Chapter One
D'Argo Sun-Crichton woke up with the familiar feeling that his head was twice the size of his body, and that his whole stomach was clutching desperately to his intestines, just to stay inside. He sat up and opened his eyes. No difference. He closed and opened them three times before it occurred to him it was dark, not that he had gone blind.
He reached upwards and felt the ceiling, barely four feet off the floor, and reached to find three walls on equally close proximity, but not a fourth.
"Hello?" Although his father had taught him never to call out into a dark empty room not knowing what was out there, he was too like his father to listen. His voice echoed back at him so he rearranged onto all fours and began to crawl towards the fourth wall, keeping one hand in front of him to guide the way.
"hellooo." He murmured to himself, another habit he had picked up from his father as the passage stretched on for metre after metre.
After a thirty seconds of crawling, he saw a glimmer of light, and the silhouette of a grate, a long way in front of him. He scrambled towards it, the churning in his stomach returning with the exercise until he reached the bars to peer out.
The light was dim and coming from what looked like a staircase in front of him; stone walls and candle light. He was probably still on Asci.
"Hello?" he asked again, feeling the bars to see how secure they were. They were very. "Oh frell."
A crunching noise made him jump and tense as the light grew larger with a door opening, and heavy footprints walked down the steps.
"Awake? Thought you never would be". D'Argo tried desperately to make out the face of the (man? Creature?) in front of him, but the dim candle blinded him as it approached and lit the way for the visitor to get out a red stick, which he proceeded to slam into the outside wall of D'Argo's cell, producing a creaking noise that sent the bars into the floor.
D'Argo thought for a thousandth of a second, and then darted between the dark figure's legs and towards the steps. He legged it up them, bursting through a heavy wooden door and into a brightly lit room, filled with men in large black armour suits; all with truncheons and pulse pistols in their hands.
"Oh dren." He felt a sickening crack as a truncheon hit him on the head from behind, followed by an explosion of pain and sinking feeling of darkness.
He awoke to the sight of a man in spectacles, looking down at him from a great height, that turned out to be the height of his legs, as he stood above D'Argo lying in a chair.
"Well hello there."
The man didn't seem to address D'Argo, so much as the general room, which D'Argo could see was crampt and full to the brim with bottles, needles, and metal. D'Argo could feel himself gulp as he glanced at the man who was now standing at a table, his back to D'Argo and his hands working away, picking up glass vials and tweezers and equipment.
He tried to move, but felt resistance from the shackles that tied his arms, legs and neck to the chair.
"Erm, hi, look, I think there's been a bit of a misunderstanding, I'm not even from this planet, you know? I was just visiting on my way through and I, Oh wow, that's a big needle." D'Argo winced as he felt the pinch of it going in, and a cool rush as the liquid went into his blood. "What the hell?"
The man began humming and returned to his work.
"Hey! Answer me goddamit, who the hell are you? Let me the frell out of here! What did you just inject into me?"
The man finished what he was doing and placed a stool next to the chair D'Argo lay in. His face showed he was old, but his eyes were bright and crystal blue, almost white. He smiled slowly and D'Argo saw he had no teeth.
"I'm a collector." He stated, his soft voice tickling on D'Argo's ears. He leaned in to stare at D'Argo and placing his cool hand on his pounding forehead, stroking it gently across the side of his face. "And you are a very rare find indeed..."
He stood up again and picked up another syringe, this one empty. He leaned in once more and drew out a thimbleful of D'argo's blood, ignoring the man's struggles and obscenities.
"If I'm right..." he hummed to himself, a sickening smile spreading across his face, "then you will be a wonderful addition to my collection, especially since I found the new girl. My how lucky I am..." He placed the blood on a piece of equipment that hummed a little and then lit up bright blue.
The toothless man clapped his hands together and smiled wider than before.
"Oh I am going to have such a wonderful sleep tonight. And so are you." He winked, "feeling drowsy?" But D'Argo could barely hear him as he fell backwards, falling into his head as a feeling of darkness consumed him.
He woke up in a cage. He could see all four walls, made with bars as thick as his fist, as he sat on a stone floor. In front of him was another stone staircase, and a man in an armour suit stood at the top, glaring down at him, or at least D'Argo assumed there was a glare behind the visor, anyway. He thought he saw pale, huminoid skin at his wrists and behind the grates of the visor. Peacekeeper maybe? Interion? Something new?
To his left and right were two empty cages, identical to his.
He was feeling distinctly tired, and the blurred memories of the night before seemed to give him no clue as to why his was here. He remembered he had kissed a pretty girl, and drank a lot of a drink that she had called Ratchet Ray, then a blank until a man with no teeth.
"Oi, you! How's about you tell me what the frell is going on!" he yelled, glancing around himself to see if there was anything he could use to help him out.
"Collection pieces should learn to shut up." Was the stoney reply. "Take some advice from your neighbour, she's been here long enough to know."
D'Argo glanced to his right at the seemingly empty cage and he saw a shadow move the slightest amount away from him. He realised it was a small figure. He leaned over to the adjacent bars and beckoned.
"Hey, you, who are you? You know how to get out of here?" The shadow didn't move or make a sound.
He was on Asci, he was pretty sure of that, passing through to have a drink and meet a few people. The one bar in the entire of the town they had gone to had been virtually empty, so drinks were cheap, and the whole crew had recently gotten a large thankyou donation.
Of course, D'Argo had found himself kidnapped before, but no one here even knew who he was, and he hadn't visited it before, so why anyone would want to lock him up was beyond him. Unless he got more drunk than he thought he had the night before and had really ticked someone off.
A clatter from above disturbed him as a second suited man walked down the steps with two bowls, one of which he placed in the not-so-empty cage to D'Argo's right, the other of which he placed at the front edge of D'Argo's. The man gave a curt nod to the man already standing by the cages, then strutted up the stairs again without a word, but with a vague air of superiority.
It was then that D'Argo realised he had never been so hungry in his life. He leapt on the and drank it as fast as he could, completely unaware until his last gulp that it was the most horrendous gruel paste he had tasted in a long time. Certainly not the worst food he had ever eaten, but since his father had become an ambassador, and had gotten a decent income, D'Argo had gotten used to having regular, decent meals.
He put the bowl down and turned to his right as a shape slipped out of the shadows and towards the bowl. He was surprised to see it was a girl. A peacekeeper girl in fact, that took the bowl and drank it, keeping her eyes fixed on D'Argo the entire time she ate.
"Hi." He whispered, careful not to move too quickly towards or away from the girl that looked like a rabbit in headlights. "I'm D'Argo, what's your name?" The girl frowned slightly, as though in confusion, and then slowly spoke.
"Hannah." She said quietly, her voice cracked through misuse.
"Do you know a way out of here?" The girl looked at him in confusion again and bit her lip, glancing up at the men who stood staring at the two of them in complete and stony silence. D'Argo repeated the question and Hannah slowly shook her head.
"looks like it's up to me then." He muttered, pretending to stretch a little while patting himself down to see if any of his extras were still in his pockets. He grinned a little to himself as he found his flasher, hidden in one of his pockets that was particularly difficult to find. He leaned back against the bars behind him and waited for the man to rearrange before he reached into it and pulled it out slowly, pushing the corners of his mouth down again into the expression of someone who had no intention of causing trouble. It wasn't an expression he practised much, and he suspected it wasn't all that convincing.
"Guard!" he said, suddenly, making the man jump at the volume, "hey, guard! I'm talking to you, you big pile of meaningless dren!" The guard walked slowly down a few steps but said nothing. "What? Scared of a man in a cage? God, you peacekeepers are all the same, don't know an insult when it's thrown on your face! No peace to keep so you just act as petty thieves and thugs around the universe! I thought your species was supposed to be superior." The man strode down the rest of the steps and stopped at the bars, watching D'Argo for a moment before punching him once in the nose.
D'Argo reeled back a little and realised he had had one too many hits on the head today to make this plan a good one, but he was in it now.
"That's all you got? Sitting there with your visor between me and my ability to punch you back!" The peacekeeper put up his visor, smiled, and punched D'Argo again.
D'Argo dropped the flasher and closed his eyes, hoping the girl would do the same, and listened as the peacekeeper cried out and fell to the floor.
He opened his eyes to see the guard had stumbled back, fallen over and knocked himself unconscious, his red stick key having fallen to the floor, about a foot away from D'Argo's reaching fingers.
"Oh for heavens – hey, Hannah was it? Could you do me a teeny tiny favour? Could you just try and reach that please?" He mimed it for communications sake and watched as the girl hesitated, looking from D'Argo to the key and back again as it sat two feet from her bars.
"If you could just, pass it over here..." He reached out his hand so that it was nearly touching the bars of her cage and held out his palm in front of her. She stared at it like he was absolutely insane. He didn't appreciate that look particularly. Not when not given substancially more evidence of it's truthfullness. She continued to stare at him until he relaxed his arm again and sighed.
"No? Okay then. Things to use, things to use."
He looked around his cage and saw some pebbles, which he reached out and grabbed, and then threw at the guard. Then he reached out with his leg and kicked the man, who flinched, but didn't move. It didn't necessarily help his situation, but it felt pretty good anyway.
He looked down and saw his bowl and grabbed both it and the one in the cage next door. He grabbed another 2 pebbles and began to hit one of them into the wood of the bowl, using the other as a hammer, until it was halfway indented into the underside of the bowl.
Then he took the second bowl and hit it against the wedged pebble in the first bowl, until the second bowl began to indent on the pebble, and the two bowls stuck.
He leaned as far as he could and reached for the stick, holding the wood with the tips of his fingers and hitting against it until it moved a little towards him, and then a lot.
"Ha ha!" He yelled as the red stick rolled towards him and D'Argo was able to drag it the rest of the way. He picked it up and showed it to the girl, a grin on his face that was short lived when he realised slamming it against the bars did nothing at all.
The girl watched as he hit every part of his cell, confusion filling his expression along with desperation, so that he didn't notice Hannah reach out to pick up his bowls, lean out and drag a purple stick that lay nestled in the guard's belt, towards her. He heard as the bars scraped downwards and she nervously stepped out, handing it to him through the bars.
He gave her his most charming smile and hit the bars in front of him with the stick, his expression falling somewhat when the bars crashed to the ground with a noise that would have been comically loud - if there had been anything in that situation to laugh about whatsoever. He waited for exactly three mississippis, and when no angry footsteps sounded down the stairs, he clambered out of his cage and stretched his legs.
"Well, cheers." He said, smiling at Hannah, and walked towards the steps. He looked back to see the girl wasn't following him. "Come on then, let's get out of here!" but her noticed her eyes were wide in terror, and when D'Argo reached out to grab her had she flinched back. He paused for a moment and noticed how pale her skin was beneath the dirt on her face. "How long have you been down here?" He whispered.
At that moment he heard a crashing as the door above them burst open, and Jack pushed his way through.
"Mum is so pissed at you D'Argo!" he yelled, walking down the steps. "Seriously, there was a twitch of the hand towards the pulse pistol when I told her where you were."
"No!" D'Argo glared as Jack tried to pull him up the stairs, "I was escaping just fine on my own!"
"Yeah, it looks like it."
"Seriously! I had everything under control, don't bust me out at the last second, you haven't rescued me!"
"A little thanks for your saviour would be nice."
"Oh for hezmana's sake, I swear to god if you tell mum and dad this was you helping me out of a situation I can't handle-"
"Who's the broad?" D'Argo glanced back at the girl, still wide eyed with fear at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the two of them.
"Her name's Hannah, I have no idea who she is."
"Well let's take her back and find out." He reached out and grabbed her arm, trying to pull her towards him.
Her piercing scream made him release his grip and stagger backwards.
"Jeez, what the frell?" D'Argo heard shouts above them.
"We have to go, come on D'Argo!"
D'Argo looked back at the girl, frozen where she was, her hands clasped at her sides. "Just follow us, okay? It's going to be okay, I promise, you're going to be fine." He held out his hand, ignoring the yells of his brother and slowly she reached out and took it. As soon as her palm touched his, he dragged her up the steps and into a brightly lit guard room.
He pulled her under a table as shots were fired around their heads. Jack pulled out a weathered pulse pistol and shot it a few times, yelling as he did so. The return shots were fewer, and after a few more yells and shots from Jack, they stopped all together.
They ran the length of the room through an open door in the back and into another room, increasingly filling with men in metal outfits.
"Oh for Pete's sake..." Jack let out an exasperated sigh and the stopped dead in the doorway, all three of them waiting in from of seven pulse pistols aimed straight for their heads.
"Got a plan of any kind?" D'Argo muttered under his breath, as one of the men started to step forward.
"Lower your weapons and lie on the ground, now!"
"I think I've got one." Jack said, the smallest of smiles appearing.
"Yeah?"
"Yup."
"Yeah?"
"I said yes."
"Well are you going to do it, or what?"
"Right sure, jump!"
Jack grabbed D'Argo's arm and yanked him off the ground, and D'Argo did the same to Hannah. The three of them jumped a foot in the air, and Jack threw a small crackling ball onto the ground, letting out a sudden burst of electricity across the floor and through the metal suits with men inside them.
There was a smell of burnt hair and the seven men jerked once, and then decided they all felt sleepy enough to fall to the floor.
"Nice! Where'd you get that?"
"Picked it up from a Grennij merchant a few weeks back."
"Sweet! You got any more of those?"
"A few back on Moya."
"Less useful right now."
"I'm surprised that one even worked at all, I figured it was a bust."
"Brilliant! You're plans are as air-tight as always."
"Hey, beggars can't be choosers, and damsels in distress don't get to complain about the weapons being used to save them."
"This is not a..." The guard closest to them on the right groaned and began to move again, and Jack gave D'Argo a quick look that he agreed with, and the two of them leapt towards to the door on their right.
They burst through into the open, where more fire filled the dry air around them.
"Where's the transport pod?" D'Argo yelled above the noise as they ran and ducked their way through the area.
"Bout half a mile south."
"Half a mile? What kind of a rescue is this?" A shot hit three inches from D'Argo as he said this, and he looked back to see the girl had completely shut her eyes, and was purely running wherever he led her. "Did you bring another pistol?"
Jack gave a slightly sheepish grin and shrugged.
"I thought you'd just got caught up in a bar fight or something!" They legged it a little further and threw themselves behind a wall. "Hey, how was I supposed to know you'd been kidnapped by someone who apparently has the entire planet on beck and call to shoot up anyone that escapes?" They dived behind a bunch of huge crates and caught their breath for a second while the shots rained down around them.
"Whatever, Jack, I'll kick your ass about it later. Last leg to the pod on three?" Jack nodded.
"One...two...three!" D'rgo pulled himself and Hannah out from protection and they ran towards the bright shape of the pod a way in front of them. They left the courtyard of walls and bricks and ran between some huts and houses until they reached an open and barren wasteland, where they ran to and fro to avoid the fire that followed them, but distinctly less than before. D'Argo heard the sound of heavy footfalls and metal on betal between blasts and dared a glance back to see four men in the steel armour running close behind them.
They made it to the pod as the group of men in armour suits did. D'Argo clambored in through the door. "You keep 'em out, I'll drive!" He let go of the arm behind him and threw himself onto the controls, flicking switches and pulling at things until he felt the ship rumble and lift. He heard the scream of a man as he was pushed out of the pod just as it lifted off the ground, and smelt the familiar stench of oil and ship as they lifted into the atmosphere, a few jolts each time a pistol shot hit them.
He could see the shape of Moya on their sensors and followed it, landing in the bay gently and perfectly, as was easy to do when no longer under fire.
They all tumbled out and D'Argo immediately began to pace towards his room.
"Tell pilot we need to starburst, I don't know whether or not that guy has ships." He strode into a corridor where he was met by the most terrifying site in the universe.
Aeryn had not aged a day for as long as D'Argo could remember, she stood now, all in black, her pulse pistol sitting on her hip, and her hand twitching slightly, as though she would love to pull it out and shoot at least one of her sons.
"Where the frell have you been?"