Madison and I erupted into the hallway. I skidded to a stop a moment later and looked both ways. I had chosen to talk to Christian just outside the cafeteria door because it was in an alcove that didn’t have any cameras aimed at it. As I scanned the hall I could tell there was a camera right above our head now but I made a mental effort not to look at it and succeeded. I didn’t know how tight the security would be but I needed to find Dr. Karala fast. Then I saw it, a sign for restrooms. I pulled Madison behind me and told her to wait at the door while I checked inside.

The restroom was fairly ordinary, toilet stalls, urinals and sinks, and from inside the only closed stall I could hear panting. “Dr. Karala?” I asked and there was a quick intake of breath. “Bingo” I said and kicked the door open. The cowardly man let out a short scream as the door flew in. I grabbed him by the shoulders and hauled him out of the stall before pushing him back to the only exposed wall in the restroom.

“No, no, no,” he cried and tried to wriggle himself into the wall. In the tussle something had dropped from his hand and I looked down at it. It was some kind of electronic communicator.

“What did you do?” I asked him with murder in my eyes.

“Nothing, I didn’t do anything.” I bent down and picked it up, on it was text and a blinking cursor, it read ‘Alert potential agents of ag’. It was obviously a message he hadn’t had a chance to send yet. I held it up to him and he cowered from me as though I was going to hit him. “I didn’t send anything yet, I promise.”

“Now look, you, are going to get us out of here, then you will never see us again. Don’t you dare backstab us, or so help me, I'll make sure they have reason to put you through anything they do to us.” He lost what little color he had left and his legs turned to jelly. He only remained on his feet because I was holding him up against the wall. When I let him go he immediately dropped to the floor.

His ragged breaths evened out and he dragged himself to his feet. “Okay. If they-” he was interrupted by a soft but rapid tap on the door. I quickly deleted the text off the device and slid it into my pocket just as the door burst open. Two soldiers in black armor that looked similar to riot gear stood in the doorway.

“Come with us, Now.” the one to the left said. I squeezed between them and Raymond followed after me. There were six more in the hall, one with a hand around Madison’s upper arm.

“What’s the problem?” I tried asking. But, I was ignored and pushed into line as the eight soldiers escorted us away. I briefly considered fighting but I knew it would be eight on two. I would have to use my armor and Madison her powers. It was still an option, but not yet, we were too far from the shuttle still. If we revealed our capabilities now, it would be far too early; and considering what Christian said and the feeling this place gave me, this installation, out of any other place in Starforce allied space, would know how to counter what we could do.

We were taken back to the tram and the three of us sat in silence as we shot to the other side of the installation. I felt better knowing we were getting closer to the shuttle but the trip took several minutes longer than the first and I guessed that we had actually passed it. When the door opened and we stepped out, the walls around us were made of stone.

Suddenly, rapid banging followed by a woman’s scream of pain echoed down the hall. It repeated several times, punctuated by gasps and sobs. I shivered at the sound and Dr. Karala practically shoved his fist into this mouth to stay quiet. I took some solace knowing that the scream unnerved the guards too, I could see it in their body language. “This way” one of them said, and they took us to an office waiting room. Once the door closed I thankfully couldn’t hear the screams anymore. I tried to distract myself by thinking up a plan.

There were two guards in the room with us and I could see one on either side of the door outside, but the other four seemed to have left. My armor was capable of a lot of things. I knew I could get myself out of this and back down to the surface of mars, with or without the shuttle. But not with Madison. Did I risk leaving her here and try to rescue her later with the help of Aegis? Would they even help me? Or, would it be her screaming like that next?

I looked at the beautiful raven-haired girl. I was expecting to see fear and I was going to try and reassure her; but instead, I saw steel in her eyes. She knew we were going to have to fight our way out of this, and as we stared into each other's eyes, she gave me the smallest, almost imperceptible nod. She was telling me she was ready for me to make a move and she would back me, whatever it was.

I turned my head to look at the doctor when the door opened and a tall wiry man with a shock of blonde hair came in. He had a sharp nose and chin and below his white lab coat he wore simple pants and a shirt. “I am Dr. Jean-Micha Jarre” he said with a subtle French accent. Sitting down across from us, he looked us over before opening his mouth to say something.

I noticed a patch of blood on the collar of his lab coat, and another near the opening of his left sleeve cuff so I jumped in, “I don’t understand what the problem is, we’re not injured. We don’t need a doctor.”

Dr. Jarre stared at me blankly for a moment before recognition hit him. “No no no, I am not a medical doctor. My doctorates are in nano-biology, xeno-anatomy and NCL, neuronic-cyber linkage.” Then he noticed the blood on his sleeve, “Oh, but we can tend to get a bit messy sometimes.” He seemed pleasant and conversational, almost like he was in a good mood, as he spoke. “So tell me, why are you here?” he asked as he looked back and forth between the three of us.

“Because your goons grabbed us and hauled us over here.” I said.

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“You were arrested because you left your escort's side. I am asking why you are on Deimos.”

“No we didn’t, he just had to go to the bathroom. I’m not going to hold his hand while he’s sitting on the toilet.” I said defensively.

“I am not going to argue semantics with you.” He said, and he appeared to have lost his good humor. “Neither of you show up in the Starforce database, which means you’re either spacers from outside allied space or you’re part of Aegis. Either way, you have questions to answer.”

The look of confusion that came over my face probably saved our lives. I very much should have been in the database, but I’m guessing Admiral Wilks completely expunged not just my record, but my existence from the Starforce database. Luckily Dr. Jarre had connected the look of confusion to the name of Aegis and I inwardly breathed a sigh of relief.

“Who are you, why are you here and how did you get authorization to be here?” Dr. Jarre said agitatedly.

I looked over at Raymond briefly, then spoke up. “We’re from Brigand’s hold.”

“Ah and how is Buster doing?” the man asked

“Bruiser, is doing well.” I corrected him, and the look on his face told me he had misspoken on purpose.

“One of these days, we’ll have to do something about that. But in the meantime, Dr. Karala, I’d like a word. The small man shuffled out into the hall behind the taller scientist. After a moment the door opened and Raymond came back into the room, sitting down next to me. He wouldn’t look at me and I knew he’d squealed. I caught Madison’s eyes just in time.

The door opened and Dr. Jarre beckoned for us to follow him out. He was holding the door open and I walked past him when I heard crashing sounds. I whirled to see the blond man on the ground, next to his hand was a syringe filled with a blue liquid, he had just been about to inject me with it when Madison saved me. I armored instantly and kicked the guard to my right in the knee with as much force as I could. His leg bent backwards and he screamed in pain as I turned to the other guard standing outside the office. He was holding some kind of stun baton that sparked with electricity. I caught his wrist mid-swing and wrapped my other hand around his head, using it to throw him into the wall. Blood splattered and he crumpled to the floor, motionless. I turned back to the first guard and punched him across the jaw with the enhanced strength of the armor. His head snapped to the side and he collapsed.

Inside the room, the other two guards as well as Dr. Jarre were unmoving. Madison stood above them with a black sphere hovering above her palm. I gave her a nod as I moved back into the room. “You're coming with us”, I said, grabbing the coward by his collar and dragging him to his feet. Show us how to get out of here and we’ll take you with us.”

His head nodded up and down so fast I was sure it was going to come right off his shoulders, “ok ok, follow me.” This area is isolated, we need to get back on the tram and take it to the next station, that’s where the port is.”

“Ok, come on.” I charged out of the room behind him. Madison was already halfway down the hall towards the intersection for the tram. She looked back at me briefly and waved me on then turned back around. Two guards came out of a side hallway and made a tackle for her. One went high, the other low. She sent the black orb she was holding into the chest of the man that was leaping through the air at her and the man rocketed away as the orb exploded with an audible impact to the air. She rolled out of the way of the other man and as she stood, the man didn’t. Blood ran down and dripped off a knife in her hand.

Dr. Karala had started slowing at the sight but I caught his arm and dragged him with me. As we caught up to Madison she turned to me and said “I’ll scout ahead”, then she just vanished. One moment she was there and the next she wasn’t, I had to blink my eyes a few times to understand what I was seeing. The coward gasped at the sight but I dragged him behind me before he had a chance to say anything.

We rounded the last corner and Madison already had the door to the tram open. “Ok, we need to go to level E section 3. It’s the next stop and that’s where the port is.” We were less than a few meters from the door when a man stepped out from the other end of the hall and raised a weapon to his shoulder. The doctor was in front of me and before I could pull him behind me or do anything, the back of his head exploded across the chest of my armor. Bolts of energy slammed into my chest and I threw myself into the tram with a clumsy dive.

Madison slammed a fist onto the control to close the door and hit the button to take us to the next stop. I pushed myself up to my knees and looked down at my chest. I could feel burning and looking over myself, I could see four glowing spots on my chest. I quickly did a diagnostic on the integrity of my armor and was relieved when it came back saying that the shots hadn’t penetrated. I was just feeling the burning sensation through the armor’s tactile feedback sensors. I put the armor into a self-repair mode, and deactivated the tactile feedback. The sensation of burning immediately stopped and within moments the surface of the armor had cooled. It was so rapid that it made a crackling sound. Unfortunately, It would take more time than we had to repair fully, but this would fix the immediate problem.

I was just starting to think we were going to make it when the tram came to a stop. After a moment it started moving in reverse. “Get behind me” I said. The cannon on my arm flipped out in two pieces and closed around my hand. I forced energy into it, charging it with plasma. After a moment I released it and blew a two meter wide hole into the side of the tram wall. I looked out and noticed for the first time, just how quickly this thing was moving. “Come here” I said to Madison as I held my left hand out to her while simultaneously retracting the cannon on my right arm. She took my hand and I pulled her to me. I picked her up, turned to the opening and took a deep breath before I fired a grappling hook out of my right gauntlet. It bit deep into the ceiling and we were jerked out of the tram with a rush. I let the grappling hook continue to unspool so that we weren't killed by the sudden stop, but it was a messy and painful landing all the same.

“Are you okay?” I asked Madison, “can you run?” She got to her feet and brushed the dust and grime from her face and clothes before shaking her head. Blood coated the side of her right calf and as I inspected the wound I could see the skin had been literally rubbed away from our impact with the ground. Reaching to the back of my belt, I pulled out a small disc about as wide as my thumb is long. I pushed the button in the middle and set it down, then watched as it spiraled out into a round box larger than my head. I took bandages and a small spray bottle from it. “This is going to hurt.” I said to her before spraying the wound with antiseptic.

The only sound she made was a quick intake of breath. Once I covered the ragged wound with the spray, I used four rectangular bandages to cover it. “It’s not perfect, but it should do for now. Once we get back to the Tempest, Taimia will know better how to fix it up.” I put the rest of the supplies back in the box, closed it and put it back on my belt. Then quickly swept her up into my arms and started sprinting down the dark tunnel.