Adena Sun
11-23-2002, 04:25 PM
Spoilers: up to UR
Disclaimers: see first part
Feedback: Yes please
Part five
His nerves were getting the better of him and he wished he hadn’t left the lakka with Granny. Not that it would help much, in light of the revelations of the past few arns. Aeryn was standing right beside him. Fate, providence, destiny - whatever you wanted to call it, it was seriously giving him a headache.
“So,” he began nervously, “you said you wanted to talk.”
“And you want to listen,” she said it more as a question, because she was still not used to their role reversal. “So ask me anything. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. I owe you that much at least.”
She watched as he chewed the pad of his thumb; a line appear over his right eyebrow. All so familiar, so uniquely Crichton, yet all so achingly distant.
He wasn’t going to miss an opportunity like this, a chance to finally get the truth out of her, rather than hearing it from someone else. “Tell me why you left.”
Aeryn knew that would be the first thing he would ask, as she began to comprehend just how much she had hurt him. In spite of her preparation, her breath trembled and her palms began to sweat.
“I needed to... get over him. To get away. To figure out what I wanted. I didn’t want to be afraid of you anymore.”
That shocked him. “Afraid?”
“Afraid of losing you. Afraid of how much you could hurt me.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “ I...I never saw you as a clone, a copy... you were still John Crichton. I realised that the moment I saw you run up to the transport pod when I returned from Talyn. And that was when I realised that I couldn’t get close to you again, because I could not bear to lose you.” She smiled, bittersweet. “For the first time in cycles, I began to think that Peacekeeper ideals aren’t so barbaric after all. If you can’t get close to someone, you can’t get hurt...”
“And now?”
“I discovered I was wrong. I remembered how long I had been alone. I had always wondered what it would be like to meet someone, run away from the life I knew.” Her face darkened. “My mother’s influence.” She sighed. “I missed you. I needed you. And no matter how much it hurt, I knew I had to be with you.”
He could accept her grief as her reason for leaving. Crichton knew how much she had been hurting back then. He should have taken it as flattery, proof that after all these cycles she truly did love him. As much as it had pained him to be pushed away when all he wanted was to comfort her, he knew that she had been unprepared for such grief. He knew how he felt when she had died, but unlike her, he had been there long before. The matter of her leaving was simple, solved, and he could forgive. The matter of her originally having no intention to return, and not telling him about the baby, still had to be resolved.
“Aeryn, you knew you were pregnant before you left Moya. Why didn’t you say anything?” His blue eyes bore into her, and she flinched. She loved his eyes, how they revealed everything, but at the moment she didn’t like what she saw reflected there.
She stumbled over her words, emotion hitting hard. “Didn’t I hurt you enough? Would it have made you feel better to know that not only was I pregnant, but the father might be some nameless prowler pilot I recreated with cycles ago?”
His anger flared. “Frankly, yes, because then I wouldn’t have spent all that time wondering what the hell you were doing with my child, and you didn’t even trust me enough to tell me the truth!” It was the first time since her return to Moya that he had displayed anymore than indifference towards her.
“I didn’t know if it was yours---” She began, anger rising in spite of herself.
“Hell, Aeryn I had already considered that possibility. I had a lot of time to do nothing but think about that. But you didn’t tell me otherwise. You didn’t tell me anything. I know you were hurting, and I understand that, but dammit Aeryn do you honestly think I would have hated you for something neither of us had any control over?”
“I was frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I needed to find out if it is yours, but - -”
“You never made it that far.” He softened slightly. “But that doesn’t explain anything. You wouldn’t have come back here if it wasn’t for Scorpius finding you, would you?”
Aeryn was about to plead her case, do anything for his forgiveness, when D’Argo’s gruff voice crackled over the comms.
“John, Aeryn, get up to command now!”
“What’s up, D?” John asked, both irritated and relieved by the interruption. Aeryn looked at him, clearly more not as relieved as he.
Were you honestly expecting a quiet moment?
D’Argo’s voice filled the room once more. “We are in serious frelling dren.”
Part 6
The crew gathered in command, breathless, all present except for Scorpius, and Sikozu was clearly annoyed at being torn from his side.
None could understand the level of D’Argo’s concern until they looked at the view screen. A wormhole, swirling brilliant blue, had appeared right before them, threatening to swallow Moya whole. Moya and Pilot’s nervous energy could be sensed throughout the ship, while Aeryn looked on jealously at her rival for Crichton’s attention. Scorpius stalked his cell, the wormhole’s very presence electrifying him.
Yet it wasn’t the thrilling ocean of azure before them which had so alerted their captain. It was what had come flying out of it which had him so worried. A command carrier, a large black dent in the sea of blue, seemed to be orienting itself after it had come spinning out of the wormhole.
“Um, Crichton, aren’t you supposed to be able to predict these things?” Chiana asked, spider-walking closer.
“I was busy, Pip. My mind can’t be everywhere at once.” Aeryn glanced sideways at him, unsure if there was anger or just amazement in his voice. “Scorpy, you know anything about this? Or do command carriers always come this way into Tormented Space?” Now there was anger, and Scorpius sighed at John’s inability to grasp the nature of his intentions.
“I was fully unaware of any such thing. Unless, the Peacekeepers have now developed wormhole tech to such an extent that they can send a command carrier through unharmed.”
D’Argo interrupted the half-breed. “I saw it come out, it had no control. Looks like it was just coincidence.”
“Just our frelling luck.” Crichton muttered.
Pilot’s disembodied voice added to the tension in the room. “Moya is very frightened, and wishes to starburst immediately.”
“Do it, Pilot. Tell Moya she will be fine.”
“The wormhole is directly in our path, and we are too close. We must change positions.” Pilot continued.
“Just do it, you yotz! Get us out of here now!” Rygel ordered, his throne sled rising with his voice.
“Rygel, shut up. Pilot, the command carrier still looks disoriented. You have time.” Crichton added.
Moya’s massive mass began to slowly turn, dangerously close to the wormhole. While Pilot appreciated John’s interest in the phenomena, he and Moya shared a dislike for them. Too much damage, too many unhappy memories.
“What the frell?!” Chiana yelled, as the others moved closer to see what had spooked her. A mass of black objects moving at full speed, spinning out of the wormhole, and hurtling directly towards Moya.
“Those are Marauders!” Aeryn shouted.
“Pilot, starburst now! We need to get out of here before those things hit us!” Chiana added, pulse racing as she watched the Marauders come out of the wormhole.
Moya’s tail lit up, a blue to rival that of the wormhole, moving to encompass the entire ship. But it was too late for starburst. Just as the energy signature of Moya hit full power, a dozen Marauders crashed straight into her, sparks flying, systems failing. The crew fell to the ground with the impact, all unprepared for the sheer force of it. Pilot screamed for Moya, her agony too much for him to bear, and he soon joined the others in blackness.
Part 7
Sikozu awoke, instantly aware of new surroundings. Her thoughts went to Scorpius, had he survived the impact? She tried to consider his cell in relation to where the Marauders had hit, but her head was cloudy from unconsciousness. She recognised a cell, still on Moya, her wrists shackled in front, Rygel and Noranti in similar positions beside her. Her mind ran through all the possibilities, and she was slowly learning to consider the impossibilities.
Rygel had not yet awoken, his tiny body weighed down by the shackles. Noranti sat between the two, mumbling in that horribly distressed manner of hers, upsetting to watch.
“Good ship gentle creature so much pain so much pain all locked up have to get out have to get away....” Sikozu could not bear to watch the old woman like this.
“Quiet! Tell me what has happened! Who has taken us prisoner?” she demanded.
“Oh they hit they came fast fast so quickly you all slept I couldn’t -”
“Enough! Tell me what happened!” Sikozu shouted.
Noranti wailed as if in physical pain, as if she had been the one hit by the out of control Marauders, and Sikozu began to wonder just how much damage they had inflicted upon Moya. As Sikozu was about to demand further answers from the howling eternal, a Peacekeeper soldier entered, his plain black signifying a lack of rank that did not match his attitude.
“What is going on in here?” he insisted, ready to call for backup.
“It is nothing, she is simply upset, leave her be, I can calm her.” Sikozu came as close to begging as she would ever allow herself, the shock of seeing a Peacekeeper aboard Moya registering with her quick mind. She knew what they were capable of.
This particular Peacekeeper, all pressed and crisp, knew better than to pay any attention to the ramblings of a desperate prisoner. As Noranti continued her bawling, the Peacekeeper simply approached her, Sikozu yelling as he raised the butt of his pulse pistol. She could only close her eyes, and wished she could cover her ears to protect herself from the sickening sound of metal against temple. Noranti’s crying ended instantly, and she slumped to the side, looking calm and peaceful.
The soldier straightened himself, indulged himself in a self-satisfied smile, and leaning in close to Sikozu, whispered, “No trouble from you, pretty one. Or I might just have to use the other end of this pulse pistol, and it would be such a shame to ruin that lovely face of yours.” She could smell his breath and resisted the urge to spit in his smug face. Sikozu was clever. She knew when to be still. She listened as his footsteps retreated from the room, heard him laugh with other soldiers. Four at least, outside this cell alone. At least three, maybe four cells to hold all of them, she calculated the number of soldiers that would take. Multiply that by two, and you’re no where near the number of actual Peacekeepers that could have come from the Command Carrier.
She sighed, realising the odds. She muttered, knowing there was no one to hear her say the words Chiana would tease her for.
“Oh, frell.”
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John Crichton awoke with one hezmana of a headache. No matter how often his brain had been used and abused in his time in both the Uncharted Territories and Tormented Space, he still couldn’t get used to the pain that accompanied numerous and frequent head injuries. He glanced around him, his arms heavy in front of his body, the shackles tight up to his forearms. Aeryn sat across from him, and he could hear D’Argo’s gravely voice from a nearby cell, Chiana’s high-pitched squeaks in between as they argued. A harsh voice told them to be quiet. Crichton looked over to Aeryn when the room stopped spinning, she was awake and alert and none too happy with their current situation.
“It’s about time. I’ve been awake for about half an arn.”
“Sorry, darlin’, but from the looks of things I’m wishing I hadn’t woken up at all.” He stretched his neck in an attempt to lessen the pressure in his temples. “What happened? All I remember is the Marauders coming straight towards us.”
Aeryn’s face darkened. “Moya took quite a hit. Those of us who weren’t knocked out in the impact were taken out when Moya started leaking trejin gas.”
“Trejin?”
“A waste gas. It acts as a sedative. It was too much, there was no time to fix anything before it took effect.” She lowered her eyes. “Pilot screamed, then the comms went dead.”
“You okay? I mean, that gas-” She knew what he was implying.
“It’s non-toxic. Near as I can tell, the Peacekeepers came aboard not too long after the crash. They must have fixed the leaks when they came. I woke up in here, the others are in cells nearby.”
He closed his eyes. How the frell had the PKs gotten through that wormhole? He remembered what Einstein had told him. Past, present, future...was it possible? “Talked to anyone?”
“I got told to sit down and shut up by some smug grunt. That’s the only contact I’ve had.” He could tell she was angry. Hell, she used to be that smug grunt.
“How the frell do we get out of this one?” He muttered.
“If you tell me you have a plan, I’ll kill you before the Peacekeepers get a chance.” She said, half-serious.
“Hey, it can’t be any worse than this, can it?” If looks could kill....
As if in reply to his question, there was much fussing in the corridor, someone shouting orders, the sound of boots hitting the ground in attention. The door to the cell slid open, and two soldiers entered, one standing by each of the prisoners. A dramatic pause, then enter the wicked witch of the west.
Grayza floated in, Braca ever faithful behind her. She pulled up close to John, eyeing him with admiration and contempt. Her smile made him shiver, and Aeryn stared at the back of the woman she had heard so little about in spite of her role.
“John. It has been far too long.” She kneeled in front of him, too close for comfort, and flashbacks of Arnessk flooded his mind. “I see you’ve found your beloved Aeryn Sun once more. Does she know what you’ve been up to?” She glanced over her soldier at the raven haired Sebacean, whose expression of anger and confusion made her smile. “Apparently not. Let’s fill her in, shall we?”
“Don’t you dare, you frelling bitch!” John ground out angrily.
Grayza’s hand slid delicately between her breasts, finding that small spot of moisture which had so much power. Aeryn could see none of this. The commandant brought her hand up to caress John’s face, ever so delicately, like a snake dancing before it strikes. He twisted and tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. The smell was intoxicating. He saw Aeryn in front of him and closed his eyes, and tried to see past Grayza, to see Aeryn and bring him back to his senses. His view was blocked and his vision impaired. All there was before him was need, lust, desire, and the disgust, the hatred, the pain that ran through him from the memory.
Aeryn Sun could only watch, horrified, as the man she loved passionately kissed their worst enemy. Her heart crumbled to dust, and she realised now what he had felt like when she left him for another.....
Part 8
Aeryn could not stop the tears that welled up in her eyes. She was furious. Heartbroken. She watched Grayza pull away from John, he following her like a puppy, his eyes glazed with desire. His breathing heavy. She remembered Grayza’s words: this had happened before. Her mind whirled through all the possible explanations, unable to settle on anything that made sense. There would be a reasonable explanation for this. There had to be. Where was Sikozu when you actually wanted her around?
Grayza smiled, satisfied that she had tortured both of them enough. She leaned in close to Aeryn, and whispered, “You are very lucky to have had him as a lover, Officer Sun. He is most....experienced.”
Aeryn tried to rise up and smack Grayza with her shackles, enraged. The soldier beside her quickly struck her around the head with his pulse pistol, and she slumped to the ground, able to think only of the irony of John’s betrayal. Crichton’s vision had cleared just in time for him to see Aeryn go down, and he screamed at Grayza.
“Get away from her, you freakin’ witch!”
“Silence, John You should be glad she’s alive at all. I don’t take kindly to traitors.” Grayza motioned to the soldiers. “Take her. High Command will be glad to punish one of its most notorious traitors.” John watched, helpless, as the two grunts lifted Aeryn’s limp body almost effortlessly, and carried her from the room.
Grayza waited, almost serenely as the doors closed, before turning to John. “Just the two of us, dear Crichton.” She sat, seductively, on a chair in the corner. He was raging. He had been violated once more, and worst of all, Aeryn had seen it all. He could only imagine the look on her face. He remembered his own thoughts from when she had been with his twin, and prayed she was not capable of hate for him.
“What do you want?” He asked, because it was all he could say that didn’t involve foul language.
“You.” She crossed her legs, Basic Instinct style. “You have cost me much. We can no longer afford to waste time playing chase. We have you, and there will be no escape this time.” She stood and stalked over to him, kneeling down and grabbing his face roughly. “You humiliated me. I have not forgotten that. And you will pay.”
“What you gonna do? Rape me again? Humiliation is the least you deserve when you have to resort to drugs to get some.”
She slapped him, the sound echoing throughout the cell. He stood his ground; he wouldn’t allow her the satisfaction of his fear. Crichton licked the inside of his cheek, tasting blood.
“You have fire. Pity, really. I would have kept you well had you chosen to remain with me. Now you’ll just have to suffer.”
“What are you going to do with Aeryn?”
Grayza smiled that chilling smile once more. “Officer Sun will be suitably punished. I hear her old regiment can’t wait to see her suffer the Living Death. Some have even offered to give her the fatal dose of radiation themselves.” She rose. “The rest of you will remain here, until the Command Carrier is suitably repaired. You will all be punished, in time.”
He watched her turn to leave, contempt blaring in his bright blue eyes. She stopped just as the doors opened, and turned her head to say:
“I suggest you get some rest, Commander. The Aurora Chair can be so tiring. But, of course, you already know that.”
She left, and he cursed her name at the top his voice.
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Braca stood outside the cell which held Scorpius, the pride evident in his sly smile. He passed his hand over the door control, and they slid open almost silently. Scorpius did not even raise his head in acknowledgement, which served only to infuriate the captain.
“Scorpius. Alive and well I see. You are a hard man to kill.”
Only then did Scorpius look at his former second-in-command. “Braca. Ever loyal to those above. I take it Grayza is behind this little coup.”
Braca snorted. “Our being here is purely accidental. A wormhole opened without warning, and here we are. Commandant Grayza has the intelligence to take advantage of a good opportunity.”
“How fortunate for you. It seems that fate has dealt you a good hand.”
“Fate has nothing to do with it. We simply know an opportunity when we see one.” Braca stepped closer. “Unlike you,” he sneered. “you were forever wasting valuable opportunities. You could have mastered the wormhole tech cycles ago, but you allowed yourself to be walked all over by a simple group of outlaws.” He smiled triumphantly, Scorpius showing no reaction. “Grayza has succeeded, where you failed so many times.”
Scorpius did not allow Braca the satisfaction of anger, simply because he felt none. As soon as Braca left the cell, he pulled a small comm from beneath his right glove. He tapped it once, and said;
“Report. I am in range of the Carrier.”
Failure? He thought to himself as his spy rattled off information in a secretive whisper. Oh Braca, you never learn, do you?
:)
Disclaimers: see first part
Feedback: Yes please
Part five
His nerves were getting the better of him and he wished he hadn’t left the lakka with Granny. Not that it would help much, in light of the revelations of the past few arns. Aeryn was standing right beside him. Fate, providence, destiny - whatever you wanted to call it, it was seriously giving him a headache.
“So,” he began nervously, “you said you wanted to talk.”
“And you want to listen,” she said it more as a question, because she was still not used to their role reversal. “So ask me anything. Whatever you want to know, I’ll tell you. I owe you that much at least.”
She watched as he chewed the pad of his thumb; a line appear over his right eyebrow. All so familiar, so uniquely Crichton, yet all so achingly distant.
He wasn’t going to miss an opportunity like this, a chance to finally get the truth out of her, rather than hearing it from someone else. “Tell me why you left.”
Aeryn knew that would be the first thing he would ask, as she began to comprehend just how much she had hurt him. In spite of her preparation, her breath trembled and her palms began to sweat.
“I needed to... get over him. To get away. To figure out what I wanted. I didn’t want to be afraid of you anymore.”
That shocked him. “Afraid?”
“Afraid of losing you. Afraid of how much you could hurt me.” She took a deep breath before continuing. “ I...I never saw you as a clone, a copy... you were still John Crichton. I realised that the moment I saw you run up to the transport pod when I returned from Talyn. And that was when I realised that I couldn’t get close to you again, because I could not bear to lose you.” She smiled, bittersweet. “For the first time in cycles, I began to think that Peacekeeper ideals aren’t so barbaric after all. If you can’t get close to someone, you can’t get hurt...”
“And now?”
“I discovered I was wrong. I remembered how long I had been alone. I had always wondered what it would be like to meet someone, run away from the life I knew.” Her face darkened. “My mother’s influence.” She sighed. “I missed you. I needed you. And no matter how much it hurt, I knew I had to be with you.”
He could accept her grief as her reason for leaving. Crichton knew how much she had been hurting back then. He should have taken it as flattery, proof that after all these cycles she truly did love him. As much as it had pained him to be pushed away when all he wanted was to comfort her, he knew that she had been unprepared for such grief. He knew how he felt when she had died, but unlike her, he had been there long before. The matter of her leaving was simple, solved, and he could forgive. The matter of her originally having no intention to return, and not telling him about the baby, still had to be resolved.
“Aeryn, you knew you were pregnant before you left Moya. Why didn’t you say anything?” His blue eyes bore into her, and she flinched. She loved his eyes, how they revealed everything, but at the moment she didn’t like what she saw reflected there.
She stumbled over her words, emotion hitting hard. “Didn’t I hurt you enough? Would it have made you feel better to know that not only was I pregnant, but the father might be some nameless prowler pilot I recreated with cycles ago?”
His anger flared. “Frankly, yes, because then I wouldn’t have spent all that time wondering what the hell you were doing with my child, and you didn’t even trust me enough to tell me the truth!” It was the first time since her return to Moya that he had displayed anymore than indifference towards her.
“I didn’t know if it was yours---” She began, anger rising in spite of herself.
“Hell, Aeryn I had already considered that possibility. I had a lot of time to do nothing but think about that. But you didn’t tell me otherwise. You didn’t tell me anything. I know you were hurting, and I understand that, but dammit Aeryn do you honestly think I would have hated you for something neither of us had any control over?”
“I was frightened. I didn’t know what to do. I needed to find out if it is yours, but - -”
“You never made it that far.” He softened slightly. “But that doesn’t explain anything. You wouldn’t have come back here if it wasn’t for Scorpius finding you, would you?”
Aeryn was about to plead her case, do anything for his forgiveness, when D’Argo’s gruff voice crackled over the comms.
“John, Aeryn, get up to command now!”
“What’s up, D?” John asked, both irritated and relieved by the interruption. Aeryn looked at him, clearly more not as relieved as he.
Were you honestly expecting a quiet moment?
D’Argo’s voice filled the room once more. “We are in serious frelling dren.”
Part 6
The crew gathered in command, breathless, all present except for Scorpius, and Sikozu was clearly annoyed at being torn from his side.
None could understand the level of D’Argo’s concern until they looked at the view screen. A wormhole, swirling brilliant blue, had appeared right before them, threatening to swallow Moya whole. Moya and Pilot’s nervous energy could be sensed throughout the ship, while Aeryn looked on jealously at her rival for Crichton’s attention. Scorpius stalked his cell, the wormhole’s very presence electrifying him.
Yet it wasn’t the thrilling ocean of azure before them which had so alerted their captain. It was what had come flying out of it which had him so worried. A command carrier, a large black dent in the sea of blue, seemed to be orienting itself after it had come spinning out of the wormhole.
“Um, Crichton, aren’t you supposed to be able to predict these things?” Chiana asked, spider-walking closer.
“I was busy, Pip. My mind can’t be everywhere at once.” Aeryn glanced sideways at him, unsure if there was anger or just amazement in his voice. “Scorpy, you know anything about this? Or do command carriers always come this way into Tormented Space?” Now there was anger, and Scorpius sighed at John’s inability to grasp the nature of his intentions.
“I was fully unaware of any such thing. Unless, the Peacekeepers have now developed wormhole tech to such an extent that they can send a command carrier through unharmed.”
D’Argo interrupted the half-breed. “I saw it come out, it had no control. Looks like it was just coincidence.”
“Just our frelling luck.” Crichton muttered.
Pilot’s disembodied voice added to the tension in the room. “Moya is very frightened, and wishes to starburst immediately.”
“Do it, Pilot. Tell Moya she will be fine.”
“The wormhole is directly in our path, and we are too close. We must change positions.” Pilot continued.
“Just do it, you yotz! Get us out of here now!” Rygel ordered, his throne sled rising with his voice.
“Rygel, shut up. Pilot, the command carrier still looks disoriented. You have time.” Crichton added.
Moya’s massive mass began to slowly turn, dangerously close to the wormhole. While Pilot appreciated John’s interest in the phenomena, he and Moya shared a dislike for them. Too much damage, too many unhappy memories.
“What the frell?!” Chiana yelled, as the others moved closer to see what had spooked her. A mass of black objects moving at full speed, spinning out of the wormhole, and hurtling directly towards Moya.
“Those are Marauders!” Aeryn shouted.
“Pilot, starburst now! We need to get out of here before those things hit us!” Chiana added, pulse racing as she watched the Marauders come out of the wormhole.
Moya’s tail lit up, a blue to rival that of the wormhole, moving to encompass the entire ship. But it was too late for starburst. Just as the energy signature of Moya hit full power, a dozen Marauders crashed straight into her, sparks flying, systems failing. The crew fell to the ground with the impact, all unprepared for the sheer force of it. Pilot screamed for Moya, her agony too much for him to bear, and he soon joined the others in blackness.
Part 7
Sikozu awoke, instantly aware of new surroundings. Her thoughts went to Scorpius, had he survived the impact? She tried to consider his cell in relation to where the Marauders had hit, but her head was cloudy from unconsciousness. She recognised a cell, still on Moya, her wrists shackled in front, Rygel and Noranti in similar positions beside her. Her mind ran through all the possibilities, and she was slowly learning to consider the impossibilities.
Rygel had not yet awoken, his tiny body weighed down by the shackles. Noranti sat between the two, mumbling in that horribly distressed manner of hers, upsetting to watch.
“Good ship gentle creature so much pain so much pain all locked up have to get out have to get away....” Sikozu could not bear to watch the old woman like this.
“Quiet! Tell me what has happened! Who has taken us prisoner?” she demanded.
“Oh they hit they came fast fast so quickly you all slept I couldn’t -”
“Enough! Tell me what happened!” Sikozu shouted.
Noranti wailed as if in physical pain, as if she had been the one hit by the out of control Marauders, and Sikozu began to wonder just how much damage they had inflicted upon Moya. As Sikozu was about to demand further answers from the howling eternal, a Peacekeeper soldier entered, his plain black signifying a lack of rank that did not match his attitude.
“What is going on in here?” he insisted, ready to call for backup.
“It is nothing, she is simply upset, leave her be, I can calm her.” Sikozu came as close to begging as she would ever allow herself, the shock of seeing a Peacekeeper aboard Moya registering with her quick mind. She knew what they were capable of.
This particular Peacekeeper, all pressed and crisp, knew better than to pay any attention to the ramblings of a desperate prisoner. As Noranti continued her bawling, the Peacekeeper simply approached her, Sikozu yelling as he raised the butt of his pulse pistol. She could only close her eyes, and wished she could cover her ears to protect herself from the sickening sound of metal against temple. Noranti’s crying ended instantly, and she slumped to the side, looking calm and peaceful.
The soldier straightened himself, indulged himself in a self-satisfied smile, and leaning in close to Sikozu, whispered, “No trouble from you, pretty one. Or I might just have to use the other end of this pulse pistol, and it would be such a shame to ruin that lovely face of yours.” She could smell his breath and resisted the urge to spit in his smug face. Sikozu was clever. She knew when to be still. She listened as his footsteps retreated from the room, heard him laugh with other soldiers. Four at least, outside this cell alone. At least three, maybe four cells to hold all of them, she calculated the number of soldiers that would take. Multiply that by two, and you’re no where near the number of actual Peacekeepers that could have come from the Command Carrier.
She sighed, realising the odds. She muttered, knowing there was no one to hear her say the words Chiana would tease her for.
“Oh, frell.”
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John Crichton awoke with one hezmana of a headache. No matter how often his brain had been used and abused in his time in both the Uncharted Territories and Tormented Space, he still couldn’t get used to the pain that accompanied numerous and frequent head injuries. He glanced around him, his arms heavy in front of his body, the shackles tight up to his forearms. Aeryn sat across from him, and he could hear D’Argo’s gravely voice from a nearby cell, Chiana’s high-pitched squeaks in between as they argued. A harsh voice told them to be quiet. Crichton looked over to Aeryn when the room stopped spinning, she was awake and alert and none too happy with their current situation.
“It’s about time. I’ve been awake for about half an arn.”
“Sorry, darlin’, but from the looks of things I’m wishing I hadn’t woken up at all.” He stretched his neck in an attempt to lessen the pressure in his temples. “What happened? All I remember is the Marauders coming straight towards us.”
Aeryn’s face darkened. “Moya took quite a hit. Those of us who weren’t knocked out in the impact were taken out when Moya started leaking trejin gas.”
“Trejin?”
“A waste gas. It acts as a sedative. It was too much, there was no time to fix anything before it took effect.” She lowered her eyes. “Pilot screamed, then the comms went dead.”
“You okay? I mean, that gas-” She knew what he was implying.
“It’s non-toxic. Near as I can tell, the Peacekeepers came aboard not too long after the crash. They must have fixed the leaks when they came. I woke up in here, the others are in cells nearby.”
He closed his eyes. How the frell had the PKs gotten through that wormhole? He remembered what Einstein had told him. Past, present, future...was it possible? “Talked to anyone?”
“I got told to sit down and shut up by some smug grunt. That’s the only contact I’ve had.” He could tell she was angry. Hell, she used to be that smug grunt.
“How the frell do we get out of this one?” He muttered.
“If you tell me you have a plan, I’ll kill you before the Peacekeepers get a chance.” She said, half-serious.
“Hey, it can’t be any worse than this, can it?” If looks could kill....
As if in reply to his question, there was much fussing in the corridor, someone shouting orders, the sound of boots hitting the ground in attention. The door to the cell slid open, and two soldiers entered, one standing by each of the prisoners. A dramatic pause, then enter the wicked witch of the west.
Grayza floated in, Braca ever faithful behind her. She pulled up close to John, eyeing him with admiration and contempt. Her smile made him shiver, and Aeryn stared at the back of the woman she had heard so little about in spite of her role.
“John. It has been far too long.” She kneeled in front of him, too close for comfort, and flashbacks of Arnessk flooded his mind. “I see you’ve found your beloved Aeryn Sun once more. Does she know what you’ve been up to?” She glanced over her soldier at the raven haired Sebacean, whose expression of anger and confusion made her smile. “Apparently not. Let’s fill her in, shall we?”
“Don’t you dare, you frelling bitch!” John ground out angrily.
Grayza’s hand slid delicately between her breasts, finding that small spot of moisture which had so much power. Aeryn could see none of this. The commandant brought her hand up to caress John’s face, ever so delicately, like a snake dancing before it strikes. He twisted and tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. The smell was intoxicating. He saw Aeryn in front of him and closed his eyes, and tried to see past Grayza, to see Aeryn and bring him back to his senses. His view was blocked and his vision impaired. All there was before him was need, lust, desire, and the disgust, the hatred, the pain that ran through him from the memory.
Aeryn Sun could only watch, horrified, as the man she loved passionately kissed their worst enemy. Her heart crumbled to dust, and she realised now what he had felt like when she left him for another.....
Part 8
Aeryn could not stop the tears that welled up in her eyes. She was furious. Heartbroken. She watched Grayza pull away from John, he following her like a puppy, his eyes glazed with desire. His breathing heavy. She remembered Grayza’s words: this had happened before. Her mind whirled through all the possible explanations, unable to settle on anything that made sense. There would be a reasonable explanation for this. There had to be. Where was Sikozu when you actually wanted her around?
Grayza smiled, satisfied that she had tortured both of them enough. She leaned in close to Aeryn, and whispered, “You are very lucky to have had him as a lover, Officer Sun. He is most....experienced.”
Aeryn tried to rise up and smack Grayza with her shackles, enraged. The soldier beside her quickly struck her around the head with his pulse pistol, and she slumped to the ground, able to think only of the irony of John’s betrayal. Crichton’s vision had cleared just in time for him to see Aeryn go down, and he screamed at Grayza.
“Get away from her, you freakin’ witch!”
“Silence, John You should be glad she’s alive at all. I don’t take kindly to traitors.” Grayza motioned to the soldiers. “Take her. High Command will be glad to punish one of its most notorious traitors.” John watched, helpless, as the two grunts lifted Aeryn’s limp body almost effortlessly, and carried her from the room.
Grayza waited, almost serenely as the doors closed, before turning to John. “Just the two of us, dear Crichton.” She sat, seductively, on a chair in the corner. He was raging. He had been violated once more, and worst of all, Aeryn had seen it all. He could only imagine the look on her face. He remembered his own thoughts from when she had been with his twin, and prayed she was not capable of hate for him.
“What do you want?” He asked, because it was all he could say that didn’t involve foul language.
“You.” She crossed her legs, Basic Instinct style. “You have cost me much. We can no longer afford to waste time playing chase. We have you, and there will be no escape this time.” She stood and stalked over to him, kneeling down and grabbing his face roughly. “You humiliated me. I have not forgotten that. And you will pay.”
“What you gonna do? Rape me again? Humiliation is the least you deserve when you have to resort to drugs to get some.”
She slapped him, the sound echoing throughout the cell. He stood his ground; he wouldn’t allow her the satisfaction of his fear. Crichton licked the inside of his cheek, tasting blood.
“You have fire. Pity, really. I would have kept you well had you chosen to remain with me. Now you’ll just have to suffer.”
“What are you going to do with Aeryn?”
Grayza smiled that chilling smile once more. “Officer Sun will be suitably punished. I hear her old regiment can’t wait to see her suffer the Living Death. Some have even offered to give her the fatal dose of radiation themselves.” She rose. “The rest of you will remain here, until the Command Carrier is suitably repaired. You will all be punished, in time.”
He watched her turn to leave, contempt blaring in his bright blue eyes. She stopped just as the doors opened, and turned her head to say:
“I suggest you get some rest, Commander. The Aurora Chair can be so tiring. But, of course, you already know that.”
She left, and he cursed her name at the top his voice.
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Braca stood outside the cell which held Scorpius, the pride evident in his sly smile. He passed his hand over the door control, and they slid open almost silently. Scorpius did not even raise his head in acknowledgement, which served only to infuriate the captain.
“Scorpius. Alive and well I see. You are a hard man to kill.”
Only then did Scorpius look at his former second-in-command. “Braca. Ever loyal to those above. I take it Grayza is behind this little coup.”
Braca snorted. “Our being here is purely accidental. A wormhole opened without warning, and here we are. Commandant Grayza has the intelligence to take advantage of a good opportunity.”
“How fortunate for you. It seems that fate has dealt you a good hand.”
“Fate has nothing to do with it. We simply know an opportunity when we see one.” Braca stepped closer. “Unlike you,” he sneered. “you were forever wasting valuable opportunities. You could have mastered the wormhole tech cycles ago, but you allowed yourself to be walked all over by a simple group of outlaws.” He smiled triumphantly, Scorpius showing no reaction. “Grayza has succeeded, where you failed so many times.”
Scorpius did not allow Braca the satisfaction of anger, simply because he felt none. As soon as Braca left the cell, he pulled a small comm from beneath his right glove. He tapped it once, and said;
“Report. I am in range of the Carrier.”
Failure? He thought to himself as his spy rattled off information in a secretive whisper. Oh Braca, you never learn, do you?
:)