Jace's heart raced as he carried Solaris in his arms, the pulse rifle strapped to the back of her back making every move harder and harder to place. They traveled through corridors and maintenance tunnels until even he had to put her down against a wall, and take a break. After entering the weapons storage and encountering the unit of soldiers, not to mention defeating them, he had expected for an entire battalion of troops to come in after them. Surprisingly, the alarms had remained silent, and, for the most part, they had been undisturbed. Why?

Silence is the sound of the calm before you die, he thought uneasily, and gazed at Solaris's sleeping form, I just hope I can make it through this..... He smiled at her, one of the few real smiles he ever showed his entire life, and surprised himself by kissing her on the cheek. Know it or not, Solaris, I'm..... drawn to you. I can't explain how or why but I am......

He shook his head. No, now was not the time to think such things. His military training forbade it. Still, looking down at her, leaning up against the metallic gray of the corridor, he felt a twinge in his heart. If she only knew......

Something in her right pocket beeped. Curious, knowing that it hadn't been there at all when she was placed in her cell (he had made sure of that) his hand wandered into the storage space, and pulled out a communicator, twice as wide as a regular one, but not much bigger around. Tapping it, he gave it a try attentively, "Hello?"
The arguing between them was immense.

"D'Argo, are you out of your blotching mind?" Chiana quipped, "You are not going to wait for her out there! You've got to be fweakin'!"

"Chiana, I have to! She's our ally and our friend, almost like my own daughter, and I am NOT going to just leave her out there!" It was plain as day that if anymore of this went on, D'Argo was going to hit Hyper-Rage, "Even you have to admit that she's been one of the more useful beings on Moya!"

"I know, but hey, she can handle herself! She's Solaris, and the John in her would never—"

"CHIANA, KA D'ARGO!" interrupted Pilot form his den, "Moya is picking up a strangely cryptic but powerful transmission signal coming from the Command Carrier! It's programmed on a remote channel of Moya's communications systems, but....... it's not entirely undecipherable."

"Good, Pilot, patch it through!"

A slight buzzing noise lasted a few moments in various pitches, before a decidedly male voice falteringly answered, "Hello? Hello? This is Officer Jace Kohen to any transceivers, please come in!"

D'Argo hissed from the Lo'Laan, "I am General Ka D'Argo, now what is your business on this communication!??!?! What do you want from us!??!"

"Ka D'Argo?" The voice raised in recognition, "You're the Luxan aboard the Leviathan Moya, are you not?"

"What do you want, Peacekeeper?" retorted Chiana just as angrily.

"Nothing, only to tell you that your friend Solaris Sun-Crichton is in danger. I am working with her to gain the parts that she needs for her journey ahead, but she is severely damaged."

"HOW?!?!? Did you have anything to do with it?!" growled D'Argo.

Jace was hesitant over the comms, "Not directly. Scorpius put her in the Aurora Chair, and apparently, the pain of having the memories torn from her brain was a different experience for her. The memories started coming faster for her, and her body energy is severely depleted."

"How do we know we can trust you?"

"Because I'm with her right now, watching over her."

"How do we know you're not lying?" Chiana asked briskly.

"How else would I have this communicator? I'm a ship technician, not a communications officer. I don't know how to build a communicator that can penetrate shield buffers and communication harmonics like this device can. Solaris is alive and well, if a bit weak. The both of us are going after Scorpius together, in hopes we can obtain her transmodulator. You're going to have to trust me, Ka D'Argo. I assure you, if we ever escape from here and Solaris is incapable of anything, you may have my head. I won't let anything happen to her."

Pilot switched the communications from open to silent, "D'Argo, if I may add my own opinion on this matter....."

D'Argo grumbled, "Go ahead Pilot, but I don't think this Kohen person should be trusted! He is a Peacekeeper!"

"Moya and I find that he is speaking the truth. He lacks a specific Peacekeeper directorate, a specific characteristic of any Peacekeeper we have known thus far. In fact, Moya has informed me that she has found a casualness in his demeanor, much like that of Commander Crichton."

Huffing, the Luxan shot back, "He is NOT like John at all! He may lack his soldier's ignorance and arrogance, but that son of a hasblot is not to be trusted!"

"D'Argo, shut your wakket," replied Chiana just as hotly, "I think Pilot's right. I'm an expert on liars, yeah, expert on liars, and that guy wasn't fakin' it. He was telling the truth."

"So what am I supposed to do, Chiana? Just let him play us for fools?? Frell it!"

"KA D'ARGO, you are overreacting to the situation!" spoke Pilot firmly.

"NO I AM NOT! I just want Lara back on Moya where she belongs—"

"YOU CAN'T GO AFTER HER D'ARGO!" screamed the Nebari, finally losing it, "YOU CAN'T! NOT THIS TIME! Look, D'Argo, you couldn't protect Aeryn and Crichton when they were crystallized, and you can't protect Lari either! There's nothing you can do but one thing: trust this Jace guy, and hope that he can do what you can't!"

Chiana's words cut through D'Argo's thoughts and opinions like a razorblade. Pausing, he blinked his eyes, stared out from his cockpit, and sighed slowly. He knew she was right. "Pilot, put him back on." When it had been done, he continued, "Kohen, take care of her, and when you are successful with your mission, I will aid you back to Moya. These Prowlers are thicker than that pack of sgabba flies....."

The comms crackled a bit, and a familiar voice came on the channel, "Those mind..... frelling bug...... things?"

D'Argo cried, "Lara!"

"Yeah.... Hey D...... Listen, Jace is..... Jace is right. We're.... getting out of here...... as soon as we.... get that transmodulator. We're going to........ need some cover when..... we eject my Prowler, ok?"

"Of course. Anything, D'Argo out."

Jace looked at his companion and frowned, "You were supposed to be sleeping."

"Can't sleep, clowns will eat me."

The way she said it made him laugh aloud, "You can't do anything if you don't sleep. You're energy level—"

"Can it, Jace.... I can... move.... and I can....... talk. I'm going to have to...... do this at..... half mast." She held her hand out to him; it was shaking severely, "Help me....... up."

"I won't let you do this, Lara, I—"

"Sacara Meltor wiltra!" she screamed at him, annoyed.

His eyes widened, "What was that!??!"

"I said—"she caught herself and forced a and to her forehead, a look on her face that could only be classified as lost, "What the hell am I? That..... that wasn't Sebacean? Human?"

"It was nothing I've ever heard," he said, but his pause before answering made her suspicious.

"You've heard it before..... haven't you? I've said something before, didn't I?"

Jace nodded, "Yes, it was something like, 'Mylacca shee wen pofada lykor'."

She translated, "'Appearances aren't as they seem?'"

"You can understand it?"

"Yeah, but.... how? I don't even know what it is!"

"We can figure that out later. What did you say before though?"

"'Son of a hasmot, go away!'"

Her slight gusto gave him a sense of relief, "Feeling better than you were?"

She stopped and took a deep breath, sighing a bit before nodding, "I've got enough strength back, I think. I can talk well enough, so I just hope my legs aren't dead."

"Then let's carry on. We still need to find Scorpius."

Solaris smirked, "I think I already know."

"Where?"

"What's the one place where security is maximum, penetration is minimum, and if you threw an electric screwdriver in the mix, you'd screw a nut."

Jace didn't get it, "What? Where?"

"Two words, Ducky: Personal quarters."

With the transmodulator set on a table beside his throne chair, Scorpius stared at it, looking at it and wondering what Solaris had planned. She is... unique. Her genetic structure contains within it every single advantage a Peacekeeper could ever hope for: Prowler modification, a resistance to Heat Delirium, and of course, the wormhole technology within her brain... Yes, I do believe that she is worth more than her father is.

He tapped his chin a few times before snarling, gnashing his teeth to his anger, "If only the Aurora Chair can extract the information that I need! Why did it not work the last time? Even with John in her place, I only had to wait moments before the wormhole technology appeared to me. Why does it not work with Solaris?"

A sudden noise of pulse blasts and astonished voices erupted outside his chambers, and, turning towards the back of the room and staring out the window, he knew that he was not going anywhere. It was just a question of survival, and he knew that the possibility of her surviving an encounter against him was slim to none. "It won't be long now," he admonished, grinning wickedly.

Compared to the Sheyangs, Scarrens, and other various creatures that her parents had encountered over the years, a few thirty Peacekeeper commandos were pushovers.

Finally having enough energy to actually move, Solaris decided not to use her handheld pulse fire blasts from her hands, but rather, swinging into action with her new pulse rifle and good ol' Winona. Boy, did using her again feel good!

"I missed my girl!" she cried happily, managing to shoot three soldiers in less than 2 seconds, "Now for the fun fireworks that won't leave me high and dry!"

Jace couldn't contain his abnormally large smile, now a habit from knowing Solaris, "Maybe we should focus on the entire battalion in front of us?"

"'K, you take the fifteen party poopers on the left, I'll handle the fifteen on the right. Any questions?"

"Yes: what are you going to do about Scorpius?"

"He isn't going anywhere!" she crowed, kicking her foot out to trip a soldier and shooting him in the gut, and shot another one behind her back.

He was fighting just as hard, delivering a right cross to the left side of a soldier's face and shooting others with his left hand. Combining tactics of handheld fighting and the use of their guns, Jace and Solaris were near unstoppable, making their way through the battalion in a way that would have made her parents proud. They flipped over each other and bounced attacks off each other, each one showing off and proving the other one better until every last commando was strewn on the floor, many dead, few too wounded to move, and all unconscious.

"Lara you ok?"

She looked winded and weak, still partially drained from everything, "Yeah, I'm...... ok...... could be better, and could be worse, but alright. Let's..... get Scorpy...." She staggered to the door of Scorpius's chambers and ran Jace's Ident Chip across the panel, but the door wouldn't budge. "Frell," she muttered, and cracked open the device, "I'm going to have to....... reroute the controls to...... outside the chamber."

Just then, heavy footsteps shook the floor, and Jace readied his weapons, "Hurry up, Lara. There's Peacekeepers coming quickly...."

Her fingers were a blur, switching cords and rewiring things she didn't even know how to wire together, "I'm working on it.... working....... there!" The doors sprung open and allowed them both to enter, just as the soldiers were coming. The doors slid shut, and Jace shot the panel controls. "Nobody's getting in or out......"

"Just as I like it!" growled a voice behind them, and a black, gloved punch to the side of the face caught Solaris off guard. Reeling, she could feel her face start to bruise, as Jace pointed the gun at nowhere, and Scorpius's hands were upon his throat, intent evident, "If it isn't the failure. My, my, how quickly you have begun to attach yourself to young Solaris. I wonder if I was wrong to let you die; after all, you yourself are...unique. Combined with Solaris's DNA, the offspring you produce could be extraordinary! The perfect soldiers, and all the better to study the affects of human and Sebacean genes on the second tier of existence. My, my, would your children be strong! The ultimate Peacekeepers!"

A pulse rifle butted up against the back of the half Scarren's head, "Freeze, Scorpius. And while you're at it, Frankenstein, cut the DNA crap, it's making me nauseous."

"Oh dear, it seems we have a conundrum." He looked to his right and back at her, "You see, dear Solaris, if you shoot me, I cannot guarantee that my grasp over Officer Kohen's neck will release in time for you to save him. On the other hand, if you do not shoot me, I could kill him anyway, and come after you. So the question is, which of the possibilities are most in your favor?"

The situation couldn't have been worse. Even if she didn't know him that well, Jace was, surprisingly, her ally and companion; if there was one thing D'Argo taught her, and one thing that her father and mother's DNA had shown her, was that you never let an ally take the fall. Ever. She felt herself lowering the gun, "Let him go. You're fight isn't even with him, it's with me. I'm the one you want, not him."

Scorpius smirked, "Wrong. You see, Jace is a........ unique individual. I personally have high hopes for him and what he could have become, but he has amounted to nothing. Just a failed experiment waiting to be put out of its misery, I suspect."

Jace gritted his teeth and tried to fight back, "With all due respect sir, you yourself were considered a failed experiment. Have a little heart."

"I'm sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else," he replied, and grinned wickedly at the sight of Jace turning blue.

Quick as lightning, Solaris grew alarmed, and swung her pulse rifle to the side of Scorpius's head, knocking him and Jace to the floor, with the latter unconscious, "That's enough, we're going to settle this the old fashioned way." She threw her guns downward, and kicking her foe in the gut. Rolling over, his own hand raised itself and grasped her own neck, choking the life out of her with surprising ease. Gasping for air, the Human hybrid's blue eyes grew wide and seemed to glow; her hands immediately went towards his grip, and tried to loosen it..

Scorpius gnashed his teeth, "As soon as you are unconscious, Solaris, I promise you that I shall invite you to the Aurora Chair as soon as you regain it again, and I promise you that you will have that to look forward to for as many cycles as you are living."

She knew it was risky, but, gritting her teeth, she saw no other choice. "Not if....... you're dead..." she whispered, and placed her hand on his face. The moment she did, she let the energy she had within her ripple through her palms, full power, changing light energy to heat, the deadly sort of heat that he was weak to.

At first, the half-Scarren did not know what was happening, but then he became fully aware of it and screamed horridly, ear-piercingly, and tried with all his might to squeeze the life out of her along with it. The energy was of enourmous power, and even his own body suit was quickly reaching its limits. The cooling apparatus short circuited, sending sparks in the air, and he howled in pain as the heat intensified.

But Solaris wasn't done. She rasped out her last words to him before a blast of light engulfed the two, and they both collapsed, "Burn in hezmana..... and may the devil pay you your dues."

WOW this is my LONGEST chapter YET and I LOVE IT! What's going to happen next? Is Solaris dead by suffocation? Scorpius by Heat Delirium? And what the heck is Solaris? Jace? Will we ever know? (you betcha!) All questions will be answered coming up in the rest of this fic, and I'm over 7/8th's done! Only a small part left to go, and we're ready to roll! I'm so excited, I might write more tomorrow! YAY! G'Nite everybody! See you all tomorrow!