Nivirl's eyes opened to an oblivious blur. Gradually some form began coalescing, along with the awareness to struggle to perceive what he saw. A female in a medical laboratory servicers' uniform was pulling into focus. With a rush of clarity, his vision cleared. His dazed eyes corrected his observation: make that a female with short, somewhat ratty or spiked hair; an elegant, beautiful face; wearing a medical laboratory servicers' uniform without the smock robe across her bared shoulders; and amazing breasts over half bared by a bodice that had broken all but a single strained fastener from being too tight. A smile spread across Nivirl's face as his mind and body reacted with comforting predictability. "It failed," he sighed.
"We abducted you before your initializations completed," the vision explained.
It occured to him, then, that he was in a facility, laid out on a gurney while a few motley people were milling around. "I'm still trapped on Rotnil," he realized with a rush of panic, his speech slurred.
"He's reinstated enough," the female informed the others.
Nivirl found himself staring at the strikingly sexy lady and lulled from his alarm. He watched as she donned the headpiece and smock robe of the servicer's uniform. Nivirl found himself drifting back to a near panic. "Ifth gonga get ouu," he said, blinking at his own slurred speech.
"Perhaps not," the lady decided to correct her assessment to the others.
"We must go now, Shian," another announced, hurrying for the door. "The frellniks finally sounded the alert," he tapped at the small silver disk imposed upon his forehead.
"Grithnek," the sexy vision named Shian uttered the grisly curse under her breath, shoving the rising Nivirl back down onto his back and pushing the gurney toward the door with a reckless haste. "Open the door and cover, Vishnir, I'll go out first," Shian ordered.
"I'll cover our rear," a fourth accomplice announced.
"A welcome change," Shian muttered.
Nivirl watched the last sight he had seen before succumbing to the meds - the doorway to the instatement room - pass around his gurney in a refreshing reverse. "Bye," he held a hand up in an elated farewell to the doorway.
The lady suddenly released the gurney. Nivirl cringed and grasped onto the bars at the sides of the gurney as it rolled away from her, until his uncontrolled trip was suddenly stopped as an officer intercepted his gurney. Nivirl gasped in panic, but his gasp was cut off before he could complete it by the shock of seeing the officer's chest shot by pulsefire, blue blood spraying all around, including into Nivirl's startled eyes. As he attempted to blink, he felt a calm overtake his awareness.
"Grithnek!" Shian cursed again, shoving the injured officer aside and pushing down the corridor with the gurney and its load of fainted Nivirl. "Iachi!"
Approaching the door to the ward, Neclin stepped back in polite deference to the approaching Evaluator. The older man looked up from his intel pad to nod slightly to the younger med tech. Neclin reached to gesture the door to open for them when it swung open of its own accord, a gurney rushing headlong towards them. Their eyes widened as they stepped to one side, holding the door open by the handles that had swung at them.
The Evaluator's widened eyes followed a bouncing bust displayed upon a rather well endowed Nebari female rushing past him, other people also running with the gurney as it sped past. The female nodded a quick 'thank you' as two Nebari males followed, one flustering with a pulse pistol. The men remained agape as they let the door swing closed, only to hear a sudden, hard 'thwok!' as a guard hit the glass door head first and flew back. The guard landed on the floor as a rush of guards suddenly came to a screeching halt around him.
The Evaluator discreetly stepped back a few paces, his eyes widened with shock quickly drawing into fear as the rest of the guards opened the door and dashed again after the wayward gurney. Neclin watched as the Evaluator backed himself rather nonchalantly into the adjoining hall apparently oblivious to anyone's presence. Neclin double-took as a moan rose from the floor. The downed guard staggered drunkenly to his feet, clutching his forehead as he fumbled a hand outward for the door and opened it again.
"My guide," Seln spoke up to Tathon. "This stage was not emphasized to me as being essential. Our time grows short," he lowered his head, looking up to Tathon in an indirect suggestion.
As Anlai knelt beside Noranti and opened her case, Tathon allowed explanation; "The miochromic sensors of the transmutes given to the Leviathan gather intel of a certain scientific nature. The Fourth Strain, inside the - specimen, will be able to gather what may be seen and heard."
Anlai's eyes widened at the sudden suspicion the mission might not be solely for scientific observation. But other uses would surely be inappropriate, she reminded herself. Perhaps they needed to have an individual's eyes and ears in order to confirm certain aspects, she considered, and for all she knew it was vital research. It was definitely inappropriate to question her betters so, she reprimanded herself, anxiously casting her attention back to her work before Tathon could see her reaction.
Seln watched Anlai place an odd looking device over Noranti's mouth, two prods reaching up into the old woman's nose. He raised his brows and shook his head slightly.
"It is only -"
Seln halted Anlai's offer of some explanation with an upheld palm. "You're the scientist."
"No, I'm the technician," Anlai corrected as the probes shot two needles up into Noranti's nasal cavity. She winced at the way the old woman began to moan in her sleep, seeming to be in an obvious agony as a black screen on the device began to show up various different colors until the probes were finally extracted. She glanced up to Tathon, shaking her head as she turned the machine to Jool.
She clicked her tongue against the roof of her mouth as Jool's reaction to the biopsy type test was even worse. Diath had to come hold the Interion's head down to keep her struggles from harming her as Anlai impatiently waited for the coloration results. She shook her head again as she took the device away. "They are not compatible to the Fourth Strain design."
Tathon sighed as he jumped down from Pilot's console. "Begin the sweep for more crew."
Iachi muttered under his breath, keeping his pistol upraised as he tried to scurry around the gurney and open the approaching door. It was too difficult to scurry around the gurney, so Iachi attempted to scramble over the gurney. The awkward attempt fumbled into an awkward straddle over Nivirl, complicated by an entangling, clingy bedsheet. Jostled by the struggle, Nivirl shook his head as consciousness dimly returned. Opening unevenly seeing eyes, Nivirl squeezed his eyes shut and reopened them at the distinctly different sight of a scruffy male in an ill-fitting tech servicer uniform astraddle him. Nivirl decided, at any rate, to resign to unconsciousness instead.
Shian ducked Iachi's flailing boot. "Iachi!" Vishnir called from alongside Shian, "Quit playing around! Watch your bo-" his reprimand cut short by a boot landing in his face. Shian kept one hand on the gurney and grasped Vishnir by his collar until he recovered his direction.
"Neeegikis!" Iachi cursed, "Frelling - frelling sh - sheets got a mind of their own!" Iachi gave up his struggle with the diabolical bedsheets and aimed his pistol for the door's latching mechanism. His shot struck its target. "Ah! It'll open, go ahead!" he told Shian.
"This is the right transport access?!" Shian cut the urgent question as the group hurtled towards it.
Momentarily preoccupied pondering the question of when the last fastener withholding that magnificent display of bust had given up the ghost, Iachi was at something of a disadvantage in issuing a prompt response. Belatedly, he looked up to the sign, finding he could only partly read it from his position. "Emergency landing delta!" Iachi replied, "Yes go go go go!"
"You'd better be right IaaaAAAAA-" Shian's warning turned to a scream as the gurney and all on and around it plunged from the doorway into empty sky. With a springy, crackling crash, the lot landed one story down onto the top of thick cushioning installed for the landing of emergency vehicles. Iachi blinked into the startled, blinking gaze of the suddenly alert Nivirl. Vishnir struggled to get himself raised off of Shian, bent back across the gurney in front and under himself.
"You were wrong," Shian observed to Iachi in a level tone that made Iachi cringe.
"...Landing pad like this would be a good enough escape," Iachi offered, glancing down between himself and Nivirl to see her face looking back up to him with lips pursed to nearly invisible. Iachi cringed again.
Vishnir extracted himself, next finding himself staring back at a young man standing on the walkway. The young man seemed unimpressed. "Oh Nerri," Vishnir reported while quickly untangling his legs from Shian's, "We got him."
Nerri rolled his eyes and looked aside down the walkway, to where their commandeered escape vessel waited at Emergency landing delta - of the opposing wing.
"Somebody do something already?!" the fourth accomplice called from the wall, where he dangled from the building's emergency vehicle access doorway threshold.
"We - we were going to meet you there, ah," Shian stepped apart from Vishnir as unaffected as possible and straightened the small laboratory servicer's cap still perched on her ratty hair, "why, ah, why are you ah...?"
"Here?" Nerri helpfully completed the query with a pat smile. "Yes... Well I'd heard the rendezvous was emergency landing delta in that wing," he gestured with a coy quirk of his head, watching an edgy smile wax and wane on Shian's face, "so... I thought I'd meet everyone here."
"D'Argo," Chiana shook at him desperately. "D'Argo!" She wrenched her face with a small, sharp cry, taking one of his tankas. She bit into it. D'Argo's eyes fluttered but nothing much else happened. "Frell!"
She could hear them coming as she took his qualta blade. She activated it in rifle mode, turned as the Nebari stepped through the passage door and fired. They scattered, firing back as she twisted in place, caught between making a run for it and protecting D'Argo's body. Frell it, if they had Moya the crew was already screwed. She was on her own.
Chiana ran, lugging the qualta blade awkwardly as she came back through the corridors. She nearly ran into Tathon and Diath. She screamed as she whirled around, the other two coming up behind her, the fifth raising his tanzer from appearing down the third, adjoining corridor. She ran for him, swinging the qualta blade at his head. Seln caught the blow in the shoulder and went crashing against Moya's wall, but managed to grasp Chiana's leg.
Tanzer fire followed, two brilliant white flashes striking into Chiana. She collapsed over Seln as Tathon stepped to her. He gazed down on them with a mild interest in Chiana as Seln pushed her off of him. "She'll do perfectly. First," Tathon creased his brows as he motioned them to take her. "We better take care of the little matter of her memory."
Lamen helped Diath take Chiana up by her arms as she began to groan. Her eyes opened. The two men quietly ignored her, seemingly unphased by her moans and weak struggles as they dragged her through the corridors to the docking bay and into their ship.
Anlai scratched at her temple as she quickly went ahead of them and past the slanted gurney in the laboratory section of the transport. Chiana's head lifted as she saw it. She screamed with a new found strength to get away. The Nebari all but threw her against the gurney as she thrashed and kicked. A wild punch sent Lamen's head flying back.
Anlai swallowed hard and lowered her head, gazing from beneath her silver and ashen bangs, slightly bouncing on one foot with her hand clasping her upper arm from around her back as she waited. She had never seen any Nebari act so wildly, thrusting out her hips as they strapped her arms and legs down. It looked like she was biting at Tathon until he pushed a gold arm across to her forehead level and turned it on. The Nebari female instantly relaxed, although a trembling hum continually escaped her, her fists clenching and unclenching in the straps as the gurney began to tilt further back.
"Please, please," the young woman pleaded in low murmurs, her eyes unable to stray from the soft glow coming through the arm device hovering over her head. "I-I won't say anything. Don't mind cleanse me, please!"
"Shouldn't take long," Tathon assured Anlai as he fitted the Nebari female with a headset and then turned to the console just behind Anlai.
"My guide," Anlai spoke up with some alarm as she dropped her hands. "A procedure like this could be seriously detrimental to the processing of the transmutes if she is given them."
"A Nebari is a far better choice for a specimen than aliens which have not been experimented with," Tathon patiently stated as he drew his fingers along the console. Behind him Chiana let out a sharp grunt as her head came back and her hips jerked out, her arms and legs straining against the straps as her entire body rigidly contracted. "You have only to fulfill your duty. So, too, the specimen also will serve a greater good," Tathon continued mildly. "This mind probe will not cause any adverse affects, only correct the... error of believing she has seen us on board this ship. You may proceed with the Fourth Strain injections."
Anlai visibly winced as she stepped closer with her testing device and fitted it over Chiana's mouth, shooting something up into her nasal cavity. Chiana's head rocked, her eyes rolling to the back of her head as she began to spasm.
"I know," Tathon sighed as he glanced back. "It looks bad but she's reading out just fine. Just a few more microts and we can leave."
"She is compatible," Anlai spoke nervously, clearing her throat as she shot an injection through the needles. Chiana's blood trickled from her nostrils as her eyes fluttered back.
Just as quickly as it had tensed, the Nebari female's body became completely relaxed once more. Anlai rubbed at her temple, knowing too well she wasn't cut out for this dren. Any microt they'd just decide a good mind cleanse would cure her pathetic attempts to look unaffected by such justifiable torture.
Anlai stared into the face of the Nebari female as they released her from the straps. Diath and Lamen turned to dragging the female back into the docking bay by her arms. Anlai met into the gaze of the Nebari females' eyes as they barely opened, as if in defiance to forget them. Her head lolled in a dulled attempt to keep her consciousness as Diath and Lamen dragged her out. They dropped her arms, dismissing her existence sprawled on the floor as they carried back into the transport.
Anlai shook her head to herself as she turned back to the laboratory and devices, her gaze meeting on Tathon then. "The end of the wormhole, my guide?"
"In perfect timing," he smiled a contented satisfaction as their ship began to lift out of the bay.
