Captain Vir waded through a billowing cloud of choking neon smoke. His lungs burned as the hot exhaust washed over his face, seeping into his skin. The diffused red light from city neon glowed over half of his face, highlighting it in red.

He pressed his face against his jacket trying to block out the choking smoke that attempted to invade his lungs at every turn. His boots clattered against grimy metal as they broke from the cloud of noxious steam and onto the first section of oxidized catwalk.

Heavy footsteps followed behind him, and as the smoke cleared, Sunny cursed, or at least he assumed it was a curse, it wasn't in English after all but the guttural vocalizations of her own language, which seemed to have no translatable equivalent.

It took him a moment to figure out what had upset her so much before realizing that the catwalk they were on, was a little less than well maintained and a little more than a deathtrap.

"Is there another way around?" Sunny asked as the two of them leaned over the low, rickety handrail and down into the abyss that stretched before them, where the pulsing red mist still swirled in slow undulations. The catwalk didn't go the entire length of the chasm, but sort of cut diagonally across to where the chasm dead ended at their final destination.

"Not unless you want to walk all the way around." He said, resting his hand on the rail and gently tugging at it. Little specks of grime and flakes of rust rubbed off on his hand, but the handrail remained firm, which was a good sign if not completely encouraging, "Looks like we are going to have to walk across."

Sunny didn't look particularly pleased, and he couldn't really blame her for that.

He wasn't too thrilled either.

Turning to look, their destination – which couldn't have been more than 100 meters away – might well have been a mile off.

"Afraid of heights?" He wondered, gently testing the metal before him with half weight on his front foot.

She stayed behind him, "No, but... inexperienced perhaps"

That made sense, when he had been on Anin, the Drev hadn't had the technology to fly, and her only other travels must have been inside shuttles. Not to mention that her particular homeland wasn't known for its soaring heights or rocky cliff-faces.

"Just stay behind me, and try to step where I step."

She grunted, whether in exasperation or agreement, he did not know.

He kept his eyes down towards his feet, though occasionally he glanced up to determine their progress.

The side of the city they had come out on – after traversing miles and miles of rickety fire escapes – was rather dead in comparison to the rest of the planet, or what they had seen of it.

Most of the buildings here, built into the side of the chasm, were old and rickety, mostly abandoned, generally warehouses and factories. It was not unlike earth in that way, that all cities seemed to have a mostly abandoned industrial district, where the buildings were crumbling, and rusty chains held even rustier chain link gates closed with large red KEEP OUT signs. However, unlike earth, these factories and warehouses grew on the side of the chasm walls like vines clinging to the walls and snaking down into the darkness.

Bridges and catwalks spanned the distance between every abandoned factory turning the air around them into a hazardous areal spiderweb.

The catwalk creaked under his feet, and he slowed up a bit as –behind him—sunny pulled up.

"Everything alright?" She wondered.

He held up a hand, "We are about to find out.

He stepped forward onto the creaky spot and then, without too much thought began jumping up and down first little hops and then bigger ones feet thudding against the metal below.

Behind him Sunny hissed, "What are you doing! Stop! Are you trying to fall to your death."

He finished his hopping, and turned to look at her with a sort of half grin, "Aww I knew you cared!"

This time she actually did roll her eyes.

Impressive that she had picked up something so human so quickly. He continued to grin as he turned around, "Don't worry, I grow on people like that."

"Like carapace rot."

"What was that?"

"Oh nothing, nothing at all." She slowed down a bit passing over the rickety section, her hands gripping heavily onto either side.

"That wasn't denying the fact that I'm growing on you."

"I could throw you into the chasm, it wouldn't be that hard."

"Still not denying it." He continued in a sing-song voice. They were almost halfway there, and he finally had to admit to himself that he was glad she was here. The banter was keeping his mind off of a fall to his death, though out of all the ways to die he had always thought that falling was one of the better ways to go, at least he could do some sick flips before plowing headfirst into the ground.

When he was in flight school, he had made a game-plan for if he ever found himself falling to his death.

First, do a bunch of cool flips, then when he wasn't too far from the ground, he was supposed to orient himself face down so he broke his neck on impact. Yeah it was a petty gruesome line of thought, but better dead than paralyzed.

Some people might disagree with him on that particular line of thought, which he didn't begrudge them, but for his own personal reasons he would rather be dead.

"You seem comfortable up here." The Drev ventured, and he turned his head back to look over his shoulder at her.

"What makes you say that?"

She gave him a look, which seemed surprisingly human, and he looked down at her to see both feet planted heavily on either side, her two upper arms gripping to the guard rail for dear life.

Her eyes darted towards his hands at his sides.

"Not comfortable, just experienced." He smiled and turned back around, "Oh look, nearly there."

Sunny didn't relax until they had made it to the other side, forced to take a breather while Captain Vir looked around at the factory with great interest. As far as it seemed, the place looked mostly deserted, which was either a good or a bad sign depending on how you looked at it.

He rested his hands on hips, waiting for the Drev to compose herself.

He was alerted to her readiness by the soft snick of metal over metal. When he turned around, she was standing tall at the ready, her spear held tight in the palm of her upper right hand.

Where the hell had she been hiding that, and better question, "Where did you get that?"

"It was returned to me by one of your crewmen before the mission."

He sighed and turned around shaking his head but finding it was not in him to be mad at the crew. It's not like she was under arrest or anything, so he was just going to keep his mouth shut. Besides, If they were going to run into trouble, he would rather have her armed than unarmed.

He had seen her in battle with an improvised weapon, and if her abilities were anything to go by, he would want her to back him up.

"Split up?" She wondered.

He shook his head, "Not yet."

She nodded and fell in behind him as he pointed upwards towards a small entrance door in the side of the building, "That looks like a good first bet."

Sunny nodded her head and followed behind him as he quietly made his way up the steps trying to keep the metal from creaking under his weight. Of course, wearing heavy rubber-soled boots doesn't help with that, and the fact that the Drev was probably around 300 pounds didn't really help either.

They made it to the top of the stairs and he pressed his hand against the door pushing lightly. He didn't expect it to open, but sort of hoped that it would. When it didn't he shoved a little harder.

"Let me."

Before he could protest, the Drev had backed up the two feet of landing and then slammed her shoulder into the door like a NFL linebacker. There was a loud screeching noise and the door burst inward shedding flakes of rust before slamming into the inner wall with a loud BANG.

Little dust moats glowing red in the neon light filtered down around them.

She turned to look and he glowered at her, "What part of stealth don't you get?"

She cocked her head, "Stealth in my culture is considered dishonorable."

Captain Vir sighed deeply, "Yeah, well in my culture stealth is considered a good idea when trying not to alert potential enemies to our presence. Now, stay behind me and try not to alert the entire city to our presence, alright."

She just shrugged at him, another surprisingly human gesture before backing up behind him.

He shook his head and turned to look at the interior of the abandoned factory.

He was forced to switch the tac light on in the front of his weapon as he swept it over the dark and dusty interior.

The floor below them was covered in a thin layer of dust and rust flakes.

Sweeping the light upward, he drew a line across the rickety beams holding up the ceiling, likely from where the rust flakes originated.

With the Drev following, he stepped out onto the squeaky catwalk, and then down a set of stairs and onto the rusty floor.

He continued to sweep his light around the room, which was all but deserted, aside from the occasional piece of discarded equipment lying dormant and decaying on the floor, the carcasses of industry.

"I don't see anything." The Drev said softly, at least she had the sense of mind to at least be sort of quiet.

"It does seem that way, doesn't it?"

He narrowed his eyes and continued his sweep around the room, eye fixed on the floor before him.

Looking back at Sunny, he could see where their feet had left a trial in the dust behind them.

"What now?" She wondered, stopping in her spot clearly having seen all she needed to see.

He continued his walk around the room, "Well, if we are lucky, maybe one of the other groups will find something."

"And if not?"

"Then we are going to have to come up with a new plan I guess." His mind was mostly elsewhere as he continued his grid-like sweep over the room, but he was still present enough to be curious, "Why do you care what happens from here? You have no involvement in this."

She was quiet for a moment, and he had almost forgotten he had even answered a question, when her quiet voice rose up behind him, "I am aboard your ship now, aren't I. I am your ally, which means I should care about what you care about."

He glanced at her from the corner of his good eye.

"Who said we were allies?"

"I did." Her voice held such conviction that he actually believed her for a moment, "And despite what you may think of me. We Drev are loyal."

"Loyal, huh?" He was still only half listening.

"I promised that I would help you, and that is what I planned to do. I promised that I wanted to learn from you, and that is what I will do. Drev are not interested in lies, deceit, or the operations one might consider clandestine. We are what we say we are."

He moved his way around a thick steel pillar that was helping to hold up one of the catwalks, "And what have you learned so far?"

"Well, I have learned that you tend to hold grudges.I have learned that you are overly emotional. I have learned that you are physically weak, and mentally fragile."

He rolled his eyes, "Uh-huh."

"But I have also learned that you are forgiving, logical and strong."

He turned to look at her and frowned, "You just contradicted yourself."

She sighed, "I know, that's the problem. I cannot figure out humanity because you do not make sense. Take you for instance, you are weak, pathetic, crippled, childish, and constantly require validation from others."

He crossed his arms over his chest, "Ah.... Yeah thanks, perfect to have inscribed on my tombstone."

"You are everything that Drev society would hate."

"So encouraging."

She plowed on.

"Yet that is the point. Weak and crippled, you beat us in war, you survived horrible injuries that we would not even bother to try and fix. And then you received a position of power from your people. Despite being childish, people respect you, despite your need for validation, you are the Captain of a spaceship, and are not bad at it. All of the things that should make you weak, have not, but perhaps worked in your favor. It doesn't make sense and the more I try to puzzle it out, the less sense it makes."

He would have liked to be mad at her for saying all of that about him, but he had to admit that she was mostly correct. He was most of those things and more, and he doubted that her saying them had anything to do with trying to make him feel bad. She was just being honest.

That probably should have made him feel worse.

"Look, do you really want to know how humanity beat you in war?"

"Go on."

He had given up his search for the time being to turn and look at her, "There is no single reason."

She didn't seem to like that answer, but it was his turn to go on.

"Humans are adaptable, stubborn, and social. When you took my leg, my body survived because the human body will do anything to survive, it had to, evolving on a planet like mine. Then somewhere along the line in our history humans decided that being crippled didn't mean you were useless, then someone decided well if it is a weakness why not make it a strength. I didn't die because I had social support, other people who wouldn't LET me die. Then they turned me into a weapon, they augmented my body and turned me into a weapon. They put us on drugs so we couldn't feel pain, so that we couldn't question our orders. And then when it was all over I only survived because my family wouldn't let me spiral into my own broken and weak mind like you might suggest. I lived because if there is one thing humanity is good at, it is surviving when they shouldn't. Turning weaknesses into strengths."

She looked at him thoughtfully, and considered his words with some measure of interest.

"I see. But-"

He held up a hand, 'Shh-"

She lowered her chin, eyes narrowing, but he ignored her facial expression, his eye having caught something strange as it roamed across the open floor.

"Wh-"

He shushed her again leaving her cross-armed in the middle of the room glowering at him.

Reaching up, he flipped up his eyepatch. The sudden clarity that the new eye brought him almost overloaded his brain, but he tried to ignore it, switching on a couple of overlays to increase the contrast and sharpness of what he was seeing.

The Drev approached from behind, "What is it?"

He grinned, "Proof."

"Proof of what?"

"Proof that we aren't the only ones here." He motioned down towards the floor, and she took a closer look. Filtering in a UV overlay the change became even more apparent, "See that?"

"I think so."

"Drag marks, they are kind of faint here but-" he trailed off following the line a little further towards the darker side of the abandoned factory."

She followed in his footsteps as he moved, and as the light filtered over the ground, the marks became more and more apparent until they just suddenly stopped, terminated at the far wall.

"Wow, look at all that proof."

He glanced over his shoulder at her, "Why is it that I had to explain sarcasm to Dr. Krill, but come to find that Drev of all creatures seem to be fluent?"

"I guess that is just part of our charm."

He turned away, "Not exactly what I would call it."

"The trail ends here." She pointed out, "It's probably nothing."

He reached out a hand towards the wall, holding the flat of his palm out before the wall and grinned, "Feel that?"

"Feel what."

"A draft." He said grinning and standing straight again looking towards the wall, "And I have seen enough old mystery movies to know what that means."

"I assume that what you said is supposed to be relevant in some way."

He sighed, "Of course you don't have movies. You would rather just beat the shit out of each other wouldn't you." She didn't dignify his quip with an answer, which was fine enough by him, "A draft means there is something on the other side of this wall, you know like a hallway or a secret room."

She gave him the Drev equivalent of a frown, or at least what he assumed to be the Drev equivalent, but she didn't argue, "Then how do we get inside?"

"Well generally, the way these things work is that one of us has to accidentally stumble into a secret opening mechanism, but, since this is real life and not a movie, I doubt it will be that easy."

She likely didn't understand a word he was saying, but she was going to have to live with it as he turned to the wall and began prodding around the outside edges of the little hall with his hands.

This went on for a few minutes, with the Drev standing very unamused behind him.

He was still prodding at the base of the door when she moved forward, and shoved hard on the exposed metal.

There was a soft creaking noise, and the wall hinged inward.

He was left kneeling in the open doorway looking and feeling like a complete dope.

This time she gave him the Drev equivalent of a smug grin before stepping through the open doorway.

Had he ever mentioned that he disliked her?

Maybe he had.

He got to his feet and followed after. Stepping through the little hidden doorway and into the hall beyond gave a stark night and day contrast to the rest of the building. There was actually a line on the floor where the rust line ended and shiny metal began.

Not wishing to leave their fate in the hands of a Drev, He quickly hurried ahead to where he could take control.

The silence of the unused manufacturing district was suddenly replaced by a distant humming and clatter, which echoed to them from down the hall. Luckily for them, the noise mostly masked their footsteps though he was sure to keep them close to the side of the hall in order to reduce their visibility as much as he could.

Before they reached the end of the hall, he paused and turned to look at Sunny eyes narrowing.

He prodded her in the chest with a finger, "Now I don't give a shit what your culture says about stealth being dishonorable or whatever, but I swear, right now you better learn quickly to adopt human customs, or I will kill you myself."

The Drev just frowned at him, but let it pass.

Good for her too, because right now, stealth was imperative.

She could risk her life on her own time.

Crouched low, they made it around the open door and onto a high catwalk, railed by a sturdy guard rail. The lights around the perimeter of the room were dim and spotty leaving them plenty of shadows to slink around in though the center of the factory floor was lit with blindingly white floodlights, so stark that the entire room was cast into some sort of surreal laboratory landscape.

Together, the two of them slunk to the side and into a pool of shadow to where they could look down on the manufacturing floor.

"Warring spirits!" Sunny whispered

He couldn't have said it better himself.

"I think we've found the right place." He muttered quietly, watching as alien workers filtered out over the factory floor scampering between the machines, which cranked out weapons parts with blinding speed.

Just to their right, a line of machines were being used to fit all the pieces together before the weapon was attached to a cart, loaded, and then fired into a soundproof box, and then the accuracy was measured before the weapon was rolled down another line and into a large set of silver cases, which were then loaded onto large carts and moved deeper into the facility.

Sunny shifted next to him to get a better look onto the floor.

"Are all of these going to the Gnar'lak?" she wondered

He continued to watch the factory floor as weapons rolled out in cases of twenty or thirty,

"No way.... It.... there are too many, and if they are manufacturing at this pace.... Well they could supply an entire army."

The thought made him shutter, and a cold bead of sweat dripped down his temples.

"Why would someone want human weapons so badly? Aren't the Rundi and the Tesraki more advanced." She whispered.

He nodded, "Yes, but humans are better at war. As far as I know the Rundi have never been in a physical conflict. Same with the Tesraki. The weapons on their ships aren't designed to deal with small targets and cannot be compressed into smaller models." He went silent for a moment, "Human weapons were designed for brutal efficiency. And if they are designing the ammunition the same way...."

He went silent with the thought.

This was probably worse than he could have imagined.

Sure, they were supplying the Gnar'lak with weaponry, and that was horrible for the Finnari, but it paled in comparison to what could happen if they were selling the weapons to someone else.

The Gnar'lak were contained.... The universe.... Was not.

He turned his head to look at Sunny, "You realize what this means right?"

Her golden eyes narrowed, "I know war when I see it."

"That's right, and not an honorable war mind you, I mean the kind of war that destroys planets."

The Drev clenched her fists, "This is not true war, this is barbarism."

"What's the difference?"

"Manufacturing weapons in secret, selling them for a profit for nefarious reasons."

"You don't do that on your planet?"

She almost looked offended when she turned to look at him, "No, of course not. When Drev go to war, we do not do it in secret. We make sure that our enemy knows we are coming in one way or another. It would not be a fair fight if we didn't tell them."

He moved into a crouch and began his movement along the edge of the catwalk, "But you guys hid in the ash during the war?"

"There is a difference between stealth and good tactics."

"That is a very thin line between those two things."

She was silent upon hearing him say that, so he assumed that she at least somewhat agreed. Drev warfare was complicated, and he could see how it might cause strife between the different clans. If you have one clan assuming that something is honorable and another assuming something is dishonorable, then they might fight each other just based on the principle of the thing.

The roaring of the machines continued to drown out their movement, and they were nearly to the other side of the room when a loud buzzing rang out before them. Red lights flashed on either side of the room, and the workers stopped moving, glancing up towards the red lights.

Sunny and Captain Vir dove behind a pillar doing their best to stay concealed in shadows as the machines slowed to a halt.

The floor went nearly silent except for the slow hissing of decompressing machines.

Footsteps echoed on the open floor, and, as they watched, a figure came marching out of the factory's depths.

Sunny gasped.

Adam quickly clamped a hand over her beak-like snout to shut her up looking around as her sudden exclamation of surprise echoed off the nearby metal. Luckily for them the rest of the room was focused on the figure who stood straight backed at the front of the room two sets of arms crossed over it's massive chest.

"NEXT ROTATION!"

The aliens quickly sprung into action, and the two of them watched in growing horror and surprise as the Tesraki were unchained from the machines and led away while another crew of Burg led the new contingent of Tesraki into the room, chaining them down to their stations at the machines before stepping back to observe.

And watching all of it, lording over them with an imperious gaze and critical eye, the bright yellow Drev looked on silently.