Sunny slipped back into the cover of darkness surprisingly stealthy and light on her feet for a creature covered in almost a hundred pounds of natural armor.

Conn and Krill crowded around her eager to hear what she had to report, but they were immediately wilted as she shook her head, "Guards ahead, at least three of them, all Drev. I don't recognize any of them, but I am sure they sympathize with general Cosma, and I can't take three of them by myself. One ... maybe even two, but three is pushing it."

She jumped in sudden surprise as the usually even-mannered doctor spit a rather vicious human curse onto the air. Perhaps even-tempered wasn't a good description. He was generally even tempered accept for when he was prone to bouts of rage and extreme moments of over-exaggerated bitter sarcasm.

Conn floated silently, and thoughtfully in the air as was his want. He was a useless sack of useless anyway she thought to herself.

"If only I was...... if only."

"Three feet taller, and about a hundred pounds heavier." Sunny finished, and to her surprise, the Vrul nodded with a desperate growl of frustration.

Tilting his head to the side, the starborn ignored their conversation appearing to be deep in concentration as if listening to something coming at him from far away.

"Well, are you going to share, Convict." Sunny growled. Instead of an answer, the starborn simply responded with an upturned middle finger and an even more exaggerated tilt of the head. The other two waited in bated silence as the minutes dragged on. Finally Conn turned to them, wide black eyes narrowing in focused attention, "My infected brethren have taken command of our other human comrades. Drev boarding parties have subdued them and plan to bring them to the docking bay.

Sunny cursed hopelessly, "Were they able to get off a transmission to the ship?"

"I am afraid the telepathic waves were used to disrupt our signals as soon as we were within range."

"And you couldn't hear this!" Krill demanded angrily.

Conn turned to look at him, "It is very difficult to distinguish the difference between many voices, and the many voices of silence. Each system has a sound unto itself that vibrates inside the brain, and creates a background noise. I have never experienced complete silence before, And similarly I have never experienced the ravings of complete madness."

"Well it doesn't matter now, does it." Sunny hissed, they are coming, and unless we come up with a good plan in the next few minutes, we are going to be caught."

"A pity the captain will be awake to witness the fall of his crew." Conn muttered quietly.

Sunny paused..... "Conn, is Adam awake."

The creature shook his head, "No, but the effects of the drug are beginning to wear off. He is likely to awake in the next few minutes.

Sunny groaned in frustration feeling her heart go cold. She had a feeling that the insane little scientist would much prefer having Adam awake for what he was going to do next, he seemed like the vindictive type to do that. The coldness spread from her heart and all through her body. If only she could talk to Adam one last time, be there for him when......

And idea suddenly struck her, and she rounded on her other two companions startling them backwards suddenly and violently, "Conn, you can talk to Adam!"

"Um yes." The starborn snapped waving her off.

"NO, I mean just listen to me, you could let him know what we are doing. He could give us information. He could help us." The chilling that had formed in her heart from earlier thawed out as suddenly as if she had stood herself in front of a blast furnace, "I'VE GOT IT!"

***

"I very much do not like this plan." Krill had said. His parting words to her as she had dropped him and the starborn back at the control room before backtracking towards the docking bay.Her plan wasn't really a plan per say, but it was the beginning of one.

They had almost neglected their one greatest asset, that being their access to the prisons entire security mainframe through that first security room. From there, Krill would be able to see everything going on and, by way of Conn, hopefully relay it to Adam once he woke up. Of course, her radio was completely useless blocked as it was by the starborn transmissions, so that meant that she was on her own for this next part.

Triling through the darkness, she kept one of her hands out and held against the wall guiding her footsteps as they moved further back towards the docking bay. When the noises finally appeared behind her, she was ready, and moved into a side room expectantly. She kept the door cracked an inch as she peered out into the hallway watching as a small group of Drev soldiers passed by. Some of them still wore remnants of the prison jumpsuits, though others had discarded the items of clothing entirely. She waited a little longer as the group moved past her before preparing to trail behind them, but a soft noise from up the hallway made her pause.

She held back in the darkness of the doorway as a lone figure passed hurrying after the others.

He was a silver-carapaced drev of medium height, and he was completely alone.

He would never know what hit him.

****

Sunny stepped form the storage room garbed in a somewhat mussed prison jumpsuit and wearing the earpeace she had dragged off the fallen Drev's unconscious body. She looked down at the energy rifle, which she had also pilfered, and engaged the lateral switches.

Reaching up, she adjusted her earpiece.

"Sunny, can you hear us."

The voice she heard on the other end of the line was gratifying leaving her breathing a sigh of relief as she started her way up the hall.

"Yes." She whispered in return as she came around a corner.

"Good, We linked your Comm to us as soon as we saw what happened, We suggest staying silent though because I am patching in the feed from the other guards to you.... What are you planning?"

Sunny rounded the next corner taking her hand off the wall as a dim stream of light illuminated the hallway before her. She moved slowly, "Just watch, you'll know if it works, and if it doesn't work well, than it doesn't matter anyway...." Before Krill could argue with her, Sunny asked one final question, "Adam?"

"Conn says he just starting to wake up, but otherwise we can't reach him just yet."

She couldn't have said that the news didn't give her some modicum of comfort, but she also wished to hear better news, but at that moment she was forced to go silent as the docking bay opened before her. She could see the two shuttles parked side by side towards the end of the bay, and around them gathered a group of the armed Drev.

Marines were being herded down the walkway chained together by way of energy cuffs about their necks and binding their ankles together. Her brother was dragged from the ship, his massive red form still and silent. Clearly they didn't trust controlling him when he was awake.

As she approached, a few of the marines lifted their heads from the chains.

Eyes widened, but frantically she shook her head back and fourth placing one claw over her mouth to convince them to keep quiet. Luckily this group of humans was sharp enough to stay quiet dropping their heads towards the floor in mock submission. Despite the act though, Sunny could see the newfound defiance in the way they stood eyeing her from their periphery.

The Drev noticed her when she was only a few feet away turning suspicious eyes on her.

"And who are you." One of the Drev snapped squaring off against her in a traditionally defensive posture.

She kept her head high looking into the other Drev's eye despite her much larger height, "Orders from General Cosma. I will be leading the prisoners form here." She kept herself squared up even as the other drev moved to surround her.

"The general never gave us any such orders."

"Yeah, and we've never even seen you before." One of them pointed out.

Sunny caught them with a withering glare, "Do you really think the General would find a NEED to give direct orders to you lot." She shook her head

One of the Drev stepped forward chest out, "And what makes you so important small one." He asked testily

Sunny didn't respond verbally to the Drev's challenge, instead, she stepped forward grabbing her opponent by both of his right arms, spinning her back to face him, and then violently pitching forward and yanking throwing him over her shoulder to go crashing into the floor. Still holding onto his hands, she stepped forward locking the elbows of one of his arms between her knees.

The Drev below her whimpered in pain as she put weight against the joint. Still standing over him, she turned to look at the other Drev who starred on in equal measure of surprise and jealousy.

They had never seen a move like that, and she didn't expect them to, it was a human move after all.

Eventually she let go of her whimpering opponent. Pointing towards two of the guards she barked an order for them to stay behind and make sure the front remained secure, "Those humans got in before and no one stopped them until they were well on their way inside." She snarled, "General Cosma does not wish to see such an egregious foresight again."
The two Drev nodded, and stepped to the side while the others, moved by her bidding, stepped towards the front of the group leading the humans back into darkness.

Sunny stayed towards the back of the group as they moved forward conspicuously moving up the line of humans, and using the key she had found on the fallen guard to unlock their energy chains. With a wink from her mechanical eye she let them know to wait until the right time, and so they did.

The line of marines, once prisoners, had now become an invasion force.

The lights around them dimmed, and then grew black except for the slight illumination by the energy cuffs.

"Now!." Sunny commanded quietly.leaping forward and into the back of one of the startled guards.

Before he could scream, her hands were around his neck, and with a powerful snap, he crumpled to the ground. The other Drev was overwhelmed by at least four of the humans clubbed into submission before she could react. With one of the guards dead and the other incapacitated, they were dragged into the side room where Sunny had left the first guard.

She took their weapons and their earpieces handing one over to each of the team leaders.

"Take these, Krill has eyes from above and Conn should have communication with Adam in the next few minutes. We need to move fast before they start experimenting on the other marines. I'll take you to the cell block, and lock you up with a way to get out. On my signal, I need you to give me a distraction."

The group of marines nodded, placing their earpieces in.

"I've always wanted to start a prison riot." One of the marines stated nonchilantly cracking her knuckles

The others turned to look at her eyebrows raised, "Seriously?" Someone wondered

"Yeah ever since I was a sweet little girl in pigtails." She growled sarcastically, "Now come on."

***

Sunny walked her contrite human prisoners onto the cell block with their heads down and their spirits broken. No one so much as looked up as she walked in and lead the humans over to one of the rooms slipping a key to one of the team leads as she opened the door and shoved them inside. A couple of other humans sat huddled in the corner, and she recognized them almost immediately.

Their eyes widened upon seeing her, and one of them even opened his mouth to speak, but was silenced by a glare from one of his other team members. She shut the door and turned on her heel eyes scanning about the room.

She froze when she recognized one of her humans lying, flat on his back, on one of the cold steel tables. Ramirez's head was strapped down, as were his other limbs, and he was moaning piteously sounding groggy and disoriented. Just to his side, one of the Tesraki scientists was preparing a long thin implement, directed towards his head.

She was moving before she really knew what she was doing, knowing that she had to think fast, "Stop." She ordered her voice so commanding that it filled the room, and caused everyone to turn their heads in shock.

The terasaki looked around in bewilderment as Sunny pushed the implement to the side, "What do you think you are doing." She demanded

The tesraki stuttered against her imposing question unsure of what to do, "I.... The Dr. told me to."

"Are you a complete idiot." She snarled, "Any scientist should know that this human is defective." Off to her right Ramirez's head turned slightly a perplexed look on his face. Upon seeing her he groggily opened his mouth to say something, but she jabbed him in the side painfully cutting of whatever he was going to say, "This is CLEARLY inferior human flesh." she continued walking around him with a critical eye.

"But-" The scientist began, and sunny cut him off

"Just LOOK at him! She announced, isn't it obvious." When the Tesraki could do nothing but stare at her in confusion, she growled in mock anger and began stripping the straps from the marine dragging him unceremoniously to his feet, "He will be VERY displeased to hear about this." and then she turned marching towards the end of the hall with the marine stumbling at her side tripping more than once relying on her to keep him upright.

"Sunny, Adam is awake, he wants to make sure everyone is alright."

She pushed the marine forward aggressively as she whispered into the earpiece, "Everyone is fine, for now. Can Adam keep the doctor busy?"

There was a pause for a moment before, "He thinks he can, but he doesn't know for how long. I have made my way into the mainframe and think I can get out a distress signal from here, but it WOULD alert him to our presence as soon as I did."

"Well.... Wait for my signal."

***

Adam's first realization when he woke was the incessant throbbing in his head caused by one annoying voice repeating his name over and over again.

"Conn." He thought groggily opening his eyes and realizing, suddenly, that he couldn't move. Not only couldn't he move, but he couldn't feel anything below his neck. With an immediate burst of terror, he glanced downwards struggling to see if he still had all three of his limbs.

What he found was both encouraging and horrifying. He had all of his limbs, but it didn't appear as if he would for long.

He lay mostly prone on some sort of makeshift operating table. Most of his body was covered in a white sheet, and his limbs had all been sterilized with a strange solution that tinted his skin orange. Probably some iodine mixture.

"Hold on Commander, Sunny is coming to help."

He tried squinting against the light head fuzzy, "What happened, is everyone ok" He wondered, knowing that the starborn would hear him.

"He was waiting for us, but Sunny, I, and the doctor escaped. We have freed some of the other humans and plan to start a riot to distract the guards. Sunny is on her way, do you think you can keep the scientist occupied?"

Adam glanced down at his incapacitated limbs and then back up at the room where he found five glittering orbs staring towards him almost luminescent against its aracnid- like face.

The Gibb scientist scuttled across the floor on a rather short set of spidery legs. The Gibb weren't all that different from the Vrul. They were from the same sector after all and their planets shared a similar composition. Though the two species had evolved separately, they had many similarities.

The largest differences were in the five eyes of the Gibb and only two upper limbs, more like a human. The hands of the creature were ended it what seemed to be a thousands waving tentacles, no doubt so delicate in their motion that it would have made the human hand look clumsy in comparison.

"Glad to see you awake Commander."

He tried to keep his expression neutral as he talked to Conn, "Maybe, but you better tell sunny to make this quick. I'm not going to last very long." WIth that done, he turned his full attention to the scientist, "You've been busy." He commented calmly looking about the room with forced nonchalance.

The scientist made a clicking noise in amusement causing the hair to stand up on the Adam's bare arms, "Do you like it? Took me years to put everything together and make it happen. I would say it is all due to you, but I would be lying if I said that; you were only a small part of my trial, and, until you darkened my doorstep, I had almost forgotten about your existence."

The scientist was right next to his head now, and standing taller on his spider like legs, he leaned forward growing uncomfortably close to the Adam's face as he did, "I never did forget the eyes though, I never forget the eyes."

Despite his discomfort, Adam kept the creature's gaze, "What do you think you see in me." He wondered both out of curiosity and in an attempt to get the creature talking in order to buy himself more time

"You're soul of course. Don't try to fool me Deus. I know what you are."

Not this again, he thought in annoyance, "Look, I don't even know what you're talking about. Especially not about this Deus thing."

"Shouldn't you though, the word is a human word. Its Latin I believe."

"Do I look like a linguist to you! Humans have thousands of languages, so you can hardly expect me to know one that's been dead for almost three thousand years." Inside his head he eyed the machines nervously.

Sunny better hurry up.

***

Sunny rounded the corner with Ramirez still stumbling at her heels trying to keep up with her much larger stride. From the earpiece, she could hear Krill directing her towards Adam.

"What is going on." The human puffed from her side, but she just shushed him and kept going taking another turn on the direction of Krill, and hurrying up the hall.

"Through that door on the right."

Sunny compiled immediately shouldering her way through the door and getting a glimpse into what appeared to be some sort of antechamber leading off to several other doors, before she spotted the tall, hulking figure standing in her way.

General Cosma stared at Sunny in shock, which quickly began to morph into anger. Sunny dropped Ramirez to the floor, "Krill." She said calmly, "It's time." With her order done, she pulled out to earpiece and dropped it onto Ramirez's lap stepping forward to stand in front of him. As she did, she caught a glimpse of the Tesraki Noctus cowering behind Cosma's legs.

"Mother." Sunny stated stiffly.

"Daughter." Came the reply

And then the two of them lunged slamming against each other with a clatter of raw power.

Corporal Ramirez ducked to the side as Sunny was kicked back into a wall leaving a dent in the thick steel frame. Behind her, the crazy purple Drev came running arms swinging wildly. He scrambled to the side even further fumbling to put the earpiece in even as the two Drev fought. He had no doubt that he would get crushed if he intervened. The only one capable of keeping up with sunny was Commander Vir himself, and that was only with some fancy modification.

Instead, he scrambled away shoving the earpiece in to be suddenly overwhelmed by the sound of a riot, and the team leaders calling orders. He had no idea where they were or even how to help.

Sunny had leaped onto the purple Drev's back and was mercilessly pounding her in the head with all four arms. They spun in a wild circle like some kind of demented alien rodeo slamming into walls and sending sprays of blood flying in all directions.

He yelped and dived to the side as Sunny slammed into the ground where he had been sitting moments before, only to roll to her feet and go charging back towards the purple Drev knocking her off her feet and sending them both to the floor.

He stumbled into a standing position hand against the wall dizzy. Across the room, he watched as a flash of fur disappeared through a door.

His eyes narrowed.

Sunny felt her sharp, hardened fingertips dig into General Cosma's neck warm blood gushing onto her palm. The general howled in pain and tried to throw her off, but Sunny was locked around her waist to tightly. This time it wasn't a duel, there were no rules, and Sunny had completely given up on the idea of fighting like a proper Drev.

She was fighting like a human.

And that meant using all the underhanded backstabbing tactics she could think of.

As General Cosma reached back trying to grab Sunny's hand, she leaned in and bit down. General Cosma screamed and blood filled Sunny's mouth, but she didn't let go even as the larger Drev careened around in a wide circle. It was almost in shock that Sunny realized she had the upper hand. General Cosma didn't know how to fight her, and now she was panicked trying anything she could to get Sunny off.

She could win this fight!

But even with that same realization, she found the horror of knowing that it wouldn't be enough. She wouldn't be able to manage in time.

Just as she thought this, the door to the room was pulled open, and a white humanoid form came floating into the room struggling to keep his ribbons from being shut in the door as it closed. Sunny didn't have time to react to the appearance of Conn as he floated across the room and began tugging at one of the opposite doors. Despite how easy it would have been to open, it appeared as if it took everything Conn had just to crack the door and slip through. She had no idea what he thought he would be able to accomplish, but she had no time to think about that as one of the general's claws pierced her thigh causing her to scream in agony.

***

Adam looked on in horror as the Gib doctor moved to stand next to him adjusting the knobs on a high-powered energy saw.

"You have no idea what you're doing." he found himself saying, "I'll go into shock, and die! What use would I be to you dead."

The Gibb scientist waved him off nonchalantly almost off handed, "Your other limb was torn off in battle, this will hardly be as traumatic, besides, this time you won't feel a thing."

"I am coming." The voice came into his head stronger than it had before, and he recognized Conn.

"I only lost one limb that time." He protested watching as the blade buzzed to life with a quiet hum.

He closed his eyes, unwilling to watch, but the blade didn't move. He waited for what seemed like an eternity eventually cracking an eye, and being surprised to find Conn floating at the center of the room.

His white ribbons flared out to the side undulating in the breeze from the ventilation system. His large dark eyes stared inwards like looking into an endless blackness. The effect of his entrance was somewhat ruined by the strangely out of place gravity belt and signing gloves. A sharp blue light highlighted him from the back as he floated forward.

"Stop your ravings madman." Conn said voice echoing inside Adam's head.

"I am not mad." Came the reply, and Adam was surprised to learn that the Gibb could speak to the starborn seemingly without effort.

"You are mad, and I warn you to end this crusade here and now."

The scientist sneered at him, "No, besides, what are you going to do about it. THINK me to death?"

The starborn floated calmly forward to float next to Adam, "No, not at all." Ribbons flared at his back highlighted against the blue light "I am going to give you exactly what you want."

And with that, the starborn lunged forward suddenly. A hand pressed itself against Adam's forehead while the other hand closed around the Gibb's flat skull.

And then the universe rent itself in half.

The sensation was like being flooded with a power thousands more times powerful than the sun. Somewhere in his head, a barrier had been broken, and he was flooded with a thousand emotions compounded throughout his life stacked one on top of the other. All at once he was filled with unfathomable rage, endless sadness, and infinite joy. His body quaked with the power that surged through him, and at that moment, he felt that the power of his rage could rent the universe in half, a snap of his fingers could fell mountains, and a single scream could cause that cosmos to shatter into infinite pieces.

All his senses were overwhelmed his body convulsed against the outpouring.

Somewhere, someone screamed.

Sunny had run into the room finding the Gibb scientist gibbering unintelligibly in a corner. Adam lay still and unmoving. Conn floated off to one side his glassy black eyes cloudy and unseeing. Running over she found Vir to be alive as was the starborn, though he wasn't responding. Behind her a troop of marines stormed into the room backed by reinforcements taken from the prison cells.

The riot had been successful.....

Sunny had cradled Adam in her arms as she stepped over the corpse in the outer room eyes downcast and unmoving. A marine led an unresponsive Conn by the hand as he floated behind.

Krill met them in the hallway expression worried looking back and forth between Adam and Conn.

A hand reached upward gripping her on the arm. Sunny looked down to see Adam staring up at her his single green eye dim and hazy unfocused. His lips were trembling as if he was trying to speak.

She leaned down trying to hear him as he whispered.

The lips trembled some more and then grew still.

A single word spilled onto the air.

"Deus."