Danner frowned deeply as he inspected the unconscious Shrike. The man looked as if he'd been run through a battlefield without sleep for three days.
"He doesn't look so good," he said as he turned to his partner.
"He needed a little attitude adjustment, perhaps the voltage setting doesn't have to be set so high?" responded Nanno. He joined Danner by the assassin and looked their prisoner over.
"That cur, Lassar, better come up with a proper control collar soon or I'll have his filthy hide. With that we'll be able to control him without any problems. Then there will be no more need to shock him," Nanno explained to the other man.
Danner frown evolved into a look of concern. "What if someone comes looking for him?" he asked.
"Who? He's a renegade Enforcer. It's almost guaranteed that nobody knows he was here."
"What about the Nebari girl?"
"What about her?"
"She knows he was here," Danner persisted.
"So what? What can she do? She's probably just some party girl and the gray piece of trash has most likely moved on to some other male," Nanno replied with the up most surety.
Danner shook his head. "I don't know. I still have a bad feeling about this," he muttered.
"Look, if she somehow shows up looking for him... we'll just bliz her out on some of our product... have a little fun with the tralk... and then have our new collared partner here break her neck when we're done with her. See? No problem at all, other than disposing of the body," explained Nanno with a sinister grin. Danner remained silent as he looked back at the man pinned to the wall. Nanno's plan seemed sound enough, but somehow he felt the idea would fall apart at the first opportunity with this assassin involved in it.
The rest of the crew had already returned to the streets in the attempt to find the missing Shrike. Chiana stood by the bar drumming her fingers on the wooden surface as she waited for Rygel to return from his room so they could do the same. She'd just made the decision to go up and drag the Hynerian down when she heard a familiar booming voice from behind her.
"Hey, Dancing Girl! Chiana... there you are," called Brunt.
"Brunt, any word?" she asked anxiously as the man came to her side.
The large man shook his wild mane of hair in a negative gesture.
"I'm afraid not. Nobody has seen anyone matching your friend's description or has even heard of any accounts of beings being shanghaied this weeken."
Chiana's hopes died and Brunt could see her pain clearly written on the girl's face.
"I'm sorry, Chiana. The only unusual things I've come across since I've been looking is that somebody is looking for some questionable holo-vids of an adult nature and somebody else is searching for some type of Scarren slave collar... and that's no help at all," he said by way of apology.
Chiana face lit up suddenly, "What was that? What did you just say?" she asked excitedly.
"I said, I haven't found anyone who's seen your friend..." Brunt repeated dumbfounded.
"No, after that. What did you say about a 'collar'?"
"I said that one thing I heard that was out of the ordinary is that someone was looking for a strange Scarren device... some kind of collar."
"A collar," repeated the Nebari as Rygel arrived to join them, "A Scarren control collar? Is that what it was?"
"Yes, that sounds more like it... what of it?" asked Brunt, even more confused.
Chiana let out a shrill cry and then grabbed the man by his unruly hair and surprised him by kissing him soundly on the lips.
"You did it! You found a lead to him!" she almost shouted and then began to do a little victory jig in celebration.
"I did?" Brunt said, now convinced that the poor girl had broken under the stress of her missing companion. Rygel did a better job of keeping himself under control and pointedly ignored the dancing Chiana.
"Do you know who exactly is looking for this control collar?" he asked the man.
"A street person named 'Lassar' was asking around about one," Brunt answered. "Is she all right?" he asked while jerking a meaty thumb at the jubilant Nebari girl.
"Unfortunately... yes," drawled the Hynerian.
Chiana bounced back between the two and draped her arms over both male's shoulders.
"Now... where can we find this Lassar?" she asked with a big smile.
The place was a dive, filled mostly with refugees from the streets and down on their luck spacers... Chiana almost felt right at home. She'd spent a lot of time in worse establishments during her cycles on the run with her brother.
"I don't like this place," complained Rygel as he looked over the rough crowd.
"Bliz out, Shrimp," said the girl, "We'll be out of here as soon as we find out what we want to know."
After refusing his offer of accompanying them, Brunt had given the pair a good description of Lassar. The ragged filthy man standing at the dingy bar ahead of them fit the profile to a "T". Chiana pointed the fellow out to the Hynerian and started forward.
"Wait," said Rygel as he grabbed her arm to halt her, "We should wait until the others get here to back us up." The small being nervously eyed the several other street drudges that the man was talking too.
"Why? I'm just gonna talk to him. Nothin' will happen," assured the Nebari with a smile as she stepped forward toward the man despite the Hynerian's misgivings and warning for caution.
"Damn foolish girl," mutter Rygel as he watched her go. A microt later he keyed his comm badge and began talking excitedly into it.
Chiana approached the group and put her best sexy and friendly smile on.
"Hiya," she said out loud as she sauntered up. The group turned as one to face her. "You're Lassar, aren't ya?" she asked the man.
"Who wants to know?" he asked suspiciously.
"No one important," she said, "I heard that you're looking to buy a control collar. I might know where you could buy one." She stepped closer to him. "Excellent Scarren tech," she promised.
"Do you now, girl?" he replied with a disbelieving sneer.
"Yeah... but if you're not interested..." she bluffed and started to turn away.
"Wait a minute," he called with a scowl and then pointed one dirty finger in her direction. "You're her, ain't ya? They said you might come nosing around. Do yourself a favor, girl... and just go home and stop asking questions." He turned his back on her in dismissal.
"Who said!" demanded Chiana as she grabbed the man's arm and spun him back to face her. "I want to know who you are talking about."
Behind her, Rygel let out a groan. "So much for nothing not happening," he muttered to himself.
Lassar uttered a curse and leaped off his stool to shove Chiana hard in the chest. Taken by surprised the Nebari woman fell over backwards to land on the floor. Nearby Patrons chucked as Lassar moved to stand over her and angrily shake a fist in the prone girl's direction.
"I said go home before you don't have that choice, you little bitch," he threatened.
Lassar got a surprise himself a microt later as a length of razor-sharp steel suddenly appeared just under his nose. The blade picked upward ever so slightly making the edge nick into the soft tissue there between his nostrils, causing him to rise to his tiptoes to relieve the pressure. His eyes followed the length of the combat knife to find it being held by a young Delvian woman with an evil smile.
"That... would be so very much...a big mistake," said the blue woman's soft voice.
Lassar's eyes momentarily shifted in the opposite direction to see why his comrades hadn't rushed to assist him by now to discover they had their own problems... by way of a tall Sebacean man holding a very real and fully charged pulse-rifle casually in one of his hands. The man made a "shooing" motion with his empty hand and the other's at the bar scurried to be elsewhere. Lassar watched, still frozen in place by the big knife as the man helped the Nebari girl to her feet and then walked over to lean casually against the recently vacated bar. He placed one elbow on the counter top and then rested his chin on the hand of that arm. He regarded the street man with a look of boredom.
"You should probably listen to her... she's in a very bad mood," he said with a tilt of his chin in the Delvian's direction. The blade's edge took another nip at his nose as the woman tilted her wrist up slightly to empathize the armed Sebacean man's words of advice.
Lassar winced in pain from the nicking his nose was taking and asked, "What do you want?"
"Answers," said Rygel as he floated closer.
"Now," put in Malika, adding another painful flick of her wrist.
"Who wants the control collar and where are they," demanded Chiana.
"I don't know what you're talking about... I don't know anything," said the man.
Malika was just about to raise the knife up another notch when Chiana waved her away. The crook sighed with relief when the knife was removed, only to have Chiana step in front of him and kick him between the legs as hard as she could. Andar himself winced from the vicious blow in symphony as the other man fell to the filthy barroom floor in a lump.
"It might be a good idea to tell her what she wants to know too," recommended the Sebacean idly to the prone man. Chiana grabbed Lassar by the hair and forced him to look at her. She drew a long slim knife from her boot top and brought the sharp tip to within a henta of the man's eye.
"Tell me what you know... or..." she let the sentence hang as she waved the point of the blade back and forth between his two eyes.
Lassar began to talk rapidly.
"Wake up!"
Nanno struck the Shrike's face again and got no results for his effort. Muttering, he reached for the pitcher of water he had brought for the man and flung the contents into his face. He almost thought that even the drenching wouldn't work to bring the assassin around, but slowly the prisoner raised his head. Blurry eyed, he looked around and started to mumble to himself.
"Good. For a microt I thought you'd died," Nanno said.
Berret's head wobbled back on his neck until it slammed into the wall behind him. He held it there unsteady as he regarded the man through half-hooded eyes.
"Go away!" he commanded in a slur, "I already killed you."
"In your dreams, Shrike," sneered Nanno.
"I'm not going to listen to you anymore. Blame me all you wish," Berret muttered and then asked, "Where's Chiana?"
"What the frell are you talking about?" Nanno asked as he grabbed the man by his hair and looked into Berret's eyes. No matter how long he waited the other man's eyes refused to focus on him.
The Shrike was in another world of his own.
"Dren! What the frell is wrong with you?" demanded Berret's captor.
"You're dead. You're all dead... and I don't have to talk to you," the Shrike repeated hazily. "I only want to talk to the Pixie. I have to tell her... I have to explain all this to her."
"Goddess! You're mad," cursed Nanno. "You are no frelling use to me like this. I certainly hope for your sake the collar will correct your mental imbalance."
"No, no," Berret said while trying to shake his head in emphasis. "I'm not evil. I didn't mean to do all those things. The Syndicate made me do them... I have to tell her... have to tell her so she don't hate me."
"Who are you talking about?" Nanno asked, curious now.
To his surprise, Berret answered the question. "The Pixie, Chiana... Where is she?" Berret looked about the room as if he was seeing something Nanno couldn't. "She was here with all of you. She doesn't understand I didn't want to kill anyone. She blames me just like you do. Why wouldn't you let me find her so I can tell her?"
Nanno began to figure out what the Shrike was hallucinating about, he was looking for a female named Chiana who was important to him. Apparently the shock treatments have sent him into a waking nightmare of his own creation where he believed all the beings he'd killed in his past have returned to haunt him. He thought Nanno himself was somebody he had killed. Perhaps he could use the situation to soften the assassin up for when they attached the collar to him.
"You are looking for Chiana," he probed.
"Yes, where is she?" Berret asked with a hint of hope in his voice.
"She doesn't want to see you," Nanno told him.
"I need to talk to her."
"Why? How are you going to be able to explain the fact that you killed her to her?"
Berret eyes grew large and even more of the color drained from his face at Nanno's statement.
"No!" Berret denied, "She's alive. She still lives."
"No," Nanno countered, "You killed her. Why else would she be here with us if she weren't dead."
"No!" Berret cried again. He was obviously beginning to panic inside his delirium.
"You murdered her in cold blood just like you did us. She does hate you... hates you more then you can know for what you did to her." Nanno leaned in closer to the man, his voice a sharp whisper. An effect he knew would drive the man over the edge. "She will never forgive you," he hissed in Berret's ear
The Shrike began to howl wordlessly as his mind started to unravel. Nanno stepped back to examine his handiwork. Whoever this Chiana was, she was obviously the assassin's single hold on his sanity. The only thing keeping the despair of what he'd been as an Enforcer from overwhelming him. The assassin began to thrash against his bonds, for him reality slipped away and was replaced with his nightmares. Nanno had guessed right, the abuse the man suffered at his hands, along with the starvation and his own guilt had snapped the thin veneer of sanity when he'd yanked his only support system out from under him by telling him the female he seemed to care so much for was dead by his hand. He turned and left the gibbering man in his cell. As he closed the door had gave a low chuckle as he thanked whoever this Chiana was for accidentally giving him the key to breaking the Shrike's will and mind. By the time the collar arrived, the Shrike would be a mindless husk; forever trapped in his own nightmarish reality... forever his slave.
In the cell a few microns later Berret had stopped howling... the baying stopping in an instant as if someone shutting off a recording. The Shrike's eyes glazed over blankly, not even the emotion of madness there now. Suddenly he began to recite words in high Scarren speech.
"First code of service," Berret muttered in a monotone. "Arckatius is king and master."
"Second code. I serve Arckatius and the Syndicate."
Berret's body stood up more erect in his bonds.
"Third code. Arckatius is to be obeyed at any cost."
Berret's right arm pulled against its manacle with its full force, this time in a downward direction. With a sickening pop, his thumb dislocated and his hand slipped out of the restraint.
"Forth code. My purpose is to eradicate the enemy."
Berret brought his right hand over to his mouth. Gripping the dislocated digit with his teeth, he pulled and forced it back into it's joint.
"Fifth code. Allow nothing to stand in my way."
Berret flexed his right hand and found it fully operational again. He gripped his left thumb and yanked it out of its socket, then freed his left hand from its bonds.
"Sixth code. Allow no prey to escape."
He wrenched the thumb back into it proper place.
"Seventh code. Leave no witnesses."
The life drained from Berret's eyes to be replaced by the emotionless calm of a Black Syndicate Enforcer.
"Eighth code. Nothing will avert my service to house and lord... not even death."
Shrike457 had been reborn.
D'argo watched the apparently deserted warehouse from around the corner of the neighboring structure. He glanced up at the Sebacean woman on top of the pile of refuse scanning the same building through a pair of occulars.
"Anything?" he asked Aeryn a microt later.
The ex-Peacekeeper shook her head. "Nothing since those three entered a quarter arn ago," she said as she jumped down from her perch to join him and the rest of the crew gathered nearby.
"Are you sure you got the right place?" Crichton asked Chiana and the others who'd returned with her and Rygel. "Are you sure that guy didn't just give you a phony location?"
"I think it's safe to say he wasn't in a position to lie," put in Andar before the Nebari could answer.
Chiana nodded. "This is where he said they took Berret," she confirmed.
"Well? How do you want to handle this?" John asked Aeryn.
The woman pursed her lips in deep thought and then asked D'argo, "Frontal assault?"
"Ordinarily, I'd say that was the best option but that place is too large. Berret could be held anywhere inside and they'd probably kill him long before we could locate him if we attacked blindly."
"Then we have to go in quiet," put in Chiana as she looked from one of her friends to another.
"Why don't we just forget the whole thing and go home to Moya?" offered Rygel.
Malika slapped the Hynerian in the back of the head for his trouble, "Forget it, Toad. If I have to be here... then so do you."
Zhaan frowned slightly at the other Delvian; she was going to have to have a talk with the girl about her temper. Putting the thought to the back of her mind to be dealt with at a latter time she said,
"Then the best course of action would be to sneak someone inside to look around and locate Berret before we attempt a rescue."
"But who?" asked Crichton. "It would have to be someone they'd mostly wouldn't notice."
"I'll go," said Chiana, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to her as John turned his interest toward Rygel.
"Someone small," Crichton continued as he closed on the Hynerian. Rygel realizing he was about to be volunteered started backing away from the man.
"I'll go," Chiana said again as Rygel backed his thronesled into D'argo, who moved to block his escape.
"And sneaky!" rumbled the huge warrior as he placed one hand on the floating chair to halt Rygel's retreat.
"Why me!" whined the Dominar as he realized he was caught.
"I said, I'll go!" barked Chiana for a third time and finally succeeded in getting their attention.
"Pip?" John asked surprised. "You want to go?"
"Yes, let her go instead," piped in Rygel. "He's her pet after all." Rygel was saved another slap to the head by Malika when Andar caught her arm before she could let it fly.
"Yeah. I could do it," the Nebari girl answered. "I'm small... and who's better at being sneaky then a professional thief?"
"She has a point," said Aeryn as she stripped off her black Peacekeeper coat and handed it over to the girl. "Put this on, it will help camouflage you inside." After Chiana took the garment from her and slipped it on, Aeryn turned and regarded the rest of her companions. Singling John and Andar out she said,
"Okay, boys. Off with the shirts."
"What?" Andar and Crichton said almost at the same time.
"Your black undershirts," explained Aeryn. "We need them, so take them off."
John looked at her confused. "For what?" he asked.
Aeryn rolled her eyes as if the answer should have been obvious to anyone who wasn't blind.
"Take a microt to look at Chiana, John. She has white hair and skin that's so gray it's almost white. She needs something to cover them up... so give me your shirt."
"Oh!" John said, almost embarrassed to not have considered something that was right in front of his face. He slipped out of his jacket and pulled the shirt off and handed it to Aeryn. As he put his coat back on, Aeryn put the shirt on over Chiana's head almost as if she were going to wear it normally. Instead of pulling her head through the neck opening Aeryn placed that over Chiana's eyes like the opening of a mask and tied the sleeves around at the back of the Nebari's head, leaving a strip with only her eyes showing.
"I learned this trick in commando school," explained Aeryn.
Despite the situation, Crichton chuckled, "A Ninja Nebari... how cool."
Aeryn frowned and shook her head at the unfamiliar term but elected not to ask what a "ninja" was.
"That's a good idea," said Andar as he handed Aeryn his shirt. "I don't think I would have ever thought of it." Aeryn thanked him and immediately ripped the black shirt into strips.
"Hey!" exclaimed the Sebacean man. "What are you doing to my shirt?"
Aeryn stopped tearing for a microt. "She needs something to cover the backs of her hands with," she explained. "She can't wear those heavy gloves to climb in. She'll have to be able to feel around for finger holds."
"Well... why couldn't you have used John's shirt for that?" Andar pouted.
The ex-Peacekeeper shrugged her shoulders in a human way, something she'd picked up from Crichton.
"Just luck of the draw, I guess," she told the grumbling man.
Chiana easily scaled the side of the warehouse. It's worn and weathered siding giving her plenty of hand and foot holds for her to pull her lithe body upwards. Once she gained the roof, she quickly found the exhaust vent for the air system and with the help of her slim knife blade was able to pry the rusted cover off without making any noise. She crawled through the opening to find herself among the joists and rafters of the structure. Her black garb made her fit seamlessly in to shadows, allowing her to cover open areas without worry of being detected by anyone who might happen to be below her on the huge storage floor of the building. Even though she moved carefully, she still kicked up the occasion cloud of dust from the rafter beams. The shirt tied over her head acted like a mask to filter out the particles and kept her from sneezing, she idly wondered why she never thought of the trick herself either. Filing the technique under "useful things to do while snurching" for future use, Chiana finally made it across the large storage space to where a row of offices was located. She paused to listen and sure enough she could make out voices somewhere in that area. She crept over several empty rooms; being comprised of nothing more then four walls to separate the spaces, each had no ceiling, allowing her to look down into them as she passed overhead. At the last office by the building's wall she found the source of the voices. Two of the men they seen earlier were inside the office having a conversation before an opening doorway that revealed a stairwell leading down somewhere under the warehouse. Chiana settled herself in to listen.
"He doesn't look so good," he said as he turned to his partner.
"He needed a little attitude adjustment, perhaps the voltage setting doesn't have to be set so high?" responded Nanno. He joined Danner by the assassin and looked their prisoner over.
"That cur, Lassar, better come up with a proper control collar soon or I'll have his filthy hide. With that we'll be able to control him without any problems. Then there will be no more need to shock him," Nanno explained to the other man.
Danner frown evolved into a look of concern. "What if someone comes looking for him?" he asked.
"Who? He's a renegade Enforcer. It's almost guaranteed that nobody knows he was here."
"What about the Nebari girl?"
"What about her?"
"She knows he was here," Danner persisted.
"So what? What can she do? She's probably just some party girl and the gray piece of trash has most likely moved on to some other male," Nanno replied with the up most surety.
Danner shook his head. "I don't know. I still have a bad feeling about this," he muttered.
"Look, if she somehow shows up looking for him... we'll just bliz her out on some of our product... have a little fun with the tralk... and then have our new collared partner here break her neck when we're done with her. See? No problem at all, other than disposing of the body," explained Nanno with a sinister grin. Danner remained silent as he looked back at the man pinned to the wall. Nanno's plan seemed sound enough, but somehow he felt the idea would fall apart at the first opportunity with this assassin involved in it.
The rest of the crew had already returned to the streets in the attempt to find the missing Shrike. Chiana stood by the bar drumming her fingers on the wooden surface as she waited for Rygel to return from his room so they could do the same. She'd just made the decision to go up and drag the Hynerian down when she heard a familiar booming voice from behind her.
"Hey, Dancing Girl! Chiana... there you are," called Brunt.
"Brunt, any word?" she asked anxiously as the man came to her side.
The large man shook his wild mane of hair in a negative gesture.
"I'm afraid not. Nobody has seen anyone matching your friend's description or has even heard of any accounts of beings being shanghaied this weeken."
Chiana's hopes died and Brunt could see her pain clearly written on the girl's face.
"I'm sorry, Chiana. The only unusual things I've come across since I've been looking is that somebody is looking for some questionable holo-vids of an adult nature and somebody else is searching for some type of Scarren slave collar... and that's no help at all," he said by way of apology.
Chiana face lit up suddenly, "What was that? What did you just say?" she asked excitedly.
"I said, I haven't found anyone who's seen your friend..." Brunt repeated dumbfounded.
"No, after that. What did you say about a 'collar'?"
"I said that one thing I heard that was out of the ordinary is that someone was looking for a strange Scarren device... some kind of collar."
"A collar," repeated the Nebari as Rygel arrived to join them, "A Scarren control collar? Is that what it was?"
"Yes, that sounds more like it... what of it?" asked Brunt, even more confused.
Chiana let out a shrill cry and then grabbed the man by his unruly hair and surprised him by kissing him soundly on the lips.
"You did it! You found a lead to him!" she almost shouted and then began to do a little victory jig in celebration.
"I did?" Brunt said, now convinced that the poor girl had broken under the stress of her missing companion. Rygel did a better job of keeping himself under control and pointedly ignored the dancing Chiana.
"Do you know who exactly is looking for this control collar?" he asked the man.
"A street person named 'Lassar' was asking around about one," Brunt answered. "Is she all right?" he asked while jerking a meaty thumb at the jubilant Nebari girl.
"Unfortunately... yes," drawled the Hynerian.
Chiana bounced back between the two and draped her arms over both male's shoulders.
"Now... where can we find this Lassar?" she asked with a big smile.
The place was a dive, filled mostly with refugees from the streets and down on their luck spacers... Chiana almost felt right at home. She'd spent a lot of time in worse establishments during her cycles on the run with her brother.
"I don't like this place," complained Rygel as he looked over the rough crowd.
"Bliz out, Shrimp," said the girl, "We'll be out of here as soon as we find out what we want to know."
After refusing his offer of accompanying them, Brunt had given the pair a good description of Lassar. The ragged filthy man standing at the dingy bar ahead of them fit the profile to a "T". Chiana pointed the fellow out to the Hynerian and started forward.
"Wait," said Rygel as he grabbed her arm to halt her, "We should wait until the others get here to back us up." The small being nervously eyed the several other street drudges that the man was talking too.
"Why? I'm just gonna talk to him. Nothin' will happen," assured the Nebari with a smile as she stepped forward toward the man despite the Hynerian's misgivings and warning for caution.
"Damn foolish girl," mutter Rygel as he watched her go. A microt later he keyed his comm badge and began talking excitedly into it.
Chiana approached the group and put her best sexy and friendly smile on.
"Hiya," she said out loud as she sauntered up. The group turned as one to face her. "You're Lassar, aren't ya?" she asked the man.
"Who wants to know?" he asked suspiciously.
"No one important," she said, "I heard that you're looking to buy a control collar. I might know where you could buy one." She stepped closer to him. "Excellent Scarren tech," she promised.
"Do you now, girl?" he replied with a disbelieving sneer.
"Yeah... but if you're not interested..." she bluffed and started to turn away.
"Wait a minute," he called with a scowl and then pointed one dirty finger in her direction. "You're her, ain't ya? They said you might come nosing around. Do yourself a favor, girl... and just go home and stop asking questions." He turned his back on her in dismissal.
"Who said!" demanded Chiana as she grabbed the man's arm and spun him back to face her. "I want to know who you are talking about."
Behind her, Rygel let out a groan. "So much for nothing not happening," he muttered to himself.
Lassar uttered a curse and leaped off his stool to shove Chiana hard in the chest. Taken by surprised the Nebari woman fell over backwards to land on the floor. Nearby Patrons chucked as Lassar moved to stand over her and angrily shake a fist in the prone girl's direction.
"I said go home before you don't have that choice, you little bitch," he threatened.
Lassar got a surprise himself a microt later as a length of razor-sharp steel suddenly appeared just under his nose. The blade picked upward ever so slightly making the edge nick into the soft tissue there between his nostrils, causing him to rise to his tiptoes to relieve the pressure. His eyes followed the length of the combat knife to find it being held by a young Delvian woman with an evil smile.
"That... would be so very much...a big mistake," said the blue woman's soft voice.
Lassar's eyes momentarily shifted in the opposite direction to see why his comrades hadn't rushed to assist him by now to discover they had their own problems... by way of a tall Sebacean man holding a very real and fully charged pulse-rifle casually in one of his hands. The man made a "shooing" motion with his empty hand and the other's at the bar scurried to be elsewhere. Lassar watched, still frozen in place by the big knife as the man helped the Nebari girl to her feet and then walked over to lean casually against the recently vacated bar. He placed one elbow on the counter top and then rested his chin on the hand of that arm. He regarded the street man with a look of boredom.
"You should probably listen to her... she's in a very bad mood," he said with a tilt of his chin in the Delvian's direction. The blade's edge took another nip at his nose as the woman tilted her wrist up slightly to empathize the armed Sebacean man's words of advice.
Lassar winced in pain from the nicking his nose was taking and asked, "What do you want?"
"Answers," said Rygel as he floated closer.
"Now," put in Malika, adding another painful flick of her wrist.
"Who wants the control collar and where are they," demanded Chiana.
"I don't know what you're talking about... I don't know anything," said the man.
Malika was just about to raise the knife up another notch when Chiana waved her away. The crook sighed with relief when the knife was removed, only to have Chiana step in front of him and kick him between the legs as hard as she could. Andar himself winced from the vicious blow in symphony as the other man fell to the filthy barroom floor in a lump.
"It might be a good idea to tell her what she wants to know too," recommended the Sebacean idly to the prone man. Chiana grabbed Lassar by the hair and forced him to look at her. She drew a long slim knife from her boot top and brought the sharp tip to within a henta of the man's eye.
"Tell me what you know... or..." she let the sentence hang as she waved the point of the blade back and forth between his two eyes.
Lassar began to talk rapidly.
"Wake up!"
Nanno struck the Shrike's face again and got no results for his effort. Muttering, he reached for the pitcher of water he had brought for the man and flung the contents into his face. He almost thought that even the drenching wouldn't work to bring the assassin around, but slowly the prisoner raised his head. Blurry eyed, he looked around and started to mumble to himself.
"Good. For a microt I thought you'd died," Nanno said.
Berret's head wobbled back on his neck until it slammed into the wall behind him. He held it there unsteady as he regarded the man through half-hooded eyes.
"Go away!" he commanded in a slur, "I already killed you."
"In your dreams, Shrike," sneered Nanno.
"I'm not going to listen to you anymore. Blame me all you wish," Berret muttered and then asked, "Where's Chiana?"
"What the frell are you talking about?" Nanno asked as he grabbed the man by his hair and looked into Berret's eyes. No matter how long he waited the other man's eyes refused to focus on him.
The Shrike was in another world of his own.
"Dren! What the frell is wrong with you?" demanded Berret's captor.
"You're dead. You're all dead... and I don't have to talk to you," the Shrike repeated hazily. "I only want to talk to the Pixie. I have to tell her... I have to explain all this to her."
"Goddess! You're mad," cursed Nanno. "You are no frelling use to me like this. I certainly hope for your sake the collar will correct your mental imbalance."
"No, no," Berret said while trying to shake his head in emphasis. "I'm not evil. I didn't mean to do all those things. The Syndicate made me do them... I have to tell her... have to tell her so she don't hate me."
"Who are you talking about?" Nanno asked, curious now.
To his surprise, Berret answered the question. "The Pixie, Chiana... Where is she?" Berret looked about the room as if he was seeing something Nanno couldn't. "She was here with all of you. She doesn't understand I didn't want to kill anyone. She blames me just like you do. Why wouldn't you let me find her so I can tell her?"
Nanno began to figure out what the Shrike was hallucinating about, he was looking for a female named Chiana who was important to him. Apparently the shock treatments have sent him into a waking nightmare of his own creation where he believed all the beings he'd killed in his past have returned to haunt him. He thought Nanno himself was somebody he had killed. Perhaps he could use the situation to soften the assassin up for when they attached the collar to him.
"You are looking for Chiana," he probed.
"Yes, where is she?" Berret asked with a hint of hope in his voice.
"She doesn't want to see you," Nanno told him.
"I need to talk to her."
"Why? How are you going to be able to explain the fact that you killed her to her?"
Berret eyes grew large and even more of the color drained from his face at Nanno's statement.
"No!" Berret denied, "She's alive. She still lives."
"No," Nanno countered, "You killed her. Why else would she be here with us if she weren't dead."
"No!" Berret cried again. He was obviously beginning to panic inside his delirium.
"You murdered her in cold blood just like you did us. She does hate you... hates you more then you can know for what you did to her." Nanno leaned in closer to the man, his voice a sharp whisper. An effect he knew would drive the man over the edge. "She will never forgive you," he hissed in Berret's ear
The Shrike began to howl wordlessly as his mind started to unravel. Nanno stepped back to examine his handiwork. Whoever this Chiana was, she was obviously the assassin's single hold on his sanity. The only thing keeping the despair of what he'd been as an Enforcer from overwhelming him. The assassin began to thrash against his bonds, for him reality slipped away and was replaced with his nightmares. Nanno had guessed right, the abuse the man suffered at his hands, along with the starvation and his own guilt had snapped the thin veneer of sanity when he'd yanked his only support system out from under him by telling him the female he seemed to care so much for was dead by his hand. He turned and left the gibbering man in his cell. As he closed the door had gave a low chuckle as he thanked whoever this Chiana was for accidentally giving him the key to breaking the Shrike's will and mind. By the time the collar arrived, the Shrike would be a mindless husk; forever trapped in his own nightmarish reality... forever his slave.
In the cell a few microns later Berret had stopped howling... the baying stopping in an instant as if someone shutting off a recording. The Shrike's eyes glazed over blankly, not even the emotion of madness there now. Suddenly he began to recite words in high Scarren speech.
"First code of service," Berret muttered in a monotone. "Arckatius is king and master."
"Second code. I serve Arckatius and the Syndicate."
Berret's body stood up more erect in his bonds.
"Third code. Arckatius is to be obeyed at any cost."
Berret's right arm pulled against its manacle with its full force, this time in a downward direction. With a sickening pop, his thumb dislocated and his hand slipped out of the restraint.
"Forth code. My purpose is to eradicate the enemy."
Berret brought his right hand over to his mouth. Gripping the dislocated digit with his teeth, he pulled and forced it back into it's joint.
"Fifth code. Allow nothing to stand in my way."
Berret flexed his right hand and found it fully operational again. He gripped his left thumb and yanked it out of its socket, then freed his left hand from its bonds.
"Sixth code. Allow no prey to escape."
He wrenched the thumb back into it proper place.
"Seventh code. Leave no witnesses."
The life drained from Berret's eyes to be replaced by the emotionless calm of a Black Syndicate Enforcer.
"Eighth code. Nothing will avert my service to house and lord... not even death."
Shrike457 had been reborn.
D'argo watched the apparently deserted warehouse from around the corner of the neighboring structure. He glanced up at the Sebacean woman on top of the pile of refuse scanning the same building through a pair of occulars.
"Anything?" he asked Aeryn a microt later.
The ex-Peacekeeper shook her head. "Nothing since those three entered a quarter arn ago," she said as she jumped down from her perch to join him and the rest of the crew gathered nearby.
"Are you sure you got the right place?" Crichton asked Chiana and the others who'd returned with her and Rygel. "Are you sure that guy didn't just give you a phony location?"
"I think it's safe to say he wasn't in a position to lie," put in Andar before the Nebari could answer.
Chiana nodded. "This is where he said they took Berret," she confirmed.
"Well? How do you want to handle this?" John asked Aeryn.
The woman pursed her lips in deep thought and then asked D'argo, "Frontal assault?"
"Ordinarily, I'd say that was the best option but that place is too large. Berret could be held anywhere inside and they'd probably kill him long before we could locate him if we attacked blindly."
"Then we have to go in quiet," put in Chiana as she looked from one of her friends to another.
"Why don't we just forget the whole thing and go home to Moya?" offered Rygel.
Malika slapped the Hynerian in the back of the head for his trouble, "Forget it, Toad. If I have to be here... then so do you."
Zhaan frowned slightly at the other Delvian; she was going to have to have a talk with the girl about her temper. Putting the thought to the back of her mind to be dealt with at a latter time she said,
"Then the best course of action would be to sneak someone inside to look around and locate Berret before we attempt a rescue."
"But who?" asked Crichton. "It would have to be someone they'd mostly wouldn't notice."
"I'll go," said Chiana, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to her as John turned his interest toward Rygel.
"Someone small," Crichton continued as he closed on the Hynerian. Rygel realizing he was about to be volunteered started backing away from the man.
"I'll go," Chiana said again as Rygel backed his thronesled into D'argo, who moved to block his escape.
"And sneaky!" rumbled the huge warrior as he placed one hand on the floating chair to halt Rygel's retreat.
"Why me!" whined the Dominar as he realized he was caught.
"I said, I'll go!" barked Chiana for a third time and finally succeeded in getting their attention.
"Pip?" John asked surprised. "You want to go?"
"Yes, let her go instead," piped in Rygel. "He's her pet after all." Rygel was saved another slap to the head by Malika when Andar caught her arm before she could let it fly.
"Yeah. I could do it," the Nebari girl answered. "I'm small... and who's better at being sneaky then a professional thief?"
"She has a point," said Aeryn as she stripped off her black Peacekeeper coat and handed it over to the girl. "Put this on, it will help camouflage you inside." After Chiana took the garment from her and slipped it on, Aeryn turned and regarded the rest of her companions. Singling John and Andar out she said,
"Okay, boys. Off with the shirts."
"What?" Andar and Crichton said almost at the same time.
"Your black undershirts," explained Aeryn. "We need them, so take them off."
John looked at her confused. "For what?" he asked.
Aeryn rolled her eyes as if the answer should have been obvious to anyone who wasn't blind.
"Take a microt to look at Chiana, John. She has white hair and skin that's so gray it's almost white. She needs something to cover them up... so give me your shirt."
"Oh!" John said, almost embarrassed to not have considered something that was right in front of his face. He slipped out of his jacket and pulled the shirt off and handed it to Aeryn. As he put his coat back on, Aeryn put the shirt on over Chiana's head almost as if she were going to wear it normally. Instead of pulling her head through the neck opening Aeryn placed that over Chiana's eyes like the opening of a mask and tied the sleeves around at the back of the Nebari's head, leaving a strip with only her eyes showing.
"I learned this trick in commando school," explained Aeryn.
Despite the situation, Crichton chuckled, "A Ninja Nebari... how cool."
Aeryn frowned and shook her head at the unfamiliar term but elected not to ask what a "ninja" was.
"That's a good idea," said Andar as he handed Aeryn his shirt. "I don't think I would have ever thought of it." Aeryn thanked him and immediately ripped the black shirt into strips.
"Hey!" exclaimed the Sebacean man. "What are you doing to my shirt?"
Aeryn stopped tearing for a microt. "She needs something to cover the backs of her hands with," she explained. "She can't wear those heavy gloves to climb in. She'll have to be able to feel around for finger holds."
"Well... why couldn't you have used John's shirt for that?" Andar pouted.
The ex-Peacekeeper shrugged her shoulders in a human way, something she'd picked up from Crichton.
"Just luck of the draw, I guess," she told the grumbling man.
Chiana easily scaled the side of the warehouse. It's worn and weathered siding giving her plenty of hand and foot holds for her to pull her lithe body upwards. Once she gained the roof, she quickly found the exhaust vent for the air system and with the help of her slim knife blade was able to pry the rusted cover off without making any noise. She crawled through the opening to find herself among the joists and rafters of the structure. Her black garb made her fit seamlessly in to shadows, allowing her to cover open areas without worry of being detected by anyone who might happen to be below her on the huge storage floor of the building. Even though she moved carefully, she still kicked up the occasion cloud of dust from the rafter beams. The shirt tied over her head acted like a mask to filter out the particles and kept her from sneezing, she idly wondered why she never thought of the trick herself either. Filing the technique under "useful things to do while snurching" for future use, Chiana finally made it across the large storage space to where a row of offices was located. She paused to listen and sure enough she could make out voices somewhere in that area. She crept over several empty rooms; being comprised of nothing more then four walls to separate the spaces, each had no ceiling, allowing her to look down into them as she passed overhead. At the last office by the building's wall she found the source of the voices. Two of the men they seen earlier were inside the office having a conversation before an opening doorway that revealed a stairwell leading down somewhere under the warehouse. Chiana settled herself in to listen.