Guilloitine
So it was decided, 626 had advised Jumba that the most reasonable course of action was to go to Turo, the last place in the galaxy where the Federation would look for them. It seemed the Federation was always one step ahead of them, they were always waiting for them at thier destination, as if someone had beed tipping them off.
Slowly the gigantic red cruiser stopped in the void of space. It hovered several thousand miles beyond Turo, so that they couldn't be scanned by any passing ships and identified. Jumba, 626, 327 and 625 all sat at the table in the cruiser. No one spoke, no one knew what to say. All of them were scared, not knowing the outcome of whatever awaited them. 625 even knew the impact of the situation and was pollitely sitting at the table.
Jumba looked over to 626. "Last chance to turn back. If you think this is a bad idea, say so and we'll leave and look for another place to stay." 626 shook his head. "We've come this far, now we're here, there's no turning back. Let's just land and get the hell out of dodge."
Jumba nodded in agreement. "626, there is a pressing matter." Jumba stated. "Back there when 625 was talking about you wiping the planet clean of inhabitants, you started to shake and get nervous. I want to know what is up with that."
626 felt like he was under the finger again. He pulled himself together, "It's a long story..."
*
In a fairly large unadorned conference room in the Hall of the Elders, sat Gantu and The Grand Council Woman. Gantu had been called there for business concerning his current military satus. Which he knew was bad news.
"You let him escape again! Captain this is an outrage! I should have you dishonorably discharged. You... Oh!" the Council Woman fumed. She stopped before she got to much further, remembering that it was undignifying to loose one's temper. She breathed in, trying to calm herself. "Captain, I will give you one more chance to redeem yourself, it seems like the scientist and his genetic mutations have escaped once more. This time I fear they have dissappeared for good."
Gantu stared blankly at the Council Woman, brushing off most of her words, he normally would have been rigidly at attention, but 626 was on his mind, and how he would extract his revenge when he caught him. He stood up to face the Alkaldia in more of a respectful attitude. "On the contrary, they've not totally dissappeared this time." he grinned. "Captain?" she asked, wondering what he had up his sleeve. Gantu produced a small datapad from a pocket, on the screen was the map of the planet Turo and the surrounding planets. "A while back, before that horrible lab fire I had a hunch and took the liberty to place a tracer on Dr. Jumba's labcoat, the one he almost never takes off." he slid the pad across the conference table.
"I see." The Council Woman said icily. "According to this the doctor is floating right outside Turo's scanning range." she passed the pad back. "Yes, if he's thinking what I am then he'll probably wait untill night fall then land on a pad and slip away into the night. He knows that this would be the last place we'd ever look. And I would have never looked here at all."
"I suggest you get on brining him in. This time I want you to take three troop carriers with soldiers." the Council Woman ordered. "But, 626 eats up troops like they are nothing, they'll all die. I don't think you want to tell the wives and families that they were killed trying to capture a genetic mutation." Gantu argued. "All right, you don't have the option of taking them. I am ordering you to take them."
"But!" Gantu protested. "Good day captain." the Council Woman walked calmly out of the room. Gantu slammed himself down into the chair, hearing it crack upon impact.
*
Jumba listned for what seemed like hours, to 626 and his moving story of how he'd changed since the crash. Part of him was glad, because now 626 was no longer unhappy that he had done some horrible things that he had no controll over whatsoever. But part of him screamed failure, screamed defeat, knowing that 626 would no longer be what he was, what he had been created for.
626 finished his long epic tale, then seemed to move closer to 327 who was enjoying the whole thing. 625 laughed from his seat histariclly, "That was good, unfortunately that was in the News Paper a week ago, under the B&S section." 626 shot him a look of acid. "Although I don't have a prefrence for maiming anymore, but I'll make an exception for you." he moved closer to the aquamarine experiment. "Ah! Not the face!" 625 shielded himself. 626 stopped before he got to far, he only wanted to make 625 whine. A grin spread across his face.
"626, this sounds vaugley familliar. I think, with some time, that I could fix it. Get you back to what you were before the crash." Jumba said enthusiasticly. 327 whipped her head arround to face Jumba, "You touch him and I'll rip you limd from limb." she growled. "Whoa," 626 pulled 327 from off the table and placed her down on the seat. "I think what 327 is trying to say, it don't touch me. Isn't it apparent that from the looks that I'm happy the way I am now? Why do you want to fix it? Anyone who has found what they are happy with should remain there."
Jumba was perplexed. Perhaps 626 was right, he did seem alot happier, more pleased with himself, instead of the old spitefulness that he was filled with before. Or maybe the dammage was too far extensive, and 626 was talking crazyness. He needed the time to check out the situation, but time was short, and he didn't have the proper equipment anyway, it was all in his lab that had been undoubtably siezed and the pirates took some. He was stuck between two walls.
"We need to wait for night before we land, then it will be easier to get away from the docking bay without being seen and reported." 626 reasoned. "From the looks of it we have about six more hours to wait before we can even think of going down." Jumba nodded, "Six more hours, then we'll asess the situation." Everyone arround the cruiser's table nodded.
*
The six hours dragged on, seeming like they lasted for days. Jumba looked throught his magazines, 625 was bust in the kitchen, doing guess what? Making sandwiches. 327 and 626 were in the cockpit, whispering in eachother's ears while looking out at the stars. Eventually enough time elapsed that they could begin the descent to the planet under the cover of darkness.
Jumba brought the ship into low orbit and waited for 327's report of the radar, making sure everything was clear for them to land, she gave him the thumbs up and he intiated the landing sequence. Jumba picked a quiet landing pad to put the massive ship down on, in the slums of the city. He picked the area because it would be easier to disappear than in the rich areas.
"Contact on radar, the immage matches a ship we've seen bafore." 327 shouted to Jumba. "He's closing in fast. And he has us locked on target!" she heard Jumba groan from the front of the ship. The huge scientistwas ready to pull the ship back into low orbit and wait, but 327 shouted something. "Ten more targets, all short range fighters, all locked on."
Jumba was about to punch the controlls in anger and defeat, but the beep of an incomming transmission stopped him. He pulled the link into action and awaited the transmission. The screen turned from black to color, and slowly focused on a huge shark like alien. Jumba's blood ran cold, Gantu. The shark-like alien gave Jumba a cold stare.
"Ah, I see you have decided to come back to Turo. That was a mistake in itself, I'm guessing you let 626 decide where you should go, and he chose here." Gantu taunted on the otherside of the line, safe from 626 and his wrath. Jumba gritted his teeth, trying to think of a way out, he looked over to 626 who was watching the incomming video feed. He gave him a 'What now?' look. 626 responded by muting the microphone on thier side. "Best chance we have is on the ground, there's no way we could take them on in an aireal comabat. We should land and duke it out from there." the blue alien suggested. Jumba groaned, 626 had been wrong about Turo, was he wrong now? He saw no other alternative and decided to land. "Get ready 626. We're landing." Jumba said tensely
626 disapeared in the back of the ship and Jumba un muted the comms. Gantu grinned, "We can stand off like this the whole night." Jumba put on a defeated face, a good one at that. "We give in, where do you want us to land?" Gantu grinned, things were going well, but 626 would be a problem. He grinned as a thought entered his head. "I want to see 626." he said icily. "Non compliance will result in a barrage of plasma fire, killing you all." Jumba grumbled in protest, but turned to call the experiment. "626, come up here. We need you." he listened for the almost silent patter of his small feet. "Yeah?" 626 reported, not knowing what was up. "He's here." Jumba said to Gantu over the comms. Gantu eased himself back in his pilot's chair of his ship. "Now inside your right pocket on your lab coat, you will find two pair of hand cuffs. I put them there when you were in the holding cell in the temple. I want you to out them on 626, and I want to see it."
626 shot Jumba a look as the scientist reached down into his pocket, and true enough found the cuffs in there. He doubted Jumba was going to follow through, that would ruin the idea of the ground fight, but his hopes were shattered when Jumba brought them to bear. "Be careful, I had them especially built for 626, once they close, they can't be opened without this." Gantu held up a small remote like device. " The're also nearly indestructable. No accidents, or I'll blast you all to hell sooner than you're sceduled to be." 626 shivered at the seriousness in the captain's voice, he turned his view to Jumba, who was having several thoughts about what to do now. "Hurry up, I haven't got all night." Gantu rushed.
Jumba continued to think, untill his thoughts were interrupted by the shaking of the cruiser as the shot hit, ratling everyone inside arround. Jumba recollected himself and looked into the view screen. "That was a warning, the next shot is real." Gantu growled. Jumba saw no other alternative. He looked down at 626 who was getting nervous as his fate was slowly being decided. "626... Take of the combat suit." Jumba choked back the tears. 626 took a small step back and lowered his ears in remorse. "But..." he trailed off and took another step back. "No.." he whispered.
His mind was racing, he had to find away out, without getting them blown out of the sky. He also didn't want to go down in a quiet way, with his hands already cuffed, without taking out enemy soldiers. He always viewed his death or capture as dramatic, hundreds of soldiers comming in as he hosed them with plasma, he wanted to go down shooting. He wante da warrior's death. Now he was going out quietly, not what he wanted.
626 found himself taking off the combat suit, without him knowing. His mouth went dry, and his head seemed to swim. He held back tears and subdued the urge to escape. He dropped all his weapons and pushed them aside. He suddenly felt cold, very cold although the ship was warm, he got the shivers. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing. This was it, this was the end.
Jumba wa sready to put the cuffs on him when 626 stopped him. "I'll do it." he said, almos tin a whisper. Jumba put them on the floor infront of 626 and turned to watch Gantu watch 626. Gantu looked greatly pleased, watching in great interest, but kept a finger on the trigger of the ship's main cannon.
626 picked up the first tubular cuff, it felt so cold, so much like death. 327's words echoed in his head, 'Once these things are on, they won't come off.' Then he felt like he got struck with a ton of bricks, 327, they'd get her too. Having realized 327 was also on board he was filled with rage. He shifted his priorities from getting out alive, to making sure 327 didn't end up on a deserted asteroid, it was no place for a delicate thing like her. He closed the first cuff over his lower arms, they clicked and beeped, locking into place. He continued with the dramatics and slowly pulled the second set up into position. He had a thought about jamming them somehow, but Gantu was watching and he still didn't under stand the principle of how the restraints worked anyway. 'Here goes nothing.' he slipped his last paw into the end and locked it into place. Another beep and click, his fate was sealed. It was a strange feeling, having no controll over his arms anymore, no more freedom, just cold restraining steel.
He didn't know what to do now, so he just stood there. Jumba turned to the console. "That will definately sit well with the Council." Gantu told him. "Maybe there's some hope after all. But, anyway. Here's the co-ordinates for the landing pad." Gantu pressed some buttons and the map appeared on Jumba's screen. "Don't get any ideas." Gantu's immage disappeared.
626 first instinct was to get out, at all costs. He began pulling and grunting as he tried to get the cuffs off. He growled and thrashed on the floor, when that didn't work he tried biting them off. He scraped metal against tooth, but didn't make a scratch. He tried every trick in the holographic word displayer, but nothing worked. He even went as far as dis- locating his wrist, but he got nothing but pain. He felt like beating his head on the floor in defeat, he did, untill he hit the scar tissue under his skin and sent a jolt of pain that paralized him for a second.
"It won't work 626, just sit back and enjoy your last minutes of freedom." Jumba growled to the alien. 626 was now convinced he was destine to live out the rest of his days in the steel bonds. He now had something else to take care of. He moved to the back of the ship where 327 was sitting on the couch.
The pink alien spotted him and sighed. "There had better be a good explanation for this." she indicated the hand cuffs, unrealizing that Gantu had ordered it, but she knew they were going to land in a Federation controlled area. "Yea, Gantu ordered it, otherwise we'd have been food for the tiny micro-organisms." he said in disgust. "Well if you need help getting out you're SOL, those electronic cuffs are out of my comprehension." she informed him. "No, my fate is closing to an end, but I'll try my hardest to get you out of here." "What do you suppose we do?" 626 paused, no longer able to scratch his chin in thought he still bore a resemblence to it. "Hide, get low. I don't know. I can't think anymore. Just find someplace to hide, anywhere. Get away. Take 625, or he'll give you away."
327 jumped from off the seat and hugged him, arround the hand cuffs anyway. She proceded to give him a long passionate kiss. "This is it. See you on the other side, sometime." 327 started to break out in tears. "I'll save a spot for you." 626 grinned, trying to make light of the situation. "Go before we land. And take my Crytos, I won't be needing it anymore." 327 turned before she burst into an uncontrollable tear filled sorrow. No time for tea and sympathy, just action, ther ewill be plenty of time for tears later. 626 moved slowly up to the front of the ship.
Jumba watched 626 try to climb up in the co-pilot's chair, but couldn't, so he gave him a hand. "Hey." Jumba whispered. "It's just us, me and you." 626 announced, "327 and 625 are getting out, or hiding, whichever they can pull off." Jumba didn't want to start a conversation, it would only be in vain. He just focused on flying.
Something didn't seem right. Something still lingered in 626's head, something someone had said that would help him here. He tried to think. He moved throught all his memories stored in his head, they passed like movies, each one different. He saw immages of Jumba, 327, and Maurader, immages of death, immages of objects he'd seen. Every moment in his life was stored in his head, he passed the memory where he was sent flying in the air, then black. That made him cringe, he should have died, the impact was enought to bend the frame of the ship, he should have been splattered all over the place. He was ready to give up, and the thought entered his head. "I'm no good with these electronic cuffs, they're way beyond my comprehension." 327 had said that minutes before. But why was it important? Why had it been called to his attention. But for whatever the reason he wasn't sure, he just let it hang there.
"Three minutes untill we reach the landing pad. If you plan on doing anything, do it now." Jumba said causticly. 626 took a glance out the window. They were traveling over the wealthy part of the city that was full of lights and rooftop pools with numerous parties just getting started, which meant Gantu was sure he had everything under controll, but 626 was going to make sure he gave them hell, either way. The ship floated toward the biggest landing pad in the entire city, well it actually was three two hundred feet platforms each sitting ontop of four huge poles above the city, they ended at the side of a building and a huge door was carved into the side. There were already two huge transport cruisers that were spilling out the Omecian lizzard troops that the Council loved.
He was getting nervous, time was running out and he still hadn't thought of a plan. He was starting to sweat, and shifted uneasily in the seat. Now he was just in plain panic, seconds from just screaming in defeat. Then the phrase 327 said popped back into his mind. "Electronic cuffs..." He knew the way out was in there somewhere, but was frustrated because it wasn't obvious for him to figure out. Then he stopped, "Electronic..." HA, that was it!
Jumba watched 626 fall to the floor and collect himself as fast as the restraints would allow, then run off to the back of the ship. Jumba thought he wa strying to escape, but it would be in vain. He sighed and started the landing seqence. It was dark already, and to make things worse, the clouds that were holding in the precipitation realeased it, a steady rain poured onto the pad and ran off the ships.
The ship touched the pad with it's landing gear and the turbine engines slowly whined to a halt. The soldiers took up a defensive line arround the cruiser, carefully aiming thier riffles towards it. Each soldier knew what the was inside the ship, restrained or not it was dangerous, and no one wanted to get that night. The huge hulking form that was Captain Gantu moved slowly from the shadows. He stood in the center of the pad and crossed his arms infront of his chest, in a way taunting Jumba. A smile cracked across his face whenever The side hatch swung open on rusty hinges, the sillouhette of Jumba in the doorway.
"Come out slowly, 626 can come out last." Gantu called to the scientist. Jumba stood there, as if he hadn't heard him. "I said OUT!" he pulled his gigantic blaster. Jumba still didn't move, Gantu was getting nervous. Had 626 found a way out of the restraints and planned something? He continued to hold his steady aim on the scientist. Rain splattered off his form and dribbled into his suit, getting him wet.
Something caught Gantu's attention, a small object flying through the air, it was to small to be 626, but he aimed up as a precaution. The object landed infront of him and clinked as it hit the ground. He bent down to inspect them. He was dumbfounded, they were the cuffs he watched 626 put on himself. He stood up and put the cuffs into his pocket, and brought his blaster to bear. Something was sour.
He listened for something suspicious. Nothing but the sound of the rain pounding on the pad and the metal hulls of the ships. A fast gust of wind knocked him off balance for a moment. He saw a bright flash of light on one of the other pads adjoining his, he turned. The back up troops firing at one of thier ships, trying to hit something. '626' the words echoed in his mind like a bad memory. He gritted his teeth as the viewed the tropps continue thier fire.
Then something happened. The pad turned a bright white and a concussion wave knocked Gantu to the pad. The light disappeared and was replaced by the clap of an explosion, rocking the ships on the other pads. Pieces of shrapnel rained down in a radius of thirty feet. The smoke was drowned out by the invasion of the rain, but the smoldering remains of what was three transport cruisers were burning in the rain, fourty five men, gone. He saw a gigantic hole in the center of the pad, and felt the ground shake. The platform folded in in itself and rained down huge concrete pieces onto the vilas below.
Gantu spun arround, looking for 626 who was sure to be trying something on his landing pad. He looked arround the ships, following thier outline. He stopped, up on the tailfin of the transport he saw the outline of the monster, four arms and big ears, that was 626. He opened fire with his blaster, confusing the soldiers arround hin, them seing he was firing on his own ship. He stopped firing for a second, to give orders and see what remained of 626. He was stunned, the onlything he suceded in doing was disabling one of the ships, 626 had dissapeared.
"Sir, what in the Omec Nebula are you doing?" the nearest soldier asked. "He's here, 626. Keep on your gaurd." Gantu ordered. "Sir." The soldier said/saluted.
626 slowly slinked past a gaurd posted at the rear of the ship, only pausing to bring the back of his stolen riffle down over it's head. He had no plan, except to get off the pad alive with Jumba. He'd snuck out the airlock on the side of the ship and met 327 who was climbing down the thick permacrete pillar. He said a final good bye and told them to wait for him at the lab. He'd thrown a blaster on overload into the fuel comaprtment on the other pad, that produced the fire ball. Now he was getting closer to the landing strut of the troop carrier, he had it in his mind to pick the ship up, and or throw it off the pad.
He would have tried a dirrect assault, but Gantu was there, and that was enough to make him back off and rethink the best course of action. 626 was withing spitting range of a soldier, he ignored his instincts to throw the lizzard off the ledge, two hundred feet down to the ground. Instead he concentrated on picking up the ship. He used most of his muscles to pick the ungodly heavy ship up. He readied to swing it like a bat, untill all the soldiers turned to him and aimed thier riffles. He grunted and swung the ship, scraping the ground. Sparks flew as the concrete on metal scraped huge gouges into the pad. He finished the swing and let the ship go, there was too much momentum for him to stop the thing without him going with it.
The swipe had either took most of the soldiers off the edge or flattened them like pancakes. Gantu was left standing out in the open, with the remaining six soldiers staring stupified, thier comrades were gone. 626 was standing near the edge of the pad, in an offencive karate like stance, clealy unrestrained, and looking quite mad at that. Gantu growled and raised the blaster, he fired several shots at 626 who rolled to the side and returned fire. Gantu let his blaster cool off, he watched 626 pitifly fire a volley of rounds at him, all missed. Gantu couldn't help but let out a amused laugh.
"Is that all you have? You haven't even hit me yet!" he taunted. 626 let his mouth curl at the end, taunting Gantu. "I didn't miss, you weren't my target." he shot back. Gantu looked arround him, the six soldiers that were lively a miniute ago were now dead, laying in a pool of expanding blood. Enraged, Gantu fired several shots at 626, who just side stepped them.
626 brung his riffle from the lazy position across his shoulder and fired a burst at Gantu's legs. He knew it wouldn't do much, just piss him off. But he knew that Gantu couldn't be defeated by use of conventional small plasma weapons, he needed a cannon, but was short. He moved as Gantu vainly sent a hail of rounds his way. He only needed to get the big guy closer to the edge.
The useless fire would get niether of them anywhere, Gantu was immune to the fire 626 shot and 626 was too fast for the sluggish plasma rounds Gantu's blaster fired. They could have fought all night in the rain, throught the next day ind into eternity. But 626 was hoping for a short battle.
The two danced arround eachother's fire for several minutes, taking and giving fire, but no one scored a decisive hit, only making the other fight harder. The battle would end sometime, no one knew when. Eventually 626 saw his opportunity, he lunged at Gantu.
Gantu saw it too, he tried to move, but couldn't. 626 came too fast. The blue monster pushed his legs back with an incredible ammount of stregnth for something that small. He felt one foot slip off the edge and then the other. He did the onlything he could think of. He grabbed the edge of the platform with both hands, dropping the blaster down into the void below.
626 grinned, now he had the captian exactly where he wanted him. He closer to the end of the pad and peered over. Gantu was in a royal panic, holding on with only his fingertips. "The great Captian Gantu," he sneered. "Like life on the edge? Never knowing what will happen, adrenaline always ready to pump into your system at the drop of a pin. That's how I live. Unexpected suprizes all the time..." "Like this?!" Gantu let go with one hand and swung up to the platform all in one motion.
626 was startled that Gantu moved that fast, and recovered from the near death position. The hulking form landed behind him, 626 rolled to the side, to try it again. But Gantu met him with a huge foot, right in the head. 626 was sent into a roll across the landing pad, flopping in sparadic dirrections. His journey ended when he crashed into the landing strut for Jumba's cruiser. H laid down for a second, disoriented and feeling like he was going to throw up. He felt the ground shake as Gantu got closer. He tried to force himself up, knowing that if the Captain got a hold of him, it was all over. He rolled to his feet and spit blood that had pooled in his mouth.
"You'll never win. You were always a loser." Gantu prodded. 626 strafed to the side, weaponless after the kick. "When I get a hold of you, it would be in your best interest to want to feel dead." 626 moved away as he walked closer.
626 started to see black spots in his vision, sometimes he only saw black, but relied on his other sences to guide him away from Gantu. He felt a pounding in his head and Gantu's annoying taunts began zoning out to a dull buzz. He kept moving, away. Soon he bagan to lose his footing, stumbling on nothing, his knees kept giving out. He hadn't any idea what was happening. He had to keep from choking on blood that flowed into his mouth and kept spitting. Gantu made a lunge, seing that 626 was slowing down. He barely ducked under the attack, a Gantu rolled and faced him again. He was reminded that his rib was broken by a stabbing pain in his chest.
The giant shark jumped three more times, each time 626 was getting slower, and seemingly dumb. 626 was slowing down to the point of capture, but wasn't going to give in so soon.
626 froze, he couldn't move, his breaths came in wheezing spasms. One by one his bodily functions had been shutting down, becoming useless. He couldn't think, he couldn't move. It was the end. 626 let go of everything, he stopped fighting and began falling to the ground as fast as gravity allowed, he went unconcious before he hit the ground.
* * *
327 had waited untill Jumba had landed the ship before sneaking out of the hatch facing away from the troopers. She had shoved 625 out first, to make sure it was safe, then the climbed out. After surveying the area she decided the best way to get out was down, then 626 appeared, said a short good bye and told them to meet him at the lab. He told them where a reciever and a small store of dried food was, and send them off.
The two experiments said nothing as they climbed down the wet permacrete pillar to the ground. The rain bit into her fur, making her shiver, even though she had one of 626's comabat suits on. She thought 625 was equally cold, but he wasn't complaining, and she didn't want to have to deal with him anymore.
The two truged through the dark city streets as the rain unrelentlessly poured down harder, steam was comming from the sewers reminding the two that it was bitter cold. Walking side by side they moved in the dirrection of the lab, hoping to reach it before sunrise, before the morning traffic and everyone was awake and moving about.
The sun began to rise, filling the dark streets with a ray of light, 327 looked up, she caught the first glimpse of the lab complex. Transport cruisers had already begun un-loading thier cargo into the complex's seperate docks, the birds in the forest that the lab sat infront of began to sing thier morning song. 327 breathed a sigh of relief and straightened up for the last few hundred steps to the front door.
Once inside they headed down the log corridor to the octagonal shaped room and approached Jumba's door. There was no need to knock, 327 punched in the code and the door slowly hissed open. The pink alien moved through the rooms, thinking it was spooky seeing them empty when they were usually filled with equipment and paperwork.
"I'm hungry." 625 whined as they passed what used to be the kitchen. "Shut up." 327 growled. "We're almost there." 327 moved into the four way hallway that conencted the four sections of the lab, and looked up. On the ceiling was what appeared to be a mauled grate of some sort. "There." 327 pointed, 625 didn't care, he was hungry.
The two climbed up the wall and 327 pushed open the grate which suprizingly was easy in the fact that the lab was built to contain the experiments, the early ones anyway. After 327 the experiments were too strong to be kept contained, but they stayed anyway. She finished the journey into the dark space and groped arround for a few secodns before turning her vision into night spectrum. She quickly surveyed the space. It was about five feet square with a small stool tucked into the corner that could be used as a couch for the small experiments. In the center of the room was a display screen complete with a keyboard and hand-to-screen interface device, power cables and other legnths of wire ran from the equipment into a ventrical cover, no doubt into the mainstream and nearest power scource. And as true to his word, there was as small crate that was filled with weapons. 626 had obviously planned for something like this, it had everything you needed, except a bathroom that was located on the ground floor of the lab.
327 moved over to the computer, and was ready to log onto the mainstream but was stopped, a blinding white light made her cover her eyes in pain. She thought it was a trap of some sort. "I found the light!" 625 said, delighted in his find. 327 shook her head and returned her view to normal. "Warn me before you touch anything." she hissed at him. "Sorry." he backed off, not wanting to encure the wrath of 327.
327 moved over to the computer and hoped it was attached to a power scource that hadn't been shut off. To her suprize it hummed to life as the colored icons appeared on the screen. She immediately got onto the mainstream and started a preliminary search for anyhting related to 626. Her efforts were rewarded by six items, most were old. "Monster attackes Chenadiss" and so on, but there was one new one. The title read, "Captain honored for capturing menace, fifty five Federation troops lost and ten civillian casualties." she shivered and opened the document.
Captain honored, menace caught. Last night there was a tip off that a wanted alien would be landing his ship at platform 96 in sector three. Captain Gantu responded, heading for the platform on a whim, one that paid off. After the suspect destroyed an entire landing pad, along with fourty soldiers on it. The debris killed ten innocent civillians living under the pad. Two cruisers were destroyed before the suspect and wanted scientist who was riding aboard the ship were apprehended. "He was a lot of trouble, but he eventually ran out of steam and gave up." Those are Captain Gantu's words about the situation, nothing else has been released. Stop. End Document.
327 began shaking, a cold ice-like feeling crept up her spine. 'No, he wouldn't.' were her thoughts. 'He wouldn't. Not 626. Never.' she wanted to lie down and die. But she couldn't she was too paralized to do much. It was too much, she denied all of it, and began to search for something else that said other wise. Furioulsy she searched, but found nothing. All the tears that had been held back now spilled out, she knew now the ending.
There would be a few days between processing the evidence, a pre-appreance by Jumba and 626 before the real date the Council would get to judge, in which Jumba could plea guilty and get a lighter sentence than denial. And then 626 would get a chance, but the evidence against his was too much, tapes, records and first hand witnesses. Jumba could take the blame for 626, if the Council excepted that 626 was acting off what Jumba had taught him. Either way 626 was going to spend the rest of his days away from the real world, either in the mines on some god-forsaken rock, or in solitary confinement under maximum restraint untill he died, or even worse. Frozen in a block of molecular-reversal protien, where he would have full consciousness, but no controll over anypart of his body whatsoever, and any ammount of time in that state he'd lose his mind. Or the death sentence.
There was nothing she could do but wait and hopefully hack into the feed from the pre and post judgement. Then from there she would know where to go, but it all depended on when and she also needed a ship. She forcefull threw herself onto the floor from her sitting position and sighed, trying to stop the flow of tears.
* * *
Darfinis Maurader, still played a key role in 626's fate, but it was considerably less after his stocks chrashed after the desruction of his space station and the labs and warehouses on Chenadiss`. Now he was drowning in the loss of money, and was vivibly hurting from it. He did the most logical thing anyone would do in his place. He used up whatever reserves and quickly bought out most of the high security prisons on a large number of asteroids and several smaller ones, just to cover his bases. But there was still one was to get his prize, and he was comitted to get 626 that way.
He ordered all the remaining troops to assemble in the cruisers he had especially built for ship boarding combat. He also had contacts in the Council to notify him where and when 626 would be leaving. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait, all else had failed. And if this attempt was to fail, it would be the end, for him and everything he had worked to achieve.
Now all troops were standing by, waiting for the word to jump into action and get 626.
* * *
He'd given up. And now he was going to pay. It was time anyway, he was sick of running, dodging the plams fire and shooting everything that made so much as an evil glance at him. After he'd fainted that was the last time he expected to see anything, he thought he was going to die before he awoke.
The first thing 626 felt was cold, everlasting icy cold. It was painful, which made him smile inside, that meant he was alive. He tried to force himself up from his blind, death like state, and to face his captors and find away out. He was in darkness, and tried to open his eyes, and soon realized they were already open. He switched to night mode and after finding it was too dark to see anything anyway reverted to origional spectrum.
His other sences kicked in one by one, and soon realized he was laying on his side on a cold floor, most likely a cell in a prison. He felt a rush of warm blood to his back and simultaneously his nerves spasmed, sending writhering pain into his head. After the pain had subsided he concluded they had him tranquilzed, too much by the later ammount of pain. His extra sences told him he was in a small cramped cell, and there was no way out.
He moved to pull himself up, but his hands didn't respond, like they weren't there. He jerked his arm to find out, and to his annoyance he found he was in the arm cuffs that he'd thrown at Gantu. He knew Gantu did that out of spite, being in the cell was enough, but the hand cuffs were just for torture, or for the safety of the prison gaurds, they couldn't have 626 running arround unrestrained, able to escape without the aid of tools.
Nothing to do but sit and wait. He then began to wonder if 327 made it to the lab allright. He'd broken his promise to meet her there later. Later, thinking of that, what time was it? He hadn't the means to tell he'd been out so long. Was it days? Hours? Or was he in a locker in Gantu's ship?
Yime passed slowly in the dark recess of wherever he was, or atleast it seemed that way. Whenver you look at a clock and watch, time goes slowly, seemingly dripping at a deathly slow rate. But when you were occupied, time disappeared.
Suddenly the door squeaked open, sending a bright light pain into 626's light sensitive eyes, he cringed and tried to get away from it. He pushed his head into the corner and kept trying get into it, away from the light. He heard Gantu chuckle at his pain. "Now I caught you. Time for payback for all the aggrivation you have caused me. Now get out, or I'll shoot you out." 626 heard the click of the plasma weapon the captain carried. He saw no other alternative.
The blue alien jumped out of the hole and fell to the floor, ten feet down. He rolled over and recovered back on his feet. He let his eyes adjust to the light and saw he was in a detaining center, steel doors of all sized linned the wall, some were open and the other closed, other detainees were inside. The tall shark kicked 626 toward the door he was supposed to go into. Rather violently the captain closed the door and locked it tight. "I'm supposed to interigate you here, but instead I think I'll just deal out some pain on you." Gantu pulled a vicious looking metal rod with a button on one side.
"Oo, a stick. I'm so scared." 626 'gasped'. "That's there you're wrong." Gantu said. "It's a laser baton, used to controll rioters. But on the highest setting the energy blade causes abrasion and lascerations." Gantu grinned evily, and moved closer to 626. The weapons hissed at the red blade appeared, then Gantu turned the dial up. Graduly the blade became whiter and crackled in the air, from the floor 626 felt the heat the weapon was giving off, he shuddered. As the shark get closer 626 realized that this was the first time he was afraid, and he realized why. He had no controll over the situation what so ever, he had no means of defending himself in any way, shape or form. All he could do was hope Gantu knew when to stop.
A thought entered his head, a what-if scenario. Knowing what he knows now if he could go back, he would change. He'd do everything different. Then maybe he wouldn't be in the situation he was in now. He looked up from his thought and saw Gantu's massively muscular arm come down, the baton arced and flashed as it passed throught the air. He braced himself for the impact, but none came. He thought Gantu had missed, but was soon sent into reconsideration as the curve of the weapon came down and struck him.
It wasn't a pain, or a hurt. It stung and flung him against the wall, which hurt more than the baton itself. The air was knocked out of him and he staggered, not going to wait for the next round. The next attack came, but 626 was ready this time, he rolled off to the side and the baton missed. Gantu thought it was his fault that the baton didn't connect, he swung again. He missed again. This time he knew 626 was evading, and faked an upper-cut then side swiped the little monster. He grinned at the results, 626 was again flung across the small room and hit the wall, but no visible effects on his blue fur could be seen, which was good in his favor because the Council doesn't approve of torturing the prisoners, and he got the satisfaction of giving 626 what for.
"What exactly is your problem? What did I do to you?" 626 snarled, before Gantu swung the weapon. His intent was innocent, he'd never done anything to the menace, only when Gantu started it did he reply back.
Gantu paused for a second in thought, but still held his animostuous expression. What exactly did he have against 626? He lowered the weapon to think the question through. There was no logical reason for this, or was there an explanation, only a cheap one. 626 had always presented himself as a disturbance, a sore toe. Keeping the Captain from his usual duties and disgracing him by fouling his carefully planned traps and escaping numerous times, each one more undignifying than the last.
"No answer, I guess there is no reason after all." 626 said, as he sat upright, hindered by the restraints. "What is it? What makes you do things like this? Is it pride? afraid of hurting your dignity if you don't get your last kicks in. Animosity? You just hate my guts because I am better than you? Do you even know why you are doing this?"
Gantu stopped. Why was he doing this? He brought up the weapon to bear. "I do it because, of you." he struck out, lashing 626. He watched the blue alien cringe at the blow. "I do it because you are smarter." he lashed again. "Faster." another whip. "You are better than me." He brought the baton down hard. He heard a satifying crack as 626 twitched in pain. "I do it because you are a genetic mutation." He sent a flurry of blows, each inflicting more pain than the last. "I do it because I, like you, get personal enjoyment out of inflicting pain onto others." Gantu deactivated the weapon momentarily, so it could cool down. After it was no longer hot to the touch he reactivated it. "I do it because I can."
Gantu continued to pound on 626 for the next ten minutes, then after he got tired, or he was reminded he had somewhere to go, he stopped. He picked up 626, being careful not to grab the end with teeth and threw him back into the small cell on the wall. "I'll be back later." the captain promised. "I'll hold you to it." 626 grunted cockily.
626 listened as Gantu walked off. He breathed a sigh of relief and began to let go, and untense himself. The only injuries he suffered were a bloody lip and his nose was broken again, but that was expected, it had been broke the day before, or maybe, never mind. He hadn't kept track of the passing of time. He shuddered in the small cold cell, laying on his side, letting the blood from his nose drip into a pool, he couldn't have done anything about it anyway. Gantu had broken the rib that had been fractured before, each breath he drew was painful. His body was trying to repair the rib, occasionally a sharp pain turned his chest into a firey inferno of agony as the rib was slowly moving closer to the break and heal itself. He hoped Jumba wasn't getting the same 'welcome'.
* * *
Grand Council woman, Alkaldia Onieda and her apprenticing nephew, Darfinis Maurader headed for the file database, to read up on Dr. Jumba Jookiba and his psychotic experiment 626. Both of them, the doctor and 626, had been hastily examined by a shrink, not physically, just based off Dr. Jumba's papers and concluded that both were in a highly dangerous state of psychosis. But they would have to do a more in depth study to back up their findings.
None of that was important now, the Council woman wanted to review the evidence herself before the actual trial, to get a good hold on what she was dealing with. It was good practice that she wanted to pass on to her aspiring nephew. The two checked into the security post. The gaurd took the I.D. and scanned it. He returned the cards and waved them through. "Just remember, anything you want to take from the datafiles has to be properly scanned, re-documented then you can load it into your datapads for reviewal. Have a nice day."
The section on the Doctor and his work was huge. It had several thousand papers recovered and piced back together from his lab, inluding his personal notes and reminders. The data on file was even larger, it took up nearly a third of all the other compiled evidence in the whole complex.
"He was very thoughrough in his research." Maurader announced. "Look at all this stuff. I bet some of the other sceintists would kill to have just a piece of this." "Which is why I have requested that no one but us look at it before the actualy date of trial." Alkaldia said. "Now we have to sift through all this stuff and find files relevant to 'Experiment 626' and his doings." "Are we looking for anything specificly related to 626, or anything on Dr. Jumba's illegal experiments?" Darfinis said, lookind down at the incredible ammount of paper, hoping this would be a fast find. "We are only looking for records relevant to 626 if that is what you mean, personal notes, laboratory statistics, reports." Alkaldia said to the screen on which she was rapidly searching though.
Darfinis pulled a stack of tatered papers from a pile that was stacked inside a box with alienatic writing that read, 'Dr. Jumba' on the side. He flipped through the stack. "I found something, preliminary sketches of 626 I think. Take a look." he passed the stack off to Alkaldia, who diligently fingered through them. She studied each page with care and caution, memorizing every detail of this thing. She almost laughed when she read through the abilities, but retained her dry seriousness.
Althought genetics was something that had always passed over her head, but she had a basic ground understanding of what the limits of the science were, and this denied all of them. The little blue creature had been made from close to nothing, Dr. Jumba had pulled together the best samples of Dna and genetic coding, stregnth, speed, brains and anyother useful trait. Using these he then constructed from a blank sheet of nothing, his own genetic code for the monster's bone structure and body size.
The Councilwoman was having second thoughts about the Dr. He was a genius, breaking medical boundries the scientists on Federation funding hadn't even reached. Her head drifted down to the paper again, and her eyes focused on 626. She let her mouth curl into a smile. 626 almost looked cute, without the genetic coding to kill he could be as harmless as any other alien out there. A different feeling washed over her, one of pity and remorse, it was a question that triggered it. What if 626 was being controlled somehow by the doctor? What if the small blue alien had a mind of his own, and was forced into the doctors every whim? Under an enslavemnt of some sort. She would have to investigate the matter further.
"I think I found something interesting, some data that had been stored on a pad concerning 626 and an injury he sustained." Maurader interrupted his aunt from her deep thought. Silently she shuffeled through the papers that lay out on the floor and over to the datapad. "All the information might not be there, the doctor did a botched attempt to erase everything in the database. But the team had pieced together most of it." Onieda accepted the information and began to read.
The datapad contained nearly sixty pages of information on 626, after a headwound he'd recieved, as well as pictures of a ship's bloody interior, the bent frame and x-rays of the skull showing small hairline fractures. 626 had sustained an eight gee force impact into the metal supporting beam of a cruiser, walking off with only minor fractures and... she read it again. Her eyebrows lifted, 626 had a gash on his forehead that effectively caused the loss of onehundred and twenty percent of his blood. That didn't make sence, that was more than enough to kill someone, and it was also twenty percent over the ammount of blood, which menat 626 reproduced blood at an alarming rate, giving him no chance to bleed to death. As wierd as it was, she passed it off as an error in the re-collection of the erased data.
"You see the part about the blood?" Darfinis asked, knowing that she would have said something about it anyway. "Yes, I did. I assume it was an error in the code from reconstructing it, is it not?" "No, I checked it, twice. It's the origional number that was on the pad in the first place. This 626 is an amazing creature." Darfinis commented, he already knew most of what was there, but acted as if it were new to him. "Yes, he certainly is. But none the less, he has done some dammage and needs to be held accountable. And we need evidence to prove his wrong doings, that's why we're here." she reminded him. "Yes, but I-" Darfinis was interrupted by the beeping of his aunt's comms device.
"You'll have hold onto that thought." she said, and reached into her pocket for the small device. She turned it on and pressed it to the small hole that was her ear and listened. The small almost inaudible voice squeaked on the microphone for several seconds then stopped. She closed the hinged pice and slipped the comms back into her pocket. A smile was spread across her face that was usually cold and unexpressionated. "It seems that Captain Gantu has made good on his word." she bent over and began to put the papers back into a pile.
Darfinis looked confused. "What did the Captian do?" The Councilwoman place the stack of un-organized papers back into the box. "The Captian swore to himself that he'd capture 626 from the day the doctor bagan to run from the Federation. And he has, 626 is in the detaining center, awaiting the trial. And personally I want to talk to him myself, now that he's away from the doctor and his possible influence on him. Pack up, we're leaving." He shrugged and placed the pad down onto the boxes.
"What was it that you were saying before they called?" the Councilwoman asked while they were walking out of the storage. "Oh, nothing. I forgot what I was going to say." he admitted. "I want to ask 626 some questions before Dr. Jumba gets to see him. Before he gives him the last orders." Onieda said. "What makes you think 626 is being controlled by the doctor? From a military standpoint, Wouldn't you want a body capable of making it's own descisions, without having to give them orders every time he completes the last set. Instead of a robot like machine?" "That would be more practical, but I think there is more to this 626 than we suppose. I've seen a pattern with the genetic creations, if 626 is anything like the last ones he'll be predictable." "The datapad mentions two other experiments that keep showing up, numbers 327 and 625. I see a pattern here too, what if these two are still out there? Certainly they will come after 626, looking after him like an older brother." "You should look harder in the datapad. Number 625 posed no threat whatsoever." "How so?" "Dr. Jumba notes in many papers on number 625, although he has the capabilites to destroy like 626, give or take some stregnths and weaknesses, is too lazy. He also notes that 625 is a failure. We shouldn't concern our rescources on him." "What of the number 327?" "Although she..."
"Wait," Darfinis cut in. "You said a SHE, right?" "That's right." "Wouldn't they be able to reproduce then? 626 and 327, Jumba did note that they had feelings for eachother." "The love 327 shared toward 626 was just wasted, 626 is almost incapable of showing deep emotions toward anything. He did have feelings toward her, but they were shallow, not really a deep understanding, just a sway to her." "So no reproduction?" "I would think not." "But 327 would still come after him, right?" "I think we should worry about that when the time comes." Onieda finished.
The two passed throught the main door and out into the busy sidewalk, down into the awaiting hovercar that had been sent for them. The green car shot up into the traffic stream above the city and jetted toward the detention center. It stopped and the passengers that climbed in a few seconds ago got out. Both of them walked up hte stairs to the center, that was the thing that bothered Darfinis, everything had steps, up and down. That's all he did all day. By now there should be sectovators and mechanized walkways, but there was none, in fact sometimes the only way for some aliens to get exersize was the steps, they were too busy to do anything else.
The entrance hall was huge, the vaulted ceiling reached high into the air, while colorful frescoes were strewn across the wall in an unorderly fassion, but it was designed that way. They flashed thier cards at the front desk and were led through several locking doors by a short, but heavily muscled security gaurd. He passed on several warnings to them, concerning the prisoners, and soon to be prisoners, and not to go near them at all because they liked to grab passer bys and it took brute force to get them off.
They approached the cell, it was a steel door with no holes, except for the key hole. But the gaurd didn't insert a key, he swiped a card under the door and a laser reader picked up the user's code and heartbeat, matched both and the monitor above the cell beeped. He cautiously opened the door, Maurader and Alkaldia stood back, just in case. The jailer stood stock still, his mouth hagning open. Inside the black cell was nothing, only a small pool of dried blood remained.
"He's gone." Alkaldia said dryly. "How did this happen?" she turned to the gaurd, an acusing stare looked at him from her cold eyes.
Darfinis felt a sinking sensation in his stomach, he stepped back a few feet, he'd seen the footage of what 626 could do, and he didn't want to experience it first hand. The monster could tear your spinal colomn out and turn it into a pulp, while you were still standing. He could gut you and strangle the last oince of breath out with your own intestines. He was ready to break into a full out panicking run, when the gaurd realized what he'd done.
"Sorry," he apologized, looking at the monitor above the cell. "Wrong one, this one's been empty for a while now." he moved over one row and followed the same procedure as before, this time the cell swung open and inside was a small blue alien, or his back anyway. He was facing his poisonous barbs that extended from the semetrical blotch of dark blue fur toward the door. Darfinis watched 626 breath in, unaware that they were there. A blue ear pooped up instantaneously and swiveled back to them, then returned to it's origional place, but 626 didn't move, he ignored them. Why was there any reason to acnkowledge them anyway? They weren't there to save him, they mattered nothing.
"626, I'd like to talk to you." The councilwoman said slowly, in a friendly voice so not to agitate him. "And I'd like to do it in a interrigation room so that no one can hear anything." "That won't get him to talk." Darfinis grinned wryly. "Who's talking here?" the Councilwoman hissed. She shook her head and turned back to 626. "Don't listen to him. Come out and we can talk, about anything you want." "Go away." the blue alien groaned through all the pain Gantu had inflicted hours ago. "No one's going to hurt you." the Councilwoman promised. "Then tell your Captain Gantu that. He just finished giving me a 'welcome session' a few hours ago."
The Councilwomans face was now twisted in anger. Some wounds were evident, other might take time to appear. She knew what 626 was talking about, and how Gantu promised to get back at him, it was personal. Now the debt was repayed, but there was still some more to come. Gantu had always shown lack of ethics and respect, he didn't value life much, that made for a really great tactician, but not for off-duty engagements. The thought entered her head about finally retiring the Captain, but saved that for later. She now had something to play on. "Although I cannot take back all the pain Gantu has caused you, I can offer you something." "What?" 626 shifted, as if he wanted to open up and talk. "A chance to give your side of the story, without Jumba being by your side. To tell us what you want, without pressure from Jumba. You're safe from him now."
626 let out a small laugh, but was stopped from the massive pain from moving his chest like that. "People died, it was my fault. They didn't have to, I did it." he said, now taking on a remorseful tone. Jumba had nothing to do with it, it was all me." he held back some tears.
"I know it seemed liked you did, but it was really Jumba. He made you, told you it was alright to do that. All the time it was him, controlling you, you were at his back and call, if not he threatened to destroy you. Now it's fine." she try soothing him. Darfinis gave an entertained look behind her, his arms across his chest.
"You..." he broke off, the pain grew in his chest, he wheezed. "You have the details wrong. He never told me to do anything, just gave mission basics. The senseless deaths were all my fault, something now I wish hadn't happened. Then I wouldn't be here. It would all be finished..." 626 trailed off.
"It seems that way, but it would work to your advantage in the trial. You could get a lighter sentence, if you claim Jumba was in effect controlling you under threat of life." "Who's side are you on?" 626 paused, but continued before she had a chance to reply. "Besides, whatever comes I deserve it. Full force sentence, death even. I had it comming."
Darfinis leaned close to his aunt's ear. "He sounds derranged, like he isn't right in the head." he whispered to her. She turned and gave him a stern look. "Right now we're just talking, pshyco evaluations come later." she hissed back. "I heard that." 626 gave a faint smile, "I can hear anything."
"You want to talk about 327?" Darfinis said from over the Councilwoman's shoulder. 626 turned from facing the wall, trying to figure out his angle. The security gaurd pulled the pistol from his side and aimed it at 626, the fast movement caused him to go into alarm. "327?!" he growled. "Yeah, the doctor mentioned something about her in his files, says you two were, er, had feelings for eachother." Maurader smirked, secretly trying to provoke something. 626 now knew she was safe, they hadn't mentioned her being onboard the ship, just that they knew about her, but he still had doubts. "You will NEVER speak of her," He barked, thick silava flew from his mouth. "She is of no concern to you, leave her alone. If you so much as even look at her wrong, I'll-" 626 started getting closer to the edge of the cell, and made threatening actions. The jailkeeper closed the door, the room fell silent, the steel door blocked all the sounds from the angry alien inside. The door rattled from being hit.
Alkaldia turned to Darfinis, flames seemed to come out of her eyes. "Why did you do that?" she snapped. "What?" he said innocently. "You know." she turned and let her footsteps tell how she felt. Darfinis followed, a grin spread on his face.
626 was glad they were gone. He could now plot his escape in silence. His demented show was effective, they though him a first class looney. Which would work in his favor at some point. After the trial they'd hand him over to a mental facility, finding that his mental status had been screwed up because Jumba had made him kill people, they'd then pump him full of stimulants and other drugs, claim he's fine and toss him out of the facility as fast as they can throw a ball.
He laughed, the Councilwoman had things definately screwed up. Jumba made him kill? That was funny, he wondered where the got thier scources, Maurader probably had a hand in that. 327, whenever he's said that something happened, 626 didn't know why, he blew his stack. He reasoned it was protection, he was protecting her. Even if they asked where she was he would never tell, not even in threat of death.
So it was decided, 626 had advised Jumba that the most reasonable course of action was to go to Turo, the last place in the galaxy where the Federation would look for them. It seemed the Federation was always one step ahead of them, they were always waiting for them at thier destination, as if someone had beed tipping them off.
Slowly the gigantic red cruiser stopped in the void of space. It hovered several thousand miles beyond Turo, so that they couldn't be scanned by any passing ships and identified. Jumba, 626, 327 and 625 all sat at the table in the cruiser. No one spoke, no one knew what to say. All of them were scared, not knowing the outcome of whatever awaited them. 625 even knew the impact of the situation and was pollitely sitting at the table.
Jumba looked over to 626. "Last chance to turn back. If you think this is a bad idea, say so and we'll leave and look for another place to stay." 626 shook his head. "We've come this far, now we're here, there's no turning back. Let's just land and get the hell out of dodge."
Jumba nodded in agreement. "626, there is a pressing matter." Jumba stated. "Back there when 625 was talking about you wiping the planet clean of inhabitants, you started to shake and get nervous. I want to know what is up with that."
626 felt like he was under the finger again. He pulled himself together, "It's a long story..."
*
In a fairly large unadorned conference room in the Hall of the Elders, sat Gantu and The Grand Council Woman. Gantu had been called there for business concerning his current military satus. Which he knew was bad news.
"You let him escape again! Captain this is an outrage! I should have you dishonorably discharged. You... Oh!" the Council Woman fumed. She stopped before she got to much further, remembering that it was undignifying to loose one's temper. She breathed in, trying to calm herself. "Captain, I will give you one more chance to redeem yourself, it seems like the scientist and his genetic mutations have escaped once more. This time I fear they have dissappeared for good."
Gantu stared blankly at the Council Woman, brushing off most of her words, he normally would have been rigidly at attention, but 626 was on his mind, and how he would extract his revenge when he caught him. He stood up to face the Alkaldia in more of a respectful attitude. "On the contrary, they've not totally dissappeared this time." he grinned. "Captain?" she asked, wondering what he had up his sleeve. Gantu produced a small datapad from a pocket, on the screen was the map of the planet Turo and the surrounding planets. "A while back, before that horrible lab fire I had a hunch and took the liberty to place a tracer on Dr. Jumba's labcoat, the one he almost never takes off." he slid the pad across the conference table.
"I see." The Council Woman said icily. "According to this the doctor is floating right outside Turo's scanning range." she passed the pad back. "Yes, if he's thinking what I am then he'll probably wait untill night fall then land on a pad and slip away into the night. He knows that this would be the last place we'd ever look. And I would have never looked here at all."
"I suggest you get on brining him in. This time I want you to take three troop carriers with soldiers." the Council Woman ordered. "But, 626 eats up troops like they are nothing, they'll all die. I don't think you want to tell the wives and families that they were killed trying to capture a genetic mutation." Gantu argued. "All right, you don't have the option of taking them. I am ordering you to take them."
"But!" Gantu protested. "Good day captain." the Council Woman walked calmly out of the room. Gantu slammed himself down into the chair, hearing it crack upon impact.
*
Jumba listned for what seemed like hours, to 626 and his moving story of how he'd changed since the crash. Part of him was glad, because now 626 was no longer unhappy that he had done some horrible things that he had no controll over whatsoever. But part of him screamed failure, screamed defeat, knowing that 626 would no longer be what he was, what he had been created for.
626 finished his long epic tale, then seemed to move closer to 327 who was enjoying the whole thing. 625 laughed from his seat histariclly, "That was good, unfortunately that was in the News Paper a week ago, under the B&S section." 626 shot him a look of acid. "Although I don't have a prefrence for maiming anymore, but I'll make an exception for you." he moved closer to the aquamarine experiment. "Ah! Not the face!" 625 shielded himself. 626 stopped before he got to far, he only wanted to make 625 whine. A grin spread across his face.
"626, this sounds vaugley familliar. I think, with some time, that I could fix it. Get you back to what you were before the crash." Jumba said enthusiasticly. 327 whipped her head arround to face Jumba, "You touch him and I'll rip you limd from limb." she growled. "Whoa," 626 pulled 327 from off the table and placed her down on the seat. "I think what 327 is trying to say, it don't touch me. Isn't it apparent that from the looks that I'm happy the way I am now? Why do you want to fix it? Anyone who has found what they are happy with should remain there."
Jumba was perplexed. Perhaps 626 was right, he did seem alot happier, more pleased with himself, instead of the old spitefulness that he was filled with before. Or maybe the dammage was too far extensive, and 626 was talking crazyness. He needed the time to check out the situation, but time was short, and he didn't have the proper equipment anyway, it was all in his lab that had been undoubtably siezed and the pirates took some. He was stuck between two walls.
"We need to wait for night before we land, then it will be easier to get away from the docking bay without being seen and reported." 626 reasoned. "From the looks of it we have about six more hours to wait before we can even think of going down." Jumba nodded, "Six more hours, then we'll asess the situation." Everyone arround the cruiser's table nodded.
*
The six hours dragged on, seeming like they lasted for days. Jumba looked throught his magazines, 625 was bust in the kitchen, doing guess what? Making sandwiches. 327 and 626 were in the cockpit, whispering in eachother's ears while looking out at the stars. Eventually enough time elapsed that they could begin the descent to the planet under the cover of darkness.
Jumba brought the ship into low orbit and waited for 327's report of the radar, making sure everything was clear for them to land, she gave him the thumbs up and he intiated the landing sequence. Jumba picked a quiet landing pad to put the massive ship down on, in the slums of the city. He picked the area because it would be easier to disappear than in the rich areas.
"Contact on radar, the immage matches a ship we've seen bafore." 327 shouted to Jumba. "He's closing in fast. And he has us locked on target!" she heard Jumba groan from the front of the ship. The huge scientistwas ready to pull the ship back into low orbit and wait, but 327 shouted something. "Ten more targets, all short range fighters, all locked on."
Jumba was about to punch the controlls in anger and defeat, but the beep of an incomming transmission stopped him. He pulled the link into action and awaited the transmission. The screen turned from black to color, and slowly focused on a huge shark like alien. Jumba's blood ran cold, Gantu. The shark-like alien gave Jumba a cold stare.
"Ah, I see you have decided to come back to Turo. That was a mistake in itself, I'm guessing you let 626 decide where you should go, and he chose here." Gantu taunted on the otherside of the line, safe from 626 and his wrath. Jumba gritted his teeth, trying to think of a way out, he looked over to 626 who was watching the incomming video feed. He gave him a 'What now?' look. 626 responded by muting the microphone on thier side. "Best chance we have is on the ground, there's no way we could take them on in an aireal comabat. We should land and duke it out from there." the blue alien suggested. Jumba groaned, 626 had been wrong about Turo, was he wrong now? He saw no other alternative and decided to land. "Get ready 626. We're landing." Jumba said tensely
626 disapeared in the back of the ship and Jumba un muted the comms. Gantu grinned, "We can stand off like this the whole night." Jumba put on a defeated face, a good one at that. "We give in, where do you want us to land?" Gantu grinned, things were going well, but 626 would be a problem. He grinned as a thought entered his head. "I want to see 626." he said icily. "Non compliance will result in a barrage of plasma fire, killing you all." Jumba grumbled in protest, but turned to call the experiment. "626, come up here. We need you." he listened for the almost silent patter of his small feet. "Yeah?" 626 reported, not knowing what was up. "He's here." Jumba said to Gantu over the comms. Gantu eased himself back in his pilot's chair of his ship. "Now inside your right pocket on your lab coat, you will find two pair of hand cuffs. I put them there when you were in the holding cell in the temple. I want you to out them on 626, and I want to see it."
626 shot Jumba a look as the scientist reached down into his pocket, and true enough found the cuffs in there. He doubted Jumba was going to follow through, that would ruin the idea of the ground fight, but his hopes were shattered when Jumba brought them to bear. "Be careful, I had them especially built for 626, once they close, they can't be opened without this." Gantu held up a small remote like device. " The're also nearly indestructable. No accidents, or I'll blast you all to hell sooner than you're sceduled to be." 626 shivered at the seriousness in the captain's voice, he turned his view to Jumba, who was having several thoughts about what to do now. "Hurry up, I haven't got all night." Gantu rushed.
Jumba continued to think, untill his thoughts were interrupted by the shaking of the cruiser as the shot hit, ratling everyone inside arround. Jumba recollected himself and looked into the view screen. "That was a warning, the next shot is real." Gantu growled. Jumba saw no other alternative. He looked down at 626 who was getting nervous as his fate was slowly being decided. "626... Take of the combat suit." Jumba choked back the tears. 626 took a small step back and lowered his ears in remorse. "But..." he trailed off and took another step back. "No.." he whispered.
His mind was racing, he had to find away out, without getting them blown out of the sky. He also didn't want to go down in a quiet way, with his hands already cuffed, without taking out enemy soldiers. He always viewed his death or capture as dramatic, hundreds of soldiers comming in as he hosed them with plasma, he wanted to go down shooting. He wante da warrior's death. Now he was going out quietly, not what he wanted.
626 found himself taking off the combat suit, without him knowing. His mouth went dry, and his head seemed to swim. He held back tears and subdued the urge to escape. He dropped all his weapons and pushed them aside. He suddenly felt cold, very cold although the ship was warm, he got the shivers. Nothing mattered anymore, nothing. This was it, this was the end.
Jumba wa sready to put the cuffs on him when 626 stopped him. "I'll do it." he said, almos tin a whisper. Jumba put them on the floor infront of 626 and turned to watch Gantu watch 626. Gantu looked greatly pleased, watching in great interest, but kept a finger on the trigger of the ship's main cannon.
626 picked up the first tubular cuff, it felt so cold, so much like death. 327's words echoed in his head, 'Once these things are on, they won't come off.' Then he felt like he got struck with a ton of bricks, 327, they'd get her too. Having realized 327 was also on board he was filled with rage. He shifted his priorities from getting out alive, to making sure 327 didn't end up on a deserted asteroid, it was no place for a delicate thing like her. He closed the first cuff over his lower arms, they clicked and beeped, locking into place. He continued with the dramatics and slowly pulled the second set up into position. He had a thought about jamming them somehow, but Gantu was watching and he still didn't under stand the principle of how the restraints worked anyway. 'Here goes nothing.' he slipped his last paw into the end and locked it into place. Another beep and click, his fate was sealed. It was a strange feeling, having no controll over his arms anymore, no more freedom, just cold restraining steel.
He didn't know what to do now, so he just stood there. Jumba turned to the console. "That will definately sit well with the Council." Gantu told him. "Maybe there's some hope after all. But, anyway. Here's the co-ordinates for the landing pad." Gantu pressed some buttons and the map appeared on Jumba's screen. "Don't get any ideas." Gantu's immage disappeared.
626 first instinct was to get out, at all costs. He began pulling and grunting as he tried to get the cuffs off. He growled and thrashed on the floor, when that didn't work he tried biting them off. He scraped metal against tooth, but didn't make a scratch. He tried every trick in the holographic word displayer, but nothing worked. He even went as far as dis- locating his wrist, but he got nothing but pain. He felt like beating his head on the floor in defeat, he did, untill he hit the scar tissue under his skin and sent a jolt of pain that paralized him for a second.
"It won't work 626, just sit back and enjoy your last minutes of freedom." Jumba growled to the alien. 626 was now convinced he was destine to live out the rest of his days in the steel bonds. He now had something else to take care of. He moved to the back of the ship where 327 was sitting on the couch.
The pink alien spotted him and sighed. "There had better be a good explanation for this." she indicated the hand cuffs, unrealizing that Gantu had ordered it, but she knew they were going to land in a Federation controlled area. "Yea, Gantu ordered it, otherwise we'd have been food for the tiny micro-organisms." he said in disgust. "Well if you need help getting out you're SOL, those electronic cuffs are out of my comprehension." she informed him. "No, my fate is closing to an end, but I'll try my hardest to get you out of here." "What do you suppose we do?" 626 paused, no longer able to scratch his chin in thought he still bore a resemblence to it. "Hide, get low. I don't know. I can't think anymore. Just find someplace to hide, anywhere. Get away. Take 625, or he'll give you away."
327 jumped from off the seat and hugged him, arround the hand cuffs anyway. She proceded to give him a long passionate kiss. "This is it. See you on the other side, sometime." 327 started to break out in tears. "I'll save a spot for you." 626 grinned, trying to make light of the situation. "Go before we land. And take my Crytos, I won't be needing it anymore." 327 turned before she burst into an uncontrollable tear filled sorrow. No time for tea and sympathy, just action, ther ewill be plenty of time for tears later. 626 moved slowly up to the front of the ship.
Jumba watched 626 try to climb up in the co-pilot's chair, but couldn't, so he gave him a hand. "Hey." Jumba whispered. "It's just us, me and you." 626 announced, "327 and 625 are getting out, or hiding, whichever they can pull off." Jumba didn't want to start a conversation, it would only be in vain. He just focused on flying.
Something didn't seem right. Something still lingered in 626's head, something someone had said that would help him here. He tried to think. He moved throught all his memories stored in his head, they passed like movies, each one different. He saw immages of Jumba, 327, and Maurader, immages of death, immages of objects he'd seen. Every moment in his life was stored in his head, he passed the memory where he was sent flying in the air, then black. That made him cringe, he should have died, the impact was enought to bend the frame of the ship, he should have been splattered all over the place. He was ready to give up, and the thought entered his head. "I'm no good with these electronic cuffs, they're way beyond my comprehension." 327 had said that minutes before. But why was it important? Why had it been called to his attention. But for whatever the reason he wasn't sure, he just let it hang there.
"Three minutes untill we reach the landing pad. If you plan on doing anything, do it now." Jumba said causticly. 626 took a glance out the window. They were traveling over the wealthy part of the city that was full of lights and rooftop pools with numerous parties just getting started, which meant Gantu was sure he had everything under controll, but 626 was going to make sure he gave them hell, either way. The ship floated toward the biggest landing pad in the entire city, well it actually was three two hundred feet platforms each sitting ontop of four huge poles above the city, they ended at the side of a building and a huge door was carved into the side. There were already two huge transport cruisers that were spilling out the Omecian lizzard troops that the Council loved.
He was getting nervous, time was running out and he still hadn't thought of a plan. He was starting to sweat, and shifted uneasily in the seat. Now he was just in plain panic, seconds from just screaming in defeat. Then the phrase 327 said popped back into his mind. "Electronic cuffs..." He knew the way out was in there somewhere, but was frustrated because it wasn't obvious for him to figure out. Then he stopped, "Electronic..." HA, that was it!
Jumba watched 626 fall to the floor and collect himself as fast as the restraints would allow, then run off to the back of the ship. Jumba thought he wa strying to escape, but it would be in vain. He sighed and started the landing seqence. It was dark already, and to make things worse, the clouds that were holding in the precipitation realeased it, a steady rain poured onto the pad and ran off the ships.
The ship touched the pad with it's landing gear and the turbine engines slowly whined to a halt. The soldiers took up a defensive line arround the cruiser, carefully aiming thier riffles towards it. Each soldier knew what the was inside the ship, restrained or not it was dangerous, and no one wanted to get that night. The huge hulking form that was Captain Gantu moved slowly from the shadows. He stood in the center of the pad and crossed his arms infront of his chest, in a way taunting Jumba. A smile cracked across his face whenever The side hatch swung open on rusty hinges, the sillouhette of Jumba in the doorway.
"Come out slowly, 626 can come out last." Gantu called to the scientist. Jumba stood there, as if he hadn't heard him. "I said OUT!" he pulled his gigantic blaster. Jumba still didn't move, Gantu was getting nervous. Had 626 found a way out of the restraints and planned something? He continued to hold his steady aim on the scientist. Rain splattered off his form and dribbled into his suit, getting him wet.
Something caught Gantu's attention, a small object flying through the air, it was to small to be 626, but he aimed up as a precaution. The object landed infront of him and clinked as it hit the ground. He bent down to inspect them. He was dumbfounded, they were the cuffs he watched 626 put on himself. He stood up and put the cuffs into his pocket, and brought his blaster to bear. Something was sour.
He listened for something suspicious. Nothing but the sound of the rain pounding on the pad and the metal hulls of the ships. A fast gust of wind knocked him off balance for a moment. He saw a bright flash of light on one of the other pads adjoining his, he turned. The back up troops firing at one of thier ships, trying to hit something. '626' the words echoed in his mind like a bad memory. He gritted his teeth as the viewed the tropps continue thier fire.
Then something happened. The pad turned a bright white and a concussion wave knocked Gantu to the pad. The light disappeared and was replaced by the clap of an explosion, rocking the ships on the other pads. Pieces of shrapnel rained down in a radius of thirty feet. The smoke was drowned out by the invasion of the rain, but the smoldering remains of what was three transport cruisers were burning in the rain, fourty five men, gone. He saw a gigantic hole in the center of the pad, and felt the ground shake. The platform folded in in itself and rained down huge concrete pieces onto the vilas below.
Gantu spun arround, looking for 626 who was sure to be trying something on his landing pad. He looked arround the ships, following thier outline. He stopped, up on the tailfin of the transport he saw the outline of the monster, four arms and big ears, that was 626. He opened fire with his blaster, confusing the soldiers arround hin, them seing he was firing on his own ship. He stopped firing for a second, to give orders and see what remained of 626. He was stunned, the onlything he suceded in doing was disabling one of the ships, 626 had dissapeared.
"Sir, what in the Omec Nebula are you doing?" the nearest soldier asked. "He's here, 626. Keep on your gaurd." Gantu ordered. "Sir." The soldier said/saluted.
626 slowly slinked past a gaurd posted at the rear of the ship, only pausing to bring the back of his stolen riffle down over it's head. He had no plan, except to get off the pad alive with Jumba. He'd snuck out the airlock on the side of the ship and met 327 who was climbing down the thick permacrete pillar. He said a final good bye and told them to wait for him at the lab. He'd thrown a blaster on overload into the fuel comaprtment on the other pad, that produced the fire ball. Now he was getting closer to the landing strut of the troop carrier, he had it in his mind to pick the ship up, and or throw it off the pad.
He would have tried a dirrect assault, but Gantu was there, and that was enough to make him back off and rethink the best course of action. 626 was withing spitting range of a soldier, he ignored his instincts to throw the lizzard off the ledge, two hundred feet down to the ground. Instead he concentrated on picking up the ship. He used most of his muscles to pick the ungodly heavy ship up. He readied to swing it like a bat, untill all the soldiers turned to him and aimed thier riffles. He grunted and swung the ship, scraping the ground. Sparks flew as the concrete on metal scraped huge gouges into the pad. He finished the swing and let the ship go, there was too much momentum for him to stop the thing without him going with it.
The swipe had either took most of the soldiers off the edge or flattened them like pancakes. Gantu was left standing out in the open, with the remaining six soldiers staring stupified, thier comrades were gone. 626 was standing near the edge of the pad, in an offencive karate like stance, clealy unrestrained, and looking quite mad at that. Gantu growled and raised the blaster, he fired several shots at 626 who rolled to the side and returned fire. Gantu let his blaster cool off, he watched 626 pitifly fire a volley of rounds at him, all missed. Gantu couldn't help but let out a amused laugh.
"Is that all you have? You haven't even hit me yet!" he taunted. 626 let his mouth curl at the end, taunting Gantu. "I didn't miss, you weren't my target." he shot back. Gantu looked arround him, the six soldiers that were lively a miniute ago were now dead, laying in a pool of expanding blood. Enraged, Gantu fired several shots at 626, who just side stepped them.
626 brung his riffle from the lazy position across his shoulder and fired a burst at Gantu's legs. He knew it wouldn't do much, just piss him off. But he knew that Gantu couldn't be defeated by use of conventional small plasma weapons, he needed a cannon, but was short. He moved as Gantu vainly sent a hail of rounds his way. He only needed to get the big guy closer to the edge.
The useless fire would get niether of them anywhere, Gantu was immune to the fire 626 shot and 626 was too fast for the sluggish plasma rounds Gantu's blaster fired. They could have fought all night in the rain, throught the next day ind into eternity. But 626 was hoping for a short battle.
The two danced arround eachother's fire for several minutes, taking and giving fire, but no one scored a decisive hit, only making the other fight harder. The battle would end sometime, no one knew when. Eventually 626 saw his opportunity, he lunged at Gantu.
Gantu saw it too, he tried to move, but couldn't. 626 came too fast. The blue monster pushed his legs back with an incredible ammount of stregnth for something that small. He felt one foot slip off the edge and then the other. He did the onlything he could think of. He grabbed the edge of the platform with both hands, dropping the blaster down into the void below.
626 grinned, now he had the captian exactly where he wanted him. He closer to the end of the pad and peered over. Gantu was in a royal panic, holding on with only his fingertips. "The great Captian Gantu," he sneered. "Like life on the edge? Never knowing what will happen, adrenaline always ready to pump into your system at the drop of a pin. That's how I live. Unexpected suprizes all the time..." "Like this?!" Gantu let go with one hand and swung up to the platform all in one motion.
626 was startled that Gantu moved that fast, and recovered from the near death position. The hulking form landed behind him, 626 rolled to the side, to try it again. But Gantu met him with a huge foot, right in the head. 626 was sent into a roll across the landing pad, flopping in sparadic dirrections. His journey ended when he crashed into the landing strut for Jumba's cruiser. H laid down for a second, disoriented and feeling like he was going to throw up. He felt the ground shake as Gantu got closer. He tried to force himself up, knowing that if the Captain got a hold of him, it was all over. He rolled to his feet and spit blood that had pooled in his mouth.
"You'll never win. You were always a loser." Gantu prodded. 626 strafed to the side, weaponless after the kick. "When I get a hold of you, it would be in your best interest to want to feel dead." 626 moved away as he walked closer.
626 started to see black spots in his vision, sometimes he only saw black, but relied on his other sences to guide him away from Gantu. He felt a pounding in his head and Gantu's annoying taunts began zoning out to a dull buzz. He kept moving, away. Soon he bagan to lose his footing, stumbling on nothing, his knees kept giving out. He hadn't any idea what was happening. He had to keep from choking on blood that flowed into his mouth and kept spitting. Gantu made a lunge, seing that 626 was slowing down. He barely ducked under the attack, a Gantu rolled and faced him again. He was reminded that his rib was broken by a stabbing pain in his chest.
The giant shark jumped three more times, each time 626 was getting slower, and seemingly dumb. 626 was slowing down to the point of capture, but wasn't going to give in so soon.
626 froze, he couldn't move, his breaths came in wheezing spasms. One by one his bodily functions had been shutting down, becoming useless. He couldn't think, he couldn't move. It was the end. 626 let go of everything, he stopped fighting and began falling to the ground as fast as gravity allowed, he went unconcious before he hit the ground.
* * *
327 had waited untill Jumba had landed the ship before sneaking out of the hatch facing away from the troopers. She had shoved 625 out first, to make sure it was safe, then the climbed out. After surveying the area she decided the best way to get out was down, then 626 appeared, said a short good bye and told them to meet him at the lab. He told them where a reciever and a small store of dried food was, and send them off.
The two experiments said nothing as they climbed down the wet permacrete pillar to the ground. The rain bit into her fur, making her shiver, even though she had one of 626's comabat suits on. She thought 625 was equally cold, but he wasn't complaining, and she didn't want to have to deal with him anymore.
The two truged through the dark city streets as the rain unrelentlessly poured down harder, steam was comming from the sewers reminding the two that it was bitter cold. Walking side by side they moved in the dirrection of the lab, hoping to reach it before sunrise, before the morning traffic and everyone was awake and moving about.
The sun began to rise, filling the dark streets with a ray of light, 327 looked up, she caught the first glimpse of the lab complex. Transport cruisers had already begun un-loading thier cargo into the complex's seperate docks, the birds in the forest that the lab sat infront of began to sing thier morning song. 327 breathed a sigh of relief and straightened up for the last few hundred steps to the front door.
Once inside they headed down the log corridor to the octagonal shaped room and approached Jumba's door. There was no need to knock, 327 punched in the code and the door slowly hissed open. The pink alien moved through the rooms, thinking it was spooky seeing them empty when they were usually filled with equipment and paperwork.
"I'm hungry." 625 whined as they passed what used to be the kitchen. "Shut up." 327 growled. "We're almost there." 327 moved into the four way hallway that conencted the four sections of the lab, and looked up. On the ceiling was what appeared to be a mauled grate of some sort. "There." 327 pointed, 625 didn't care, he was hungry.
The two climbed up the wall and 327 pushed open the grate which suprizingly was easy in the fact that the lab was built to contain the experiments, the early ones anyway. After 327 the experiments were too strong to be kept contained, but they stayed anyway. She finished the journey into the dark space and groped arround for a few secodns before turning her vision into night spectrum. She quickly surveyed the space. It was about five feet square with a small stool tucked into the corner that could be used as a couch for the small experiments. In the center of the room was a display screen complete with a keyboard and hand-to-screen interface device, power cables and other legnths of wire ran from the equipment into a ventrical cover, no doubt into the mainstream and nearest power scource. And as true to his word, there was as small crate that was filled with weapons. 626 had obviously planned for something like this, it had everything you needed, except a bathroom that was located on the ground floor of the lab.
327 moved over to the computer, and was ready to log onto the mainstream but was stopped, a blinding white light made her cover her eyes in pain. She thought it was a trap of some sort. "I found the light!" 625 said, delighted in his find. 327 shook her head and returned her view to normal. "Warn me before you touch anything." she hissed at him. "Sorry." he backed off, not wanting to encure the wrath of 327.
327 moved over to the computer and hoped it was attached to a power scource that hadn't been shut off. To her suprize it hummed to life as the colored icons appeared on the screen. She immediately got onto the mainstream and started a preliminary search for anyhting related to 626. Her efforts were rewarded by six items, most were old. "Monster attackes Chenadiss" and so on, but there was one new one. The title read, "Captain honored for capturing menace, fifty five Federation troops lost and ten civillian casualties." she shivered and opened the document.
Captain honored, menace caught. Last night there was a tip off that a wanted alien would be landing his ship at platform 96 in sector three. Captain Gantu responded, heading for the platform on a whim, one that paid off. After the suspect destroyed an entire landing pad, along with fourty soldiers on it. The debris killed ten innocent civillians living under the pad. Two cruisers were destroyed before the suspect and wanted scientist who was riding aboard the ship were apprehended. "He was a lot of trouble, but he eventually ran out of steam and gave up." Those are Captain Gantu's words about the situation, nothing else has been released. Stop. End Document.
327 began shaking, a cold ice-like feeling crept up her spine. 'No, he wouldn't.' were her thoughts. 'He wouldn't. Not 626. Never.' she wanted to lie down and die. But she couldn't she was too paralized to do much. It was too much, she denied all of it, and began to search for something else that said other wise. Furioulsy she searched, but found nothing. All the tears that had been held back now spilled out, she knew now the ending.
There would be a few days between processing the evidence, a pre-appreance by Jumba and 626 before the real date the Council would get to judge, in which Jumba could plea guilty and get a lighter sentence than denial. And then 626 would get a chance, but the evidence against his was too much, tapes, records and first hand witnesses. Jumba could take the blame for 626, if the Council excepted that 626 was acting off what Jumba had taught him. Either way 626 was going to spend the rest of his days away from the real world, either in the mines on some god-forsaken rock, or in solitary confinement under maximum restraint untill he died, or even worse. Frozen in a block of molecular-reversal protien, where he would have full consciousness, but no controll over anypart of his body whatsoever, and any ammount of time in that state he'd lose his mind. Or the death sentence.
There was nothing she could do but wait and hopefully hack into the feed from the pre and post judgement. Then from there she would know where to go, but it all depended on when and she also needed a ship. She forcefull threw herself onto the floor from her sitting position and sighed, trying to stop the flow of tears.
* * *
Darfinis Maurader, still played a key role in 626's fate, but it was considerably less after his stocks chrashed after the desruction of his space station and the labs and warehouses on Chenadiss`. Now he was drowning in the loss of money, and was vivibly hurting from it. He did the most logical thing anyone would do in his place. He used up whatever reserves and quickly bought out most of the high security prisons on a large number of asteroids and several smaller ones, just to cover his bases. But there was still one was to get his prize, and he was comitted to get 626 that way.
He ordered all the remaining troops to assemble in the cruisers he had especially built for ship boarding combat. He also had contacts in the Council to notify him where and when 626 would be leaving. Now all he had to do was sit back and wait, all else had failed. And if this attempt was to fail, it would be the end, for him and everything he had worked to achieve.
Now all troops were standing by, waiting for the word to jump into action and get 626.
* * *
He'd given up. And now he was going to pay. It was time anyway, he was sick of running, dodging the plams fire and shooting everything that made so much as an evil glance at him. After he'd fainted that was the last time he expected to see anything, he thought he was going to die before he awoke.
The first thing 626 felt was cold, everlasting icy cold. It was painful, which made him smile inside, that meant he was alive. He tried to force himself up from his blind, death like state, and to face his captors and find away out. He was in darkness, and tried to open his eyes, and soon realized they were already open. He switched to night mode and after finding it was too dark to see anything anyway reverted to origional spectrum.
His other sences kicked in one by one, and soon realized he was laying on his side on a cold floor, most likely a cell in a prison. He felt a rush of warm blood to his back and simultaneously his nerves spasmed, sending writhering pain into his head. After the pain had subsided he concluded they had him tranquilzed, too much by the later ammount of pain. His extra sences told him he was in a small cramped cell, and there was no way out.
He moved to pull himself up, but his hands didn't respond, like they weren't there. He jerked his arm to find out, and to his annoyance he found he was in the arm cuffs that he'd thrown at Gantu. He knew Gantu did that out of spite, being in the cell was enough, but the hand cuffs were just for torture, or for the safety of the prison gaurds, they couldn't have 626 running arround unrestrained, able to escape without the aid of tools.
Nothing to do but sit and wait. He then began to wonder if 327 made it to the lab allright. He'd broken his promise to meet her there later. Later, thinking of that, what time was it? He hadn't the means to tell he'd been out so long. Was it days? Hours? Or was he in a locker in Gantu's ship?
Yime passed slowly in the dark recess of wherever he was, or atleast it seemed that way. Whenver you look at a clock and watch, time goes slowly, seemingly dripping at a deathly slow rate. But when you were occupied, time disappeared.
Suddenly the door squeaked open, sending a bright light pain into 626's light sensitive eyes, he cringed and tried to get away from it. He pushed his head into the corner and kept trying get into it, away from the light. He heard Gantu chuckle at his pain. "Now I caught you. Time for payback for all the aggrivation you have caused me. Now get out, or I'll shoot you out." 626 heard the click of the plasma weapon the captain carried. He saw no other alternative.
The blue alien jumped out of the hole and fell to the floor, ten feet down. He rolled over and recovered back on his feet. He let his eyes adjust to the light and saw he was in a detaining center, steel doors of all sized linned the wall, some were open and the other closed, other detainees were inside. The tall shark kicked 626 toward the door he was supposed to go into. Rather violently the captain closed the door and locked it tight. "I'm supposed to interigate you here, but instead I think I'll just deal out some pain on you." Gantu pulled a vicious looking metal rod with a button on one side.
"Oo, a stick. I'm so scared." 626 'gasped'. "That's there you're wrong." Gantu said. "It's a laser baton, used to controll rioters. But on the highest setting the energy blade causes abrasion and lascerations." Gantu grinned evily, and moved closer to 626. The weapons hissed at the red blade appeared, then Gantu turned the dial up. Graduly the blade became whiter and crackled in the air, from the floor 626 felt the heat the weapon was giving off, he shuddered. As the shark get closer 626 realized that this was the first time he was afraid, and he realized why. He had no controll over the situation what so ever, he had no means of defending himself in any way, shape or form. All he could do was hope Gantu knew when to stop.
A thought entered his head, a what-if scenario. Knowing what he knows now if he could go back, he would change. He'd do everything different. Then maybe he wouldn't be in the situation he was in now. He looked up from his thought and saw Gantu's massively muscular arm come down, the baton arced and flashed as it passed throught the air. He braced himself for the impact, but none came. He thought Gantu had missed, but was soon sent into reconsideration as the curve of the weapon came down and struck him.
It wasn't a pain, or a hurt. It stung and flung him against the wall, which hurt more than the baton itself. The air was knocked out of him and he staggered, not going to wait for the next round. The next attack came, but 626 was ready this time, he rolled off to the side and the baton missed. Gantu thought it was his fault that the baton didn't connect, he swung again. He missed again. This time he knew 626 was evading, and faked an upper-cut then side swiped the little monster. He grinned at the results, 626 was again flung across the small room and hit the wall, but no visible effects on his blue fur could be seen, which was good in his favor because the Council doesn't approve of torturing the prisoners, and he got the satisfaction of giving 626 what for.
"What exactly is your problem? What did I do to you?" 626 snarled, before Gantu swung the weapon. His intent was innocent, he'd never done anything to the menace, only when Gantu started it did he reply back.
Gantu paused for a second in thought, but still held his animostuous expression. What exactly did he have against 626? He lowered the weapon to think the question through. There was no logical reason for this, or was there an explanation, only a cheap one. 626 had always presented himself as a disturbance, a sore toe. Keeping the Captain from his usual duties and disgracing him by fouling his carefully planned traps and escaping numerous times, each one more undignifying than the last.
"No answer, I guess there is no reason after all." 626 said, as he sat upright, hindered by the restraints. "What is it? What makes you do things like this? Is it pride? afraid of hurting your dignity if you don't get your last kicks in. Animosity? You just hate my guts because I am better than you? Do you even know why you are doing this?"
Gantu stopped. Why was he doing this? He brought up the weapon to bear. "I do it because, of you." he struck out, lashing 626. He watched the blue alien cringe at the blow. "I do it because you are smarter." he lashed again. "Faster." another whip. "You are better than me." He brought the baton down hard. He heard a satifying crack as 626 twitched in pain. "I do it because you are a genetic mutation." He sent a flurry of blows, each inflicting more pain than the last. "I do it because I, like you, get personal enjoyment out of inflicting pain onto others." Gantu deactivated the weapon momentarily, so it could cool down. After it was no longer hot to the touch he reactivated it. "I do it because I can."
Gantu continued to pound on 626 for the next ten minutes, then after he got tired, or he was reminded he had somewhere to go, he stopped. He picked up 626, being careful not to grab the end with teeth and threw him back into the small cell on the wall. "I'll be back later." the captain promised. "I'll hold you to it." 626 grunted cockily.
626 listened as Gantu walked off. He breathed a sigh of relief and began to let go, and untense himself. The only injuries he suffered were a bloody lip and his nose was broken again, but that was expected, it had been broke the day before, or maybe, never mind. He hadn't kept track of the passing of time. He shuddered in the small cold cell, laying on his side, letting the blood from his nose drip into a pool, he couldn't have done anything about it anyway. Gantu had broken the rib that had been fractured before, each breath he drew was painful. His body was trying to repair the rib, occasionally a sharp pain turned his chest into a firey inferno of agony as the rib was slowly moving closer to the break and heal itself. He hoped Jumba wasn't getting the same 'welcome'.
* * *
Grand Council woman, Alkaldia Onieda and her apprenticing nephew, Darfinis Maurader headed for the file database, to read up on Dr. Jumba Jookiba and his psychotic experiment 626. Both of them, the doctor and 626, had been hastily examined by a shrink, not physically, just based off Dr. Jumba's papers and concluded that both were in a highly dangerous state of psychosis. But they would have to do a more in depth study to back up their findings.
None of that was important now, the Council woman wanted to review the evidence herself before the actual trial, to get a good hold on what she was dealing with. It was good practice that she wanted to pass on to her aspiring nephew. The two checked into the security post. The gaurd took the I.D. and scanned it. He returned the cards and waved them through. "Just remember, anything you want to take from the datafiles has to be properly scanned, re-documented then you can load it into your datapads for reviewal. Have a nice day."
The section on the Doctor and his work was huge. It had several thousand papers recovered and piced back together from his lab, inluding his personal notes and reminders. The data on file was even larger, it took up nearly a third of all the other compiled evidence in the whole complex.
"He was very thoughrough in his research." Maurader announced. "Look at all this stuff. I bet some of the other sceintists would kill to have just a piece of this." "Which is why I have requested that no one but us look at it before the actualy date of trial." Alkaldia said. "Now we have to sift through all this stuff and find files relevant to 'Experiment 626' and his doings." "Are we looking for anything specificly related to 626, or anything on Dr. Jumba's illegal experiments?" Darfinis said, lookind down at the incredible ammount of paper, hoping this would be a fast find. "We are only looking for records relevant to 626 if that is what you mean, personal notes, laboratory statistics, reports." Alkaldia said to the screen on which she was rapidly searching though.
Darfinis pulled a stack of tatered papers from a pile that was stacked inside a box with alienatic writing that read, 'Dr. Jumba' on the side. He flipped through the stack. "I found something, preliminary sketches of 626 I think. Take a look." he passed the stack off to Alkaldia, who diligently fingered through them. She studied each page with care and caution, memorizing every detail of this thing. She almost laughed when she read through the abilities, but retained her dry seriousness.
Althought genetics was something that had always passed over her head, but she had a basic ground understanding of what the limits of the science were, and this denied all of them. The little blue creature had been made from close to nothing, Dr. Jumba had pulled together the best samples of Dna and genetic coding, stregnth, speed, brains and anyother useful trait. Using these he then constructed from a blank sheet of nothing, his own genetic code for the monster's bone structure and body size.
The Councilwoman was having second thoughts about the Dr. He was a genius, breaking medical boundries the scientists on Federation funding hadn't even reached. Her head drifted down to the paper again, and her eyes focused on 626. She let her mouth curl into a smile. 626 almost looked cute, without the genetic coding to kill he could be as harmless as any other alien out there. A different feeling washed over her, one of pity and remorse, it was a question that triggered it. What if 626 was being controlled somehow by the doctor? What if the small blue alien had a mind of his own, and was forced into the doctors every whim? Under an enslavemnt of some sort. She would have to investigate the matter further.
"I think I found something interesting, some data that had been stored on a pad concerning 626 and an injury he sustained." Maurader interrupted his aunt from her deep thought. Silently she shuffeled through the papers that lay out on the floor and over to the datapad. "All the information might not be there, the doctor did a botched attempt to erase everything in the database. But the team had pieced together most of it." Onieda accepted the information and began to read.
The datapad contained nearly sixty pages of information on 626, after a headwound he'd recieved, as well as pictures of a ship's bloody interior, the bent frame and x-rays of the skull showing small hairline fractures. 626 had sustained an eight gee force impact into the metal supporting beam of a cruiser, walking off with only minor fractures and... she read it again. Her eyebrows lifted, 626 had a gash on his forehead that effectively caused the loss of onehundred and twenty percent of his blood. That didn't make sence, that was more than enough to kill someone, and it was also twenty percent over the ammount of blood, which menat 626 reproduced blood at an alarming rate, giving him no chance to bleed to death. As wierd as it was, she passed it off as an error in the re-collection of the erased data.
"You see the part about the blood?" Darfinis asked, knowing that she would have said something about it anyway. "Yes, I did. I assume it was an error in the code from reconstructing it, is it not?" "No, I checked it, twice. It's the origional number that was on the pad in the first place. This 626 is an amazing creature." Darfinis commented, he already knew most of what was there, but acted as if it were new to him. "Yes, he certainly is. But none the less, he has done some dammage and needs to be held accountable. And we need evidence to prove his wrong doings, that's why we're here." she reminded him. "Yes, but I-" Darfinis was interrupted by the beeping of his aunt's comms device.
"You'll have hold onto that thought." she said, and reached into her pocket for the small device. She turned it on and pressed it to the small hole that was her ear and listened. The small almost inaudible voice squeaked on the microphone for several seconds then stopped. She closed the hinged pice and slipped the comms back into her pocket. A smile was spread across her face that was usually cold and unexpressionated. "It seems that Captain Gantu has made good on his word." she bent over and began to put the papers back into a pile.
Darfinis looked confused. "What did the Captian do?" The Councilwoman place the stack of un-organized papers back into the box. "The Captian swore to himself that he'd capture 626 from the day the doctor bagan to run from the Federation. And he has, 626 is in the detaining center, awaiting the trial. And personally I want to talk to him myself, now that he's away from the doctor and his possible influence on him. Pack up, we're leaving." He shrugged and placed the pad down onto the boxes.
"What was it that you were saying before they called?" the Councilwoman asked while they were walking out of the storage. "Oh, nothing. I forgot what I was going to say." he admitted. "I want to ask 626 some questions before Dr. Jumba gets to see him. Before he gives him the last orders." Onieda said. "What makes you think 626 is being controlled by the doctor? From a military standpoint, Wouldn't you want a body capable of making it's own descisions, without having to give them orders every time he completes the last set. Instead of a robot like machine?" "That would be more practical, but I think there is more to this 626 than we suppose. I've seen a pattern with the genetic creations, if 626 is anything like the last ones he'll be predictable." "The datapad mentions two other experiments that keep showing up, numbers 327 and 625. I see a pattern here too, what if these two are still out there? Certainly they will come after 626, looking after him like an older brother." "You should look harder in the datapad. Number 625 posed no threat whatsoever." "How so?" "Dr. Jumba notes in many papers on number 625, although he has the capabilites to destroy like 626, give or take some stregnths and weaknesses, is too lazy. He also notes that 625 is a failure. We shouldn't concern our rescources on him." "What of the number 327?" "Although she..."
"Wait," Darfinis cut in. "You said a SHE, right?" "That's right." "Wouldn't they be able to reproduce then? 626 and 327, Jumba did note that they had feelings for eachother." "The love 327 shared toward 626 was just wasted, 626 is almost incapable of showing deep emotions toward anything. He did have feelings toward her, but they were shallow, not really a deep understanding, just a sway to her." "So no reproduction?" "I would think not." "But 327 would still come after him, right?" "I think we should worry about that when the time comes." Onieda finished.
The two passed throught the main door and out into the busy sidewalk, down into the awaiting hovercar that had been sent for them. The green car shot up into the traffic stream above the city and jetted toward the detention center. It stopped and the passengers that climbed in a few seconds ago got out. Both of them walked up hte stairs to the center, that was the thing that bothered Darfinis, everything had steps, up and down. That's all he did all day. By now there should be sectovators and mechanized walkways, but there was none, in fact sometimes the only way for some aliens to get exersize was the steps, they were too busy to do anything else.
The entrance hall was huge, the vaulted ceiling reached high into the air, while colorful frescoes were strewn across the wall in an unorderly fassion, but it was designed that way. They flashed thier cards at the front desk and were led through several locking doors by a short, but heavily muscled security gaurd. He passed on several warnings to them, concerning the prisoners, and soon to be prisoners, and not to go near them at all because they liked to grab passer bys and it took brute force to get them off.
They approached the cell, it was a steel door with no holes, except for the key hole. But the gaurd didn't insert a key, he swiped a card under the door and a laser reader picked up the user's code and heartbeat, matched both and the monitor above the cell beeped. He cautiously opened the door, Maurader and Alkaldia stood back, just in case. The jailer stood stock still, his mouth hagning open. Inside the black cell was nothing, only a small pool of dried blood remained.
"He's gone." Alkaldia said dryly. "How did this happen?" she turned to the gaurd, an acusing stare looked at him from her cold eyes.
Darfinis felt a sinking sensation in his stomach, he stepped back a few feet, he'd seen the footage of what 626 could do, and he didn't want to experience it first hand. The monster could tear your spinal colomn out and turn it into a pulp, while you were still standing. He could gut you and strangle the last oince of breath out with your own intestines. He was ready to break into a full out panicking run, when the gaurd realized what he'd done.
"Sorry," he apologized, looking at the monitor above the cell. "Wrong one, this one's been empty for a while now." he moved over one row and followed the same procedure as before, this time the cell swung open and inside was a small blue alien, or his back anyway. He was facing his poisonous barbs that extended from the semetrical blotch of dark blue fur toward the door. Darfinis watched 626 breath in, unaware that they were there. A blue ear pooped up instantaneously and swiveled back to them, then returned to it's origional place, but 626 didn't move, he ignored them. Why was there any reason to acnkowledge them anyway? They weren't there to save him, they mattered nothing.
"626, I'd like to talk to you." The councilwoman said slowly, in a friendly voice so not to agitate him. "And I'd like to do it in a interrigation room so that no one can hear anything." "That won't get him to talk." Darfinis grinned wryly. "Who's talking here?" the Councilwoman hissed. She shook her head and turned back to 626. "Don't listen to him. Come out and we can talk, about anything you want." "Go away." the blue alien groaned through all the pain Gantu had inflicted hours ago. "No one's going to hurt you." the Councilwoman promised. "Then tell your Captain Gantu that. He just finished giving me a 'welcome session' a few hours ago."
The Councilwomans face was now twisted in anger. Some wounds were evident, other might take time to appear. She knew what 626 was talking about, and how Gantu promised to get back at him, it was personal. Now the debt was repayed, but there was still some more to come. Gantu had always shown lack of ethics and respect, he didn't value life much, that made for a really great tactician, but not for off-duty engagements. The thought entered her head about finally retiring the Captain, but saved that for later. She now had something to play on. "Although I cannot take back all the pain Gantu has caused you, I can offer you something." "What?" 626 shifted, as if he wanted to open up and talk. "A chance to give your side of the story, without Jumba being by your side. To tell us what you want, without pressure from Jumba. You're safe from him now."
626 let out a small laugh, but was stopped from the massive pain from moving his chest like that. "People died, it was my fault. They didn't have to, I did it." he said, now taking on a remorseful tone. Jumba had nothing to do with it, it was all me." he held back some tears.
"I know it seemed liked you did, but it was really Jumba. He made you, told you it was alright to do that. All the time it was him, controlling you, you were at his back and call, if not he threatened to destroy you. Now it's fine." she try soothing him. Darfinis gave an entertained look behind her, his arms across his chest.
"You..." he broke off, the pain grew in his chest, he wheezed. "You have the details wrong. He never told me to do anything, just gave mission basics. The senseless deaths were all my fault, something now I wish hadn't happened. Then I wouldn't be here. It would all be finished..." 626 trailed off.
"It seems that way, but it would work to your advantage in the trial. You could get a lighter sentence, if you claim Jumba was in effect controlling you under threat of life." "Who's side are you on?" 626 paused, but continued before she had a chance to reply. "Besides, whatever comes I deserve it. Full force sentence, death even. I had it comming."
Darfinis leaned close to his aunt's ear. "He sounds derranged, like he isn't right in the head." he whispered to her. She turned and gave him a stern look. "Right now we're just talking, pshyco evaluations come later." she hissed back. "I heard that." 626 gave a faint smile, "I can hear anything."
"You want to talk about 327?" Darfinis said from over the Councilwoman's shoulder. 626 turned from facing the wall, trying to figure out his angle. The security gaurd pulled the pistol from his side and aimed it at 626, the fast movement caused him to go into alarm. "327?!" he growled. "Yeah, the doctor mentioned something about her in his files, says you two were, er, had feelings for eachother." Maurader smirked, secretly trying to provoke something. 626 now knew she was safe, they hadn't mentioned her being onboard the ship, just that they knew about her, but he still had doubts. "You will NEVER speak of her," He barked, thick silava flew from his mouth. "She is of no concern to you, leave her alone. If you so much as even look at her wrong, I'll-" 626 started getting closer to the edge of the cell, and made threatening actions. The jailkeeper closed the door, the room fell silent, the steel door blocked all the sounds from the angry alien inside. The door rattled from being hit.
Alkaldia turned to Darfinis, flames seemed to come out of her eyes. "Why did you do that?" she snapped. "What?" he said innocently. "You know." she turned and let her footsteps tell how she felt. Darfinis followed, a grin spread on his face.
626 was glad they were gone. He could now plot his escape in silence. His demented show was effective, they though him a first class looney. Which would work in his favor at some point. After the trial they'd hand him over to a mental facility, finding that his mental status had been screwed up because Jumba had made him kill people, they'd then pump him full of stimulants and other drugs, claim he's fine and toss him out of the facility as fast as they can throw a ball.
He laughed, the Councilwoman had things definately screwed up. Jumba made him kill? That was funny, he wondered where the got thier scources, Maurader probably had a hand in that. 327, whenever he's said that something happened, 626 didn't know why, he blew his stack. He reasoned it was protection, he was protecting her. Even if they asked where she was he would never tell, not even in threat of death.