Dr. Krill stood frozen before the generator, unwilling to turn around.

"Take one more step towards the machine, and I will have no choice but to kill Dr. Quinn here."

At those words, Dr. Krill turned slowly on his feet staring back into the darkness from whence he came.

Once he had thought himself alone in that darkness.

No more.

Dr. Kedd stepped from the shadows, followed by Rita the PA, who held a struggling Dr. Quinn with arms held tight behind her back.

Growing tired of the doctor's antics, Rita used her heel to buckle Dr Quinn's knees and send her falling to the floor.

From there she held her still, with one arm around her throat, and the other hand holding a handgun to her temple, finger on the trigger ready to fire.

Dr Kedd scuttled a little closer, "I admit, I admire your bravery, not something that one normally sees from a Vrul these days. In fact, I was under the impression, your species lacked whatever cerebral structure required to house bravery at all.... " he tilted his head in amusement. "However I can see now that I was wrong. Perhaps when you have outlived your use, I might dissect your brain for comparison with humans."

Fear coursed through every fiber of Krill's body, and he wanted nothing more than to run, or to curl up into a ball, or to just float away. He had been caught, and now there was no chance of him finishing his mission.

But despite these thoughts, he did not cower or run, but stood his ground with his chin tilted down over his neck and his arms held out slightly to the side as if he planned to run across the intervening space and attack the smug little doctor.

"Save me your monologuing Kedd. I am sure whatever you have to say will only bore me. In fact, I think I would find being a brain in a jar much preferable to listening to your smug prattling."

Dr. Kedd looked almost shocked.

And Krill had to admit that he was shocked as well. He hadn't expected himself to be so prolix when he was about to die, but he supposed it was better than dying silent and afraid.

"I see that your bravery only continues.... Or perhaps it is stupidity, sometimes the two are very difficult to tell apart."

"Just kill me already." Krill hissed, partially because he was annoyed and partially because he actually wanted to die. If this little creature did not kill him in the next few moments, then he was probably going to die of the stress and anxiety he was feeling on the inside.

"As much as I would love to get rid of you." The Gibb said, stalking a little closer, his body passing in and out through pools of shadow, dark skin growing darker and then lighter in a pattern that was almost repetitively mesmerizing. His five glittering eyes were cold and glassy in the darkness, "I actually have another fate in mind."

Krill stepped back as the creature stalked forward.

"In fact I require your services."

Krill snorted, surprising himself that he could even make that sound as he continued to step away, "I would never help you, in fact if you were on fire, I'd bring a blowtorch."

"There is that bravery again or stupidity.... Is that something you learned from the humans? Or is that a trait you have always had? I mean, I knew that you were different from the other Vrul, but I sort of assumed – being an Alpha and all—that you were also smart."

Krill clenched his fists into balls, "I am not stupid, you are the stupid one for thinking that you could capture and cage humans."

"Oh really?"

"Really."

"You won't be saying that when I succeed."

"I likely won't be saying anything because I would rather die than help you."

Again, the little creature tilted his head, "You know what is fascinating Dr. Krill, and something that I have observed while working with humans."

"I don't suppose there is any chance that you won't tell me."

The Gibb ignored him, stalking forward to the point that Krill's back was almost flat against the machine behind him.

"I have observed that the longer a nonhuman spends time with a human, the more likely it is that human traits will... rub off... of the nonhuman subject. It goes both ways, but mostly it is human traits that tend to be taken on rather than non-human traits."

Krill's back was now pressed flat against the machine, the metal cold against his back.

"I call it the humanizing effect. The longer you spend with humans, the more likely you are to act like one."

He was no more than a foot away from Krill now.

"I find that fascinating, don't you?"

Krill looked across the room, to where Dr. Quinn was kneeling on the floor, controlled in the grasping arms of Rita.

The two of them locked eyes.

"You know what else I find interesting, and I think you have noticed it too. To a lesser extent.'

Krill's antennae vibrated as the human's hazel amber eyes locked on his.

"Looking into a human's eyes, there is more there than what there should be. Something that cannot be captured in pictures or video, something that fades from them as they die and vanishes all together after they are gone. I noticed it when I first met humans – ironically the first human I met being your captain—but I only grew interested in the phenomena after the unfortunate death of the doctor who worked for me."

The Gibb's eyes stared at him unseeing, "I watched the light fade from his eyes. The spirit snuffed out.... You do know what a spirit is, Doctor?"

The Gibb really had gone mad hadn't he.

"You see, some humans seem to have this strange notion that their body is polluted by some sort of sentient intelligence, inhabiting the body like a parasite inhabits a host.... I tend to believe them."

He was inches away now.

Dr Krill and Dr. Quinn continued to lock eyes, until she suddenly grew still.

Krill gave an imperceptible nod.

Simultaneously, the two of them acted, Dr Quinn grabbing her attacker's gun hand and arm pitching forward and sending the PA feet over head down onto the floor with a thunderous crash.

Krill was deafened momentarily as the gun went off, a bright flash of light illuminating the room.

Dr. Kedd was stunned into silence from his ramblings, and Krill took the opportune moment to do the only thing that he could do.

He poked the Gibb in four of his five eyes.

Without enhanced speed or strength, there were few places on the body that Krill would have been able to damage effectively.

But as a doctor, he knew that there was always one location you could count on to give someone extreme pain, and that was the eyes.

Dr Kedd screeched in pain and doubled over clutching at his face.

Krill scuttled to the side vowing to himself that he would never make it a habit of talking that much.

***

His boots thudded over mossy ground, and his arms pumped like pistons at his side. The trail was dark before him, and he nearly tripped several times before finally pitching to his knees in the darkness.

He couldn't see where he was going, but looking back over his shoulder, he could make out the illuminated silhouettes of the huts surrounding the main cathedral. No one had followed him as he had run through the doors, still mesmerized by the ever increasing fury of the battle before them.

The village itself had been empty as he had pelted through the streets, allowing the clatter of metal to fade into the distance behind him.

He paused there now on the hill, panting and looking down at the trail below him.

The Steel eye leg whirred below him, eager for a fight.

He could feel the two toes pressed soft against the sand and hard against the stone.

The Drev leg.

He looked forward into the distance, and then back at the cathedral. From this angle one might assume that nothing was happening, could have imagined that all the citizens were peaceful inside their houses and sleeping away the night as the stars rotated overhead.

But he knew better.

He knew better and that knowledge rooted him to the spot.

In the distance, he could see the lights of the docking station, and the mining facility, which seemed out of place against the distant fiery landscape. In the back of his head he could hear the roaring of engines and imagined how the moss would have erupted from the ground as ordinance fell from the sky.

He imagined the roaring howl of the f-90 darkfires overhead, raining down destruction upon the heads of those who could never hope to fight against it.

Sometimes...

Sometimes people did things they didn't want to do.

Sometimes people did the right things for the wrong reasons and the wrong things for the right reasons.

Sometimes people just made mistakes.

And sometimes, those mistakes could turn you into a monster.

Once upon a time he had made a decision, and once upon a time he had reaped the consequences of that same decision.

Sometimes good and honorable decisions could turn men into monsters, mothers into tyrants, and children into martyrs.

***

Dr. Quinn kicked the gun away from Rita, sending it skidding across the floor to crash into a support pipe along the side of the wall, but that left her open to take a knee in the face so violently it shattered Dr. Quinn's glasses and sent them spinning across the floor in pieces. Dr. Quinn reeled back grabbing her nose even as blood began spurting into her hands.

Rita got up and tried charging towards the gun, but Dr. Quinn grabbed her by the foot and she went crashing violently to the floor.

Across the room, Krill had inflated his helium sack and was desperately trying to claw his way up the side of the generator knowing that his inflation was not going to be fast enough if Rita got her hands on the gun.

Below him, Dr. Kedd had stopped clutching at his face and was now scuttling after Krill, holding one of his eyes and cursing in a way that only humans could curse. Krill was half way up the side of the generator, sure that he was out of reach, when something grabbed him around the foot.

He looked down in shock, only to find that Dr. Kedd had managed to claw his way up the side of the machine in direct contest with his physical attributes and natural abilities.

Krill kicked at him with one of his other legs, but the extra weight was enough to have his hands peeling away from his handholds

His helium sack would not be nearly strong enough to hold both of them, and if they fell, they would crash to the floor, breaking limbs in the process.

Dr. Kedd snarled and kicked frantically again, letting go with two feet and only hoping that his four arms would be able to hold him fast.

On the other side of the room, Dr. Quinn and Rita were in a fight for their life, tearing at each other like wild animals. Rita had a handful of Dr. Quinn's hair and Dr. Quinn was using her nails to stab at the other woman's eyes, all the while both of them screaming and yowling like some sort of primal animal.

Dr. Quinn leaned up and violently latched on to the other woman's ear with her sharp white K-9s.

Rita screamed and punched at the side of her head, but only managed to cause more injury to herself.

The screaming continued.

Dr Krill's hands were growing ever weaker.

He was slowly being dragged downward.

Dr. Quinn ripped her teeth free of the other woman just as Dr. Krill managed to land a solid kick to the Gibb's face. He was let go and Dr. Quinn was freed, and the two women found themselves separated looking over at each other simultaneously before scrambling for the gun. Krill did not see who made it to them first as he clawed his way to the top of the machine hearing but not seeing the horrid scuttling sound of Dr. Kedd behind him.

***

Sunny stood in shocked silence as her mother slowly rose to her feet . All around them the room was silent, as no one dared speak a word. General kazna had stepped outside the circle,...

Sunny lowered her spear, eyes wide in shock and surprise.

She had really done it.

She had beaten her mother in a duel, she had bested her in open combat!

Kazna turned slowly, the light of the fire raging against the side of her body. Sparks leapt into the air behind her head to vanish upwards and become darkness in the rafters above.

"Did I mention that this fight was to the death?"

Frozen on the edge of the circle as she was, Sunny did not comprehend the flash of the spear before it was too late.

A sharp, piercing pain erupted from her side and it was only by the grace of the spirits that her staggering pulled her backward off her mother's blade.

Orange gore dripped onto the ground below her, spattering the dark stone in pools of fire.

The room was no longer silent

Gasps of shock rose up around them, and cries of protest.

General Kazna did not heed them, racing forward across the circle and swinging her spear at Sunny with increased ferocity.

Sunny caught her on the flat of her spear blocking her to the right and then to the left as Kazna came in in wide sweeping arcs, she reversed from the left and back to the right with a quick snap that Sunny was only just able to dodge. She snapped forward with a thrust, and Sunny slapped the blade to the ground where it sparked over the floor.

Her mother had stepped out of the circle, but was continuing the fight anyway.

The rules had been thrown to the wind.

Sunny cut quickly inward, inside the reach of her mother's arms and drew back her fist, punching Kazna squarely in the throat.

It was not a move she had learned in Drev combat.

Kazna reeled back clutching her throat with one hand and choking.

The audience gasped.

Both of them were outside the circle now, and Sunny used that moment to bound onto the steps, spattering blood as she went.

She needed the added height, and it was a good decision too as her mother came around at her with another jab.

Sunny batted it to the side with a desperate swing of her blade followed by another.

Fire raked itself across her right arm, and then her left.

Her swings were becoming slow and ineffectual. Exhaustion was making her slow where Kazan was pushed on by rage and frustration, "YOU-WILL-DIE-HERE!"

Her voice rattled the stone under Sunny's feet.

Sunny desperately lashed out with her foot, catching Kazna in the knee. Her legs buckled and she was sent to the ground her arms flailing.

Sunny followed that up by a powerful kick to the face that sent Kazna reeling down the steps.

Her breathing was heavy and her body wanted nothing more than to rest, for this to be over, for her to be able to breathe.

But no, Kazna had already clawed her way to her feet and was racing back up the steps.

Sunny tried to get out of the way, and even saw the strike coming, the spear flying towards her head illuminated by the roaring orange flames, giving the impression of a whirling fan of light through the air, before an explosion of pain rocked through her body and she was sent crashing down the steps to sprawl on the marble floor beneath.

Her spear bounced from her hand and went rolling across the black polished floor with a clatter coming to rest at the base of the steps.

Her face burned, and something wet and sticky rolled down her cheek, dripping orange onto the floor, she tried to crawl to her hands and knees but her body felt weighted down by blocks of volcanic stone. It took a gargantuan effort just to lift her body from the ground, and even then the feat was made almost impossible by the pooling puddle of her own blood.

Footsteps came up to meet her, and she looked up slowly, her eyes glassy as her mother drew back the spear.

Sunny comprehended her mother's hate, and accepted that it would be the last thing she saw before she died.

"Go to the gods." Her mother said before driving down the spear towards Sunny's unprotected neck.

Sunny saw light flash along the arrowhead blade.

"NO!"

A sudden blur of motion enveloped Kazna. Sunny felt a sharp pain of fire against her cheek as the spear tip only just grazed her, just before clattering to the ground and rolling across the open stone.

Kazna was knocked to the floor with a loud crash.

Sunny's eyes widened in shock and the room burst into an uproar as Captain Vir drew back his hand to strike.

***

Dr, Krill had reached the top of the machine now. Though it wasn't as deafening as the first one, the noise still roared inside him and shook his feet with great vibrations. He could see the dials he would need to turn from here, and so he raced forward as fast as he could, allowing his helium sack to deflate as he ran.

It was probably that helium sack that slowed him in the first place as something grabbed his leg and sent him slamming into the metal.

Dr. Kedd crawled over him like some horrific creature he had only ever seen in documentaries or in pictures. "No you don't." With his only two hands Dr. Kedd grabbed Krill by the sides of his head and pulled it back, threatening to ram the back of his head against the metal below.

With his four cortical hemispheres and his delicate skull, Krill knew that would be death for him.

As the Gibb slammed his head downward, Krill quickly inflated his helium sack.

Though painful, his head bounced off the metal and shot back up into the air, having the lucky coincidence of slamming back into Dr. Kedd's arm, causing him to smack himself again in the face, right in the eye to be exact.

He reeled backward in pain, and Krill kicked his way free clawing on his belly the last few feet before reaching the dials.

All he had to do now was turn the dial, pull the lever and press the button.

He turned the dial.

He pulled the lever.

He pressed the button.

And then a loud CRACK stunned deafened him, so loud that all his senses went momentarily haywire. His fingers and hands buzzed, his eyes blinked with glittering white light, and his ears rang.

Looking up, he saw Dr. Kedd standing over him looking stunned. A sharp bit of metal clattered from his hand, likely ripped from the machine itself as Krill was crawling away. Clear fluid was leaking from a gash on the side of his face, and as he lifted his hand, he staggered back in shock.

Across the room, Dr. Quinn was standing, bloodied, and battered, with her nose broken, chunks of her hair torn out, blood all down the front of her face and chest, staining her lips and dripping down her chin. Her glasses were gone, and long scratches ran down the side of her face.

In her hands she held the gun, steady despite the shaking of her knees.

Below her on the floor, Rita lay still and unmoving, her dark hair splayed around her like some sort of grotesque fan.

Dr Kedd staggered back dazed by the sound and as he did, his foot caught against a protruding bit of metal, and he fell backwards pitching over a ledge and vanishing out of sight.

Krill reached forward and slammed his hand against the button.

The light overhead went completely dark, and they were plunged into blackness.

***

Punching the Drev seemed comparable to punching bear in the face, and even as he made contact with her hard, cold skin, she had thrown him off. He went sailing through the air and slammed into the steps with a burst of pain that radiated up his back in waves.

He slumped to the floor but immediately rolled to the side out of instinct.

"Filthy human!" Kazna howled.

He leaped to his feet, the Steel eye prosthetic propelling him into the air with a grace he would never have been able to achieve on his own. He landed on his toes unarmed and outmatched facing a creature that was almost three feet taller than him, and with one more set of arms to spare.

Across the floor, Sunny was still trying to rise.

Adam moved into a low crouch, circling around her other side.

"I knew humans were weak, but I had no idea they were stupid too." She spat.

"If you think I'm stupid you should take a good long look at yourself." He hissed.

Just as he expected, she rushed at him, and like a matador dodging a bull he threw himself to the side, "You aren't going to win this Kazna."

She turned around and swung at him again, but he dodged out of the way, discreetly backing towards Sunny's discarded spear, which had rolled across the open obsidian just as he entered the room for the second time.

She laughed, the sound coming off as a deep rumble in her chest despite having a bitter note to it, "Tell me human, how can you possibly expect to prevail against me?"

He backed away slowly as she stalked closer, "Because I am human, and we beat you once before."

She snarled.

He kept talking.

Talking is what he was good at. He ventured if he were ever to become some sort of evil supervillain he would be the kind to accidentally monologue his way into getting his ass kicked by the heroic protagonist, though, this time, as the self identified hero, he planned on using it to his advantage.

"Don't you get it General? Don't you understand why the humans won, why you will never be able to beat us?

Inside his right eye socket, the Tesraki prosthetic zoomed in on the spear. It would likely take him ten more feet to reach it, and hopefully by then he would be close enough, "It isn't just one simple answer. Your daughter thought it might be, and even I did for a while, but the answer is that humans won for a multitude of reasons."

She feinted towards him and he leaped backward.

She had her eyes fixed on him, and he had his eyes fixed on her.

"Sure we had better weapons and supplies, and flying machines and explosives and snipers and heavy ordinance at first, but I am talking about what happened after that, in the smoke and the fog and on the ground." She swiped at him, and he leaned back out of the way.

"We won because we are resilient, cunning, stubborn, and we can adapt to any situation whether it be cold, ash, starvation, close quarters combat, or even missing a limb."

She lunged forward and he dodged right.

"We won because we can turn ANYTHING to our advantage!" She swung her spear at him, and he dove to the side, skidding across the floor, hand reached out to grasp the spear. He snatched it from the stone and turned to roll to his knees, but at the last moment, something powerful slammed into his chest and he was knocked prone onto his back.

Kazna's foot came down on the arm that held the spear, the point of her blade to his throat.

"You know why else we won?" He asked, and she was so baffled by his question that she paused in her downward stroke.

"We won because we work together."

He allowed the spear to roll out of his hand and a few feet across the floor into the hands of Sunny, who had dragged her way across the stone, leaving a trail of orange blood in her wake.

Kazna turned too late as the spear blade flashed downward, hamstringing her cleanly through the back two tendons of her heels.

She collapsed violently to the ground even as he rolled to the side.

And the room was dead silent.

***

Dr. Krill floated his way down from the machine Just as Dr. Quinn was checking the pulse of the PA Rita still lying face down on the floor. Krill scuttled over, his entire body in pain, his ears ringing, "Is she-"

"Dead...." Dr. Quinn choked, and though he could only see her pulsing white thermal signature, he didn't need to be able to see to sense the tears running down her face.

He reached out a hand and rested it on her arm, "You did what you had to do."

A quiet sob broke through the darkness, "I never wanted to.... To ki-" She choked off, unable to finish the sentence, but Dr. Krill took her by the hand and let her back into the dark and behind the generator to where Dr. Kedd lay still on the ground. To Krill's surprise his thermal signature suggested the little creature was alive, though with how unmoving he was, he assumed he had been knocked out on his way down.

"Pick him up, would you? We don't want to leave him behind and allow him the opportunity to escape."

By his direction in the darkness, she managed to pull Dr. Kedd out and wrap him up inside her lab coat, trussing him up like shrink wrapped chicken.

From there he led them out into the hallway and up to the nearest set of stairs. Luckily for them, a few of the emergency lights were being powered by power cells rather than the backup generator, and they managed to get to the stairs without incident.

Halfway up was when they heard it.

Distant shouting.

And even more distant screaming. Footsteps raced and echoed through the hallways, and the higher they climbed the more voices there were until they merged together like the frothing waves of an angry sea.

They took a corner into the dim lighting watching as shadows chased each other across the hall.

They vanished into a room on the side, and as they passed they heard more shouting.

Coming into the large room, they were just in time to witness, as a group of fully geared machines tossed at least six trussed up Drev into the circle, with the help of a few other humans. One by one humans dragged aliens through the doors and threw them down in the circle as well. Drev, Tesraki, and even the occasional Burg.

"Ramirez!" Krill called, and the group of marines turned to face him.

Ramirez, Maverick, CJ and others.

Krill ran up, "Where is the Captain?"

Ramirez shook his head, "I don't know, the Drev took him away.... It was Sunny, the Drev, she betrayed us." He gritted his teeth, hands clenched, "She led us right into a trap, and they were waiting for us. The Captain was dragged away, and we were brought here. We only just escaped when the lights went out and all the cages opened." He turned his head to look down at Krill, "Was that you?"

Krill nodded, but quickly moved on, "We have to rescue him, General Kazna has him and-"

"We know, we saw her. Big ugly bastard she was." He turned to look over his shoulder at the other Drev, "If we can get the generator back on, we can toss all of them in the cells and call for help." He turned to look at Dr. Quinn, "Can you help us?"

She nodded, "I know where everything is. Take Dr. Krill and go find your Captain. I will stay here and oversee this."

Ramirez tilted his head down and thanked her, ordering a group of his men to fall in with him, grabbing Krill by the hand as he inflated his Helium sack and then marching up the next set of nearby stairs

***

Sunny lay on her side on the floor the surface of her skin growing very cold as her lifeblood pooled onto the obsidian below her. The pain did not bother her so much. She had handled pain for most of her life.

It was the silence that disturbed her most, all but for the quiet hissing of her mother trying to pull herself to her feet, but now unable, gurgling and choking with the pain of her crippled feet.

Would she die here, in the silence?

Footsteps clattered across the floor, and then a shadow passed over her. A strong hand rolled her onto her side, and she looked up to find the human staring down at her, his face twisted into an expression of worry brows knit together in a grimace, "Just hold on Sunny, we're going to get you some help." He tore off his jacket, and pressed it against the wound on her side.

She hissed at the pain.

"It's alright, just have to stop the bleeding." He said.

"W... why are you doing this?" She asked, voice gurgling somewhat as the blood began to well in her throat.

"Hey, none of that, just deep breaths ok, no talking."

He pressed his hand harder against the wound in her side, "I did it because.... Because I... because I'm not the monster your people think I am. I'm not that man anymore and I. I knew I had to help."

Her breathing stammered a bit as she tried to sit up, but didn't have the strength, "You're an idiot...." She choked out.

"So they say." His smile was forced, never reaching his eyes, "Just hold on."

He turned towards the staring crowd, "Someone get help!"

No one moved.

"What the hell is wrong with you people, Go!"

Sunny reached up a hand and grabbed him by the arm , "Don't, they aren't going to help."

He stared at her in consternation, "What, why?"

"Because this is all part of the duel."

"I think the duel when out the fucking window when your mother stepped out of the circle, or was I wrong about that?"

She was fading slowly, watching as the group of Drev slowly encroached on their position.

"You shouldn't have.... Interfered."

"Of course I should have, this was madness. She was going to kill you."

"She was always going to kill me, it was always a matter of when and not if."

The circle was growing smaller, but he continued to hold pressure on her wound, the other hand resting comfortingly on her arm, "We are going to make it out of here, and.... And when we do I think. I should offer you a position on my ship. I know the GA and the UNSC might push back a bit, but I think I can convince them."

He continued to talk. He talked a lot when he was nervous, but she let him continue.,. At least her death was not alone.

Spears were slowly being raised.

The human moved to cover her body with his.

They drew back and.

"Stop! What sort of madness is this?"

All around the room heads turned, and suddenly bodies parted as a familiar shape stepped his way into the circle, surrounded by a guard of at least twenty other Drev.

Sunny recognized that voice, Recognized that limp.

"Kanan." She muttered, dumbstruck.

Her brother straightened himself to his full nine foot height forcing his crippled foot to work properly as he made his way across the intervening space.

At first no one moved to block him, until one of Kazna's acolytes stepped in his path, "You are not welcome here Kanan, son of none."

"That is Kanan, son of Lanus and you will step out of my way!"

The Drev stood for a long moment, but didn't move, "You will not interfere here. The right of combat dictates so."

Her brother raised a brow in an surprisingly human expression, "Really. I seem to recall the right of combat dictates that the participants are not allowed to leave the circle, or perhaps that is just my faulty memory." He turned to look at the rest of the crowd, "Does anyone remember the exact rule wording, it could not be that 'if at any time a combatant steps outside the circle, they have lost their right to combat and must either forfeit, or start the right again on a later date." He looked around his golden eyes cold, "I see that none of you seem to care about that rule, if it means your precious leader gets what she wants."

He stalked through their midst, his limp hardly detracting from his air of menace. He locked eyes with each and every one of them, "You all should be ASHAMED of yourselves. You speak against those who do not follow the old traditions, but here you are spitting on them with every move you make." He stopped before the largest point of the crowd, "Because rules are only to be followed when they suit you." He slammed his spear against the ground, "You are not but heretics and cowards." He pointed his spear at the human, "It took a human to show you what you should have done, and yet you would still watch.... Shame on you, shame to all of you."

Heads bowed.

Eyes turned away.

Kanan motioned his men forward, some to restrain the crowd and some to see to Kazna, before limping his way down the stairs to kneel next to Sunny.

"Hang on, sister."

"She's lost a lot of blood."

"Don't worry. Help is coming."

Sunny's vision faded in and out, as her brother and the human locked eyes with each other. The human's eyes narrowed, "Wait.... I.... I know you."

Her brother hummed in amusement, "Do you?"

"I.... after the war. We met at a CT clinic in andromeda.'

"I seem to recall you were still getting over a fear for my kind."

"And you, a battle injury." He glanced down at his foot, "how is it?"

"As good as can be expected I think."

Just then the doors at the other end of the room were thrown open, and a group of heavily armed marines marched onto the floor, their weapons leveled at the staring crowd . "Anyone makes a move, and I shoot them right in the face." Ramirez snarled, his words emphasized only by Maverick, who had an expression of hunger on her face.

"Over here." The captain called.

And Ramirez left the other marines at the door to guard their backs from the crowd of Drev as he raced down the stairs and onto the floor, Dr. Krill trailing behind him. Holding onto the strap of his tac-vest for dear life.

He dropped to kneel next to Sunny and krill floated off with him.

"What happened?" Ramirez demanded, "She betray-"

Captain Vir cut him off with the shake of his head, "No, she didn't. Krill, is this something you can fix."

The doctor leaned over her bloody body.

"She needs medical attention immediately. I think I can stop the bleeding if-" his voice trailed away like petals falling from a Coil tree. Her vision grew black from the edges inward, and she gave over to it, sinking downward into blackness.