Author's Note: Hey guys! Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up. Thank so much to everyone reading this so far! It's a silly story I had in my head, and I'm loving that so many of you are enjoying it. Thanks!

Chapter 5

"We'll have to get him to the infirmary," said the doctor, who was looking at the discarded vial. "Is the spider still alive?"

"No," said the captain, rising from checking her pulse, "But we can fix that."

The doctor nodded at his two assistants, who bustled the unconscious Faize into a stretcher. Sapphire and Jupiter each had their own attendant, who was scanning them over with a device that Sapphire was pretty sure was some sort of tri-corder.

"Good," said Caine with satisfaction, "We can revive her and find out how the hell she got on board this ship."

Sapphire was about to comment on bringing people back from the dead, but then she remembered the captains comments from earlier.

She started to shake all over. She had just watched someone die. She nearly died herself! And then Faize almost died, and she had been the one to save him. It was all happening too fast. Dizziness overwhelmed her, and she had an intense need to sit immediately. She stumbled to sit on the bed, as her alarmed nurse followed her.

"You're just in shock, lovey," she said, helping her to sit down. "Drink this, and you'll feel better."

She was handed a tiny pouch full of liquid the colour of a robin's chest, and the nurse ripped the tab off the top. With shaking hands, Sapphire tipped her head back and downed it in one gulp. It trickled down her throat like hot tea, warming as it went. Her shaking levelled out, and she felt like she could breathe again. She smiled weakly at the nurse. "Thanks."

One of the Captains guards, the bird-like one, put a pair of cuffs around the assassin's wrists. He pressed a few buttons on them, and the body of the splice began to glow. The guard hauled her into the air, and she floated along like a balloon. He swung her up, and dropped her unceremoniously onto the stretcher.

As she watched, she realized that Faize had already been taken away. She looked around frantically, an intense feeling of needing to be with him nearly overwhelming her. It made her pause a second. Why did she want to be with him?

"You coming?" Asked Jupiter, as she and Caine moved to follow the body out the door. He had one wing protectively draped over her shoulder as they walked side by side. Sapphire felt another pang of jealousy for their easy intimacy.

"Unless you wish to get some rest, we'd understand," he added, "We could find you a less... damaged room."

Sapphire looked around. Her bed had a small pool of blood left behind by Faize, and another, larger pool was smeared against the wall, just below the still smoking crater left by Caine's gun.

"No," she decided, "I need to find out what happened." She wanted to curl up in bed and pass out. Maybe cry a bit. But she also wanted to know. She also knew that now wasn't the time to break down. She was a strong-willed woman. She could handle a little chaos and destruction. And death. She glanced back at the blood and gulped. It was also much safer in the radius of a trained fighter.

"Let's go." She waved Jupiter and Caine out the door. Jupiter offered her a understanding smile.

The infirmary was two floors down, and was about as clinical and stark as she imagined it. All of the bed were empty, except the one occupied by Faize.

The splice was still unconscious, but the correct colour at least, had mostly returned to his skin. There was a nurse nearby, yet another splice, but this time is was pretty obvious what she'd been spliced with – a rabbit. Her ears were long and pointed, her skin 'pointed' like a siamese cat, a dark mocha brown on her nose and mouth, ear tips and hands. The rest was a creamy tan colour. Sapphire couldn't help but think she was oddly beautiful, despite her alien appearance.

She bustled around tidying and cleaning, but stayed out of their way.

"Pff, He's still out," snorted Caine, and hopped up to sit on the neighbouring bed. The nurse shot him a dirty look, but didn't say anything.

"Now what?" Asked Sapphire, shifting her weight awkwardly. She didn't want to sit on a bed and muss it up, but there weren't any chairs to sit on.

"He'll wake up any minute now," said Jupiter, who then turned to the nurse. "Can we get a couple of chairs?" She smiled and nodded, and returned a moment later with three lightweight metal folding chairs. They were so low-tech that Sapphire almost laughed. She took the one the nurse handed her, and sat down.

Without saying a word, the nurse held one out to Caine, who looked at the chair, then at her. He smiled slowly.

"The bed is comfy, thanks."

Jupiter laughed, "Take the chair from the poor woman, and let her clean up the mess you made of her bed."

His eyes flickered to Jupiter, and his smile grew wider.

"As you wish." He hopped off the bed and flicked open his chair seamlessly.

"I should have never let him watch Princess Bride," muttered Jupiter.

"What was that?" asked Caine, mischief saturating his voice.

"Nothing, if you know what's good for you."

He was grinning now, his pointed canines clearly visible. He leaned back on the hind legs of the chair, and half opened his wings to help him balance.

"You're in an awfully good mood all of a sudden," commented Jupiter.

He shrugged, "At the moment, we've got a dead assassin, and it appears that Faize isn't the enemy. I still don't like him, but I can at least relax a little bit around him. And he's unconscious right now, so I'm sort of happy about that. Though, I do want to know what happened," he added thoughtfully.

"Stop being so happy," grumbled Faize from the bed, "I'm awake now." He grunted and heaved himself up.

"Are you okay?" Asked Sapphire, jumping to her feet.

Caine snorted, "Of course he's okay. I'd be worried if he wasn't okay."

"I hate being poisoned," he complained. He looked at Sapphire out of the corner of his eye, and winked. "I'm fine. Thanks to you."

She blushed furiously, confused as to why she was blushing so much, which only made her face burn even brighter. "It's okay," she mumbled, "You saved mine first."

"Faize," said Jupiter, rescuing her, "What happened?"

He sighed, wincing, and swung his feet out from under the blankets.

"Oiy!" snapped the nurse, "Get back in bed! You need at least another hour before you can be on your feet!"

"I'm fine-" he growled, only to be met with an equal growl from the nurse.

Sapphire wasn't the only one surprised by the mettle in the quiet nurse. All four of them looked at her in shock.

"Yes Ma'am," acquiesced Faize, hefting his legs back into the bed and under the blankets. "You both terrify and intrigue me."

The nurse only smiled and turned back to her work.

"Damn." That was Jupiter.

"Yes?" Said Faize, who was looking defiantly at Caine, who looked a little conflicted. "Something to say?"

He coughed. "No, nothing. So, you were saying?" He looked far too interested in Faize's story.

The Ossumur's eyes flicked to the nurse, then back to the others.

"I'm a spy. An Assassin by profession."

"Really? We didn't know!" jeered Caine.

"Hush, let him talk." Jupiter punched him lightly in his shoulder. He only grinned.

It was weird to Sapphire, how much friendlier everyone was being. Caine had been so intimidating before, grumpy and anxious. Now he was almost entirely relaxed, goofing off a bit, and same with Faize. He was much less defensive and twitchy. Here Sapphire was sitting, adrenaline still coursing through her body, unsure if she was going to survive the next ten minutes. How could they be so calm?

Faize glared at the winged splice. "I have a skill set that makes me particularly suited to finding other spies and assassins. I also happen to have certain unique equipment to help me with this."

Caine sat up at that. "What kind of unique equipment?"

"The kind that can't be easily caught by that stealth resonator of yours."

Caine growled, suddenly no longer as friendly, "It's designed to break through every possibly stealth tech out there."

"Exactly. Which is why I developed one specifically to get around it." He held up his hand to stave off Caine's outburst of frustration, "Don't worry, I only made one, and I kept it for myself." Faize grinned a toothy grin, showing off his own sharpened canines, "Wouldn't do for my competition to get their hands on this."

A low rumbling was coming from Caine until Jupiter swatted him on the wing. "Jesus Caine, calm down. Let him finish." The growl abruptly stopped, and he leaned back in his chair, mollified.

"Like I said, I made this tech for me, and even powered down, it constantly looks for the stealth fields of any potential attackers. When Your Majesty and Lady Sapphire left her quarters, I also left, but before I got too far, I noticed two things.

First, my sensors picked up a shield. Someone was nearby, and they were cloaked. Secondly, I noticed this Oaf trying to follow me."

Caine opened his mouth to retort, but a restraining hand on his forearm stopped him.

Sapphire was still stuck on the 'Lady' part. Was she a Lady? She wasn't exactly very 'proper', but she had agreed to take on this fiasco, even if she was now regretting it a little bit.

"I knew that in order to both lose the dog, and follow the trail, I'd have to stealth myself. My range is only about 3 meters, so I couldn't even communicate what I was doing without leaving the trail or revealing myself. I could only hope that I wasn't noticed as missing while I tracked him. I followed the sensor into the Cargo hold, hoping to corner him, But Caine was more observant than I gave him credit for. He saw me go into the cargo, and planted a guard on the door." He sighed.

"While I was tracking him, I couldn't actually see him. It's sort of like a primitive dowsing rod, I only know the general direction. He couldn't see me either, but he noticed the guard, and seemed to know that he was trapped. I followed his trail to the guard, but he was dead before I could react quickly enough to save him. Unfortunately, my trying revealed me, and he panicked and ran out of my range. Caine was the one that led me to where he dragged the body. The assassin was nearby, and I picked up her trail, as I now knew her to be a spider splice. She was quick, deadly. Faster than I was. She got ahead of your resonators, and I lost her again." He growled a little, more of an angry sigh than anything else.

"I knew her target was probably one of the ladies, so I stuck close to you, still unable to reveal myself, since I didn't know how far away she was, and knowing that until we caught her, you wouldn't believe me and leave yourselves open to attack while you were focused in the wrong direction."

"My shield still needs some work, and if I move too quickly, even the resonators will pick it up. I had to stay behind your bubble. I followed you all the way back to Sapphire's room, when the sensor went off again. I saw the spider, and I reacted. You know the rest."

Caine huffed, scratching at his beard. "I believe you."

"Really?" echoed Faize and Jupiter together. They both looked incredulous.

"Not that I'm going to argue with you, when I agree, but you don't usually make up your mind like that." stated Jupiter, eyeing him suspiciously.

He only smiled that slow, charming smile of his at her. Sapphire was glad that the smile wasn't aimed at her. Alien or not, it made her knees wobble. "I asked the wonderful nurse over there to give him a shot of Lerinobium."

Jupiter looked confused, but Faize immediately sat up in outrage. "That's... Not against the law," he grumbled, defeated, "And while I would have likely done the same, I'm still angry," he finished, disgruntled.

"What's Lerinobium," asked Sapphire, confused.

"Ah! I remember now," exalted Jupiter, "It's a truth serum of sorts. If he had tried to lie, he'd have gotten violently sick, right?"

Caine nodded. "It's not exactly moral, but necessary. Toridar is likely using it as we speak to interrogate the spider."

"Hold on a sec, detour," said Sapphire, unable to hold off the question any longer, "Why do you keep saying spider? Don't you mean it's some sort of alien spider-like thing? Like how Faize isn't a snow leopard or a cheetah, but something like a snow leopard or cheetah?"

Faize laughed a bit. "I can answer that."

"Across the galaxy, a lot of shapes and animals tend to re-occur. In Carbon-based life forms, at least. And with the guidance of the original humans engineering planets to sustain life, it happens more and more often. Caine, for instance, isn't exactly a wolf, but he might as well be. Something like wolves tend to appear on nearly every human planet, just like variation of cats and rodents and birds are going to always show up. Successful shapes will continue to evolve, simply because it's successful.

"Core insect groups tend to repeat themselves too, like spiders, and-"

"Spiders are arachnids," said Jupiter and Sapphire at the same time. They giggled as Faize sighed.

"Okay, fine, things with exoskeletons then, tend to repeat themselves." He glared pointedly at the girls, inviting them to interrupt.

"And then some animals, like bees, are intentionally cultivated to remain the same across planets. Bees are actually not native to any planets bearing human life, except for the original planet. They found that Bees were a necessary building block to a successful planet, and they'd be introduced to every planet they seeded."

"Huh." Sapphire mulled that over. "Are there life forms other than carbon?"

"Yeah, there's -"

Brngggg Brnnnng!

Sapphire started and she fumbled for her pocket it surprise.

"Why is my phone ringing?! I'm in space!"

Jupiter let out a hearty laugh, "We've rigged up the ship to be able to send and receive calls," she said over the sound of the drums in the ring tone, "Since my family doesn't know about this. Go ahead and answer it."

Deep in de ocean, dead and cast away, sang the phone. Sapphire looked anxious.

"It's Kelsey. Shit, we had plans tonight! What do I say?"

"Anything but the truth," Caine nodded at the cell phone, "We don't know if we can trust all of your friends."

Where innocence is burned, in flames.

Sapphire looked irritated at the implication, but took a deep breath and answered the phone.

"Heeey Kelsey, I am so sorry,"

"Saph! Jesus, Where the hell are you? You sound all tinny."

"Ah, yeah, I'm, uh, Something came up, I won't be able to make it tonight."

"The hell does that mean? We've been planning this girls night for a week. It was your idea!"

Jupiter caught her attention, and whispered, "Tell her you got sick!" Sapphire nodded.

"Look, I'm sorry Kelsey, but I think I got food poisoning or something, I feel like shit."

"Food poisoning? Balls. Why don't we come over to your place then," she said cheerfully, "Then you can be close to the toilet, and we can still have our girls night."

"That's not going to work," said Sapphire quickly, trying to remember all the symptoms she had when she actually had food poisoning.

"I'm sweating buckets here, and I'm running a fever," she tried to sound run down, "And I don't even know for sure it's food poisoning. It could be the flu too."

"Oh ugh, stay away from me!" laughed her friend, "all right lady, you win this round. Feel better, see you next week!"

"Thanks," said Sapphire weakly.

"Love you!"

"Love you," she mumbled, and hung up. For a moment, Sapphire actually looked ill. "I don't like lying."

Jupiter looked sympathetic, "I know, it sucks, but you're going to get real good at it soon."

Suddenly tired and exhausted, Sapphire looked over at her new friends. "What now?"

"Well, that story should give you a few days. I think we should go claim your title."

"Claim my title?"

Faize groaned, "I hate that planet."

Caine grinned, "Wonderful. You should be all better just in time to escort your Lady around it."

"In order to claim your title, we have to... jump through a few hoops. It's a pain in the ass," grimaced Jupiter, "But I've done it before, and we should be able to make it a bit easier. Maybe."

Faize got to his feet, and stretched his back, grumbling.

"How... How long will it take us to get there?"

"Oh, just an hour or so."

"An hour?!"

"Warp speed, baby!" Joked Jupiter, who grabbed Sapphire's arm, "Technology is great. Come on, you need some clothes that don't scream 'primitive' "

"These clothes aren't primitive!"

She didn't respond. She just smiled and continued to drag her away.