=== USS Gott === Keylor walked down the hall following Lynch and the remainder of the team. With their primary goal achieved, they now had to try to clear the ship of X'chi and retake the old girl. This entire mission was strange form the beginning and now the discovery of non X'chi bio signs made Keylor more weary of the mission. Keylor had sent Lt Scott off to investigate the bio signs, that meant they were fewer in numbers than before, and with on member of the away team having died unexpectedly after touching what appeared to be an egg, they were not poised to take on a large contingent of X'chi. As the team moved slowly down the hall, his thoughts were running in his mind. {Shane would have a heart attack if he knew where I was. I promised him I would stay in the shuttle and stay out of harms way. If only I could see the expression on his face when he hears the away team has not gone on as planned.} he thought to himself. {I should have stayed on the chimera. After all that is where a captain should be.} he thought afterwards thinking about how now, stuck in side the Gott, no communications to the outside and somewhere between and X'chi and a hard place. He tried not to beat himself up too much about the decisions he made. In all honesty he thought he would be more useful over her on the Gott then stuck on the bridge of the chimera, after all he was a marine infantryman first, or so he thought. But he could not help to wonder what was happening on the Chimera right about now. Where they worried? How was the crew? Had they discovered any thing about the anomaly that the Gott was in front of? And why the Gott was moving, was the Chimera moving the Gott. He was a man torn between two duties, the one he loved and the one he inherited. As the team worked their way around the deck, They searched one room after another, methodically checking each room for X'chi and then securing the doors by reconfiguring the isolinear chips so no one could easily open them, mainly the X'chi. Keylor thought it strange though. Aside form a few X'chi they encountered when they first entered the ship, they had really not encountered any resistance. He was certain that by now, the X'chi had detected thioer presence. No one knew exactly how the X'chi communicated, but many theorized they had some sort of hyper sensitivity or Extra-sensory ability, similar to telepaths. And with intruders afoot, you would think they would be throwing every thing they had at them. It was truly curious as to why they had not seen more of them. After several minutes of searching, he saw Aidan lynch stop and motion for Keylor to come forward. By now they had worked their way to the outer sections of deck two. As Keylor quickly made his way forward, he could make out Where Aidan had stopped, in front of an airlock hatch. Adian was looking through the window as Keylor stopped beside him. "What is it petty officer?" Keylor asked. Adian pointed through the window. "Look. Does that look like an egg to you in the corner?" Keylor peered in tot eh window as Adian moved aside. "Yes. And by the looks there were several there, the floor looks coated with something." He replied. Keylor looked all around the airlock spying part of what he could only think was part of an X'chi leg. "Well may be that is where all of the Xc'hi went on this level." He pointed through the glass as if Adian could see. "They must have escaped the ship at some time before we got here, taking what ever it was in there with them." He continued. He shifted his gazed from the interior of the airlock out the open, outer hatch of the air lock. "hrm. I knew we were moving but nothing looks familiar out there." He stepped back and looked at Adian. "Where are we? Are we close to the bow?" he asked. Adian thought for a moment, "Aye sir, nearly as I can figure." Keylor nodded, "Well something has changed. There was an anomaly forming in front of the ship when we boarded her. Now nothing." I wonder where we have moved to?" he said not expecting an answer. Looking down the corridor and then back to Adian he motioned. "Ok lets keep moving. Once we finish securing all of the rooms here I want to move up to the bridge. We need to see what is goin on out there. Also I want to hail the Chimera and check in." Adian nodded, "Aye sir." And then turned. He motioned to a oda member close to him and they soon started to move out. One by one, oda members passed Keylor until his place in line came up and he slipped in as if nothing had ever happened. ==2 hours later== They had cleared most of deck two and secured all of the doors there. Now Keylor stood in a Jeffries tube waiting with the others to storm out on to the rear of the small nova class bridge. Adian lynch had the taken three oda members with him to the only other Jeffries access to the bridge. With Keylor's team aft, and Adian's team forward, the plan was to pop up and hopefully surprise any thing that might be there. It was a little bit of a cumbersome task. With only one person able to exit the Jeffries tube at once, they were vulnerable until the rest of their group had emerge. +taps+ "Ok Petty officer Lynch. We are in positon. Give that gadget of yours a spray and lets see if the X'chi were waiting for us here." With out a reply Keylor waited,. The first man out on to the bridge pressed an ear to the hatch, listening for any sign that Adian had sprayed the flamethrower on the bridge before bursting through. It did not take pressing an ear to the wall to hear the shrill of some thing in pain. "Go!" Keylor shouted assuming that Adian had indeed sprayed the fire about. It only took a few seconds for Keylor to get out of the Jeffries tube. The bridge smelled foul, the air ripe with the smell of dung and roasting X'chi. As he stood up on his feet he immediately started to take aim at any thing not ODA. The bridge was filled with many X'chi. By Keylor's count there were fifteen. Keylor pointed down to where Adian and his teem were trying to get out of and noticed several X'chi thrashing their 'claws ' at them. "Concentrate fire on them. We need to let the petty officer and his team get in position to set up a cross fire!" he shouted. The battle was furious. And though seconds ticked away, it seemed like time it self slowed down. One by one they annihilated the X'chi, until only a few remain. Keylor drained every last ounce of energy form his power cell, until finally nothing was left. Reaching in to his cargo pocked he searched for another. Among the clacking and hissing of the X'chi, Keylor did not hear the door to the rest of the deck open. With out warning he felt a burning sensation strike his right shoulder as an X'chi, rushing on to the bridge took a wild swing at him. Luckily for Keylor it only grazed him, and was not a fatal blow. But the force of the jagged claw lifted him off of his feet, and threw him over the tactical console and down to where the captains chair was. Hitting his head on the chair, Keylor blacked out for a few seconds. ==End log=== Bgen Bretam Keylor Captain USS Chiemra