14:90 February 8, 2298 (military calendar)

AXANAR B298A BINARY STAR SYSTEM, TICONDEROGA COLONY

CITY OF NEW ALEXANDRIA, NORTHERN CONTINENET

Lucy Barnes looked her mail box and saw a single letter addressed to her. It was the military again. She received a update that the Spirit of Endurance was making repairs at Sigma Octana, a neutral colony, other than that it had been silent, nothing more. She walked inside and saw it was from Admiral Paris, the head of the Naval forces. Inside was something she never wanted to see. It was a letter addressed to her as miss, it read:

Dear Miss Barnes,

I am sorry to inform you that on 07:23, 29 January, we lost all sub-wave contact with the UEC Spirit of Endurance. After extensive sensor sweeps, we have concluded that the ship was most likely destroyed, and is presumed missing with all hands, until we have a grip in the expanse. Our last sensor report received from the Spirit of Endurance showed it was under attack, and had severed hull damage. If they did jump, they most likely suffered extensive damage to their lateral support structure, and in turn their communication array. In accordance with military law article 9 subsections 7, as a only mother, with two children, their education will be paid for, and you will receive subsidized assistance in order to give your children a proper upbringing, and to keep your standard of living. Memorial services for the crew will be held in two weeks, a funeral service will be discussed on another date.

My utmost condolences,

Admiral Paris

"Lucy, what is going on?" Lucy turned around to her mother who had moved in after the news of the Spirit of Endurances condition. Her mother saw her face. "Oh god, what happened?" She was lost for words, tears stared to stream out of her eyes.

"It's John..." Her mother took her into a deep embrace, they knew it could come to this, just not this quickly. Space was a dangerous place, it was never meant to harbor life. "He's been declared missing, presumed dead." Breaking the news to the kids was harder, in her entire life she has never been so sad, her kids loved their father dearly, they just never expected to be fatherless, and her alone to raise her kids. "I should have told him not to take that job, he just couldn't resist not having a command position."

03:20 February 9, 2298 (military calendar)

ESU MILITARY STAGING AREA 9, EXPANSE GRID 14

UEC HEAVY BATTLE CARRIER – 798 "SPIRIT OF ENDURANCE"

Commander Barnes looked at the DRADIS hanging above the Command Module. They were running gray, no power output, life support at minimal, and all main computer systems offline. The only thing they had was their wits, training, and each other. To the ESU they would just appear as a large piece of debris. The entire crew was silent as they did micro maneuvers to get into place inside of the fleet for a surprise attack. They would drop 2 Havok nuclear devices, hopefully doing massive amounts of damage.

"Bow yaw Point zero-zero-zero-three-degree correction." The entire crew was silent as they said the commands. They heard whoosh-es throughout the hull as they used retro-thrusters. It was the only ship with them left. "Pitch zero-zero-one correction." Another whoosh. They heard the wireless chatter of the entire staging area, they were all questioning what that ship was doing adrift.

"Sir. They are sending boarding parties to investigate."

"Prepare to power up and have all point-defense-turrets to fire."

"Aye, Sir." Barnes watched the DRADIS unit as the enemy ships moved nearer, they deployed three boarding parties. He reached down for the com and dialed in to engineering.

"CO to Engineering, cold start the reactors." There was a large bang that was heard throughout the ships as the engines turned on, and temperature began to slowly rise on the inside. They could hear the enemy chatter become louder and more urgent. "Deploy nukes."

"Nukes away."

"Specialist Kellen, put in our FTL coordinates and spool it up."

"Aye Sir."

"Sir, they're hailing, they're asking for full and unconditional surrender."

"Tell them... We're just passing through."

"Sir, they know we're UEC." Barnes grabbed the handset and turned on the internal communication.

"All hands, action stations, ship up to combat alert alpha." The ships alarms stared to blare, and the alert lights started flashing red. "Do the defense turrets have a firing solution."

"Yes sir."

"They may fire."

"All defenses fire at will, repeat, fire at will." Throughout the ship, they could hear the turrets firing, they were muffled bangs throughout the hull. "Confirmed hit." Barnes watched as the boarding parties disappeared off DRADIS, they didn't expect this.

"How long until nuke detonation."

"Two minutes." Barnes started the clock, and Specialist Kellen slid the key into the FTL Computer. He watched as the clock counted down. There was a large jolt as a enemy ship fired a heavy salvo at them. Their armor would hold. "One minute."

"Almost there."

"Thirty seconds."

"Ten..."

"Jump..." The entire ship bent and squeezed as they jumped away. They were within visible range of their sensors. He watched the DRADIS-SECONDARY, as the nuke went off. The entire crew was silent in the CIC, and he waited. They were watching, it felt like the entire human race was. After the EMP disappeared off sensor, they saw only 2 ships still intact.

"We have confirmed 32 ships destroyed." The entire crew erupted in cheers. It was the largest win for the UEC in nearly a year. They did more damage to them still, but they were getting revenge. "The two that survived are heavily damaged, and their FTL's have been completely destroyed. Should we finish them off?"

"No, let them limp home, this is a victory. I'm escorting a boarding party to the Say My Name, I need answers. Hopefully we can find information about the weapon."

"Aye, Sir."

"We need environmental suits, and weapons in case we have any survivors." Barnes gathered a security team and headed down towards the landing bay.

"Sir!" He stepped onto the Ranger and strapped himself in while the pilot headed towards the cockpit. "Everyone strapped in?"

"Affirmative, now based on what we find. If there are any survivors, they will be hostile." The engines powered up and the ship jolted as it hovered off the ground.

The Ranger docked on the Say My Name. Barnes stepped off the Ranger and onto the hangar bay of the ship. The hangar deck was heavily damaged, dozens of large ruptures in the hull, along with signs of flash fire. The entire bay was empty, no bodies.

"So, are we looking for the computer core?"

"Yes, we need to copy any data files, if we can't receive we will get their black box." Barnes reached for his wrist and turned his flashlight on. They walked down a hallway and saw several bodies clutching the wall, killed when the ship burned. The Say My Name had a crew capacity of 2700 people, the ESU probably doubled that number. As the crew made their way forward they saw blood smeared across the walls, evidence of what happened on board the ship. If one had missed it, they only would think the ship was destroyed, not a massacre.

"I have a bad feeling about this sir."

"Bad feeling, like what?"

"Just a feeling. My brother served on the ship." Barnes knew that. When he received all the crew files, he found out the pilot had a younger brother fresh out of the academy on board. He was a science officer, only out there for the new discoveries. He himself joined the marines, but it was out of devotion to the UEC and revenge for his parents. The entire ESU joined their military out of either devotion for independence of the Expanse, or out of fear, they drafted, and refusal often resulted in death.

"I know what it's like. My father was killed on board the Eisenhower, they didn't find them for 19 years." The walked the rest of the way to the bridge, it was a new ship, so the main computer core would be easily accessed. Barnes opened the door to the CIC, and looked around. The Captain of the ship was slumped over in his chair, his eyes still open, they probably died instantly, from the air decompressing. The air inside of their lungs were sucked out, and they bleed internally while they froze to death. A horrible way to go, but that was the risks of interstellar travel. "Get to work on the computer."

"Aye," Barnes eyes wandered over to the FTL computer, and saw they were preparing to jump to Axanar, the Ticonderoga Colony, his home world, and the colony where his wife and children are. "Sir, we need to access the computer core manually."

"Okay, let's get down there." Barnes opened the hatch to the lower deck, all the elevators were offline, they would have to use the maintenance crawl tunnels.

"Commander, how 'bout I go first." Barnes nodded to his security officer, and helped him lower himself into the crawl space. He saw him shine his light down the small space and gave him a thumb up. Barnes slowly lowered himself down and began to crawl up to his officer. The others followed suit. On his HUD he could see the location they were going to, he wasn't familiar with the layout of the Marathon-class cruisers. He heard some knocks from above, and screaming.

"Help, is anybody out there?" A survivor. Barnes and the crew ignored him, there was no place for a murderer on the ship. "Please, I'm crewmen Otoko, they have been holding me prisoner. Please help!" Barnes shook his head, it was probably a person trying to save their skin.

"Hold. Sargent, is his Neural Net still active?"

"No. He's a Ini." Barnes and the team continued to crawl forward. "In 300 feet, we are turning right. It should put us right under the computer room." Barns watched as Sargent Malask turned right and the entire area plunged into darkness. He saw a light shine back down, it blinked, all clear. Barnes turned the corner and saw him pop the hatch and turn his light off, they don't want to attack possible attention. He stood up and pulled himself out, his hud flashed, indicating a atmosphere.

"We have oxygen, enough for a couple hours." Barnes reached up to his helmet and pulled it off, the air was extremely hot. "It could take a while to decode their computer core before I can transfer the files." Barnes nodded, and looked around, there was emergency lights. Their tech person moved to the computer core and hooked his computer up to it. "It's a triaxilating algorithm,"

"Time?"

"45 minutes, minimum." Barnes and the others set their riffles down, but Malask kept his in hand just in case.

"Commander..." Malask immediately raised his weapon, to a thing. Barnes turned and saw a disfigured being, as if he was no longer human at all. "Who are you?" The being moved closer into the light and it became clear what he was, he had torn skin, and piercings throughout his body that appeared to be shoved inside, he had mutilated himself.

"Reaver." Barnes looked down and saw a chain attached to his leg, that was partially eaten off. He could rhythmic clicking and growling sounds from it, but it turned into a shriek. "I thought they were just a myth." It launched forward, and there were horrible sounds as its foot was ripped off, it acted like it was nothing. Barnes unholstered his pistol and shot it in the head, but it continued to sprint at him, it was within feet of him when it dropped dead.

"Damn, never seen such a thing."

"I heard about it. Claims that the Reavers were once Humans that have been driven to insanity, and became cannibals. Rumor has it that they were from Halcyon."

"The first colony in the expanse?"

"The one that failed?" Barnes had heard of the legends, more like myths of the lost Tendara colony, the first colony, that was founded in 2090, which failed, no one knows of what happened to those. Rumors were that they ran out of food, there was a large asteroid, aliens abducted them, and that they went mad and became cannibals. During the early expansion years, they were considered pioneers, the last of the brave explores, who went into the darkness of deep space to find a place to call home. In 2170, the first year the Spirit of Endurance was launched they found the colony, it was abandoned, with 80% of the colonists preserved, they just laid down and died, the others were missing, their ship they took to the colony was missing, then the Reavers came.

"Why would they have Reavers onboard."

"It was chained, except they're like a wolf, to escape a trap, it had to chew its own leg off. Brosif, get to medical, and grab a body bag, I want to take it back to the Endurance, and get an autopsy done."

"Aye, I just hope there aren't any more Reavers." Brosif walked down the hallway and was engulfed in darkness. Barnes looked down at the Reaver, and it became more apparent what it had done to itself, it had eaten its leg off, on its body there was pieces of metal shoved in its skin – what's left of it, and skin that had been mutilated, and the scaring was old, but they continued to mutilate its self. "I want to know."

UEC HEAVY BATTLE CARRIER – 798 "SPIRIT OF ENDURANCE"

DECK E, SECTION 9, MEDICAL BAY

Barnes looked at the body that was lying on the medical table. The Reavers entire body was more apparent of the damage to it. It was a shell of a man, the only thing looking human is it's hands, which even still were covered in dry blood, and the nails were missing. The Doctor finished the autopsy, and finished lasering the skin back together, and quickly took one last post-mortem scan.

"Doc, what can you tell me about her." When they took the body up, and removed the skin, the body was a womans.

"Well, from my examination of her body, I would put her around 23 years old. I've never worked on a Reaver before. She's not a citizen of the UEC, as she has no identification chip, or any means of identity, and from what I can tell, she's a been a Reaver for a long time."

"How long?"

"Teens. Also, from the evidence of her captivity, I would have her in chains for a round two years, they may have been studying her." Barnes nodded, and looked at the women.

"Is there a reason as to why they are so aggressive towards Humans – normal humans." The Doctor walked over to the computer and tapped the screen, more detailed scans of her body and brain.

"From what I can make of these, her brain is more or less mush from the bullet, but from a chemical examination, the brains aggression and anger centers are all that's left."

"I'll be damn, do you know what colony she's from?"

"Colony B0981, the newest colony – and"

"- and all the colonists went missing, but they had evidence of gun fire, not, this."

"I believe they may have done this to her, the ESU, I found a drug in her system that acts very much like the Reavers brain," The Doctor pressed another button, "Drug KB98, it was experimented on during the early expansion to help people adjust to long term space travel when we were still using cryo all the time."

"What did it do?"

"Increased aggression, mutilation, cannibalism, the same as the Reavers which is why we use the others that don't have such side effects, unfortunately once dosed it continues to ravage the brain until there is no human left."

"When does it become fatal?"

"It doesn't, eventually the body adapts, the drug starts to work, but there's no hope for a brain, I removed a portion of it, and it showed massive degradation of the neural pathways, this woman was far from being saved." The Doctor finished lasering her body shut. "What do you want to do with her body?"

"I'll have her put through the airlock."