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SAFES Liaison's Log, Science Vessel Searcher, August 15th, 2555:

It has been a few hours since the team headed down. Thus far, all seems well although I admit to being mildly concerned. Sensors report that there was a fire shortly after they made planetfall although I'm wagering that that was merely Major Obsydien's clever way of distracting the guards while the team penetrated the complex. Perhaps I'm just overly nervous; the transport pilot bringing back word from Akeya to have Commodore Andropoli put his pilots on alert for an emergency extraction didn't do very well for my nerves. Back to the sensor monitoring for now... word should be coming soon enough although it cannot be soon enough for those of us sitting here twiddling our thumbs.

Dr. Melinda Campbell, SAFES

Finding the appropriate pieces of her brute-force rig and hooking them up turned out to be the quick and easy part of the entire exercise. The difficult part was waiting for the extremely high-speed computer to worm its way into the door system and trigger the opening mechanism without alerting any sort of anti-intrusion code. With the ability to outwit a code up to 4096 bits long within 5 minutes, the computer had a dizzying array of tools at its semi-AI-driven disposal from password-guessing to simulated physical circuit analysis. Thus, it spoke highly of whatever code system the Viis used that it took the computer 7 minutes and change to cheerfully beep its accomplishment and set the doors sliding open in a visibly ponderous fashion.

Aurora promptly pulled out one of her sidearms and opened a pocket of her tactical vest, pulling out a tiny mirror on a telescoping rod. She expanded the rod and held it in front of her with her back to the wall of the bunker beside the door, slowly moving it and adjusting the angle until she could see inside. The technique was hundreds of years old but the effectiveness never went away: the tiny mirror let a well-trained scout see around a corner without an enemy being likely to see the tiny reflective surface. A fisheye lens seriously mitigated the danger of it reflecting light and alerting someone while also giving a scout a much wider view. A moment after starting her sweep, Aurora cased the rod and put it back into her tactical vest.

"Noot a creature is stirrin' Major." She reported. "Best o' all, there's a room right inside the entrance in which we can conceal ourselves."

"Light off, no one home?"

"Right in one." Aurora responded cheerfully. "Now who be the lucky volunteer to be goin' first?"

"I've got the rifle, dearie." Treeni assured her, pushing the slide forward to chamber the first round from the slide magazine then pulling it back to seal the chamber. "I'll be goin' first, thanks much."

Positioned on the other side of the opening where the door controls were, Sera unholstered her Lehr-38 and quickly added the extendable stock to the butt and screwed on the combination suppressor and muzzle brake that would steady the already accurate sub-machinegun while making it no louder than the tinny ringing of spent casings hitting the ground. As a last touch, she squeezed the simple mechanical release and swung the front grip down and then out to the left, bringing into play the last piece of the automatic weapon jokingly called the ‘rock-and-roll sniper rifle' due to the high degree of accuracy possible with simple iron peep sights. Her weapon ready, she peered around the corner and into the bunker as Treeni crept inside, impressively walking without the rapid clicking of her clawed toes on the hard surface.

"The room is lookin' pretty clear." She reported after a cursory glance. "Good place to be holin' up for when..." The commentary was interrupted by the sudden return of all the lighting, the abruptness causing the green-scaled draccian to freeze up for a moment before she slipped gracefully into the room, poking her head out a moment later and turning her head to give Boom the evil eye.

"Hey, none of that, green girl." He responded with a distinctly affronted tone. "Unless you wanted me to blow up the thing and bring everyone and their puppy runnin', I can't do any better than wrecking the transmission conduits."

"Mere backup generators." Akeya commented, walking confidently into the bunker. "Don't you two start recriminatin'."

"Yes ma'am." Both Treeni and Boom replied instantly, Treeni being joined by the rest of them in the small empty room off to the side.

"General, please close the door behind us and make sure your little friend doesn't leave anything that the guards might notice if they try to enter." Akeya instructed. "Colonels Foxx, you're on recon. Don't get seen and if you get seen, don't miss. Beep the squad channel every five meters just to see if we'll experience any range limitations on communication. Boom, trail the twins and give me an engineering look at this place... ensure that your overload idea could indeed erase any trace of our infiltration."

"Do you have any orders for me, Major?" Silver inquired.

"Review your pathology training." Akeya replied after a moment of thought. "If they're developing a bioweapon, they need test subjects. These test subjects could be infected and would offer us a good look at the possible effects of the pathogen. These test subjects may also include sentients which could be rescued for humint. Also, ensure that you're able to make any degraded test subjects mobile enough for evacuation. Yes, I am aware of the fact that their biology might be significantly different then ours but the basic requirements of a higher-order lifeform do not generally vary, especially one that could be used to test a bioweapon that can threaten our biological makeup."

With sharp salutes, they split up, Sera heading back to the entrance and hooking her computer up to the pad on the other side, tapping the control that would instruct the machine to comb through the system it had just infiltrated and remove any traces of its handiwork, including the fact that the door was yawning open. With a shuddered protest, the door closed again and moments later the computer, having already mapped out the system for the door, beeped that the task was complete. Turning it off and stowing it and the interface wires in her case, Sera walked back to the room, finding Silver seated on the floor, his eyes visibly shifting back and forth under his closed eyelids as if he was reading a book (which, in effect, he was) and Akeya busily switching out components of her rifle, attaching a red-dot sight in front of a scope then slipping on a long cross-blade bayonet on the end, evidently configuring it for close quarters combat.

"Report." The draccian instructed, not looking at Sera as she visually inspected her weapon.

"Door's closed and the system is clean." Sera replied. "I'm not hearing any beeps from the twins, though. I hope that doesn't mean that our communications are shot out of visual range."

Akeya's eyes smirked for her as she looked up. "The airheads forgot to use the squad channel so I've been getting this annoying beeping in my ear every few seconds. They're moving sort of slow considering the size of this bunker."

"Perhaps giving Boom ample time to stare at the structure?" Sera guessed, seating herself beside Silver, her weapon out and casually resting in a position to be brought up quickly and her eyes remaining fixed on the room entrance.

"The old boy doesn't need that much time." Silver commented in the distracted tone of someone talking while occupied with something else. "He's got a lovely eye for structure and decades spent playing rough with it."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence, Miles." Boom's voice rumbled from the doorway with a wry tone. "Hey Major... you wanted live sentients for humint, right?"

"I do." Akeya looked at him. "I prefer not to have to deal with Viis, though."

"Oh, don't worry... it's not a Viis. It smells worse but looks better." Boom assured her.

"And ‘e's a cute bugger." Aurora added.

"In a sort o' disheveled way." Treeni concluded as she and her twin stepped into the room, someone visibly shorter than them marching between them with Aurora apparently muffling the distressed sounds it was making. "‘ere ye go, boyo... our fearless leader."

They both gave the person a shove and they stumbled forward into the middle of the room. Sera's first impression was of a wingless crow, the creature small and birdlike with ruffled and dirty feathers and a grey hooked beak. Sera could immediately tell what Boom meant by the creature smelling worse... it stank of sweat, oil, and its own filth, evidently denied anything in the way of basic hygiene. It was dressed in a ragged loincloth wrapped around its waist with a visibly overloaded tool belt keeping it up. Above the creature's head was propped a pair of heavily tinted goggles, quite obviously for use in welding or other mechanical tasks. It had two arms and two legs, the legs covered in downy feathers and ending in thick feet like those of a chicken while its arms, similarly feathery, terminated in three fingers with opposable thumbs that resembled the grasping claws of a falcon albeit longer and most visibly dexterous. It was clearly quite intelligent... and scared out of its mind based on how it began twitching and looking around, its eyes darting back and forth, looking for an escape. Akeya watched it for a minute before loudly clearing her throat, causing the creature to jump and freeze, staring at her like it would a predator come to eat it.

"There are no exits." She informed it calmly, switching on the translation box attached to the side of her mask. "Do you speak the Viis tongue?"

"Yes, yes, speak rill-lizard tongue, yes." It squawked in a lisping high-pitched voice with a distinctly masculine timbre. "Why are you here, huh, grabbing, hitting, dragging, Zhrelli? Not its fault... but blamed, I will be blamed, all because of you."

Sera was sure she had never heard someone speak so fast in her entire life, the creature's chattering reply sounding like someone had doubled the speed of a normal voice. Akeya looked a bit taken-aback as well before fixing him with a hard look, something that served to keep him extremely still. "We brought you here to speak with you." She told him. "We do not mean to harm you."

"I do not fear that, you will not hurt me, I can see." The alien chattered, laying his head sideways on his shoulder, regarding Akeya. "You look Enforcer but are not Enforcer and do not speak the rill-lizard tongue. Speak the albiru language, yes, that tongue but not the rill-lizard tongue, not that one. Oh, boss rill-lizard will hurt Zhrelli for what you did!"

"Albiru tongue?" Akeya and Sera exchanged glances. "You mean that the language the slaves use is... the same as ours?"

"It is, yes, you speak albiru-tongue. Viis do not speak it, do not understand it, but albiru do and so we talk-talk and they don't know and get angry but don't know." He tilted his head the other way. "What do you want to ask this zhrelli? Speak quickly so he can answer quickly and run quickly and hide quickly so he cannot be quickly hurt."

"How many levels are there to this bunker?" Akeya asked switching the translator off.

"It is not a bunker but a laboratory and a prison and a place for useful albiru to die unless they are zhrelli and live because they engineer and repair and fix and those things." He chattered, sounding all the world like someone from the Arabian peninsula with an exceptionally thick accent. "There are many guards, mostly outside so that albiru cannot escape but albiru are kept cloudy so cannot escape and..."

"How many levels?" Akeya interrupted.

"Apologies, there are three." He looked nervously contrite, cringing as if he expected to be hit.

"Thank you." Akeya nodded. "What size is the staff?"

"The... staff?" The zhrelli blinked at her.

"Yes. Those that work here." Akeya clarified.

"There is one director and eight biologists and two healers and three technicians and seven guards and five zhrelli and two kelth and twelve toth and one aaroun." He replied, once again switching the direction of his head tilt.

"The kelth, toth, zhrelli, and aaroun are... albiru?" Akeya asked him.

"No, only kelth and zhrelli and arroun are slaves and toth are tail-lickers." The zhrelli grinned almost involuntarily at the last one. "Also stupid and cruel and smelly."

"You're not exactly jasmine and roses yourself, birdy." Boom rumbled. The zhrelli whirled around and looked up with very wide eyes, his beak gaping open.

"What is this one?" He asked in an awed voice. "It is... gigantic."

"I'm a man, little bird." Boom's large vividly white teeth were visible through his mask. "A big man, the big man."

Sera had to restrain herself from giggling at the awestruck expression on the little avian's face. "Are you... a god...?" He finally asked again.

"Only if you ask my wife." Somehow, Boom's grin got bigger. "And any bad-guy that thought he was big enough to take me on."

"Cut it out, Boom." Akeya smiled a little. "Zhrelli, if you please... it is only so much time until the guards decide to look in the bunker for us."

"Apologies, apologies wing-lizard." He nodded in her direction rapidly but then turned to continue staring at Boom. "What else would you know?"

"Do you know what the purpose of this laboratory is?"

"I do not. I fix things, I engineer, I try to be not-curious." He responded. "However, I am curious despite myself. They work with a tiny thing that causes sickness. I believe it is a plague they fear."

"So they are doing disease research." Akeya sighed. "And I was hoping Dr. Campbell was wrong. OK, people... precautionary switch-over. They apparently take strict containment procedures but if their containment is as good as their power generator, we'll need full NBC."

"There is something wrong with the power generator?" The zhrelli suddenly looked extremely distressed.

"No, just the power cables." Boom mimed scissors. "Snip-snip, power gone."

He blinked at this and his eyes got wide. "You sabotaged it." He stated, looking distinctly impressed. "It is a very daring thing with so many guards. Who are you that you come here with weapons and armor and enter through a locked door?"

"Joost a few pretty girls passin' on right through." Treeni smiled.

"Noot to mention a few bonny lads." Aurora added cheerfully.

The small creature just blinked a couple times and looked behind him at Akeya, having clearly identified her as the authority figure. "Who are you and why are you here?" He asked again, speaking a little more slowly and deliberately. "You are not thieves or you would not care about what it is that is done here. You are not albiru, you are not Viis."

"I've got a better question for you." Akeya replied. "Would you rather know that strangers broke into the bunker and not be worth the time to interrogate or know why we broke in and who we are... and be well worth the effort of torturing?"

The zhrelli blinked at her before the corners of his face twitched upwards and his beak gaped a little, an expression that Sera guessed was the equivalent of a very wide grin. "What is not known cannot hurt me, is what you say." He nodded rapidly at this. "This is correct. But there is certainly another possible outcome."

"And that is...?"

"Your secret now or my secret later." He turned to fully face Akeya, crossing his four-fingered feather-clad arms across his chest. Apparently having decided that they weren't going to hurt him, the zhrelli had decided that he could be bold.

"Your secret later then." Akeya replied firmly. "Our secret now might obligate us to keep you safe out of duty. We will not bind ourselves to do anything that may be unnecessarily dangerous."

He nodded once to this. "Then I will go to one place and you to another." He responded. "You have a rich prize to claim, wing-lizard, but even if you win against the guards, I do not wish to be in the crossfire."

"Where will you go that you will not alert other guards that something is not right?" Silver asked quietly. "We have guards ahead of us but if you are careless, we will have guards behind us and no place will be safe for you."

"You have destroyed the power, yes?" The zhrelli inquired lightly. "I fix things. Why would the guards wonder why the engineer is repairing something that is broken?"

"Good point." Akeya stood up and looked down at him. "You will find a device hidden on the generator. Do not touch it or let it be seen."

"I will not touch the giant man's explosives, wing-lizard." Sera could have sworn he smirked. "I will see you again shortly." With that, the avian turned and walked out of the room with a curious wobbling gait, his head bobbing as he walked. When he was gone, Akeya leaned back against the wall and tapped a claw on the chin of her NBC mask, idly reaching to the mask at the end and turning the dial that turned on the recycling unit, her gesture imitated by the rest of the team.

"Nineteen hostiles." She commented. "Bad odds if we weren't in such a confined space. It looks like we're on the right track, however, if our informant is telling the truth."

"He is." Boom asserted. "We practically fell over him conducting repairs on some conduit. He was playing stupid about the power failure but I don't get anything other than a ‘fears and loathes master' vibe off of him."

"Agreed, provisionally." Akeya straightened up. "Scouts, report."

Aurora knelt and pulled a piece of chalk out of a pocket of her vest. "We are here." She drew a T on the hard surface of the floor. "The door is here. Corridors run straight back, split to a Y, and angle towards the center. Rooms are here, here, and here. None of the rooms are occupied or contain any valuable implements. There is a central room here with a heavy door that is mechanically locked with no electric mechanisms. Directly opposite it is an open-car lift with basic mechanical operation and no discernable means of limiting transit." As she spoke, she rapidly and with an amazingly precise touch, sketched out the corridors, representing each point with a different symbol. Sera noted that it was a very poor defensive plan with diverse avenues of approach to a critical location and no means to limit movement short of destruction but it looked like an efficient layout for a science facility, the clincher as far as she was concerned.

"Indefensible but movement-efficient." Boom summarized, echoing her thoughts. "This structure appears to be very old, possibly a century or two based on the multiple generations of repairs. Still solid, though, although if that generator operates via an unstable fission-like reaction, a critical overload would probably demolish it."

"Probably?" Akeya glanced at him.

"Without knowing exactly the kind of reaction it is, there is no way to know exactly how it'll react to coolant loss." Boom shrugged. "If you want, I could begin rigging the bunker although I doubt I have enough explosives to compromise structural integrity, not without a heavy hammer drill and foam-injection charges."

"Now you tell me." Akeya snorted. "Well, I'd planned to have to go without being able to blow the thing so no great loss if it doesn't work out. Alright, time to move to the second level."

"Once more into the breech..." Aurora commented.

"...bonny lasses and lads." Treeni finished with a grin.

The lift proved to be creaky but surprisingly quiet considering the fact that the entire thing was a dull brown from rust. Even more surprising, there was no sign of it rusting all the way through anywhere which was odd for something that had been rusting long enough to gain a uniform coating. As Aurora had reported, it was pretty much a plain metal box with a three-position switch to move between floors and a waist-high gate to keep the occupants inside. It also proved large enough to carry all six of them in a single trip. The next floor down was a stark different from the one above. The corridors were well-lit, the walls smooth and new-looking, all the doors looking polished and cared-for and the floors tiled with lines indicating directions in different colors written, unfortunately, in Viis which might sound like German when spoken but used totally alien characters for writing.

"We're guessin' ye'd like us ta scout, Major, but which direction shall we go?" Treeni inquired, looking between the five different corridors radiating off the central point of the elevator.

"I think we should move straight ahead as a group at first." Sera suggested. "This floor looks like it's more likely than the first to be occupied and the more we split up, the greater the chances of stumbling across separate groups of bad-guys who could attack from separate directions."

"Keep our first closed and ready to punch at first." Akeya nodded. "I like it. Double-delta patrol formation, if you please, and I'll be on point."

Sera slipped into position on Akeya's right while Silver, with the other sub-machinegun, slipped into position on her left. While Sera didn't look back, she knew that both Boom and Treeni were flanking Aurora who was carrying a long gun like Akeya's. In tight spaces, wargames had shown, the double-delta arrangement was the most effective way to concentrate firepower in any direction.

The next few minutes passed in silence as they proceeded forward at a cautious pace, partly due to the fact that while the double-delta was very secure and flexible, the way the different soldiers were arranged forced a slow pace (incidentally, making it greatly favored by special forces on an infiltration mission). The shining metal doors on this lower level were different from the ones above in that none had hinges, instead sliding into a recessed opening with nary a sound as the team approached them. They had passed through at least five of the doors, marking this lower section as being much larger than the one above it, when Akeya's hand went up in a closed fist, bringing them to an instant halt.

"Voices." She explained after a moment over the squad communications system. "Estimate eight meters ahead, directly through the door in front of us. Scouts, high-gain microphone forward."

One of the twins, probably Aurora since she was closest, opened a long pocket on the side of her tactical vest and pulled out a small microphone on a long telescoping rod that could be extended forward to catch small noises or eavesdrop, even containing an attachment that allowed it to be pressed against a door so the person on the receiving end could hear as if they had their ear pressed to it. She handed it up to Sera who passed it to Akeya who proceeded to extend it, maneuvering it at a slight angle to avoid the sensor trigger on the door and pressed it against the metal. She then took the feed cord, popped a flap along the jawline of her NBC mask, and plugged it into the auxiliary feed for the squad system. Instantly, everyone could hear the speaking voices (or, Sera realized, voice) with amazing clarity.

"Ah, Ampris, you sneaky girl. I see they came without you telling me." She heard, spoken in a silky voice that somehow conveyed a tone of pleased malice. "Let's see... two males.... Not much good... ah... but I see you have a daughter... excellent."

"Is that... thing... saying what I think it's saying?" Akeya asked with the faintest hint of a snarl.

"I hope not." Sera replied as the voice began again.

"Come now, Ampris... you know there's no good in resisting. Just let me..."

The voice was cut off by a distinctive growl followed immediately by a high yip and whimper that was audible through the door even without the microphone.

"I'm sorry, my dear, but you should learn to obey better." The Viis' unruffled voice sneered with an edge of satisfaction. "Now, enjoy your two other children..."

There wasn't even the hint of a gesture nor any kind of command; Akeya deftly stowed the microphone, put her rifle butt against her shoulder, and stepped through the door. Sera quickly took in the scene before them: a taller and noticeably richly-dressed Viis flanked by two guards was standing in front of an open door, the thick bars with narrow spaces making it clear that it was a cell or cage of some sort. One guard was withdrawing what seemed to be a long electric prod on a pole from the cell when they entered, all three jumping slightly at the unexpected intrusion and turning which allowed Sera to see that a small creature looking all the world like a newborn wolven puppy, was held roughly in the Viis' hands.

"Put it down." Akeya snarled, her voice glacial and quiet but no less menacing for it. "Put it down or so help me I'll splatter your revolting little face from here to the end of this corridor."

"What is the meaning of...?"

Akeya's first shot blew the guard to the Viis' immediate left off his feet so hard he skidded. She moved her rifle to center on the Viis. "You have three more chances, Viis." She informed him. "Do it or the other one dies. Next I take the arm you're not using. Then your head."

"You have no right to...!"

The other guard's head just disintegrated and the headless body fell over backwards. The gun moved back again. "Two more chances."

Apparently, suddenly being without his muscle and having a small but very angry draccian pointing a gun at him was very persuasive for the Viis nervously bent and put the cub back in the cage.

"I see that you can be obedient without thugs to help you." Akeya commented coldly. "Team, enter. Back delta, eyes on the doors. Sera, Silver, get eyes on that cell."

Sera triggered the safety on her gun and walked over to the cell opening, ignoring the helplessly stunned Viis. In it, on a distinctly dusty although not especially dirty floor was curled a creature that for a moment, Sera took for a wolven. The tail, however, was longer, more feline although still somewhat bushy and the creature's face, as she struggled to lift her head and nuzzle the mewling cub had a slightly deeper lower jaw with lynx-like ears protruding from, if not for the caked-on dirt, what would probably have been a beautiful golden coat. Her (based on the fact that the prisoner was cradling three newborn cubs) hands were humanoid with opposable thumbs and her legs solid, the legs of a predator although one was crudely bandaged and looked somehow... wrong although Sera wasn't quite sure what gave her that impression. Sera felt herself pushed firmly although insistently aside as Silver knelt in front of the female, unbuckling his medical pack.

"Drugged to keep her manageable yet she apparently made enough of a disturbance that the guard had to use a shock on her to keep her down." He said. "Madam, can you understand me?"

The female shuddered and opened her mouth, apparently trying to speak but after a moment of struggle lay her head down and gave the barest nod.

"I am a medic, a healer." He explained in a soft soothing tone. "I am examining you for signs of external injuries. It may be uncomfortable but I am trying to help." The female nodded again and Silver leaned forward, taking the NBC gloves off of his hands and starting to run them over his patient's body, practiced fingers feeling muscle and pressing against skin, noting when she flinched and occasionally bringing a finger to his mask and sniffing. He opened the kit without looking, pulling out a tiny version of the high-gain microphone and plugging one end into his auxiliary input and gently pressing the other end against the female's chest, listening to her breathing and her heart. Sera watched with interest as the medic did what seemed to be a very basic examination before packing up the stethoscope and looking through the open case, selecting three pre-loaded thin-needle syringes before turning back to the female.

"Madam, I am going to give you three medicines." He told her. "One is a saline solution that should help with your dehydration. One is a diluted amphetamine to help counteract the tranquilizer you were given. One is a broad-spectrum antibiotic to protect against infection. The needles are very thin so it should not hurt. Do you understand?"

She nodded weakly and he leaned in closer, gently lifting one of her arms and slipping one needle after another under the skin and pressing the plunger down. He put the three spent needles into a hard biohazard case and patted her arm.

"You should feel a little more alert and better in a few minutes." He smiled reassuringly. "You have beautiful children."

The compliment brought the barest smile to her face before she lay her head down and closed her eyes. Silver stood and tapped at the transmitter to switch to Sera's frequency.

"She is badly dehydrated and running a very slight fever." He reported. "I could feel several barely-healed scratches that, if not already so, are close to becoming septic. She gave birth no earlier than a day or two ago and is suffering the normal aftereffects which the powerful tranquilizers have only worsened. Without moving her more than is wise at the moment, I can tell that her bandaged leg is severely damaged, possibly crippling, and the wounds are pitted, indicating that emergency surgery was needed to remove gangrenous flesh. She is in a bad state from the drugs that were used to keep her manageable although the amphetamine should counteract it. I cannot do more without a full surgical suite but I do not believe her to be in any serious danger. The movement of the cubs and their relatively strong voices indicates to me that they are similarly not in immediate danger. All that said, however, she is in the prime of health with a very strong heart and regular breathing despite the tranqs. I could feel highly-developed and dense bulk muscle in her pectorals, abdominals, and arms that indicates to me someone who is experienced with heavy upper-body exertion and developed lean muscles in her legs. This is a slave-using society, is it not?"

"It is." Sera confirmed, genuinely impressed by how much Silver had picked up in such a quick examination.

"I would peg her as a gladiator then." He stated. "Not a powerful one but an agile one, possibly very highly-placed in the circuit. I would surmise that she was sent to the research laboratory after receiving the leg wound which ended her use as a gladiator."

"Based entirely on a medical exam." Sera gave him a mildly skeptical look.

"Heavy scarring in the places traditionally not covered by rudimentary armor although very well-healed which indicates that she was valuable enough to be kept fighting and well worth greater expense in care and maintenance." He explained. "Bulky upper body muscle would be required for effective use of heavy weapons but it is also somewhat lean which precludes a heavy profession like machinist. Also, dense lean muscle in her legs is a typical sign of someone who moves constantly and quickly, a vital trait of a gladiator protecting what the armor cannot. It is possible that there are other uses for a slave that would result in her developed characteristics but I cannot think of any."

"So this is the Viis glue factory." Akeya observed audibly from behind. "So Doc Mengele... tell me all about yourself. Your likes, your dislikes, your family and friends... why I shouldn't begin removing pieces of you with my bare hands... stuff like that."

Sera turned to see the ostentatiously-dressed Viis swallow hard and then, incredibly, glare at Akeya. "You dare threaten me with a weapon?" He growled back. "You, who the Kaa gave leave in his infinite generosity to survey our world? Is this how you honor your agreements, filth?"

"I'd be careful about throwing that word around, buddy." Akeya growled right back. "So far, the only people we've hurt are soldiers. You and your bonesaw-flourishing hacks are experimenting on innocent people and children!" On the last part, Akeya's voice rose into a sudden yell as she thrust her face to within a bare inch from the Viis'.

The yelling cowed the Viis and he shrank before Akeya's anger although he had at least a full foot on her. "How... we manage our slaves... is no concern of yours." He finally responded although in a weak and tiny voice. "You are not our masters. You are not our Kaa. You..." And his resentment gave him a fresh burst of courage (although Sera couldn't help but think that it was reckless courage given what she knew of Akeya) and he loomed over her, raising a manicured claw and sticking it in Akeya's face. "...are busybodies and trespassers and we should have just vaporized your little task force the moment it appeared."

Sera decided to say something before Akeya made good on her threat to tear him apart with her bare hands. "Who are you that you're so well-informed about this matter?" She asked. "The only people who would be aware of us in any detail would be the Kaa and those that counsel him."

The Viis turned to answer and then just... stopped, staring. "You..." He turned fully and peered curiously at her. "Your face is...aaroun... like the primary test subject... how is this possible?"

"The primary...?"

"Yes... yes, the primary test subject... the most durable sample..." He took a step towards her, his eyes alight with a disturbingly fascinated expression that made her feel like she was being examined. "The one your healer just examined."

"You called her Ampris." Sera stated.

He brushed the comment aside with a gesture and tilted his head a little. "That is no matter now. How could two dissimilar biological subjects have a similar skeletal structure...?"

"Uh, Akeya? Your pet scientist is starting to creep me out." Sera said in English, hoping the Viis wouldn't understand.

"And it uses the same general linguistic forms as the albiru." The Viis continued, flattening that hope. "This is... an unexpected development. Perhaps it is good that the Grand Admiral is so wise... such distinct biological samples could propel our research immeasurably..."

"General, I don't believe he's entirely aware that his affectations aren't safely confined to his head out of view." Akeya observed. "I'll focus him." She reached up, grabbed one of the larger creature's shoulders, and forcibly rotated him back to face her. "Focus, Mengele. That is a soldier with a gun, not a test subject."

"Get your filthy..."

"Don't forget that I could have removed the limb instead of just gripping it." Akeya cut him off. "Now, I think that you want to be our tour guide to this little shop of horrors. I think that you want to tell us everything and answer all of our questions. What do you say, Doc?"

"I say that I will not be used for your amusement, creature." He growled back. "Stop playing with me and just murder me like you want to."

"You deserve to be executed, Doctor, but I'm not itching to splatter you across your lab." Akeya corrected him. "We are not here to blow away your revolting kind wholesale although a practical test of how many times I can shoot you without killing you would be sort of fun. We are here to obtain information."

His angry and affronted expression instantly morphed into utter confusion. "You want... information?" He repeated. "The information that can be obtained here?"

"Of course the information that can be obtained here." Akeya retorted impatiently. "Otherwise, we'd be somewhere else."

"You have risked the Kaa's wrath to break into this facility and obtain the results of the experiments conducted here." He shook his head, looking completely dumbfounded. "You are fully as stupid and pitiful as I believed."

Sera and Akeya looked at one another. "You are not working on a deadly biological agent here using live experimentation?" Sera asked him.

"That is precisely what we are doing." He replied, starting to look amused. "So you want the results, do you? Well, there are none. There is nothing here that would be valuable to you. No results, no developments, nothing." His voice became slightly bitter. "But you want a tour? Fine, come and look."

"Good. Cooperation is the best for all involved." Akeya smiled somewhat maliciously. "First, where are your test subjects kept?"

"The rest of the confinement is in that direction." He replied, gesturing to the doors at the other end of the corridor. "The useful pieces, however, are below us."

"The ones you finally put out of their misery?" Silver inquired with an oddly clinical detachment from where he was hoisting his medical pack onto his back. "Tell me, Doctor... precisely how do you propose to obtain scientific results with unscientific means? What you did just to this Ampris is little better than torture to satisfy some sick impulse if you gain no research benefits."

"Captain Prower, please attend to any medical issues with the rest of the live test subjects beyond the door." Akeya interjected before the scientist could answer. "You will have more than enough time to berate and mock him later."

"Of course, Major. I apologize for inciting him." Silver gave her a curt nod and headed through the door flanked by Boom.

"Sergeant, I don't think I..." Akeya began before Boom turned and looked very pointedly at her, causing the protest to die away. "...I don't think I should protest. Corporals Foxx? You two are with me, the General, and our tour guide. We're gonna survey the rest of this floor and then go down."

She then turned to the obviously flummoxed Viis. "Do you know where the other five guards and twelve... toth, I believe, are?"

He blinked at her a moment. "How would you know the protective complement inside...?" He growled, his rill rising a little. "Our Zhrelli engineer. I knew we should have snapped his legs so he couldn't go around unsupervised."

"Perhaps you should have." Akeya agreed amusedly. "Answer the question, Mengele."

"The toth are in the lower labs, the guards roam wherever they wish unless needed." He responded. "Why do you call me ‘Mengele'? It is not my name and it is not my title."

"Mengele was a doctor from long ago in the history of our planet." Sera told him. "A grisly amoral murderer in the service of a government that had decided to exterminate a religious minority within the borders of their conquests during a war."

The scientist just growled at the information but didn't bother replying as they took him through the door they'd entered by, flanked by Treeni and Aurora. They had just about reached mid-way to the next door when it slid open and revealed five more black-clad guards. There was a brief pause while the two groups looked at each other in surprise before Sera's gun muzzle made the extremely brief journey from the ground to the delightfully densely-clustered array of targets. Even with the sound being augmented in the close quarters, the Lehr-38 was a surprisingly quiet gun due to its integrated sound suppression system that muffled the working of the automatic action and partially reduced the noise from the expelled gasses with its barrel sleeve which was partly made of soundproofing material. With a screwed-on suppressor, it was as silent as a gun could possibly beâ€"but suppression wasn't really needed in a straight-up gunfight.

The first three Viis were cut down as she swept the barrel left to right and another was bowled over by a projectile from Akeya's monstrous rifle. The fifth turned and made for the direction of the lift before with three rapid pumps, Aurora put two bullets into his back and the third into his head, sending him skidding into the next door with his own momentum along the tiled floor.

"Your guards do not have the best reaction times, Mengele." Akeya commented lightly as she planted the end of her rifle. "They get too tuckered-out from beating up helpless slaves to bother with combat drills?"

"I would be amused to see the enforcers of the law on your planet fight an elite military team." He responded sourly. "Yes, I'm a scientist but I know a black team when I see it."

"Looks like you have us pegged, Doctor." Akeya shrugged. "Fortunately, you aren't fated to blab to anyone. Is there anything worth our time to look out on this level or shall we go down?"

"The fast we go, the faster you can walk away with your useless information and put a bullet in my head." He growled, his rill stiffening. "I hardly look forward to it but this is a waste of my remaining lifetime."

"Whoever said we were planning to kill you, Doctor?" Akeya inquired in a saccharine voice. "Much more fun to haul you home and extract every last drop of information you have."

"A waste of your time and mine." He crossed his arms and glared.

"You realize that if it comes to it, military interrogators are not pleasant people to be defiant to." Sera pointed out to him. "It's not as if they'd start breaking limbs or something but you don't really have to hurt someone to encourage their cooperation."

He snorted and shook his head. "It would not be a problem of cooperation." He informed her shortly. "Come on then... we may as well get this farce over with so you can fly on home with your oh-so-valuable data."

"Major, are you getting the distinct feeling that our friend is quite certain that whatever information this lab has is useless?" Sera asked over the squad comm channel. "That doesn't quite track with..."

"...a bioweapon program." Akeya finished. "I know. But what he doesn't know and we do is that a proper scientist with reams of data can learn entirely unexpected things."

"You mean Dr. Campbell." Sera smiled.

"Actually, no." Akeya replied. "Granted, she's the most likely to be able to grasp the implications of whatever her team learns and apply it insightfully but she's an exceptionally gifted theoretical physicist, not a biologist."

"I know that but don't you think it a little curious that she looked at her readings and immediately jumped to biological research?" Sera pointed out. "As I understand it, a BSY Core is fully sentient with a distinct personality and everything but there must be thousands if not millions of possible sources for what the Searcher was reading... someone would have had to tell the Core where to focus its thinking."

Akeya went silent as they boarded the lift, the wheels in her head visibly turning behind the dehumanizing mask of the NBC gear. "I think it extremely curious, General." She finally commented. "The precise machinations of bioweapon research aren't available without very high military clearance and Dr. Campbell never got that high according to her discharge record."

"Military service?" Sera glanced over at Akeya with surprise. "She's awfully sickly-looking for having gone into the military, even in an advisory role."

"I only know what the file says." Akeya shrugged before raising her voice to the level of general conversation. "Corporals Foxx, please look over the rest of this level before coming down after us." She said to them. "I have some doubts that these toth are much more than bullies."

"Cowardly." The Viis scientist supplied with distaste. "Extremely low intelligence, loyal to whatever course is the most easy. The Myaal would make better guards and they would fall over dead if you looked unkindly in their direction."

"You actually bother to notice the difference in intelligence between the species?" Akeya snorted as the twins moved off the lift and into the side corridors.

"Your medic seems to think little of my scientific thinking, creature, but I would hardly be any sort of scientist if I did not distinguish between the slaves too stupid to make trouble and those smart and strong enough to require the assistance of the enforcers." He replied in a mildly annoyed tone.

"I take it this... Ampris falls into that category?" Sera asked as Akeya pulled the switch all the way down to send the lift towards the bottom floor.

"What do you think?" He snorted contemptuously. "Former slave gladiator with enough mental prowess to comprehend and respond to questions while heavily drugged. Of course it would have been foolhardy to deal with her without armed assistance."

"So our medic guessed right."

"To say that he guessed demeans him." The Viis pointed out. "His deductive capabilities are superb to have drawn correct conclusions with relatively sparse data." He looked mildly uncomfortable when Akeya and Sera both turned to stare at him. "You seem to be surprised that I would say this."

"Never thought I'd hear a Viis speak highly of another." Sera admitted.

"Sneering at your inferiors is a luxury for someone who is not being accompanied by two well-armed soldiers." He snorted again. "Do not mistake acknowledgement for respect."

"And here I was thinking you people had brains." Akeya commented lightly. "My mistake."

The scientist just growled at her, eliciting a smirk, before the lift ground to a halt and the gate swung open.

"Ground floor." Akeya announced cheerily. "Mr. Tantalus' office is down the hall to your left. Please mind the fire and brimstone during the tour of our facilities."

"Major, it's times like these that humor is a bit disturbing." Sera told her. "Please don't."

"I think you'd prefer humor to what I was thinking, Genera." Akeya replied, all serious all of the sudden.

"Which was...?"

"Into the darkness." The draccian responded with a chilling smile.