And finally at last the Scifi Story
and also without a title

As he shot the four men rounding the corner ahead of him, Kyle Parish reflected that he never ceased to be amazed at how slow normal humans truly were. The four now falling to the ground had not even begun to raise their primitive projectile weapons by the time Parish was lowering his blaster. Not that he could actually be harmed by those weapons, but better to not give them the opportunity.
Climbing a pile of rubble higher than those around it, the cyborg scanned the continuing battle in the distance with his telescopic sights. The situation was as he'd expected. The sheer numerical superiority of the Modates was overwhelming; it seemed that for each one that fell to the mercenaries fire, two sprang up to take his place. Even with an enormous technological advantage, Parish didn't think that that the General would have a victory this day.
Parish decided to make a run for it, or, in military terms, a "strategic withdrawal." It would be another hour at least before the General admitted defeat, and Parish had no desire to spend that time waiting around for one of the enemy to get a lucky shot with a rock or something. The General insisted that all of his mercenaries arrive in his own troop transports to prevent just the sort of desertion that Parish was planning, but the cyborg had secured his ship at a nearby location days before the attack.
Switching from telescopic to infrared vision, Parish climbed down off of the rubble and began to carefully make his way towards the eastern border of the city. After several quiet blocks, a large blob of moving red dots jumped into his vision. There were a lot of people ahead, and by the sound of blaster fire now reaching his ears, the were in heavy combat. Crossing the street before his and peering around a corner brought them into sight.
A small group of mercenaries was taking heavy fire from an entire platoon of Modates. As he watched, one of the Modates threw some sort of explosive device and two mercs were thrown into a wall to lie crumpled at its base. The mercs' defensive position would soon fall and they would be overrun. Parish was considering simply leaving them to their fate when he recognized one of the men near the front of the group: Delain, probably the one man Parish could truly call a friend.
Parish made his decision quickly He advanced along a wall towards the barrier they were using as cover, a mini grenade launcher and a pulse rifle emerging from subdermal compartments in his arms. He launched several plasma grenades into the midst of the attackers and picked off several more with the laser. The Modates returned his fire, hitting him several times to no effect, but fell back slightly.
Though the mercs did not turn, they shouted their thanks to him and Parish could tell by the change in their heart rates that they were relieved. That relief would be short lived, however, because suddenly Parish detected a large contingent of Modates closing in on them from the direction he had just come. buck545

The Modates were not his equal and he could take down 20 with the flick of a wrist, but their numbers were growing and he had the feeling of a lone insect about to be overtaken by a swarm of ants. He warned the men before him, and started toward his craft just as one of the men called out his name behind him. It was Delain's glaring face in pain that cut through the smoke which billowed between them. He had the look of desperation. Parish ran toward him knowing he only had seconds to spare before the Modates would be upon them. He bent forward picking up Delain placing him across his shoulders, careful not to touch his bleeding calf.
Only several blocks to go and he would be gone from this place, but only for a short while because he had to get back what rightfully belong to him. "This isn't the time to think about this!" he thoguht to himself.
The contingent was closing in around the bend and he had to shear off this plague that now spread across his city. This city that gave him a second chance at life, even if it was as a hybrid of flesh and metal perfectly crafted and whose only purpose was to evoke fear into the minds of the enemy by his display of pure military power.
With a simple thought, and each subsequent step set forth, a mine sensor was planted into the ground. He exhausted his supply in ten steps that spanned twenty-five feet. Looking back he heard the mines whirring and burrowing their way into the ground. The contingent now picked up the pace closing the gap between them. A smirk grew upon his ashen face as images of surprised soldiers caught up in the explosions that sounded behind him. Their cries sang out to the beat of each note ripping flesh and splintering bone. This had bought him the time that was needed to make his escape.
Sprinting onward, he rounded the first corner and dodged around those wounded and dead form the recent air attacks by vicious warships.They would hover unnoticed, silent and out of radars way until it was time to unleash their Clustoid Bombs. These bombs were made up of over 100,000 tiny sectoids no bigger then an eight year old's thumb. These pests were found on a recent expedition by scientist into the Kronos Galaxy. When brought to this planet, the abundance of oxygen within the atmosphere was too much to handle and it caused a frenzy amongst them. Seeking shelter they burrowed into the scientists chest looking to steal the properly portioned oxygen. This was a natural reaction on their home planet and never killed the infested host. Within seconds the scientist lay dead from internal bleeding caused by the burrowing creatures inside the unknown structure of their bodies. The lost sectoid would more often then not eat it's way through the heart muscle drowning itself in blood. Cardiac infarction usually the end result and death of the victim in cases like this. The easiest way to destroy these creatures, is to cremate the body they live in.
Parish passed these helpless victims and thanked his creator, not God, but the one scientist even though considered mad, for giving him iron lungs to breath with. 'Must be a horrible way to die.' he thought. His ship awaits.dizbuster7@yahoo.com
On the third and most remote moon of the warring planet, a small converted freigther slowly bobbed in orbit hidden amongst asteroids. By the light of the stars and the nebula's, the ragged and crater-scarred moon offered a lonely view for the two men in the ship which on it's own was a sour sight for eyes aswell. On first sight it had the looks of a small and floating garbagedump, though it was only for the experts eyes to see that this was a very good fake. This ship might have lot's more in store then one might think.
Inside the craft, the owner was listening to a broadcast through the comm-system of the hightech interior. The voice was wellknown to him. He had heard it under a lot of circumstances, though never under this particular one.
"As we speak, our troops are withdrawing to our troop transports as I acknowledge our defeat... For now we shall consider your former proposed peace treaty and will pretend that nothing ever happ -" the General showed distortion and his voice garbled when Parish switched of the comm-system.
He turned his head to where Delain was lying in the cryo-chamber. For the wounds that had gotten Delain in a Coma, were not able to be healed with the medical equipment onboard. Suspending Delains state of being was probably the best option Parish had. But what to do next?
He did have the freedom he'd always wanted, though he never had planned it to take this course. Now he held the live of his best friend in his hands and he felt responsible in a way. It seemed like the only possible next step was to find a doctor. But not just any doctor. They were obliged to enter all information about there patients treatment into the medical network database, which was linked up to the database of the RKoP (Republic Keepers of Peace).
Parish sat down and browsed through the virtual menu displayed on the neural net of his eyes.
"Accessing integrated chip" flashed up in bright red as he choose to connect to the built in database which was a copy of the republic library on the planet Kronos.
"Shutting down all biological sensors and input devices."
Parish' sight went numb leaving him alone with the virtual menu and his uplink to the database.
"Please choose topic."
He browsed through the option and selected "information on planets". Next he gave a search input: "Find all planets, hostile to the Kronos Republic and sort them on distance from the planet Kronos."
"Processing request...1...2...3...Ready."
"Give me the top ten planets most remote from the planet Kronos with the following requirements: Advanced civilization with medical knowledge of humanoids; Breathable atmosphere for humanoids."
"Processing request...1...2...3...4...5...Ready."
"Only three entries comply with your requirements."
"On hold; activate biological sensors and input devices."
"Processing request...1...2...Ready" Parish could feel his nerves coming back to live as his fingers tingled and his sight returned. He got up, a little insecure due to the just activated nerves and walked to the panel of the flight-system. He opened a small hatch and placed his hand in the handshaped mold that was visible now.
"Off hold."
"Shutting down all biological sensors and input devices."
"Enter coordinates of first entry on the requested search list into the flight-system."
"Processing request...1...2...Ready."
"Flight-coordinates set."
"Proceed to flight in time warp to targeted destination after I have entered the cryo-chamber. Wakeup procedure of cryo-chambers at arrival."
"Processing request...1...2...3...Ready."
"Log off; activate biological sensors and input devices."
"Processing request...1...2...Ready."
After Parish' sight was back he looked a moment at the stars, wondering what the future might have in store for him and then glanced at Delain, lying peacefully in his cryo-chamber, wondering the same about him. He took one extra moment to be sentimental a bit longer and then stepped into his cryo-chamber. He lay down, pulled down the glass cover and shut his eyes.
As the ship warped time it would be at there destination in relatively an hour or so, while for the observers in the cryo-chambers it would seem a lifetime had they been awake.
As a sun rose over the horizon of a grey and remote dessert-planet, it's lightbeams struck a lone in orbit drifting converted freighter. While it engulfed the ship with light the men within were slowly awoken from there cryo-sleep. It was a new dawning on a new planet.Emagica (Emanuel Bouman)

Tiersa Silcox blinked twice, ensuring herself she was not hallucinating. The blurb on the radar suggested a vessel had appeared without warning and was now orbiting the planet. She tapped the mic on her shoulder, "Commander, this is going to sound strange, but a ship is orbiting Kalmen, and I honestly don't know where it came from."
Kalmen's relatively primitive technology failed to wipe the static from the closest communication stations, making it difficult to hear either end of the line. "How did it get into orbit without anyone seeing it approach?"
She shrugged, realized he couldn't see her from the war room next door, and responded, "I'm telling you, it just came out of nowhere."
Another voice, from a patrol circling the planet, interrupted, "It seems to have emerged from a tear in the fabric of space."
Impatience best described the commander's voice as he barked, "This is unacceptable! If that ship turns out to be an enemy craft I will see to it you are all put on ground duty for the rest of your natural born lives!"
"Sir," Tiersa suddenly realized this was her chance to move out of the bunkers and perhaps get on a fighter squadron, "I'll assemble a search party to explore the situation."
"You do that, make sure you have swarmers nearby in case the ship is hostile."
Gathering her bunkmate El-Khadja and her brother Ghoorman, Tiersa fired up The Dust, a training ship used for cadets and search parties, and headed for space. As the ship hovered over the surface, she saw the pitiful ground troops, committed by poverty to guard the violent parameters of the base while sand and other harsh elements swirled about at deadly speeds. Beyond the mountains she could hear the cries of the Kalimu, a tribe of Sabiens that splintered from the main cluster thousands of years ago and failed to advance technologically. According to ground troops who had earned positions inside the base, the Kalimu were said to be cannibals, and had eaten hundreds of Sabien troops since the Sabien had invented the wheel and progressed from that point.
As The Dust left the planet's surface atmosphere, Tiersa's thoughts were moved to space, and how peaceful it was when Kalmen was not under attack. Fire bursts danced around the rings of Kalmen's lone sun, bursting renegade asteroids into thousands of pieces that would eventually dissipate upon entering Kalmen's orbit. To her right, one of Kalmen's three moons, the red goddess Shinx, appeared to be undergoing yet another gravital shift as all her glorious volcanoes seemed to be flowering molten all over the moon's lethal surface.
The foreign ship came into view as another moon, the green god Prodigo, revolved into view. El-Khadja voiced the common opinion, "That is the ugliest ship I've ever seen."
"Ugly or not, we gotta check it out." Establishing a tractor beam link-up, Tiersa and Ghoorman began suiting up to make the journey through space to the aesthetically upsetting vessel. "Besides," she said, just before muffling her voice inside her helmet, "Kalmen's not exactly a maker of beautiful machinery."
"That's out of necessity." El-Khadja helped them secure their helmets and oxygen tanks and then disappeared back into the cockpit as the hatch was opened as the lethal gases of space filled the out hull.
Over the intercom, Tiersa's voice commanded, "Reverse the flow of the beam, Khadja. In doing so, Tiersa and her brother were lightly thrust towards the foreign craft. Magnetic clamps on the limbs of their space suits finished the beam's job by pulling to the ship's hull. Like lizards on a rock, they moved awkwardly in search of a hatch.
The reanimation process complete, Kyle immediately sat down to figure out where in creation they had been taken to. As he punched keys on the computer he realized he was picking up heat signals that conflicted with the majority of elements outside the ship. When he looked ahead, he saw The Dust, hovering directly in front of him, no doubt anchored by a tractor beam. "If that's not the ugliest ship I have ever seen," he said, and then realized his craft's sensors were picking up signals on the hull. "I don't think so." A standard semi-automatic laser pistol emerged from his wrist.
He went to the lower level of the ship and stood by the hatch, ready to shoot whoever, or whatever, was trying to get inside.cosmicmack@yahoo.com
The hatch door blew apart in a sudden explosion, and Kyle felt himself pulled towards the empty space as it sucked the air from the ship. Reacting with a speed that seemed incredible, even for a cyborg, he grabbed a handle on the wall to keep from being sucked out. He was glad he was a cyborg, and could remain fully functional in a vacuum environment.
He knew the humanoids couldn't enter until most of the air had been sucked out of the ship, which gave him another 5.79234 seconds, by his calculations. Not a lot of time for a human, but for a cyborg, an eternity.
A small, quadruple jointed probe emerged from his stomach, and searched for a nearby computer outlet. Pivoting and spinning with precise but quick movements, it plugged in to the nearest entry port and began to uplink with the ship's computer. He then sent a simple command, causing the ship to execute an emergency navigation subroutine he had programmed in for just such an event.
With an unexpected his, the ship jolted and began to tumble into a precisely calculated, high speed roll. With a second, the ship was spinning at three G's. Another second went by, and the ship was up to 5 G's.
Kyle looked at the screen, and saw that one of the humanoids had been vaulted from the ship, as expected. Surprisingly, the other, a female, was still there. Had the other one connected herself to the ship somehow?
The ship jolted and began to spin even faster, changing directions as it did, but still the female remained attached. And there was something else.
Despite the fact that the ship was now spinning at nearly 10 G's, she was moving closer towards the hatch, which was no longer gushing air from the ship.
She was clearly not a true humanoid, though she did look like one. Was she another cyborg. If not, what type of creature was she??cboss92@yahoo.com 1