Zan stepped out of the lift and onto the bridge, allowing the doors to close.

Mark was leaning against the wall, arms folded over his chest, brow creased with worry. Before he could say anything, Moriah spoke up.

"Yes, i'm sure, Mark. It's considerably larger than we are." She paused a brief moment, then continued. "It has come to a full stop at the edge of the solar system."

Zan raised an eyebrow, and glanced over at Mark. "I'm assuming she's talking about this thing you two picked up on the sensors?"

Mark nodded, and pushed away from the wall. Passing Zan, he walked up to the consoles beneath the viewscreen and began punching buttons. "It's not in actual visual range yet, but we are able to get an acurate representation of it through our sensor readings."

The viewscreen altered, filling with shimmering streaks of static grey. It abruptly focused on a red ship, emitting waves of color, as though one were looking into a puddle of oil in a parking lot. The outlines were a bit hazey, but getting sharper with each passing moment.

"This is one of the scan's Moriah can do," Mark explained, "It looks for anomalies in a specific area of space; in this case, the energy that this ship is giving off is what's registering, which tells the computer how big it is, and the general shape."

Zan came up behind him. "Now i know what you've been doing in Engineering," she said quietly.

"Zan, Mark," the computer said quietly, "This ship is huge."

The two glanced at each other. "How huge?" Mark asked.

Moriah superimposed an image of the Black Fire over the outline of the other ship. The image covered less than 1/4 of the unidentified ship.

Mark turned to Zan. "They're moving extremely fast, but if they've noticed us, they're not showing it," he reported.

"They just spotted us," Moriah said sharply, "Headed this way."

"Great," Zan muttered. She leaned her elbows on the console in front of her and stared up at the viewscreen. It denied any danger. "Can we see them yet?" She asked.

They're coming up on our right, and yes, we have visual." The screen changed, displaying the ship, which was growing with each passing moment.

"Do we know if they're hostile?" Zan asked urgently.

"We're coming up on a solor system, two habitable planets, one point five three minutes to arrival," Moriah said, not answering her question. "The fourth planet from the sun has a metallic core that might help us hide from their sensors, At least, it would hide us from our scanners," she added.

"So," Mark broke in, looking at the oncoming ship," If they are hostile we can hide there and they'd have to search for us bye eye, which might slow them down enough for us to think up a plan. Is the planet inhabited?" he asked, "Because if it is, and we get manuevered into some kind of battle with this thing..." he trailed off, leaving the sentance unfinished.

Zan nodded, frowning at the ship. "Is that going to get here before we reach the planet?" She asked sharply.

"Yes," Moriah replied, "The ship is going to intercept us, and the planet does have one inhabited continent." Moriah paused. "Zan, the ship has manuevered into a position directly in front of us. It's sitting between us and the planet."

"This is getting interesting," Mark said tensly. He leaned forward to examine the navigations readouts. Zan stood, resting her hands on the back of his chair so she could look over his shoulder.

"Hold position here, Moriah," she ordered quietly. "Open communications."

"Open," Moriah said softly.

"This is Captian Zan Proke, of the Spaceship Black Fire," Zan said, hoping authority might get their attention. "Intentions are nonhostile," she added, remembering faintly that she had said something similar only a few days ago.

The line remained silent for a long moment.

"This is Bokere of Spaceship Zveylaya. Intentions likewise non-hostile."

Mark motioned slightly, and moriah closed the outgoing transmission. "Moriah, is that a translation?" He asked quietly. Moriah usually informed them when she was translating.

"Nope, that's English," She replied.

Mark raised one eyebrow, and pushed himself into a standing position, but made no further comment. Moriah reopened the channel. A huge shockwave struck the ship, throwing it violently to one side.

Mark's head struck the chair, and he fell to the floor, unconscious. Zan held determinedly to the back of her own chair as the ship righted itself.

"Moriah, raise shields!" She ordered, "Head for that planet if you can get around them. Damnit! They said their intentions were non-hostile, Why are they firing on us?"

"Minimal damage," Moriah reported. "The shields are taking a beating, but..." she broke off to compensate for another blast from the other ship's energy cannons.

"Can we get around them?" Zan demanded again, beginning to panic.

"What about the inhabitants?" Mark asked groggily from behind them. He got a grip on the lags of Zan's chair as the ship lurched again.

"Land on another continent," was the short reply.

Nark stood, gripping the back of the chair now and gritting his teeth as the ship lurched to yet another blast.

"Shields at 50%," Moriah reported tersly. Mark looked up at the viewscreen from the damage reports streaming across his console almost too fast for him to read.

"We're entering orbit," he reported, "I think it's scrambled their targeting computer," he added as the next shot went wide.

Zan frowned. "We need more time... Open fire," she ordered. She didn't like the command, if they really tried, the other ship could blow them out of the sky without thinking about it.

"I'll try to get under it," she told Mark, who had strapped himself into the weapons console. He didn't answer, just began firing at a few of the weaker areas of the ship.

Blue flame erupted from The Black Fire and trailed over the enemy with no discernable results.

"A few more shots and this ship is theirs," Moriah reported grimly. She manuevered the ship as best she could, but she couldn't stay out of blast range and still land the ship on a continent. she did not want to land in an ocean.

Mark, unable to affect the other ship, turned his lazers to intercepting the bolts from the cannon. the resulting energy discharge knocked the little ship around a bit, but did far less damage than the full strength weapons of the other ship. "Should'a thought of this earlier," he muttered.

The lights went out.

"Moriah!" Mark shouted over the roar of atmospheric entry, "What happened?"

"Life support is down," Moriah reported urgently.

Zan unstrapped herself instantly. "How long?" she demanded.

The aftershock from that last bolt put us over the edge," Moriah replied, "Probably 3 minutes."

"Why aren't they finishing us off?" Mark asked, frowning.

"Probably for whatever reason they didn't just blow us out of space to begin with," Zan replied dryly. "Can we land on the planet?" She asked the computer.

"Yes, although we overshot the continent i was going to land us on. ...Maybe land is the wrong word in this situation," she added.

"We'll just have to wait..." Mark said quietly.

"We don't exactly have a whole lotta time, Mark," Zan replied shortly.

"One minute, twenty three seconds," Moriah confirmed quietly.

Mark was beginning to feel dizzy, and his brain felt wrapped in wool. It took him a moment to figure out why. 'I'm suffocating,' he thought blearily. He shook his head and concentrated on the viewscreen. Without power, it had turned to a dull black. Mark suddenly felt sick, and the room began to spin. The ship listed to one side ... or maybe that was him.... his vision darkened, and the ship hit with the sound of screaming metal. Moriah set off the outside door, powered by its own tiny generator, allowing fresh air into the ship.

Zan and Mark stumbled to the ladder, almost falling off, and collapsing at the bottom just outside the hatch.

The first thing they noticed when they could breath properly again, was that they were standing knee deep in a swanp of brown, oozing mud.

Mark pulled one leg out of the sludge, making a face at the obscene sucking sound it made. It dripped off his boot, makeing abbreviated ripples as it splattered into the mud below.

"We're in a creek bed," Zan said, wading toward firmer ground.

"Creek bed?" Mark muttered. "This is supposed to be water?" He collapsed on the grass, closing his eyes and rubbing his forehead. He has a massive headache. 'oxygen deprivation,' something in the back of his mind informed him.

Zan took off her boots and held them over the 'creek' bed. Mud dripped out with soft plopping noises. "Moriah, are you OK?" she called to the ship.

"Define OK," the computer replied dryly. "I'm alive, but i have to realign my power source, i'm having trouble with life support, I can't access the sensors." She paused. "I think i'm sinking."

Zan nodded, looking over at Mark.

"Let's have a look around while she repairs some of the major damage," He suggested.

"A little help would be appreciated," Moriah suggested dryly.

"We could split up..." Mark said tentatively.

Zan pulled on a shoe and remarked, "I don't think that's a good idea. If one of us gets in trouble, we'll have no way of communicating with the rest of the team."

"I've still got my Walkie-talkies on the ship," He offered.

"You'll have to go back through that," Zan pointed out.

Mark surveyed the six feet between him and the hatch. "I can jump that," he said, turning. He took a running start from a few yards back and leapt across the river of mud. He just made it to the hatch. He skirted a small river of mud trickling into the open hatch. He walked onto the bridge. "Moriah, can we contact you on these as well?" He asked, securing one of the devices to his belt as he talked.

If i set my communication signal to the right frequency and damp it down considerably you can. Considering the circumstances, less power output is something of a necessity anyway," she observed. "Frequency set."

"Thanks," he said. "I'll toss this over to Zan and we'll see what we can do about getting you out of the mud before it clogs up all your circuitry."

Traveling to the hatch again, he skirted a wider trail of mud to toss the Walkie across to Zan. She caught it, and they did a few experiments to make sure they could all communicate properly.

Zan turned to begin her investigation. She anticipated a relatively easy exploration, due to a lack of natives.

Had Moriah known this, she would have corrected the misconception.