They dropped down from the ceilings and the vents like rain: ants. Tiny silver and red segmented bugs. As they landed on Moya's floor, they crept toward each other, their little feet so light on the ship's skin that it was impossible for Moya or her Pilot to sense them. Where they met they linked jaws and legs until they formed a superstructure about the size of a dinner plate. This silver object inched across the floor until it came to an exterior wall. Slowly, slowly the ants drew the moisture and flexibility from the biomechanoid's skin. Moya felt a burning sensation, but it was so light and so distant it was like the touch of a serrated leaf, or a single ray of sun.

Pilot did not stir.

The ship was peaceful. Peaceful and at peace. She and Pilot had never had so few worries or so long a time of true rest. They had been placed with kindness in a restorative nebula, and they had remained there for some months. There would be time someday for more exploring but there was so much to recover from. Moya had entered a time of dormancy and languor.

So had her small crew. Aeryn Sun sat in bed reading a Shakespeare play and taking mental notes on what to quiz John on. She supported the book the with her knees, drifting between a dreamworld and the warmth and quiet of Moya. One of her hands rested on John Crichton's head. He slept deeply, nestled against her hip. She could have set a watch by his deep breathing. It made her happy when he rested like that, and when he was close by. She had been happy a lot lately.

Not far from their bed a small baby slept in a bassinet.

She heard a sound like metal grinding against metal. She licked her fingertips and started to turn a page, then stopped, perfectly still.

No other sounds.

She reached down and closed her hand on John's bare shoulder. He woke without startling and blinked a few times. He kissed her hip and pinched it. "Hey baby. How you doin'?" Then feeling the tension in her body, he snatched his pulse pistol from the bedside table, swung it around, and pointed it at the door. He was breathing very hard now, shivering, and his body was drenched in sweat. Wildness passed across his face and exposed itself in his eyes. His jaw was set. The tip of the gun bobbed up and down. Aeryn put her hand on her own gun underneath her pillow.

Wait—

Nothing came.

John groaned and put his forehead on her shoulder. "Jesus." He turned his face so he could lean on her and put his hand to his chest. "Frell."

"I'm sorry," said Aeryn.

"What? No, baby. How often have I done that to you?"

"This week?" He had in fact woken her from a dead sleep twice the night before because of a natural sound from Moya. They both had warriors' hair-trigger instincts and would probably never again feel truly safe. They had trouble even sleeping at the same time.

"God you're beautiful," said John.

"I love you too," said Aeryn. "Go back to sleep."

"Dunno if I can."

"Okay," said Aeryn, smiling a little.

"I'm all worked up now." He trailed a hand down her arm, then closed his fingers around hers and brought her hand to his mouth. He kissed her fingertips, her knuckles, the soft spot at the base of her thumb. "In English they call this the Mount of Venus," he said.

"Really?"

"Yeah. There are these people on Earth who think you can tell the future from the lines on your hands. The different parts. And that's the name of one of the parts."

"So your world has seers too." It was a side of Earth she had not really gotten to experience during their short visit. Before meeting John, Aeryn's life had little room for mysticism, beyond the usual military superstitions. She found them fascinating if not convincing. Prayer had saved her once.

"Uh-huh." He turned her hand over and traced the lines with his fingertip. "This one is called the head line. The life line." He lingered over one. "The heart line."

"And what does that one say?"

He turned her hand for better light and pretended to squint at it. "It says," he pronounced, "that you will always be loved. And that you need to be more careful loading pulse charges because you have burn scars."

"Intriguing. Did a girl teach you to read palms?"

John nodded. "Yep."

"Ah," she said. "And the John Crichton story continues to unfold."

"Yes it does," he said, grinning.

She put her hand under his chin and kissed him, and he relaxed toward her, resting a warm heavy hand on her hip, rubbing a sensitive spot there with his thumb. She was taken by the taste of him, sweet and acorn, and found that she wanted him again very badly. The scare she'd had had sharpened her senses and nested in her bones and there really was no end to her wanting of him.

Something about the size of a small dog landed on the end of the bed and sank its teeth into her bare foot.

Aeryn grabbed John's pulse pistol, aimed and pulled the trigger three times in the space of a blink. There was a squeal. The blankets at the end of the bed stirred but there was nothing to see. And then it was all movement and yelling and the flash of pulse fire, John snaking his arm underneath the pillow and getting her gun. Another creature was on them, in the bed. Aeryn caught it with a knee and kicked it hard across the room. She heard a sound as it smacked into the wall. The crunch of bone. She fired at the place where she heard noise.

The baby began to whine.

"Where the hell is it?" said John. "I don't see anything."

"Frelling—shimmer—suits—"

"Sonofabitch." John drove an elbow into something. A line of red scratches appeared on his face, seemingly from nowhere. He rolled his attacker over and shot it point blank. The bed was suddenly covered in thick black blood. The creatures who attacked them were wearing shimmers, visible only when they were in fast motion. John kicked another one off of him. Then Aeryn saw him stop for just a second. Thinking. Then two small, strong, invisible hands closed on her throat and cut off her air. John fired widely—and hit the lights, which flickered and went out. The room went dim.

"HEY! PILOT!" he shouted.

Pilot woke up and cut the power to the hallway as well. They were suddenly in pitch darkness. Now the shimmers were blind as well, and she and John wouldn't be distracted by looking for things they couldn't see. Aeryn slid off the bed and hit the floor hard, crushing something underneath her. The choking fingers loosened. She jammed her gun into a small ribcage and pulled the trigger. She could tell she was bleeding from her foot, but there was no pain—yet. Her eyes searched the room for the telltale shimmer, and the scrabbling noises. John pulled off eight shots in quick succession. Aeryn stayed low to the ground. She listened. She heard one soft noise, aimed over the bed, and fired.

Silence. Baby Dar gave a high-pitched cry.

"Babe?" said John.

"I'm all right," said Aeryn. "You?"

"Oh, peachy," said John. "I'm covered in blood and slime."

"Yours?"

"Some of the blood. Maybe."

"Bad?"

"Nah," said John. He tapped his coms. "Pilot. Lights, situation report, damage assessment, anything. Do we need to be in motion right now?"

A soft, thoughtful voice came over the coms. "I don't… think so, Commander."

"You don't think so?"

The hallway lights came back on, and then a few yellow emergency lights in the room. John leaned on the baby's cradle, his gun wavering between the ceiling vents and the front door. Nothing else attacked them. John took the fussing baby and pressed him to his bare chest, where Dar nestled his face into his father's shoulder. Still sweeping the room with Aeryn's gun, John patted the tiny diapered bottom.

"There is a small hull breach on Tier 9 but the DRDs have already begun to repair it," said Pilot.

"Is that how they got in?"

"Yes," said Pilot. "They were using… some kind of stealth technology."

"'Some kind of stealth technology,' " John repeated. "You know, Pilot, you are a real font of exposition. Are there any more hull breaches?"

"None that I can detect."

"None that he can detect," said John to Aeryn. She shrugged.

They pulled some clothes on, tossing their guns from hand to hand as they dressed. John weighed Aeryn's pulse pistol in his hand. "Girl gun," he said.

"Yes, well," said Aeryn. "A clean shot always has the advantage over a big blunt instrument."

"Always?"

She smiled. "Oh, yes."

"Well you'll have to be patient with me," said John. "I'm still learning."

They traded weapons across the bed. Then John handed Dar to Aeryn and bent over the bed. His new gun, Ruby, had a small flashlight in the nose, which he shined over the shimmer that was leaking blood. He nudged the body with the tip of his weapon. Then while Aeryn covered him he put his gun down and cut the shimmer suit open with his pocket knife. His fingers shimmered and disappeared as he pulled the wrapping from the body and tossed it aside.

They looked at each other, then down at the corpse, then up at each other again. Aeryn shifted Dar onto her hip and held his head away from the sight. He was only six months old and he wouldn't remember. But there were things a baby shouldn't see. Things their baby shouldn't see.

Lying on their bed, its face and ribs burnt and distorted by pulse fire, was a small gray-green thing not much bigger than a Scottish terrier. But no critter this. John shredded a thumbnail with his teeth. "It's a Hynerian."

Aeryn nodded. "A female. See the elongated earbrows?"

"I saw the jewelry," said John.

Next to its small hand was a glass knife. John frowned at it. Then they both took a slow turn around the room peeling shimmer suits from the bodies. They were all young Hynerian females.

"This is an assassination squad," said Aeryn.

John sat on the bed. The adrenalin was draining off but he didn't put his gun away. He grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck. "We're gonna need a new mattress."

"John," said Aeryn softly. "The bassinet."

There was a shimmer near the baby's bed. A little movement. John got up, stretched, strode over and tore the shimmer suit off. The female had been wounded, probably mortally, though who knew with Hynerians and, really, who cared. She had large yellow eyes and she smelled of swamp and the aluminum smell of Hynerian blood. She was draped over Dar's little cot with one arm extended. If the baby was in bed she could have laid hands on him. And clutched in her extended arm was a long, thin glass spear. She spasmed and trembled. She coughed and blood spilled from her lips.

"Please, garda," she murmured, in a high, breathy voice. "Please, please, please."

John had gone very cold and still. "He's six months old."

"Please," gasped the girl. "I know you're a kind ser."

"He is. Six. Months. Old."

"Please… help… me…"

"All right." John put Ruby to her head and pulled the trigger.

Silence.

He's getting faster, Aeryn thought. She hated that, but she loved it too. Decisiveness suited him. Uncertainty ground him down. After a time she said, "John." He flinched at the sound of her voice. She came and sat beside him and took Ruby from him. She laid Dar in his lap, tore a strip of fabric from their ruined bed, and cleaned dots of blood from his face and hands. "Look at me," she said. It took him a moment but he lifted his chin. His eyes were gas-flame blue.

"She was dead anyway," said Aeryn.

He nodded.

As they sat together three DRDs rolled into and began cleaning and sweeping, heating and blasting away, cleaning scorch marks.

"You know I love you, right?" said Aeryn.

"This is over," said John.

"Yes," said Aeryn. "We've got to go to work now."

The baby stirred and cooed and John reached out to touch his head, something he had done a thousand times before to soothe him. But he stopped himself. He put his hand down and swallowed. "Pilot," he said.

"Yes, Commander."

"What have we gotta do to make Moya ready for wormhole travel?"

"Commander—"

"Hang tough, buddy," said John. "I know you're scared. Me too. But it's Scooby Doo time."

"I was going to say," said Pilot coolly, "that Moya's time here has been helpful to her. She is also… upset that our defenses have failed you. She is prepared to go where you direct her, including through the wormhole network if you believe that is the best course of action."

"Good girl," said John. "Tell her we're going home."

"To Earth?"

"Ha," John scoffed. "Not a chance." He put on a low, haughty voice and made a regal gesture. "To the Great, Bountiful and Eternal Royal Empire of Hyneria, of course."

"Oh," said Aeryn.

"Problem?" John asked.

"No," she replied. "It's just… surprising."

"Why?" said John. "All our friends are there."

"You promised Rygel you would never go to Hyneria."

"It was a joke," he said.

"It was not a joke."

"I thought it was pretty funny."

"Excuse me, Commander. Officer Sun."

"Yes, Pilot," they said together.

"If you open a wormhole near the Hynerian core planets it is certain to cause some alarm."

Aeryn swallowed a dark laugh. John reached over and threaded his fingers through hers. "Wow," John told Pilot. "I had not thought about that. Hmm. Now that you mention it, I guess that's a thing that might happen."

"Would you like me to send your diplomatic code ahead of you? To signal your peaceful intentions?"

John Crichton smiled. "Nope."