"AWAITING INITIATION. UNITED FORCES BATTLE CRUISER APPROACHING ON STANDARD DEFENSE SWEEP PATTERN. NO MOVEMENT FROM TWO CRUISERS. RADAR'S ABOARD ALL VESSELS ACTIVATED AND COVERING SURROUNDING AREA- 200 KILOMETRES. COMMUNICATIONS WITH STATION OPEN. SONTAG RADAR SWEEP COVERING 200,000 SECTORS MEDIUM SWEEP. VESSEL UNDETECTED."
*

Within Sontag, technicians and staff go about duties normally. In the main hub, stacked up several levels, U.F personnel observe and monitor screens set into A main frame of a console reaching up fifty metres. Small aisles branch off core like a circular library, four floors of terminals interlinked around it. On every level, doorways swish open, letting staff in and out as they take over shifts from colleagues or double check fellow officers work.

On the radar section three people observe the steady sweep of empty space but for a stationary cruiser and other moving ships made recognizable on screen with a U.F symbol.

"So what do we do about Jeff?" A woman turns to her associate for a moment, then back to the screen, pressing VIEW-SCAN, the depth of field extends.

"I dunno. Perhaps we should try talking to him," Bradshaw sits next to her covering the same visual data.

"Christ I've tried that!"

"Well..so what?" The third senior operator interjects, despondent.

"Come off it!" The woman shows her impassioned feelings on the matter of the lagging, womanizing Jeff.
*
Walker sits down in the main bridge chair watching Sontag, blissfully unaware of them. Finding the rigors of training exhaustive over the last year, yet his body is fully primed for it all, like the rest of the men- in mind as well as body. Walker notices seemingly increased ability to store and recall information to superman qualities, physically as well. The same marked difference within the others.

"Computer initiate deactivation sequence."
*

Something happens on Bradshaw's screen, bored by the so-called 'danger' that Sontag was meant to bring to his career. He sighs deeply, depressed a little by the monotony of his post.

His screen flickers once again but returns to the images that were present before, emptiness. Never allowing himself to swear in front of his younger, attractive, colleague, he feels a tint of concern as his screen flickers a third time. "I don't believe this. Another fused visual circuit," Bradshaw reassures himself aloud, the flickering growing more constant like a failing T.V set, "Bridget..get the tech's down here. It's another fused..."

Bridget is clicking and switching lines quickly, with urgent alarm, her console malfunction lights bleeping. He stops giving the order. He moves around in his chair as an unsettled murmur spreads throughout the entire central core, difficulty reigning everywhere.
*
Technicians rip off detachable panels on the outer segment of the station. Thick, reinforced glass panels lie underneath with coded key that only tech's have access to lock into place. The red planet's colour ebbs on their faces from Sontag outer windows. They frantically go through system checks, electronic scanners run over multitude of carbon cables, searching for anomalies.

Out in the void, the U.F cruisers are taking messages from Sontag. They go to standard alert.
*
"SONTAG COMMUNICATIONS TO U.F CRUISERS."

"Intercept messages," Walker orders in the darkened bridge.

Wheeler turns to him, "all cruisers already on standard alert. Scarpia and Cavalier forming a sweep pattern, radar's extending. Weapons engaged on all three. Correggio pulling to cover station."

"Prepare to fire disabling projectiles." Walker raises his right hand, to time himself rather than the computer, "fire."
*
A senior tech' bawls into his radio, as an alarm rings through entire station. He looks out into space seeing Cavalier joining Correggio. They move slowly past each other.

In an instant, from the corner of his eyes he sees a disruptive pattern form throughout a line in the black void- a very short space of time, a strangely beautiful trail.

The concern doesn't hold with the tech' anymore. He is transfixed. He breaks off communication. Correggio bursts into a bright blue wave of tiny explosions as the trail vanishes. The explosions dance and spit over the ship's surface like cold water meeting hot fat.

His voice would like to speak into the radio and alert central CONTROL but they have probably seen it and he merely holds the mike to his mouth.

Again, the same spectacular display happens before his very eyes. This time on the Cavalier. The first victim ship hangs dead, as the other is knocked down, they drift apart, useless. Only hope left for Scarpia to defend them.
*
"SCARPIA NOW DISABLED. LIFE SUPPORT STILL FUNCTIONAL ON ALL THREE VESSELS."

"Computer, fire disabling wave into Sontag. Current status on data bugs?"

Behind them, in the deep bowels of the ship, the familiar thump of weaponry fires.

"CURRENT STATUS: 53% COMPUTER DAMAGE AND INCREASING. SONTAG NOW INOPERATIVE AS A WARNING POST TO MAIN HUB OF U.F DATA CORE ON EARTH. 8 MINS 23 SECS LEFT TO SONTAG' S
QUARTERLY HOUR AUTO CODED CHECK MESSAGE TO BE TRANSMITTED."

On the main screen of the vessel, Walker and the others watch as Sontag explodes all over in blue flashes, pin-point accuracy which dig into surface, breaking down main supply lines so that emergency power has to be brought into effect.
The bridge fills with a cheer from vessel's crew. Cutter waits for the noise to stop, then, "draw vessel into docking phase. Cloaking device upheld."
*
The hatchway stands before Walker and the rest of his men as a thin, insubstantial barrier between them and their first objective. Private Irons disrupts locking device.

On vessel's bridge, Reed and Wheeler direct light warheads onto south side of the space station. A distraction for U.F personnel.

Dobrovowski and Lee cover Irons with staser cannons 'borrowed' from an enemy light air ammunitions carrier. The carrier hadn't known that Walker and Reed had even been there, until forty hours or so into unloading the mass of equipment at its destination.

"Got the bastard!" Irons announces triumphantly as the lock explodes in a small push of fire, then fizzles out.

The hiss of air lock blows out noise and stale, space station air toward them. Darkness falls deep, timed by flashing red alarm lights. Walker and the others venture in, eyes adjusting quick. Dobrovowski and Lee prepare to fire at the first thing that moves as a scene of chaos opens up.

The two leading men fire on a few tech's as the group move around the curve of Sontag' s structure. They fall to ground unconscious. The group move on toward main sector of station.
*
All pandemonium controls the staff. Bradshaw cannot get anything from his console. Feeling hopeless he thinks of his wife and grown up children. One of his kids in the U.F navy, 'is he undergoing this type of attack from rebel forces?' the concerned father tries to put the thought from his mind but he cannot help think that this attack on Sontag is too precise and fast for the usual rebel enemies of the United Forces.

He unlocks a draw underneath console, removing small Magnum staser. Bridget is more nervous than he is. She follows his actions, knowing this could be it, Allies notorious for their carnage in attacks.
*
Ball scans ahead. The rest of the team follow with speed. Walker, Dobrovowski, Chee, Lee covering. All their stasers set to heavy stun. All technicians encountered unarmed, surprise element taken full advantage of.

"Okay. Nearly there," Ball says, their radios cracking and beeping.

He looks down at floor and then checks large number on wall, recalling sector of Sontag he has memorized, the secondary air supply shafts, "it should be just here." Placing his hands upon a small square of metal he feels the edges with his fingers. "Alright! Alright!" He quietly exclaims. From a tool pack he produces an instrument that looks like a small frying pan. It sucks onto metal as he applies pressure. A low throbbing sound beats underneath black object. "Right that should be it."

Irons clutches large staser cannon watching end of corridor, "how do you know it's there?"

"Trust me ye of little faith. I know Sontag's layout better than they do," Ball releases drill from metal.

A perfect hole has been formed, showing two large pipes side by side. He replaces large drill for smaller one. Behind Irons, Walker and Ball staser fire erupts.

"Cover, " Walker points to the left, ordering Irons to stay with Ball.

He slowly moves toward noises sloping along floor horizontally. Tight against wall he uses intercom to tell rest of team to mask up.

From where he came an eruption of staser blasts joins the sound from where Dobrovowski, Lee and Chee head. He loads a smart pod into his weapon, gripping mask on, Ball continuing work despite Irons letting off rounds galore near his earhole. They are all wearing protective masks. He replaces drill. Takes out cylinder containing nerve gas that Lee concocted.

"IRONS DOWN!!" Walker cries into com' within his mask.

He fires smart pod over Irons head as the soldier ceases firing and crouches. Ball connects cylinder. A bright red explosive skims along ceiling, leaving charred mark on metal surfaces zooming out of sight.

A U.F security guard stumbles along corridor to behind Walker, clutching rail for support. He has no weapon and seems oblivious to the intruders. Blood runs rich from his guts, a cut sliced in lower abdomen area. He clutches it mumbling, "bollocks, bollocks, bollocks to it."

Around distant corner a large pulse of energy knocks wind toward Ball, Irons and Walker, security man shunted off feet. The firing of stasers (where Cutter aimed smart pod) ceases.

Ball turns to Walker giving a thumbs up sign as he unleashes gas from cylinder. Irons watches left of corridor for any sign.
Walker crosses over to where wounded guard lies, U.F man struggling to get up. He looks up at Walker's face, desperation and confusion toward the gas-masked figure. The wound is a deep, more deeper than Cutter had realized.

'Could he be saved?' Walker contemplates, 'it doesn't figure in our plans though. Yet...it is a crime to let him die slowly.'

A tiny yellow light illuminates inside his mask, above right eye. The nerve gas has already begun to filter into Sontag breathing space.

The U.F security man cannot even get up as the gas enters his body's chemistry. It is almost as though he has contracted some alien disease. He mumbles something in delirium. Words, a woman's name. 'Maybe his wife?' Cutter muses, 'his mistress?' Blood has begun to seep over ex-U. F private's boots who watches wounded man take a great draw of breath.

"Shoot the poor bastard he's had it," Ball approaches.

"There could be some way to save him, if only we had time to do so," he answers realizing that time is pressing urgently on.

"You've already wasted enough time considering that option," Ball strikes a chord of coldness which is true and a state that Alan finds himself in constantly now, after the Univarians.

"It would be the proper thing to do," Cutter sets his staser to full and aims.

The wounded man's body jolts momentarily in a horrific twist. His eyes stare open, mouth agape.
*
Laughter fills everywhere. Sontag station staff fall about in great guffaws and waves of mirth, the emergency stricken place a scene of surreal chaos. United Forces security, station staff, try to counter the intruders but they all double up as if being kicked in the guts, tears rolling down their faces.

They enter the core of Sontag. In the centre a large pillar set with various computer terminals greets Cutter and the others. Personnel claw about their feet in a vain attempt to stop them. All of them walk over the harmless rabble.

"I thought you said this gas of yours would knock them out?" Walker hisses at Lee as a woman grabs his boot, trying to climb her way up, giggling in a high pitch, "look at them."

"Well...it's disabled them hasn't it?" Lee protests.

Walker shoves the woman hard away from him. She shoots down grid work aisle laughing her head off. In the meantime Ball and Dobrovowski go to their designated points on the lower levels of the main section, scooting down steps.

Lee moves quickly to main core. He throws a person crumpled on a seat before a monitor into the surrounding mayhem. Walker contacts Reed, requesting Wheeler be sent for the search for those on Sontag who have manual keys to unlock main transmitter. The vessel's main computer has laid in id's of senior tech', senior terminal op' and senior security officer, who hold the valuable passkeys. It searches for them. Cutter knows that through standard procedure though, the three U.F in question may have already ditched keys to others or worse. Even a computer like the vessel's cannot help them if that scenario arises.
*
Wheeler brings his robot arm crashing through thin steel. Ripping a hole, stripping back metal, then casting it away revealing a tiny computer console, rising before him. Underneath it three key locks open out, ready to receive.

Walker inserts keys into their respective locks.

The Sub-man holds two with his considerable lengthy arms whilst Cutter grasps one timing "okay Rich'..on my mark...go."

The computer kicks into life.

Walker contacts vessel, preparing for their far more advanced computer to enter U.F Sontag system. Wheeler connects override equipment to comp'.

"Time computer?" Walker requests back to his ship.

"3 MINS 17 SEC'S."

'The Allied Peace Contingent will be pleased with us,' thinks Walker as he punches in a code that one of the Allied spy's obtained. It is a wry, sarcastic thought and he checks himself for it, stopping his mind slipping 'it has been easy. Now it's the computer's turn.' "Okay computer..implement virus program."

"CONFIRMED."
*
Sontag is silent. U.F personnel lie unconscious. None of them have any idea. None of them know that a virus has entered the entire United Forces system, across light years of space, on Earth and every planet, every post, through the 'back door' that existed on the outer rim space station. Sabotage on a grand scale.

A gentlemen of forty plus struggles over a hunched woman to the right of Cutter. The rest of his team have gone and he has followed up rear, alone in Sontag's main core.

Walker turns back to him as Bradshaw tries to unsheathe staser. The console operative sets it to kill. The unaffected man stands above the struggling U.F officer as a shot whistles off harmlessly to heavens.

He tries to fire once more but drops the gun, exhausted.

Walker turns the man over with his boot. He notices that it is the senior tech' who possessed one of the keys. 'His heart must under tremendous strain,' he aims his staser at him.

Bradshaw looks directly into its barrel, defiantly.

"Go ahead you...bast-ard...yo...have..not...guts...to..take off y'..mask..."

Walker unleashes a stun setting into the tech'. His body jerks a little and then rests.