Part 48

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"What do you know, the Sister is leading us to the light" John observed as the group approached the end of a corridor. "Hey this is looking familiar."

"Yeah it's the way we came in....remembered it just after we found....Vega" Chiana twitched her head in the direction they'd come and edged out onto the small ledge that was more a landing for the stairs on her left which lead down to the biodome floor far below. "The shielding all down?"

"Anyone got anything to throw to find out? Rock? Stogie? Garbage? Larran's corpse?" John asked as he made his way to the front and looked down the path leading to the outer biodome they'd entered from. "Pretty sure it all went down though."

"Nice gardens. Look, grows Fenas too" Tannac looked down at the people camped around the grounds of the upper biodome. One shrieked and pointed up the group. Chiana immediately hid behind John, but he moved her back out in front of himself as the crowd moved toward them on the floor of the biodome and gazed up.

Chiana snapped her shoulders from under his hands and hissed. "W-what do I say?" she asked nobody in particular.

"Whatever Larran wouldn't say" John supposed. "Don't worry, my Pip of White Pepper" he said while she snapped her shoulders again when he tried resting his hands back on her "you'll think of something. Look at it on the bright side. Those hippies being down there are a good sign there aren't Enforcers here, yet" John said. No sooner had he finished speaking then they heard numerous footsteps approaching down the corridor they'd just been through. The orderly hurry of the footsteps confirmed it was the squad of Enforcers.

"Are there more than two other ways out from here?" Tannac asked.

"Yes" Koresh spoke up.

"Krew" Tannac nodded, turned around, pulled a grenade from a strap, primed it and threw it down the corridor. She turned back around, took out her marnnat pipe, put a drop of marnnat into the pipe, then gestured over her shoulder. "Run for your life."

The group immediately began streaming down the long stepped stairs to the biodome floor, the gallant young militia members pushing by to run away first, excepting Mish, who hurried by with Vega. Chiana, John, Tannac, Sikozu and Takshaek held back at the top, looking down at the Fenas running toward the bottom of the stairs. They looked around for another way down, but before they found anything the shock of an explosion almost sent them off of the edge. Chiana fell back into John's lap and Tannac lost her multi-facility pulse rifle off the edge as they staggered back onto their rears.

They looked back and saw that the corridor was collapsing. Chiana shrieked to see that the ledge was cracking apart beneath them, as was the top few stairs.

"Holy crackers, move!" John began to push Chiana up.

"Hey Sister!" a young teenaged boy shouted and whistled. Chiana and John looked over the edge. A boy waved at them from his position climbing a massive stand of bamboo like reed plants along the side of the wall on the opposite side to the ledge as the stairs.

John nodded and stood. "Shamu" he said, hurrying for the stairs. Instead of helping him over the dislodged upper steps as he meant, Sikozu stood on the wall under the ledge and gestured for Chiana to follow. Although Chiana might have made the jump to the bamboo, she accepted the help from Sikozu. With help, Chiana easily made it onto the bamboo and scurried down with spidery ease while Sikozu ran down the bamboo.

Tannac and Takshaek turned to face the collapsing front of the wall and corridor. Tannac took a deep drag of marnnat. She looked up unflinchingly as the wall and corridor collapsed down at her.

Tannac could only exhale her toke as she stood along with Takshaek in the only two places the massive rubble didn't crash down upon. Then she shrugged slightly and drew the only pulse pistol she had left. Putting her marnnat pipe away, she aimed up at her head and fired. The charge it coughed up at her only burnt a spot on her chin.

Chiana cackled, flashing a pulse charge clip she'd taken from Tannac's pistol at John as he ran up. "Way to go, Pip" John said, gawking up and recovering Tannac's multi-facility pulse rifle on the way up to Chiana and Sikozu. "Oshana's energizing the clone with Koresh's girlfriend, it's keeping the crowd busy but they'll be on us soon enough. Can you help Tannac down, Shamu?"

"Sikozu" she tried her best to shout back before rushing over to run back up the bamboo.

The boy made it down from the bamboo a moment later and gawked at Chiana when he stood up. "Wow you're good! Hey Mac!" he waved.

"Had allot of practice" Chiana remarked and gestured to Sikozu. "She cheats."

A fairly hefty older Nebari man ran toward them, already lecturing. "Scampi you grebol! You little snerit!" the man scolded, his fists trembling in front of him. "I'll strangle you with my-" Mac's frustration died as he stared past Scampi to Chiana. "The....the...." he tried speaking but couldn't. Chiana stood grinning back at him.

Sikozu stopped her run up the bamboo as the ledge under Tannac and Takshaek gave way. She came back down, watching as everyone else did as the ledge and the two on it was lost in a cloud of rubble and debris cascading down the wall to the biodome floor.

Tannac and Takshaek stood up at the bottom of the slide, having ridden down on the only two parts of the ledge that didn't crumble apart. They dusted themselves off somewhat, then Tannac reached into her pouch and felt around for the bar of Jur to interact with the Nugeth bar she'd already eaten and finish the job. "Ha!" she barked at discovering it was gone.

John looked at Chiana, who was chewing on the last bite of Tannac's bar of Jur, the wrapper still in her hand. "Frellin' hungry" Chiana explained with her mouth full. "Not poisonous unless you ingest Nugeth first."

Looking at each other at a loss for a moment, Tannac and Takshaek then reached for each other's throats. But Chiana ran up and kicked Takshaek in the shin. "Frelling stop it or I'll frelling kill you. Both. We gotta run! You can die whatever way you want later okay? Now let's go" Chiana grabbed Tannac's arm, hurried back over to John and pulled his arm. "She's putting Sheyza in the clone o-of me? O-on her own?"

"Her name was Sheyza? Man, I forgot."

"Yeah, they helped us" Chiana jogged his memory. "Before we wandered into the biodomes."

"Ooh yeah, she was nice. Nice six-pack, fluid back, great smile" he nodded. Chiana kicked him in the shin. John bent over and rubbed his shin but smiled painfully. "Just getting your goat, hon. Yeah I guess the lady decided it was better to be a little underweight with a really bad skin problem than lose her boyfriend for now. Or maybe it's what the Goddess told her to go do. Or it's really dull in limbo, I don't know what's up. But while the crowd's watching the miracle, we need to get to that elevated transport train trestle we saw before coming this way. They're gonna meet us there, whenever they can get away."

"Tooooo weird...." Chiana observed to herself. Chiana looked at Sikozu, who stared back so puzzled she obviously agreed, then Chiana looked over at Mac. "Hey beefy. There a good way outta here to the transport trestle?" Chiana asked with a lift of her brows.

Mac rubbed his chin and scowled in thought.

"Yeah!" Scampi chirped. Mac looked irritably at Scampi. "Well I do" he scratched his head. "I just found it earlier, come on" he ran ahead of them. He stopped and looked back. "Well come on! Ancients" he rolled his eyes and continued. Then he ran back up to Chiana. "Not you though you're eternally youthful and pretty, yeah" he smiled and took her hand, leading her ahead.

John gestured to Mac. "You want to hit him first or....?"

Mac laughed then kept beaming a smile, watching Chiana and Scampi leading them. "She's not exactly what I imagined, but she's even more beautiful."

John nodded. "Well she's a Pip when she's not a pain, and sometimes she's a Pip anyway." John saw Tannac sitting down by the rubble and hurried back to her. John held out his hand. "You're just too damn cool be found here." Tannac shook her head negatively.

"Hey" Chiana cut in front of John, crouched on her knees in front of her and offered her hand. Her mouth twitched a "come on."

With a wheezing sigh, Tannac looked over to her multi-facility pulse rifle, laying in the rubble nearby. "I want my gun."

Chiana offered her hand again. This time she took Chiana's hand. John picked up the multi-facility pulse rifle, came back over, thrust it at Chiana and picked Tannac up. "Wha! Wo, big gun" Chiana giggled, glancing to John "about the size I like em." Straining to hold the gun out, Chiana hurried ahead to join Scampi again at the lead.

"Frell" Tannac sighed in John's arms.

"Not here, besides, Chi would find some way to make me pay" John glibly replied. "No worries, Tonic, let's all keep following the Sister."

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