*Disclaimer: I own nothing but my original characters and ideas….and the plot bunnies in the corner. Please don't sue, I'm a poor college student that has no life and way too many video games.*
"Television has brought back murder into the home - where it belongs."
-Alfred Hitchcock
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The Pursuit
Chapter Summary: Cycle 3/351 – While in cyro-sleep, Rovhu contemplates his first act of childish rebellion. It almost has me proud, if a little worried. Being not quite four cycles, I thought I would have to wait for his teenage temper tantrums, but I'm not quite sure how leviathans mature. Who knows, maybe he is a teenager.
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Cycle 3/351
Universe 001
System M-334/G
They say most of your brain shuts down in cryo-sleep. All but the primitive side…the animal side. No wonder I'm still awake.
Transporting me with civilians. Sounded like forty, forty plus. Heard an Arab voice, some hoodoo holy man. Probably on his way to New Mecca. But what route?
What route?
Smelled a woman. Sweat, boots, tool belt, leather. Prospector type, free settlers. And they only take the back routes.
There was a man, could feel his eyes on me. Carrying some type of weapon, gun, ammo left my nose twitching.
And here's my real problem: Mr. Johns, blue eyed devil. Planning on taking me back to slam…only this time he picked a ghost lane.
A long time between stops…A long time for something to go wrong.
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Rovhu trailed listlessly in space nearly an entire metra behind the Hunter-Gratzner, just outside of its proximity alarm. The ship was old, metal rusting in places, but still functional. The leviathan hated that his commander was on that ship, asleep, alone, and unprotected.
As the weekens turned to monens he had started to become anxious. He had never gone more than five solar days without his commander. This time it had been twenty-two weekens since he had talked to the once-human. Rovhu had never been alone before…he did not like the feeling.
Even when the once-human had days where he did nothing but stare at the stars, Rovhu could still feel his presence, could still monitor his vitals and take comfort in him simply being there. But now the commander was out of reach of his sensors, out of touch. It left an uneasy feeling inside the leviathan and he swayed back and forth behind the merchant ship as if to shake off the sensation.
Although not truly alone, Rovhu thought that the DRDs were poor company compared to his commander. Sadly, even the mismatched 1812 could not lighten his mood.
His time was not spent idly though. Rovhu had had his little purple DRDs trying to patch and repair what was wrong with his shields, but unfortunately he needed Crichton for such a thing. Eventually he commanded them to simply stop and gave them other tasks, worried that they would somehow make it worse.
Just a weeken and a half shy of being four cycles old, Rovhu was over a third of Moya's size. He already had five fully accessible tiers and an additional two that only his DRDs could access at the moment. Two fully functioning hangers on either side connected to the maintenance bays. The kitchen was fully operational and Rovhu had even assigned several DRDs to keep the area maintained so Crichton would have something other than food cubes to eat when he came back.
He only had two dozen personal quarters at the moment, unlike Moya who had nearly seven hundred, but he knew that when he was older he would grow more. At the moment they did not seem like a priority, aside from Crichton he did not have a crew. Instead he sent his energy on growing the mess hall that was hardly ever used.
The recreational area had never been visited by his commander but he was in the war room nearly as often as he was in his personal chambers. The observatory was Crichton's favorite room and Rovhu was pleased with himself when he decided to place that room as a priority. He had nearly ten storage rooms, one was only half grown but the other nine were complete, even if the commander only used three of them.
The medical bay had yet to see Crichton aside from when he was in there to stock up on supplies, thankfully. Although prone to trouble, the once-human had yet to have an injury that required more than an antiseptic and healing spray.
He had two communal bathing areas complete with six shower stalls on two separate tiers. The bathing quarters nearest to the commander even had a large bathtub that he had grown after Crichton commented on the lack of one too many times. Crichton would never say it, but he got a little teary eyed when he saw it at first. It was even hooked up to the water reservoir and had little jets.
The hydroponics lab on tier four was Rovhu's idea. His commander had been discussing how to make more chakan oil and finally stated that he would just have to grow some on his own. After nearly seven monens the leviathan had it completed. Currently there were over two dozen different types of fruits and vegetables waiting to be transferred into the half full garden that had once been an empty storage room. Unfortunately none of them were tannot root or anything close to it as Crichton had yet to find a substitute.
As he programmed several of his DRDs to begin preparing to transfer the small plants he thought upon his newest project. He was trying to build an armory for the commander but it was slow going. He simply could not settle on a design and even thought about using one of the many other rooms that had no purpose as of yet.
The rest of his energy was spent on building another transport pod as he only had the one. With the commander's prowler he was unsure if he needed it, but he ordered his DRDs to begin anyway. There was little to do as they followed behind the merchant vessel, and it was always better to have more of something than not enough.
The majority of the other rooms were for keeping Rovhu functioning and were heavily guarded with his internal security system. Crichton had even programmed it so that he would be denied access if he did not input a code. The once-human had stated that if he did not enter a code either he was an imposter and should be detained, or he was in no state to be allowed into the room in the first place.
Rovhu had only seen Crichton drunk once, but that experience was more than enough. The commander had a terrible habit of building things while inebriated, and the experiments he had worked on were neither safe nor sensible. So the leviathan implemented the extra security because he had to agree, he wanted the commander nowhere near his delicate systems and parts under such influence.
As he checked his sensors, Rovhu contemplated what life would be like without his commander. Already it was rather dull, but for just a moment, a nanomicrot really, he entertained the idea of just leaving, maybe going off to do his own thing and then meeting up with Crichton when they docked on Helion Prime. The commander would never know, and there were still nineteen weekens out, he could get away with it.
Just then, at that moment where the narl was really considering his first show of childish rebellion, his scanner pinged at him. The tail of a comet came into view and the Hunter-Gratzner was heading straight for it. It appeared that even in cyro-sleep, John Crichton's luck was set to trouble.
Rovhu moved to intercept, even with shields down. He could not leave his commander alone for a microt. The man was a black hole when it came to trouble, he just pulled it in like a gravitational force. But he was worth it, Crichton was worth everything.