The two men stared at each other.

Kaine eyed the phaser, wondering how he could turn the situation to his advantage without getting shot in the process—he suspected he wouldn’t like that one bit.

Before he could decide on his next move, he heard little feet running behind him, and Val cried out: “Don’t!”

A small shape shot past him and lunged at the startled man, hugging his legs.

The stranger’s weapon dropped a few inches as he looked down at the girl.

“Ondine? What—”

Before he could finish his thought, Kaine had jumped him and pulled the phaser out of his hand.

He was about to hit the man on the skull when Ondine turned to him with a scowl, holding up her hand and shaking her head.

“What’s going on here?” asked Val.

“That’s what I was going to ask,” muttered Kaine.

The man took a few steps back, looking between the three of them.

“Why is she out of the cube?” His face had gone very white. “This is not good! We must put her back in immediately!”

The girl shook her head again, this time at the stranger.

“It’s for your own good!” he cried out.

“Who are you, and what the heck are you talking about?”

The man looked at Val.

“My name is Ezren Rice. I’m a... technician. I used to work here.”

Kaine looked around at the dilapidated lab.

“So what you mean to say is that you’re a scientist?”

The man nodded. “It hasn’t been a safe word to use in decades.”

“What did you do here? What happened?”

Rice sighed. “We created beorgs.” He pointed at Ondine. “Bio-engineered organisms, fully grown in a vat. There were four of them. But like everyone else on this god-forsaken world, we had to pay the crime syndicate for protection. When we ran out of funds, they came down on us—hard. They destroyed three of the beorgs while I was away. When I got here, they were about to destroy Ondine. My friend Patric was tied to a chair. I freed him and together we were able to save her. We created a diversion, then Patric used a Kinzuki Cage to hide her where no one could ever hurt her. I managed to escape with the cube, but Patric was killed.”

Tears ran down the girl’s cheeks as she heard the story. She hugged the man again, and he hugged her back.

“I fled to Rimzana, thinking no one would find me there, and locked the cube in my safe.” He glared at Kaine. “But you came and stole it! How much did they pay you to do their dirty deeds? Or have you not collected yet? Is that why you came back here?”

“Hey, I didn’t know what was in that cube—”

“Hang on one minute,” cut in Val. “Let’s set things straight. We don’t work for anyone. We came here because that’s where Ondine wanted to go.”

The man blinked at this and looked down at the girl.

“Is that true?” She nodded. “Oh, my sweet, sweet child, what have you done?”

“And how the hell did you track us down?” asked Kaine. “I thought we’d removed the bug you put in me.”

The man looked confused. “The only bug I placed was on the cube itself. A safety measure in case it ever got stolen.”

“But we left the cube on Pluvios,” said Val.

Kaine coughed.

“Erm, no. Actually, we did not.” He rummaged through his bag and brought out the cube. “I grabbed it from Aj’uhl’s desk before we rescued you guys. I figured we might need it at some point.”

Val rolled her eyes, throwing her arms in the air.

“Oh, great!”

But Rice’s eyes lit up.

“Fast! Put her back in, maybe we can still get out of here before the others arrive.”

“What others?”

But even as he spoke, they heard running footsteps approaching.

They all turned to look at the door just as two tall and bearded men burst in, holding phasers pointed at them.