#9 by Carnifex

Cravic sat in a chair in a small grey room and scrolled discontentedly through some files on a holographic screen displayed above the desk in front of him. An aid entered the room, saluted, dropped a data pad on the desk and then left. Out the porthole could be seen the characteristic bright streeks of a trade lane's propulsive field as it pushed the ship along. After a minute the ship exited the tradelane and the bright, snow covered plains of planet California Minor could be seen far below. The grumble of the engines grew in intensity and the ship accelerated foward away from the planet. Admiral Cravic turned off the holographic display and left the office with an air of relief.

As Cravic entered the bridge of the Armored Transport Huron he looked out the large view port to see a masive ice nebula approaching the ship's bow quickly.
"Are we there yet?" asked Cravic sarcasticly, saluting.
The officers turned and saluted. One of them, the captain of the vessel, turned back to the view port. "Nearly Admiral, not long now," he said.
This is a job for a rear admiral or someone else, Cravic thought to himself, I can't believe they pulled me off the front for few crates.
Now well inside the ice nebula the Huron was aproaching Research Station Willard, the masive asteroid slowly looming out of the fog.

The Huron's bulk sat framed by the interior of the station's landing bay as two crates were removed from the cargo hold and then moved to a secure laboratory, followed the entire way by Cravic and company. Once in the lab the crates were scanned and unlocked. Inside were millions and millions of tiny polymer beads which were vacumed out. Underneath the beads were four big, black boxes which were then also removed and opened. Each box contained a large alien artifact of varying size and shape, however what they all had in common was that they were all active. Luminecent lines glowed along their edges and in patterns on their sides. Dim glows could be seen where their bases met the bottom of each box.
"Looks like the Corsair Reformers have been true to their word," commented Cravic as a handful of scientists started leaning over the artifacts while writing on data pads and hovering instruments over them, "Now make sure my trip down here was worth while," he said to the scientists. The remaining few men in the room were mostly security guards who were careful not to show too much interest in the foreign technology.