Jenkins, Tasker, and Bull Dog made their way down the tunnel and through the doors. Over the com from the control room Jenkins heard Dr. Ling tell everyone that they were now in Security Force Delta. At this news the crew wandered aimlessly through the sorting chamber, unsure of what to do. They had been briefed of the different security levels and knew they were now pretty much in lock down, but no one had ever believed they would have needed it.

Jenkins led them through another base tunnel looking for the powersuit supply room, he was going to need one if he intended to stop Norrington and Trevor. They found almost no challenge from the crew that walked unwittingly out of their quarters, except for a few uncertain stares. They found the supply room and Bull Dog almost jumped for joy as they started putting the powersuits on. He felt if it came to it they could find their own way out.


Radek stared at the ten doors at the base of the sorting chamber. Five hours left. There were people scrambling all about, and most weren't paying much attention to him. He wandered through one of the doors that were now unlocked. He felt he was in an ant farm as white coats and black shirts were rushing past him. He had been searching for Dr. Norrington and Jenkins for a quite a while and decided instead to get the e-notebook and wait for Intel. Three hours ago he decided to look for them again.

According to his memory, the second tunnel on the right went into the prisoner cages, would Jenkins have been taken there? Or was there a lab or something Jenkins would have been carried to, and now they were torturing him? When he tried to ask a question as workers were filtering out, he was simply ignored.

He kept questioning himself about what he was really doing, if he helped Jenkins, his course was set, but if he waited for Intel, would he ever gather up the courage to turn them in? As the flow of people filtered to a dribble he began to have serious doubts and kept asking, what am I really doing here?

He watched as the room seemed to get very dusty, and he understood why the white coat Dr. Norrington had been irritated by it. "Wait, nothing more than a fly buzzing around or a spec of dust, something to be ignored, but Carl, you don't have the power to affect my mind, who are you?"

He followed the 'dust' to the first tunnel. Whoever it was wandering around didn't notice him, there were people coming and going quite frequently, and this tunnel was big enough to have four people walk through it side by side with room to spare. It stayed for the most part pretty level, turning frequently enough to keep visibility low. There were a few tunnels that branched off every once in a while, but the dust continued to follow the main tunnel. It led him into what looked like a miniature hangar bay, and it looked as if the ceiling could open up, and large bay doors with a vacuum seal. Radek figured that they were now on the other side of the mountain. There was an old Terran transport truck battered up, but looking quite operational. It must have seen its share of fire fights, and looked like perhaps at one time Tanker fire must have glanced off of it.

There were five natural tiers going up to a small control room where he could see Dr. Norrington through the glass fidgeting with the controls. The red shirts were checking the vehicles operation status, and Radek figured Norrington was getting ready to open the bay doors. He wished he had a powersuit.


"Certainly Admiral T'Clar, but time was pressed."

T'Clar looked unsatisfied with T'Olis' report. "I believe you have been around the humans for too long to trust all of our efforts to a single Intel Agent."

Rae'Mar murmured his opinion of agreement, but Y'Lau looked differential. Y'Lau stood up, "Admiral, in T'Olis' defense, we all agreed to this course of action. However, Radek is not our only hope, Ambassador Carl Jenkins was left behind to take control of the situation. I will admit that it looks as if our chances are slim, but I assure you, Jenkins is not without his influence."

T'Clar motioned for Y'Lau to sit down, "I do not doubt the Ambassador's courage, and his knowledge in this area, but I think T'Olis trusts him far too much because of their long relationship, and Jenkins' closeness to his father."

Y'Lau and Rae'Mar turned to face T'Olis with their confusion. T'Olis bowed politely, "Yes, my father and Carl Jenkins served together during the war and became close friends, and in human terms Jenkins has become like an Uncle to me. Yet, I did not wish to reveal my identity until this operation was over, there are too many spies, even amongst our own people.

"Our position in this matter would have been uncovered if it had not been for the efforts of the Ambassador, and his own cover was almost exposed. I can not make excuse for the choices that I have made, only that I hope in time they will serve to be just and true.

"Furthermore I wish to return to Klendathu."

There was a moment of tense silence which could only be properly interpreted by a T'Phettian. Even though Y'Lau and Rae'Mar were not very traditional, they understood the pause. T'Olis must have been formidable indeed because the issue seemed to resolve itself. There were slight nods and T'Olis stood, he had been given permission to return.


Radek watched attentively wondering if the dust was truely someone lurking around. A half an hour or so had gone by and it hadn't moved. It was either waiting for something, or it was only his imagination. Without any type of warning the dust suddenly became a person, someone he hadn't seen before. Radek had never seen white hair with grey roots on someone who looked so young. The red shirts were standing by for orders while Norrington became ever more aggitated behind the glass. To Radek's surprise the youth jumped on one of the red shirts and started to pound on his head with a set of cables that must have been torn from a wall. The other three advanced on him, and to Radek's horror the assailant bit into the neck of one of the red shirts who grabbed the wound and fell over dead within seconds. Two white coats who had been monitoring some things quickly ran off through the tunnel.

Radek was frozen in fear, this was the first time he had ever been afraid of death. It wasn't long before all of the red shirts were dead, and the youth turned and spotted him, then slowly started to approach. From behind Radek Kaela came running, screaming at the top of her lungs, "INVADED! WE'RE BEING INVADED!"

She slowed to a stop next to Radek, "Oh there you are, I was wondering where you had gotten off to. David, this is Radek. He's still wondering what he should do, but even if he become's a chicken, we can still use his help right now, but we've got to hurry, two hours and 17 more minutes before we run out of time."

Radek eased up when David relaxed his pouncing stance, and managed to turn and look at Kaela, "We have two hours and 47 minutes before Intel officials come and tear this place apart."

She laughed, "Yeah, I know, but I've cut our clock short by a half an hour."

David and Kaela ran up the tiers towards the control room, and a few hesitant seconds later Radek followed. They opened the door to find Norrington and Trevor trying to persuade Dr. Ling with a pistol to finish the take off procedures. Radek stepped forward caught up in his thought, "Hey, that's my pistol."

Norrington swung the gun to aim it at him and wavered when he found Kaela and David next to Radek. "David, what are you doing out of your room?"

David smiled and pointed out the window. Radek noticed that David's top incisors were sharp and needle like. They probably worked a lot like a snake's would. David's tongue was also black, and Radek concluded he had bitten his tongue more than once, which probably explained why he didn't talk.

Norrington however was dumbfounded to find the red shirts dead. He looked back again at David and raised the pistol at him this time with conviction. Some unseen force sent the gun flying out of Norrington's hand and landed at Radek's feet. He picked it up and held it ready, not knowing which one of the two white coats or Trevor to point it at. Trevor's face showed his confusion, "Kaela, David, what are you doing here? Why have the red shirts been killed?"

Norrington suddenly became aware that Trevor was there and his smirk was that of someone who was victorious where once hope had been lost. "Trevor, do whatever it takes to get rid of them."


Jenkins looked at the clock, time was ticking.

Bull Dog became exasperated, "These shock sticks are no use! I've been working at them for two hours and not even a spark! I don't know what's wrong, the charge is fine enough, but something's wrong with the ignitor system the circuit isn't complete!"

Tasker was pulling with all of his might on a set of cables on the wall, grumbling to himself. Without cutters the job was quite difficult, "I'm working as fast as I can, but if Whitey would help me it would get done faster!"

Jenkins ingnored the insult, it wasn't the first time he had been called Whitey, but he whispered to himself about Tasker's lack of originality. He didn't have the power to fight Trevor and Norrington with his mind, and the reports he was getting from Kaela were hard to concentrate on with the 100 or so crew members, the more than 200 prisoners, and the few white coat thoughts drifting about. He wished he had Kaela's luxury of shutting out unwanted "mind chatter" as they liked to call it. Radek had been right though, he didn't know his own heart at times, and now he was wondering what the correct course of action was.

There was a squeaking sound of plastic cable coverings rubbing together and a hiss of air as the cables finally came free. The metal wall fastenings had acted as poor cutters. He took the bundel over to Bull Dog who pulled the copper wiring from the cables and started to attach them to the falty ignitor system of the shock sticks. Many precious minutes later he managed to get one to work and went onto the other ones. Jenkins could feel the compressed air about Sin City, everything was about ready to snap, everything was happening too fast for his taste, as time was their biggest enemy.