.Space///The Darkness Within (Part IV)

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	The Barbarians grunted angrily. Several pulled large angled handles off their backs and pressed buttons as blinding orange blades extended from them. Out of the corner of his eye, John spotted a large number of suspicious barrels lying in the corner. He picked up his rocket launcher, set it to explode, and fired it at the barrels. It exploded in a fireball. Suddenly, another two did. Suddenly, a wall of flame was roaring toward them.

	"Crap." John muttered. "Didn't think about that-" he fired his grapple launcher at the ceiling. He flew up, sending two Barbarians into each other, knocking them on their backs. The explosion wiped under his feet, torching the room, turning it into a charred barren desert. After the flame disappated, he dropped to the floor. He ran toward the door, and kicked it open. A squad of hovering sentry droids were waiting for him.  They charged up their weapons. John sprinted back.

	He ran around wildly in the room, looking for something to get rid of them with. He picked up one of the now-ebony swords, activated it, and ran back toward the attackers. He took one end, stabbed one of the floating droids in the head, before whipping the other end up and through the droid, splitting it in half. He continued like this, casually deflecting shots and slicing the blade through the others. In several minutes, the corridor was smoking.

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	The rest of the trip was uneventful. He got back into his ship. Unfortunately, more Hydrakian ships were waiting. They fired relentlessly as John's ship sped away. He fired several EMP missles backward, toward his pursuers and the station. A huge white-hot explosion followed as John's ship blasted off back to the HAU.

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	John's ship slowly advanced toward the HAU cruiser. A large hangar door opened up on the bottom of the ship. He slowly guided his ship up through the docking bay, and dropped the ship down onto the ground. Oddly, the entire hangar was totally empty. He pulled out his grappling gun, which was quickly becoming his best friend. He hopped out of the ship and looked around. Perfectly normal. Besides the fact that it was empty, there was nothing abnormal about the status of the ship. 

	He walked toward the escape pod hallway and quickly found the answer to his question. The entire hallway was empty. John spun around and sprinted off toward the bridge. 

	When he reached it, the door was locked. "What the frell?" he swore. The took the butt of his rocket launcher and smashed it against the door. It fell down. Several Hydrakians and two Barbarians were inside. He held the rocket launcher and dropped a shell into the reload chamber. Spinning his grappling gun by trigger hold around on his finger, he quickly decided to hold some impromteau negotiations. 

	"What are you doing here?" he said in the native Hydrakian tongue. 

	"We have taken the ship from the HAU infidels." replied the Hydrakian commander. 

	"Infidels, you say?" John questioned, readying his gun. 

	"You fire, they die." replied the Hydrakian, pointing to a group of HAU soldiers in a corner. 

	"Let them go." John demanded.

	The Hydrakian laughed, a harsh schreeching noise that sounded like the fingers of a Barbarian being scraped across metal. "I think not." he replied scathingly.

	John didn't find out who shot first. Nevertheless, the Hydrakian slumped to the ground. The Barbarian raised his sword and activated the blades. 

	"Good luck." said John. He look the grappling gun and fired it toward the Barbarian, pinning it to the wall by the neck. It screeched.

	"Move and you die." he said, not bothering to use the Hydrakian tongue. The Barbarian got the message, shutting off the blades and dropping the weapon on the ground. Suddenly, the beast ripped the grappling gun off its neck, bending it in half. It picked the sword off the ground and jumped through the window, slicing a hole in it with the blade. Ray shields slammed down, covering the hole. John looked around. The Hydrakians were lying on the ground. "So, they'd rather die than surrender..." muttered John. "Interesting..."

	He walked over to the hostages, closing off the laser ropes that were holding them against the wall. A Zech'tal, and two humans got up, a muscular looking man and a red-headed female. 

	"Let's get out of here...quick." said the man.

	"There may still be an escape pod in the hold..." the woman added.

	"Yes, there is, I saw one while I was coming up.

	"Let's go."

	They arrived, several minutes later, in the corridor housing the escape pods. Then, a ear-shattering explosion rocked the ship. 

	"Black Sun's mined it!" yelled the man. "Get in the escape pod!"

	The four escapees rushed to the pod. They were running past the main food center when a blast exploded from inside. They dived to the floor as millions of shards came flying out, impaling themselves into walls and shattering off the floors.

	"GET TO THE SHIP!" yelled John. They sprinted to the next hallway labeled "Escape Pods". "Yes..." grinned Anderson. "We're out of here!"

	The small pod started to push itself out of its chamber while the ceiling collapsed around it. John gunned the engine and the ship roared out of the chamber, a firey burst following. 

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	The escape pod slowly dropped onto the landing pad in a huge forest. John and his comrades kicked down the door and rushed out, gasping for breath. The trip had been a long one, and the air was quickly running out.

	John looked around. Trees... trees.... he whipped to the right. More trees... He kicked a rock in frustration. 

	"What do we do now?" questioned the woman.

	"Push ahead."

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