The red emergency lights filled the control center of the Hammerstrike as it drifted through space on a collusion course with the station orbiting New Titan. The Hammerstrike's engines were dead and cold. Even the small assault vessel's life support systems were off-line.

Timothy leaned back in the pilot's seat and smiled. Everything was going just as planned. Warren peered over Timothy's shoulder, sweat glistening on the tan skin of his lupine-like face.

"We're on course, boss," Timothy whispered.

Warren snarled. "You better make contact on the first try." The huge man turned, looking back at the rest of the team.

James sat at the ship's engineering console while Marcus and Brook stood in the cramped quarters of the tiny room.

Despite the concealment of the trenchcoat he wore, Marcus had so many weapons strapped to his body he looked like a walking arsenal. The red lighting cast eerie glows in the silver streaks of his otherwise black hair, as he stared out the Hammerstrike's view-port towards the approaching station.

Brook, on the other hand, wore a tight fitting body suit with a hood which covered her head showing on the slightest glimpse of her long blonde her as she matched Warren's appraising look with one of her own. Her only weapons were a pair of "gunblades" which rested in holsters on above her well-curved hips. She was one of the last of her kind. Like all of the creatures of legend, which technology had left no place to hide, her race had been hunted to near extinction by the Coalition of Man.

"James, you ready?" Warren asked, his eyes returning to the console in front of Timothy, which monitored the ship's course.

"As long as flyboy there makes contact on the first try, my override codes will pop the station's docking-lock as soon as interface between the Hammerstrike's and the station's system is achieved."

"Brook?"

The lithe woman flowed across the floor with unnatural grace to a sensor console, punching a few keys for a quick check. "Between the reflective screening we sprayed the hull down with and the lack of power to most systems, we shouldn't be reading on their screens at all."

Warren had guessed as much, or they would have been turned to space dust by the station's pulse arrays. He let out a sigh of relief and finally allowed himself a smile. They were close enough now. "Hit it, Tim."

The Hammerstrike's engines surged to life at the flick of a switch and the ship shot forward straight into the station's docking-lock with a loud thud. The docking claps of the Hammerstrike and the station both automatically engaged as James' codes went into action, forcing the station's airlock doors open.

The watch duty officer, who'd been sitting in the quietness of his control booth, half asleep from boredom, sprang to his feet as the lock door dilated open before his eyes. He blinked in disbelief and barely had time to hit the alarm key before Brook's blade smashed through the thin glass window of his booth and lodged itself deep into his neck, cutting off the scream forming there. His body dropped to the floor as blood pooled around him.

~*~

Marcus and Warren were already across the docking bay, opening the main door that led into the station proper as Brook yanked her blade free from the man's corpse and hurried to catch up to them.

On board the Hammerstrike, his part of this venture done, Timothy lit up a smoke while he watched James's fingers dancing over the keys of the engineering console. James was the best hacker in the 'verse. It would only be a matter of time before he manipulated the limited docking interface of the two systems to gain nearly complete—if not total—control of the station's computer core.

"Need a hand?" Timothy teased.

"Shut the frag up!" James shouted. "Some of us still have work to do, flyboy."

~*~

Marcus was the first to enter the station's internal corridors. He came face to face with two shock troops responding to the alarm. His trenchcoat fluttered aside as he whipped up an ancient Earth, sawed off 12-gauge and fired point blank into the lead trooper's midsection. Blood and pieces of the man's intestines splattered the corridor walls. Marcus didn't waste time pumping another round into the chamber; instead he swung the shotgun up like a club to whack its butt into the second man's mouth. The sound of crunching teeth followed as the trooper flew backward from the blow. He looked up at Marcus. Blood bubbled from his shattered mouth as he tried to cry out. Marcus stepped onto the man's neck, his heavy combat boot smashing the trooper's windpipe, and watched the man thrash under his foot.

A growl echoed throughout the corridor as an eight foot tall, bipedal wolf-thing came tearing out of the docking area, past Marcus, into the hall. A group of three more shock troops were racing toward the docking area from the other end of the corridor. The wolf-thing let out another growl and charged them head on.

The three shock troops stopped dead in their tracks and brought their pulse rifles to bear on the beast. Beams of energy sliced its flesh, burning holes clean through the thing with some shots but it didn't slow down in the slightest. As it lifted one of them, ripping the man's ribcage open, its own wounds were already closing. With a vicious backhanded blow, it struck another of them so hard the man's head flew off his body, hitting the floor with a wet, sickening noise before it rolled out of sight. The last shock trooper dropped his rifle and started to run back the way he had come as the wolf-creature pounced on him, knocking them both to the floor. The thing sunk its canine teeth into the man's throat and tore it out with a rapid hunger.

Brook bolted out of the dock to stand beside Marcus, looking at the mess the creature had made. As she watched it eat, she turned to Marcus and grinned. "He's such a show off."

Marcus smiled back at her. "Warren is somewhat lacking in the area of style."

The wolf-thing dropped its meal, looking up at the pair. "Get moving," it ordered as blood dripped from the red-stained fur around its lips. "I'll protect the ship."

~*~

James had cracked the station's systems. Their employer had been right. This place was not at all a civilian outpost as it appeared on the outside. It was a top of the line Coalition research facility, which explained the heavy exterior armaments the Hammerstrike's sensor had detected during a passive scan days before in the planning stages of this raid. The item they had been hired to retrieve was three levels up from the dock, in the central core of the station—which appeared to be a lab of some kind.

James knew very little, like the rest of the team, about what they were supposed to steal. Their employer had only told them the basics, such as what to look for and where it was likely located. The "item" was some kind of new bio-chip being developed by the Coalition.

Now it looked like the boarding party would face a hell of a lot more resistance than they had thought. The station's personnel registry listed a civilian staff of about a dozen scientists and workers and over fifty Coalition shock troops and officer—apparently assigned to protect whatever was kept on board. But the shock troops didn't worry James so much. Brook and Marcus had faced far worse odds before and came out breathing. What really concerned him was that the same logs listed the presence of not one but two Coalition Peacekeepers on the station. They weren't being paid anywhere near enough to tackle with forces like that. James wasn't even sure if there were enough credits in the 'verse to get him to face one of those things.

He noticed Timothy trying to read the expression on his face and puzzle out what was happening. He knew Timothy could tell it wasn't good, but James didn't have time to explain. He patched himself into the boarding team's sub-dermal com. units, hoping his warning would reach them in time.

~*~

Marcus and Brook were a level up with a trail of shock troops behind them when they heard James' voice in their heads.

"Holy..." Marcus muttered.

Brook spun her gunblades in her hands as they reshaped themselves from daggers to pulse pistols.

"Peacekeepers," she answered, almost too low for Marcus to hear.

The metal of the wall behind them shrieked and bent as a Peacekeeper tore its way into the corridor with them. It wore a Coalition shock troop uniform and, for all intents and purposes, looked human except for its eyes. They were jet black and tiny lights like a sea of miniature stars danced inside them.

Brook whirled around to meet the thing, her pistols blazing. Blue beams of energy burnt holes in the thing's uniform and charred the outside of its body without penetrating. In a blink, it lashed out and threw Brook against the far wall of the corridor. She landed roughly on the floor as her gunblades bounced from her hands and skidded away from her. The impact had knocked the breath from her lungs and she slumped as her hood fell back revealing pointed ears that protruded ever so slightly from her blonde hair.

Marcus threw his 12-gauge at the thing, fast drawing a pair of .44 magnums from beneath his coat. The magnums were the most powerful weapons he carried, each modified and loaded with armor piercing rounds capable of slicing even the hull of a starship. The magnums thundered simultaneously. The Peacekeeper staggered with gaping holes where the blackness of its eyes had been only moments before, but it didn't fall. It struck out blindly at Marcus, its hand sinking into the metal of the wall behind the pale man as he dropped under the thing's blow, hit the floor and rolled toward Brook.

Marcus sprang up beside the Elf, facing the Peacekeeper, and emptied his magnums in a series of thunderclaps. The thing stumbled and fell as large wounds leaking silver goo covered its body. Marcus didn't give it time to get up. He knew it would—Peacekeepers never died easily. He snatched up Brook, throwing the thin Elf over his shoulder and ran like Hell back toward the Hammerstrike.

~*~

Warren smelled the thing before he saw it. He'd heard James' warning but hadn't believed it. What the frag would a Peacekeeper, let alone two, be doing out here on a station on the butt end of Coalition territory?

The stench of the unliving abomination made his fur stand up. It rounded the corner of the corridor leading to the docking area and stood staring at him. The tiny lights inside its eyes swirled faster. He knew it was scanning him. His species was rare, almost extinct, like nearly every non-human species in the 'verse since the Coalition had come to power. He hoped there wasn't any data on his race inside its circuits.

Warren's hopes were dashed, however, as long silver talons grew from the ends of the Peacekeeper's fingertips. He could have sworn the thing smiled then, but he would never know for sure. An anti-armor rocket streaked over his shoulder at the thing, singing his fur.

His last thoughts were of Brook and Marcus as the corridor erupted in flames and exploding metal.

~*~

Warren's eyes fluttered open. He knew instantly he was in human form again. He could feel it. His gaze darted around his surroundings and found the smiling faces of his crew looking down at him as he lay on the examining table of the Hammerstrike's infirmary.

The crew appeared battle-worn despite their smiles. A long bruise stretched across Brook's finely chiseled cheeks. Marcus looked sullen and pissed, as if his mind were still light years behind them on the station. Timothy and James' looked tired and like they hadn't slept in days. Warren bet they hadn't. It would have been up to them to get the team out of there and avoid pursuit.

"Glad to see you alive, Boss," Timothy laughed.

"What happened?" Warren asked, sitting up on the bed.

"The little bastard saved your life," Marcus said, indicating Timothy, in an uncaring, distant voice.

"Better shot than I ever thought he was," James chided. "It was just luck he stumbled onto Marcus's secret weapons cache' in time."

"As for Marcus and myself," Brook said, "We had a bit of trouble reaching the ship after that blast, but luckily it also helped to cripple the station's pulse arrays so we were able to get out before they got them back on-line."

"Just what the devil were we trying to steal anyway?" Warren asked.

James looked down at Warren. "Oh it was a new bio-chip all right, but it wasn't for civilian use at all. The thing was being developed by the Coalition military to be used in a new model of Peacekeeper. According to what little I found out from the station's encrypted files before we disengaged and fled, it was so advanced that the Peacekeeper Mark II models it was being designed for were going to be borderline telepathic or close enough to seem so."

"Jesus," Warren muttered.

"It seems our employer knew all about it and, like anyone on our side of Coalition law, wanted the thing taken out before it could be tested and implemented."

"That fraggin' bastard!" Warren cursed. "We're going to see that little weasel and have a talk with him."

"Oh, indeed," Brook grinned, "But not now."

Warren turned to Tim. "Where are we headed?"

"Home."

"Good," Warren said sinking back down on the bed and shutting his eyes. "I think we all could use a bit of rest just now. We've earned it, even if we aren't going to get paid."

The lycanthrope listened to the sounds of his crew leaving the infirmary as he waited for sleep to come. Sure, this job had gone sour, but he wasn't worried. There would be others. Next time, they'd hit it big.