"There... treatment... done," said the Diagnosan in its singsong voice as it removed an optical-regenerator away from Chiana's face. The machine swiveled away from the Nebari girl and D'argo was disappointed to see that Chiana's eyes were still silver with black pinpoints for irises.
"I still can't see!" exclaimed Chiana.
"It didn't work!" growled the Luxan at the same time.
The Diagnosan held up one hand with extended forefinger to halt them from further speaking.
"Take time," it explained, "Treatment... began... at optic nerve. Work... outward."
D'argo calmed a little. "So we have to wait?" he asked. The Diagnosan nodded its head and then replaced its mask before turning off the sterile field it operated under.
"How long?" added in Chiana.
"Will know... success... anytime in... next... three solar days," answered the healer. "If longer... than three..." the Diagnosan continued with a sad shake of its head, "no success. Treatment... fail."
Chiana swallowed hard once and attempted a brave face.
"Well, I guess we wait the three days then," she said. "Not like I have anything else better to do."
The Luxan frowned deeply at the news but elected not to say anything that might discourage Chiana from her hope. The Diagnosan waved for them to follow him into the next room.
"Come... give to you... herbal wrap... for eyes," it explained, "help process, increase chances."
D'argo took Chiana's arm and guided her after the healer. They entered a room full of supplies, files, and storage racks that seemed to be monitored by some sort of medical equipment. The Diagnosan rummaged around through his supplies, allowing the warrior to idly survey the room while they waited.
The doctor found what he was looking for and then returned to the couple and instructed them on how to prepare the herbs and how Chiana was to use them to cover over her eyes while they healed.
They were just getting ready to leave when D'argo got a closer look at what was on the shelves on the storage racks. At first glance he had taken them to be medication of some type stored in cylinder-like glass containers. Closer he realized the small ball forms looked very familiar.
"Wait!" he said as he brought the group to a halt by one stand. "What is that?" he asked, pointing a finger at the nearest cylinder.
The Diagnosan blinked its eyes in puzzlement while Chiana asked, "What's what, D'argo?"
"That," repeated the Luxan, forgetting for a moment the Nebari's blindness.
The doctor realized what the Luxan was asking and answered.
"They... patients... in molecular... bio-storage," the healer explained. "Serious illness... wait for... transport... to other facility. Better medical... care."
"You mean these are beings in those containers? And they are still alive?" shot in D'argo.
"What is it? What's going on, D'argo?" Chiana broke in, starting to look a little panicked.
The Diagnosan answered before the Luxan could inform the Nebari girl.
"Yes... safer way... for patients... to wait and... travel. Safer for others... no spread... infections."
Chiana wasn't going to wait anymore for anyone to clue her in.
"What is it, D'argo! Tell me what's going on!" she demanded.
The Luxan turned to the girl, it was clear the doctor wondered what his interest was in the patients also.
"It's the same round spheres that Crichton and Aeryn were turned into by that weapon," he told her. "The Diagnosan says these are patients waiting for transport to another hospital or medical center."
Chiana's blind eyes widened in surprise, "I heard that part," she said. "Do you think this means that Aeryn and John are still alive?"
"Maybe," replied the Luxan, he then turned back to the doctor. "Tell us, does the military forces here on this planet use the same technology as a weapon? Maybe to take prisoners without a fight?"
The Diagnosan nodded its head as it received the answer to the warrior's strange questions.
"Yes... technology used... by military... and medical. Also... law enforcement. Better way... quarantine... better way... capture... hold prisoners. Gentle... no harm come."
"Then they're not dead?" Chiana said.
"No... not fatal," said the doctor.
Chiana smiled with the news and D'argo found himself almost grinning for the first time since John and Aeryn's apparent deaths.
"Can you take someone out of this stasis? Can you bring them back?" he asked next.
The Diagnosan shook his head in the negative. "No," it replied, "Can only put... in suspension. Reassembly... only at... hospital... off world. Clinic... not big enough... for all technology. Military or... police... centers only... here."
Chiana's shoulders suddenly slumped.
"We're frelled," she moaned.
Berret made his way through the narrow trash cluttered street of the shanty section of the trading port. Most of the buildings were bricked or boarded up, the business that once had inhabited them had long since moved to more prosperous parts of the town, leaving the empty gutted structures to whomever want to make use of them. The streets themselves were little more then over grown semi-paved paths, littered by debris and the occasion loosened paving stones. The odor of over-ripe trash and humanoid waste drifted around the Shrike and he unconsciously tightened his midnight cloak around his body as if the garment could help keep the annoyingly unpleasant stench at bay.
The ex-Enforcer internally wrestled with the disappointment with his visit with the old witchdoctor. LaSaResh had been unable to help him rid himself of these feelings... the desires he found he had for the Nebari girl. At first conception, the idea of searching for Chiana had seemed like the correct course to take after he'd happen to stumble across the information of a group of outlaws traveling on a rogue Leviathan.
Since breaking them out of the prison, he'd reconsidered his decision in the light of hindsight. This was not how he had foreseen events unfolding... nor had he calculated for her rekindled relationship with the Luxan.
He muttered a low curse, as he contemplation that what he should have done was just depart as soon as she made it clear she didn't want to leave with him. Instead, he let her talk him into staying aboard the living ship. Now he was surrounded by beings that he could only consider as potential threats if not outright enemies. Chiana was the only one he could trust... and she was turning out to be the most dangerous to him.
Deep down he knew... he would do almost anything she asked - regardless of how big a mistake his instincts told him what she requested of him was. In some way he was more entrapped - bound to her - more surely then he ever was to the Syndicate by the control collar. The only difference being in this situation... there was nothing keeping him from walking away if he wanted too - but he found it hard to think about make himself do it, especially while she was in her present condition.
How do you fight against something so intangible as this desire for her company? Where bounds of steel and electronic manipulate could not hold him prisoner forever, how could she accomplish it so easily with just a soft appeal and a heartfelt promise of hope? Berret's lip curled up in self-loathing as he concluded that Chiana held him in grip more inescapable than Arckatius could ever have forged with all the power of his underworld empire.
He remembered the soulful eyes that had started chipping away at the collar's hold on him. The haunting beautiful voice as she sang in her cell. The rage she had awakened as she pleaded for his help as she was attacked. The near blinding pain of the collar as he tore it from his throat, the slaughter of the Syndicate men afterwards, the ever so savage need to avenge her. The pleasant confusion of her brief kiss and her moments of frenzy for him when she realized that he was staying behind to guarantee her escape.
He had hoped with finding her that she could find a way to look pass what he had been. The longer he remained free in his travels, the more he realized he needed her to find his center, to balance and cope with these new emotions that the control collar had suppressed for so long.
To help contain the rage that sometimes filled him since his release from the collar.
But Chiana had chosen to stay and settle into a life with the Luxan.
Her decision had been an unexpected blow to Berret. It had not occurred to him that the Nebari thief might not wish to go with him, that she had other plans for her future. The revelation only proved to Berret that he had much to learn about life outside the Syndicate as an Enforcer. As she sat in her quarters, staring blindly at him, she told him of her desire to make things right between her and D'argo. The Shrike knew then that he couldn't confess his need for her. That he wanted her help with sorting through the confusion his freedom from the Scarrans left him in. How he wanted so badly for her to show him how to become a person she could care for. He owned her his freedom... and Chiana wanted D'argo. Berret vowed to himself that he would never tell her about his desires... nor would he ever let on to her the torment he was in. The burden was his and he would carry the weight without concerning her.
However, it was so hard to be close to her... and force the feelings into dormancy. He had killed so many beings for the Syndicate in his life, why was it so impossible to kill these feelings within himself?
So many times they had made him come close to losing the control over his facade.
The brooding ex-assassin was so immersed in his own thoughts he didn't hear them until it was too late.
"Give us your credits, mother-freller," said the large shadow that abruptly blocked Berret's path.
His head snapped up at the voice and he was aware of several more footsteps closing in on him. To both sides, Berret now saw two more men move in to block his escape. The ragged looking thug on his right hefted a hammer that's peening end ended with a slightly curved spike to shoulder height in preparation to strike should he wander into the weapon's range. The one to the left held a length of pipe with a section of sharpened metal crudely welded to one end to make a short spear. He held his weapon ready just above waist level in the Enforcer's direction, his body cocked slightly to aid in trusting the spear.
There were at least two more behind him, probably also armed in some way, that Berret couldn't see. However the Shrike considered that they had taken the rear positions in the ambush because they were less better armed then their companions and they didn't want their victim to realize the fact. Normally, Berret would have berated himself for not being more attentive to his surroundings. Unbidden, the ex-assassin found the darker parts of his nature taking over; he discovered that the situation was beginning to please him in some obscene way. He found himself craving the conflict and the violence that was coming.
The man in front of Berret who had spoken first was most likely the leader and held the best weapon in the lot. In one dirty and scarred hand, he waved a laz-knife around, the kind used to cut ceramic flooring in building construction.
The knife had seen better days and while the handle appeared to have been broken at one time and mended with friction tape, the working blade itself still hummed and crackled with a decent energy charge. The edges flared white-hot as the man showed-off by recklessly manipulating the handle in his hand so that one microt it was pointed at Berret and the next the thug had a backhand grip on it. The display was obviously meant to impress his victims. The glowing blade swung back around in the Shrike's direction again and this time the mugger held it steady.
"Give it up!" the thief demanded, holding out his free hand.
Berret casually reached up and pulled the hood of his cloak down... and then smiled. He felt the thin veneer of control eroding away from him. The desires to lash out and scream his pain was beginning to pound like a Luxan war drum in the back of his head.
Perhaps this distraction would be just what he needed to take his mind off his tribulations.
"Hurry up!" the man instructed.
"I don't think this is a game you can afford to play," the assassin told the group.
"We're not playing, drenhead!"
"Neither am I. Run away and maybe I'll let you live."
The Shrike smirked mockingly at the man, knowing he was adding fuel to the man's precariously nervous ego. His contemptuous insolence would only escalate the situation faster toward bloodshed.
"We got you surrounded," barked the gang leader, "Just who the hezmana do you think you are?"
Berret gave him another cold smile and silver began to tint his eyes. His blood began to pound in his ears.
"I like to believe that... I am the deadliest creature you will encounter tonight."
The thug glared at Berret's defiance and took a menacing step forward, raising the laz-knife up to eye-level with the Shrike.
"Don't give me that dren!" he snarled, "Give up the money or we'll frelling kill you right here!"
In response Berret held up one armored hand, his smile abruptly faded and his face became a death mask.
"I told you, you didn't want to play."
As he spoke, the brace blades slowly unsheathed themselves from the gauntlet. The thief's eyes suddenly grew wide in surprise and fear as the wickedly serrated twin blades grew in length. Reflected light sparkled and danced along the keen edges.
"I hope you didn't bring anything you couldn't afford to lose," Berret said with a wicked grin, made all the more sinister by flaming silver eyes.
The two thugs behind the Shrike couldn't see the weapon attached to his forearm brace, taking the sudden changes in expression from their leader as a sign; they rushed in to grab Berret.
With his free hand, Berret reached up and released the clasp that held his cloak together around his shoulders. At the same time, he took a half step to his left while flinging the unfastened garment off and to his right rear to cover the head of the man charging at him from that angle. As the cape-like garment settled over the attacking thug and stalled his advance, his partner on the left made a quick attempt to seize his prey's arm only to feel the tips of his fingers graze the metal sheathed upper arm of man they were trying to rob as he easily twisted away and just out of reach.
Berret whipped his left arm upwards in an arc and smashed an equally hard armor-clad elbow into the face of the robber who just tried to grab him. He immediately applied the same tactic to the man who was still trying to untangle himself from his cloak. An audible snap accompanied the blow and the figure ceased its struggling to drop in its tracks. In the time it took to blink an eye, Berret had neutralized both men who had flanked him. He wasn't sure about the first man he'd struck, but he'd been an Enforcer long enough to know the sound of snapping vertebrae when he heard it. There was no doubt the second man was dead with a broken neck. In any case both were on the ground and out of the fight.
The ex-Shrike grinned savagely at the remaining men.
"Opps!" the Shrike exclaimed with a mock innocent look. "I seemed to have broke them."
"Kill him!" screamed the leader.
The man to Berret right side realizing now that his opponent was covered in armor plate reversed his hammer so he could use the spike end of the heavy head to punch through the armor. He screamed a war cry and rushed Berret, swinging his war-hammer high overhead to smash downward on the assassin.
Berret turned to meet the attack squarely. The brace blades from his right gauntlet snapped out to join the already deployed ones on his left arm. Berret thrust both arms upwards to intercept the blow - the blades crossing in an X to catch the hardwood handle of the hammer. The Shrike grunted slightly with the effort of arresting the attack and he felt his microbe enhancements kick in. The blades had caught the hammer's haft on their flats, with none of the three cutting edges in a position to shear through the wooden handle, Berret elected to sweep the heavy weapon off to one side away from him. The sudden shift of the hammer's weight in an unexpected direction made the man holding it stumble to that side off balanced. Berret chuckled in half mad glee as he followed up the block by quickly jabbing his left-hand set of blades into the man's exposed shoulder.
The attacker screamed shrilly as several henta of the T-shaped double blades pierced his flesh and skewered through bone.
The excitement of battle overwhelmed Berret; he found the bloodlust simultaneously sweet and bitter, making him momentarily forget his plight over the Nebari girl. He viciously twisted the edged weapons in the man's shoulder, purposely causing even more damage to the wounded man. The thug's accompanying howl somehow made Berret come alive, if he had to bear this strange pain he felt over Chiana - why shouldn't someone else suffer and share in it?
The man's eyes began to roll upwards in his skull and Berret realized his opponent was on the verge of passing out from the agony he was inflicting.
Suddenly the Shrike felt an irrational anger that the man was succumbing so soon.
How dare he escape by fainting while Berret had to still live his pain!
He brutally ripped the brace blades out of the man. Before he could sag to the ground, the ex-Enforcer stepped forward and slammed his forehead into the man's face, feeling his nose smash flat under the assault. The violence only went a small way in satisfying the rage and he hungered for more.
Berret stepped back and snarled his growing viciousness as the new body joined the first two. It was over too soon, he had only lasted a mere few microts. The man with the makeshift lance circled at a safe distance so Berret turned his fury on the leader with the laz-knife.
The Shrike retracted his brace weapons back into the armor, wanting to give the knife man a chance and to make the next encounter last longer. The tactical thing to do would have been to kill them both as quickly as possible and leave the area before he was detected by law-enforcement. But Berret was beyond giving a frell about tactics at the moment, if the law showed up - he'd kill them also. He wanted something to quill the ache he'd been holding inside. He wanted to smooth the burning of rejection and the hopelessness he felt, and he wanted to make someone else hurt like he did.
These men created the situation and unleashed what he had had such a tight rein on. Now they could either bear the full blunt of his wrath or end his misery... if they could.
He circled with the laz-knife wielding brute and considered that perhaps there was a chance that these two surviving men might luck out and find a way to end his torment. The thought sent an odd thrill through him and Berret chuckled loudly in mad delight.
"Kill me, kill me, kill me!" he sang in a deranged melody.
"He's frelling crazy!" shouted the spear wielder.
"Shut up and try and kill the bastard!" the leader demanded.
The knife man circled Berret once more making feints with his weapon. Berret countered by slapping a few of the desperate thrusts aside with ease. "You missed," the Shrike taunted.
The thug attempted to trick the Enforcer by faking a wide slash and instead took a quick step forward with a drive at the other man's throat.
To his horror, the Shrike stood his ground and caught his stabbing knife hand by the wrist - stopping the attack cold in its tracks. The knife man found himself staring in shock at his supposed victim, he never even seen the man move and now he held his arm struck in a vise-like grip. The wild glowing eyes that regarded him didn't belong in the face of a sane man. The ruffian expected to die in the next instant, but the ex-Enforcer's maniac grin grew wider as he inspected the knife. The metal covered man held the thug's hand and arm steady with his left hand while suddenly holding up his right hand as if he were showing the head gang member the palm... almost as if the man were about to perform a magic trick for his attacker's entertainment.
The armored man chuckled insanely as he then pressed his palm down on the point of the laz-knife. The power blade burned through the leather of his half-glove filling the air with the sharp smell of the burning hide. The thug felt the blade abruptly pierce the flesh of the man's hand and the armor plate that covered the back of the limb began to glow red-hot as it began to cut its way through the metal from underneath.
All the while, the man held the gang member's stare with crazed eyes and a lunatic smile on his lips.
Within a few microts the knife's blade cut all the way through the plate to emerge from the back of the wild man's hand. He cackled dementedly at the spectacle and then turned his attention back to the mugger as they both gazed at the sight.
"Pain brings the mind clarity," he said with grim humor.
The gang leader replied with a strangled cry and finally made himself let go of the knife handle.
The Shrike lifted his hand up to regard both sides of it and the knife stuck through the limb. The madness seemed to slip from his face as he turned back to his attacker.
"But some pain only serves to cloud the mind further," he added with a somber look, as if revealing a dark secret of the universe. His fingers curled around the handle protruding from his palm until they made a fist. The blade stuck out the back of his hand like a spike. Without warning he threw a backfist at the gang leader, letting the knife blade slash through the side of the man's throat as it passed by.
The thug grabbed for his neck but was too late to stop the strike or the flood of blood that spurted in a wild torrent from his severed arteries. He sank to his knees as he choked on his own bodily fluids.
Berret watched the man for a moment before reaching over and yanking the knife out of his palm.
He crushed the blade's handle in his hand, destroying the power pack, the weapon sputtered and died as he dropped it to the ground besides the body of its pervious owner.
Berret flexed his wounded hand and then held it up for inspection. The microbes had been driven into an unusually high state of hyper-activity by his present unstable condition and were repairing the injury right before his eyes. The severe burning sensation in his limbs wasn't normal for his augmentation and he knew something was direly wrong about it. Of late, it had been the case when he lost control of himself but he didn't know what to do about it. In his more lucid times he considered that possibly the control collar had something to do with regulating his emotional feedback that allowed the microbes to behave normally.
However without the collar, he was like a Hetch-drive reactor on its way to a meltdown.
It had been happening more frequently and he'd found the only thing that made him calm, that allowed him to reassert his control over his veneer of civility, was being in Chiana's presence.
Somehow, the Nebari girl gave him the strength to stay focused.
A shuffle of feet to his rear reminded him of the last man.
"Oh! You're still here?" Berret asked in an off kilter tone. "I guess I'll have to do something about that."
The man was closer then the Shrike realized, he charged forward with his weapon at the ready. The homemade blade of the short spear slammed into Berret's side with the thug's full force behind it. The tip of the roughly sharpened metal hit one of the smaller overlapping plates of armor covering the Enforcer's ribs and skidded upward until it managed to slip between the plate above it. The armor worked well against pulse fire but its main weakness was the gaps and overlaps that allowed the wearer freedom of movement.
Berret made an attempt to turn with the blow, but the spearhead still penetrated far enough to stab through the ballistic suit he wore underneath the metal and cut into him to reach a rib bone. He felt the blade tip nick the bone as he spun away, the move made the slash in his flesh longer as the spear withdrew and he felt warm blood flow freely down his right side under his protective garb.
His attacker seemed momentary surprised he actually wounded the other man.
The sudden unexpected pain jolted Berret even more then the stunt with the laz-knife had. It was somehow different when someone else inflicted it. Just as when Arckatius and the Syndicate had done their worse to him. It focused his mind into a pinpoint of rage; only this time there was a way for retribution.
The spearman stood tight and held his ground, bolstered by the successful attack on the Shrike. His weapon never wavered even when Berret straightened up, ignoring the slash in his side to regard the thug with cold dead eyes.
"Oh yes," murmured the assassin. Cold metal blades slid from his braces with an ominous hiss. "Pain is the mind clearer."
The thug drew back when the Shrike extended one hand palm up, the blades reaching out at least ten henta passed his fingertips. The armored man smiled as he then beckoned with curled forefinger.
"Let's play."
Berret had started by slashing the remaining gang member's spear in to useless chunks... and then continued the assault all the way up the man's body until the Shrike had hacked him into uncountable pieces before he regained control of himself. Unfortunately, when his sanity found him once more he was standing over the remains of his victims howling in frustration that there was no one else left to vent his fury upon.
He glanced around him stunned at the carnage he wroth and he stumbled over to a nearby vacant shop to sit on the stoop before his legs gave out on him. His weakness was partly because of the microbes' demands on his system and partly due to the realization of that he let himself slip into the madness again.
He gazed at his bloodstained hands with self-loathing and considered that the pain from the wound in his side wasn't even close to a fitting punishment for what he'd just let happen. What would Chiana say if she could have seen what he'd just done? If she knew what a savage animal he could become without warning.
How could he ever be so foolish to think that she would want to leave with him? Perhaps he didn't deserve to be free of the Syndicate if he couldn't control this part of himself?
She had to be better off with the Luxan he concluded.
He rose from the steps and found a water spigot on the side of the building. Luck was with him as it still functioned and allowed him to rinse most of the blood and gore from himself. There was nothing he could do about the wound in his side without removing his armor. At any rate, the microbes had already started to repair the slash and he found himself becoming hungrier by the microt as they did their work at an accelerated speed. He retrieved his cloak from around the first dead man and refastened it over his shoulders. He was only mildly surprised to see that the fight had brought no one out to witness it. It was most likely because the denizens of the shantytown learned to stay away from those five men especially if they were robbing somebody else - least they become the next one to suffer their attentions.
He doubted anyone would miss them or call the law about the deaths.
Still he couldn't let the others of the Leviathan's crew know about the incident. If they knew just how close to the edge he constantly was they would attempt to drive him away... or kill him.
He wasn't ready to leave Chiana yet despite the dilemma she caused him. After she had healed and could see again then he would be free to go, not before. He had promised himself, given his word to her, that he would try. Well, he had tried and fate wasn't with him. All he had left was the promise he made to himself; he would stay until she was well again. That was all he could give her in return for the freedom she'd given him... and she'd made it clear that she needed him to be there with her for now.
After that he would leave, to return to the Syndicate and let Arckatius reap the rewards of what the Scarran had made of him.
He just hoped he could hold himself together until then.
"I still can't see!" exclaimed Chiana.
"It didn't work!" growled the Luxan at the same time.
The Diagnosan held up one hand with extended forefinger to halt them from further speaking.
"Take time," it explained, "Treatment... began... at optic nerve. Work... outward."
D'argo calmed a little. "So we have to wait?" he asked. The Diagnosan nodded its head and then replaced its mask before turning off the sterile field it operated under.
"How long?" added in Chiana.
"Will know... success... anytime in... next... three solar days," answered the healer. "If longer... than three..." the Diagnosan continued with a sad shake of its head, "no success. Treatment... fail."
Chiana swallowed hard once and attempted a brave face.
"Well, I guess we wait the three days then," she said. "Not like I have anything else better to do."
The Luxan frowned deeply at the news but elected not to say anything that might discourage Chiana from her hope. The Diagnosan waved for them to follow him into the next room.
"Come... give to you... herbal wrap... for eyes," it explained, "help process, increase chances."
D'argo took Chiana's arm and guided her after the healer. They entered a room full of supplies, files, and storage racks that seemed to be monitored by some sort of medical equipment. The Diagnosan rummaged around through his supplies, allowing the warrior to idly survey the room while they waited.
The doctor found what he was looking for and then returned to the couple and instructed them on how to prepare the herbs and how Chiana was to use them to cover over her eyes while they healed.
They were just getting ready to leave when D'argo got a closer look at what was on the shelves on the storage racks. At first glance he had taken them to be medication of some type stored in cylinder-like glass containers. Closer he realized the small ball forms looked very familiar.
"Wait!" he said as he brought the group to a halt by one stand. "What is that?" he asked, pointing a finger at the nearest cylinder.
The Diagnosan blinked its eyes in puzzlement while Chiana asked, "What's what, D'argo?"
"That," repeated the Luxan, forgetting for a moment the Nebari's blindness.
The doctor realized what the Luxan was asking and answered.
"They... patients... in molecular... bio-storage," the healer explained. "Serious illness... wait for... transport... to other facility. Better medical... care."
"You mean these are beings in those containers? And they are still alive?" shot in D'argo.
"What is it? What's going on, D'argo?" Chiana broke in, starting to look a little panicked.
The Diagnosan answered before the Luxan could inform the Nebari girl.
"Yes... safer way... for patients... to wait and... travel. Safer for others... no spread... infections."
Chiana wasn't going to wait anymore for anyone to clue her in.
"What is it, D'argo! Tell me what's going on!" she demanded.
The Luxan turned to the girl, it was clear the doctor wondered what his interest was in the patients also.
"It's the same round spheres that Crichton and Aeryn were turned into by that weapon," he told her. "The Diagnosan says these are patients waiting for transport to another hospital or medical center."
Chiana's blind eyes widened in surprise, "I heard that part," she said. "Do you think this means that Aeryn and John are still alive?"
"Maybe," replied the Luxan, he then turned back to the doctor. "Tell us, does the military forces here on this planet use the same technology as a weapon? Maybe to take prisoners without a fight?"
The Diagnosan nodded its head as it received the answer to the warrior's strange questions.
"Yes... technology used... by military... and medical. Also... law enforcement. Better way... quarantine... better way... capture... hold prisoners. Gentle... no harm come."
"Then they're not dead?" Chiana said.
"No... not fatal," said the doctor.
Chiana smiled with the news and D'argo found himself almost grinning for the first time since John and Aeryn's apparent deaths.
"Can you take someone out of this stasis? Can you bring them back?" he asked next.
The Diagnosan shook his head in the negative. "No," it replied, "Can only put... in suspension. Reassembly... only at... hospital... off world. Clinic... not big enough... for all technology. Military or... police... centers only... here."
Chiana's shoulders suddenly slumped.
"We're frelled," she moaned.
Berret made his way through the narrow trash cluttered street of the shanty section of the trading port. Most of the buildings were bricked or boarded up, the business that once had inhabited them had long since moved to more prosperous parts of the town, leaving the empty gutted structures to whomever want to make use of them. The streets themselves were little more then over grown semi-paved paths, littered by debris and the occasion loosened paving stones. The odor of over-ripe trash and humanoid waste drifted around the Shrike and he unconsciously tightened his midnight cloak around his body as if the garment could help keep the annoyingly unpleasant stench at bay.
The ex-Enforcer internally wrestled with the disappointment with his visit with the old witchdoctor. LaSaResh had been unable to help him rid himself of these feelings... the desires he found he had for the Nebari girl. At first conception, the idea of searching for Chiana had seemed like the correct course to take after he'd happen to stumble across the information of a group of outlaws traveling on a rogue Leviathan.
Since breaking them out of the prison, he'd reconsidered his decision in the light of hindsight. This was not how he had foreseen events unfolding... nor had he calculated for her rekindled relationship with the Luxan.
He muttered a low curse, as he contemplation that what he should have done was just depart as soon as she made it clear she didn't want to leave with him. Instead, he let her talk him into staying aboard the living ship. Now he was surrounded by beings that he could only consider as potential threats if not outright enemies. Chiana was the only one he could trust... and she was turning out to be the most dangerous to him.
Deep down he knew... he would do almost anything she asked - regardless of how big a mistake his instincts told him what she requested of him was. In some way he was more entrapped - bound to her - more surely then he ever was to the Syndicate by the control collar. The only difference being in this situation... there was nothing keeping him from walking away if he wanted too - but he found it hard to think about make himself do it, especially while she was in her present condition.
How do you fight against something so intangible as this desire for her company? Where bounds of steel and electronic manipulate could not hold him prisoner forever, how could she accomplish it so easily with just a soft appeal and a heartfelt promise of hope? Berret's lip curled up in self-loathing as he concluded that Chiana held him in grip more inescapable than Arckatius could ever have forged with all the power of his underworld empire.
He remembered the soulful eyes that had started chipping away at the collar's hold on him. The haunting beautiful voice as she sang in her cell. The rage she had awakened as she pleaded for his help as she was attacked. The near blinding pain of the collar as he tore it from his throat, the slaughter of the Syndicate men afterwards, the ever so savage need to avenge her. The pleasant confusion of her brief kiss and her moments of frenzy for him when she realized that he was staying behind to guarantee her escape.
He had hoped with finding her that she could find a way to look pass what he had been. The longer he remained free in his travels, the more he realized he needed her to find his center, to balance and cope with these new emotions that the control collar had suppressed for so long.
To help contain the rage that sometimes filled him since his release from the collar.
But Chiana had chosen to stay and settle into a life with the Luxan.
Her decision had been an unexpected blow to Berret. It had not occurred to him that the Nebari thief might not wish to go with him, that she had other plans for her future. The revelation only proved to Berret that he had much to learn about life outside the Syndicate as an Enforcer. As she sat in her quarters, staring blindly at him, she told him of her desire to make things right between her and D'argo. The Shrike knew then that he couldn't confess his need for her. That he wanted her help with sorting through the confusion his freedom from the Scarrans left him in. How he wanted so badly for her to show him how to become a person she could care for. He owned her his freedom... and Chiana wanted D'argo. Berret vowed to himself that he would never tell her about his desires... nor would he ever let on to her the torment he was in. The burden was his and he would carry the weight without concerning her.
However, it was so hard to be close to her... and force the feelings into dormancy. He had killed so many beings for the Syndicate in his life, why was it so impossible to kill these feelings within himself?
So many times they had made him come close to losing the control over his facade.
The brooding ex-assassin was so immersed in his own thoughts he didn't hear them until it was too late.
"Give us your credits, mother-freller," said the large shadow that abruptly blocked Berret's path.
His head snapped up at the voice and he was aware of several more footsteps closing in on him. To both sides, Berret now saw two more men move in to block his escape. The ragged looking thug on his right hefted a hammer that's peening end ended with a slightly curved spike to shoulder height in preparation to strike should he wander into the weapon's range. The one to the left held a length of pipe with a section of sharpened metal crudely welded to one end to make a short spear. He held his weapon ready just above waist level in the Enforcer's direction, his body cocked slightly to aid in trusting the spear.
There were at least two more behind him, probably also armed in some way, that Berret couldn't see. However the Shrike considered that they had taken the rear positions in the ambush because they were less better armed then their companions and they didn't want their victim to realize the fact. Normally, Berret would have berated himself for not being more attentive to his surroundings. Unbidden, the ex-assassin found the darker parts of his nature taking over; he discovered that the situation was beginning to please him in some obscene way. He found himself craving the conflict and the violence that was coming.
The man in front of Berret who had spoken first was most likely the leader and held the best weapon in the lot. In one dirty and scarred hand, he waved a laz-knife around, the kind used to cut ceramic flooring in building construction.
The knife had seen better days and while the handle appeared to have been broken at one time and mended with friction tape, the working blade itself still hummed and crackled with a decent energy charge. The edges flared white-hot as the man showed-off by recklessly manipulating the handle in his hand so that one microt it was pointed at Berret and the next the thug had a backhand grip on it. The display was obviously meant to impress his victims. The glowing blade swung back around in the Shrike's direction again and this time the mugger held it steady.
"Give it up!" the thief demanded, holding out his free hand.
Berret casually reached up and pulled the hood of his cloak down... and then smiled. He felt the thin veneer of control eroding away from him. The desires to lash out and scream his pain was beginning to pound like a Luxan war drum in the back of his head.
Perhaps this distraction would be just what he needed to take his mind off his tribulations.
"Hurry up!" the man instructed.
"I don't think this is a game you can afford to play," the assassin told the group.
"We're not playing, drenhead!"
"Neither am I. Run away and maybe I'll let you live."
The Shrike smirked mockingly at the man, knowing he was adding fuel to the man's precariously nervous ego. His contemptuous insolence would only escalate the situation faster toward bloodshed.
"We got you surrounded," barked the gang leader, "Just who the hezmana do you think you are?"
Berret gave him another cold smile and silver began to tint his eyes. His blood began to pound in his ears.
"I like to believe that... I am the deadliest creature you will encounter tonight."
The thug glared at Berret's defiance and took a menacing step forward, raising the laz-knife up to eye-level with the Shrike.
"Don't give me that dren!" he snarled, "Give up the money or we'll frelling kill you right here!"
In response Berret held up one armored hand, his smile abruptly faded and his face became a death mask.
"I told you, you didn't want to play."
As he spoke, the brace blades slowly unsheathed themselves from the gauntlet. The thief's eyes suddenly grew wide in surprise and fear as the wickedly serrated twin blades grew in length. Reflected light sparkled and danced along the keen edges.
"I hope you didn't bring anything you couldn't afford to lose," Berret said with a wicked grin, made all the more sinister by flaming silver eyes.
The two thugs behind the Shrike couldn't see the weapon attached to his forearm brace, taking the sudden changes in expression from their leader as a sign; they rushed in to grab Berret.
With his free hand, Berret reached up and released the clasp that held his cloak together around his shoulders. At the same time, he took a half step to his left while flinging the unfastened garment off and to his right rear to cover the head of the man charging at him from that angle. As the cape-like garment settled over the attacking thug and stalled his advance, his partner on the left made a quick attempt to seize his prey's arm only to feel the tips of his fingers graze the metal sheathed upper arm of man they were trying to rob as he easily twisted away and just out of reach.
Berret whipped his left arm upwards in an arc and smashed an equally hard armor-clad elbow into the face of the robber who just tried to grab him. He immediately applied the same tactic to the man who was still trying to untangle himself from his cloak. An audible snap accompanied the blow and the figure ceased its struggling to drop in its tracks. In the time it took to blink an eye, Berret had neutralized both men who had flanked him. He wasn't sure about the first man he'd struck, but he'd been an Enforcer long enough to know the sound of snapping vertebrae when he heard it. There was no doubt the second man was dead with a broken neck. In any case both were on the ground and out of the fight.
The ex-Shrike grinned savagely at the remaining men.
"Opps!" the Shrike exclaimed with a mock innocent look. "I seemed to have broke them."
"Kill him!" screamed the leader.
The man to Berret right side realizing now that his opponent was covered in armor plate reversed his hammer so he could use the spike end of the heavy head to punch through the armor. He screamed a war cry and rushed Berret, swinging his war-hammer high overhead to smash downward on the assassin.
Berret turned to meet the attack squarely. The brace blades from his right gauntlet snapped out to join the already deployed ones on his left arm. Berret thrust both arms upwards to intercept the blow - the blades crossing in an X to catch the hardwood handle of the hammer. The Shrike grunted slightly with the effort of arresting the attack and he felt his microbe enhancements kick in. The blades had caught the hammer's haft on their flats, with none of the three cutting edges in a position to shear through the wooden handle, Berret elected to sweep the heavy weapon off to one side away from him. The sudden shift of the hammer's weight in an unexpected direction made the man holding it stumble to that side off balanced. Berret chuckled in half mad glee as he followed up the block by quickly jabbing his left-hand set of blades into the man's exposed shoulder.
The attacker screamed shrilly as several henta of the T-shaped double blades pierced his flesh and skewered through bone.
The excitement of battle overwhelmed Berret; he found the bloodlust simultaneously sweet and bitter, making him momentarily forget his plight over the Nebari girl. He viciously twisted the edged weapons in the man's shoulder, purposely causing even more damage to the wounded man. The thug's accompanying howl somehow made Berret come alive, if he had to bear this strange pain he felt over Chiana - why shouldn't someone else suffer and share in it?
The man's eyes began to roll upwards in his skull and Berret realized his opponent was on the verge of passing out from the agony he was inflicting.
Suddenly the Shrike felt an irrational anger that the man was succumbing so soon.
How dare he escape by fainting while Berret had to still live his pain!
He brutally ripped the brace blades out of the man. Before he could sag to the ground, the ex-Enforcer stepped forward and slammed his forehead into the man's face, feeling his nose smash flat under the assault. The violence only went a small way in satisfying the rage and he hungered for more.
Berret stepped back and snarled his growing viciousness as the new body joined the first two. It was over too soon, he had only lasted a mere few microts. The man with the makeshift lance circled at a safe distance so Berret turned his fury on the leader with the laz-knife.
The Shrike retracted his brace weapons back into the armor, wanting to give the knife man a chance and to make the next encounter last longer. The tactical thing to do would have been to kill them both as quickly as possible and leave the area before he was detected by law-enforcement. But Berret was beyond giving a frell about tactics at the moment, if the law showed up - he'd kill them also. He wanted something to quill the ache he'd been holding inside. He wanted to smooth the burning of rejection and the hopelessness he felt, and he wanted to make someone else hurt like he did.
These men created the situation and unleashed what he had had such a tight rein on. Now they could either bear the full blunt of his wrath or end his misery... if they could.
He circled with the laz-knife wielding brute and considered that perhaps there was a chance that these two surviving men might luck out and find a way to end his torment. The thought sent an odd thrill through him and Berret chuckled loudly in mad delight.
"Kill me, kill me, kill me!" he sang in a deranged melody.
"He's frelling crazy!" shouted the spear wielder.
"Shut up and try and kill the bastard!" the leader demanded.
The knife man circled Berret once more making feints with his weapon. Berret countered by slapping a few of the desperate thrusts aside with ease. "You missed," the Shrike taunted.
The thug attempted to trick the Enforcer by faking a wide slash and instead took a quick step forward with a drive at the other man's throat.
To his horror, the Shrike stood his ground and caught his stabbing knife hand by the wrist - stopping the attack cold in its tracks. The knife man found himself staring in shock at his supposed victim, he never even seen the man move and now he held his arm struck in a vise-like grip. The wild glowing eyes that regarded him didn't belong in the face of a sane man. The ruffian expected to die in the next instant, but the ex-Enforcer's maniac grin grew wider as he inspected the knife. The metal covered man held the thug's hand and arm steady with his left hand while suddenly holding up his right hand as if he were showing the head gang member the palm... almost as if the man were about to perform a magic trick for his attacker's entertainment.
The armored man chuckled insanely as he then pressed his palm down on the point of the laz-knife. The power blade burned through the leather of his half-glove filling the air with the sharp smell of the burning hide. The thug felt the blade abruptly pierce the flesh of the man's hand and the armor plate that covered the back of the limb began to glow red-hot as it began to cut its way through the metal from underneath.
All the while, the man held the gang member's stare with crazed eyes and a lunatic smile on his lips.
Within a few microts the knife's blade cut all the way through the plate to emerge from the back of the wild man's hand. He cackled dementedly at the spectacle and then turned his attention back to the mugger as they both gazed at the sight.
"Pain brings the mind clarity," he said with grim humor.
The gang leader replied with a strangled cry and finally made himself let go of the knife handle.
The Shrike lifted his hand up to regard both sides of it and the knife stuck through the limb. The madness seemed to slip from his face as he turned back to his attacker.
"But some pain only serves to cloud the mind further," he added with a somber look, as if revealing a dark secret of the universe. His fingers curled around the handle protruding from his palm until they made a fist. The blade stuck out the back of his hand like a spike. Without warning he threw a backfist at the gang leader, letting the knife blade slash through the side of the man's throat as it passed by.
The thug grabbed for his neck but was too late to stop the strike or the flood of blood that spurted in a wild torrent from his severed arteries. He sank to his knees as he choked on his own bodily fluids.
Berret watched the man for a moment before reaching over and yanking the knife out of his palm.
He crushed the blade's handle in his hand, destroying the power pack, the weapon sputtered and died as he dropped it to the ground besides the body of its pervious owner.
Berret flexed his wounded hand and then held it up for inspection. The microbes had been driven into an unusually high state of hyper-activity by his present unstable condition and were repairing the injury right before his eyes. The severe burning sensation in his limbs wasn't normal for his augmentation and he knew something was direly wrong about it. Of late, it had been the case when he lost control of himself but he didn't know what to do about it. In his more lucid times he considered that possibly the control collar had something to do with regulating his emotional feedback that allowed the microbes to behave normally.
However without the collar, he was like a Hetch-drive reactor on its way to a meltdown.
It had been happening more frequently and he'd found the only thing that made him calm, that allowed him to reassert his control over his veneer of civility, was being in Chiana's presence.
Somehow, the Nebari girl gave him the strength to stay focused.
A shuffle of feet to his rear reminded him of the last man.
"Oh! You're still here?" Berret asked in an off kilter tone. "I guess I'll have to do something about that."
The man was closer then the Shrike realized, he charged forward with his weapon at the ready. The homemade blade of the short spear slammed into Berret's side with the thug's full force behind it. The tip of the roughly sharpened metal hit one of the smaller overlapping plates of armor covering the Enforcer's ribs and skidded upward until it managed to slip between the plate above it. The armor worked well against pulse fire but its main weakness was the gaps and overlaps that allowed the wearer freedom of movement.
Berret made an attempt to turn with the blow, but the spearhead still penetrated far enough to stab through the ballistic suit he wore underneath the metal and cut into him to reach a rib bone. He felt the blade tip nick the bone as he spun away, the move made the slash in his flesh longer as the spear withdrew and he felt warm blood flow freely down his right side under his protective garb.
His attacker seemed momentary surprised he actually wounded the other man.
The sudden unexpected pain jolted Berret even more then the stunt with the laz-knife had. It was somehow different when someone else inflicted it. Just as when Arckatius and the Syndicate had done their worse to him. It focused his mind into a pinpoint of rage; only this time there was a way for retribution.
The spearman stood tight and held his ground, bolstered by the successful attack on the Shrike. His weapon never wavered even when Berret straightened up, ignoring the slash in his side to regard the thug with cold dead eyes.
"Oh yes," murmured the assassin. Cold metal blades slid from his braces with an ominous hiss. "Pain is the mind clearer."
The thug drew back when the Shrike extended one hand palm up, the blades reaching out at least ten henta passed his fingertips. The armored man smiled as he then beckoned with curled forefinger.
"Let's play."
Berret had started by slashing the remaining gang member's spear in to useless chunks... and then continued the assault all the way up the man's body until the Shrike had hacked him into uncountable pieces before he regained control of himself. Unfortunately, when his sanity found him once more he was standing over the remains of his victims howling in frustration that there was no one else left to vent his fury upon.
He glanced around him stunned at the carnage he wroth and he stumbled over to a nearby vacant shop to sit on the stoop before his legs gave out on him. His weakness was partly because of the microbes' demands on his system and partly due to the realization of that he let himself slip into the madness again.
He gazed at his bloodstained hands with self-loathing and considered that the pain from the wound in his side wasn't even close to a fitting punishment for what he'd just let happen. What would Chiana say if she could have seen what he'd just done? If she knew what a savage animal he could become without warning.
How could he ever be so foolish to think that she would want to leave with him? Perhaps he didn't deserve to be free of the Syndicate if he couldn't control this part of himself?
She had to be better off with the Luxan he concluded.
He rose from the steps and found a water spigot on the side of the building. Luck was with him as it still functioned and allowed him to rinse most of the blood and gore from himself. There was nothing he could do about the wound in his side without removing his armor. At any rate, the microbes had already started to repair the slash and he found himself becoming hungrier by the microt as they did their work at an accelerated speed. He retrieved his cloak from around the first dead man and refastened it over his shoulders. He was only mildly surprised to see that the fight had brought no one out to witness it. It was most likely because the denizens of the shantytown learned to stay away from those five men especially if they were robbing somebody else - least they become the next one to suffer their attentions.
He doubted anyone would miss them or call the law about the deaths.
Still he couldn't let the others of the Leviathan's crew know about the incident. If they knew just how close to the edge he constantly was they would attempt to drive him away... or kill him.
He wasn't ready to leave Chiana yet despite the dilemma she caused him. After she had healed and could see again then he would be free to go, not before. He had promised himself, given his word to her, that he would try. Well, he had tried and fate wasn't with him. All he had left was the promise he made to himself; he would stay until she was well again. That was all he could give her in return for the freedom she'd given him... and she'd made it clear that she needed him to be there with her for now.
After that he would leave, to return to the Syndicate and let Arckatius reap the rewards of what the Scarran had made of him.
He just hoped he could hold himself together until then.