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"I've been looking for you," Lona replied. "I knew you'd head up here as soon as the elevators came back on line."

"We're winning, Drewe."

"Did you doubt we would?" Drewe challenged. The Shepherd wavered, put his hand

up to his forehead and stumbled back from the elevator, his face registering pain.

"Drewe?" Cree questioned, reaching for him. "What's wrong?"

The Shepherd swung his head to the left, saw something that alarmed him and turned

his already pale face ghastly white. He put his arm out, shoved Cree back. "Go!" he ordered. "Get the hell out of here!" He took out his phaser and blasted the elevator door; the panels slid obediently open.

Cree stared in horror as blood bubbled over Lona's lips. "By the gods, you're hurt!

What happened?" He reached for Lona, but the Keeper waved him away.

"Go, Cree!" Drew grated. "Get in the gods-be-damned cage. They are—"

Agony suddenly caved in the young man's face and he twisted sideways, away from

Cree. The Reaper made a grab for him then went down under the inert weight of Lona's

body. Blood was gushing from Drewe's mouth and nose as the two men crashed to the

floor.

"Drewe!" Cree stared in horror as the front of Lona's brown uniform tunic became

slick with blood. Lona's head fell back over his friend's arm and a gurgling bubble was

expelled from his lungs.

"I believe he's dead."

The arrogant voice brought Cree's head around only a fraction of a second before

something hard and unyielding slammed into his temple and the lights were shut off

again.

"I'VE JUST received word," Dr. Burds said softly as she stood beside her friend, "the others stations are fully engaged. Too soon, I think, but we'll see. At least there is one

piece of good news: The Stormwind and her sister ship, The Whirlwind, are in orbit over

Rysalia Prime. They will be dropping their payload within the next half hour."

Beryla never took her eyes from the man she had loved more than her own life. To see

him so still in death was almost more than she could bear. She sighed from the bottom of

her weary soul. "Can you abort the delivery?"

"Abort?" Aurora questioned. "Why should we ...?"

"How is Teve feeling?" the Director interrupted.

"Sick as a dog," Aurora said, frowning. "He had an adverse reaction to the antitoxin.

Why?"

Beryla ran her fingertips over Drae Cree's cold lips. "Because they lied to us, Ro-Ro,"

she said, calling the woman by the nickname from long ago.

Aurora put a comforting hand on her friend's shoulder. "Who lied to us, dear? About

what?"

"Hael Sejm and LeJong Kym."

"I don't understand."

"Look at him," the Director whispered. "He is fifty-six years old. Does he look to you to be a man who would succumb to an antitoxin meant to keep him out of harm's way?"

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Aurora looked down at Drae's silky white hair and imagined the dark, sparkling eyes

that had always tried to hide a glimmer of merriment despite the horrendous job he had.

"No," she admitted, thinking of his deep voice and robust laughter. "He has always been in the best of health, I thought."

"You thought correctly," Beryla acknowledged. "I, myself, gave him a thorough

physical only a month ago." She smiled wistfully. "And enjoyed doing it, too."

"You don't believe he had a reaction to the vaccine, is that what you are telling me?"

Dr. Burds asked, suddenly worried.

"The virus will not sterilize the men, Aurora," Dr. Dean answered in a fierce voice. "It will kill them."

Aurora stared at her. "How do you know this?" The thought of her own lover

experiencing the horrible death Drae Cree had suffered made her weak with fear. "Does

this mean—"

"You have killed the man you loved."

Aurora slumped against the wall, stunned. "The others?" Her eyes flared. "Kahn? He is Hael's adopted child! The bitch raised him, taught him! How could she...?"

"He is safe, as far as I know," Beryla answered. "Why they wanted to keep the Reapers and their crews alive, I have no idea, but I can imagine it wasn't out of the goodness of

their hearts!"

"Dr. Dean?"

Beryla looked around and found a smut-smeared Ivonne standing tiredly in the

doorway. "Yes?"

"I've got terrible news," Ivonne said. She put a shaky hand to her straggly hair. "News I wish I didn't have to relay."

Fearing the worst, the Director stood up. "We've lost?"

"No," Ivonne was quick to answer. "We are winning, but I'm afraid the ships carrying the virus to Rysalia Prime have been destroyed. FSK-9 managed to get off two long-range missiles before being overrun by our people. They shot down the sister ships."

"The gas?" Beryla asked, her face anxious.

"The sister ships weren't close enough to Rysalia Prime for the gas to do any good. It

was destroyed with the ships."

"That may be the best news we've heard all day."

Aurora held up a hand before Ivonne could question that statement. "Is there anything

else?"

Ivonne nodded grimly. "I'm afraid so." She glanced at the body of the dead man, then away. Looking back at Dr. Burds, she cocked her head toward the corridor.

"Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of me, Ivonne O'Malley," said Beryla.

"What is one more thing gone wrong today when I have lost my lover and possibly our

savior in one fell swoop."

"Then you know already?" Ivonne asked, relieved that she would not have to be the

one to bear such news to the Director.

"Know what?" Aurora asked.

Ivonne looked puzzled for a moment. "But from what Dr. Dean said, I thought she

must know about Cree. He—"

"What of him?" Beryla shouted.

Ivonne looked from the Director to the bioengineer and back again. "That he was

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arrested," she replied. "They took him into custody an hour ago."

THIS TIME when he woke, Cree was in worse condition than the last time. Much

worse. He could barely see through the swelling of his eyes. His ears were ringing from

the repeated open-handed cuffing Konnor Rhye had taken great delight in administering

and his gut felt on fire from the brutal jabs that had finally driven him to his knees.

"Wake up, Iceman," Rhye sneered. "I'm not through with you!"

Konnor Rhye wiped Cree's black blood from his hands on a rag then threw the rag on

the floor. He nodded to Inse and another man and between them, they hoisted the Reaper

up straighter. Inse grabbed a handful of Cree's long hair and drew the semi-conscious

man's head back.

The sound of Rhye's fist driving unmercifully into Kamerone Cree's jaw bored the

fourth man in the Inquisition cell. He hid a yawn behind a delicate hand and shifted his

lean body more comfortably in his chair. "He isn't going to talk, Commander." Rhye

buried his fist in Cree's belly and took an almost sexual pleasure from the gasp of pain

that drove the defenseless man forward over the savage hit. Another vicious jab rocked

Cree's head to the side and sprayed black blood on the wall. When he put all his force

behind a punch to the place where Cree's kidney had been removed, the Reaper could not

stop the scream of agony that shot from his torn lips.

"Pray do not kill him, Commander," the man in the corner clucked. "The Tribunal would not like being denied the pleasure of seeing him hanged."

"Hear that, Iceman?" Inse chuckled, his fingers tightening on Cree's scalp as he shook the beaten man's head. "They are going to stretch that thick neck of yours."

"Go to hell," Cree forced out through his battered lips. Blood dribbled down his chin.

"You will be there long before me!" Inse retorted.

"This is getting us nowhere," the man in the corner sighed. "Guards!" He stood up, stretched, then watched as two burly interrogation guards entered the chamber. "Take this scum back to his cell until I am ready for him."

Cree was passed from one pair of captors to another. His sweat-matted hair was

plastered to his forehead and his nose and chin dripped black blood. His head hung down

against his bare chest as the interrogation guards hefted him between them. As they

dragged him along, pain rocketed through his lower right side and he groaned, slipping

once more over the edge of consciousness.

When he awoke for the third time that day, he was laying spread eagle on a table, Lord

Traye Onar standing above him.

"You will, of course, tell me everything I wish to know about the Resistance," Onar said pleasantly. "I have a much more persuasive manner than our barbaric young Keeper."

"I won't tell you anything," Cree said, slurring his words. "You're wasting your time."

Onar smiled. "When was the last time you fed?" he asked conversationally.

Feeding had been the last thing on Cree's mind, he realized with a start. The other

aches and pains shooting through his body had all but blocked out the fierce headache

and nausea brought on by the antitoxin. His temperature had shot up so high at one point;

he fancied he could feel the blood boiling in his veins. He hadn't thought to take

sustenance before all this began...when?...four hours earlier.

"Answer me, boy!"

A sharp pain entered Cree's shoulder and his swollen eyes widened just enough to see

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Onar withdrawing a thin six-inch long copper wire from his flesh. Before he could curse

the old man, the wire was driven into him again, this time in the tender flesh under his

armpit. The searing pathway the probe left made him writhe in an effort to get away from

another stabbing. He rolled as far away as the manacles on his hands and legs would

allow.

"You don't like that, do you, Cree?" Onar chuckled. "You know you can not escape me." He pierced Cree's lower right side with the wire.

"When did you feed?"

"Twelve hundred hours!" Cree gasped. The places where the probe had entered his

body were stinging with a bone-deep pain.

"See?" Onar sighed. "You can answer questions when they are put to you in the correct manner." He put the probe in his lab coat pocket then reached out to smooth the tangled, sweat-dampened hair from Cree's forehead. "You have an extremely high temperature."

He ran the back of his hand down Cree's cheek. "Is this a normal reaction when you need

to feed?"

"I don't need to—"

The old man's hand snaked out to grab a fistful of Cree's hair and tug brutally. "I didn't ask if you wanted to feed, Kamerone. I asked if this is a normal reaction."

"No," Cree answered through clenched teeth.

Onar frowned. "No?" he questioned.

"I am sick," Cree said and knew he was telling the truth. The antitoxin had killed his father and he feared it was killing him. His headache was worse—and it wasn't just

because of Konnor Rhye's powerful fists—and his body felt as though he were steeping

inside a cauldron.

"You are lying, of course," Onar pronounced. He reached inside his lab coat pocket and took out the probe. He drew it across Cree's cheek, down his neck and onto his bare

shoulder. "I have your personal Controller's data records. Reapers do not get sick,

Kamerone. You have never been sick a day in your miserable life. Your parasite would

not allow it."

" I'm sick now," Cree grunted, half-expecting the sick old bastard to stick him again.

"I am so sorry to hear that," Onar giggled. He considered a moment. "If that is true, then, the questioning will go that much harder on you. In either case, I intend to give you

more pain that you ever received during assault therapy."

"Lucky me," Cree mumbled

The Tribunal Justice leaned over him. "Since I have your Controller's records, I know

where each of the receptors are in your brain, Cree," he whispered. "I am most interested in number three which is located in the frontal cortex. That is where pain perception

occurs." He ran the probe across Cree's chest. "Where the rational faculties of man exist.

Once there, with this..." He held up the probe. "I can turn your brain functions on and off at will. A little nudge here; a stick there. A deep probe elsewhere." He lowered his voice as though he were speaking to a lover. "I can cripple you mentally and physically."

"Yeah?" Cree snorted. "And I bet you'll like doing it, won't you, you sick bastard?" He winced as Onar's fingers closed cruelly around his upper arm and the old man dug his

nails into the tender flesh.

"Oh, I take great delight in doing my job well, Kamerone," Onar replied, applying even more pressure. "And I shall take even greater delight in showing
you
just how well!"

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ENSIGN PAEGAN Thorne, the Communications Officer of Cree's cruiser, The

Revenant, squatted down with the other seven men and drew a grimy forearm over his

face. "He's been taken to Rysalia Prime."

"How the hell did they get him there?" Kahn roared. "I was told all the ships would be off-line!"

"He got there on my bloody ship!" Symthian Kullen spat. "Rhye must have found Cree and decided to take him down to the Tribunal in the hopes of getting the woman back."