George tried to pull her deeper in to the shadows. Maggie was sure though, that if she could just get the attention of the two siluettes, they could sort everything out and things would be well on their way to normal again. Well normal as things could be for a bird-like raptor and a time traveling engineer. Any bit of normality was to be embraced, though, as far as Maggie was concerned at least.



"I thought I heard voices in here." Malcolm said, explaining to his comrade why he had ducked in to the mess hall. They scanned the room the best they could with their eyes.

"How about some light Trip, I can't see a thing." He suggested.

"Sure blame the engineer for your poor eyesight." Trip muttered good naturedly as he made his way back to the door and the light controls.



Maggie knew what was coming, unfortunately George seemed to think they were leaving, when the lights come on, well it would not be good. She tried to get some purchase with her feet on the carpeting without making noise, and with her had she tried to cover George's large eyes. George merely pushed her arm down and cocked his head at her; it seemed to be his signature move.

'Oh this is not good, not good.' She thought to her self as she saw Trip fumbling with the lights.



Trip finally found the right switch after opening and closing the door and pouring himself a glass of water. Some engineer, but door controls weren't really his forte. With a triumphant flip of the switch the entire mess lit up.

And that's when things got interesting.



George just freaked out. He grabbed a tighter hold on her and started to, well the only way to describe it is, to scream like a girl. It was the shrillest call she had ever heard. Unfortunately he was hugging her with her arms at her sides and there was just no way for her to plug her ears.

Malcolm and Trip had their weapon pointed at her and were simultaneously reassuring her everything would be all right and proving it wouldn't by threatening George and waving weapons around.

This was really not a good spot to be in.

It was then that she came to realize that her gargoyle wasn't so wingless after all. From his sides, hidden perfectly under a thin flap of skin, he extended two hardened flexible membranes. He flexed the blue-green shell like skin once and then stretched it over the both of them.

"Great." Her muffled mumble barely even reached her ears.



"Great, just great." Malcolm said as he started to lower his pulse pistol. There was no way to hit the creature now with out possibly hitting Ms. Claimes.

"Well there has to be another way to get her out of there, other then shooting her out that is." Trip said as he leaned forward on a table and eyed the blue-green mass before them in the corner.

"Not likely, and I think it knows that."

"Listen, if its no more then an animal, maybe we just need to coax it out. It doesn't seem to have hurt her yet, maybe its just scared."

"Coax it out with what exactly." Malcolm said looking at Trip with thinly veiled sarcasm.

Trip made his way back over to the door controls. "I don't know you're the expert in dealing with these sort of hostage situations, you tell me." He pushed the COM button down. "Trip to Archer."

"Archer here." Came the almost instant reply.

"We've found the alien and Ms. Claimes, both seem intact."

"Were are you?"

"Mess hall sir."

"We're on our way." And the link cut out.

"If it is just an animal, more unfamiliar people in here might not be a good idea." Malcolm ventured, trying to come at the problem from a different angle.



From inside her cocoon Maggie was sure that she heard talking in the mess hall. As it was all she heard was Georges heartbeat and breathing and the occasional 'mmuoph licophum hhmmuphrum' from the outside world. She highly doubted that was what they were really saying. If they were trying to communicate, well they weren't going to get very far.



To Be Continued…

If my chapters were any longer, you wouldn't have an update for weeks, so be thankful

: ) I'm doing my best over here.