Reyna felt him behind her – the man who had not denied being the infamous John Crichton – felt the heat of his body as he stepped closer to her. The pulse pistol and the hand holding it were steady, hovering just above her right shoulder. She met Tokar's eyes in the silent communication born of cycles of intimacy.

"Why don't we all just step into the doctor's office and discuss—"

She didn't give Crichton the chance to complete his suggestion. Reyna wasn't going to allow him to shoot her mate, even if she did understand why he might feel the need to do so. Instead, Reyna Val took one step back, bringing a booted heel down forcefully on the fugitive's instep, simultaneously bringing her right hand up hard to knock the pulse pistol out of his grip.

As Reyna made her move, Tokar dove after the pistol, which sailed gracefully from Crichton's hand toward Reyna's office door. Tokar landed in front of the open door, arm outstretched to grab the pistol as it slid across the floor. It stopped just inside the doorway and he reached for it, rolling rapidly toward the weapon. Reyna knew that he intended to bring it to bear on the man now holding her as a shield, but that plan was pulled up short by the black boot suddenly pinning Tokar's wrist to the floor.

"Am I interrupting anything?" the girl called Chiana asked, her tone innocent as she leaned most of her weight on Tokar's unprotected wrist. In the Nebari's hand was a tiny silver pulse pistol, aimed straight at Reyna.

Reyna felt the grip on her upper arms loosen as Crichton surprised her by pushing her away from him. "Damn. Pointing guns at people is becoming way too much of a habit." His voice filled with self-disgust, he brushed past her, taking three steps toward Tokar and Chiana. He leaned down to take possession of his fugitive pulse pistol before reaching a hand to Tokar to help him up as the Nebari girl lifted her foot.

Tokar stared at Crichton's outstretched hand for several microts before he finally accepted the offer. Crichton hauled him to his feet as Chiana, keeping her little pistol ready, bounced back away from the two men. Reyna did not miss the wince as the Nebari girl moved too quickly for her new – and unfinished – stitches, nor did she miss the way the two men were glaring at each other.

"Enough of this foolishness. We don't have the time for it." Three pairs of eyes – two dark, one blue – turned toward Reyna at the pronouncement. "You." She locked eyes with Chiana and nodded her head toward her office. "Get back in there, I'll be with you in fifty microts." Without waiting to see if the girl would obey, she turned to Tokar and Crichton. "Do you two think you can play nice while I finish stitching her up? Tokar will not be turning you in to the Peacekeepers or anyone else." Since there was no immediate argument, Reyna spun on her heel and returned to her office. She heard Crichton ask, as the door clicked shut, "Is she always like that?"

Both wrists sore and bloody, but finally free of their restraints, Belima leaned down to free her ankles. She didn't know what she should do next – her anger had passed, leaving behind nothing but that constant hunger, gnawing ceaselessly at her gut. It was getting hard to think and her fingers weren't working properly, seeming too large for her hands.

With a frustrated cry, she finally got the last knot undone and stood up, kicking away the thing Chiana had tied her to. The force of her movement, though, was too much, too fast and she stumbled, barely maintaining her balance. She shook her head to clear it and found that to be a mistake, too, as her vision receded. She fell.

It felt like at least a couple of hours had passed, but John knew it couldn't have been more than five minutes since Reyna Val had shut her office door. He and Tokar Rhee hadn't had much to say to each other – and really, what could he say to the man after pulling a pulse pistol on him? Instead, they had both silently agreed to ignore each other as much as possible until they could part company.

To that end, Rhee was leaning on the wall next to his mate's office door, arms crossed, looking like every bouncer in every bar John had ever been in. He appeared to be more or less at ease, but John knew that look was deceptive.

For the dozenth time, John's attention wandered back out to the market square and the wanted beacon playing there. Something about the woman's voice was nagging at the back of his mind, even filtered as it was through the window and a bit of distance. He had thought the darn thing was a Peacekeeper beacon, but he couldn't think of a single female PK who might be looking for them. John didn't think Scorpy would have had Barbie dub a beacon for him and Crais had made his own.

That was it. There was something linking that voice with Scorpius. But what was the linkage?

John's eyes narrowed, focusing on the image of Zhaan. The image of Zhaan, dressed in black and with a patch over one eye. "Holy crap. That isn't a Peacekeeper wanted beacon." To his knowledge, the Peacekeepers had never seen the fictional "Orala."

"No, it isn't. You thought it was?" Rhee's voice sounded mildly amused.

John looked over at the ex-Peacekeeper. The man's relaxed posture hadn't changed. "Kind of assumed that, yeah."

"No, it's a private beacon. It seems you and your friends are becoming celebrities in this part of the Uncharted Territories."

"Groovy. Just what we need." John looked back out the window. There were only a couple of people watching the beacon – he recognized Beaker from the first shop he had visited on the station. Standing next to him was a Scarran. "Just curious... Do you guys get a lot of Scarrans through here?"

"Not many. Some. We're fairly close to the fringes of their Empire. Why?" Rhee pushed off from the wall and headed over to peer out the window himself. "Him? That's just Xegh. He's harmless."

"A Scarran? Harmless?"

"He works metals. He's really more of an artist than anything else." As they watched, a third person paused to observe the beacon. "He, on the other hand, could be a problem." John continued to keep an eye on the Peacekeeper now standing with Beaker and Xegh while Rhee moved swiftly to rap on the office door. "Reyna, better hurry things up in there. We've got trouble."

Belima opened her eyes. Nothing looked right. It took her a few microts to realize she was still in the room in which Chiana had trapped her.

Wincing at the fire in her wrists, she pushed herself up from the ground where she lay. Using the sitting thing to which Chiana had tied her for balance, Belima levered herself to her feet. Once the room stopped spinning around her and color came back into her vision, she made her way over to the opening to the room and tried to push the barrier out of the way.

It didn't move. She pushed, she pulled, she kicked, she threw the full weight of her body against it, but still it didn't move. Belima howled in frustration, glaring at the offending barrier to her freedom.

John and Chiana were able to move the barriers, so she should be able to move this one. With one last kick at the barrier, she looked around the thing, concentrating her attention on the nearest walls. Lids lowered to shutter green eyes as Belima thought about what Chiana had done when she had left her here, in this place. Her hand had hovered over a spot on the wall, just to the side of the barrier, and the barrier had moved out of her way.

Belima took a deep breath and took a step toward the barrier. There. She held her hand in front of the place on the wall that looked like the same material as the barrier itself. Nothing happened. Frowning, Belima moved her hand. Still nothing. Perhaps if she touched the place...

Startled, she jumped backward from the barrier as it slid up and out of her way. Green eyes wide, Belima gingerly stepped past the barrier and into the pathway beyond.

Pilot had heard nothing more from either John or Chiana since John's earlier transmission, warning him of the supply delivery that had just been completed. Having no DRDs to aid in unloading the cargo transport, he'd had no choice but to leave the crates of food and other supplies listed on the electronic manifest exactly where the station's robotic stevedores had left them.

The automated cargo shuttle pulled away, leaving Pilot and Rohvu alone again, save for the presence of the Xarai girl John and Chiana called Belima. At least now there was food on board for the others to eat. Perhaps, once their new crew's needs were attended to, they could go in search of the things that Rohvu needed to recover his full strength.

Even as Pilot had that thought, a shudder rolled through the great ship. It was nothing new to Pilot – these seizures overcame Rohvu occasionally, without warning – but he still felt uneasy. Rohvu himself didn't know why they happened or, indeed, that they happened at all. The Leviathan simply trusted that his friend spoke the truth when he told him of the episodes.

On the heels of the seizure, Rohvu advised his pilot that he could not locate the girl, Belima. She was no longer where she was supposed to be and, without DRDs, there was no easy way to locate her if she didn't wish to be found.

The man called Crichton maintained his vigil at the window, tracking the progress of the Peacekeeper making his way around the market square, while Tokar attempted to contact Rashov for further instructions. His previous contact had been cut short, the only information of substance imparted being that Peacekeepers had come to the station, looking specifically for Reyna and himself. Rashov, however, was not answering his comms.

"Our Boy Scout just had some buddies join him..." Crichton said, not looking away from the window. Tokar had no idea exactly what that meant, but he assumed that the Peacekeeper in the square was no longer alone.

He rapped again on Reyna's door, more urgently. "Reyna! We must leave!"

"Shit." Tokar turned at the sound of something heavy scraping across the floor in time to see Crichton shoving a low shelving unit from under the window to block the door. "We're about to have company."

Not waiting any longer for Reyna's permission, Tokar opened the door. "They're here." He and Crichton crowded into the room as Reyna secured a cloth bandage around the Nebari girl's midsection.

Reyna's violet eyes looked up from her work. "Lock it," she ordered Crichton as she moved to join Tokar in pushing her desk against the far wall of the office. A muffled voice could be heard from the outer room, demanding entrance to the premises even as the desk clicked into place.

"Trapdoor?" Crichton asked.

"Yes. For just such an emergency," Reyna answered.

Tokar crouched down to work the hidden catch, flinging the trapdoor open to reveal a ladder descending into the ductwork between the station's decks. He stood, gesturing for the others to precede him, pulling his own pulse pistol from a holster hidden underneath his coat.

"Aren't they going to notice a big hole in the floor?" Chiana asked, even as she snagged her bag and started down the ladder.

Reyna, waiting for the girl to descend far enough to safely follow, replied, "There's a track in the flooring. The desk will return to its original position as soon as we pull the trapdoor closed after us. If they're looking for it, they'll find it, but it should take long enough for us to lose ourselves in the inner workings of the station." With that, she lowered herself through the hole in the floor.

"You're next, Crichton," Tokar said as they heard the sound of the door finally giving way in the outer room.

Tokar watched in silent approval as Crichton holstered his pistol and slid down the ladder, rather than taking up precious time by trying to use the steps.

"Open this door immediately! This is Peacekeeper business!" The order was accompanied by a pounding on the office door.

Following Crichton's example, Tokar hooked his pistol into his belt, grasped the handle of the trapdoor, and leapt into the hole.

Chiana's eyes adjusted quickly to the darkness in the tunnels. It reminded her of her days on the run from the Establishment and she wished that Nerri were here. No one was better at making his way through twisting, turning tunnels than her brother. She watched a burst of steam, dimly backlit by light from an intersecting tunnel, shoot from a pipe not twenty motras distant.

Hitching up her bag, settling it more comfortably on her shoulder, she asked, "Which way?"

Reyna answered by lifting her hand and pointing toward the tunnel visible beyond the gout of steam. As Crichton came sliding down the ladder, the med tech stepped gracefully aside, moving in the direction she had indicated to Chiana. "The docking bays are this way. What berth is your ship in?"

"We don't have a ship," Chiana replied, wishing she had been able to grab her new coat from the peg on the office wall. She wasn't cold, but frell it all! That coat had looked good on her.

"Yeah, we do," Crichton contradicted her as he took the bag from her, shouldering it himself. "Berth number 312."

"What? Didja buy us a ship, Old Man?"

"Nope, ran into an old friend. Lead on, MacDuff." He stepped aside himself as Tokar Rhee hurtled down from above. Chiana heard the sound of the trapdoor slamming shut and something rolling across what was now the ceiling above their heads and then Reyna was moving into the tunnel, so Chi turned to follow.

"Johnny, Johnny, Johnny..." Furlow shook her head. Feet propped up on her control console, she relaxed in the comfort of her form-fitted pilot's seat, monitoring the station's comms traffic. There had been nothing better to do while she waited for Johnny-boy to finish up his business on the station.

He was due to meet her here at her ship in about another half arn or so. Well, at least that had been the case before she had heard the station's security transmission. It seemed an enterprising shopkeeper had reported seeing the armed and dangerous criminal John Crichton here on the station and a lockdown had been ordered.

Good thing she had ways around such things. She reached up to flip a switch over her head, activating her exterior visuals. She watched as her screen rotated through four different views, three of which showed armed security drones performing a berth-by-berth search. The fourth showed the tranquil, jeweled blackness of space.

Furlow settled in to watch the show. If Johnny wasn't here on time, she was just going to have to leave without him and muddle through on that copy of his module as best she could.

The odd lighting in these steam tunnels was starting to get to him. He could hear Harvey whispering in his ear, but the frelling irritating bastard was only doing it to get a rise out of him. The strobing lights, the gouts of cold steam, the whispering, the occasional passing of what was either the station's version of a DRD or a rat, he couldn't decide which, all were combining to give him a helluva headache.

Chiana stopped abruptly in front of him and he about stepped on her. "Give a guy a little warning, next time," he chided in a soft voice.

"Sorry."

"Shh," Reyna whispered sharply. She stood in front of Chiana, taking the point through the tunnels, left hand held up in the universal gesture that meant "stop."

"Stop or high five," came the whisper in his ear. Shut up, Harvey.

All four of them – five, if he counted the clone, but Harv didn't take up much space – were now clustered at the intersection of three separate tunnels. John could hear booted feet stomping over their heads.

"I wonder if it's Peacekeepers, looking for us, or bounty hunters, looking for you two," Rhee whispered behind him.

"Does it matter?" John shot back as the footsteps faded into the distance.

"This way," Reyna urged, heading off into the diagonal that crossed their original path.

The tunnel they traveled now had multiple pipes winding through it, but no steam. As their little parade continued on, John idly wondered what the gas he was calling steam was caused by. After about a hundred microts, Reyna stopped again, this time at a ladder heading both above and below their current level.

Reyna stepped up to the ladder and began to climb down. John's eyes met Chiana's in the semi-darkness and she shrugged before following the ex- Peacekeeper med tech further down into the station.

"We're on level fourteen, your friend is berthed on level three, slip twelve. This access way'll get us there quickly," Rhee explained as the two men waited their turn.

John looked over his shoulder. "What's the catch?"

Rhee gave John a wolfish grin. "The access point for that level...well, we'll probably have to shoot our way out."

"I was afraid you were gonna say that." John shook his head and began his descent.

Furlow's number two monitor was showing some kind of disturbance as her external sensors cycled their way through. Leaning forward, dropping her feet to the floor, she toggled a switch to keep the monitor locked on two and punched a button to increase the resolution of the image.

"Guess I'd better start the engines," she said as the image resolved into what appeared to be a running fire fight, heading in her direction. She recognized John Crichton and the Nebari girl from the wanted beacon, but she had no idea who the other two – a male and female, both apparently Sebacean – were.

Reaching over her head, Furlow flicked another switch, causing a pulse rifle to emerge from a panel on the outer hull, between the hatch door and the number two visual sensor array. She took hold of the stick control that operated the rifle and sent a pulse blast down the corridor, destroying a security drone moving into position to block the fugitives' flight path.

She watched the Sebacean woman in the yellow skirt leap over the burnt spot in the floor where the drone had been, only to turn back and grab the Nebari's hand as the girl stumbled. Crichton and the other man were coming up fast behind them, alternating fire. As the two women reached the now open hatch to Furlow's ship, Crichton's pistol made an audible fizzling sound.

"Dammit, Winona!" Crichton yelled, but he didn't stop running toward the ship.

More pusle fire was coming from the opposite direction now, from up the corridor, catching Crichton and male Sebacean in a crossfire as the other Sebacean helped the Nebari up the ramp. Furlow swiveled her mounted rifle to fire up the corridor even as she slammed a fist into the control that sent an electronic pulse through this small portion of the supply station's docks, disabling the clamps holding her ship in its berth.

Furlow watched in bemusement as John Crichton came racing through the hatch with a yelled, "Yee haw!" closely followed by the fourth member of their party. "Furlow, get the heck outta Dodge!"