Chapter Two
Jack put his head on his hand and watched as Jared put a bandage over the girl's right arm and gave her a cup of water. The girl was strange looking; Jack could actually make out her features now the girl had cleaned up. She had a sharpness to her face that Jack couldn't quite put his finger on. Her cheeks were high and her lips looked as though they were always thoughtful, her hair was a mousy brown, but her body. God her body was something else.
D'Argo broke Jack's musings as he slapped him on the shoulder.
"Don't perve."
"I wasn't perving."
"Don't perve."
Jack chose to ignore his brother as they both stood and watched her stand up and walk towards them. She didn't smile, Jack hadn't seen her do so at all, she just looked at them with slightly empty green eyes.
"Hi, I'm Jack." He said, shoving out his hand in front of her. It was a classic greeting his father always used, and people in the universe almost never understood what it meant. To his surprise the girl took his hand and shook it gently, not taking her grey eyes off his face. The girl was really unnerving.
"So, you're Hannah, huh?" She nodded slowly and held her hand out to D'Argo, who shook it. Then a few moments of uncomfortable silence.
"So how come you ended up in that dump then? Whatever it was, collector did you say little D?"
"Yeah, something like that." The girl looked at them, her eyebrows frowning a little.
"Well where are you from?"
"I don't understand." She whispered, looking at the ground as though afraid they would be angry.
"Don't understand what?"
D'Argo snapped his fingers in the annoying way he did when he realised something.
"Translator microbes!"
"Don't be daft, who the hell doesn't have translator microbes?"
"Pilot, can you bring one of the DRDs up to tier two please, we need some translator microbes."
"Translator microbes? I'll send one up to you as soon as one becomes available."
"As soon as - oh whatever. Asap please, Pilot." D'Argo got no response.
"Okay then, let's just start off with some basics then, you're on Moya." Jack began, pointing to the walls around him, "A leviathan. Moya."He gave her a thumbs up, "It's a living ship. Pretty cool, huh?"
She looked at the ceiling at the points he had pointed to in what could have been wonder, but the expression on her face had a darkness behind it and he couldn't quite tell.
"Yeah, and she's called Moya. We're in... God where are we at the moment?"
"Somewhere near Thurlis I think, we're meeting Dad here in a day or so. Umm, do you know Thurlis? Thurlis?" She shook her head slowly in confusion and jumped back a space as a DRD whizzed round the corner with a familiar whirring sound.
It darted over to the girl's foot and injected her with microbes. She screamed and leapt back, falling onto a tray and sending bits and pieces flying.
"It's okay, calm down! Give it a minute." D'Argo rushed towards her and helped her up, holding onto her arm to stop her from shaking herself to the ground. Jack looked at the things he should probably pick up, and left them where they were.
"Hi... can you understand me now?" She looked at him and nodded. "I'm Jack and this is D'Argo, we're on Moya. A living ship. Our home."
"That's weird." She said, and pulled away from D'Argo's grip.
"So, where are you from?" She bit her lip and looked at the door.
"Do you have...Um, do you have any food?"
"If you're hungry enough, then yes, because you'll have to be starving to put enough up with the food cubes we have. Some shortage in the food industry, bla, bla, bla, it's all gone to pot since the main powers virtually shut down and farming and shipping has all gone to hell in a big black prowler etc etc." Jack began to walk as he talked and liked the fact that both the girl and his brother automatically followed him.
"It's all very fascinating in theory," D'Argo continued, "If you can actually do anything about it, but then of course we can't. Too young, too immature, I forget the reasoning, but apparently the ideal is not to get drunk every other weekend and pull girls... no matter how stunning they are."
"Not that we're not training. Mum's got us on some stupid schedule these days, apparently in her day 'the weakest of drannits would be able to keep up with her schedule, but we can barely manage to stay alive.'"
"But we try."
"Yeah, we try."
Hannah walked alongside them, staring at the walls as though they were made of gold, touching them every so often, as though to see what it felt like to be inside a ship that had total power over you.
They reached the cantine in minutes and Jack began to look through the cupboards to see if he could find anything that resembled food. He found a few food cubes and a couple of crackers that for some reason his parents refused to eat and laid them on the table.
"Blue and brown, my favourite colours!"
"They taste the same, but you can pretend they're something else if you close your eyes and, you know, completely ignore the taste in your mouth."
Jack picked up his own and swallowed it whole, realising as he did so that he had just eaten his dinner four hours early.
"Dammit." He muttered and watched as the girl picked up a blue cube and popped it into her mouth. Jack was about to apologise when a grin spread across her face. "Is it okay?"
"It's delicious!" she put her hand over her smile and closed her eyes.
"Wow, what did they feed you down there?"
"It was worse than this," D'Argo picked up his own dinner and put it back in the cupboard. The forward thinking Drak.
"So, what does it taste like?" He asked as the girl put another blue cube into her mouth.
"Blueberry bubblegum." She whispered, chewing and swallowing with the table manners of someone that had not eaten with others in a long time.
"Uh...huh." The ship shook and Jack tumbled to his right, a familiar sickening feeling rising up.
"Pilot, please say we hit something because of your inept driving." He said into his com, holding onto the table in case of another jolt.
"Hardly, it's the Darvins again. They want to speak to Crichton."
"Did you tell them he's not here?"
"Several times." Jack glanced at D'Argo.
"Have they actually ever met him before?" He asked, and saw D'Argo's frown forming. There was a pause as Pilot realised what Jack was thinking, but reluctantly he spoke.
"No."
"Right then!" Jack leapt up just the ship shuddered again, throwing him towards the door, which he proceeded to stumble through.
"Jack?"
"Yes little D?"
"Don't screw it up, I don't want to be blown to pieces."
"Yes D." He legged it to the deck, D'Argo and Hannah running behind him all the way to the main bridge.
"On screen Spock!" Jack had barely stood at the steering rod when the screen flickered up with a face so ugly it made his head hurt. With eyes as small as its nose, and a wide mouth that occupied the rest of its head, the Darvins had risen out of the muck of terror and become one of the seven species that Jack's father had written on the back of his notebook.
Jack had been told from pretty much the moment he could stand, that he looked the spitting image of his father, down to the cropped blond/brown hair and slight swagger when he walked. D'Argo had inherited the black hair and sharp nose of their mother, but for all intents and purposes, Jack looked like a younger, possibly slightly more handsome, version of his father.
"Hello, I'm John Crichton, who am I talking to?"
"I am Darvin, of the Darvins. Why have you not received our transmissions before now?"
"I have been incredibly busy, Darvin, there are matters of the universe that require my full attention, I hope that this one is one that is deserving of my time?" The Darvin shifted uncomfortably as self doubt flickered between his eyes.
"Of course. I come here to talk of the shipping arrangements we were supposed to lay down in the Great Announcement. It has been almost a third of a cycle and still no word has come through about the restrictions being lifted."
"And exactly what makes you assume they will be lifted?"
"Well... You said they would..."
"Yes. Of course I did." Jack felt the back of his hands itch like they always did under pressure, and he desperately ignored the urge to scratch them. "Well as you know, it's an unsure time for shipping, we have to make sure the proper command system is in place before we let go of the restrictions. There has to be order, and order in a universe as big as this is not an easy thing to come by, as I'm sure you know."
"Of course, I-"
"I'm sure you also know," Jack raised his voice a little, "that every other one of the shipping freelancers has the same restrictions, which are put in place – as you know – to stop any overachievers like you from getting greedy. It's a hard time for all, Mr Darvin, one group cannot start profiting more than any other yet. Your time will come when your excellent service and superior ships will be the asset to you, you so desperately want them to, but for now I suggest you stop wasting my time and do your jobs." Jack took a deep breath in and stood as tall as he could, looking the Darvin straight in his three eyes.
The Darvin seemed to contemplate for a moment before he bobbed slightly, and the screen abruptly vanished.
"Nothing like John, but I suppose you're new at this." Aeryn strode into the room and Jack's gave her a sheepish grin as she fixed her stare on him.
"They would probably have kept shooting at us until dad got here. This way was quicker!" Aeryn gave a look that plainly showed what an idiot he was, but when she turned away he gave himself a quick grin. Got away with it.
Aeryn walked over to a panel, pressed four buttons and talked to the shell, "Pilot, how far away are we from the rendezvous point?"
"We're there now, shall we dock in Thurlis?"
"No, I don't like that place, besides, too many people will recognise us. Stay here for a little while, we'll dock only when Crichton messages us to say he's there."
"Of course, Officer Sun."
"Besides, I don't want to give you boys any more opportunities to get in trouble." She glared Jack in the eye until he dropped his gaze. "So, who's this?"
When Hannah stared at her, frozen behind D'Argo, Jack spoke.
"This is Hannah. The girl D'Argo picked up from Asci."
"I did not pick her up from Asci. I rescued her, she was a prisoner next to me, with the collector."
"Yes, a man we're still looking up on." She said thoughtfully, looking the girl up and down with a cold stare that meant she hadn't decided whether or not to like a person. "Where are you from?"
The girl shook her head.
"I don't know."
Aeryn frowned.
"How can you not know? What do you remember about before you were captured?" A dark light flickered behind the girls eyes and she suddenly seemed a lot younger. She shrank back a little. "Nothing? Nothing at all?" The girl shook her head and stepped back, her hands clenched together against her chest.
"I think she can't remember anything." D'Argo said softly, "cause she doesn't want to remember what happened to her down there." The girl continued to stare at Aeryn, who did not break her gaze.
"Fine, then." She said briskly, as Hannah's eyes slowly slid to the floor. "Why was she captured in the first place?"
"Ooh, I know this one! The collector said she was... special, or unique or something." Aeryn glanced at D'Argo.
"Special and unique are rarely good combinations for this crew."