"I truly believe that had you not been aboard the Outlook on Forever that day, we would still be here. The sky would still be open, but we would still be generations away from exploring it." -Ravi Singh, Deathworlders Chapter 12

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Imperial Standard: Dec 18, 12600, Argus Mobile Stealth Platform, High Earth Orbit

The sleekly designed office was as bright as the mind of a damned toddler, of whom was birthed by a crack addict, thanks to the presence of the dark blue lights upon which contrasted the blacks and greys of the room, as Johnathan Shaw whilst smoking a newly ignited cigar, gazed upon the transparent walls of aluminum. Through it, the scorched husk of old terra lies, accompanied by a graveyard of billions of shattered ships alongside trillions upon trillions of the mangled remains of the ones who manned them.

His contemplation ceased as a man, clad with the coat of your run-of-the-mill politician, opened and peaked through the door of the dimly-lit office. His voice devoid of any emotions as he announce his presence with a single word: "Contemplating?"

"The fuck do you care?" Shaw said, somehow with both a tone of misery as if the fate of this world depended on him and that of an asshole who can't give a single fuck about anything, at the same time.

"Nothing in particular Director Shaw." Replied the aging politician as he fully entered Johnathan's domain.

"Good, now take a sit." Shaw commanded whilst turning to face the middle-aged man and mounting his cold-hard metal chair and leaning over with his elbows laying on top of a table, seemingly covered by a digital screen upon which bares the exact image ever present on the wall-wide window behind him as he exhaled a fume of toxic smoke.

The black-haired politician obeyed the order as he sat on the only other chair on this dark room. It's hard utilitarian surface barely concerning him as he leaned back on a comfortable manner

"So, what would a governor like you want from me?" Shaw said with a grin on his face as he smoked anew.

"Well since you seem to indulge in blunt conversations, I would like you activate the gate near the planet Demeter." The politician replied, his voice seemingly devoid of any accent to speak off as he said so.

The request at hand seemingly made Johnathan to cease his cigarette intake and take a deep, silent pause whilst pressing the burning end of his cigar onto his tech-induced table. Seemingly breaking both it's digital interface as well as the window's as he did so, resulting in the aluminum screen to shift from a view of a desolated Earth onto an Earth of the exact opposite. Clear blue skies, an ocean as clean as you can get, towering cities filled with lush fauna and flora both of land and of oceans, upon which scrapes the void itself, millions upon millions of ships and satellites swarming around the planet like bees, and finally, a massive space station kilometers wide, connected to the lovechild of a space elevator and a hyperloop, of which stands proud on the center of New York, also known as mighty terra's capital.

"How in the goddamn fuck did you know about that?" Shaw said, his voice seemingly changing from that of an asshole to someone who's about to make new hole on someone's body.

"You do not require such information for now." The soulless man replied.

"Then you won't get your fucking activation." Shaw angrily responded, causing his guest to lean over by his elbow and pull out a handgun with his right arm.

"This is not a request." The armed man replied, his voice still as soulless as ever whilst he leaned back on his seat in the same position as before.

"Good, cause I ain't taking any." Shaw said with a grin on his face right before he was shot through the head by his hostile visitor and his blood staining the once pristine window behind him.

The armed politician, who's face now covered with droplets of Shaw's blood, scoured through the corpse of the late black ops director until he found the dead man's phone. He rested it by the table as he took a copy of Shaw's fingerprint, allowing him to access the stolen device.

"This is Johnathan Shaw, activate the gate at the Messis System" The politician said through the phone, somehow miraculously saying it with the exact same voice as the man of whom he had just slained. The murderous man then left the office whilst ridding his face of Shaw's blood after the officer of whom he was talking to through the phone obeyed and ended their brief but less bloody conversation.

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Date point: 1y 7m AV, Civilian Trade Station 8795, Common Grounds , Docking Area

The station's docks were akin to an insect's hive as ships from cargo to transport flew in and out. Delivering, stocking, transporting, hijacking, you name it. It's all happening in this shithole of a station. Which just so happened to be were a Human named Amanda Sterling was just trying to find a ship with a captain who's willing to give a Class Twelve Deathworlder a quick hitchhike to anywhere better than here after somehow, all of Dominion Space, and probably even the Celzi, received a transmission from a very nasty species, containing a very concerning message:

ULTIMATUM FROM HUNTERS: DEMAND ALL HUMANS BE TURNED OVER ELSE QUOTE SWARM OF SWARMS ENDQUOTE WILL RAID KNOWN HUMAN LOCATIONS. ALL SHIPS, STATIONS CARRYING HUMAN PASSENGERS ADVISED: JETTISON IMMEDIATELY. NOTIFICATION ENDS.

"Shite!" Amanda yelled as she read the message through her stolen data pad. Putting it back on her beaten-up bag as she glanced a look through the towering aliens among her and at a five foot tall biped carrying what seems to be a goddamn rusty pipe and seemingly serving on somewhat of a guard duty on a old, feature-less rectangular prism, which was the Vzk'tk's sorry excuse of a "spaceship" design.

"Well, would ye look at that." She whispered with a grin on her face as she made her way towards the first human that she ever saw for half a decade.

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The station felt a bit more silent than before, Jackson thought. It made no sense to him, the whole station had just went quite and even some of the aliens who happened to walk in front of him looked at him with worry and dread as if they were mourning a loved one. Yes, he did realize that the aliens might have read some terrible news but he didn't have any data pads to speak of so such news is completely out of his grip at this point. After seemingly giving up on figuring out what the hell is going on, he then heard a voice from the Vzk'tk ship (presumably from a speaker) saying that the Shipmaster wanted Jackson on his ready room.

After such orders, he then motioned onto the Vzk'tk vessel, but instead of seeing the same old door of the textureless rectangle's hangar, he saw a human woman leaning her back right next to the door.

"Didnae think I'd ever spot another Human this side of the milky way." The woman said, startling Jackson and having his dirty-ass pipe pointed at her.

"Uh… yeah, me too. Now, wot do ya want?" He said, sporting a Londoner accent as he aimed his dented metal pipe at the woman's face.

"Fuck's sake, simmer doon. Is this how you treat lassies south of Hadrian's Wall?" She replied whilst making Jackson's "armed" self adapt a more confused and vulnerable stance. "Listen, I just need tae get out of here, same as you!" The woman's voice both calm and worried whilst having her arms raised up in the air.

"Why?" Jackson asked as he came to a mental halt in order to process what the woman had just said. Unfortunately though, that was a waste of time since the woman eventually clarified herself with: "Are ye having a laugh? Did you not hear the news? The Hunters are coming!" in a frantic and yelling fashion.

"In this station?! Well fuck, I gotta get to the shipmaster then!" He exclaimed as he attempted to run onto the ship only to be interrupted by the red haired woman.

"Nah, their target isn't the station." She said, causing Jackson to stop in his tracks and replying with: "Excuse me?" whilst he faced her once more.

"They're hunting Humans, all of us." She answered, her voice turning grave and silent as she said so.

"Jesus Christ, why in the bloody hell would they want us?" Jackson asked with much more horror than of curiosity.

"Fuck if I know, I've only learned about it a couple minutes ago." The woman replied, her voice still as grave and sorrow as before, prompting Jackson to run for the Shipmaster's ready room, upon which the woman then secretly followed.

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Shipmaster Zrz'kz Kzrg'zt had just finished reading about the Hunter Ultimatum when his hired muscle arrived along with what Zrz'kz assumed was the female of it's species. Such disastrous coincidence had just effortlessly complicated his plan of venting Jackson out of the nearest airlock once the ship is out in space, Zrz'kz thought to himself as he prompted the two Deathworlders to take a very uncomfortable sit at the two seats opposite of his desk as said seats reconfigured themselves onto something close to the human definition of chairs.

"We don't have time to bloody talk mate." Jackson responded, standing in place as he did so, which was a direct contrast to Amanda's decision of immediately sitting on one of the seats in a hasty manner, as a result of the leg pain kicking in.

"I assume this has something do with the ultimatum of our sapient-eating friends?" Zrz'kz spoke, his somewhat sophisticated speech pattern displays quite the evidence of a Vzk'tk who had the luck of having wealthy enough parents upon which were able to afford modifications for his mental capabilities in a genetic level.

"Aye, too right" Amanda replied, eyebrows risen high above her forehead whilst nodding rapidly as she took an extremely comfortable sitting position as if she owned the place.

"My apologies, but who are you?" The six-limbed, blue giraffe rudely asked.

"Oh, the name's Amanda Sterling." The woman replied with a big fake smile on her face.

"Ignore her. Now where were we? Oh yes, get us out of here you fucking space giraffe." Jackson said with a tone oh so clearly belongs to someone really pissed off.

"Do not try biting the hand that feeds Human. I believe that is a metaphor that your people use is it not?" The shipmaster arrogantly said, clearly with a sense of invulnerability as if the Human he is antagonizing couldn't just rip his arm, which is probably the case because he is a Vzk'tk, which is more or less synonymous to being stupid no matter what genetic modification said Vzk'tk may have taken.

"And? What exactly would you do if I did bite? Mate, may I remind ya, I can effortlessly crush ya into a lifeless lump of bloody flesh." Jackson replied whilst pointing his pipe up the shipmaster's face

"I have the feeling that that might actually happen." Amanda whispered silently, though she might not have been quite enough to not be noticed.

"The fuck do ya mean?" Jackson asked.

"Well, wee bawjaws here knows about the ultimatum, and he'll probably obey it." Amanda answered, prompting Jackson to turn his head back towards the Vzk'tk shipmaster in a disappointed manner whilst saying: "Ya fuckin donkey."

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"Activate the warp drive!" Zrz'kt yelled as he limped onto the ship's bridge, as a result of his hired muscle demonstrating his muscle straight onto his legs by ripping one of them apart.

"Where would our destination be, Shipmaster?" Responded the helmsman as Zrz'kt struggled to climb onto his chair out of pain whilst leaving a trail of cerulean blood.

"As far away from Hunter space as possible." The injured Vzk'tk replied as he finally got onto his chair, In a grudging manner of absolute pain.

"I'm so glad we can settle on an agreement mate." Jackson whispered to the shipmaster's ear as he patted the injured alien on his shoulders, causing Zrz'kt to yell in pain right as the ship had entered warp.

"And so do I, my dear friend. Now, can get to medical bay?" Zrz'kt asked, his voice still gleaming with a sense of pain and rage as he did so.

"Go ahead ya six-limbed limp!" Jackson yelled with a smile on his face as he smacked the poor alien's back, causing him to yell with an even greater amount of pain than the that of Jackson's shoulder pats.

"Jesus, your scary as fuck." Amanda whispered as the massacred Vzk'tk finally walked away, only to be slammed onto the ceiling like everyone else onboard who happened to be unlucky enough to not be attached to anything fixed on the ground, as a result of one of those pesky warp traps that the Hunters use.

The ship spiraled out of control as it entered real space and closed in onto high orbit of a Class 5 world, one where fractured remains of an artifact more ancient than the predecessors of the Hunters have now reformed itself onto a gate-like ring, distorting the very fabric of realities as it opened once more since an eternity of inactivity.

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That attack was an absolute surprise, Jackson thought to himself. One minute he was torturing his own boss, the next, his boss won't be able to pay him anymore since Zrz'kt is now just a carcass stuck on the ceiling.

He then looked around and noticed the inappropriately calming blue lights that are typically used by aliens to alert themselves of any emergencies had now engulfed the bridge and presumably the whole ship. Needless to say it's a good thing that Humans can take more than a gravitational flip onto the fucking ceiling or else he and his Scottish friend would have been dead like the rest of the bridge crew.

"Bloody hell." He said whilst staring at the poor soul of whom he so ruthlessly tormented, right before all the dead bodies splattered back onto the floor along with him and Amanda, groaning in pain as they fell so.

"The fuck was that?!" Amanda yelled as both of them got up.

"Well you said it yourself mate, Hunters." Jackson replied as he picked up his pipe.

"Shite. This ship's got escape pods right?" Amanda asked.

"Escape pods? Those bastards didn't stand a bloody chance against an unarmed man who's had himself a nervejam grenade thrown at himself along with a couple shots from those shitty kinetic rifles!" Jackson replied, clearly thinking he can take dozens of fully armed Hunters with a goddamn pipe.

"Those were like what? Two or three ill prepared Hunters? You're probably going up against a couple dozen fully armed and fully prepared space cannibals! You think you can take on ten?! Twenty?! Fucking thirty?!" Amanda yelled, anger and frustration clearly ever so present on her voice as she grabbed the man by the shoulders in a shaking manner.

"Ya speak as if you're not even gonna try helpin me." Jackson said as he bluntly released himself from Amanda's grip.

"That's why I'm fucking asking if this ship's got escape pods you moron." Amanda replied, causing the cockney man to give Amanda a look of confusion and disappointment, followed by him saying: "You're worse than a bloody Corti."

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The jog for the escape pods where largely short and uneventful aside from thee occasional Vzk'tk corpse laying in the background, and a couple close encounters with Hunters, who fortunately, were currently all too busy devouring the crew to even notice two Humans running at full speed on a ship with lower-than-Earth gravity, which to be honest, they'd probably not even notice even if they didn't have their mouths full.

"That room over there!" Jackson yelled as he pointed his fingers on the massive doorway which were clearly made for Vzk'tk biology in mind.

Conveniently enough, the door's wide open and all but one scape pod remains, prompting Amanda jog faster than then underweight Brit and hastily close the doors right as she entered the room.

"Wot the hell do ya think your doin?!" Jackson yelled as he slammed his hands onto the windowed door in an effort to halt his momentum.

"I'm sorry, but I'm gonna be stuck with a ruthless killer like you." Amanda said, her expressions devoid of any sorrow nor regret as she did so.

"You bastard." Jackson replied calmly as he attempted to process what Amanda had just done, and what will happen to him now. But then, he saw something strange behind the treacherous Scottish woman.

"Wot in the bloody hell is that?" Jackson calmly whispered as he slowly walked away, prompting Amanda to turn around and see a strange fluid-like substance, engulfing the room as it's passing through the walls and is now closing onto her.

She was left silent as the eerie sensation of the what Amanda thought was something similar to a Stargate portal passed through her. But what was truly strange to Amanda was the fact that nothing really happened after that thing got through her, though the same cannot be said for Jackson as he was cut in half when the semi-transparent fluid disappear right when it was in the middle on the poor Londoner.

The sight was shocking indeed, Amanda though as she covered her mouth in both horror and disgust as the back-half of Jackson Nord flew lifeless out into the cold void of space, thanks to the fact that the strange object had also cut down half the ship clean.

There is now two questions stuck in Amanda's mind out of horror: where did the other half of the ship go, and where in the goddamn fuck is she.

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System notification: Session opened.

+0002+: Your mission was of excellent success, Thirty-Seven.

+0005+: Congratulations, maybe one day you might finally move up the ranks.

+0037+: Highly probable, though it did not went as smoothly as planned.

+0002+: Do you mind explaining yourself Thirty-Seven?

+0037+: It appears that half a ship had managed to enter our world using the portal.

+0005+: I thought the complication would be about the murder of the Argus director?

+0002+: The deathworlder is not of our concern, Four. Now what do you mean by "half"?

+0037+: The Discarded had accidentally set up a gravity spike that lead to one of their prey's ship to spiral out of control straight towards the portal.

+0003+: Why does in every universe, the Discarded just seems to always be absolute failures?

+0002+: That still does not answer the "half" part.

+0037+: The Discarded blew up the ring, causing the portal to collapse whilst the ship is halfway inside thee portal, thus it is only half of a ship now.

+0004+: They did what?!

+0005+: So you are telling us that the portal is not closed?

+0037+: Yes.

+0003+: We have sent a fleet there to destroy the Deathworlder colony that that ring orbits, and finally take a hold of multiversal travel, and you are telling us that there is no point of doing that anymore?

+0002+: Calm down Three, it is not a total loss yet. That colony is the Deathworlder's agricultural hub. We can still have a win.

+0037+: On top of a hundred losses?

+0002+: Of course. It will not matter if we can not access alternate worlds anymore, so long as the Humans are around this one.

+0005+: Oh I like where this is going.