Space around them, cool and silent; carrying no sound, freezingly indifferent, cupped them like a hand in a cool glove. Gaz with her heart pounding, heat rolling off her palms and face. She didn't care. There dwelt in her mouth a certain blood-hunger, a starved kind of devotion, the knowledge that after all the miles here was what she had come for. She was ready. She was ready.

It'll be like throwing a rock into a hornet's nest, she thought, in the part of her mind that was still thinking and not blank, receptive, still. The Irken fleet fanning out before them in crimson and purple, oblivious to her black-camouflaged foreigners slipping in among them, and a hot pulse of excitement filling her throat.

Lard Nar had tapped the Irken communication waves and picked up Dib's transfer to a lab ship with only a little snooping. "Our technology is better," he'd said, bristling with hysterical pride. "While we hid we improved. They have done nothing." Thus the ease of infiltration.

But the Resisty had only been hiding. It had taken Gaz to set them in motion. Sometime later she'd think about that, decide what it meant, that they'd been galvanized into activity because of her. But not yet.

They'd talked about plans, about retrieval methods and ways and ways to breach the Irken ships and ways of cutting off communications, ways of feigning the constant commerce of ship-to-ship signaling that told the fleet all is well, all is well, and ways of escape. Gaz didn't want to discuss anymore. She was content to lead the thrust, to play out her assigned role, but communications between allies was a fact of life that hadn't been covered in video games... still, she had sense, could see the need to talk. Maneuvers might need to coordinate at the last minute, soldiers would bolster each other, et cetera...

The Spittle Runner's communicator dinged – that was a novelty in the well-learned physique of her ship, a new noise, in spite of being prepped on the minor modification made by Resisty techs. Gaz tapped the button to receive and Lard Nar's voice was piped clearly into the cockpit. "There it is!" he barked. "Elevation 20 degrees, 46 kliks and closing."

Her stomach flopped, clamped like a fist. She was so close! She could see Dib's face in her mind, but it was blurry and mixed with Membrane's: his hair thinning and his eyes and mouth concealed. What had her brother really looked like? But what did it matter, anyway?

"30 kliks," Lard Nar said, his voice grinding to a high pitch. So fast! Only a second and one third of the distance melted away.

The lab ship was big and red and so close now that the curved side looked like a sheer wall. It was diminishing, flying in tandem with such a behemoth with the Spittle Runner and her tiny fleet, but Gaz didn't dwell.

Some miles from the ship's surface the Spittle Runner turned on its programmed course and flew parallel to the curved red belly. A shuttle bay notched the lab's slick surface, and it was coming up fast. Ships smaller than her own darted in and out like cleaning shrimp swarming around the mouth of a shark. Gaz dug her fingers into her knees, tapped her feet restlessly.

"I want in first," she said, knowing that Lard Nar heard her as sharp as if she sat on his shoulder. "I want a tech with me, some support. Otherwise you organize your idiots."

"Clear." There was no other response. The Spittle Runner darted and dodged now, avoiding the small ships – probes, she could see that much – which now shared their air space and came up so quickly they seemed to strike her in the face. Gaz unclamped her fingers, twiddled a dial and a map projected itself in the air to her left, tracking proximity to the entrance and to her allies with a swarm of blue and magenta blips.

The Irken lab ships did not have docking bays per se; scientists, lab drones, and living specimens traveled by teleport beam. The port for which they made was more precisely a staging area for outfitting probes to survey the nearer planets, nebulae, and asteroids on the margins of Irken space, and for shipping the raw materials upon which the fleet gorged. It had been impossible for the Resisty scientists to piggyback them in on the energy travel system. Instead they would stand at the breast of a monster and bore directly into its flesh. The thought made Gaz smile.

A dark maw gaped suddenly before her. Gaz positively grinned.

For the umpteenth time Dib compressed his hand and violently tried to yank it through the rigid opening of his wrist shackle. "Shit!" he half barked. He'd been at it for several minutes and the fleshy pad at the base of his thumb had split open and was bleeding copiously, more from the violence of his struggle than any delicacy on the part of his body or any particular cruelty in the design of his restraints. Damned if he'd stop, though.

The pak won't take long to figure you out, and then they'll put you down like a dog. And probably incinerate your body. Not before you humiliate your race by crapping your pants when you die. Dib was firmly not thinking of what he'd probably have to do to his feet to get them through the shackles, or how he'd get off the ship once he was free. One God-damn thing at a time, the army had taught him. Baby step by fucking baby step until you were at the top of the heap.

"Hckk, come onnnnnn…" he gurgled, arching his back, forcing his hips to roll out on the metal table. A thin string of spit clung to his lower lip. Dib ignored it, focused on the struggle, proceeding with his thrashing siege.

Dangling above him was a mess of needles, lenses, syringes, and plugs, all the cords tangled like intestines busting in a churning morass out of someone's belly, like when he'd shot that screamer in the war without killing, that other young man who'd died slow with his hands clenching and shit in his pants and his face locked in death's agonized grimace... oh God, oh God...

At first the diffident, subtle movement in their depths went unnoticed by the pinioned young man below them, but a particularly piercing chitter-hum from the morass pierced his focus. Dib paused in his one-sided skirmish and twisted his head to assess the equipment as well as he was able. Its shimmies and quietly directed motion were invisible to him as of yet, but now, silent, he could hear parts whining and wheezing to each other and the noises made him go cold. An observer would have seen him shrink against the platform upon which he was displayed, like a dog that knew a beating was coming.

The coiled tendrils loosened from their knots, drooped, and began to extend downwards, their lengths sliding over and around each other like a stew of worms. Oh shit, Dib thought, still listening, his imagination kicked into overdrive. If these bastards think they can get away with leaving me alone... If they think they have, have a RIGHT to do something to me NOT EVEN TO MY FACE...

The machinery still heaved above him. By now some parts had reached his back and brushed in a terrible, seeking kind of way over his back and shoulders. Dib squirmed and twisted but still couldn't see them; they were invisible, and all the more menacing because of that. He'd seen what they were, though: plugs, plugs and the very thought made him feel sick. The pak on him and all the ports and orifices defenseless. Not even that: worse than having an open wound, worse than muscle and guts exposed. They could break him with pain. They could – would ­– break into him with the pak.

Tuned to their sound, now, Dib listened. The tubes sounded like snakes rasping against each other. Also they clicked, incessantly, like popping knuckles, a bad habit which Dib had cultivated for years and recently lost. He held his breath but did not hear or feel them as they nosed into his pak and locked in place. It was a placebo pak, a monitor, all the legs and equipment in it bundled and quiescent like a weaker twin absorbed into the body of the stronger, and it was not concerned with giving him feedback; instead it had a great love for counting things. Heart rate, breaths, hormone release and blood type. Dib rocked on the table and did not know what (who) forced his way into the crystalline star which graced his body. Had he known, the restraints would have been the least of his worries.

As such he only remained still a moment more. Then, assured that for the moment he was safe from drugs and vivisections, and that time was anyway still short, he began the struggle anew. "You damn lizards," he whispered under his breath. "The shithead you sent couldn't stop me. Not on level ground. You can't either."

Someone near, another one made his own impatient stand against what stood against him.

One: two ships just ahead, clamping lamprey-like onto the back wall of the hangar and bringing metal jaws and drills and lasers and bores to bear on the thick wall of the cruiser. The noise that wasn't, a grinding shrieking tumult; the sparks that weren't, gouting out in blazes.

Two: the ragged puncture wound they opened, oxygen rushing out in spumes, to let her in.

Three: her ship plunging into the hall, filling up the space like a wad of meat jammed into someone's gullet.

Gaz imagined the Irken collective gagging, choking, and expiring as it tried to swallow her, and the grin the thought put on her face split the corners of her mouth.

She opened the communicator to the wavelength the lab ship used, and said, "Here I am. So come and get me."

Across the ship the same old story, struggling, heaving again. He had felt no telltale rock or shudder at his sister's arrival. His sudden solitude, caused by the abrupt and inexplicable crash of the lab's communications and transport systems and debilitating glitches in the governing AI, were mysteries to him. He was steadily, stubbornly campaigning for his freedom, and nothing else mattered.

Someone nearby gave a digital sneer, and turned the key.

Stiff and tired, for barely a moment he was stunned when his convulsive movement whipped his limbs free from their restraints. For half a second only; then he sat, reeled, and rolled off the table, cracking his knees hard on the ground. Yes. Don't question good luck when it comes, just get your ass outta here. His skittery mind in all its sharpness couldn't conceive of why things would happen so. He was prepared to take advantage of the present opportunity, was all.

But first thing… he threw himself against the wall, back first, slinging all of his weight in to the blow. First, get the collar off. "You won't track me by this," he ground out. "You couldn't tame me when I was home, you couldn't take me alone, you can't take me now, with this." He'd rather die than have the alien… thing… marking him. Rather die than shame his race, or be shamed, at the end.

Hitting the thing didn't do any good. Paks were made to survive, durable, like tortoise shells or bones. There was a way though, he knew it, had seen it done – the time that Zim nearly died… Dib knelt, wormed his arm around and groped at the edge of the pak. The border where his skin turned to steel was smooth to his fingers, so he'd rip it off his spine if he had to! There was a catch, he knew, but he couldn't find it – of course, of course there wouldn't be one on his – it was meant to stay on him –

I'll die getting it off. Maybe the edge could… snag? on the edge of the table? He could just peel it off. Dib got up, turned around, tried basically to scrape the pak off on the edge of the table. It hurt like a bitch, an awful pulling sensation running up his spine, and then something threw him down hard and made his arms and legs jackknife. He was being attacked! Dib scrabbled up on hands and knees, fell down again, rational enough this time to recognize that nothing had struck or assaulted him. He was being shocked by the pak. Slapped down on the floor like roadkill – he didn't try to get up again, just laid down breathing roughly, quivering a bit, just waiting. Waiting. Would it shock him again? Stretch him out with bolts of power until he stopped struggling, stayed there, waited for the Irkens to come back and get him?

Nothing happened. Nothing hurt him. Dib stayed down, put his head into his hands. Breathed. Ragged, tearing gulps of air. A noise made him pay attention again. It came in soft as breath, just on the edge of his hearing, soothing and low, like a purr. A purr was what it was. It came from the pak, and it was soothing him. Against his will his heart rate was calming, his thoughts were moving in rational patterns again, his limbs quivering with the ebbing of adrenaline.

I'm going to go as far as I can, he thought. As far as I can, and if this thing doesn't stop me…

He got to his feet, shifted his weight, ready to slam down again if it made him. If he had to.

There was no blow. Nothing moved in on him from the corners, nothing contained him. The pak was silent and the door was clear. He limped over to it and looked outside. The hall was innocuous, of the usual Irken design, riveted panels on the walls. It extended left and right. The left hall led invitingly away from his current room. The right hall was stoppered at an indeterminate distance.

"Hell," Dib said, and took the open hall. What else?

The Irkens had not heard Gaz's challenge, or detected the hull breach. Scientists and drones had been recalled for their skeletal programming dealing with ship tech, since the standard crew was mired in combat with the main AI. Pak-to-pak talk still worked. Thus the first warning the crew had of the boarding attempt was from the death of one terrified repair drone third class, who was making his was towards the command center from some distant appendage of the ship.

Since cutting through the outer wall, the Resisty had slapped a patch on their hole so they could maneuver on foot without relying on canned air. The Spittle Runner was small enough to wreak carnage throughout the ship's warren, filling up the passages like a marble jammed in the gullet of a toddler.

The first Irken barely saw what hit him before the Resisty tore his meatbody to pieces. The pak took matters into its own hands, released sharp, spindly legs for combat, and Gaz blew it to powder with one dismissive shot. The aliens around her ducked, covering eyes, antennae, whatever sensitive orifice they had against the roll of heat from the blast.

Gaz popped the runner's view shield up and had a look at her army. Penner, a gauzy little alien lightly armed with a hand beam, jumped to hitch a ride from the edge of the cockpit. "Watch your fire," he said coolly. "Don't take out any of your own people."

"Are you giving the orders here, hanky boy?" Gaz said lazily. Penner's membranes flushed copper; he recognized a disparaging tone when he heard one, even if he didn't know what a hanky was.

"That's only sense, I think," he snapped at her. "What a leader must do."

Gaz cast a glance at him and the corners of her mouth crooked up slightly. "Let the good times roll," she said. Penner turned his liquid eyes forward.

Dib had moved up to a lurching jog. He didn't know where he was. He didn't see anyone. If he was in the middle of the ship it could be miles until he got… somewhere. Wherever he was going, with no weapons, no resources, no plan.

"Calm down, Membrane," he said to himself. "You'll get somewhere eventually. Somewhere… something…" It seemed like he could jinx himself if he said it out loud. But something must be wrong. Something is off somewhere. No other reason I'd…

He wasn't thirsty or hungry. He had the pak, which was a kind of ally at the moment. "If you were real," he said. Talking to the computer crouched on his shoulders now. If his skoolmates could see…! "If you were a real pak, I could get out of here. I bet you have a mapping function. Maybe."

Well, it was better than having to turn for Zim to help. Dib hit an intersection, a meeting point between four halls, and balked. "Shit, how am I ever going to get out of here this way? Shit."

On the edge of hearing Dib heard a soft, long purr rise from the pak's gut. He stiffened, wondering if in a second he'd be prostrate from a jolt of electricity, or just unconscious from the release of a hormone-derived drug, but nothing happened.

Better go. Feeling fated, almost, Dib turned left and began to lope again.

They were hitting resistance now. Her aliens had squeezed back around the Spittle Runner, taking cover behind the engine pods and sniping shots at the Irkens that swarmed them. The Runner's guns whined and squealed, whipping around to blast away at the attackers; Gaz had pulled down her shield a long time ago and sat with her hands lightly guiding the controls, her face drawn and concentrated, brow wrinkled and eyes slits.

The cockpit was quiet, insulated from the zinging of lasers, the wet pops as bodies exploded. Irkens sluiced down the hall towards them, spun and died in droves, like shooting fish in a barrel – it was all right. Gaz fired, felt no recoil, but watched a drone with bruise-colored eyes fling backwards, spin, collapse, die. It was all right. She'd played games like this before. She was in the zone. It was all right.

Speakers chimed gently, and a hologram popped up at her elbow. Lard Nar blinked at her from the scribbly image. She'd been waiting for him. "We've found a record of your sibling," he snapped briskly. "The subject was moved to a research center and left on a table when the attack began. Take out the main bridge first, then get him."

"Don't give me orders," Gaz said coolly. "How do you know he hasn't gotten out? I don't want my brother blundering around while fighting is going on. He'll get his ass killed."

"It would be impossible for a prisoner, alone, to free himself from an Irken research compound," Lard Nar replied, snapping his teeth. "He must be where he was left."

"You don't know my brother," she gritted back, turning her attention back to the fight. "He gets into everything."

Dib ran along, eyes almost glazed, moving without thought. Now that he wasn't afraid so much he was nearly bored. The halls were all the same, only the soft breath of air brushing his face a sign that he moved at all. He'd taken junctions at random, turns that could easily be taking him further into the ship's gut rather than outside, but if he thought about that too long – it just wasn't worth it. He just had to keep moving, and find an Irken, and kill them and maybe strip them for handheld weapons – it was worth a try. The pak hadn't stopped him so far.

How are you going to kill an Irken, he thought. How are you going to kill an Irken with just your hands.

Take that as it comes. You can – if you maybe – I'll do it somehow…

He put his head down, kept running. Something would change soon – he trusted to that. Dib was intent on the rush on his own breathing, the only thing he could count on in this place, that when the scuffle of footsteps reached his ears he almost discounted it entirely.

Some remnant of fighting instinct made him look up, before he ran headlong into the approaching Irken – a stray worker drone, it was, making its way pell-mell to the command centre at the last minute. It was a blinkered, foolish little creature even for an Irken, and not equipped with any of the nasty flesh-tearing tools that might have let a scientist make short work of Dib. It did carry a small kit in its back, laser scalpels and clamps suitable for dissection, but the human thundered down upon it and there was no time to draw out any of that.

Dib was a smothering attacker, and he knew the best places to strike an Irken and get results. He went for the eyes first, curling jabs that sliced the rather delicate membranes, and the whippy antennae. His greater reach was an excellent asset; he could soak up the blows attempted by the smaller creature, twist its arms into knots and lift it so the feet had no purchase.

He was doing rather well for himself when the Irken's pak popped open and extruded several of the scalpel-arms. A laser was about ready to burn a hole through his skull when his own pak reacted. Several jointed arms lashed out serpent-quick, equipped with sharp, ugly spurs on each tip. These flashed around like the arms of an octopus, snaring the Irken drone in a deadly embrace, punching through the walls of its pak and decimating the machinery and computers within.

Dib dropped his dead enemy, panting, shaking. The pak extensions withdrew, quietly, into his back. How had they done that? Why? He would've thought that there was a failsafe in there, to prevent Irkens from getting hurt by the very paks they welded to their specimens. Was there a mistake somewhere? Dib rubbed nervously at his side, thinking of the possible consequences of wearing a faulty pak, the dangers that could accompany the benefits. He couldn't get it. He'd tried and failed. Now he just had to live with it, make the best of it – that was possible. He could do that.

"Why did I kill that?" he said. The habit of self-conversation was one that the army had attempted to train out of him, but under stressful conditions Dib would still converse with the only person that his years of life had shown him he could rely on. "That didn't help me." There was nothing on the little Irken he could use, no worth in a dead body as a hostage, and if he was – caught – recaptured – it wouldn't reflect well on him, to have killed one of the slave masters.

So, he wouldn't get caught. Couldn't get caught, now. "It's you and me now," he said to the pak. Mechanically, then, he stepped over the first dead body of his enemy, and started to run again.

..end chapter 16..

Another chapter after over a year? Can it really BEEEEEEEEE?

Lael Adair was the driving force behind this chapter; without her editing it would have been... um... bad. Pretty bad. She's on my favorite authors list; go read her stuff.