Cholak's Demon (PG-13 / NC-17)

[KernilCrash]

Cholak’s Demon

Yet Another Sequel to ‘Cloths Of Heaven’ and ‘Heaven’s Gate’

* * * * *

First posted:  January 14, 2003.

Rating: PG-13.  Part 10 is rated NC-17.
Category:  Alternate Universe.
Disclaimer:  The characters and vision of Farscape belong to Henson, Co.  I’m only playing with them a little bit in order to keep us all amused. 
Time Frame/Spoilers:  This story takes place two cycles after ‘Dog With Two Bones’.
Beta-Readers:  Scrubschick and Angel.  Once again, they are keeping me on track.  “Uhhh, Crash?  Why is Aeryn doing this here?  And this section over here … this doesn’t make any sense.”  You ladies are the greatest.     

Note To The Reader:  If you are new to this continuing saga, please keep in mind that ‘Cloths Of Heaven’ was written before any of the Season 4 episodes had aired, thus earning it the AU classification.  Since then I’ve tried to remain consistent with the storyline developed in that first fiction, which means that the series runs contrary to canon.  If you have not read the two preceding stories, you need to click on the links above and wade through those first.

This story is the result of several people expressing an interest in seeing the reunion when John and Aeryn get back to Moya.  However … as with all things Farscape, I’m fairly certain this ISN’T the story you envisioned.  When the Youses Muses Gang sent someone to tell me the tale, it was David Kemper who showed up.  You have been warned!

Remember!!  In this version (unrealized reality, if you will), John never got to Arnessk, so he has not encountered Commandant Grayza since the Command Carrier (‘Into The Lion’s Den: Lambs To The Slaughter’).  This ‘timeline’ branches off right after ‘Dog With Two Bones’ and I’m drifting further away with each story.

Hope you enjoy it. 

Kernil Crash
 

* * * * *

Part 1

John Crichton stretched, arching his head back into the pillows until the vertebrae in his neck crackled slightly, then released all the tension, letting his arms flop loosely over his head.  He opened one eye to view the dark hair streaming down his ribs, watching Aeryn as she pretended to still be asleep, her head resting on his chest.  “Wakey, wakey,” he chanted quietly, rolling side to side to jostle her.  The lights had come up automatically, following the preprogrammed cycle that emulated night and day inside the small spacecraft.   

“Shut up,” she grumbled.  One arm wormed under his back, meeting the other one on the opposite side of his body so she could hold him still.  “Don’t ruin it.” 

“Rise and shine.  Up and at ‘em.  Let’s get a move on!” he said cheerfully, but he slid both arms around her and pulled her further onto his body, tucking her head into the corner of his neck.  “Mmm, nice blanket,” he concluded as she made herself comfortable on top of him. 

“Can I get you a pillow?” she mumbled into his throat.  He rubbed her back for several microts, letting his fingers bump up and down her spine in a slow cadence.  “Four more days,” she sighed.

“I could reattach the power supply to the rhotarri engines and see where we wind up this time,” he suggested, watching her at close range. 

“Moya will get tired of waiting for us,” Aeryn countered.  She slid off him, tucking herself alongside his body, and propped her head up on one hand to watch him.  He smiled back at her, showing no inclination to get out of bed.  She reached across to scratch at his chin, adding, “And if we get any lower on water, I won’t want to be this close to you.  You’re starting to smell.”  John laughed as he raised his chin, letting her scratch the underside of his throat, easing the last of the itching from his lengthening beard. 

“Yeah,” he agreed on a sigh.  “I’m also getting a little tired of the rations.  Guess we gotta head back sooner or later.”  He glanced at her sideways, examining her look of concentration as she scrubbed at his beard.  “And you’re not exactly the sweetest smelling rose around either,” he told her. 

There was no reaction to his small taunt.  Aeryn continued to rub his chin, a task she’d taken on only two days earlier when his own constant scrabbling at the annoyance had driven her to a threat of physical violence.  They’d reached a compromise.  He’d stop scratching if she did it for him.  John waited, knowing that she wouldn’t leave the accusation unanswered.  Her fingers wandered back down his jaw, and he tensed his muscles, suspecting what would happen next. 

“Grrr,” she exclaimed suddenly and grabbed him carefully around the throat with both hands, pretending to strangle him. 

“Okay, maybe we both need a shower,” he laughed, yanking her on top of him and pulling her down for a kiss.  “We have a little leeway left with the water supply.  How long is Moya going to wait for you?  Can we maybe take a wrong turn at the next singularity and get a little lost for an extra day or two?” 

Aeryn ducked down, put her nose against his chest, and gave a small sniff.  “Yes,” she answered, grinning mischievously.  “They said they’d wait for another --”  She gazed at the wall over his head, taking several microts to silently tally the days.  “They’ll be there for another nine … no, another eight solar days.” 

“So we could spare a couple more,” John suggested.  Aeryn mumbled what sounded like a ‘yes’ into the side of his throat.  “Good.  So did you want me to take a bath now?”  He used both hands to gather her hair, twisting it into a thick tail and then winding it around one hand.     

“In a little while,” she suggested, straddling him with her legs and using both arms to pull herself tighter against his chest.  “There’s something else we need to do first.” 

“What would that be?” he asked with feigned innocence. 

Aeryn raised herself off him, looking down at him with a quiet smile in place, her hair streaming in loose torrents over her shoulders.  “I’ll try to explain as we go along,” she answered, and reached to turn down the lights. 

“Oh boy,” John said gleefully in the dark. 

   * * * * *

The fugitive sped down the darkened corridor, the beam from the handlight bouncing wildly but illuminating enough of the hazards to allow the headlong flight without tripping.  He could hear the footsteps pounding in the levels above and below him, in some cases landing hard enough to knock showers of dust and dirt out of the overhead panels.  There was a place he thought they might not know about located at the end of the long curving corridor.  It wasn’t a room, it was a maintenance crawlway that actually belonged in the level above, but had sagged down out of place as time and weather had weakened the surrounding structure. 

They had devoted nearly two hundred troops to this operation, enveloping the facility and slaughtering his men indiscriminately, blasting equipment and ships into smoking ruins, and then spreading out when their initial search didn’t locate the one person that interested them. 

Him. 

Lights bounced behind him -- glancing off dirt-encrusted walls, dimming as they passed through hanging translucent panels, wavering in strange patterns as they cut through the tangles of circuitry that hung everywhere.  He was out of time and out of room, but he tried to reach the hiding space anyway.  If he could get out of sight, they might pass by him and he could double back.  He ran faster, throwing all caution aside as he plunged into the darkness, the one small beam of light insufficient to light his way. 

His luck had turned bad recently; he should have known it wasn’t going to get any better tonight.  The corridor arced further to his left, the warning that he was approaching his destination, and he shone the light across the wall at waist level, looking for the gap in the paneling.  The decks had begun to collapse here, creating the hidey-hole in the first place, so he should have been considering the possibility that more of the structure had dropped away.  But he was desperate, and they were right behind him, so it didn’t occur to him that some of the floor might be missing until he ran right off the edge. 

His yell of surprise and fear echoed several times, a clear indication that the expanse underneath was extensive, then he was snatched out of midair by what felt like hundreds of tentacles.  He spared a split-microt to consider that the Peacekeepers didn’t have any rescue technology resembling this snare, then reverted to a full blown panic as his fall was broken in a series of snatches and releases.  One of the thin leashes wrapped itself around his lower leg several times, slithering along his pant leg as it arrested his drop, then it jerked tight and he came to a spine-snapping stop. 

“Frell,” he moaned, the abrupt deceleration setting off a head-to-toe ache.  He realized belatedly that the strange arresting gear was actually a massive tangle of wiring sagging out of the upper decks.  He’d been lucky enough … or perhaps unlucky enough to fall into the snarl, which then slowed his fall.  The trapped runner quested into the dark beyond his head with both hands, stretching to the limit of his reach seeking a floor, but found only more space.  He considered freeing his ankle, but if the remaining fall were too far, the drop might kill him.   

“Frelling buckets of dren,” he grumbled, feeling himself start to twist as he waited, the wiring unwinding slightly as his weight pulled on it.  “I feel like a drannit hung out to dry.”  Lights flickered somewhere on a deck that was level with his body, and he knew he was about to be caught.  In the arns since the Peacekeepers had landed he’d imagined some pretty undignified ways to get captured, but this one exceeded his wildest visions. 

“Advise the command carrier that we have found him,” a deep voice boomed.  Helmet-mounted lights swayed and bounced as a group of soldiers made their way toward him, picking their way through piles of debris, the thin beams of light gradually gathering around him to illuminate his inverted body.  The increasing glow allowed him to see that he was a mere motra from the floor, an easy drop if he had dared to free his foot. 

“Don’t mind me,” he greeted them.  “I’m just hanging around.” 

The black-clad soldiers didn’t bother answering as they sliced through the last cables, dumping him inelegantly onto the floor, and then dragged him through the sand clogged corridors of the command carrier wreckage until they stepped into the moonlit night.  They moved faster then, hauling him along between them at a fast trot, headed unerringly toward the glow of the burning repair facility.  A cluster of figures was silhouetted against the jumping flames, and the group headed straight for them, drawing up in a rush and flinging him into the dirt at someone’s feet. 

Gallenn spat out grit, rolled over and sat up, dusting off his palms.  “No need for the rough stuff.  I would have invited you in for raslak if you’d just asked nicely.” 

“Get up,” one of the helmeted guards ordered him, prodding with a pulse rifle. 

Gallenn looked over his shoulder at the individual, noting the heavy armor over the ubiquitous black uniform and considered the female voice that had issued the order.  “Rush, rush, rush,” he chanted, pushing himself to his feet.  “What are you doing after duty tonight, babe?” he asked the helmeted guard, and found himself back in the sand, spitting out blood from a bitten tongue.  “Wrong pick-up line.  I always told him that one wouldn’t work,” he fumbled past the injury. 

“Get him up,” a different female voice ordered, this one creepily smooth -- too silky and unemotional to belong to a Peacekeeper.  Gallenn was yanked back to his feet and turned to face the new arrival. 

“I am Commandant Mele-On Grayza, and I am going to make this very simple,” she said, stepping closer.  Pale blue eyes stared into his, and he felt his stomach tighten with dread for the first time despite everything that had happened that night.  “Tell me where I can find John Crichton.” 

“I don’t know --” 

She cut him off by grabbing his jaw, fingers digging in deep as she stepped closer, her face mere denches away from his.  “We know he was here, we know he worked for you, we know about the new drive system.  What we don’t know is where he has gone.  That is the part that you are going to tell us.”  Grayza released him and stepped back, waiting for his response. 

Gallenn licked his lips nervously, tasting the blood from the ragged cuts inside his mouth.  He glanced around at the black uniforms, the weapons, and the movement beyond them as the squads formed up and began boarding their transports.  They’d gotten what they came for, and they obviously knew that the other person they were hunting wasn’t here.  He wondered who on this planet had sold the information to the Peacekeepers.  He reconsidered that possibility when he remembered that if John’s friend, Aeryn Sun, had tracked him here, that it meant the Peacekeepers could have followed the same set of clues.

He tried to back away a step as the cold-eyed officer held something up in front of his eyes, the fast flash in the light from the fires looking like a weapon slicing toward him.  A muzzle against his spine stopped his retreat, but it was only a data chip with Peacekeeper markings.  “This carries a legal contract transferring half of this now unprofitable business to your ownership,” she informed him.  “The name of the other person is unfamiliar, but the traces of DNA on the surface of the chip are unmistakably John Crichton’s.  Where has he gone?” she demanded.   

“Don’t know this Jann Kreiten,” he returned, trying to distort the name as though it were unfamiliar.  He’d known that John was running from someone, but no one he’d ever encountered in all of his sometimes shady dealings had ever managed to attract the attention of an entire command carrier full of Peacekeepers.  It seemed that his friend had managed to get himself into some seriously deep dren.   

“I will not waste time with this foolishness,” Grayza announced when he offered nothing else.  “Bring him.  Contact the carrier and have them prepare the Aurora Chair.” 

   * * * * *

“Moya’s not here,” John said, not especially bothered by the leviathan’s absence in light of the extra eight days it had taken to reach the agreed upon spot.  “Did you have a secondary meeting place?”  He leaned his head on his hand and watched as Aeryn ran the sensor scans one more time, searching for any trace of the missing ship. 

“They should have waited another two days.  We set up some other options, but there isn’t another rendezvous for another twelve solar days.  Pilot agreed to set a message beacon adrift here if they left.  I can’t find it.”  She shifted the sensor settings and started over, looking for a smaller biomechanoid signature this time. 

“How long can Moya’s beacons last without coming in contact with her?” John asked, thinking that he should remember himself.  Aeryn glanced at him, her expression saying the same thing, and he shrugged.  “It has been two cycles, Aeryn.  Cut me some slack.” 

She searched his face for several microts before replying, “It should have held up for five or six solar days.  The energy charge would go first --”

“And then the biological construct would start to break down because it hasn’t been in contact with Moya,” he finished, nodding as the information emerged from his memory.  “Would we be able to pick up the residue if it disintegrated?” 

“I’m more concerned by the fact that they left early.  The …”  Aeryn leaned closer to the readouts, peering at an anomaly in the returns.  “There it is, but it’s out of place.  It’s at the far end of the planet’s orbital path.”  John looked over her shoulder at her readout and then adjusted the ship’s controls, heading for the point she was indicating.  The ship arced away from the course that had been taking it closer to the nondescript planet where she’d agreed to meet Moya, veering toward the far side of the solar system. 

“Maybe they didn’t set it right and it fell behind as the planet moved,” he suggested, trying to come up with a reason for the misplaced beacon. 

“We’ll know in a microt,” Aeryn answered, still working at the sensor console.  “It’s still powered.  I should be able to get a signal.” 

John watched the slim fingers dancing on the panel, deftly altering their receivers and adjusting the outgoing pulse that would activate the recorded message.  There had been a time when Aeryn would have sneered at performing a technical task of that sort, her ability to adapt and learn buried under the cycles of mindless training.  She glanced at him as the silence lengthened, catching his gaze with her own.  “You’re good at that,” he observed.  He enjoyed watching her no matter what she did. 

Aeryn spared a hand to cup his jaw, slowly stroking one cheekbone with her thumb.  “I’ve missed you so much,” she whispered, her smile struggling against a sudden glistening of tears. 

John caught the hand and turned into the grasp, lightly kissing her palm.  “Get back to work, woman.  I want a shower and a shave.”  Aeryn let the hand linger another microt, then went back to her task.  “It’s going to be odd,” he added a moment later, gazing out the forward view screen. 

“Being aboard Moya again?”  He nodded, counting on her peripheral vision to pick up the motion.  “Got it,” she announced triumphantly.  “Let’s see where they’ve gone.” 

“Aeryn … if you … this …”  The transmission crackled and hissed, breaking into unintelligible fragments. 

“Frell,” she muttered.  “Let me try again.” 

D’Argo’s voice boomed out of the speakers and she reached to turn the volume down.  “Aeryn, if you get this message … RUN!  There’s a command carrier entering the system.  It hasn’t come after us yet, but we’ve hidden on the far side of the outer planet.  Get out of there, Aeryn!  They’re going into orbit on the dark side of --”

John slammed the throttles open and veered the small craft away from the beacon, hands cradling the controls with tender attention, nudging the already screaming engines as though he could get more power out of them. 

“--the third planet,” D’Argo’s recording continued, and Aeryn leaned across John’s shoulders to reach the right side of his panel, reconfiguring the nav displays to show the relative positions of the planets. 

“There,” she pointed to the outer planet, helping him find his trajectory.  The small craft spun and rolled, headed toward where they hoped they would find Moya.  The recording finished with another plea for them to escape, and began to repeat itself.  Aeryn leaned to her left and slapped a switch, shutting the noise off.  “Maximum velocity?”

“Hetch seven,” he snapped.  “I wasn’t lying about that part.  Check for the carrier.” 

“No sign of it yet.  No smaller craft, no patrols.”  Aeryn licked her lips nervously, leaning toward John with one hand on his shoulder as the stars crawled with painful slowness across the screen.  “How long to get to the outer planet?” she asked. 

He looked down, made an adjustment.  “An arn on the best trajectory, a quarter arn more to come in behind it at the right angle … assuming Moya’s back there.”  John glanced at her several times, shifting just his eyes.  “Aeryn …”  He shook his head, asking her to dismiss his aborted statement. 

“John, if you’ve got something on your mind, this is the wrong moment to hold back,” she warned him. 

“It’s been a long time since I had these folks on my ass, Aeryn.  I’m not sure I can stand doing this again.”  He nudged the power controls again, a futile motion that appeared to be more a nervous reaction than an actual attempt to increase their speed.  “Running was tough, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as getting caught.” 

“We haven’t been caught yet.  D’Argo may have given us the margin we …”  A screen in front of her began blinking.  “Here they come,” she announced.  “Twelve Prowlers.  The carrier is emerging from behind the planet.  They’ve seen us.” 

“Twelve Prowlers?” John repeated, his voice rising to a near shout.  “Don’t these people understand the concept of overkill?  How long before they reach us?” 

“Prowlers in just under three hundred microts, the carrier will take less than half an arn to catch us.”  She punched a circuit on the communications panel.  “D’Argo?  Pilot?” 

“Aeryn!” D’Argo’s voice answered immediately.  “Did you get away?  Pilot tried to place the beacon to draw you away from them.” 

“No, we didn’t.  We can’t get to you in time.  Get out of here.”  She checked to her right.  John was nodding, agreeing with her advice. 

“You said ‘we’?” Chiana’s voice drowned out D’Argo’s. 

“Yes.  John is with me,” she informed them, the admission bringing a lump to her throat.  “I found him.”   

“Hey, Crichton,” Chiana greeted him.  “We’ve missed you.” 

“Missed you too, Pip,” he transmitted back.  “Guys, I hate to greet and run, but get the hell out of here.  They’ve got us for sure.  Pilot, Moya, I’m sorry I won’t get to see you again, but starburst out of here before they decide to send some ships after you.” 

“John,” D’Argo’s voice growled over the communications channel.  “We’ll come to get you.  If Aeryn docks manually perhaps Moya can starburst in time.”   

“We’re too far away, and there are too many of them.  Get to safety,” Aeryn interjected, confirming John’s decision.  “D’Argo, if by some chance we manage to get free, we’ll head for one of the other meet points.” 

“Sorry I took so long getting back here, big guy,” John called.  Aeryn’s panel began beeping, the alarm increasing its cadence as the displayed targets drew closer.  “Uh, we got to go folks.  Our visitors are going to be knocking on the door in just a bit.” 

“John, Aeryn …” D’Argo tried one last time. 

“We know, D’Argo.  Now get out of here.”  Aeryn punched the circuit and the cockpit was quiet except for the rhythmic chirp of the muted alarm.  “Rhotarri drive?” she suggested into the almost silence. 

“I ripped the wiring right out when I connected the hetch drive,” he reminded her.  “I’m a frelling idiot!” John barked, banging his fist against the console.  "If I had built that circuitry correctly we wouldn’t be in this jam.”   

“No one could have foreseen this,” Aeryn chided gently.  “You thought you were never leaving that planet.”  The frequency of the alarm was increasing, shifting into an almost constant wail.

“Can you shut that thing off?  We know they’re coming,” John snapped at her.  The sound stopped.  “Sorry.” 

“It’s all right,” she forgave him.  “The Prowlers will catch us in … a little under two hundred microts.  They’re signaling.  Come to a stop, do not power our weapons, prepare to be taken aboard the command carrier …” 

“Blah, blah, blah,” John finished.  “Same old Peacekeeper dren.  Any reason to keep running?”  She shook her head, and he pulled the throttles back.  “Save getting blasted to bits before they take us aboard.  How long for the carrier to get here now that we’ve stopped?”  Aeryn leaned to the left so he could look past her.  “Real quick,” he determined.  John swiveled his chair to face her, taking both her hands in his and leaning forward to rest his forehead against hers.   

“We’ll find a way out of this,” she assured him.  “We always have in the past.  We can do it again.”   John shook his head, rocking it against hers.  “Yes we can, John.” 

“No one has ever gotten their hands on me and you at the same time, Aeryn.  If they want all the goodies, all they have to do is threaten you and I’ll give them everything they want.  Everything.  It’s still all inside my head.”  He ran a lock of her hair through his fingers. 

“What are you thinking of doing?” she demanded, recognizing the look on his face.  He dropped his head to stare at the floor.  “No.” 

“I’ll space myself.  At least that way you’ll have a chance, Aeryn.  Maybe you can convince them --” 

“No.  Absolutely not.  We’ll find another way.”  She pulled out of his grasp and began pacing around the cockpit, examining every bit of equipment for options.  “If only your suit had a heater, we could set you adrift and have D’Argo pick you up.” 

“We could try it,” he agreed willingly.  “I’ve survived worse.”  She was already shaking her head though.  “All right, I’d freeze to death before they get to me, but how about you?  Sebaceans can stand more than humans.”  John’s voice began rising in desperation.  “Aeryn, I can handle them getting me as long as they don’t have you.  Maybe we could hide you so … what?” 

“I’m the frelling idiot,” she proclaimed, already ducking out of the cockpit.  John glanced at the screens, noting that the command carrier was almost within range.  They had three or four hundred microts left at best before they were pulled inside one of its vast hangars.  He watched the small specks representing the Prowlers spin around their position for several microts, then reached down and slowly snapped the power supply off.  The console’s readouts blinked once before fading out. 

“What’s your idea?” he asked Aeryn, stepping through the hatch and sliding past the door to the living quarters.  She was rummaging frantically through her gear bags, much of her clothing already strewn across the floor.  He sat down on the edge of the bed, watching with growing curiosity as she continued to search through the jumble of gear.   

“I’m sure I brought it with me,” she muttered, up to her elbows in the bag.  A look of triumph replaced the tension and she pulled a flimsy black garment out of the bottom of the disorder.  “Do you have a knife of any type?” she asked, sliding her feet, boots and all, into the legs of the piece of clothing.  John shook his head, still baffled by her excitement.  “I’ll have to get one on my own,” she concluded.

“Pulse pistol,” he offered. 

The blue-gray eyes gleamed with amusement.  “I have one,” she reminded him.  John ducked his head in embarrassment, watching as she pulled the odd coverall over the holstered weapon.  “I’m going to need something quieter,” she explained. 

Aeryn shrugged her arms into the shimmering cloth, tugged it over her shoulders, and began fastening the front.  Now that it was on, he could see that there was a hood and another flap that he thought might fasten across the face.  It was an all inclusive, full-body suit.  “Aeryn, what are you planning?” John asked.  He reached to finger the cloth, making sure that it wasn’t some new type of spacesuit.  The fabric slid greasily between his fingers, with a metallic whisper that he hadn’t expected.  “What’s your plan?” 

She went down on her knees in front of where he was sitting on the bed.  “You’re going to have to trust me, John.  We’ve only had nine days together.  Can you trust me?”  He nodded, frowning slightly at the intensity in her voice.  “I’m going to disappear.  This is a stealth suit.” 

“For assassination,” he suggested.

“Covert operations and reconnaissance,” she countered.  “The Peacekeepers don’t have this technology so they may not expect this.”  Aeryn got up, moving to sit next to him, pressing against him shoulder to shoulder during their last few microts together.  “We don’t know who is aboard that carrier, but I’m going to assume it isn’t going to be easy for you.  You hang on no matter what.”  He nodded, staring down at his hands.  “John, you have to believe this.  No matter what happens I will not abandon you aboard that ship.  Don’t let them convince you that it’s hopeless.  Until you see my body, unless they drag my dead body in front of you, you keep believing that I’m going to get you out.  I don’t care what they do to you, don’t you stop believing that I’m aboard that ship somewhere working to get you free.  Can you do that?” 

John’s head came up during her plea, watching her eyes as she finished the assurances, his look of desperation replaced by something more confident, something more certain.  “I can do that, Aeryn.”  The small ship lurched, throwing them against each other.  John hugged her fiercely.  “You stay safe while you’re creeping around,” he told her, burying his face in her hair for several microts. 

“Don’t you forget what I told you,” she responded, then pulled away slowly, giving him time to let go of her.  “We don’t have much time.” 

“Not enough for a quickie, hunh?” he kidded, the strain of the moment leaching his small joke of all humor.   He straightened up and looked around the living quarters.  “We’d better do something about your stuff.  Wouldn’t want the Peacekeepers thinking I’m a cross dresser.”  They knelt together, hurriedly shoving her clothing back into the two gear bags and fastening them shut. 

“Where?” she asked succinctly.  “If we jettison them, they’ll pick it up on their scans.”   

“Inside the engine nacelles.  They may find them eventually, but it’ll give you a head start.” 

John grabbed both bags and shuffled into the rear of the cargo area.  The ship settled with an ominous creaking just as he finished securing the inner panel back into place.  When he turned, Aeryn was standing behind him, the hood in place but the mask hanging to one side.  She looked down for a moment, fiddling with something at her waist, and then everything disappeared except her face. 

“Any idea how you’re going to do this?” he asked.  Fear uncurled in his stomach, expanding with an implied promise that it would take up permanent residence there. 

“The less you know the better.”  Aeryn’s disembodied face floated closer, the dark eyes wide with her concern for him.  A ghostly hand touched his cheek, slid behind his head to pull him toward her, and then she kissed him.  “Don’t be stupid, don’t be a hero.  Just hang on.  It may take several days.”  She stared into his eyes.  “I love you.” 

“I love you,” John whispered back.  The cockpit hatch groaned as it was opened from the outside.  “Time for you to disappear,” he ordered.  “I’ll go welcome the guests.”  She let go of him as he glanced toward the front of the craft and when he looked back Aeryn was gone.  “Be safe.” 

“Be strong,” the muffled voice emanated out of thin air. 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 2

A crowd of techs swept out of an open doorway, turning in Aeryn’s direction.  She bit down on a curse and allowed herself to be herded by the mass of bodies, checking over her shoulder periodically for an opportunity to reverse course and head back the way she’d come.  The laughing group spanned the corridor from side to side, leaving no room for her to ease past them.  The stealth suit continued to work perfectly, allowing her to move around the carrier with complete impunity, but crowded corridors such as this one presented the single hazard of bumping into someone physically. 

She approached an intersection and spared a longer look behind her, hoping for some indication as to which way they were going to turn.  The group was caught up in a boisterous discussion of technological trivia however, apparently following a familiar route by habit, so she resorted to taking the right hand turning simply because she was on that side of the corridor and it kept her close to the wall. 

The group went past her, continuing straight through the junction of hallways, and she spun around, heading back to the largest of the ship’s planetary terrain reconstructions.  She was tired, thirsty and hungry, and hadn’t found a safe location to sit down for more than a few microts in almost ten arns.  The trees and shrubs in the terrain setting offered some cover and an excuse for a fall if someone tripped over her invisible body.  In addition, although it wasn’t particularly palatable, she knew that the water in the small lake contained nothing harmful if she chose to drink it. 

She crouched by the entrance to the artificial habitat, scanning up and down the corridor as she waited for someone else to pass through the doors:  the only way for her to enter without raising suspicion.  The double doors slid open and she froze as a double line of young cadets began filing out, marching in precision.  One youngster lagged behind, marginally understandable since his patches indicated that he was not yet six cycles old, and the cadre leader yelled at him to catch up.  Eyes wide with alarm, the boy ran after his unit, falling into step with an ease born of practice. 

Aeryn smiled inside the hood as she slid around the corner, continuing to hug the wall.  When she was that age, the barracks leaders had tried to scare her unit with the tale of Cholak’s demon, a bloodthirsty creature that supposedly snatched and devoured lagging cadets, leaving no trace of their bodies.  The idea of a monster had been fascinating, but as with the small soldier she had just seen, the more immediate prospect of being punished for substandard performance had been a far more terrifying threat.

The parkland was nearly empty -- just a few adults wandering along the water and no sign of inquisitive children.  Aeryn straightened up, indulging in a normal gait for the first time in arns, confident that the suit would hide her as she stepped through some bushes and entered the small stand of trees.  She let out a sigh as she moved into the midst of the tiny forest, relaxing even more once she was out of sight of the handful of officers.  She found a small area of bare ground at the base of a tree and sat down, leaning against the rough trunk and closing her eyes. 

She’d accomplished very little so far, her reconnaissance of the ship revealing no weakness in the security that she thought could be manipulated to help John escape.  Despite everything she had told him, she knew that their chances of getting off the carrier alive diminished with every passing arn.  John undergoing some sort of interrogation was a certainty; torture was a reasonable assumption. Peacekeeper interrogation techniques were designed to achieve a complete physical breakdown in three to five solar days, luxans providing the only reliable exception to that standard.  The Aurora Chair would achieve that end much sooner.

When John had been imprisoned on the Gammak Base, they’d held him for less than two solar days, by which time he was almost too exhausted to make the climb out of the underground levels.  He was a stronger person now, she reasoned, experienced in the techniques of interrogation and more accustomed to physical brutality.  It might give her one more day’s leeway before his physical condition decayed to the point where he wouldn’t be able to move.  Three days was her time limit then, four at the outside.  After that, she assumed they would both die in the attempt to escape.  But she would not leave him here, no matter what the cost. 

Aeryn opened her eyes, focusing on the greenery overhead instead of the imagined horrors she envisioned John enduring.  Standing aside impotently while several burly security officers dragged him out of the ship had violated every instinct her training had ever instilled in her.  She’d decided in advance that leaving the ship immediately was the safest course of action, and had hurried down the steps from the cockpit while they were still bouncing under the weight of the guards.  A quick leap had gotten her off the flexing surface before the last man had stepped down, and she’d lain flat on the deck, nearly eye-to-eye with John as he was flung sprawling across the metal hangar floor.

She’d been a scant three motras away from him, hugging one of the landing struts, when the personnel in the hangar had gone silent at the entrance of a group of officers.  The sight of the commanding officer stepping away from the group had generated no pleasure though, other than the small relief that John would not have to face Scorpius one more time.   

“John Crichton.”  The silky, confident voice had broken the chilled atmosphere of the hangar.  Commandant Mele-On Grayza stalked toward him, trailed by two of her personal guard.  “Perhaps you remember me.” 

John watched her advance from his spot on the floor, not bothering to get up.  “Yeah.  I remember a couple of things,” he mumbled, eyeing first Grayza and then the larger group of black uniforms waiting several motras away. 

“You have eluded us for too long.  It has taken too many of our resources to track you down.”

“Does the phrase ‘Give it a rest’ mean anything to you?” he asked sarcastically.  “It’s been two cycles since that little accident with your boat.  Get over it.”  Aeryn winced as a guard stepped toward him, raising his pulse rifle for a blow.  This was why she’d told him not to be stupid.

“Stop!” the order echoed clearly in the cavernous hangar.  “I want John Crichton unharmed.”  Aeryn relaxed slightly, using the brief moment of suspended violence to scan her surroundings, looking for the least busy route out of the hangar.  Colliding with another person was the only way they would know she was on board until they came across her belongings in the engine nacelle -- taking the usual route out past the security checkpoint was too risky, requiring that she pass through an area perpetually crowded with personnel. 

She looked back and John was still lying on the floor, his head propped up on one hand, elbow resting on the floor, with one of his most irritating looks of arrogant impudence in place.  Aeryn shook her head, aware that his uncaring attitude was an act, a way of controlling his fear, but also aware that it would invite the guards to treat him more harshly.  As she watched, he was pulled roughly to his feet and his hands shackled behind his back. 

“Small accident,” Mele-On Grayza repeated slowly, moving close enough that John took an involuntary step back before stopping himself.  “Boat.”  She circled him.  “You were responsible for destroying a command carrier.  You will pay for that … after I am done with you.” 

The muscles in the back of his neck tensed, tendons standing out clearly, but John held his ground as she returned to the overly close position in front of him.  Aeryn smiled and nodded unseen, pride replacing the thought-fragmenting concern for him.  She recognized the small signals his body was giving off, and knew that he was afraid -- rightfully so since he was facing the possibility of being put back in the Aurora Chair -- but the stiff shoulders and infinitesimally cocked head meant that he had mastered his fear and had prepared himself to face whatever lay ahead. 

“All this because I pointed a gun at you,” John said after several microts of silence.  “I really have got to stop doing that.” 

“That was the least of your crimes,” Grayza responded, stepping away from him.  “But it is a good place to start.  Bring him.”  She gestured to the guards and he was alternately shoved and dragged toward the checkpoint and the exit.  Aeryn watched the group disappear, then headed toward a doorway leading into a maintenance compound.  She wanted to follow him, to learn where he was going to be held and make sure that he was all right, but the risk was too great.  The rescue, however she was going to accomplish that, and all of its logistics had to come first, even before her own need to learn what lay ahead for John. 

None of the security personnel wandering the hangar noticed the infinitesimal distortion that dodged two grease-smeared techs, then drifted into the maze of storerooms, repair shops and tech labs, efficiently categorizing where certain items could be found. 

Her first foray deeper into the carrier had taken her on a search for some sort of weapon, the quest made more difficult because even if she found a weapon of some sort, she had to be sure that no one was around before picking it up.  The sight of an object floating through midair would baffle even the most dull-minded grot for less than five microts.  The Peacekeepers didn’t have stealth suits, but they were aware of the light-bending technology, and would recognize the phenomenon for what it was. 

She’d located an armory where a supply of knives lying in a jumble had invited theft, but two officers had entered just as she was preparing to hide one inside the suit, and she’d retreated when they settled down to conduct an inventory.  In the ensuing arns she’d managed to locate the Aurora Chair in an enclosure two levels below the detention cells, and had also come across a tech reprogramming a door lock outside a monitoring control room.  She’d held her breath and leaned over his shoulder to memorize the codes he was using.  If she could steal the necessary equipment, the string of numerals would allow her to program her own palm print into any lock aboard the carrier.

Quiet laughter broke into her review of the situation, two voices intertwining as they moved closer to where she was sitting.  A man and a woman wandered through the trees, talking quietly and holding hands.  Aeryn watched them initially as a precaution.  When they moved off through the trees her attention remained fixed on the pair in response to a sharp pang of jealousy.  They bumped against each other comfortably as they wove through the growth, and were spending more time looking into each other’s eyes than they were watching their feet, resulting in a great deal of stumbling and crashing into bushes.  There never seemed to be enough time for her and John to do that sort of thing.  The nine-day idyll aboard the small prototype ship had been an anomaly in their lives, and it had been all too brief. 

She surveyed the couple with more interest once she noticed that the woman was almost exactly her own height and build, and the man was marginally taller than John.  Aeryn got to her feet and floated along behind them, using their own smashing noises to cover her quieter passage as she drew close.  The pair was as perfect a match physically for her and John as she could hope for, chance putting two uniforms within her reach in a secluded, unmonitored location. 

The pair stopped, looked around, and then laid down, still talking and laughing as they set aside some of their outer garments.  Aeryn watched for a few microts, then turned and worked her way back toward the expanse of grass, abandoning the idea of taking the uniforms.  It would mean killing them both.  They would be missed and their bodies discovered far too soon -- long before she was ready to free John.  It was unfortunate, but she would have to find uniforms somewhere else once she had the rest the escape arranged. 

She took a last look at the simulated sunlight and green grass, thinking of the day she had stood in a nearly identical place with John.  She had called him ‘Crichton’ then and could barely stand to look at him, never meeting the eyes that reminded her too much of the other one.  That day she’d only been able to see what had been lost, instead of focusing on the second chance that a quirk of fate and Jool’s pathetic piloting had delivered to her. 

“Why?” she whispered to herself.  Why had she turned away from him?  Why had she wasted all that time?  It seemed so reasonable back then, the pain demanding that she never let anyone become that important to her ever again.  She hadn’t anticipated that the tiny discomfort of leaving John would grow over time into an agony far greater than the prospect of losing him again.   

Aeryn settled onto one knee near the doors, rubbing her forehead through the slick cloth of the hood as she waited for someone to enter or exit.  The smooth slide of the fabric across her skin reminded her that she was lucky to have a fourth generation version of the technology.  The earlier models were uncomfortable, and more critically for a sebacean, they were hot.  This one was cool, lightweight, and didn’t retain moisture like the earlier versions, meaning she could wear it for as long as it took to get free. 

She scanned her surroundings as she waited by the exit.  She was alone now, apparently having chosen a time when the landscape got little use, which might explain why the two officers had decided to recreate in such a public place.  Aeryn went back to considering how she was going to get John free, starting with where she might be able to hide a body when she finally chose to acquire a uniform or a weapon.  What she really needed was to be able to make the bodies simply disappear, increasing the interval before anyone confirmed that the officers were actually missing. 

An officer who missed a duty period faced severe penalties, but it did occur on rare occasions.  A missing officer would give them time; a dead body would generate a security lock-down that even a ghost would have trouble negotiating.

What she needed was for Cholak’s demon to come and take the bodies away, leaving behind no sign of the devoured victims.  Aeryn grinned inside the suit, thinking of that fable and how little it had frightened her.  A few of the cadets in her unit had believed it though, hurrying to stay with their cadre and lying awake in fear at night.  The barracks leader had been ordered to stop using the monster to instill obedience once Training Command discovered that even disciplined and regimented children could be frightened by the prospect of the supernatural.  Aeryn’s head came up and she turned to look at the park behind her, some small portion of her mental wanderings triggering an idea. 

She knew where she could hide the bodies. 

The second largest logistical problem had been solved, and if there was anyone on board this carrier who had ever been frightened by Cholak’s demon, she might even instill a small number of the ship’s compliment with a miniscule amount of uncertainty.  “Forgive me,” she offered quietly, apologizing as much to John as to any listening deity for what she was about to do.  Aeryn Sun, no longer an assassin but willing to do anything to save John Crichton, ran silently toward the trees to procure two uniforms and to let a myth loose on the command carrier. 

   * * * * *

Crichton rolled onto his back and tried to pull the black shimmering sheet over his body, the drifting air chilling him as the sweat slowly evaporated.  Grayza’s quiet chuckle generated an additional shiver along his spine as she pulled the covers out of his grasp. 

“That won’t be necessary,” her voice slid across him like one of her touches, generating another stomach churning wave of revulsion.  “Drink this,” she instructed, sliding alongside him with a wide-mouthed flask in her hand. 

“Eye of newt, wing of bat?  I don’t think so.”  John pulled away from her, his attempt to roll to the far side of the wide bed turning into an exhausted facedown sprawl as his arms slid out from under him.  “What the frell did you do to me?”  Her hand wandered up and down his back, and he closed his eyes, shuddering under her touch.  The insane, overwhelming desire to touch and be touched by the Commandant had faded at last, leaving him sickened and confused.  He assumed he’d been drugged, but he hadn’t eaten or drunk anything since being taken prisoner, nor had he been injected.  This was not the torture he’d expected, and a piece of him longed for a nice, simple beating.   

When they’d towed him out of the hangar, he had expected to be hauled straight off to the Aurora Chair, but the following arns had been free of any overt abuse.  They’d started by escorting him to a medical facility where he’d been scanned, poked and prodded for several arns.  When he’d been announced fit, healthy and without defects, he’d assumed the rough stuff was going to begin and had again braced himself for the mind-frelling of the Chair.  His expectations were given another good jolt when they’d herded him into a starkly bare cell and left him alone. 

Arns of restless pacing yielded nothing more than sore wrists from the chafing of the binders and a pair of mildly tired feet.  He eventually realized that they’d already started the psychological games, allowing the uncertainty to work on him before starting in with something more direct.  It was a simple yet effective method to soften him up.  The binders made it impossible to get comfortable lying down, so he settled for sitting cross-legged on the hard metal slab that passed for a bunk, anticipating that as soon as he relaxed they would start the next phase.

As expected, within two hundred microts the guards appeared to shove him through the maze of corridors.  He let them propel him forward without resisting, focusing inwardly on the ordeal ahead, committing to memory what it felt like to have a body that didn’t shriek and throb with pain.  He closed his eyes as he was dragged forward and used the time to build a mental wall around every thought concerning Aeryn and her present activities.  He wasn’t sure how he’d blocked the agonizing invasions of the Chair the last time, but the stakes were even higher now and he had to assume that he would need to hold out longer.  A Stykera could survive over one hundred sessions in the Aurora Chair.  Crichton wondered how many a human could endure before turning into a slobbering, gibbering idiot.

A door rolled aside.  He opened his eyes as he was thrust into a senior officer’s living quarters -- another surprise.  John took two more steps on his own, then stopped, waiting to see what was going to happen next.  The guards removed the manacles, then stomped out of the chamber.  The surroundings were familiar, similar to the quarters Scorpius had occupied on the destroyed command carrier. 

There were a few minor differences.  The bed, which was three times as large as the scarran half-breed’s and lacked the temperature stabilization equipment, was located on the upper level this time, the desk with the inlaid displays and control circuitry was on the lower level near the door, and a sybaritic bath was over to the right, also on the upper level. 

He wandered further into the room, rubbing his wrists as he remembered the last time he’d been in a chamber like this one.  He’d stood facing Scorpius that time, his body aching from head to foot from the clobbering he’d taken during the fight in the generator room.  Grayza had been behind that assassination attempt, using him to get to Scorpius.  John wondered what information she was after this time.  She’d ridiculed wormhole technology two cycles ago, but time could change anyone’s attitudes.  He’d wandered about her quarters as he’d waited, increasingly apprehensive about the inexplicably gentle treatment. 

“Tell me what you’re thinking about,” Grayza whispered into his ear, drawing him away from his thoughts.  One finger stroked him along his neck behind his earlobe and he pulled away from her with a jerk.  He knew how he’d gotten here, sprawled naked and depleted on the soft, expansive playground, but that didn’t explain why he’d done what he’d just done or why he’d felt like he was enjoying it.  Crichton crawled toward the edge of the bed, on the verge of vomiting.   

When he’d prepared himself mentally to ‘hang on’ as Aeryn had exhorted him, he’d envisioned the pain and mental violation of the Aurora Chair, assuming that no beating or physical torture could exceed that double agony.  The events he hadn’t prepared himself for were the arrival of Grayza, the slow verbal sparring followed by her moving close and drawing her fingers across his lips in a not quite seductive manner, or for the complete and total loss of control, both mental and physical.   

It had been Grayza who had slowed his hands as he fought to pull the clothes from their bodies, the overly solicitous commandant who had guided him to the oversized bed, the ice-blue eyed interrogator who had slowed his feverish grasping and thrusting, guiding his body as she whispered questions into his ear.  It had been Grayza controlling every move, allowing him to satiate himself bit by bit as he relinquished one piece of information after another into her care.  In the end it was Grayza who encouraged his arousal in order to draw one more fact out of him -- and then another, and then another, and another.  Until he lay panting and exhausted, rational thought returning to him one breath at a time to reveal that he’d told her about every experience from the moment he’d watched Moya slide into a wormhole until the day he’d met Gallenn for the first time.

John lay at the side of the bed, stared dully into space, and prayed that his nausea would turn into full-blown puking, an outward expression of his inward self-loathing. 

“You will need this if we are to continue,” Grayza encouraged him, pulling at his shoulder.  “Drink this and then we can begin again.” 

“Over my dead body,” John mumbled, trying to find the energy to get to his feet.  Whatever she had done to him, it was finally wearing off, leaving him sapped of strength but in control of his words and actions.   

“Not yet, but that’s a possibility if you don’t provide your body with fluids and nutrients.”  Her grasp was stronger this time, yanking him violently onto his back where a knee pinned his arm, eliminating the possibility of rolling away from her a second time. 

John scowled up at her, any conjecture of how she had gotten him to act this way fleeing before the humiliation of lying naked before the Peacekeeper officer.  “What did you do to me?” he repeated.  “How did you make me do that?”   

Grayza looked away from him, gazing distractedly into space as she lightly fingered her chest between her breasts, a calm contemplative look suggesting that she was considering his question.  She rested the hand holding the flask on the soft surface and leaned over him, fingering his lips, running her thumb slowly along the curve of his upper lip as she gazed into his eyes.  Crichton jerked away from the oily, overly sweet odor, involuntarily inhaling as the scent bit at the back of his sinuses.  The familiar fragrance signaled the destruction of his willpower. 

“Nnn …”  He’d meant to say ‘no’ as he recognized both the scent and the beginnings of its affects, the knowledge insufficient to stop the recurrence of his waking nightmare.  His head was filled with the fumes, each breath spurring another fast intake.  It spun into his mind like a whirlwind, loosened his brain from the attachments holding it in place, and spun out again, taking reason with it.   

Mindless desire flooded into the vacuum, the heat of the specialized insanity flooding through his body until the hottest part of it came to rest between his legs.  Her voice was inside his head, magically entering without first touching his ears, and this time he drank from the flask when he was told to because he knew that if he did, that she would let him … that he could … that there would be the heat and the passion … the physical ecstasy.  The answers would be a small price to pay as long as she permitted him to satisfy his growing hunger with her body. 

Crichton gathered Mele-On Grayza into his arms, rolled them over and over, aware of little else than the softness of her body against his, her warmth, the grappling arms, the desire to do whatever she wanted of him, and deep inside where she couldn’t reach his basic essence, he screamed and screamed at what she was doing to him. 

   * * * * *

Aeryn drifted back and forth behind the officers manning the control room for the detention block.  She watched and remembered -- memorizing the layout, learning the door codes, and watching for any piece of information that would tell her which cell was John’s and where he was at that moment.  She’d just come from the level where the Aurora Chair was located, relieved to find no sign of him, but was concerned because he wasn’t in any of the holding cells either. 

Her initial relief that John didn’t have to face Scorpius had given way to a deep foreboding.  Mele-On Grayza had been on the verge of removing the scarran half-breed from his command when they’d destroyed his carrier two cycles earlier, demonstrating a level of power within the Peacekeepers even greater than Scorpius’.  No officer, regardless of politics or specialty, rose to that level without demonstrating total ruthlessness.  If they hadn’t placed John in the Aurora Chair, it suggested that he was facing something even worse.  She revised her time scale downward, committing herself to working faster, finding a solution in less time.

Half an arn in the control room had provided several security codes that would be useful over the next few days, and a look at a duty roster that showed a miniscule gap in the daily schedule when there was only one officer on duty during a shift change in the middle of this sector’s sleep-cycle.  She started to rub one arm, an unconscious habit, but stopped herself before the slither of fabric on fabric gave her away. 

One of the officers punched idly at a button, scrolling through the views of the cells again and again without even looking at the video images.  He only seemed interested in seeing how fast he could depress the button, striving to exceed the measured pace of the change to the monitor.  His mindless repetition was another miraculous gift. 

Aeryn watched the flickering views without trying to focus on each one, allowing her subconscious to evaluate the nearly subliminal images.  After twenty microts she saw an image of a prisoner flicker by that she’d seen earlier, which meant that the series was repeating itself and that John wasn’t in any of the cells.  They must have started the interrogations, but there was nothing she could do about that, and nothing in the control room indicated where he had been taken.  She stuck her head out of the open door, checked both ways before stepping into the corridor, and went in search of the next requirement of her developing plan. 

   * * * * *

Mele-On Grayza straddled the inert body, alternating between stroking the sweat soaked hair at his temples and daubing several long scratches on his back with a disinfectant compound.  “Explain the drive system to me,” she urged, continuing a line of questioning that so far hadn’t produced an intelligible answer.  “Start with the components of the engine.”  Crichton flinched as she swabbed a deeper gash, but remained silent.  “List the components necessary to make the system work,” she said more forcefully. 

“You need … ”  He trailed off into a long sigh. 

“List the components,” she ordered into his ear, spacing her words out. 

John opened his eyes, staring into space.  “Flour … milk … butter … eggs …” 

“What are these things?  Explain,” she demanded loudly, abandoning the seductive tones.

“Baking powder.  Can’t have … biscuits without it,” he finished, the syllables slurred by the pressure of his face against the pillow. 

Grayza let out a noise of frustration, the snarling exclamation revealing that the session had yielded fewer results than she’d hoped.  She jostled his shoulders, watching as the body beneath her slopped from side to side, showing a complete lack of muscle tension.  “Crichton, we need to begin again,” she urged, leaning closer.  He answered with a quiet snore. 

“Perhaps a short recuperation is warranted,” she told the senseless human.  “An arn or two and then we’ll start again.” 

   * * * * *

Aeryn drifted along behind a technician, silence and patience feeling more natural after nearly twenty arns of movement around the ship.  She didn’t want to attack this non-combatant, but she was in desperate need of the food the man was carrying.  The constant, moderate exercise was draining her energy, and the giddy sensation that said her body required fuel was a constant companion now.  The idea of killing this man solely for a meal was repugnant, and she’d almost let him walk away from her, but her stomach had grumbled at that precise moment, issuing a clearly audible reminder of what was a stake.  John’s life rested on her fitness.  She would have to set aside her reluctance to kill for plate of rations, and do what was necessary. 

This portion of the ship was a long distance from any of the planetary terrain enclosures where she was concealing the bodies, but she had figured out how to resolve that problem before she begun watching the exit from the commissary for a potential target. 

The tech turned down a narrower corridor, picking at the food on his tray, and activated the door sensor to his quarters with his elbow.  He moved inside slowly, distracted by his meal, never noticing the rippling distortion or the small breeze that moved inside with him. 

   * * * * *

“The good news is, it’s not the Aurora Chair,” Crichton mumbled to himself as he tried to sit up.  Fatigue spun the metal-walled cell around him in a lazy loop and he pitched over on his side.  “Bad news is … I think this is worse.”  He tucked his knees against his chest and pulled the thin covers over his shoulders, failing to get all of his legs under the small square of insulation.  He’d been nine tenths asleep when the guards had wrestled him into his coveralls and carried him out of Grayza’s quarters, but there’d been enough awareness left for him to hear and remember her orders. 

“He is not to be harmed in any way.  Lower the temperature in his cell until he has trouble sleeping, then raise it one degree.  Bring him back here in four arns.” 

“Death by degrees,” John said out loud, then snickered at the unintended pun.  The temperature hadn’t dropped to freezing, but it was close, preventing him from falling into a deep sleep.  Grayza’s orders, issued when she thought he was unconscious, had revealed that she intended to pick away at his stamina gradually until he only had enough energy left to answer her questions, all  reason lost to exhaustion and whatever drug she was using on him.  John closed his eyes and tried to go to sleep despite the cold, his body crying for rest.  Knowing what they were doing to him wasn’t going to stop it from happening; it would only increase the mental anguish as the exhaustion increased and he slowly lost the ability to control his responses.       

“You hang on,” Aeryn whispered into his ear, her tone implying that he wasn’t. 

“I am,” he objected, waking as the mumbled words spilled out of his mouth.  He lectured himself to stop talking out loud, afraid that he would utter Aeryn’s name in his sleep.  John closed his eyes and tried again, the cold chill of the metal slab fading as he slid away. 

“You have to trust me, John.  Can you do that?”  Aeryn knelt beside him, the hood of the stealth suit thrown back, her hair cascading across the silvery fabric. 

“Yes.  I trust you.”  He jerked awake again, the sound of his own voice in his ears.  “Stop that,” he ordered himself, and burrowed back into the comfort of unconsciousness. 

“John, wake up and talk to me for a microt.”  She was sitting next to him, bugging him when he would prefer to sleep. 

“Leave me …”  John raised himself far enough to shake his head, trying to make the full transition from sleep to waking this time.  The cold was holding him in a not quite waking state where his subconscious reigned but his body continued to receive enough signals to participate in the imagined conversations.  This was just as dangerous as the sweaty slime that Grayza had used on him in her quarters.   

He laid down again, thinking about how he could keep Aeryn safe, how he could keep his mouth from blurting out his most vital secret whenever he went to sleep.  “Help me,” he whispered to her, not caring if the surveillance devices picked up the generic plea.  “Show me how.”  Sleep claimed him before he could find an answer. 

“What does that taste like?

“Yesterday.”

“Well, no one can compete with that!  I am so much better off dead.”

He had the answer.  John sat up this time, the only way he could ensure that he was truly awake.  He wrapped the thin covers around his shoulders before squirming to sit with his back against the wall.  Rocking helped him stay alert as he closed his eyes intentionally and took himself back to the moment that his brief dream had recreated for him.  The emotions were still available -- deeply buried but just as raw and painful as the day it had happened.  Nine days of reconciliation hadn’t been enough to temper that hurt. 

He rocked back and forward, and wallowed in the memory, trying to smell Moya’s maintenance bay, hear her noises around him as he stood with the loneliness coursing through him, and watched the coin flip end over end, hearing Aeryn’s rejection as clearly as if it had happened just … yesterday. 

“What?  Like that side you stay?”

“Just make a frelling wormhole, and go home.”
 
“No. You're not listening to me. It's too late for me.”

“She left, she left, she left, she left,” John chanted to himself, the words emerging so quietly that even he had trouble hearing them.  “I’m sorry,” he offered up just once to someone else, then continued his rocking, and built a new history for himself.  One where Aeryn Sun never came back to find him. 

   * * * * *

Aeryn finished lashing her hair into the tight Peacekeeper queue, fingers checking one last time to make sure that it was even and that no strands had escaped.  She hadn’t worn her hair in the bound pigtail in nearly five cycles -- not since she’d been declared irreversibly contaminated -- and it had taken four tries to get it right.  She shrugged into the stiff black jacket she had taken off the female officer in the terrain reconstruction, yanked the waist down into place, and checked herself in the mirror.  The face that had looked back at her an arn earlier had been pale with hunger and fatigue.  This person appeared merely tired, as though she’d just come off duty. 

The next half arn was going to be tricky.  She’d run a careful reconnaissance of the hallways between these quarters and the nearest terrain hall, and most of them were no more than three body-widths wide.  It was the middle of this deck’s sleep cycle though, and if she could avoid any roving patrols, she had a good chance of dumping the body without being detected.  The doors slid open with a hiss, and she checked in both directions before returning to the seating area of the tech’s quarters. 

It took two probes into empty air to locate the slumped body inside the suit, then she hoisted the corpse onto her shoulders.  Another look in the mirror revealed a strange rippling void where her upper back and one shoulder were supposed to be, the lack of any visual feedback interspersed with occasional flashes of her uniform and the wall behind her. 

“Frell it all!” she exclaimed, shifting the body to a different position to see if it made a difference.  This time her body disappeared altogether, the suit somehow transmitting the image of the wall behind her.  She’d hoped that the technology could cope with the contact against her own body, hiding only the dead tech, but it was obviously having trouble interpreting and recreating the correct inputs.  This would make her trip through the corridors even more hazardous.  If she heard anyone approaching during her travels, she’d have to dump the body on the floor, hope no one tripped over it as she moved on, and then double back for it. 

“The things I do for you, Crichton,” she grumbled, staggering under the load.  The passageways were deserted, and she moved a little faster, praying to any deity who chose to listen, asking that her luck would hold a day or two longer.   

   * * * * *

Grayza leaned back in her chair, fingers idly turning a data chip over and over as she listened to the report from the officer in charge of the detention block. 

“He’s begun talking in his sleep, ma’am.  Small comments mostly.”  The burly security specialist pulled himself up straighter as she looked up at him. “We have not detected any names or technical data yet.” 

“I would prefer to judge that for myself.  Compress the recordings from his cell and deliver them to me in one arn.  If he stops talking, lower the temperature again.  Let him rest but not sleep.  Do you understand the difference?” 

“Yes, ma’am!”  The officer snapped to attention, nodded his acknowledgement, and hurried from her quarters. 

“Braca!” Grayza called, summoning her aide.  “What progress has been made evaluating the engines on Crichton’s ship?”

The lieutenant hurried in, clearly anxious about the query.  “None, Commandant.  We were not … I ordered the techs to stay away from the ship in the event that Crichton had booby trapped it in some way.”  Grayza’s furious glare goaded him into a more rigid stance at attention.  “They began examining the drive system but discovered that Crichton had disconnected the power source for no apparent reason.  It seemed reasonable to conclude that restoring the power might set off some type of destructive device.” 

Grayza subsided, eyeing her subordinate as she considered his report.  “Well done,” she said after some deliberation.  “Search the ship.  I want a list of the contents and any information stored in the databanks.  Do not power up any of the systems, do not alter the ship in any way except for whatever is necessary to conduct the search.  I will continue my interrogation of Crichton in two arns, and will find out what he has done to the engines at that time.  Dismissed.”

The Commandant lazed back in her chair, considering this latest bit of data.  “You had time to rig your drive system for destruction, Crichton.  You would prefer to take the chance that we would capture it rather than escape.  Why?”  The slender fingers tapped at the surface of her desk as she considered the mystery, then punched a comm circuit. 

“Bring Crichton to my quarters in half an arn.”  The information was too important to wait the two arns she’d originally specified -- they would have to begin the next round of questioning a bit sooner than she’d intended.   

   * * * * *           

[KernilCrash]

Part 3

Crichton sat up, abandoning the attempt to get any more sleep.  He’d been napping for what felt like arns, sliding in and out of consciousness as his body continued its shivering without his direction, until the waking and dream moments merged into one large surreal continuum full of warped images and the constant fear that he would say something about …

“She left,” he reminded himself in the quieter-than-a-whisper voice that he was sure wouldn’t carry to the surveillance equipment.  “She walked out two cycles ago.  She left.”

Crichton got up and walked around the cell several times, bouncing up and down until he felt warmer, then tucked himself back under the pathetic covering and tried to think of something more pleasant. 

“Okay, so what’s gonna cheer you up, John?” he asked himself.  He glanced at the glinting lenses of the monitors embedded in the walls, and didn’t care if anyone was listening.  “Just sitting here freezin’ your ass off.  So how about ‘Gidget Goes To Hawaii’?”  He shuddered, the chill sinking deeper.  “Maybe that’s a bad idea.  God, I thought dying of hypothermia you just nodded off and went to sleep.”  He knew it wasn’t true.  He knew that the cold wouldn’t kill him until his body ran out of the energy it needed to create heat, and assumed they would shift to a different method of keeping him awake before that happened. 

“… just a prisoner in a chain gang,” he sang to himself, slightly off key.  “Wish I could tunnel out of here.  The Great Escape.  I could be Steve McQueen … what’s his name?  … Hilts.  Hilts was always in the cooler.  Definitely in the cooler now.  No, you can’t tunnel out of the cooler, stupid, it was solid concrete.  Gotta dig under the wire.  Now that would be brilliant, John.  You could just dig your way right into outer space.  Been there, done that.  Bought the t-shirt.”  His head nodded and he jerked it back up.  “Sure.  Space myself.  Anything’s better than this.”  His chin settled onto his chest and he was finally silent. 

   * * * * *

Aeryn fastened the front of the stealth suit, enabled the circuitry and checked in the mirror to make sure it was working correctly.  Her disembodied head floated in the middle of the room, her bound hair standing out as if by magic where it lay against the shoulders of the coverall.  Invisible hands tucked her hair inside, and the lower half of the queue disappeared.  She nodded with satisfaction and began pulling the hood into place.  In the process of getting rid of the tech’s body, she’d gotten the suit wet, and hadn’t known if it would work afterwards.  The relief that it was functioning freed her to consider her developing escape plan. 

She had the uniform for herself, as well as one that would fit John, both taken from the two officers in the planetary terrain hall.  Another tech had disappeared several arns earlier in order to obtain the equipment necessary to reprogram the palm scanners, regretful but necessary when she’d discovered that the encoding units were kept under heavy guard.  She’d started to adapt the scanners to accept her handprint, but had disconnected the unit when she’d remembered that the data bank of stored patterns was reviewed on a regular basis.  It would have to be done after she figured out the rest of the process.

She’d acquired several weapons -- two knives and a pulse pistol from the first officers she’d killed, and a pair of pulse rifles from an armorer’s workshop.  The haphazard stack of repaired weapons had suggested that the armorer himself would be missed before anyone noticed that the rifles had disappeared.       

There was still the problem of actually getting off the carrier.  John’s rhotarri engines represented the best chance of getting out of the hangar.  She would need to find out if the folded space drive could leap them straight out of the carrier without first exiting into open space.  There was only one way to get the answer to this question, and that would be to find John and ask him.  Then she’d have to figure out how to repair the power cabling that he’d ripped out.  A test run was out of the question, which meant that she’d have to trust that her handiwork was correct.   

“This plan stinks,” she said to herself.  “This is even worse than one of Crichton’s plans.”  The room lights seemed to dim as she pulled the suit’s mask into place, the specially formed fibers allowing her to see clearly through the cloth although everything appeared marginally darker than it was without the obstruction.  Aeryn activated the doors, checked both ways for pedestrians, and flitted into the corridors. 

   * * * * *

“Commandant.”  Braca’s summons drew her attention away from the analysis of the political situation on an apparently insignificant world located near the boundary of scarran-controlled territory.  As an isolated event the military coup meant nothing, but when considered in combination with four other takeovers along that border, it suggested that someone was manipulating the power structure of the inhabited planets there. 

“What is it?” she snapped, irritated by the interruption.  The developing pattern of facts, suggesting where the next regime might get overthrown, had scattered into chaos at his nervous summons. 

“Several divisions have reported personnel missing their duty assignments.”  Braca laid a data readout in front of her. 

“Find them, discipline them,” she answered brusquely.  “You should be able to handle this on your own, lieutenant.” 

“They can’t be found, ma’am.”  His gaze remained fixed on the wall behind her chair.  “Request permission for a full security lock down.” 

“We do not cripple our operations with a security lock down just because an officer or two missed a duty period,” Grayza lectured him.  “Perform a sweep for them and restrict departures from the carrier until they are located.  Bring them to me for action when they have been located.  How many personnel have gone missing?” 

“Six, ma’am.”  Braca fidgeted for a microt, freezing when she looked up at him.

“Six?”  She grabbed at the readout.  “From where?” she asked, starting her own scan of the assignments. 

“Two officers from Prowler operations, two technicians, one security guard, and an armaments supply officer.  Commandant Grayza …”  Braca looked uncomfortable, his eyes shifting nervously toward her before locking onto the wall over her head again. 

“Report!” she demanded. 

“A search has been conducted, ma’am.  There is no sign of them in their quarters, or anywhere else they would reasonably be expected to go.  Some of the … younger officers are concerned.  One or two have suggested that it is …” 

“Spit it out, Braca,” Grayza ordered, getting to her feet. 

“They are blaming it on Cholak’s demon.”  He took one step away from the fury in the ice-blue eyes. 

“That myth?  The next person heard spouting that nonsense will be brought to me immediately, do you understand?”  She glared down at the list of names.  “This still does not warrant a top level security status.  Put all checkpoints on ident chip verification, perform a deck by deck search, and report back to me when that is completed.” 

Braca snapped an acknowledgement and hurried from the room.  Mele-On Grayza stared at the closed doors for several microts, then tried to return to her review of the intelligence reports, working through no more than a fraction of the schematics before pushing the entire heap aside with a growl of frustration.  “Cholak’s demon,” she muttered angrily.  “Weak-minded fools.”   

The displays embedded in her work surface went dark, powered down by a fast slap against a master circuit.  Grayza wandered toward the bed, mounting the steps one slow pace at a time to view the rumpled sheets and disarrayed pillows with a cold smile.  Her thoughts turned to Crichton, who would be escorted into her quarters within the quarter arn.  He’d displayed a resilient physiology so far, one that withstood more physical stress than the average sebacean, although there was a commensurate increase in his resistance to the heppel oil.  It would take more time than with a sebacean, but she knew that all of his secrets would tumble out sooner or later.  Mele-On Grayza smiled, looking forward to the next several arns. 

   * * * * *

She’d gotten herself trapped.  Aeryn moved faster, trying to stay ahead of the guards while taking the time to give each cell door a fast tug.  The door codes were a simple progression, so she knew the combination that would release each of the locks.  All she had to do is type in the right sequence, every keystroke emitting a loud tone, until the indicator changed colors, both of which would alert the guards to her presence.  She glanced into another cell, hoping it would be John’s, assuming that the guards were coming to get him and would stop when they reached the appropriate door. 

When she’d entered the control room this time, the changing view on the screen had finally included Crichton, her first sight of him since he’d been taken from the hangar.  The surveillance camera showed him sitting with his back against the wall, his chin on his chest, possibly sleeping.  It had switched to another view before she could note the cell number, and she’d headed down here without considering how she was going to talk to him or what would happen if they came to get him while she was still in the narrow walkway outside the door.  The visceral rush resulting from that brief sight of him had left her shaking slightly, and distracted to the point that she’d made this huge mistake, possibly dooming them both. 

‘Frell.’  She mouthed the word in time with a frustrated jerk of her head, giving it no sound in this area of maximum surveillance.  She dodged to the next door, glanced in the grill at an empty room and moved on, beginning to wonder if she had somehow misread the corridor designation.  She peered into another, pausing at the sight of brown hair and bowed shoulders, struck by the man’s resemblance to John.  Her lingering study of the prisoner had to be cut short; the guards were catching up to her. 

She hurried to the next door, and then came to a complete stop, staring back the way she’d come, realizing why the figure had looked so familiar.  In some respects the person in that cell was more important than Crichton at this point, but the guards had passed that doorway and were still coming toward her.  This cellblock was nearly deserted, the monitors showing only four prisoners, one of which appeared to be a Peacekeeper officer, probably awaiting disciplinary action.  The guards had already passed the other three occupied cells, which meant they were going to run into her within microts. 

There was nowhere to go.  The armored shoulders of the men coming toward her spanned the narrow passageway nearly from wall to wall and there were only two cells left in the block.  The last door was set almost flush with the wall at the end, offering no room for her to hide there.  Aeryn eyed the distance between the wall and the feet of the soldier on the left, then she lay down in the corner formed by the floor and the metal bulkhead, and pressed herself tightly into the angle. 

“Did you hear what that frellnik Vekman said?” one of the guards was asking as they approached where she lay. 

“About the missing personnel you mean?” the second one answered.  “Yeah.  Cholak’s demon of all things.”  The two men laughed.  “Did they try to scare you with that when you were a cadet?”

“I’m younger than that.  They’d stopped using it by my time.  And who would believe it anyway?”  The boots clashed past her without breaking their rhythm.  She was sure one of them had brushed against her shoulder but they weren’t stopping. 

“Vekman for one!”  They laughed again.  “What do you think is really happening?” the second voice asked. 

Aeryn got to her feet, hesitating for a microt.  She was curious to hear their theory of the disappearances, and desperate to get one clear look at John just to make sure he was holding up. 

“I think they frelled up and the Commandant has decided that a little uncertainty will keep everyone on their toes,” the younger guard theorized.  “I think they’ve been separated from the service.” 

Aeryn smiled.  Their theory would serve her purpose as well as a bizarre belief in the demon. 
‘Separated from the service’ was the parlance traditionally used by an officer’s comrades whenever ‘Executed for substandard performance’ closed out a soldier’s personnel history.  Several members of her unit had been ‘separated from the service’, and instead of keeping everyone sharp and alert, it led to a rash of accidents when everyone started worrying more about staying alive than performing their duties correctly. 

The guards began keying the lock to the end cell.  Aeryn took one step toward them before drawing to a stop.  The rescue was everything, she reminded herself.  It had to come first, which meant getting out of this potential trap.  Turning her back on the open door of what she hoped was John’s cell she scampered back along the line to where the familiar-looking prisoner was being held.  She was ninety percent sure of her identification, but his head was still down, creating a margin of uncertainty. 

Aeryn snapped a single finger against the outside of the door, generating a sharp metallic crack.  The man’s head came up at the sound, revealing bruises, black eyes, and a swollen nose.  Despite the injuries, it was clearly John’s friend, Gallenn -- who had helped John build the rhotarri drive.  Here was the answer to repairing the ship.

As if cued by her thoughts, the guards emerged with John between them.  He was stumbling and looked tired but they were only guiding him, not carrying him, which held promise, and there were no signs of injuries.  Her feet refused to move as they came toward her, stuck to the floor as though magnetized, held there by the desire to touch him, talk to him, assure him that she was going to get him out of this mess.  She allowed herself one more microt to look at him, used the knotting anxiety in her chest to restore her resolve, and fled down the corridor before they could catch up with her.

   * * * * *

“You look tense,” Grayza smiled as she approached Crichton. 

John gripped the edge of the bed with both hands, trying to steady himself as the room seemed to oscillate around him, lightheaded from fatigue and hunger.  Her bare feet stopped in front of him, disappearing a microt later beneath the fluttering fall of her robes.  He kept his eyes fixed on the floor, unwilling to look at the body that he knew would be using him like some sort of sex toy before the arn was over. 

“Must be time for some more of that mammary mojo.”  John permitted himself a fast, slanting look at her. 

“Is it so bad?” she questioned.  “You must agree that this is better than what Scorpius did to you.” 

“Don’t be so sure.  The comfy chair sounds kinda nice all of a sudden.”  Her fingers began rubbing at the back of his neck and he jerked away from her touch.  “Let’s do a consumer survey.  Sit me down and let me spin for a while, and I’ll let you know which is worse,” he proposed.  That agony might actually be preferable to her attentions. 

“The Aurora Chair, although highly effective, has been known to cause enough neural damage to permanently eradicate memories before they could be retrieved.  I intend to be far more careful with your knowledge, Crichton.”  Her fingers approached his face, and he tried to slap it away.  The wild flail missed by a wide margin.  “Don’t waste your energy,” she purred.  “Save it for something more pleasurable.” 

“That’s not more …”  He tried to scramble away from her, but she was faster, and his denial was lost as the oil induced insanity struck again. 

“It’s not … Oil of Olay,” he said slowly, no longer resisting her manipulations.  “What is that stuff?”   

Grayza stroked her chest, gathering more of the slick emulsion.  “Heppel oil.  It has … certain special qualities.”  She tilted his head up with her other hand, letting the glistening fingers drift beneath his nose.  John took another convulsive sniff, jerking against her grip, and then breathed deep.

“Come,” she urged, pulling him to his feet.  His overalls disappeared in a quick slide, the rest of his clothes following as his hands found the familiar textures of her body.  “Not yet,” she slowed him, pushing him away long enough to finish undressing him.  “Something to relax you first.  And maybe we can do something about this.”  She ran her fingers through the thickening beard, then took him by the hand and led him to the sunken tub.  She slid into the steaming water first and then guided him in, turning him so that he sat in front of her, leaning back against her chest.  “Is that nice?” she purred into his ear. 

“Yes,” Crichton sighed, the hot water driving out the chill that had set in over the arns in his cell.  Her hands moved about beneath the water, beginning the slow, calculating touches that would bring him to the point where he would tell her anything, absolutely anything, as long as it could go on longer.

“Tell me,” she began, tilting his chin back so his head lay on her shoulder.  “Tell me about the engines on your ship.”

“Hetch drive with a Mazda-Einstein whammy backup,” he replied and settled lower into the water.  It didn’t matter that she was asking about the engines, he decided.  Telling her about a failed drive system didn’t constitute a risk.     

“Masa-dine-stine wammie,” she stumbled through the unfamiliar syllables.  “Explain what this is.”

John caught her hands as she began running a soapy wash ball over his chest, intertwining the fingers of one hand into hers as he explained.  “Mazda.  Revolutionary new idea for an engine.  Major league commercial flop.  Einstein.  Brilliant guy who had trouble with grade school math.”  The whirling inside his head accelerated, the sharp scent of Grayza mixing with his own fatigue to make him sillier than usual.  John shook his head slightly to clear it, and returned to the subject. 

“Einstein figured out that space was flexible, like a rubber sheet.  It can be distorted.  That’s the whammy part.  Fold space over on itself --”  John cupped her hands inside his, trapping the soapy scrub inside the double grasp to demonstrate his explanation.  “Then use some funky bits of energy that no one in the Milky Way has ever run into, and punch from one side to the other.”  He pulled their hands apart and the wash ball was in her other hand.  “Unfold space and you’re somewhere else.” 

Grayza lifted one of his legs and placed it to the outside of hers.  “We haven’t been able to find one of the rhotarri class ships.  Where are they hiding?”  She moved his other leg.  “Where have you hidden them?” 

“Lost,” John answered agreeably.  “Gone.”  He grabbed the sponge-like scrub and flung it backwards over his head, the sloppy landing occurring somewhere on the lower level of her quarters.  “Presto, vanished.” 

“No, you’ve hidden them.  The ships began disappearing just when we became interested in them.  Where are they?”  Grayza’s hands disappeared beneath the water, reaching between his legs. 

“They’re … oh, god …”  He shuddered as the submerged hands began to work at him.  “Lost.  It … it doesn’t work right.”

“Is that nice?” she whispered into his ear. 

“Yes … yes.”

“Tell me more.  Explain why the drive system doesn’t work.” 

    * * * * *

Gallenn rubbed the heel of his hand against the side of his eye socket, trying to ease the ache there.  He’d been convinced at one point that the headache left behind by the Aurora Chair was going to melt his skull, but the blinding pain had gradually faded, leaving the exterior parameters of his head intact.  What had happened to the interior sections was still in question.  The cursory beating by the guards two days earlier had been a minor discomfort compared to what the energy of the Chair had done to him.   

“Frell you,” he said quietly, carefully checking his ribs.  The bruising had eased enough that he thought maybe they weren’t broken after all.  “It’s your fault,” he said to Crichton, wherever he was, and wondered if his betrayal had resulted in John’s capture.  “Everything started going to dren when you left.” 

The first of his customers had disappeared the same day John left, demonstrating what he’d secretly known all along.  It was Crichton’s easy, smiling manner that they liked, as well as his obvious competence with anything mechanical or electronic.  The business had been headed right back into the big dren funnel the microt he’d arranged with Aeryn Sun to lure his former partner off the planet.  His luck had gone from bad to worse after that. 

First an overloaded electrical system had blown up, injuring two of his techs but more importantly leaving the huge facility without power for two planetary days while they’d repaired the damaged circuitry.  Then he’d received word that a rhotarri drive equipped craft had jumped from ‘here’ to ‘there’ right into a star, undoubtedly another example of the type of error Crichton had discovered was inherent in the process.  It was bad that it had happened, worse that a scientific ship had been monitoring the star and had recorded the extremely brief presence of the ship as it emerged from folded space and was promptly incinerated. 

His reputation and his business were irrevocably frelled within a matter of days.  When the Peacekeepers burned the facility they’d done little more than cremate a corpse.         

Gallenn rolled onto his side, stared at the locked door, and considered his brief session in the Aurora Chair.  He wondered if that was part of what John had been running from, whether he knew what that abomination of technology was like when it began ripping memories out of his head to the tune of agonized screaming.  The first images of Crichton had appeared on the screen in less than thirty microts, his attempt to hide the knowledge completely futile.  “Sorry,” he offered to his absent friend.  “I did try not to tell, John.” 

He sat up again, finding that lying down had resulted in a resurgence of his headache.  The blue-eyed officer -- Commandant Grayza -- hadn’t seen any reason to stop the process when his conversation with Aeryn Sun had been yanked onto the monitor.  They hadn’t discussed the exact coordinates of where she intended to go with Crichton, but they had worked out how long it would take to get to where the leviathan was waiting if Aeryn used only the hetch drive.  The Chair had reproduced his memory of that star chart in exacting detail, providing a pinpoint location for the Peacekeepers to arrange an ambush.  Grayza had smiled coolly as she recorded the image and then had ordered the tech at the controls to keep probing. 

“Frell, frell, frell,” he moaned, resting his head on his hands.  It had taken no more than fifteen microts for them to find his real identity, bringing his own flight from the Peacekeepers to an end.  Grayza had laughed at him, the throaty chuckle barely audible over the last of his cries as the spinning chair came to a stop. 

“Hold him for now,” she’d ordered.  “We may need him if we don’t capture Crichton.” 

Gallenn got to his feet and went to the door, peering out through the small grill.  According to the number of meals he’d been served, more than six solar days had passed.  He’d heard prisoners being moved in and out of some of the adjacent cells, drawing him to the door to see if any of them were John or Aeryn, but he’d been too late to see every time. 

“Dren!” he barked one more time.  Gallenn kicked the door angrily, stalked back to the bunk and flopped onto the hard surface.  He wondered how much longer he’d have to wait before they executed him.     

   * * * * *

Fatigue had become his ally.  John stared at the sheet in front of his nose feeling the first hint of control returning to his befuddled mind.  Grayza had dragged every fact and statistic about the rhotarri drive out of him before she’d let him crawl out of the cooling bath, then had toweled him dry with a little groping added in for her pleasure, and had shoveled him into the bed to start over again.  Relief had come only because he was too damned tired to formulate another answer, wrung out both mentally and physically.  “Brownie points,” he mumbled into the black satiny covers. 

“What did you say?” she asked, leaning close. 

He could smell the oil on her, the scent wafting into his brain every time he inhaled.  “Cosmic brownie points,” his mouth ran on without his consent.  She deserved extra points just for imagination.  He closed his eyes in an attempt to concentrate, willing his brain and his mouth to stop blabbing. 

“Let’s try a slightly different subject,” she proposed.  “What sort of destructive device have you placed on your ship, and where is it located?” 

Crichton kept his eyes closed, grinding his molars together in an attempt to keep his mouth shut.  This question was somewhere far beyond ‘unexpected’.  It had to mean something … something that eluded his tired brain.  He needed to figure out why she was making this peculiar inquiry before his tongue took over.  “What?” he stalled for time.  Slurring the word made it sound as though he’d been half-asleep and hadn’t heard the question. 

“You have rigged your ship with a device to destroy it.  Where is it located?”  She walked her fingers up his spine and began rubbing his shoulders.  The fingers never stopped exploring him.  It was constant.  “What does it look like?” 

The fragrance of the heppel oil commanded that he answer.  John felt himself slipping, the first syllables of his answer battering to get loose.  Make the truth sound like a lie, he decided.  If nothing else it would confuse her as much as her question confused him.  “Didn’t,” he answered truthfully, but managed to make it sound like a five year-old denying guilt when the smashed object lay at his feet. 

Grayza rolled him over, straddling him so that she sat on his stomach.  “A lie,” came the verdict.  “You are far stronger than I’d imagined.  Try again, Crichton.  What sort of device?” 

“Really.  Isn’t one.”  He saved a little energy by not adding the headshake that belonged with the overly guileless look.  The tone of voice and facial expression worked, sucking her one step further into his miniscule deception.   

“Yes, there is.  Why else would you disconnect the drive system that would have allowed you to escape?  Where is it?”  She leaned over him to pin his arms out to the sides, her breasts wobbling soft and pale near his chin, enticing him to touch them.  The scent spun in, spun out, left him unarmed, deprived of his restraint.  “Where is it?”

John fought against it, managed one more overly agreeable denial, telling the truth because it was the only choice that the oil would allow.  “Didn’t.  Honest.” 

Grayza sighed as she released one of his wrists, freeing a hand to drift up her sternum, gathering the glistening droplets.  Crichton watched with eagerness growing in the depths of his hips, the slick taste and odor already linked to the idea of physical ecstasy -- as though he were one of Pavlov’s prize students.  “You continue to lie,” Grayza told him.  Her fingers brushed across his lips, smearing them with the oil.  “We will have to start over.  There is something I’ve wanted to try for almost a cycle now.  I believe you have enough stamina.” 

The sob of despair turned into a deep rasping breath as she began to touch him again, his misery compounded by the knowledge that it had been his success in deceiving her that led to this latest assault on his body.

   * * * * *

Aeryn backed away from the checkpoint at the primary entrance to the hangar bay.  The ident chip verifications were having little affect on her movements except in the more highly traversed areas such as this one.  The knot of personnel waiting to pass through the security point made it virtually impossible for her to get through without bumping into someone.  While trying to get past a similar bottleneck an arn earlier, a pilot officer had stepped back into what he’d thought was empty space just as she tried to cross behind him.  His startled shout had nearly put an end to her free movement about the carrier.  A well-timed shove against a female tech had created an avalanche of collisions, nearly everyone in the crowd falling against someone else, and she’d slipped away in the confusion, hoping that the first phantom touch would be forgotten. 

She backed away from the hangar entrance carefully, backtracking through the corridors until she could cut cross-ship toward the repair facilities adjoining the hangar.  On her third try she found a less used entrance to the hangar, sliding past the lounging guards while they argued about the carrier’s unarmed-combat competition and which team was likely to win. 

An enormous bulbous tank, corroded and streaked by rust, sat to one side just inside the hangar.  She slid between it and the bulkhead, and sank to one knee, shaking slightly as her body began to object to the constant tension.  Their ship was in exactly the same spot where it had landed, several teams of specialists examining it.  It appeared intact, only a few of the engines’ access panels propped open, scaffolding conveniently in place beneath the exterior nacelles.  As she watched, several of the specialists gathered around the hamman side engine, peering in at it. 

“Check from the inside!” one of them yelled to a team member below. 

That was where John had hidden her gear.  If it was found, not only would the rescue be jeopardized, she knew that John’s interrogation would become increasingly brutal until they located her.  “Frell!” she allowed herself the whispered expletive.  “Think,” she ordered herself.  The specialist on the floor was arguing with the man above her, flinging technical terms back and forth, giving Aeryn more time to arrange a hasty diversion. 

It had to be something that would keep everyone away from the ship a while longer, but not so explosive that it damaged the craft.  “Think, think,” she exhorted herself, looking around the hangar.  Aeryn grabbed an outcropping on the rusty tank to pull herself up, then released it with a nearly silent snarl of disgust when her hand encountered something wet and viscous.  She realized with an unpleasant shock that she’d been hiding behind one of the mobile “Biological Extraction Units” -- the polite label for the tanks used to clean out the waste tanks on the long-range ships like the Marauders. 

She looked up at the ladder leading to the top hatch, and nearly laughed out loud.  A fast check confirmed that no one was wandering nearby.  Aeryn pulled the front of the suit open and yanked her pulse pistol out, resealed the opening, and mounted the rungs two at a time.  She crouched on top of the tank, taking a few microts to judge her escape route. 

This small bit of sabotage was in some ways more hazardous than anything she’d ever tried before.  “Make sure it’s a clean getaway,” she told herself, smiling at the small joke because it was the type of thing Crichton would have said.  It would have been accompanied by the silly grin as he waited for her reaction.  She dropped her head, letting her chin rest on her chest until the unpleasant tightness in her stomach unknotted itself, the thought that she might never see that stupid smile again rendering her breathless for several microts. 

“Don’t give up, John.”  The whisper went out to him wherever he was at that moment.  Aeryn shrugged her shoulders, easing tight muscles, then she set the pistol for a pulse chamber overload, held her breath, and opened the hatch just long enough to drop the overcharged weapon inside.  Then she bolted for the exit, casting all caution aside in the interest of getting as far away as possible before the tank exploded. 

The muffled explosion shook the deck plates beneath her feet as she was rounding a corner five corridors away.  Even from that distance she could hear the howls of dismay.  No one would be working in that hangar willingly for at least a full solar day, if not longer.  Aeryn allowed herself a laugh as she ran back toward the detention block.  She’d wanted to check on the interior of their ship to make sure nothing had been dismantled, but she’d just decided to wait until later.

   * * * * *

Crichton pulled the covers over his shoulders and tucked his knees against his chest, trying to retain some warmth.  His body was no longer shivering in response to the cold, which meant that he was nearing the end of his energy reserves and they would have to resort to some other method of keeping him awake soon, or watch him succumb to hypothermia.  The monotonous gray metal walls offered little in the way of distraction, encouraging his thoughts to wander as he lay with the chill eating into his muscles. 

“Dunbar had it worse in Stalag 17,” he mumbled.  “He held out for days.  Hid in a freezing water tank without any sleep.  William Holden helped him escape.  Where’s Bill when you need him?”  Aeryn had promised to help him escape.   

She sat down next to him, taking a moment to pull the covers up around his ears, trying to keep him warm.  “You promised to hang on, John.” 

He snapped awake, uncertain whether he’d spoken to the dark-haired visitor created by his brief dream.  “Think about something else,” he ordered himself.  He tried focusing on the preceding arns. 

Grayza’s latest ‘interrogation’ had been cut short by an alarmed report that something had blown up in the hangar bay.  It had come too late to prevent him from telling her truthfully and sincerely that there was no booby trap aboard the ship.  Nor had it come in time to stop him from describing how to reattach the cabling to power the rhotarri system.  He’d given up everything with the possible exception of …

“Stalag 17 had a stoolie,” he interrupted the errant wanderings of his mind.  He envisioned the movie, trying to divert his thoughts away from the gray-blue eyes and long, dark, sweet-smelling hair that felt so warm and soft when he let it run through his fingers.  “No!  Something else.  Price was the fink.  Would have betrayed them all if he had the chance.  Dunbar stayed awake for days … no problem.  Don’t remember Elvira having her way with Dunbar in that movie though.  Who does that make you, John?  Price or Dunbar?” 

Was he the stoolie, spilling all the secrets?  Or was he the prisoner, trying to hold out against the Nazi interrogators?  The answer eluded him.  Crichton closed his eyes, trying not to think of the person he wanted to call out to, fighting hard to keep himself from imagining his own voice begging her to hurry. 

“Be strong,” she said beside him, invisible in her magical suit. 

“Go away,” he pleaded quietly.  If she kept visiting him like this he wouldn’t be able to not remember her if Grayza began asking about her.  The cold-eyed officer had been concentrating on the rhotarri technology so far, but the focus of the interrogation was bound to shift at some point.  “Don’t talk to me anymore.  It’s … ” 

It was too dangerous because he would blurt out something that would tell them she was here, somewhere aboard the carrier.  He sat up, ignoring his need for rest, and began the cadence again, restoring the blank in his mind where someone used to reside.  “She left, she left,” he chanted almost silently, trying to keep her safe. 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 4

Gallenn sat up as the door lock chirped its six-tone combination.  The headache left behind by the Aurora Chair was gone, but there seemed to be a blank inside his head where there used to be the ability to cope with unexpected events.  His mouth went dry as the lock cycled, making it difficult to swallow the painful lump that had formed in his throat.  In the days since he’d been taken prisoner, the only times they’d come to take him out of the cell had been to put him in the Chair.  Gallenn swallowed a second time, the tight constriction in his throat increasing at the thought of another session in the Aurora Chair. 

The door slid open … and nothing happened.  He put one foot to the floor, leaning to one side to see if there was someone in the corridor.  It was empty.  What felt like a hand clapped itself over his mouth, muffling his unthinking yell of surprise.   

“Be quiet!” a whispered voice barked next to his ear.  He received a small slap alongside his head in response to his second small yelp, the light blow chastising him for his additional outburst.  The disembodied touch increased the surrealism of the moment, disbelief relieving him of his self-control.  “I said be quiet.  Sometimes the cells pick up noises through the walls.”  He nodded, eyes darting left and right in search of the source of the voice.  The fingers eased away from his mouth. 

“Can you stay quiet?” the voice asked.  He nodded and the hand let go of him. 
 
“Please tell me I’m cracking up from what the Chair did to me,” he requested. 

A moment later Gallenn slapped his own palm over his mouth to prevent a shout when Aeryn Sun’s face appeared in front of him, floating in the middle of the cell without a body to go with it.  The rest of her head appeared, followed by her upper body as she stripped the invisibility away from a Peacekeeper officer’s uniform.   

“What the frell?” he whispered from behind his hand.  “Wait.  A stealth garment!”  He’d read about them a cycle or two earlier, dismissing the idea as an unusable application of new technology.  Something far more important occurred to him before she could respond.  “John!  Did they get John?” 

“Yes.  Put this on.  Hurry.”  Her hands went to her waist and her lower body added itself beneath the floating torso, encased in the shimmering gray cloth of the deactivated suit.  “We’ve got less than four hundred microts before the next guard shows up for his shift.”

She straightened her uniform, tugging it into perfect alignment as he fumbled his way into the suit, then showed him how to fasten the front.  “Switch here,” she instructed, guiding his hand to the circuitry.  “Seal up and follow me to the control room.  You know where it is?”

“Yes.”  He toggled the suit on and off, making sure he could work it.  When he looked up to thank her for breaking him out, she was gone.  “Rush, rush, rush,” he commented.  He ricocheted off the side of the doorway on his way to catch up with her, trying to get the hood into place while negotiating the corners of the passageway, and succeeding at neither.  “What now?” he asked, entering the control station. 

Aeryn was standing over the panel that controlled all of the surveillance equipment, fingers rapping hard against the entry pad as she hurriedly typed in commands.  “I’m deleting the last three hundred microts of recordings so they won’t know how you got out.”  She glanced at him as she worked.  “Turn the suit on in case someone comes in without warning.  Carry that inside so no one sees it.”  She indicated the stolen encoding unit sitting to one side. 

“You reprogrammed the access codes to let you into the system,” he surmised.  She nodded and kept typing.  He pulled the connections loose and closed the unit, tucking it inside the suit as she’d instructed, too stunned by the rescue to offer any witticisms. 

“Frell,” she snarled, still working at the console.  “It won’t erase the video portions.”   

“Let me,” he ordered, shoving her aside.  Five microts later the monitors began to flash in synchronization, fading in and out three times before reverting to the usual unexciting views of the cells and corridors of the detention block. 

Aeryn nodded in satisfaction.  “You need to tell me how you knew those commands, but not until later.”  She scanned the room quickly, tucked a chair neatly under the consoles, and straightened a sheaf of schematics. 

“What about him?”  Gallenn nudged the guard with his foot, fascinated by the sight of the body jostling without any apparent impetus.  Some part of him had expected to be able to see his own body even when no one else could.  “Leave him here?” he asked as Aeryn turned away from the consoles.   

“We hide him.  Give me a hand.”  Aeryn Sun grunted as they pulled the body up together and got it over her shoulders. 

“Where in the name of hezmana do you hide a dead body aboard a command carrier?” he asked incredulously. 

The dark eyebrows lowered in what he first thought was anger, then recognized as vicious humor.  “That’s easy.  You hide him where you hid all the rest of the dead bodies.”  Her hand searched for him, hitting him in the shoulder and then latching on to his arm.  “You take the lead.  Warn me if anyone comes the other way.”

“Warn you?” Gallenn asked in disbelief.  He stepped through the door, scanned the corridor, then turned left, as directed by her hand signal.  “What are you going to do with the body even if you get a warning?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” she whispered as they hurried through the first intersection.  “No matter what I do, this keeps turning into the kind of plan Crichton would dream up.  Faster.  We have to get this done before this sector’s sleep-cycle is over.”  They began to run, Aeryn grunting quietly from the strain of carrying the dead guard. 

   * * * * *

Grayza paced slowly from the doors of her quarters to the short stairway leading to the upper level, leafing through the readouts that Braca had delivered.  “Two more missing, an explosion in the hangar, and the sebacean prisoner has escaped.  This is unacceptable.”  She consulted the flimsy printouts again.  “This began shortly after we captured Crichton.  You have verified that there was no one else aboard his ship.” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Braca confirmed.  “The investigation squad reported that they had just finished searching the ship when the … the uh, tank exploded.”

“But they did finish searching the entire craft,” Grayza confirmed, watching Braca’s reaction carefully. 

“Yes, ma’am.  That’s what they reported.”  Braca fidgeted under the weight of her gaze. 

“Very well.  Check the records of every technician aboard this carrier for a possible association with the sebacean mechanic.  There may be someone on board who is sympathetic to his situation.  If you find any link to him at all, even if it appears coincidental, have the person questioned in the Aurora Chair.  Is that understood?” 

“Yes, ma’am,” Braca snapped his response. 

Grayza handed the schematics to him and continued issuing orders, wandering from door to stairs several times as she spoke.  “Put all security checkpoints on genetic verification scans.  I want an accounting of all personnel in order to verify that no one else has … fallen victim to Cholak’s demon.”  She sneered the last five words in derision.  “Inform the ranking officers in each division that anyone caught spreading this ridiculous rumor is to be brought before me for disciplinary action.” 

Braca remained silent as she paused, moving only his eyes to watch her as she paced. 

“Search Crichton’s ship again.  The most likely explanation for everything that has happened is that someone came aboard at the same time he was captured.  Look for anything out of the ordinary.  Anything that doesn’t fit.” 

“Ma’am,” Braca stuttered slightly.  “The only personnel working in that hangar now are the --”

“Was some portion of my order unclear, Lieutenant?” she inquired, stepping closer to him.  The abruptly quiet tone was more threatening than any of her barked commands. 

Braca glanced back and forth between his commanding officer and a spot on the wall several times, his wariness shifting to apprehension.  “No, ma’am, you were perfectly clear.  The search will begin immediately.” 

“What is Crichton’s condition?”  She stepped away from him, rounding her desk to assume a relaxed slouch in the high-backed chair. 

Braca allowed himself a deeper breath, relaxing as her fury abated.  “He seems to be intentionally trying to stay awake.  There have been a few incidents of what might be the beginnings of auditory hallucinations, but he talks to himself constantly, so it’s difficult to tell.”  He stepped forward, offering a data chip.  “These are the latest surveillance recordings and transcripts of what he has been saying.” 

Grayza punched the chip into the playback unit incorporated into her work surface and scrolled rapidly through the broken, mumbled ramblings of John Crichton, slowing down to watch more carefully as he began the repetitive rocking.  “Is it possible that his mind has snapped?” she demanded. 

“I don’t believe so, commandant.  His behavior in the past has been --”  He shifted awkwardly before the blue-eyed stare, searching for a term as she waited impatiently.  “In the past, Crichton’s responses have tended to be remarkably irrational, his remarks sometimes bordering on the insane.” 

“I do recall our first meeting,” she reminded him.  “He pointed a gun at me.” 

“My point exactly.  His current behavior does not seem peculiar when examined in that light.  I believe he is as sane as Crichton ever gets.” 

“Take care of the security situation first, then I want you to go to the detention sector.  There is something I want you to try before bringing him here.”  Grayza leaned back in her chair, fingers gently stroking the skin at the base of her throat. 

Braca swallowed hard, an eager smile appearing as his eyes followed the course of the slender hand from throat to abdomen and back up.  “Yes, ma’am.  What would you like me to do?”

   * * * * *

“Are you in?” Aeryn asked cautiously, trying to spot the slight visual distortion that was Gallenn. 

“Right beside you,” he answered.  His body winked into existence all at once as he turned off the suit.

The doors slid shut and she engaged the lock, releasing her breath in a quiet sigh as she began to relax.  Freeing Gallenn, hiding the guard’s body, and making their way to the quarters of the tech she’d killed earlier had been a tense three-arn process.  Aeryn slid the heavily armored uniform jacket off and ducked through the cylindrical opening to sit on the bed. 

“Thanks for getting me out of there,” Gallenn said as he peered through at her from the outer half of the quarters.  She nodded an acknowledgement, suddenly too tired to form words.  He finished stripping off the suit, looked it over admiringly, and tossed it on a seat.  “Where’s Crichton?  You’re on the loose.  You said they got him?” 

She nodded, slowly fingering her hair to make sure it was tight and even.  Gallenn flopped down on the other side of the bed and dropped his head into his hands, the dejected slump of his shoulders and bowed head speaking more clearly than words of his remorse. 

“You haven’t seen him?” she asked.  He shook his head.  “He was at the end of the block beyond you.” 

“I heard the guards coming and going a few times but I never got to the door in time to see anyone.  I’m sorry, Aeryn.  It’s my fault that they caught you.  They wouldn’t have Crichton now if it weren’t for me.”   

Aeryn rubbed her forehead, trying to remember what she’d planned to do after she got this far.  There had been several options to be considered, but they’d all gone missing behind the returning fear that John might be permanently injured by the interrogations.  “A few times?” she asked in a near-whisper.  “How many?” 

Gallenn sat up to look at her, eyeing the slouched shoulders and trembling hands.  “Two, I think.  I’m not sure.  When’s the last time you had any sleep?” 

“I can rest once we escape.  Nothing else matters except that.”  She sat up straight and twisted from side to side, stretching the tight muscles in her back.  “And it isn’t your fault that we got caught.  They’ve been chasing John for cycles.  We probably should have warned you.  It was stupid of us to assume they wouldn’t follow the same trail I did.  If I hadn’t been so focused on getting John to talk to me -- ”

“Okay, I get the point,” he interrupted.  “If we’re still eaten up by guilt when this is over, we can take turns smacking ourselves with a dead drannit.  What’s next?  You broke me out instead of him.  Why?”

She remembered one of the things she needed to accomplish in order to get off the carrier.  “The ship has to be repaired.  John had a problem with the power getting to the hetch drive.”  Gallenn began nodding in understanding.  “He said he ripped the power cabling loose from the rhotarri engines completely and spliced it to the other system permanently.” 

Gallenn was still nodding.  “I told him those switches were rated too low to handle that much power.  They froze up, didn’t they?”  He didn’t wait for an answer.  “The whole mess will have to be repaired.” 

“If I get you into the hangar, how long will it take?”  Aeryn got to her feet and stepped through the round opening in the bulkhead to retrieve the electronic encoding equipment that she’d used to gain access to the databanks in the detention block. 

“To just rewire the power to the rhotarri engines, a matter of a couple hundred microts per engine.  If you want access to both drives with new switches that won’t freeze up --”  He considered the process.  “Maybe two arns if I have everything I need and I’m in a rush.  To do it right and check everything over, more like three or four arns.”

Aeryn opened the case, activated the unit and watched the holographic display come to life.  “How did you know the commands to erase the recordings?” she asked, changing the subject.  Gallenn ducked his head, avoiding her gaze.  “You’re a Peacekeeper,” Aeryn accused him, voicing what she’d suspected since the moment she’d watched his fast, accurate manipulation of the controls in the detention block.  “Tech?”     

“Yeah, but not for the last eight cycles,” he admitted.  “I deserted.  It’s a fascinating story.  I’ll tell you over a raslak some time.  The important thing is that they know who I am.  Grayza found the memory while I was in the Aurora Chair.” 

“That could be a problem, but I may have created a bigger one.  In order to get you out, I reprogrammed the palm scanners to take my handprint.  The databanks run an automated verification of all stored identifications on a regular basis.  It’s only a matter of time before they find that my print is in there.” 

Gallenn was rummaging around in the storage bins in the outer area as he spoke, reappearing with a container of food cubes and a drinking flask.  “At which point, the system will allow you to pass through, but kicks out an alert and every thick-necked, no-brain security specialist on the entire carrier descends on your position and blasts you into a smudge spot on the deck.”

“So nicely put,” she agreed, smiling at his description.  The expression felt odd on her face, pulling at muscles that had not been used for that purpose in too many arns.  Smiles were something that belonged to other people, not to the person who was running out of time to free John Crichton from the Peacekeepers.  She shook her head when he offered her a food cube.   

“Give me that thing.”  Gallenn pulled the electronic input device toward him, devoting one hand to pulling out leads and connectors while popping several squares into his mouth with the other.  He continued talking through a mouthful of food cubes.  “Let me see what I can do about reprogramming the system to take your DNA in case they go to genetic verifications and getting us better access throughout the ship.” 

Aeryn stretched out on her side, her head propped on one hand to watch as he removed several wall panels until he found the circuitry he wanted, then hooked up the encoder.  “There’s a tech’s uniform out there along with an ident chip,” she told him.  “It might fit you.” 

“Another body in the lake?” he asked almost too casually, not bothering to look up.  “If you keep this up, they’ll start to notice that the water is rising.”  He continued to stare at the information being displayed before him, but stopped working.  “How … how many bodies are in that lake?”

“Only one in that particular lake,” she answered, pulling a pillow under her head.  He remained motionless.  “Do you want the real answer to that question?”  Gallenn looked troubled, but shook his head. 

“It bothers you that I killed them,” she theorized. 

“None of my business, I think.”  He rubbed his temples with the heels of both hands, and then let his breath out slowly.  “You’re a Peacekeeper.  Guess it’s no big deal to you.” 

Aeryn sat up in a rush, surprising even herself with the level of anger in her voice as she leaned close to the former technician.  “They … have … John!” she attacked him.  “They will kill him if I don’t get him out.  I don’t enjoy any part of this.  I’ve done too much killing in the past few cycles, and I would prefer not to have to do it again.  But I will not sacrifice John just to make myself more comfortable.  I did that before and it was the wrong decision.”  She backed away from the wary figure who was now perched on the far edge of the bed. 

“These quarters … do you want to know how I knew they were safe to use?”  She leaned in close again, something untamed glittering in her eyes.  “I killed a man for a plate of food.”

Gallenn started to answer, but she continued before he could get a word out.  Her voice slid into the room, low and hushed, crawling like smoke to insinuate itself into every corner.  “A plate of food because I couldn’t get onto our ship to get to the rations.  But I needed that food to keep going.  For … John.”

“I get it,” he said nervously.  “I do understand.”  The two sat uncomfortably for several microts, the vicious declaration chilling the air between them. 

Aeryn sat back, the wild light in her eyes dimming then fading out altogether as Gallenn nervously fiddled with the encoder’s controls.  “I may be going a little bit crazy from this,” Aeryn finally offered, breaking the short silence.  “To have him taken away from me as soon as I find him seems … so …”  She tapered off to silence as the words to describe the feelings eluded her. 

Gallenn slid the encoder across the mattress toward her, cautiously taking her by one wrist to place her hand over a sensor pad.  “Stay still for a microt,” he ordered, and activated the scanner.  “It’s reading your DNA.”   

“I was apologizing,” she explained when he released her. 

“I know,” he glanced at her, starting to relax.  “I’m not entirely mentally deficient, despite what my commanding officers used to think.  It didn’t seem to require an answer.  Let’s forget about the last few microts and concentrate on getting Crichton out before you displace so much water that it starts to flood the carrier.”  His grin was back in place as he went back to work.  “Relax for a few microts while I finish changing these data files.”   

The room was nearly silent, the quiet clicking of Gallenn’s efforts the only noise to break the perpetual undercurrent hum that was a constant aboard a command carrier.  Aeryn watched him work, oddly reassured by having this friend of John’s beside her.  Companionship had been an alien concept when she’d first met Crichton.  Earning a position in the Pleisars had won her the bonds of loyalty, service, and dedication to the regiment, but it hadn’t taught her about friendship and the emotional commitment inherent in that concept.   

John had bound this other person to him with the offer of his unique type of friendship.  She watched Gallenn frown at the unit, bite his lip, and clear out the display to start over again, and wanted to tap into his memories to learn what he knew of John Crichton.  She’d missed so much of his life, given it away carelessly when she had walked away.  It seemed too unfair that he’d been ripped away from her just as she was rediscovering how wonderful it was to be loved by him. 

Aeryn was vaguely aware of the motion when Gallenn ducked out of the sleeping space to retrieve the spare ident chip, but had fallen completely asleep by the time he nodded with satisfaction and turned off the maintenance unit.   

   * * * * *

His own quiet snoring woke him.  Crichton’s head came up with a jerk, bumping into the wall behind him, the quiet ‘whang’ echoing slightly in the silent room.  He’d been dozing for short intervals despite the cold, his disorientation increasing each time he woke.  A small glitter on the front of the insulated covers caught his eye, and he stared at it, trying to determine what was reflecting a stray beam of light.  They’d lowered the light levels to the point where details were hard to make out.  He assumed that the dim lighting was an attempt to encourage his half-conscious mutterings.  One hand wormed its way out of the confining folds to rub lightly at the shining object. 

“Lovely,” Crichton commented, his voice crackling hoarsely in the quiet of the cell.  In his exhaustion he’d been drooling down the front of the blanket.  It was the thin stream of saliva that had been shining in the glow of the lights from the corridor.  His chin bobbed against his chest as he started to doze off again.  “Sight for … sore eyes,” he mumbled, trying to make a small joke of his condition. 

The door rumbled open, grinding ponderously as it retreated into the wall and the lights increased to full intensity.  John squinted at his strutting visitor, his eyes watering from the unaccustomed glare.  “Braca.  Didn’t go down with your ship, I see.” 

“Crichton,” smirked the lieutenant.  “Our accommodations don’t seem to agree with you.”  He examined the blank walls and ceiling with exaggerated care.  John ignored the taunt, too tired to summon a response.  Braca paced around the cell several times before coming to a stop in front of the weary astronaut, his eyes bright with pleasure as he stared down at the prisoner. 

“What d’ya want, Braca?” John demanded tiredly, fumbling through each word.  “Cap’n Cleavage send you down here to gloat me to death?” 

“Commandant Grayza,” the Peacekeeper officer snarled back, emphasizing both the rank and her name, “has instructed me to inform you that your companion has been shot and killed while attempting to elude our search teams.”

John’s head spun for a moment, his hands and feet numb with shock.  A remembered voice broke out from where he’d hidden it, reminding him not to succumb to their tricks.  “Don’t let them convince you that it’s hopeless.  Until you see my body, unless they drag my dead body in front of you, you keep believing that I’m going to get you out.”  He took a slow breath, recovering from the momentary shock of the announcement, and forced himself back into the imagined history he’d been building in his mind. 

“Companion,” he repeated slowly.  “Give me a clue here, Braca buddy.  Charlotte maybe?  Runty the bird?  You got someone specific in mind?” 

Braca’s pleased expression faltered for a microt.  “I am referring to Aeryn Sun.  You smuggled her onto the carrier.  Her attempts to elude us were futile.  I am afraid she did not die painlessly.”  His smirk destroyed any chance that the mock sympathy might be mistaken for genuine concern.   

Crichton snorted a laugh at him before tapping into the anger that had ruled his life for almost an entire cycle.  “Peacekeeper Officer Sun?  No passenger of mine.”  He squinted at Braca, trying to get the blurred image into focus.  “You’re trying to trick me, aren’t you?  Always suspected you were a little stupid, Braca.  You don’t do so well without Scorpy around to make your mouth move up and down.”

“You are lying, Crichton.  We have her body to prove it.” 

It was suddenly difficult to breathe, his chest tightening until the air caught in his throat and made his head spin worse than before.  Aeryn dead.  Logic and faith told him it wasn’t true, but the idea was threatening to destroy his carefully constructed façade anyway.  Crichton concentrated on the two tasks of keeping his breathing even and focusing on the image of Aeryn’s Prowler leaving Moya, doing his best to maintain the alternate version of history. 

“Feel free to trot the carcass out.  Be nice to see old what’s her name Sun one more time.”  He watched the last of the pleasure fade from Braca’s face, uncertainty taking its place.  “If Grayza is looking for a lever, she’s going to have to do better than that, Mortimer.  Go back and sit on her knee for a bit, maybe she’ll teach you a new act.”  The taunt left him dizzy and panting as he used up too much of his reserve of energy, but he continued, trying to provoke his adversary into doing or saying something rash. 

“Tell me something, Braca … does she ever let you play?  Join in for a threesome maybe?  Or does she just keep you around to parrot her orders?  A puppet to mouth her commands?”  He knew it was lame, but he couldn’t formulate anything better.  The metal bunk had begun to shift beneath him, wobbling about very unsteadily considering that it was attached to the wall. 

“Very funny, Crichton,” the officer hissed angrily.  “I look forward to attending the final interrogation that results in your death.”  He spun about, headed for the door, but turned before leaving, the smirk back in place.  “As for Commandant Grayza’s preferences, I would guess that you are more familiar with those than anyone else at this point.”  The Peacekeeper linked his hands together behind his back and peered down his nose at the exhausted human.  Crichton gazed dully back at him, jaw hanging slackly, empty of comebacks.  “If not, you will have another opportunity to learn about them within the arn.” 

   * * * * *

Aeryn sat up, momentarily confused by her surroundings.  She was alone on the bed with the covers folded over her body to keep her warm.  The events of the past several days snapped back into place, and she lunged out of bed and through the short tunnel.  The maintenance encoder was lying open on the table with Gallenn’s threadbare coveralls flung carelessly next to it, the tech’s uniform missing. 

“You let me sleep!” she snapped at him, spotting his back where he was standing in the tiny waste chamber. 

“It’s been a single arn,” he returned in an untroubled tone.  “And tell me what it means when a Pleisar falls asleep in the middle of a mission.”  Water ran for a microt but she couldn’t see what he was doing in there. 

She took a deep breath, calming down once she knew it had been only an arn.  “It means I needed the rest,” she admitted.  He stepped out of the small room and she took one fast step back, jumping with surprise.  “That’s good,” she admitted, recovering quickly.  “That’s very good.” 

He’d cut his hair while she’d been sleeping, cropping it down to a mere dench in length, then he’d brushed it back into the almost obsessively neat arrangement favored by many of the male techs.  She looked him over, checking for any details that might be out of place, but he’d done well for someone who’d been out of the ranks for eight cycles.  The dead man had been slightly taller, but the single fold at the bottom of his pant legs wasn’t out of line for someone who might spend more time crawling through servicing conduits than walking upright.  Gallenn turned around slowly, letting her check him over. 

“They’re already on ident chip verification,” she noted.  “Have it out and waiting.”  He pulled the tethered tag out from inside the uniform.  “Wrong boots.”  His dusty tan boots had been buffed clean, but they weren’t issue. 

“The others were too small,” he agreed.  “I’ll have to hope these are close enough.  They should be checking faces instead of feet.” 

“What else did I miss while I was asleep?”  She reached for the stealth suit and began pulling it on. 

“You’ll pass the genetic scans now.  I tried to alter the datafile attached to my DNA record to make me something other than a deserter, but I couldn’t get that far into the system.  Too many layers of encryption.”  He sat down across from her and treated her with a huge grin, reminding her of John’s bright-eyed smiles.  “You’re going to like this one though.  I put in an order for the parts to fix the engines, and a work order for a specific tech to make the repairs.  Guess which one?” 

He was rightfully proud of himself, warranting a compliment, but everything was progressing so smoothly it was generating fear instead of pleasure.  Nothing they ever did went this easily.  There had to be something, somewhere going terribly wrong.  “Nicely done,” she acknowledged, shrugging the suit onto her shoulders.  “We’re almost ready to get out of here.”  She sat down, rested her head on her hands and tried to get her tired brain to think. 

“Two arns to complete the repairs?” she suggested. 

“I’ll rush the job.  The parts should be waiting, so that’ll help.  I might be able to get it done in under two if I really push it.”  He closed the maintenance unit and latched it, getting ready to take the encoder and the tools inside it with him.  “I checked on Crichton while you were asleep.  He was in his cell as of a quarter arn ago.”

“All right.  If I see a chance, I’ll get him out and bring him straight to the hangar.  If there’s no opportunity or he’s injured, I’ll come get you, and we’ll do it another way.”  The unanswered questions and unresolved portions of the plan began returning.  “Can the rhotarri drive jump from inside the ship, or will we need to get out of the hangar first?”  When she didn’t get an answer, she looked up at him. 

Gallenn was staring at her, shaking his head in astonishment.  “I don’t know how to make that thing go.  I figured you did.” 

“Oh frell.”  She got up and paced.  “You helped build it, you must know how to get it to work,” she insisted. 

“Crichton pointed, said ‘put that part here’, and I did what I was told.  I know how to perform maintenance flights on a few spacecraft, but I’m not a pilot.  I assumed you knew how to make the drive work.  He tried to teach me, but I was never taught navigation.” 

The unsettled feeling that something was going to go wrong expanded.  “Okay, we’ll have to assume John is going to be able to work the drive or at least tell us how.  We don’t have a choice.” 

“Take a Marauder instead.  Why even bother fixing the prototype?” Gallenn asked. 

“They’d overtake us before we were a hundred metras from the carrier.  We need something that can move faster than the Prowlers, and that means his ship.  And --”  She paused, wondering if John had admitted this to the sebacean and whether she should be the one to tell him.  “A few days ago, John told me that the rhotarri drive could be used as a weapon.  We can’t let them have the ship.  If we don’t do anything else, we have to destroy it.”

The carrier seemed to shift beneath her, assuming an erratic course.  She checked on Gallenn, but he didn’t seem to notice the undulating deck plates.  Aeryn slid into the waste chamber and began rummaging through the racks of hygiene items and personal supplies, finally locating the small container that virtually every member of the Peacekeepers possessed.  She stepped back into the main section of the quarters, and grabbed the drinking container from the table. 

“What are you taking?” Gallenn demanded harshly.  He grabbed her wrist and forced her to turn her hand palm up.  “Those things will kill you!” 

“I’m only taking one,” she told him, pulling loose.  “I’ve used them before -- I know how I’ll react.”  Known simply as “Boosters”, the green tablets were a potent stimulant that all personnel used whenever their duties forced them to go without sleep for too long.  Gallenn was correct though.  Extended use or even a mild overdose was a prescription for heart failure or a drug-induced onset of heat delirium, but one small green tablet would keep her alert and energized for at least another twelve arns, and would put a stop to the odd antics from the walls and floors. 

“You won’t be any help to Crichton if you drop dead,” he said, watching her wash it down. 

“Just one isn’t going to kill me.”  She shoved several more into a pocket of the uniform, then replaced the container in the rack where she’d found it, spotting a different supply of capsules that might come in handy later.  She dumped the additional items into the same pocket and sealed the front of the stealth suit. 

“Stay near the ship when you get it fixed,” she ordered him, pulling the hood into place.  “You’ll know it if I get caught.  Destroy the engines if we don’t make it back.  If I need help, I’ll come get you.” 

Gallenn nodded, hesitating with his hand hovering over the door switch.  “Can I ask you one question before we commit this insanity?”  She raised her eyebrows, inviting him to continue.  “Did you really beat Crichton up the first time you two met?” 

She laughed, mildly startled by the unexpected query.  “What did he tell you?” 

“That you flung him from one end of a cell to the other five or six times, kicked the dren out of him, threw him on the floor, and then sat on him … the last of which he seemed to enjoy if the smile on his face was any indication.”  Gallenn leaned a shoulder against the edge of the door opening for the duration of the small recitation. 

The sense of loss returned.  She wished she could have been sitting at a nearby table as John told the story, eavesdropping as he added the exaggerations, listening to his version of what had happened that day.  “Did he tell you much about those first days?” she asked quietly.  Gallenn shook his head.  “I threw him across the cell twice, kicked him once.  He didn’t know much about fighting back then.” 

“But you did sit on him?”  Both his eyes and his grin widened in delight at the image. 

“Yes.”  She sealed the face flap and turned on the suit, letting him know that the conversation was over.  It was too distracting to think of those moments while John was still imprisoned.  She had to concentrate on the next few arns, not wallow in the past.   

“Pleisars.  Always so polite when meeting someone for the first time,” Gallenn laughed, and opened the door. 

    * * * * *

Moving silently was difficult for the first several hundred microts, the slow, cautious movements uncomfortable after the few arns of normal walking and talking.  Aeryn pressed herself against a bulkhead to avoid an oncoming officer, and then moved forward two motras to wait for a break in the traffic around the security checkpoint.  The security personnel were performing only ident chip verifications, but as she watched one of them put his hand to his earpiece, nodded several times as he listened to the transmission, and then switched on the equipment for the genetic scans.  It had taken her half an arn to reach this corridor a level above the detention cells.  She could only hope that Gallenn had made it into the hangar before they changed to the extra precautions. 

She dodged another officer and pressed herself into the corner formed by a reinforcing brace, getting out of the way as the increased level of security created a momentary clog of personnel waiting on either side of the checkpoint. 

“What’s the frelling holdup?” someone asked from a half-motra away.

“I heard that command thinks there’s a saboteur on board,” came the answer.  “I’ll wager we get hit with a full security lock down within a solar day.  Any takers?”  The grumbles around the speaker suggested that no one disagreed with the assessment.   

“Looking for infiltrators on board a command carrier has got to be the all time stupidest idea,” someone else said more quietly.  “It’s grot-brained.  How does a saboteur get on board in the first place?  Past all the security?” 

“I suppose you think everyone who has disappeared has been eaten by a demon?” another voice demanded with a laugh. 

“Don’t joke about it … move up will you?”  Aeryn flattened herself against the wall as the group shuffled past her position.  “I heard that over fifty officers have simply disappeared.  How do you explain that?” 

The speaker was plainly nervous, several other grumbles of concern agreed with him as the cluster of talkers moved away.  The small deception was working on some level, even if only by exaggerating the number of missing personnel.  Aeryn peeked around the vertical brace, verifying that the traffic jam was easing.  She waited until the corridor returned to its usual level of traffic, then slid along the wall, skirting the checkpoint. 

   * * * * *

Gallenn nodded curtly to the supply officer and gathered up the components that would replace the faulty switches in the engines.  Despite his extended absence, the procedures aboard the carrier were familiar in an eerie way, as though he were following a set of instructions he’d learned in a dream. 

“Fight?” the officer asked him as he turned away.  Gallenn froze, trying to figure out if the small comment was a query or an invitation.  “Get in a fight?” the stocky woman asked, expanding on the original question.  He’d forgotten about the bruises on his face. 

“Mouthed off to a Prowler pilot,” he tried, assuming that the antagonism between specialties still existed.  “They just don’t seem to get that certain pieces of equipment can’t be treated that way.”  The barking laugh behind him said he’d chosen the right excuse and his shoulders began settling back where they belonged as the muscles relaxed. 

“If you’re going to speak your mind, you’ve got to learn to duck,” she called after him. 

“Next time,” he agreed, and hurried out of the supply center. 

He paused for a moment near the base of the scaffolding under the treblin side engine nacelle, trying to remember if the switches had been installed from inside the ship or outside, his contemplation interrupted as an appalling odor swept past him.  “Augh!” he exclaimed, covering his nose by burying his face in the inside of his elbow. 

“What did you do to get assigned down here right now?” someone said from behind his shoulder.  He turned quickly, looking at the person over his forearm.  “Oh!  Punishment for fighting?”  A slender tech moved past him, pulling a sealed container, the markings indicating that it held radioactive waste from expended froonium.   

“What the frell is that stench?” he asked, getting comfortable as one person after another accepted him as just another technician.

The tech shook his head in disgust.  “Didn’t they even tell you how you were being punished?  You think this container actually holds froonium sludge?  Someone blew that thing up.”  A fast jerk of his head indicated the charred, fragmented tank on the far side of the hangar.  “I’ve never heard of the demon blowing things up, but if it was him then Cholak has a very warped sense of humor.”  The tech turned away, headed back toward a section of hangar that hadn’t been cleaned yet.

“Aeryn Sun, I’m going to kill you for not warning me about this,” Gallenn growled quietly, trying to not breathe through his nose.  He examined the ladder on the scaffolding to make sure it hadn’t been subjected to any impacts during the explosion, then climbed up to the first engine.  Leaning into the open hatch he saw immediately where the wiring had been patched in, and spotted the substandard switching components.  “Crichton, you lazy drannit, I told you those wouldn’t work.”  He wormed further inside the nacelle and began pulling the wiring loose from the faulty junction.  “That’s right!  This is his fault.  He’s the one I’m going to kill if we don’t die getting out of here.” 

   * * * * *

Aeryn heard several sets of footsteps moving in the curving corridor ahead of her and began to run to catch up.  She’d been approaching the detention block when she’d overheard a conversation between two guards standing watch.  They’d been discussing a prisoner who had just passed by, being escorted to Commandant Grayza’s quarters.  Their quiet, snide comments had suggested that the interrogation was not a standard one, but they’d been cut off by the appearance of a senior officer before she could make any sense of the leers or laughter. 

It had taken several microts for her to decide to follow the unknown prisoner on the chance that it was John.  If she was wrong, she could always backtrack to the cells, but if she was right, there might be an opportunity to free him.  Her route through the decks and corridors had been followed without conscious direction, her lifetime aboard carriers guiding her while she considered the options that might present themselves if it was John. 

She turned right at the next intersection and saw him.  The initial burst of relief turned into the stomach-tightening anxiety when she saw that he was being half-carried this time, his stumbling progress suggesting that he was injured.  She closed to within two motras, looking for signs of damage. 

She jerked to a halt as he tripped over his own feet, going down nearly to his knees.  The guards grunted as they took the impact of his weight, and dragged him along for several motras before stopping to let him get up.  “Hurry up, fekkik,” one of them growled.  “Don’t want to keep the commandant waiting.  She’s eager to have you visit again.”  The double laughter echoed hollowly inside the helmets, and they staggered forward again.  Aeryn frowned, puzzled by their amusement, and drifted after them. 

“You can join us,” John’s voice carried back to her weakly.  This time when he stumbled they let go, deliberately dropping him.  Aeryn moved forward quickly, thinking that this was the moment she needed, intent on disabling the first guard quickly before moving on to the second one.  John rolled over, floundering as he tried to get up, and she stopped, teetering on her toes.  He wasn’t able to move on his own, she realized.  She wouldn’t be able to get him to the hangar without help.

“Get up,” one of the guards ordered, grabbing an arm. 

“Need to be up for this,” the other one chimed in, generating more inexplicable laughter.  They pulled John upright, and hustled forward, half dragging him.  Aeryn frowned again, concerned by the odd humor, then followed to make sure he was taken to the quarters she assumed would be Grayza’s.  It would be easier to free him from that relatively unsecured location than from the detention cell.   

They rounded the last corner, were waved through the doors by Grayza’s personal guard, and tossed John part way across the lower level of the plush quarters.  He never got his feet under him, hit the steel deck hard and slid half a motra before coming to a stop.  Aeryn hesitated for a microt, considering her options, then darted inside.  The doors slid closed behind her, and she slid along the wall to her right, looking for the commandant. 

John pushed himself up onto his knees and stayed there, swaying from side to side.  “Hang in there, dude,” he said.  “Keep your shit together.” 

Aeryn stood up straight and scanned the quarters, taking several steps forward to make sure no one was on the upper level.  They were alone, and there were rarely any surveillance devices in the quarters of the commanding officer of a ship this large.  She moved to his side, lowering her voice to a nearly silent whisper as a precaution, intent on letting him know that he wasn’t alone. 

“John, just a few more arns, then --”

“No!”  He shook his head vigorously.  “Go away.  Bad timing.”  He stumbled to his feet and walked toward the stairs, scrubbing his face with his hands.  “Stay awake, John.  Don’t do that now.  Stay awake.  Focus.”  He sat down on a step and rested his head in his hands, still mumbling. 

Aeryn moved toward him, intending to try again, but at that moment the doors slid open and Mele-On Grayza entered.  She paused to lock the doors, and Aeryn was trapped inside her quarters. 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 5

“Frell, frell, frell,” Gallenn muttered.  The switching components were so far inside the engine compartment he was nearly inverted; only his lower legs jutted out of the access hatch.  He yanked on the damaged circuit for the sixth time and it finally came loose, his knuckles striking a brace on the way out.  He sucked on the bloody scrape for a moment then continued his whispered complaints.  “I’m going to make sure you get free, because I want to kill you myself.  No sane person puts these things this far inside.”  He twisted his body to look out the hatch, yelled “Watch your heads!” and heaved the useless circuitry out the opening past his feet.  An angry cry suggested that someone hadn’t heeded his call.

The new part slid into place more easily, the cabling was attached without trouble, and a quarter of an arn later he was wriggling carefully out of the compartment.  He fastened the outer hull plate into place and climbed down the ladder to start working on the other engine. 

“This yours?” a gruff voice demanded.  A hand holding the discarded chunk of circuitry was thrust under his nose, the rest of the angry tech officer appearing a microt later. 

“Not really,” he answered.  “Technically it belongs to whoever owns the ship.”  It was out before he had time to assume the more deferential tones of a Peacekeeper tech.  “Sir,” he added lamely after a too-long pause.  He stared straight forward, waiting to see how bad it was going to get.  The silence lengthened.  “Sorry, sir,” he added after a couple more microts.

“We’ve all got it bad enough being assigned here before the clean-up is finished.  Don’t make it any worse for the rest of us.”  The lieutenant breathing down his neck was wearing the shoulder tabs of a non-combat specialist, with the patches designating some sort of surveillance unit.  “Don’t do it again.”

“Sir,” Gallenn acknowledged.  He waited until the man disappeared inside the ship, then heaved a sigh of relief and walked around the tail of the ship, headed for the hamman side engine.  There were a couple of non-rated techs working there, both of them wearing the same patches as the officer.  They were removing every access hatch, searching inside, and then carefully replacing the plates. 

“What did you guys do to deserve this?” he asked nonchalantly.  The stench in the hangar seemed to be the topic of the day. 

“We didn’t fini --” one of them started to answer. 

“Nothing!” the other drowned him out.  “We have a job to do, smell or no smell.”  The two men went back to work, their heads and shoulders disappearing inside the skin of the ship as they continued their search. 

Gallenn bounded up the ladder to the second engine to discover that the maintenance panel had already been removed, the cover clipped to one side of the opening.  He wriggled in and began working without any delay.  Voices drifted up to him from below, muffled by the internal baffles of the ship, and he stopped moving in order to listen. 

“What’s the big deal?” came the voice of one of the men outside the craft.

The second man answered angrily.  “You don’t know who he reports to, you frellnik!  Tell him we didn’t really finish the search the first time like we reported, and we’ll be next on the sign-up list for the Aurora Chair.  Did someone use a laser probe to sear all your neurons?”

“Aren’t you done out there yet?” a different voice called impatiently.  “We could use some help inside.  There are a lot of places in here that have to be searched.” 

Gallenn resumed his work, wondering if there was anything aboard that Aeryn didn’t want discovered.  He had little choice other than to listen and wait to hear if they found something.  The damaged switch popped out more easily than the previous one, sparing his knuckles this time, and he began securing the new one in place.  A loud clang sent vibrations through his body where he lay on the reinforcing struts, and he assumed someone was working on the other side of the airtight hull. 

“Sir!” a voice yelled in excitement.  “I found something!” 

Gallenn stopped working again, concentrating on the muffled voices.  The conversation provided enough clues that he was certain they’d found several gear bags hidden inside the maintenance space, and that they were going through the contents.  The officer must have been standing close to the open panel inside the ship, because he heard every word clearly as they reported to someone named Braca and described the woman’s garments they’d found, as well as the weapons and uniforms contained in the bags. 

He stopped listening and focused on getting the ship repaired, ignoring the occasional scrape or cut knuckle as he hurried.  They’d found Aeryn’s possessions, which meant that they’d be searching for her, and their time was running out.   

   * * * * *

Aeryn knelt near the bath, her entire body shaking as she struggled to restrain herself.  The stimulants she had taken earlier were goading her to do something foolish, encouraging her to give in to the violent, physical solution to the scene unfolding before her.  She’d retreated to this spot when Grayza had entered the quarters, choosing the relatively empty area around the large tub because it gave her room to get out of the way if Grayza brought John into this area.  The ugly panorama had unfolded entirely on the bed however, every detail illuminated by the bright, focused lighting. 

Mele-On Grayza hadn’t bothered to look at John when she’d first entered.  She’d strolled toward her work surface with her usual arrogant elegance, tossed several data chips down and punched up some data, pointedly ignoring him.  John had gotten to his feet, nearly bumping into Aeryn before she could move away from him, and had worked his way to the far side of the room, holding on to the half-height wall for support.  She’d used that moment to dodge around him and scamper up the stairs to where she could watch and not worry about being detected or run over by the room’s other two occupants. 

Grayza had pulled a chip out of the viewer, tossed it aside, and finally turned to look at him.  “Save your energy, Crichton.  Answer my questions now, and you can go back to your cell and sleep.” 
   
“And miss the best little whorehouse in the Uncharted Territories?” he’d asked, easing further to one side as Grayza advanced. 

“This resistance is futile, Crichton,” Grayza said, moving after him. 

“Resistance is futile?” he repeated on a hysterical sounding laugh.  His giggles had continued as he backed away, but they were sounding increasingly manic with every passing microt.  “I’ll give it a shot anyway.”  His retreat had ended when he ran out of the half-wall to hang onto, barely able to stand as he jammed himself into a corner and tried to slap Grayza’s hands away.  It had taken only a small tug for the officer to yank him out of his corner.  She’d hung on to him to break his fall as he collapsed at her feet.

Aeryn had watched with horrified fascination as Grayza had knelt alongside him, fingering his lips, talking to him too softly for Aeryn to hear.  Microts later he’d become an obedient automaton, complying with every one of Grayza’s instructions, whether it was delivered verbally or by gesture.  He’d allowed himself to be guided to the bed, and had let her strip off his clothes without a complaint. 

And now she was trapped in this spartan, militaristic brothel, forced to watch and listen as Grayza somehow turned John into a willing participant in this twisted version of lust.  She hadn’t seen a drug being administered, and he hadn’t been given anything to eat or drink, but she knew that he would never submit to this unless he was being influenced in some way. 

The energy booster’s effects surged through her again, and she fingered her pistol through the slick fabric of the suit, resisting the desire to put a pulse blast through the commandant’s naked chest.  Aeryn eyed the pale, smooth skin of the woman’s breasts and a memory teased her … suggesting that she should know how Grayza was managing to alter John’s behavior without actually coming forth with the forgotten information.   

“We have much to talk about, Crichton,” Grayza’s voice said firmly, projecting to where Aeryn knelt. 

“The cheerful … interrogator.”  John’s sarcasm was clear despite a mild slurring of his speech.  “Colonel Von Scherbach, I presume?”  Aeryn nodded with satisfaction at the untranslatable term, the Earth phrase demonstrating that his underlying personality remained unaltered.

“‘Colonel’ I understand.  What is the rest?”  Grayza was reclining next to him, one hand stroking his chest. 

“Von Scherbach,” he repeated.  “Officer and interrogator at Stalag 17.  Never got Dunbar to break.” 

“I seem to be doing better than this Scherbach,” the silky tones countered. 

“Talking isn’t the same thing as breaking,” he disagreed with her.     

Aeryn got to her feet and moved closer, her curiosity piqued by his defiant answers, and wished that she hadn’t.  Grayza rose to her knees and leaned over John’s motionless body, her hands beginning a slow migration from shoulders to toes and back up -- exploring, caressing, and teasing him, finally moving to kneel between his legs and concentrating her efforts there.  He began to respond, but slowly, as though his fatigue and his willpower had teamed up to fight a loosing battle against a common enemy. 

“John, I’m sure you can do better than that,” Grayza’s oily voice purred from the bed, her hands continuing their efforts.  Aeryn took two more steps forward, needing to move to a spot where she couldn’t see what was going on, the sight of what was being done to him making her lightheaded and clumsy.  John’s head rolled away from Grayza, coming to rest at an awkward angle facing the raised bathing area where she stood.  His eyes wandered about the room as the commandant continued to work over him, his expression empty and bleak, and she nearly went to his rescue at that look of inner devastation. 

That body belonged to her now, given to her freely the night he’d said ‘All right’.  The simple phrase had been a gift from him, delivering two precious items into her care:  one more chance to be with him, and the right to caress the lean angles of bone, rounded muscles, and the warm skin.  She’d searched for him, fought to break down the walls, provided the warmth to bring him back to life when he’d almost frozen to death, and had persevered when he’d almost turned away from her.  This was the man that fate and destiny had brought to her side, and the sight of Grayza using him this way ignited an almost uncontrollable rage.

She held still, closed her eyes to block out what was happening in front of her, and fought the compulsion to kill one more time. 

It would have been easier if she could have spoken the words out loud, instead of reviewing the arguments inside her head, but she envisioned each factor clearly and gradually got herself under control.  John could barely stand, let alone walk; there were four guards outside the quarters; she didn’t have a spare uniform with her and she couldn’t traverse the corridors holding up a staggering ghost; and most importantly, by the time she unsealed the suit and extracted the pulse pistol, she’d be seen and the guards would be inside Grayza’s quarters.  Getting him out safely had to remain her first concern.

Aeryn shuddered at the sounds of Grayza’s quiet encouragements, accepted the fact that she’d have to wait through this interrogation, and opened her eyes.  The view before her almost destroyed her tenuous control.  She would have to move to a spot where she couldn’t see what was going on.  She took three steps forward, headed toward the stairs to the lower level, and froze as John’s eyes swiveled in her direction.  She stared back into those empty blue eyes, unwilling to more even a finger until he looked away.  His stare was a coincidence of timing and placement, but she didn’t want to take a chance that he might actually notice the flickering distortion of the suit against the even colored background.  It would destroy him if he knew that she was watching this abomination. 

“You aren’t enjoying yourself,” Grayza’s voice rose from the quiet undertone she’d been using.  “Let me help you.”  The officer’s long fingers wandered up her own chest, passing between the naked breasts, then she reached to roll John’s head to face her. 

“Let me,” she whispers.  He kneels before her and lets her pull his shorts down, his hands resting on her wrists …  

Enamel crackled quietly as she ground her teeth together, her body frozen in place by anger instead of caution. 

“No!” John’s slurred growl demanded.  He grabbed at her wrist as she reached toward his face, missed, tried again.  “Don’t.”  The second demand was closer to a plea, punctuated by a loud slap as he batted her hand away.  Grayza moved fast, pinning him down with one hand and her body, easily defeating John’s fumbling attempts to escape.  Aeryn shook herself free of her paralysis and used the distraction to drift carefully down the stairs, looking for some place to wait until the doors to the chamber reopened. 

“Don’t … do … that,” John demanded again.  Aeryn turned slowly, hearing the desperation in his voice, powerless not to look.  Grayza brushed her fingers across his lips, caressing him in an odd manner.  He jerked, lunged beneath her, still fighting, and she repeated the soft fingering motions.  A microt later John’s free hand snaked behind Grayza’s head and he pulled her against him more firmly, yanking her down into a deep, open-mouthed kiss.  The two bodies on the bed rolled over, arms and legs entwining, torsos rubbing tight against each other and Aeryn looked away. 

She had the answer, but solving the mystery brought her no pleasure.  It had to be heppel oil.  As unbelievable as it seemed, there was no other explanation.  She’d heard that some of the less proficient members of Special Directorate had resorted to the implantation, using the gland’s emulsions to achieve what their own talents could not, but she hadn’t believed the rumors … until now.  Until John fell victim to its effects. 

The sounds of air circulation and the hushed rumble of machinery faded away, drowned out by the sighs, grunts, and slobbering of the lengthening kisses coming from the bed.  It had been her decision to follow him here; her vow that she would rescue him that had brought her to this time and place.  She had never could have foreseen this mutual torture. 

Grayza sat up for a microt, pulling away from him.  Aeryn flinched as he let out a quiet growl and pulled her back down, one of his hands reaching between her legs.  “Would you like to, Crichton?” Grayza invited him with a husky whisper.  “Would you enjoy that?” 

His fingers drift slowly up her thighs, slowing to a stop as his laugh rumbles low and soft.  “Can I Aeryn?  Would that be all right?”

She turned away too late, the sight of the slow touches burned forever into her memory, numb feet making too much noise, but not enough to be heard over his sighs.  She glanced around the lower expanse of Grayza’s quarters, finally stumbling toward a small area of shadow near the side of the desk.  Slanting shadows concealed the suit better than most other lighting conditions.  If she sat still, she would be undetectable.  Aeryn put her back against the smooth metal side of the desk, using the cool sensation against her shoulders as a focus around which to gather her drifting thoughts.  The sighs and moans behind her were accelerating, becoming more frantic. 

John’s familiar deep rumbles warned of an impending climax, the sounds carrying clearly in the otherwise silent quarters.  “Not yet,” Grayza said calmly, her voice empty of passion.  “Not yet, Crichton.” 

“Aeryn, wait,” he gasps, telling her he’s too close to losing control.  She slows her movements, letting him ease back from the edge so they can come together, so they can share the joy. 

John let out an extended groan.  “First I want you to tell me something.” 

“What?” he asked, the word squeezed out at the tail end of a breath.

A confused snarl of emotions -- concern, love, guilt that she had brought him to this moment, and anger at Grayza -- magnified her existing fatigue and distaste for what she’d been forced to do over the past days, attacking on a physical level.  She leaned forward, close to vomiting, her stomach twisting painfully in an attempt to eject its contents.  She sat with her head hanging between her bent knees and forced the surge of pressure back where it belonged.  The air inside the hood seemed to thicken, making it hard to breathe.  Aware that it was an enormous risk, she eased the face flap away, letting the fresh air flood in, deep breaths helping to quell the nausea. 

“Crichton.  You must tell me.”  Grayza’s voice interrupted her battle with her stomach.  “Where is Aeryn Sun?  Where is the traitor?” 

“She … left,” he groaned quietly.  “The bitch took off.”  His harsh pronouncement emerged on accelerating explosions of air. 

“Not true, Crichton.  We know she found you at the repair facility.  Your friend was most forthcoming once he experienced the less gentle influence of the Aurora Chair.”  John groaned long and deep, a rumbling statement of despair rather than passion.  “Aeryn Sun left that planet in the ship now impounded in this carrier.  Where is she?  Where did she go?” Grayza insisted.  Aeryn held her breath.  Aside from being the ultimate aphrodisiac, heppel was reputed to be an irresistible truth-drug.  The entire rescue was in jeopardy. 

“Don’t know.”  John cried out in excitement, the tones more horrible for being so familiar.  “Please,” he begged the commandant.  Aeryn began to get up, needing to see what the woman was doing to him.  “Oh god!” he moaned, and she subsided, revolted by the thought of watching. 

“You are lovers,” Grayza prompted.  “We wish to locate Aeryn Sun.  Tell me where she has gone.” 

“Not any more.  She … she … doesn’t love me any more.  I … don’t love … her,” he gasped.   
   
“Aeryn Sun,” Grayza demanded again.  “Where is she?” 

“She left, she left, she left,” John insisted, sounding increasingly short of breath. 

“She found you at the repair facility, which has since been destroyed.  Where did you take her?” 

“I … I … ”  He growled long and deep, a sound of anguish rather than passion.  Aeryn fastened the face flap and stole a look at the bed.  He was shaking his head frantically, continuing the denial silently.  Her eyes remained trapped on the horrible tableau as Grayza gathered more heppel oil and set about working Crichton into a more unresisting state. 

“She was there.  Where did you take her?” Grayza demanded again.  Aeryn tore her eyes away from the sight and sat down again, hugging her knees against her chest as the interrogation continued. 

“She … found … me,” John admitted.  “I … sent her away!”  He had sent her away when she’d found him in the command carrier wreckage.  It was a half-truth.  The evasion seemed to give him strength in his struggle to avoid the truth.  “Rambo Chick took off on me a long time ago.  This time I told her to take a hike.  I don’t know where … ”  He broke off into a long series of shuddering sighs. 

Somehow he was managing to lie against the heppel oil, resisting the mental influence even if he couldn’t deny the physical arousal.  Aeryn clamped both forearms across her ears, clasped her hands behind her head to hold them there, and tried to ignore the remaining noises that made it through.  She didn’t need to hear anything more.  His repeated evasion of the entire truth brought home what it had taken her almost too long to understand -- that John Crichton would endure almost anything in order to keep her safe. 
 
The voices continued to filter through the muffling of her arms, each of Grayza’s repeated demands followed by the deeper-voiced jerking responses from John.  Aeryn closed her eyes, trying to block out the visions being provided by her imagination, but it only provided a dark backdrop for the mental image of the entangled bodies.  Louder cries infiltrated past her clamped arms, telling her that the ‘interrogation’ was drawing to a close.  Aeryn stared at the floor between her feet and concentrated on the sound of her pulse beating inside her ears.   

Silence reigned at last, and she slowly unclamped her arms, letting in first the quiet rush of air through the chamber’s ventilation system, then the slightly louder sighs of post-coitus recovery.  She got up slowly, giving her legs time to adjust to the new position. 

It wasn’t over.  John was face down, limbs flung out in four directions, but Grayza was continuing to work over the exhausted body.  The slender fingers wandered up and down his ribs as she ran her tongue slowly along the scar on John’s back, tracing its course from ribs to spine to shoulder, then moving on to nuzzle the side of his neck.  Aeryn remained standing, watching deliberately this time, allowing the knot of rage within to expand, feeding on the sight, the heat of her anger compounding with every passing microt. 

She took several steps toward the bed, already unfastening the front of the suit to get at her pulse pistol, intent on killing Grayza.  Her feet stopped at the bottom of the steps, coming to a halt as logic elbowed its way back into her thinking.  The factors she’d reviewed earlier paled before one additional consideration.  If she appeared out of thin air to kill Grayza now, John would know that she’d been there the entire time, and had watched when she could have stopped it.   

Aeryn sealed the suit and stepped back to her spot by the desk, her self-control restored.  Commandant Mele-On Grayza would have to die some other time. 

“There are a few other things I’d like you to tell me,” Grayza began again. 

“You’ve drained one part of me, why not my head?” he groaned.  “I gave you everything I know.” 

“You have not satisfied me on the topic of Aeryn Sun, and we need to talk about your engines again,” she suggested.  “They can be used as a weapon.  Tell me about that.” 

“Get frelled,” John responded weakly, his face buried in the pillows. 

Mele-On Grayza laughed quietly.  “I just did.”  Grayza began moving his arms and legs, rearranging his body to suit her tastes.  “I’m afraid this may take longer than the last session.  I hope you won’t find it too tiring.” 

Aeryn gnawed on her lower lip, scanning the commandant’s quarters for any piece of equipment that she could use to create a diversion.  She had to bring this nightmare of voyeurism to an end, both for herself and for John. 

Help came from an unexpected source.  “Commandant Grayza,” a familiar voice blared from the ship’s comms. 
 
“I gave orders not to be disturbed, Lieutenant Braca,” she snapped back at her subordinate.  Her tone used his rank as a threat, clearly implying that he was facing a demotion if the interruption was not merited.

“Yes, ma’am.  I think you’ll want to hear this.  The search has yielded something.” 

The commandant stood up, wrapping one of the satiny bed covers around her body several times, then pulling a long tail over her shoulder.  “Report,” she commanded over the comms. 

“The search team has found a collection of uniforms and weapons hidden aboard the ship,” Braca’s transmission continued.  “The clothing belongs to a woman.” 

“Get in here!” Grayza yelled, her calm demeanor shattering all at once.  She turned back to where Crichton lay motionless on the bed.  “Aeryn Sun.  She’s aboard this carrier, isn’t she?” 

Aeryn watched with pride as he raised himself up on his elbows and turned to look at Grayza.  His was barely able to lift his upper body, but he remained defiant.  “Aeryn who?” he mocked the Peacekeeper officer. 

The door slid open, the lock released from the outside, and ‘Aeryn-who’ stepped out of the way as Braca entered.  She took a cautious step toward the open door, then retreated to a spot against the wall when she saw that there were four guards in the corridor, their combined mass blocking the exit.

“Ma’am?” Braca inquired, waiting for orders. 

She held her hand up to quiet him, concentrating on her victim who had slumped back onto the mattress.  “This has all been Officer Sun, hasn’t it?”  He didn’t answer.  “Hasn’t it?” she demanded more loudly.   

“It was Claude Rains.”  His voice barely carried to the lower level this time, and it sounded as though he was finally going to sleep. 

“Lies, it was all lies.  You’re still lying.”  The infuriated accusations increased in volume.  “Where is she?  Where is she hiding?” 

“She left, she left, she left,” chanted John’s rasping, shaking voice.  They were the same words he’d used earlier, but this time there was a note of triumph behind the repetition.  “Gone, disappeared, not here, bye-bye.” 

Grayza turned with a quiet hiss of anger, leaving him there for everyone to see, undressed and uncovered.  “Get in here!” she barked at the guards.  Two of them hustled inside, their armor clashing as they came to attention.  She flicked a finger absently in Braca’s direction to get his attention, consulting her work surface as the displays came to life.  “Take Crichton back to his cell and prepare the Aurora Chair.  Crichton knows where Aeryn Sun is hiding.  She is the key.  We must capture her.” 

Grayza glanced at the motionless guards.  “Move!”  They clattered up the stairs toward the sleeping area.  “Cholak’s demon,” she hissed.  “Crichton’s personal demon.  She must have that mechanic with her.  Watch for both of them.  Full security lock down.  No one moves unless they have specific duties.  How many personnel have gone missing, Braca?” 

“Twelve that we know of so far, ma’am.” 

“Twelve.  Find those bodies and find out where they were assigned when they disappeared.  Track her movements.  It will help us trap her.” 

Braca nodded an acknowledgement as he stepped back to allow the guards to pass, watching with satisfaction as they dragged a clothed, barely conscious Crichton down the stairs and out of the chamber.  “Right away, Commandant,” he answered once they’d gone past. 

Aeryn didn’t hesitate when the guards left the room.  She pushed away from the wall and went out the door less than half a motra behind John’s trailing feet.  Grayza was still issuing orders to Lieutenant Braca as she turned away, but she didn’t dare stay to listen.  Time was of the essence now; security aboard the carrier would get tighter with every passing microt.  She gave John one last look and started to run toward the hangar deck.     

     * * * * *

Gallenn pulled an access panel off the treblin side engine cowling and ducked inside, pretending to tinker with the components.  More than an arn had passed since the search team had transmitted their findings to their superiors, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hang around the ship much longer without someone noticing that he wasn’t really working on anything. 

“Come on, Aeryn,” he whispered inside the compartment.  “Hurry up.”  Every microt that she didn’t appear made it more likely that she’d been caught, which meant that he was trapped aboard the carrier as well.  He surveyed the tangle of components, reviewing the hetch components for anything that would allow him to destroy the rhotarri drive.  The ship was useless to him without either Crichton or Aeryn to fly it; the best he could do was to honor her request to keep the rhotarri technology out of Peacekeeper hands. 

“You!  Get down here!”  He jumped at the shouted summons and banged his head on the inside of the cowling.  He backed out more cautiously on the second try.  A chief technician was standing at the bottom of the scaffolding with one of the helmeted security troops beside him.  Gallenn pointed inquiring at his own chest, trying for a look of innocent confusion.  “Yes, you!” the chief called up.  “Close the panel first!” the man yelled as Gallenn moved toward the ladder. 

He complied with the order, fumbling the process to give himself time.  “It’s been fun,” he offered quietly as the last latch slid into place, and turned to slide down the ladder.  The best he could hope for now was a quick death.  “Sir?” he asked the supervisor, snapping to attention. 

“You’re wanted for questioning.  Something to do with a malfunction in the surveillance systems in the detention block.”  The security guard swung her pulse rifle around, aiming it at the center of his chest, and Gallenn looked at the figure in armored leather more carefully.  The rifle jerked to one side, ordering him to proceed, and he headed obediently toward one of the exits.  They passed through the security station without stopping, the guards scarcely looking at them as a member of their own regiment escorted him out of the hangar. 

“Hurry up,” the guard behind him ordered curtly, and they broke into a jog.  “Stop,” he was ordered.  “In there.”  The pulse rifle jabbed toward a maintenance crawlspace and he dove through the circular entrance headfirst, scrambling out of the way as Aeryn came in behind him.  “To the right,” she ordered again. 

“Scared the stuffin’ out of me,” he complained as they turned the corner so they were out of sight of the corridor.  She gave him a small shove and he scuttled forward, spotting a pile of gear several motras ahead. 

“They know we’re on board, and they know it’s me, but they don’t know about the stealth suit yet.  This was the only way I could think of to get you out of there without passing through the genetic scans.”  She pulled her helmet off and set it aside.  “Change uniforms.”  She tossed a security guard’s uniform at him, complete with boots and helmet. 

“Lake level rising again?” he asked, shucking off the tech’s overalls. 

She grimaced.  “This one got stuffed in a closet and the lock somehow got melted into fused slag.  It’ll take arns for them to open the door.”  She was bundling a third uniform into a tight ball, wrapping everything inside the jacket.  “We’ve run out of time.  Is the ship fixed?”  He nodded, struggling to get into the leather pants in the tight confines of the tunnel. 

“Yeah.  I heard the search team find your gear.  I was starting to think you’d been caught.”  He caught the boot she’d loosened for him and pulled it on.  “Too small,” he commented, lacing it anyway. 

“Curl your toes and live with it.”  She tossed him the second boot, then got to her feet, crouching in the confined space as he finished dressing. 

“They’re not that small, but thanks for the sympathy anyway.  What’s the plan?”  He was dressed, tugging at the jacket to get the thick, built-in armor settled into place. 

“We’re going to go into the control room, kill the guards, put John in the third uniform, and run.  Shoot anything that gets in our way.  I saw him, but he’s not in very good shape.  We’re going to have to practically carry him.”  She took a deep breath and pulled her helmet on.  “Are you ready for this?” 

“Ready for this?  Oh yeah.  I run around command carriers helping people escape all the time.”  He pulled the helmet on one-handed and took the pulse rifle she offered him.  “And I always do it in boots that are too small.”  Aeryn looked over her shoulder at him, shaking her head.  “What?” he asked, questioning the disgust in her expression. 

“I think Crichton’s worn off on you,” she said, giving him another quick shake of her head.  “He’s been a bad influence.”  Then she turned the corner and was checking to make sure the corridor was empty before they emerged from the tunnel. 

“I always figured it was the other way around,” he offered, and followed her. 

   * * * * *

“Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel … ”  Crichton stared at the metal wall, trying to remember what it had felt like to have his brain torn apart by the Aurora Chair.  He wondered if it still revolved as it probed into its victim’s most personal thoughts and splashed them onto the screen for the universe to review.  “Time for the Marquis de Sade’s merry-go-round.”  He was so damned tired.  He snickered, envisioning nothing more than a television test pattern appearing on the screen accompanied by its monotone wail.  “Tha’ would serve ‘em right,” he mumbled into the surface of the bunk.     

It didn’t matter that he was out of energy; the power of the Chair would fuse itself with his mind and take whatever it wanted.  It would rip everything out, allowing Grayza to run her hands through his memories now that she was done running her hands across his body.  He could hear the boots coming down the steel-decked hallway toward his cell; the dual hammering of feet setting up the echoing that said his brief moment of peace was over. 

“It’s déjà vu all over again …”  But his old line brought the threat of tears this time, not the cynical laughter.  He was just so damned tired, and he missed Aeryn.  He’d managed to keep her safe so far.  The Chair would likely change that.  He devoted a little energy to rubbing at his eyes, forcing the stinging promise of tears back where it had come from before the guards could see the liquid evidence of his weakness. 

“Fly safe,” he whispered, trying to invoke the talisman of that phrase.  She would fly nowhere at all if he couldn’t keep the secret about the suit hidden from the invasive power of the Chair.

The door opened with its usual deep-throated grinding and the boots clashed into the cell.  They’d dumped him on the bunk facedown when they’d brought him back this last time, his head facing toward the wall, and he couldn’t think of a reason why he should expend the effort to look at his captors.  He’d save what little energy he had left for what lay ahead.

“John,” the quiet summons broke into his daze.  “Wake up.  We have to move fast.” 

They were always in a rush, hurrying to get him to Grayza’s soft killing ground, but they rarely asked him so nicely.  And never in a voice that sent chills up his spine in this manner.  Crichton stared at the wall and thought about the softly voiced demand, pondering the differences from the usual shouted orders. 

“John … can you hear me?”  The second question interrupted his consideration of the first one, and he had to start over again at the beginning.  “He’s unconscious.  We’ll have to hope he comes to before we have to move,” the voice said behind him.   

“Aeryn?”  He tried to turn over.  His arms moved but not in the directions he’d hoped for, leaving him beached on his stomach.  They flipped him onto his back, two sets of hands rolling him over quickly but carefully.  He looked at the face framed by the helmet and he started to shake with relief.   

“Aeryn,” he breathed, wanting to say more, but not able to find the words to describe what he was feeling.  He reached up with a shaking hand to touch her cheek, wanting to make sure that this was the real thing.  None of the other dream visitors had been wearing Peacekeeper black; they’d all been wearing the magic suit that kept her secret and safe.  She caught his trembling fingers and pressed them to her lips, confirming that she was more than a projection of his exhausted subconscious.  There was a second guard standing just out of sight near the head of the bunk, waiting as she finished checking him for injuries, but he had eyes only for the pale face bending over him.  “Is ‘bout … time.” 

She ignored his small complaint, remaining focused on the task at hand.  “Can you sit up?” 

Her hair was bound back in the obsessively neat braid she’d worn cycles ago, leaving the angular features exposed in sharp relief.  The uniform was standard Peacekeeper issue, the familiar gleaming black leather emphasizing the clean lines of her face and the dark eyes.  Aeryn was once again the meticulously perfect soldier, the stolen uniform like a second skin on the body that had been bred to wear it.     

“You’re beautiful,” he commented, wondering why she was in such a hurry. 

The grayish eyes flicked toward his face, and she gave him a small smile.  “Thank you.  Come on, John, you have to sit up.”  She motioned to her companion and between them they yanked him upright.

“When is the last time they gave you something to eat?”  Aeryn was kneeling in front of him, pulling his boots off.  “John?  Think.” 

“No food.  She let me drink some stuff, but nothing to eat.”  He blinked, trying to clear his vision as the second boot dropped away. 

“Swallow these,” she ordered, handing him a small fistful of tablets.  He fumbled the rattling collection, the shaking that had infected his hands making it difficult to juggle them to his mouth.  “Frell,” Aeryn swore quietly, tipping them back into her own hand.  “Open up.” 

“You can’t give him that many,” the second person objected as she thrust the collection into John’s mouth for him. 

“Shut up.  Only two are the boosters, the rest are caloric supplements.”  Aeryn placed a bundle of clothing on the bunk and began separating out the different items.  “Get him undressed.  Move!  We don’t have much time.”       

“Who’s he?” John asked.  The cell made one huge looping orbit around him and he started to topple over.  The stranger grabbed him firmly around the shoulders and pulled him upright again.  One hand steadied him and the other flipped up the tinted visor on the helmet.  “Frell,” John exclaimed.  “How’d you get here?” 

“Special invitation from the Peacekeepers,” Gallenn grinned at him.  “They sent a ship all the way to find me, and even blew the crap out of my repair shop to convince me that I should come with them.”  He had two black eyes and a split lip, suggesting that they’d treated him to a more standard form of interrogation.  “You look like dren, Crichton.”  He finished unfastening Crichton’s coveralls and pulled them down to his waist.   

“You look like you got --”  John started to tip over, the drift arrested by Gallenn before it went too far.  “Like you got shot by an ugly gun,” he finished, snickering at the small joke.  He was going to say something else to his friend, but Aeryn pulled him closer to the edge of the bunk and the small motion spun his thoughts off into outer space.  “I’m in outer space,” he shared the revelation with them, trying to figure out why they were removing his clothes.  Only Grayza ever wanted him undressed, although he didn’t mind if Aeryn wanted to take his clothes off.  He just couldn’t think why she would want him undressed at a time like this.   

“We’ll never get him into the uniform,” Aeryn said, talking past him.  John was still wondering what type of uniform she wanted him to wear when she abruptly yanked the overalls out from under his buttocks and tossed them to one side.  “John, for frell’s sake!  You have to concentrate.  Help us get you into these clothes.”  She was trying to feed his arms into a long sleeved black shirt.  He stared at his hands for several microts, finally managed to clench his fists and shoved them down into the fabric. 

The next few moments felt like a roller-coaster ride as they shifted him, pulled him up, sat him down, shoved him around, and finally managed to get him into leather pants, and a heavy jacket.  Aeryn gave up on the socks with a frustrated growl when it was taking too long to get them on over his unresisting feet.  She jammed them into the pockets of his jacket instead and stuffed his bare feet into the heavy boots without the extra layer, yanking the laces tight.  “Too tight,” he complained, because he never liked it when his boots were that snug. 

“Too bad.  We’ll fix them later.”  She straightened up from adjusting his pants around the boot tops and faced him eye to eye.  “I know you’re tired, John, but I want you to concentrate.”  His head was spinning, making it difficult to keep her in focus, but he nodded anyway. 

“You’re drunk,” Aeryn ordered him as they pulled him to his feet.  “Remember that.  You’re drunk, John.  You’ve had ten raslaks --”

“More like twenty,” Gallenn interjected, getting under John’s arm. 

“You’ve had too much raslak and you’re drunk.  Can you remember that?”  She ducked down to retrieve her helmet, sliding it on one-handed as she supported John on the other side. 

“I’m drunk,” he repeated obediently.  His legs promptly tried for an Oscar performance, giving out completely.  “Oh crap!  Next stop bargain basement.”   

“Crichton, you weigh as much as a budong,” came a complaint from Gallenn as the two levered him back up.  “Give us a little help here.” 

“Not too much talking, it’ll give us away,” Aeryn instructed as they lurched toward the door.  “Visor down,” she ordered Gallenn, and he spared a hand to snap the shield into place.  Crichton closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the fact that Aeryn was beside him and that his performance would determine if they all got out safely.  “John, what are you?” her voice prompted beside him as they stood facing the door. 

His first reaction was to answer ‘an astronaut’.  He remembered something she’d told him.  “I’m drunk.”  Keeping his eyes closed helped him focus, and the dark didn’t make the dizziness any worse than before. 

“Good.  That’s all you have to remember for a little while.”  They started to move forward.  “Wait,” she commanded.  Everything stopped.  Gloved fingers pressed against the underside of his jaw.  “John, close your mouth.”  He couldn’t remember how to make that happen.  “John, you’re drooling.  Even a drunk Peacekeeper doesn’t drool.  Close your mouth.”  The fingers pushed harder and he clamped his teeth together. 

“You obviously never saw him after an entire night in the bar,” Gallenn’s voice echoed from inside his helmet. 

“Don’t distract him,” she snapped. 

John kept his eyes closed, holding on to the few things that Aeryn wanted him to remember.  Stay on his feet, keep his mouth closed, he’s drunk … Aeryn had come to get him as she promised, she’d come back for him this time.  His knees buckled as the relief washed through him, and they yanked him upright.  He set the mantra running again, concentrating on the three small requirements.  Stay on his feet, mouth closed, drunk.  They staggered forward together. 

“Here we go,” Aeryn said, and the door slid open. 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 6

“How are you holding up?” Aeryn asked Crichton.  He was moving better with every passing microt, which meant that they weren’t exerting as much effort to keep him upright, but he continued to stagger badly whether his eyes were open or closed.

“Okay.  Doin’ a little better,” he mumbled.  “Are we in a hurry?” 

It was the third time he’d asked the question and he was breathing hard, leading her to suspect that he wanted to stop and rest.  “Yes.  Not much further, John.  Keep moving.”  But they’d only traveled half the distance to the hangar, and the worst of the journey was ahead of them.  More of his weight fell on her shoulders and she braced herself to catch him, but he was only pushing himself up straighter.  He was walking more steadily although he still had his eyes closed. 

“Boosters,” suggested Gallenn as the trio accelerated. 

“They’re taking effect,” she agreed.  They pulled on John, slowing him as they approached a junction of several main corridors.  “Hold still,” she ordered.  John clung to her as Gallenn walked forward on his own to see if there was a security station in any of the branches. 

“We’re okay,” he reported, coming back to help.  They’d managed to get through two checkpoints without getting scanned simply by barging through, acting like a security detail dragging an unwilling officer somewhere in a hurry.  The uniforms had done their job and they’d drawn little more than a glance.  “They must not have the lock down in place yet.” 

Aeryn nodded, momentarily surprised by his comment before she remembered that he’d been a Peacekeeper and would be familiar with how long it took to implement the excessive security measures.  “This can’t hold up.  We’ve been too lucky.” 

“That means there’s some deep dren ahead of us,” John concluded.  It was his first unprompted contribution to the conversation since leaving his cell.

“We haven’t been in deep dren so far?” Gallenn asked incredulously.  “What do you do for fun?” 

“Be quiet.  You don’t sound like officers,” Aeryn warned.  They walked along silently for several microts.           

“I thought I told you not to come back with the Peacekeepers on your ass,” Gallenn broke the silence.  He grunted as John lost his balance.  They pulled him up and kept moving.   

“Didn’t come back,” John panted, struggling to move faster.  “And they were on … your butt, not … mine.” 

“Would you two like to sit down and discuss this?” Aeryn broke in, “or could you shut up and concentrate on getting out of here?” 

“Sorry,” they chimed together. 

They all went quiet as a group of six officers came the other way, glaring at the apparently drunk officer being dragged along by his friends.  One of them, a captain, stepped in front of the trio, frowning at Crichton’s lolling head.  “You’re a disgrace!” he barked at the staggering man. 

“Buy you a raslak … sir?” John offered, straightening up.  He smiled at the scowling superior and belched.  “Or two?  Whoops.”  He staggered and would have fallen except for his two side-supports. 

“Sir!” Aeryn snapped to attention as the focus turned her way.  “His behavior has already been reported to his commanding officer, sir.  He wants him sober before his punishment begins.”  Beside her John pulled himself erect, managing a swaying facsimile of standing at attention.  The combination of the stimulants and the food replacement tablets had to be restoring his awareness and some of his energy.  He hadn’t been able to stand up on his own until that moment.   

“Sorry, sir,” John offered, squinting to keep the captain in focus. 

The captain looked the three of them over, then shook his head and pushed Gallenn aside, hurrying to catch up with his companions. 

“Whoops,” John said, starting to collapse.  Gallenn caught his arm, and they set out again. 

“Can you move faster?” Aeryn asked.  The detail assigned to take John to the Aurora Chair might arrive at the cellblock any microt, after which their chances of getting to the ship would diminish rapidly. 

“Think so,” he answered tiredly.  “Give it a try.”  The three lurched into a shambling run, slowing only when they encountered other personnel or had to change directions at an intersection. 

“Almost there,” she encouraged him.  “Keep going.”  John nodded, gasping for breath, and managed to move faster.  They approached the last corner, and she pulled them to a walk.  “Checkpoint,” she said to Gallenn over John’s head.  “What do you think?  Will they buy that he’s drunk?” 

“Any other choices?”  He steadied John as he stumbled to one side.  “Stick with us, Crichton.”  The bowed head nodded as he fought to catch his breath.  “How about he forgot something in the hangar?  Helmet or rifle?” 

“It’s weak,” she said.  “But it’s the best we can do.  Let’s go.  Be ready to run.” 

They turned the corner, and headed for the entrance to the hangar.  She could see the prototype ship waiting for them, parked to one side.  The stairs to the cockpit were down, and there was no one working anywhere around the craft.  The open hatch beckoned to her, promising safety and escape, and an end to the constant fear that John would get killed.  They were so close.  “Best effort right now, John,” she whispered. 

He straightened up, blinking several times to clear his vision.  “With you.  I’m still drunk?” 

“Yes.  You forgot your helmet inside the hangar.”  He was walking on his own now, although they were keeping him aligned, catching his stumbles.  “We’re helping you get it, and then you’re going back to your quarters to sleep it off.”   

“Drunker would be better, wouldn’t it?” he asked quietly. 

“Yes.  They’re doing genetic verification scans.  We have to get you past them without getting checked.”   She finished briefing him in a whisper as they approached the guards. 

“Okey dokey.”  He crossed the last of the distance in two lunging steps and tripped, landing face down in front of the security detail.  “Sorry.  Sorry,” he apologized to them, pulling himself back up by grabbing on to the scanning machinery.  He made to his feet, grinned crookedly at one of the frowning guards and toppled to the side, stumbling into Gallenn. 

“Ident chip,” one of the men demanded of Aeryn while the two men staggered to one side.  She handed it over willingly, waited for the indicator to change, then placed her hands in the depressions without being asked.  “You pass,” he chanted, handing the chip back. 

“Catch this guy,” Gallenn requested, handing John’s wildly staggering form off to her while he took his tag off.  “Sorry about him,” he apologized to the detail as he handed it over.  “A little too much to drink.” 

“A little?”  The guards laughed as Aeryn and John went down together in a tangle of arms and legs.  “Is he trying to report for duty?” 

“No, left his helmet in the hangar somewhere.  We just want to get in to find … watch it!”  Gallenn yelled his warning as John got to his feet but overbalanced.  He snatched his hands back from where he’d been about to insert them in the genetic scanner in order to catch him.  “You need to forget about your helmet, my friend.  Let’s head back to quarters.” 

“Nope,” John slurred.  “Need my lid or I’ll be in big trouble.”  He nodded seriously toward the guards.  “Big trouble.  Uh oh, chip.”  He began patting his chest, then peered into the collar of his shirt, looking for the non-existent item.  “Frell me.  Oh, gonna get disciplined this time.”  He leaned against the console while continuing to search through his shirt and jacket. 

“You lost that too?” Aeryn played along.  “You idiot!  You’ll be lucky if you just get a punishment assignment.” 

“Yup, I’m definitely frelled.”  John was still peering inside his jacket, fumbling about for the supposedly missing ident chip.  “Uh oh!” he said suddenly, grabbing at his stomach with one hand.  “Don’t feel good.  Gonna be sick.  ‘Scuse me.”  He tried to shove one of the guards aside, acting as though he was trying to get to a corner behind their post.   

“Get him out of here!”  One of the security guards pushed him away, panicked by Crichton’s series of gagging lurches.  “Just find the frelling helmet and get him out of here.  We’ve had to put up with horrible odors the entire day!  Don’t add to it!” 

They bolstered Crichton up, and headed into the hangar without delay.  “Nice acting,” Gallenn whispered. 

“What acting?” John returned.  “I feel like crap.  I think I’m gonna blow chunks here in a microt.” 

Aeryn pushed him along, recognizing the first sign that his body was refusing to produce any more energy, even with added influence of the drugs.  The stimulants could goad an exhausted body only so far, putting a nearly intolerable strain on someone who’d gone without sleep for as long as John.  She suspected that he had an arn or two of usefulness left at best; after that he’d be in danger of a complete physical collapse.  But in another arn, they’d either be free or dead, and it wouldn’t matter. 

She took him by the elbow, steering him toward the ship.  “Not much further.  Can the rhotarri drive jump from inside the hangar, or do we have to blast our way out of here somehow?” 

“Inside the hangar, although the damage isn’t going to please these folks.”  He was looking around, taking notice of his surroundings, and walking more steadily.  Gallenn was three motras to their left, pretending to look for the missing helmet for the benefit of the security personnel.   

“Will it cause an implosion?” she asked hopefully.  They were a third of the way to the ship, nearly to safety. 

“No, just tear things up a bit.  We’ll probably take some of the interior with us when we go.”  He was sweating from the effort of walking.  “If we’re really lucky, the hangar door might come with us.”   

There was an enormous crashing and banging behind them.  Aeryn turned in time to see several squads of troops race through three of the entrances, all carrying weapons.  “Frell!” she yelled, “Run!”

“Your scan got detected!” Gallenn yelled as the troops behind them opened fire. 

Aeryn pulled John to the right, the pair stumbling and falling behind the cover of a refueling station.  She watched Gallenn scramble for cover in the other direction, moving closer to the prototype ship as the pulse blasts increased in intensity. 

“Bad place to be, Aeryn,” John yelled against the increasing din.  They were hiding behind the rectangular housing that protected the pumps and valves, but the top was open, the fueling nozzles exposed.  “Froonium.”

She unholstered her pistol and jammed it into his hands, retaining the pulse rifle for herself, and glanced around the edge of the squat rectangular base of the station.  “They’re spreading out.  We have to move fast.”  She fired several shots at the furthest of the flankers, driving them back, then checked on John.  He was on his back, firing hand signals at Gallenn who was behind a stack of containers five or six motras away. 

“Keep firing for a bit, get them disorganized,” he relayed for her.  He flipped onto his stomach, edged forward and started shooting. 

“Get THEM disorganized?” she yelled back.  She spotted a receptacle marked as carrying radioactive sludge and put several shots into it.  “Wrong stuff,” she observed as it blew up to the howls of dismay from the troops crouched behind it.  Somewhere on the other side of the hangar an ammunition pod exploded with spectacular results, taking several troops with it.  Gallenn grinned at them, and went back to firing.   

“Reinforcements are going to arrive quick,” John warned.  He sat up and fired past her, watching in satisfaction as one of the doors into the hangar slid closed.   

“Oh good, you’re telling me something I don’t know,” she snapped.  She looked where he’d fired and added another shot to destroy the door mechanism.  She swung back toward the thickest concentration of black uniforms, and her next shot hit a rack of solvents, setting off multicolored flaming fireworks.  Troops scattered in all directions and four went down under their combined fire.  “Are they disorganized enough for you yet?”  She snapped off a shot over the top of the block, hitting a running trooper squarely in the chest. 

“Nice shot.”  John flicked a series of hand signals toward Gallenn.  “Get ready to run.  We’ll cover, and I’ll come next.”

“You have a hand signal for that?” she asked, scattering a group of men trying to flank them again. 

“If you have to know, I said, ‘Rush order, move components to back wall, quick, more to follow.’  Does that make you feel better?”  John fired toward Gallenn, the pulse blast sailing past his friend to hit a figure who had snuck around the perimeter of the hangar.  The sebacean waved a thanks and kept firing. 

“No.  It makes me wonder if I’m going to get covering fire or spare parts.  You go first.  I’ll be faster, and you’ll have cover from two angles.”  The fueling station came under heavier fire and she huddled next to him.  “Don’t argue, just get ready to run.  Give it everything you’ve got, John.” 

He looked up at her from where he lay on his back, starting to argue, then closed his mouth.  “Okay.  But you prove to me that you’re faster.  Don’t make me come back here and get you.” 

“I promise,” she agreed. 

He rolled to his feet, the pulse pistol in one hand, and crouched on his toes, waiting.  Gallenn glanced over and shifted to the other side of his cover.  “One, two, three --”

“Go!” Aeryn yelled, and stood up, firing as fast as she could at anything that moved.  Another trooper went down, a second spun out of sight, certainly injured, and her last shot managed to hit a door activator, closing another entrance.  She ducked behind cover, took a breath and popped up again, destroying the lock mechanism with two fast shots, sealing that doorway.  She ducked down and checked on Crichton.   

John had made it across.  He was slithering on his stomach to the far side of Gallenn’s stack of barrels, working to get a second angle to fire from.  Aeryn slung the rifle behind her where it wouldn’t get in the way, and took up the crouching stance, ready to run.  John’s left hand came up with one finger extended, then two, then three.  She bolted from behind the station, head down and accelerating as the firing picked up from both sides. 

She saw the smiling profile as she got closer, John’s grin waiting for her even as he stayed focused and kept shooting.  There were only three more long, fast steps to the spot behind the barrels and she got ready for the diving slide that would be the most effective way of transitioning the last motra. 

The heat and impact tore into her side, smashing her sideways in a searing explosion of pain and surprise.  The hangar spun for a microt, the walls wheeling in strange patterns, then she hit the floor and slid, feeling the warm liquid trailing behind her, and regretted that she wasn’t going to keep her promise. 

   * * * * *

A trooper ran through the smoke from the burning solvents, trying to work around to the side where he could get a shot at the fugitives.  John snapped a shot at a wheeled bin with bright markings on the side and it began to burn.  The trooper tried to reverse direction, feet scrambling wildly to get away from the smoking container, so he put another shot into it.  The entire hangar shook with the force of the explosion.  “Wow!” he yelled, and began searching for another container like the last one.  Out of the corner of his eye he could see Aeryn running toward him, head down, moving far faster than he could have.  She’d been right to make him go first. 

He snapped another shot, missed the man he’d been aiming for but hit the yelling officer next to him instead.  Sometimes being a lousy shot paid off.  He grinned, and spared a moment to check on Aeryn.  She looked into his eyes, started to smile, and a pulse blast ripped into the center of her body, flinging her out of sight.   
 
“AEERRYYYYNNN!” he screamed.  Gallenn grabbed at him as he scrambled on all fours in her direction, hauling him down.  “Let me go!” he screamed at him, beating at his friend with both hands, the pistol lost in his frenzy. 

“No, she took it square in the midsection.  Stay down, Crichton!”  Gallenn tried to get on top of him, but he thrust his friend off and tried again, vaguely registering that the firing from the other side of their barricade had ceased now that they’d stopped shooting.  “She’s got to be dead, John!  She’s dead!” the voice bellowed in his ear. 

“No, no, no, no!”  He hammered at the hand gripping the edge of his jacket and pulled loose.  He burst out from behind the cover to find a soldier there, the remaining men fanned out behind him as he forayed toward the still body lying in the middle of the floor.

This was the one who had killed her, the one responsible … it had to be this man.  Crichton changed direction, barreling into him and they went down in a tangle.  They came up separately, the black clad murderer swinging his weapon up, lining it up with his own body.   

Then   

someone 

did 

something 

odd. 

Time slowed, everything in the hangar moving at a crawl except him.   

There was a singeing burn across the side of his neck, heat tasting sour and sharp just before he tackled the leather-clad figure.  His hand scrabbled at the man’s waist to find the hilt of the weapon he knew would be there, cold weight coming loose, fingers sliding into depressions that cradled each digit, welcoming them there, a familiar but hated sensation.  Warm flood, a cry silenced; he turned and there was another.  Energy flowed easily, lacking thought, a slash, a gouge, ripping upwards, turn and move on.  Crichton spun around the nose of a Prowler, or perhaps the carrier spun around him; it was so hard to tell with the high-pitched whine inside his ears.  Someone yelled, a cry of surprise, another fast impact, down, arm jerking fast and with exuberance, move on, another leather-clad figure, move on, move on.

The universe sucked in a breath and spat him spinning across the hangar, a new odor to add to the miasma of chakan oil, burnt paint, blasted circuits, and the underlying scent of copper and salt air that he always associated with blood.  He thought he had gotten to his feet, but the metal deck was under his cheek.  A new scent of cooking meat was making him nauseous, too closely associated with the grinding and pain in his shoulder.  The muzzle of a pulse rifle swept across the hangar just ahead, and the smells and sensations were ignored as he slithered closer on his belly, making the lunge across the last gap without care for the shrieking coming from his body.  Move on, another was aiming at a spot where Aeryn might be concealed, move on, someone turned shouting a warning, a tearing through leather, warm wetness, move on, move on. 

“Crichton!”  He whirled around, crouching, the long blade held out in front of him, of little use if this next man held a rifle on him.  “Aeryn’s on the ship!  Come on, we have to get out of here!” 

John squinted at the gesturing figure, seeing only the black uniform of the enemy, the mark of the killers.  He took a deep breath, preparing himself for the lunge across the intervening space, uncaring if he lived or died.  They’d killed Aeryn … he would make sure they paid for that before he went to join her. 

“Aeryn’s on board, waiting for us.  Come on.”  The person waved at him frantically. 

“Aeryn.”  He’d been sure something had happened to her.  John looked at the object in his left hand, wondering why it wasn’t in his right, watched as someone else’s hands pried the fingers open one by one and let it clatter to the deck.   

“That’s right,” the other person encouraged him.  “You have to fly this thing.  I don’t know how.”  John moved forward, thinking that perhaps this person knew him.  He was talking about Aeryn, telling him he had to go where she had gone. 

He stumbled as he was shoved into the cockpit, suddenly down on his hands and knees, his right arm giving out so that he crashed awkwardly onto the cold metal deck plates.  He remembered waking up here one morning, Aeryn squatting near his ankles with her hair flowing down over one shoulder, her hand shaking his foot.  He pressed his lips to the surface, paying reverence to the spot where she’d once knelt.  The metal decking was cool against his cheek, urging him to give in to a rapidly increasing fatigue.   

“Easy,” the man’s voice said in his ear.  “You’ve been hit.  Stay with me a bit longer, Crichton.”  The walls turned ninety degrees, and he thought he was falling, but it turned out that he was being dragged back to his feet.  Being settled into a padded chair helped to slow the crazed whirling of the walls around him.  “Engines are started, see?”  A hand appeared over his shoulder, pointing to several indicators.  “Fuel cells are fully charged.  I reattached the power lines to the rhotarri engines.  Aeryn told me to do it.  Now you have to put the correct coordinates in, Crichton.  Come on, don’t sit there like a dead drannit.” 

John looked at the man for several microts, watching with mild interest as the anxious face slid in and out of focus.  “Gallenn?” 

“Yes.  Focus for a microt.  Enter the coordinates, Crichton.  Hurry.”  Gallenn turned him toward the pilot’s console.  “I sealed the last of the hangar doors, but they’ll break through soon.” 

“Where?” he asked at last, trying to remember where they were supposed to be headed. 

“Aeryn says to take us to the second place where the leviathan promised to meet you.  She says you remember where that is.”  John stared at the panel, dumbfounded.  If Aeryn said he knew where it was, then he must know where it was, but he couldn’t remember. 

“I can’t.  My hand won’t work,” he complained, discovering that his right hand wouldn’t make the transition from his side to the console.  His jacket had disappeared and the pain in his shoulder increased abruptly, clearing some of the fog from his brain. 

“For frell’s sake, we’re in a hurry, Crichton.  Use your left hand.  Hurry.  They’ll have reinforcements in here in a matter of microts.  Take us anywhere.  Anywhere, Crichton.”  Gallenn’s voice continued to batter him, forcing him to consider the console’s glowing lights and what they meant.     

John tapped the keyboard tentatively with his left index finger, watching as a set of coordinates appeared as if by magic.  The string of numbers grew until every available spot on the display was taken.  He searched for a moment, found several switches and flipped them one by one, his fingers following a specific order on their own.  A low roar from the back of the ship mounted into a high-pitched shriek and then disappeared from his hearing, leaving an itching sensation behind his ears.  “That,” he ordered, pointing to a large button too far to his right to hit with his left hand. 

Gallenn reached over his shoulder and slapped the activation switch.  The view of the hangar disappeared from sight, and a microt later a view of the stars shimmered into view and stabilized. 

“Where are we?” Gallenn demanded.  John stared out the view screen, trying to remember what set of coordinates he had entered.  Something tickled at his fingers.  He looked down at the thin ribbon of blood curling around his wrist, fascinated by the growing puddle of crimson on the floor.  “Where did you take us?” was demanded in his ear.  Gallenn pressed harder on the misery eating into the back of his shoulder, trying to stem the bleeding.  “Where are we, John?” 

“No more questions,” he declared, and passed out. 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 7

“Aeryn,” the voice intruded for what she thought might be the thousandth time.  It plucked at her again.  “Aeryn, can you wake up?” She opened her eyes to find Gallenn sitting alongside her. 

“What happened?”  A small movement stopped almost before it started, the pain in her midsection convincing her that lying still was an excellent idea. 

“You got hit.  I need your help.”

“Where’s John?” she asked instead.  There was a memory of the black uniform moving like a whirlwind in the hangar, leaving bodies in its wake as Gallenn tried to get her up the steps into the spacecraft.  But there was also a memory of him getting hit, flying through the air, arms and legs wheeling for a brief moment before his body skidded across the deck.  She couldn’t remember which one was right.  “Where is he?”   

“Right next to you.”  Gallenn pointed to her right.  “Don’t move, just look.” 

She followed orders, turning her head slowly and carefully.  John was curled up on his side next to her, his right shoulder and chest encased in bandages, his right arm pinned inside with only his hand showing near his left shoulder.  “Is he all right?” she asked, wanting to touch him but finding that even moving her fingers made everything hurt. 

“It doesn’t look serious but I think something’s broken.  You took a direct hit.  The armor deflected most of it, but you’re still bleeding, Aeryn.” 

The missing pieces came back in a flood.  Both versions of her memory were right.  She remembered being pulled up the steps by Gallenn, the two of them pausing for a single microt at the top to watch as John, driven past all rational thought by the events of the past days, had hauled down yet another Peacekeeper and killed him.  They’d turned their backs on that sight of temporary insanity, and he’d carried her to the bed before running back outside to ensure that the reinforcements couldn’t get in, and to retrieve John once he’d purged his need for revenge. 

“Aeryn?”  Gallenn touched her shoulder with a single finger, drawing her attention back to his request.  “I need some help with navigation.  John says we’re where you two got caught, but he can’t remember where you were going to meet Moya next.  Aeryn?” he summoned her again.  “You have to tell me where to go next.” 

She stared at him, trying to remember how many days it had been and where Pilot had said they would wait for them next.  “I don’t remember,” she confessed, the information refusing to emerge. 

“You both need medical help,” Gallenn tried, then had to get her attention again.  “Aeryn?  John needs medical help.  You have to tell me where to go to find your friends.”  She rolled her head to the other side, watched Crichton for five microts, then fired off a set of coordinates. 

“Hang on to those.  Don’t forget them,” he said, jumping to his feet and heading for the door.   “Okay, give me the first sequence.”  He disappeared into the cockpit chanting the series of numbers, reappearing microts later to demand, “Second bunch of numbers.” 

Aeryn resorted to repeating the entire set, unable to start in the middle.  “I thought you didn’t know how to do this,” she said weakly when he poked his head back in to verify his numbers. 

“I don’t, but John woke up long enough to take me through it, and I wrote the instructions right onto the control panel.  If it doesn’t work, I’ll have to wake him up next.  Power cells are coming up.  We should have you home in a few microts.”  He gave her a cheerful grin and ducked out of sight. 

Aeryn rolled her head back to the left to watch John.  He was sleeping or unconscious, almost unnaturally still.  His left hand was lying palm-up on the mattress, fingers curled in a loose fist.  She took a moderately deep breath, clenched her teeth together, and slid her hand along the rumpled covers, ignoring the backlash of pain from her side and stomach.  She fitted her hand into his, reassured by the warmth enfolding her fingers.  His hand tightened and he opened his eyes. 

“Hey.  You’re alive,” he stated in a whisper.     

“Hey.  So are you.”  Aeryn discovered that even smiling hurt.

“I though you were dead,” he said.  A bright glint of light broke free, trickling down the side of his face to be absorbed by the pillow.   

“No.”  She couldn’t think of anything else to tell him at that moment. 

“You did it.  Jail break from a command carrier.” 

“Almost didn’t make it,” she pointed out.  “Gallenn said if you hadn’t gone berserk we wouldn’t have gotten out of there.” 

John paled, looking uncertain, the last of the color draining out of his face.  “What does he … I don’t remember that.  What do you mean berserk?” 

She stretched her arm a little further to run a finger along his cheek, ignoring the pain in order to reassure him.  He’d become so capable over the past cycles, hardened, with a façade that mimicked ruthlessness; the outward appearance made it easy to forget that John remained a non-violent person at heart.  Now was not the time to remind him about his rampage. 

“Wrong choice of words.  I exaggerated.  You covered for us while he got me on board.”  She thumbed an errant tear off his cheek.  “He said you did a good job of making sure we got away safely.”  John looked more assured by the second description.     

The engines let out their familiar hum, escalating to an earsplitting shriek in microts.  The bulkheads shuddered with the crack of the rhotarri drive, and then it was quiet. 

“Frell me!” Gallenn shouted from the cockpit.  “I did it!” 

“Interstellar drive by numbers,” John grinned.  “You suppose we’re anywhere near Moya?” 

“I gave him the coordinates for the second meet point, but she’s not due for another ten solar days.”  The pain in her side and stomach suggested that she might not be able to wait that long for Moya to arrive. 

“I heard,” he nodded slightly.  His eyes flicked down toward her body, narrowing slightly as he looked at a spot near her waist.  “We’ll either find them or some place that can patch you up. 

“You’ll never guess what’s out there,” Gallenn barged into the confined space. 

“Is it big and golden?” Aeryn asked, not taking her eyes off John’s sleepy, relieved smile.  “They’re early.  Open a comms channel for me,” she instructed Gallenn, gesturing very carefully with a single finger.  “Over there.” 

He stepped through the clutter of hastily discarded uniforms to the panel on the wall, flicking several circuits with expertise. 

“Pilot?” Aeryn called weakly, finally turning her head away from John in order to speak toward the transmitter panel. 

“Aeryn!”  The gruff-voiced yell had abandoned all of its usual pompous reserve.  “You got away!  Do you have that megra-fahrbot Crichton with you?” 

“Yes, Rygel.”  There was a whispering laugh from beside her.  “But we’re both hurt.  Come get us.”

“We are on our way, Officer Sun,” Pilot’s voice interjected.  “Moya will be within range in … five microts.”   

“And Rygel,” she added, “we have someone with us who looks like a Peacekeeper.  He’s not.  Don’t shoot him.”  Gallenn bowed his thanks from where he was waiting next to the control panel.  The small ship lurched suddenly, several items slithering along a shelf to suggest that the craft had changed orientation suddenly. 

“Docking web,” John offered, closing his eyes.  “Tell Moya to starburst right away.  Never know who’s following.”   

“No one can follow one of these things.  You said so yourself, genius.”  Gallenn began tossing clothes and gear across the small room, clearing the floor near the door. 

“Never know for sure.  Tell her.  Tell Pilot to starburst,” John insisted.  “What are you doing?” 

“You two are a mess.  Were you planning on walking out of here on your own?”  The ship settled with a quiet moan, all noise dying away except for the quiet pinging of the hull as it adjusted to the atmosphere surrounding it.  Gallenn pitched one last bag into the heap in the corner, then disappeared into the cockpit. 

“Home,” Aeryn said.  “Little late, but home.”  John just watched her, adding nothing to the sentiment.  “Are you going to be all right?” 

The outer door of the cockpit opened with a smash, and then the quiet of the moment was destroyed by D’Argo’s deep bellow of excitement; Chiana, Jool and Rygel joining in before Gallenn could begin to explain what had happened.  She had just enough time to see the fast flicker of something dark and unhappy cross his face before the small quarters were crammed full of bodies. 

“Frell me!” Chiana exclaimed in a yell as she lunged into the living quarters.  Then they were working to get both of them out of the ship, and she didn’t remember anything more after that. 

   * * * * *

Mele-On Grayza stalked through the expanse of the hangar bay, watching the work crews as they gathered the dead bodies, laying them out in orderly rows for processing prior to disposal.

“How many?” she asked after a quarter arn of icy silence. 

“Twenty-six, ma’am,” Braca answered from two motras behind her right shoulder, keeping a prudent distance from the growing rage being manifested by the commandant. 

“And wounded?” she prompted.

“None.”

Grayza spun around to face him, blue eyes staring unblinking into his.  “None?  Over four units sent to secure three fugitives and every man dead?”  She advanced on the luckless lieutenant, her pale skin even whiter than usual.  “They must have had someone helping them -- reinforcements waiting to ambush our personnel as they entered the hangar.” 

“Commandant,” Braca stammered, keeping his distance.  “Fifteen men were killed by pulse weapons or explosions, but the remainder were killed with … a knife.  The control room suffered extensive damage when their ship departed, but we were able to extract several fragments of surveillance recordings, and …”  He broke off as she continued to glare at him. 

“Report,” she ordered. 

“What we were able to recover indicates that the men were killed by Crichton.  He seemed to go crazy but we don’t know why; that portion of the recordings wasn’t recovered.  One sequence shows that he was hit by pulse weapon fire at least once, but it had no affect on him.  He was on top of the man before he could fire a second time, armed only with a blade.”  Braca drew himself up even more stiffly, eyes staring straight ahead as the commandant surveyed the hangar area another time. 

“What would you like me to tell High Command, ma’am?” he asked after a lengthy silence. 

“Tell them it was Cholak’s demon,” she hissed. 

Only Braca’s eyes moved, snapping to the side to see if she was joking.  “Ma’am?” he questioned her instruction. 

“Have them load the bodies just as they are onto four Marauders … no.”  Grayza strolled toward the collection of wreckage that until an arn ago had been orderly ranks of parked spacecraft.  “We would have used a tri-directional envelopment.  Load the bodies onto three Marauders, then launch them on automated departure.  When they are ten thousand metras from the fleet, order weaponry to destroy the ships.” 

Braca remained silent and motionless, watching her for another sign that she was not serious.  “Those are my orders, Lieutenant.  Advise High Command that in addition to the damage to this carrier, John Crichton and his comrades also destroyed the three Marauders and their crews while escaping.  We are in pursuit of the fugitives and will acquire this new weaponry when we capture them.”  Braca waited beside her for another microt.  “Move!” 

He departed at a near-run, leaving the commandant to wander through the battlefield.  “I will make you pay for this, John Crichton,” she hissed, surveying the damage.   

   * * * * *

She remembered how difficult it was waking up after she’d received the paraphoral tissue graft, struggling through the layers of weariness and confusion to finally emerge into a waking world that made little more sense than her dreams.  That slow climb had been simple compared to this one, requiring a fraction of the effort.  There was a difference this time, however, in that a single voice kept asking her to make the transition, repeatedly calling to her and asking her to pay attention. 

Aeryn opened her eyes, mildly surprised that she didn’t hurt since most of her dreams had revolved around the single theme of pain, and smiled at D’Argo’s hovering, worried face.  “Hello,” she greeted him, trying to remember where they were and what was going on. 

“How do you feel, Aeryn?” he asked in a low whisper. 

“I feel fine.”  Aeryn tried to sit up and immediately revised her assessment.  Every bit of her body from her armpits to her knees hurt.  “What happened?” 

“You got shot aboard the command carrier.”  D’Argo held a flask for her, helping her drink.  “Do you remember?” 

Crichton’s scream of rage and anguish ringing in the background, pulse weapons fire, Gallenn pulling her up while pressing against an agony in her side, a blade glinting for a microt in the lights of the hangar before John went after the next soldier.  John’s sleepy smile turning to something uncertain and haunted at her unthinking remark.  Lying next to him, both injured but safe.  Pilot’s calm voice, the thump that meant they were home, D’Argo’s familiar bass growl entering the cockpit, harmonizing with Chiana’s louder shriek of dismay.

“Yes.  I remember now.”  She looked left and right, spotting the empty medbed next to hers.  “Where’s Crichton?  I want to see him.”  D’Argo looked uncomfortable, and she clung to his hand as her unthinking comment and his look of discomfort recreated that hideous day when she’d learned that John had been captured on the Gammak Base. 

“What happened?  He was on the ship.  He wasn’t hurt that badly.  Where is he?” she asked more stridently.  D’Argo’s placating gestures slowed then stilled her anxious demands.   

“That’s why I woke you, Aeryn.  You need to rest and heal, but we need your help with John.”  D’Argo slid an arm behind her shoulders and helped her sit up, steadying her when she swayed and almost fell back. 

Aeryn grabbed on to D’Argo’s arm as the room spun end for end, the whirling only increasing when she shut her eyes.  She took several deep breaths, willing it to stop, and after five or six more revolutions everything settled down.  “How long have we been here?” 

“Only six arns.  Jool treated your injuries, but you shouldn’t be walking yet.  I’m going to carry you to where John is.”  He steadied her as she slid her legs over the edge of the bed.  “Jool got the bleeding to stop and sealed the wounds, but the pulse blast shattered the armor in the jacket.  The fragments were what injured you.”   

“I remember that part.  What about John?  What’s the matter?” she demanded.   

   * * * * *

D’Argo set Aeryn down next to where Chiana and Rygel waited outside the door to the maintenance bay, holding on to her until she seemed steady on her feet.  “Has there been any change?” he asked, triggering a fast headshake from the nebari. 

Chiana crouched down and eased to one side, peering into the maintenance bay with her head cocked to one side.  “He hasn’t moved since he yelled at me to get out.”   

“He’s just sitting there like a stunned flibisk,” Rygel observed.  “I think he’s lost what’s left of his mind.”  D’Argo tried to slap the Dominar, and he swerved out of range. 

“What’s wrong with him?” Chiana demanded more insistently.  “Crichton’s been injured before.  He never acted like this.  You’d think someone he cared about died aboard that carrier the way he’s acting.” 
 
“John is going to need time, Chiana” Aeryn cautioned, thinking that perhaps someone had died aboard that carrier.  The person they all knew as John Crichton might have been fatally wounded by what he’d been put through.  The exterior looked the same, but they would have to wait and see how the person inside had fared.  She tried to reassure the others despite her own concern.  “It’s still John, but things didn’t go the way we’d expected.” 

“When do they ever?” Chiana fired back. 

Aeryn touched one gray shoulder for a microt, offering some sympathy, then walked slowly and carefully into the large chamber.  The short walk from the door to where Crichton was sitting used up almost every bit of strength available, providing an insight into how tiring that run from the cell to the hangar must have been for him.  She took several deep breaths, thumbed some sweat off her forehead, and slid down to sit on the floor, her back against the side of a workbench. 

According to D’Argo, John had been sitting in this one spot for over four arns, unwilling to talk to anyone, and becoming violent when they’d tried to move him by force.  He had stayed in the medical chamber long enough to make sure she was going to be all right, and for Jool to confirm that the impact of the pulse blast had broken several of the bones in his shoulder, but had come here to hide from his friends before they could treat his injuries. 

John had chosen to sit in a poorly lit corner of the maintenance bay.  Why he’d come to this particular chamber she didn’t know, unless it was the fact that it was quiet and secluded here.  He was resting the side of his head against his left hand, and his entire body was weaving slightly despite the fact that he was leaning against the wall.  They’d told her that he hadn’t slept yet, and it looked like the last of the boosters had worn off.  As she watched, his head started to drop, only to have it come back up with a jerk.

He’d managed to get a shirt on over the bulk of his trapped right arm, which remained secured inside the bandages, but his jacket was lying askew across his shoulders as though he’d tried to get inside it and couldn’t manage.  Sloppy, disheveled, hair standing on end -- it was the John Crichton she’d missed for two cycles, and she wanted to hug him until whatever was bothering him went away. 

“What’s going on John?” she asked, taking a direct approach. 

He swiveled his eyes to look at her, which was more than anyone else had gotten out of him so far.  “You doin’ okay?” he asked, his voice rasping and hoarse. 

“I’ll be fine.  I need a few solar days rest, but everything will heal.”  John nodded and went back to staring at the floor.  “John, let Jool do something about your shoulder.”  He closed his eyes and slowly shook his head. 

Aeryn thought about how much it must hurt despite the tight restriction of the bandages, and remembered part of a conversation that had taken place aboard the small rhotarri-equipped ship.  She got to her feet, waited several microts for the dizziness to fade, then tottered over to where he was sitting.  He moved over when she indicated she wanted to sit to his left, giving her room to slide down between him and the wall.  She took a moment to pull his jacket into place on his shoulders, taking care with the damaged one, then let herself down beside him.     

“Something hurts,” she tried, hoping he’d understand that she wasn’t referring to his body.  He nodded.  “What hurts so much that you want to feel the pain of broken bones to cover it up?”  He didn’t answer.  Aeryn went back to thinking about the past few days.  If he was already facing up to one particular trauma, he would need to broach the topic himself.  But her experience with him said that he wasn’t dealing with the memories of Grayza yet -- it was much too soon to expect him to be working his way through that particular problem. 

“Please.”  She laid the single word out slowly, using the small syllable that he had taught her so much about.  “Tell me what this is about.” 

They sat together silently for almost a quarter of an arn before he rubbed his face and straightened up slightly.  “Your stealth suit,” he started, the words dragging as though each one was going to be the last. 

“What about it?” she urged when he had been quiet for too long.   

“How does it work?”  His eyes flicked toward her once and then focused on the floor again. 

“I put it on, flip a switch and it works.  If people still see me, I take it off, give it to a technical expert and ask him to fix it.  That’s how it works.”  It drew a tiny smile out of him, but it didn’t look like he’d been amused.  “It has something to do with taking incoming light from one side, routing it through the fibers and then projecting it out the opposite side of the suit.  How it keeps track of different objects surrounding it or takes care of the irregularities, I don’t know.”

He fidgeted uncomfortably, taking nearly thirty microts before asking, “How effective is it?” 

Aeryn studied him, watching for the small muscle movements that might help her understand why he was asking these questions.  “It depends on the environment.  Dim lights and a complex background work the best because the residual distortions won’t show up.  Getting caught in good lighting against an even background is the worst possible situation.”  She got the expected nod, and then there was nothing more. 

She shifted, pressing her forearm gently against her side in an attempt to ease the increasing ache.  He’d asked about the suit.  It was the only thing he’d offered to talk about so she had to assume it was connected to whatever was bothering him.  It wasn’t in John’s nature to attack an issue straight on, so she started at the moment when he’d been dragged off their ship and began searching for the moment that might explain his deep depression.  She found such a moment and had to swallow hard to keep the bile from rising in her throat. 

Aeryn turned away from watching John and rested her head against her right hand, propping her elbow against a knee.  Four deep breaths helped her get a tiny grip on her emotions, but not enough to actually say something to him.  She shifted her gaze in hesitant stages until she was looking at him.  John was shaking and there was a gleaming trickle running down his cheek, the first break in his self-control. 

“You saw me,” she forced the words out one by one. 

John opened his mouth but no sound came out.  He tried again.  “Yes.”  The whisper was barely audible. 

She’d been so sure that it was a coincidence, a quirk of timing and a roll of his head.  But she’d been standing in bright lights against a solid background, just as she had explained to him several microts ago.  This was why she’d decided not to kill Grayza, the single critical reason why she hadn’t revealed herself inside those quarters, and he’d already seen her by that point.  No explanation from her could hope to relieve the agony caused by his knowing she had watched, but she tried anyway.  “I came in there because I thought I might get a chance to say something to you … to let you know that I was close to getting you free.  I had no idea that was going to happen.”   

John nodded, looking closer to a complete emotional breakdown than before.  He started to say something three times without a sound emerging and then suddenly smashed his left hand against his right shoulder, deliberately pummeling the broken bones. 

“Don’t!” she yelled, catching his hand on the way to another blow.  “Don’t do that, John,” she pleaded.  “I didn’t mean to watch; I didn’t want to.  I wouldn’t have … I never would have if there had been a choice.” 

“I know that,” he admitted, his voice shaking with something far more painful than what he’d just done to himself.  “I had to say what I did, Aeryn.  There was no other choice.  I couldn’t help it.” 

“You’re upset about what you told Grayza?” she asked, relief and shock combining to turn into something that felt a little bit like hysteria.  “The part about ‘the bitch took off’ and that you didn’t love me anymore?” 

“I had to make myself believe it.  She would have made me tell her that you were on the carrier.”  His upper body was leaping and twitching as the shaking accelerated, mixing with his fatigue to create a horrible dance of uncontrolled muscles.   

“John, I knew you didn’t mean it.  It doesn’t matter,” she sighed in sympathy.  She worked her fingers between his and hung on to his hand, leaning down to kiss his knuckles.  He tried to pull away, but she held on to him.  “John, she was using heppel oil on you.  Until today I would have sworn that it was impossible to lie under its influence.  If that’s what it took to trick her, then it was the right thing to do.”  She rubbed her thumb across the back of his hand, the strongest caress she could provide at that moment.   

“But then you were right there, and I had to believe it anyway, but she was doing … that … at the same time, and I didn’t have a choice.”  He pulled his hand loose, but only so he could prop his head against it, curling his body around his trapped arm.  “And I knew you were standing there, and I had to say it to you as well … and believe what I was saying.” 

She saw that this was more than guilt over his words.  This was an unsustainable level of confusion and mixed feelings on his part.  “Look at me, John.”  He turned his head to the side without hesitation, still resting it against his hand but facing her.  Aeryn rubbed her fingers against his temple for several microts, secretly pleased that he would even let her touch him after what he’d been through.  He was going to pieces before her eyes, his emotions, thoughts, and physical reactions all becoming increasingly erratic as he finally released the nearly psychotic level of control he’d been exerting ever since he’d been captured. 

“You must be angry at me too,” she suggested, knowing that the emotions were there, even if he wasn’t addressing them. 

“Yes.  No.  I don’t know.”  He shook his head against his hand.  She waited to see if the repressed feelings would make their way out.  “I … wanted you to go away.  To just not be there.  But to answer Grayza I had to make you not be there.  But you were.”  The fragments of explanations grew shorter and jerkier as he worked himself down to a dazed silence, broken only by the chattering of his teeth as his depleted body shivered and jerked.

Aeryn spent several microts trying to decipher the mixture of guilt, anger, and humiliation that she knew he must be experiencing at that moment, looking for the best way to help him set it aside until he’d had some rest.  The complexities defeated her, leaving her no choice but to trust her instincts. 

“Why are you sitting here … in this particular spot?” she tried. 

“I feel … ”  Whatever he’d intended to say got stuck.  “I don’t want to be around anyone.” 

“What about me?” 

“You either.”  The sullen, angry answer echoed once in the large bay.  “But I don’t want you to leave,” he contradicted himself.  John laid his head on his knees, looking away from her, continuing to shiver.  “It hurt so much to say those things.  You should hate me for saying them.”

He was punishing himself, or at least trying to, she finally realized.  The untreated injuries, the seclusion, staying awake -- every action was designed to exact a payment for something that had been beyond his control.  She brushed her fingers across the back of his head in a light caress, generating an enormous lurching jerk from John. 

“The words didn’t matter.  I had the proof right in front of me that you didn’t believe it.  Do you understand that?  The words didn’t matter, John.  I was listening to what you were doing in order to keep me safe, not what you were saying.”  He nodded, and she watched the quivering in the slumped shoulders spread to his entire body.  He was far beyond exhaustion, his ability to form a rational thought destroyed by the abuse, the drugs, and the injuries.  “You did not betray me in any way, John Crichton.”

His shaking was getting worse, compounding by the microt.  “I can’t move, John.  Come here.”  He looked around to see what she wanted, then leaned carefully to the side in response to her gestured invitation, lowering himself into her lap.  She pulled him more firmly against her, helping him get settled.

“Is it over?” he asked in a whisper. 

She had to think for a moment before realizing what he was asking.  What she had been forced to do aboard the carrier had been simple compared to his role, with none of the thought scrambling confusion caused by exhaustion or the heppel oil.  She tried to put herself in his place, and discovered that it was easy to be patient with his illogical need for reassurance.  “Yes, it’s over,” she told him, slowly stroking his cheek.   

“Wasn’t a walk in the park for you,” he whispered as though reading her thoughts, his voice guttural with unshed tears.  “Had to do some tough things.”  His left hand was slowly stroking her leg, the only spot he could reach in his current position.   

“I’d just spent almost an entire cycle looking for you, John Crichton, I wasn’t about to quit on you.  I made you a promise that I’d get you out if you hung on.  You kept your end of the bargain.”  Something else was starting to happen, his breaths growing longer and longer, each one released in a series of jerks and shudders.  She looked down at him, and withheld any comment about the tears or the escalating sobs. 

There were unaccustomed phrases begging to be spoken.  Short assurances like, ‘It’s going to be all right’, and ‘We’re going to get over this’, but this flood of uncontrolled emotions wasn’t like John, and something as small as a sympathetic comment would very likely interrupt the release.  She bent over him, hugging him tighter.

“Is it over?” he asked again. 

“Yes, it’s over.”   

There was a quiet shuffle to her right.  D’Argo eased carefully into the maintenance bay to check on them, Gallenn behind him, and she gave them a nearly imperceptible shake of her head.  D’Argo nodded and they backed away.  John’s breathing grew less strained, the fit of crying passing gradually. 

“More injuries than usual … even for us,” she suggested in a hushed voice.     

He squirmed against her, somehow getting his head down far enough that he could wipe his eyes with the portion of shirt covering his right hand.  “Jool fixed you up, my shoulder will heal,” he observed when he’d finished. 

“Those aren’t the injuries I was talking about.”  He nodded against her, the motion turning into a headshake halfway though.  “Give it time, John.  It’s going to take time.” 

“Okay,” he whispered.  “Aeryn?”  He was starting to shake again. 

“It’s over,” she assured him before he could repeat the question.  He nodded against her, and covered his face with his free hand so she couldn’t see that he was crying.  The shuddering, gasping breaths served to give him away instead.  She waited patiently, doing nothing more than slowly fingering his hair, and shortly after the sobbing stopped, he finally fell asleep.

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 8

Lieutenant Braca waited for the sharp summons, then marched through the doorway, snapping to attention in front of Commandant Grayza’s work surface.  “Ma’am,” he acknowledged, and then waited for a signal from his superior. 

“Report, Lieutenant.”  Her voice slid into the room like a viscous fog, sliding slickly around every person and object within its reach. 

“The … operation,” he allowed a miniscule hesitation to precede the word, “has been completed as you ordered, ma’am.  Here is the casualty list for this mission.”  Another small pause before his last word drew a look from his commanding officer. 

Grayza pulled the readout from his hand and surveyed it quickly, slowing as she scanned the list of names a second time.  “Lieutenant, you originally advised me that there were twenty-six killed in this engagement.  This list carries thirty-five names.  Explain.” 

“Yes, ma’am.  When I reviewed the names of the officers killed in the hangar, I noted that there were no pilots listed among them.  This appeared suspicious.  I cleared the hangar bay prior to loading the Marauders, assigned our top three pilots to the detail, explaining that it was top secret, thus their selection for duty.  The operation also required two troopers per Marauder to load the bodies.  I regret to inform you that all nine additional personnel were lost when Crichton and his associates escaped our custody.”  The lieutenant pulled himself up straighter, a hint of a grin appearing as he waited for her response. 

“Very good, Braca,” she oozed.  “I believe there may be some sort of commendation in this for you.  Report to my quarters this evening, and we’ll discuss it.” 

“Thank you, ma’am,” he inclined his head, a wider smile appearing. 

“Transmit these statistics to High Command,” Grayza order, handing the transparency back to her subordinate. 

“No need, Commandant Grayza.  The representative from High Command docked five hundred microts ago, and should be here himself very shortly.”  Braca’s small smile had turned into a pleased smirk. 

“Someone from High Command?” she demanded, instantly in a coldly dangerous rage.  “Why wasn’t I informed?” she snarled as the doors to her quarters slid open. 

“Because I ordered Captain Braca not to advise you,” the smooth cultured voice slid into the conversation, placing a heavy emphasis on the new rank. 

“Scorpius,” Grayza sneered as the black-suited figure strolled into the room.  “So they finally allowed you back into space -- admirable considering your last debacle.  Only two cycles spent answering a tribunal’s questions.  That may be a new Peacekeeper record for someone who lost a command carrier.” 

Scorpius smiled at her, inclining his head to one side before looking down his nose at the commandant.  “Yes,” he hissed in agreement.  “However, I am not the only one in this room to lose a command carrier.  You, for instance, have just lost command of this one.”  He perched on the corner of her desk and began leafing through the printouts and schematics.  “High Command feels that your inability to even locate, let alone capture John Crichton is proof that my methods were correct from the beginning.  You have been reassigned to assist me now.” 

Grayza leaned back in her chair, watching him without a trace of emotion, the cold eyes calculating her next move.  “Very well, Scorpius.  I will have my things moved --”

He stilled her with a gesture.  “High Command has become aware of your rather unique interrogation techniques,” he said.  “They feel these methods have merit.  You will remain in these quarters since they … facilitate such questionings. You will be expected to conduct interrogations whenever High Command dictates.”  The half-breed leered his most dangerous smile at her. 

The commandant sat up straighter as the implications of his orders sank in.  “I will not serve as High Command’s enlisted tralk!” Grayza hissed angrily. 

Scorpius leaned across the desk, his tone even more dangerous than hers.  “You have used the implant to rise to your present position, demonstrating a particular willingness to manipulate anyone whose position serves your ambition.  Your superiors have decided to put that talent to their use.  The first prisoner requiring your attentions will be arriving by Marauder within the arn.”  He sat up straight, resuming his customary assured half-smile and continued in a more relaxed manner.  “I should tell you, Commandant Grayza, that this first individual is not sebacean.  I hope that your distaste will not impair your effectiveness.” 

“I will not be used in this manner, Scorpius!” she insisted.  “Tell your superiors that I refuse.” 

“Very well.  High Command will be happy to convene a Tribunal to examine your failure here, including the rather puzzling loss of thirty-five elite troops and three Marauders to three escaped prisoners.”  He examined one glove with exaggerated interest, waiting for her response.  Behind him, Braca’s smirk faltered as his part in the deception became a liability.  Grayza stared at Scorpius for several moments, watching the assured movements for any change before subsiding into her chair.  After fifteen microts she nodded, accepting her new role aboard the carrier. 

“Captain Braca!”  Scorpius turned his attention to the other person in the room.

“Yes, sir!” the smiling aide stepped forward. 

“Braca.  Who is assigned the next largest living quarters aboard this vessel?” Scorpius asked, watching the newly promoted officer with proprietary interest. 

Braca’s smile disappeared completely.  “Why, myself … sir,” he stammered uncertainly. 

“Very good, Braca.  Move out immediately, and then assign personnel to unload the equipment I have brought with me and install it in those quarters.  You know my needs.” 

Braca looked between his two masters indecisively, snapped to attention, and inclined his head toward each of them, no longer looking pleased by the turn of events.  “Right away, sir!” he responded and hurried from the room. 

“What now, Scorpius?” Grayza demanded, her anger still evident.  “More wormhole research?” 

The half-breed got to his feet and wandered toward the sleeping area, eyeing the expanse of the bed for several microts before turning to face her.  “While you were chasing John Crichton, we were pursuing the new drive system.  We secured a rhotarri equipped courier ship over a quarter cycle ago.  Our scientists have evaluated the system and have pronounced it irreparably flawed for the purpose of travel.  I have read your reports concerning its use as a weapon.  Sacrificing a vessel the size of a fast attack destroyer would allow us to remove, at best, ten scarran ships.  The scarrans now outnumber us nearly fifteen to one, Commandant Grayza.  We would lose the coming conflict to your strategy.” 

“The last figures I saw indicated that we were outnumbered eight to one,” she countered. 

“Propaganda for the rank and file,” Scorpius sneered.  “In either case, the best weapon remains wormhole technology.” 

“Which means John Crichton,” she concluded. 

“Who you so inconveniently let escape.”  Scorpius sat down on the steps, lounging back as he considered Grayza’s once again calm demeanor.  “Isn’t it interesting that both the folded space weapon and wormhole knowledge reside in the brain of a single unique individual?” he postulated. 

“There is no way of tracking a ship using the rhotarri drive,” Grayza reminded him.  “We have no means of determining where he has gone.” 

Scorpius got to his feet and wandered back to her desk, sorting through the thin transparent readouts for several microts.  “There is no way to track the path a craft has taken,” he agreed, folding the sheet along a diagonal and creasing it with his fingers.  “That is because there is no path to follow.  Crichton’s system relies on manipulating space itself to fold two points against each other.  When the transition is completed, the fabric of space snaps back into its original configuration.” 

Scorpius flattened the synthetic sheet out, pressed it open for several moments, and then handed it to Grayza.  The commandant fingered the altered flimsy for a microt, then laid it on the desk and poked the crease with a single finger.  The sheet folded over on itself, closing into the double thickness Scorpius had arranged.  “You have learned how to detect the folds,” she concluded.  “This is useless, Scorpius.  He will have moved on by the time we reach the next point in space.  If he reaches the leviathan and she starbursts, we will have no trail at all to follow.”   

Scorpius smiled down at her.  “It is a starting point.  It may take time, but we will find him again.”  His gaze wandered around the quarters.  “In either event, the fate of John Crichton is no longer your concern.  Your duties will be somewhat more limited, captain.”  He announced her demotion with the same lack of pomp as when he’d notified Braca of his promotion. 

He reached forward to run a gloved finger up her chest, rubbing the oily residue thoughtfully between thumb and forefinger before sniffing it several times.  “Fascinating that so many species are susceptible to this substance.  It is a shame that scarrans are not … we might have learned so much from the few scarran prisoners we have detained.”  He smiled humorlessly at her one last time, and strolled from her quarters. 

   * * * * *

Aeryn took several slow breaths, gathering herself for the physical effort, and then pulled her shirt over her head, taking her time getting it down into place.  It was one of the most difficult motions she had attempted so far, requiring movement from almost every one of the healing muscles in her midsection.  Too many had been sliced and damaged when the fragments of armor had been forced out of the uniform jacket and into her side by the pulse blast.  Wearing a different shirt would have been easier, but she didn’t like giving in to the injuries when she knew they were healing.  She pulled the shirt down and fastened her pants carefully, feeling awkward and undressed without her pulse pistol. 

She’d tried wearing the holster as soon as she’d started walking again, and the healing lacerations had become inflamed from the weight and friction of the heavy belt.  Jool had treated the swelling only after demanding a promise that she wouldn’t wear it until the interion gave her permission.  Aeryn pulled her vest on, gazed for two microts at the prohibited weapon, and limped slowly toward Crichton’s quarters. 

“Can I come in?” she inquired, reaching the door to John’s cell. 

“Yes,” came the disgusted reply from within. 

She waved her hand past the sensor, waited while the doors slid open, and ducked through the curtains, an addition that John had never used in the past.  His tone of voice warned her that he would be in no better mood than the previous mornings, and the look of exasperation that greeted her confirmed it.  Limited to the use of his left hand, John been forced to admit that he could barely dress himself, and that many other routine tasks were completely impossible.  His frustration with the situation was mounting with each passing day, his familiar stubborn behaviors reappearing now that he’d had some rest.  There’d been no further display of emotional distress or any discussion of what had happened to him since that first day in the maintenance bay. 

She’d sat on the floor with him curled into her lap for almost half an arn after he’d fallen asleep that day, unwilling to disturb their first moment of peace together since being pulled into the command carrier.  Her own exhaustion had started to wear on her in the end, the cool air of the maintenance bay chilling her motionless body until she was on the verge of shivering, which would have been agonizing with the freshly sealed wounds.  That was the moment she’d realized that she wasn’t wearing a comms.  She’d waited close to another quarter arn, hoping that D’Argo would reappear to check on them, but had eventually resigned herself to waking John by shouting for help. 

Fortunately, before she could gather the air for a yell, she’d spotted a DRD sitting in a dark corner near a parts bin, Moya watching out for them mere arns after their return.  Her request for a rescue had been relayed, and D’Argo and Gallenn had appeared within microts, suggesting that they’d been waiting somewhere close by.  Despite their efforts to lift John gently, he’d woken up and refused to be carried, disappearing into the corridors supported by D’Argo’s strength alone.  She’d tried to follow in the same manner, leaning on Gallenn.  He’d snorted once at her attempt to walk and had picked her up before she could voice a protest. 

By the time Gallenn had set her down in the medical bay, John was unconscious again.  This time it was the result of a mild sleep shot, and Jool was doing what she could to treat his shoulder.  The interion’s growing medical expertise had been enough to repair skin, tissue and muscle, but had fallen short when it came to the broken bones.  She’d settled for binding John’s arm and shoulder tightly enough to restrict all movement, strapping his right arm to his chest in the process.  She’d scanned him several times to ensure that the breaks were aligned, and then had asked Pilot to look for a planet with a medical facility that might be able to do something more. 

John’s initial disgust at the prognosis of ‘your body will have to repair it on its own’ had turned to dismay and then anger the first morning he’d tried to get dressed with only one hand.  Getting his shirt on over the bandages was difficult at best, he couldn’t fasten the heavy leather pants and belt, couldn’t lace his boots, and had stopped shaving altogether.  She’d expected him to settle into the routine after several mornings, but after five days he was, if anything, more aggravated by his dependency on her. 

“Good morning,” she greeted him calmly. 

“This sucks,” he grumbled.  “And good morning.”  He was trying to turn his shirt around to get it on, fumbling with it and getting nowhere.  She waited patiently and he finally handed it to her with a sigh of resignation.  She snapped it open, held it for him while he ducked into it, and yanked it into place with an economy of movement.  John tucked the bottom into his pants while she folded the empty sleeve neatly inside the shirt. 

“Ready?” she prompted, hiking his pants up onto his hips.  He stuffed his shirt down one more time, then held his hand out of the way to indicate he was ready.  She fastened the waist and zipped them up, feeling the same jerk away from her hand that she’d felt when she’d done this for him every other morning.  Too many forms of contact had begun to cause flinches and startled jumps, no matter who was touching him or why.  If he saw it coming he could control it, standing rigidly still until the person withdrew, but he was managing to prevent most forms of contact by maintaining a two-motra clear-zone between himself and every other person on board Moya, including herself. 

He was fighting it; that was obvious.  She’d been standing behind him the day before, holding clean bandages while Jool checked his wounds and re-bandaged his shoulder, and had seen his knuckles go white when she’d run a hand gently down his back.  It had been intended as an encouragement as he endured the discomfort, and had served as another small torment instead.  The hand that clenched the edge of the medbed had been a fist of restraint, not pain, holding him in place when he would have preferred to bolt away from the drifting touch down his spine.  She’d stepped away from him, watched him relax despite the fact that Jool was shifting his right shoulder at that moment, and wondered if there was any small scrap of his body that didn’t harbor some hideous memory involving Mele-On Grayza. 

“Sit down,” she ordered, gesturing to the sloppy, unlaced boots.  John sat on his bed, leaned back, and kicked one foot up to rest on her thigh so she wouldn’t have to lean over.  There were a number of things that she couldn’t do yet, and leaning down was one of them.  Between the two of them, they barely constituted one functional person. 

“How you doing this morning?” he asked, sounding less temperamental. 

“Almost back to normal,” she answered, letting his first foot drop away.  He lifted the second one up for her attention.  “Does your shoulder still hurt?” 

“No, it’s settling down, probably starting to knit together.  But I’m still not willing to wait for this to heal.  Pilot has got to find some place that can do something more!”  She finished tying the laces, checked for his nod to make sure they weren’t too tight, and ran her hand up his shin, testing for a reaction.  The muscles in his jaw bunched, but he didn’t pull away. 

Aeryn stepped away, letting his foot drop to the floor.  “Pilot’s trying to find a healing facility of some sort,” she said calmly.  “You know he located one --

“Where they said they could immobilize it until the bones healed on their own.  Thank you, that’s no better than this.”  He got to his feet, stepped away from her to reestablish his buffer zone, and motioned for her to lead the way.

Aeryn stepped toward him instead, intending to do nothing more than pull his hand down from where he was starting to scratch at his beard again, resuming the habit that had driven her to threats during their time on the rhotarri ship.  John jumped away from her, tripping over a seat and nearly falling in his haste.  She froze, certain that if she tried to help him regain his balance that he would only retreat further, making it worse. 

“Aeryn … ” he started, once he was steady on his feet again.

“Don’t apologize, I understand,” she cut him off.  But she didn’t really understand it, and having him run away from her seemed like a poor prize for what they’d gone through in order to stay together.  “First Meal,” she suggested shortly, stepping aside to let him lead this time, giving him plenty of room.  John shuffled by her, looking as though it was taking a large measure of self-control to keep from bolting out of the cell. 

He stopped once he was in the corridor, stepped back, and took her by the hand.  “I didn’t mean to jump,” he said in lieu of an apology.

Aeryn stepped closer, initially hanging on to him as he retreated out of instinct.  It was as though he had lost control of his body, reaching for her even as he backed away.  He continued to tug at his hand and she released him, watching with disappointment as he stepped away from her.  He closed his eyes for a microt as if looking at something inside his mind, then stepped back.  “Sorry,” he whispered, and pulled her into a one-armed hug.  “It just happens.” 

“It’s over,” she reminded him, using the words for the first time since the maintenance bay.  He jumped, one part of his body trying to pull away while the remainder tried to keep her close.  Aeryn hugged him carefully, trying to impart some sense of security while not enfolding him so tightly that he felt trapped -- a nearly impossible task.  “I won’t ever do that to you again,” she assured him. 

“Do what?  Hug me?”  He stepped away, letting his hand trail behind him, still inside hers as they started for the Center Chamber. 

“Ask you to do something like that.  Next time, if you want to space yourself, I’ll let you.”  She’d meant it exactly the way she’d said it, but the statement came out sounding like a lie or incredibly condescending.  It was the hard, cold lump in the center of her chest that said she was serious, the chilled stone lodged behind her breastbone that felt like she’d just delivered a death sentence. 

John stumbled to a stop, automatically taking an extra step away from her before turning to face where she waited on the far side of the corridor.  “You’re not serious,” he said.  “You can’t be … what’s going on, Aeryn?” 

“This is my fault,” she explained, gesturing to the gap between their bodies.  “I asked you to let yourself be captured.  You wanted to do it differently.  I had no idea that it was Grayza, or that she would -- ”

“I KNOW!!” he yelled quickly, cutting her off.  “You don’t need to say it!”  He recovered and continued more moderately.  “Neither one of us knew what was going to happen.  They could have just as easily put me in the Aurora Chair and turned my brain into nothing but goo, Aeryn.  You could have brought back a slobbering, gibbering idiot, and parked my mindless body in a cell for the next sixty cycles or so.  This didn’t turn out so badly.”  John made the difficult transition across the intervening space between them, this time to gently finger a tendril of her hair.  “It’s over.  Time for me to get over it and move on.  We’re both alive.  Come on, let’s get something to eat.”

For a moment it was like having him back, healthy and whole.  She smiled at him, and pressed his hand against her cheek for an instant, momentarily confident that it had been the right decision after all.  But his hand pulled against hers even as it made contact, trying to escape her touch, and the loss and uncertainty returned.  It had been a good act, nearly convincing her that he was going to do what he said and move on.  The generous lie would have worked except for the reaction he couldn’t control.   

“Good idea,” she said with forced cheerfulness, releasing him from the tiny torture of being forced to touch her.  “I’m hungry.  Let’s get something before Rygel eats it all.” 

   * * * * *

Crichton sat on one of the bridges spanning the depths of the central neural cavern, slowly drumming his heels against the side of the walkway while staring down into the abyss.  He picked up a melvak bean from a small pile beside him and dropped it into the plexus cavern, watching it spin and bounce until it disappeared from sight. 

“Commander,” Pilot growled for the third time. 

“I thought you said the effluvium at the bottom would dissolve these,” he answered after a lengthy silence. 

“Yes, it will, given enough time.  However Moya does not consider it appropriate for you to use the central plexus as some sort of waste dump for your leftover food.  She would prefer that you either eat it or process it through one of the waste funnels.” 

“Sorry.”  He swept the remainder of the pile into space, ignoring Pilot’s sigh of resignation and dusted his hand off on the thigh of his pants.  “Pilot, have you ever thought about what it would be like to be separated from Moya?  I know you can’t survive without her now, but have you ever just … sort of imagined what it would be like?”  John continued to stare into space. 

“It would be a pointless conjecture, Commander Crichton.  In order for me to be removed from Moya, it would first require my death; therefore the premise is meaningless.  And working in reverse, her death would mean my death.”  The large eyes watched him for several microts before he continued more slowly and hesitantly.  “There was the time that my consciousness was removed from this body though.  It was somewhat similar to what you are asking.”

“What was that like?”  John drew his feet up and turned to face him, continuing to sit on the bridge. 

“It was enlightening and wondrous to be alone in a body once again, to not have all of Moya’s thoughts and impressions inside my mind.”  Pilot’s expression faded from wide-eyed enthusiasm to a more somber look that resembled grief.  “But it was also very lonely.  I missed her very much.  I do not believe I would ever choose to be without her even if it were possible.  I felt empty, deprived of something necessary for life itself.  It was a yearning far beyond the simple physical need to be joined to her.  To answer your question, I would never be separated from her willingly.” 

John nodded several times, then turned away from Pilot, dropped his feet over the edge of the walkway, and resumed staring into the gloom.   

“May I ask, Commander Crichton, are you considering leaving Moya again?”       

“What makes you -- ”  He was interrupted before he could finish his question.

“Hey goober!” Gallenn called exuberantly, striding energetically into the Den. 

John shook his head, scrubbing his single free hand through his hair.  “I really wish I’d never taught you that word.”  He leaned back to look up at the sebacean.  “You are very scary looking.  Anyone mention that yet?” 

Gallenn gave him a light tap on his good shoulder and dropped down beside him, hanging his feet over the edge as well.  John started to edge away from him, and he shifted automatically, putting the two-motra gap between them.  He was still wearing the Peacekeeper uniform, minus the heavy armored jacket -- the only clothes he had left.  The light-brown hair was arranged more casually than he’d worn it aboard the command carrier, but he’d cut it so short it was of little consequence which way he brushed it.  Aside from the relaxed, casual manner, he looked as much like a born Peacekeeper as Aeryn.  “Don’t like the nifty dudes?” 

“The word is ‘duds’, and you might want to stop using English.  It’ll get you killed, Gallenn … despite the fact that you look just like a Peacekeeper.”  He looked his friend over head to foot and shook his head again.  “Amazing.”   

“I was a Peacekeeper, even if a lousy one,” the other man acknowledged his past and shrugged it off almost immediately.  “Secrets.” 

“I had a few, too,” John admitted.  “You’re leaving?” 

“Yeah.  Aeryn’s going to take me down to the planet.”  Gallenn looked around the Den, examining the inner hull with studied care.  “Come along with us if you want.  She’s only going to drop me off and come right back.  In and out, no problems.” 

John leaned forward, looking toward the bottom of the drop.  “See that?”  He pointed into the depths. 

“Thinking of jumping?” Gallenn asked.  This time there was little humor in his tone, his entire body becoming less relaxed as he looked between the sight beneath his feet and Crichton several times. 

“Not the way you mean.  Where I come from we had this sport called ‘bungie jumping’.”  Gallenn shook his head, letting him know that it didn’t mean anything to him.  “The idea was to tie a long elastic rope onto your feet, and jump off something like this head first.  You go down, get snatched back up just before you hit, and then bounce at the end of the line a couple more times.” 

“This may explain some of your more peculiar behaviors, Crichton.  They put too much stretch in your rope once or twice, didn’t they?”  He showed signs of relaxing as John laughed at the response.  “That might be the stupidest idea I’ve ever heard of on any planet.” 

“The point is …” John broke into laughter again.  He took a deep breath and became more serious.  “The point is that if I tried that here, no matter how many precautions I took, the line would break, I’d plummet to the bottom, punch right through Moya’s hull into outer space, and everyone on board including Moya and Pilot would die from decompression.  Nothing I do ever seems to go right, Gallenn.  Simple in and out on that planet to drop you off would turn into a catastrophe of the first order.  Probably wind up killing half the population.  I’m a jinx.”  He rubbed at his eye with the heel of his hand, wiping something to one side. 

“You’ve had a bad run, Crichton.  Nothing more.”  Gallenn glanced at Pilot, who was watching the two men in between his regular duties.  “You’ve got friends here who are glad to have you back.  There’s this gorgeous bit of ruthless woman who has already gone to the limit to save your life … and would do me some bodily damage if she knew I said anything to you about it.  Do you know what she did to get you out of there?” 

John gave a one-shouldered shrug.  “We’ve talked about it a bit.”     

“A bit!” Gallenn yelled, then shrank in on himself slightly as the words echoed around the Den.  “Crichton, you idiot!  Get out of your skull, you frelling imbecile!” 

“Try ‘goober’,” John interjected, trying to slow the angry flood. 

“That too,” his friend agreed, not calming down.  “You spent nearly an entire cycle trying to drink yourself to death because she left you.  Then she comes back and mortgages her conscience by leaving a trail of bodies behind her that would have embarrassed even Cholak’s demon.  And she didn’t do it because of some promise.  She nearly took my head off when I suggested she was doing it casually.” 

“Gallenn,” John tried to stop him. 

“You’re a fool, Crichton.  She would have died trying to get you off that carrier before she gave up and left you there.  And you sit here like a celibate flibisk, counting your woes.  Aeryn hasn’t told me what happened to you, only that you’d been interrogated.  I’m not going to pretend that anything a Peacekeeper dreamed up was a lot of fun, but would you please look around you for a microt and see what you’ve got here?”  Gallenn got to his feet and stalked toward the door and back.  “Drannit brain.” 

“I love you too,” John mumbled back.  “Gallenn, it’s --”

“Gallenn?” Aeryn’s voice sounded over the comms, interrupting his protest.  “I’m all set to go whenever you’re ready.” 

“I’ll be down in a little bit,” he answered.  He shut off his comms, unclipped it from his shirt and walked over to set it next to Pilot.  “Thank you, Pilot.  I’ve enjoyed my short residence here.   I hope I run into you and Moya again some day.  Figuratively, of course.” 

“We will miss you,” Pilot returned somberly. 

“You don’t have to go,” John suggested, getting to his feet.  “You could stay.” 

“You’ve got people on your butt that don’t care about me yet,” Gallenn sighed.  “They’ll execute me if they find me, but they don’t usually go hunting for missing techs.”  He waited for a response, finally adding, “It’s too dangerous for me to stay.  Although there are some aspects about staying that are more attractive than others.”  He grinned wickedly at John, inviting an answer. 

“Yes, we kind of noticed that you and Chiana were going missing at the same time.  You weren’t particularly subtle about that.”  John clapped him on the shoulder.  “I’m sure she’ll miss you, too.”  He stretched over the edge of Pilot’s consoles, trying to reach something sitting on the inside of the station.  Pilot carefully gathered the object up between two claws and handed it to him. 

“Here, take this with you.”  John handed the object to Gallenn. 

The sebacean eyed the metal box suspiciously, thumbing the catch but not opening the cover.  “This isn’t going to explode on me, is it?”  He cracked the lid and cautiously peered in.  “No, I won’t take this,” he said emphatically when he saw what it contained.  “It took you arns to build it.  It’s yours.”  He set the box down on the outside of Pilot’s bulwarks and opened it all the way to reveal John’s chess set. 

“I have one here.  It got left behind when I got separated from Moya.  You take that one.  Teach someone else how to play.  You’ll kick their ass, you’re good at it.”  Gallenn shook his head, refusing to accept the gift, but he was fingering the polished hydrosteel pieces reverently.  “I don’t have anything else to offer.  You kept me alive for a long time, Gallenn.  You hauled my ass out of that bar more times than I can count.” 

“Only because you never learned to count,” the tech quipped. 

John ignored the gibe.  “Please take it.  Learn strategy from it and stay away from those Peacekeeper bastards.  Disappear from sight.  Stay safe.”

“All right,” Gallenn finally agreed.  He placed the white queen in its slot and latched the lid.  “On one condition.”  He waited for John’s motion that encouraged him to suggest a bargain.  “Talk to Aeryn.  You’ve been shutting her out.  You agree to talk to her and I’ll take this with me.” 

John glanced up at Pilot, who was watching the negotiations with interest.  “Gallenn …”

“Yes, I know there’s a witness.  Pilot?  If he agrees, you hold him to it or else toss him out an airlock.”  Gallenn held the chess set out to him, inviting him to take it back.

“No … you take it,” John agreed slowly.  “It’s a deal.  Now get out of here.  Stay safe.”  He leaned his hip against Pilot’s station, showing no inclination to accompany his friend to the planet.  The two men stared at each other for several microts, blue eyes staring into brown, then they nodded together.  “See you around,” John broke the silence.     

“Take care of yourself, John,” Gallenn mumbled, turned and hurried out of the Den. 

“No sign of Peacekeepers, right?” Crichton asked Pilot.  He watched the empty doorway, as if expecting someone to come through it. 

“Nothing but commerce vessels,” the huge symbiote confirmed. 

“Thanks, Pilot.  Do me a favor and comm me when Aeryn’s on her way back?”  He barely waited for an answer before striding out of the Den, moving with far more purpose than he had at any time since returning to the leviathan. 

   * * * * *

The small transport ship accelerated away from Moya, arcing smoothly toward the planet with only the slightest adjustment to its trajectory in order to settle into the alignment requested by the planetary control facility.  Aeryn tapped another set of commands into the console, pulled the power back to stabilize the velocity and turned to face Gallenn.

“You know you don’t have to leave,” she started. 

“Crichton said the same thing,” he agreed.  “But … you have too many nasty folks chasing you.  It’s not the life I want to lead.  This is better for me.”  He gestured toward the planet where they’d located a long-range cargo transport that needed a mechanic.  “This one’s headed a long way away.  But thanks anyway.  You’re generous.” 

“You’re John’s friend.  He needs all the friends he can find here.”  She turned to check on their course, then slowly fingered one switch, her fingers moving idly as she hesitated over something.  “Did he … has John said anything to you about what happened after I got shot?” she asked. 

“Nothing.  You?”  She shook her head.  “He never said anything when we worked together, but he seemed to have a thing about knives.  It’s a problem isn’t it?” 

“It could be.”  Aeryn made another adjustment as they slid into the highest reaches of the planet’s atmosphere.  “Do you think he remembers what he did?  You brought him on board.  Did he know what he was doing?” 

Gallenn leaned back in the co-pilot’s seat and watched as they plummeted down through the cloud layers, breaking out beneath the overcast to a gray, rain-pelted landscape, their landing sight half obscured in the downpour.  He remained silent as Aeryn piloted the craft to a landing pad and set it down.  “I don’t think so,” he answered as the engines died to a whispering whine.  “He was close to attacking me.  I wouldn’t want to bet my life on it, but I’d say he had no idea what he was doing.  You know the boosters can do that to you anyway, and he was … I never thought I’d see Crichton do anything like that.” 

He got out of his seat, scooping up a small gear bag on his way to the cockpit hatch.  “Not much to show for eight cycles of work,” he observed sardonically. 

“Our fault,” she offered. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it too much.”  Gallenn dug in a pocket and produced a data chip.  “When you and I tricked John off the planet way back when, I gave him some of the currency he’d earned from the business, but I didn’t have time to convert all of it.  The rest of his money is safe in an inter-system account.”  He grinned and shoved the chip back in his pocket, making it clear that he was going on his way well financed.

“Are you going to tell him what he did in the hangar?”  He looked troubled by the thought. 

“No, not unless I think he’s starting to remember anyway.  There’s no reason to ever bring that up again.”   

“And you’re not going to give up on him,” he suggested, the cockpit door half open against the rain. 

“Never.”  Aeryn gestured a farewell as he waved and ducked out the door, then set about getting back to Moya. 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 9

Aeryn turned the corner into the Den with a small sense of foreboding.  Pilot had commed her within microts of touching down in the hangar bay to ask her to visit him personally.  There were few topics that could not be discussed with reasonable privacy over a discrete channel on the comms, which meant that whatever he wanted to discuss had to be of a more sensitive nature than usual.  She forced what she hoped was a relaxed smile into place and crossed the bridge to his station. 

“Hello, Pilot,” she greeted him warmly.  Her concerns about the pending conversation aside, it was nice to have the symbiotic pair consisting of ship and pilot watching over her again.  She had missed their presence every day that she’d been gone.  Her brief visits to Moya during her long search for John hadn’t amounted to much more than a total of ten days over the past cycle, and it wasn’t until four days ago that she’d begun to feel that she was finally home. 

“Officer Sun,” he responded with his more formal address.  She put a fraction more effort into the smile, trying to override the increasing anxiety.  Pilot had rarely called her ‘Aeryn’ in the past, but he’d been using it more frequently over the past few days, showing how pleased he was to have her back aboard.  “Commander Crichton has requested that you meet him outside the starburst chamber,” he announced. 

She waited for something more.  This did not warrant a trip to the Den, especially since it required climbing up several tiers only to turn around and head back down almost to the bottom of Moya.  “I’ll head right down,” she said slowly, puzzled by the request.  “Is that all, Pilot?”  He was at his most enigmatic.  It was never easy reading Pilot’s emotions, but when he shut down all expression it was like trying to decipher the inner thoughts of a rock.  She didn’t receive a response, so she turned to leave. 

“Aeryn,” his voice said hesitantly behind her, stopping her feet.  She turned around, moving back to stand close to the walls surrounding him, watching with astonishment as a veritable flood of expressions crossed the large face.  “I do not mean to intrude upon personal matters,” he started, embarrassment taking over for the moment. 

“There’s nothing you can’t ask me, Pilot.”  It took more effort to smile this time.  His hesitation was starting to alarm her.

“Do you know if Commander Crichton intends to leave Moya again?”  Pilot lowered his head, looking dispirited.  “He does not seem happy here.” 

“Did he say something to make you think he was leaving?” she demanded quickly.  Aeryn took a breath and tried to control the rush of dismay.  “Did he say he was leaving?” 

“No, but he was asking some very peculiar questions, and he has demonstrated very few of his customary, irritating behaviors.”   Pilot paid an inordinate amount of attention to his controls for a few moments, appearing to stall for time.  “The DRDs report that he has not unpacked the possessions he brought back with him.  He is not making any attempt to make Moya his home.” 

“He hasn’t said anything to me about leaving, Pilot.”  She wanted to reassure him, but it was difficult to find the right words when the dread was increasing with every passing microt.  “Would it bother you if he left again?  He hasn’t been on board in almost two cycles, you must be used to it by now.” 

“Both Moya and I were very pleased when you communicated that you thought you had located him.  We were looking forward to having both of you living here again.  I would be greatly disappointed if he were to leave so soon, as would Moya.”  He let out a huge sigh, and scanned his panels, tapping in a few commands. 

“I’ll talk to him and find out.  Maybe that’s why he wants me to meet him.”  Aeryn reached over the consoles to touch one claw, trying to offer some comfort.  The gesture felt empty and false, lacking any confidence that the outcome would be the one that both she and Pilot desired.  John seemed too remote, too damaged, for her to be sure he wouldn’t chose to go his own away.  “Is Moya preparing to starburst as we asked?” 

“Yes.  She will be ready to starburst in approximately six hundred microts.  This is Moya’s fourth starburst in a very short time, however.  She will require at least twelve arns before she can do it again.” 

Aeryn watched the levers and slides being manipulated, feeling the strange warm rush of pleasure she always did whenever she knew what he was doing with the controls.  It was the first time she’d had a chance to access the nearly subconscious, genetically-stored knowledge since she’d returned, and was mildly surprised to discover how much she had missed that as well.  “I’d better find John,” she concluded, patted his claw one last time, and headed for the bottom of the leviathan. 

   * * * * *

She ducked into the narrower passageway leading to the starburst chamber, moving slower until her eyes adjusted to the dark.  Looking ahead she could just make out the silhouette of John’s body where he was leaning against the wall.  The inner hull members were heavily reinforced here, designed to accept the enormous stress created by a full charge of starburst energy.  Support ribs jutting out every motra, demanding that she move more carefully through the confined area to keep from tripping.  The only light was coming from the corridor behind her, filtering in to reflect off the black, hardened walls in glittering patterns resembling those of a distant starfield. 

She drew to a halt two motras away from John, giving him his buffer area, and waited for him to start the conversation. 

“Down and back without any problems?” he inquired easily.   

“No problems.  I received a flash transmission from the transport ship while I was on my way back.  Gallenn was aboard, no sign of anyone following him or even interested in him.”  She watched him relax, saw how tense he had been until that microt, and tried to reassure him.  “Moya starburst three times getting to this system, John.  His ship will be long gone by the time anyone manages to trace us to this planet.  No one is chasing him -- it’s us they’re after.”   

“He lost his business and got put in the Chair because of me,” he rationalized his concern. 

“You don’t have to explain it.  I understand.”  She examined their surroundings again.  “It’s going to get kind of loud here in a few microts.  Moya is getting ready to starburst.” 

“I know.”  John positioned himself between two of the ribs, jamming himself into the depression formed there.  “You don’t have to stay,” he told her.  Aeryn answered by copying his stance, bracing herself in place as the roar of the energy gathering in the adjacent chamber made it impossible to talk.  The shriek continued to climb until the walls themselves seemed to vibrate with the sound, the howl abruptly turning into a deep, deafening roar.  The floor shifted beneath their feet, the entire corridor seeming to dance side to side as the leviathan slid into starburst. 

“Are you enjoying this?” she yelled at John over the racket.  The ride got rougher, suggesting that Moya was preparing to punch back into normal space, and she clutched at the ridged reinforcing ribs to hold herself in place.  There was no loud noise, no great jolting deceleration as they exited starburst -- it just went quiet and still in a single microt, the silence almost tangible after the noise.  “That was a fascinating experience,” she concluded somewhat sarcastically. 

John raised his eyebrows at her, suggesting that he had found it enjoyable.  He rolled out of his niche awkwardly, forced to pull himself upright with one hand, and approached the door to the sealed starburst chamber.  It slid open and he wandered inside without speaking, rounding the three-pronged collector in the middle of the floor that served to coalesce the starburst energy.   

“Pilot said you wanted me to come down here.” Aeryn asked at last.  She stepped inside, running a hand along the wall.  It was still warm, releasing the heat gradually.  John shrugged with one side of his body.  “Why?  Why here?” 

“It’s where I was when you got back,” he evaded her question. 

Aeryn watched the angular set of his shoulders, concluding that the jerky movements were because he was uncomfortable with the situation, not from his injuries.  “What do you want, John?” she tried again. 

He stood in the center of the chamber and looked up, staring toward where Pilot was located somewhere far above, and didn’t answer. 

“Fine.”  She turned to leave, suddenly tired of trying to break through to him.  The fear that he was going to leave Moya was still there, pushing almost every other concern to one side, but his unwillingness to talk was finally too much for her.  It seemed as though she’d done nothing else but try to batter past his reticence ever since she’d found him at Gallenn’s repair facility, pounding down one barrier after another … only to have another one erected at the last microt. 

“Wait.”  She turned around.  At least he was facing her this time.  It was a step forward from having to stare at his back.  “I stand outside the door when Moya starbursts because there’s a part of me that wants to burn the outer layer off my body.”  He scrubbed at his right forearm as though it weren’t encased inside the bandages, as though he were trying to remove something from his skin.  “There’s this layer of … filth.  It wasn’t a conscious thing at first.  When Moya starburst two days ago, I found myself standing outside the door with my forehead against it, wanting to feel the energy incinerate the slime, burn it all away.” 

Aeryn didn’t bother answering.  The confession wasn’t a complete surprise.  A quiet discussion with Jool and Pilot five days earlier had revealed that he was showering four or five times a day, giving in to an obsessive need to get clean.  Jool had switched to using a waterproof synthetic as a final layer over the rest of the bandages to keep them dry, and there had been no further discussion of his behavior.  She’d asked them not to pursue the matter, declined to explain the cause, and had waited to see if, given enough time, John would be able to convince himself that he was clean.   

John wandered around the perimeter of the chamber, running his left hand along the wall.  “What else?” she asked when he didn’t continue. 

“I don’t know.”  He sat down on the lip of one of the huge conduits used to channel the energy, his face obscured in the dark. 

“Why did you ask me to come down here?” she demanded again.  He didn’t answer.  “Are you leaving Moya?” she asked.  The dark silhouette of his body shrugged in the half-light.  “Was that a yes or a no?  Pilot thinks you’re getting ready to leave.” 

“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said quietly from the dark. 

Aeryn shook her head, frustrated by his unwillingness to talk to her.  “Let me know when you make up your mind!” she snapped, turned and hurried out of the chamber. 

She was almost to the main corridor, the golden walls gleaming ahead, when the scene in the starburst chamber triggered a memory of a similar moment.  The night she’d confronted him in the dust-coated room in the command carrier wreckage he’d been sitting exactly the same way -- in the dark, in the silence, hunched over against a pain that wasn’t physical, refusing to acknowledge his own feelings.  She spun around and headed back. 

John had chosen a place just as dark and secluded this time, where he was barely visible if she were more than an arms length away from him.  But in addition to that, he’d chosen the one place that lacked sensors of any sort.  Unless a DRD was present or their comms were open, there was no way for Moya, Pilot, or any of the crew to know what was happening in this chamber.  She couldn’t begin to guess whether John had come here deliberately or if his subconscious had driven him to this spot, but in either event she was certain it was because he was trying to tackle a subject that he didn’t really want to talk about. 

He hadn’t moved a dench when she’d stalked out.  He was still sitting on the rounded lip of the energy outlet, his head propped on his hand, staring at the floor.  “Comms,” she ordered him, holding out her hand.  He looked up in confusion, saw her own badge sitting on her palm, and turned his over to her.  “Pilot,” she called, activating one of the units. 

“Yes, Officer Sun,” came the usual calm reply. 

“John and I are in the starburst chamber without any comms.  We would appreciate it if Moya didn’t starburst until we tell you we’ve left.”  Without waiting for a reply, she pitched both bits of biomechanoid circuitry out the door, closed it, and returned to where John was sitting.  She crossed the last distance slowly and sat down next to him, deliberately letting her hip rest against his.  The jerk away from her was barely detectable this time. 

“You weren’t talking about the decision to leave.  Were you?” she prompted.  “You meant you don’t know what you’re doing at all.”  He nodded.  Aeryn stroked the hair at the back of his head, gently at first, then more firmly when the flinches died down.  “Why didn’t you tell me I’d misunderstood you?  You let me leave.”  He didn’t answer. 

“I can’t do this by myself, John.  You’ve closed yourself up inside, and I’m tired of fighting to get you to talk to me.  It’s only been twelve solar days since we escaped, so I don’t expect miracles, but if you won’t talk to me this will never get better.  You’ll use me to help you get dressed, but you don’t even look at me half the time.  And it’s been getting worse.”  He shrugged away from her hand. 

She tried something else, using his own words to try to break through to him.  “You made me promise never to leave you again.  Your words were ‘Don’t kill me, Aeryn Sun’.  I will not leave until you tell me you don’t want me here, but you have to be fair to me.  You’re not really here.  Do you think it’s any easier for me to go through this again?  How do you think I feel?”  Aeryn stopped, fighting back the tears. 

“I’m not leaving Moya.”  He finally answered a question, but he’d jumped so far back in the conversation it took her a microt to adjust her focus. 

“I’m glad.”  A chill of relief ran up her spine.  She decided to wait him out, hoping for something more. 

“You killed some people,” John stated flatly.  “To get me out.”  He’d shifted the conversation again, getting closer to the subject of the command carrier without actually bringing it up. 

“Yes, I did.  Without regret.”  She tried touching him again.  This time he sat still but he didn’t seem to be enjoying the fingers running slowly through his hair.  “I would have killed more people if it meant saving you.”  He closed his eyes as if it would shut out her caresses, so she stopped. 

“How did it feel?” he asked hesitantly.  There was no trace of accusation in his voice, only curiosity. 

“I didn’t like doing it, if that’s what you’re asking.  If there had been another way, I wouldn’t have chosen to kill them.”  They hadn’t visited her in her sleep yet, as some of her victims had in the past, but she sometimes woke drenched in sweat with the memory of a sound in her ears -- a cry, a crack of bone, or a last breath.  The day might come when she’d tell him of the price she was paying, but this was not the time.   

John reached out and picked up her hand.  He turned it palm up and stared at it, cradled in his, then placed his hand palm to palm with hers and intertwined his fingers.  They sat silently like that for several microts, the only sound the hushed, distant sounds of Moya’s internal systems.  “What are you thinking?” she asked, trying to prompt any sort of reaction from him. 

“I’m trying to feel what it would be like for you.  To understand what it cost you.”  He got up and wandered around the dark chamber, ending up leaning against one of the upright spokes in the middle of the floor, his back turned to her. 

“I didn’t think it would be like that,” he said at last, momentarily confusing her by changing direction again.  “There have been times when it felt like every sick bastard in the Uncharted Territories has had a chance to mess with me since I got here, but when I decided to let them catch me --”

“We decided,” she interrupted.  “It was my plan that put you in that situation.  I asked you to let yourself get captured.” 

“You did the right thing,” he asserted.  “We’ve already discussed that, and I haven’t changed my mind.”  He wandered for a bit before starting up again.  “I was ready to have someone mess with me again.  I was even ready to have them screw with my head with the Aurora Chair.  I know what that’s all about.  But what she did … I wasn’t ready for that … not for that to happen.”  He stopped with his back to her again, hunched over his arm, looking as though his body was drawing in on itself.  She’d seen that sort of position before when they’d worked things out on the rhotarri ship.  It was John literally trying to pull inside himself, crumbling under the weight of his own emotional discomfort. 

“It took something different away from you,” she suggested.  “Something that hadn’t been touched before.”

“No,” he countered.  “It took everything this time.  Knowledge, control, dignity, self-respect.  Everything.  There’s nothing left.  I thought I knew what it felt like to be empty inside, but it never felt this bad.  She took everything away from me.” 

Aeryn got to her feet and went to stand next to him, looping her arm through his.  “You’re wrong.  It’s still there -- you’re just having trouble finding it.  You lied to her, there’s knowledge that you didn’t give her.  You found a way to resist, there’s control.  You kept her from getting any information about where I was, and that means she never got to you entirely.  She failed.” 

He gave her a fast glance.  “Go ahead and try to fix dignity.  There’s nothing less dignified than what she did.” 

“I can’t fix that with words.  Given time, I can show you that she didn’t take it away.”  She pulled her arm out of his and ran her hand gently across his cheek, trying to soothe a wound that couldn’t be seen with her eyes.  “I know it’s not gone, because it’s standing next to me, but I’ll admit that it might be difficult for you to see it.” 

“And self-respect?” 

“That can’t be taken from you, John, only given away, and you haven’t done that.  It’s still there.”  He shook his head, denying it.  “If you didn’t have self-respect, you wouldn’t care about any of this.  It wouldn’t matter to you.” 

That seemed to get through to him.  His head came up and he looked around him as though seeing the chamber for the first time.  “You been chatting with Sigmund Freud behind my back?” 

Aeryn began shaking her head, denying it vigorously.  “I haven’t …” 

“Relax, Aeryn.  It was a joke.  He’s dead.”  She glared at him.  “Okay, it was a bad joke.”  Her expression relented. 

“There’s something else,” he confessed slowly.  The small moment of humor was over.

Aeryn led him back to the opening in the wall.  He went unwillingly, one step dragging after another, but sat down next to her when she tugged at his hand.  He resumed the hunched over position, running his thumb over his lower lip several times in indecision. 

“Just say it,” she ordered. 

“You stood there and let it happen,” he blurted out all at once.  “You let her do that to me.  You could have stopped it, and you watched.”  He was on his feet again, moving to the far side of the chamber to bang at the wall repeatedly with the side of his fist, battering at the thick, reinforced surface with furious energy.  “You could have stopped it!” he yelled, the anguish coming through clearly.

Aeryn went after him, grabbing his arm to stop the pounding before he could hurt the remaining useful hand.  “I’m sorry.  I’d go back and change it if I could.” 

“I know that,” he admitted.  He pulled loose and slammed his fist against the wall one more time.  “And I know that if you’d killed her that we’d both be dead right now, and I wouldn’t have wanted that.  But there’s this … anger inside.” 

“Aimed at me,” she verified. 

“Yes.  It’s more than that, but I can’t even begin to look at it without it getting out of control.  It’s rage and a dozen other things all mixed together.”  He pulled loose from her and began pacing, moving faster than before, circling the chamber repeatedly.  “You need to know that it’s there  … God!  She touched me!”  He came to rest with his left shoulder against the wall and began banging his head sideways, venting his revulsion.

“She did more than touch you,” she said, moving closer to him.  “She -- ”

“DON’T say it!” he yelled at her. 

“Then you say it.  Just once.”  He turned away from her, circling the room like a trapped animal.  Aeryn watched him from the center, pivoting as he orbited around her.  “Just once, say the word,” she demanded.  He shook his head vehemently, and a suspicion hardened into a certainty.  “Men on Earth don’t get … that doesn’t happen to them, does it?”  She changed the sentence midstream at his furious glare, skirting the word that he was avoiding.

“Not usually.  There are exceptions, but it’s usually more a case of getting seduced.”  He finished another circuit of the room, and slid down to sit on the floor with his back against the wall.  “I don’t know whether to vomit or kill something.” 

Aeryn went to stand over him, waiting until he gestured an invitation before sitting down next to him.  “Say it,” she ordered him firmly.  “Just once.”  He shook his head, looking almost as exhausted as when he’d been held on the command carrier.  “She was torturing you.  No one is immune to heppel oil, not even the infamous John Crichton.” 

“Who goes around pointing guns at people,” he added. 

“That’s the guy.”  She leaned against him with more force, taking a microt to appreciate the strength and warmth that pressed against her side from hip to shoulder, the strength that was keeping Grayza’s insidious damage hidden from his friends.  “John, if you had to make a choice right now, which would you chose?  Don’t think, just answer.  Get put in the Aurora Chair or get taken to Grayza’s quarters?”

“I’d take the Chair,” he answered immediately, then looked surprised at his answer. 

“It wasn’t interrogation, it was torture,” she insisted one more time.  “She was frelling with your mind every bit as viciously as the Chair.  Say it … just once.” 

John hung his head, staring at the floor and refused to answer.  The silence stretched out into hundreds of microts, and Aeryn finally sighed and started to get to her feet. 

“She raped me.”  It was close to a whisper, but sufficient to carry clearly in the silence of the chamber.

Aeryn subsided beside him, wrapping her arm around him when he leaned his head against her shoulder.  They’d covered enough for one day.  It was a start.  There were things they’d have to work through, but they’d managed to batter their way to the beginnings of an ability to talk about it, and that would be enough to start them on the way to healing.  She leaned her cheek against the top of his head and asked,  “What do you want to do about the anger?  Do you want me to leave you alone to get over it?”  He shook his head against her.  “Do you want me to leave?” 

“I want you to stay.  You needed to know it was there … inside.  This sucks big time, but as empty as I feel right now, if I tried living without you again, it would be even worse.  That isn’t going to change, Aeryn.  For a little while I thought getting away from you was the answer, but someone made me realize that I didn’t want to go through another day without knowing that you were somewhere close.” 

“Gallenn?” she asked. 

“No.  Pilot.”  He was still leaning against her, so she could feel the laughter even though she couldn’t hear it.  “The interstellar expert on love.”  She laughed with him this time.  John raised his head off her shoulder, brushing his lips across her cheek as if testing to make sure they worked.  She turned toward him, letting him take the initiative, and he lightly, tentatively kissed her, barely making contact. 

“How’d that go?” she asked when he’d broken the contact. 

“Not real good.”  He turned away from her, looking embarrassed and unhappy. 

“Now what do we do?  How do we fix this?”  She leaned across, and tried a soft kiss against the edge of his eyebrow.  He closed his eyes and endured it, with none of the relaxed body language that would have suggested he was enjoying it. 

He fingered a loose strand of hair back away from her face, tucked it behind her ear, and smiled at her, letting her back into his heart.  “Time and patience, maybe.  Replace one memory at a time.” 

“Time and patience,” she repeated the proposed remedy.  John nodded, looking happier.  “Zhaan’s solution for almost everything.” 

“Pretty good advice.  She knew what she was talking about.”  He pulled her closer, fitting her in under his arm.  “We can take it one step at a time.” 

“Pilot says Moya won’t be ready to starburst for arns.  We could stay here for a while if you’d like.  It’s quiet and the others won’t find us down here.”  Aeryn leaned carefully against him, ducking her head to rest it against his chest.  His heart thumped steadily beneath her ear. 

“Maybe we could practice for a little while,” he suggested, rubbing his thumb up and down her shoulder.  This time when she looked up much of the sullen depression of the last days had dropped away, leaving a much happier person behind.  This was the John Crichton she’d gotten to know again during their nine days on the small transport ship. 

“What would you like to practice?” she inquired, providing an opening for him to insert one of his ridiculous suggestions. 

“This and that.  You know … practice to make sure I know how when we start replacing one memory at a time.”  He smiled at her. 

Aeryn raised her head to kiss him, and this time he didn’t pull away. 

  * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 10:  An Addendum  This section is rated NC-17.

Aeryn woke abruptly, a sound from her dream lingering as though it had been a real noise disturbing the silence of her chamber.  She pushed the thermal sheet down around her knees and sat up, waiting for her heart to slow from its wild pounding and for the clammy layer of sweat to dry in the cool air of the cell.  There had been so many deaths over the cycles, so many bodies left behind, each one dead as a result of her actions -- she wasn’t sure why this one continued to invade her dreams.  She never dreamed about the man or his face.  It was the sharp crackle of bone breaking that crept out of her memory at least once every night to disturb her sleep, a small sensory leftover that had the power to leave her shaking and mildly nauseous when she woke. 

She slid out of bed, pulled on a pair of loose-fitting insulated pants, wrapped the thermal sheet around her shoulders and padded barefoot through the corridor, headed for the one sight that would remind her that killing a unarmed tech had been worthwhile. 

“Pilot?” she called quietly over her comms.  The doors to Crichton’s cell swung open slowly, the usual metallic grinding muted to a hushed grumble as the bars slid into their recess at a fraction of their usual speed.  Aeryn looked up at the golden bulkheads surrounding her, taking a microt to appreciate the maternal concern of ship and pilot.  It was the fourth night in a row that she’d made this small journey from cell to cell, but just the same, Pilot’s anticipation of her request was unexpected.  “Thank you, Pilot,” she whispered, and gently patted Moya’s bulkhead, trusting that the leviathan would understand the silent thanks.

She stepped cautiously to the side of John’s bed, moving just as silently as she had aboard the command carrier, working hard not to wake him.  Sitting on the floor brought her to a level where she could stare at him face to face, watching the tiny flutter of his eyelids as he dreamed.  She’d stolen into his cell the third night she’d had the small nightmare, originally intending to wake him so they could talk for a while.  Instead, she had ended up simply observing him for almost two arns, then returned to her own chamber and slept soundly through the rest of the night.  Watching John had turned out to be all she needed in order to banish the small nightmare for the rest of the sleep cycle. 

Tonight he was lying on his side, one hand resting near his chin, his hair standing up in disheveled tufts along one side of his head.  She was close enough to make out small details -- the curl of his eyelashes, a scar along one thumb, the soft gleam of his teeth between slightly parted lips, each seam and wrinkle of his knuckles.  They were all well known now, studied and catalogued during their few peaceful days about the small transport ship, and carefully reviewed over the past few nights. 

Aeryn looked down at her own hands clutching the thermal sheet around her shoulders against the mild chill of the chamber, reflecting on what those two hands had done in order to bring him back safely.  It was the same introspection she had indulged in the preceding three nights, and she wondered how many times she would have to repeat this ritual, reminding herself each time of the reward gained by her actions, before the dreams left her alone.  When she looked back up, John was awake, silently staring back at her. 

“Hey,” he greeted her calmly in a whisper, only his eyes moving as he inspected his midnight visitor.

“Hey.”  She provided the ritual answer, then reached out to touch his cheek, driven by an irrational but overwhelming need to verify that he was real, alive, and lying there safe and sound.  It had taken so long to find him.  Even when he was right in front of her, it sometimes seemed like a dream.  There were times when she would look away from him while doing something completely routine, and half expected him not to be there when she looked back, as if he were some sort of imaginary wraith that would dissipate if she didn’t keep her eyes on him. 
 
“Going to sit there all night?” he asked.     

“I’ll go back to my quarters in a few microts,” she’d assured him, not quite ready to return to the emptiness of her own cell. 

He shook his head, a brief side-to-side twitch.  “Actually, that was an invitation to join me,” he offered in a hushed voice. 

“Are you sure?”  Despite some improvement since their talk in the starburst chamber, physical contact was still something that he endured rather than enjoyed.  But he lifted the covers without another word, welcoming her into his bed.  Aeryn left her own thermal sheet rumpled on the floor and slid into the trapped warmth beneath the covers, something cold inside her chest seeming to melt and flow away as John lowered the covers over both of them.  “You okay?” she asked, trying to leave a little room between them. 

“Come here,” he murmured, pulling her close against his chest.  There was one shuddering lurch as she made contact, then he relaxed again. 

“You don’t have to,” she assured him. 

John pulled his head back on the pillow to look at her; another tiny smile appearing that suggested she was missing something for the second time that night.  “I still love you, Aeryn.  That hasn’t changed.  Come here.”  He burrowed an arm beneath her, and enfolded her in the warmth radiating from his body.  She sighed with relief and did her best to merge her body into his, wrapping an arm around him in turn and tucking her head carefully against his shoulder.

“Anything hurt?” she verified as they got comfortable.  Pilot had finally located a medical facility that had promised it could treat his broken shoulder.  A short flight in her Prowler and three hundred crendars later he’d been released from the restriction of the bandages and undergone several regeneration treatments which had resulted in the bones healing in a matter of arns instead of days.  Despite the medical technician’s assurances that everything was healed, two solar days later John continued to favor his right arm. 

“My shoulder is stiff, that’s all.  I’m fine,” he told her.  “Getting better by the microt.”  John laid his cheek against her head, slowly rubbing her back with his right hand.  “See?  It works perfectly.”  The hand traveled down to her buttocks and pressed her against him more firmly. 

“I’m glad.”  She inhaled deeply, filling her senses with the smell of soap, the hint of leather that they both carried with them, the fragrance of the shaving lubricant he used, and the smell that she’d come to identify simply as John Crichton.  Closing her eyes allowed her to concentrate on the feel of his arm holding her tight, the firmness of his body against hers, and the warmth pouring off him, enveloping her with something that felt like security.

“Want to talk about it?” he murmured into her hair. 

“About what?”

“About what?” he mimicked deprecatingly.  “About why you were sitting beside my bed.” 

“No.”  He was still coping with his own set of nightmares, specters and haunting memories; John didn’t need to share her traumas as well … at least not yet.  “This is enough.” 

“Bad dream?” he tried one more time. 

“I wanted to be closer to you.  That’s all.”  He returned to rubbing her back, his hand traveling along her spine in time with the slow cadence of his breathing, lulling her into the same measured pace of breaths.  “Nice,” she breathed into his chest.

He hummed an agreement and several microts later the stroking stopped as he fell asleep.  Aeryn stayed awake almost another arn, just listening to his breathing and the muffled thud of his heart, letting the two sounds drive away the specters that haunted her sleep, hoping that this time it would be for good. 

   * * * * *

John wrestled a component loose from its fixture inside the engine and slid out of the crawlspace, taking care with the stiff muscles in his shoulder as he made the awkward transition into the cargo space of the transport craft.  He wandered over to a storage container, placed the bit of circuitry on the top and picked up a large wrench, taking several microts to wrap his fingers securely around the knurled grip of the tool.  The regeneration had taken care of the bones, but it couldn’t restore the strength and mobility he’d lost by having his arm bound in one position for nearly twenty days.  Given time and exercise it would return to normal, he’d been assured by the medical technicians, but until then every motion was a conscious effort. 

“Time,” he muttered under his breath.  The wrench came down on the rhotarri component, flattening the metal tongue that had held it in place and chipping off some of the ceramic matrix encasing the fragile circuits.  “Give it time.  More time.”  He hit the unit again and again, the wrench landing harder with each blow.  “Time … and … pa … tience,” John grunted with each ringing impact, smashing the debris into smaller fragments until there was nothing but glittering shards scattered across the top of the cargo bin.  He tossed the wrench into the wreckage and stood looking at it for several microts, working his left hand against the aching muscles in his shoulder. 

“John …”  Crichton jumped at the bass noted summons, whirling around to face the intruder while he scrambled to pick up the wrench.  D’Argo stepped through the doorway from the cockpit, stooping slightly to pass through the opening.  “Am I interrupting something?” 

“Circuitry abuse, but nothing important,” Crichton returned, looking sheepish at his momentary alarm.  He tossed the wrench back into the debris and wandered slowly toward the access hatch to the engine. 

“This doesn’t look like repairs,” his friend suggested. 

“I’m destroying the rhotarri engines,” John explained, worming his way into the crawlspace.  He yanked out a fistful of cables and slid back into the cargo space trailing the twisted cord of wires behind him.  He braced himself, wound the mass around one hand and heaved, yanking the entire length lose at once.  “There’s nothing I can do to get rid of wormholes, but I can try to make sure this technology doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.” 

“You built other ships like this, though,” D’Argo suggested. 

John selected a single strand of wire and pulled it out of the bundle, crumpled it into a tangled mass and tossed it to one side.  “I can’t do anything about those.  If they keep using the engines, they’ll eventually all get lost and disappear.”  He continued to rip the cable down to its constituent parts, adding to a growing heap of discarded bits in one corner, barely glancing at his friend until the last strand was added to the pile.  “What’s up D?” he asked, turning to face the fidgeting luxan. 

“John, we’ve had little time to talk since you returned,” D’Argo began tentatively.  “I hesitate to say anything …”

“D’Argo, let it all hang out,” John encouraged him as he faltered and paused uncertainly.  “Nothing’s changed between us in the last couple of cycles.  Say what’s on your mind.”   

“I am worried about you, my friend,” D’Argo rumbled, stepping forward to put one hand on John’s shoulder.  “When Rygel and Pilot told me that you and Aeryn had escaped and were docking, I thought everything was going to be all right between the two of you.”

John began shaking his head, smiling at his friend’s concern.  “No, D’Argo.  It’s okay between us.” 

“But … this!” D’Argo objected, waving a hand at the carpet of shattered components that surrounded the cargo container John had been using as an anvil.  “And ‘time and patience’.  I assumed you were …”

John cut him off before he could fumble his way through more of the awkward explanation.  “That’s not about Aeryn.  I promise.  But I don’t really want to talk about it either.”  He thumped the luxan’s heavily muscled shoulder with the heel of one fist, trying to reassure D’Argo that all was well. 

D’Argo eyed him for several microts, watching as John went back to the maintenance crawlspace and reached in to retrieve another component.  He continued to stare, looking both anxious and mildly confused as John laid the next victim on the block and picked up the wrench.  Crichton glanced between him and the object to be destroyed several times, the bashing suspended for the moment. 

“Give us some time, D’Argo,” he finally offered.  “Some … things happened aboard the command carrier, and both Aeryn and I need some time.  It’s …”  The wrench rose and fell, smashing the hardened ceramic that had been designed to withstand the extremes of cold and heat inside the engines of a space-going craft.  “… just … going … to … take … some … time!” Crichton finished, punctuating each word with an impact.  He took a deep breath and tossed the wrench into the most recent layer of shards atop the container. 

“John.”  The small sound managed to carry every bit of affection the two men had formed over the cycles -- worry, concern, and the offer of understanding wrapping themselves around his name.   

“Leave it alone,” John warned him with finality.  D’Argo nodded in resignation and turned to leave, wending his way around the few containers remaining in the otherwise empty ship.  “D’Argo …” John called after him.  This time his voice was the one full of hesitation and uncertainty.  “When you go into hyper-rage … luxans, I mean.  Do you remember what happens?  Afterwards.”  He looked down at his hands, turning them from palm up to palm down several times.       
 
“Some luxans suffer blackouts during the height of their rage, others remember every detail,” D’Argo offered, scowling slightly at the question.  “As we get older the rage lessens, and we learn to control it instead of letting it control us.  Did you encounter another luxan while you were gone?”

“No.”  John continued to examine his hands, as though looking for something in the grime that coated his fingers and palms.  “Aeryn said I did something during a fight on the carrier, but I don’t remember it.  I’m missing the last part of the escape.” 

“Crichton,” D’Argo nearly laughed.  “When we came on board this excuse of a ship, the cockpit floor was covered in blood, as was much of the living quarters.  You and Aeryn both looked like the losers of a Maxilian grudge battle, and you slept through the moment when I accidentally dropped you down the steps while getting you out of here.”  He shook his head, smiling down at Crichton as he moved back to stand in front of him.  “It is not surprising that you don’t remember some of that day.” 

“That’s not what I mean,” John objected. 

“You are worrying about something that is understandable, expecting too much of yourself.  This time it is you who should leave it alone.”  D’Argo gave him a small snort of amusement, turned away, tanktas flying with the force of his spin, and left John alone in the nearly empty cargo compartment. 

John watched his friend leave then crawled back into the access tunnel, intending to continue his self-appointed task of dismantling the rhotarri engines and restoring the systems controlling the hetch drive to their original condition.  He laid in the gloom staring up at the familiar patterns of components, and for a moment it was almost as if he were back inside the engine cowling the first day that Aeryn had found him.  He’d been content but empty that day, satisfied with his life but feeling as through he were holding his breath, waiting for something to happen.  The sound of Aeryn’s voice that afternoon, saying ‘I’m looking for someone named Latgah’ had just about knocked him out with surprise, and was the beginning of a return to his usual, hectic life in the Uncharted Territories. 

So much had happened since that moment, the interval of days feeling far longer than the cycles that had separated his abrupt departure from Moya and Aeryn’s arrival at the repair facility.  Every moment, every emotion, every look from her since that moment was clear in his memory, as yet unblurred by the passage of time.  Even the fog of exhaustion hadn’t diminished his recollection of the events on the command carrier, although he would have willingly forgotten much of that experience.  The one missing piece of recall -- beginning the moment he’d seen Aeryn get shot -- was an annoying anomaly to the pattern, a hole that begged to be patched over.   

John reached into the tangle of machinery and pulled more of his invention loose, tossing it past his feet to land in the cargo area with a clatter, continuing to ponder those missing moments.  He’d chased down elusive memories plenty of times before, but the last microts in the command carrier hangar refused to be recaptured.   It felt as futile as trying to dredge up the falsely remembered event triggering a case of déjà vu -- always chasing something that wasn’t really there.  He closed his eyes, replaying the gut-wrenching sight of Aeryn being flung across the hangar by the force of the pulse blast, remembering the noise, the smell of chakan oil plasma and smoke, and the feel of the deck plates beneath him.  There was a glimpse of a startled face as he scrambled past Gallenn … and then his memory came up empty once again. 

“D’Argo’s right,” he muttered to himself.  “Stop trying to drag the memory out, John-Boy.  It’s not there to be found.”  Crichton focused on the job waiting above his head, resigning himself to the reality that he would probably never fill in this particular gap in his memory.

   * * * * *

He stands beside the pair, watching as the taller figure in black leather holds the young Peacekeeper up by the front of his uniform, turning his head to one side so he won’t have to look into the dying eyes.  Dispassionate curiosity is his only emotion as the taller of the two figures stands hunched slightly to one side, the stolen fuel cell tucked precariously inside his jacket, threatening to slide loose if he moves too far in any direction.  The dying young one reaches up with one fumbling hand and pulls at a sleeve, crying in fear as his training deserts him, too young and inexperienced in the cruelties of battle to hang on to his indoctrination, even though it has been instilled since his recruitment as a child.

“I’m sorry,” the tall one whispers, and pulls the knife out, blood washing over fist and hilt, the black jacket pulling tight around his upper arm as he tenses for the second drive into Sebacean flesh. 

“Not again,” Crichton groaned, waking chilled and soaked in sweat.  His toes clenched for a microt as his bare feet touched the floor, adjusting to the cool smoothness of Moya’s deck plates.  Waking had truncated the familiar nightmare before its usual deadly ending, but it had succeeded in unlocking the recurring feelings of guilt and anger anyway.  John pulled off his damp shirt and mopped his face and chest dry with it, then pitched it into the corner while considering whether he wanted to try sleeping again. 

The images of the dream hovered on the edge of his consciousness, drifting along beside him with ghostly inaudible whispers convincing him that if he went back to sleep, the nightmare would recur.  He grabbed his pants, intending to get dressed and find something to do for the rest of the sleep cycle, but the slick leather in his hands triggered a wave of surreal recall, as though he were holding that young Peacekeeper up by the jacket here in Moya’s dim-lighted cell.  John hurriedly hung them up, ridding himself of the tactile reminder, and looked around for something else to wear. 

So many of his worst memories seemed to involve black leather.  It was as though the substance magnetically summoned the hideous moments and the anguish.  Crichton stood staring at the meager collection of possessions on the shelves and hooks, trying to remember when his life in the Uncharted Territories had first gone so bad.  The very first day had been pretty traumatic, from the moment he’d arrived right through encountering Crais and his black-uniformed subordinates for the first time, but things hadn’t gotten really miserable until he had insisted he could emulate a Peacekeeper captain and donned leather for the first time.  He spun away from where his pants hung next to the new pulse pistol -- christened ‘Winona II’ earlier that evening -- looking for something else to wear.

His threadbare orange flight suit peeked at him from its place the corner, but after five cycles it was barely hanging together, and he didn’t want to risk damaging or destroying it.  It was a link to his home, a last reminder of something he had once been.  John fingered the bright nylon, considering the eager, naïve astronaut who had worn that garment for the first time. 

“How would you have handled it?” he inquired of the person who no longer existed, trying to imagine how he would have ever survived if he’d fallen directly into Grayza’s clutches instead of facing Crais when he’d first arrived.  Deep inside, he admitted that he had grown stronger, capable of coping with the humiliation and sense of violation, but the rawest emotions, those closest to the surface, were anger and desperation.  Fight or flight, a portion of his mind acknowledged the ancient reactions.  His instincts were insisting that he either destroy something, possibly himself, or get away from this place.   

“Agh,” John growled at himself, shaking his head vigorously.  “Shake it off.  You’re alive and in one piece.”  He spun away from the reminder of his comfortable past on Earth, and scanned his quarters, looking for something else to wear for the rest of the night.  Old possessions and new were intermingled, his life from before the moment when Moya disappeared into the wormhole and his more recent history beginning to blend into one.  D’Argo, Chiana and the others had kept his cell as he’d left it, clinging tenaciously to the hope that they would find him someday.  They’d added to the clutter by unpacking his gear bags while he and Aeryn had slept away almost two entire days, lying side by side in the medical bay, recovering from their wounds and exhaustion.

John smiled thinly, remembering something he’d seen in one of the bags, and dug through the pile of clothing stacked along the shelves.  He yanked out one of the tan coveralls -- his ‘uniform’ from the repair facility -- and held it up by the shoulders, considering that alternative.

Slim, pale fingers slide the cloth of the overalls off his shoulders, allowing the one-piece garment to fall away all at once.  Grayza kisses the center of his chest, slowly running her tongue across one nipple.  Her hand travels downward to slide under the waistband of his shorts, reaching between his legs as though she owns his body. 

John dropped the coveralls and bent over, pressing one hand against his stomach, on the verge of vomiting.  He fought the nausea back, stilled the shuddering of his body by force of will, and slowly straightened up.  Four deep breaths helped quiet his stomach and steady his nerves, and then he once again considered his options.  Tan coverall, black leather, or wander Moya’s tiers undressed. 

“Think good thoughts.  Find a happy thought,” he chanted briefly.  John picked up the two pieces of clothing, weighing the choice mentally as he fingered first the smooth, heavy leather, and then the slightly rough surface of the canvas-like cloth.  “Find a happy thought,” he repeated absently, admitting that there had been good times associated with both items.  He was simply ignoring them, too caught up in his lousy memories to focus on the pleasant ones.  The memory of Gallenn firing a particular series of hand signals across the repair facility planted itself firmly in his mind, the smiling sebacean somehow managing to tell a joke in the limited mechanical language they’d developed, and he tossed the leather pants into the corner and pulled on the coveralls.

   * * * * *

The dreams had left her alone since the night she’d wound up in John’s bed, but her nights were no more restful for that improvement.  Too often she woke in the middle of the sleep cycle and lay for arns, considering John’s slow recovery or her own lingering sense of guilt.  Physically he was nearly back to normal, the work on the transport providing the exercise that his shoulder required, but her concern over his mental state was keeping her awake many nights. 

Aeryn tucked one arm behind her head and stared up at the ceiling, considering the conversation she’d had that evening with D’Argo.  He’d been recounting in a general way, the discussion he’d had with Crichton earlier, merely amused by John’s suggestion that he should be able to remember the last moments of the battle aboard the command carrier.  She’d smiled along with him, and agreed that the combination of injury, exhaustion and the chaos of battle was an adequate excuse for the blank in John’s memory, keeping her own knowledge of the missing information to herself.  It was beginning to look as if John was going to remember what he’d done, and she wasn’t sure how to handle it if he asked her straight out what had happened. 

She closed her eyes, firmly directing her thoughts toward getting some rest, and tried to go back to sleep.  There was no guarantee that John would remember.  Trying to decide now how to handle an event that might never take place was a waste of time and energy. 

The first floating feeling had begun to drift over her, suggesting that she was going to get back to sleep, when there was a small shuffling noise outside the doors to her cell.  She laid still, eyes closed, listening intently for several microts, sorting out the small noises filtering through the background rhythms of Moya.  There was a small sigh and another quiet rustle as the person shifted, and she knew it was John, standing irresolutely just outside the heavy bars of the door.  Aeryn sat up and turned toward the door, meaning to invite him inside, but he was already gone, disappearing more silently than she could have managed. 

She tended to forget the honed reflexes and new capacity for fighting that she’d discovered during their trip back to Moya, the abilities unneeded and therefore hidden since their return.  It was a subtle reminder that he had changed in the past cycle and a half, similar to the John Crichton she’d know, but occasionally unpredictable because of the adaptations he’d been forced to make in order to survive.  Aeryn watched the empty corridor for several microts, vainly hoping he might return to tell her why he was wandering the tiers at this arn, but he didn’t reappear. 

“Pilot?” she commed quietly, getting out of bed. 

“Yes, Aeryn?”  came the more informal address.  Pilot seemed to use it whenever he was performing a personal favor, as opposed to ship’s business when everyone’s interests were involved. 

“Do you know where Crichton is right now?”  She found the loose pants that she liked to wear if she was up in the middle of the sleep cycle, and grabbed a long-sleeved, insulated top to protect her from the slightly cooler air that circulated throughout Moya during the leviathan’s version of night. 

“He was last seen entering the hangar bay where his ship is parked,” Pilot answered.  “Would you like me to comm him?” 

“No.  Thank you, Pilot.  I’d prefer to talk to him myself, face to face.”  Aeryn tugged the top into place, took a single microt to consider whether she ought to leave John alone, and then went after him.  If he’d come as far as her quarters, it meant that there was something troubling him enough that he was tempted to talk about it.  It was unlikely that she’d get back to sleep until she knew what was bothering him, so she might as well go find out. 

   * * * * *

[KernilCrash]

Part 10 (continued)

It took a small amount of searching, but she finally found him sitting on the bunk in the living quarters of the transport ship, leaning against the wall, head tilted back, staring at the ceiling.  He was wearing the coveralls, she noted with an unpleasant tightening of her stomach.  John was wearing the clothes of his temporary life with Gallenn, sitting in the deserted quarters aboard the prototype rhotarri ship that he’d modified himself, perhaps regressing to a life he would have preferred to continue. 

Aeryn stepped silently through the doorway and waited for some sort of response, looking for a sign as to whether she was welcome here, feeling like an intruder.  John rolled his head to one side to look at her, then patted the mattress next to him, inviting her over.  She slid the short distance across the mattress to sit beside him, copying his slouch against the wall. 

“Problem?” she asked after several microts. 

“Trouble sleeping.”  He tilted his head to the other side so he could look at her face.  “Like some other people around here lately.  What are you doing up?” 

“Looking for you.”  The silence lengthened as they sat together, neither one eager to continue the conversation.   

John sighed, and sat up straighter.  “It was so nice being here for those few days,” he finally started.  “No one else around, no bad guys, no panics or disasters or crises.  It might have been the nicest nine days I’ve spent since I wound up on this side of the universe.” 

Aeryn squirmed sideways on the bed, sidling up next to him.  John looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her securely against his side.  “Is that why you’re sitting here in the middle of the night?  Replaying every microt of those days?” she asked, trying for a hint of levity.

“Not exactly.”  John rubbed her back for a microt, staring at the ceiling.  “I was thinking that if I hadn’t been so pig-headed and tried to cut our trip short, we would have gotten back to Moya six days sooner, and we would have avoided the Peacekeepers completely.” 

“And you wouldn’t have been interrogated by Grayza,” she added. 

“I was thinking more of you,” he contradicted her.  “It’s my fault that you had to do the things you did.” 

“I was the one who asked to take an extra two days to get back to Moya at the end of the trip,” she pointed out.  “So it must be my fault.”  John started to shake his head, the precursor to an argument.  “We could sit around smacking ourselves with a dead drannit if it would help with the guilt.” 

John’s laughter rumbled quietly alongside her.  “You spent too much time with Gallenn.”   

“Maybe,” she agreed.  “But it gets to the heart of the issue.  We can’t change what we did or what happened.  It’s no one’s fault.  We did what we did, and it turned out badly.” 

“History of our lives.”  John scowled for a microt, then gave his head a small, vigorous shake. 

“What was that?” she demanded, not recognizing the intent behind the gesture.  John squirmed beside her, a whole body wriggle that meant he didn’t want to explain.  “Never mind,” she said, releasing him from any requirement to answer. 

John shrugged and took his arm away from her shoulders, taking one of her hands in both of his instead.  “Aeryn … what happened after you got shot on the command carrier?” 

This was exactly what she’d been dreading, lying awake worrying about her answer and its effect on him.  “How do you mean?” she asked, trying to determine how much he’d remembered. 

“You said that I covered for you and Gallenn while he got you on board.  You also said I went berserk.  What did I do?”  He was staring intently at their joined hands, not even glancing at her face, making it impossible to read his thoughts. 

“Provided cover for us, among other things.”  She felt mildly chilled despite her thick shirt, uncertainty robbing her of her usual confidence.  “Why are you worrying about this?  It’s over.” 

“I … had that dream again tonight.  I don’t understand why it’s back.” 

“You killed several of the soldiers,” she tried, attempting to ease the truth by minimizing what he’d done in his frenzy of grief.

John let go of her hand and examined his own instead, rubbing at an abraded knuckle with one thumb.  “I keep thinking I’ll remember at some point.  It’s like the memory is right here.”  He grasped at thin air just behind one shoulder, indicating a spot very close behind him.  “But there’s nothing there … except the dream.” 

“Could something else be causing it?”  She tried to aim him in another direction, unhappy with the idea of deliberately deceiving him, but convinced that telling him the truth was the wrong thing to do.  “It started up again when I came back because you weren’t sure about the cost of survival.  Maybe it’s because of what happened in Grayza’s quarters.  I’d understand if you were still angry at me.”  Having him vent his anger on her seemed a small price to pay if it led to his peace of mind. 

“I’m not angry at you anymore,” he objected.  “Not that way, at least.  I don’t think that’s it.”  He flapped his hands in frustration and tilted his head back against the wall, returning to the position she’d found him in, staring at the ceiling.  “So all I did was kill some Peacekeepers,” he reiterated. 

She weighed the cost of telling him the truth against the cost of lying to him, taking too long to answer.  John sat up and turned to face her, attention focused sharply on her face.  “That’s not all, is it?” he demanded forcefully.  “Is it, Aeryn?  What the frell did I do?  You said I went berserk.  How many of them did I kill?” 

Here was the John Crichton she knew best -- the man of principles who had a regard for life that often endangered his own.  This was the man who had felt obligated to save millions, and had paid for it by sacrificing a single life on Dam-Ba-Da … his own.  She made a fast calculation, and gave him the piece that she thought he might be able to live with. 

“All of them.” 

John sagged back, staring at her with his mouth hanging open in shock.  “How many were left at that point?” 

“I’m not sure.  They were still trying to get to us, and Gallenn was busy trying to save me.  You held them off, John.  We would have all died or been captured if you hadn’t kept fighting.”  Aeryn reached for his hand, but he pulled away this time, looking upset. 

“When were you going to tell me, Aeryn?” he said angrily.  “Ever?”   

“I hadn’t decided.  You seemed to be coping with enough at the time.”  He brushed away another attempt to touch him.  “Look at yourself; look at what it’s doing to you right now, John.  This is why I was waiting.” 

He wasn’t listening to her anymore, caught up in his own guilt and remorse.  “There had to be at least a dozen soldiers still alive in there,” he agonized.  “God.  I hate what I’ve become.  How do you stand this?” 

She heard the crack of breaking bone then, the sound of the tech’s neck breaking that had invaded her dreams for so many nights, and the impact of the memory broke down the carefully constructed barricade that had been keeping her feelings from getting loose.  Aeryn spun off the bed and stood in front of him, barely in control of her physical reactions, let alone her emotions.  “You bastard!” she yelled at him.  “You selfish bastard!  I gave that life up.  I never wanted to do that sort of thing again, but I did it willingly to get you out of there.”
 
“It’s what you were trained for, Aeryn.”  He looked shocked at her reaction, surprised but not upset.  “I’d never deliberately injured anyone in my life until I got to this place, and now I’ve turned into the type of person who can kill that many people and just block it out of my mind.”

Aeryn turned her back on him, hiding any sign of the emotions that were tumbling out of control.  She kicked at the wall, guilt transforming into anger, and turned back to face him.  “You killed them in the heat of battle, with your opponent trying to kill you.  I had to sneak up on them one by one, kill them with my bare hands, and then hide the bodies.  This wasn’t combat or even a fair fight against an equally armed opponent.” 

She held her hands out toward him, fingers spread wide.  “You asked me at one point how to get the bloodstains off your hands.  You tell me, because this time I did the killing so you would survive.  I stand it because I don’t have a choice.  I did it to save your life, John, and I don’t regret that decision.”  John slid to the edge of the bed, a new form of remorse appearing, guilt that he’d triggered this reaction. 

“I hear them in the night, John.  I hear them die, and they won’t leave me alone until I remind myself why I did it.”  She took two steps away from him, the explosion fading as fast as it had started.  “I don’t regret paying the price … but you do.”  There were tears where she didn’t want them, stinging and flowing despite her efforts to stop them, all the worry and pent up concern of the past days flooding out uncontrollably. 

John was off the bunk in an instant, reaching for her, but she slapped his hands away, angry that his words had goaded her into the accusation that he regretted saving her life.  Angry at herself for lashing out, but equally mad at him for triggering it. 

He tried again, catching the blows on his arms and shoulders, driving through the flurry of ineffective strikes to grab her, stopping the defensive attack by hugging her.  “I’m sorry,” he said into the side of her head, holding her tight.  “I don’t regret it, Aeryn; you know I would never regret anything that kept you safe.  I just didn’t know.  I’m sorry.” 

She leaned into him, letting the weakness run out with her tears, trying to find strength and control as the hurt flowed away.  It was as though she’d begun holding her breath the moment they’d been pulled onto the command carrier, and she only just begun breathing again, rediscovering the miracle of oxygen.  His arms were around her, comforting her for a change, instead of seeking out his own security.  Part of her would have preferred to remain strong for him, but the portion of her psyche that enjoyed the tight embrace was insisting that this moment was long overdue.  “I shouldn’t have said that,” she mumbled into his shoulder. 

“You should have said it days ago,” John countered immediately.  “Gallenn warned me that I was too caught up in my own stupid problems.  You should have told me sooner.” 

He freed one arm from the hug and picked her up, relocating them together to the bunk, sitting on the edge with her in his lap.  They stayed that way for several hundred microts, simply using the contact to heal the bruised feelings.     

“Did I hurt you?” she asked at last. 

He squeezed her tighter for a brief moment, answering with the suggestion of a laugh.  “You didn’t kick me in the mivonks this time.  I’ll take that as an improvement over our last battle.” 

She sat up straighter, still resting her head on his shoulder, but looking at his face to find the haunted look gone for the time being.  Somewhere in her furious accusation he’d found what he needed to accept what he’d done, the detail of how he’d killed them still hidden, perhaps forever.  It hadn’t been her intent to divert his attention away from that last fact, but the outcome was worth the brief argument.

“Had enough for one night?”  She twisted to glance at the timepiece in the corner, surprised to find that little more than an arn had passed.  Most of the sleep cycle still remained, more than enough to get some rest. 

“I think I’m going to stay here tonight,” John admitted.  “One last night pretending none of that happened.”  He smoothed her hair back from her face and wiped her tears away with one thumb. 

“John --”
 
“I can’t go back,” he cut her off.  “I can’t and I don’t really want to, but it would have been nice to just stay here for the rest of our lives.  A little boring maybe, but nice.” 

Aeryn thought about the way he was dressed and what had brought him here in the middle of the night, comparing the way she felt now and they way she’d felt that last, wonderful morning they had spent in this small compartment.  It seemed like a dream now, an imaginary moment that could never be recreated, and understood his desire to stay in the room for a few more arns.  She slid out of his grasp, pulling away incrementally so he would know that she was simply getting up, not withdrawing from him, and pulled off her top. 

“Aeryn, I … ” he started to object. 

“I don’t want to do anything,” she assured him.  “I only want to lie under the covers the way we did that last morning here.  You don’t have to if you don’t want to do it.”  She finished undressing and slid into bed, reaching over her head to dim the lights to the same twilight setting they’d been set at that last idyllic morning together.  John continued to sit on the edge of the bed, watching uncertainly as she made herself comfortable.  She waited for over a hundred microts, then closed her eyes and resigned herself to getting some more sleep.  The night he’d invited her into his bed they’d both been clothed and their companionship had not progressed beyond hugging and sleeping.  When she’d pulled off her clothes this time, she’d hoped he was ready for the next step, but it seemed that she was expecting too much from him too soon. 

The thump of a boot dropping to the floor pulled her back from the floating edge of sleep, echoed an instant later by its mate.  She rolled over to check on him.  John was standing with his hand frozen at the top of the coverall zipper as though the fastener was stuck.  His eyes flickered toward her then back down at his motionless hand, indecision apparent.  Aeryn sat up, the covers falling away from her body, and reached for the zipper.  Rather than taking over the task herself, she placed her hand over his, leaving the final decision up to him, and pressed down.  There was a microt of resistance, then their joined hands lowered the slide until he brought it to a stop at his waist.   

Aeryn stood up, gradually easing the coveralls off his shoulders and letting them slide down his torso, pausing when they reached his hips.  He shivered, looking ill, and she tried to think of something that might distract him from whatever memory had just triggered the reaction.   

“May I have a hug?” she whispered into the stillness of the small space.  John gazed at her for several microts, his eyes wandering from her face down to her breasts, then back up again.  He ran his fingertips along her shoulders, let them trickle down her upper arms, then stepped forward to embrace her.  She rested her chin on his shoulder, using the pressure of his arms as a gauge to guide how firmly to hold him.  He ran his hand up her back and she copied the movement. 

“How you doing?” she asked, kissing him on the side of the neck. 

“Not bad,” he admitted. 

“Ready for a little more?”  She didn’t have to reach for the coveralls hanging off his hips though.  His hands disappeared from her back and the garment slithered down around his feet.  He needed to be in control, she realized.  Grayza had taken complete control of him.  From psyche to physical reactions to the ability to resist mentally, the Peacekeeper commandant had ripped every bit of self-control away from John, turning him into an unwilling but compliant slave.  The one thing he needed most was the sense that he had a choice before taking each step. 

Aeryn turned her head toward his, inviting him to kiss her.  They’d kissed dozens of times over the past days, but never with her standing naked before him.  He pulled away and she changed her target, caressing him gently on the cheek, lips barely brushing across the rough stubble of the day’s growth of beard.  He eased back toward her, and she invited the touch again, waiting through his hesitation.  John turned his head and brushed his lips across hers, returned for a little more, and finally kissed her.  He took a half step forward, his bare chest touching her breasts and the kiss deepened, the increments combining until he hugged her to him, warm bare skin against warm bare skin, tongues flickering and finding each other in increasing enjoyment. 

“Not bad,” he pronounced, pulling away.  “Just like that morning?” he confirmed. 

“Only if you’re comfortable with it.”  She gave him the opportunity to leave his shorts on, leaving it up to him.  John bit his lower lip for a microt, then slid them off.  For the first time in all the cycles she’d know him, he looked self-conscious about being naked.   

“I do love you,” she told him, seeing once again that he had truly put every bit of his being into her safe keeping.  He had trusted her with his life, his heart, and now his very soul.  “Come on.  We can just get some sleep together.  Get in bed the way we were that morning.”  She moved aside, giving him room to crawl into the bunk ahead of her. 

Aeryn followed him under the covers, reaching up to dim the lights further, turning them down until she had trouble making out small details.  She lay down with her head on his shoulder, one arm across his chest, and decided that the best thing to do would be absolutely nothing.

“Now what?” he asked from out of the gloom. 

“Go to sleep,” she recommended.  His hand wandered up and down the back of her shoulder, fingertips drifting across her skin in a ghostly pattern, but he didn’t seem to want to do much else than be together.  Aeryn kissed his chest where her head rested against him, and closed her eyes, following her own advice. 

She was all but asleep when his other arm wrapped around her hips and pulled hard, lifting her up on top of his body.  “What’s this?” she asked, nuzzling the side of his neck. 

“I think this is how we were lying that morning when you turned down the lights.  I was trying for historical accuracy.”  He was rubbing her back again, but with longer, firmer strokes. 

“Now what?” she inquired, mimicking his tones. 

“Want to go to sleep?”  John kissed her forehead, all he could reach from their current position, and she raised her head to meet him, shifting up his body so he could relax back into the pillows. 

“Going to sleep wouldn’t be historically accurate,” she whispered.  The next kiss lacked vigor.  “We don’t have to, John,” she assured him.  “You tell me what you want.” 

“I don’t like this,” he said suddenly, struggling to sit up.  She’d seen it herself, Aeryn realized, and pushed away quickly, freeing him from her weight.  She’d seen Grayza pin him down, forcing him back into the sheets to be used in whatever manner the twisted officer desired, the drug compelling him not only to submit, but to participate willingly. 

John sat up, the sheen of sweat across his chest visible despite the dimmed lights, the fast shiver felt rather than seen.  “I’ll go,” Aeryn decided.  He could sleep here alone tonight, clinging for the last time to the more pleasant memories. 

“No, don’t,” he objected.  “I don’t want you to leave.  That was just too much like … ” 

“I’m sorry,” she said into the ensuing silence, apologizing for being in Grayza’s quarters and knowing about the moment he hadn’t bothered to describe. 

John jammed the pillows against the wall and leaned back against them, rearranging things several times before reaching for her.  “Same idea as before,” he instructed, pulling her into his lap.  Aeryn straddled his legs, easing closer as he remained relaxed, and leaned against his chest.   He tilted her chin up with one hand, and kissed her once again.  She dove deep this time, tongues sparring for an instant before bursting past his to stroke the myriad textures, breathing deeper as he relaxed and welcomed her, finding the smooth surfaces and testing them until he let out a small moan and pulled her against him tighter.  She broke away then, taking a deep breath before letting him attack, allowing him to make the advance this time; tasting and smelling John Crichton, aware of a mild thrusting against her body where she sat on his lap. 

“Nice,” he breathed, pulling away.  John ran his thumbs carefully across her cheekbones, watching her eyes from a distance of barely six denches, and then kissed her more gently, warm and soft, his mouth loving hers in a slow waltz of lips. 

“Very nice,” she agreed.  “What next?” 

John’s hands stroked her arms several times as he looked her over from top to bottom.  “So much Aeryn to choose from, so little time,” he mused quietly.  “I think … God, I love these,” he declared, and leaned forward to kiss her breast, his fingers stroking the underside, his tongue barely brushing against the nipple as he took it between his lips and pulled at it gently.   

Aeryn watched for the first few microts as he nudged and caressed the soft mass with both fingers and tongue.  She cradled his slowly nodding head with one hand, fingering his hair, using her other hand to begin massaging a small circle beneath his ear.  He tilted his head to the side, allowing her to press harder, no trace of tension in his body as he took more of the nipple into his mouth and ran his tongue against it more firmly.  She sighed, feeling the first pulling of muscles between her legs, arousal beginning, and took his head in both hands, guiding him to the other breast. 

Desire uncoiled deep within as he began working at the second nipple, nerves lighting up all the way from her chest to the top of her skull to the tips of her toes.  John sighed and raised his head, smiling in the half-light, kissed her once, and descended back down her chest, hands beginning to massage her buttocks.  He shifted beneath her, adjusting her position on his legs, then nuzzled her between her breasts.  “You are beautiful,” he murmured into her chest. 

Aeryn rubbed the back of his neck with both hands, her arms resting on his shoulders, fingers working hard against the thick muscles at the top of his shoulders, and he came up for another kiss.  “I love you,” she told him, running her hands through his hair. 

“Hadn’t noticed,” he smiled.  She started to say something about that retort, but one of his hands suddenly snaked between their bodies, rubbed her belly once, and then quested lower, diving between her legs.   

“That’s not …” she began, meaning to stop him, but the protest died out on a sigh as his fingers moved between her legs.  “Don’t,” she tried one more time, expending a single microt thinking about his needs, and control, and whether this was too soon before all her thoughts dissolved under the wave of sensation. 

His legs slid apart, forcing hers wider, and then one careful digit probed inside, separating the folds gradually, opening her up so the other fingers could join in.  “Oh … frell,” she gasped as he opened her further, fingering her own moisture outward, lubricating the inner and outer lips both, and continuing the slow arousal that the touch of his lips on her breasts had begun.  John wrapped his other arm around her, cradling her shoulders as he touched the rapidly swelling knob of tissue for the first time, merely brushing his thumb over the slick rounded surface.  A finger circled her increasingly wet opening, carried the moisture forward to lubricate the smooth collection of nerves, then delved inside, wandering deeper as his thumb continued its orbit.   

She grabbed at his shoulders to steady herself, fingers digging in to hold herself in place, and John rumbled a quiet laugh before ducking his head to stroke one nipple with his tongue, adding to the quickly expanding excitation of her nervous system.   

“Ohhh, no,” she sighed as the flood of warmth and pleasure expanded, taking up her entire chest and abdomen.  He tilted her upper body to one side, spreading her thighs wider, and another finger joined the coaxing between her legs.  John switched to the other breast, pulling it back to rigid arousal, sucking in time with the slow massage going on far below, and she drew in a shuddering breath, using one hand to hold on to the back of his head, encouraging him to continue.  He probed deeper, stroking her internal muscles, and she drew in a breath with a small cry. 

“That okay?” he whispered into her chest as she rounded her back and pressed against the questing hand.  He was rubbing more insistently now, drawing out the first trembling spasms of delight, urging the internal muscles to pull her further open, to make way for the massaging digits.  She rocked against the insistent motions, thrusting against him, wanting even more. 

“Must be doing something right,” he whispered and raised his head to kiss her. 

The nearly silent hiss of air circulation and her own small guttural noises faded away, drowned out by the sound of her own pulse in her ears, and John’s breath moving warm against her cheek as his tongue moved inside her mouth in cadence with the motion of his fingers.  He spread his own legs wide, carrying hers with them, and stroked the smooth muscle walls deep inside, his arm crushing her upper body tight against his chest.  There was a noise like a whimper somewhere near his cheek that might have come from her, then he rubbed his thumb in a slow circle around the engorged nub, and pressed harder. 

“Now?” he whispered into her lips. 

“Yes,” she demanded on a gasp, thighs trembling, hips thrusting, hands clutching at his shoulders and back.  John buried his face in her chest, and cupped her entire crotch, fingers working inside and out, ensuring that no portion of the swollen opening went unattended, his entire thumb stroking the bundle of nerves more quickly.  He rubbed across it several times, then pressed harder, rubbing fast and vigorous the way she’d taught him she liked, and the result was instantaneous, the orgasm nearly painful in its intensity.  Aeryn cried out as she came, every internal muscle seeming to implode at once, drawing her consciousness down to where John’s hand continued to work. 

There might have been a pleased laugh from him as she bucked against his hand, sighed, let out a series of small cries, and embraced the wave of energy that burst out from between her legs to infuse her entire body.  A chill exploded deep inside, fizzing outward to divorce her from everything else, leaving nothing but his fingers moving inside her and the faster motion against the one spot of her body that controlled her every breath.  John’s lips were on her breast, his hand holding her safely in his lap, the warmth and solid heft of his body close against her as she surged in time with the rhythms he was creating, the frenzy abating slowly. 

“Frrrell,” she sighed at last.  The small twitches and quivers faded slowly, finally expending themselves as he rubbed her more firmly, drawing out the final response from her body.  “That part works,” Aeryn whispered into his ear, leaning into his upper body with more force.  “Did you enjoy yourself?” she asked him after several microts. 

“I love doing that to you,” John smiled happily, brushing her hair away from the side of her face.  “It’s like you go somewhere else completely.” 

Aeryn rested both hands on his shoulders and looked down at him from her vantage point, sitting slightly higher than him by being in his lap.  He looked so pleased with himself, relaxed and assured.  But she’d already seen how little it took to destroy that confident demeanor -- a touch, a gesture, a fleeting caress, and it would be gone.  Grayza had been too thorough, ensuring that there was no part of his body or action on her part that would fail to summon a bad memory.  She considered that challenge, searching for some way to bestow the same ecstasy on him that he had just given her. 

“You’re thinking about something,” he surmised, bending his head to kiss her between her breasts. 

“What next?” she asked.  Aeryn slid away from him, dropping her butt onto the mattress between his knees in order to look at him.  He was partially erect, obviously aroused but not to his full extent.

“Get some sleep maybe.”  John leaned forward to grab her, pulling her securely back into his lap.  She squirmed in place, rubbing herself on the semi-hardened shaft now trapped between their bodies.  “I don’t feel much like doing anything else.”

“Lean back,” she urged, remembering at the last microt to make it a choice, not an order.  It was far too soon to expect a complete recovery, but they’d accomplished so much in this one night, due in part to their surroundings, that she was unwilling to give up without at least trying.  She pressed him into the pillows where he could relax, partially inclined, and then began a slow exploration of his body with lips and tongue, pausing frequently to check on his reaction. 

She began at his temples, testing the smooth skin with her lips, drifted to the corner of one eyebrow then the other to plant warm kisses there, cupping his chin in both of her hands.  She worked her way down his cheeks, alternating sides until she arrived at his lips.  They lingered there, tongues meeting, touching, the warmth of his breath on her cheek a familiar gusting whisper.  She tasted his lips several more times, fingers rubbing him beneath the ears, then stroked him beneath the jaw until he raised his head, and continued the journey downward.  Beard stubble prickled against her lips and fingertips as she moved down his throat, fell behind as she ran out along one collarbone then the other. 

He took a deeper breath to say something, the intent seen out of the corner of her eye, and she admonished him, “Hush.  No talking.”  She returned to his lips to kiss him again, maintaining the contact as she eased off him, kneeling alongside his body instead of straddling him.  “You keep your eyes on me,” she instructed.  “Nothing but me.”  The blue eyes watched as she ducked down and touched one of his nipples, working at it with lips and tongue until the tissue tightened, then sucking at it more wetly.  She switched sides, leaning across his chest, one hand rubbing his stomach as she attended to the other nipple, bringing it to the same tautened pucker as the first. 

John’s hands followed her progress -- caressing her hair, her back, or simply riding along as she moved down the center of his body to the hard planes of his stomach, tracing the ridges between the muscles with the tip of her tongue, her fingertips bumping along each hard ridge of his ribs until he sucked in a deeper breath.  A glance upward confirmed what his fast inhalation had already told her.  His eyes were half closed as he gave himself over to the increasing arousal, but they were still fastened intently on her, keeping Aeryn Sun in sight every microt. 

She touched his genitals for the first time, merely running her fingers into his crotch to nudge at his balls, and there was a longer, deeper intake of breath.  At first she thought it was revulsion, but his cock stiffened and expanded, the slow, gentle inducement having the desired effect.  His hand rubbed harder between her shoulder blades, telling her to continue, and she returned to the soft mass of his balls, fondling them, sliding her fingers across the loose skin until one of his legs slid out to the side, giving her more access.  She felt beneath the tightening sac to rub lightly at the supremely soft skin there, and his free hand tightened into a fist, grabbing at the rumpled covers. 

“Shall I stop?” she teased him, taking a microt to tickle his thighs with her fingertips.  He groaned long and deep, a sound of inexorable excitement and desire.  He was still watching though, his jaw hanging open as his breathing became faster and deeper. 

Aeryn turned back to his engorged shaft, stroking the hardened cock back against his belly, then leaned over him and ran her tongue across the very tip, stopping to burrow into the depression before beginning a slow orbit around the outside edge, teasing at him with her entire tongue.  His stomach muscles flexed into sharp relief, the tendons in his thighs standing out as arousal took over from reason and began to control his reactions.  She fingered his erection upright, stroked him firmly several times, and then took him into her mouth, working at the hardened flesh with her cheeks and tongue until she felt his body shudder beneath her for the first time, signaling the beginning of his struggle for restraint. 

She sucked at the tip, firmly massaging his balls in time with her efforts over his cock, waiting and watching out of the corner of her eye until she saw his head fall back and his eyes close, entirely caught up in the signals emanating from between his legs.  Aeryn released him then, maintaining a firm stroking of his length, but without the more sensuous efforts. 

“Love me,” she whispered, running her thumb over the tip of his cock. 

“Beyond hope,” he groaned, beginning to strain his hips upward into her grasp. 

“No.  Love me,” she ordered, changing her intonation to an order.  Aeryn laid down alongside him, gave the engorged shaft one more pull to ensure that he was still excited and erect, and kissed the parted lips, delving deep with her tongue.  “Love my body,” she urged one more time, whispering into his lips. 

John took her into his arms and rolled them over, the warm, hardened flesh rubbing against her belly where it was pinned between their bodies, and kissed her with increasing fervor, his breath whistling through his nose as his hands traveled from her hips to shoulders and down again.   

“Now,” she invited him, wrapping her legs around his hips.  He lifted his upper body away from her, looking down with something far stronger than love in his eyes -- something that embodied trust, faith, and an almost spiritual reverence for the sight in front of him.  Then his hands were nudging her thighs further apart, massaging the tendons and muscles to relax her, gently fingering the slick tissues open, in every way the gentle caring lover she’d come to cherish. 

He positioned himself against her, probing incrementally, seeking out her own dripping moisture, and her hips lunged toward him, an involuntary motion trying for more penetration.  John smiled with something resembling glee, and gently rubbed the slick head of his stiffened penis across her own swollen mound of nerves, the two bundles of excited tissue sliding across each other nearly without friction until she grabbed at his hand, forcing him to redirect his attentions elsewhere, on the verge of another orgasm.  He smiled more widely this time, strong hands supporting her hips as she quaked and shook, waiting for him to join her on the brink of climax. 

The massage of her hips and belly resumed -- firm, deep strokes urging her muscles to relax and stretch.  Aeryn sighed with pleasure, feeling the loosening deep within, her entire body preparing itself for his arrival.  And then he slowly entered her, nudging gradually at first, then driving harder and deeper, burying the resilient thickness in her depths, accompanied by their twin sighs of delight.  He leaned down to kiss her, his hips shoving hard against her pelvis, the warmth of him inside her thrusting hard against the limits of her internal spaces. 

Aeryn let out a sigh of combined pleasure and joy -- pleasure at her own sensations of fullness, love and warmth, and exploding joy that John was able to find his way to this particular moment.  The happiness that he was here with her, doing this so soon, ignited a thrill within, a catalyst adding to the existing physical excitement and she nearly came, fighting to keep her body from taking over too soon.  She kept her eyes closed as he began to move within her, letting her awareness travel outward to encompass the entire range of tactile inputs in an effort to resist the urge to come too soon.   

Stretch of tendons and muscles internal and external; small sharp ache deep within as he thrust harder, serving to accentuate the vibrating riff as the head of his cock slid across the thick muscles inside; the rasping draw of John’s breath; the radiating warmth of his body as he hovered over her; his hands roaming across breasts, belly and thighs, moving over every dench of her with deliberate care.  The rise to final excitement surged again, blossoming and spreading outward, urging her nervous system to begin its crazed exuberance.  Her breaths were becoming more desperate now, gasps and moans escaping with increasing frequency as the glow ignited somewhere inside near the base of her spine. 

But John’s small voiced exhalations, the warning of his impending climax, had faded instead of growing stronger.  She opened her eyes, dragging herself back from the edge to wait for him.  Head thrown back, lips parted, eyes closed, he was immersed in his own efforts.  But there was a small furrow between his eyebrows that didn’t belong there, a hint that something was lurking just outside this moment of delight, threatening to destroy it. 

“Love me,” she whispered.  She fingered the thick, dark mat of hair above where they were joined, running her fingers up his belly to stroke the flexing stomach muscles, moved on to rub his chest.  “Love me, John.”  He opened his eyes, returning from wherever he’d strayed, buried himself to his limits, and looked down at her, supporting his weight on his arms, all motion suspended.  “Just me,” she urged, pushing the sweat-soaked hair off his forehead. 

The furrow disappeared, light returning to the blue eyes, and he lowered himself onto her, burying his face in the side of her neck, enveloping her in his arms.  “I love you,” he murmured into her skin, and then did the one thing she never would have expected.  He held her tight and rolled them over, putting her on top … surrendering all control to her. 

Aeryn rearranged herself carefully, getting comfortable with her weight on his hips, and then leaned down to kiss him, knowing how much strength it had taken for him to do that, understanding that he was giving himself over to her care one more time.  Her breath caught for a microt as he cupped her breasts and ran his thumbs over the erect nipples, the small, sharp intake fusing their lips together and deepening the kiss.  “Again,” she whispered into his lips, and he rubbed the taut nipples harder, rolling them between his thumb and finger. 

Her internal muscles spasmed in response to the nervous jolt traveling outward from her chest, and John snorted and gasped in turn as his buried cock was treated to a fast, desperate massage.  “Now,” he asked, his hips surging beneath her, seeking out her depths.  “Please.” 

It was even sweeter and more exquisite as it began again, a mutual tango of moving bodies and drifting hands.  She closed her eyes, moving against him with her hips, the burrowing thrust within accentuated by the feel of his hands stroking her thighs, her ribs, her breasts.  His stomach muscles flexed strong and taut beneath her touch as he matched the cadence of her movements, and she freed one hand to explore up his chest to find his head driving back into the pillows, underside of his throat exposed as he too closed his eyes and gave himself over to the moment. 

He was within her and without her, every bit of her body possessed by him, his small exclamations filling her ear, the thickened cock expanding even further until her entire internal space pulsed with the warmth and slickness of him.  The ache for release was back.  She panted and tried to wait, but it threatened to overwhelm her.  The first frissons of climax shuddered through her, setting every nerve from heels to skull quivering in preparation for orgasm.  Aeryn stroked him from belly to throat trying to bring him closer to his own orgasm, watching this time as John arched up into her body and her touch, warm skin glistening with sweat, his breath increasingly ragged as they moved faster. 

“Aerrryyyynnn,” he whispered in a long jerking exhalation.  And this time it was a quiet cry of healing, longing, love and passion.  She leaned forward to rub his chest, running her thumbs across his nipples, rolling across them hard, and he let out a small cry and thrust into her descent harder. 

John was looking up at her but had the far away, distracted look that preceded his climax.  His hands wandered up her thighs, thumbs moving to the joint of hip and leg to press deeply into the hollows that he knew excited her, magnifying the internal sensations.  She gasped and threw her head back, the explosion igniting for the final time, unrestricted as it billowed outwards, inflaming every nerve ending.  Aeryn cried out as she came, the desperate, delighted sound echoing slightly off the walls of the small room. 

She thought she’d left him behind, but his voice was joining hers, blending and winding around it in a deeper harmony, the warm pulsing within spurred on by the grabbing and clenching of her own muscles.  Aeryn threw herself into the moment, abandoning the last remnants of her self-control and giving herself over to her own orgasm.  The rippling nervous explosion divorced her from everything except her body’s reaction, aware of little more than the clenching of muscles around his pulsing erection, the spasming delight radiating out from her pelvis, and John’s own cry of excitement.  She began to spin down, breaths coming more regularly, awareness returning. 

The hard pressure was undiminished within her, John’s orgasm not quite fulfilled, leaving him teetering in the throes of impending climax.  Aeryn clenched her muscles hard and drove against him, fingers returned to his chest to massage the small nubs of tightened nipples, pinching them lightly as she ran herself onto him, feeling the resurgence of her own pleasure expanding outward in response to the motions.  John sucked in a huge breath, every muscle in his body springing out into tautened relief, and froze there, motion destroyed by release.  He was calling her name then, syllables garbled in his ecstasy, fingers digging into to her waist to hold her tight and there was a second, less frantic marriage of their orgasm, depleting them both this time. 

John let his breath out and sagged back into the tangle of covers, opening his eyes long enough to find her hand, tugging for her to lie down on top of him.  She lowered herself into place, working her pelvis against his one last time, generating the last, sweet residual pang and relaxed against his chest, her chin on his shoulder, waiting while he caught his breath. 

“Oh my god,” he groaned after several microts. 

“If you didn’t like it, you should have said something.” 

He made a tiny snorting sound, amusement finding its way out on a breath of air.  Aeryn ran a finger along the edge of his jaw, watching with pleasure as he made his way back to the here and now. 

“Wow,” he proclaimed at last. 

“And you wanted to go to sleep,” she teased him.  John yawned, stretching beneath her then relaxing more completely than she’d felt him since they’d returned to Moya.  He turned his head to peer at her, a small smile appearing, albeit a sleepy one. 

“What?” she asked, unable to read his expression.  “What are you thinking?”  He shook his head, letting it settle back into the pillows, and she turned her head to the other side, mildly disappointed that he wasn’t going to explain. 

“When I was working with Gallenn, I had considered moving to a different spot on that planet, one where I could see a particular star,” he began. 

“The one you named ‘Aeryn’?”  She placed an elbow carefully against his shoulder and propped her head on her hand so she could watch him. 

He glanced at her, comprehension replacing surprise after the first shock of her response.  “He would have told you about that,” he said slowly. 

“You told me about that.  You.  John Crichton.”  There were some things they still needed to work out, but they seemed minor after the hurdles they’d already cleared. 

John nodded once, accepting her proclamation this time.  “Even after you showed up, I’d decided it would be better to stay where I was -- where I would never have to look at that star again.  I’d convinced myself that I was better off without it.” 

Aeryn watched him, puzzled by his decision to bring the topic up at this particular time and place, mildly hurt by the confession.  But he was starting to grin again, watching her as she watched him.  “And,” she prompted, realizing there was more to the explanation. 

“And I was wrong.  There isn’t anyway I’d chose to go through life without my one constant ever again.”  He pulled her down against him, rocking slowly from side to side as he hugged her.  “That was survival, not life, because I can’t live without you, Aeryn.” 

She closed her eyes, feeling John above and below her, strong arms holding her tight against his chest, and admitted for the first time that she’d only been surviving for the last two cycles as well.  “I love you,” she told him, knowing that he was her life. 

“I love you, too,” he murmured. 

Together they pulled the covers over their joined bodies, working as one until they were both warm and comfortable, and stayed in the small metal-walled refuge for the rest of the night. 

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

Thanks for reading,

Kernil Crash

Purveyor of Hallucinations