Extracted - Part 5

[Sthurmovik]

Would have put these together due to the site outage, but it exceeded the 60k character limit.

Title meaning is revealed! Or is it?

Part 5:

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Serena looked around in disbelieving shock as she compared the passage they were in to the video feed returned by the probe. For one the space they were in appeared to be smaller and the corridor made a 90 degree turn just a ways beyond while the feed showed it opening into a large room. There was also no control unit by the portal and most importantly, the portal probe was nowhere to be found.

"Lars, keep watch on the portal, but everyone else stand down. I think we just got redirected and if the Unity aren't here by now they either chose not to follow or got redirected themselves."

"What sort of place is this," asked Fiona, taking off her helmet as she inspected the walls for any sort of marking or sign.

"It's probably some form of security screening," offered Lupa. "These sorts of things have been encountered before and are probably one of the more prudent things one can do with a portal."

"You don't think we violated some security safeguard and got sent to a holding cell do you?" asked Serena.

"Could be, but usually holding cells do a better job of holding instead of presenting an indefinite hallway. The sharp turn could be part of a blast deflection system or simply a way to shield security forces from potentially hostile arrivals." Lupa looked up toward the ceiling. "The lights are still on so perhaps somebody is home. Do you think we should go look or wait here until the rescue team can locate us?"

"If you're looking for search and rescue to appear don't bet on it happening anytime soon," said the Captain. "I've tried just about every setting I can on the emergency transponders and I can't get a thing on Inter-D or subspace. I think we're going to need to get out of this rock before we can call for a ride."

"Alright everybody," said Serena, "I’m going to trust our scanners here so feel free to take your helmets off and for the time being reduce the use of consumables in your EV suits. Get all the gear together for an inventory before we divide it up for movement. I'll leave a message in case rescue comes through the portal. Hopefully they'll follow protocol and not send any people through."

"Follow protocol huh?" there was an edge to Lupa's voice. "First you're bitching about protocol and now you're all for it. What are we, tied now 2-2?"

Serena struggled to keep her composure, but felt the need to answer for the benefit of the group. "A rescue team would in all likelihood be redirected to another location. Then the rescuers would need rescuing."

As everyone figured out how much stuff they could carry and which items were critical to bring, Serena walked over to the wall and began to write enciphered characters on the wall using a special tagging pen that would fluoresce only under certain EM wavelengths. She felt someone move up behind her and turned to see Lars standing there.

"Listen Colonel, don't let Lupa get to you, she's hurting right now and doesn't mean what she says. If it makes any difference coming from me, you did the right thing. I just wasn't thinking back there. The fleet boys will pick her up and get her home to her family. If Sarah’s body were here…right now." Lars shook his head, trying not to consider that possibility. "You did the right thing."

Lars turned to leave, but Serena put her hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Thanks, it does make a difference. Don't try to intervene with Lupa on my behalf. I've been her friend long enough to know what to ignore and what to respond to, especially on a day like this."

Lars nodded and walked back to the others while Serena turned to finish her message. Putting the tip of the marker to the wall, Serena's eyes began to stare at her hand as it shook uncontrollably making a series of random dots and marks, Closing her eyes she applied a few of her custom tricks to shut down the crosstalk in her neurocrystal and halt the shaking. When she finally finished Fiona was just about done stripping out of her EV suit and dumping it on the leave behind heap while Lars and Lupa evened out each other's packs. Swinging her own gear onto her back Serena walked up to the front of the group.

"Alright, I'm going to take point. Try to spread out a bit. Lars you sweep with Fiona and use the marker to tag our route."

Serena turned and began to walk down the hallway toward the first bend. She morphed her right arm into a general purpose plasma weapon deciding that the convenience outweighed the risk of being perceived as hostile. Walking she got to within about 10 feet of the corner when something suddenly "felt" very wrong, bringing her to an abrupt halt.

"What's wrong Colonel," asked Captain Dunn, who stopped as well, keeping his distance.

Serena didn't respond, but instead gingerly raised her weapon-arm and ever so carefully brought the tip forward in a sweeping motion. It suddenly began to glow and sparkle with a pinkish energy.

"Extractor field," said Serena as both a statement and a question, moving the tip of the plasma cannon along the surface of the field that lay no more than three inches from her face. "There's a quantum extractor field stretching the hallway. Shit, I almost walked right into that one."

"Extractor field?" Captain Dunn asked, "Isn't that one of those things that turns androids into humans?"

"Almost," said Lupa as she walked up. "Quantum Extractor Fields isolate the consciousness in sentient synthetics and then sort of reverse engineer a biologic container for them. Very popular for security screening because you don't need to keep a stock of biologic body patterns and you can mess with the cybernetic shell while the mind is away being wined and dined. How in the heavens did you know that was there Serena?"

"I guess I just had a feeling…" Serena trailed off.

"Wow, a Sister who gets gut feelings. Now I've seen everything," flipped Lupa.

"I feel a lot of things Lupa," Serena shot along with a hard gaze.

"Um so," said the Captain looking confused, "is this a problem?"

"While being turned human and then forced to schlep around my inert shell was not exactly what I had in mind to do this weekend, getting extracted isn't the worst thing in the world. I mean I get turned human every couple of months…even made a drinking game out of it."

"Did you now," said the Captain.

"Yeah, every time I get turned human…I drink."

The Captain was silent for a few beats. "Drink what?"

Lars started laughing. "Oh I get it."

"See, Lars is a grad student. He gets it." Serena winked.

"Listen that's great, but what about Bea here? She's still active in the transport case."

Serena looked at Lupa. "Damn, you’re right. I don't know what happens to Ship AIs that go through an extractor. In fact I can't recall it ever having been done."

"Oh I'm sure it has," responded Lupa, "somewhere."

"Still, let's not be the first. Hey Lars, we need you over here."

The student/soldier walked up to where they others had gathered. "What do you need?"

"Put your scanner in quantum mode with a 3 Plank resolution and just sort of stick it…in there," Serena gestured to the empty air in front of her.

"Wait, like with my hand?"

"It won't hurt you Meaty McNuggets," replied Serena rolling her eyes.

Lars reached his hand in with the scanner and a few peaks appeared on the 3D graph representation of the ambient quantum foam.

"Yup, that's the tracking wave. It can lock onto most forms of sentient AI, but there are some way outside the box thinkers that are immune," said Serena.

"So what do we do about it?" asked Lars.

"Just take your railgun and start firing it into the wall to destroy the waveguides. Once they are gone the field will vanish."

"Alright everyone, stand back," said Lars looking around. "Hey, why is Fiona all the way back there?"

Fiona had a look of absolute terror on her feline face, her body language shy and mousey as she slowly backed away from the others.

"It's probably because she's scared…" Serena cut off abruptly as her eyes went wide. "Oh fuck, I can't believe I forgot about that. Fiona is from the Link!"

"What about it?" now it was Lupa's eyes that went wide with a gasp. "Shit!"

"Can someone please tell me what's going on here?" asked Dunn.

"First rule of handling a Linker," said Serena, "is that you never EVER extract a Linker. Ever. Never ever. They shouldn't get within 100 meters of an extraction field."

"Why? What happens?" Dunn asked again.

"The Interlink's been around for millennia. At first it was just a place where biologic beings uploaded their minds to, but then the denizens started to reproduce in there," began Lupa.

"In the Link any mind can produce an offspring with any other mind and it's not really a big deal. However when the Quantum Extractor is changing reality to reflect the situation where the Linker mind was born biologic all that "lineage" comes back into play and you get these crazy hybrids," continued Serena, drawing on her experiences in SLIRT.

"It's very difficult for a Linker to predict what they will extract to and the basket of options includes bodies that are simply not viable and quickly die or bodies with severe deformities. Oh," started Lupa again, "there's also the risk of turning into a non-sentient monster…that's always a crowd pleaser."

"It's not always death and deformity," said Serena, "but even if you avoid it extracted Linkers exhibit high incidences of , for lack of a better term, "powers"."

"You're kidding me. Like super powers?"

"Like the kind that start with "tele" or end with "kinetic" and if you want a cherry on top mental instability is just as prevalent as the powers. Care to guess whose job it is to deal with the fallout when some Link AI thinks its "cool" to draw from the Deck of Many Things?" said Serena, pointing at herself. "Trust me, I've had some real doozies."

"Listen, I'm going to go talk with Fiona," said Lupa. "We can't have her just hide back here by the portal. Do you think we can get her out safely?"

"We're going to get everyone out safely," said Serena. "Fiona, Bea and myself. We'll pair up bios and synths. Captain, you look after your wife. Lupa with Fiona and Lars you're with me. If we find additional extractor fields we'll deal with them and then move on."

Those near the field stepped back as Lars raised his weapon and fired about a half dozen slugs into the stone wall, each leaving a waste basket sized crater. As the dust settled two scans of the area indicated that it was safe to proceed and the party paired up with Lars in the lead followed by Captain Dunn and Fiona in the rear position just behind Lupa. They all continued walking up to and around the first left hand turn in the tunnel only to find another short length of tunnel itself capped with a 90 degree right turn.

"I feel like a rat in a maze," remarked Lars.

"Don't even joke about that," said Serena.

They made the next turn and continued on, the bio of each pair walking in front with the scanner, watching for the telltale signs of the tracking wave. It was just as Lars and Serena had reached the third 90o turn when Dunn's scanner went off causing him to jump backwards. Lars ran back to see if he was ok.

"Fucking hell, you two just walked past that spot not 10 seconds before me!" the Captain yelled as Lars confirmed the presence of a second extractor field. "If this was just for security screening they'd have the fields on all the time…right?"

"Relax captain. They are probably motion triggered to save on power or something. That's why we're all paired up here. Alright, you might want to stand back."

Lars raised his railgun while the Captain backtracked a few steps, making sure his scanner was in front of him at all times. A few muffled cracks of slug on stone later and Lars confirmed that it was safe to proceed. Walking back up to the front of the procession he gave Serena a worried look.

"I'm getting a really bad feeling about this. If this isn't a security checkpoint and this isn't a prison then what is it? Why would a major transit hub want to send people here?"

"I don't know Lars, but if this keeps up our only option will be to try and get back to the portal and, I don't know, hope for luck to intervene."

As the group walked on additional extractor fields failed to materialize, but the pattern continued with hallways and turns followed by yet another hallway. The length of the distance between turns sometimes varied, but there were no intersections or junctions or other variation from the norm. Suddenly Captain Dunn let out a terrified cry as a 20 foot section of floor vanished beneath his feet leaving him to fall under the force of gravity. Lupa almost went in with him but for the quick actions of Fiona pulling her back. As Lupa rolled over on the floor to look into the pit a bright white light erupted from it, illuminating the gloomy hallway.

The sight that greeted Lupa's eyes was bizarre. The pit was only about 10 feet deep, but the Captain was hovering, face down, about halfway to the bottom. Between him and the floor an intense white light was solidifying into a human shape. What were clearly a pair of wings gave the being an angelic appearance leading Lupa to wonder if they had finally managed to run into one of the local inhabitants. However as the seconds passed the light began to fade into a mid of pink skin and black feathers. Acting quickly Dunn wrapped his arms around the woman's upper body and head as whatever force was holding him in mid air let loose dropping the pair a short distance onto the hard floor. Once again Lars was the scene, kneeling down to peer over the edge of the now darkened pit.

"Captain, are you ok down there."

"I…I'm fine," said the Captain before his voice was joined by another, emitting a series of soft moans. "But we have a situation here. It's Bea. She's…she's here and she's…something."

Shining his light down into the pit Lars saw the Captain sitting down on the hard stone cradling what appeared to be a human female with two black corvid wings folded up against her back. Other parts of her body were clad in black feathers as well including her upper legs and forearms. Her lower legs, while still human in shape were partly covered in thick avian scales and each of her toes ended in a black talon. The woman was looking around in confusion with movements and a facial expression reminiscent of humans with severe autism or similar developmental disorders.

"Oh Jesus," was all Lars could manage.

"Can you throw me down an emergency blanket, she's starting to shiver.”

Lars rummaged through her back while Lupa and Fiona looked on. The she-wolf could feel the robotic felinoid next to her start to tremble in fear and moved to comfort the girl as best she could while still trying to assist the Captain and Bea.

"I think I see some hand and foot etched into the rock there," Lupa called out. "Captain, is she ok? Do you think we can get her out of there?"

"I don't know!" his voice sounded anguished as for the first time in his life he felt utterly unprepared to help care for his soul mate.

"Here's the blanket Cap," said Lars tossing it down. "Do you want me to come to you?"

"No, that's alright, I don't want to scare her," replied Dunn, turning to wrap the blanket around his wife. Speaking softly with a reassuring tone the Captain gently urged the bird woman to her wobbly feet.

"Talk to me Lars," called Serena from where she stood, glued to the location where her escort had left her.

"It's like she's turned into some sort of half bird half woman. She's got black wings and feathers. Dunn's helping her stand and walk right now, but she's having some coordination issues."

"Ships' AI's are most typically a human model psyche with a little bit extra added to help with the 3D movement environment, typically avians or cetaceans. I suspect it is a crow or raven model given their advanced problem solving abilities. Unfortunately flesh brains don't have the same hardware support for multiple consciousness threads so…" Serena cut herself short as she realized that the Captain, while out of sight in the pit was not out of earshot.

"Here, Lars, help me. I'm just going to lift her out. She's actually pretty light," said the Captain as he moved Bea over to the side of the pit then hefted her up by her waist to where Lars could brings her up the rest of the way.

"We're going to need to find something to wrap her feet in," said Lupa, going to her pack to dig out some extra clothing that could be fashioned into soft sandals.

"Lars, get in there and blast the field generators before it closes up," Serena called over. "We've got to get Fiona across."

Lars nodded and after helping Bea move her hands up to cover her ears he moved over to the pit and began to blast out chunks of the wall until he was satisfied that the pitfall had been disarmed. Just as Serena had expected, as soon as Dunn clambered out of the bit the holographic floor reappeared although the Captain didn't notice as he ran over to comfort his wife. Bea's face has a strange look of surprise and wonder akin to the type a human toddler gets in a strange or pleasantly unfamiliar situation. Lupa led Fiona over at which point Bea quickly became enamored with the catgirl's soft furry covering, much to her husband's chagrin. Leaving the rest of the team Lupa walked over to where Serena stood unable to hold the tears back any longer.

//"Serena, I'm coming apart here," the wolf thought spoke to avoid anyone else catching wind of her crisis. //"Sarah's dead, Bea turned into god knows what, you and Fiona are surely next. This mission is systematically destroying everyone I care far and there is nothing I can do to stop it!

As Lupa fell into Serena's arms the long lived android didn't know if Lupa suffering a breakdown was better or worse than just harboring resentment over Sarah's death. Ever since her conversion seven years ago Serena had been left feeling increasingly vulnerable with the daily rigors of her job relentlessly tearing away at the emotional defenses and coping mechanisms that has served her so well over the centuries. The death of yet another person under her command combined with the more routine stress of a perilous mission had left Serena running on fumes.

"Shhh, just relax Lupa. Bea's going to be fine, I'm going to be fine. If this place wanted to harm us it could have done so easily by now. If anything that trap back there made it clear that this whole…place was designed to naturalize synthetics in an environment where they would not be able to harm themselves or others.

//"Yeah that's great Serena, but the thing that poses the greatest risk to Fiona is the transformation itself. We've got to get her out of here."

"Now that I have a better understanding of what this place is we can adjust our search for an exit."

Lupa nodded glumly and went back to where Lars was binding up makeshift footwear made from some t-shirts and cord to Bea's feet.

"How is she," asked Lupa, noting that the former scout ship was now fully engrossed in a game of tag with Fiona's tail.

"The lights are on and somebody's home," Captain Dunn sighed, "but she's just stuck in her own reality that we can't relate to at the moment. She's getting better, I think she recognizes me and understands what I say, but I can't hold her attention. I'd say she's acting like a child, but even I've had better luck getting through to kids. Hey, are you ok?"

"I'm, I'm just having a bad day," said Lupa, wiping away the tear streaks on her cheeks.

"Alright on three, one, two, three and up," said Lars as he and Fiona together lifted Bea to her feet. Captain Dunn rushed over to take Lars' place, but showing surprising intent Bea held up her hand and clung tightly to Fiona.

"What…what's wrong?" asked the Captain, looking somewhat bewildered.

"W….w-work," was all Bea could manage, the single word taking considerable effort for her to enunciate.

"What do you mean by that," asked the Captain, still looking confused.

"It means you don't have to look after her right now," Serena called back. "Grab your scanner and reconfigure it to find a way possible exit. Now can we please get moving? I am not particularly fond of standing in this one spot for the rest of the afternoon."

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As the team moved on they formed two rough groups with Lars leading Fiona and Bea and Serena hanging back with Lupa while the Captain was free to roam around with the an assortment of scanning devices, trying to find a chink in the maze.

"You know maybe if we had choices, you know, different tunnels to take, it wouldn't feel so pointless," Lupa remarked as she walked a bit ahead of her friend.

"It's supposed to be pointless. Weaken the mind so you fall into a trap, then I assume the secret doors open and you get the welcoming committee or the skeletons of the welcoming committee."

Lupa took a deep breath. "I'm sorry I was nasty to you earlier. Having to leave Sarah behind was hard and it was easier to just blame you."

"I'm the commander, that's what I'm here for," replied Serena a bit flatly.

"I would like to think you're my partner, or at least my friend," replied Lupa, not sure what to make of Serena's statement.

"I'm all those things Lupa, but I don't consider either of them to carry the responsibility of making life or death decisions."

"I always wished I had your level of decisiveness. You saved my butt so many times back in the day I don't think I would have ever questioned you had the same situation occurred back then. I guess I just got out of the habit of listening to you."

Serena covertly took her left wrist into her right hand to stop the shaking. "Like I said, don't sweat it. If Fiona gets changed she's going to need your help so you just have to put everything else out of your mind."

Fiona nodded. "We should probably get you back up to the front of the line with Lars.

"Yeah that's a good…hold on, he's stopped."

Lars held up his arm then moved forward slowly scanning the floor and walls.

"Yeah, we've got another holo-floor here."

"Well how the hell are we supposed to get you two across that?" exclaimed the Captain in frustration.

"How wide does the pit go Lars?" asked Serena.

"Um, about 25 feet."

"Yeah, Fiona and I can jump that, no problem."

"Jump?" said Fiona, the fur on her tail proofing out.

"Yeah jump, I'll go first to show you how easy it is."

Captain Dunn moved in and handed his scanner to Bea as she allowed herself to be pried away from Fiona's fuzzy warmness while Lupa and Lars cleared the takeoff and landing zones and marked the exact boundaries of the fake section of floor. Setting her variable grip boots for maximum traction the android dug in her heels and quickly accelerated towards the takeoff mark. The jump was perfect, the envy of any Olympic athlete, but about halfway through her flight Serena heard the distinct sound of the programmable hazard warning alarm sounding from Lars' scanning unit. The last thoughts through the molecular level pathways in her neorucrystal had to give the maze credit for its cleverness before her body same to an abrupt stop in mid air at the point it reached the end of the holo-floor.

This time the extraction process was on hand for all to see plainly. The energy comprising Serena's mind streamed forward from her frozen body like whey being strained from the curd. At first forming an amorphous cloud of white light the energy soon began to condense into a roughly humanoid outline that became more and more distinct until the glow faded away completely leaving behind soft flesh and flowing hair. The process now complete Serena's momentum was returned to her allowing the newly formed human to land her jump literally without missing a step. Serena crossed her arms over her bare chest and looked down with annoyance as her android shell slid into the wall with a dull thud.

"Well fuck me, so much for that plan," said Serena, her voice laden with irritation.

"You took that like a champ Colonel!" said Lars raising his hand for a high five before quickly lowering it again blushing. Serena was looking confident for the first few steps before her legs began to wobble. The next instant Lars was rushing to her side as she fell to her knees dry heaving.

"I'm fine, I'm fine," she insisted between additional bouts of sickness. "I just have to get something in me. One of the powdered ration beverages in your pack should work."

"Yeah, yeah, no problem," Lars replied.

"This isn't working," yelled Lupa, her voice wavering on the edge of freak out territory. "We walk around and around and this fucking maze keeps picking us off one by one. How the hell do we get out of here!?" she screamed, looking at Captain Dunn.

"Hey don't look at me, Bea always handled the scanners. I barely know how to read one of those things."

"Well maybe you should give it to someone who can," Lupa shot back.

"Yeah, here, fine," said the Captain looking around before finding the scanner in Bea's grasp, her face engrossed in the screen. "Hey Bea…I need that…"

"Exit." Bea said softly, pointing at one of the walls behind them.

"What did she just say?" said Lupa, looking a bit stunned.

"Exit!" repeated Bea, more emphatically this time, still pointing at the wall.

Down the hallway Lars looked up and began to push Serena back toward the other group on the far end of the holo-floor.

"Hey what gives?" protested Serena.

"I think Bea found something," said Lars, pulling Serena up to the others and turning her to face Bea who was still pointing at the far wall.

"She said that's the exit," said Captain Dunn.

Serena looked at Bea, their gazes meeting. Bea gave a slight nod before losing focus again and looking back down at the scanner

"Do it," stated Serena flatly.

"Do what," asked Lars.

"Get all the demo charges we have and get them on that wall."

"But what if she's…?"

"She's not…but that doesn't matter, it’s the only play we have left."

Lars ran back to get his pack.

"Hey, while you're over there please bring back my other body, I need to get changed," Serena called back after him before turning to see the Captain staring at her naked form. "May I help you?"

"Um, sorry, it's just that you look great. Better than great. Have you had…work done?"

"Not any more than usual," Serena chuckled. "Extracted Sisters are still human, but we have enough changes in our genome so that we count as "genetically enhanced". That means I can't participate in any NCAA events and I get looked at funny when cops see the tag on my ID."

"Are you sure that's actually related to the tag on your ID?" offered Lupa a bit seductively.

"Alright, peep show's over so why don't you get started with the charges while I swap clothes with my doppelganger there?"

"This is going to be a pretty large bang in a confined space," said Lars unpacking the charges from his bag.

"Set them up for maximum directionality. If that's a door or a huge slab of stone we don't know how thick it might be so the charges need to cut as deep as possible. We can take go back in front of the fake floor using our packs for cover and don't forget my old shell is bullet and bomb resistant."

Lars got to work as Serena methodically stripped down her old body and started getting dressed all over again. As the adrenaline rush from the extraction process began to wear off Serena began to experience all of the biologic processes she normally liked to avoid including fatigue, pain and intestinal distress. Taking a short break to quaff down a liquid ration Serena finished with her armour and then dragged her semi-nude body over to the pile of packs and equipment Captain Dunn was setting up at what would hopefully be a safe distance from the blast.

"You know if your wife manages to get us out of two nasty situations in one day I'm going to put her in for a medal," said Serena in all seriousness.

"I just hope it’s the kind you paint on a tailfin and not pin on a uniform," the Captain replied.

"Hey relax. She's doing remarkably well considering the circumstances. If worse comes to worse…"

"Don't you dare go there," Dunn snapped. "I know your Sisters like slumming it as humans from time to time, but don't suggest that being stuck this way is some kind of vacation for my Bea. I can tell she's not enjoying this in the least, but she has a duty to her mission, her crew and her passengers and she's going to carry it out no matter what."

Serena wanted to respond, to apologize, to make the Captain feel better, but for the first time in a while her words failed her and Serena just went about her work silently until Lars returned with Lupa and Fiona in tow.

"Ready to detonate at your command Colonel," said Lars, fingering the detonator.

"Alright, everyone who still has a helmet put it on," Serena called out as she clicked hers on and then positioned herself behind and on top of Lupa who was pressed up against the "wall" of packs and gear. The Captain put his helmet over his wife's head while Lars, still in light powered armour, attempted to cover them both along with the still robotic Fiona.

"Count it down Lars," said Serena.

"Three, two, one."

The explosion was substantial, but the preparations were adequate, the concussive force falling to non-life threatening levels as it blew past the passengers and crew of the Sleeping Giant covering them with a thick layer of dust and numerous fragments of rock debris. As those on top of the pile shook themselves clean they at first saw nothing but darkness, but as the dust cleared a bright shaft of sunlight broke through the gloom.

"We did it!" Fiona cried out with relief and joy.

"That's great," said Lupa through her com link. "Now can you roll off us? You're rather heavy."

The team managed to disengage from each other with everyone scrambling to grab their packs and get out of the roach motel as quickly as they could. Fiona carried Bea while Lupa and the Captain lead the way out of the hole and into a steep gorge cut into the side of a tall granite rock formation. Serena and Lars emerged last carrying Serena's android shell between them.

"Well I certainly didn't consider this eventuality when I was putting my pack together this morning," puffed Serena quickly becoming exhausted by the physical effort of lifting both her gear and her half of the shell.

"This isn't a sustainable solution if we have to travel any significant distance," said Lars

"I'll string together one of those A-frame sleds from local vegetation. That's worked for me in the past." replied Serena.

"Oh? You've been in this situation before?" asked Lars rather incredulously.

"Yeah, once, I'll tell you the story some time," Serena stopped as she broke into the sunlight. Fiona was absolutely buoyant and even Bea seemed to be having a good time as various pollinating insects skittered about a clump of flowers. "Boy, I hope whoever runs this place doesn't get pissed off at the hole we blew in the door. Look, you can see evidence of vehicle use in the track that runs up here. Not frequent, but frequent enough."

"I'm not getting anything from the emergency transponder," said the Captain. "It's like this whole planet is in a coms blackout."

"The transponders suck at getting through interference," said Serena as she took a break to sit down on a rock. "If they were as good as regular Inter-D coms then they wouldn't bother issuing the standard units. Don't worry. I can try rigging up something with the tech in my shell to boost the signal."

"At least it's nice out," offered Lupa

"I'm going to make a quick reconnoiter of the area," said Lars grabbing his weapon and making it ready for action.

"Alright," said Serena, "just be careful and don't go too far."

As Lars jogged off around the corner Serena began to go through her pack in an effort to lighten her load.

"Figures, too much crap, not enough food," Serena mumbled. "Is this really something I need to prepare for on every mission? At least I packed some energy drinks. "Helium-3 infused deuterium-oxide with added taurine", yeah, that sounds refreshing."

"You know you probably should have sent me to go recon," Lupa offered as she walked up and sat down next to Serena. "I'm faster, less noticeable and I have been just aching to get out and stretch my legs…all four of them."

"You can go out when Lars gets back. We should probably start moving quickly before whoever maintains this place decides to come see us about all the damage we caused. I don't think we're going to get our security deposit back."

"Gotcha," Lupa nodded. "Well it looks like you got us out of another one."

"We're not home yet you know and I think Bea had a lot to do with it," Serena replied.

"Hey, I'd blame you if we got stuck in there forever so I'm giving you credit for getting us out."

Just then Lars' voice came in over the radio. "Um, Colonel? We have a little situation here."

Serena let out a "now what" sigh. "Go ahead Lars."

"They've kinda got me."

"What?!"

"I've been captured. There's a about a company sized force out here, mostly humans. Level 4 tech combat gear, some light mecha, they wanted me to call you and resolve things non-violently. They seem nice enough, but they're going to be on you in about 30 seconds."

Serena found herself staring at her com unit, her mind metaphorically stuck on flypaper.

"Serena?!" cried Lupa, shaking the Colonel out of her daze.

"Yes, right. Everybody prepare to be taken prisoner. Zeroize all your crypro keys, make all sensitive devices safe. Conceal your escape and evasion gear if you haven't done so already." Captain Dunn went for his weapon, but Serena shook her head. "No Captain, they have Lars and we're in no position to fight."

"Serena...if I change now I can get out of here, help you escape later."

"Don't, they've probably had us under surveillance the whole time. Let's hold that particular ability close to our chest. It might be a useful card to play later."

She turned back to write some more hidden messages on some nearby rocks and threw down a couple of other breadcrumbs on the off chance a rescue force was to emerge from the tunnel. Everybody else just barely finished the procedures before a squad of soldiers appeared from around the side of the hill, weapons at the ready. Serena nodded and following her lead everyone raised their hands in surrender. A few of the soldiers rushed forward and gave everyone a quick once over with scanning wands before the officer in charge stepped forward and removed her helmet, letting her long black hair free of its confines.

"Welcome to Sanctuary. Please, lower your hands. You're safe here."

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