"Clear!" The head guard yelled and she felt his knee off her back. He held out a hand and helped her up. "I'm sorry about that, didn't want you getting in the way."

"What was the scream?"

He pointed to a body on the ground. Juliet gasped at the site and turned away. The question of whether the Arwen could kill someone was answered in the bloodiest way possible. "Who was it?"

"Baun," the guard said. "He was a good man. We'll worry about that later. We have a long way to go before we reach the main door. Don't even know how many of those turrets we'll see."

Captain Cook pushed the shuttle as fast as it could go in an effort to reach the Arwen. So far she saw no slab slowing her ship. The engines were glowing white with a large plume extending outwards, a clear indication she was moving at full speed and heading for one of the many silver beta wormholes.

The wormholes had surrounded the fleet making escape impossible. She saw the destruction of the fleet she was responsible for in details too clear for her to ever forget. The battlesphere was filled with black slabs trying to attach themselves to any ship they could find. If not for the protection of from three destroyers and about fifty fighters she wouldn't have stood a chance.

She didn't want to outrun her escort but she needed to reach the Arwen soon. She tried her best to contact her ship but was unable too.

Something exploded in front of her and she had to cover her eyes for a second. When the flair faded she saw something that put fear into her heart. A Beta wormhole had opened and she had only a second to react.

The shuttle banked to the left and barely missed the first wave of black slabs that poured through. She thought she was dead, there could be no way to avoid them all, no way her escorts could do anything but delay the inevitable. It was a nice ride, Marjorie thought, but now it's over.

Captain Cook watched with amazement as the slabs changed color from black to white. It was so unexpected she hardly noticed that they had surrounded her shuttle and were forming some sort of protective cocoon around her ship. Some of the slabs in front of her changed their colors from white back to black. It took a moment for her realize they were forming word, words in Common: Follow.

Follow where? She thought and, as she did the words shifted to form a second word: Friend.

They could have killed me at any time, she thought. Maybe they were the ones who brought Ann into my life. She looked around at the hundreds of slabs surrounding her. What other choice did she have? She had to follow and she did.

Chapter forty-six.

The hallway was lined with the deadly machine gun turrets. They had been discreetly tucked behind the walls. Juliet had spend many hours walking down the halls toward the computer room and she had no idea they had been installed. They were impossible to see unless you were looking for them and even then you needed to know where to look to even spot the seams in the wall.

The guard, which Juliet discovered was named Adams, looked around a bend then quickly returned. "Okay, we have three on the right wall, two on the left. Schmid, Jules, and me will take out the ones on the right, Kellso and Wats take out the ones on the left."

Juliet felt helpless as she watched Adams and his team work. She should have been helping, she should have been giving the orders, it's what the Captain would do, right?

The five men jumped into the open and each one fired their rifles at nearly the same time. One shot was all that was needed to destroy the guns. One gun got off a short burst before exploding and one of the men, Jules, went down in a heap. Juliet ran over to him and turned him over. The energy beam had sliced through the armor and the flash under it. Jules gasped for breath for a few seconds before his body fell limp and his eyes grew cold.

"At this rate we'll never make it," Adams said. "Can we cut the power to the guns somehow?"

Juliet thought about it for a moment. She was, after all, one of the people who helped put the Arwen together. She had to have known something. She looked up and saw ducts lining the ceiling. "Her power goes thought those ducts. We could cut it to her if we knew which wires to cut. That's a main power duct so there are probably a lot of other power sources running through it. I don't want to disrupt any vital systems." She pulled out her communicator. "Chief, are you there?"

Seconds later the voice of Chief Mcferren replied, "Go ahead."

"Chief, we need to cut power to the Arwen's main computer. She's gone rouge. Do you know where that power is coming from?"

"Not off the top of my head but I can find out. Give me a few minutes."

"We might now have that much time so hurry please." She turned him off and switched channels. "Bridge, this is the commander, what's going on up there?"

A young female voice replied. "We're still heading toward the Wormhole, I figure we'll be inside in less than seven minutes."

"Understood, keep me up to date on what's happening. Commander Monrow out." She looked at Adams. "Have some of your men get some force fields out of storage, we'll wait here until they return. Hopefully the Chief will get back to me about the power."

Adams waved two of his men away to get the generators while he leaned against the wall. "I don't have much hope that the people inside the Arwen's computer room are alive."

"She could have just locked them down, made sure they couldn't get to her."

"I hope your right," Adams said.

"I wonder what's going on outside," Juliet mussed. Her communicator beeped and she scrambled to answer it, "go ahead Chief."

"I found the power supply but you're not going to like what I'm going to say. The power for the computers are tied into the power for the ship. From what I can make of it that was done to prevent an alien force from doing what you're thinking of doing. If you cut those wires you cut off all power to the ship."

"Well that we don't want," Juliet replied. "Okay, keep looking for something."

"I found something else," He said before she could turn him off. "That system only extends to the hallways. Once you're inside the room you can cut power to the computer and it won't affect the ship. You just need to get into that room."

"We're working on that. Thanks for the information, I'm sure we're going to need it." She turned to Adams, "Okay, we have less than 6 minutes to get down the hallway, into the room, and disable the Arwen."

"I don't think we'll be able to do that before my men arrive," Adams replied. "We need a direct frontal assault and we need it soon."

"Wait for your men with the shields, that's an order. I'd rather go into the wormhole and see what's in store for us there than to have any more of your men killed."

"It's sort of our jobs to put our lives on the line to save the ship."

"I know, but don't be brave to the point of stupidly, we have time to plan. Also, don't think anything we do is going to surprise her, she's probably monitoring everything we're saying and is planning a way to defend against it so even with the force fields this will be a tough fight."

Adams nodded in acknowledgment and the small group waited in silence.

Grand Admiral Park watched the destruction around him with a never ending grin on his face. This was the first major engagement of the Hander's under the new tactics, using the new shields and it was working. The space station was protecting those ships which didn't have the new shield technology, those that were out of range were being protected by his ships that also carried the new shields. Without fear of the shields being vibrated apart Captain Cook's fleet was able to deal with the Handler's slabs at their leisure, destroying anything which came close.

The Captain, where was she? He looked at the scanner readouts and was unable to find her shuttle amongst the noise of the battle. Even the Arwen was hard to spot. "Sensors, can you spot the Arwen or the Captain's shuttle?"

"No, sir," His sensor officer replied after a quick glance at his readings. "They're in a very strange section of the battlesphere, lots of interference from the opening Beta wormholes. I'll focus more on those areas to see what I can find."

"Thank you," Grand Admiral Park replied. He worried about the Captain and her ship. That ship was the most important ship in the fleet from a moral standpoint. If they lost the Arwen it would be tough blow to withstand.

Fifteen slabs flew in front of the view screen. One by on the gunners blasted them out of space before they had a chance to even attempt to get close to his ship. The black debris continued to zip through space and would for all eternity.

How much longer could they keep this up? He wondered as the battle raged around him. They were using mostly energy weapons and had an unlimited supply of power but they didn't have an unlimited supply of time. Eventually they would need to leave and with the wormholes preventing them from moving they would have to leave using Alpha Wormholes and using those in battle was a very dangerous task. He was sure they were up to it, he just didn't want to plan for it.

One of the monitors caught his eye. He walked over to it and watched as a large group of slabs pulled away from the battlesphere and formed up. Soon the others left the battle and added to the pool. "What's happening?"

Hal chimed in this time. "Sir, they're leaving the battle and forming up outside the sphere."

"I can see that Hal, why? What's going on?"

"I speculate they are either regrouping or retreating."

"Well we can't have either and I don't plan in staying around to see which. Tell all ships get their bullets ready to fire, we'll all meet up at a secondary site."

The guards who were sent out to get the force fields arrived with fifteen reinforcements behind them. Juliet saw the extra men and nodded, thankful the crack team of specialist had more brains than she did. They passed out the force field belts and active them. Twenty personal force fields cracked into existence and shrouded each person in a shimmer. "All right, we don't have much time," Juliet said. "We're going to need a full charge. I don't think the Arwen's countermeasures can withstand such a blunt attack-"

"Yes, they can." Arwen said from the speakers in the wall. "Any direct or indirect assault will end with the death of everyone in the hallway. I'd rather not kill anymore but I will if I need too."

"Arwen, only you can stop this." Juliet said and got back silence in return. She looked at the security team and continued. "She's trying to intimidate us. It's not going to work, right?"

"No, ma'am." They all said practically in unison.

"Good. On the count of three we charge into that room. Take out as many gun emplacements as you can. Okay, let's go. One. . .two. . .three!"

They turned the corner and gave out a primal yell. Gun placements in the walls popped out and fired at them, the sound of a hundred burst a minute energy round found targets quickly and easily before being destroyed by the security force. Men fell to the ground after their force fields failed and tried to avoid being sliced to pieces. Several guards lay on the ground in pools of blood as they were killed or injured. The first hallway was cleared. Bodies left behind moaned in pain while other lay motionless.

Medical teams rushed to those who were injured while the group continued down the next hallway to try the mad dash again. The resistance was greater than before as more guns fell out and fired.

Juliet fell behind a corner and told Adams and his team to halt. She was panting, out of breath. Sweat fell from her face in large droplets and she felt her shirts soaked in it. "Okay, this is the last hallway," she said between breaths. "How many do we have left?"

"Five," Adams replied. Even he sounded concerned with the causalities they suffered. She looked at him, his force field had faded, another hit and it would be gone. "This is going to be the worst. I suggest we just sprint to the door and not worry about destroying the guns. Don't think it'll make much of a difference anyway."

"No," Juliet replied. She peaked around the corner and saw several guns scanning, waiting for her to make a move. "Here is what we're going to do. I'm going to make a sprint for the door, you guys cover me. Destroy as many guns as you can. If I don't make it you go next. One of us should be able to make it."

Adams nodded. "Okay, we don't have much time. Are you ready?"

Juliet took a deep breath and nodded. "No time like the present, right?"

She turned the corner and ran as fast as her legs could take her. She heard the guns whirl around to aim at her, then heard those guns explode as the guards took them out. She felt a beam strike her force field, it nearly slowed her down but she continued to run. Guns burst into flames and debris fell around her as she ran. The door grew closer. She pulled out her own hand gun and fired. The laser sliced through the door, she made a small circle while she ran and dove through it once she was close enough.

She stood from the ground and gave the guards a quick thumbs up, then ran the Arwen's main computer.

The fleet of black slabs formed a giant mass around the fleet, blocking out most of the stars. Grand Admiral Park watched this happen as his fleet loaded up their wormhole bullets to leave. The speed at which the slabs formed surprised him and left him very little time to decide what to do next.

"What are they doing?" He asked to himself. "What are their next move?"

The way the slabs talked to each other was still a mystery to the corps. They didn't have anyone inside them and when the few they captured were taken apart they found they were mostly empty except for some gear which caused them to shake the way they did. They found no other computers or wiring. There was some speculation that they were remote controlled by ships outside of the battlesphere or they had some form of artificial intelligence. The most commonly excepted theory was that they were preprogrammed before attacking and they were using some sort of intelligence to communicate with each other.

The way they were performing now as totally new and unprecedented. From the wormholes other slabs poured out dividing the fleet's attention. The powerful cannons from the battlecruisers concentrated their firepower on the slabs surrounding the fleet while the other ships, the cruisers, destroyers and other support craft fired at the slabs leaving the wormholes. Black debris littered the area making it hard for the computers to track the smallish slabs.

The Gyssyc spheres were the first to open their wormholes and moved forward to escape. Both of them moved toward the bright lights and were just about ready to enter when the second wave of the attack started.

They moved at a speed never seen before. Thousands of them broke loose and moved across space toward the Gyssyc ships. Missiles were unable to catch up to them, the computers for the energy beams were unable to track such fast moving objects.

The slabs smashed onto the surface of the Gyssyc ships sending large chucks of debris into space. Others broke off and moved toward the fleet. They're attack was savage and simple, smash the ships instead of vibrating them apart.

"Move, take evasive action!" Grand Admiral Park yelled. He knew his space station couldn't move on its own and he would sacrifice it if need be to save the rest of the fleet. "Hal, can you-"

The wave of slabs hit his station. The crunch of the slabs hitting the shield shook the station to its core. The Park nearly fell over and had to hold onto a computer to prevent himself from falling.

"Admiral," Hal said, "they're attacking the Frodo, the battle cruiser we docked with before the battle had started."

"Why wasn't that ship let go?" He yelled.

"Unknown," Hal replied. "I contacted the computer and it told me it was given orders by you to not leave."

"I did no such thing. Damn, the virus!" He yelled.

"Captain, the ship is reporting its being boarded and has started it's countdown to strangelet destruction."

"Tell him to belay that order! If they ship goes up it'll take us with them. Explain that to them."

"It's too late," Hal said in a maddeningly calm voice. "The chain reaction has begun."

Juliet stood in the computer room holding an ax in her hand. By her feet were the technicians who were assigned to help keep the computer active. They were dead. Juliet was unable to determine how the Arwen had managed it since she saw no guns and no wounds on the crew. Perhaps they were killed with gas which had dissipated before she arrived. Whatever the method it was effective.

"Hello Juliet," Arwen said breaking the strange silence.

"Hello Arwen," Juliet replied lowering the ax just a bit.

"What are you doing?" Arwen asked.

"I think you know," Juliet replied. "Figured my gun won't cut your lines fast enough even on torch mode. A good old fashioned ax ought to do it."

"You'd be right," Arwen said. "And I couldn't stop you. I used all my gas to kill my friends here. It made me sad to do it but they were trying to shut me down."

"And you thought the guns would stop me, even kill me right?"

"I wouldn't have liked to do it, but I would have. I'm loyal to the corps and if they give me an order I need to follow it."

"Your dedication is noted," Juliet walked to one of the computers and swung her ax down on it. The resulting sparks and debris caused her to flinch and pull back. She yanked the ax out and did it again sending more pieces of computer and wires flying across the room.

"Please, stop." Arwen asked, her voice frightened. "I don't understand how you can be doing this. I don't understand how you're doubting me."

"You've killed more of my crew than the Handlers ever did. You can no longer be trusted." She walked over to another computer and smashed it has hard as she could. Anger and frustration gave her the strength and endurance she needed to swing. "You'd rather listen to a program than listen to me. Me! The person you've talked to more than anyone else!"

She swung again destroying a smaller computer consol. The lights in the room dimmed. She swung again destroying the computer and the lights blinked out. Red, emergency lights turned on giving the room a strange tinge.