Breakout Kings

[Talus Morid]

Alliance Prison Barge A23 - The Cage

Bright vibrant light burned from the bulbs above him, a searing sort of white that was accented by the burning red of the ray shield just ahead of him. The lights never turned off, the shield never wavered, and everything remained exactly the same. Every now and again there would be footsteps, a glimpse of the guard, and then the droid that dispensed their food. It was repetitive, boring, but above all mind numbing.

That was by design of course. The Barge was not created for entertainment, it was created to transport inmates from one prison to another. It was designed to keep it's charges docile, calm, and as bored as they could possibly be. Nothing ever change within the little barge, one couldn't even see their fellow prisoners just across the hall. The Ray Shielding and the thick durasteel walls prevented any communication, a feature that was also of course also by design.

This had been his existence for three weeks.

Three weeks of absolute nothingness. It was supposed to have just taken two days, a quick journey from the Core to the outer reaches of Alliance space. Yet he had counted the days, the hours, sometimes even the minutes. Far too much time had passed, something had happened, though he did not know what.

The cells aboard Prison Barge A23 were not comfortable. They were not designed for long term occupation. There was a refresher in every one, a single bed, but only space for that. One couldn't stand properly, one couldn't stretch, exercise, or have any notion of the sort. It was all by design, created to trap and break. There was no devices of torture, no electric shock, but the boredom of it was enough to drive one insane. After three weeks?

Talus was nearly there.

His fingers curled slightly within the force cuffs, a device that prevented him from even brushing the use of his true strength. He sat on the bed, his legs crossed, a position that he rarely moved from. A breath filled his lungs, and within the silence he could hear footsteps echoing down the hall from his cell. The ray shield hid what was behind, but the familiar sound of the guardsmen's boots was something he was all too eager to hear.

It was their routine. Their only reason for existence. Talus had been counting, he had been waiting, and he had been listening. Three weeks. Three weeks inside of this little cell. He knew every corner, every panel, every little nook.

Soon he would leave it.

 

[Destin Eden]

Unlike some, Destin was used to sitting on his ass for hours, and hours, and hours on end. Because how else’re you gonna slice? Running around?

Ha. Fat chance.

While the rest of the Eden kids played outside, the green sheep of the family spent his days in a cocoon of monitors, cables, and beeping machinery. It was his lifeblood; electricity practically ran through his veins. Now, just kicking the door of his second decade down (or, well, opening it cautiously), Destin practically thought in code.

And he hadn’t been allowed to touch technology for three weeks.

Three weeks, six hours, twenty-two minutes, and fourteen seconds.

It was a nightmare. It was hell. It was worse than being dragged to a swamp-spedition with Maud on the most humid day of the year.

Des let his head roll back against the cold durasteel with a groan. The fourth morning patrol passed them by without a word, without a glance, without nothing. Like always.

Why oh why did he have to go poking around the SIS signal tower on Sulon? Maud was right; he was dumb, and incautious, and now it was finally gonna cost him.

“Feth.”

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

Kal'inka, Kal'inka, Kal'inka be Pal'vut...

...o'r te yagoda da mal'inka - mal'inka, mal'inka be Pal'vut!


Matta had experienced a shortage of booze before, but never something quite so striking as a cold-turkey 3 week forced detox. The hell she'd been through in the last 21 days made her wish she'd not survived the melting of Mandalore. The galaxy had a funny way of showing you how to appreciate being able to continue breathing.

ah, chur te pine, te vorpan solus,
lay ni daab at nuhoy,

She was singing loudly. Badly. Laying on her bed with her head lolling over the edge, shock-white hair dangling, goggles flashing a reflection of the ray shields as she nodded back and forth.

Ay-lyuli, lyuli, ay-lyuli, lyuli,
lay ni daab at nuhoy!

She was kicking incessantly at the nearest wall, punctuating the lilting song with the noise. These random physical outbursts had become routine by now. The Guards hated her.

 

[Neesa]

She looked down at hands which had failed her. The old spells required words and intricate patterns drawn in the air. She couldn't remember the words, but it was easier to blame her hands. She hated them now. She hated the weakness that had led her here. She hated the silver strands that didn't seem her own. Dyed since she had gone into hiding.

She hated the Sith who had abandoned here when it was no longer convenient to keep her around. Back to her street roots she had started to do well on her own, but then an Alliance task forces had decimated her little organisation until finally finding her. So now she blamed them too.

But most of all she hated whoever was in the next cell. The slow cadence of the metallic bangs was the slow rhythm of her isolation. There was nothing here to turn into a shiv, but perhaps she could gouge their eyes out before the guards got to them.

Locked off from the world the anger which spread like ice through her veins had nowhere to go. Building a mental picture of someone in the next cell gave it an imaginary target.

 

[Sal Katarn]

The cold durasteel cell had no door, only a rayshield, which cast a soft blue glow. A figure huddled in the corner. Long brown hair hung limply over his face and he stared fixedly at a point on the floor.

He could not remember how long he sat staring, or even how long since they took him into custody. In his mind’s eye he saw only the terror of classmates a second before their deaths. In his sleep he heard only their screams. Since the day it all happened, Ophois could not recall feeling anything but a cold numb ache in his chest.

The trial had been short. The sentence they’d given him would not be.

He wished they would just end it already.

 

[Talus Morid]

The soft tap of the boots just outside of his cell slowly resounded inside of the ship.

It was a sound he was familiar with now, it was a sound that was as much a part of him as his skin. Talus had become familiar with it, he could predict it like the beat of his heart. A small smile touched his lips, eyes slowly folding open as the steps came closer and closer. Slowly he unfurled himself from the bed, the cuffs around his hands flexing slightly as he moved fingers. The power was gone, for now, but it would return in time. He didn't need it.

Not for this.

The steps came closer and closer, the steady beat that he knew so well. They traced just beyond the cell adjacent to his, and then he saw the slight haze of the guard through the ray-shield. He struck out like a viper, quick and sudden. The metal cuffs were suddenly pushed through the ray-shield, burning and hissing in an instant. Electricity and sparks flew from the heavy durasteel, his fingers within beginning to cook almost instantly as the super heated metal scorched his flesh.

Talus made no sound as he reached out and grasped the Guard, using a turn of his hands even as the ray shield cut into his skin.

With a single powerful yank he pulled the Guard back down into the ray shield, ripping him with such force that the mans legs tore back and fell into the shield itself.

Half a breath passed before the guard began to scream bloody murder. His entire body shook and violently jerked around, the ray shield seizing him and slowly killing him. Talus' hands drew away from the man, the skin burned and the flesh seared. His forearms smoked, the skin deformed almost beyond recognition. The tattoo that had been so intriciately drawn on his underneath of his forearm was completely ruined, the ink scorched away.

Beyond the ray shield, beyond the screaming man, Talus could hear the cries of guardsmen.

"Shut off the shield! Turn it off now!"​

A smile touched his lips, it was finally time.

 

[Destin Eden]

When the guards’ daily rhythm broke, Des didn’t need no time in vaulting off the hard bed. He was pressed flush against the durasteel wall, ears peeled to catch anything beyond the angry buzz of the ray shielding hissing next to his cheek.

Turn off the shield…

He pulled the long industrial piercing from his ear and wiped it clean on his shirt. Winding the barbell at the end, he coaxed a compact spanner of his own design out of the metal casing. Destin couldn’t help the grin that split his face. The grin that earned him worried glances from mom when she thought he wasn’t looking.

But that was lightyears away and years ago.

The screws at the edge of the ray projector came out as smooth as those SIS protocols had given way. Was he really at fault when it was just so easy? If people didn’t want their things taken, they should’ve invested in better protection.

The guards pried off a panel – he heard the metal clatter on the floor. Someone fumbled with the right buttons. Sausage fingers and gloves don’t go well together.

Des hurried with his own dextrous, thin digits, prying the cover away. There would be an instant when they killed the shields where the pulse would run through the whole system. It’s how it always was with these cheaper models.

Finally, there was a grunt of triumph. The shield flickered. Des jammed his spanner in there, grateful for the rubberized lining he’d added after his first electrocution accident. The sparks that sizzled in the darkness didn’t look none too friendly.

The screaming picked up force. Des licked the salt of sweat off his upper lip and turned the spanner with nary a breath in his throat.

“What the kark?!”

Black eyes flew open to a whole corridor of gaping cells. A hundred meters’ worth of convicts, give or take.

And there it was again – that grin Ava worried about.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

Ragnar looked up from his latest meditative trance and found that, where there had once been a particle shield, now there was nothing. Nothing. The Valkyri stood - as much as he could in the miserably space - and exited into the hallway. He could now draw himself to his full height for the first time in three weeks. Before stretching, he looked both ways down the corridor. He had not been the first one to exit his cell - several dozen other prisoners were now poking their heads out, looking around, meandering out.

Is this real life?

Oh, yes it was. Ragnar could smell fear, and fear intermixed with the optimism and bloodlust of the recently freed prisoners meant it was real. This was one of his many talents, the smelling of emotions. The fear smelled like piss, and the optimism smelled like thirty-something-humanoids-who-had-not-showered-in-several-weeks-standing-in-a-relatively-small-space-with-poor-airflow. Among other things, Ragnar was a master of description.

Now that he was freed, the Valkyri had but one goal: My Axe. They had taken it from him. There was no logical reason for them to keep it on the same prison barge as him, but it was here nonetheless. It did not make sense for them to do that, but for the narrative it was necessary. Ragnar could not go very far from My Axe. It was as much an extension of himself as his own arms, or his voice. Ragnar would have to find it. Even if they hadn't brought it on the barge themselves, My Axe would find its way back. It always did. Somehow.

Magick.

There was a loud series of popping noises as Ragnar rolled his neck, then his shoulders, and once he was finished he he proceeded down the hallway - the smaller prisoners scurried out of his way, the larger ones did the same. Maybe they knew he was a Renling. Maybe the big, scary pale human just looked that determined to reclaim his weapon. It did not matter. It was all a ruse. Ragnar had no idea where he was going. Why would he? All he knew was that eventually he would encounter security, and eventually - once he broke enough of their necks - someone would tell him where My Axe went.

And then he would probably break their neck too, just to be sure.

 

[Neesa]

She tilted her head to one side and regarded the opening curiously. For a moment she assumed they had stopped to transfer prisoners. The screaming wasnt as rare as she would have liked. She suspected some of the prisoners were losing their mental faculties.

"Back in your cells!"

Not a transfer then. She saw the guard appeared through the opening of her cell. He was a tall and broad human. The tone of command in his voice was unfaltering. He was also likely to have a weapon.

He saw Neesa coming. She ducked a swinging arm but it still caught the top of her head painfully. Flowing about him like water she gripped the neckline of his armor and stamped into the back of his knee. As he toppled she pressed forwards, forcing him to the ground.

The guard got both arms underneath himself. He was probably strong enough to break a hold around the neck. Instead she went for the weapon. It was not a blaster. Neesa felt a flare of frustration at finding a pitiful stun baton. It wouldn't do to kill the foot tapping idiot in the next cell.

She flung her arm out wide and it extended with a loud crack before she brought it down over and over.

The sound of it striking a skull was far less pleasant. The guard went still. Kneeling on his back and with the baton crackling in her grip she looked up to see the crowd parting. Something larger, angrier and distinctly more determined was moving down the corridor.

Neesa really wished the guard had been carrying a gun.

 

[Sal Katarn]

The soft glow vanished.

Ophois shifted, looking up. He stared at the opening to his cell, head atilt. They deactivated the rayshield. Why?

He slumped back in his corner. It didn't matter. The youth closed his eyes and tried to go back to sleep.

The screams started all at once. He whimpered, waiting for the nightmare to begin again. The screaming got louder, just down the hall. Ophois' eyes flared open, a scowl creasing his delicate brow. He was not in the dreams, was he?

Slowly, the young man stood and made his way to the mouth of his cell. He peered out into the hall and spotted a fight breaking out not three cells down. A figure in the armor of a guard suddenly barred his way.

"Back in your cell."

Ophois opened his mouth, then felt all the air rush from his lungs in an instant as the guard hit him in the stomach with a baton. Ophois doubled over, trying to catch his breath. He felt an impact against his back and sharp pain blossomed along his spine. He slumped to his knees, still unable to draw breath, hands clawing at the pant leg of the guard for purchase.

He looked up just in time to receive a strike across the face with the baton. It snapped his head to the side and he felt warm, coppery liquid pooling inside his mouth. It dribbled down broken lips and along his smooth chin, streaking pale skin red.

Ophois gargled for air and his vision spun. Looking up at the guard, he saw a faint spiderweb of red lines all across the guard's body. A thick cluster of them came together above the man's chest.

"Ss- stop," Ophois croaked, unable to put any breath behind the words.

The guard raised his baton and flicked a switch. It crackled with electricity along the length.

No.

Terror and rage crashed together like two waves, their foamy crests meeting above a lone rock of desperation caught betwixt them. Ophois thrust out a hand as the baton came down, trying to push at the cluster of glowing lines around the man's chest. Tendons on his wrist strained as he tried to reach, but his fingers couldn't. It was too far.

The boy's eyes became twin pools of beaten gold rimmed in blood red. With a sound like the crack of a gun the guard suddenly exploded from the inside out, pieces of him painting Ophois, the deck, and the walls around him.

Then Ophois' eyes rolled into the back of his head and he slumped from his knees to lie flat on the deck.

Darkness engulfed him. Before his waking mind he saw a vision of a throne and atop that throne sat a Dark Lord. The Dark Lord stretched fingers toward him, reaching from his throne, but as Ophois watched the Dark Lord's iron crown crumbled into ash and the throne itself shattered. Then a rolling fog of blackness obscured all and he knew no more.

 

[Talus Morid]

His hands were a mangled mess, the flesh of his arms burned and seared, yet there was a smile upon this face.

Bright yellow eyes glowed within the dark, his teeth baring as he pulled himself up from his crouch. Gaze dropped towards the guard on the floor, a whimper escaping the man as he tried to pull himself together. Ray Shields burned, cooked, and cut through flesh. They were horrid things, inescapable and deadly. There was a reason one didn't attempt to cross through them, a reason they made such effective barriers. Yet when you could stand the pain, when you could make the sacrifice...then they were nothing.

Just another link in the chain to be broken.

Slowly Talus stepped forward, moving over the guard and leaning down. His mangled hands were frozen, fingers half curled. Flesh and sinew had been melted into one, but that didn't matter. His index looped through the small clip of keys on the man's belt, tugging them free and pulling them up to his mouth. He twisted the metallic key in his teeth, pressing it to the force cuffs and sliding it into the lock.

A click rang out, and then the metallic clank of his cuffs hitting the deck.

In an instant he felt the power seize him. It was not a trickle, it was not a tiny stream, but a raging torrent that flooded his entire being. Every muscle in his body sang with strength, every sinew, every little piece of flesh utterly ravage as an all too familiar strength threatened to rip him apart. He felt it race through his body, his fingers slowly curling as they burned from the inside out. Torn and melted flesh animated itself, twisted knuckles and charred muscles blazed with new life.

There was no healing, no regrowth of lost skin, but his hands moved all the same. A rush of air filled his lungs, his eyes fell open. "Freedom."

The single word seemed to propel him, pushing him through the raging crowd and towards the front of the ship.

 

[Alexia Santiago]

Click, click, boom.

The girl with the crude bacta-patch haphazardly across one eye stared with her one good one at the ray shield. Fingers poised like sidearms as she 'fired' to the rhythm of the crackles. There was a pattern in the energy. There always was. Fuses and electricity. Conductors. Lightsaber crystals. All these things were art and she, Max, was an artist.

The girl really missed her lighter right about now.

And she missed not hating the KARKING Sith Lord who promised to never leave a gang member behind. Seemed like Dark Lord Cumberpatch got his knickers in a twist when more than one jedi showed up with Alliance troopers and foiled their little plan to steal from the archives. He'd definitely made a mistake in leaving the demolitions expert behind.

So thought the demo expert.

Click, click, boom.

The ray shield suddenly disappeared.

Dark brow rose along dark-skin as she looked down at her fingers as if she had a magic power.

"Huh."

 

[Qora Tel Alam]

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Screaming.

Matta sang louder.

Bang.

Bang.

Bang.

Her boot against the wall of her cell.

Bang.

Bang.

- the blue light of the shield flickered, Matta's leg paused mid-air as she reached up to pull the goggles from her eyes. There before her, upside-down, was a gaping doorway where once the glimmer of a ray shield had been. Matta blinked once.

GET BACK IN YOUR CELL!

Twice. Pulled the goggles fully down off her head to hang around her neck and wheeled her feet away from the wall, through the air, to settle firmly on the floor of her cell. Matta didn't wait to see why, didn't question it at all. She knew opportunity when she saw it and took it. The woman burst from her cell, shined eyes taking in a hall of moving, struggling figures, and found a particularly large one slowly migrating towards the front of the ship, cutting a path. She sniffed, rounded her shoulders, cracked her knuckles, and opted to follow the path of least resistance - a hand going up to the face of another convict on their way out of the cell and bodily shoving them back in as she went by..

Time to take control of this fething situation.

 

[Talus Morid]

Talus stalked forward through the middle of the ship, pale yellow eyes gazing past the raucous prisoners which were now tearing through the hallway. Dozens of men and women had been released. Murderers, rapists, arsonists, the worst of the worst that the Alliance had to drag up. Some of them had already turned on one another, striking, biting, and doing whatever they could to kill their fellow inmates.

He ignored them all.

The prisoners were nothing. They had not stuck him in a cell, they had not thrown him in a tiny space and left him to rot for three weeks. More importantly however, they did not hold the key to his freedom. They could not help him escape this ship and they most certainly could not help him escape the grasp of the Alliance. To him the other men and women were less than the scum the Alliance claimed they were. One of the inmates rushed at him, his hands wrapped around a stolen stun baton.

Before he could strike Talus ducked beneath the weapon, the burning flat of his palm striking high into the man's throat.

Skin sizzled, broke apart, and then tore to give way to sinew and muscle. No blood spewed from the wound, but instead it was as if the man's flesh had simply disintegrated. A loud anguished cry escaped the man, his body falling onto the floor like a rag-doll.

Talus continued to stalk forward, ignoring the small clashes around him as he stepped on [member="Ophois"]' face and continued on without a second thought. He had but one goal in mind, and that was bringing this ship down.

 

[Destin Eden]

And he wasn’t the only one.

But primitive men are much like primitive tools – unrefined, unspecialized, and slow. They could get the job done, of course, given a sufficient amount of time and a measure of peace.

But they had neither.

The inmates had seized their chance at a surprise attack with both hands (and sometimes feet and teeth as well) but this wasn’t the first prison barge to float around, and its guards weren’t no greenhorns wet ‘round the ears.

They were also – and perhaps most significantly – better armed.

As he watched, more and more of the rabid criminals crumpled under harsh strikes of electrified batons. Bruises blossomed wherever they fell; the durasteel walls were soon sporting a garish new coat of red paint.

Destin heaved as one of the guards smacked a man so hard his teeth tinkled in an arc over the floor like lost marbles. The tasteless slop they fed them breakfast, lunch, and dinner splattered near an unconscious boy lying next to the wet remains of another human.

Small mercy, that it tasted much the same going the other way. But he’d take a small mercy over none. A sight better still than how the others were doing.

Studiously avoiding the rage-red stares of the guards like the ghost he’d always been, Destin slipped across the corridor to the open panel that had started all this chaos in the first place.

He dug into the guts of the ship like Smeg into garbage, cutting every wire he could find with all the precision of a chainsaw.

Perhaps there was something primitive in all men when their lives hung in the balance; perhaps, but this was no time to wonder.

Destin grinned, and the lights went out.

 

[Neesa]

Neesa was focused on the form of [member="Ragnar the Ren"] stalking down the corridor. His size a purposeful gait had the crowd parting ahead of him. Neesa was crouched low. A predator caught in the open by something further up the food chain.

If she hadn't been so focused then she would have noticed her new nemesis emerge from the cell next door. [member="Matta Rushya"] shoved her back towards her own cell.

Neesa felt a flare of anger. Her free hand slapped against the cool metal of her cell wall. The nagai turned quickly, concerned that the field might come back into place.

A stun baton applied to the right places could cause all sorts of pain. Enough to satisfy her vindictive streak. Yet before she could catch her neighbour more guards appeared ahead. Several had stun blasters now.

Neesa made herself scarce. Keeping low she tucked the stun baton away to avoid making herself one of their first targets. Maybe the foot tapper would get a stun ring to the face.

 

[Alexia Santiago]

Max smelled vomit and it made her stomach broil. Eyes watered as she clamped her lips closed, trying not to add to the pile. Just as quickly, her lips parted trying to gulp down recycled air not through her nose. Wiry-haired head peaked out and then she was, out, out.

In chaos.

Some guy with tattoos all over his face [member="Talus Morid"] shoved past her. Were his hands burning? Head shook and she squeezed herself against the wall as guards and inmates fought. Hands were still in these cuffs. Fingers were itching to get around something.

Who was that bro by the control panel switches? [member="Destin Eden"]

Squeezing and shoving, Max made her way toward him. She needed to see the ship layout. And he was one of the few not punching guards in the face. The girl was just as wary of the prisoners as she was of the guards. For good reason.

"Oy," she yelled as she got closer. "Got any idea how we can get these cuffs off?"
That's when she saw his nexu-like grin and the lights went out. The dark space was quickly lit up by the sizzles of stun batons and blasted bolts.

Max really, really missed her lighter right about now. And those fire-pops. And a good, stiff drink.

 

[Ugoto Chivaro]

"The axe!"

The guard's speech gave Ragnar paused, and his fist lowered slightly. Ragnar realized now that he had carved a path to an entirely different area of the ship. He did not remember much of the last few minutes too clearly. Must have been one of those days. Still, he was momentarily taken aback. The Valkyri blinked once, and now felt that there were flecks of blood on his face. At least he had been productive those last few minutes. Ragnar's slight amazement did not do much for the guard - Ragnar's grip on the guard's collar did not loosen, nor did he deign to lower him back to the ground.

Ragnar did not respond, but he didn't need to. The guard could tell that the Valkyri was now back in the building, so to speak. "You're looking for your axe, aren't you?"

That's right! His axe. He had been looking for that. Golly, in all the excitement... He forgot to ask. Ragnar communicated this with an unblinking stare. The guard cleverly deduced that this stare, coupled with the fact that his face was still intact, must have constituted an affirmative answer.

"It was in the armory, which is- wait!" Ragnar had almost punched him then and there, having already gotten the information he needed, but the guard insisted. "The captain took it! He's on the bridge, if he's not going for the escape pods."

Fascinating. Someone else had taken his axe. That had not happened recently. Most people knew it was bad mojo and stayed away from it. Even the other Renlings. What had this idiot captain sought to do with his axe? Perhaps sell it. It did have the look of an antique. The guard tapped on Ragnar's hand - the one holding him up by the collar. "Can you let me down?"

Yes, Ragnar was getting rather tired of holding up this fellow. Despite being an accessory to imprisoning Ragnar, he had been useful, so Ragnar only broke his nose and fractured his jaw before leaving him in a sad, crumpled pile on the floor of the corridor he was in. Compared to the guard's friends, who were far too dead to groan in pain as he did, some would say he got the better deal. But that was only if other convicts did not storm this part of the ship.

 

[Sal Katarn]

I am falling down a hole that leads to nowhere. Yet within the tunnel I can feel some monster’s stare. Cold and callous, a being with no remorse. Though I know he is connected to every being in the Force. I wonder what sort of animal lives in this abyss and as I fall the nothingness touches my face like mist.

Who is it that resides here, where dreams go to die?

Slowly the realization breaks, for the Monster is I.

...

Ophois awoke, blood streaming from his nose and body coated with vomit. He looked around, but could not see in the dark. He heard only screams and the flash of blinding lights in the dark.

 

[Talus Morid]

[member="Matta Rushya"]

Talus let out a satisfied sigh as he dropped another one of the guards onto the floor. The man's skin was burned and torn apart, melted into itself and pulled away to reveal the muscle beneath. The Kiffar's gaze flicked to the corpse for a moment, then slowly turned his eyes towards the hallway beyond.

Darkness ruled within the ship, yet here and there he saw the flares of fighting.

A stun baton went off, a flicker of a taser, the emergency lights blaring nearer to the cockpit. Chaos ruled, and it was a thing of beauty. Talus had no idea who had shut off the lights, no idea who had brought this wonderful darkness, but he would remember to let them live. It would be a gift for their service. The edge of his lip curled slightly, and he half turned to continue his path towards the cockpit. Within the darkness he made out some shapes, though only one or two really stuck out.

More guards fighting.

More Inmates trying to take control.

None of them mattered. Talus ignored those he could, and slaughtered those who remained in his way. Behind him he was vaguely aware of a looming figure moving in his own path, [member="Ragnar the Ren"]'s form lurking only a short distance away within the hall. The Kiffar ignored him, quickening his pace and reaching the first security door that would lead out of the cell block and into the ship proper. His gaze drifted to the keypad, and then his fingers gently brushed against it.

A flash of memory flew through him, six numbers pressed again and again. Talus entered them, and slowly the door slid open.