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EXIOS, part 6 copyright comidacomida 2026 Sebastian was stunned and, whether it was by the concussive blast of the cranium bomb exploding or from witnessing a man essentially rqeuesting his own termination, the freelancer wasn't entirely sure. He was slowly pulled out of his daze by Exios, who had called his name three times before reaching out to grab his shoulder, calling him a fourth time. "Bastian?!" The Human snapped out of it after a gentle (for a several hundred pound killing machine) shake. "Yeah. I'm fine, bud... just.. this is... really crazy... I mean... what the fuck? That guy--" The experiment interjected "Berthold Wagner. Class Three researcher on Rho IX. Not a good man." Sebastian went to retrieve his sidearm where it had dropped when Exios had picked him up off the ground by his neck. He aimed it toward the one living Gorumn, who had mostly managed to secure the stump of his arm with a tourniquet. Although 'space orcs' as they were well known tended to be particuarly hearty, losing an arm was still an arm, but Sebastian wasn't about to presume he wasn't still dangerous. "On the ground." The injured Gorumn grunted. "Ugh... I just sat up." The freelancer wasn't interested in any lip. "And now you'll lay back down. On your stomach... hands where I can see em." The Space Orc did as ordered, moving one to the back of his head before gesturing with his chin. "Other one's over there... good luck keeping an eye on both at the same time." Sebastian ignored the snide remark, moving closer to the Gorumn, weapon still trained on him. The man was wearing heavy security armor, which meant that a pistol wouldn't do much, so he focused his weapon on his head. "What the fuck do you want with my ship." The Gorumn grunted flatly. "Nothin'. Doc was interested in the big cat, not your broke-ass freighter." Hearing the sound of Exios moving around the cargo bay near the cut bay doors, Sebastian avoided taking his eyes off of their prisoner. "Who do you work for?" His captive grunted again; it was a common emote for Gorumn who were trying to simultaneously show a lack of both fear and resistance. "Saturn Company... some of the time, at least... but mostly freelance." Sebastian knew the organization; the Gorumn was a mercenary. While the Human was not a particular fan of mercenaries, they were at least more predictable than some shadow organization of which he knew nothing. "Who's your PoC for your job?" The Gorumn chuckled gravely. "Point of contact for the current contract?" He nodded in the direction of the headless scientist. "What's left of him is over there." Hearing that did a lot of good for Sebastian's frame of mind; mercenaries were driven by profit and, lacking someone to work for, they usually didn't spend time or energy. He wasn't ready to let down his guard though. "What was your pay arrangement?" The space orc let out a long, dejected sigh. "Bastard refused any upfront-- it was all on the fuckin' back end." That was some surprisingly good news because Sebastian knew how to deal with mercenaries who lost a contract. Slowly raising his weapon to point toward the ceiling, he asked a wary "What's your reset cost?" The question seemed to catch the Gorumn by surprise; few merenaries expected the person they were hunting to ask about how much it'd cost to get them back to a net zero on a failed contract. "Uh..." the space orc paused, "...with or without a replacement arm?" Sebastian stowed his gun; not only were 'negotiations' going in a positive direction, but, with Exios close by, the Human knew he had backup. "I have a Mk 3 medbay. Arm's in good enough condition that we should be able to attach it well enough to keep from losing it... though you'll probably have to follow up with a specialist before it'll be combat ready." The Gorumn slowly sat up, making no quick motions, a sloppy smile coming to his tusked face. "Fuck, pinkie... if you can keep me from having to buy a prosthetic that alone'd be worth my time." The Human shook his head. "No. Code of freelancer means I'm paying you... but you're not just gonna be a passenger-- I expect to get some work out of you." Letting out a hearty laugh, the Gorumn offered a sloppy, mock salute with his remaining hand. "Whatever you say, skipper... if you're gettin' me my arm back AND putting credts in my account my time's yours... whatever you need." Sebastian nodded, taking a few more steps to collect the Gorumn's arm before reaching reaching out a hand to help the mercenary up to his feet. "Once we get this reattached you DO realize I'll have a LOT of questions for you." The Gorumn stood up with the Human's assistance, then accepted his separated arm. "Yeah... thanks for the hand." He followed the statement with a wry, tusky grin. "Your name's Sebastian, right, Pinkie? I'm Khanvr." Sebastian nodded, acknowledging that. "First thing's first... how do you-- I mean... how did HE know my name?" Khanvir glanced toward the headless body of the doctor, then shrugged. "Fuck if I know. Had a whole damn file on ya and everything... said you stole an experiment from his employer and that's all he bothered telling us." The Human nodded, glancing over to Exios, who was sniffing at the cut open cargo bay doors. "Exios... you alright, bud?" The chimera looked his way, offered a toothy grin (muzzle still drenched in blue Gorumn blood), and offered a thumbs up. "Exios good. Bastian good?" Sebastian nodded. "Yeah... I'm fine. See if you can find something to patch up that opening-- I want to separate us from that ship and get back underway." Khanvir offered up a surprised Gorumn sound-- it was almost their word for 'really'. "You sure? That thing has all sortsa stuff in it... fine upgrades too. Could probably fetch pretty high price on the open market." The Human shook his head. "No thanks... anyone who'd self-detonate a cortex bomb in their own head probably has even worse inside their ship." The next few minutes were spent with Sebastian checking on the peripheral damage to his cargo bay; it was fortunately not as bad as it could have been. Khanvir, to his merit, still managed to move around and even helped Exios find a large metal plate that could be welded into place in order to cover most of the opening cut from the boarding party. The Gorumn ultimately slowed as he passed by the body of his fellow mercenary, pausing to talk to it. "Pretty fucked up job, eh Nlor?" Sebastian didn't feel bad about self defense, but he acknowledged what loss could do emotionally to someone. "You two friends?" Khanvir shrugged his one good shoulder. "Guess you could say that... been on a few contracts together... trusted him to watch my back. Fucker never bothered getting his scent glans removed so he usually craped over all our high end negotiations because of it." The statement was spoken in a flat delivery, but the Gorumn cracked a smirk. Sebastian had known plenty of Gorumn; they had body odor that was considered incredibly offensive to Humans, Cytkus, and Voljoi-- only Geneticons seemed to manage to endure it, so most space orcs planning to be around other races for any length of time went through the procedure to reduce their body odor over 80% and, even then, they still had a certain 'bouquet' to them. Sebastian tried to be as delicate as possible regarding the corpse of someone who'd been ordered to kill him. "Do you want to box him up?" The Gorumn grunted in a non-comittal tone. "Nah... ain't got any close family anyway. You can just space him once we're underway." The Human nodded, and rephrased the question. "You're welcome to his equipment if you want it, Khanvir." Stunned, the space orc stood stock still, staring at him for several seconds before he belted out a full-bellied laugh, slapping his thigh with his one good hand. "Well fuck, Skipper, I figured you were one weird mother fucker when you offered to pay my reset, but giving me field plunder that's yours by right? Where do YOU issue your contracts? Hot damn!" Sebastian didn't bother responding to the Gorumn's celebratory banter, simply gesturing to the corpse before he headed back toward the door separating the cargo bay from the rest of the ship. "Just salvage what you want and then we can move his body to the airlock once we get the breach sealed." The Gorumn was about to respond when the Human's attention was drawn to Exios, who dropped a piece of metal, rising up as his ears raised. "Everything okay, buddy?" Rather than answer him, Exios glanced over his shoulder toward the hole in the cargo bay doors, then looked back to Sebastian with extreme concern. "Bastian! Go! Now!" The Human didn't fully understand the directions at first, and he was then distracted by Khanvir, who was racing toward him at full speed. Sebastian's mind snapped back to focus and he was just about to reach for his sidearm when the Gorumn collided with him, both of them careening into the hallway beyond the doors separating the cargo bay from the rest of the ship. He had just enough time to scramble out of Khanvir's grasp to see the Gorumn hurl his disembodied arm at the emergency blast door control. A moment later the entire ship rocked and the sound of an explosion vibrated throgh the hull. Sebastian sprang to his feet in an instant, running to the small plastisteel porthole in the emergency bulkhead door, only to see the entire cargo bay was... gone. Behind him, Khanvir groaned, grumbling out the words "Asshats... putting bombs in skulls... putting bombs in 3 million credit spacecrafts... they probably put bombs in their fucking bombs!" The Human's brain slowed and everything started going in slow motion as his mind caught on to one very important piece of information: Exios had been in the cargo bay... which had been blown completely apart by the Suzumebachi self destructing. He slammed his balled up fist against the emergency door. "EXIOS!!!" Grunting, the Gorumn pushed himself up off the floor, a blue streak of blood left on it as he wobbled on his feet before leaning against the wall of the hallway. "Hey... uh... Skipper... sorry about your cat-thing... but... he kinda saved your life back there." Sebastian about-faced turning on the space orc. "What?!" Khanvir nodded. "Yeah... I didn't notice what was going on til he called attention to it... musta heard some kind of countdown after an activation signal. If he wouldn'ta called out that warning, we'd ALL be dead right now." The freelancer wanted to scream; he wanted to shout at the Gorumn; he wanted to strike him; he wanted to yell and curse and throw a fit but, in that moment, he just felt... empty. He'd promised to protect Exios, but he failed after less than twenty four hours. In the end, the experiment had saved him from death not once, but at least twice. He was left with a one armed Gorumn in an otherwise empty ship lacking a cargo bay, and a long trip to report in on a contract without the promised survivor from Rho IX. Letting out a long, heavy sigh, Sebastian walked numbly past the stricken Gorumn, who was still leaning against the wall, holding his detached arm in his good hand. Pausing, the Human gestured blandly down the hall. "Come on... let's go get that thing reattached." Khanvir followed after him without saying a word, mutedly stepping into line. Sebastian led him to the medical bay, opening the door, and gestured to one of the two med-bay beds. "Lay down and I'll load up the protocol for Gorumn limb reattachment-- you wouldn't want ME trying to do it manually." Khanvir climbed onto the table, his large bulk settling into it as his head turned toward Sebastian, and the Gorumn shot back the same question the Human had asked a few scant minutes before. "You two friends?" Sebastian had only just met Exios. He'd saved the experiment's life and was just starting to understand how little the chimera knew about living. The Human had helped Exios experience many firsts, and he felt that the experiment had come to trust him. They hadn't known one another long, but Sebastian knew that the ship wouldn't be the same without him. "Yeah. Yeah we were." * * * * * One thing Sebastian had never thought to skimp on was medical expenses, and that included his advanced med bay. Despite the very brutal removal of Khanvir's arm, the automated system had it reattached and semi-functional in less than ten minutes. The Gorumn flexed it, wincing as he did so, moving his fingers one at a time before making a fist, grunting in pain, then relaxing his grip. "Well... it ain't perfect, but it'll work til I get get seen by someone who'll cost a few thousand times as much." The Human nodded, pressing the button for the med bay to start its disinfecting and cleaning cycle once the two had exited it. He responded to the Gorumn's statement with a bland "Yeah... personally I'd prefer to avoid any major fire fights for the next few days, so you shouldn't have to do any brawling or anything." Khanvir offered a half-hearted chuckle. "Good fer me... I guess." A long, uncomfortable silence stretched between the two of them; Sebastian honestly didn't feel like filling it. The Gorumn opened his mouth to speak, but fell silent due to the sound of a 'thud' reverbrating through the hull. Realizing they both heard it, Sebastian offered up a question in general. "Asteroids?" The thudding continued-- three of them, evenly spaced apart. Khanvir spoke up, his words a half statement, half question. "Sounds like it's comin' from the airlock?" The two moved quickly to the airlock, a set of double doors that had plastisteel windows in each and, gazing through one to the next, what Sebastian saw practically stopped his heart: gazing in through the exterior window was Exios! He couldn't recall having ever unlocking the exterior airlock door as quickly as he did in that moment. Exios, once the door was open, nimbly made his way into the airlock chamber, seemingly unbothered by the lack of gravity or air in the void. Once he had closed and secured the outer door he looked back toward Sebastian and offered a thumbs up. The Human quickly slammed his palm against the pressurization control the flood the airlock with atmosphere. He stared in at the experiment, astounded that Exios was still alive and seemingly unbothered by having spent nearly twenty minutes in the vacuum of space. One of many things that Sebastian disliked about his Mallard was that the airlock cycled slowly. It took almost a minute for the atmopshere in to reach paridy with the rest of the ship and, during that time, all he could do (other than listen to Khanvir make comments of amazement about 'that cat') was watch the strange effect that repressurization had on Exios... especially since it gave him the opportunity to really look at him. Exios' almost orange fur had changed within the vacuum; it was much closer to a golden color, and his black stripes had become blotches of charcoal gray. As the airlock began to pressurize, however, the silky, free-floating fur seemed to shrink and, as it did so beneath airporesure, the much more normal orange-and-black color returned. The entire transition took place over the time it took the air lock to cycle, and Exios was back to his normal coloration by the time the door opened. Sebastian was not a skilled scientist, but he knew enough to realize that the chimera's fur must have expanded without air pressure; was that part of the secret to why he was still alive? How could fur expansion and contraction make that much of a difference? The question was set off to the side the moment he had access to the experiment, at which point he threw himself against Exios, hugging him tightly. "I thought you were dead, bud." Behind him, Khanvir let out a single, braying 'ha!' before stating "Yeah... you and the rest of all of creation. Damn, that kitty's fuckin' indestructable." It wasn't until Sebastian disengaged that he realized his hand was wet; pulling back, he saw that it was covered in blood. Exios offered a pained smile. "When Suzumebachi blew up, Exios got hurt." Roaring for Khanvir to 'get the fuck out of the way', Sebastian began guiding Exios to the medical bay. As before, the experiment faltered, resisting entering it as the got close. The Human tried to reassure him. "It's not a bad place, remember, Exios? We've been in there before and you were just fine. I want to help you feel better." Behind them, Khanvir grunted. "If he can put up that much of a fuss, I'm pretty sure whatever's wrong with 'im ain't a threat t'is life." In the end, thankfully, Exios finally did relent, saying with trepedation, "Exios trust Bastian... okay... we go." Khanvir hung out at the doorway leading into the med bay, looking generally uncomfortable in the moment. "You need me for anything, boss?" Sebastian waved him off. "No. Head down the corridor and make a first left. Door on the right's your bunk for now. Go there and stay there." The Gorumn offered a casual salute. "A room of my own? Fuck yeah! You got it, Skipper. You know where t'find me." Once the 'new hire' had left, Sebastian turned his attention toward Exios, whose attention was entirely on the Human. Before he could speak, the experiment did first. "Hi, Bastian." Despite his concern for the chimera, the Human smiled nevertheless. "Hi. I'm glad you're still alive, Exios." The experiment's tail began to sway beneath it on the medical table. "Exios glad Bastian is alive." Sebastian nodded. "Yeah... I'm alright... but I wasn't the one blown up and sent out into space for twenty minutes." The experiment's eyes focused on him. "Oh. Exios hold breath for over thirty minutes. Space not bad." The freelancer honestly didn't know where to begin admonishing his companion. He began hooking up diagnostic equipment to the chimera as he attempted to convey his frustration. "Exios... space is more than just not being able to breathe..." Exios remained where he was, giving Sebastian free reign with all of the equipment with obedient patience, responding as casually as if discussing how to blink. "Is fine. Vacuum is fine-- Exios body do good. Extreme temperature fine-- Exios very resistant. Ionizing radiation fine-- Exios not affected. Cellular destruction not happen to Exios. Is okay, Bastian. Exios fine." The experiment's overtly simple reassurance was mind bogglingly effective, especially once Sebastian was able to establish that the chimera's read outs were comparable to his baseline; even the gaping wound in his back didn't seem to affect him significantly. Letting out a sigh, the Human just shook his head back and forth. "Well, either way, let's see about minimizing any future potential for harm to you, okay, bud?" Exios reached up and gently grabbed the Human by his forearm. "Bastian... Exios fine. Is no harm." The Human scowled. "Exios... you got blown up." The experiment's tail beat out a one-two pattern from where it was partially trapped under him. "Is fine. Exios very sturdy... made to be blast resistant. Exios not take blast damage because is pressure, and Exios body do good with pressure, so no barotrauma. Exios also have strong ears-- no hearing hurting for Exios. Exios also not have dain bramage." Sebastian froze. "You don't have what?" The chimera smiled wide. "Dain Bramage. Exios joke! Is like 'brain damage', only said different to be funny." The Human let out a long sigh. "At this rate, I'LL be the one with dain bramage." The experiment giggled mirthfully. "Exios is glad Bastian is worried... Bastian good person, but Exios fine. Bastian not need to worry. Exios fine." The Chimera raised its paw in front of Sebastian's face, palm out toward him, two fingers up, thumb pulled in across the other fingers against his palm. "Exios promise. Exios fine." Sebastian sighed, pushing the huge paw away. "Exios... you have a gaping hole in your back between two of your ribs... I don't call that 'fine'." Exios waggled his muzzle up and down. "No. Is fine, Bastian... Exios already take out shrapnel... just pierced lung. Exios still have three. Is fine." The Human changed tactics. "Well, you're bleeding all over the place, and I don't think I want you on my bed if you're going to cover it in blood." The experiment's tail stopped wagging, and he quickly rolled over, his words coming out with urgency. "Bastian fix?' The next twenty minutes were spent with some judicious use of medigel, followed by utilizing the same automated system as was used to reattach the Gorumn's arm. Despite the fact that Exios' body was not in any specific anatomy catalogue, the Mark 3 medibay was able to do a full scan and intuit what should go where-- the fact that there was no significant internal organ damage (apparently it didn't read a pierced lung as a critical issue), it was able to close Exios up with no muss and no fuss. While it worked, Sebastian talked to Exios about had happened. "So... that Dr. Wagner guy... you knew him from Rho IX?" Exios remained still while the med bay's automated systems worked on his back. "Yes. Exios knew him from tests. He was not good man, but was not worst man... until he tried to hurt Bastian." The experiment's hackles started to raise so, to keep Exios calm, Sebastian started stroking the chimera's back well above the wound site. "So that means they managed to track us somehow then..." "Yes, Bastian... but Exios not let them hurt you." He patted his companion on the back. "Thanks, bud... but if they found us once then they could probably find us again." Even when he was on his back, Exios' huge, toothy grin was visible. "No. Exios found tracker in skin when he take out shrapnel. Tracker now floating far off in space." Sebastian couldn't help but smile, despite his frustration at the situation. "Well... you seem to be able to find the silver cloud to almost everything, apparently." Afer that sidelong comment, it was Exios who asked the next question. "Bastian let Gorumn stay on ship?" Sebastian nodded. "Yeah, bud. He was being paid by Dr Wagner but, now that Wagner's dead, he doesn't have any reason to hurt us, so I hired him to make sure that we're safe for the rest of our trip." Although it was supposed to be reassuring, something about the Human's words made Exios scowl. "Exios keep Bastian safe... Bastian no need Gorumn." The freelancer just rolled his eyes, sighing, as he started patting the chimera again. "Relax, bud... sure, you're great, but having more than enough safety is better than having enough safety... right?" The experiment rumbled and groused and growled under his breath, finally mumbling "Gorumn not as good at keeping Bastian safe as Exios. Exios not trust smelly Gorumn." It was incredibly difficult for Sebastian to avoid laughing at the low-key tantrum but, fortunately, that was when the med bay finally completed its work. The automated system returned to its passive start location and powered down. Patting Exios on the head, Sebastian stood up and stretched. "Okay, bud... looks like your wound's taken care of... whadda you say we see if we can go back and get a little more sleep. I feel like I got run over by a stampeding Cytkus." Exios rolled off of the medical table, rotating his hips so that his feet touched the floor before his shoulders had left the slab. "Okay... but Exios not sharing Bastian with the Gorumn." Sebastian laughed at that. "Relax, bud... I told Khanvir to stay in the second room. You don't have to share anything." The construct paused, ears rising up as his whiskers perked. His tail started wagging again and he proceeded off toward the cabin with a spring in his step. "Okay, Bastian... Gorumn can stay."