Chapter 4 in the belly of the beast

Chapter 4 'In the belly of the beast'
12 hours to attack:
Wolf looked out of the bridge of the Dark Star his team was assembled, Fox had begged him to come but he had refused as he didn't want her to get hurt. The ship was the fastest ship in the Union and also the only one of its kind. The Dark Star project was an ambitious attempt to combine Phantom, Human and Shadow technology to make a powerful warship to use for all races, unfortunately the power consumption was unlike anything the races could solve. After finding a Nakai relic which turned out to be a highly experimental singularity engine Myric had requisitioned it to be tested on the Dark Star, it proved to be a complete success with huge amounts of power to spare. Unfortunately it could not be replicated with the Unions technology and the ship became a one off prototype in which all new technology was tested, including the also Nakai origin wormhole drive which gave instant transport to anywhere in existence.
The ship pulled away from the dock to a safe distance to engage the drive, Wolf looked on at the armada waiting for the attack signal, he was amazed, and even though Wolf was ancient it still warmed his heart to see many ships on the eve of war. The ships silently and slowly flew past as the Dark Star cleared the outer defence grid and system shield, the ship stopped and floated there silently when a voice came over the comms.
"We are having trouble with the wormhole drive which will cause us to be delayed for two hours until we can fix it" the chief engineer apologised.
"Dam temperamental technology" muttered Wolf. He turned around to go back to his quarters as there was nothing he could do to help. Wolf walked down the main corridor of the ship which was quite packed with crew of all three races and he gave a nod to a phantom engineer making its way to the reactor section. The phantoms were a strange race; they were almost insect like in nature and looks, as they had a large broad head connected to an ant like body with four long bladed legs and two arms with human like hands. He turned into another packed corridor when there was a shout and everyone ducked as a person flew past and into a bulkhead, Wolf turned to see it was Ghost who was getting up with a bit of blood coming out of his mouth. He was just about to ask what the hell was happening when he saw Duneyer at the other end of the corridor walking towards them both, crew getting out of her way as she came. Just as she was about to pass Wolf he stood in front of her blocking her.
"I demand you tell me what's going on here Duneyer, why are you attacking a member of my team?" he said angrily although he could see the fiery rage behind Duneyer's eyes and she usually had a dam good reason for attacking an ally.
"Your 'Team' member tried inappropriately touching me, and attempted to seduce me. When I told him to stop he persisted so I used force when he tried to use force back I threw him into the bulkhead. Wolf, Myric WILL hear about this, that man is too undisciplined" she said biting back her desire to kill Ghost. Wolf turned to Ghost who had by now got up onto his feet.
"YOU! I told you! But no! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't kill you now?" shouted Wolf, by now all the crew were transfixed by the event and had stopped their activities to watch.
"Because... because she is lying" he said through clenched teeth, he was clearly in pain but Wolf did not care. Duneyer shook her head in rage and went to kill Ghost but Wolf put his arm in the way.
"Wait" he said calmly. He turned to one of the crew watching from the corridor where the event had taken place. "You! Did you see this?" Wolf asked. The man snapped out of his fear and gulped.
"Yes s...s...sir" he stuttered.
"Well what happened?" said Wolf.
"T...The man T...Tried to get the E...Empress to you know... and she S...Said no but he insisted W...With force so she S...Stopped him sir" the man was scared that Ghost would go for him for taking the Empress's side and he was right.
"Why you! I'll kill you weakling!" Ghost sneered and he lunged at the crew member but Duneyer smiled and smashed Ghost into the wall and Wolf pinned him up.
"YOU LIED TO ME! YOU HAVE ONE MORE CHANCE TO PROVE YOURSELF! IF YOU MUCK UP, THE EMPEROR WILL DEAL WITH YOU PERSONALLY!" Wolf shouted.
"Yes sir" sneered Ghost. Wolf threw him to the floor and Ghost walked off muttering to himself.
"Are you ok?" Wolf asked Duneyer.
"Yes but that bastard touched my thigh and I feel tainted by it, I think I'm going to have a shower, we have two hours. If your man jeopardises this mission or touches me again I'll kill him myself" and with that she walked off.

Wolf was alerted by the comms bleep.
"Wormhole drive active coming online now, 3 minutes to jump" the chief engineer said aloud. Wolf had waited two hours outside of Ghosts quarters making sure he didn't go walk about again. He made his way to the bridge to find Duneyer there in the command chair.
"Ready?" she asked. He nodded without a word.
There was a moment of displacement and Wolf felt very uncomfortable as his world went black and distorted, the jump was only seconds but in the weird void of displacement it felt like ages. With a jolt the Dark Star jumped into normal space.
"You have ten minutes until they detect us and break our jamming" Duneyer said. Wolf nodded and walked off towards the hangar.
He arrived to find the stealth pods waiting and also his team, including Ghost, were already suited up and ready to go. Wolf got into the pod and it sealed around him its living phasic skin encasing his body, Shadow tech he thought to himself. The pods were then expelled from the ship and sped towards the planet easily passing the defensives, Wolf and his team were deployed and Duneyer hoped that they would succeed.
"Good luck" she said watching the pods descend. And with a jolt of dislocation the Dark Star jumped back to the awaiting fleet.