[This is the reason for the "experiment" they did on Khiy]

"You're late" snapped Teko at the sound of his office door sliding open. He didn't need to look up to know it was Khiy. Only Khiy could get away with entering his office without requesting permission first.

"I know" admitted Khiy. He moved forward into the office, stopping to stand before Teko's desk. "They drugged me. I have been in medical for the last two hours."

"Drugged you?" Teko finally looked up from his monitor. He scowled and then stood angry, ready to confront whomever had dared attack one of his officers. "Who drugged you?" he demanded.

Khiy gestured towards the office entrance where Veko, Teso and Yevki were all standing. "But it was for a good reason," he added hastily. "It was done for the advancement of Corpus science."

"Corpus Science?" Teko sighed, He reached up to massage his temples, sure he could feel a headache starting up. "Is this another of Yevki's 'brilliant advances'? The last one nearly killed you Khiy."

"It might have" admitted Khiy. "But it was Profitable."

"And it worked," added Yevki. "Patent Pending."

Teko just sighed; definitely feeling a headache coming on. He would request a painkiller except he wasn't entirely sure Yevki wouldn't give him one of his latest inventions..

"It's about the Narmer" cut in Veko suddenly. "I found a weakness."

That immediately caught Teko's attention. "What?"

"I think I might have found a weakness in the Narmer controlled," said Veko. "And a way to fight them."

"It involves guns," added Teso sounding a little too excited. He was chewing on something, despite Teko seeing no sign of anything edible anywhere. "And shooting Corpus."

"Show me" demanded Teko.

Veko hesitated. He glanced at Khiy who gave him an encouraging nod.

"I noticed something when I was looking over security footage from the Orb Vallis on Venus," said Veko. He handed Teko a data pad with images of working Corpus in one of the Anyo Co facilities. Every one of them had a Veil covering their eyes - nothing new. Teko had already seen all of this before. He scowled.

"The helmets" cut in Khiy, when Teko said nothing for several minutes, clearly not catching what they had caught. "The Veil cannot be worn with a Corpus helmet. None of the Veiled Corpus are wearing helmets or the portable oxygen supply that comes with it."

"What?" Teko looked again at the images. They were right. He could not believe he had missed it. Not a single one of the Corpus in the images was hearing a helmet. "Profit you are right."

"Which means . . ." started Khiy.

"Drugs!" cut in Yevki, rubbing his hands together, eager to get his medical game on. "They are Veiled but they are still Corpus with all of the biological weaknesses that comes with being Corpus. Like sedation or the need to breath."

"If they can be freed from the Veil I prefer we avoid killing Corpus," said Teko. "Far too many have already died. And we do have a severe manpower shortage."

"We figured you would say that," said Khiy. "Which is why Teso . . . "

Teso stepped forward. He had a rifle slung over one shoulder and an equipment bag over the other. He quickly jammed half a ration bar into his mouth, chewed hastily, swallowed, then wiped his mouth on his suit sleeve.

"Non-lethal Corpus take down," said Teso. He was definitely far too excited about this. "We came up with two effective options. First the darts we tested on Khiy."

From his bag Teso removed a pouch, from which he then removed a dart with a three inch needle. He handed this to Teko.

"They shot you with this?" Teko's eyes widened.

"Yes," snapped Khiy, rubbing his rear. "My ass is still sore."

"He's just being a baby," said Yevki, rolling his eyes. "The needle needs to be that long to get through the suit and the uniform underneath it. He only got hit with a fraction of that. But if your ass is still so sore I can put you on medical leave."

"Not now you two" cut in Teko before Khiy could respond. "Teso . . . "

"Yes, yes," the younger Corpus swallowed, took a deep breath to regain his train of thought. "Yevki is right. The needle needs to be long and there are only certain areas you can hit one of us. The legs above the knees, buttocks, sides under the arms, upper arms." he patted himself on each location as he mentioned it. "And avoid the head or it will be lethal. But this method is not ideal. You need extremely good aim to hit those areas so our next option was gas grenades."

He removed from his bag several round grenades which he set on Teko's desk.

"We tested this in the mess" said Teso. "You errr . . " he hesitated. "Might receive reports of about forty crew being late to their shifts."

"I will keep that in mind," growled Teko.

"Yes, well" continued Teso. "It did work. They were unconscious within a minute and out for about an hour. Plenty of time to remove the Veils. And everyone recovered."

"Very good" said Teko. He picked up one of the grenades, examining it carefully. Taking note of the controls. "Hand thrown grenades?"

"We are working on other delivery methods," said Teso. He grinned. "Including grenade launchers. Maybe even gas rockets . . ."

We are trying not to kill them," said Teko dryly.

"Yes of course . . . " Teso was clearly no longer paying attention, his mind on his one true love: weapons.

"This does leave one key question," cut in Veko.

"And that is?" asked Teko.

"The helmets," said Veko. "Where are all of them? If they have Veiled thousands of us where are the thousands of helmets? Are there mountains of empty Corpus helmets out there? Did they melt them down? Are the Sentients wearing them? When this is all over will they all have to be replaced? Should we be investing in Corpus helmets?"