"The situation is not good Cpt. Brice," the R.C Longfox captain inhales long on a cigarette, clicking his tongue between each word as he spells out the nature of their predicament, "according to our scanners these beings are advancing rapidly. One...maybe..one and a half sectors per hour. I've already plotted a course of escape and am awaiting orders but..well..we haven't received anything, bar garbled messages and the odd distress call." The commander rubs his head.

Brice sits in dressing gown contemplating the whole absurdity of the situation.

"Cpt. Potter..I have just come from the front, all are dead. Any left are now fleeing. Do you honestly think that you are going to receive orders from them?" He always keeps a measured cool upon his temper but the guard was bad enough, the captain has become positively intolerable, "Captain you are going to have to put your evading procedures into action. As I see it, you have no choice. You cannot sit around here on your fat backside, waiting for those things to come and kill us all."

He is at first open mouthed. No one has ever talked to him like that- a fellow officer to boot. What adds a sackful of salt to the wound is that this is his ship. He calmly boils into a rage. Potter snaps the intercom on in one quick, cut movement, "guard!'

From behind Cpt. Brice the same gentleman that escorted him there, enters Potter's private quarters.

"Cpt. Brice wishes to return to his ward..now," Potter seethes as he observes Brice rising from his chair in calm, dignified, contempt.

Before leaving he regards the commander with an air like a Cambridge graduate looking down upon an uneducated builder, "captain...this contravenes U.F rule 603, section 8. If not for the.....respect for a fellow officer, then think of the patients aboard this vessel, your crew, for the sake of common sense!"

Potter bottles it in, Brice may not be a gentleman but the commander regards himself as such, "await orders captain and '..not until life is threatened.' United Forces 602, section 5."
*
The United Forces mother ship's engines sear through the vacuum of space, tearing at the nerves of its engineers, overloading computers, straining at the very structure. Fleeing the advancing hordes of alien life. Illuminated by energy and life absorbed, the Xenophites swarm after the mother ship like a collective mass of hornets.

Within his huge office, Dolcezza keeps reports fed to him on screens clotted around the space. His high command speak simultaneously at him. Sometimes in groups of three or four. They worry. And so they should, a considerable amount of the United Forces fleet has been wiped clean from existence. Holodern IV is bereft of life. Dolcezza muses to himself, 'I will not go down as the greatest commander who ended a civil war, instead..I will bring about the destruction of the human race.'

A thousand voices utter in confusion all around him through intercoms with commanders perched over them. Like a multi-layered wall of sound, data flashes and skims before his panoramic gaze around the walls of the hall.

The mother ship that he will soon not command but (as Dolcezza well knows) will join the rest, sweeps past another uninhabitable planet. Still pursued by the Xenophites, it turns in a long arc to avoid direct collision with a moon. The swarm of aliens follow course. As it turns the U.F craft approaches the R.C Longfox. Dolcezza notices the small craft, "what the hell is that R.C doing in this area?"

A small voice from the communications room blips out over speaker next to him, "they claim that they have no orders to evacuate sir."

"WHAT?!"

"The communication channels may have been down sir. The channels are-"

"I know the channels are down officer," Dolcezza doesn't bother to hold in his exasperation, "didn't they receive any of the first casualties?"

"Er.." in the background the communications officer can be heard talking to Cpt. Potter, via some other mike, "that's affirmative sir. They request further orders..sir."

Before the Field Marshall can completely lose his temper and order for the last act of the U.F mothership Orion to blast the R.C Longfox to pieces, one of his senior staff draws him to one side, the news isn't unexpected though it has come a little sooner than he had planned. The aliens have suddenly decided to stop playing slowly, slowly, catch the monkey and are now closing distance, fast. Estimated time of them boarding ship: three minutes thirty-eight seconds. His chief of staff leaves him for a moment already knowing what Dolcezza will have to do.

"Communications officer..." he curses himself for not knowing the man's name, "order the Longfox to take a course of 270-98 N.W..maximum speed. And.."

The commander pauses as he watches the time tick away. All the chief of staff are all beside him now and there is a clinging hush which has suddenly broke through into the hall and is infesting the Orion, "warn the captain of the Longfox to be aware of a space disturbance that will radically change their course."

"Sir," the voice of the communications officer is cut short. Every channel is now turned down to a minimum from his desk as all eyes follow the Field Marshall. His senior staff follow like condemned men and women.

He sits down at his desk weary. Turning his back on all the eyes that have watched him he looks deep into the void of space, the threat following. Pressing a signature code into his antique plastic phone he opens all the channels to every conceivable area of the Orion occupied by human beings. His chief of staff form a cordon around him, they prepare to give their hand prints to the unlocking sequence.

"This is Field Marshall Dolcezza speaking. Due to the enclosing alien life forms, our own inability to stabilize the current situation and jeopardy to life in this sector, in further sectors, I am forced to follow Code 7. Countdown is initiated to zero from two minutes upon this mark," the commander places the handset down. His chief of staff wait for him but Dolcezza sits mute, feeling the entire grief of the ship.

"It is time sir," Colonel Higgs seems impatient for death.

"Auto-destruct is set by this handset ladies and gentlemen. This phone is the only thing which has a direct link with every computer system in the Orion," the Field Marshall could almost laugh as he notes on every one of their faces a look of indignant horror, that he should have that ultimate power all along.
*
The swarm closes on the Orion's engines. Drawing nearer and nearer, the force-field not a problem to the Xenophites, the alien life forms speed like an attacking dog, hungry for a quick kill.

An explosion tears them into the heart of nothingness as it begins to erupt. At first the beings attempt to collectively absorb the sudden release of energy. Yet the outer explosions that happen in the aft within a millisecond are merely the prelude. True devastation follows as it closes the eyes of thousands of U.F crew. All humans pass through the last remembrances of being; holding onto a partner or going to death in the knowledge that everything can be attained in a moment such as the last flash, internally whiteness succeeds and then diverts into a myriad of every colour imaginable, changing rapidly, exuding outward.

The Xenophites over fill. No longer under control of their intake, subject to the physics of mass exploding. The array of energy overcharging their forms as a huge wave progresses and black sparks sweep. The Orion's hull finally breaks within that slowed down moment, like a jug dropped on the floor; material splintering and taking the forms of alien life with it as the mothership self-destructs.
*
The R.C Longfox speeds at its top capacity. But the shock waves from the Orion wield through space. Within seconds they will wash over the Longfox. Aboard Cpt. Potter hopes the force-field will be enough.

The shock wave hits. The Longfox rocks awkwardly. Pieces of its outer hull break off. Holes open up and suck patients with crew out into nothing. Force-field computers overload. Emergency back up systems come on line. Then go off line. Its engines attempt to compensate for the rolling motion.

Anti-grav' activates over the ship as every being is floated from pillar to post. Holes have been temporarily sealed but half of the R.C Longfox occupants now drift in space. The ship turns in space like some turbine, broken free from its supports, continuing to grind.
*
Quickening beyond any U.F gunship's speed, the R.C Longfox is pulled with tremendous force through the void. Some of the occupants have found survival cones. A tiny appearing spot, millions of kilometres away, drags the stricken vessel toward it.
*
The R.C Longfox disappears into the wormhole. Surviving passengers of the vessel, in cones, disappear into the opening in space.