Pilot whispered to himself in his den high above the planet, hoping she could hear him.
It had been quiet on her end of the line now, he had been speaking so long, describing the details of the bonding process, the pains and experiences she could expect to happen to her, and less and less Pilot knew what to say. The silences grew longer. It pained Pilot to think about it, but this may very well be the last time they spoke.
Moya was troubled. Inside his head he heard her voice, like the pressure building inside the long chasm of the den. The reverberating hum traveled down and back again, across Moya's spine, like a shiver.
"This kind of procedure has never been done before," Pilot said, admitting his ignorance.
He had searched through the libraries in his mind, the data-banks stored deep in Moya's bones, for any references to guide his advice, and failed. He searched again while they spoke, his claws typing in the air to form words in languages he couldn't understand, bypassing the encryptions installed by Velorek many cycles ago to protect the Peacekeeper archives. But even he had never dared to perform such an operation, only lost souls like Namtar in his lab somewhere in the Uncharted Territories.
He wished he could see her, he wished that she was standing in his den right now, holding his cheek, but the operation would mean he never would again, that both of them would be locked away from each other forever.
"I'll miss you," he said to the air.
"I know, Pilot," Aeryn said. Her voice cracked. "I'll miss you too."
"Goodbye, Captain Sun."
John sat at the edge of her bunk, waiting for Pilot's voice to fade away.
The room was little more than a prison without bars. It reminded him of the suite assigned to him when he was engaged to Princess Katralla on the Royal Planet, so many years ago. All luxury, but no comfort. This suite had no windows. All earthen tones, no color. The paintings had no people in them, only red triangles and white dots.
Aeryn was lying on her bed, quietly breathing. There was a time when they would've talked strategy, the plan, any way to get out of this, to keep surviving and running to the next mess.
Time. They used to have so much of it.
John stared at the wall. "I'm not gonna give up, you know. This isn't over."
"Good," Aeryn said. "You shouldn't. You've got to keep fighting. For D'Argo. For Zhaan."
Without warning, the doors opened and their limo had arrived. These nervous young Peacekeepers marched in on the rug to present their arms, followed by their commanding officer Deccan, an unassuming man with dark eyes and a greased up bound ponytail that glimmered in the light and hung down his back, glistening like his dark red uniform. He was a scientist, but he still gave John the creeps.
"Commander," Deccan nodded in passing. "Captain?"
"I'm ready."
They marched from the facility and into darkness. John's boots sank into the soggy mud, leaving detailed imprints across all the thousand of other bootprints that had been left in the path in front of them. Giant towers lit up their way, huge installations like in football stadiums, that revealed big reflective pools in the ground, craters, scattered around the entire valley. If it weren't for those lights blinding him, John could've seen an entire universe of bright stars in the sky above him.
Then, the ground beneath them shook, reminding them of their imminent plight.
As they came closer to the crowd that had gathered at the heart of the valley, an entire procession of people that had come to bear witness, they started to be noticed. From the watery craters surrounding them rose up giant crab-like centipedes, of Pilot's kin. Once they started to ascend, it didn't seem like they ever stopped. Their long tails had them rise high up above them, almost as high as the light installations scattered around the valley, all scales and shells, tall and muscular with giant claws for hands and a million tendrils and tentacles with which they felt the air. Some of them where blue and white, some were red and black. It was as if they were suddenly surrounded by a fast-growing giant forest, giant blue redwoods with giant roots digging deep into the soil. The creatures looked down on them with a watchful eye, speaking to each other high in the air with clicks from their claws and murmurs that sounded like song, and always they returned that same distrustful stare. They did not like outsiders.
When John looked closer, he could tell they looked pale, tired, their skin was peeling, and their eyes were bloodshot. Some were drunkenly swerving back and forth because they couldn't keep upright or still. It took effort for them to endure the cold night air, but it was all worth it just to see her.
When the ground shook again, they shrieked and wailed and retracted themselves back into the soil, and the tunnels beneath the ground. They splashed back into the depths of the watery craters, back into the ocean beneath their feet. John knew they wouldn't be gone long. As they walked on through the mud, their every step vibrated through the soil. They knew exactly where they were.
These were their breeding grounds.
"Crichton!" she yelled out. "Crichton! Is it true?"
The microt they reached the outskirts of the crowd, a white-haired figure burst from their ranks and pushed everyone aside to get to them. John was glad to see her, but it couldn't have been timed worse.
He tried to signal her to stay away, wave his hands, shake his head, subtly show he was holding his gun, but it was no use. She was either too stupid or too stubborn to stop. John subtly separated from his entourage when it became obvious she wasn't going to listen, and rushed towards her, but when the ground shook again, this time with a violent wailing sound, she almost fell into his arms.
She was dressed in a skintight leather outfit, guns and knives strapped all over her body. There was a fresh scar on her beautiful face.
He picked her up and grabbed her. Her nose was inches away from his as he stared into her eyes.
"Stay back!" he hissed loudly. Wisps of her white hair stood out between his fingers.
"Don't let them see you. Where's Rygel?"
"He's gone," she sighed. "He took the kids."
"D'Argo? Zhaan? They're okay?"
"I put them on the boat myself. Look, I've got Scorpius. We could get you out. We got guns."
"Don't." John looked back to see if there was still time to catch up.
He couldn't explain it to her. There wasn't time.
"It's okay. I've got this. Just keep your head down and I'll find you."
"Crichton!"
"Don't do anything!" he said, running back up the hill to where his wife was waiting.
"Make way!"
They stood at the side of an immense cliff. It seemed like hundreds of people crammed together to see into the depths below. John hadn't a clue where they all came from. Were they all scientists? Was there a colony of Sebaceans settled close by?
John nudged his way closer to Aeryn. He loved the way her raven black hair danced in the wind.
The light blinded him, and yet it sharpened her every detail, and lit up every hair and every crease in her leather jacket.
"Are you still sure about this?"
"Stop asking me that question," she replied.
John nodded. "'cause I'm not."
They watched as a crane moved on the other side of the chasm, carrying a giant platform that would take them down into the throbbing darkness below.
"But you'll stay with me, right?" she asked, fumbling for his hand. His fingers intertwined hers.
He looked into her eyes.
"Always."
In the light of the towers he was a shadow ringed by light. She recognized him by his sigh of displeasure. Scorpius always found something to complain about.
"Chiana, where is the Pod?"
Chiana waited before answering. A lie would've taken too much effort.
"I told Rygel to take the kids back to Moya. They aren't safe here."
He smiled his sarcastic smile, and Chiana noticed his fingers curling into a fist, and then letting go.
"None of us are safe here. This planet is about to crack like an egg."
Chiana looked at her boots, covered in mud. Then she noticed one of the Pilots hovering above her, like a flower in the wind. She watched it as it watched her, and it was slowly coming down, its giant tail of claws disappearing into the waters, until they were almost at eye-level.
She wanted to reach out and touch it, but she knew that once she would it'd be scared off.
"Tell Rygel to bring the Pod back."
Chiana didn't have to think about this one. She looked back down and thought about John and Aeryn. Above the cliff she could see the crane lowering its metal cables, to descend the platform carrying her friends into whatever awaited below.
"No."
"Chiana...?"
"No, I won't."
Scorpius instantly lost his patience.
"Crichton is already lost. You can't help him anymore. Either he solves his own problems or he doesn't, in which case we have to leave. Now."
"No," she told him. "They're my friends. I'm not leaving them."
"I can admire such loyalty, but I won't respect stupidity. I expect this of Crichton, but not from you."
Chiana didn't care. This was her mission, not his.
"What are you looking at?!" she finally snapped at the creature watching them.
It shyly sank into the water, crossing its claws against its chest. Immediately Chiana changed her mind. "No, wait!"
Scorpius watched Chiana plead to the creature to stay, but it vanished into the water, crushing her hopes.
"You've got to help my friends," she muttered to the air. "They're down there."
Silence. A bubble popped up and burst on the surface of the water in the crater.
Chiana was on her knees in the mud, her hands full of dirt. Then the creature resurfaced, its blue shell breaking the surface of the water. Its eyes were completely black, ringed by white, and clearly sensitive to the bright blinding light coming from above. It looked like Pilot, except younger, smooth like a tadpole, sleek and wet, with flaps of transparent skin. It was still skittish, but curious.
"Hello," Chiana said. The creature seemed to understand and smile, although he still didn't trust her and she didn't blame him. It took a while for him to formulate a word. She could see him thinking and trying.
"Hello," he said.
"I'm sorry," Chiana went on. "I didn't mean to scare you."
He blinked with his third eyelids.
"Are you... Peacekeeper?" he asked. "Mother said the Peacekeepers would take care of us."
Scorpius crouched down beside Chiana to face the creature. "It's a child."
Only moonlight illuminated the bottom of the canyon, but when the crane lowered them even further and further, it was as if they were literally being swallowed whole.
Deccan turned on his lamp, and when ordered to, the two young soldiers did the same.
"Don't be alarmed," he told them as they turned the light towards the darkness surrounding them.
Instead of rock, they found pink and blue flesh, often black at the edges, from where the Peacekeepers had drilled their hole with a laser, and green where the corrupted infected slime oozed out of the crevices and wounds. There were spider-like creatures crawling from hole to hole, which skittered away when the light touched them, as if it burned their skin.
It seemed to take forever for the platform to stop. John figured they'd run out of cable at some point.
Slowly a grotesque doorway rose from beneath the platform and they jerked to a standstill beside it. Deccan lead the way this time. Small lights pierced into the ceiling showed the way through the dark tunnel, lined with intestines.
Aeryn never hesitated or stopped, never flinched or looked away. She accepted all of it. All of what would soon become a part of her.
On some level, Pilot envied Aeryn.
As he looked out on his homeworld, he'd close his eyes, and search the silence. Moya listened with him.
The bond he now shared with Moya, he once shared with a million different lifeforms. His brothers, his sisters, his family, his kin. He gave it all up so he could see the stars. He didn't ever regret it, but sometimes he did miss them.
Aeryn was about to hear their song for the first time, something he could never hear again.
When he closed his eyes this time, the only thing he could hear was Rygel shouting.
Chiana rushed to the edge of the cliff. She had to see it for herself.
There was something all right. The crevice cut deep through the planet's surface, and the edge was so clean cut Chiana refused to believe it was natural. The Peacekeepers must've dug deep to find the creature, and the source of all things Pilot. When it sighed, the mountains sighed. When it moved, the mountains moved. Whenever it breathed, a huge mound seemed to rise up from the lake of underground water at the bottom of the crevice, only to sink again.
She watched how a platform was slowly being raised from a small hole in the creature's back. There was nobody on it.
"Crichton..." she tried to reach him with her comms, but there was no reply.
Surgeons in silver aprons, masks and gloves waltzed right past him. A beehive of people moving to and fro in preparation of the procedure, and John just stood there like a statue, watching them.
John gritted his teeth. His fingernails dug deep into the flesh of his fist. He wasn't someone to start pacing, or to second-guess his wife again. This was her choice. There was nothing he could do about it. He would support her, even if that meant he'd risk losing her.
This was the woman that stood by his side as he watched the universe burn. He risked all their lives, their family, for a chance at peace. For the bigger picture. The greater good. By what right could he now tell his wife to stop, take her hand and drag her away from all this? For their children, for their family. But this was Pilot's family, and they had made a promise to help, no matter the cost.
This was an entire planet, an entire species, whose lives were at stake, and Aeryn was the only one that could help them.
She was told to lie down on a bed in the operating room and was given a sedative, while a strange purple concoction was slowly dripping into her veins now to prepare her nervous system for the inevitable electrical storm that will course through her body.
Her eyes were large and she was breathing heavily. John could tell she was high on her medication. The chance for a last sober conversation with his wife had come and gone. He sat down by her bedside, took her hand and squeezed, knowing now it was time to lie. He told her it was going to be okay. He was going to be there for her. He repeated Pilot's description of the process, praising the big guy's intelligence and calm. She looked into his eyes like a frightened child, her willpower dulled by drugs.
"You've got Pilot's DNA, remember? It's why you're perfect for the job. You were linked to Talyn with the neural transponder. Stark. Remember, Stark? Remember when he bonded with Talyn as his Pilot? We cut him down and he was fine. You're gonna come back from this. I'll see you again."
"I'm sorry, John. I'm so sorry."
"No, no, no, no... hush."
He pressed his lips on her forehead. "We're in this together."
Salt stung his eyes and it became harder to smile. He couldn't breathe through his nose anymore. It's like his face had swollen up. He persevered through the pain, found her, looked at her, and when he told her she was going to be okay, he meant it. When he told her they would be a family again, he meant it. There was no doubt in his mind that she would survive the procedure. After the Peacekeepers and Scorpius and the Scarrans and Nebari, nothing was ever going to separate them again.
"We are ready," commander Deccan announced curtly. He waited patiently while John said his goodbye.
The nurses removed the brakes from the bed and pushed her through the curtains into the sterile area of the room. As the curtains moved, John caught a glimpse of a tray of scalpels and other shiny implements. It took a lot of effort to restrain himself and not rush inside waving his gun, to call the whole thing off. A mask was placed on Aeryn's pale face for her to breathe in. Her consciousness faded, and John looked away.
The machinery beeped, and the surgeons became quieter as the operation went on. John realized it was now or never. If the bonding graft tissue rejected Aeryn she'd have to be disconnected instantly or it could kill her.
"Go go go!" they suddenly cried out, and patient and surgeons rushed out of the room and John followed them out, his heart racing. There was a different door this time, unlike all the others he'd been through in this place. A different tunnel, more streamlined, and at the end of it, he couldn't believe it.
The Peacekeepers had recreated Pilot's den, but it looked like it was made entirely of brain matter and black scaffolding. The hall was an immense chasm, but the walkway into the center was wide and straight. The structure was black with red touches, all mercilessly straight, black columns rising above them into the brain of this immense creature they were inside of.
John wondered how big it was, if this was just the brain. It must be the size of a whole continent, or maybe even the entire planet. Maybe the planet surface was just the eggshell, and the Pilots were growing up out of it like plants, or symbiotic lifeforms that had evolved to bond with their giant ancestor. Mother Nature was immense.
They installed an unconscious Aeryn into a grotesque throne, with fleshy cables surgically grafted into her arms, feet and body, with the biggest one lodged into the back of her neck. Below her feet an entire team of engineers worked to connect those cables to the brain of the beast. Some of them were working a mile down below.
Knowing the electrical synapses of the humongous creature might short-circuit Aeryn with a single thought, they grew a converter out of its flesh and installed it as a gateway between Aeryn and Mother. Its signal pulsed through the black column, like a dark mechanical heartbeat within.
"A Pilot with a Sebacean pilot," John muttered to himself.
They hoped Aeryn could bring guidance to the old girl's thoughts, and stability, in the hopes of saving a dying race, or for some, to tame this creature and enslave its power.
"If she dies..." John told Deccan, as he looked down on Aeryn laying lifeless in the seat of Pilot.
Deccan slowly turned to him. "You'll kill me?"
John furiously hoped he'd never have to finish that sentence.
The procedure took hours. Mother didn't like them tampering inside her brain. Any random laser burst could set off a sudden jerk that rocked the entire chamber.
As they finished, the engineers and doctors recommended that they let Aeryn heal, but Deccan would have none of it.
"Activate the converter! We need to know if it works now!"
John was too late to stop him. As electrical charges surged through the columns Aeryn jolted upright, seemingly lifted out of her seat by the weight of the cables themselves, like a puppet on a string. She was screaming.
"The Mother's consciousness! It's too much for her!"
"Wait!" Deccan spoke. "Let her process it. She must learn to adapt! Focus, Aeryn! Focus!"
John ran towards Aeryn to try and pull her down, but he couldn't. She was now hovering over him, her eyes wide open, but not seeing.
"Aeryn, can you hear me?!" he yelled. "Remember what Pilot said! You have to listen to her! You have to focus. Or just focus on me. Can you do that?"
"John? John, is that you?"
"Find me, Aeryn. Come back to me."
"I hear you, John, but far away."
"It's me, Aeryn."
"It's just so much... so much..."
It took a while, but in the end it settled. Aeryn reached out and felt for his hand.
"We're okay now," she said. "I feel her."
John's thumb touched the ring on her finger.
"Good god, I married a planet."