Jornada del Muerto
by AstroGirl
The planet isn't what he expected. Though he's not sure exactly what he did expect. Something lush. An Amazon jungle. A Garden of Eden. This place is more like an outer circle of Hell.
Wind howls through hollow stones with a voice like the souls of the damned and whips stinging, hot sand into his eyes. He wipes it away with a raspy hand and blinks through painful tears at the figure crouching before him.
"Stark, man, are you sure you've got the right place? I mean, this planet is completely..." He almost doesn't say it, but he has to finish the sentence and there isn't any other word. "...dead."
If there are degrees of dead, then it's the deadest place he's ever been. No plants, no animals, no sound but the god-damned wind. Either life never existed here or it died out long ago, and he's not sure which is the more depressing thought.
She would have hated it.
"Yes, yes, I'm sure! The sunlight, the soil, the lack of microbes. Everything's right. Everything's perfect. It will work. You'll see. I spent too much time checking, making sure. It has to work." Stark never once looks up as he speaks, never takes his eye from the mound of earth beside him. He's almost as still as the body lying buried there.
Crichton swallows dryly as the words ring too familiar in his ears. "I've spent too much time thinking it through." Isn't that how they got here? Too many well-laid plans gone too horribly wrong?
"How long is this gonna take?" he says instead.
"I don't know. A cycle. Maybe."
"A cy--" Wind forces its way into his gaping mouth, coating it with dust. "Stark, we can't stay here an entire cycle! We've got too many people after us, Moya still needs medical attention... We just... can't."
"It's all right, Crichton." A miniature sandstorm swirls between them, and the too-calm voice sounds like it's coming from a million metras away. "I know. I brought supplies. In the transport pod. I'll be fine."
"There's no way you brought a year's supply of food in the transport pod."
"I don't need much." Through shimmering holes in the veil of sand, he can see Stark's hand stroking the lifeless mound, over and over and over.
"Don't be ridiculous. You'll die here, too."
Too. He didn't mean to say it, didn't mean to think it. Never give up hope, isn't that right? The John Crichton way? No matter how still the body might be underneath the sand.
The stroking hand stops and clenches, and the being it's attached to finally raises his head. John's heart falters at the sight of the familiar half-face, twisted into frightening unrecognizability with emotions he's not sure there are words in English to name. He'd only thought he'd seen Stark angry or unstable before.
"GO AWAY!"
The force of the shout hits him like a physical blow, and he stumbles backward. Sand comes howling in and fills the gap between them.
Above the sound of the wind, he can hear chanting. A prayer. But this place gives new definition to the word "godforsaken," and he can feel the dead, dry air sucking the hope and the fragile belief out of him like moisture.
He turns and walks back to his module, and wonders what he will tell the others.