See Part One for Disclaimers

With William's arm draped around his shoulder they headed for the door, only to find their way blocked by a mountain of a man.  Marcus did not recognise him; not from any shift that he had worked on at least.  If he was one of the temporary workers they could be in deep trouble.  With his concentration focused on the giant in front of him he did not hear the man who stole up from behind, was not aware of his presence until he felt the blow to his neck.  Some instinct had made him move to the right just as the blow descended, it left him staggering but upright, anger flaring in him.  Turning to face this new adversary he let William slip to the floor.  Others in the bar, seeing what was happening and recognising the two surrounded men, leapt into the fray.  Not so much to rescue the boss, though that would be the excuse used, but there had not been a decent fight for weeks.

Ten minutes later the affray was over as security poured in through the door.  William still lay on the floor; though he had been trampled on in the melee he was still too drunk to care.  Marcus, blood pouring from his mouth and nose, had been propped up against the bar by one of his men.  Feeling as though he had been pulverised, he later found out how lucky an escape they had had.  Two broken ribs, a bruised spleen, numerous cuts and bruises left him in the infirmary for over a week.  One rib had pierced a lung, deflating it and causing massive infection.  He had been lucky.  As soon as he was fit enough, Marcus had begged his chief security officer for instruction.  The man had survived on the worst planets around, and could handle himself well in any fight situation.  Not for him the stylised ritual of Karate or jujitsu, street fighting was his forte and Marcus took to it like a duck to water.

William, although sorry his brother had been injured, had merrily continued to visit the bars, looking for adventure he said.  And then he had met up with a Ranger, "the ultimate adventure" he had called it.  Foolish dreaming Marcus had replied, but his brother had left on his quest just the same.

The memories had taken only a moment to replay yet his silence had been noted.  Shera, seemingly aware of the thoughts that must be swirling in his mind, laid a hand on his arm.

Her ring caught his attention.  She wore it almost constantly, against all the rules.  Minbari did not approve of personal adornment for their rangers.  So, when lessons came around the ring came off, the minute she stepped outside the class however, the slim filigree band was replaced.

"Should you be wearing that.  Don't want to attract some thief's eye, never know what sort of trouble that might lead to!"

Shera caught the laugh in his voice and grinned back.  "I'll take my chances."

Turnis was all Shera had said -- and more.  The port bustled with transports coming and going.  Mining shipments leaving as food supplies came in.  The planet had no stable agricultural area; what parts were not being mined or held a throbbing community lay as barren wasteland, uninviting and unforgiving in its harshness.

They hired a room at the one and only hotel close to the port.  A single room that had Marcus' eyebrows shoot up in an amused question that earned him nothing but a sharp set down from Shera.  Stowing their few possessions, the two headed for the habitat that surrounded the port and colony.  Entering into the dark alleys Marcus noticed that the ring had vanished from Shera's hand.  Maybe she had heeded his warning after all, or she followed some path of her own.

"I don't think we'll find much information here.  This lot is too transitory.  If we can get hold of some sort of flyer, I think the mine would serve us better.  They have their own community, their own town if you like, but the population is pretty stable.  And you can bet that whatever is going on, Dareth Caron knows all about it."

"Will he talk to us do you think?"

She eyed him up and down.  "We need some different clothes if we are to pull this off.  Do you remember how to be the boss, Marcus?"

He grinned at her.  "If only I'd known, I would have packed my best suit."

The smile she returned lightened her features, dispelling the troubled look from her eyes.  "Once we get in there, you can talk mining to him whilst I try and get some news out of his staff.  If they are anything like the guys that used to work there a few credits should gain us whatever we need.  If not . . . well my computer skills are a little rusty but I think we can manage."

Her enthusiasm was contagious, and not for a moment did he think they could possibly fail.




The office was big, much larger than Marcus' back on Arisia.  Seated behind the ostentatious desk was one of the ugliest men it had been his misfortune to meet.  Heavy jowls leant a Neanderthal aspect to the swarthy man's visage, not helped by the prominent eyebrows and a slight hint of wetness around the mouth.  For the last twenty minutes Marcus had bluffed his way through a supposed interview for a position within Caron Industries.  His experience had been questioned minutely; the destruction of his facility gone into in more detail that he had been comfortable with and the outcome still seemed in doubt.  Caron's eyes, though hidden deep in his face held more than a trace of disbelief as he listened to the waffle currently issuing from Marcus' mouth.

"Where will you be staying, Mr Cole?" his tone harsh and guttural.

"Well, I only arrived today, with my partner.  We haven't had a chance to find anywhere as yet, can you recommend somewhere?"

Stubby fingers twirled a pen as the head of Caron Industries looked intently at Marcus' carefully neutral features.

His answer was curt, and unexpected.  "You can stay on the site.  We have quarters free at the moment, you and you partner can stay here.  Believe me, you won't find anything to suit you in what passes for civilisation around here."

Summarily dismissed, Marcus hurried off to find Shera, his brain twisting around ways to let her know of their new-found 'relationship'.  He would have been more worried if he had known the conversation currently taking place in the office he had just vacated.

A stubby finger shot out and pressed the intercom button, the voice of his vice president answered quickly.

"Sir?"

"Did you see the image relay?  Was it her?"

The man replied in the affirmative.

"Are you sure?"

"Allowing for the intervening years, yes."

Dareth Caron sat back in his chair, his fingers steepled in front of him, a satisfied smile on his face.  Before he had admitted Marcus Cole to his office, security cameras had followed his progress, and that of his companion, through the corridors of his domain.  He kept a close eye on his employees and a bank of screens was tucked discretely into his massive desk.  He had not been sure at first, setting Chad his closest aide, to double-check his suspicions.  His fingers rose to the folds under his chin, softly tracing the horrific scar than ran almost from ear to ear.  It had been a long time since he had seen his daughter.

Shera waited for him at the main doors, a security guard stood close by her side but they seemed on friendly terms.  Her laughter rang out as he made his way across the hall.

"Well, my dear," he said, tucking her hand into the crook of his arm and ignoring her obvious surprise, "Mr Caron has been kind enough to offer us a room here for now; isn't that nice of him.  So, let's go and pick up our stuff and get settled in."

He had felt her body stiffen at Caron's offer; tension still filled her as they exited the building and headed back to the hired flyer.  "What's wrong?"

"Not here," she said softly, her fingers digging painfully into his arm.

They had barely settled into their seats before Shera let fly at him, her verbal attack staggering him for a moment.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?  We do not want to be anywhere near Caron's mine."

"I thought . . ."

She cut him off abruptly, "No, you didn't think.  And you should not have even thought about anything so far out of our brief without asking me first!"

He grimaced, if this is how she reacted to something so straightforward, well to his mind at least, how was she going to react to the relationship he had invented.  Something of his thoughts must have shown on his face.

"What?  What else have you done?"

No point in putting off the deed, taking a deep breath he told her what he had led Caron to believe.

"A couple?  You and I!" Her face was stormy for a moment, and Marcus waited for the hammer to fall.  Suddenly she burst into peals of laughter.  It could have been worse, yet he still felt vaguely affronted at her hilarity.

"Oh, Marcus."

"I don't think it's that funny, Shera.  "

"I know, I know but..."  and she went off into another fit of the giggles.  He could not stay mad at her, he liked her too well and soon he was chuckling at her side.

"So, did you get any information or do we take up residence at Chez Caron?"

She sobered quickly, and Marcus saw her fingers tense where they rested in her lap.  "The guard you saw me talking to just now, he was one of the team that were sent out to investigate the crash.  It happened just the other side of the mine, on the waste area between here and the spaceport.  He was surprisingly forthcoming.  Maybe too much so.  I mentioned we had seen signs of a crash on our way here and he started talking."  She bit her lip as she pondered the tale he had spun.  "He claimed it had been a flyer from the mining facility that had been caught by a freak storm.  They do have pretty violent weather changes here, but that wouldn't account for the passengers inside.  Engineers, he told me, on their way to check out a remote site.  His story would be believable if we hadn't been told differently."

"Then maybe getting inside the facility wouldn't be such a bad idea.  If Caron had something to do with the prisoners disappearance and the wiring done to the flyer then those details must be held somewhere in the building, and probably close to the man himself."

"There are reasons I should not go there, Marcus.  In fact, I probably should not have been with you today.  His offer of accommodation, do you think he had that in mind all the time?  Did he refer to me at all?"

Totally confused, he thought back over the interview.  There had seemed a certain purpose to Caron's questioning, and yes; the offer had seemed a trifle contrived.  He was sure that had he not requested help, the offer would have been made anyway.

"Maybe," he said slowly, turning his searching gaze towards Shera's averted face.  "Are you going to tell me?"

Flight control signalled them at that moment and his attention was turned to landing the small craft, giving Shera time to gather her thoughts.

"The man I killed," she hesitated, focusing her attention on her silver ring as she twisted it around her finger, "I believe he was one of the miners from the facility.  I never knew his name; all the time he visited us I never once heard mother call him anything but ‘sir'."  She grimaced at the recollection.

"But you're not sure?"

"Caron's men were all over the portside after it happened.  There was no news service, no way to find out who the man was; we just kept our heads down until the fuss blew over.  At the time I didn't think it strange, all that effort; after all, I had killed a man; it seemed a pretty big deal to me then.  Looking back on it now, well, maybe it was someone high up in the corporation.  Those men and women who ran the facility kept very much to themselves, none more so than Dareth Caron himself.  A virtual recluse by all reports, no one outside the offices had seen the man for decades."

"You hadn't missed much."  Marcus recalled the man's face and form, "no, you definitely didn't miss anything."

She shrugged.  "Anyway, there is just a chance someone at the facility might recognise me.  It may be nearly fifteen years since I was here, but I hold a strong resemblance to my mother, or so I was told."

He sat back and thought hard about the problem.  They needed to get into the mining company's records or computer files somehow.  After Shera's story, they could not take up residence as he had intended.  The idea had come to him whilst talking to Caron, and he had just flown with the idea, not considering the possible implications.  He should have waited until he could confer with Shera.

"What sort of cover is there in the hills around the mine?"

"Little enough.  There are old mining shafts from nearly a century ago, hand-dug can you believe?  I don't know how safe they would be but it would be our only option for a base.  You are thinking of making a raid of some sort?"

"I think our first task should be to check out the crash site, maybe chat to some of the 'citizens' of this fair city as well."

"Then I suggest we do that first."  Shera stood and cocked a knowing eye at him.  "Let me show you my home town."

***

They quickly changed back into more suitable clothing and made their way into the myriad of alleys that surrounded the port.  The further away they got, the darker and narrower the passages.  Dark doorways hid shady transactions, the quick sale of merchandise, or the discarded body of some poor wretch for whom life was a thing of the past.

Shera moved along as though she was familiar with every nook and cranny.  Marcus kept up with her, trying not to look too out of place, matching her stride with his own.  His eyes were everywhere, so many places that could conceal an opportunistic thief.  It could be his imagination but he had the distinct feeling that eyes followed their progress.

The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he felt rather than heard someone approaching from behind.  He darted into a doorway, leaving Shera to continue.  The man was small, weasel like, with a scrawny look about him.

"Hello, sunshine!" Marcus greeted him, as his hand grabbed the man's jacket, lifting him up onto his toes and eliciting a squeak of protest.  Shera turned and hurried back as she heard the commotion behind her.

"Look what I found," Marcus said, shaking the man harder.  "Now, what interest can you have in two law abiding tourists like us, hum?"

"Hey, I'm just minding my own business!  You have no right to molest me."

Two men walking down from the other direction quickly changed their route on seeing Marcus and Shera bent on eliciting information from their captive.

He let the man down slightly as Shera slipped her knife from her belt.  "Better not move too fast, my friend here is a little trigger happy at times."  Tightening his grip until he saw the veins begin to bulge on the weasely man's face he asked again, "What is so interesting about the two of us?  Answer nicely now."

Desperate hands scrabbled at the cloth now cinched tightly around his neck and Marcus eased the pressure a little, only for Shera to prick the man's throat with the tip of her blade.  "Better answer my friend," she hissed.

"Caron," he muttered.  "Caron wanted to know where you were, what you were doing here."

Marcus and Shera shared a glance.  "And how were you going to report back to him?"

The man struggled again, his mouth firmly closed even as the point of Shera's knife bit home.

"Search him," Marcus ordered.

As small hands dipped into pockets, patting down the filthy clothing, Marcus' captive wriggled harder, his hands lashing out at the intrusion, his face a mask of terror.

"Well, what do we have here?"

The small ppg fit snugly into her hand.  "For me?  You shouldn't have."

Diving again into the many secret pockets her next find was of much more interest.  An identity card emerged, face and stats agreed with the man held so tightly by Marcus.  Shera flashed the card to her companion.

"Well, how interesting."  He scanned the data quickly.  If you knew how to read the coding there was much detail to be gained without ever swiping the card at all.

"Not your usual haunt this, is it sunshine?  Or can I call you Chad?  You don't mind do you Chad?  Caron Industries hum, well now, how very intriguing."

"Marcus, I think we had best take this elsewhere."

His quick glance took in the gathering interest they were now acquiring; not everyone in this dump was going to stay a bystander.  Holding Chad tightly between them they force-marched him to the port where they still had hire of a small flyer; Shera's knife pressed against his kidney keeping the man quiet for the moment.

They headed out across the barren wasteland that lay between the port and the mine.  Here, they could easily see anyone approach, and the flyer was fitted with a rudimentary alarm.  They would not be easily disturbed.

"How do you feel about a little torture, Marcus?" Shera's voice bounced pleasantly around the cockpit as though she had just offered a day out for them all.

"Fine by me, shall I hold him down or will you?" His tone matched hers; the banter light-hearted, yet terrifying to Chad who lay trussed on the floor between them.

"Can I go first?" Marcus asked, grabbing the man's little finger.  "I'll start at your extremities shall I, then work my way up to the more important parts."  The last said with an almost maniacal grin.  He bent back the digit until it was almost ready to pop from its joint.  Chad screamed in pain.

"Don't make you miners very tough nowadays do they?" Shera lounged back in her seat watching Marcus work.

"So, Chad, do I have your attention yet?  Hum?" Marcus' mouth was close to the other man's ear.

"I can't tell you, I . . . Caron would . . ."  His scream echoed loudly as Marcus popped his little finger out of place.

"I'm sorry, Chad.  Did that hurt?  How about this one?" Moving on to the next finger he began to repeat the process.

It took three more fingers before Chad was willing to talk, all the while Marcus kept the grin on his face, though his stomach twinged uncomfortably at each vicious act.  He would do what had to be done; he didn't have to like it.

Shera had kept out of Marcus' way during the whole process, adding an encouraging word now and then as Chad's resistance began to wane.  Now, she took over.

"Why is Caron so interested in us, Chad?  What does he think we want?"

Now propped against the flyer's wall, his mangled hands resting in his lap, Chad began his story.

Keeping his eyes averted from her face his first words shocked her to the core.

"Caron has been looking for you for a very long time.  You thought you had killed him I think?"

Marcus' gaze flew to her face, now deathly pale, her eyes suddenly wide.  Watching as she unconsciously reached for the filigree band on her finger, touching it like a talisman to ward off evil.

"What you may not have known, what I don't think your mother would have told you . . . Dareth Caron is your father."

"No!" her horrified exclamation whispered into the sudden quiet.

"Caron has been following your progress.  He knew when you left Turnis, knew who you went with and where you went.  Culden was destroyed I think with his complicity.  And he knows that you are now with the Rangers."

Marcus listened to this with horrified attention.  That the man had contacts that far and wide did not surprise him, that he had followed the career of the daughter who had done her best to kill him without interference did.

"When the accident happened, I think he knew somehow that you would be sent.  He has been," he hesitated for a moment, "anticipating your arrival.  The man is a fool."

Marcus caught the edge in the man's voice and leant forward to press home what he was about to say.  "What else is going on?  Come on, Chad, in for a penny in for a pound as they say.  There are lots of appendages I could still play with."

Chad looked at the mangled fingers lying in his lap, checked out Marcus' abruptly unsmiling face and quivered.  His tongue licked at suddenly dry lips.

"About two years ago we had a visit from someone purporting to be a ‘friend'.  The man seemed pleasant enough but there was something about him, he felt tainted somehow.  Morden, the guy's name was.  He wanted to make use of the land behind the mine, where the old systems were no longer in use.  We had long ago shut off the joining passages and Dareth didn't see any harm in it.  I don't know what Morden offered him, but Caron never gives anything away."

Shera, her initial shock overcome, had started at Morden's name.  Somewhere in the back of her mind that name rang a bell, but she could not tie it down.

"About a year ago Caron came to me with a proposal that scared the life out of me.  He said that a new technology had come his way.  I didn't know then where it had come from.  Believe me, if I had I would have run a mile."

"Shadow technology?" Marcus wanted to drag the whole story out of Chad in one piece, but he had to let the man talk at his own pace, however frustrating.

"Yes.  I don't know how it was supposed to work, I don't think Caron did either, but it involved linking a telepath to the circuitry inside a ship."

This much Marcus and Shera already knew, what they needed now was the proof and some kind of data on the experiments that had been performed.

"But Caron didn't have a telepath did he."  It was a statement not a question, and Marcus heard the anger in Shera's voice.  Casting a warning look her way, he saw her lips tighten then relax as she took his meaning.

"So, he went looking for what he thought was the next best thing, right?"

Chad finally turned and looked at Marcus, shocking him with the horror on his face.

"If I had known, I swear to you I would never . . .  But you don't know Caron, I never had a choice."

You always have a choice, thought Marcus.

"Morden doesn't know that we were trying to back engineer his technology.  At least I hope to god he doesn't.  We started off in the lab, linking those poor sods up to the machine.  It fried their brains in seconds but Caron wouldn't stop.  He was obsessed with it.  Finally we found two men who survived the ordeal.  Maybe they had some telepathic ability missed by the Psi Corps, I don't know, but Caron had them linked into a specially designed flyer and sent them out on a test run.  They never came back.  The wreckage was spread all over the place."

"Are there records of this at the mine.  Does Caron intend to continue with this?"

Marcus answered her, "There is only one way to find out for sure, we have to go in there.  Sinclair needs to know what is going on, we need to track down this Morden character too."

Shera nodded.  "You're right.  We need to get as much information as possible."

"The old mines, you said they used to link up with the new facility, is it possible we might be able to still access them?" Marcus sharp tone brought the brooding Chad's eyes up to his.

"I don't know, really."  The man's despair was genuine, caught between Dareth Caron and the two people who held him captive he was about ready to give up.

"The mines it is then."  Shera was brisk, ready to move, needing action.  He could read her like a book.  Knowing Caron was her father she craved the closure his death would bring.

"And our friend here?"

"You decide."  Her indifference bothered him as much as her sudden passion for action had.

"Sorry, sunshine.  It's going to be a long walk home!"

The sudden scream of engines coming in fast tore through the air.  Stranded too far away from the flyer, Marcus and Shera made a dash for the mine's welcoming entrance.  Over their heads he heard the whine of gunfire.  Shoving Shera to the ground he headed for dirt.  The large ship swung over them, landing between them and the mine, effectively cutting off the only means of escape.  Marcus gained his feet quickly, Shera up and running by his side, as they tore back toward the flyer.  Dust flew up around his feet as a rifle spewed its deadly load inches from him; the next round ripped through his left sleeve.  He heard Shera curse and saw her stumble as a bullet tore across her leg.

"Stand still, or the next one goes through you!"

Continued

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