The shadow of dawn

[Angder]

The soldier Angder was fighting tried to raise his gun, Angder knocked it away, but in doing so caused it to fire two stray shots. Plasma rounds slammed into the ceiling above Angder, burning holes in it. Angder ignored this, and clawed at the (now unarmed) soldiers visor, causing it to shatter.

[Fenox Helkiin]

After a few short moments of sheer pain, from being burned alive, the soldier that Fenox was fighting went limp. "That's one!" Fenox yelled and he stood up and shifted back to anthro.

[Ryan Naismith]

After a few minutes of sustained fire, fired blindly into the smoke, the machine's magnetic shield flickered and died. One lucky marine hit it with a plasma shot. The bright green of a plasma projector arcing between it and the machine; sublimating and melting the alloys into molten slag. A few more marines fired a few more shots just for good measure, and then, the thing sputtered, fell, and died.
Once the combat was over, Captain Shaw immediately sprung to his feet, and began shouting orders into the microphone wrapped around his throat, even though he didn't need to. the thing could pick him up, even if he barely whispered.
"I want rescue crew out there picking up our marines, NOW! All men, grab rifles, prep for boarding! I want marines in the reactor, life support, and the bridge! All other stations are a secondary concern! MOVE IT!"

[Fenox Helkiin]

Fenox quickly grabbed pressed against the throat mic, just above his collar, and replied "Shaw? Where are you?"

[Ryan Naismith]

"Main bulkhead, by what used to be the boarding umbilical." he sighed " got a couple marines that went Dutchman." He shuddred at the thought. How many of them would be saved? how many were kilometers away already, nothing more than a spec of dust? he didn't know, and he was glad that he wasn't one of them.

[Fenox Helkiin]

"Can you get yourself, and your troops, to the main reactor... I think we may need some ba-" the radio cuts out, before Fenox can finish, as the alarms start blaring into full alert all over the ship "warning, warning, reactor malfunction. Ple-" then the whole ship goes dark, no sound, no light, no nothing... Just pitch black and silent.

[Angder]

Angder finished off the soldier creating a nasty squelching noise, the fact the light were off was probably for the best. "Err, Fenox? What Just happened?" Angder asked.

[Ryan Naismith]

"aah... Sh*t!" Shaw curses, glad that his space armor was vacuum sealed. Life support would be shutting off soon, and he hoped that the civilians had enough sense to get in some sort of life support bubble.


meanwhile, three UEG marines burst into the reactor. Their lead, a human Corporal, steps forward, an uneasy gaze scanning across the reactor room, his hands tight on his plasma projector.

[Fenox Helkiin]

"...okay, Angder... You now have my full permission to panic..." Fenox said with a trembling in his voice as he stood up. "This day just keeps getting better and better... Alright let's find the control panel and hope like hell that still has some power." He added as he walked around, using the glow of his bioluminescent fur to light the way, till bumping into the UEG marines. "Umm... Hai?" Fenox said rather shyly as he rubbed his neck with a weak and sheepish smile.

[Angder]

 "Right... full permission" Angder stumbled forward towards the glow of Fenox's fur.

[Ryan Naismith]

The man sighs "Sir, You asked for our support. We came." The youngish, freckle-faced human gives a wide gesture to his two companions, only one of which was fur, he was a husky of some sort. "Sir, if you don't mind, there's pirates on this ship. Private Anding there-" He gestured at the husky "Is qualified to work with dark matter, nuclear and geothermal reactors."

[Fenox Helkiin]

"Alright. Anding, any idea on what happened to the ship? I have my own theory but I'd like to hear yours given you likely know more about dark matter drives then anyone else currently here." Fenox asked calmly.

[Ryan Naismith]

"Well... There are several theories I can come up with on the spot. The more severe ones can be ignored, simply because we aren't in a black hole right now. One, it could have been a breach of reactor protocol, which is quite likely given our...circumstances. what we have to do for that is simply activate auxiliary drones to work the reactor."
"Two, The reactor could have run out of fuel. Though this is highly unlikely, given that the shadow caries enough Element zero to fuel the ship for generations, and it refines more of the stuff at any given opportunity. We can't do much, if that happens..."
"Third... and this is the most grave of the three, The auto-sequencers could have had a malfunction, and the reactor, instead of blowing itself to bits, turned itself off. we would need to completely resynchronize the primary and auxiliary autosequencers, or the resulting output decay will cause a catastrophic Eezo dump. which, in layman's terms, means a really big explosion."

[Angder]

"I don't get this tech talk but I understood enough to know this is bad, how do we know if its going to blow? and how do we start those drones?" Angder asked, appearing behind Fenox "also how are we going to see? its pitch black in here..."

[Nitrogen]

Wakes from the bottom of the ship, remembering being hit on the head then black..... "W....w..where am i?.... "Looks around me And sees onr e of my wings is torn" better use my human form"