Tau

Agents of Darkness

On the orbital ring of Designation Zero, alarm bells were ringing.  The alien craft had been detected.  Panic ensued.  At Designation Zero the workers of Control were supposed to be alone, in the depths of space there was not supposed to be any other life... and yet, there, between the moon and them, sat the sleek golden craft.  Something was deeply wrong.

On the view screens of Control, the twelve black craft were seen, darting towards the planet, below.  In the minds of the workers viewing the screens, thoughts and questions began to trip over each other:  were they under threat? where had these ships come from? should they be destroyed?

Interceptor ships were scrambled from the orbital ring and screamed after the dark alien craft.  As the twelve black ships landed and a protective dome appeared over the landing site, the Interceptors peeled away and approached the large, golden vessel that was silhouetted against the moon.

The Interceptor pilots locked on to the alien mother ship.  No target locking signals appeared on the pilots read outs, but who knew what weapons systems the alien craft would have.

The Interceptor squad leader took a shot across the bows of the alien craft, but the high energy beams just deflected off a field surrounding the craft.  The Interceptors pulled back, aware that they could impact with the field around the large golden ship.  No communications came from the vessel... and there it sat, perfectly still.

In the Transporter Room, ground troops began to assemble, to be deployed on to the planet's surface.  As the white suited troops filed into the large Casimir Engine, a single white suited figure climbed out from a small, spherical golden cage in the Transporter Room.

A squad of Special Intelligence Agents, dressed in black suits and helmets, marched towards the Earth bound Casimir Engine.  The white suited ground troops reluctantly moved aside to give the Agents space on the transport pad.  There was no love lost between the grunts and the SIA's.

The huge Casimir Engine span, its translocator rings generating the oscillating quantum field, and transporting the sphere and the troops down to the planet's surface.

The ground troops fanned out from the transportation pad.  Rough trails had been blasted through the solid black lava formations, and were marked with yellow poles that stretched off into the distance.  Tracking devices on the troops suits gave the direction of the twelve alien ships.  The ships had come down by the green lake, designated as ESW-2002.  The grunts knew it as Vindaloo Two.  The lake was a key landmark in the area, with a transportation platform next to it and, more importantly, trails blasted to and from the place.  The ground troops headed down the trail, with disruptor weapons drawn.

Following the ground troops the Agents walked with confidence in their steps, even in the cumbersome suits.  The trail cut through the dark rocks and then led to a ridge above the lake, Vindaloo Two.

A shimmering dome now covered the depression that the lake sat in.  The twelve sharp looking black alien craft sat on the rock around the lake's edge.  Close to the ships, twelve suited figures were busy, constructing a pre-fabricated shelter at the lake's edge.

The lead Agent spoke through a coms-link to the ground troop Commander.

'Hold your position here.  I'll go in alone and make first contact.'

'Roger that.'  The troop commander signalled for his men to take up defensive positions on the ridge.  The grunts' disruptor weapons were trained on the twelve suited figures down by the lake.

The lead Agent strode forward, towards the shimmering dome.  In his hand he held a small silver cylinder.  He depressed a button and two black shadows appeared at his side.  Like writhing, roiling smoke, the two shadows followed the black suited Agent, as he moved forward.