Varrik's sense of unease had not abated as he and Y'Kryss landed the Chameleon in the Void Cutter's onboard dock. The airlock opened to reveal members of Nar'Jat's personal guard waiting for them and he knew at once they had come to claim the juveniles. The two boys were still unconscious. For reasons he did not want to put a name to, Varrik felt a rising sense of disquiet as he watched them being carried away, restrained and sedated. He tried to banish this darkening cloud from his thoughts and focus on the satisfaction he knew he should be feeling at having captained a successful mission, but it still lurked in the back of his mind.

He was glad that both he and Y'Kryss had kept their masks on as they left the hangar and moved into the main body of the ship, there were an unusual number of yautja hanging around. This in itself made him uncomfortable. He was reluctant to enter crowded spaces at present, unless it was necessary. The risk of infection was much greater here on the main warship than it had been when he and Y'Kryss had been on scouting duty – just the two of them on the smaller shuttle.

Here, they were surrounded by a crowd and, worse still, some of them actually looked ill. Rough Skulls sat propped against the wall, or lay unconscious wherever they had collapsed. As they moved through the ship, the corridors became littered with the infected, lying unmoving, covered in spatters of darkening green. Their total stillness and the gory stains around them made Varrik wonder if they were dead. Thankfully, he could smell nothing with his mask on, but he imagined this place must be rank with the stink of sweat and drying blood. Illness and death hung in the air, almost like steam.

He scowled: 'Why is Nar'Jat leaving the sick to clog up the communal areas? Does he not realise how quickly the illness will spread if they are not moved to the infirmaries?"

He quickened his pace, picking his way amongst the crowds, giving the infected a wide berth where he could, as he stalked past one of them reared up and seized hold of him. Varrik drew back but then, as the infected male clutched at his legs, something in the haggard, blood-smeared face snagged his attention; the orange eyes and heavy, spine-laden brows were familiar to him. He caught hold of the male by the shoulders.

"Ar'Ctir?" He breathed.

"Varrik – help me!" Ar'Ctir tried to speak more, but his body convulsed in a fearful spasm. Hoarse rattling gasps shook him, spattering bright green drops across Varrik's arms and hands. Then Ar'Ctir collapsed, blood gurgling from his mouth.

Y'Kryss caught their former squad mate in his arms, "This is not right," He snarled "Warriors should not be left to gasp out their last breaths in dark corners."

"No, they should not…" Varrik looked around and his eye lit on one of Nar'Jat's patrols further up the corridor "You two!" He snapped.

The two guards looked over at him. They were also both masked, but their demeanour suggested belligerence as they sauntered unhurriedly over to Varrik.

"I need you to take my ally to the medics." Varrik barked "He requires their help."

They looked at each other.

"You take him!" One sneered "We have better things to do than ministering to the sick. I am not risking my own neck by touching one of the infected."

Varrik stepped up close to him, their faces almost touching, "What is your name?" He said softly.

The other inflated his chest, "I am D'Rizt, and I am in charge of the patrols on this deck – "

"D'Rizt," Varrik nodded as if filing the name away for future reference, "I am Varrik. Perhaps you have heard my name mentioned?"

The other looked frozen in place, all swagger gone. His head was lowered, shoulders forward, no longer standing straight. His whole stance seemed to be suggesting he wished to be elsewhere.

"I see you have heard of me," Varrik continued, "If you know my name, you will also know that I am the favoured captain of Nar'Jat… and I gave you an order. So, if you want to live to see another dawn, you will take my friend and all these other infected to the medical bay and see that they are treated. I am on my way to see Nar'Jat now and then I will be coming to check on my friend. If I find that he is not being looked after, I will personally cut off your head… and put it on a spike."

The two guards scrambled to obey, lifting Ar'Ctir carefully between them. Varrik hissed under his breath as he watched them go, "I had not thought the situation so dire as this."

"We must inform Nar'Jat," Y'Kryss said "He will know what to do."

"Of courssse," Varrik was still staring after Ar'Ctir, fists tightening. 'I cannot believe but that he already knows of this, so… why does he not act? What if he has no solution?'

Y'Kryss went ahead of him as they made their way to the council chamber, snarling and knocking aside those smaller males who were not quick enough to scramble out of his way. Varrik was still scowling under his visor as they entered the main chamber and he saw Nar'Jat there, at the head of the war table. The seats around him, usually occupied by the other, senior members of the clan, were vacant. 'It is the first time I have ever seen Nar'at in this chamber alone, without the rest of the council…'

The clan leader was leaning with both fists on the table, but he straightened up and greeted them as they approached. His face, too, hidden by a mask.

"Ah, Varrik," He said, "I am told you have retrieved the half-breeds for us – the Council is pleased with you."

For some reason he could not fathom, this comment made Varrik feel a little stab of rage. It was only a brief flame of rebellion, there for an instant and quenched the next and he lowered his head in acquiescence.

"The scientists are especially… excited," The clan leader continued, "This is an advantage they did not expect."

"How so?"

"These abominable hybrids are a thing undreamed of," Nar'Jat flipped his talons, "I daresay they will become a source of many new discoveries."

"New discoveries?"

"When they are dissected."

"Dissected?" Varrik was having trouble following his commander's words, the awfulness of the last few units seemed to be worsening by the moment, "They are children."

"For the furtherance of our knowledge, of course. You know that oomans are not susceptible to the disease which is destroying us. Their hybridised biology might provide some interesting insights." Nar'Jat spread his claws on the Council Table and paused, sensing Varrik's lack of enthusiasm, "But do not trouble yourself with this. It is a matter for the scientists to unravel." At his words, Varrik had a brief but horrible mental image of the two young bodies on a table, bellies pinned open, entrails being slowly unspooled…

Nar'Jat turned to look at the star chart that glowed on the wall of the chamber, "You and Y'Kryss go and … celebrate your success. I am minded to grant you both breeding privileges again, this cycle."

"Thank you, my commander. There is another matter I wished to raise, if you would permit me, O scourge of all our rivals?"

Nar'Jat waved a clawed hand. Varrik took a deep breath before plunging on "I could not help noticing there are a large number of the infected crowding our walkways. The patrols do not seem to be tackling the problem, I wondered if some plan was being made…"

Varrik tailed off as Nar'Jat's head turned in his direction, "It is good that you brought this to my attention."

"As you say, my commander."

"The number of infected continues to rise but the patrols must tackle the problem. I will see they are… instructed."

Varrik said nothing, just stared straight ahead. Nar'Jat seemed to be inspecting his own talons.

"We are fighting a war Varrik and in war there are always casualties… nevertheless, I hope our agreement with the GhaRan-S'i-Ka will soon bear fruit."

The younger male said nothing and Nar'Jat nodded to himself.

"You are dismissed."

Varrik left the Council Chamber as fast as he dared. He no longer wanted to put the unease from his mind. Instead, he wanted to drown it, as soon and as completely as possible.

"We should do as he says," Y'Kryss punched him in the shoulder with one sledgehammer fist, causing him to sway. "I am sure we can find some intoxicant from somewhere. Then we can drink!"

Varrik shook his head, trying to dislodge an unwelcome thought, "Yes, we need to drink." He said "I need to drink. Immediately."

Lex kept the plasma gun in her hand as they walked the dark corridors. The Pyramid on Earth had felt colder, but that had been under the ice of Antarctica, whereas this place was stifling. Sweat ran down her back and into her eyes as they walked and she pulled her hair back from her face, knotting it on top of her head to keep it off her neck in the oppressive swelter.

"Surely there cannot be that many hard meat here?" She said "How would they reproduce?"

"On the contrary, the hard meat colony here is old, so I imagine the population is large. I do not doubt they are kept well supplied with hosts."

She nodded, frowning as she remembered the corpses in the execution chamber, "I did not know yautja used the hard meat to execute one another, I thought they were just used for the trial."

"I suspect this method of execution is something my Mother has dreamed up. I recall she always had a gift for malice."

Lex glanced at him sidelong, trying to work out what he was feeling. On the surface, he seemed indifferent, but she wasn't convinced.

'Imagine being sentenced to death by your own mother! That's got to hurt, even if he hasn't seen her for years. Sometimes, when I think about what his childhood must have been like, I'm amazed he didn't turn out ten times crazier than he is…'

She shook her head, angry with herself, 'Stop feeling sorry for him, he doesn't deserve your sympathy – he doesn't even want it!'

"She seems very strong willed," She said, in English, "But not very… maternal."

Scar snorted "At least when Nar'Jat wants a prisoner… dead, he simply has them beheaded."

"Yeah. Suddenly, Nar'Jat doesn't seem all that bad."

He scowled, "His treachery is responsible for us… being here. I mean it when I say I will… kill him."

"I was being sarcastic. Of course, I hate him after what he's done to us – "

"And the way he spoke of you; how dared he?" He dropped into his own language, his voice now a growl that spoke bloodshed in every syllable, "And how dared he proposition you! Saying he has a use for your skills and then telling everyone just what he believes your skills to be! Talking as if you are some kind of trained bed-slave, when you are blooded! As if you would consent to be touched by that maggot! To be his plaything – "

"Instead of yours?"

He was silent for a moment, "You know that is not how I think of you." He said finally.

"Really? Anyway, I think that was all just part of Nar'Jat's mind games."

"Mind… games?"

"I mean I don't think Nar'Jat's attracted to me, any more than I am to him. I think he just said it to get in your head… or mine. He must have known I'd turn him down."

"Perhapssss he hoped you… would not." His fists were still clenched, voice still full of poison, "It would certainly ssssignal his defeat of me if he ssseduced you."

"Yes. Much as I hate being seen as your possession, I can believe that is how Nar'Jat and the other Rough Skulls think. And after all, they don't have any way of knowing you already broke things off between us."

He opened his jaws to say something, looked at her, then shut them again.

She lifted an eyebrow and continued "And I suppose, if I'm a witch, my so-called 'magic' would belong to him too."

"He does not truly believe you are a witch!"

"Maybe not, but others believe it. I think he wanted to torment us both… but why?"

"To amuse himself before… sending us to our deaths?"

"But that isn't like him – "

She was cut off, by a rumbling, grinding sound that shook the corridor. Both of them became still. The walls ahead of them began to move, the stones sliding over each other and the way starting to close, a glance back showing the same thing happening behind them. By unspoken agreement, both of them broke into a run, sprinting for the shrinking aperture – the slabs of volcanic rock scraping over each other, the gap narrowing further and further. She dived through head first and Scar following, both of them hitting the flagstones beyond and coming upright to see the slabs close on each other with a resounding boom.

"I forgot these places change." She breathed.

"Yes. The Pyramid is an ever-shifting maze."

"But… I thought you knew this one?"

"Why would I?"

She regarded him, narrowly, "I thought this was where you brought Isaac and Selim to do the chiva."

He looked away, "I do not know it. Without my wrist-com, I have only my five senses to navigate the labyrinth – just as you do."

She was about to ask him to explain, but then decided they had more important things to worry about. Instead, she looked around again. The corridor they had been walking down was gone. Instead, the huge stones had sunk in tiers to create a long staircase, leading down into more darkness.

"I do not like the look of that." She squinted, trying to see where it might lead.

"What other choice is there?" He indicated the way behind them, which was now closed off, the slabs locked together so tight that not even a whisper of light showed.

From the blackness below them came a high-pitched shriek, echoing along the tunnel walls, as if the inmates of purgatory were calling.

They looked at each other and he raised the spear.

"There is no going back."

'There is no going back, not now…' Varrik sat in his sleeping quarters with his head in his hands.

Earlier he had been in the dining hall, where other males were either eating or getting drunk on contraband liquor. He had hated being there, though the place was less crowded than usual. It was true many Rough Skulls now avoided communal areas to try and reduce the risk of catching the sickness, but Varrik knew it was not the risk of disease that was making him uncomfortable.

The moment enough containers of liquid intoxicant were in his possession, he had retreated back here. All but two of the small flasks had poured their contents down his throat and now, Varrik was having trouble keeping his vision from blurring. He knew he had drunk too much… yet it was still not nearly enough. Wrenching the lid off the second to last container, he took a long pull of the contents. A chemical foulness assailed his taste sensors, underlaid with a sickly, almost sweet flavour. It had likely been made by fermenting some kind of fruit, along with lots of other chemicals that it was probably best not to think about.

'It is done,' He told himself again 'I have handed over the offspring. I must smother my doubts.'

But Varrik could not be at peace. No matter how many times he said it to himself, his conscience would not let him rest.

Again and again, he replayed his memories of the day that S'Kia and the ooman Sain'ja had saved his life, during the invasion of the Void Cutter. The experience had made an indelible impression on his young mind. From that moment onwards, Varrik had come to regard S'Kia with a kind of hero worship. Rumours of the older male's insanity did nothing to dispel this lustre. In childhood, Varrik had listened avidly to traditional stories of heroes and their exploits and he remembered well one particular saying from those tales; "He whose life is touched by the gods, also is touched by madness." The heroes from the stories he enjoyed often had more than a touch of madness about them. In this respect and others, he thought that S'Kia resembled them. Was not his madness a necessary counterbalance to his gifts?

The impression was only enhanced by his association with Lex, the exotic and fascinating alien female, whose magic – it was rumoured – gave him supernatural abilities in battle. She certainly seemed to have power over him in a way the juvenile Varrik had not been able to understand.

In any case, the mysterious disappearance of both S'Kia and Lex after Hirai had sealed their mythical status in the imagination of his younger self. Even the shocking revelation about their shared offspring had not shaken his esteem. S'Kia was not like other males. It made sense that he would want a female who was otherworldly and forbidden to others. After all, the heroes in the stories often coupled with spirits, or sorceresses or even demons, if the situation demanded it.

He thought about the two boys again; the way they had fought so fiercely and afterwards lain at his feet, their smooth, brown faces seeming sunk in sleep.

'And I delivered them to the science team to be butchered and then slunk back here, to drown my shame…'

He rose groggily to his feet. Normally if he was bored or depressed, Varrik could seek out Y'Kryss or go to the gymnasium, to fight against his peers and distract himself. Now, he did not want to do anything like that. In his melancholy, drunken state, he could think of only one person who might understand and sympathise. He seized the last container of intoxicant. Having to squint to actually find the button, he touched the control panel to open the door and set off on his unsteady way through the warren-like corridors.

Finally, he swayed to a halt in a doorway, having to grip the frame to maintain his balance. Through increasingly blurry vision, he was unable to tell if he was at the right door. He did not come to this part of the ship often, as it was inhabited by more senior males than himself. At this point, however, Varrik no longer cared. He pounded his fist on the door as hard as he could, bellowing to be let in, hoping against hope that he had chosen the right room and that the occupant was inside.

After a few moments of hammering, the door slid open, Varrik's fist almost smashing into the face of the warrior who opened it.

"What in the many hells is all this noise?" Snarled the short figure, then his eyes widened, "Varrik? Why are you out here, howling like a child for his mother?"

"You are here… thank the gods!" Varrik reeled against the older male, "Let me in Rika, I must speak with you!"

As she heard the skittering of claws on the smooth, chiselled rock, Lex lifted the plasma gun and she and Scar drew closer together, back-to-back in the tunnel.

In this darkness, without her mask, she knew she was at a severe disadvantage: the hard meat used electrical impulses to detect their prey and Scar's catlike eyes could see in lightless places, but human vision was no match for either of their preternatural senses, 'Maybe I should have given him the plasma gun. At least he can see what he's shooting at – "

Her hand came up holding the gun to meet the first drone that came, bounding along the wall, its claws clinging to the impossible surface. She fired, knocking it to the floor but it spun upright almost instantly. She shot it again, not having time to check if it was dead before the next one came leaping out of the dark. The plasma fire lit up the tunnel, blasting the hard meat backwards. Its acid blood hissing and smoking where it touched the stones, but she missed the next one that cleared the corpse of its fellow drone and launched itself towards them.

Beside her, she felt Scar swing the ki'cti-pa fast and hard, slicing off the creature's arm. In answer, it wheeled and lashed its tail at him. He brought up the spear to deflect, the tail spine rebounding off the shaft with a ring of metal, before he brought the point around to skewer it through its gaping jaws. He jerked the tail-spine blade free of the carcass and she fired again, taking out the legs of another sinuous shape that was moving up on them. It flopped down in a cloud of steam.

More shadows were advancing on them down the corridor, moving fast, teeth glinting in the dim light and she began firing more rapidly, not waiting to see if she had achieved a kill before firing again. Several of the hard meat dropped but some of them somersaulted upright again, as if they weren't subject to gravity.

They were too close to shoot without dousing them both so she fell back to give him room and he advanced, spinning the ki'cti-pa in his grasp, slicing through the neck of one, wheeling to impale another before yanking the blade free to plunge through the throat of the third. Corpses dropped at his feet like dying locusts, but more kept coming.

Not able to fire without drenching him in caustic blood, she holstered the gun and unsheathed her dah'kte. Another hard meat came scuttling along the wall like a spider, and she spun to one side, bringing the blades down to hack off one of its arms at the elbow. It whirled round towards her, the wounds spewing deadly acid, but she lashed out, catching it a frenzied blow that took off its lower jaw, leaping backwards out of the range of blood splatter.

Instincts fully engaged now, she spun to face the next one that leapt forward. Bringing one arm across in a vicious slash, she plunged the dah'kte into its forehead and it crashed to the floor in a burning pool.

"There's so many of them!" She gasped, as they drew together again, both of them inching backwards to gain breathing space.

"Do not give… too much ground, if they… corner us, we are dead!"

She nodded, pulled the gun again and fired a volley of plasma into the knot of kainde amedhe blocking the corridor, managing to take out two of them in quick succession.

"We have to think of a way to drive them back!"

In answer he spread his jaws and roared in the faces of the drones, the noise ear-splitting in the close confines of the tunnel, stepping forward with jaws splayed and talons spread, backhanding the nearest creature across the corridor, where it hit the wall. The rest of the hard meat did not retreat, but their advance halted. They stood, tails upraised, scorpion-like; razor jaws hissing like escaping steam, drooling strings of translucent spittle.

At that moment, another sound echoed along the tunnel, the agony of stone grinding on stone.

Hi everyone, thanks again for all the views and the reviews. Hope all my readers are well and having a great weekend!

Also, I wanted to say hello to those of you reading in Ukraine. My thoughts are with you guys right now. I hope you and your families stay safe and well and that this conflict is over as peacefully and as soon as possible.

LovyDovy7 - Yes, poor Spyrro! She can be a holy terror but she's still only little - I feel bad for her - as a parent, it makes me feel guilty to put her and the twins through it. Lex and Scar are going to have to at least work together on a practical level - or die - they're certainly going to have to spend a lot of time together at any rate.

Kassandra: Thank you so much for all the reviews. So great to hear you're still reading and still enjoying and that you liked the P'Yare waterfall scene - because that was fun to write. Also the reunion, although it didn't go as as Scar - at least - would have liked. She didn't fall into his arms in gratitude, unbelievable! Still, as you say, he clearly picked her for a deep-seated psychological reason. Anyway, love that you love it.

Kagami18: Thanks for the review! Hope you enjoy reading about them working on their relationship problems, as it's going to take them a while. :)

Tenjp: You spotted the mysterious plasma cannon! Someone who secretly wants to save them - or another reason?

Nubian Queen: I'm so pleased you like my action scenes - it's hard to keep them fresh as they do tend to get repetitive, so it's a big compliment if you enjoy them. Then twins haven't featured in this instalment but they're still alive for now - you'll have to wait a bit longer for an update on how they're doing. I'm good though, thanks and I hope life is treating you well too!