But we were dragons. We were supposed to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality – Terry Pratchett, Guards! Guards!
Inamorata – A woman with whom one is in love; a female lover (Italian)
n'Tuj raugh – Hell (Batarian)
• LEVEL FIVE, C-PAT DETENTION AREA · CARTAGENA STATION •
Traynor reentered the interrogation room and crouched beside the injured pirate. Grabbing the bloody towels from his chest, she carefully folded one into a small square six layers thick. Discovering another strip of leather on a shelf, she unclipped and removed his upper body armor plates, then sliced his overshirt up the middle and removed it … This caused her to wrinkle her nose at the smell as she got close enough to bind his wrists together. Don't these fuckers ever bathe? Holding her breath at the pungent odor, she next stood him up with assistance from an ME generator attached to the waistband of his pants. Climbing onto a nearby table in order to lift his arms above his head, she managed to flip the leather binding over the hook recently occupied by Griff. Powering down the ME generator, she noted with satisfaction the pirate's toes were barely touching the deck. Samantha thought about stripping the rest of his clothes as she bound his legs together with a set of shackles, but quickly decided she didn't have the time to spare nor the desire to see any more of the bastard's anatomy. She attached Griff's ME generator to the shackles and set it to maximum weight. Prodding him with the barrel of the M-3, she hissed through gritted teeth, "Hey … Pirate scum. Wake up," as she removed and pocketed Griff's shield generator.
The batarian, still groggy from having his head bashed against the deck, groaned as he blinked two uninjured eyes. As he focused on her, he spoke with all the loathing he could muster, "Fuck you, human." Leering at her chest, he added, "Give me a bit more time to rest … I'll do you … you might even enjoy it!" He attempted to chuckle as he added, "I know I will!"
Samantha instantly recalled her female classmates in college laughing and taunting her as they held her down in order to allow a man to violate her. They had all helped to strip her of her clothes, gleefully telling her she'd finally get to enjoy having real sex … with a man … the way nature intended. She had nearly forgotten the pain … the humiliation.
Pointing to her face with two fingers in a 'V' as she shoved those memories aside, she replied quietly in a voice edged in frozen steel. "My eyes are up here, shit for brains, and of all the cross-species relationship possibilities available in this damned galaxy, fucking a goddamned batarian is at the very bottom of my list, right below screwing a vorcha. Your life as you know it is finished, asshole … over and done. I'm about to set you on the path to meet the scumbag bottom feeders you call ancestors."
The malevolence in his eyes slowly began turning to fear as Traynor continued to speak in a calm, soothing voice. "You crippled my lover." Sam tilted her head to the right and stared unblinking, something she knew made her look homicidally crazy. "Surprised? I have a female lover … nothing surprising about that. Now, you may think, and I use that term loosely, that just because I am a human and a female, that I don't have any balls. You probably believe we're all just brainless slabs of meat, good only for batarians to fuck. Your only correct assumption would be my total lack of balls. What I do have is a vagina! So-o-o-o much tougher than balls, tougher even than a krogan quad, pal." To prove her point, she kicked him hard in the crotch, causing him to holler in pain as he attempted to bring his legs up. The ME generator exerted more than enough pull to keep his feet planted on the deck, and the attempt sent excruciating pain through his arms and shoulders.
Cupping a hand to her ear, she asked, "What's that you say? Not so ready to fuck me now?" She kicked him again, making sure the entire top of her boot connected with her target. His futile attempt to bring his legs up to ease the excruciating pain was again met with failure as the ME generator continued to exert its dominance over his abdominal and leg muscles.
"I'm tired of listening to your whining." So saying, she used a sawing motion to force the unfolded towel past his pointed teeth as she continued, "Here's a bloody rag for you to bite down on. The blood is from my lover … I hope you enjoy the taste."
"Every batarian I've ever encountered seems to think human females are weak, that we can't fight, that we aren't natural born killers." Sam continued to speak in a soft, soothing voice. "You ever hear of Torfan? Of course you have. Humans kicked your ignorant asses off that miserable rock … the few that weren't butchered, anyway. And now, I've got some new information for you."
She pulled the butterfly knife from the sheath strapped to her left calf; holding the polished blade a few centimeters in front of her face, she came close to his face as she hissed past the blade, "This female is a killer. You displayed really poor judgment in coming here." Traynor slowly brought her head level. "Then you made the worst mistake of your miserable life. You put a polonium coated hammerhead round in my lover's leg, and for that, I intend to make you suffer more than any of your kind has ever suffered."
Traynor placed the tip of her blade against the center of his chest and pressed ever so lightly, drawing a dot of blood. The pirate's eyes were riveted to her gloved hand, her fingers curled tightly around the grip, as she dragged the tip of the blade lightly down to his right side, leaving a stylus-thick line of blood in its wake, until stopping with the tip poised just above his hipbone, flat of the blade parallel to the floor, sharpened edge facing rearward.
Come on, Traynor … What are you waiting for? He shot Xiùlán! Even now she may be dying! Shove the fucking knife into his side! Gut the bastard! Do it! DO IT! NOW! …
Without changing her facial expression, she sighed heavily, then slowly pulled her arm and hand away from his side. Can't do it … Xiùlán didn't train me to be a fucking butcher … I'm better than 'im!'
Bringing her lower leg up, she slid the knife back into its sheath, then turned and walked a slow circle in front of him. "I was going to open you up … see just how much pain you could stand. I told you I'm a killer, and that is a fact I'll prove to you shortly, but I'm not a butcher. I intended to torture you, maybe even slice your nuts off and feed them to you." Traynor stepped back in front of him, drawing within a few centimeters of his face once again. "For now, you need to know my lover's name … Yuán Xiùlán … and I'm telling you this because you need to know the name of the person you maimed. She's the reason you are in your current predicament, and she's the reason I'm going to deliver your payback."
With that, she swiftly placed the thickest portion of the folded towel over the muzzle of the M-3, pushed it hard against the middle of his left thigh and pulled the trigger. The muffled discharge from the heavy pistol was almost instantly overwhelmed by his screams of pain, surprisingly loud for being forced past the gag in his mouth.
Raising her voice to make sure he heard her, she said, "I'd really love to stay, torture you some more, but I'm out of time, and so are you." Clipping the M-3 to a hard point on her upper thigh, she parted her lips slightly and used the tip of her tongue to languidly lick her upper lip as she grinned at him. "Truth be told, you don't deserve a mercy shot, but I'm not leaving any witnesses, and I promise you, you will see more of your kind in your version of hell—n'Tuj raugh!" Stepping back to give herself room to swing her arm, she activated her omnitool with a twitch of her wrist, which responded by instantly fabricating a ceramic blade next to her forearm. As it began cooling from white-hot to golden orange to reddish-blue, she made a fist, causing the blade to pivot forward; as it completed its 180 degree rotation, Traynor effortlessly shoved the blade up into the pirate's chest from just below his sternum, then twisted and jerked her powerful forearm up and away in order to break the blade off at its pivot point on her wrist.
The grunts of pain with every exhale became a series of blood-curdling screams, the wailing muffled by the folded, bloody cloth still between his teeth; the pirate's two remaining eyes rolled back in their sockets from the combined pain of the shattered bone in his left thigh and the ceramic blade shoved up into his lower chest. The wailing cries of agony trailed off rapidly as his lungs ceased drawing in the air needed to scream. His head lolled forward as he slowly, agonizingly died from suffocation brought on by the now hardened blade protruding from his abdomen. Removing the ME generator and shackles, she held her breath as she removed the pirate's boots.
Checking her chrono confirmed her own sense of being out of time; she took a final look around, rechecking that all evidence of her presence—with the exception of the new room decoration—had been eliminated. Cracking the door open, she listened before quickly looking up and down the passage. Hatches at either end were still sealed and locked, though there was still noise coming from the one furthest from their location. Sealing the hatch to the interrogation room behind her, she took a final look around the passage and was horrified to discover evidence on the floor of her dragging Griff and Xiùlán into the storage compartment.
She quickly returned and, after a few frantic moments of searching, found several more towels and some kind of unscented cleaner. After hurriedly scrubbing the drag marks from the flooring, she rechecked for evidence of their presence; finding nothing obvious, she reentered the compartment; after sealing and locking the hatch, she walked around to check on Xiùlán, prompting Griff to ask, "Traynor. What in hell did you just do? Sounded really muffled, but I thought I heard a gunshot … maybe some howling."
"Only what needed doing, Buchanan," she replied as she handed him the pirate's boots. "Try those on … hopefully they'll fit well-enough to protect your feet."
"You killed him, didn't you? I barely heard the shot. Then that was muffled screaming I heard afterwards. That room must really be sound-proofed."
"Couldn't leave 'im alive," she answered in a subdued voice. Sam stared at him coldly as she handed him his shield generator and ME generator. "Had to eliminate any witnesses, and he saw Xiùlán and me bring you in 'ere. If the rest of 'em come in here, they'll find our exit route. It's a complication we don't need, not now." She paused for several moments before continuing, "You are not to tell Xiùlán I killed 'im, understand me? The gunshot was in his left thigh, which I would also appreciate you not sharing with her. I made the worthless bastard feel the same degree of pain she felt when he shot her. Difference is, she's keeping her leg … and her life."
"You're going to have to tell her the whole story at some point, Traynor," Griff observed. "You cannot bury that inside yourself or it will flat out eat. you. alive."
"It already does bother me, Griff. I was gonna use my knives to torture the bastard, but…" She paused, looked at the floor for several moments before continuing, "I couldn't bring myself to open 'im up, Griff. I put a bullet in his thigh, then finished 'im with my omniblade." Her voice was hoarse, ragged sounding. "I'll tell her what I did, but she has to be well first. I want to … I'll need to hold her close when I do tell her. I need to make her realize how badly that four-eyed son-of-a-bitch ripped my heart out when he shot her." After a quick glance at Xiùlán, she finished with, "She has to know I am not some stone-cold murderer, even if the batarians can't make the same claim."
The skin on Xiùlán's injured leg was blotchy in color and cold to the touch, even though she appeared to be running a fever. Inspecting the contents of the containers on the shelves, she discovered first-aid supplies, which she grabbed with great delight. There were a number of needle probes, no doubt to be used for some insidious form of torture; sterile dressings and containers full of water. More medigel. Pain killers, surprisingly enough, both liquid and oral. Best of all, there was an inflatable splint. Halleluiah!
She tossed a water container and pillpac full of oral pain killers to Griff. "Take a couple of those, and drink as much water as you can get down. Make sure you don't spill any!" Working quickly, Sam shot more pain killer in Xiùlán's leg, applied the contents of a medigel pack to the entry wound, dressed it, then pulled the air-splint from its container.
It wouldn't keep her leg from bending at the hip, and it wouldn't allow Xiùlán to stand, but it should be sufficient to keep her thigh and lower leg immobilized. She smoothly wrapped the cloth from Yuán's sliced under-armor and pants leg back around her thigh and lower leg, then ever so gently pulled the splint up her leg until it was against her crotch. "How do those boots fit, Griff? Can you stand on your own?"
He grunted with the effort, then replied, "Done. The fit's just a bit tight, and the odor is beyond nauseating, but I'll manage."
"Good. I need you to police this compartment. Pick up everything on the deck, then check it all again. There's dust everywhere … redistribute all of it so there are no foot prints, hand prints, butt prints or body prints, especially at the entry and around those shelves. This place has to look undisturbed, or we won't live long enough to wonder how we screwed up."
"You got it, Sammy," he acknowledged as he got busy.
"Xiùlán … Xiùlán, can you hear me?" Sam whispered in her ear. No response. My Mandarin still isn't the best, but here goes … she thought to herself. "Xiùlán, ni néng tīngdào wo ma?" [你能聽到我嗎？ – can you hear me?] Sam was rewarded with a groan of pain as Yuán attempted to lick her lips, which looked dry and parched. Holding up a container, Sam tipped her head up and whispered, "Zài zhèli, Àiqíng, you yīdian shui." [在這裡，愛，有一點水。 – Here, love, there is a little water.]
"What the hell language is that, Traynor?" Buchanan wanted to know. "I've heard Xiùlán speak it at times; didn't know you could as well, and with so much concern."
"That's because she's usually cursing," Traynor answered softly as she managed to get a few sips of water past Xiùlán's lips. "It's 'er native tongue, Griff. Mandarin … Chinese. I really suck at speaking it. She usually teases me … says I'd never be understood in Shanghai … that's where she was born. Funny thing …," Traynor's voice hitched as she thought about their time in training, "she has always been able to understand me."
Understanding dawned on Buchanan as he watched Sam tenderly ministering to her injured lover. "We'll get her out of here, Sammy … we'll keep her alive and get her to safety."
Sam ignored Griff as she kept whispering in Xiùlán's ear. "Hang in there, Xiùlán. Drink a little water. I took care of the shooter. We need to move or we'll get captured." Sam kissed her cheek and forehead; both were feverish. Traynor returned to her crouch and slowly, carefully inflated the air splint. Other than a groan or two, Xiùlán gave no indication she'd felt the tube inflate. Sam checked the charge on her ME generator … down to 24 percent. Shit. We'll need to swap out power cells in all of 'em all once we're below. Energizing the collar mounted device, Sam again set it to effectively reduce Xiùlán's mass to 3% of Earth normal ... almost light enough to float away if they weren't careful. "Griff, how're you doing?"
"I've got it all picked up, Traynor. We'll sweep our tracks back to the access as we go."
"Good. Look on the shelf behind me, find the item called ĉelo potenco … grab it. Power cells inside will help us. Two of 'em are almost flat, but the rest are good. Grab our stuff … I'll go down first so I can catch her and the packs. You follow me down; I'll catch your feet, hold you in place so you can re-latch the grille locks."
Traynor whispered in her Inamorata's ear, "Okay, Xiùlán, time to leave here." Traynor wrapped her arms and legs in the blanket so they'd stay in place, then gently picked her lover up from the floor, bringing her gently to a slightly head down position and moved her to the opening. "Here, hang on to 'er," she said to Griff.
"Why's her head down?"
"Trying to keep her legs higher than her heart," Traynor said with a shrug. "I'm hoping it'll hinder the pressure on 'er leg and slow the bleeding. Just watch her close … might make her puke."
Traynor swept away the remaining tracks leading to their access hole, then eased her way down. Seems easier goin' down, she thought as she slid her chest easily through the opening, to lightly touch down on the deck below.
Looking up, she hissed, "Packs." Buchanan obliged by carefully dropping all they had down to Sam's waiting arms. Setting these aside, she looked up and whispered, "Now Xiùlán. Be careful!"
Buchanan gently eased the unconscious woman down through the opening until Sam had her by her hips; Sam then eased her friend to a horizontal attitude on the deck and increased her mass slightly so she'd stay put. Griff had finished rearranging the dust above to hide their intrusion. Looking down to Traynor, he reduced his own mass, then eased his legs into the opening. Sam caught his feet and held him in place as he finished with the floor before pulling the grille back into place, where he carefully applied the latches to keep it from being removed from above. "It's done, Traynor."
Sam eased Griff the rest of the way to the deck. Moving away from the opening, they worked to eliminate the tracks in the dust under the grille to the point where they were standing. Anyone shining a light down from above would see the same dust that had existed since the station's completion decades ago.
"Okay, where to?" Buchanan asked.
Pulling up the station map on her omnitool she said, "As far away from this spot as we can go … opposite side and to the right, back the way Xiùlán and I were traveling before this detour." Shutting her tool down, she helped Griff pick up and distribute several packs to carry before picking up the last three; handing Xiùlán's night-vision visor to him, Traynor set his omnitool to shine in infrared, then gently picked up the injured woman and said, "Boots still okay?"
Buchanan grunted, saying, "Pretty tight, but better than nothing at all."
"Okay … just watch your step." Nodding her head in the direction they needed to move, she finished with, "You take point. Let's go."
Sam quickly found that moving while carrying Xiùlán was beyond awkward … she had to continuously reposition her burden in order to dodge around and over all the obstructions in their path. Muttering to herself, "Should have found some kind of litter," she mentally kicked herself for even thinking that. Griff was in no shape to be carrying any more than the packs he had. She had left her intercom on voice-active so she could keep in contact with him. Surprisingly, he was making good progress, even being mindful of avoiding as many obstacles as possible. "How you doing, Buchanan?" she whispered.
"Wouldn't even be moving without the pain pills, Traynor. How much further?"
Sam looked behind them, then ahead. "About 270 meters or so. Look for any kind of glow indicating a light source."
Griff continued to lead them closer to the curved inner pressure hull of the compartment. After they'd moved roughly 200 meters, he paused and crouched as he powered down the infrared light. Raising his goggles, he let his eyes adjust for a few seconds, swinging his gaze back and forth in the direction that had caught his attention. He finally spotted the faintest of glows, about 50 or 60 meters away and close to the curved inner hull. "Got it, Traynor. Let's go."
Pulling the goggles back down and re-energizing the light in his omnitool, he moved carefully in the direction of the glow, looking around continuously for any motion or audio sensors. As he came close to the source of the faint light, he set all the packs down and turned to help Traynor with her burden. "How's she doing, Sam?"
"Still alive. Feverish. I hope I brought enough stuff with me to treat her and keep her comfortable. I don't think we'll going to get out of here for a day or two."
They both looked around the immediate area. "Not much here except electrical conduits and a few junction boxes," Griff observed. "I can tap into one of those boxes for power, give us places to recharge our power cells."
"Do it. Our ME cells are really in need of a recharge," Sam replied. She placed Xiùlán on the deck and raised her injured leg by blocking under her knee and foot. Sam dampened a piece of cloth and gently wiped her feverish face, then placed it on her forehead after whirling the cloth several times in a circle to cool it. She next moistened her lover's lips, but decided against trying to have her drink any water until later.
Buchanan had tapped into a junction box and was busy plugging cells into sockets for charging. "Let me have all of Xiùlán's so we can get them all charged."
Sam removed Xiùlán's ME generator and pocketed the device after removing the power cell; this she handed to Griff for a recharge, along with her own ME power cell. Kneeling beside Xiùlán, she slowly deflated the splint and loosened it enough to slide it down to her knee. Damn, this looks bad!, came the thought.
She retrieved the probes from among their first-aid supplies, along with some disinfectant and wipes. She gently cleaned the skin around the entry wound and meticulously inspected her entire upper leg for any signs of other injuries. Satisfied there were none, she carefully inspected one of the probes and discovered that one of its functions was to retrieve impossibly small data capsules buried in someone's flesh. Damn!
She looked at Xiùlán's face, then bent down and placed her mouth right next to her ear. "This is going to hurt worse'n all bloody 'ell darling, but I don't see any other way to get those particles out of your leg," she whispered.
Xiùlán grimaced slightly at this, then replied in a pained voice, "Kěle. Téngtòng shì fēicháng zāogāo de. Women zài nali?" [渴了。疼痛是非常糟糕的。我們在哪裡？ – Thirsty. The pain is very bad. Where are we?]
"My god, Griff, she's awake!" She whispered the bad news in Xiùlán's ear, "Still on Cartagena Station. Charging power cells, planning our next move." Traynor gently lifted Xiùlán's head and offered her some water. "Easy … not too much. I know your leg hurts worse than holy 'ell, Xiùlán … and it's going to hurt even more. Those bits of polonium have absolutely got to come out of there. I'll be as gentle as I possibly can, my love, but it has got to be done if I'm going to get you outta this Dìyù bān dì dìfāng [地獄般的地方 – Hell-like place] alive."
Xiùlán responded with a grimace. She was a fighter, but nothing she had ever done had prepared her for the absolute agony she'd experienced. She didn't think anything Sam did from this point on could hurt any worse than what she had already endured.
After thoroughly sanitizing her hands, Traynor pulled on a pair of surgical gloves; energizing the first probe, she adjusted its receptor to hone in on the radiation emitted by the shattered round in Xiùlán's leg.
Griff observed, "Traynor, don't insert that thing until you're absolutely certain it's locked onto a piece of that round. That's muscle tissue you'll be digging around in … you need to keep any movement inside her thigh to a bare minimum."
Sam grunted in acknowledgement as Griff crouched by Yuán's head, knees on either side of her ears. Reaching over, Buchanan grabbed each of her hands and held them tightly, grinning at her as he said, "You can squeeze the hell out of my hands, Service Chief … least I can do after you risked your life for me." Looking at Traynor, he nodded.
Sam bent over Yuán's face and whispered, "You need to meditate, Xiùlán. There is nothing here to be concerned about, nothing to be worried about. Breathe, my Luv. Simply breathe." Traynor's voice was soothing, peaceful … it carried Xiùlán to a place where summer breezes kissed her hair, the sounds of insects and birds hovered at the edges of her consciousness, the waves from a distant ocean crashed onto a rocky shore. Her eyes fluttered closed, hands being held by Buchanan relaxed, the tenseness in her leg gradually gave way to relaxation as Sammy's softly spoken, repetitive phrases served to relieve Xiùlán's anxiety, helped deaden her pain. She breathed deeply as she entered a tranquil, semi-conscious state.
"Okay, Luv, here goes …" Sam gently moved the probe around the surface of her thigh until it registered the strongest signal. She squeezed the actuator, sending the device deep into Xiùlán's muscle.
Xiùlán's only reaction was an agonized grunt and a tightening of her grip on Buchanan's hands as the probe entered her thigh and latched onto the radioactive fragment of the batarian's polonium round. Traynor reversed the probe's polarity, causing it to follow its entry path as it reversed straight out her leg. "Got it," Sam murmured. She injected medigel into the wound to seal it against blood loss and dull the pain, then examined the probe. The bullet fragment, for the amount of radiation it was emitting, was minute in size. Probably three, four more of these still in her leg, dammit, came the thought.
The corners of Xiùlán's mouth were turned up ever so slightly. Griff caught Sam's eye and observed, "Never knew a woman with such a strong grip. I'm really ashamed to admit she's hurting my hands a bit."
Traynor smiled. "Don't be. She has worked all her life on building her muscles. You think the bulges in this thigh are an accident?"
Griff shook his head in amused denial. "You know … I was trying to ignore the appearance of her leg. I can't recall seeing that much muscle on many male soldiers."
Sam didn't reply as she readied the next four probes. Within a matter of minutes, Traynor had the last bits of polonium-coated bullet fragments extracted from Xiùlán's thigh. She covered all the wounds in sterile pads after applying liberal amounts of medigel; the air splint was the last step. "It's all up to you now, my love." Traynor kissed her as she laid her arms alongside her body and wrapped the blanket around her.
With a thready sigh, she looked at Griff and said, "Is there anything in your pack to eat?"
"Sure." After rummaging around a bit, he tossed a field-rat in her direction, pulled out another and opened it to eat. "Probably not the best food you've ever eaten, but it'll keep you alive."
Traynor placed her back against a nearby support column and opened the package with her teeth after pulling off her surgical gloves. "You're assessment of this stuff is correct, but it'll fill the hole for now," she replied after rapidly downing half the contents. Taking a sip from her water container, she finished off the contents of the package with a grimace. "Certainly not for those with sensitive stomachs."
Griff appeared to be enjoying his dinner, something Traynor attributed to the length of time he'd been in the Navy. As soon as they were done, Sam sanitized her hands once more, pulled on another pair of surgical gloves, then got to her feet and grabbed a fresh container of medigel; looking at Buchanan she said, "Okay, Chief. Time for you to strip." The look of surprise on his face was quickly replaced by one of shy embarrassment. "You heard me, Griff. Off with your clothes. I need to treat your injuries before I attempt to access the comms level."
Buchanan pulled his shirt off first, then hesitated until Traynor commented, "Geez, Chief. I've already seen your equipment … and probably closer than any of the women you've bedded in the past … let's have 'em off, then."
Mumbling curses under his breath, he removed his purloined boots, then gingerly pulled his pants down to his ankles and stepped out of them. Traynor grinned at his discomfiture as she crouched in front of him. "Spread your legs a bit, and for gosh sakes, don't flinch!" Traynor inspected the wire left by the batarian interrogators and commented, "That couldn't have felt good when it was energized." She gently tugged on one end of the wire she'd cut, but there was no movement except to pull at the skin surrounding it.
Griff chuckled, despite standing stark naked in front of a woman he barely knew professionally. "You don't know the half of it, Traynor. Batarians were laughing their asses off! Every time that wire was energized … well, let's just say that soldier came right to attention. They were having so much fun with that wire I think it distracted them from beating me as much."
"Damned batarians. No wonder it's burned into your skin. You're lucky they didn't think to use that wire for an amputation! Happened to a companion of ours … tank driver on Klensal—Marine Sergeant Tobias Perkins—slavers mutilated him, then killed him. As for this thing," she said as she pointed to the end of the wire, "it's as we thought when we found you—it'll need to be removed in a sterile room under local anesthesia. Best I can do for you is apply medigel all the way around … follow the burn line. Grab underneath your sack, Chief, and pull everything up so I can get …"
Griff was only too happy to comply—anything to keep Sammy from having to handle his scrotum and penis. After finishing the application, she worked her way around his legs, dabbing medigel on the many burns and punctures inflicted on him; standing, she worked on his torso, front and back, until she came to the last burn on his side. Standing in front of him, she smiled lightly and snarked, "Would you have rather had a man do all that for you, Chief?"
Griff made a move to pull his pants back on as he thought about her question. "Truthfully, I don't think it would have made a bit of difference to me. Not used to having anyone tend to me down … there."
"Just another part of your body, Chief." She pulled her surgical gloves off and pulled her gauntlets back on, sealing them to the sleeves of her under-armor shirt. "I'd hate for you to lose any functionality because I didn't take care of your injuries." Holding his shirt out so he could shove his arms in the sleeves, she added, "Better get used to it, 'cause I'm going to ask Dr Jakira T'Lana to take care of you once we're safe on the Ionsaí."
"An asari doctor?" Griff was incredulous. "Do you really think that's necessary?"
"I do," she said. "Griff, that stinkin' wire has got to come outta there as soon as possible. I don't think you should wait until we're back at an Alliance facility." Placing her hands on his shoulders, she looked up earnestly at his greenish-gray eyes as she concluded, "Trust me … You didn't see it as close as I did, and I'm telling you it simply cannot wait."
Looking defeated, Griff simply nodded, then asked, "What now?"
Traynor took a few steps and grabbed her power cells. "You stay with Xiùlán, keep an eye on her condition … give her some water if she wakes. I'm going to see what I can do to get us a ride out of here." Handing him her backpack, she added, "Keep this safe. If that artifact gets lost or destroyed, every damned bit of pain we went through will have all been for nothing."
"Keep your comm-link open, Traynor. If you step in a pile of shit you can't extricate yourself from, I'll come help you."
Samantha looked admiringly at the big man and replied, "Appreciate it, but you need to stay with Xiùlán … keep her and that artifact safe. That's all that matters now." Sam checked her weapons, made sure her kinetic barrier was functioning and looked at Xiùlán. "Xiūxí, Xiùlán! Wo huì hěn kuài huílái," she whispered. [休息，秀蘭！ 我會很快回來，- Rest, Xiùlán! I will be back soon] With that, she turned and headed towards the next access hatch.
• LEVEL FOUR, COMMUNICATIONS •
Traynor hacked the lock on the access hatch from a distance so it wouldn't auto-open at her approach; standing by the latched edge of the panel, she grabbed a handle and held the door to prevent it swinging open when she released the bolt. After listening intently at the door for several minutes, she deemed it safe enough to open the hatch in order to take a look outside.
Being so close to the outboard hull of the station, she wasn't surprised at the lack of activity in the corridor outside. Even though she knew the futility of cloaking on a batarian manned facility, she energized her cloak anyway—a few of the C-Pat members on patrol were Turian; fewer still were human—the uncertainty her shadowy figure would cause if it was seen far outweighed the disadvantages of using it in the first place.
This level of the station possessed less space than that of the level above, and it was sub-divided further into sleeping compartments for 350 crew. That part of the space not devoted to crew rest consisted of a number of dedicated communications compartments; each was devoted to a state-of-the-art system, independent of the equipment installed in the previous or next compartment. She eased her way past several closed doors before finding the one she wanted; this compartment housed the interstellar communications equipment, set up to send to and receive from the three massive comm buoys serving the region of the abyss closest to the station.
Carefully unlocking the door, she entered several commands into her omnitool before carefully entering the darkened room. Once she was sure her physical presence wasn't being recorded, she inspected the entire compartment, including the area behind the massive cabinet housing the comms equipment, just to make sure there wasn't a hidden entrance—or exit—that could be used against her.
After hacking the lock on the door so it would silently alert her to any attempt to open it, she dialed in the frequency the Ionsaí would be monitoring, activated the massive radio system and sent her emergency pickup message in a coded microburst. She waited long enough for a reply, which came rather quickly. Downloading it to her omnitool for decryption later, she shut down all the machinery after eliminating the evidence of her electronic trespassing.
Traynor opened the door just enough to inspect the passageway; seeing no one in either direction, she energized her cloaking shield, armed her omnitool and left the compartment, walking rapidly back the way she'd come. She was almost to the hatch, just passing the last door when it opened without warning. She instantly pressed herself against the opposite wall and froze as two batarian's sauntered out from what was revealed to be a lounge area with tables, at which several others were sitting, eating, drinking and smoking.
Sam thought for a brief instant she might have gotten lucky, as it appeared both of the C-Pat officers would continue towards the far end of the passage. Unfortunately, one of them turned and looked at the exact spot where Sam was standing, and decided to take a closer look.
Pulling his sidearm as he stopped in front of her was the last mistake the batarian ever made; as he was taking aim at the shadowy figure he was just barely able to see, a powerful arm whipped across in front of him, just below his receding chin. He was still standing several seconds after a massive amount of blood began running like a waterfall down his chest; his head rocked backwards from the fist connecting with his nose, increasing the rate of blood flow from his sliced open neck and knocking him off his feet. The other batarian, having turned to see what was happening behind him, died almost instantly when Traynor punched him hard in the middle of his chest, the omnitool launching a white-hot ceramic blade; this flew over her knuckles, piercing the batarian's sternum, heart and spine before the point exited his back.
Turning back to the lounge area, she hit the next guard in the throat as he was coming at her, crushing his airway with her knuckles as she sliced his midriff open with the butterfly knife in her right hand. The next two, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, encountered Traynor's boots as she leapt straight up and kicked both of them in their faces with enough force to fracture their skulls—they may as well have run headlong into a concrete wall. As these two were crashing to the floor, Sam unleashed several shuriken, one after the other; each of the poisoned blade tips finding its mark in the faces of the remaining batarians just rising from the tables to join the fray.
When all movement had ceased, she looked around the room. Finding another door towards the back, she quickly hacked the lock to ensure it would stay closed before returning to the main entry and outer passage, where she hastily dragged the two dead guards back into the room.
Sealing the door from the outside, she quickly made her way back to the ladder leading up to the utility tunnel access hatch between this deck and the secure level five above. Once inside, she relocked the hatch, then made her way back to where she'd left Griff and Xiùlán.
"Didn't hear much over the comms, Traynor." Griff smiled as he added, "There did seem to be a few grunts from exertion. Resistance must have been light."
"Got discovered by a nest of the bastards … all dead now, but the alarms will be going off soon as someone walks into that passage. Right now, I have to decrypt the message I received from the Ionsaí. Should tell us where and when we'll be picked up."
"Understood. Think they can get here before the day is out?"
"We'll see, Griff." She placed her back against a metal beam next to Xiùlán and slid to a squatting position beside her injured friend. Opening the compressed message on her omnitool, she worked her way through the decryption protocols until the complete text of the message was revealed.
"Looks like we need to go down to sub-level one-alpha—it's a service tunnel running along the middle circumference of the station—tunnel is round, two-meters in diameter. Uses hover cars to ferry supplies to the various receiving and shipping docks, like the one where all this started." Sammy studied the schematic accompanying the text. "There's a service stairwell about thirty meters further along. We can go down the ladder, access the tunnel and catch a ride on a couple of the cars. Their programming can be over-ridden easy enough. We just need to reach the receiving dock at sub-level one, section nine."
"What happens then?" Griff wanted to know. "What's the timeline?"
"A squad of commandos using our shuttlecraft will fly into the dock from the Ionsaí. They'll send us a signal just before they arrive, then home in on our beacons. We enter the warehouse, get in the shuttle and fly away. Need to be there in five hours.
A snort of derision was Buchanan's answer. "I will give you my entire salary from this operation if getting off this miserable station proves to be that simple. Personally, I bet we will have to shoot our way out of here. Be lucky if we all make it off at all!"
"Have a little faith, Griff," Traynor replied. "It may not come to that." Traynor leaned over Xiùlán and whispered her name.
"Sà mi, …" came the whispered reply. "When can we go home?"
Traynor gave her lover a bit of water as she replied, "Soon, darlin' … very soon."