking run she did.

****

20:11 AM

Caitlinn had ditched her emptied rifle on the way to the bridge having unloaded it on creatures, successful only in pissing them off. Making it to the bridge, she could hear the screams behind her and the screeching from the creatures that had invaded the station. Her hands were noticeably shaking as she entered in the code for the bridge door.

As it opened she held a shriek as she saw the carnage. The workers that had returned to their posts were strewn, in pieces, along the bridge. The creatures had come and went, moving to the bow of the station, seemingly destroying everything in their path. She took a step inside and slipped on a puddle of blood, but continued onto the bridge consoles.

What was left of Sgt. Louie Keyes was sitting in his chair and the sight of him made Caitlinn turn and hurl her dinner. A solider in the United Nations army did not see blood and death like this, not for years, not since the space programs sent their initial Omega and Alpha terraformers out into space. At 34 and once a Captain on Prime - she had never in her life knew this kind of carnage. Prime, she thought. If the creatures were here, on Mars...

Sitting at Keyes console she tried to call up the displays for the outer ring regions but she saw not the usual dust rings of Saturn or the other planets, but a bright white light of streaming comets heading towards Earth. The same comets that she watched blaze by in the stations sky. The creatures had made it to Mars, which meant they had already made it to Alpha and Omega and they were now heading towards Earth Prime.

The station's overhead female voice was now announcing that all human life head to the escape pods - to evacuate. Over and over again. The station had been taken by the creatures - they had finally come. The aliens that the UN had suspected had been behind the years of abductions were now coming for the rest of them. In the display monitors all she could see were more and more creatures infiltrating the docking bays and corridors. Some red like the large one she encountered, some silver, covered with metal. Cyborgs.

Like the one reflecting in the display monitors.

Caitlinn moved to her right, falling over Keyes mangled body just as a silvery clawed arm put itself through the monitor. As it ripped its hand out, it screeched at her and Caitlinn wasted no time in backing up and putting as much distance between her and it as she could. Taking out the gun in her right holster, she slipped down the steps as she shot at the silver cyborg. She had almost made it to the bridge bay door when the creature jumped from its perch at the console into the air towards Caitlinn.

This was the part where her life flashed in front of her - her insanely boring family life, military school, flight training, rough sex with men of her choice and breaking her hand on her captain's face when she looked over her shoulder at the creature flying through the air at her, claws extended and mouth open and ready to bite when suddenly she slipped in that same puddle of blood and fell backwards, gun coming up instinctively, letting loose a barrage of 500 degree lasers directly into the silver creature's open mouth. As it fell on her, it shook and shrieked as the back of its head was blown out.

Caitlinn decided just then that there was no heaven, no god, no angels but an insane amount of luck. And on that note, Lt. Caitlinn V'bran pushed the creature off her and headed out.