Outside in the rain stood a single tree, slowly withering in a barren stone courtyard surrounded by the walls of the Peacekeeper complex. Scorpius watched for a moment, seeing his reflection in the glass.
He was lacking sleep. As he examined his body and focused on his internal imperfections, he could tell. Scarrans hardly ever slept. Sleep was one of his Sebacean weaknesses, which no amount of training or mediation could ever rid him of.
He looked again at the schematic in his hand. A neat layout of the connections within the Command Node and its counterparts, every part, every nut and every bolt, and every calculation and formula necessary for it to keep a large ship running for several cycles. A Leviathan could be fitted with such a Node, like any other ship.
A disturbance in the glass, a fleeting black silhouette in the corner of his eye, and suddenly Scorpius noticed how abandoned this hallway truly was. He turned to the figures in the shadows. "SHOW YOURSELVES!"
Preceding their presence came a waft of air, a hot ripple like an aura, and then an outstretched claw.
It was one of the horse-faced Scarrans, lower class. They didn't even bother to send one of the elite to attack him.
"Scor-pius."
The rays of heat emanating from the Scarran's claw was redirected into Scorpius's face now. He could feel the mind probe searching around the edges of his mind their fire burning through the walls of his mental fortress. The fortress had many rooms. The veins of his skin wanted to burst open, his eyes were boiling in his skull, as were the cooling rods inside which slowly melted at the Scarran's touch. And yet the Scarran raised the temperature it seemed, unsure of whether he was making an impact. Scorpius knew he was no match (another Sebacean weakness), but he could bide for time knowing there was a complex of Peacekeepers that could barge in at any moment.
The Scarran lowered his arm, and the heat suddenly dissipated. Scorpius gasped for air, sliding down the glass with his back against the window, the tree the only witness except for...
Another Scarran emerged from the shadow. Now Scorpius was impressed.
"Stop wasting time!" the Scarran barked. "Use the spike!"
The first Scarran opened his claw, and the second Scarran handed the instrument over. It was literally a spike, the color of bone, shaped like a syringe but sharp like a blade, the technology blinked inside the handle. As the Scarran raised his arm, Scorpius looked up.
The arm came down in a fast stabbing motion... stopping right before the tip of the spike would touch Scorpius's leather-bound skull. The Scarran stared into his eyes, slowly breathing, pretending to finish the job, and Scorpius smiled.
In the corner of the hallway, a camera quietly recorded the ordeal.
Fess peered around the corner and saw it. The Scarran was still in the Maintenance Bay, oozing confidence. His hearts beat faster. There was something strangely exciting about sneaking up on the creature. Fess could feel the spirits of his ancestors goading him on to fight the monster, and kill it in whichever way was best.
The Scarran's armor was strong, but limited. Judging by the amount of skin it was showing, it clearly didn't think anything could pose a threat to its thick hide. A soft sliver of smoke emerged from its nostrils when it exhaled, and as it examined the workbenches, it hovered its claw over the tools and spare parts.
"What's it doing?" Rygel asked over the comms.
Fess had no idea. Something felt strangely off.
On his homeworld, when he was little, Scarrans used to tower over everyone. They were long and spiky and brutal. Their squads would occupy the marketplaces and demand a cut of all the food. When the natives failed to comply, they'd take the nearest citizen and use their mind probes until they'd lost consciousness or died, just to send a message. Fess wondered where they hid this weapon, or whether they emitted this heat from a special gland in the palm of their hands. He doubted they could actually read minds. It was torture, plain and simple. Heat breaks the will of any liar.
The Scarran found a sharp implement and examined it in front of its long face. It glimmered in the lights. He dug the point deep into the skin of his shoulder and twisted the handle. As he did so, he started eying his surroundings and Fess hid behind a bulkhead to stay hidden. It looked as if the Scarran was removing something from his skin, like a chip embedded in his bones.
Fess took a deep breath behind the bulkhead, and looked again. The Scarran was gone.
"Pilot, I can't see him. Is he still there?"
A DRD chirped at Fess's feet as it drove next to him.
"Negative. He's on the move."
Fess imagined the map in his head, knowing exactly which corridors he could take to intercept the Scarran, but did he really want to? Scarrans were dangerous, but not impossible to take down. As a tracker, he knew, every animal has its weakness.
With Scarrans, that weakness was...
"Ice. You ordered some ice?" Chiana showed the soldiers the bucket she was carrying.
They were visibly tired and in no mood for jokes. She had to give them a way out, and they'd lazily take it. Lazy people were the easiest of all, 'cause they'd take the least effort to try and stop you. Unless they were smart, than they probably already took the necessary precautions to prevent what she was about to do.
She turned her head to the side a little, pouted her lips and kept firm eye contact with the first soldier. They were wearing practically the same she was. Dark leathers, guns and knives strapped to her body, black gloves and power packs on her belt. She practically could've passed as someone in their unit. Changing strategies, she slammed the bucket of ice in his face and disarmed the second soldier just before he dropped to the floor unconscious.
She missed her furs. The black leather was efficient and sleek, but not as seductive. She could never pass as a servant woman in this outfit, or someone else they'd like to frell. After all, they had limited imaginations, if they were even allowed to think at all. The Nebari kept their soldiers drugged at all times.
Chiana shrugged, dusted herself off, and stepped over the bodies to reach the button to open the door. They swung open.
The first thing she noticed was the destruction. Peacekeeper interior design was minimalistic, almost as unimaginative as the Nebari, but functional, and beautiful in its own way. She secretly liked the red and black color combo, although it could do with a dash of white.
Something crackled under her feet as she entered. A piece of a broken glass ornament. The light was dim and she couldn't find a switch. The bed was a slab of black furniture with functional heated sheets, except those sheets were ripped apart and thrown across the room. The table was destroyed. Pieces of a chair were sticking from a toilet bowl.
Chiana searched the room, fearing the worst. What if her brother had been killed? Or worse? It didn't matter if he was brainwashed. Nerri's still her brother.
Except there didn't seem to be any signs of struggle. This was the kind of pointless destruction Chiana recognized all too well. If she didn't know any better, this could be something she liked to do in a bad mood.
Their breath fogged against the glass of their helmets. Slowly moving their bulky necks, they turned to face each other. Unfiltered sunlight reflected off his partner's visor in the void. Slowly his hand hovered over the controls of the pack attached to his suit. One push. Two pushes. In controlled bursts they fell in free flight, the world spinning around them as they moved either left or right. The Leviathan above them became larger and larger until they could see the wrinkles in her mechanical skin, and the hole cut deep into her side. Slowing down with bursts to counter their fast approach, they neared the hole and attached themselves to the side with metal cables. One signalled the other to the location of the hole, and moving from checkpoint to checkpoint, they found the edge and climbed inside. In the darkness, they found a ship, asleep.
They raised their protective visors and one Nebari nodded to the other, following the Scarran's trail inside.
Braca could only threaten the Scarran vessel a certain number of times before he lost all measure of credibility. He contacted General G'dishi, to co-ordinate the movement of their Command Carriers to shepherd the Nebari and Scarran vessels away from each other, but he remained unresponsive. A third and fourth Command Carrier had entered the sector, awaiting orders, but without General G'dishi's direct orders they wouldn't move to his direction.
Braca kept his patience, even as the situation threatened to slip from his grasp. The Nebari had already offered to take care of the situation, but he was going to keep the peace no matter what the cost.
Scorpius was lifted from the floor and placed on a gurney. He was lifeless, unresponsive, and drooling.
"How could this have happened?" Commander Losthan was furious. "How did those Scarrans enter this base undetected?"
He paced from one end of the crime scene to the other.
His inferiors were speechless as the footage of the attack repeated itself over and over, on the screen hovering in mid-air. As the square screen footage spun around, the tiny particles rearranged themselves in the air to form pixels from dust, and as Commander Losthan waved his hand, the particles swirled and formed a three-dimensional image, extrapolated from the footage.
"THIS," Losthan spoke, pointing at the virtual spike being driven into Scorpius's skull. "is an attack on Peacekeeperdom. Is our internal security a joke?"
The soldiers straightened their backs. "No, sir!"
"Lock this place down. Search every room. Anyone without proper clearance is to be executed on sight."
The soldiers scattered.
"Sir!" Private Cordlin spoke. He handed Losthan a pad. "You may want to take a look at this, sir. Scorpius wasn't attacked without reason. He's been building something..."
"A Command Node?" Losthan blurted out. "He has a Command Node?!"
The Scarran waited as the two Nebari infiltants approached, although it didn't seem pleased to see them.
"You are late," he spoke. "And I grow tired of these games."
The Nebari smiled as they removed their helmets.
"Don't worry, Charnok. Everything is going exactly as Scorpius planned."