Rygel didn't believe in luck.
He snorted a ball of green slime down his throat and spat it back out again before dabbing his lips with his unwashed robe. He felt relieved, making room for food and smells. At least until his nose started running again.
Rygel drew in deep breaths at the thought of tasting the delicacies he'd scraped together from haggling the natives. He savoured the wait and relished in the imagined pleasure as he loomed over his table taking in all the different smells before he dug in.
The shell of some spotted crustacean drenched in oil crackled and snapped within his small hands. He couldn't help but love that sound, especially when he sank his tiny teeth into the soft flesh underneath. It made him feel like humming. There was a song that came to him from way back when back on Hyneria, but he couldn't remember the lyrics. It was a cheery song. Well, all the songs were cheery when you were Dominar of Hyneria and ruler of over 600 billion subjects, apart from the songs glorifying war and death and the victory of the Empire. Those could get quite cheesy at times.
Bah. He could still smell the touch of the scavenger he'd bought it from. The gas fumes and the hot tar, the rotten eggs and waste and the metallic tinge of a rusty pipe almost spoiled his appetite had he not been so starved.
Three times he called for Chiana but she wouldn't answer him, therefore his aching stomachs convinced him it would be a shame to let this meal go to waste. It would be cold in a matter of microts and there was no manner in which he could keep it heated. All the systems aboard their Transport Pod were either busted or in the process of being stripped. There was no way they could fend off all the thieves, so in the end they didn't even bother.
"Chiana!" he tried one last time with a muffled mouth full of food. It was certainly a challenge to his gag reflex. He used to be more picky than this when it came to food! The small lump of mouldy bread at the side of his plate was as hard as rock but he'd managed to swallow it whole regardless and burped loudly. This was a triumph. He gleefully rubbed his stomachs.
For days now he'd stood by the wayside hoping for passing scavengers to take pity on him and throw him some food but without any success. He'd tried to grovel and he'd tried to beg but he was simply physically unable to. Besides, no-one bought it. It was just too out of character for his grand personality. He clung to the little self-respect he had left, even though it would probably kill him.
He usually had less trouble without Chiana though. Ever since they'd left the casino planet she'd developed a nasty temper but he was always there to reign her in. His diplomatic skills (he preferred meat eating where mediation was concerned) came in handy for settling the aftermaths of these fights when he could not stop them, or more specifically, her.
Rygel's fake royal persona convinced many an impressionable sort among the natives here. Sometimes it was all too easy. This time he'd exchanged a lavish dinner in return for future favours. Naturally he didn't plan to stay long enough for them to be cashed in at any point in the future, although how he planned to do this was still a bit sketchy. Their Pod was still too banged up. There was no way of getting this thing airborne again. Or at least not for long.
Ever since they'd smuggled themselves and their ship into the belly of the beast, the cargo hold of this massive garbage scow, the Pod seemed to have dug itself in deep. For the first couple of days Chiana wouldn't even take a look outside. The stench was everywhere. You couldn't escape it. Finally upon opening the hatch they found themselves staring up at a stone ceiling. The loud vibrations of the engines somewhere in the deep had even found their way into their dreams.
There were tunnels in the massive dark, burrowed through the skin of the scrap metal mountains where the claws couldn't catch ya and eyes couldn't see. The Rezzers were more scuttling claws than wings and little more than feathery parasites, but in the end: who wasn't? They were all living off the back of this bigger creature and at the mercy of the garbage gods. No-one liked to stay outside too long. Rygel gladly sacrificed his daily feast as long as he himself wasn't on the menu.
The only ones who didn't live in squalor were the captain and crew of this ship who employed most of the scavengers to pillage the scrap metal mountains in the cargo holds for anything worth snurching or melting down. Once every weeken one of them would come down from their high fortress to trade them for it. Rygel had seen them descend in a massive elevator but they were never willing to leave their sterile enclosure. During their transactions there would always be a sheet of thick glass separating the buyers from the sellers and a gun pointed at anyone suspected of foul play. They weren't of any species he'd seen before. Bipedal, slender and tall with robotic voices and huge heads, although Rygel suspected those to be helmets. They made them look somewhat insectoid. They'd tap the glass with their long bony fingers and move them gracefully while they spoke, as if they were holding up a small pulsating and invisible ball of energy.
Rygel thought they could be Diagnosians but garbage would then indeed be a strange business for them to be dabbling in.
He could smell the pools of bitter oozing acid beneath it all. Every day the liquid was poured through the vents to help decompose the 'indigestibles': the pieces of junk that were too worthless to be sold. Slowly the compound would proceed to enter the air and consequently their lungs. The poisonous fumes polluted Rygel's royal nostrils and every time he took a breath he could taste a thousand different kinds of dren. One of them was distinctly Peacekeeper. The natives naturally sold their mouthpieces at a high price.
When Chiana found him stuffing his face she hit the back of his head with the dull back of her hand.
"There wasn't anything you liked anyway!" he tried to justify himself. The real reason of course being that he thought he could get away with it.
This long week had been spent taking care of her and following her around hoping she wasn't going to do anything foolish; or hurt herself or anyone else for that matter. He thought he might finally indulge himself this time and take care of his own needs for a change. Take pity on a tired old man...
"I tried calling you..."
"You should've called louder."
Yes, he was weak. He wasn't used to being the moral compass of the two. But ever since the casino planet everything was different. Chiana was different. He couldn't even believe she could be more volatile than she had been before. She couldn't even sit still for one microt!
He spat out the last rotten item he'd chewed on and followed her out into the open afraid of what she might do in anger, ignoring the warnings of his queasy stomachs. There he found his creditors ogling him from the other mountain. He'd almost forgotten their little arrangement. It reminded him to stay in the shadows and give in to his twitch of fear. Fear was healthy. Fear was good. It was what had his species become the dominant life form on his homeworld but the dominated in this one.
"Where are you going?" he bellowed after her. She was still angry at him. "You won't find any food there!"
"I don't care about the frelling food!" she yelled back, strutting away. Oh, he was going to regret this. He hovered after her.
"Don't strain yourself."
"You actually sound worried there for a microt, Ryg."
Off the beaten track, her feet would sometimes sink through the holes in the rubble. Last time she did she cut open her shin. Bandages didn't come cheap either.
"I'm protecting my investment," Rygel covered it up. The lie was poor and he knew it, but this made her appreciate it even more.
"Where are you going?" he asked. He had to follow her. Narrow chasms cut through the rusted landscape of ruined parts and spaceships. He didn't know where they lead. He hadn't explored them all. He didn't want to know what dangers would await them on the other side. He thought it best not to try his luck. Chiana insisted. He wondered how long she had been without sleep.
"There's gotta be a door around here somewhere."
"A door to where?"
His question was drowned out by the reverbating kick Chiana gave against a rusty metal grate that stood in their way. She didn't care about the pain or the fact that she almost fell over.
Rygel hissed at her. The sound was going to attract Rezzers.
"There's gotta be." (kick) "A way up to." (kick) "Command."
"Who says they even got a Command?" Rygel noted.
Kick.
"I do!"
The metal grate that had blocked their path had been bent enough for both of them to squeeze past. Chiana was slightly exhausted but proud of herself. She realized it was a pathetic victory, but it would do for now.
"Anything else you want to say to me?" she asked.
"No, because you wouldn't listen even if I did."
"That's great. You get me."
"I wish I didn't!"
Chiana had a death wish and he hoped desperately that it wasn't driving her today. It took him three days just to get her up and about again and two of those days were spent convincing her Madda Ceska was a friend. The old, batty nurse and slightly crooked woman spent arns treating Chiana's wounds and her every touch was torture to the girl. The crazy lady had spat in her wounds and had gripped her bruises, but certain parts of her body would always remain off limits. Chiana could turn into a right feral creature if she needed to.
"And do you remember what she said about the soldiers?"
"If you know I know, why remind me?"
"Someone has to."
The silence was a relief and a curse.
Finally, Chiana collapsed into a heap of tattered wiring. Savage grey heaved inside torn leather. He'd never seen her this tired before. Even her eyes looked different.
Then he remembered the bastards that did this to her were still out there.
"Yes, you're right," Rygel sighed, on the lookout for predators. "We should rest. At least for a while..."
He didn't know where she was headed but he knew that he would accompany her there the rest of the way. She wouldn't survive without him. He wouldn't survive without her. He had no choice.
"No," Chiana said. She couldn't stop herself shaking. "Don't be like this. Be your old self. You know?"
Rusty metal bulkheads groaned all around them under Chiana's weight. Rygel jerked his throne sled to a nervous standstill.
"Be the curmudgeon. Greedy. Hungry," she told him. "Obnoxious. What you're best at. I thought you were a Dominar!"
"I am...or at least I used to be..."
"So what are you waiting for? Yell at me! Complain and bitch about the smell. I know you want to."
"Chiana..."
"Just do it... I need it."
'Yell at her,' Rygel thought. He wondered whether he had the strength to even raise his voice. He feared that the whole mountain of filth would fall apart and come crumbling down like an avalanche at the slightest sound. Chiana was barely holding on. Nevertheless, he cleared his throat. He thought of his oration lessons as a child. He could've made a fine actor once.
"Get up...you...you lazy cow!" he yelled. He was never good at improvizing. He had most of his insults memorized for special occasions. It was different now that he didn't mean it.
"You're wasting precious time! And...and...I won't have any of it! So get up! Or I'll leave you to the Rezzers! I'll safely watch from a distance as they devour you whole! You hear me?"
He had to admit he got a little bit too carried away there, but she asked for it. For a moment there Rygel feared it didn't matter. He dreaded she'd given up, but it turned out fear had been the right incentive. For now.
"See?" Chiana said, pulling herself together. "That's all I needed. Just a kick up the backside. Helps everytime."
More lies. Every step she took across the mountains of metal rubble felt like a balancing act. Rygel knew Chiana couldn't keep this up long. He could tell she was still in great physical pain. Looking up from his hovering seat he felt guilty for not having to walk beside her the whole way.
Soon they found the hatch right where Madda Ceska told them it would be.
"Maybe the old woman wasn't that crazy after all," Chiana said, limping towards the hatch. Then they saw it had been welded shut ages ago. Time and rust had reclaimed it and there was nothing they could do.
"Frell!" Chiana was already yelling and circling angrily on the spot like a cart with a broken wheel. She was never known for her patience anyway.
'So much anger...' Rygel thought. That used to be him once. Chiana wasn't the only one that had changed. He couldn't help but scowl.
"Look, there's nothing here! If we go back now we can make it back to the Pod before the next shift! There's sure to be a mechanic or a welder or a scientist among these people capable of fixing that piece of dren and help us get the frell out of here!"
"Yeah," Chiana acknowledged. "Right...because they all can't wait to help a stranger along, especially free of charge."
"We've got currency. We could-"
"They don't care for money here, Ryg. You don't know this world. I do. The only thing they care about is respect. If you got the leverage then you got the power and the guy with the power calls all the shots. But the people down here are just small time crooks. They're frelling microscopic. We need to find the guys who really matter. The big league. The people who wield real power in this dump. Then all you need is one bullet and this whole world comes crashing down."
"Is that what we want? Is that what we're trying to do?"
"I don't know. Maybe."
She limped on, but Rygel wouldn't have called it courageous. She was desperate. For days she'd stared out into the dark, unable to sleep. He'd never seen her this on edge before.
She didn't have any answers, or questions, all they had was the cold facts of life. It was their own stupid fault for getting themselves into this mess.
"It's all Crichton's fault," Rygel said. He heard her give a faint chuckle before she kicked the hatch one last time.
Chiana jumped down the hill. Her mess of white hair stood in stark contrast to the surrounding blackened pulp of filth of which the mountains consisted. Roads had been flattened and crushed to allow cleaner access. Sometimes they'd find a skeleton amidst the field of debris.
"You don't have to follow me around all the time, Rygel," she shouted back. "You don't have to coddle me."
Rygel didn't want to point out the obvious and remind her what happened last time she tried taking care of herself. It took much effort to restrain his own vicious tongue and instead he scoffed silently.
It was a place not unlike this one in which they'd dumped her, Rygel surmised, when those bastards had finally finished their games. It took the impending threat of scouting bounty hunters for her to give up on her vengeance, not to mention the fact that the casino mobsters had the entire planet in their pocket. And so they ran with their tails between their legs, and not for the first time either.
Life goes on, in whatever frelling way it chooses to, and there's not much you can do about it. Not here anyway. Maybe if the others had been here, then maybe things could have been different. D'Argo would've stormed in with his Qualta Blade, Aeryn would've punched the guards out and Crichton would've been here for her. Someone should be. Now all she got was this old and selfish Hynerian. This delusional former Dominar. She deserved better.
She deserved to have her revenge. They all did. But they lost any chance of taking back what they stole from her the moment he told her to run. Because of his cowardice. His weaknesses.
Rygel wanted to apologize but he didn't want to bring it all up again. It had taken so long to even have her regain a semblance of who she used to be. Now there's just anger left. She used to be so powerful. She used to be in control. Ruler of over 600 billion subjects...
No, that was another life.
Finding her way back to the path proved more difficult than she expected. Rygel tried to give directions but she wouldn't have any of it. He could see a small settlement just over the next hill. There was smoke billowing up towards the grand ceiling.
"Anything dangerous?" Chiana asked. Something snapped under her boot.
"No," Rygel sighed. "Not yet anyway."
"Well, let's find it then. Poke it with a stick," she added.
"Chiana..."
She turned, annoyed. "What?"
He reached deep for his next breath.
"Come back," he said.
She twitched her neck at the words she didn't want to hear.
"No, not yet," she stammered. "You -you stay with the Pod. I'll be back."
"Chiana, please..."
"Don't. Just don't, okay? I can't...Not yet. You've got your demons and I got mine. We're not friends, remember? You don't need to take care of me. You're not my father!"
She put her hands to her head, first pressing her palms against her temples before hitting herself and hiding her tears.
"You know what? I don't need this right now."
And she just left to crawl down the hill on her own.
From that point on, he never spoke of it again.