The two continued to float through the empty void, Catherine hanging onto the machine as it flew in a straight direction. The prison was no longer visible behind them, the giant floating rings becoming clouded by the void. Catherine glanced below her to Nyoka, silently dangling. If Catherine currently had a mouth she would be frowning, deep in thought she considered just dropping Nyoka into the void with how useless she has been so far.

She had to remind herself that she needed the cat for the outside world, not here, where both were ignorant to how this prison worked. Even so, she had to wonder if she couldn’t just sneak around like she did on the first ship. Sure this place was a lot bigger, but all she needed to do was get back to her dungeon and find a vessel she could highjack, simple.

The slime shivered, remembering the two angels. ‘ok, maybe not…’ she thought, especially with that second one. He *knew* I didn’t die from the Lady’s attack, he made that much obvious by telling Rose to shut it. Catherine didn’t know or understand what his motives were but perhaps it’s better to blend in rather then sneak around. To blend in she needed someone who knew more about how society worked, hence, she convinced herself to stay with her current plan and not heartlessly drop Nyoka into the void, where she would fall endlessly and eventually starve to death.

Having made up her mind she focused back to the machine, wondering how long they have been flying through the void. She didn’t have much time to dwell on it, as a familiar feeling of distortion overtook them as the space around the warped. Light flooded their senses, Nyoka covering her eyes as she was momentarily blinded by the sudden light. Catherine, not effected by the sudden light change for as long was going to take in her surroundings but was overcome with a sudden feeling of dread.

Instantly she covered Nyoka’s mouth and let go of their ride, falling a short distance before Catherine shot out a slimy limb to a nearby pipe and pulling them towards it. She stuck Nyoka to the underside of the pipe, the pipe itself wider then Nyoka herself, and glanced around their location to find the source of her feeling.

They were in a twenty-meter-wide cylinder passageway, lined with pipes of varying sizes and colors on three of its sides, on the last remaining side was a row of alphabetically labeled open gates that all lead into a dark void, the gate she assumed they came out of was labeled “H”. Several of the same disc like machines could be seen entering and exiting the gates, all of them transporting a prisoner. Confused, Catherine could not find the source of her fear as she watched the empty disc they rode on fly down the passageway, it was then that she noticed.

Eight piercing red eyes on a ball shaped head, with five long claw tipped mechanical limbs holding it in place on the ceiling. The thing itself was no bigger then Nyoka, but just looking at sent a shiver down her non-existent spine. It was triggering her [Danger Sense] skill, something about that unassuming mechanical ball actually posed a threat to her. Thankfully with how it was scanning the passageway she didn’t think it saw them, or if it did it didn’t care.

As she was watching the machine Catherine felt several desperate slaps on her body, curious, she moved her view below the pipe and what welcomed her was a desperate for air Nyoka slapping the slimes body, begging her to move her slime away from her nose and mouth. “Ah, sorry.” Catherine forgot about the girl, too concerned with the ball. She removed her slime away from the girl’s mouth, allowing her to breath. Instantly, Nyoka let out a loud gasp and broke out in a coughing fit, desperate to bring air into her body. “Hey! Be quite!” Catherine loudly whispered.

**Clink**

Catherine froze, her danger sense ringing alarms in her head full blast as the slime glanced behind her. A single metal claw had attached itself to the pipe they were hiding under, and with another clink a different claw had attached itself to a pipe below them. ‘Shit!’ Catherine panicked, she couldn’t see how close the thing was to them but she had to move. A quick glance to the nearest wall of pipes she knew she could squeeze between them, but not with Nyoka.

She cursed, hearing more metal clinks as the ball started to move down from the ceiling. Desperate, Catherine started slithering down the pipe, progressing down the passageway while keeping an eye behind her. She got a fair bit of distance away as the ball came into view, peeking its head under the pipe, solely focused on the ground below. At which point Catherine wrapped around the pipe, sitting on top of it and ignoring the desperate slaps coming from Nyoka, though she did uncover her nose, allowing the girl to breath.

Watching from above, she saw as the ball moved underneath the pipe, only able to see the limbs move around and prod at the pipes walls. Catherine, not wanting to stick around for when it came back up, darted down the passage way, going in the direction their disc left, which was also the same direction of the descending alphabetical gates.

She looked back after awhile, looking past all the flying discs to notice the ball making its way back up to the ceiling before proceeding to make it’s way down the passageway, it eyes locked on the ground below it. “…What’s the point of having so many eyes if it only ever looks down?” Catherine said, then glanced down at Nyoka, who was peacefully laying on the pipe, her entire body encased in slime up to her mouth. “Don’t make anymore noise that will attract that…thing, got it?” Catherine waited for a nod and then removed the slime from Nyoka’s mouth.

The girl sat up, finally free to take in their surroundings “…so this is the jail block.” She said, watching the discs transport prisoners in and out of the gates and fly through the passageway. There was so many of them, constantly in motion, so many that Nyoka questioned just how many there were and how was it possible to even have this many prisoners, even for a city sized ship.

Catherine watched the girl watch the prisoners, causing her to watch as well. Just seeing this many caused her to think back to that prisoner list she had access to, how she met Nyoka in the first place, there were not nearly this many prisoners on that list. Granted, the list she had access to was the death row, or monster fodder, list but still. “I don’t know a lot about society in general but, is it normal to have this many prisoners?”

Nyoka glanced at the nearest gate, watching a disc carry a prisoner inside. She then glanced above it, reading the letter C “no…at least I don’t think so. If each of these gates lead to a different prison the same size as the one we left. “She shook her head “It doesn’t make sense.”

Catherine rotated her blob head to the side “What doesn’t? you know more about the outside then I do. And were arrested yourself so surely you know how some of this works.”

“That’s just it, at least when I was on trail there were five, ten other people tops, on trail along with me. And that was in the major courthouse.” Her eyes narrowed “I counted thirty people being dragged into that gate since we started talking, and that was just that one gate…”

Catherine formed her upper elven body, while leaving her bottom half slime and shrugged. “Maybe they are coming back from experiments? Frig and that fairy mentioned some of these people are used for that sorta thing.”

The cat looked at her, lowering her view for a split second before sighing “I just can’t believe it, that they even do that.”

Catherine started to move them down the pipe “no use on dwelling on it, even someone like Rose got fucked by them doing whatever they want.” She laughed, remembering the view of Rose on the ground, helpless as she made her escape.

Nyoka just went silent, lost in thought as she was moved against her will. They slid along the pipe till it ended, the pipes path taking a sudden 90 degree turn and going into a wall. They were also at the last gate, labeled A, and the terrain of the passage changed, from being lined with pipes to just solid concrete, a large platform opening a slight distance away. The two could hear talking in the distance.