THEY SEARCHED THE TOWER THOROUGHLY.
All resistance they eliminated, and it took them only a half-arn to clear the tower and check for their prey. The Se'em'aari Triad came back together in main operations. Against one wall, those who had not offered resistance were still alive, quiet, and watched.
"No trace, Sister Nihijji." The tallest of the three said in her soft voice, her silver mask rendering her features invisible.
"Unfortunate, Sister Aikijji. Yet our trail is not cold." The third sister was prowling the operations, checking computer records and video feeds.
"No, Sister. Not yet cold." She pointed to a bank of monitors. "I have found him."
"Excellent, Sister Iskijji." They joined her at the monitors. Thereon, Crichton relaxed in his cell. "A fine prize, Sisters." A pair of nods. Iskijji gestured toward the living tower residents.
"There is no resistance now to his acquisition." That seemed to galvanize one of the living, who stood, irate.
"Wait a frelling microt! Do you know who I am? I am Strad'ail'leevis – the Warlord of this space and ruler of this system! That is my prisoner! How dare you assault the Ashkelon! This will not go unpunished!" Strad'ail'leevis' pride had been wounded when he'd surrendered meekly as the Triad had stormed his tower. Now he sought to regain some of it.
Sister Nihijji turned to him, the featureless silver mask reflecting his own flushed face.
"Ashkelon, I fear neither you nor your clans. You will punish no one from oblivion. Perhaps it is best for you to ponder such an outcome." The deadly quills in which she was covered flared slightly for emphasis. Strad'ail'leevis spread his hands and smiled his most ingratiating smile.
"Forgive me. I was perhaps too …hasty. Obviously, you are accomplished beings, and of course, all know the reputation of the Triads of the Se'em'aari Sisterhood. I am the Warlord here. Perhaps, we can negotiate. You want Crichton. I have him. As bounty hunters, I know you are solely in this for the monetary compensation…"
Nihijji's quills suddenly flared higher, and it was only an instant before she killed him that Strad'ail'leevis realized his error.
"They know nothing of the Way." Aikijji sniffed. The rest of the living cowered away from them. They were ignored. "This place is a prison, Sister Nihijji. There are many more guards. The Warlord, he was…" A series of alarms suddenly went off, and Aikijji nodded. "…As I suspected. Sensors have registered and recorded his death. Alerted his forces will be."
"They are of no concern." Nihijji told her sisters. "Only Crichton matters."
So saying, she led them from the room.
When they were gone, the V'rahn, Strecum, rose and checked over the dead warlord - and then went to the command board, informed Be'bari'a that her lover was dead and she was now in command. Be'bari'a, for her part, hated her ersatz lover. She shed not a single tear over his death, and already had a long list of changes she was going to make with his 'empire'. D'Strand'm'tah she despised with all the fury of a petty woman who thought of herself as a jilted lover – even though she was not one. She could not hurt him physically, so she would punish him in other ways.
On her orders, Strecum opened the cells of all two thousand prisoners.
As predicted, they immediately rioted.
Outside, the Triad paused as they heard the prison explode, then calmly split up.
CRICHTON WATCHED HIS DOOR SLICE OPEN.
All around him, he heard the rest on the block he was in do the same, the murmur of the prisoners and then the yells begin. It didn't take long for the place to explode. He pondered it for all of five microts, then pushed his way out into the corridor. Fires were starting to flare, and debris of various sizes was flying. Already there were bodies strewn all over. The frelling warlord had put him pretty much in the centre of the prison, in the heavy security wing, and he managed a corridor or two – having to knock a few heads together to get there. He knew he could probably get out relatively easily – but that wasn't why he was here. Somewhere on this wing was a small family of ladies who were in exactly the wrong place.
According to what he'd been told, Rial and her daughters would be in the centre of the prison, as he had been, maximum security, only they would have extra security, supposedly. To have any of them die or otherwise be harmed (unless it were beyond the Warlord's control – like a riot, say) while in Strad'ail'leevis' custody would be exceedingly bad form. Granted, he doubted a riot was in anyone's plans, but you went with what you had. It would neatly make escape for a group of females through an all-male prison impossible. They'd be safe, as far as that went – for a while at least. He just had to get there in one piece, himself.
As he made his way through the prison, he encountered the bodies of guards and figured it wasn't worth searching them. Given the amount of gunfire he could hear, he doubted the dead guards still had weapons, and the living ones weren't about to give up any without a serious fight.
He'd checked about half the special security cells as he entered the particularly high security area of the High Security Area, and started to wonder if he shouldn't become religious: as he turned a corner he saw the weapon and affects storage area – and it had yet to be breached. Also fortunately for him, he hadn't been searched all that thoroughly. He didn't wait. The din of the battle between inmates and guards was ebbing in and out of this section, and the last thing he wanted was the tide of it washing over him. He found the seam he was looking for and extracted his Miriya-built jammer – or as he could use it in this case – un-jammer. A sophisticated electronic lockpick, he slapped it to the door, activated it and kept an eye on his surroundings as it did its work.
The jammer pinged, and the door slid open. Crichton hurried in. It only took him a few moments to find a pair of "girls" and their holsters, and less time to strap them on.
Feeling much better, he cast a quick glance around the rest of the room and saw something else that brought a smile to his face – a Renvekja-class Assault Rifle. Built much like his Forge, but using particle energy instead of Chakkan Oil, it was swift and deadly, and he helped himself, checked the charge. Fully charged and ready to go, which was particularly fortunate as a large inmate unexpectedly found the room and with a roar – possibly mistaking him for a guard due to the uniform, charged across the room at him wielding a rather large and jagged piece of already-bloody metal. Crichton didn't hesitate – the Assault Rifle punched a clean hole through the guy. He actually managed a few more steps before his brain realized that he was dead and he crashed to the floor virtually at Crichton's feet. Outside he could hear the yells and screams - the prisoners and riot ebbing in and out of the sections – and it was moving closer.
Damn. He looked at the corpse at his feet and knew that he couldn't avoid making more of them. He didn't know if these people were innocent or not – whatever the local's idea of 'justice' was – but he knew he couldn't afford the luxury of choice – he couldn't afford not to use deadly force.
If he wanted out of here in one piece – if he was going to accomplish what he needed to accomplish, he would have to kill today – often and a lot.
He stepped out of the room, armed and as ready as he would ever be.
First things first, he told himself. If I could choose otherwise, I would. But I can't. All I can do is live with it.
He made his way to Rial's cell, and he created a reputation that day that dogged him for the rest of his life, confirmed and expanded on his 'legend' and if it could have been said it had a positive effect, it made a host of bounty hunters and enemy soldiers actually fear him, which, whether he liked the idea of not, saved his life innumerable times in the coming years.
As he walked the corridors, like a fictional man-shaped machine in a movie no one here had ever seen, Crichton killed anyone who came too close. That the majority of them would have killed him without a moment's hesitation made no difference in his mind. He had stepped over some limit in his own head and he knew he could never go back.
This was the cold-blood kind of killing, and he couldn't stop. He didn't dare. Somewhere there were innocents who would literally be violently violated and torn to pieces if he didn't save them.
He knew he'd arrived when he turned a corridor and saw the group of hooting, slavering males scrabbling at a single door. A scream told him that they'd managed to open it.
He shouted… something… a word, some inarticulate growl, howl or roar – he didn't remember, but he got their attention. Some went in after the females, and some came on at him, and he drew his pistols, knowing his rifle would be useless in this coming melee. It slowed down, and he found his vision astonishingly clear, saw the onrush in startling detail, could see that metal rod coming slowly at his head, and that fist cruise leisurely through the air, count every hair, or scale, or tooth and claw. His pistols came up and he could see them with the same radiant clarity, see that his right-handed pistol had a smear of blood on its side and an odd scrape that looked like a lightning bolt.
He fired and watched men drop and die, and he didn't think about it. He just did it. One got too close, a kick in the chest threw him back and a pulse-blast flung him into oblivion. A face come too close and the butt of his pistol would smash it away howling. When they managed to get under his pistols, he broke bones, he crippled men with his knees and elbows and heavy boots, and he never heard a word they said or a noise they made.
A woman was screaming, a girl was crying in fear.
Crichton slid in multicolored blood, inflicted pain and death but he never wavered. Panting in fear and intimidated by the ruthlessness of his attack, the survivors bolted away, scrambled back down the corridor.
Crichton stepped into Rial's cell and he stopped, was noticed. A yell from one of the men within, in whose bloody hands a young girl struggled - perhaps twelve cycles old, perhaps thirteen - stilled the entire room. For a few moments, a tableau was struck – in the doorway, a grim-as-the-reaper black-clad warrior and half-a-dozen would-be rapists all charged with adrenaline and lust, armed to the teeth with cudgels and blades and rage.
Something in Crichton told him to try. There was a creature inside his chest howling viciously for blood, telling him to kill and keep killing, to survive, survive above all else. It felt a million years old, and it was a rapidly growing monster that threatened to take him over. The side struggling to restrain the monster told him that if gave them the choice, he wouldn't feel so bad, he might stink of their blood a little less.
"Leave," he said in a voice he didn't recognize. "You'll live."
One laughed. One shook the girl in his fist like a ragdoll and told the others to kill him.
Crichton killed him first. They slowed, stopped, looked at their dead leader, back to him. Another cursed, leapt forward and died.
One guy told Crichton they'd leave, but the monster in his chest would have none of it.
Four to ambush him later. Four to try again. Four to threaten his survival. He killed the last four without mercy or hesitation, and felt pieces of himself go quiet.
Before him, four women looked at him with the same fear, and he felt that that is all he would ever inspire from now on - until he saw the wisp of hope in the youngest daughter's eyes.
The monster hesitated.
Crichton looked again at that hope and realized that maybe, just maybe, the monster had its place. He had destroyed violent men who would have savaged the women before him with even less mercy he had shown those selfsame males, and he felt the growing weight on his chest ease off, a little, the monster taking several steps back.
Whatever gets you to tomorrow, it told him, ruthless to the end.
That's all I've got, he told it, hoping some part of it was true.
Rial checked her daughters, forgot the man in the doorway for a moment, and aside from tears and scrapes and a few bruises, they were unharmed. She looked back as she heard the door close and the tall man in the black guard uniform of her husband's forces slump against it. She straightened, motioned her daughters to form behind her and stood tall, faced him.
He took in her bearing, saw the dignity, the poise and he couldn't help himself, smiled at her, which seemed to take her by surprise.
"D'Strand'm'tah sent me." Was all he said, and it was enough. The girls hugged each other and their mother, chattered at one another excitedly. He, however, nipped that in the bud.
"At the moment, ladies, I'm all there is."
"I am…" Rial began, but he cut her off with another smile and a nod.
"I know. We have to go." He straightened, tried to turn, but she stopped him with a hand on his arm.
"Can you? Forgive me, but you look like dark death itself." Crichton looked down at himself, realized with a start that he had not come through all that unscathed. He could feel wounds start to complain, as he wound down from whatever had powered him through that crowd of the now-dead. No matter.
First things first.
"We have to go." He told her. "Stay close to me, and do not, under any circumstances, wander off." He said it lightly, wearily, and Rial smiled, squeezed his arm unexpectedly, the warmth of it and the instant trust it seemed to convey giving him new energy. He checked the charges on his pistols, saw he was in good stead, opened the door.
Save for the corpses of the men he'd ploughed through to get here, the hallway was empty save for bouncing yells and distant screams. He risked a quick glance down another hallway, saw that the one just to his right led to the central security station, sighed with relief. That would be perfect. All he had to do was get the ladies there, lock the frelling place down, then find a way out, to a ship and get off the planet. Easy. Something would come up. It always did.
It wasn't his best plan, but it wasn't bad. Inmates were still running and fighting, flitting through the hallways before him, but they had a relatively clear path to the security hub.
"Head down that hallway," he told them. "Go calmly." They went and he backed down it behind them, eyes watching any bodies going by. He'd killed three more that charged up the hallway at him in as many minutes, and he was finding it harder to regret them – wondered idly if it would just get easier. He had Crichton's memories, Crichton's ethics, his distaste for violence, but he knew now that some of those ethics, and that distaste, would have to go. John had had the luxury of those choices.
He didn't.
He paused at the security door that cut the hallway to the centre in half, checked quickly for guards, who would be as much a threat to them as the prisoners, was gratified that the hall and the room beyond was empty. He pulled the door closed behind him as he urged the women on, heard with satisfaction the lock snick home. As he closed it, he saw through the heavy glass the inmates he'd left behind suddenly appear to panic, some dropping.
Guards? More inmates were spilling into the corridors he'd recently vacated, and they too were fleeing something. Even as he was backing away after Rial, he saw more of them drop, many come running after him, only to be stopped by the locked door. He saw a desperate face, saw that face suddenly look terrified, heard thunks of objects hitting flesh and that face slowly sliding out of view. Behind the dead, Crichton glimpsed a figure in a silver mask – and she was killing anyone who did not run.
One of those masks looked up the corridor and Crichton got the urge to move faster. By the time he and Rial had reached the end of the corridor, and the security office, a silver mask was looking through the window of the door, and the intent was obvious.
Frell. He realized who they were with a sudden clarity. Bounty hunter. The hunters? Probably. This day just gets better and better.
The mask vanished and he knew she was looking for a way around, and that the time he thought he had had abruptly vanished.
THE VIGILANTE PULLED AWAY FROM ELACK.
Crais had been correct that the Peacekeepers would treat her better. She told them what he told her to tell them, and she got a berth rather than a cell. They would, she was informed, drop her near a system where she could secure transport back to Abbanerex. Any of her inquiries as to Crais were firmly ignored. "He's a Peacekeeper prisoner," is all she would get.
For his part, Crais felt remarkably sanguine about it all. He had done his best. He'd had some remarkable experiences. He had, he believed, learned a great deal.
He had been a farmer's son.
Until his eleventh cycle he had grown up in a family dominated by his father, his mother having died in childbirth delivering his brother. He had learned positive values, love of life, the respect for the inherent worth of growth. He was sponge for knowledge, he never forgot a thing, never failed once in the pursuit of his goals, driven by a father's pride, driven by needs he did not understand.
There was nothing in that early life that would have precipitated the birth of a monster.
He had stepped from one life with its lessons, into another with its demands. He had not been given the choice to make the decision, but once in…
He had become a child soldier, one in an army of millions upon millions – an army that no longer knew the why of itself. An army of machines of flesh – stripped of values replaced by demands – to survive, be brutal - to conquer, be cold - to rise, be ruthless. You will have become an elite.
Out of those millions upon millions, that boy who watched, absorbed, learned – learned well and had clawed, intrigued, subverted and murdered his way to the top – as high as he, conscripted as he was, could aspire. He had his true religion, his one rule, his one true love:
Through power, there is no fear. Through power, there is order. Through power, there is control.
He knew the demands.
Order is the sole goal of the Peacekeeper. The universe itself seeks higher levels of order as a natural consequence of itself – and Peacekeepers are merely a function of that natural order. They are the Fist of Order. You will be the Weapon of Order in that Fist.
So ran the writ.
Power had its privileges, most certainly, but somehow power in and of itself always rang a tad …hollow. No matter how high he climbed, his power was provisional. It had taken him a very long time to learn that particular lesson, but he had learned it, finally. No power is absolute if it can be taken away.
There was always a bigger, more ferocious monster above you, one with sharper teeth climbing behind you.
However - by the standards of his society, he had done little wrong, indeed, he had done much that was right, in their eyes – he had been at the height of his power, and power mattered.
What did it matter what was required to keep that power?
Remember the Creed: Order Above All. Keep The Peace.
So he had been a slaver? Those who cannot rule themselves must needs be ruled. Peace by Imposition.
So he had killed without thinking, without feeling, without hesitation? Peace Through Strength. Strength is Power. There is no justification for power but power. He couldn't be effective if he were impeded.
It had been easy, as it always was, to fall back on the handy excuses: duty, breeding, this-is-the-way-of-things.
I was a soldier, and a soldier's duty is to follow orders, to smash his enemy, to die well.
But Bialar Crais had been a farmer's son. The son of a man who valued the power of life, of the strength gained through growth, who understood that growth was as essential to those who coaxed the land to life as the land itself.
His father had been rife with metaphors.
"I give you and your brother up because I have been allowed no choices, Bialar. You will have to make those choices for me, as you go. Help your brother see them. Remember who you were taught to be, remember where you come from. Grow and be strong."
But he had been young, and the collective voices of the millions upon millions… well, they spoke to a lonely and discontented boy who found himself powerless.
He had forgotten.
He had learned the lesson of growth, had thought it had meant to aspire, but he had never learned just what it was he was climbing toward. He had forgotten to grow.
Not until…
Velorek.
No. He'd been the catalyst, but not the reason. Of that entire incident, he remembered her face most vividly.
That pilot from the Pleisar.
She had done her duty – as had been expected.
He had extinguished the traitor - as he'd deserved. Order must be served.
So, why, he had wondered then, as he did not wonder now, did she look as if he had pronounced her own doom? She had done nothing but her duty. So they had been recreating - had she been so weak as to step over the line and romanticize something so basic and meaningless as sex?
She was watched, but she was lost in the ranks of the Pleisar, happy with her duty.
How things can change.
A brother's death, a day of madness that stretched into cycles and lessons taught on a farm twisted beyond recognition. He had thought he'd remembered then, but all he knew by then was hate, and how subtle it could be. He never realized that his masters knew nothing else, and that all Peacekeeper training amounted to was power for its own sake, fueled by hate and disdain. He had become the monster they had taught him to be, he had sought to make himself in his quest for power.
Why had I condemned her so summarily? Because she defended an enemy? Been contaminated by the murderer of my brother?
No. Now he knew the lie of all that had set him on this path, now he could tell himself the truth.
I condemned her because I hated her. I hated her for that look on her face so long ago. I did not recognize it until much later - the dread of betrayal, the agony of duty over love, the terror of knowing that you can never go back and fix what you have broken. I hated her because she had been born Pure, but she had been weak.
In the coldness of a cell on a ship bound for his death, Bialar Crais stood alone, and knew that he had been defeated all those cycles ago – before he had even begun.
I am the author of all their unhappiness.
He had been a farmer's son. She had been born into Peacekeeper life. How had she grown? How had she learned so much more than he who has started life so mundanely – so frightfully normally?
He had known, she had told him, but he had not understood.
"Listen well to thine enemy."
Of course, his enemy.
John Crichton.
Weak. Inferior. Insidious. Contaminant.
He remembered the line, remembered it from a forbidden book:
To know thyself and thy destiny;
Listen well, O warrior –
To thine enemy.
An ancient Peacekeeper General had penned those lines, over three thousand cycles ago. General Averni M'sekol'm, Seventh Era, Pre-Reformation, V'rogath Campaign. The Last Era, before Power became all, and honor meant more than just climbing the ranks. When an enemy could be respected, destroyed only grudgingly, only because of necessity. He had thought it ridiculous.
Aeryn had shown him as she had showed Talyn. She'd continued to teach him his enemy's lessons.
This is what it means to need someone.
There is no 'need' when one has possession. To possess a thing is enough. The thing either advances you or hinders you. Possession controls it's direction. It gives, you take. If it does not give, it is discarded. Simple, basic. Never allow it to determine your direction.
This is what it means to need someone.
That had been a terrifying thing to witness.
The man who had inspired Aeryn Sun to such heights of ecstasy and longing, desire and strength – inferior? She had stepped from outside control into domination of self, into the letting go that returned far more than had been given up. For a moment, for only a moment, he had seen matchless strength, real power. Power that gave life, that defied death.
The disease of love.
It just didn't seem possible.
What do I owe to the dead? What do I owe to the living? I am a monster. I cannot make amends. I have done too much for forgiveness. I cannot seek redemption. All I can do is pay. I have had power, but I have never been strong. I have had longing, but I have never had love.
Listen well to thine enemy.
I've listened, Crichton. I have learned.
Crais smiled to himself. Talyn had been afraid of Crichton, of his seeming power over his beloved Aeryn. Her need for that man had terrified him.
Shall I tell you what I've learned? I was the arbiter of your path. I sent you on a journey that delivered you firmly into the hands of fate. Yes, I understand fate, now. If it had not been for me, you would never have found her. More importantly, she would never have found you. How odd to think of it – I am the poison that heals. I am an engine of destruction that forces all in my wake to rebuild – for the better, but not because of me – in spite of me. I think I understand it now, imperfectly, but I am on my way.
He thought about it, about the 'Other' Crichton, remembered his father.
What are you? What were you? What can you be? Are you a poison that heals or is Talyn right to fear you?
There were no recriminations to be made. Only choices. The choices not made, he realized, was as important, in many ways, as the ones that were.
Crichton - you are another rife with metaphors.
I am a farmer's son.
IT TOOK HIM A GOOD THIRTY MICROTS to notice the two glowing eyestalks of a battered DRD staring at him from a vent in his cell. The DRD from Elack. Crais suddenly saw a chance, slim, but there.
"DRD of Elack," he called it. "I need your help." The little machine chirped and he took that as an acknowledgement. "You must disable the Peacekeepers on this vessel, so that I may escape, in the most expedient way possible. Do not damage the ship beyond usefulness if you can avoid it. Can you do that?"
The DRD chirped, and slid away. He had no idea if the DRD could actually do anything. There were twenty troopers on this ship, a formal Retrieval Squad. They were not to be taken lightly by any means. A quarter-arn went by and nothing happened. Another quarter-arn and Crais was beginning to believe that the DRD would fail or already had when he felt the air pressure in his cell suddenly tighten on his skin, saw a red light flash on the console that controlled this set of cells. Crais felt the whole ship seeming to slide to one side, stabilize. Lights went out and he knew they were off all over the ship.
It was abruptly silent. Worse than the dark, however, was the sudden realization that the air in the cell was becoming rapidly thinner. Crais was gasping when the lights suddenly came back on, and his cell door opened without warning. He gasped, started to see spots forming in his eyes from lack of oxygen and was wavering when the air returned in a gush. He caught himself, righted himself, sucking in great gulps of air like a fish out of water.
He regained his senses, stepped out of his cell, listened intently. Across the way, the door to the cells opened, stayed open. If he expected anyone to enter, he was disappointed. He left the cells, made his way cautiously to where he knew Muukarhi would be. He did not get far before he found the first Peacekeeper corpse. And then another, and another. He checked them, discovered they had all died the same way – suffocation. He made it to the ship's command and discovered the same thing – all dead of suffocation. Sitting calmly on a console was Elack's DRD. It chirped when it saw him. Beside it, Muukarhi smiled up at him.
"There you are," she said in way of greeting. "I was trying to figure out this comm system."
"What happened – do you know?" he asked, starting to suspect the DRD may have taken him more literally than it should have – not that he was complaining.
Muukarhi shook her head.
"I was in my 'cabin' when the power abruptly went out. I think this DRD had something to do with it."
"Yes, it came to my cell. I asked it to do what it could to help me escape. I think it may have taken me at my word."
Muukarhi nodded.
"According to the computer's log – this DRD sent the ship into something the computer calls a 'Level Delka Purge Cycle'?" She glanced back at him, and he thought a moment, nodded.
"Clever." He stepped forward, shoved the pilot's body from her chair, sat. "The DRD made the computer believe that the ship had been contaminated with radioactive chemicals. It then vented the entire ship to space."
Muukarhi looked faintly horrified.
"You told it to do that?" Crais shook his head.
"Not at all. I told it only to disable them, not kill. It apparently took the most expedient way it could compute."
"That would explain why we almost suffocated." Muukarhi said, sitting in the co-pilot's chair. "But not the power outage."
"The Purge Cycle is an emergency option." Crais told her, trying to re-familiarize himself with the ship controls. It had been a long time since he'd done any hands-on flying. "The DRD diverted power to our locales in an attempt to preserve the oxygen in those places, and the computer dealt with it as enemy interference."
"And shut the power off." She finished to his nod.
"Fortunately, however, not until after it began to replenish the atmosphere."
Crais remembered enough, he figured, to restart the ship. He activated the pilot's interface and found it locked. He sighed. Of course it was locked. And as long as it was, they were going nowhere. It would not unlock without either a command code or a biological scan, and none of the commandos on this ship wore any rank. He rose, realizing that it would be grim work indeed in gathering all the corpses on this ship and trying their palm and retina scans in turn on the controls. No wonder Muukarhi didn't like Peacekeepers, he mused, grimly bemused. They made everything much more difficult than it needed to be.
He turned to Muukarhi to tell her what they had to do when he was distracted by her shout and discovered that they weren't the only ones to escape suffocation when he was suddenly charged by a large shape that crashed out of nowhere.
HER NAME WAS ISKIJJI.
Behind her silver mask with its exquisitely fine filigree work, a stylized face that appeared only when light hit it just so, she surveyed the dead before her with mild disgust. It had been slaughter, with no finesse. The Prey was before her, behind doors and locks and security, but it would not matter. She would find a way. She and her Sisters always found a way.
Iskijji moved back down the hallway, past the carnage the Prey had left in his wake, nodded to herself. Impressive. Formidable Prey was always to be cherished. She was vaguely disquieted that he had seemingly plunged into what could have been suicide for females that did not belong to him. No matter. He was Contracted, he would be Secured. She rejoined her Sisters as they came back together. She informed them of the Prey's current location, and Sister Aikijji investigated the door. Bypassing the supposedly impenetrable was her specialty.
Iskijji saw her elder sister's mask turn back toward them. The fine work on it was heavier, more intricate. She had Hunted for far longer than had Iskijji.
"Sister Nihijji – the power for this complex is in tiered conduits, staggered grades of generator, specific by floor and doors. Please find the conduit to this section and disable it."
"At once, Sister."
Iskijji watched her go, heard a yell as a prisoner roared up a branching corridor only to die instantly as Nihijji killed him without even glancing in his direction. Nihijji then disappeared from sight.
A few moments later the power in their corridor flickered, then the corridor went dark. Iskijji heard the snick of locks jam home, and Aikijji then deftly opened them again. Behind her mask, Iskijji smiled. Se'em'aari were not, as a rule, thought of as fine technicians, and it was not something the Se'em'aari themselves liked disseminated. As the corridor went dark, however, the inside of Iskijji's mask lit up, revealing the corridor in fine detail. She could see the position of every heat source in the near vicinity with perfect clarity, and she knew that the technology in her mask would be paid for dearly by many of the so-called 'tech-adept' races if they knew. Aikijji motioned her Sisters to proceed and they fanned out across the broad corridor toward their objective. The Security Centre had independent power sources, and all locks and defences would still be in place.
Sister Nihijji, however, was most adept at using the defences of the Prey against itself.