Part 4

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Chiana froze, the piece of fruit dropping to the floor suddenly forgotten. No, no, it couldn't be. She shook her head in disbelief. Oh no. Oh no, they were frelled, frelled right up the ass now. The Establishment was after them for something, she remembered that much, and now they were on Nirthrian Prime, not far from Nebar itself. They must have been in the process of being transported back to Nebari Prime when they had somehow escaped.

Chiana crouched down pulling at her hair. Oh no, no, they were royally screwed, she crooned to herself as she rocked in her crouched position. Her panic overwhelmed her. She had to get to Crichton, had to get to him now. They'd have to risk the guards, but they had to go now. She got up and ran to the door, but stopped and leaned against it.

No, Chiana, she told herself, calm down and think. Don't panic. Breathe, yes that's it, just breathe. Now think. There was the sense she was always being accused of not thinking things through, she assumed by Crichton. Ok, now think.

Chiana gradually calmed down. She walked over and retrieved the piece of fruit off the floor. Eating always calmed her. She sat down across one of the luxurious chairs. First thing, she thought, why was this Minister interested in them? What was he up to here? She grabbed another piece of fruit and bit into it. Obviously he was involved in the Establishment and had some power but how much real power did he have? Enough to chase off those guards chasing them.

Chiana smiled. She could always frell him to try to get some information. After all, men often said things in bed that they wouldn't otherwise reveal. He had seemed very interested in her offer earlier. He was very good-looking she mused, and was probably a good frell, but he'd probably be expecting her to try to get information from him that way.

Besides, Crichton definitely wouldn't approve, that fekkik. She snorted. Like he had any say over what she did. Yeah, the fekkik had somebody else, she was sure of it. He was probably in his quarters mooning over that someone else right now. It would serve him right if she frelled Larran. She shook her head. Men were so stupid sometimes.

She finished her second fruit and tossed both cores over her shoulder with a giggle. After all, the place wasn't hers and she didn't have to clean up. She spied the computer terminal in a small alcove by the kitchen area. Ah, she thought, a place to start. She had some research to do.

---

Larran drew into his main kitchen, gazing over the things his Bannik slaves were making. The smells were delicious, making him feel absolutely famished.

"Minister," a Bannik woman came up to him with a bow of her head, holding out a small tray.

"Oshana," he smiled pleasantly as he drew his fingers along her face. "Mmmm, I thought I had you confined?"

"Well," she averted her eyes. "I was needed to arrange for your new guests in the - playing wing. Does this menu suit you to their nourishment needs?"

"I was thinking about that," Larran licked his lips as he took the tray and set it down beside a wok of steaming vegetables. "I ... want you to go into the playing wing and withdraw all the complimentaries that were set out. My new guests will be skipping evening meal ..." he smiled to himself, narrowing his eyes as he took her chin. "For a few days."

---

"Whoa!" John shouted as he stepped into Chiana's room. He creased his brows as he came into the center of the lounge, turning around in a circle. He whistled. "Damn."

Chiana giggled as she came sliding down the railing from the bedroom loft. "You like it?"

"The presidential suite?" He eyed her lithe form perched on the railing as he tugged on the cuffs of his black leather trench. "Not as much as I'd like to get out of here."

"Aw, c'mon," she hopped down to him, tilting her head into his chest as she ran her hand down his coat. "It's better than being lost running from the enforcers. Where we gonna go when we aren't even sure where we came from?"

"Did you forget we're bargaining chips?" He asked as he tilted his own head to meet her eyes. "We're in the future Chiana, the wrong future. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong! No pass, do not collect two hundred, go directly to jail!"

She curled her lip at him. "You got any better ideas?"

"Yes I do," John turned from her, coming to the crescent console against the wall. "Figure out the history ... there's gotta be a history record button on this darn fangled contraption ..."

"Why?"

"Be-cause!" John gave the console a perplexed look as he waved his hand over the hieroglyphics and shapes on it. "Look, I think we should go back to those kids who picked us up. Maybe they know something that could be better for us than this place to hang out while we try to figure all this out."

"Why go back to that after this?" Chiana inquired, eyeing him as she keyed over a few of the glyphs until the wall came to life as a view screen.

John stepped back slightly as he blinked at it. He then grabbed Chiana by her shoulders and twisted her around to face the room. "Does this look anything like something me and you could just hang out with and there not be some bend over for the frell catch?"

Chiana chuckled. "I guess not."

He turned her back around, planting her hands on the console. "Then let's get some history out of this thing and get the frell out of here. Maps, places these enforcers don't go, anything."

Chiana sighed, rolling her eyes as she touched several keys. "I've already tried ... If I knew half this dren. Look at this symbol, I never even heard of a button like that."

"As long as it's not the red one. Yeah and that Minister isn't gonna let you have access to anything he thinks is important. But that's him. To us, anything's an improvement."

"Crichton, I don't know - nunh!" she threw her hands out at it and drew back into a tilted crouch. She stared at her hand when John squeezed it. "Well I'm not ah helpless," she took her hand back and wiped it on her rear as if it had something creepy on it, and at the moment it did feel odd, if in a really nice way. "I ah, can think of lotsa codes, encryptions, mm, but we're in the wrong frelling time!"

"Yeah. Well try anyway. Maybe they'll be like fashions and they reuse them from time to time. If it sets off an alarm or something, hey, he's gotta know we'd try this."

Chiana approached the console again as if in awe and tried something. Nothing happened. She sighed and tried another. "Did I mention you gotta be patient with this dren?"

"Yeah it's in the hacker's job description." John stepped back slightly as the large screen over the wall came to life with a scene into space. He felt like he was about to be sucked into it the depth was so - real. Like he could just walk out into it. "Way to go, Pip! Is it the history channel?"

"Dunno," Chiana shook her head slightly as she glanced up at it. "Can you remember what age we're from?"

"Try anything before Nebari added uncharted territories onto their charts, Scarrans and Peacekeepers ..."

"Here," Chiana tocked her head slightly as a new grid came up. "Nebari Prime isn't really big on keeping much history, Crichton ..."

"Yeah, having only one side to a story doesn't exactly encourage fireside chats anyway. Try to look ... If these people control everything, why ... would they bother with taking two perfectly ordinary Joe Blow citizens like us all the way back to Nebari Prime for a little mind cleaning? There's gotta be more convenient places to get the dirt out."

Chiana tilted her head oddly at the console and entered another series of key presses. "Hey ... here's something about ... resistance something ..." She creased her brows, standing again as she brought up a hologram to the console face.

The young Nebari male glared out at nothing as he raised his hand out, his palm open and fingers spread before clasping it closed into a fist. "Lasia Drauth!"

She turned to it, tilting her head as she ran through the language interpretation.

"The Cause Lives," the youth in the hologram stated more calmly. Chiana's head came up to him, her lips parting as she looked into his sharp, determined eyes. She touched along another key, listening as he began to speak.

"We know they've made their final demands Minister. As you can see it isn't so difficult for us to get into any system. You're little - collection, we discovered. You cannot deny us any longer, we know about you. We know you are the one who has her remains. They belong to us, you know they do. Our final word to you is that you give us enough of her DNA to prove once and for all to our Resistance - that she did indeed exist. I cannot stress to you more strongly that our interest is far greater than ... I bid you this one last time, don't let something so crucial to the Cause just lay in your collection because they set a nice price for you. Even the smallest rumor of proof she was real has to be investigated. The Cause lives!"

"Cause," she muttered as she gently rubbed the side of her head, trying to remember.

"What's ernest boy there on about, Pip?"

"The Cause," she stated with a slight tock of her head. "I remember - something about resistance. There was a resistance, against the contagion. My brother was trying to expose - the contagion, make people aware of it, stop it from - from, mmmmmm ..." She tapped on her temple, aggravated. "When we first got here didn't they ... the couple ..."

"Korash and ... jeez what was it ... Sheyza."

"Yeah! Didn't they say Nebari Prime took over these territories because they activated the contagion? So - so what happened to the Cause?"

"This might explain something," John commented as he pointed to a symbol on the screen. "Got a hunch that's a menu or something. Can you ...?"

Chiana found a set of keys that selected it. The screen changed into a profile of the Nebari male in the small hologram. A Peacekeeper in Nebari clothes came up on the right side as the young man's black leather clad form turned in place, data flying along each side of him.

"Wanted, with a reward to all endorsed and unendorsed collectors, of ten thousand krendars," the Nebari clothed Peacekeeper stated flatly. "Bursamen, Nebari class, tradesman. Uncleansed. Bursamen is a suspected member of the resistance protest cult known as the N.R.M., Nerri's Resistance Militia. The N.R.M. is a wide spread denomination of the rebellion threat known as The Cause and should be regarded as hostile and capable of extreme violence. Bursamen is suspect in black market trade and data system hacks for the N.R.M. of propagandist statements. He is believed to be a prime lead in the illegal protest of rights to items and historical facts they claim the Establishment is withholding from the basic knowledge of commonwealth community. The N.R.M group is to be regarded as an enemy of the Establishment and unconformable. All enforcers are being advised to capture and arrest by any means necessary for the Greater Good. This subject is considered to be in contact with-"

"Frell," Chiana swore as the console went dark. Nothing seemed to be able to reactivate it. "We - we gotta know, wha - what that - frell!" Chiana slammed her hands on the console.

"That's enough," John smiled to himself as he rested his hand on Chiana's shoulder. "Them's the boys we wanna see. C'mon, let's dig for a way out of here."

---

Larran sat in his office drinking a glass of baltaberry wine and staring at the faces of his "guests" on his view screen. The Nebari woman, Chiana, she claimed, and the Sebacean, Crichton, were an odd pairing to be sure.

As soon as he returned to his office, he looked in the records for their identities. All citizens of the Nebari territories had the fingerprints, retinal scans, and DNA registered at birth, but he found nothing. While not entirely unusual since people, himself included, used false identities all the time, neither one appeared to be registered anywhere in Nebari space.

And then the one called Chiana had activated the console in her quarters with encryptions he never imagined anyone would use. Ancient and little known to anyone, he'd only used the codes for his own archives. He disabled the console when he'd noticed the access. For a moment he'd assumed that Oshana had attempted it, but he chuckled now to have thought that Oshana could do something of the sort. He'd soon realized it was the one called Chiana.

These two were definitely mysterious and if his instincts were correct, potentially very valuable to him. Something else about them was familiar but he couldn't quite place it. No matter, he thought, when he found out what he need to know, he would use it to further his position in the Establishment.

Larran smiled as his thoughts wandered to the woman who claimed to be Chiana. What a delicious piece she was. Beautiful and undeniably sexy, but an upper class female she was not. Her speech and mannerisms had given her away as being from one of the lower classes but he had decided to play along with her little game.

Still, she was delicious and he would enjoy pursuing and frelling her, and frell her he would. He smiled thinking of her naked body against his, making her scream with both pleasure and pain. Oh the possibilities. Then when he tired, he could always sell her off to a pleasure house for a nice sum.

His thoughts turned to the Sebacean, Crichton. What was she doing with him? They obviously knew each other well, very well. He wondered just how intimate they really were. The Sebacean seemed to bristle every time he touched Chiana. Larran suspected this was something he could exploit. He wondered what Crichton would do if he actually frelled Chiana.

Images of possible scenarios sprang into his head until he found one that he particularly liked. Yes, that's the one, he chuckled, absolutely perfect.

In his mind he imagined Crichton chained to the wall, forced to watch as he took Chiana in front of him. Would he care or would he react like a jealous lover? A variation suddenly came to mind and he chuckled evilly. After taking Chiana in front of Crichton, he would chain her to the wall and force her to watch him and Crichton together. Oh the endless possibilities for fun with those two.

Larran took another leisurely sip of wine as he watched John and Chiana moving stealthily along the halls and into the main rooms. Everything was accessible and open, until they came to doors leading beyond the wing. They searched every part of their confinement, discovering they were trapped inside an elaborate cage of about two stories large. He smiled to himself as he sat back, watching Chiana the closest.

---

Chiana dragged the chair into her sauna, positioning it as she came up to the glass door that lead out to the orchids and bamboos. "Raaah!" She let out sharply as she slung the heavy chair, slamming it against the glass. It bounced against the slightly domed surface, reverberating with a dull, Plexiglas sound.

She sighed heavily as John came up behind her, pursing her lips as she hauled the chair up and swung again. This time the chair bounced out of her hands.

"What are you doing?"

Chiana tocked her head, her aggravation sharp in her eyes as she picked the chair up again and dragged it back. "If we go without food another 72 arns maybe you'll be thin enough for me to slid you under a door crack."

"Let me try."

Chiana looked up at him wide eyed as she held the chair off her shoulder in preparation to swing. "Nuh!" She threw the chair down, a sharp chuckle escaping her as she watched him stumble away from it tumbling into his shins. "Be my guest!"

John sighed lightly, rolling his eyes as he took the chair. He swung, the glass letting out a loud "FWOK!" as the chair bounced off of it, yanking out of John's grasp and into the sauna. He looked down to his hands. "Oops."

"Coulda told ya that," she muttered as she picked up a sharply edged steam rock and hefted it in her hand.

"Yeah well, thanks for the warning," he eyed her. "You know what I hate the most when you're like this ..."

"Is this going to be any different from the last two hundred times you bitch?" Chiana asked quickly as she crouched in front of the glass, running her fingers along its smooth surface. She planted the sharp edge of the stone on it, raking it across the surface. It cut a streak on the surface of the glass, sounding something akin to nails across a chalk board that sent her and John both grabbing for their ears. She slung the stone into it, jerking back as the glass finally shattered in a powder puff explosion of pieces.

She stepped through with him, both of them silent as the heavy weight of tropical air rushed around them, mixing into the cool, lighter clash of the open room. Everything was damp and hot, the bamboo rising up into a forest of them of about five feet taller than their own heads.

John moved ahead of her where the bamboo ended, coming to a halt as he gazed over a misty canopy below of an entire forest. What he could see of it from the low laying clouds.

"Holy cow," he muttered as he rested his hands on a railing, looking down at the eighty foot drop from the balcony they were on to the canopy below. "What the hell is this? A planet, bio-dome or what?"

Chiana looked up to the sky above, able to make out the blue crescent shades of a force shield between them and the night stars. She nudged John as she gaped at several meteors about the quarter size of a moon. "It's as big as a planet, the metropolis. This is still a bio thing, on the surface."

"Yup makes the Astrodome look like a porta-potty," he sighed again as he turned around. "Well, we're not getting out this way. Let's see if there's anything to eat in this garden."

"I can assure you there isn't," a voice came from above them.

They both turned, looking to Larran as he leaned against the railing of another balcony slightly above and across from them. Larran smiled darkly as the light breeze brushed his long black hair into his face.

"What do you want Larran?" John asked, licking his lips with the rushing desire he felt to somehow knock the Nebari down and pulverize him. "We're not much good to you if you starve us out. What's the deal man?"

"Merely," Larran smiled again as he rested his gaze on Chiana. "Tempering the will. You have to admire it don't you? Seventy-two arns and you are both as obstinate as ever, if not more so. I think this is my favorite part ... I'll have to remember to leave the balconies more accessible I gather. But, I've had too many unfortunate incidences with my guests poisoning themselves trying to eat the exotics."

"So that's it," John narrowed his eyes on him coldly. "You're making us into your favorite little pets ... so what happened to the Establishment wanting us as criminals?"

"That's still negotiable," Larran searched John's eyes carefully, narrowing his own as he stood up straighter. "Still can't remember anything that might be of value to you? Perhaps a good meal would jog your memories."

"So you can have some beggin strips to dangle in my face?" John smiled coolly. "Ohhhh, I don't think so."

Larran chuckled softly to himself as he tapped his thin lips with his index finger. He then pointed it at John. "Come to the dining center of your wing. For your treat ... we'll continue this discussion."

"And Chiana?"

"Will do without her servicer," Larran glared into him again as he eased back from the balcony edge and out of site. "She is not - shall I say, unsatisfying just yet."

"That fekkik," Chiana growled under her breath as she turned back for the sauna in her room. "Who the frell does he think he is?"

"Uh, a Minister?" John asked as he followed, brushing the twigs of bamboo branches from his face as he tried to keep up with her pace. "Whatever a Minister is."

"It's a servicer," Chiana answered absently as she picked up the steam rock along her way into her lounge. "A high ranking servicer."

"You remember that?"

"I looked it up," Chiana moved for the door, gasping when a shield zapped her in its way, forcing her back. "Son of a hezmot!" She cried out as she threw the stone, jerking at her shoulders when it passed through and bounced against the hallway wall. "You Fekkik faced drannit sucking Greebol, monkey freller!"

"Nice," John quirked his brows as he slipped through the door without any problem.

"No!" Chiana shouted as she slung her hand into the door way, shouting as it shocked her again. She came to her knees, cupping her hand to her chest. She looked up to John pleadingly. "John, you gotta - gotta bring me something, yeah. Okay? I'm gonna frelling kill that bastard!"

"Relax," he smiled with confidence, even though he didn't feel a great deal of it on the inside, as he knelt to her. "I got an idea ... hopefully its good enough to get us out of here, much less save my ass so I can keep it around yours. You with me on it?"

She nodded as she looked to him with tears in her eyes. "Don't leave me in here ..."

"I'll sneak you some broccoli behind my ears or something," he shrugged. "Maybe put some mash potatoes in my hair? Mmmm, if you weren't so hungry I could think of better places ..."

She chuckled as he drew his hand away.

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