Her finger circles the rim of the glass, the moisture from her last sip drying to an indignant squeak somewhere in the third rotation. The heated raslak is losing warmth to the chill of the room.
Aeryn downs the last swallow with a quick motion, the remaining heat moving down her throat to spread into her core. It so far hasn't succeeded in dulling her ire at having agreed to be here. So much for her vow. 'Never' apparently has a much shorter duration than she initially thought. It's her own fault, but that little tralk- She scrapes her scalp as she rakes her hand too hard through carelessly chopped dark hair and nods at the bartender to send over another round. Maybe this one will help.
Music wheezes from the antique sound system. A fire struggles at the other end of the room, the tiny heat source useless at this distance. Most of the patrons at this late arn seem to be regulars, except for the recruiters still conducting interviews in the shadows.
She got here just after the latest crush of rowdy new Peacekeeper recruits left the bar. Another batch of inexperienced, gullible locals lured by the promise of bonuses, spoils and suspiciously lucrative contracts. They won't collect on those promises. Every good war needs fresh bodies to devour.
Once the Peacekeepers bred their soldiers from within the purity of their population, raising children to continually supply the forces needed to maintain dominion of their space. Now they are scrambling to hold what they have and are not particular about those that help them do it.
She already secured two places in the special forces unit required for the more delicate and dangerous missions. Icarion company still means something in this corner of space and her more recent skills and those of her partner are well-known. Her past "irreversible contamination" is no longer a factor in such a mongrel army. It's a secondary purpose in being here, however. She would have gone elsewhere but she stupidly agreed to Chiana's latest request to meet.
She's not sure why she came. There is nothing Chiana can say to change her mind, but she promised something new. Aeryn knows better. What can be new after all this time? The old scar healed, long ago. Yet here she is: a bad-ass Peacekeeper who can't say no to a tralk. She should have honored her vows to herself. There's what was, and there's what is. Chiana has no words to alter that.
Chiana must have found the destination a challenge; she is late. Aeryn can't help the incipient smirk skulking at the corner of her mouth. She threw out as many obstacles as she could, intentionally setting the location at the farthest, most dangerous edge of the fighting. Negotiating those obstacles is the price she requires Chiana to pay for this meeting. Perhaps Chiana thought better of it and decided not to come after all. Aeryn firmly squashes the pang that bubbles beneath the cautious rush of relief, crushing it like a tiny soul-bound insect.
"Hey." The scruffy lump of a man at the table next to hers; a spectacularly inconsequential example of a miner or port laborer; one of the horde of cheap and expendable drones hired to serve the more valuable machines of a war-time planet. He must be tired of simply staring at her by now and is too drunk to recognize annihilation sitting next to him. It may be time to reacquaint him.
"You a merc?" He eyes her, assessing her appearance, sense and caution eroded along with his sobriety. He apparently forgot in his inebriated fog that laws are a merely a suggestion in such a far-flung world. The Peacekeepers won't waste time policing his stratum of the population.
"Are you hiring?" She pins him with her own stare and twitches her hand closer to her holster. It's not fair to bait him, but it's Chiana's fault. She needs to do something with the hot song of her blood and Chiana is late.
"Jus' bein' social. You and your frien' so quiet; you can't be whores. Can you?" He jerks his chin the robed and hooded figure next to her at her table.
The rage coiled in her gut squeezes, fangs sink deeper. A blur and she is standing over him, her gun jammed up under his jaw. His eyes pop, reddened and bulbous. He lifts a shaking hand, suddenly much more sober than a microt ago.
"Does that," she breathes silkily, "feel like sex?" The gun rises and falls on the wave of muscles in his neck as he convulsively swallows.
"Nah, nah-– no offense meant," he gasps. "I was jus'- I was jus' curious." The gun doesn't ease. Sweat trickles down his neck, soaks into his collar.
"Please," he whispers. He swallows again, carefully. He utters a soft, low-pitched moan. "Please."
It feels good to let the brute loose and ride the wild rush. It's what's gotten her through: this moment, and this, and this. She parses out grief and deposits a tiny core of hurt into each microt, releasing them in serial precision as the cycles unwind.
The bartender catches Aeryn's attention and shakes his head slightly, pleading silently. "Last round, soldier. You want any more?"
"No." The bartender is just trying to eke out an existence here, with rotgut booze and worse music. Bad choice, this planet. She lets the hot cords wrapping her loosen and melt. Her gun remains pressed against the grot's throat for another beat, then falls away and slides back into the holster. "No more."
The grot bolts for the door, moving faster than a man who's been drinking up his pay chit has a right. The bartender sighs heavily and grimaces as the door snaps shut behind him.
"Put his drinks and and an extra hundred credits for your trouble on my tab."
The bartender nods, grateful. He pours two drinks and and brings them to her on a tray.
"Compliments of your thankful host," he says, setting the raslaks in front of her and her companion. "That almost went bad. Thanks for not shooting up my establishment."
"I shouldn't have lost my temper." It wasn't worth it. It did nothing to ease the fire. There is still plenty to spare for Chiana. Not really Chiana's fault though. Aeryn could have chosen an easier location and this would be over by now. She should have just said no.
She sips the raslak, the burn in the back of her throat sharper than it was before. Her host gave her his cheapest distillation, but you can't look a gift keedva in the mouth.
"My thanks." She sips again. The glass before her companion is untouched.
"Drink," she murmurs. A gloved hand grips the glass and lifts it up under the hood, returns it to the table drained.
The bar crowd is thinning. Most of the remaining patrons are either too drunk or too lonely to leave without encouragement. There are only a few tables of Sebaceans and a single Delvian.
The Delvian– so long since she's seen one, delicate shades of turquoise and teal patterning blue skin. Blue. Big Blue, John used to call her. She takes a quick breath and it cuts, like a Kentoan blade in her ribs. Zhaan should never have saved her. This living death is so much slower and more painful than the frozen drowning from which Zhaan gave her life to revive her.
The server is making a pass through the room to take final orders and clear tables. Soon the bar will close and this fiasco will end. This is the last time she will ever agree to a meeting with Chiana.
Acrid ash drifts and catches on Chiana's lashes, frosts her white hair with grey, piles into ephemeral epaulets on D'Argo's shoulders. It fills their footprints, erasing where they've been and fades them deeper into the darkness of the rickety night-time town.
The sky is close with the few stars spun here to the edge of the galaxy: astral points piercing a Suvalean velvet cloth hung with banners of smoke from the refineries puffing in the distance. There is no other light on the street. The people of the town have no credits for luxuries such as street lighting. The war gobbled the fat and is now gnawing into bone.
Chiana doesn't want to be here, but they paid ridiculous bribes for passage documentation they wouldn't need if it weren't for this thing she can't let go. She's so tired, tired of hunting Aeryn, tired of her unchanging answer, tired of the inevitable rounding back to the beginning where it all starts again. She just wants to put it down and have Moya take her far, far away.
D'Argo stalks at her side, brooding. He's been brooding for twenty cycles now, without any apparent change on the horizon. They had their bad times, sure – who hasn't, but after it happened something shifted in his psyche or was burned out; she could never tell which. He never recovered who he was. It diminished him in some ways; he rarely smiles and never laughs. But he is good- patient and kind. She never asks him if he is happy now, this somber man he's become. She is afraid of the answer. It might somehow trigger hyper-rage again.
He carried his fury unsheathed, in thrall to the power of it. Moya became a battleground as D'Argo hunted them like prey. Shouts and blows rang through Moya's corridors until they forced him into his quarters and Pilot locked him in, promising release when he could regain control.
While D'Argo howled, confined in his quarters to recover or go mad, thoughts started scratching on the inside of Chiana's skull; the barest tickle but unrelenting. Soon they grew thick into a night vine, insinuating itself through every synapse, squeezing out independent will, binding her to a single thought: She would find Aeryn. She would fix it. It would all be okay.
The others slipped away one by one, driven to escape the pall that hung over the ship as D'Argo battled for self-control. Jool was first to go, her hair burning an after-image on Chiana's retinas. Rygel was next, snurching most of the food and all of the marjools as well as the royal yacht, as he called the long-range transport pod he took from Moya's small fleet.
She thought Crais would stay. He made space for her while D'Argo was so broken, testing on her the strength and sensitivity he learned through his bond with Talyn. He allowed her to help him with Talyn's care, teaching her to gently ease the ship's components into place, smiling as she cooed nonsense for Talyn's amusement.
He distracted her from the insistent thoughts clamoring for her attention, telling stories of heroic combat she was sure he embellished. He suffered her teasing with silent resignation, delighting her when she managed to coerce an arched brow. She stood with him on Moya's terrace, the ex-Peacekeeper captain and the Nebari tralk, tucked under his arm as they shared the stars. Almost all the people she ever cared about were gone and now she was losing him too.
"Let this go," he said to Chiana, as she perched on the ladder at his prowler deck for her final farewell. "It is futile. I know about futility, Chiana. You will ruin your life, no matter the outcome of this pursuit."
"I-I have to try. I can't explain it. I wish.." The rest of the words stuck before they reached her throat.
"Find a way." He cupped her cheek, stroking it with his thumb the way Crichton did in another lifetime. "It will consume you."
He searched for any shift that would indicate a change of will and sighed when she lifted her chin to a stubborn angle.
"I wish you well on your path, Chiana. I hope you find what you're looking for. I hope it finally gives you peace."
She abruptly wrapped her arms around his shoulders, leaned her head against his jaw. He stiffened, then relaxed, patting her bony shoulder blade with an awkward hand.
"You should have said yes," she breathed as she slid away, flashing an impish grin to hide the hurt.
Rueful amusement lit his eyes, as dark as hers.
"I would never have left."
He turned quickly, but not quickly enough to hide the glint of sudden moisture. Then he punched the button that closed the prowler canopy and blasted away to Talyn. He never returned.
The search for Aeryn has been her consuming obsession for more than half her life, but the idea was never hers. Stark hasn't spoken since he returned alone to Moya, but every few cycles he turns that thousand metra gaze on her and lifts his mask to bombard her with thoughts of what was and what should be. They take root and twine through her mind, constricting and strangling until she can think of nothing else. As much as she longs to forget.
She's never told D'Argo it's Stark who triggers the compulsion that chains their lives to the past. She doesn't want his death on her conscience. She owes Zhaan at least that much.
"Say it," Chiana says flatly as they near their destination. "I'm tired of you sulking like a constipated flibisk."
"It won't make any difference." The Luxan growls just about everything, his voice rusted by cycles of disuse. Speech hasn't been necessary. There's no need to speak when a gesture will convey a thought, long familiarity decrypts symbols into understanding.
He's not sure when they stopped sleeping together. It's not that he doesn't love Chiana, or that his desires are any less. It's more that she's become part of him, like another set of arms and an extra brain. They function so much the same that it's easy to think of her as an extension of himself in another body.
They have their differences, of course. He would have left the Banik at a care facility cycles ago, but Chiana fought him, grey fists beating her denial on his chest, grey tears limning her cheeks. He never understood why; all he knew was she wanted it. So Stark stayed, meditating in Zhaan's old quarters, lost in the spirit world.
There are times, though, when it's been long enough for him to feel comfortable again, he will turn a corner to find Stark standing in the middle of the corridor, a faint glow escaping from the edge of his battered mask. He fixes him with the fahrbot stare that makes D'Argo's stomach drop; question every action he's ever taken, all the choices he should have made.
And this. Always this. He's so tired of his life being driven by that solar day. A cycle or two will pass and he'll think it's finally over, then he notices the the anxious set of Chiana's muscles, the deepening crease between her brows that indicates the beginning of the obsession grabbing hold again. It's why the others left. They were unwilling to spend their futures on the past.
That's not true. It's unworthy to even think it. It's his fault they left. He lost himself that day, surrendering to the storms sweeping through him, the sweet, blind lust of consuming fury coursing through every cell. He was sick with it, the hunger; the hugeness of being sometimes so encompassing that his thoughts went black and he descended to a primitive place.
His howls and the heavy thump of his fists on his locked chamber door shuddered the corridors. His fingers bled from wrestling the grille, the cuts showing the white of bone. He swore death pacts against all of them, screaming vows to hunt them down and drink their blood if he ever got free.
He slept where he dropped when his energy was exhausted, too spent even to find the comfort of his bed. Moya sang to him then, his chamber floor vibrating with her voice, rising up to bathe and enfold him in her gentle strength. When he woke he would rage again, but she persisted, singing of communion with the stars, the delight of limitless space, her love for her troubled son. She cocooned him in light and peace, easing and rebuilding his soul.
Slowly he remembered who he was, his warrior's code. Long monens later Pilot unlocked his door and he walked free, his passions again under his control. Such consuming indulgence must be balanced, though; his code demanded a sacrifice. For every action there is an opposite reaction- along with his rage he forfeit his joy.
The others were gone when he was released. Sometimes he privately wishes he could leave too and find his own place; if not of peace at least of acceptance, but he's mired in inertia. 'A body at rest,' Crichton once explained.
He's been at rest far too long, locked down with Chiana, Pilot and Moya. And there was no point in leaving after Jothee died on Fe'ma-al; blood-price for a war-blasted moon neither side cares about anymore. His reason to find a home was buried with his son.
The buildings squat; stolid, black-eyed beasts that watch Chiana flow through their streets, D'Argo flanking her. The few windows still lit are in taverns and whorehouses; luxuries in a place that can't afford necessities. Still, customers crowd their doors; those who need to forget their lives for a few moments and pretend there are good times.
They stop at a shack the same as the others, identified only by the coordinates and the shreds of a tapestry Aeryn said would be hung by the door. D'Argo hesitates as Chiana starts to enter.
"You coming?" Her feather-light hair is white again now she's brushed away the cap of ash. She peers up at him, and for a moment he sees the girl in the cant of her head, the sway of her body. She's impetuous and cunning and vivid with life. The weight of who he became ebbs for a moment, and he remembers who he was when he first loved her.
"I'll wait here." The growl is gone, the tightness in his throat momentarily softened. He takes a guard position by the door and pulls his blade, holding it easy by his side.
"It's been cycles. She can't still feel that way," Chiana dismisses, tugging on his arm. "Come on, you'll see."
He snorts. "It's Aeryn. She still feels that way. It will be better if I wait here."
She plucks at his sleeve then slips her hand into his. Now that the moment is here, again, she's procrastinating. "I..I'm scared, D'Argo. No matter what happens, it... it will hurt."
He smiles briefly and gives her a hug, tender and amused all at once. He lifts her chin, and brushes away a bit of ash she missed on her nose. Crichton's quips still pop into his mind, even after all this time.
"That's why we make the big bucks, baby."
The smell hits Chiana first; the dry air is rank with the esters of sweated laborers crusted with the inescapable ash. Rin-tinny music underscores the low barroom hum. It takes a moment to adjust to the light of the room after the dense darkness outside.
There they are; at a table near the back entrance. It's a strategic position, with unobstructed lines of sight to all entrances and set a little away from the other tables with ample room to swing or draw. Of course.
"Closing in a quarter arn," the bartender calls. "You have time for one quick round."
"I'll have a fellip nectar." She stops at the bar for her drink, feeling Aeryn glare bore into her as she waits. Her heart does a double flip and sinks to her feet. The truth is Chiana has nothing new to bring to the table, even though she promised otherwise.
She ran out of arguments cycles ago, each launch meticulously shot down one by one. All she has today are recycled pleas she's waxed and polished in the hope that something changed in Aeryn after all this time. It's been so long; she must be ready to listen now. The double-barrel stare drilling her back informs her she was mistaken.
It's hard to turn and take those last steps to Aeryn's table with her pulse beams now directed into Chiana's face instead of her ignorant back but she moves resolutely and flashes a quick smile.
Aeryn's beauty is sharper than it was, her angles and planes honed, hardened; her hair hacked helmet-short to a dench or so. Her curves have worn away to muscle and bone, and the grey sheen - yeah, it's Mactang armor, custom sculpted to closely fit her spare form. Only the leetest of the elite wear Mactang. The company requires a Delf 10 survivability rating before they will invest the time to grow it.
The robed figure next to Aeryn makes Chiana's stomach clench and the smooth words she so carefully crafted startle and fly out of her head. Her tongue turns to wet clay in her mouth. It's her move, though. She has to say something.
"Aeryn, hey, it's-it's good to see you, It's been, what: four cycles? Wow, Mactang armor! That must've cost a lot!" Her nervous energy runs down and out and she sputters to a stop. Yeah, say something. Just not that.
Silence. More silence. Aeryn doesn't invite her to sit. She appears to be cataloging every twitch and tic Chiana's body betrays. She wonders if she got all of the ash out of her hair and wishes like hezmana she were anyplace else.
The glass of fellip nectar chills her hand, condensation making it slick. She takes a quick swallow; another microt stolen to give her time to regroup.
Aeryn arches a brow and leans back from the table. Chiana imagines it's to give her better access to the pulse gun crouched on her thigh. Her breath snags in her throat.
"You're here. Tell me why I'm here." Aeryn's voice is paper-dry, ready to ignite.
"I-I-I... uh..." All of her words are gone now, disintegrated in the blast of Aeryn's gaze. She gropes quickly for others, but as much as she shuffles through her mind, she can only come up with three.
"H-how... how is he?"
There. She found some words, and provocative words too. Lead with the punch. That should give her points on the cosmic tally.
There are now other unnamed components mixed into the simmering fury, tempering the mix and cooling the fire. Aeryn takes a sip of her drink and crosses her arms, regarding her narrowly.
Chiana steps a cautious pace closer to the robed figure. Aeryn is still, so she sets her glass on the table, raises the hood and lifts the unresisting head.
Blank blue eyes focus on a point in space about two denches to the right of Chiana's shoulder. Grey streaks his brown hair and it's long; bound sleek into a Peacekeeper queue. Even beneath his robe, she can see he is still strong, his chest and back broad. Age is creeping up on him, though, short-lived Human; softening his jaw, scribing his skin with a pattern of fine web. There aren't many cycles left for him to be strong.
The puckered, spidery scar at his temple long ago faded to white. It's fainter than she remembers, but still jags a thin line down the right side of his face almost past his ear. The medic was competent but indifferent, and didn't take time for the niceties of aesthetics.
Tears coat her throat. She takes a slow breath. She won't cry in front of Aeryn. She promised herself this last time Stark damned her with her memories, as fresh and raw as the day they were made. She drives her nails into her palm to distract herself from the persistent ache.
"Crichton." Her voice quavers despite her best effort at control. "It's me. It's Chiana."
Crichton raises his head in response to his name. His vacant gaze touches her for a moment, and then slides off to focus again on the point near her shoulder.
"He can't understand you." A clipped monotone, spiked with irritation.
"I know, but I hoped-"
"There is no hope." Aeryn cuts her off. She rubs her forehead and squeezes her eyes shut, then open with a grimace.
"What is it, Chiana? Why have you come? Why are we going through these motions again?" Her voice is brittle, her jaw tight.
"We- ah... I-I have some credits now; a lot. I found some customers for- for things they might have a hard time getting. Special things."
"You're smuggling. Probably weapons. That is not new."
"It's a lot of currency. There's plenty to take care of Crichton. There's enough for everybody. You can both come and live in peace." Chiana hears her mistake as soon as she says it.
"I'm not looking for peace. I am a warrior."
Her automatic response, wrapped in her personal identity and flung like a weapon. Aeryn the warrior, more comfortable chasing death in her Mactang armor than facing the messiness of life. Aeryn won't quit until she finally ends up on the wrong side of a frag cannon. There is more than one way to run away.
Crichton, though. He's changed in the last four cycles. He's become tattered, his vitality eroding away.
"Look at him, Aeryn! How long has it been since you've really seen him? You've been dragging him around for so many cycles and nothing's changed."
A swirl of memories loops around her again: Aeryn, radiant, illuminated by her brilliant smile.
"Look at you." She can't integrate that image of Aeryn with the monolith of veralium she's become. "You keep holding onto this shadow and it's killing you inside. Crichton wouldn't want this."
Impulsively she touches Aeryn's arm.
A hair-triggered, highly proficient killer looks venom at Chiana, clutches the grip of the pulse pistol.
"Do not," she grits, "presume on the past."
It hits hard, and she pulls her hand back slowly. She told D'Argo it would hurt, but secretly she thought if she could find the right combination of words, she could unlock the commando exterior and find the Aeryn of her youth, simply hidden under all that shielding. Despite what happened. She thought if Aeryn understood it was she, Chiana, asking-
"Yeah. Sure. S-sorry."
It's a visible effort for Aeryn to compose herself, release the tension in her body. She takes a deep breath, exhaling through her nose. The Rentin steel gaze fixes on her again, cold and clear.
There must be a phrase that will convince Aeryn to see reason, some science of words that will make it all clear. There has to be. She can't fail again. She doesn't have another round of this in her.
"Let me take Crichton. He's Human. He won't be able to fight this war much longer."
"It was my decision. Crichton is my responsibility." Aeryn is a Gammak base, impenetrable.
The last patrons are finishing their drinks and paying their bills. The Delvian bumps Chiana and mumbles apologies as he stumbles to the back door. The four remaining Sebaceans huddled in the corner hurriedly exchange contract tokens and disperse through the front.
The time remaining before the bar closes can be counted in breaths. Aeryn will slip away again, her chance gone. Probably for good this time. Her fists bunch, hard knots of frustration.
"Aeryn, please! Let us help you! D'Argo and me-"
"D'Argo?" Aeryn seizes his name. "Oh yes, D'Argo wants to help. Just like he did when it happened. I was barely able to stop him in time!" Aeryn is on her feet, face contorted, voice bouncing off the bare tavern walls. The bartender edges into the store room, a veteran of shouting soldiers in his bar.
She grips the pulse pistol so hard she vibrates, every muscle locked. Hope crashes around Chiana, the failure of her last imagined protection leaving her exposed and weak. There are no angles left. She grasps for Crichton's shoulder to steady herself.
He's solid to her touch. Whatever essence of him that still clings to his abandoned body radiates through her fingers, lends her strength. She is wrapped again into one of his encompassing hugs, running breathless and laughing as he chases her through Moya's corridors, standing side by side with him, locked and loaded. She lets the rest of her useless defenses fall.
"Would it really have been such a bad thing if you didn't?" She says it almost tenderly. The tears she promised herself she would smother escape her control. "You made a mistake. You've paid for it so many cycles. How much are you supposed to bear?"
Aeryn crumbles and drops to the chair, limbs scattered like sticks. The passage of cycles don't matter. For Aeryn, it's still that same solar day.
"It was my error." Her voice rolls low. "My fault. There will never be too much to bear."
"Entering the wormhole in ten microts, on my mark." Crichton's measured voice over the command carrier comms held the Peacekeeper crew transfixed. Scorpius' primary objective, the ability to create wormholes on demand, seemed to be nearing culmination. The monens they spent modifying the carrier were paying off.
"Check your drag coefficient, Crichton." Co-Kura replied, tension rising.
Aeryn hitched the coil of rope higher on her shoulder and wove her way through her former crew mates, their attention locked on the mission broadcast. Most of them would ignore her anyway. Irreversibly contaminated. She still didn't want them to die. If all went well, most of them would survive. If.
Their intent was to destroy the wormhole research, but Crichton discovered that the command carrier had been converted into an amplifier, enhancing the wave to call wormholes like obedient beasts. Destroying just the data would not solve the problem. The only way to sabotage the research was to destroy the carrier.
Crais presented his final plan simply. There was no discussion. Even with Commandant Grayza's imminent return slashing the project schedule and reducing their available time to mere solar days, Aeryn trusted the thoroughness of his analysis, the quality of his judgment.
Crais found nothing in the command carrier specifications they could weaponize to achieve the needed result. They had no other resources and time was short. There was only one solution available. It demanded his sacrifice and that of Talyn to implode the carrier: starburst in the enclosed dock bay.
Like all of their plans, there was a lot of dependency on luck and little chance of survival. She would help Crais defeat Talyn's guards to give him access to the ship. After, she would find the gaol to release D'Argo, Chiana, Jool and Rygel, many decks and corridors away. The escape pods were keyed only to command carrier personnel, so there was no ready transport for the Moya crew once they were released. D'Argo could call Lo'Laan for rescue, but the dock bays would be in chaos with the cascading implosion. Outgoing would trump incoming.
At least most of the fifty thousand carrier crew had a chance. There were enough escape pods for all of them. If they could get to the pods they would live. Those that didn't make it-First steps first, though.
The flight deck was relatively empty, the few techs working were too involved in their own activities to notice her. Talyn's guards were positioned at the other approach, their orders focused on Crais. Her destination was the service tier above the flight deck, to wait in the shadows until Crais signaled attack.
The ladder to the service tier was just a few steps from Talyn. She stopped for a moment and murmured a greeting. He was a beautiful construction of sleek curves and elegant points, his mirror surface hashed by the fine dust of space. She ran her hands over his shield plating, stealing a final moment with him.
She gave much to be part of his life; accepting the intrusion of the neural implant thrust into her spine, permitting his thoughts to whorl through hers. It was intimate; even with his troubled behavior it created an unexpected depth of union, of trust. She loved him. She would not abandon him now.
"Talyn, Crais will be here in a moment. He has an important mission; you must do as he instructs. Remember: before you complete his instructions, set a course for Moya. Before, Talyn."
It had to be enough. She stroked his surface one last time and climbed to the service tier overhead.
Latticed struts supported the service tier and the command deck above it. She played out the rope, tied it off to a cross bar and tested her weight against it. Her knot held strong. She wrapped the rope around her hands, wishing for the gloves she left in her quarters. There was no time now.
"Our sensor readings are starting to oscillate. Crichton, we're detecting rantaflux." Co-Kura's voice escalated, the comms sounding through the ship. "We are approaching a zone of possible instability."
"We've got a little problem." Crichton voice cut back, still calm over the ratcheting background noise.
There, on the other side of the flight deck. Crais, taut and precise, strode toward Talyn. Guards surrounded him; the pinch-faced officer leading them was sultry with anticipation. Aeryn took one more wrap of rope and locked her arms.
Crais tossed a mini-grenade- the signal. She bent her knees and kicked off, swinging her legs forward to increase her momentum. The rope burned across her palms. She slammed her feet in the backs of two of the guards, driving them into nearby storage cubes and dropped to the deck as Crais knocked out the remaining guards with a confiscated rifle.
"We are stabilizing." Crichton announced. The background noise mellowed.
Crais stood among the downed guards, resolute. It was time. There wasn't much left she could give him.
"Always plan to live. I believe my captain said that."
He snorted softly, a small smile tugging his lips. "Wise captain. Troops going into battle need hope. But even with hope, sometimes there is only one possible outcome."
"You said there was a point zero nine percent chance that Talyn could escape the confines of the dock bay."
"Point zero nine one."
She stepped close, holding him with her gaze. It was the best support she could offer; honoring his intent, one soldier to another.
"Then listen to me. Do your job. Complete your mission. And come home."
She cupped his face for a moment, looking deep. He was unflinching.
"Now you go," she said with a light slap and turned away.
Success in destroying the command carrier didn't equate to success of the mission. The wormhole research had no single root they could kill. Other facilities were already online and duplicating the data the Peacekeeper research team collected before Crichton got involved.
They ran as they always did. Moya and Talyn starburst to hide in the emptiness of the sparsely-lit neutral sector, beyond Peacekeeper control. Crichton wanted them to take their chances in a more distant part of the galaxy, but it was the tether of a chance to go home that bound the others to more familiar stars. No one wanted to accept, as Crichton finally did, the fact that the brewing war would follow them wherever they went. Moya was home now.
Wanted beacons proliferated throughout the region, promising a dominar's ransom for Crichton. The loss of Scorpius' command meant nothing to his primary objective. He was still determined to mine the wormhole knowledge from Crichton any way he could.
The poison moon washed them in green, the glow of the nearby city bilious. Spiked vegetation shot spires into the sky and traced shadow spears on the ground. Plant detritus was a weightless, rotting swirl around their boots. A fetid odor of decay hung in the thin air.
Aeryn glanced back. Crichton was at her shoulder, long habit dictating his position. His teeth gleamed, shadow and verdigris; his eyes were masked in void. Crais was at his side, half eclipsed by the Human. They moved together as a unit, their rhythm clean.
It felt good; the simple flow, the effortless balance of act and react. No thought involved, just movement. Step, hesitate, listen.
They stopped at the edge of the clearing; Crichton's breath huffed on her bare neck. His warmth woke the fine hairs sparking a quicksilver circuit between nipples and groin; the unwelcome instinctive response that recognized him as John.
She couldn't escape him, this golem that wore John's clothes and spoke with his voice. He was always there, relentless hope barely restrained. The want simmered in his glances, in his cautious words. Just seeing him reopened the raw scar, dark tendrils rising to weave a tight cage, squeezing her lungs. The act of breathing became an effort, the air thick and viscous like syrup. She should be rebuilding her life without him, salting her feelings away into cherished memory.
Instead every solar day was a fresh experience of knife-edged loss instigated by this pretender who lived, still lived, frell him, in John's place. It was worse when her rebuffs hit him; hard like pulse fire, the wound blooming in his every line. She was sorry to hurt him but but she didn't know how to treat him gently. She had too much of her own pain to deal with his.
John was dead; a hero, but what good did being a hero do if he saved everything but himself? Stupid fah-pu-tah, calling attention to himself with the Ancients, getting himself killed, leaving her alone after promising her more. All she had left was the copy, this insufficient, needy copy who haunted her steps and stole her peace. He didn't understand: he couldn't be anything else. He was missing what was essential.
She raised the viewer to bring the Traskan camp into focus. An angular ship; sharp lines and acute corners, stooped in a clearing in the spike-branched vegetation. The cargo bay was open, hatch retracted. Crates and containers were stacked near the opening. A wild-haired man leaned against the hull, his foot propped on the ramp as he played a shilquen; bas relief in the cargo bay lights.
The camp was a model of peace, but something felt wrong. Some niggling detail she couldn't identify launched her internal warning system. They should leave now before the trading crew saw them.
"I don't like this." She didn't need to look to know Crichton was chewing on his thumb, the old mannerism as much a part of his DNA as it was of John's.
"I agree. There should be more activity. " Crais lifted his own viewer, panning slowly in an arc around their position. "Their leader said they were trading here tonight. There should be other customers."
"That music doesn't help. It sounds like a dying bullfrog." Crichton paused. He wanted her to ask about bullfrogs, but she already knew. His long exhalation a moment later told her he knew now too.
"I only see one trader." She flipped the viewer to register heat signatures and scanned the camp again. The propulsion system glowed yellow on her display, the Hetch drive still cooling. Two smaller readings registered in the main section of the ship, motionless. "How many of them were there?"
"It's a three person vessel. They had a full complement."
"We should call it and go elsewhere," she muttered. There was nothing visible that should make her uncomfortable, but the feeling persisted; a sarbien burr working itself under the edge of her psyche.
"There are no other suitable star systems in ten million metras," Crais said. "We are out of food. We'll starve before we can reach another."
"Food is easy to buy in the city. We can get weapons and med supplies later."
"Jool needs jixit root. It's not available through standard channels and her supply is exhausted. She also wants to try Traskan fyang powder. And our armory is almost empty; just a couple of pulse rifles. The burster needs parts."
"I know, but this reminds me of that time-"
"It does me as well-"
"Guys." Crichton broke in. "Enough with the Talyn Club code. I'm right. Fucking. Here." The carefully neutral look Crichton shot her wouldn't register as hurt to Crais, but she knew better.
Aeryn exchanged a glance with Crais. His comment was unspoken, but cycles of serving in his command, their shared experience of the link with Talyn made it understood.
"I'll go to talk to them." She holstered her gun. "Cover me."
"Uh uh, Batgirl. I'm going with you." Crichton took a step closer to her, increasing his distance from Crais. His unsubtle physicality was lost on no one.
"Crais can go-" she began.
"It would be best for Crichton to go." Crais stopped her. "They haven't seen either of you yet. It will prove there are more than just two who have the location of their camp."
It was a way to give Crichton a reason to accompany her, and an oblique request for acceptance. Crais was conscientious in keeping his promise to take care of them. She never imagined that promise would include John's copy.
"Agreed." She had to get past this. She couldn't keep avoiding him and there was no point in making an issue now. Just do it and get out.
"Crais should guard from here anyway. He's a better long-range shot than me. I'll make the deal. You make sure nothing jumps us."
Crichton stepped out, arms stretched open and smiling easily, his coat swinging wide to show the holstered pistol. She was at his elbow, surveying the area, scrutinizing the man on the ship. Butch and Sundance.
"Hey buddy, righteous jam. Where can I get the CD?"
"More Peacekeepers." The Traskan put his shilquen aside and rose. "Where is your captain? He said he wanted to trade for supplies."
"The captain is busy. We're his authorized representatives, fully empowered to buy shit for our ship."
"As long as you have currency, I don't care if you're authorized or not. If you're buying, we're selling."
"Let's see the merchandise then. We've got a boat to catch."
A slight breeze rustled, brushing her cheek like fingertips.
"Less is more then more is not." The words hovered just at her lowest level of hearing. She rubbed the back of her neck and looked around again, her internal alert a klaxon.
The Traskan gave her a knowing smile. The crescent of another eyelid glowed nascent on his forehead. "Come this way, please."
"Crichton, we are not going into that ship." She didn't bother to drop her volume.
"True dat. Bring your stuff out here. Everything looks better in moonlight."
The crewman grumbled but brought a crate out to the ramp. He pulled out something long, black and deadly.
"Now this," Crichton took the rifle from the man and sighted down the barrel, "looks like it will make a very satisfying hole."
The air was warm. A sweet, drowsy scent enveloped her and she shook her head, trying to clear it.
"By contagion mortal taught." Slightly louder, a sing-song tenor tapping rhythmically on her eardrum. Crichton apparently didn't hear it, still intent on the rifle. Aeryn dropped a few steps behind him, though she could identify no specific direction as the origin of the voice. It sounded as if someone spoke from just denches away.
"Two were one in soul and thought, beneath the radiant sun."
Her skin crawled. The voice was familiar, the words seemed to be intended just for her. She glided toward the edge of the circle of cargo bay light, her pulse gun jumping unnoticed into her grip. There was no movement in the dim vegetation. She glanced back at Crichton, still occupied with weapons.
"What other shiny things have you got?" Crichton gave the trader his guileless smile while perusing the depths of the cargo hold. The trader hefted a bigger, multi-barreled affair and offered it to him.
"These were just obtained recently; the same ones now being used by Peacekeeper elite forces. The most significant feature is the biogenic intelligent targeting system..."
He was safe for the moment. Crais was guarding them from the fringe of the clearing anyway. She needed to find the voice and eliminate this threat so specifically knowledgeable about her.
"Love is lost but still remains, until at last it's lost again."
"Who are you? How do you know me?" She moved further, out of the light into shadow and searched in the tall foliage at the far edge of the clearing, her gun held low in front of her. A fleshy tendril snapped against her cheek, the lash hot. She hissed and wiped away a wet line, black on her fingertips in the moonlight.
A low chuckle followed her, warm and fruity. So close. She should be able to touch him.
"Hard hides sorrow, loss and pain, within the radiant sun."
"Aeryn?"
Crichton's voice snapped her back into herself. Dren, how had she gotten here? At the edge of the clearing; so much more than the three or four paces she thought she took from guarding him. He looked small on the ramp, his face an indistinct cipher at this distance. Cold congealed into a lump in her stomach.
"Pretty-pretty. I'm sorry. You won't feel it." The trader on the cargo bay ramp raised a rifle and took aim at her. Aeryn was already in motion in a heedless dash toward the ship.
"No!" Crichton dove for him but the man lifted the rifle and jammed the butt of it hard to the side. There was a loud, hollow thump as he connected with Crichton's skull. Crichton crashed to the ramp with a grunt as the man vanished, leaving Crichton alone on the ship.
He lay wan and still, loosely heaped on the cargo ramp. So far away. A wave of shock mired her feet, sticky and unyielding. The moment lengthened, stretched as she fought to move.
"Crais!" Her lungs demanded more air than she could suck in, her voice weak without support.
Crichton's lids were half-closed, gaze fixed. Nonono. Not this. Not again. She fell to her knees next to him, the pain of metal striking bone distant and unimportant. Her hand was an alien thing that fumbled to find the pulse in his throat. The steady throb promised more, and she released the breath her body held for her.
"John. Wake up, John." She touched gently where the rifle struck him. His hair was wet and her fingers came away with a bright red smear.
Crais stumbled to them, lip split and gun drawn. "I was assaulted as well. Where are they?"
"I don't know. The trader attacked us, then vanished." John's skin shone with a film of moisture, skin clammy to her touch. "He's still out."
Crais backed a step to the wall of the cargo bay to cover both the interior and exterior of the ship. "Traskan mind-twisters. They edit our perceptions. We are too exposed here, Aeryn. We have to move him."
"Until at last it's lost again." Then a giggle.
"Face me and say that." Aeryn swung her pistol around, searching for a target.
Laughter erupted around them, hooting and jeering. The trader reappeared next to Crais, snaggled teeth filling a wide grin, gun pressing against Crais' ribs.
"Surprises can be a frellwak, neh?"
The man was standing over her, next to Crais. She wouldn't get a better opportunity. She locked her fingers and shot a pantak jab into the man's crotch. He doubled-over with an agonized gasp. Crais slammed his rifle into the back of the man's head, taking him the rest of the way to the deck.
"Agreed. A frellwak." The flint of his tone weighted cold satisfaction.
The fruity voice chuckled again, surrounding them. "We don't need to hurt either of you. Just leave John Crichton and you both can walk away."
"We could hurt them a little," a different voice confided slyly.
"We have one of yours. We'll give him to you and all of us will walk away." Aeryn hovered over John, pulse gun leveled to support Crais' cover.
The trader on the deck groaned and Crais helped him back to unconsciousness with an accommodating kick to the head.
"He is irrelevant." Amusement lilted the first voice. "Kill him. One less share to distribute."
"Yes, kill him," the second voice crowed gleefully.
They sounded so close. Crais caught her eye; she blinked assent.
"Then we are at a stalemate." Crais announced. "Regrettably, we have no time for negotiation."
They laid down a carpet of pulse fire, brightening the peaked moonlight with gold and red.
It was cold; medical facilities are always cold. Crichton lay on a holographic imaging table at one side of the room, his bare arms prickled by gooseflesh. Chiana clutched his hand, rubbing it repetitively. The rest of them ranged around the table; tense guards unable to defend against whatever the medic was about to say.
"We don't have many Sebaceans come through here. This one has unique chemistry. He must be a regional mutation."
The medic was scaled and wattle-jowled; an explosive indenture retention cuff clamped to the wrist of her three-fingered hand. She rotated the holographic image. Crichton's internal organs displayed in bright artificial colors.
"The problem, though, is the head trauma."
She adjusted a control and the image expanded. The focus flowed through the colored structures: blue lungs melting away from the pulsing red heart, snaking through the grey esophagus, penetrating the yellow plating of bone and coming to rest in the furrows of the pink brain. She rotated the image again and dove the focus down to reveal a large purple mass.
"This is cerebral edema. It is pressing on the cortex, which was already compromised by several previous traumas and an intrusion, weakening the blood vessels in that region of his brain. This latest blow caused them to hemorrhage. The tissue is now too severely damaged for him to recover. All he has left are the mechanics of physical function.
"What does that mean?" Chiana's lip trembled. "He-he... he's gonna get better."
A high-pitched whine sounded in Aeryn's ears, as if it could block the words that marched relentlessly through the insufficient air.
"No, Chiana. He's not going to get better," Jool said softly, her hair dulled almost to brown. "He's dead."
"He can't be dead," Aeryn whispered. The whine became louder and the thin air made her head spin. She felt like she was in free-fall, drifting, drifting without any controls. She crashed into icy water, drowning. She grabbed the edge of the table, knuckles white.
Chiana crumpled into Crais' arms, shuddering silently. Jool leaned over Crichton and stroked his hair, staining his shirt with wet splotches. D'Argo stared uncomprehendingly into his face.
"In a manner of speaking, he is not dead," the medic said briskly. "His autonomic functions are intact. His body is perfectly healthy and will still respond to stimuli; hot, cold, pleasure, pain.
"There is an option, if he is important to you. I can insert a chip that will allow him to respond to commands in addition to the basic faculties he still possesses. He will be able to walk, feed and clothe himself, even learn complex physical functions. There will just be no independent thought or personality behind the responses."
D'Argo was immobile, as if that would stop the moment, unravel it back to the place before they found the planet on Moya's sensors. He touched Crichton's cheek, searching for any sign of awareness. There was only steady respiration. He leaned over, hesitated a moment then pressed his lips to Crichton's brow.
"Goodbye, my friend." His voice was rough, dissolving to a whisper. "We reject your option," he said thickly. "Our friend is dead. We will remember him with honor."
He swung his qualta blade up, poised high above the table where Crichton lay. The medic scrambled out of the way, cursing.
"No!" Aeryn swam up through the numbness and launched herself at D'Argo, knocking him off-balance just enough to miss Crichton on the downward strike. The blade scored the edge of the table; the hologram fizzled and died.
"He's gone, Aeryn." He dropped the blade and spun her around, grabbing her arms. "Let me end it. Let him go."
She looked at him blankly. "I can't," she said simply. She saw his grief morph into disbelief, then to fury. "Medic!" she called. Perform your procedure. I will pay."
"Aeryn, no," Chiana breathed, breaking away from Crais and clutching Crichton's arm. "Not this."
D'Argo was trembling. He squeezed her arms so hard she thought he would snap her bones. Any microt now his tongue would lash out and knock her unconscious. He would kill John's body and they would all go back to Moya and she would mourn for this one too.
"You cold Sebacean bitch," he hissed. "You choose this-this obscenity to finally show you care for Crichton? You couldn't be bothered when it would have made a difference to him. You couldn't do your job; now he's dead because of you. You aren't worth either of the lives my friends spent to save you."
She swayed, the fog dissolving to fierce clarity. Yes, of course. John saved her. She didn't let herself think about it until now. Zhaan sacrificed her life energy to bring Aeryn back, and then John fell in her place. It was her fault. She should never have left his side.
D'Argo thrust her away as if she were diseased. He reached for his sword, straightened slowly, then punched the wall and bellowed, an inarticulate roar of sorrow and rage. He shoved through the door as soon as it opened enough for him to pass. She stumbled and caught herself on the table, holding tightly to keep the room from spinning.
Crais studied Aeryn somberly, arms crossed, the two weeping women beside him unheeded as he considered his words. His lips pursed before he spoke.
"You and I know better than anyone here how Crichton faces death," he said quietly. "He would not want this for himself, or for you."
He moved to her, holding her with his gaze as she once held him. He extended his hand, palm up, mere denches away.
"Let us leave this place, Officer Sun."
For a moment Aeryn thought she would close the gap and slide her palm over his, allow him to lead her away from the room, this decision. The death of John Crichton was a black maw yawning before her, but shock buffered her enough for her to realize it ultimately would be a much easier road than the branch calved off by the medic's chip. She would plunge down and be lost for an unknowable time, but someday it would end. Someday she would climb out and move on.
Then she remembered holding the first one as his warmth inevitably ebbed, and she turned away.
"No." She rested her hand on Crichton's ribs. His heart beat a rhythm against her fingertips, strong and steady. "It's decided. The procedure will be done."
They were gone when Aeryn came back to the waiting area. The room was austere, empty. Hard metal benches sat in military rows, stark white light glaring off the shiny surfaces. Her hurrying footsteps bounced off the bare walls in staccato pops, slowing as she entered the vacant room.
She activated her comms. "D'Argo."
No response.
"D'Argo, answer me." The comms were silent, layering inaudible castigation over the stillness of the room.
"Chiana." The accusing silence taunted her.
"Pilot, where are the others?"
"Aeryn." Her name was profound regret. "Ka D'Argo ordered that we leave this star system."
Her legs folded unnoticed and she sank to the cold surface of a bench, her warmth leeched away by eager metal.
"The others agreed to this? To leave us here?" Her voice stuck a little and she cleared her throat.
"They offered no opinions. Ka D'Argo deactivated their comms. He was...insistent. They will remain deactivated until we clear the system and are in deep space. I... am sorry, Aeryn."
The room wavered. This was her life now, the unforeseen result of the road she chose when she rejected Crais' hand.
She would never fault Pilot for following orders, even though following orders ultimately led her to this sterile room. She was back to where she started: a soldier, but a soldier without orders or regiment. And now she had no home.
Home was something she never wanted as part of Icarion company. She was always career focused, sacrificing anything that stood in the way of her advancement. It was only because she was cast out from her own society that she was lulled into accepting this inferior concept for herself. There was nothing to stop her now from striking out on her own, finding her way back into combat, without cloying relationships to stand in her way.
She rose from the bench and straightened, steeling her spine into a rigid rod. Whatever tears there should have been were dry. Her choice was made, her path was set.
"It's all right, Pilot. You did as you were supposed to. Please tell Moya... tell her how much I will miss you both."
"Moya and I will miss you too, Aeryn. And we will miss Commander Crichton. It is hard... to believe he is gone."
The medic led John into the room. The new scar was derisive red, a broken web down the right side of his face. Her heart stuttered until she realized that though his eyes were focused in her general direction, they were fixed and blank. She would be the one with the specter now.
"Aeryn? Are you still there?"
This was the last tie to her old life. Time to cut it and move on.
"Goodbye, Pilot," she said firmly, taking John's arm to lead him away. "Fly safe."
Aeryn bought a small interstellar ship and provisioned it for deep space. She spared no expense to expedite deliveries so she could get off-world as quickly as possible. She railed at the merchants if they missed promised delivery windows by more than 100 microts and over-tipped the dockworkers to load her cargo first.
She blew through her credits in short order, but it was a bargain to be able to put the planet in her exhaust trail. She engaged the Hetch drive as soon as it was safely possible so she could lose the star in the smear of stellar haze and its mocking radiance no longer lit her sky.
John was just as the medic promised. He smiled when his senses registered pleasure, or shed tears if he felt pain. As long as she said his name before giving him a command, he would react and flawlessly execute the intricate functions programmed into his chip. He even learned new functions based on her physical cues.
John was a good shot; the chip made him lethally accurate, striking his targets precisely every time. With Aeryn's superior piloting and strategic skills, they developed a reputation as an elite mercenary team, as well as an oddity. Their employers noticed the aloof Sebacean man never acted without the woman's direction.
"Next!" The Peacekeeper merc recruiter sized Aeryn up before she reached his desk, John on her heels. He surveyed her physique clinically and then John's, assessing their congruence to his personnel requisitions.
"Last contracts?" He held out his hand for her record chip. Typical recruiter: long on attitude, short on talk. This one reminded her of a lizard she saw once on the royal planet; puffed, slightly shiny skin, hooded lids over yellowed vitreous. His teeth were yellowed too, and worn from chewing senga seed.
Her data built luminescent blocks on the dimensional display, hovering over his desk like brightly-packaged sweets.
"Pennateng conflict. Marfan company. Both prowler pilots, but we're looking for something more challenging."
"Something that pays more, you mean." He studied the data. The glow under-lit his jaw; the shadows emphasized the reptilian cast of his features.
"He talk?" He jerked his chin at John.
"Very little," she lied. "I make the arrangements."
"Mmmm."
To his credit, he didn't keep her waiting long. A smart column of guards appeared microts later, clamping manacles too tightly on their wrists, cutting off circulation. The initial beating was nominal: a blackened eye for Aeryn, a few punches for John. It was more to show the Peacekeepers were in control than to do any serious damage. That would come later.
Then came the traditional dragging through the building corridors, marched double-time to keep them down and caroming off corners. John yelped at each strike on the wall until his chip learned that particular game and he started to brace himself before the next blow.
Their destination was a private office. They were shoved in with the force required to assure they would fall heavily before the massive desk, knees cracking hard on the stone floor. John cried out, his legs curled into a fetal position. Aeryn bit her lip to avoid crying out herself and mentally assessed the damage: peeled scuffs on the thin skin stretched over the tender plate of bone, bruises darkening underneath. She struggled to her feet.
Braca leaned against the wall, shiny-booted and spiky-haired. His arms were crossed with studied nonchalance, rapacious pleasure oozing from him. Aeryn itched to rearrange his smug expression for him.
"So it's true. There have been rumors about a strange Sebacean mercenary duo, but rumors can be so unreliable."
He sauntered over to where John lay snuffling, then powered a savage kick into his gut. John yelled and hugged his shins, sobbing.
"John. Stand." She wouldn't let him lie on the floor like a victim.
He torqued himself upright, twisted with pain. Snot ran down over his lips to his chin.
Scorpius rose from the desk, black and gaunt, creamy contentment shaping his mien. He strolled casually to where John stood, closing until his long nose almost touched John's. He peered deep into the wet, vacant eyes.
"Misfortune afflicts us all," he said, almost contemplative as he ran a gloved finger down the long scar at John's temple. He sighed at the lack of reaction and circled behind Aeryn.
"There will be no negotiation, Officer Sun." Hot breath shrouded her ear, his heat radiated into her back. Her gorge rose at his proximity; the acid musk he exuded burned in her nostrils.
"Scorpius-"
"YOU. WILL NOT. SPEAK." His roar was guttural. Spittle sprayed her cheek. "You have cost me. You and Crichton and all your Moya rabble broke your promises and I will have payment. If I have to cut out his inert brain and slice it into slabs to find what I seek I will have payment; for my command carrier, for my position and for the failure of my project. You stole from me and I will have recompense. Braca!"
He crossed back to the desk and settled into the high-backed chair, eyes glittering.
"We have been remiss, Braca. We have kept our guests standing. Please take John to the Aurora chair. I'm sure he will be comfortable there."
He screamed for two solar days. At regular intervals the hum of the chair would gin up, and his keening would quickly escalate into shrieks. They degraded as the arns passed, volume fading until they were barely audible, hoarse croaks that could no longer adequately express the intensity of suffering.
Aeryn hunched in the corner of her nearby cell and cursed herself. She should never have risked this. She pushed her fingers as far as she could into her ears until her nails scraped blood, but she still could hear his torment; the wordless, bestial anguish of the meat he left behind.
She knew in her bones there was nothing left of John's mind, but she thought the gamble was worth the risk. The Aurora chair might find some fragment of consciousness, might actually free him to re-inhabit his body. Scorpius and his vengeance was the only hope she could find. Every sound John uttered was another spike of guilt driven into her soul to emphasize how very wrong she was.
Finally, mercifully, though mercy had nothing to do with it, the screaming stopped. Her cell door snicked as the bolts snapped open. Two guards entered, John hanging between them. They dropped him to the floor, a motionless heap of wheezing wretchedness.
She crawled to him and gathered him as best she could into her lap. There were no physical injuries, she knew; only those he inflicted on himself trying to escape the savage agony of the chair. His wrists were raw as if chewed; the metal head restraint cut a perfect dripping line. She held him close, rocking, feeling the spasms of nerves firing as the strain in his muscles dissipated, the almost silent whimpers dying as his flesh relaxed fiber by fiber.
Black boots walked purposefully into the cell, stopping next to her.
"What will you do with us now?" she asked in measured tones. It was a point of information she requested, an understanding of the next step in the planned sequence of events. She had nothing with which to negotiate. There would be no rescue. All of her options were gone.
"Do?" Scorpius cocked his head, regarding her with an antiseptic stare. "Why, I shall release you, Aeryn Sun. I am well and truly beaten. Crichton's brain is as clean and unmarked as a storm-washed shore. The wormhole data has been scrubbed away."
"Whatever answers I find on my own will come too late to save us. The Scarrans are too strong and we are too few; without wormholes we have no hope of winning. What good will your death do me if I kill you? The waste... the waste of it makes me ill. Take this empty sack of a man and go fight. At least then you will provide some benefit to your people. Take him and fight our enemies."
It wasn't enough. She could twist the knife deeper.
"It was your bounty hunters that did this to him." She raised her chin, daring him to strike her.
He was unmoving. His gaze was steady, his posture straight but there was a shift. It was a feeling rather than a perception; of internal shrinking, the infiltration of great age. He bared his teeth.
"Ahh, yes. Bounty hunters. A miscalculation. But then I'm not the only one who lost something in that equation, am I?"
As the war became more ravenous, Aeryn chose the highest paid contracts. There were many fronts the Peacekeepers were trying to hold and experienced mercenaries were in demand for all of them. Aeryn became more lethal with time and the chip made Crichton's tactical skills equal to hers. He could fight and fly in delicate counterpoint to her movements; he answered her every action with a flawlessly calculated response.
Aeryn grew comfortable sinking into Crichton's quiet physical presence at her side. He was her only companion. She isolated them from others to forestall the inevitable questions: of why didn't he talk or joke, of why he seemed to always wait for her to act first. With no companions capable of conversation she came to the point she barely spoke herself.
It became easy to forget that John no longer inhabited his body. The chip gradually learned the nuances of her autonomic responses and built complex routines to support her behaviors. The intricate tasks he performed made it seem as if he were considering his movements and making independent decisions. His responses to sensation appeared be driven by emotion.
She reminded herself that all of his actions resulted from the chip, but her senses told her otherwise. John long ago taught her to dance: arms in rigid frame, rising on toes to dip and swirl through Talyn's corridors. Crichton's muscles remembered the moves and she subtly led him into leading her, gliding through her ship to recordings of exotic harmonies woven around now-familiar rhythms: one, two, three; one, two, three.
She gave him sweet potha and his toothy grin lit the chamber as he munched. She hugged him when he was injured and cried, shushing him like a child as she shivered, remembering screams to which she could only listen and despair. She found herself drawn to him as she was before the war, before the twinning, when the only complication in loving him was in overcoming the absurd barriers she herself erected.
"It won't work." Aeryn gestured to the graphical model of the dreadnought on which the mission was plotted. Four prowler pilots and another commando ringed the dimensional display with her and John. "Their defenses are too strong here, here and here for the tactic you suggest." She tapped on the control, highlighting hungry cannons waiting to ruin them.
"We don't have enough prowlers to capture their attention. We need to pierce their defenses here, where they're weak." She stabbed a finger into the projection – the structure obediently sheared away, revealing the camouflaged entry point. "The commandos won't be able to get there if the team is too small to keep the Scarrans occupied. With the right distraction, we can reach this point, achieve the objective and get out. Without it, we're all particles."
The young Disruptor, who usually behaved as though he had a stick rammed into places preferred for sitting, looked today as though he smelled something disgusting, his nostrils twitching. Droplets of sweat studded his upper lip, tiny badges of anxiety bespeaking the proverbial corner into which he was lodged.
"Intelligence reports indicate that this mission is critical. We must proceed now." He waved a hand over the model, turning it dark.
"When will additional prowler support be available for us? We'll have a better chance of success if we wait for them, even one solar day. Such an important mission should have every opportunity."
It was Seldran, the other merc commando. A Sebacean, and, Aeryn privately admitted to herself, an attractive one. He casually restored Aeryn's highlights to the model and gave her a slight wink of an eyelid. She twitched her lips in return, nonplussed by the sudden heat in her cheeks.
The Disruptor drew himself to his unimpressive height and ground his teeth. It was clear there was more than he was telling them.
"There are no more prowlers," he snapped. "We paid your ridiculous fees because you're supposed to be the best. Prove it."
It ended badly. The prowlers were reduced to fragments. The comms echoed their pilots' screams longer than their crafts survived. Seldran turned back to help cover her and John now their concealment was blown, but there were too many cannon charges for him to avoid and his prowler was obliterated too.
They sheared away and ran as predators launched, a wing of six that arrowed down on them in formation. They broke in opposite directions and accelerated through the asteroid field protecting the rear approach to their base on Fe'ma-al, guiding their prowlers easily through the shifting rocks. The predators fell back and returned to the looming dreadnought on rapid approach to the moon. They got to their ship and launched, initiating the Hetch drive as the dreadnought fired on the base, leaving only slag.
The view of the infinite from her ship controls was a fitting requiem for the people lost that solar day. She was draped across the arms of her ships command chair, stripped to her underclothes, the cool air drying the sweat of her escape. She raised a solitary ale to the fallen and took a sip, the bitter brew complementing her mood. The pangs she felt for Seldran, the prowler pilots, even for the supercilious Disruptor were uncomfortable and unaccustomed. Emotions were inconvenient, a luxury she didn't allow herself.
She didn't let others come close enough to have feelings for them. She insulated herself for so long with John as her excuse that it was easy to shut them out, armoring against vulnerability. Seldran was the first person in cycles with whom she had any connection. Faultless timing, as always.
It was hard to admit she wanted to again be part of team, to be able to call them comrades. She suppressed how much she missed the fellowship and pride of being part of Icarion company, the complicated companionship of Moya, the wonder of intimacy in her relationship with John. She kept those longings compacted into a little ball, a tiny singularity contained and secured.
John once encouraged her to become more. She expanded herself to include him in her solitary life, loving him despite all his frelling selfish, single-minded, flawed humanity. Now she couldn't fit the person she became into the confines of her former life; she scraped her edges raw trying. Her universe was reduced to this ship, with only John's mindless shade for company and the path she chose stretched empty beyond her horizon.
John was in their tiny changing room when she came in, his uniform jacket unbuckled. His unbound hair hid his face. He blocked her way to her closet and she bumped him as she reached past him, knocking him nose-first into the door. There was a thud and he yelped.
"Oh, here. Let me see." She brushed his hair back, tucking it behind his ear and critically examined the trickle of blood leaking from his nostril. She wiped it away with her thumb and patted his cheek, his evening beard pricking her palm.
"There. Not that bad."
He pushed into her with a small sound, seeking comfort. His skin was redolent with the efforts of the day and she breathed him in, the alchemy of his scent opening places she worked so hard to lock away. She was transported back to her time on Talyn, to nights drowsing on John's shoulder as he named the stars, the heady feel of his naked skin on hers.
A wave of longing flowed through her and she leaned against him; his shoulder smooth against her cheek. His hands found her and remembered her curves, the firmness of her back, the softness of her breast. Her breath caught as the sensations sweetened, her mind muzzy from intensity after long denial. She skimmed her lips against his, the briefest pressure, then more firmly as he responded, driving her deeper than she expected or intended.
She pulled him into her bed, and he arced to her touch. His sounds, his movements were familiar and right and she forgot he was anything but John. She went to a timeless, unthinking place, and she fell and fell and fell and flew.
After he came, he turned away from her, light snores sounding within microts. She lay next to him, slicked with their liquors, the apathetic wall of his back demonstrating he wasn't really there after all. It was impossible to make love with him. All she experienced was an elaborate method of masturbation.
The realization left her more barren than before; so empty she couldn't even find the consolation of tears. She slipped out of bed and went to the observation port to stare blindly at the careless stars, until the arns of standing naked in the chill of the night-time ship numbed her past feeling. It was the last time she let herself forget he was dead.
The Scarrans pressed on, decimating Sebacean planets and claiming the ravaged territories for their empire. The Peacekeepers negotiated an alliance with the Nebari to increase their ranks and balance the power, at last slowly beating the Scarrans back from Sebacean territories toward their own home worlds.
Contract followed contract. Aeryn kept them always in motion, never resting. The cycles spun like wheels. John followed her through her solitary life, her living ghost and personal flail.
"Closing time!" The bartender is barely visible, hiding behind crates of drink in his storeroom. "Your account has been charged. May the blessings of the Ren be upon your endeavors." A cautious man, he steps out of sight again.
Aeryn focuses on the Nebari woman steadying herself on Crichton's shoulder, tears smearing the ashy dust on her face. She was so young once. When did she grow up?
"So now what, Chiana? We're back to where we always go: nowhere."
Chiana bites her lip, wipes at the wet streaks with her sleeve. "There is, ah... one more thing," she says slowly. Tension frames her, and she stops, unable to look up. "Stark is waiting on board Moya. He...he will help...he promised- "
The Kentoan blade twists again, stealing Aeryn's breath. Stark was on Talyn when the first one died. He lit the path and pointed the way.
"It doesn't go like that, Chiana. I chose this road long ago. Go home. Live your life. I've made mine."
Her life was set that solar day; all the actions she's taken and the consequences she's suffered are immutable. It's where the part of herself she's tried so hard to kill still survives. She lost John on the nameless green-mooned planet, but the others, the people she once called family; she lost them too.
"Tell D'Argo- " she starts, and swallows. Such simple words shouldn't be this hard. "Tell him I wish it could have been...different between us. I never got to say goodbye."
"Tell him yourself," Chiana whispers. "He's waiting outside."
A soundless well opens in her chest and she lets the flood come, the longing deep and encompassing. He is close; the man who was her friend, her brother- but it's too late. Her path diverged and took her far away. The distance is too great to bridge now.
She rises and tilts her head, just as Chiana did when she was young.
"Goodbye, Chiana," Aeryn says gently, brushing her fingers over the wet grey cheek. Chiana captures her hand and holds it to her face for a moment, and then presses her lips against Aeryn's hard palm. Aeryn smothers the answering ache, surreptitiously squeezing her fist around the moisture Chiana shed. It's as close as she will ever be again.
Chiana leans down to kiss John's brow. Her hand quivers as she strokes his cheek.
"Goodbye, old man." The words are barely audible. He looks uncomprehendingly into space, a smile playing on his lips for the tender touch and sweet smell of the Nebari woman. For an instant he seems present and alive.
"John," she cries, her voice trembling. The soulless blue eyes meet hers and when she has no further command for him drift away again. She chokes off a sob and runs. She doesn't look back.
The door slides shut behind her, sealed. It's done. Chiana will never come again. Stark will have to find another way.
There is nothing more for Aeryn here. The bar is empty and it's time to find her way home.
"John." He looks up. "Come." He rises and they leave through the back door, shadows swallowed by the night.
It's a short walk to their inn a few blocks away. The rooms she rents are uniformly dingy. They have no need for anything more. This one contains only a single sagging bed for furniture. They have shared a bed for many cycles, but Aeryn has never again been tempted by John's body. She fills both of their creature needs with anonymous prostitutes, always carefully watching to be sure no one mistreats the vulnerable man.
She crawls into bed next to him, carrying Winona in nerveless fingers. She holds him in her arms, smooths some loose hairs back from his forehead and presses the muzzle of the gun against the place in his temple where the chip is buried. She has brought the gun to bed so many times she can't remember the first; the nights all fuse together into a montage of grief.
"Please wake up," she whispers in his ear. She searches out of habit for any sign of consciousness, knowing it's futile. Tears blur and her breath hitches. Her finger twitches spasmodically on the trigger. With a moan she jerks the gun away and drops it, just as she has a thousand times before.
She knows she's a coward. Once she would have been able to fire; once she almost had fired, but that was before the first one died at Dam-Ba-Da. She now understands too well the finality of that choice and the certainty of its consequences. There is always another day to choose.
She tightens her arms around the remnants of the man, feeling his warmth and the regularity of his breath. She lowers the light and draws the covers over them both against the cold of the deepening night.