Part 47

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"Okay Mayan ruin type thing ahead" John told Chiana as he led her by the hand. "Overgrown wooded depression covers what looks like the barest underlying traces of a wall or roof or something."

"Yeah I can see it. Now. Sort of" Chiana let go of John's hand to shield her eyes from the light glaring in her gradually returning sight. She saw it well enough to confirm it was their destination.

John pulled a large flower out of a bush by its long stem. "Hey Bird of Paradise! May the Bird of Paradise fly up your nose!" he poked the stem up his nostril and began singing "May Scarran ruling order caress you with their toes! May your wife by plagued with runners in her hose! Can't improve that one. May the Bird of Paradise fly up your nose!" John pranced over to Sikozu and annoyed her by brushing her nose with the flower. "Damn I'd swear we had them just like these back home."

Chiana stepped sideways over to John and grabbed his hand to hurry him along with her. "The door's around there" Chiana pointed ahead.

"Hurry it up, Pumpkin" John called back to Oshana. The Stakira didn't seem to hear, tripping along in a daze at the rear. "Hey Clam" John called to Clan, minding her flock at the rear. "Last thing we need is them to get Oshana."

Two of Clan's company were each carrying a wounded member of the militia on their backs, but the others were prepared to engage Enforcers if need be. Therefore Tannac also kept the rear, as well as to keep a wary eye on the wounded Scarran in their midst. Clan went over to Oshana and guided her with an arm around her, further forward to join Tannac.

"Have we lost them for now?" Clan wondered, looking back and still seeing no trace of the pursuers.

"Frell no, they're headed this way" Tannac assured Clan. "We lost them in that garden, only thanks to the tunnel under the waterfall. We follow the Sister. Didn't you ever hear that the Sister shall lead us to freedom?" Tannac dryly remarked.

Having overheard Tannac, Chiana turned in a half crouch and gawked back at Tannac for a moment.

Koresh heard Tannac as well. "Last I saw, she was leading herself into captivity" he observed, looking wryly down his nose at Chiana.

"Aah, details" Chiana agreed, twitched her shoulder and hurried ahead.

"Perhaps we could enter the building and collapse this entrance?" Clan proposed.

"Not until I see they're not covering the exit as well" Tannac sagely countered. "The fekkiks are still able to trace our general direction, since they have their body tracking equipment. Better, they can track our general location since they have a tracer on the little red one. They'll start using it now we're not in sight."

Sikozu stopped and snapped her head back to look at Tannac.

"Nothing personal, orange magenta frail, they do it to anyone they detain and may release later" Tannac said as she and the others caught up. "Frell, are you as lost as Chiana and Crichton? Where have you been hiding? Tsk. Fortunately, we don't have to lose you or start digging under your peculiar skin for it. It's at the base of your spine, outside. I can see the bump under your skin, thanks to your pants showing your backside." Tannac plucked a fat knife with severely jagged teeth from the straps still on her and held it up. "I'll pop it out for you."

"No" Sikozu insisted, looking over her shoulder at Tannac with wide-eyed dread. She quickly tugged her pants back up and started feeling back there with one hand. "I'll...." she realized she couldn't do it herself. "I'll- ssh!" she hissed, glaring at Chiana.

"There ya go, came right out" Chiana held up a small pill shaped device in one hand and slid her tiny cutting laser back into an overlapping seam around the beltline of the fancy white pants Larran had dressed her in. "Be careful how you sit for a weeken."

"Thank you" Sikozu sarcastically said through barred teeth.

"No problem, missay, you helped me, I ah" Chiana stopped to pitch the tracker over to a path that led to another structure "I help you. Ah this way" she grabbed both John and Sikozu's hand to lead them down a tiny footpath which led through the wood like a thin snake over a pile of large pebbles.

"Whoa, that a Bowie knife, Tonic?" John asked over his shoulder to Tannac.

"Tannac" she corrected him and handed him the knife. "I'll take my weapon" Tannac kept her hand held out to John Crichton.

"Yeah would ya, my shoulder's killing me." John looked at Tannac again and tried not to stare at her wounds. He forced his eyes to hers and winced, biting his lower lip. "Sorry."

"Why?" Tannac asked, taking her multi-facility pulse rifle. "You're on a short list of people who haven't frelled me over."

Chiana stopped and closed her eyes. Then she turned and hurried back to Tannac. "Sorry" she breathed, not quite looking up at Tannac.

Tannac sighed. "Let's hurry the frell up, I want to die before the Nugeth wears off."

Chiana took the pistol Tannac had shot the sniper with and admired it. "Ah, you're good." Tannac looked at her feet and scratched the back of her head. Chiana smirked and handed the pulse pistol back to Tannac after fussing with it.

"How long?" John asked her. Tannac looked down at her injured body. John waved the thought away. "Stupid question, never mind. Come on."

"Welnitz of Urlain Sector Award of the Cycle goes to...." Chiana snidely teased at the guilty looking John while walking past him.

"Hey they'll love me after having to give the award to Larran all those years" John replied. He didn't feel so bad, at least compared to Chiana, or so he guessed from her lack of any attempt at laughter. Still, Chiana was trying to be upbeat. It was more likely she was just desperate to keep from snapping, but he let that thought come and go as quickly as it could.

A tendril of smoke was wafting from the top of the doorway as they entered. A light in the otherwise dim corridor flickered. John gaped up at the ceiling. "Uuuuuuh I don't know a whole lot about fire safety, but one thing I do know is not to go into a building where there may be a gas, fume, smoke or inhalation problem. Telling me there's no better way outta here?"

"Every way's gotta be better, that's why were're going this way" Chiana explained. They soon reached a set of doorways. "Ooshana" Chiana called. "Which way?"

Koresh arrived with Oshana, gently but firmly leading her by the arm. Oshana looked around and locked her eyes onto Chiana. "You'd know! You know the way!"

"Oshanameter's wigging" John interrupted. "Where's the geek with the mobile Onstar map PC?" John looked around, and then plucked Mish out from behind Chiana. "Can you plot us a course, matey?"

"I think that way" Mish pointed while discretely retreating back to keep directly behind Chiana.

"Pumpkin?" John pointed at her nose.

Oshana stared at his finger and nodded. "Yes I think it might possibly be." John took her by the arm and began leading the group.

"Drad pants" Chiana complimented Sikozu on her low cut dark gray pants, tugging it where it hung midway down her somewhat pointed scant rear. "Trade ya" Chiana gestured to her own fancy pants. "Think these'll work better for you."

"Pants?" Sikozu looked annoyed and frustrated to be distracted by something so trivial. But she looked at the long white slacks on Chiana and frowned.

Oshana shrieked and backed a few feet into Chiana. She gripped Chiana's bodice in one hand and covered her face with her other arm. Chiana half-crouched, ready to spring back.

A bony figure stood a distance away down a descending corridor, nearly cloaked in darkness, its face fully hidden by smoke. A flickering light somewhere behind it strobed around its middle, light streaming at them through places where flesh should be. John squinted, unable to make out much. What he could see made him think the apparently naked body might be female and that it resembled Chiana, only it was obviously more emaciated than either Chiana, Sikozu or Tannac. His eyes also made out a tube that led from its navel which was oozing a blue fluid, and that it had wet, blistered and peeling skin. He decided it must be a clone, perhaps the clone Oshana was alluding too. What sent a chill through his slight shell shock was the apparent possibility that this was a sentient or quasi-sentient clone.

"Kastara!" John hurried back and brought the Bannik to the front. "What is that?" John demanded. Kastara simply stared.

"Naaah!" Chiana's reaction was to grab the nearest pulse pistol and aim at it. Koresh stopped her.

"No! Do not kill it now! Not now!" a Nebari woman crept from behind the figure, crawling along the bottom of the corridor. Her shadowed face was streaked with tears. The woman aimed a pistol back at them, her hand trembling. "Or I will deal death as surely as you!"

John looked over the woman. Dressed in a smudged white overcoat, the possibly younger middle-aged woman resembled a Nebari he had once glimpsed slipping around a part of the laboratory tending the animal life. Her singed hair and the soot on her suggested that she'd been staying in some other part of the laboratories as long as she could, and longer than she should have.

"Yesss" Oshana hissed, her tear streaked face wrenched in angry urgency. She urged Chiana to shoot it, moving Chiana's arms to aim at it. But Chiana slowly lowered her pistol instead. With a tear in her own eyes, Chiana gestured them to approach with one hand.

After a moment, the woman decided to put her pistol back into her jacket and crawled back to pick up a hand held device. The moment she activated some controls, the clone began loosely repeating her movements. Awkwardly walking so that the clone would walk more or less steadily, the woman walked with the clone to the top of the corridor.

"Whoa" John remarked, his brows raised. "I think I've seen the last word in ventriloquism."

Chiana stared closely at the clone, crouching and studying it up close from all sides. The woman deactivated the control, collapsing onto the floor and coughing. The clone moved into a tense standing position. Its face was now visible, clearly that of Chiana's, but the clone had no hair. There was no expression on its face. It simply stood and stared.

Chiana bumped into Mish, who was also inspecting the clone. They glanced at each other then back at the clone. Their eyes trailed down to its hips. "Wow look at the-" he stopped himself, suddenly embarrassed, and glanced apologetically at Chiana. She just knowingly smirked back. Mish turned his attention to studiously staring at the Nebari lab woman's controller. "Drad gear" he nodded.

"Hey listen, lady" John bent over near the Nebari lab woman. "Is there any likelihood of poison gasses, fumes, anything dangerous snuffing us out here?"

"Vega" Kastara informed John, leaning over his shoulder.

"Sega?" John replied. "Sega, we gotta beat it, which way? Oshana, anyone? Anyone want to Weegee?"

"More than you know" Chiana shook one of her legs.

"No, no" Vega replied between breaths. "It's not ventilating this way. They were destroyed! All of them but this! Why?!" she asked. "Why did he do this madness? How could he destroy our work?!"

"People most likely to do something crazy are the desperate or those who lack respect" Tannac smiled. "Larran was both."

"Yes Igor, the monster must die. So you're the devastated mad scientist working for the evil overlord" John decided. "Right, so let's get up and boogie."

"Good idea" Tannac continued going the way they had been going. John helped Vega stand and hurried ahead with Tannac.

Mish took Vega's arm and her controller. "This way, Miss."

Half of the group had passed Oshana, Koresh and the clone before John stopped, realizing Chiana was staying behind.

Chiana knelt down behind Oshana, who was huddled facing the wall. Putting a hand on Oshana's shoulder, Chiana looked over one of Oshana's shoulders. Oshana turned her face away. Chiana looked over her other shoulder. "You let it pass?" she whispered. "The....me that you'd held for that thing?"

Oshana barely nodded affirmatively. Chiana drew back. Oshana cringed, bracing for a blow. Chiana knelt back down behind Oshana. "Not angry" Chiana told Oshana. The Stakira looked over her shoulder, confused. "Well not now. Might beat you till your skin flies off later, but, not angry now." Chiana shook her head negatively. "Hey. You finally did the right thing, right?" Oshana cried harder. Chiana half stood and backed to Sikozu's side. "Frell. Can't talk to her."

"Then don't!" Sikozu stomped, getting furious at her own voice for finally failing, leaving her with a harsh whisper. "We must go!"

"Frecklebuns is right, hon, we gotta beat it" John agreed. "Where's Francis-stein?" he looked back to make sure. He saw that the tech Mish was helping her. "Cool beans. Bring it or leave it" John told Koresh, gesturing to the clone.

"Bring it" Chiana sharply barked, hurrying past and up to John. Koresh picked up the clone under his arm and Kastara pulled Oshana up and along with him. "If nothing else it can keep you busy when I'm not there" Chiana teased John, working her way in front of him.

"Won't you get jealous of the mini-me?" John joked back at Chiana.

"Ah, no, you'll just have to prove you want me more by giving an extra good frell" she teased with a smirk back at him.

"I'm getting more sore by the moment, Pip" he assured her.

"Do you always take dire emergency situations this casually?" Clan asked John in a forceful voice.

John looked back, surprised at the petite young lady's tone. "Weird isn't it? For some reason, I dunno, it's almost like I'm used to it."

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