Krasus and the rest of the Legionnaires had done an excellent job clearing the way forward, for other than stepping over the corpses of hybrids, Moloch and Salazaar did not encounter any more living ones as they made their way down the staircase following the trail of ruin into a series of maze-like tunnels. These passages were dug straight out of the rock, and were unevenly hewn, with shadowdy recesses, and dark minor tunnels that went running off in every direction.

“They are just up ahead. Moloch said, pointing forward, as they moved into a large chamber that formed a nexus of crossroads that went off into all directions. It sounds like they are locked in a desperate struggle.”

“I don’t think the conditions could be any more favorable for the hybrids.” Salazar said, motioning at the narrow confines of the tunnels. “I hope your boys are faring well against them.”

“We are used to fighting in cramped conditions, and I am certain our legionnaires will hold their own.” Moloch said.

As they were about to take the tunnel ahead that would reunite them with Krasus and the rest of their forces, Moloch caught a flash of movement down the tunnel on his left.

It was Silhouette, moving quickly and quietly, with the four fresh lizard hybrids and Kotuk in tow.

Moloch first held up a fist indicating that Salazaar and he should stop and then extended his index finger to the front of his helmet, so that the Constable would be silent.

They ducked to the side, and took cover, until they passed out of sight. Kotuk, paused to taste the air with a long forked tongue. He paused for a moment. Moloch held his breath, hoping that the pheromone blanker, he had used earlier was still working.

Then Kotuk moved forward rejoining the others, as they moved quickly and silently down the tunnel.

“I think Silhouette is trying to make its escape, while our forces are occupied with the hybrids. I just can’t let it escape.”

“What's the play Centurion?” Salazar asked, adjusting his grip on the voidblade and holding the handle out before him.

Moloch tried to reach Krasus. He had gotten too far away from the Legion standard, and their short range comms were still jammed.

He cursed silently to himself.

“If we don’t move to follow it now we might never get another opportunity to discover what it is up to all the way down here.”

“I was afraid you would say that.” Salazaar said, wiping his forehead with the back of his sleeve.

“You can rejoin Krasus or you can come with me. I’ll let you make that choice for yourself.” Moloch said, as he began moving as quickly as he dared down the tunnel.

“Aw, void take it.” Salazaar grumbled and he cast a wistful glance straight ahead down the tunnel where Krasus and the rest of the Republic forces were. Then he turned left, and began walking carefully so that he might catch up with Moloch.

“Krasus has plenty of folks to watch his back. I can at least help watch yours. By the light, Centurion, I hope I live to regret this.” He said ruefully.

“Me too.” Moloch said, smiling under his helmet. He liked Salazaar, there weren’t many beings who would risk their life to help someone they just met. If they all didn’t die in this putrescent hybrid nest he inwardly vowed to help Salazaar reunite with his wife, using any means at his disposal.

They made good time down the tunnel, and looked into the connecting one. There were the five toed prints, with pointed claws in the dust.

“They went this way.” Moloch said, indicating the right juncture.

“Then we go right.” Salazaar said quietly. He went to move forward and Moloch held an arm out stopping him.

“Don’t move or we’re both dead.” Moloch said in a harsh whisper.

He carefully pointed out a place in the air before them. “They’ve put up beam traps all along this tunnel.”

Salazaar swallowed and took a step back.

“I can see them with my helmet’s visor. Follow me and do exactly as I do.” Moloch said, stepping over one beam and ducking under another.

“They must have laid some traps behind themselves to prevent anyone from following them.” Moloch said, pointing out a small poison needle canister that had been stuck discreetly into a crevice beside them and pointed at waist level.

“No amount of medicine could save you if you got stuck with just one of those needles. ” Salazaar said.

“I’ll go first and check for any other traps.” Moloch said as he began very slowly and very carefully picking his way through the tunnel.

They made slow progress, but there was a fine brown rock dust that covered everything, making it easy to track the direction that silhouette and her hybrids had taken. Two more lefts and a right and five traps later they turned a corner and at the end of the tunnel they found a large resisteel door set in the solid rock, complete with a glowing a lit keypad beside the door. The tracks of Silhouette and the group they had been following disappeared inside. Moloch had no tools for getting through the door.

“By the void!” He cursed.

Salazaar stepped up and examined the keypad. “Well this keypad isn’t sophisticated tech. It's this thick resisteel door that is the problem. He slashed the door with his activated void blade. It left a red glowing slash in the metal but there was no way they would be able to cut their way into the room using their void blades.

Moloch stood with his arms folded across his armor. It would take them time they didn’t have to make it all the way back to Krasus and even more time to get a legionnaire tech back here to crack this door open. Salazaar had moved up and was inspecting the keypad, looking for any way they might gain entry. But it was set smoothly and seamlessly into the resisteel door frame and it didn’t look like there was a way they might pry it off so that they might tamper with the circuit and force the door to open.

“What I wouldn’t give for a bionic assistant.” Moloch grumbled aloud, as he bent over to examine the lock.

“THUWNK!” Moloch’s head was struck by a soft wet impact, as his proximity motion alert warning in his helmet chimed.

It wasn't a hard blow, but any blow to the head that comes unanticipated is always an unwelcome surprise. He cringed from the strike and spun, his emitter clearing his holster and he held it up looking for a target.

The crooked and hunched form of Stephen the serving goat, stood just a few paces away, brandishing a wet greasy mop, and holding it out in front of him.

Moloch turned more surprised than angry. “What did you do that for you utter nutbox?!”

“I shall not permit you entry!” He bleated, laying his pointed ears back flat against his head and prancing around on his goat hooves, thrusting the mop a couple more times at Moloch. What it was supposed to accomplish, Moloch couldn’t imagine, as he could have disarmed and eliminated the hybrid with ease.

Moloch crossed his arms and addressed Stephen.

“You do have moxy. I’ll give you that, but you shouldn’t pick fights you can’t win.” He held up a hand to stop Salazaar who was only too eager to ignite the voidblade again and end the hybrid's existence.

Salazaar had seemed to really take a shine to the weapon.

“Stephen might be bullied, Stephen might be weak, but Stephen is no coward!” He said again, with a few more threatening thrusts of his mop.

“Why would you attack us, knowing that you would surely die?” Moloch asked.

“Where can I go? It is only a matter of time before you discovered me, hiding in the corner.”

Moloch mentally kicked himself for not checking the deep shadows of the tunnel with his thermals. He now took a moment to ensure that Stephen would be the last surprise that emerged from them. It was clear. Then he turned his head back to Stephen.

“I was about to go through the door and hide it there. It seems secure enough to keep you out.”

“How would you do that? This door right here is solid resisteel. I don’t think you and your mop could do much to open it.”

“Because, I know the code stupid Centurion! I watch them go in and out all day, while I work these tunnels. Discovering the code was a simple matter. None of them pay attention to Stephen, but I know their secrets. I wrote it down!”

Stephen held up a piece of paper that he clutched in a dirty hairy hand.

He had been circling around the Centurions so that his back could face the exit of the tunnel.

“Why don’t we make a deal Stephen? I’ve seen the way the den treats you, I could arrange for amnesty for you, if you helped us. The Republic has a nice place where citizens who became hybrids from misfortune can live in peace, if they have proven to still be citizens of meritorious character.” He said, realizing how unappetizing that proposition must sound to the terrified goat-man.

“Faaaculity? Peaaace?” Stephen bleated, slowly blinking his yellow eyes, and then bringing them to rest on the emitter pistol that Moloch had trained on him.

“It's the best deal you’re going to get if you want to walk out of this tunnel alive. After all, you took an innocent life to twist yourself into a goat. You deserve death like everyone of the other hybrids.

“How innocent was that life Centurion? We all take life to preserve our own!”

“Yes, but the outcome of our fate is usually reflective of the sum of our choices, wouldn’t you agree?”

Stephen bleated harshly in rapid succession, in an approximation of laughter.

“Spoken like someone who has never experienced the scourge of abject poverty!”

“Centurion we don’t have the time to wax philosophical with a goat-man.”

Stephen scowled at the Constable.

“Holster your emitter as a sign of good faith.” Stephen said tentatively. “Then I will surrender to you.”

“Don’t do it Centurion.” Salazaar urged. “Just melt him right here and take the code.”

“We shall not prove ourselves to be monsters here, Salazaar.” Moloch said. “I offered him a deal, and if he wants to show that he is more than a beast, I will give him that opportunity.” Moloch held up his off hand and then slowly holstered his pistol.

“Alright, Centurion, have it your way.” Salazaar said, stepping back with a frown.

Stephens' lips drew back in smile, baring his crooked thick pointed teeth and black gums.

“Surrender my hoof! All you proved yourselves to be are fools!” Then he shouted, throwing the mop like a spear at Moloch and springing back and away into the darkness, bounding back and forth down the tunnel in a zig-zag pattern with surprising agility, bleating a high pitched wailing laugh all the while.

“Fooooooooooooolsssss!” He shouted once more. As he turned the corner.

The mop struck Moloch’s chest armor and fell uselessly to the ground.

Salazaar put his hands on his hips. “I could have told you that was going to happen, Centurion.”

Moloch said nothing and raised a single index finger, as if he was waiting for something. Salazaar pushed his hat back and scratched the back of his head.

A sharp pop, followed by a hissing and then a wail, raced through the tunnel to echo all around them.

“Giving someone a chance to be better is not a foolish deed. Shall we go and retrieve the code?” Moloch asked, as he started walking down the tunnel that Stephen had gone wildly racing down.

“You knew, he didn’t know about the traps, you show off!”

“He said he had been cowering in here since the fighting started there was no way he could have known.”

“It still would have been easier to plug him and take the code.”

“I’d rather not take a beings life if it is preventable. Everyone deserves a chance at redemption. Stephen’s life was always in his own hands.”

“Whatever weird mind games help you sleep at night, Centurion. I find the simple ways work best without all the ethical rigmarole.” Salazaar said.

They came upon Stephen's sizzling corpse, as the toxin from half a dozen poison needles had penetrated deep into his hairy hide, and had begun melting him from the inside out. Death had taken him swiftly and his eyes were frozen open in a rictus of terror, and his long bloated tongue curled out from between his bloody green lips.

“Living in peace in a facility doesn't seem so bad now does it?” Salazaar said to the dead hybrid, as he carefully stooped to retrieve the paper scrap that was still held in his fist, taking extreme care not to get any of the poison that covered the creature on himself.

He examined the paper and then handed it to Moloch. “There is a number sequence scrawled here. Let's pray to the light that Stephen got the code right.”

Moloch took the paper and turned back to the resisteel door. He held up the code and entered each of the numbers, holding his breath as he inputted the last number and hit the enter key.

The keypad flashed green, and the door unlocked with a hiss. “Yes!” Salazaar exclaimed. Moloch smiled under his helmet, opening the door up just wide enough for him and Salazaar to creep inside.

Moloch’s smile quickly faded. As he walked into the room, he felt something move past him. He turned to see if it was Salazaar, but he was standing to the other side of him, looking for all the world as if he regretted his decision to join him.