"Commander!"

"Krill, hell am I glad to see you."

Overhead, the dark shape seemed to coalesce from the night, into a familiar human form. Though Krill couldn't see his face, he would have known his voice anywhere.

"I',worried that you had died, commander."

"Only just avoided it." He whispered,d "now enough with the reunions and time for an escape."

Krill watched him crawl along the bars of the cage and down the other side, floating over to be at the door when it opened. There was a sharp hiss and the door popped inward, revealing the man in the half light of a distant, glowing orb.

The man looked, a mess.

His hair had grown long and scruffy around his ears and cheeks. He was sporting a short beard, and - "What the hell are you wearing."

"Hey, they caught me on laundry day alright, I had to improvise.

" Krill shook his head but floated form the doorway, "What happened, how did you end up here.... How did you escape?" He had to admit, he was both impressed and surprised at the commander's escape, it was leaning towards smarter than he would have usually given the man credit for, but by now krill had learned that while commander vir was an idiot, he was an intelligent one.

"Got sucked into a wormhole, spat out on some tropical desert sort of planet thing. Got attacked by a blue raptor and was rescued by the omnidroids."

"The omnidroids?"

"You know those big tall grey guys with five limbs?"

"Ah yes, that sounds like what happened to me..... And this escape plan of yours." He was almost jealous that Adam had managed to escape before he had, but he supposed the human had some inherent advantages that he just did not.

Adam crouched low, dragging krill to the side as a group of giant scorpions scuttled past in the distance, not something that the two of them wanted to get involved in.

"I spent the first few days testing to see how much they watched me, and how much it would take to get them to come running. When i Had everything mapped out I moved to the top of the cage, so I wouldn't make them suspicious the first go around. Luckily for me they sort of noticed and set up a little hanging nest for me up there." He flexed his hands, "Then I used the iron eye to bend the bars and escape. Now I am letting out all the other animals on my way out of this place."

Not bad, not bad at all, though Krill would call it less of a plan and just characteristically flying by the seat of his pants, but he had a new motto for the commander that he thought encompassed his behavior really well.

It's not stupid if it works.

He grabbed Krill by the upper arm and dragged him behind, "Come on, we've gotta get out of here before."

Sirens.

And flashing red lights.

"Shit!"

Commander Vir and Krill dived into the bushes watching as a large creature made of waving tentacles rolled past.

The sirens above their heads were deep and booming, and almost as soon as they had gone off the entire park was alive with voices and the whirring sound of drones.

Three of them cut past chasing down the tentacle ball as Adam and Krill crouched in the shadows.

"Krill, you have a big brain, do you remember the way to their docking station?"

"I.... well yes of course I do."

"Alright, than we head there?"

"And how exactly do you plan on getting out of here." Krill wondered as they continued to slip their way through the bushes.

"I uh, well I hadn't really gotten to that part yet."

Krill would have rolled his eyes if he had had them, but at this point in his life, he was too jaded to really even care that the human had no real plan. It was just good to be back with his friend. They crouched in another set of bushes watching silently as a group of aliens attempted to wrangle some sort of large panther like beast, It had eight limbs and a head sort of like a cat except for the tubular protrusions on the side of its neck.

"I'm sorry I got you into this Krill, I.... I thought I had saved everyone."

Krill shook his head, "Put the self blame away for the moment Commander. We need to get out of here."

"Alright, alright."

KRill grabbed the back of the man's iron eye armor as he slipped through the bushes, following Krill's instructions as they moved through the massive zoo. Whenever they could they continued to unlock enclosure doors, and for every one of the creatures that they caught there were always more to take their place.

They were coming up on the edge of the building when commander Vir pulled up with a curse.

Krill peered over his shoulder and immediately saw the problem.

Forty foot high steel walls with cameras and drones on all sides.

He cursed again crouching low in the bushes as another group of keepers ran by, heading in the opposite direction.

"Well, now what do we do?" Krill wondered, and the human was quite for a moment.

He flipped up the eyepatch he had still managed to hold onto and scanned his surroundings with the slow sweep of his head, "Ah ha," he gestured towards the wall, and a large spherical building that was pressed right up to it, "That doesn't look like an enclosure, and twenty bucks says it has a door that leads out of this place and onto the landing field that you were talking about."

Krill sighed, "Of course it can never be easy."

Commander Vir shrugged, "We've had worse."

"When have we had worse!"

"We went to prison that one time, remember?"

"I try not to."

He sighed puffing himself up in preparation for what was about to happen, "Alright, lets do this."

The human cracked his knuckles and his neck, "Let's do this."

***
"What is happening! How can they all have escaped!"

They stood at the center of the control room, their eyes on the cameras, turning in circles as they tried to figure out just exactly was going on. Their establishment was in chaos, and now half of his animals were running rampant without supervision, sometimes attacking each other, and sometimes causing mayhem with his infrastructure.

"There are 41 cages open. Which makes 90 animals released, and we have recaptured five."

"Only 85 more to go." They snapped, "How could this have happened, there is no way to open their doors from the inside."

"There is evidence that they were tampered with manually from the outside."

The little hologram flickered and the head keeper snarled in disgust, "Was it one of the keepers."

There was a sharp hiss as another one of the holograms appeared.

"We might have found the genesis of all the problems."

"Go on."

There was a sudden flare and one of the cameras turned on the Duos enclosure and zoomed in to the top part of the cage. At first it was difficult to make out what was going on, and then he saw it: the large hold that had been bent in the bars.

"The Duos escaped first it seems." They began, "And with its hands it could have easily opened the cages."

"But those cages were pattern locked!"

"I don't know if you know this, but you can see the door to the next cage over from the viewing window. If the creature watched you and saw.... It might have been able to reproduce it." The head keeper stomped about the floor in anger, "Alright, alright, get to work. Find the Duos and the other and get everything back into shape. I want this all cleaned up before opening tomorrow.

The holograms clicked off, and they were left only with the dim blue light of the other camera feeds to cover them. That was when they heard the noise.

IT was soft at first, just a gentle padding over the floor behind them, and with a sudden sense of dread they turned in their spot coming almost face to ace with a leering shape from the darkness.

In the half light, the Duos face was a malevolent well of shadow and light, shadow pooling around the eyes while blue light cast sharp contrast in through its cheeks.

At it's back hung the Planita staring at him with it's large orange, prismatic eyes.

He froze.

The duos simply stood there for a long moment, very still.

He tried not to move knowing that one spit of it's toxic breath would be the end.

Something seemed wrong about the way it moved, when it stepped towards him it's back was straight, its movement was sure. The jittery skittish behavior it had shown earlier was no longer, leaving behind only the glittering white eyes and the sharp white teeth.

It opened its mouth saliva glittering on the protruding bone.

They couldn't hear it make it's vocalizations as high as they were, but watched in awe as the small plantlike creature spoke back.

The creature walked around them light glittering overt the metal fame that encased it.

It took his potion before the console, and withing a few moments had somehow managed to summon the controls.

It must have been watching them from the darkness.

They tried to take a step back, but the head snapped around and the Duos bared it's teeth one green eye burning bright.

They froze.

THe Does reached forward and with another small conversation between it and the creature, it began fiddling with the controls.

Lights around the park shut off, water stopped running, electricity was powered off, and finally, all the cage doors were opened.

The creature turned to look at them as they stared in horror as the park was overrun in a matter of seconds.

The creature barred its teeth, and they didn't need to be able to speak the creature's language to know that was an expression of triumph. Looking into the wide green eyes, they suddenly realized their mistake.

This was no animal....

There was too much intelligence glittering behind those eyes for that to be the case.

IT was sentient.

And they had trapped it in a zoo

Gods help them.

They closed their eyes, expecting the creature to exact it's revenge, but instead there was another pattering noise, and they opened their eyes to turn and watch the thing slip through the outer door and to freedom.

The duos was loose, and there was nothing they could do about it.

***

Sunny and the others stood at the center of a sea of watching eyes. Their host, as of yet unnamed, stood before them.

IT looked like a burg, sort of though instead of a muddy brown carapace with brightly colored limbs, it had a shiny black carapace like a beetle, with large yellow eyes, and wriggling antenna. The strangest thing about it was the wings, they were large an rested down along the creature's back covered in colorful swirling patterns.

None of them had ever seen anything like it.

Sunny held up her spear.

"What do you want."

"I just want to talk." It said, the voice was soft despite the mandibles, and though it spoke Burg, the voice in itself was not unpleasant, "I need your help."

"Who are you!" Sunny demanded.

The creature clicked it's mandibles and held out it's arms. Behind it, the large butterfly-like wings spread out to either side, the membrane delicate enough to allow the glowing green light from the mushrooms to diffuse through the membrane.

"I am Zaran, King of the burg."

WIth that declaration, more weapons were raised pointed directly at the burg's chest.

He held up his hands,

"Please, I mean you no harm."

"You're a burg! Of course you do!" Thomas snapped from somewhere in the back.

The Burg sighed and dropped his head, "Yes, we do give that impression don't we, but it wasn't always like that."

Sunny did not lower her weapon but paused, "What do you mean."

All around them, the colorful winged burg shifted in their places, though none of them seemed particularly hostile.

Zaran raised a hand and motioned about the room, "What you see here is what fragments remain of the male population in the burg capital."

"Male? WHat are you talking about. I thought that-"

"All of them are female, all the ones you would have met anyway."

Sunny stared at him, "But their voices."

"Have no bearing on which sex a burg is." The Burg king turned his back on them and stepped over the stones wings fluttering gently, "You see, that is how the burg have always functioned, as hives with a higher population of female workers. They are stronger, faster and more durable to be able to scavenge for us. They are our warriors and our providers. More of them are born every ear than we are. The split is an almost ten two one female to male ratio." he turned to look at them, "The only reason we have been kept around for so long is that we are required in the reproduction chain."

"So you're the burg king because...." Ramirez trailed off in disgust.

"The queen does favor me yes." His wings shifted a bit, "But it was not always like this. The queen has reigned for over 400 years....." He dropped his head, "No one could have known that she would have demonstrated such spite and hate."

"Wait, 400 years! I thought burg only lived to be about 100."

"The queen can live much longer if she is taken care of properly." He motioned around the cave, "As can we, though I am the only one old enough to remember the prior regime. Our old queen was hard, she had to be, but she was also fair and just. This queen.... She was spoiled as a pupae, and I think that may have ruined her forever. She always had a sadistic streak. Her policies always toed the line to being inappropriate. We should have known this would happen when she voiced her ideas about how we had no real use other than for reproduction. When the last queen died under suspicious circumstances, we were quickly rounded up and placed here."

There was a silence.

then .

"So you have been tapped in this cave for over 400 years!"

"Yes. I have been any way. I am let out every month or so to.... Help the queen, but other than that I have been here for much of that time. Unfortunately for me I have seen many friends come and go as they are not cared for as well as I. I do whatI can, but there is only so much I have managed."

Mav and Ramirez looked between each other, and Sunny continued on, "You're telling me that burg were not always like this. Vengful and hateful and... and-"

He shook his head, "No, no! The burg were always easily offended, yes but we challenged each other to games of chance, not wars. Loyalty was one of our greatest strengths. However the female population does not live so long as the queen herself, and in only a few generations she was able to brainwash all of her followers into behaviors that were not part of us. She turned them to hate and anger and suspicion. She encouraged their infighting, and she destroyed our religious traditions."

They listened in awe and in sadness for this creature.

"Once upon a time that would have been my duty, as a religious leader and a diplomat for conflicts. That is why there has always been a king, to temper the aggressive tendencies of a queen."

"Have your queens always looked like jaba the hutt." Cannon elbowed thomas in the side, and Sunny felt a pang of sadness wash through her. Why did Thomas have to act so much like Adam sometimes."

The king may not have understood the reference, but he seemed to understand the meaning, "Well.... Not exactly. Due to the way she is being fed, she never exactly exited her larvae form. Generally a queen is one of the only burg females that will ever have wings through.... The need to be cared for just right for that transformation to happen, though that is beside the point. Now that you know my story, I need you to help me."

The group looked around at each other and nodded, "What do you need... your highness."

"I want to return to the Burg nation to their former glory. I want us to be what we once were, and I want to overthrow a tyrant." He shuffled his feet awkwardly, "That is the first time I have said something like that outloud," He looked up at them, "The queen has been killing any who might be considered her replacement. All the females born who could be considered a new queen are quietly taken and killed, but I know of one, She is still in her egg, but upon seeing her, I knew what she might be. The others have no idea, but I do. If you can get that egg and protect it, we can Kill the queen and install a new ruler. The workers would have to follow her, they are programmed to do so, and if you install me as an advisor to the young queen, maybe I can impart the past on her. Change the way things are around here."

There was silence for a moment, and then.

Sunny struggled inwardly. She still blamed the burg for what had happened, but now that she had the whole story, it seemed as if they were just as much a victim as the people they had attacked.

She couldn't just ignore that.

Finally she broke the silence, "Alright, we will help you. Where can we find the egg?"