Chiana gasped one last time in pleasure and then rolled off her bedmate.
Usually the warm tingling feeling lasted for a while passed the immediate act of coupling, but now the feeling drained from her almost as soon as she was done. She lay for a moment, staring blankly at the ceiling of her rented room, yearning for even the numb sensation of despair. Wishing she could feel something, anything at all.
Even frustration over the lack of enjoyment for sex would be better than the soul-felt emptiness filling her.
Her current partner felt no such distress, nor was he sensitive enough to notice hers. He lazy reached cross the sheets to her, clumsily groping for her flesh again. What was his name? She tried to recall.
It hadn't mattered much at the time. He was fairly pleasant on the eyes and not too much of a dolt to talk too. She was fairly surprised when she found herself entering a recreation house and requesting to view their stable of male companions. This one had done the least pruning and posing for her attention, so she took him back to her room for the night.
It seemed her taste in male bedmates was running in the strong and silent rather than the eye-candy type lately.
Her still anonymous friend half-rolled closer to her, his searching hand found her firm belly and began to travel seductively upwards. In a brief flash of disenchantment, she found the fire just wasn't there any longer. Instead she had grown cold and detached.
Chiana pushed his hand away with a sigh.
"Get out," she told him.
Her bedmate made a murmur of protest, then whispered a few promises to get her to reconsider. Chiana kicked off the sheets and swung her feet to the floor as she took up her robe and started to slip into it.
"Take your money and go. I'm done with you for tonight," she repeated.
The man frowned, but got dressed as directed. The Nebari ignored him and reached for a package that had been delivered to her that afternoon.
Her hired companion attempted to kiss her one last time before leaving, but the gray girl took him by the arm and escorted him to her door, explaining she had work to do and need to be alone.
Safely locking the door behind the man, she was glad she decided to hire a pleasure attendant rather than attempt to meet some male in a refreshment house for a bit of a distraction. A tavern pickup might have been harder to get rid of in the end.
She returned to her rumpled bed and spread the contents of the packet out over it.
Inside were a stack of printed currency, maps, and a set of instructions. She set aside everything but the credit slips, taking a handheld scanner she ran the device over the plastic sheets. The scanner confirmed the authenticity of the credits, even though her practiced eye had already told her they were real. Still it never hurt to be sure. The savvy gray girl made a mental note to change the currency over into a more universal form as soon as possible, preferably gem stones, as they were easier to conceal and transport.
She set the money aside to be placed in a money belt later for safe keeping until then, once the testing was complete.
Next she took out the maps and instruction sheet and began to read.
The job would be pretty much as she thought when she was through reading. She glanced at the supplied maps and diagrams a few times, making mental notes to herself about facts she wanted to check personally before proceeding. A professional never took client supplied info for fact until checking it out for herself… unless she wanted to end up in prison, or very dead.
In the morning, she would discreetly make a few purchases with part of the front money for some equipment she would need – some legal, some not so legal.
Then she'd make a trip to the job location to look it over with her own eyes, and then tweak the plan accordingly to what she found there. The last step of the planning would include watching the place for a few nights to get guard routines down.
Satisfied she had done all she could for the moment, the gray girl gathered up all the paperwork and bounded it all up in a tight package again. She hated doing it, but she pried up a baseboard in the corner of her room and slid the papers behind it. She tapped the boards back into place and inspected her work. It wasn't noticeable to the casual eye that the boarder framing had been removed.
A good thief never left evidence behind her, but she knew she might have to consult the maps a few more times before the plan was set in stone. It was the lesser of two evils to hide the papers rather than get caught with them on her person or in her belongings.
Once everything was organized and ready, she would destroy any evidence before working the job.
Chiana straightened her bed up a little before lying down to get some sleep. Once under her covers, she drifted off almost immediately.
Her dreams started out as they always had in the last half-cycle. She found herself inside a filthy roughly made Syndicate cell, sweaty males bodies pressing down on her. Something wild and vicious tore through her attackers and she was saved! The joy of rescue and freedom was tinted with the sudden sadness of loss.
Her nightmare intensified as it moved onto another scene; inside a crowed prison… only this time the abusive hands and bodies had their way with her. This time there was no rescue at the last moment.
Her dream flashed forward and she was blind but in D'argo's arms again, here was some elation. Sorrow slammed into her with the loss of John and Aeryn, only to be replaced a heartbeat later by the joy of Berret being alive, and John and Aeryn being returned to them.
The feeling was cut in half just as abruptly as she tossed and turned. Her friend and savior had been restored to her half-mad, and slipping ever further into insanity… and she was powerless to help. Berret destroyed himself rather than submit to what the Syndicate had left inside him, allowing them to escape the PeaceKeepers and Grayza.
But still, D'argo was there… and loved her.
Berret had loved her also, in his own way… and she recalled the bittersweet confusion of having to confront her own feelings for him, and the biting anguish of not wanting to betray D'argo again.
And now the Shrike was truly dead. There was no way he could have survived what he did. Moya and her crew had barely survived.
She dreaded the dreams, just as she did almost every night. But she was unable to stop from reliving them.
D'argo dying in her arms, John dragging her away as she fought to remain with him. Somehow she held onto his Qualta blade as if it were the Luxan himself.
A streak of activity, Crichton making a wormhole amidst the Scarran and PeaceKeeper fleets, and she simply wishing she could fall into it, into oblivion.
Her numbly giving Jothee his father's sword, feeling no longer attached to the world or people around her.
Aeryn and John naming their son after their fallen comrade and her lover. Nights of heart-felt pain so cutting that she swore to herself over and over again that she would never open her heart to another.
Why bother… when everything she loves dies?
A barrage of casual sexual partners, parties, and drug binges – nothing ever erasing the internal torment she was feeling… or worse yet, the unbearable growing occasions when she seemed to feel nothing at all.
Until she had to leave Moya and all her memories behind… or risked losing her mind… or putting her own pulse pistol to her head and pulling the trigger.
Finally, the dreams let her sink into a restless deeper sleep. Here sometimes her visions were less disturbing or she did not remember them at all.
Tonight she briefly found herself revisiting somewhat happier moments. Times with D'argo behind the heavy drapes of her quarters, her brother teasing her over her first crush back home on Nebari Prime, the look of confusion on Berret's face during their first startling kiss. The unexpected presence of love and respect in Crichton's voice and touch as he told her to "pass it on."
It all turned cold within a single heartbeat as she remembered they were all gone… or beyond her reach.
It was better to not love… or feel, her mind told her.
Maybe the enslaved and collared Shrikes had it lucky after all?
The man calling himself Tessen critically eyed the dark powder at the bottom of his glass and then added half a spoonful more to it. Satisfied with the amount, he poured the lukewarm remains of the teapot into the container and used the spoon from his field mess-pack to mix it up.
"I… know what that is," said a hesitant young voice behind him.
"Mind your business, girl," the scout replied without looking.
He lifted the glass and bolted the contents down in a single swallow, trying not to grimace at the gritty taste it left behind despite the Terza tea.
Jaleecee stuffed several more items into the soldier's patrol pack. A sour look graced her youthful face and she decided to press on despite Tessen's admonition.
Its Pa'Looua leaf. I recognize the smell," she said. "It's a natural neural depressant. My SaiDa use to use it to calm our herd stock back home."
The scout ignored her, instead picking up his odd long-barreled pulse rifle and checking it over.
"I've seen you chewing the root of the plant raw sometimes… like the others chew dried meat rations," the girl continued.
"My business," Tessen answered stonily. He picked up an ammo belt next and started to check the charge magazines it held.
Jaleecee twisted her dark lips up into her own grimace.
"I'm not stupid," the girl replied without thinking. "What you just drank now should have been enough to knock a mid-size Brush Steer near senseless. Yet you are still up walking around. How can that be?" She narrowed her eyes for a moment as she uttered the suspicion she had long since had. "You are not Sebacean, are you?"
"What matter of it?" came the dry-toned reply.
"I want to know," countered the girl stubbornly.
Tessen turned and looked at her with a blank expression, and suddenly the half-Nebari girl wondered if her curiosity had finally gotten the better of her. He took a step toward her within the small tent and she feared she might have pushed her luck too far with the man this time.
Instead he merely held out his hand for the field pack she had just finished loading for him. With some obvious relief she handed it over to him.
"Our arrangement is that you care for my quarters while I'm away on patrol, and clean my clothing," he said. "I agree to pay you for your chores. Beyond that, there is nothing you need to know."
Jaleecee's shoulder's drooped. She'd hope to get Korr to share something of him with herself before he left with his unit.
"I just… just want to get to know you is all. Is that something so bad?" she asked.
The scout began to reassemble a pulse pistol he had been cleaning in preparation for the next mission.
"There's nothing more to know. I am what you see, girl. A hired solder."
"Jaleecee…" the camp girl muttered.
"What?" asked the scout idly as he finished assembling the weapon.
The young female huffed in frustration. "Jaleecee!" she near shouted. "My name is Jaleecee, not 'girl'. You never use my name. Why can't you even give me that much?"
The scout half-turned toward her again, and raised an eyebrow in rare mild interest at the outburst.
The serving girl threw her hands up in near total irritation then.
"Half the camp thinks I'm warming your bed… and you've never even said my name, let alone tried to touch me."
Tessen frowned at this, remembering an awkward and unpleasant event when the rumor first surfaced and began to circulate through the camp, when the girl's older brother sought him out and demanded satisfaction for the supposed dishonor his younger sister had suffered. The scout had taken a punch to the head from the half-Nebari boy, but a few hissed reasoning words from Tessen soon ended the altercation before it progressed much further.
That and the fact the soldier was holding the boy by the throat with his feet dangling about six henta off the ground help drive the point home, that Tessen was not sleeping, or doing anything else, with his sister.
"You can tell them, that it is a mistaken assumption," the scout finally countered.
"It doesn't have to be if you want it to."
"We have had this conversation once before," said Korr. "You are still little more then a child."
"I am not a child!" Jaleecee barked. "I am a grown women by my people's customs. On my homeworld I would have been old enough to bond this year. If the Scarrans hadn't invaded, I would surely have been wed by now. My father was a wealthy man, even before he bonded my mother and left Nebari Prime to become a farmer. I had many suitors asking my SaiDa for the honor of having me wear their bonding earring."
A few unnoticed tears were falling from the girl over her vanished future. One of her slim hands involuntarily wandered to her tiny left ear and felt the bare lobe there.
"I am sorry for what you lost," the scout said in a low voice, and found he meant it.
The girl sniffed back a sob and pushed back a lock of long white hair behind the ear she had unconsciously touched.
"Its not your fault," she answered. "But I just want you to know… if you were to ask… I would happily wear your earring if you wanted me." She looked downward for a split microt as she revealed her desire, but her eyes came directly back up and met his a moment later. "I just wanted to say that… to know that at least I had the courage to tell you."
"Jaleecee… I cannot," Tessen replied, with a bare trace of emotion, shockingly more then she had ever seen the man display before that point.
"Why?" she asked in a tiny whisper. "I have seen the way you sometimes glance at me when you don't think I'm looking. I remember that first night I came to your tent to care for your injuries, and you lost yourself for a moment in my arms."
"That was a mistake," he said to her.
"Why was it?"
"It is… complicated. I am not what you think I am."
Jaleecee shook her head and reached out to lightly touch his arm. "What? That you are not perfect?" she asked. "No one is. Even though I don't really know you… my heart tells me, 'Here is a good man. Here is a man who will always do what is right, no matter what'."
Strangely, Korr's pale eyes held a sudden look of dread.
"You are so very wrong," he said in barely above a whisper in turn.
"Because you're a soldier? Men fight when they have to," she responded.
"Being a soldier is the least of my sins."
The girl looked at him for a moment, and then blind-sided him with her next comment.
"Or maybe its who you came to this place to forget?" she asked. "You think of her sometimes when you look at me."
"What?" he asked, too late to temper the touch of surprise in his tone.
"I can tell… I know that I remind you of someone. Will you please tell me who it is?"
Tessen unconsciously glanced away from the young woman.
"There is…was… no one," he insisted.
Jaleecee shook her head in skepticism. "You're not being truthful, this I know. Call it a woman's intuition if you might. But you are not the first man to ever become a mercenary because of a broken heart. Just know this… I am not her, and I would never hurt you like she did. No matter what may come."
Tessen looked lost deep in his thoughts for a moment.
"She never hurt me," he murmured a few microts later.
His voice had barely spoken the words aloud, but the gray skinned girl heard his comment plainly. A deep part of her had dread possibly hearing the confirmation of her recent suspicions, that her scout's heart might truly belong to another. Still she steeled herself and pressed on, there was always hope she in turn could win that other woman's place if she but had the patience and fortitude.
"Its alright," she prompted. "You don't have to cover up for her. You can talk to me about it whenever you wish. I will always have an ear and shoulder for you. I promise."
Something hard flickered behind the scout's blue eyes.
"… No," he said, his voice turning toward cold and flinty.
"But it's okay…" the girl started to cut in.
"No," Korr said a bit harder. "No, you do not understand. She had never done a thing to harm me…"
"But…"
Tessen cut her of this time. "It was me," he said abruptly. "I was the one who wronged, hurt, her. She did nothing but show me kindness… and friendship. To her I owe my life… and I betrayed her."
Jaleecee's dark eyes flew open in amazement at the unexpected confession. Her mouth slowly dropped open as the shock began to wear off. This is what she had hoped for over the last few weekens, to learn something of who he was.
"At every turn, I disappointed. With every simple request, I failed her. With every word, a callous lie. At every opportunity, I showed her the blackness I harbor inside of me." Strangely, a tiny smile of disenchantment graced the man's tight lips; a disillusionment that she knew was directed at himself. "When she was happy, I silently wished she was not. When she trusted me… I betrayed her without thought. When she finally asked for my embrace… I turned my back on her."
The soldier stared off somewhere; gazing at a view only he could see.
"Are you familiar with the fable of the Moxxal and the Sha-paar?" he asked oddly.
"Yes," the girl answered with a slightly confused nod of her head. "After the Moxxal carried the Sha-paar on his back across the river, the Sha-paar fatally stung him anyway, because…"
"…Because it was his nature," Tessen finished for her. "And that is also my nature."
"But that is just a children's allegory."
"It is also a lesson concerning life," the scout told her. "Trust me not, girl. Deceit and treachery follow in my wake. I must be that which I have been forged into. I am forever to be what I was made."
Jaleecee wrinkled her brow as she turned his somewhat confusing words over in her mind. Several counter debates offered themselves, but each time she went to speak one of them, another negative thought arose and made her discard them. There was something there in what he had told her, if only she could see beyond the veiled meaning into the truth.
Tessen tilted his head and saw the girl mutely working her mouth for a few microts, but no words would leave her.
"So you see why your infatuation is pointless, " he continued. "This is what sort of being I am. The type of man I truly am, not the fantasy you have built. I will always do the things that hurt those around me and that I can never change. I tell you this now, so you will know. And finally realize that you deserve better than someone like me."
Jaleecee's mouth had gradually closed as she digested his revelation. Just then she was regarding the scout with a guarded expression that gave none of her thoughts away. She would worry at this new information until it made more sense to her. Like a puzzle, he had offered up a part of himself that she needed to solve.
Tessen himself chose to take her silence as acceptance of his words. "I do not wish to ever talk of this further," he added
He picked up his pack, gear, and rifle and headed for the doorway of his tent. Before he stepped through, he turned back to the girl once more.
"I shall see you when my patrol returns," he said. "That is, if you still desire to keep our business arrangement." With that said, he exited the bivouac and was gone.
Jaleecee remained where she was for a few more moments and turned over in her head what she had just learned. Korr may have not realized it, but he had just given her a deeper insight into his being then he probably intended. She now suddenly thought she understood the reason for him to have undergone the flogging for saving her, when he could have just as easily left the camp instead. As all hired mercenaries were free to come and go as they pleased.
At first she had thought he endured the punishment because he would have lost any monetary gain he had earned by withdrawing under charges of assaulting a field officer. Now she considered she understood more clearly.
Tessen had endured the flogging because he felt he should be punished for whatever things he had done to that other woman. Perhaps, Jaleecee mulled over, Tessen believed his prior acts so horrific that not allowing himself to return a simple camp-girl's affections served as another form of self-chastisement.
She got up and went to the doorway of the tent and glance out into the firebase grounds. Tessen had already disappeared somewhere into the mob of soldiers and support personal moving about the encampment.
Another thought hit her and made her bite her lower lip almost till the point of bleeding.
What if her scout had joined the war as a convenient way to end his existence, fighting only because he had a death wish over what he had done? What if one of these days he succeeded and he didn't come back from patrol? What if that day turned out to be today?
Jaleecee forced herself to stop gnawing at her lip and spent the rest of the day deep in worry.
Istrish ducked her head and entered the dim underground bunker that served her ragtag group as a combination common room, staging area, and war-room. Another Sykaran, this one a male, turned from his place at the main table and idly raised one maroon-colored hand in greeting.
"Hail, Marktaal, she said pleasantly to the man. "How is our guest fairing this morning?"
Marktaal merely grunted noncommittally at first, but before he could reply further a sharp amused bark issued from the other side of the makeshift table in the center of the room. A stout Vorcarian male Istrish had not noticed as she entered the room spoke up.
"He is in his usual ungrateful mood," the Blood Tracker replied, then with a toothy grin added, "I told you, it would have been best to have eaten him."
Despite the grim words, Istrish allowed herself a grin. Most Vorcarians were slow-witted by nature, but Horgo was a rare exception. The red-eyed tracker was extremely intelligent and cunning, whether that was a side effect of what he once was – what they all had been at one time – or a genetic abnormality, she wasn't really sure.
The female Sykaran however was sure that Horgo was joking about devouring their unexpected guest… at least she was mostly sure he had been jesting.
"I shall keep that in mind," she responded with amusement.
"Good," Horgo said gruffly, and then went back to working on whatever it was he was doing when she entered the headquarters.
She made her way across the room to a draped off section of wall. Behind other areas of hanging cloth were sleeping or private areas for other members of her group. She was only concerned with who was behind this particular curtain for the moment. Before sweeping the fabric aside, she paused for a microt to clear her throat loudly to warn the occupant inside.
Istrish slowly slid the drape to one side and was reward by seeing the opened eyes of their guest gazing up at her from his sleeping mat.
She smiled brightly at seeing him awake and fully alert for a change.
"And how are you this day, young warrior?" she asked with genuine interest.
The Luxan frowned up at her and moved stiffly as he rearranged himself on the low mat.
"About the same as yesterday, Istrish. Like dren," he answered.
"Your color is much improved, Ka' Dargo," she said next. "You are very lucky for a man who had one foot through death's door when we found you."
"And I owe you and your companions a great debt of gratitude for saving me," the Luxan rumbled. "The wounds I received should have killed me."
Istrish smiled again. "And indeed they might have if Marktaal hadn't injected you with the med-tech microbes we have been developing."
D'argo absently rubbed at the still healing scars on his chest and frowned deeply once more.
"I'm not sure I enjoy the idea of having been used as a test subject… but I am glad they worked. I only wish the recovery time did not take so frelling long."
She moved inside the room and sat upon a large pillow by the side of his bed to make herself comfortable.
"They are not an exact science yet and you still nearly died on us several times," Istrish added. "But be patient, as you are completely safe here with us."
"I am not use to such long stretches of inaction," the warrior told her. "Have you found my friends yet?" he asked. "I want to get word to them of my survival as soon as possible."
The woman's smile drooped for an instant but then reinserted itself. Her guest had asked that same question everyday since he was strong enough to speak once more. And everyday she had the same answer for him.
"We have yet to hear anything about their whereabouts. As you know we also currently searching for one of our number, and our resources are limited as far as the ability to gather intelligence. We are not yet strong enough to defend against our enemies, so we must be careful and remain hidden from those that hunt us."
"I know… the Black Syndicate would have rewards for you and your comrades," replied D'argo with a grim nod. "Especially after your part in killing all those Scarrans."
"Our numbers grow each weeken. Slowly, but they still grow," she supplied.
D'argo narrowed his eyes for a moment, then said, "I have watched the comings and goings of your people here, and I always see the same five. And occasionally a visitor who never remains long."
Istrish graced him with a smile. She had a feeling the Luxan was more aware of his surroundings when he first awakened than he had let on.
"We keep our numbers in small cells on this planet and several other nearby worlds. We gather in full strength only to carry out a operation," she explained. "None of us knows where every other cell has their sanctuary. That way if one or a few of us are recaptured by our oppressors, they cannot give the whole network away."
The Luxan nodded sagely. "A wise precaution."
"And a tactical one," she added.
The warrior chewed at his lower lip in thought.
"Can I ask, how do you go about recruiting your members? It cannot be easy to persuade Shrike Enforcers to leave their Syndicate Houses to join you."
The woman bowed her head in agreement. "That is why we target only collared Shrikes, the ones that are unwilling slaves. We have become quite adept at removing Scarran neural collars quickly. Once rid of the device we give the freed Enforcer a choice – They can either take their chances at freedom on their own or join us. The wise ones join, as the others on their own are normally quickly hunted down then recaptured or destroyed by their former masters."
"The Syndicate cannot be very pleased with your activities," D'argo commented.
"They certainly are not," Istrish replied with a dark chuckle. "That is why we all have a heavy price on our heads within the underworld."
"Why not just leave then? Forget the fighting and go where the Syndicate can't find you?"
Istriash sadly smiled and took his large hand within hers.
"Where it that easy," she said. "I have been at this too long and my old House knows my identity… as I am one of the first of us to be freed from slavery. There is only one other who has been rogue longer than I, and it was he who freed me. I owe it to him to continue to liberated others… until he returns to pick up the reins of leadership once more."
"Is he the one you and your people have been searching for?" the big Luxan asked.
"Yes… the one who started this all. Who began to free the Shrike assassins and forged us into weapon to be turned against our former masters."
"Where is he?"
"Sadly, I do not know. Shortly before we discovered you, he left. It appeared his heart had grown heavy and he lost his will for the fight. A few of us vowed to carry on, increasing our numbers as best we can and waiting for him to find his way back to us again."
"Your leader abandoned you!" D'argo said with growing disbelief. "A Luxan commander would never…"
"No! You misunderstand," the red-skinned girl broke in. "He never wanted to be our leader. In fact he denounced such at every opportunity. He was the first to be freed as I said, he freed me and together we freed others… and they went on to free more as they could. He taught us what he knew for us to survive and strike back. We stayed and followed him by choice. When the war between the Scarrans and the Peacekeepers came, we attacked covertly where it would hurt the Scarrans and the Syndicate's interest the most. We were very successful in our endeavors… until something happened to our leader."
D'argo's frown grew ever slowly as he listened to the tale.
"What happen?" he asked.
Istrish's lips turned downward themselves with that question.
"I am not exactly sure. It was around the time that we intercepted a Scarran communiqué. A report that had to do with the capture of you and your comrades."
The warrior's eyebrows shout upward in surprise. "What would that have to do with your leader abandoning your group?"
"I don't know, but something seemed to sap the will out of him… as if he bore some great burden nothing could lift from his shoulders. Before he left to travel his own way, he requested that we be on the look out for you and your crewmates, and to assist you if we were able."
His brows twisted into a dark knot. "Why did he want that? What was his name?"
"Not many of us remember our real names prior to serving the Black Syndicate. I am one of the lucky few that do," she explained. "Our leader went by the name, Sinn. I am not sure if that was his real name as he never bothered to tell me."
The Luxan mauled the information over within his memory but could not come up with anything familiar.
"I cannot remember our group ever encountering anyone calling themselves 'Sinn'. Are you positive he went by no other name?"
Istrish gave him a one-shoulder shrug. "That was the name he went by while he was with us. I can recall only his Syndicate House Enforcer designation. We were all given them in order to dehumanize us."
"What was it? It's a long shot but perhaps it will help," D'argo suggested.
Istrish thought for a few microts.
"I believe it was Enforcer 457 of High House Arckatius," she supplied a moment later.
D'argo nearly choked. His stomach turned cold with dread at the same time his blood became to boil with rage.
"Shrike 457!" he near growled.
"Yes, that is also another alternative to his designation," she answered with some curiosity.
"Berret!" he then spat.
Istrish then shook her head. "I have never heard that name before," she replied. "What is wrong, D'argo?" she asked with some concern. She had grow to like the Luxan very much over the last few weekens and it disturbed her to see him abruptly so agitated. Her hand wandered upward to pat his chest to calm him.
The Luxan ignore the question in favor of one of his own. "Sebacean male, about six samat tall? With strange blue eyes that change silver.
Istrish found herself blinking in surprise. "Yes," she exclaimed, then quickly glanced over her shoulder to be sure no one was hovering nearby to over hear them. "Yes, he is one of the few augments to have survived also," she continued in a whisper when she turned back to him. "How did you know? I had though I was the only one to share that secret?"
"Frelling dren!" D'argo swore to himself. "And you say he was with you just before the battle between the Scarran and Peacekeepers… where you found me dying?"
"Yes. He left us almost two weekends before the battle."
"Not frelling possible!" D'argo nearly shouted.
"Why? What do you mean? How is that not possible?" she asked in confusion and growing worry.
"Because I saw that frelling bastard die half-a-cycle before that battle ever happened!"