I awake. For a few moments I lie in a daze, not knowing who or where I am. Then the memory of my ordeal floods back, and I start upright with a cry, staring hectically around at the unfamiliar room. Gradually I take in my surroundings. I seem to be in the quarantine bay of an Earth Force ship; a military one from the looks of things. They must have found me! But was I all they found..? Feverishly I check the status panel on my medical bed. Green across the board; no evidence of contamination. I let out a sigh of relief. Time to meet my rescuers, then. I buzz the intercom, and wait. No reply. I try again, but to no avail. Where is everyone? I disengage myself from the life support apparatus, pulling tubes from various places, which is when I notice the smell. I find the source almost immediately; a crumpled form huddled out of sight in the corner of the room. His pale dead hand loosely grips a shotgun, and a trail of dark stains leads from the door to the pool in which he slumps. The rest of the earth ship seems almost deserted. Examining the ship's log I piece together what must have happened. This ship, the battlecruiser INDOMITABLE, was dispatched to Osiris base to ensure nothing escaped the destruction I caused. They found me floating near to death in the shuttle I used; pulled me on board and stuck me in quarantine. They were preparing for the return hyperspace jump when something appeared out of nowhere, something HUGE, which shut down their main power systems, then docked. After that it gets confusing; the ship being attacked by alien soldiers, the crew fighing back, boarding the enemy vessel to try and break free. That's all; after that the records are empty. Seems like I'm the one that got away. Even if I could pilot this monster on my own, which I can't, I couldn't leave maybe two or three hundred people captive, especially after they saved my life. Grimly shouldering my pack of supplies, I head for the docking ring... As I step into the shaft, some sort of energy field grabs me and lowers me to the bottom. As I suspected, I can't seem to make it work in reverse. No way to go but onwards, then. I have no idea where the captives might be held; the alien design of this ship is strange and disorienting. The ship itself is constructed of a curious mixture of substances and designs, with bizarre crystalline surfaces next to hi-tech alloys next to weird organic constructions. Strangest of all, some of it is clearly adapted from earth technology and style, which begs the question: what other species have contributed to the technology aboard this ship? I am given no time to think further about the subject, however, as the distant sounds of the alarm being raised snaps my attention back to the present. I'm going to have to keep on the move and out of sight if I am to avoid the fate suffered by the crew of the INDOMITABLE... This doesn't look good. One minute I'm being pursued, the next everything goes quiet. Something tells me there's something dangerous about the area I've stumbled into, quite apart from the alien threat. No point in going back though; they'll be ready for me with more firepower than I can handle. No, the only thing to do is the unexpected: make it through here alive and catch them by surprise... I scramble shaking out of the teleport and look around apprehensively. No sign that I'm not alone. Good, my plan seems to have worked. I'm finding a lot of abandoned supplies from the INDOMITABLE, which means that either the assault failed but the aliens still haven't had time to clean up, or the fighting is still going on somewhere else. The way this place is locked up, it looks like the aliens were drawing the attacking marines into their ship, shutting off their escape route as they went. If I can open up a path back to the INDOMITABLE, they might have a chance. If they're still alive, that is... I'm having difficulty following the trail of the marines; they must have split up or been split up. Looking around I have difficulty believing I'm still aboard a spaceship; these rooms glow and pulse with evident but unknowable purpose. All I can do is try to track down my fellows and help them escape. That they are still alive and fighting back seems likely; the aliens have never used anything like the full strength they must have in this vessel to attack me, meaning they must have more important fish to fry... The trail ends here, at a teleport which appears more powerful and important than the others I have used. I attempt in vain to decipher the alien symbols when, shockingly, I see fragments of earth dialect, scattered here and there! What is going on? First earth technology, now our language, used in a ship of obviously alien manufacture! I am so stunned by the discovery that I fail to notice, for several seconds, that the bits of text I CAN read refers several times to a planet. This must be a ship-ground transporter! I stare bitterly around. The marines had been herded like sheep, and I had fallen straight into the same trap, with no choice now but to press onwards. Cursing my own stupidity, I clutch my supplies and hurl myself into the teleporter... I don't know where I've ended up, but it seems to be within a military compound of some kind. The idea conjures up images of an alien version of Osiris base, where samples of other species are brought for experimentation. Maybe THAT's where the crew of the INDOMITABLE are now, floating in vats in some darkened room, their bodies invaded by obscene alien probes bent on remaking them in some new, more... suitable fashion. Sickening images swim before my eyes and I sag to the ground, too exhausted and terrified to stand. When I pull myself together I find I am huddled shivering in a corner, arms wrapped around my head. I'm lucky nothing found me in that state; I'd have put up no resistance at all, whatever they tried to do to me. Determined not to cave in like that again, I pull myself upright. If the crew of the INDOMITABLE are beyond saving, then I'll only have one other option... The trail is becoming more difficult to follow than ever. It seems like the marines lost hope when they discovered where they were; I keep finding piles of equipment abandoned in corners; no bodies nearby so I must assume they were taken prisoner. Some were still fighting on though, maybe trying to get back to the ship somehow. I don't think they made it though. It looks as if this was a one-way ticket for us all. Without help I doubt I could pilot the cruiser back home, even assuming I could get back aboard. I sit for a minute or two, resting and collecting my thoughts. The situation seems hopeless. But maybe, just maybe, I can do some damage here before they take me. I get to my feet once more, choose a promising-looking tunnel and set off. After all, what have I got to lose? The aliens still don't seem organised; perhaps the marines managed to hurt them badly, knock out lines of communication or something. As I run down another dim winding corridor, a panel catches my eye. More earth script! As far as I can make out, this is intended to be some sort of computer terminal. But there's no screen, or keyboard, just a slightly transparent flat plate. I bend down, trying to see through the material of the plate. As I do so, my forehead brushes it and - I am floating in a vast space, countless millions of bright threads weaving through the emptiness around me. I think to turn around and the world shifts, showing my own trail. All these... lights, or threads, must be alien minds; this space a kind of group consciousness! But there seems to be something wrong. The threads writhe together but seem unable to join or communicate. I can feel something, huge but dormant, perhaps damaged or even destroyed. Could it be the marines caused this damage? However it happened, it'sthe only thing keeping me alive right now. Even as I think this, I see pulses of light within the silent mass. I disengage instinctively. Perhaps later I can use this network to my advantage. Right now I'm vulnerable... This looks like a storage area of some kind. There might be all sorts of useful stuff to be found. On the other hand, if it's anything destructive, it'll be under lock and key and guarded heavily. Right now though I need all the help I can get... The aliens are definately starting to get their act together, which doesn't bodewell. Nearby is another of the strange terminals. I hesitate, then plug in. Once again I enter the hive consciousness. Immediately I see the central mass pulsing and glowing, powering up. Suddenly I see something out of place; flickering cages of light, two containing bright red threads like my own, the rest empty. As I watch, one flares up and vanishes. The last thread seems weak and glows only fitfully. They must be the captured marines! I race towards the occupied cage and hover outside. I attempt to communicate, and am rewarded with a hazy line joining our threads together. Immediately my mind explodes with painand fear raging through the link from the captive. I frantically send a message of who I am. The fear fades a little, and I get a message in reply: 'Leave us... we're all dead anyway. Try to get to the oribital control computers... Without them the alien defences are useless. Use the cruiser... ' A blast of images flashes into my brain; rudimentary instructions for using the autopilot. The last image I recieve is of the planet from space, erupting as the alien craft, towed out of orbit by the cruiser, crashes on the surface... The brief communication I established with the captive marine showed me where he thought the orbital computer uplinks were located. Once they are destroyed, the automated planetary defences won't be able to track the cruiser or the aliencraft. There are three uplink computers, all independant from one another. I'm going to have to take them all out before I can try to escape... One down, two to go. The others are trickier; one is in a heavily guarded tower nearby, the other some distance away. I head for the tower. I'm getting tired, the medical bed on board the cruiser kept me in good shape, but I've been knocked about a lot and covered a lot of ground. Maybe I can hole up in the tower somewhere and rest awhile. Then again, if the aliens see a pattern in my attack; heading for the orbital computers, they'll put everything they've got around the third computer to prevent me reaching it. Looks like I'll have to rest later. When either they're dead, or I am... Two down, and just one to go. Checking out of a window, looking towards the third uplink, my heart sinks. The aliens know what I'm up to, even if they don'tknow the whole plan. Maybe they ripped it out of that poor marines head before he died, maybe they just figured it out by themselves. Either way, there's a lotof firepower being mustered over there, and I mean a LOT. Still, what else can I do? I shrug my pack into a less uncomfortable position with a sour grin. 'Hey,' I tell myself, 'Not like you had any other plans for tonight'... Against all the odds, I succeeded in destroying the last computer, which should knock out the orbital defenses for a while at least. But even so the alien craft will still be manned. How can I escape with that thing waiting for me? It overpowered the cruiser before; it can do it again. I smash my fist into the wall in frustration. The pain reminds me of the surge I recieved through the link to the dying marine... I stop dead, a wild, wonderful idea slowly unfolding in my mind. The thing in the alien mind-space; the central mass: what if it wasn't a machine at all, but some creature? That being injured would account for the aliens being so uncoordinated. If I find it, and injure it further, or even kill it... If I timeit right, so all the aliens are linked back in, I might be able to blow their minds completely this time. Even if it doesn't work that well, they'll have a lot more to worry about than me creeping back on board the cruiser. I just have to find this thing, and put it out of commission. Permanently.