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Kamala pulled herself through the opening and collapsed with a groan. Roger dropped to his hands and knees beside her, struggling for breath.

"Hey." She reached out to him, frowning. "You okay?"

"Air," he gasped. "Almost gone."

A cold surge rushed through her and her hearts began pounding. Oh, __no! _ Please,_no!

Roger glanced over his shoulder, released a strangled cry, and lunged at the opening. He grabbed the lower half of her body, still dangling down the side of the shaft they'd just descended, and pulled.

Kamala looked past him, and gasped.

The opening was sealing behind them, its edges flowing toward the center like a liquid.

She screamed and scooted backward, yanking her tail into the tunnel barely a second before the hole closed.

She let a breath rush out and flopped onto her back. She remained there for a moment, until a _thump _drew her

attention.

Roger had collapsed again. Panicking, he fumbled with the locks on his helmet.

"No!" She slid over to him and plucked her spare breather pack off her belt with her lower hands. With her upper pair, she helped him unlock the helmet seals. "Here, put this on!"

He yanked his helmet off and drew in a long, wheezing breath.

"_Roger!" _Both hearts slammed almost hard enough to burst through her chest, and tears filled her eyes as she

tried to put the mask on him. "Hold your breath until I get this on!"

He sucked in another deep breath, frowned, and took in another--slower this time, as his panic faded. He held up a hand.

"Wait. I'm okay. The atmosphere's changed."

Kamala stared at him for a moment before placing the breather pack on the floor, throwing all four arms around him, and weeping.

"The mixture isn't quite what we're used to," he went on, rubbing her back slowly, making a visible effort at taking air in. "Thicker. Harder to breathe. But it'll do."

She held him for a long, moment, and finally pulled her mask off. She glanced at its HUD and shook her head slowly.

"How much oxygen did you have left?" he said, his hushed tone suggesting that he wasn't really sure he wanted to know.

"About a minute and a half." She tossed it over her shoulder.

"Jesus!"

She shrugged. "I hadn't even thought to scan the atmosphere and see if it had changed." She leaned over him, stroked his cheek, and kissed him. When they finally parted, both of them grinned.

"You're putting me into the mood." He wiggled his eyebrows.

She laughed and kissed him again. "I'd like nothing better, but first we should get out of here before anything else changes. Assuming the far end hasn't already closed on us." She took her ultratool out and pointed it down the tunnel. After a quick scan, the data appeared in her mind through her cybernetic interface. "The other end seems to still be open; there's a huge chamber beyond it. I'm not detecting any radiation or excessive temperatures."

"Guess we should get moving." He pushed himself up and shed his spacesuit.

"Yeah." She faced the distant end of the tunnel and passed her ultratool from her lower-right hand to her upper. "Okay, I guess it's time for another piggyback ride."

He chuckled, walked up behind her, and put his arms around her. She hooked her lower arms under his legs and zipped forward. After a few minutes, the ache along her entire frontside started getting to her, and she trembled slightly and gritted her teeth.

"You okay?" Roger said. "You're getting tense. Need to rest for a few minutes?"

"It's just the pain from hitting that pillar. If I can still move in the morning, I'll be fuckin' amazed."

"Well, let's stop so you can recover, then."

"I'd rather get out of this tunnel first."

"Well, in that case..." He moved his hands from her shoulders to her upper breasts and gave them a gentle squeeze.

She laughed. "I'm feeling better already." She scanned the end of the tunnel again. "We're almost there; just a few hundred more feet." She increased her speed until she was propelling them forward far faster than any human could run.

Roger held on tighter. "Whee!"

Kamala snickered and placed her upper-left hand over his.

Moments later, they reached the mouth of the tunnel. She stopped and let him off. He stepped up to the oval-shaped doorway and peeked into the next room.

"Whoa. Looks about the size of a football field."

Kamala slid up beside him and stared into the chamber. Dozens of doorways lined the walls, all about the same size and shape as the one in which she and Roger stood. The center of the room was filled with tables, benches, and things that might be storage cabinets.

She swept her 'tool back and forth. "There's a few corridors leading away on all four sides of the room; most of the doorways lead into smaller rooms--about the size of an average studio apartment."

"Meh," Roger grumbled. "My first apartment was a studio. It sucked. Could barely turn around without tripping over something or knocking something over."

"Heh. My first apartment was a one-bedroom, but after I moved in, I discovered that I was sharing it with a horde of cockroaches." She shuddered. "Woke up in the middle of the night with a bunch of 'em crawling all over me. People probably heard me screaming on the far end of the city."

Roger's jaw dropped. "Fuck!" He scrunched his face up and twitched.

"My thoughts exactly. I took a two-hour-long shower and still didn't feel clean. I packed my stuff that night and moved out in the morning." She slithered off to the right, pointing her 'tool at the nearest doorways. "Hmm. Each room has a large, round pad in the center, like really thin mattresses. I wonder if we've found the crew quarters."

Roger turned and looked at the large tables. "This looks like it might be a mess hall. Could be for the crew or maybe passengers." He arched an eyebrow. "Or maybe it's a place for captives like us to catch a break from all the shit they're putting us through."

"Could be. I wonder if there's any food here, and if it's safe for us to eat." She peeked into the first room on the right. Light strips behind panels on the bottom of each wall illuminated the room indirectly, giving a soft look to the gray metal all around her. On the far wall was another doorway, and the other walls were covered with what appeared to be control panels and small sliding doors, possibly for storage. On the floor was a round mat, dark red in color. She scanned it and stroked her chin. "I'm not detecting any dust, skin flakes, or anything else. Looks like it hasn't been used before, or at least not since the last time it was cleaned."

"So, this is someone's idea of a bed, then?" Roger crouched at the edge of the mat and brushed his fingertips over its surface. He raised his eyebrow again and pushed his hand into it. "Hey, it might be pretty comfortable. Feels a bit like memory foam."

"Good enough for me." Kamala stuck her ultratool into her belt pouch, slid onto the mat, and flopped over onto her back with a long sigh. "This seems like as good a time as any to take five."

Roger shrugged and stretched out beside her. "Not bad. More comfortable than a lot of the motels I've spent the night in."

She nodded, scooted up to him, and rested her head on his chest. "I could definitely get used to this. Assuming we don't starve."

"Yeah. Y'know, if we can take control of this ship, maybe we can backtrack to the place where we were abducted. If our friends haven't found a useable ship by then, we could pick them up with this one and get 'em the hell away from that black hole."

"Good idea. It'd feel pretty good to finally go on the offensive."

"Hell, yeah, it would." He turned to her, grinned, and ran his hand slowly along her side. "But first, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

She giggled. "I think so." She kissed him and removed her sports bra with her upper hands while unbuckling his belt with her lower ones. "We don't know when we might have another opportunity like this, so I say we go for it."

"We're definitely on the same wavelength." He helped her slide her skirt off and she chuckled.

"Besides, in a few more hours, I'll probably be too sore to move." And __if _ the _atmosphere _ changes _back _ to _

something __we _ can't _breathe...well, _ there _wouldn't _ be _anything _ we _could _ do _about _ that, _anyway. _ I'd _rather _ not __pass _

up __what _ might _be _ our _last _ chance _to _ be __together. _She kept that thought to herself, and a few seconds later, her

mind was on more pleasant things.

#

"Henry!"

Morrison stopped abruptly. That __wasn't _ over _the _ comlink. _It had come from his left. He turned and found a doorway

where a solid wall had been seconds before.

Luana stood a few feet beyond the door, staring in shock.

Morrison grinned. "Hey!"

She sobbed and rushed forward--and the door began closing, its edges seemingly liquefying and flowing together.

Luana let out a strangled scream of mixed frustration and fear.

_No! _The opening would seal before she could run through it.

"Henry!" She reached out for him.

"Here!" He tossed his confiscated alien gun to her. A confused look crossed her face as she caught it, fumbled and dropped it. He caught a glimpse of her leaning over to pick it up before the doorway became a wall again. He spoke into his comlink. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fucking sick of being fucked with!"

He held in a chuckle. Yeah, __she's _ okay._

"What's with the ray gun?"

"Just in case anything attacks you. It's too small for my hand, but I figured you'd be able to use it."

"I've never even touched a gun before, but after the things you told me about a while ago, I'm glad to have it."

"Me, too. I was so afraid you'd be hurt by some horrible alien critter, or--" He cut himself off. Don't __even _ think _about _ the _worse _ possibility. _"At least now you'll have a chance to defend yourself."

"Thanks." _She was silent for a few seconds. _"I'm __gonna _ try _something. _ Stand _back."

He frowned--then he sucked in a quick breath and backed away from the wall. "Okay, I think I'm far enough away."

"Okay. Here goes nothing."

A muffled, high-pitched whine came from behind the wall--and suddenly a roughly circular chunk of it exploded into his corridor. He flinched and threw his arms over his face. All around him, partially-melted bits of metal plopped onto the floor. When it stopped, he turned to face the newly-blasted hole in the wall.

Luana stood there, staring slack-jawed at her new gun. "Holy shit!"

Morrison charged through the hole before it could close again. He and Luana rushed into each other's arms and held one another for what seemed like hours. Finally, she reached up, grabbed his horns, and tugged gently, pulling him close enough to kiss.

"Wow," he blurted when she stepped back. He aimed a goofy grin at her.

"I was afraid we'd never find each other." She hugged him again. "I'm not letting you out of my sight."

"Same here." He kissed her again, held her for a few moments longer, and looked around. This corridor was identical to the one he'd just left. He turned back to the hole she'd blown through the wall, expecting it to be sealed up--but it wasn't. "Huh. The walls can open and close at any point, but they must not be able to recover from damage. At least, not as quickly as the doors morph in and out."

Luana looked at her gun again, and grinned. "Maybe now we can actually get where we want to go. If they seal us off, we can just blow through the wall. At least, as long as this thing's power supply holds out."

He smiled. "I like the sound of that."

She held her ultratool up, pressed a button with her thumb, and a hard-light display appeared in front of her.

She tapped an icon and returned the device to her pocket.

"I've set it to scan continuously. The instant anything changes, we'll see it here." She strode forward and the holofield remained in front of her. "It'll also detect any life forms nearby. And I've set it to search for other omnitools and ultratools, in case any of our friends were captured."

"Nice!" He walked along beside her, slowing his pace so she could keep up with him. After a moment, he pointed at her holofield and said, "Can you also scan for power sources and active computers and stuff like that?"

"Good idea. Finding the engines or a control room would definitely put us on the right track." She reached out and entered a few new commands into her display.

They continued walking down a seemingly endless corridor for what felt like hours, both of them trying to engage in small talk every now and then to pass the time, but lapsing into silence a few seconds later. Morrison glanced at his watch; a little over forty-five minutes had passed.

After another twenty minutes, the corridor angled off to the right. They turned the corner and stopped, staring at the creature a few yards ahead. It was about the size of a horse, with six legs, dark orange scales, and a mouth with three rows of sharp teeth. It was also very clearly dead.

Morrison raised his gun and said, "Anything else nearby?"

"Nope." Luana took her 'tool out and pointed it at the creature, and a new window opened in her holofield. "It's been dead a few hours. Ribs broken in multiple places, internal organs crushed. It's like something squeezed it to death."

"Huh. Since we can probably rule out an alien with a hand big enough to do that because nothing that size would fit in here...maybe something like a giant boa constrictor?"

They turned and looked at each other.

"Kamala!" both of them said.

"I hope that was her," Morrison added. "Otherwise, it was just some sort of gigantic, alien snake thing."

Luana typed more commands into her hard-light display. "Well, if she's here, and if we pass within three hundred feet of her, she'll show up in my holofield."

"Assuming there aren't any aliens on this ship who have similar characteristics."

"Well, unless they have two hearts, she should be pretty distinct from anything else here."

Morrison cocked his head. "Kamala has two hearts? Huh. I didn't know that."

"It's probably because she's got an extra pair of arms and her body is over a dozen feet long. She probably needs the second heart to help keep her blood flowing through all that additional, um, cubic footage." Luana stepped forward, keeping an eye on the dead alien as she passed it.

"Okay, then. Well--"

Luana drew in a long breath and pointed at her display. "Look! Here's one matching Kamala's bio-signature. And there's a human with her. And I'm picking up two active ultratools from the same location."

"She and Roger took a shuttle out, just like we did; that's probably them. How far away are they?"

"They just entered my ultratool's range, so about three hundred feet away." She pointed at the next intersection. "That way."

They continued forward, increasing their pace to a jog, and the doorway in Luana's holofield disappeared just as they turned the corner.

A wall blocked their path--a wall that hadn't been there a few seconds ago.

"Fuck this." Luana pointed her gun at the wall and backed away. She waited until Morrison was behind her, then she blasted a chunk of the wall out. She smirked. "That felt good."

Morrison grinned and followed her through the hole. "Now we're getting somewhere."

#

Asuka hit the thrusters and the sudden acceleration pushed her back against her seat. She glanced at her

monitors, but kept most of her attention on the view outside her cockpit. The _Challenger _wouldn't be in visual

range for several more minutes, and its weapons would be able to target them from a much greater distance,

but it was hard not to keep looking straight ahead while moving forward at full burn.

Maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe the cyber-zombies haven't taken control of the ship's weapons yet.

She shook her head. Yeah. __Sure.

A shrill alarm erupted from her control panel. She snapped her eyes toward her monitors and found ten incoming blips on her ladar screen. A window popped up beside it, identifying the blips as missiles.

"The __good _ news _is _ that _the _Challenger _is _ primarily _a _ science _and _ research __ship," _Lt. Orr said over the comlink,

" __so _ it's not __ that _heavily _ armed. _The _ missiles _are _ carrying _conventional _ warheads, __so w e _don't _ have _to _ worry _about _ nukes. _And _ they've _just _ launched all _of _'em."_

"Good. Once we get past those, all we'll have to deal with is a few railguns and plasma-bolt batteries." She

locked on to the closest missile and fired her coilguns. Two streams of BB-size projectiles zipped away and connected with the incoming missile. The impact was beyond visual range, but the detonation still produced a small flash. The section of the canopy directly in front of the explosion automatically darkened until the blast faded.

The rest of the missiles went off like popcorn as Orr's squadron shot them down.

Asuka didn't let herself relax. The missiles were the least of their troubles. Even if they'd been nukes, there was only so much damage they could've done. Since shockwaves couldn't travel through vacuum, all you'd need to worry about was the intense heat, hard radiation, and EMP--and that was only if you were close enough to the explosion.

Railgun shells and plasma bolts, however, would be a hell of a lot harder to dodge.

"I've __got _ visual," _one of Orr's crew said. Asuka looked around until she spotted light reflecting off a massive chunk

of metal in the distance, growing closer at a startling rate. In only a few seconds, she could make out the

_Challenger _bearing down on her even though most of it was in shadow.

"There's __movement _ in _the _ docking _bay," _Orr said. _"Looks _ like _they're _ getting _ready _ to _launch _ the _fighters."

"I'll take care of that." Asuka nudged her thrusters, angling her ship toward the soft light coming from the open bay. She zoomed in for barely a second, just long enough to catch a glimpse of three fighters passing through the jagged opening left after T-Bone blew the bay doors off.

One of the fighters hit the edge of the hole, veered off downward, and turned somewhat jerkily as the zombie tried to correct its course.

"Dead dudes can't fly for shit." Asuka smirked. "Good news for us." She locked her plasma cannons onto the ships that hadn't left the bay yet, and opened fire. The bursts of energy streaked across the night and burned through the fighters' armor. After a few seconds of sustained fire, one of the bolts struck a fuel cell or a missile, and the small ship was ripped apart from the inside. Flames erupted for a second before the fighter's oxygen was consumed, and the fire faded, leaving an expanding cloud of glowing-hot debris.

The remains of the ship turned into projectiles and peppered the nearby fighters as well as the inside of the docking bay. The impacted fighters were nudged off-course and one of them crashed into a parked shuttle.

Asuka launched two missiles directly into the bay and nudged her controls, pushing her ship to the left to avoid sailing straight into the explosions. She smiled grimly. "Well, this isn't as hard as--"

A blinding light washed over everything in sight before her canopy could block it out.

"Shit!" Asuka flipped her fighter at a ninety-degree angle and kicked the main thrusters to maximum. "What the hell was that? Did the reactor blow?"

"It's __another _ rift," Orrsaid. _"Holy __shit, _ it _opened _ right _in _ the _middle _ of _the _Challenger."_

"Okay, I'm getting the hell away from it. Going through that thing might land us somewhere even worse than this."

"The __forward _ section _of _ the _ship--looks _ like _about _ one _third _ of _the _ total _length--appears _ to _have _ lost _power _ and _is _ drifting," T-Bone said. _"The __rest _ of _it _ went _through _ the _rift, _ so _whatever _ happens _with _ it _now, _ I _guess _ it's _someone _ else's _problem."

Once she was far enough away, Asuka rotated her ship to face back the way she'd come while still rocketing away from the rift. From this angle, the remaining piece of the _Challenger _was silhouetted against the stellar material flowing into

the black hole, and the rift appeared for a few seconds as a roughly circular window into...

That's __a _ desert. Asuka stared and blinked a few times. _That's __the _ surface _of _ a __planet. _So the rifts weren't limited to points in space. That realization led immediately to another that she wished she could _un_think.

We _'__ re _lucky _ the _rift _ that _scooped _ us _up _ didn't _dump _ us _into _ the _middle _ of _a _ star _or _ the _upper _ atmosphere _of _ a _gas _ giant. _Jesus _ Christ. _She shuddered and looked around for something to distract herself before her mind could conjure up something _more _unnerving.

Several dozen tiny shadows drifted against the backdrop of the dying star's outer layers streaming past. Asuka zoomed in on them, expecting to find a few of the zombies tumbling from their ship's exposed corridors.

"Oh, shit," she said softly. The corpses weren't the Challenger's undead crew." Those bodies must have come out of the rift."

"I __see _'em, _too," _Orr said. _"From _ the _way _ they're _dressed, _ I'd _say _ they _got _ scooped _up _ several _hundred _ years _ago."

"And dumped out here, with no way to even comprehend what had happened to them. No way to know why they were suddenly dying." Asuka turned her ship away from the writhing bodies, knowing there was nothing she or the others could do. The poor bastards would be unconscious in a few seconds, and would be dead before any of the ships could reach them. "Let's get the hell out of here."

"Yeah." _Orr's voice was a soft, gravelly mumble--tired, emotionally drained, numb. _"I __just _ lost _another _ of _my _ team. _The _ rift _appeared _ right _in _ front _of _ Zipper. _He _ couldn't _change _ course _in _ time."_

"I'm sorry." Asuka gave the thrusters a brief burn to push her back toward the repair bay's survivors, and wished there was something else she could say. Nothing came to mind, and the silence stretched out until a new voice came from the speakers on the console.

"We __have _ a _bit _ of _good _ news." Marissa's voice. _"We've __got _ a _visual _ on _a _ ship _that _ appears _to _ be _intact."

_Great. _Another _promising __shelter. _Asuka wondered what might be waiting for them to board it.

"Send us the location." She glanced at the info appearing on her console and changed her course to intercept. "Let's hope we have better luck with this one than we had with the last one."

#

Kamala lifted herself up and stared through the doorway.

_Oh, __no, _now _what? _Roger sat up and touched her shoulder.

"Footsteps," she whispered. "Coming this way, naturally."

"Great. I wonder what kind of hideous alien critter we'll be facing this time." He glanced around, found his pants, and grabbed them. By the time he'd slipped them on, he could make out what sounded like boots and hooves on the floor outside.

Kamala picked up her belt pouch and took her ultratool out of it. She aimed it at the open door and scanned. Suddenly, she grinned.

"One human female and one minotaur male. And I'm picking up an ultratool signal." She released a long breath and flopped back onto the mat. "It's Luana's."

"You might want to put some clothes on, then." He grinned and let his gaze caress her body as she reached for her skirt and double-bra. An unnerving thought struck him and his smile vanished. "Especially if it's just something that got its hands on her 'tool."

"Good point." Sighing, she slid her skirt on, cinched the belt, and put on her sports bra. She slithered over to the doorway, pressed herself against the wall beside it, and waited.

Roger took a position on the other side of the door and wondered what the hell he would do if the approaching footsteps were coming from another alien monstrosity or a pair of intergalactic pirates.

The footsteps stopped a few feet away.

"Kamala?" Luana's voice, whispering. "Roger?"

Kamala released a sort of half sigh, half sob, and leaned over to peek outside. She beamed and burst out

laughing. "Luana!"

Roger let a long breath rush out and followed Kamala out of the small room. Luana and Morrison stood a few feet away, both of them wearing relieved grins. Morrison had his sidearm out, pointed at the floor, and Luana was holding an odd, alien-looking gun.

Kamala slid forward and put her arms around Luana.

Morrison clopped forward, holstered his gun, and reached out to clap Roger on the shoulder. "Sorry to see you're trapped here, too, but damn, it's good to see a couple familiar faces."

"Same here." Roger slumped against the wall and took a few deep breaths. "I don't suppose you've found a way out of here?"

"I wish. I'm kind of amazed we managed to run into you two."

"This ship is like a fucked-up alien funhouse." Luana shook her head slowly as Kamala scooted over to Roger. "Corridors kept changing as soon as we looked away, doorways behind us disappeared and the ones in front of us vanished before we could get to 'em."

"We've seen the same thing." Kamala put her upper-right arm around Roger's shoulders and clasped his hand with her lower-right. "I'm still not sure if someone is screwing around with us, or the ship's automated systems are running unsupervised and just doing stuff randomly."

"Luckily, Henry found this." Luana motioned at her gun. "It's too small for his hand, but I'm able to use it. Whenever a door vanished or a corridor changed, I just blew a hole through it and we kept walking. I picked up the signal from your ultratool and followed it here."

"That's not all we found." Morrison sighed. "I took the gun from a dead body--just one of many. Some looked human, others looked...well, like they weren't from Earth. They looked like they killed each other."

Kamala shuddered. "We ran into a huge animal that tried to eat us, but nothing like that. I wonder if anyone else is still trapped here, or if we're the only ones left."

"If we can find the control center, we might be able to find out." Roger patted her hand and looked at Morrison and Luana. "We were thinking, if we could get to the control room and figure out how it works, we can backtrack the ship to the rest of our friends and pick them up."

"Worth a shot." Morrison nodded--then his ears pricked up and he turned and drew his gun.

Roger looked past him and found a half-dozen floating, metallic ovoids roughly the size of his torso approaching them. A motion in the corner of his left eye caught his attention and he turned.

Six more had just entered through the doorway that had led him and Kamala here.

Luana let out a truncated squeak and raised her gun.

Kamala waved her ultratool around, scanning, and gasped. "There's more coming in from the far end of the chamber and fanning out." She turned to Roger. "We're surrounded."

"If they were abducted like we were," Roger said, "maybe we can--"

Panels on the fronts of the ovoids slid open, revealing short rods that were likely weapons of some sort. The rods extended and aimed at her and the others.

"I'm gettin' a feeling they're part of the ship's automated systems," Morrison said.

Luana glanced at her gun. "Oh, no. They might've been activated when I started blasting holes through walls. Which means they might be a security system."

She and Morrison exchanged a nervous glance as the robotic ovoids continued their approach. He drew in a long breath and let it out slowly.

"Aw, shit."