Falmo'o stood up, carefully. He checked his suit. It was still in excellent condition. It was the first time that he'd woken up with his suit since he remembered getting on the ship Demand Answers over a dozen lifetimes ago.

He inflated his crests and felt his tendrils tremble in pleasure and anticipation. His suit would have the processing power to decipher the texts, give him some measure of immunity from damage. He checked his weapons. Neural weapons capable of dropping a charging human, a plasma pistol capable of damaging vehicles. Toolkit, adaptive stealth shielding, recording devices. Everything normally needed for an insertion into possibly hostile territory.

He trotted to the end of the umbilical and threw the lever open the airlock. His team had eight members, seven of them were laying on the bottom of the umbilicus. That left him and him alone.

Standing in the airlock as it cycled, he almost trembled with anticipation.

The goal was no longer to destroy the ship. It was to ferret out what secrets he could about the Terrans and return with them.

He was convinced.

This research station had cracked matter transmission, had enabled it to the point they could not only do planetary landings but reach the surface of a neutron star from high speed orbit. That alone would make all the casualties, even the pain he had suffered, worth every last bit.

Hellspace. Nobody would have ever thought that matter transmission required Hellspace. That hyperatomic plane was a scorched wasteland, deliberately shredded to make it hostile to life.

That this 'Combine' faction could traverse Hellspace was news that needed to be returned to the Council. The Unified Military Council would have to adapt their military tactics to take into account that humans could survive and travel through Hellspace.

Their 'mat-trans' suffered a malfunction and cut off all the communications when the 'Combine' troops arrived through Hellspace. Perhaps some kind of overload? Falmo'o wondered as he moved over to the door. He knew where the elevator was. He had memorized a little more of the station each life and was staring to get a layout of it.

The layout was exactly the same, the durachrome clean and shiny, the hallways clean and well lit. He passed various signs, all of them in that cryptic paranoid language, but he knew where he was going now.

One thing he had not found was the main computer control room. He'd woken up in the command center, but he didn't know where it was. Wherever it was, he knew it would be heavily guarded. The strange language on the scientific terminals was obviously too far back with phonetic drift, but the Imperium and Combine language was obviously close enough for him to understand.

He got into the elevator, his tendrils curling in pleasure as he drew the plasma pistol.

He'd shoot his way into the mat-trans chamber and take it the surface. He was sure that this Dark Side One station had even more information. He held up his arm, checking that the induction pad was still on the end of the cable and connected to the computer system on his wrist. A quick check showed that it all still worked. He had lexicon decryption programs loaded up which would let him figure out the more primitive language as well as any phonetic drift.

But he'd need the plasma pistol just in case the horrors he'd seen attacked him.

He remembered the path he'd taken with the Security Forces Most High. The station being clean and in good condition helped.

Again, the mat-trans chamber was fairly simple looking. Crude computers, CRT monitors, mechanical keyboards and...

Wait.

He moved up to one and looked down. The keys were not in the Terran language but rather in the more primitive one.

I'm a mat-trans engineer, Tanyee's voice echoed in his mind.

He scanned the keyboard with his wrist computer, waiting for the beep. Base-10 numerical. Fairly obvious, Tanyee had ten fingers. He reached out and tapped the key on a primitive pointer assist device and heard the computer power up.

It just showed a lockout.

He placed the induction link on the side of the monitor.

It was only a one way link.

He tried the keyboard.

Three signal pulses and the whole thing shut down. There was a quick electromagnetic pulse that magnetized the whole side of the computer.

Frowning he moved to another one. He touched the interface device and the system came up. Again, the lockout. This time he looked around, finding a metal box connected not only to the CRT, the mechanical keyboard, and the pointing device, but a thick cable.

Excellent. A computer. Time to give me your secrets, he thought. The Executor Covert Action Corps had long ago designed programs to quickly figure out computer systems and how to interface with even the most primitive, most alien systems. It was old designs, Precursor designs, but they still worked.

He slapped the pad on the side.

The computer was locked out. Well, that was simple enough, he'd be able to find the correct code string in a few moments. Sure, it needed two codes entered at the same time, but that was even weaker in Falmo'o's experience.

The third try the computer shut down and no longer responded to commands. There was a mechanical click, his wrist detected an electromagnet clicking rapidly on and off, and then the whole thing went dead.

That made him frown.

He tried a third. Same thing. Three attempts and the computer not only stopped allowing input but, from what he could detect, completely wiped by the electromagnetic pulses.

He stepped back.

Only three tries? What if someone had forgotten their code? Three tries only and you had to have two codes? What if the being who worked that terminal, who was assigned that terminal, mistyped a single code? It would destroy valuable equipment.

Sighing, he moved over to the door. A hexagon, made of armaglass in an interlocked hexagonal pattern, completely opaque. The door clicked when he opened it and he could hear capacitors powering up as well as the lights brightening. The floor was more armarglass, still in hexagonal patterns.

Strangely enough, the room was empty.

Curious, he stepped inside, walking to the far side of the room.

The door clicked shut behind him.

There was a low humming and the glass brightened. Fog started to form around his feet and he looked at the door, seeing it was closed. Making noises of anxiety and inflating his crests in fear he ran to the door and began pulling on it.

Then he felt the strangest sensation.

Like something in his brain cracked open and sucked him in.

He wasn't even aware he was falling.

----------------------------

He woke up on the floor, aware he had vomited. It was cold, and it took him a few times to spit it out of his mouth. It made his head hurt to get up and he vaguely remembered having terrible nightmares but he couldn't remember about what.

He trotted over to the door, half expecting it to be locked. The handle turned easily and opened up into a control room that looked exactly like the one he had just left. It smelled slightly different though. More ozone, a bitter tang, and a slightly sour smell.

It also smelled of age. Something that Falmo'o usually felt when moving through the more ancient facilities of the Executor bases.

He trotted out. This time he wasn't surprised when the door slowly closed behind him.

The signs weren't adaptive this time. They were all in that language.

His lexicon creation program chuckled to itself as it absorbed the language.

The desks were completely clean. Not even dust. He trotted around the room, looking over everything. What computers that were on had streams of data flowing. Constantly shifting data that he couldn't make anything out of because he didn't know the language or what they represented.

Falmo'o moved to the far end of the room, opening the door, and stopped.

Taynee stood in the hallway beyond. She was wearing a formal looking outfit, black pants, black top, white shirt, black decoration on top of the white undershirt. She had both hands behind her back and had her feet shoulder width apart.

"Hello, Falmy," she smiled. "You are not cleared for this section."

Falmo'o opened his mouth to answer when her hand came up. Even his enhanced reflexes couldn't keep up as her hand leveled with his face. It was a pistol, crude looking, all metal, with a wide bore.

He saw the flash.

He didn't feel the .45 caliber kinetic round that hit him between his forward facing eyes and destroyed his brain.

---------------------

He was being dragged though the umbilicus. He jerked and he felt whoever was dragging him drop his hind-quarters.

"You're awake," Most High Vu'urtunkoo said. "Get up, hurry. We've got to get out of here."

Falmo'o struggled to his feet. "Leave? How?" he asked. He turned around and saw that Most High Vu'urtunkoo was in armor, a spiked club fashioned from a durachrome bar with spikes taped to it.

"The ship. We'll take Demand Answers and get out of here. Hurry up, we can't stand around," he said. His tendrils were coiled with fear. He turned around and trotted toward the open airlock of the Demands Answers. Falmo'o followed him, trying to clear the fog from his brain. He could remember the station had been clean, only now the umbilicus was covered in grime and filth.

"We have to hurry. She's crazy. Not just Terran crazy, but completely crazy," Vu'urtunkoo panted as they trotted into the airlock. "She pretends to be your friend, but she's completely mad."

"Who?" Falmo'o asked as the airlock cycled.

"Tanyee, her name is Tanyee," Vu'urtunkoo panted. "She's a Terran, no, she's an Earthling which, somehow, is even worse."

The airlock opened up. Most High Vu'urtunkoo waved at Falmo'o to follow and to hurry.

"She's an engineer. She's a primitive. If it wasn't for her knowledge about mat-trans, I wouldn't even both to shoot her much less extract every bit of knowledge she possesses," Falmo'o said.

Most High Vu'urtunkoo turned and looked at Falmo'o as he opened the hatch to the bridge. "Is what she told you?"

Falmo'o signalled assent.

The door to the bridge opened and Vu'urtunkoo trotted in. Falmo'o followed, seeing that the whole ship was intact. When he had boarded it, it had been trashed, blood everywhere. The entire ship damaged.

But it was pristine.

Most High Vu'urtunkoo trotted over and sat in the Ship Most High's cradle, getting to work.

"Guard the door. If she comes in, shoot her in the neck. It will disrupt her nervous system for long enough for you to press your pistol to the back of her neck or between her eye and her ear. A shot there will kill her for a little while," Vu'urtunkoo said.

Falmo'o moved over, trying to figure out what Most High Vu'urtunkoo was talking about. Taylee was a Terran engineer who mostly was naked and seemed to spend more time fighting herself and getting killed than anything else.

It only took a few minutes, Most High Vu'urtunkoo running through a checklist much shorter than was normally allowed.

"And we're away," Vu'urtunkoo said, sighing. "Sit down, we're going to breach the Bubble in a minute or two, then we should be able to escape."

Falmo'o turned and looked at Most High Vu'urtunkoo. "Last time I saw you, you were trying to kill me."

"Maybe. I could have been me or it could have been a clone," Vu'urtunkoo said.

"A clone? How would a clone work? The Terrans would have to get a DNA sample, would have strip out the failsafes, then grow us in a nutrient solution until we were grown," Falmo'o said.

Most High Vu'urtunkoo turned and looked at him. "You naive fool."

The bubble was approaching. Getting closer. He could actually see the ripple in space, see the distortions in the stars. They looked... wrong.

"Almost there. As soon as we cross the bubble, we'll activate the enhanced jumpdrive and get out of here. Away from... her," Most High Vu'urtunkoo said. He looked at the instruments. "The system can't get a fix on where we are right now and it says jumpspace is not accessible."

"Most High, surely you aren't afraid of a naked Terran primate who is addicted to a smokeable stimulant," Falmo'o said, shaking his head.

"If you aren't afraid of her, then you're a fool," Most High Vu'urtunkoo said.

"Yes! The jumpcore is charging. Only a few more minutes," Most High Vu'urtunkoo said. He visibly relaxed in the cradle. "Date system is calibrating based on star movement..."

He made a sound of distress. "A year. We've only been in there a year."

"That's impossible," Falmo'o said, moving forward next to the navigator's cradle. "This ship vanished over a year ago."

Most High Vu'urtunkoo looked at Falmo'o and blinked all six eyes twice. "I will assume you are still suffering the effects of being tortured by that disgusting female primate."

The computer chirped and he turned. "Jumpcore's charged. As soon as we cross the bubble we can get out of here!"

"Well. Isn't this sweet?" came a female voice.

Falmo'o turned around to see Tanyee standing there, wearing nothing, one of her smoking stimulant tubes in her mouth.

And a knife in her hand.

She was standing behind Most High Vu'urtunkoo, who twisted at the waist and saw her standing there.

Most High Vu'urtunkoo screamed and his urine let go.

Tanyee took two steps past Most High Vu'urtunkoo, stabbing him deep in the flank and then in the middle of the chest on her second step.

Vu'urtunkoo coughed up blood. When he inhaled there was whistling noises, when he exhaled bloody foam ran out of both wounds. He coughed weakly and began to slump.

"You are so fragile. So easy to kill," Tanyee said, walking toward Falmo'o. "It's so much effort just keeping you alive."

She stabbed Vu'urtunkoo again. "Especially since you're enemies of Terra."

She smiled then. A wide smile that displayed too many teeth.

A smile that didn't touch her eyes.

Vu'urtunkoo shit himself, his flanks heaving as he tried to breathe.

"As soon as we cross the boundary, I'll be able to see the stars," she said. The hunger in her voice made Falmo'o step back from the advancing Terran. Her eyes were full of something cold, something cruel, something he'd never seen in another being's eyes.

Outside of the Executor Cover Action Corps.

She looked down at the Most High Navigator's console.

"So that's where we're going. Base of the Orion Arm stub," she looked at Falmo'o. "There's a star there, isn't there?"

She licked her lips with an obscene hunger and stared at the approaching bubble.

"Almost. I can almost see the stars," she said.

Falmo'o stared at her, feeling panic rise up in him. He raised the plasma pistol and pointed at her.

Tanyee laughed at him. At him!

"Oh, please, put that thing away," she laughed. She took two steps forward. "Do you really think you're going to hurt me with it."

He pulled the trigger.

A stick poked out of the barrel. A flag unfurled from the stick.

"BANG" it read.

He threw it aside and drew a neural pistol in the time it took her to take two more steps.

She laughed again. "You really think that's going to stop me?" she laughed. She looked at the screen. "Almost there and I'll be able to see the stars again."

She licked her lips.

She looked Falmo'o, licking her lips again. "I always like you best, Falmy," she said. She was only a step away.

He jammed the pistol forward and shot her with it turned up to maximum. Not in the neck.

In her shaven crotch.

She grunted at that, bending forward slightly.

He put it against the back of her neck and pulled the trigger.

She fell to the floor, her body began to steam, smelling of rotting meat.

The ship moved through the bubble, the field stretching for a long moment before it slid over the ship and rippled behind it.

Falmo'o didn't see it.

He had dissolved as the bubble passed over him.

The ship, on autopilot, entered jumpspace.

---------------------

Falmo'o jerked awake, his brain wracked by a terrible nightmare. He shuddered for a long moment and looked around.

He was standing in one of the service corridors.

Taynee was standing naked in front of him, her face, her ears, between her mammary glands all flushed and red.

"You..." she snarled. She held up the knife, looked at it, then threw it aside. "Oh, no, that's too easy for you, that's too good for you. You deserve much much worse."

He opened his mouth to laugh when she suddenly jumped on him, her mouth open.

He found out what she meant by worse.

Teeth.