Shade gazed up as she braced against the wall. Ash gray hair fell into her darker gray eyes, expressionless in the shadows cast from the port lights. She looked almost Nebari, her skin tone the same though she barely graced over five foot tall.

Very shyly she dared to peer around the corner of the building as a darker form crouched at her feet barely visible. She narrowed her eyes at the sound of something falling, sharping her brows in protest at two shadowed forms on top of a bin, staring back as only two pairs of tiny shimmering spears of silver light. She turned back to look down the street again, barely able to see anything in the dark other than subtle auras around heat, making everything come out in only a slightly better black and white vision than what might be considered the norm. She was aware of every little sound, feeling out with her senses.

She stared at the group that came out of the checking gates with two levitational cargo hauls stuffed with capsules and small crates, a Luxan, Nebari, Hynerian and someone who wasn't Sebacean or Banik but looked close enough. Shade never strayed her quiet gaze on the Nebari as long strands like a spread of silvery fingers of threads spread out from the sides of her temples into her sharp brows. It looked almost like a shadowed, spidery splay of wings.

She ran down the alleys, closer to the landing pads that the docks stretched out to in piers to great circular pads. In the darker areas she stopped again, her hair seeming to blend in by becoming much darker as well as her eyes, her skin tone shading into a dark gray within her torn rags for clothes. It seemed like strands of the same fine, silvery hair began to spill out from her shoulders to touch the air, spread out along her shoulders and upper sides of her chest in spider web shimmers.

She remained very still in the darker alleys as she saw them again walking towards the docks rather briskly. She never moved as they passed until the Nebari with them stopped in a half crouch and raised her head, jerking it from left to right as if she were aware of something that alarmed her. A crate fell off of one of the hauls, two shimmering eyes shut as their form seemed to slip into the cargo. The Nebari gasped as she turned to the sound, pulling out her small pulse pistol.

Shade turned up behind her, touching the young woman's back as her strands of silver threads seemed to wrap around her. The Nebari gasped as she hitched her shoulders and took a step forward. The other woman looked at her with a confused expression as she put the small crate back on the haul. Shade was gone, or at least seemed to be as strands of silver drifted along the Nebari's shoulders and a tiny star of silver light shined in her pupils as she turned a few steps to peer down the alley.

"Chiana," D'argo gruffed to urge her along as he raised his qualta blade to his shoulder. "Let's just get out of here."

Chiana nodded nervously as she began to walk again, blinking as the silver in her eyes began to fade. "I'm coming."

D'argo sighed heavily as they came to another check gate at the docks. "Why do we have to go through this again?"

He grumbled as the guards began to scan them over and ran their temporary ident chips through. The guards seemed almost uglier than the rest of their race to him if it was possible. The had almost Vorcarian like faces, hairless, big headed with a spiraling horn spiking out of the back of their head. Their arms were long with sharp clawed nails to bony fingers. If this was the last ones he ever saw of them and their nasty disposition it was a good riddance that just wasn't coming soon enough.

"This is no commerce planet, Luxan." A guard stated as he collected the ident chips, letting them pass to the piers one by one. "This is Ogan."

"We know now," D'argo stated, pretending he never noticed Chiana as she slipped past the scans and slipped up behind him though his irritation at what she had just done cause him to suck in his breath. "It just doesn't seem like a prison planet to me."

"It isn't," the guard eyed him as he let Jool and Rygel pass and helped them push the cargo out of the long shaft of the check point. "There's a creature on this planet we can't allow to export if it's possible. Believe me you don't want any of the Shadowers on your ship. We try to keep them contained but ... almost 300 of them escaped a cycle ago, we're still trying to find them all."

"What kind of creature is it?" Jool asked as she gaped at him.

"Just some inferior nocturnal race, virtually animals, very primitive, barely children," the man shrugged as he looked away. "There were millions of them when we colonized 800 cycles ago, we didn't even know at first, not until they began to start looking like us."

He turned, narrowing his eyes on Chiana as he nudged his head. "Like her really, I'm surprised the Nebari was allowed on the planet at all. You're clear though, you need not concern yourself with it anymore."

The group didn't though they were quiet, drifting through their own thoughts as they came to their two transport pods and began to load them.

"Such a frelling eerie planet," Jool grumbled in a low tone as she stepped into her pod with Rygel and closed the hatch.

"Why did you do that," D'argo nearly snapped, growling as he slammed his hatch shut and plopped heavily into the helms seat. "Why did you sneak past the security check?"

"Khh'you know how I feel about the frelling checks!" Chiana stammered as she made herself busy with checking their inventory. "Just mind your own business, I got away. What was he going to do, arrest me for jumping his scan?"

"Maybe," D'argo narrowed his eyes as they began to lift off. "That planet gave me the creeps. I don't appreciate you frelling off when it could have caused trouble for all of us."

"It didn't give me the creeps," she cut her eyes at him as she stepped over several crates to check on the things they had packed in earlier.

"Oh I'm sure you've spent plenty enough time crawling around in creepier places."

"Oh that's it," Chiana barely smiled with a twist of her head. "I should have traded pods with Jool."

"Chiana," D'argo sighed as he closed his eyes. "I didn't mean ..."

"No," she tocked her head as she splayed her hands out from her sides and began to walk over the crates to the back. "Just save it D'argo."

*************************************

"I didn't think we'd ever get back," D'argo sighed heavily as he stepped out of the pod into the docking bay.

Chiana pursed her lips, lowering her head slightly as she bumped into him walking past from the pod. She never looked back as she continued past Jool and Rygel unloading their pod.

"Chiana," D'argo spoke solemnly as he watched her. "We have to unload this."

"Unload it yourself," Chiana snapped as she came to a stop and looked off to her right as if she had heard something.

"Hmph," Rygel gruffed as he levitated his throne to him. "She's been like that towards you ever since Neburo, can't say I don't blame her."

"Shut up!" D'argo snarled, growling deeply as he turned to the pod. Something inside crashed. He stepped back, grabbing for his qualta at his back with a harsh, startled cry as something or someone came leaping out at him. All he could see was dark and shimmers of silver. He blinked, shaking his head as he whirled around to see where they had run past him. He saw only Chiana and aimed his qualta, shifting it into rifle as someone turned from around her and sat in a crouched squat to the floor, their hands throwing back against the wall as light gray eyes widened on him in fear from a thrash of hair almost as white as Chiana's. "Identify yourself immediately!"

Shade slid down the wall, glancing from Chiana and D'argo to a Drd access. She widened her eyes on Jool as she got in the way of the Drd access with her pulse pistol pointed into her. Shade flinched as a crate came flying out of a pod. Rygel screamed as it came crashing to the floor.

"There's another one! It's getting away! Yotz!"

"Don't move!" D'argo bellowed at Shade as she slid her spread hands along the wall to her back and leaned forward from her squat position, resting on the balls of her feet as if she were preparing to spring. She turned her head to Chiana, looking to her with a quiet, solemn expression. Chiana's nostrils flared, her jaw setting as she turned her head with a slight curve to D'argo.

"You wanna put that down now?" She asked with irritation as Jool slowly lowered her pulse pistol, staring at Shade with a lost expression as she gaped.

"No," D'argo narrowed his eyes as he shifted his weight into a better aim at Shade. "Who are you? What the frell were you doing in our transport?"

"They call me Shade," she spoke in a slow, deliberate low tone as she laxed her elbows out and sat lower onto her heels, closing her knees into her chest as her hair, eyes and skin tone darkened against the deep brown of Moya's wall. She almost seemed to smile as she peered up at D'argo from beneath her sharp brows. "We're the Spider people. They call us Shadowers ... and we're - on - your - ship." She chuckled a child like laughter.

"Three ships are approaching," Pilot announced through comms. "Powering weapons fire! They're detecting fugitives aboard and are demanding they will dock to inspect Moya."

"Tell them I have their fugitive right here, Pilot." D'argo growled.

"No!" Chiana barely breathed as she stepped between D'argo and Shade. "Pilot, starburst. Get us out of here."

"Agreed," Pilot returned. "Prepare for ... Moya refuses to starburst or comply with the Ogan authorities. She's moving of her own to a star cluster only five hundred metras away - at the request of the Shadower Spiderling's on board."

D'argo let out a turrent of Luxan as he lowered his qualta. He shook his head as someone seemed to turn out of him and ran.

"Gyaaaaaaaa!" D'argo shouted after them as he saw them slip into a Drd access shaft. "Hezmana that was frelling inside me!"

"We're taking you somewhere, Right?" Chiana spoke quietly as she crouched to Shade and gazed into her eyes. "Whe - where you goin with us, Shade?"

"I'mmmmm ...," Shade winced her eyes as the strands began to appear along her temples in a wing spread as she twisted her thumbs into her chest as if she were in pain. "Ba-ken-dar-e'tush, Moya takes us there."

"Where is that?" Chiana nearly whispered as she narrowed her eyes, tilting her head. "What is that?"

"Who - how many of you are on our ship?" Jool asked.

"Ahhhh," Shade winced her face as if she were in pain or having trouble trying to form her words. "Ba-ken-dar-e'tush ..."

"The Ogan ships are gaining!" Pilot reported urgently. "They will be docking within 90 microts."

"Let them!" D'argo growled. "I want these frelling things off this ship, now!"

"Luxan kill," Shade spoke carefully, almost in a coo as she turned her gaze to him beneath her brows with a dark smile as she stood. "Naughty ..."

"Come on," Chiana urged Shade, ushering her out of the docking bay with Jool as she cut a glance at D'argo. "Let's go."

Rygel glided forward, his brows raised as he came to D'argoes side. "Whatever they are, they're crawling all over this ship!"

"Then we'll just have to find them," D'argo stated as he turned back to the pod. "Before they do something to Moya."

"What makes you so sure they would?"

D'argo snorted as he glanced back at him. "Nothing good could come out of a species that hides inside other people and steals their shape. We passed four check points just to load the pods. I'd say that is more than amunant effort to keep these creatures from being exposed to the rest of the uncharteds. I just want to get them off this ship before they start to look like one of us."

****************************

"Dish'pa'pid ve'tuch iki," Kior tumbled from his lips as he curled his nostril to Daj, raising his index finger in front of himself with the palm up. "Ha'dige'eyba."

"Va'key'ku'kao," Daj sniffed as if smelling something distasteful as he stepped into the docking bay. He brought to his hand what looked almost like some kind of pistol with a shovel shaped blade for its barrel as Shaith let off a series of clicks from within his throat, gazing over the ceiling as his obsidian eyes sheened over with a silver light for a moment.

D'argo curled his lip as he watched them skeptically, tilting his head slightly.

"Turn this ship around," Kior demanded as he stepped forward.

"This is a leviathan," D'argo gruffed as he rested his qualta against his shoulder. "She refuses to turn around. We're headed for a constellation not far away."

"Tiskrek'itish'oma," Daj snarled as he looked to Kior.

"Find them," Kior ordered as he motioned out and then turned his attention to D'argo again. "We must contain the maturing ones, how many did you see?"

"Look, even if I knew which ones were maturing I've no idea how many of these things are on board. Just get rid of them."

"The maturing would be in a metamorphous staging," Kior explained. "They develop strands."

"Useless," Shaith hissed. "Speaking to him, we haven't much time."

D'argo narrowed his eyes as he watched the Ogan creatures step out of the docking bay into Moya.

"I don't think that was very wise," Rygel commented. "Letting the likes of that run all over Moya to catch the likes of the other."

"Just shut up and help us look."

"Nothing doing!" Rygel snorted as he glided away. "I'm going to get out of the way before I get frelling shot!"

*****************************

"Chiana," Pilot commed quietly. "The Ogan have docked."

Shade gazed around herself, fear racing through her gray eyes as she stepped away from them and turned to an access shaft.

"Wait," Chiana cut into her path, curving her head as she looked into Shade's eyes in a half crouch.

"Don't hide from me," she pleaded gently as Shade turned her eyes away from her. Chiana moved subtly to follow her motions, saddened as she shifted at her shoulders and met her eyes again. "Why do you seem so much like me?"

"I'mmmmm," Shade shook her head weakly as she slowly closed her eyes. "We learn to hide, let me hide, please. We are nocturnal, not Ogan, not Nebari."

"But you ..." Chiana winced her eyes near tears. "But you don't have to hide, not from us."

"We don't like to be seen," Shade spoke solemnly as her eyes drew distant to the floor, wrapping her arms around herself and grasping her upper arms as her lips parted. "Ba-ken-dar-e'tush ... Moya must get us there."

"Shade?" Chiana wondered at her as she lightly touched her shoulder. "Shade? Let me and Jool take you into the neural nexus. It's dark there, they - they can't find you if I hide you. Until we get where you're going yeah?"

Chiana swallowed wanting to believe her own words but doubting them as Shade seemed to absorb into her. For a moment Chiana's eyes shaded over in a silver sheen. Long strands drifted across her shoulders and brow as Jool gaped at her.

"Just what the frell are we going to? We've got to get these Ogan off the ship Chiana! ... Shade ..." Jool shook her head, becoming frantic as she grasped Chiana's arm and shook her. "What the frell is going on!"

"Ship crew!" An Ogan shouted as he came into the corridor with two others. "Stand, we are going to scan you."

A smile crossed Chiana's face as she lowered her head. She cut her eyes to the Ogan beneath her brow as Jool yanked her into a dead run down the corridor.

"You better have a good reason for this!" Jool warned and then screamed as red flames of pulse fire shot after her.

******************************

"Gotcha!" D'argo shouted as he snatched the foot of a youth in a Drd access shaft. He pulled them out, narrowing his eyes into a pair of shining silver eyes half hidden in a roughed mess of smote hair.

The boy seemed to scream, his mouth snapping open in it but the sound D'argo heard sounded something like the shift of his own bed sheets only hollow, distant ... and getting louder like the rush of a beach wave. He looked up, gaping as Moya's corridor walls seemed to rift in waves, the shadows of the hall stretching out, reaching towards him as the hall became noticeably darker. He screamed as a massive Kdeeva leaped right out of the wall straight for him. He fired his qualta as he fell back. Laughter followed his cries around him.

"Roaa!" D'argo bellowed as he drew to his feet again, snarling into a rattling hiss as the boy came to his feet and turned into the wall, seeming to disappear there. "That will not fool me again!"

He stepped forward. "Whuaa!" He gasped as something leaped out of his chest and crouched to the floor. It grew swiftly, becoming the Kdeeva, a wild, roaring hiss escaping it as it leaped up to the ceiling and vanished. "Oof," D'argo barely muttered as he gaped up at it.

"D'argo!" Jool commed, her frightened voice teetering between a whisper and her metal melting screech. "You've got to come down to the nexus. Those Ogan are crawling around down here looking for us ... for Chiana! Hurry, please!"

"Chiana," D'argo's eyes widened. "Why are they after her, what are you doing hiding from the Ogan?"

"Because Shade is with us," Jool stated and then suddenly screamed wildly. "Get the frelling hezmana down here!"

****************************************
 
"That can't be!" Rygel shouted, his ear brows flying up as he whirred his levitational throne to the portal screen of the command center. "Pilot! What the yotz is that!"

He gasped wide eyed, drawing his stubby hand to his mouth as long legs like appendages on Natira's head folded out in space, revealing a center orb of light like a glowing moon. The tips of the long fingers pointed into it like a wicked version of some hand holding the orb in its sharp points.

"It's some sort of ship," Pilot returned. "I think ... It's pulling us toward it, prepare for immediate starburst!"

"I should think so!" Rygel rasped as the fingers suddenly expanded, the orb growing larger inside it.

"Don't starburst!" D'argo charged through comms. "We have a situation down here. Don't frelling starburst!"

Moya trembled throughout her hull as the orb shot around them, the fingers catching around her like a net. She rumbled again in her strain to obey her instinct to starburst and trust the crew enough not to as she was consumed into the orb.

The light of the orb surrounded the ship, flooding light into her as the three Ogan security teams began to infiltrate through the dim light of her starburst chambers and nexus network.

"Flank my right!" Kior demanded as he aimed his weapon on Chiana, forcing her to a halt along the cluttered side of the starburst chamber shaft. Shaith ran, coming up to Chiana's left shoulder with his weapon raised.

She remained still, staring down wildly with her elbows bent back as Jool suddenly wrapped her arms around her from behind and screeched into her shoulderblades.

"Stop!" D'argo shouted as he ran to them.

The four Ogan fired, flashes of a red light shot from their weapons. Jool continued to scream as Chiana leaped to a ledge above them, just catching it with her fingers and scrambling up. The Ogan fired again, the shots slamming into Jool.

"Joolushko!" D'argo shouted as he raised his qualta to fire on the Ogan. He hesitated, stopping cold in his tracks as Jool gasped for her air on her hands and knees, glowing in a silver, almost phosphorescent light.

The Ogan stepped around her, pulling Jool aside in absent distraction of her. Two of them grabbed a Spiderling as the coppery young male fell away from Jool, silver strands wavering along his back almost like very fine brushes of tentacles. Daj and Kior stepped closer to him as he opened his eyes, a shaft of silver light shooting across them as he came to his knees in the Ogan's hold. Kior and Shaith used the blades of their weapons, stabbing them into the young mans back. He let out a scream like nails running across a chalk board as his body covered in an electrical current. He buried his head into his arms, curling into a ball between the Ogan, seeming to solidify into a more tangible, physical form that was nearly completely like an Interion. Solid enough for Kior to clasp a collar around his neck.

Chiana blinked slowly, gazing up from the shadows of the ledge as she saw several glowing spheres shoot down the starburst shaft into the network where the Ogan stood. Within moments the orbs elongated and then expanded, becoming taller versions of the Ogan with much longer spiraled horns jutting from the back of their heads. They stood just behind the Ogan security team, their dark eyes sparkling with a surprised interest at the situation before them.

The two other security teams arrived to Kior gathering several more captured next to the Interion looking young man.

"You've got what you wanted!" Jool cried out as she forced herself to stand with a chunk of discarded metal in her hand. She threw it vhemunantly at the Ogan, hitting Daj in the chest with it, knocking him down. "Take those - things and get the frell out of here!"

Kior turned to face D'argo with his weapon raised. D'argo fired, his pulse shot hitting denches from Kior's feet as he growled in his breath with a jerk of his head. "Fire at me and an Ogan dies!"

"Seize the rest of them now!" Kior demanded.

Two of the Ogan began to walk towards D'argo briskly as they fired on him. D'argo threw a sheet of metal in his path, crying out as he raised his qualta and began to return fire.

"Cease fire!" One of the taller Ogan commanded as he raised his hand, frowning on the scene before him as they stopped. "I am Vrain of the councilate. Explain this situation you have brought to these gates."

"Just a minor mishap, our lords," Kior bowed his head to them. "Some of our Spiderling's contaminated this ship, so naturally the leviathan sought to reach you for your protection. They have been safely contained."

"You frelling liar," Jool snapped, curling her lip in disgust at Kior. "These beings asked Moya to bring them here!"

"We will trouble you no longer, our lords," Koir bowed his head again with a dark scowl. "I apologize for the disruption."

"Ogan!" Chiana shouted as she leaped down. She took several steps forward before collapsing to her hands and knees. She shook her head, gaping out as Shade leaped from her form and stood before Vrain. At first she seemed more Nebari in her form as she glanced from Vrain to the other councilates behind him. They stepped back from her in apprehension.

"Our lords, that one is maturing!" Kior shouted as he aimed his weapon on Shade. "Stand back! You are in danger!"

"I have a true form," Shade spoke quietly to Vrain as she drew her fingertips along the side of her face and a silver sheen followed her fingers paths before disappearing. She drew her hands in front of her chest with a tentative expression, pressing the ball of one palm into the other with her fingers splayed. She twisted her palms together as the fine webs came along her temples and shoulders again, her head lowered very shyly, her ear nearly against her shoulder as a broad oval shaped form of deep blue and silvers seemed to grow from inside her around her shape. Inside the deep blue almost like a silvery fire stood a silver being no taller than five foot with large oval shaped eyes of black. Sharply pointed ears swept from the almost cat like head where silver strands like long hair flowed.

Vrain moved to touch her, his hand reaching out when two of the other councilates grasped his shoulders, shouting in alarm as they pulled him back.

Kior fired, his shot slamming into the silver form of Shade's back. Wild screams from the Spiderling's filled the starburst chamber, the dim light growing even darker as Shade came down hard on her hands and knees in a silent scream.

"No!" Chiana shouted as she lunged for Kior, knocking him down with her full force. She turned to the Interion looking male and released his collar. Daj snarled as he kicked Chiana in her ribs, sending her twirling to her back on the ground as he aimed his weapon into her face.

"Ba-ken-dar-e'tush!" The young man wailed as he forced himself to stand and turned to the councilate with his arms outstretched. He began to shape as Shade had, within his glows a same kind of being as Shade only of a golden and copper tint. The security began to fire on him. His form seemed to almost explode in the electrical currents, light shafting from him as he collapsed at Shade's side.

"Ba-ken-dar-e'tush!" D'argo bellowed as another form stepped out of him and approached the councilates.

"Stop them!" One of the councilates shouted, terrified as they began to step away. "It's another one, they're running loose everywhere!"

"My true form!" The luxan appearing being called out to them as he outstretched his arms. Light spiraled around him as he appeared much the same as Shade had, the near feline like being of a phosphorescent sheened green. The Ogan security fired on him. He roared as the flashing tongues of electrical charges raced over his form. He fell to the ground as they fired again, his cries drawing out without forming any sound until he lay still.

Shade screamed as she laid herself over his back, sobbing as she grasped him in her arms.

"Cease fire!" Vrain commanded as he forced the other councilates off of him, stepping forward. "I will hear the Spiderling's!"

"Our Lords!" Kior shouted in protest. "The colonies have presented these creatures to you numerous times. That they are not sentient but a very clever emulation of ourselves is well documented and established. I bid you to allow me to continue my return of them to the dark planet before any more of them attempt to metamorphous into the mature state and pose even more danger to you! The next one will look like one of us! Infiltrate our culture, contaminate us to integrate our intelligence into their lesser species! This pestilence is known my lords and unprotested!"

"I have never seen a creature that looks like this," Vrain stated as he motioned down to Shade with his open hand. "Who is this if it is as simple as these creatures only mock us like Di'maran parrots?"

Vrain turned his attention to Chiana, motioning to her. "Nebari, you defend the Shadowers of the Spider people? Have you seen any beings who look like these?"

"Shade," Chiana swallowed as she came to Shade, resting her hand on the silver beings head as she tilted her own to look to her eyes. "Shade, please say something ..."

Chiana rubbed her hand through Shades down soft silver hair as tears welled to her eyes, trying to sniff them back as Shade's eyes glistened over in silver shards. Shade's breaths evened out as she drew unconscious.

"We have always suspected the dark planet was wrongfully colonized. That these creatures have adapted to the ones who left us for this world, attempting to communicate with us your own wrongful actions. It is important to know whose form these three have taken, it could be proof these are sentient beings." Vrain knelt to them, wondering over Chiana's solemn expression for long moments. He turned his gaze to Shade, blinking as he rested his long fingered hand on her shoulder as if daring to touch a poisonous snake. He gasped in his apprehension as he lifted his fingers as if touching hot iron. He returned his hand slowly, more cautiously across Shade's back.

"She is so tangible ..." He spoke with gentle surprise as he looked to Chiana again.

"They just - they just wanted to show you ..." Chiana barely smiled as she traced her fingertips along Shade's feathered brow. "What they look like ..."