“Who’s there?” Ash demanded to know as he pushed both Sarah and Claire behind him. “We did as you asked, so give us back Mel!”

A female voice replied in Alemanian. She sounded like she was coming from the air, which probably meant she was on a catwalk or something similar.

It was time for Sarah to step up and do her job.

Claire nudged Sarah’s shoulder a bit. “So, what’s she saying?”

“She says Mel should be here soon and that the lights should be on. And she wanted to make sure we weren’t followed.” She stepped out from behind Ash. “I told her that as far as we knew, we weren’t.”

“That’s all we can really say.” Ash noted. She heard him shift around. “I hope the lights turn on soon. I have a feeling that it’s not just herhere.”

The light sprang on, blinding all of them. Sarah had to blink the spots that appeared in her vision away before she looked up. As she thought, there was a woman standing on the catwalk. She was definitely Alemanian, or at least of Alemanian descent, much like Sarah was of Espanian descent. She leaned against the railing and looked down at them. Claire tapped Sarah’s shoulder and pointed to the spot next to the woman.

All around the catwalk were people armed with rifles and all of them were pointed at the crew. Sarah felt all the blood drain from her face. Had this truly been a trap after all? Maybe this was the Alemanians way of getting rid of some of them.

She patted the tip of one of the rifles.

“Hey Lexicon, what’s going on?” Claire questioned as she and Ash eyed all the snipers. “Please tell me we aren’t about to become holy…”

“She knows you’re armed. She said they’re just here to make sure we don’t try anything, so I think as long as we don’t make any strange moves, we’ll be okay.” At least, Sarah hoped that was what the situation was. The rifles were pointing at them, after all, and the snipers looked pretty tense.

Ash nodded and looked up at the woman. “So are we going to get an explanation or are you just going to give Mel back and send us on our way?”

She started to head toward the stairs, followed by a couple of the armed people with her. She paused to allow Sarah time to translate.

Claire had a few words for the woman once she reached the bottom of the stairs and headed over to them. “Wrecker is right! You not only took Mel, but then you organized this whole thing…” She waved her arms to indicate all the snipers. “To get him back. What do you want? Money? Free passage away from here?” Once Recke came close enough, Claire went up to her and got right in her face. “And did Mel really go with you willingly or did you kidnap him and make him write that note?”

The sound of several safeties being clicked off made Sarah attempt to stand behind Ash as much as she could. He also tensed and put a hand on Claire’s shoulder, pulling her back. Recke raised her hand and the snipers backed off.

Once Sarah relayed that part, Ash just shook his head. “Honestly, that does sound like Mel. That’s probably how Captain Yager tricked him into signing onto his crew in the first place. Good thing we rescued him. I have a feeling he wouldn’t last very long with that bunch.”

Recke seemed to perk up a bit when Ash mentioned Yager.

Once again, Sarah translated. Ash seemed to breathe a sigh of relief. Sarah didn’t blame him, though found it a bit troubling that Yager had known enough about the group to relay that information to someone else.

“Why did you ask Claire and I here?” Ash inquired as the tension started to settle down. “I understand Sarah, but…”

“And what do you want in return for your “kindness”?” Claire growled out the last word. “I have a feeling that even if you don’t want money, you want something from us.”

Recke chuckled some.

She held out a cigar to Ash. He waved it away. “Sorry, but I don’t smoke. Even if I did, this wouldn’t be the time to do it.”

Recke put it in his hand.

Ash looked at the cigar in his hand, confused. Sarah translated the best she could, though the vagueness made it a bit difficult. After all, Alemanian wasn’t that much of a figurative language, especially compared to Paradisian. Ash sighed and put the cigar in his inner pocket.

“We don’t do smuggling. We can’t exactly afford to get caught with contraband.”

Recke assured them with a smile.

“Dave won’t go for this.” Claire shook her head. “I mean, while he’s not a stickler for rules, he does usually try to stay within the law. Especially since the opening dialogue is you returning our medic you managed to get away from us right under our noses.”

There was a sound as someone came in the back of the warehouse. All the snipers lowered their weapons as Mel came in followed by someone. He smiled when he saw them.

“Ash, Claire, Sarah!” He exclaimed as he came up to them. “I was worried that my note hadn’t been passed along! I’m glad to see that it has. I’m sorry if I worried you, there was an emergency and I didn’t want to have to explain things with Colonel Heinz and those soldiers there.” Mel blinked a couple of times. “Why are you guys so tense? Is something the matter?”

Claire grabbed Mel and turned him around so that he could see the snipers. He meeped a bit and paled. Recke chuckled a bit.

She stated while taking a step back.

Once again, guilt boiled in Sarah’s stomach over that. She knew that people would say that he deserved it, but she still didn’t feel great about shooting his foot, especially since she hadn’t been aiming for it. From the catwalk, a sniper rushed down and whispered something to Recke. She nodded and looked back at them.

“Why should we trust you after everything you’ve made us go through!?” Claire at least didn’t approach her this time, so no snipers took aim at the upset mechanic. “We wouldn’t be in this mess if it weren’t for you!”

This time, Mel stepped in to draw her back a bit. “Claire, it’s okay. I think we can trust Recke. The whole time I was with them, they never threatened me and understood that I had very little resources to work with. As far as kidnappings go, it was a very civil one. I just didn’t realize they were so well armed for a resistance group.”

Claire sighed. “You’d trust anyone who was nice to you Mel, but I’m thinking we don’t have much of a choice. Ash, what do you think?”

“The sooner we can leave and get out of this country, the better.” He stated. “All right, Recke, what..?”

Glass shattered and a cylinder landed in the room, followed by a few others. Suddenly, smoke filled Sarah’s vision and she started to cough. Her eyes watered and she looked around. She could see shapes of people, but thanks to her eyes tearing up, she couldn’t tell who anyone was. Someone grabbed her shoulders.

Memories of Zehn came flooding back to her. The fact that she knew that his intent had been to test her didn’t make it any less frightening, especially when she heard the one who had grabbed her speak Alemainian. Sarah swung out, her wrist hitting the person in the throat. There was a choked cry. But the person had a good grip on her shoulders and pulled her back with them before they dragged her out.

As they did so, gunshots could be heard. She was pretty sure a bullet nearly hit them, because the person dragging her picked up their pace. It wasn’t Ash, or he would’ve said so when she panicked. Was it one of Recke’s people? No, none of them had been near her. Then it could only be an Alemanian soldier.

She renewed her struggles, kicking and hitting the man wherever she could. Every hit landed and he grunted with each one, but none of them had enough power behind them to be effective. There was another gun shot from nearby and he booked it.

“Ash, Claire, hel-”

Her mouth was quickly covered. No, she wasn’t going through this again. Since the soldier wasn’t saying anything, he clearly had something planned for her. So, Sarah took the initiative and bit him.

To his credit, he managed to keep in a yelp until they were well away from the warehouse, in the back of an alley. It was only then that he yelled in pain and let her go. She started to run back to the warehouse when he grabbed her arm again.

“Hey, wait a-”

She threw a haymaker that made an impact with his face. Her hand tingled afterwards and she couldn’t help but think that she hurt it. Then she got a good look at the man’s face. His hat had fallen over it when he fell back, but she couldn’t help but think it looked familiar. She carefully removed it. She noticed that a familiar nose was bleeding.

"Juste!?"