Day 1
The crew of Moya did not appreciate the presence of Scorpius, so he kept to himself mostly. Even now he was granted release from his cell, he rarely wandered the corridors of the ship. He preferred the solitude of his room. To think, and organize his mind.
The feeling had started some time ago. It rose, closer and closer into the back of his mind, like a rising sunset, like the squeaky hinge of a common wooden doorframe that is never fixed, but always there. Scorpius meditated to distract himself. Sometimes he slept for so long, he cursed himself. His job was to remain vigilant. To assure Crichton's safety until the time came.
The time would come, Scorpius was sure of that. The future was a certainty, to none but him. The others on Moya did not treat it as such. They moved in uncertainty and fear, wandering aimlessly through the dark. Without purpose. Without clarity. Scorpius sometimes wondered how they could bear it.
Only Sikozu differed from the others in that way. Her purpose, even though she had yet to reveal it to Scorpius, was clear to her. A secret she had yet to divulge.
When they spoke, it was in his cell. They often ate together, played a game together to keep their wits honed and their minds sharp, and they would talk long into the arns of the night. Sikozu would smile and her honesty would shine through the lies. She was young. Beautiful. And naïve.
And a welcome sight for sore eyes. How Scorpius endured his asylum on Moya without her, he did not know.
Scorpius sat upright. There was that feeling again. He breathed in deep and focused on the sounds of Moya, focused on the future that was coming for him, which he had planned for so diligently.
"It is inevitable, Crichton," he said to the human, as he watched him press his brow into a towel. The towel was soaked in sweat. Crichton pretended to be occupied by his workout, as he landed punch after punch into a red plastic bag. His preferred means of communication was to ignore Scorpius altogether, so Scorpius ignored that too, knowing John was listening despite appearances. Subconsciously, John knew the truth, the futility, and inevitability, of what would have to happen. Otherwise, he wouldn't be here, preparing his body for the days to come.
John's shirt was soaked in sweat. His hands bound in cloth. "Every day we have this conversation, Grasshopper, and every day I give you the same answer."
Scorpius knew.
"Go away," John said.
"Some day you won't be able to avoid me, Crichton."
"You're never going to stop trying, aren't you?"
"I'm patient."
Day 2
"Let go!"
Dominar Rygel snapped his teeth at the Nebari's hand. His grip was strong despite his small Hynerian physique, and one would do best to avoid his sharp teeth. They posed a threat to any and all small appendages.
"It's mine!"
The pair annoyed each other endlessly, to the point Scorpius started to suspect they were doing it just to occupy the time and keep busy on this long and pointless journey. The trinket they fought over wasn't even worth anything. It was a poor forgery, made by incompetent hands.
Chiana bit back. For all her instability and chaotic mannerisms, Scorpius admired her ruthlessness. She was fierce. Indomitable. On a good day. All the other days, she was a time bomb waiting to happen.
She was also Crichton's best friend. Give or take a Luxan.
When the pair noticed Scorpius' presence, they stopped briefly, until Chiana managed to snatch the trinket from the Hynerian's hands. "There's plenty of worthless stuff in your own quarters! Stay out of mine!"
She eyed Scorpius unfavourably as she left in anger. The Hynerian nursed his bitten brow.
"What'd you want?" Rygel said. "Are you here to gloat? Well, kindly do that someplace else."
"Your wounded pride does not interest me."
"Wounded pride? Ha! This was nothing. We do it to each other all the time. In fact, she's stolen more stuff from me than I've ever taken from her. I might have to do something about that."
"I don't think Chiana will be as merciful next time."
"Next time she won't catch me in the act."
The Hynerian zoomed off in his hovering throne sled, a smug smile etched on his grey face.
The day-to-day antics of the crew of Moya yielded little results. On the Command Carrier he once commanded, the Command deck was always fully staffed. There would be a team maintaining and monitoring every system, and a young ambitious deck officer to report to him with the results. Swift decisions could be made, on a ship that functioned as a smooth well-oiled machine, ready for operations. Of course, this very crew of misfits blew up that well-oiled machine, his very own command. When Scorpius walked into Moya's Command, only D'Argo was there to monitor the daily operations of Moya and its thousands of DRD units. Only one man who took his responsibilities seriously, as captain of Moya.
"Captain D'Argo," Scorpius said, as he stared out the forward portal. "How fares the day?"
D'Argo sighed. "Well," he said, pointing out that same forward portal. "As you can see, there's nothing. And over there, there's more nothing. It's more nothing than we can handle."
"A good day, then."
"A very good day. We haven't died yet. I'll think I'll take a shower."
Scorpius sighed. As he glanced over Moya's operational consoles, he found just as D'Argo had predicted. Everything was running normally. Sufficiently. Apart from some minor glitches in the internal subsystems. A burnt fuse here and there in the neural cluster.
He checked the internal sensors. John was in the gym. Chiana was in her quarters. Aeryn was in the Maintenance Bay patching up her Prowler. Rygel was in the kitchen. The old woman was in the herbology lab, still tinkering with her potions. And Sikozu was sizing up cargo bay 3 for her studies.
"Nothing of interest?" Scorpius asked. "Nothing at all?"
"Pilot says he's scanning some faint movements in the cluster ahead," D'Argo replied. "But it won't matter once we've got Starburst. Pilot says it'll be ready by tomorrow."
Day 3
"Let go!"
"It's mine! Take your hands off it! I stole it fair and square!"
Scorpius could hear the faint muffled struggle and the Hynerian scream in the corridor ahead. Shaking his head, he turned in the other direction. An unnatural chill lingered in the corridors of Moya. There must be a problem with Moya's internal temperature. Scorpius liked it. It was the only positive thing about his day so far. He woke up with a headache, and he'd had the same meals from the same plastic containers for three days now. Once they reached the next outpost, he'd ask Sikozu to bring him something fresh to eat. Something with meat on it. Something he could bake in fire once everyone else was asleep late at night.
Starburst would be ready soon. He'd deal with his physical urges once they became relevant. For now, he'd busy himself with more pressing matters at hand. Because something was wrong.
It wasn't just the chilled air. He could feel it, like static on his skin. None of the crew seemed to have noticed it over the past few days, but something was definitely not right.
He expected the others to have noticed it by now, especially Crichton. Often the Nebari girl would have spontaneous bouts of insight through strange powers, but so far even she has kept quiet. When Scorpius shared his feelings of foreboding with Sikozu, she didn't take them seriously. Her suggested rest seemed to have only made things worse.
His skull was throbbing. He'd checked the coolant rod inside, but it was still glowing bright blue without fail. It wasn't him. The cause of his turmoil had to be external, like he was picking up cosmic interference.
He stopped in every corridor and took in a deep breath. Closing his eyes, he tried to pick up the signal, or scent, of this interference, hoping to find himself closer to the source, where the air was thickest. After three decks, he was starting to feel silly, until a sudden chill ran across his spine.
"Is something the matter?"
The feeling was gone. He was so close. He hadn't even realized he had walked straight into the Maintenance Bay.
Aeryn peered at him from under the disassembled nose of her Prowler. Her ink black hair shone and fell in long straight lines past her shoulders.
"It's cold in here."
Until he could find more tangible evidence for his suspicions, he decided to keep them to himself. He couldn't win the trust of this crew by scaring them with talk of his 'strange feeling'. Embarassing, perhaps, but he cared little for that. He needed proof, mostly to convince himself.
"Is that a problem?" she asked.
Often the others came to his cell, when he was still their prisoner, to gawk or tease at him, or get their petty revenge, but not Aeryn. She wouldn't. She knows what it was like when the roles were reversed. Although she did once come down to visit him. In the first days after the others had arrived. Days they had spent together, from one ship to the other, from a coolant tank to a coolant suit in the coldest part of Moya. Every day he adjusted the settings of her suit and monitored her condition. And then after that, nothing. Not one word. Only frightened looks. Because he knew the truth.
That time when she visited him in his cell, she watched him eat, assessed his threat… and kept her promise. One life for another.
An unspoken arrangement. When it came down to it, she ignored him just as hard as Crichton did, on a daily basis. She was just more practical about it.
"Have you experienced anything unusual lately? Any strange feelings? Strange sounds?"
Aeryn shook her head. "No."
He suspected as much. This wasn't going to be easy.
He spent all day going from tier to tier, searching his feelings for the way to go, but every time he felt like he was moving away, rather than closer toward it. What was he missing?
In long strides he stepped through dark and dank corridors in the bowels of Moya, stepping over DRD's as they whizzed on by. Where the corridors got more cramped, he went on, never stopping. It wasn't long before he found the chamber where Starburst originated. He'd read about them, but never seen it before. The room fascinated him, but also blinded him in an array of green light that bounced off reflective glittering surfaces. It made his head hurt even more. Still, he made a mental note of telling Sikozu about it the next time they spoke.
Peeved, he left the room. The key to his problem wasn't there. He would look elsewhere.
Out the forward portal of Command glowed the cloudy substance of a nearby cluster, thousands of lightyears away. He wondered then, as he did down in the Starburst chamber:
"Why haven't we gone to Starburst yet?"
None of them asked where he'd been all day. None of them cared. They just seemed annoyed to be interrupted by him. John immediately looked away.
"Why do you care?" Chiana said.
"Pilot says Starburst will be available by tomorrow," D'Argo replied.
"Forgive me for asking," Scorpius said. "…but didn't Pilot say the same thing yesterday?"
Calling into question any word or action of the ship's Pilot was tantamount to blasphemy on this ship. They coddle and treat this ship's servant like a child.
"It'll be ready when it's ready," D'Argo added.
One day their incompetence would be the death of them.
As they returned to their daily bickering, Scorpius felt the need to press on. Immediate dangers had to be prioritized.
"What about the ships Pilot scanned in the cluster? Shouldn't we move to avoid them?"
If he were captain, things would be running quite differently around here.
"How do you know about that?" D'Argo said. "I just finished telling the others."
"You told me. Yesterday."
"Uh, no, I did not. Pilot just finished the scan an arn ago."
"He knows something," Chiana said, pointing at Scorpius. "There's Peacekeepers in that cloud, aren't there?"
"Chiana, stop it," Aeryn intervened. "Scorpius. Is there something you want to tell us?"
Anger flashed before Scorpius' eyes, until the realisation dawned. Something's wrong, and this right here was proof that it's wrong. The next step was an obvious one.
"If anyone needs me," Scorpius spoke. "I'll be in my…. cell."
He turned and left Command.
"Don't worry," Chiana added. "We won't."
Day 4
Sleep did not come easy. He wondered whether he should stay awake or let the process unfold undisturbed for this first 'experiment'. Yes, he thought to himself, for now he would have to play along and observe whether events would unfold similarly as before. Next time would be different. If there would be a next time.
Scorpius felt pleased with himself as he awoke. He could feel the same static crawling across his body like ants. He actually felt thrilled to begin his experiment. The endless possibilities excited and terrified him. If he was right, powers were at play that were beyond his comprehension or capability to control. If he was right, he was going to need help.
All possible permutations crossed Scorpius' mind before he even got up from his bed. Then as he left his room he sensed it again, stronger than before. What was it?
He walked down the corridor, a casual apprehensive stride onto the tier, waiting for the sounds to emerge. He waited somewhere close by the intersection between the kitchen and the living areas.
First came the Hynerian, zooming closer on his hovering throne with smug nonchalance, until, very soon after, the Nebari girl came running after him to rip the petty necklace from his paws.
"D'you think I wouldn't notice you stealing my stuff, little dreck? Give it back!"
"Argh! How dare you! That's mine!"
The Hynerian's chair sputtered. He couldn't fight back ánd keep an eye on the controls at the same time. He was a helpless target. He'd been better off trying to speeding off the moment he heard her chase after him, but it's doubtful his chair could even go fast enough to avoid her.
"Take your hands off! I stole it fair and square!"
He snapped his tiny teeth at her, and the Nebari girl responded in kind. Perhaps the only language the Hynerian could truly understand. Primal primitive physicality. Chiana no doubt knew all about that. He screamed and soon the two kleptomaniacs parted ways.
This time Scorpius did not stay to speak to the Dominar. He zoomed off in silence without ever spotting him.
The experiment had been a rousing success. For now, at least, they were all doomed.