You'll follow me back
With the sun in your eyes
And on your own
Bedshaped, two legs of stone
-Keane, "Bedshaped"
BEDSHAPED
1. All These Things That I've Done
I've done some bad things in my life. Some terrible things. I won't lie about it.
Pain makes the world so much smaller. So I don't dwell on the past. Or the future. All I know and all I can control is the present, here and now. Pain or no pain. This was me. This was me when I gunned down a dozen civilians without remorse and without ever looking back. That was the plan from the beginning. The plan we all agreed to. The plan we all executed.
We counted on betrayal. We moved under the assumption that everything we'd do would fail and we would all die. We were content in that knowledge, and therefore disillusioned with failure, because we lived. The Prime Lukythian however did not. And hundreds along with him.
I did it because it had to be done. I signed away my future and sacrificed it to the mission because it was worth it. Not a cell in my body that questioned that and if I had to do it again I would. I had nothing to lose then, only a cause worth suffering for, a cause worth dying for; just as so many would and just as so many already had. I did not fear death.
I remember the looks in their haunting and gaunt faces the day we took off. It wasn't supposed to happen but it did: we questioned our mission without ever saying a word. The transport launched into a shining sun. We held on and there was a soldier sitting before me. It knew what we were about to do and I didn't stop myself. And it was the only thing I remembered in the long arns of my escape. The only thing I could vividly picture in my mind. That soldier's eyes did not condemn me but they would never forget.
I spared all those I could. I can honestly say I let some go. Just not enough.
My back was killing me on this eighteen hour flight to the rendezvous point. I was flying in silent formation with two fellow assassins underneath the bulk of this unaware garbage scow. Their two fighters flanked me and kept me company. Even those that were chatty before didn't say a word now, with death still etched into their retinas. I remembered the feeling.
The harness choked me. Its duty was to strap me to the chair but I felt locked in. However, I could endure discomfort because my target was dead ahead. The wait was over.
The convoy of ships glistened in the dark whereas my lights were turned off to avoid being spotted. The shadow of the scow would keep me hidden. Its bulk of radiation would taint all sensors.
My fuel was nearly depleted and my eyes were tired of staring into the void. Things started to blur. Where was that light coming from? The nearest star was in the opposite direction.
I went over the plan in my head again, trying not to imagine what would happen after the mission was over. Any survivors were told to gather at the Hunter's Moon where we would receive our final instructions and payment. On the other hand, we could very well be shot upon arrival to make sure nobody would live to tell the tale.
I didn't trust my fellow assassins any more than they trusted me: rogue Peacekeeper, renegade criminal and mass-murderer. So much had changed in so little time. Except nothing had changed at all.
I noticed a twitch in my index finger, I felt uneasy and cramped and I couldn't breathe. I'd never felt that before. Not in my Prowler, therefore I knew something was wrong.
My heart was beating faster than normal and there was one final transmission before communications were jammed. A shadow was cast over the convoy.
"Frell."
A ship rose up from the convoy's midst to aim its light, sensors and weapons into our direction, followed by severe artillery fire. We were compromised. They didn't even care about the scow's skeleton crew. The ship exploded above us in a fiery blaze quickly put out by the vacuum of space. Debris rained down on me in waves. With a shaking hand I reached to disengage the auto-throttle when I was hit by my panicking comrades. They chipped my wing and pushed my craft into a spinning frenzy. I couldn't stop it.
External boosters malfunctioned. Adrenaline rushed through my beating heart as I tried to regain control, but it it would only make the contagion more effective. There were ships and missiles all around me and half of them were holograms, but which half? I was spinning away from the battlefield and part of me was hating it. Missing out on a warrior's death.
Flashes usurped my sight and everything started to fade. It was then that I recognized the symptoms. It was becoming harder to make out the instruments on my panels. I was pressed into my seat by forces beyond my control and I fought the white sleep that crept in, even when my eyes malfunctioned and my brain shut down. I fell unconscious, but I think the collision might've saved me. I had no idea what happened to any of the other assassins. I can only assume they were either captured, killed or had managed to escape like I had.
The last thing I remembered was the incessant alarm of my flight instruments flashing while I drifted into an endless night. Adrift and lost.
But then I was found. By the last man I would've expected to see in my final moments. He was the only one left where all the others had faltered. I think he saved me, but I didn't know whether I wanted him to. I shivered in my dreams.
2. Black Hole Sun
I was half awake when I felt tiny hands rip my clothing. The knife was larger than a scalpel but required two hands to cut the leather. My struggle was met with a firm grip around my wrists. Dazed and mad with heat delirium I fought till my very last breath.
The diagnosis was confirmed when they hovered a scanner over my head and lungs. I didn't know where I was or what to do or what had happened to my Prowler. Like a fish out of water I flapped helplessly on dry land. Then they lifted me and put me down into a cold white booth. A mask was strapped to my face and then the lid fell shut. I woke up in a panic when my mind suddenly realized what was about to happen.
An engine started rattling beneath my stomach. The slightest vibration which had re-activated my unease. The chamber started to fill up with something that wasn't water, a transparent, yet glowing liquid a hundred times colder than the metal that contained it.
Under water the convulsions struck in cold panic, triggered by a constant shiver and the sensation of a thousand cold daggers attacking my body. Finally the liquid had filled the bottom and created a cold layer around me before it started to rise. It was over before I knew it. I fought the mask but then realized it would save me. I was submerged.
Then I lost all sound as my ears sank beneath the water level. I gasped for air when I started to float. The mask had been strapped tightly to the features of my face. It seemed to bind itself to my very skin.
The Living Death wouldn't kill me, but the water could. Except I didn't fear death. That's what I told myself. I had faced the ice before. Death made things simple. Pain made the world small.
My drowning gasps resounded in the shrinking hollow of air I was imprisoned to. The heat seemingly left my body when I had gone completely numb, but I kept my face above the cold till the final moments. Then a face appeared above mine.
Imprisoned within this hydro-honium coffin I pounded the steel insides; dull fists striking through the dense liquid, like a storm in a glass of water, but his glare remained indifferent and unimpressed.
The anger kept me sane inside. The cold sharpened my awareness inside this recurring nightmare. Green lights within the steel man-sized cryo-chamber blinded me but for a small round window in front of me through which I looked upon my new warden.
I knew I couldn't fight him but that wouldn't stop me trying. In his eyes I found my challenge, my battle, I would defy him till my final breath. I am not afraid of death.
I closed my eyes and gave in to the cold. The bubble was gone. My throat was shut and the freezing cold hurt the whites of my eyes. For a moment I thought I was floating through the vacuum of space. I welcomed the silence. It was a relief.
With my eyes I dared him to kill me. This was me at my finest, I told myself. Look at me. I'd never felt better.
There was a faint click before I heard his muffled voice rumble through the liquid.
"Don't struggle," he said. "This will save your life."
But what if I didn't want to be saved?
I wasn't going to allow this. I would never let him endanger my friends. I was not going to become a pawn in his game, but I couldn't bring myself to end it. I couldn't bring myself to surrender to the cold. I could've drowned myself, denied myself the oxygen, breathe the liquid into my protesting lungs and collapse into myself like a black hole until finally letting go.
I imagined myself punching my body into submission, fighting the overwhelming pain and I remembered from the first time what it was like to drown. But there would be no-one there to save me this time. I'd never felt more alone, which was ironic in a way, because I wasn't and possibly had never been for quite some time. There were two of us in here now.
I don't know what I was still fighting for. To live? To die? So many have already died, why should this be any different? All I had left was a cruel dichotomy. Either I would slowly be consumed alive from the inside to become a shell of my former self; the living dead with the unending stare until starvation or mercy would finally put me to rest... or I would have to choose a frozen life of floating around in cryo-chambers. A life put on ice waiting inside a freezer for a cure that would never come.
He made the decision for me.
3. Fallen by the Wayside
I thought I'd forgotten how to use my legs by the time he released me from the tank. My skin breathed again in the confides of this dark medbay. Total sensory deprivation had sunk in when the lights faded and I'd started to see things in the gloom. Things I never wanted to be reminded of ever again.
All the things that were taken from me and all the things I took from so many others. I think I deserved this. I deserved the cold. Maybe once I had been an innocent, so very long ago. I could barely remember it.
How could I pretend to be a victim when all my life I have been the cause of so much pain and death?
I remembered the rain on the world that wasn't a world, built from Crichton's memories. It was the first time I'd ever experienced it. Water coming from the skies. It made me realize how much they had kept from me. I tried to remember what it tasted like but all I could taste was that frelling green liquid that had penetrated every corner of my body.
I thought of countless ways of escaping just to keep my mind fresh and running. I feared that if I stopped thinking my mind would freeze like everything else had. I'd awaken in thirty years on some unknown ship like Jool and everyone I knew would be dead.
But in what way would that be different from the present, where everyone I know is gone?
Scorpius remained where everyone else had faltered. The only man capable of cheating death was trying to save my life and I think he was winning.
"Scorpius..." I gasped when I ripped the mask of me. The air was thick and musky outside the cryo-chamber. Soon his silhouette loomed over me. For arns the liquid had prickled my eyes and now I could barely see or smell him. The liquid drenched me and stuck to my skin.
I assumed he was going to ask me questions, interrogate me about Crichton or ask me about wormholes I knew nothing about. Instead he held a plate of crackers in his hands and smiled.
"Tell me why I shouldn't kill you now," I told him. It took no effort on his part to pierce right through my empty threats.
"Eat," he spoke impassively. "Preserve your strengths. You can kill me later."
I stuffed the food down my mouth. The crackers were bland and dry and their presentation was lacking. As I ate he tested my motor functions and blinded me by shining a light into my eyes. Then he rewarded me with a towel.
Scorpius returned bearing new dry clothing, but I felt naked without my weapons so Scorpius provided them as well. He even showed me the door, but it wasn't the door that kept me trapped. As much as I hated to admit it, Scorpius did not keep me here. Time was my enemy. I was chained by an invisible rope to the insides of that steel coffin, that freezing death trap that kept me alive and sustained the pain.
I refused to step back in there. I panicked.
"Without the full cooling treatment you will surely die," Scorpius told me.
"Then let me die."
Scorpius picked my frail body up and pinned me against the wall.
"You call yourself a soldier!"
"Soldiers die! That's what they're trained to do! You should honor my final request..."
"You are wrong on both counts. Soldiers are trained to survive. And your request...is not final."
I slid down the wall as I slipped from his grip. I couldn't stop myself from shaking. I could already feel the heat slowly returning outside the cryo-chamber. It wouldn't take long before I would succumb to the Living Death...
"More than your survival is at stake here," he said and he threw a device at my feet.
It was a holo-beacon. The message started to play upon impact.
"An unprecedented reward is offered for information leading to the arrest or death of the criminal and mass-murderer known as John Crichton and his known associates..."
I knew that voice. I've heard it before. There had been something in that voice that put Scorpius off. I thought nothing could scare Scorpius: I was being sarcastic, but a part of me could never underestimate him. Not after everything that had happened. Every time we assume he's dead he comes back to prove us wrong. There's something about him you just can't kill.
I looked into my enemy's eyes and saw, for the first time, reason. I'd never been this close to him before. His calm would become my anchor. I could do nothing but trust the only man immune to my poison.
I collapsed, to lean into the doorway of the open cryo-chamber and feel the smoke billow past me into the open. Droplets of water started to form on my bare shoulder and I barely felt it.
"Dead-or-alive price of 5.000,000 currency pledges rests on -" Then Scorpius terminated the message. He crouched beside me. I could tell he was looking for eye-contact or any sign that could prove to him I was worth saving, anything that could tell him whether his words were coming through to me.
Still neither of us had said his name: the name that would haunt me for the rest of my days. The silence was killing me but I endured. I waited for him to say it. The reason he'd come to collect me. The reason why he was tending to my wounds with such calculated comfort, taking advantage of my dire situation.
"Crichton escaped Peacekeeper custody eight solar days ago," he said. "The Luxan, the Hynerian, the Nebari. They were all unharmed. And Moya and its Pilot are safe, hiding not far from here..."
"Why are you telling me all this?" I asked. If he already knew where Crichton was, why come to me? I didn't know anything.
"If you will not fight for my sake, or for Crichton's, I ask you to consider...the life of your unborn offspring..."
I was. It was all I could think of in the light of heat delirium's final destination. Scorpius's gaze triggered a terrible thought within me. One I refused to believe held any merit. The notion terrified me more than I thought it would. I wondered whether the contagion would affect my unborn child frozen in stasis. I couldn't bear the thought. To endure it myself without any help of any kind was one thing, but I could not stand to see a child suffer.
Yet, how many children had already died by my hands? All those lives cut short...All those helpless I killed on my way to the Prime Lukythian's chambers? They were my responsibility. I had torn to shreds anyone who had stood in my way. I purged the entire room without mercy.
I did what I had to do. I had my mission and Scorpius has his. Who was I to deny him that?
"We have unfinished business, you and I. On Moya."
Maybe I did. It was hard for me to concentrate. Within the gloom we came to a silent understanding.
We would return to Moya. If I were to die, that is the place I wanted it to happen. That is the place I wanted to spend my last moments. Not here, inside this cooling tank, alone in the dark.
Scorpius would keep me safe till then, but there was one condition. This time I stepped into the tank of my own accord, watching as the lid slowly closed the dark in with me. Every breath came with a tremor of unease as I waited for the rise of the liquid as it slowly returned to its horizontal position.
I punched the inside of the cryo-chamber. It was my way of trying to regain focus, to try and control the pain, to try and control anything, for the liquid would hamper any and all of my sense when submerged. I punched it again.
I peered beyond my own reflection and saw Scorpius manning the workstation in the small medbay. Sometimes I caught him communicating with some kind of quartermaster or dock control, but there was no way to deduce my location. It was some kind of vessel. I could hear an engine faintly roaring in the deep. Just a slightly bigger prison.
I remembered a life before Crichton and now with Scorpius I could no longer see a future without him. He was going to lead me to him. It was a fact I had come to accept.
Inside the cryo-chamber I felt like was slowly being digested, slowly dissolving, disintegrating at the precipice and event horizon of a singularity. Every time I entered I knew that I would lose a bit of myself to the nightmare.
Sometimes I could still feel the straps of the ejector seat holding me down.
4. When There's Nowhere Left To Run
It had been a day since Scorpius found me and I discovered the cool of the liquid within the tank did not come without its price. Nothing ever would. Red spots started to emerge across my skin. A terrible itching rash which started to burn underneath my clothes.
That night I couldn't sleep. It was then I heard a door open and I could tell it wasn't Scorpius. Scorpius would not need to hide his presence inside the ship. His stride was too quiet, almost as if he tried to make me believe the wind had blown the heavy door open.
I didn't turn out the lights. That would've looked suspicious. Instead, I let the medbay look as it was and hid in the shadows. I knew the ways of the black ghosts now. Their silence was my silence.
I felt my heart throbbing within my chest. I was weak. I hadn't eaten for arns. I was unarmed but that didn't matter. In these close quarters he would have no use of his weapon, if he brought any. His knife would glimmer in the light and reveal his position. A turn of the wrist could turn his weapon into mine, but did I have the strength to make this happen?
Odds were that this person did not know of my presence. I felt reinvigorated. The icy liquid had turned my limbs numb while at the same time heightening my senses. The fire within me wanted a good fight, instead of the slow death I was condemned to. For once I wanted to feel something real, something solid, I wanted to feel alive while I still could. Before the Living Death would take hold.
When he entered the medbay I lunged at the intruder from the shadows. He caught me. A lucky reflex saved Tarak from a lethal blow to the head. I recognized his ugly ego the moment I saw the light hit his polished battle armour.
"Impossible," he said when I looked into his eyes. He locked another hand around the wrench I'd launched into his direction. My shaking hands could barely keep holding on. I tried not to show him how weak I really was but he probably already knew. "You're alive."
My racing heartbeat kept me from swallowing. My throat felt blocked. I shouldn't have agitated myself. There was no way I could recede the heat.
"Is that why you're here? To comment on the obvious?" I remarked.
My eyes were drawn to the little bump on his forehead, a little birth deformation they called it, or what the other assassins used to call: Tarak's off-switch. He was never the brightest. Or the handsomest. His nose was crooked, his hairline was receding and he was missing a bit of his ear, but what he lacked in appearance he made up for with confidence.
"No," Tarak replied. He smiled and there was something twinkling in his eye when he said: "I'm here to kill you."
We came to an easy truce. I wanted to jump him and wrestle him to the ground. The inner soldier urged me to gain control of the situation but my body refused. The blur receded when I sat down.
"Took me a while to track you, though," Tarak started talking. "Lukythians have made it hard for any of us to travel the system. They've intensified border patrols and ordered all traffic through border stations. Any ship found without appropriate idents will be destroyed on sight."
Tarak was unnerved by the giant cryo-chamber that took up the room, but other then that he was relaxed. Old friends instead of enemies, how unlikely that may have sounded.
"I know why the Lukythians want me dead," I said. I didn't need reminding. "But what about you?"
"It's not about me," Tarak said.
"It's about the client," I realized. "They don't want anything to trace back to them. Makes sense."
It didn't.
"They would've killed you at the rendezvous if someone hadn't tipped off the Lukythians. That someone saved your life."
"Was it you?"
Tarak bore his big yellow teeth in a grin.
"You'd think so, wouldn't you?"
The light of the cryo-chamber drowned the medbay in a green gloom. It was nauseating. I always started to think I was hallucinating this conversation until Tarak put a hand to my face. I snapped out of the dark.
"Heat delirium?" he asked worried.
"Ullom's parting gift," I smiled.
"You weren't the only one. You're lucky to have survived this long. Of course, knowing you it wasn't luck. You were always the smart one. You always came prepared."
"I'm really not, you know."
Something snapped inside me, a sharp pain, as if one of my internal organs had lodged out of place.
"If heat delirium can't kill you, what chances do I have?" Tarak said.
A sudden rattling at the door undermined his laughter. Someone was entering the freighter. Someone was at the door. Zarra drew his weapon and words refused to leave my mouth.
"Is this him?" he asked. "The bounty hunter?"
Scorpius had come back with company but before I could stop him Zarra had already entered the other room. I could hear shots being fired. Then a scream. There was a menacing silence before Scorpius entered the medbay. His presence seemed to drain all the light from the room.
He noticed the untouched coolant suit lying before he even saw the expression on my face. He gave one look back at the room he just left before attending to the settings of the cryo-chamber.
"We have little time."
"Scorpius..."
"A Lukythian vessel is patrolling this sector," he stated. "They have ordered the convoy to submit to inspection. They will be here within the arn."
Short. Straight to business. I knew it must've been serious.
I looked back at the door half expecting a puddle of blood to ooze around the corner. I was looking for any sign that would confirm Tarak's death. Maybe blood on Scorpius's gloves or a hesitation in his speech.
"Tarak..."
"The assassin lives..." Scorpius spoke reluctantly. "For now. But there are more pressing matters at hand. The cryo-chamber can hide your bio-signature but it won't matter if the Lukythians know you're here. It seems the Vamiss can not be trusted..."
My entire body was shaking, on the precipice of convulsion, shivering as I reached for the coolant suit beside me. It glistened in the gloom. I refused to go back into that tank.
"Ullom thinks he has me cornered. I won't let him win."
I was sick of running. Sick of hiding. Sick of the heat and sick of the cold.
Scorpius seemed to read my mind.
"This is a battle you cannot win," he told me.
I was not afraid of him. I looked into his eyes and said: "If I have to fight you too, I will. Unlike you, I don't fear death."
The Scarran half-breed quenched his rage, then brandished his teeth. I've never respected anyone more in my life for walking away from a fight.
"I'm grateful for all you've done. Really," I said. "But I have come to face a universal truth. All things end."
Scorpius growled. His eyes were on fire with determination when he looked into my eyes and spoke:
"Not today."
I took the package and unfolded the compressed leather. Tarak's corpse might've even still be fresh. Life is fragile.
The leather suit was tighter than I could muster. I mean, really tight. It felt demeaning somehow as it constricted my features. A cold, black second skin. The leather was similar to his, but sleeker and lacking body-armour. This was a crude and basic, defenseless version of his coolant suit. His would still be superior in every way and it made me look like his consort. Every motion was a struggle. Every heartbeat a reminder of my approaching death.
So long had I been submerged within that tank, suckling on the pure oxygen filtered through the machinery of the cryo-chamber, that the air within the freighter felt lacking, insufficient, even tainted. Every glance upon the cryo-chamber was a reminder of the nightmare I was escaping. No longer was I going to sit back and let my fate be decided by others.
The suit felt to me as a disguise, a free pass into Scorpius's world as a predator among prey. When I looked upon my leather clad hands I remembered the blue claws they'd once turned into. Those were peaceful hands. Pilot's DNA. But there was also Peacekeeper DNA that would never go away. These were the hands that killed and that would kill again when they had to. And there were so many that were still to die.
How many had Scorpius killed? Not nearly enough. He killed Gilina. He killed me.
Crichton fears him. Perhaps he's wrong. Perhaps he should fear me...
In the other room, Scorpius ripped the ident chip off Tarak's neck and it dangled from the chain within his hands. Then a growl emerged from his gut and turned to rage.
"Who gave you this?" he demanded to know. His rage was a unique interrogation method. Tarak sputtered, before bursting into laughter. Blood was pouring from his nose and mouth. As I entered I felt a tooth crackle underneath my boot.
I did not fear Scorpius. I think for once I even finally understood him as he drilled Tarak for information. He was already working on a new plan. I could see his mind at work within those dark eyes. Scheming as he had schemed me.
Then suddenly I felt the suit's effects spreading the cold like a fast injection. The cold felt too good and it became a distraction I had to compensate for.
"I know you," Tarak told Scorpius. "You're dead!"
"The Lukythians are coming," I interjected and caught Tarak's attention. "We need your help."
Tarak stopped laughing.
"If they're coming," he said, "then there's nothing you can do to escape them. Unless..."
Scorpius tightened his grip upon hearing the final word.
5. No Surprises
The convoy Scorpius had hid us in was the same convoy the assassins were supposed to meet up in before, until the trap put an end to that plan. Their yearly pilgrimage to the Leviathan Burial Grounds felt the perfect legitimate escape from Lukythian space. The pilgrims, a species called the Vamiss whose every member was a pair of conjoined twins with constant running noses, welcomed us graciously into their midst, although they steered clear from Scorpius's cold medbay. If their path hadn't intersected Lukythian space I would think Scorpius would've found another way to smuggle me out of the system.
Scorpius had docked his small freighter within one of their larger ships and they were naturally alarmed by the sound of gunfire coming from within. They came knocking at our door, shuffling their feet cautiously while looking for answers.
"Blessings upon you. Might there be some disturbance?" they asked wheezing. They annoyed me immensely, but Scorpius handled them well. He was courteous and affectionate and picked his words with great care. Even I could no longer tell the lies from truth.
"Who is that guy?" Tarak asked. I thought about it and realized I had no answer to give him.
"I trust him to do what needs to be done," I said then I checked the time. The Lukythians could arrive any microt.
"Nice ship he travels in," Tarak continued. "I'll be surprised if this bucket can do 1 metra in a day."
"It's not his ship," I said.
"Then who's is it?"
"His."
Tarak hadn't noticed the pair of boots sticking out from under the control panel, with legs still attached. Tarak backed off.
Every time I thought I could manage I could feel the cryo-chamber beckoning again. I resisted it. Out here I could still matter. Make a difference. Before the lights would go out. I refused to surrender to Ullom or his tricks. He would have to try harder than that.
I kept a close eye on the control panel's internal clock as we watched Scorpius address the Vamis on the security feed. He was taking his time.
"What's he doing?" Tarak wondered out loud and then my lightheadedness overwhelmed me and I would've fallen if he hadn't caught me.
"The thing's red, not blue," he said. "Is that important?"
"You have to change the rod," I told him. "This one's been depleted."
"Already?"
He complied and followed my instructions in securing and replacing the new coolant rod. I barely knew what I was doing myself and only mimicked Scorpius. I did not envy him. He'd lived with this his entire life while I'd only suffered a few solar days.
"You could still kill me, you know," I told Tarak weakly as he slid the new rod into the place of the old one. "...collect the bounty."
Tarak smiled. "Now where's the fun in that?"
Tarak then turned the question around.
"You could just turn yourself in to Ullom and give him the names he wants," he said. "They're trying to kill you, so why defend them? Let them fight their own battles."
I regained my breath and climbed on to my own stool. An answer loomed. I had my many reasons, but I just couldn't tell him. I might be a Peacekeeper no longer but I'm still a soldier and a soldier needs her battles. Maybe one day...
I want to be able to tell myself I have something worth fighting for. Something worth living for. Whether it be my last breath or my last secret. Especially one so terrible.
"No," I said. "Ullom must never know."
"That's all I needed to hear," Tarak smiled.
Scorpius returned from a succesfull mission yet he did not look pleased.
"Black ghosts never travel alone," he said. "Where are your partners?"
"I'm looking at her," Tarak replied witty. I wasn't flattered.
"Choose your loyalties carefully," Scorpius told him. Then he disappeared into the other section. I think Scorpius knew.
Why did I trust him? It wasn't that long ago when he was the hunter and I was the prey. He was an ally to the Peacekeepers but never one of them. When he got what he wanted he left us alone. He honored his deal. In hindsight, he only did what he thought had to be done.
He stressed from the beginning how his connections to the Peacekeepers had waned because of the destruction of his Command Carrier and the wormhole weapon project with it. Grayza had him effectively ostracized by the High Council, yet he did not share the same bewildered and desperate look Captain Crais once had in his eyes. His command meant everything to him.
Scorpius was different.
As he asked me to join him in the medbay to replace his own depleted coolant rod he kneeled before me facing the other way. I almost thought he'd closed his eyes as he waited.
He told me which buttons to press to make the mechanism come whirring from his skull. It violently spun in a burst of hot smoke that smelled of cooked meat. He was putting a lot of trust in me showing me this, letting me see inside his skull, inside his greatest weakness and have me be the one to replace the rod, but I guessed that was the point.
Nothing about Scorpius was ever random. Everything he did came with a preconceived plan. He lived in different circles than all of us. Always one step ahead. The Peacekeepers had just been a part of his plan; he had never been a part of theirs. In their absence he would find another way, and he had. It was me.
Never mind the heat. I grabbed the metal protruding from his skull and tugged it, knowing it would hurt.
"If you hurt my friends, if you even harm one bone in their body...," I said to him and I paused for breath. "I will kill you. Do you understand that?"
I couldn't have made it more clear. Scorpius hissed through the pain and growled a transparent: "YES."
I let go. The coolant rod was installed and it whirred back into place. The beast within him calmed, as it should.
I knew he found them. There was no other way. He was leading me back to where it all began, back to the place where we parted ways, to the Leviathan Burial Grounds where Moya must be waiting.
It felt like going home.
6. Patience
We picked up remarkably little chatter from the convoy. Things had started to quiet down ever since the Lukythian transmission. Fear had begun to take hold of the pilgrims and their crews. There was still nothing on scanners and an arn had passed.
If we moved too early or too late our plan could fall apart before it had started.
Scorpius disassembled parts of the cryo-chamber and recycled them to build a portable cooling device for his coolant rods. Simultaneously, he was preparing for the worst.
I savored the silence before the storm. It gave me calm. The only thing that caused me unease was the eerie voices of the Vamiss contact each other speaking in twinned unison, sometimes in their own strange tongue. My encrypted message reached Tarak. I knew he wasn't the patient sort, unlike Scorpius.
"Tarak?" I asked the silence and a chirp came before and after his every reply. His voice seethed through the headphones. I closed my eyes.
" chirp Tarak, here. chirp"
"Why are you helping me?"
It was simplest question that spawned the longest pause.
"chirp What'd you want me to say? chirp"
I wondered how clever he thought he was switching the burden of silence to me. I like the silence. This was just something I needed to hear.
"The truth. You came here to kill me and now you're..."
"chirp I didn't come here to kill you. chirp"
"Then why?"
I've found that sometimes it is harder to speak the truth than to hear it.
"chirp I found the others. Molock, Darney, even Fitch...they'd...they'd succumbed to severe heat delirium before I'd even found them. The others might've even escaped, I don't know, I know a lot died in the ambush so odds are pretty slim...I...I found them devoid of anything resembling life yet their hearts were still beating. Their engines were still warm. They hadn't even touched down that long. The fact that they managed to land is a miracle in itself. They escaped the battle, but they didn't get to enjoy it for long...They were the Living Dead when I found them. So I killed them. To spare them any more "
He pitied me.
"chirp I thought that if there were but a chance of saving you...I'd think I'd want to take it. That could've been me in your place. I could've been dosed by that contagion. And I like to believe you would've done the same for me if our roles were reversed. chirp"
"I would've killed you," I said. I wasn't going to lie about it.
"chirp You wouldn't. chirp"
"A few cycles ago I wouldn't have hesitated."
"chirp What changed? chirp"
A different chirp arose from the console. A bug on the sensors was speeding towards us. Then two others joined it. They were here.
"chirp Incoming. chirp"
"Cease communications!" Scorpius ordered.
"Good luck," I said to Tarak, instead of 'good hunting'.
It was time for my performance. Crichton would've been pleased with such a frelled up plan, but it's so frelled up that it just might work.
"Lukythian vessel," I spoke and my voice broadcasted to the entire sector. The convoy listened in silence. "Ullom. I know it's you."
I knew it was Ullom because I knew him. Our research had been extensive. I'd looked into his eyes the day we invaded the Palace and now today my face was being beamed into his mind.
Lukythian technology was based on a neural framework and up-link guided by a single controller. They wouldn't have sent three ships for a mere inspection. They knew I was here. This was Ullom, without a doubt. His mind was directly connected to his ship's functions. Minds can be distracted. So I made sure he would never forget me.
No doubt I looked pale and weak on their view-screen and no doubt they were suspicious, but it had only been four solar days since the death of their beloved leader. Rage was still running through their veins like pure adrenaline.
"I am the assassin Aeryn Sun. I killed the Prime Lukythian. He died by my hand and I enjoyed killing him."
Their holographic blue claws descended upon the drifting convoy from all angles now, reaching around the fleet of ships in an almost deathly embrace. I imagined they were desperate to find the source of my transmission. They would deploy an electric web to prevent anyone from escaping. Our approach had to have been timed precisely or else all would have been lost.
The Lukythian ships required great power to sustain their holographic projections and to deploy the web. Their machinations and rage would keep them preoccupied from chasing our freighter.
Tarak timed it brilliantly. The freighter burst from the main ship's starboard bow to race past the extended claws. He mocked them with his very presence.
There were only several moments remaining before the web would close and Tarak pushed the freighter's engine to the limits in order to escape. The web was forming, hardening a shell around the convoy no-one would escape. One microt too late and he would've crashed his ship into an impenetrable wall of energy.
"I've done it!" Tarak cried out.
"You will have to kill me, Ullom!" I dared him in my transmission. "The secret will die with me."
The vessels retracted their claws and webs. They could not maintain both the projections and their immense speed at the same time without draining too much from their power source. One would have to go. Tarak knew he had only microts remaining. Only one shot at survival.
Within the mighty nebulas of the Leviathan Sacred Burial Grounds he could find sanctuary. He could lose them and hide within the pink gas clouds.
"This is it!" he cried out, yelping like a madman and jumping with joy. "This is what it means to be alive! This is why I do what I do! WOO-HOO!"
He shook his fist at the universe, punched the air, yelled at the stars for there was no-one who could stop -
We watched from afar as the missiles punched his freighter in the back. In a flash of green light the debris burst and the ship split into two halves until another weapon of destruction burnt the life out of it completely. The parts that remained drifted toward the nebula within a puff of smoke. The comms were dead. Tarak was gone.
The Lukythians turned on the Vamiss pilgrims and destroyed each vessel for good measure and to make sure there was no avenue for me to escape my punishment.
We watched the ships light up from the dark. Thousands of lives lit up bright and were extinguished one shortly after another. This is what their kindness had repaid the Vamiss. No betrayal was worth this. How many more were going to die on my behalf?
Tarak was a good man, yet he'd killed so many...did he deserve to die like that? Do I deserve to die?
I'd heard my voice on the recording and hated its sound. I tried to speak but could muster nothing.
Scorpius placed a hand on my shoulder. For the briefest of moments I'd forgotten he was there. The both of us shared the silence inside the Prowler then as we'd been detached from the convoy for an arn now, drifting along many metras away along with their expulsed waste and garbage while watching the convoy's debris be pummeled into ashes.
We waited for eighteen hours before the three ships departed. I could feel Scorpius' breath in my neck.
My coolant rod was depleted. It had been my third now in two arns. Scorpius told me to keep calm but I couldn't. I failed. The last one had now been drained and they had to be reheated before more could be used again.
The heat became worse now inside the Prowler. I started to hyperventilate. The blur returned and I couldn't focus. The Lukythan ships had nearly left the sector.
Scorpius opened his skull, took out his coolant rod and installed it into mine. A gift I would not recollect for I would soon lose consciousness. I grabbed his hand when he reached me in a reflex. In my delirium I had already forgotten so many things.
"I am not your enemy, Officer Sun..." Scorpius said and I closed my eyes.
No. At this point in time, he wasn't.
"I believe you."
Scorpius took control and steered into the nebula where he knew Moya would be waiting.