RULES OF ENGAGEMENT (Part VIII:  He Who Fights and Runs Like *&%^%^ Lives 
To Fight Another Day)

VIII.

HE WHO FIGHTS AND RUNS LIKE &^%$ LIVES TO FIGHT ANOTHER DAY



	For a minute I just laid there with possibly the stupidest look that 
ever crossed my face planted on it, staring up at Elyena and Dansyr, who 
was standing in the doorway keeping watch.  "We need to move it, 
Elyena--they're not going to buy this little stratagem if we take too 
long transferring the prisoners."
	"Well, I'm glad someone's been thinking," I smiled wryly.  "What's the 
sitch?"
	"Bad, but not unrecoverable.  The cybercloak's as good as you said." 
Elyena slipped her arms beneath mine and pulled me up as gently as 
possible; my knees wanted to buckle under me, and for a minute I had to 
cling to her just to stay up.  "Who's your friend?"
	"Khirzon Tvoriak, meet Elyena Demerath."  I made the appropriate 
gestures while my cybernetics, grumbling quietly, finally let me stand on 
my own.  "Elyena is from Starcross, Khirzon."  His eyes widened 
fractionally.  "Khirzon works for the Majestix fifth column and is one of 
the few remaining Artificiers, Elyena."
	"You're finally developing good taste."  Elyena unlatched a pair of 
restraints from her belt and slapped them around my wrists, while Dansyr, 
not even bothering to question the situation slapped the other set on 
Khirzon.  "I'm afraid you and our large friend Turalev and a little boy 
named Javan are all being transferred to a slightly more secure location 
in the event that someone tries to stage a jail break."  She smiled 
demurely.  "You think the Galactican armor looks good on me?"
	"I've never seen anything that looked better.  Well, okay, Hunter would 
have looked better, but I can't have everything.  You have a plan for 
getting us out?"
	Elyena's eyes raked over me.  "I was hoping you could teleport, but, 
from the look of you, I gather walking is going to be quite an adventure 
on its own.  But that's not a problem because our hosts towed the Raptor 
into one of the docking bays yesterday, and, as of this morning, it's 
fundamentally intact and ready to roll once we fire the engines."
	"You thought of everything."  I smiled as she latched Khirzon and I 
together with a length of restraint cord, and then led us out into the 
hall.
	"That's why they pay me the big money, kid."
	Turalev crooned a soft word of commiseration at me as we emerged into 
the hallway.  I gave one back once I got a good look at him--our 
Dy'killian's scaly hide was scorched with plasma burns and several of the 
thick plates were hacked and chopped at the edges from where Huntre claws 
and blades had sliced him.  He didn't, however, look as bad as some 
people I've seen go head to head with a unit or two of Huntres, inasmuch 
as he was still in one piece (more or less) and recognizable.  Dansyr, 
muffled under Galactican armor similar to Elyena's, looked to have 
escaped either the worst of the damage--or, at the very least, was hiding 
it well.  She was carrying the remote locking mechanism to the restraints 
as well as the devices that the Majestix use to keep their prisoners in 
line during transit between one place and the next, along with heavy 
sidearms at her belt and what looked like a neurodisruptor weapon of some 
kind.  Elyena was carrying a larger, heavier plasma rifle and a selection 
of sidearms and had the restraint cord looped over her belt, keeping us 
all in line, more or less.
	Standing between them was the object of our mission, whom, for the last 
few days, I'd only been half-convinced ever existed in the first place.  
Javan seyt-Ashkelon resembled the images I'd seen of him back on Luxura 
in most respects: about twelve years old, with the tall, lanky body 
structure that suggested he was in the midst of a pubescent growth spurt, 
all hands and feet and knees and elbows, standing as though he wasn't 
quite comfortable with his limbs.  Of course, it might have been that he 
wasn't very comfortable with the situation, either, which was totally 
understandable as far as I was concerned.  He had the delicate bone 
structure I remembered, the build that was doomed to be called delicate 
as he got older, with the long, black hair that I remembered, held back 
in a loose tail with a scrap of cloth.  His eyes shimmered, halfway 
between a hot golden and what had probably been his normal green; the 
skin of his face, around his eyes and across his cheekbones, was still 
darkening into the pattern it would take on when he achieved full 
physical maturity and his Artificier's gifts would come out completely.  
Khirzon rested his hand on my shoulder and leaned on me slightly as his 
eyes met Javan's; I didn't need to be a telepath to see something strong 
and silent passing between them, and Khirzon's fingers tightened almost 
painfully on my shoulder.  It suddenly struck me that Khirzon had never 
mentioned who Javan's father was.
	"He doesn't talk much," Dansyr murmured quietly as she passed me, taking 
up station behind Turalev.
	"I bet he doesn't," I pitched it for Khirzon's ears, flicking a look at 
him from the corner of my eyes.  "Khirzon....?"
	He tore his eyes away from the kid for a moment, the expression in them 
more tortured than anyone should ever have to be.  "He is so...lonely, 
K--Manslaughter.  He has always been so very, very alone."
	"Well, he'll have plenty of people that want to take care of him once we 
get the hell out of here."  Elyena gestured for us to follow her.  
"Here's the drill: we're transferring you four to a more secure location 
because they think there's a fourth member of your party that might 
attempt to effect a rescue.  They're right, of course, but we don't have 
to tell them that.  Once we get clear of the main prisoner's dock, we're 
going to proceed in an orderly fashion to the shuttle bays, where there's 
a vessel waiting to transport us to a Majestix star destroyer that just 
entered this system's periphery.  The destroyer's supposed to take us to 
some out of the way little hellhole that the Majestix are using for a 
staging base where no one will think to look for any of us until it's 
just way too late to do anything."
	"I take it your cunning plan comes in at the shuttle bay?"  I leaned 
forward and pitched my voice low; I was immediately behind Elyena, with 
Khirzon behind me, Javan securely placed between him and Turalev, and 
Dansyr bringing up the rear.
	"Exactly.  The Raptor just happens to be sitting in the same bay as the 
shuttle that we're supposed to take.  There's going to be some 
guards...but I've arranged for a little distracting to deal with them."  
She flashed a smile at me.  "You think twenty pounds of oxidation 
plastique placed around the main airlocks was enough or was I too 
conservative?"
	"You're evil, Elyena."
	"I know."
	The main prisoner's dock ringed the entire inner internment area and 
consisted of a series of interlocking rooms filled with people and 
machines designed to make certain that no one goes where they're not 
supposed to.  In keeping with most things bureaucratic, even the Majestix 
found this procedure slightly more daunting than just about anything else 
they had to do, and was probably the least efficient part of their 
operations.  As it was, the lot of us had to stand there looking beaten, 
hurt, and exhausted enough to satisfy seven distinct levels of Galactican 
officials who looked us over, sneered, checked our papers, checked the 
transit orders, checked the authorization permitting our removal, and 
finally, just acted pigheaded while we waited for a larger group of 
guards to come and help escort us down to the shuttle bay.  I, for one, 
didn't exactly have a hard time looking beaten, hurt, and exhausted.  
Elyena's assessment of my situation wasn't all that far off the mark when 
she'd decided that walking was going to be an adventure for me.  My 
cybernetics began showing a dangerous predominance of redlined systems as 
we progressed; my internal diagnostic and self-repair systems weren't 
functioning at anywhere near maximum and I was slowly but surely bleeding 
out what few energy reserves I had left as they struggled to keep up with 
the demands of just regular action.  My organic bits weren't feeling much 
better as I moved--I could feel blood trickling along the more 
articulated seams where tech met flesh on my body, a rare enough 
occurance, and I knew, almost for certain, that something was severely 
wrong somewhere in my organic body.  I felt almost feverish, and I never 
get fevers, and my head kept trying to get light, despite my efforts to 
keep focussed.  Khirzon wasn't having it much better. He left his hand on 
my shoulder as we walked, and I could feel his energy flagging through 
the contact--the fiercer his grip grew, the weaker he was, and his grip 
was extremely tight most of the time.  Whenever we'd stop, he'd rest his 
head on my back and I could feel his body shaking against mine, stretched 
to its limits and getting close to the edge.  Of the three of us, Javan 
seemed the most energetic, the least wasted, and I expected that was 
because Deathshadow was waiting for him to get older and riper before she 
tried chowing down on him.
	As we exitted the last of the prisoner control rooms, we were joined by 
a relatively small army of Galactican troopers--three for each prisoner 
and four to accompany each of our guards.  Khirzon stumbled against me as 
we started moving and hissed, "They are not the elite units...they are 
only combat troopers."
	I looked at the insignia on their uniforms and armor and tried to force 
my beleaguered mind into adding that to my collected store of knowledge.  
A systems glitch warning flickered through my implants and a wave of 
dizziness went over me and through me and I stumbled quite honestly as my 
motor controls fluctuated violently for a moment.  Khirzon caught me by 
the back of my uniform and held me up for the moment it took my systems 
to sort themselves back out again.  His golden-white eyes were wide with 
concern, and I gave him the most comforting look I had in me as we 
resumed walking, though I think we both knew it was a lie at that point.  
My entire internal diagnostics network was in the red on all of my 
primary systems and most of my secondary systems as well--even my 
tertiary system was only intact because I hadn't tried anything really 
aggressive yet.  Elyena glanced back over her shoulder at me, her eyes 
widening fractionally, then barked something at the Galatican guards 
surrounding us in whatever Tevlarian language they all understood.
	Our pace slowed slightly, and my primary systems eased back from 
shutdown stress somewhat, though they all stayed firmly in the red.  My 
secondary systems eased into the orange and yellow range, and some of my 
tertiary systems actually started showing a predominance of green.  We 
were, thankfully, not required to walk the entire forty-two levels to the 
shuttle bays, instead being whisked along most of the way in turbolifts 
and transportation lines.  In less than twenty minutes we were on our way 
to the shuttles, passing through the last stage of the preflight security 
regime, when the first of several explosions struck.  There was a dull, 
hollow roar that echoed throught he entire level and an immediate shift 
in local air pressure; almost immediately, alarm klaxons began sounding, 
and a calm, gender-neurtral voice came over the internal comm, "Hull 
breach in sector Red 17.  Decompression danger.  All personnel proceed to 
your predetermined evacuation points.  Repeat.  Hull breach in sector Red 
17...."
	"Get them on the shuttle!"  The Galactican shuttle bay commander snarled 
at Elyena, who was only too happy to obey, not to mention the rest of us, 
who nearly ran her over in our haste to get into the bay itself.  Even as 
we did so, another series of explosions, this one progressively closer 
and louder, went off, accompanied by another set of klaxons going off and 
another set of depressurization warnings.
	Elyena nearly yanked me off my feet as we ran across the shuttle bay, 
suddenly throw into pure, unadulterated chaos by the explosions, "Hurry!  
I set the third and fourth series of bombs to go off just outside this 
shuttle bay--"
	"How long to we have?!"
	"Ten minutes.  I prepped the Raptor as much as I could beforehand but 
we're going to have to try a cold start on the warp engines if we expect 
to get out of here in one piece."
	"Oh, joy!"  Cold starting a warp engine is sort of like going cold 
turkey once you're addicted to certain sorts of mind altering drugs--not 
a very happy thing to do, and the withdrawal systems are a bitch, 
particularly in the case of the warp engine, which, in addition to 
producing a massive matter-antimatter flux, occasionally has this way of 
blowing ships the size of the Raptor into their component molecules when 
the warp core breaches from the strain.
	"It's better than nothing!"  The Raptor loomed into view in front of us, 
the boarding hatch already opened and we charged up and inside just as 
the Galatican security types on the shuttle bay's inner security points 
realized something was up.  There was the ripping silk sound of plasma 
weapons firing as Dansyr sealed the hatch behind her, a sound that 
stopped quickly--or, to be more precise, was quickly drowned out by the 
not-so-muffled roar as Elyena's third sequence of explosions went off 
right outside our ship.  The view from the flight deck view ports was 
hellish with the glare of vaporizing metal and flaring plasma as I 
staggered into the command module at the center of the room, Elyena and 
Dansyr ditching their weapons and taking up station at their consoles.
"Status?"
	"I have a green board on the sublight engines and navigation pod," 
Dansyr's voice was tense with strain and excitement and a little pain; 
the backplate of her armor was seared from a near miss  by a plasma 
weapon.  "Disengaging docking clamps."  A dull thunk sounded as the 
clamps holding our undercarriage firmly to the deck released and 
retracted.  "Starting preflight count--"
	"Don't worry about the countdown.  Khirzon, Turalev, Javan, get buckled 
in and hold on tight."  I flicked a look at Javan seyt-Ashkelon to make 
certain that he understood; he was already planted in his seat, securing 
the four-point restraints, and I took that as a `yes.'  "Dansyr--punch it 
!"
	"Yes, sir!"  I think that was the first time I ever heard her say 
something like that without the littlest bit of mockery in her tone.  
Without pausing, she pulled back on the main acceleration controls and 
the sublight engines roared to life like a dragon coming back from the 
dead; the entire airframe shuddered violently as we lifted up and off the 
docking bay holding us and began gliding forward, picking up speed as we 
went and rocketing out of the main shuttle bay doors as, behind us, the 
fourth explosive sequence went off and the ensuing force pushed us on a 
little faster.
	"Elyena, status on the warp engines?"
	"I'm going to try--" The Raptor shuddered violently as a plasma lance 
from the station's outer guns slammed into our aft shields.
	"Whatever you're going to do, do it now!"  I fastened my own restraints 
as several more of those nice little high energy weapons slammed us 
around.  "Dansyr, how are the shields holding?"
	"I'm bleeding off all the power I can from the sublight engines, but I 
can only do so much without stalling us completely!"  Over her shoulder, 
I could see that her navigation and sublight control station was lit up 
like a rainbow of red-shifting colors.
	"Null response from the warp engines."  Elyena's voice was 
preternaturally cool and calm despite it all.  "Resetting for another 
try."
	We were hit again and Dansyr snarled.  "Aft shields are collapsing--this 
had better work, Elyena, or the next hit's going to send us back to where 
we came from in particles!"
	"Almost there."  Elyena's eyes were glued to her status board.
	I suddenly knew that it wasn't going to be enough.  We didn't have 
enough time to warp before the next volley would rip our shields to 
pieces.  We wouldn't have enough velocity to clear the station's firing 
arc even if we did manage to warp, and that wasn't even mentioning the 
star destroyer I was reading on my long-range scanners, moving quickly to 
intercept us.  I closed my eyes for a moment, and Khirzon must have seen 
my intention written on my face because he screamed, "NO!" with such 
force that I almost listened to him.
	Almost.
	Somewhere out there, the two people I cared for most in the universe 
were in deadly danger.  Khasamar seyt-Enkidu, who was the closest thing 
I'd ever had to a father, whose own sister was coming for him.  Hunter 
Cormier, my heart, my love, because he didn't even know that Deathshadow 
and her little planet-sized space station existed on this side of the 
universal divide.  No matter what happned to me in the end, they both had 
to know.  They had to be warned.  I had to get Javan seyt-Ashkelon and 
Khirzon Tvoriak and Elyena and Dansyr and Turalev back to them, to tell 
them what had happened here, what we had seen and learned.
	I teleported.
	Even as I focussed my energies outward on creating a displacement field 
large enough to catch us all on the flight deck, I heard Elyena's crow of 
delight.  "Warp ignition!  Hold on--"
	There was a sense of tremendous power building--
	Then a surge of incredible speed--
	I felt every ounce of strength in my body surge out of me, warping space 
around us in concert with the sudden concussion of the warp fields 
resonating in our engines as they came back on line.  Even as I did so 
every internal system in my head screamed in protest and flashed red--my 
primary systems shut down automatically, incapable of dealing with a load 
so far beyond their design specifications, and my field of vision went 
completely dark, blotting out my view of the flight deck and the people 
on it.  But that was okay, because there was a lightshow that I'd never 
before experienced going on inside my head, and explosion of color and 
light that nearly blinded my internal senses, searing me with its 
intensity and pouring more pure energy into me than I'd ever thought to 
feel, even as I felt the life draining out of my body.  The stress of 
guiding the blind teleport was too much after everything else I'd been 
through lately; my secondary network shut down and I still somehow 
managed to hold onto consciousness--or, at the very least, awareness--as 
we rocketed at full warp through the nonspace that all teleporters 
sidestep through on their way to their eventual destination.  Where we 
were going I didn't quite know....but I had a feeling.
	My tertiary network was reading in all red, and I watched it going into 
shutdown with a sort of strange detachment.  I couldn't really feel my 
body any longer, so it was hard for me to really care what happened to 
it, but I felt a terrible, wrenching sorrow anyway.  Hunter.  I was never 
going to see him again, never going to touch him again; it occurred to 
me, at last, that I never really had believed that until just now, 
watching the life drain away as my systems went terminal.  I really was 
going to die--there wasn't going to be any breathing life back into my 
shattered body or resetting my internal systems just before complete 
network failure.  I was going to die, and I was going to be completely 
gone this time, because our little warp speed ride was only going to stop 
when I did.
	Or so I thought.
	There was another surge of energy, meeting and matching mine, a 
golden-white glow that registered in my head even if my senses were 
beyond showing it to me.  Khirzon, it had to be, because Javan was too 
young and unschooled to pull something like this off.  I felt a 
sensation--like a soap bubble popping on the surface of clear water--and 
suddenly we stopped.  And I mean stopped dead--popped out of the 
nullspace of a pure teleport, popped out of warp, popped back into normal 
space/time, tumbling wildly, uncontrolled, our stablizers shot by the 
wild ride we'd just had.  A klaxon sounded, the warp engine shutdown 
warning, as Dansyr shouted something and fired the sublight engines in an 
effort to stablize us.  My tertiary network arrested its shutdown 
procedure and stayed where it was, mostly down but not going down any 
further, and my optics flickered slightly.  Through the observation 
ports, I could see a space station floating at the L5 marker of some 
suitably large planet, the night side of which we were rapidly passing 
over.
	The station...it was standard...big and round and ugly, made up of 
concentric rings rather than a single mass like the Majestix version of 
the same.
	There were lights scattered across the darkened contenental landmass on 
the planet below, lots of lights, cities and large towns.
	I caught a red-gold flash out of the corner of my eye--the planet had a 
red giant sun.
	Darkworld.
	Hunter.
	We were there.  Home.
	And none of us would ever be safe again.