The lab was something she would be proud of, if it was her own. Instead she was a prisoner of that damned slave Krysk, currently a very nude prisoner, shackled to a table where those that took her hostage had been running a large assortment of tests upon her. Naturally she braved through it all. She was one of the heroines of her kind. She was their better, but without the ability to feel the arcane, without being able to hear the swell of magic, to use it so willingly, she was lost. Part of her wished that they would simply exterminate her, allow her to be reborn, but then the humans knew what would happen, and would rather she stay where she was.

She understood at this point that her friends couldn’t terminate her. If that was the case she was simply doomed to whatever fate the doctors and guards had for her. One guard, a rather rotund one, leered at her quite often. She would never be one to brag, after all that was not befitting a lady, but she had considered using his obvious perverse desires as a means to escape. It wouldn’t be the first time she had used her body in such a way. She still shuttered as memories returned of Blueblood. He was a rather handsome pony, and a Prince, but his attitude toward her, and others of lower station, made him something of an undesirable. Still, she had allowed him access to what carnal pleasures she could grant, and in the end it had gained her access to a far bigger budget in research.

Of course she had denied that such a thing happened when Rainbow questioned her, but it made it no less true. She understood at the end of the day she had prostituted herself out for more to work with, and now, now she was planning on doing the same again so she could escape. She watched him looking at her, the leering smile on his lips, the eyes that took in every curve. She’d seen his kind before. When he came into the room to remove her to her cell she would play upon those desires. She’d make him feel as if he had a chance, that she could be his, if even only for a moment, and if push came to shove she would allow him to have her. Then she would wait until he was truly distracted, and she would strike. She waited as he walked into the room, hearing his raspy breath, and she watched as his fingers touched the shackles she was bound with.

“She ready to be moved?”

The lone doctor nodded, “Yes, I have to admit having one of her kind to study without the danger of them using their horn is fantastic! She has entire glans seated under where her horn was! I believe they regulate the telepathic and telekinetic abilities they have!”

The guard grunted, “Sounds interesting Doc,” he looked at her, his hand grazing her left breast as he reached to unlock her shackles, “Don’t think of doing anything funny.”

She gave a coy smile, “I would never, I am after all a lady.”

As he unlocked her she felt him pull her arms behind her, locking a pair of shackles there, and then he held still for a moment, “Okay, you know the way, hop to.”

She began to walk, following her plan, letting her hips sway a bit more, thinking of every single lewd thought that could cross her mind. Allowing herself to become aroused, and knowing that she could use it on him. She entered into her cell, and he stepped in behind her.

“Like last time I’m gonna step out, and then you’re going to put your hands through the slot. I’ll unlock you then.”

She looked over her shoulder, “Perhaps, this once, you could unlock it here, for me, please?”

She saw him swallow, he never expected this.

“I… I can’t do that.”

She bit her lower lip, “Please, just this once? Surely a strong stallion like yourself could handle someone like me,” she winked, “Perhaps, I could do something to show my appreciation?”

He swallowed again, removed the taser he had, and then proceeded to unlock her.

“I feel teeth and you enter a world of pain.”

She nodded, lowering herself before him, wanting to gag for what she was doing, but she never showed it. She fished him out, feeling the weight of it, and realized that he was a decent size. She gave him a lick, suckled at the head, taking in how different it was shaped to what she was used to, and then she began to take him into her muzzle fully. She tasted the salty taste of sweat, smelled the undesirable stench of his musk, but she continued to fellate him. She felt him grab her shoulders and push back. He mostly picked her up, and turned her around. She knew this was coming, she had hoped it wouldn’t, but the way he watched her, she knew it was bound to happen. She felt him spread her legs open.

“Good girls can get unlocked early, maybe even get some yard time,” he whispered.

She felt him enter into her, and she wanted to crawl away. She felt so low, so cheap, but it was necessary. She needed him to be distracted. He began to thrust harder into her, with so much abandon, and then it happened. He dropped his taser, his hands resting on her cutie marks. With that moment she thrust back against him, grabbed the weapon, pulled away, and watched as his pleased look became one of horror.

“Good boys get to sleep.”

She pressed the two buttons unleashing the full voltage on him, knocking him off of his feet, and then she ran. She ran past the door, down the hall, and she spotted the office he used. She ducked into it, raiding what she could that was unlocked. It wasn’t much, a single card, an extra pair of pants and a jacket, both of which found their way onto her, and a small device she’d seen him use before. She picked it up and slipped it onto her muzzle. Looking through what appeared to glasses she was rewarded with a mobile terminal. She sighed, moved her eyes, and once again rewarded with the fact that it used eye movement to navigate. She quickly found the route out of the prison that had the fewest guards. It would be difficult, but with no magic to speak of it was what she had.

She walked, keeping the thought of what she had just done at the back of her mind. She didn’t have time to consider that she had sold herself for a chance at freedom. As she walked she felt something odd, something cold. It bothered her, but she ignored it until she was near the first exit the mobile terminal had mentioned. Then she felt it again. She turned, and for a moment she saw a pair of red eyes shining before they flashed away. She shook her head, and worry filled her mind. Did the humans have some kind of mechanical beast that would let them know she was free? She began to hurry, getting through the door with the guard’s card, walking with a purpose, but attempting to seem as if she belonged. Of course it would only work at a glance. If anypony, or anyhuman, took a moment to really study her they would know that she was a pony. She began to move through the hall, through the labyrinth of passageways the mobile terminal showed her, and she saw the last door. She opened it and she felt the coolness of the night sky. Stepping out she heard a sound, and turned to see what it was. Again she saw nothing. Counting it as nerves she moved with purpose again and she felt something grab her tail. She let out a very unlady like gasp, turned and saw the shadowy figure.

“Ssssuch a hurry…”

She cringed. She’d heard the voice, for a brief moment, when she revived Coco.

“Wha..” she began before the figure pushed her with a strength that would put Applejack to shame. She felt herself ram against the pavement,

“We are the sssssame you know? We use ssssex to get what we want… Oh, but you… you are a presssssent for sssssssomepony else.”

She began to talk before the shadowy figure clamped her muzzle shut.

“But… I want a tassste.”

The figure became smoke, and suddenly Rarity stiffened as something caused her broken horn to ache. She screamed, unable to help it as the horn itself mended, and then she felt it inside of her. Her own hands moved across her features.

“Yesssss, lovely… I ssssshall enjoy my time in you.”

The voice was not her own, and she felt her body getting up. Suddenly everything became dark. Then light flooded around her once more. She looked to see the figure, a being that had goat like horns on her head, a human like face, but pony legs on her lower half. She moved toward her, reaching out and grabbing her right breast as she kissed her. She felt the intense heat from her touch and cried in pain before the being let go.

“My father wisssshesssss to give his newessssst sssssubject her dessssire and grant you immortality. Ssssso he asssssked that I give you a preview of what your kind hassss in ssssstore…”

She watched as the female touched her head, and the female laughed, “Of all of the thingsssss to be ssssscared of.”

Suddenly she was gone, and Rarity breathed a breath of fresh air, until she looked at her hand and realized that it was beginning to wrinkle. She tried to wipe it away, but it only spread, and suddenly a mirror appeared. Before her was not the beautiful pony she had been, but instead a twisted old nag that looked as if she was death herself.

“NOOOOOO!!!!!”

Her beautiful mane was gone. All that was left was a few strands of bone white hair. She had hair on her tail, her beautiful coat of fur had become spotted gray and white, and she looked ancient. She realized that she looked what she envisioned herself looking like without the technology that gave them near immortality. She closed her eyes, trying to will the illusion to disappear, only to open them to a new horror. She was inside of a living tree, no a grove of trees, all of them grown together to form a building. It would be something that Fluttershy would have loved once. She could hear her friend crying, and she walked toward the room only to see a thick pink gas leaking in through the window. She watched as everything it touched began to wither and die. She backed away from it, trying to escape, only to feel it engulf her.

She closed her eyes again, and this time she saw the being before her, but she kneeling before someone else. She began to talk but the other being stepped forward. She’d heard the stories. She’d heard what Gusty had stopped. How she had faced Grogar, and how she managed to somehow lock him away in Tartarus, but she had believed it to be merely an old story to frighten foals. Instead she saw him there. His blue coat looked almost skeletial, his horns looked yellowed with age, but his eyes, his red eyes were full of malice.

“Kneel!”

Rarity felt herself kneel in front of the ancient ram.

“In case your feeble mind can’t grasp this, I’m not physically there, but neither are you. My servant is currently exploring in your body. Which means that your soul is in the aether. What my servant allowed you to experience is a mere fraction of what your kind can expect. You however… I am giving you as a gift to my newest servant. I believe that you will do well with true immortality, but know this. You are mine. At any time you displease me I will bring your soul back here, and I will personally ensure that you experience the worst torture imaginable.”

“I am nopony’s….”

Rarity didn’t finish before she felt herself lifted by an unseen hand. Suddenly she was strapped to a large wooden cross. Her arms already strapped down began to experience the feeling of spikes being driven into her wrists. She screamed at the pain, then she felt the same as her hooves were staked together. She cried and felt something cut into her side. She moaned in pain only to find herself once again in front of Grogar. She wept from the pain, but there was no marks on her.

“That is small piece of imagery from the humans. Something from their beliefs about one of their kind,” he laughed, “They’ve began opening themselves to me, and I’ve learned such wonderful things I plan on sharing with all of you. Now, do you want to behave, or should I continue to discipline you?”

She shook, “I am no…”

The hours moved at a snail’s pace for Rarity as she was treated to some of the tortures Grogar had waiting for them all. She almost believed that she had experienced everything, or she did until she saw a former underling of hers. Crawling on the ground, weeping as a strange being walked behind her. A leash and collar was attached to the mare, and she noticed that she was openingly bleeding from her tail. She watched as the mare’s bowels were pulled completely from her only for her remain alive and still screaming. She watched as Grogar approached her.

“Now…”

“I am your servant and anything you ask I will do,” Rarity said quickly.

Grogar smiled, “Good, you will return back your body soon.”

Several hours past as we swept the relay from top to bottom killing any UEC holdouts on the way. But eventually they stopped coming, and the relay was declared clear. With their masters dead or being executed the now free slaves of relay station Altonix were given free range to do as they wished.

Many rushed to the hanger where I found myself now. Her Lover telling her "Habu, Durge, when we meet up with X and Big Dog, go make sure the slaves don't get themselves killed. Be… I don't know personable. "

She had done what my love had ordered. She and her longtime guardian had separated from the fireteam to follow the growing mass of freed slaves. It was refreshing almost nostalgic to be alone with Durge, walking the halls of a UEC installation.

"Do you think they will join us, sha'zo?" Durge asked in almost perfect tymerian, depolarising his helmet.

I side eyed him watching as one of his black pupils swam to face me. "Ji, I think they will. Especially those with hatchlings."

"Hmmm, indeed. The two humans in their group seemed to be eager to fight back against their masters."

"Yes well that is part of the charm of their species. They are always so passionate about… well everything. Have you seen some of their art? It is beautiful, the feelings those people put into their work is inspiring."

"I agree. I personally prefer the piece "A pale dot in a sea of stars" done by the artist, Natalie Garrow before their war with the lankys started…" He began using his two free hands to pull his PDP and swipe a message over to my helmet's display.

Flicking my tongue out and with a series of rapid blinks and tongue toggles I had the picture up and displayed in the lower left corner of my HUD. The painting was simply breathtaking. The image was that of an artist's rendition of the pale blue dot picture she had seen in her study of human history.

A canvas of black was interlaced with thousands of stars and swirling nebulae. The vast gas cloud of the karaden sea, what the humans called the "Milky Way" stretched from hosison to hosison canted so it cut a line from one corner to the next. All of the colors, all of the imagery subtly focused the eye to one single focal point at the painting's center. There glowing slightly, illuminated solely by a beam of light was a single almost insignificant blue dot the size of only a few pixels on her HUD's display. Earth, the human homeworld.

"It is… saddening to know that the humans had once held such hope for the galaxy. To explore, and see just what the cosmos had to offer. To boldly go where no one has gone before. But instead…" I trailed off thinking about what the humans could have done, could have achieved had their war with the lankys not happened.

"Yes, their war with the lankys has stunted their naive view of the galaxy. But still they persevere, defying the fate the gods have laid out for them. They almost ruined their homeworld, they fought back. The lankys arrived and they were forced to fight for their homeworld, on their homeworld, yet again with the blood of heros they persevered. Their worlds were taken, transformed into storm covered worlds that can never again support human life. They found new worlds and moved on. The humans have achieved so much in the short time they have been here. While all our people have done in that time has been to wallow in our own self pity. Your people perhaps less than my own. The kleese… how far we have fallen since the days of the empire. Since the days the Zaltule warriors would bring order to our system and the workers toiled to keep our queens happy…. Now look at us, a fractured people…"

"The Zaltule are some of the finest warriors in the galaxy. I have yet to see a warrior you or your kin could not best in battle, shol'kek." I replied coming to his peoples defence as I watched a tymerian hatchling run to her mother.

"But we are too few in number Mii'ora. Too scattered to make any real difference. Mine is a dying breed sha'zo, reduced to a single queen hidden deep below our homeworld's last city. The UEC only see the workers and attribute the casualties they took in their war with the empire to them, and not the Zaltule. They do not even recognize that we are a different breed. But the Humans, humans recognize us for what we are. Individually the humans may be weak. But they make up for their shortcomings with guile, ingenuity and sheer stubbornness. Yet despite their damages, and beating they have not completely lost their youthful nature. They are a hard people, but they can be kind, and honorable in their special way. And so when we offered our services and they accepted, the UEC might not see us for what we are, but they will face the wrath that is the Kleese warrior cast. Feel the hammer that is the Zaltule."

'I think this is the most he has talked since he and I joined up with the NAC's military. It's kind of nice, almost like before the war.' I thought to myself. A small trill escaped my throat as we walked and four of Durge's eyes flicked to me.

"You laugh?"

"I am simply surprised to see you talink this much Durge. Since we joined the humans you were quite." I replied jovially.

"Hmmm…" He bellowed. "Indeed."

We soon found ourselves nearing the hanger, the former slaves having flocked to it after hearing that a ship or rather a shuttle was docked. Entering the hanger we watched as the former slaves marveled at the Blackfly dropship and the fireteam mingling around the dropship's perimeter.

I chuckled at this, seeing a father pick up his son so the hatchling could get a better view. "I believe this is what the humans call a case of… de… dadja…"

Sensing my hang up Durge cut in, hanging the Mk36 on the thick silk sling he had made for the weapon. "Deja Vu. And yes If I remember correctly this is almost exactly how we reacted onboard the Dragons Breath over Camelot. Only Pogel was with us at the time"

"Yes well. For a kleese, Pogel was a kind soul."

"He was not zaltule."

"True… but let us get underway." I said clipping my weapon to its strap. Eye-clicking my helmets external speakers on and taking a calming breath, honoured that my love would give me this duty. "Excuse me everyone. Could I have your attention please." I called out to them, depolarising my visor revealing the upper part of my face.

The former slaves turned away from the fireteam around Lucky-13 to face Durge and I. "I have an announcement and a proposition for you…"

I was cut off as an explosion from deep inside the station reverberated throughout the relay. My heart dropped as I looked back the way we had come. Soon distinct but far off sounds of blaster fire could be heard before, only a few seconds later to me mixed with the sounds something else.

With the "kids" put away, the adults could play. Or however that old saying goes. We moved leapfrog down the corridor weapons at the ready. Shiraui who had pressed herself against the station several minutes ago had reported that she had decided several more lifeforms deep inside the bowels of the comm-node.

With them being that far into the station her senses hadn't been able to detect them. She had said, either that or they were shielded. Meaning they were guarding something OTHER than the data core. That meant whomever was stationed down there wasn't just another glorified security guard. It also meant they could possibly have a way to alert the rest of the UEC as to what was going on here. Time wasn't on their side and that meant, the adults had some work to do.

"Sirs I am detecting several organics on the other end of this door. What are your orders?" The warbot said as it stood in the middle of the passageway pointing both its wrist blasters at the door.

"We're running out of time, if we haven't already. We go in hard, fraggers and bangers first. GK goes in first we move in right after, total KTF." I said earning a nod from X, Wraith, and Big Dog.

"How are we on charge packs?" I asked changing my sidearms charge pack. "I've only got three left."

"I'm down to two." Wraith reported as he changed his rifles charge pack.

"I've got three." Harris said no doubt wishing one of us had thought to bring one of the two scatter blasters we had brought with us from Galactica.

"I've still got half of mine kids, I've got four left." X said his voice dripping with self confidence.

"It'll have to do. On three." I said as I placed a strip of det cord on the offending blast door.

Stacking up we counted to 3 and blew the door. Instantly a stream of high caliber gun fire came through the smoke to meet us. "Fraggers and bangers!!"

"Banger out!" Big Dog yelled tossing the upgraded flash bang behind him through the door.

"Fragger out!" X called lobbing the grenade around the corner and ducking back into cover.

Our buckets protected us from the titanic bang and flash of the banger. And a fraction of a second later the screaming was cut off by the double crump of a fragger explosion. "Go!"

GK stepped around the corner and leveled his wrist blasters. Red carrots and silhouettes began appearing on my HUD as the warbot marched into the smoke and began marking targets and neutralizing them according to threat level.

With a nod to Harris the two of us surged into the room blasters up. A mortally wounded mare dressed in the UEC's military uniform staggered to her feet ahead of me. Smoothly I raised my weapon and put a blaster bolt through her face as she turned wide eyed to face us.

Around me my kill team was engaging the enemy. Bullets ricocheted uselessly off our battle armor as we build our way through their ranks. Then as we cleared the first rank movement up ahead caught my eye... movement and a flash of blued metal.

"Blazers get down, GK cover!" I managed to yell, diving to the side just as a beam of dazzling green energy lanced out to score a molten streak into the bulkhead where I had been a fraction of a second before.

"By your command!" GK boomed taking several stomping steps forward and unleashing a torrent of blaster fire with his wrist blasters hozing the opposite end of the corridor with bolts of red energy.

"Who the fuck are these guys!" Wraith shouted as a lance of golden energy sizeld over our heads followed closely by a blue and then the green beam.

"Prime guards. Their like the UEC's Onyx Guard. I count three. Unless they have one in reserve." I said pressing myself into the deck adding my own fire to the others.

"Ice, we need to press we can't give them a chance to dig in. Take Big Dog. Bounding overwatch." X suggested firing two rounds from his rifle.

"I agree. GK leapfrog."

"Acknowledged." The old warbot growled clomping forward on its powerful legs, crushing the skull of a dead pony with its first steps.

"Lets move." I yelled watching the beams switch priorities from us to GK.

Pushing off the deck I sprinted down the corridor to the closest bulkhead support and slid into it. Slamming my into the strut, my shoulder exploded with pain as one of the blazer's beams grazed my shoulder left pauldron.

Looking over as I leveled my weapon around the corner and began firing I saw the black ceramic and Impervasteel had absorbed the lion's share of the damage. The scorch mark where the beam had struck was glowing a dull yellow, the ceramic absorbing and dispersing the majority of the heat. And below I could see the partly exposed meat of my inner shoulder, glowing red nanites swam in the wound working to seal and close the damage. While a sheen of liquid bone white nanites worked to heal the wound as a whole.

It would take several hours, but I would live. I smiled the little bastards made Harros and I pretty damn hard to kill without something that would kill us our right like a grenade to the face, or a shotgun to the chest. 'But that doesn't mean a lance across the chest from one of these things won't kill you.' I reminded myself as I watched X and Wraith surge past me and move to the next set.

"SET!"

Finding me next cover I waited for X and Wraith for open fire before gesturing for Big Dog to move forward. "Moving."

Breaking out of cover, lungs burning I pounded my boots into the deck and threw myself flat as I reached the next strut. The prime's were getting desperate now, sweeping their weapons across the passageway in hopes of cutting us in half with their weapons powerful projectors.

I raised my weapon and fired a round into the chest of one of the primes. It was only a glancing hit and the well armored guard rolled backward and out of cover with the hit. Switching targets I leveled my pistol and pulled the trigger, only for the weapons grip to buzz and click with a red light.

"Fuck, I'm dry!" I yelled flicking on the safety, shoving the hand cannon into its holster and rolling into cover.

Beside me I watched as GK moved past me his thick armor glowing with white hot streaks from where various blazers had beamed it. Undaunted the war bot stomped down the hall and into the midst of the prime guards' hold out.

"Move!" X yelled as we watched GK's left arm assembly get severed at the elbow by a blazer on its blade setting. Pushing up and ignoring the burning in my shoulder I surged down the passageway. Our nanotized muscles carried Harris and I down the hall and into the smallish compartment.

My eyes locked onto a tymerian male, shifting his weapon back to its ranged configuration. The condenser at the end of the staff like weapon shifted tapering slightly to a point as he swung the weapon around to face me.

Our eyes locked my bucket's visor meeting the glowing eye slits of his enclosed helmet. I brought my left arm forward opening the compartment that held my monofilament knife. Clenching my teeth as I drew the knife with my right hand I launched myself across the room towards the bull tymerian.

Time seemed to slow, his tail slapped the deck with a loud clap and his weapon's condenser burned a brilliant gold. And half a second later a sering pain exploded in my right thigh a fraction of a second before I slammed into the tymerian like a linebacker.

We both hit the deck hard and I went down on top of him, stabbing, pressing my weight onto my opponent. Over and over again I stabbed the knife into him, in the ribs in the stomach, in the chest but he just refused to die. Movement in my peripheral caught my attention and I threw myself to the side in time avoid a swipe from his claws that would have cut right through my undersuit and sliced my neck open.

With my weight offset the bull bucked knocking me loose enough to get that tail into play. Just as I came back for another round of stabbings a tube of raw muscle slammed into my side. Three wet pops assailed my ears as three of the ribs on my right side shattered from the Impact. The blow knocked me completely off of him but not before I cut a gash across his helmets left eye lens.

Blood leaked from the now useless helmet as let out a pained hiss and retracted his helmet and rolled onto his stomach. Dropping to all fours he opened his maw releasing a deep guttural bellow. With another tail slap he dashed forward no doubt hoping his specie superior speed and agility over humans would aid him.

In fact if I were a regular human I would have been dead the first time his claws had raked against a weak point in my chest armor, cutting it open like wet tissue paper. But I'm not a normal human, so instead of being nine different kinds of dead I'm only half dead.

Seeing an opportunity I fainted to the left toward the fallen blazer staff. He fell for it shifting his angle of attack to take him toward the fallen weapon. However, shifting the weapon in my hand, aimed and hurled the knife at the tymerian. The monofilament blade sailed in a perfectly straight end of end arch slamming home in the base of his tail.

He stopped dead, howling and writhing on the deck in pain as the equal parts balance/weapon/ and sensory organ spasmed and gushed torrents of dark magenta blood. Digging deep I put weight on my injured leg making sure not to look at it, and hurled myself into the writhing mass of armor and deep blue scales.

I slammed my knee into the bastards chest armor. Knocked the air from where I assumed his lungs were and caving in the breast place. With my enhanced hearing I could hear the distinct sound of bones breaking despite the battle around me. He groaned in pain as I drove my knee into his breastplate, once then twice then three times before crawling over him to wrap my hands around his neck.

He choked and sputtered battering me with his claws and trying to take me with his leg talons before a blow to the side of my head managed to knock my bucket free. Pain exploded from my left side as I brought my head down in a headbutt, scales shattered and bone splintered as I brought my head down again and again until the prime lay dead at my feet, either from his pulverized skull or dead by asphyxiation I did not know.

With a snort of disgust I retrieved my bucket from its place on the ground and snatched up the primes fallen blazer. The weapon was deceptively heavy but surprisingly balanced. Eye-clicking my visor's auto diagnostic I saw that I had taken a hit to the left kidney. I winced at the sudden shot of pain as the flow of adrenaline began to ebb.

The battle around me was short lived, I saw X shove a knife into the throat of a pony, and Big Dog tear the lower jaw off of one of those diamond dog things. Like me he was nanotized, and like me, he also knew the distance that being able to perform such superhuman feats brought.

A sudden realization hit me then, perhaps as a side effect of the blood loss. But as I watched Big dog I finally realized just how different he and I were from normal people now. Because of the lanky's unnatural interference, because of our own willingness to use the L-blades we had become something more. As different from a regular human as an Atlas is to a hydro car. A word I had read once in a book flashed through my mind. 'Transhuman'

"Clear, Fallon, get back to the dropship. You're in no condition to continue." X said as he turned to look at me. I don't know what it was, but for a brief moment something made me hate him.

"No…" I grunted growling through gritted teeth as I heaved myself to my feet fighting off a wave of nausea as I waved away Wraith who had come over to lend a hand. "I can still fight."

"Look I don't know how you're even still alive. But…" I couldn't see his face but I could guess that he wore a look of disgust. Revulsion at the fact that I was touched by the Lankys and made into something more, while according to reports, so many others had not.

"No you don't. And you never will. Harris, We have a mission to continue."

"Thats what Im talking about."

"Fallon, that leg looks bad. If you don't get back to the ship you might lose it. If you don't bleed out first." Wraith said, no small amount of adoration in his voice as I leaned on my stolen weapon like a walking stick.

"Shiraui, will my nanites keep me alive, at least until I can finish the mission?" I sent to Shiraui over a private channel.

"... Yes, but you will need another injection as soon as possible. The system of nantes in your system are overextending themselves and are starting to die as a result."

"Then I lose the leg. Let's move. Were almost out of time." I spat to Wraith as I straightened and continued down the corridor to what the data says is the final blast door.

When the door opened, I followed behind GK battered the old war bot clomping along gesturing with its one remaining arm. There was a cell in the center of the compartment, and there at its center was an old breed changeling dressed in an ACM uniform, chained to the deck. She looked half starved, beaten, and when she saw us she tried to scurry away fear evident in her face.

I couldn't imagine our luck, if she was here that meant that we could probably get the locations of supply basses, high value targets the possibilities. We could even find a way to contact the ACM...

The woman looked up at us and recoiled slightly upon seeing me. 'I must look horrible.' I thought to myself.

"Don't worry ma'am, We're here to help. Big Dog, break those chains and get her in her ready to move. Lucky-13, spool up the engines and get whoever's coming on board." The big man didn't respond only moved forward to break the chains.

'Got it Iceman.'

"Kill team, back to the dropship." Wraith and X nodded before moving back the way we had come.

In the end all of the ex-slaves had decided to leave with us and as we were in the process of loading the last of them into the dropship the rest of the team arrived in the hanger. I watched X and GK82 enter first before turning away and walking up the ramp and into the packed troop bay. Stopping briefly to help a tymerion youngling her and her mother secure themselves into their crash harnesses.

A sudden rush of activity erupted in the hold as the ships engines roared to life and I heard my love's fire team come up the ramp. With a smile I turned only to have my blood run cold as my love stumbled into the drop ship's hold.

He looked like death, like one of those walking corpses from one of those human screen shows. A clean perfectly symmetrical three inch hole had been blasted clean through his armors side, where my own helmet's computer said one of his kidneys should have been. A gash of blisterd and twisted metal drew a wicked bleeding line diagonally across his left thigh. The wound was so deep that the faintest hint of chard bone could be seen under the oddly slowly bleeding flesh.

At his left shoulder was blister of ince molten ceramic where the marks of a near miss was on display for all to see. And finally there was his helmet where a deep but non-lethal gash could be seen. Deep magenta blood covered his armor, mixing with his own crimson.

There was only one weapon that I knew of that could do this much damage. And Avery Fallon carried it in his hand now using it in tandem as a crutch to keep himself and his brother moth up.

Many of the civilians gasped and backed away, while Durge and Trombley moved to aid them. Instead of accepting the aid however the two walking wounded lightly but violently shoved their would be helpers away before my love helped his old instructor into his crash couch.

The two did this silently before touching their visors together. The two shared a conversation out of the tac-link before they nodded to one another and my suiter stood back up with a great effort and began the trek to his own couch, the one beside my own.

Shifting uncomfortably I decided to make my way to his side and made to help him into his own seat. Instead, as he reached his seat and I leaned in placing my claws on him to help he looked at me. This close in I could see his helmet's black visor glowing a faint red from the mass of what must be emergency messages on his HUD.

He reeked of blood and the chalky metallic of his nanites, that even now worked to seal and scab over his wounds. I placed my hands on his shoulders and began to shepard him into the seat. But instead of accepting my aid he drew his hand from the hole in his side and planted it in my breast plate before gently pushing me away leaving a bloody hand print that glowed a faint crimson with the cool bioluminescence of nanites. "I'm fine."

His voice was wet and grating as he basically threw himself into the seat. "Pilot…" He growled before he grunted in pain as a fresh river of chalky crimson blood oozed from his kidney wound. "...Dust off."

Instantly Lucky-13 lifted throwing off, the sudden movement throwing off my equilibrium making my stumble forward, the blood soaked deck rushed up to meet me. But I never felt the impact, instead my love had snapped out a hand almost faster than I could see and hooked his bionic into the crook of my elbow.

Cold and unyielding the metallic fingers locked me in place as the dropship rocked. Turning I saw him gesture with his helmet to the seat beside him a movement so subtle I might have missed it had I not been looking. My love was in pain, and couldn't be seen to show weakness in front of us, especially not the civilians.

I smiled slightly now understanding his previous hostility and took my place in the crash couch at his side. When I was finally locked into place I felt the elegant bionic slip from my elbow. Looking over I saw my suiter's head dip, chin tucked into his half melted gorget.

Training took over then, training and my want my need to not lose him again. And so, as the dropship sailed back towards the Defiant I unhooked his medical kit from his webbing and began to attempt to seal his wounds. It wouldn't be long before we went to battle again and I wouldn't waist even this time we shared.