AN: I'm surprise how many people are fans of Stargate and Farscape both. Props to you guys, and I'm hoping this fic might interest those who don't know Farscape to try it out. It's a great show. Again, I'm very grateful for everyone's feedback.
Chapter Four
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Moya, Command Center (16 arns, 2629 microts after contact)
There was no having Moya to listen to reason—or what they assumed to be reason. She wasn't going to escape anytime, not when she was crippled by the extended Starburst. The Wraith transport drifted closer, overshadowing the Leviathan like a plague.
"Pilot, is there any way you can convince Moya to wait a little longer?" Crichton directed to the clamshell.
"I'm afraid the choice is no longer hers to make, Crichton," came the regretful reply. "The Wraith commander and his envoy have already departed the larger vessel and are heading this way."
"Wait a second, this ship doesn't have any weapons?" Sheppard half shouted, having been told by the green Hynerian that they were virtually defenseless against any Wraith assault. "What the hell do you do when you're attacked by someone who has weapons?"
"Run, usually," Rygel said dourly. "Which is fine by me. If only Pilot would stop frelling around, and start repairing the Starburst drive—"
"Shut up, Rygel!" both Aeryn and Crichton snapped simultaneously. The Hynerian made a perturbed 'hmph' and floated to one side.
"Hangar doors are opening!" Pilot announced.
"No! Pilot, stop! D'Argo is still in there!" Aeryn cried frantically.
For a moment, they received no response from the den. Her heart just might have sunk a million metras in her chest as the agonizing moment passed. And then—
"I am…sorry, Officer Sun," Pilot said with a great deal of pain. "Moya…could not wait. Decompression has already taken place."
While the denial struck hard, she felt an enraged scream swell in her throat, where it caught and did not release. It couldn't possibly be. Moya did not just kill her—and John's—only son, their child whom the Leviathan cared for like a nephew or a grandson. There was some sort of mistake…there had to be another explanation. Pilot could be wrong, or their son might be somewhere else. You don't just…raise a child for eight cycles, and then have him gone—
"Mom? Dad? Pilot, can anyone hear me?"For one of the few times in her life, Aeryn Sun felt like she would collapse from an emotional heart attack. The sound of D'Argo's voice over the comms brought an ecstatic grin to her face. Her husband leaned over the console, looking like he would either lose his mind, or pass out. Even the members of Sheppard's team looked relieved to some extent.
"D'argo! D'Argo, where are you?" Aeryn demanded, much like an infuriated mother recovering from a near stroke over the loss of her son.
"I'm sorry, Mom, I just wanted to prove I wasn't lying! I swear!"
"D'Argo, tell us where you are. Whatever you're doing, it doesn't matter right now. This is important." Crichton glanced tersely at the human strangers.
"I…I'm on the Sebacean ship," the boy replied nervously. "It…it just started doing things on its own. I want it to stop, but I-I don't know what to do. I don't want to end up in space!"
Sheppard was well aware of McKay's gaping, bewildered reaction to this. This was a little much to take in. This kid had the ATA gene? Hell, they weren't even from the same galaxy! How the hell did an alien kid end up with the Ancient—gene—activation…
His mind drew its conclusion. John Crichton—right, the IASA guy, from Earth. It made sense that even if Crichton himself didn't have the gene, his kid would. Genetics did that sometimes. Or so he'd heard.
"Listen, D'argo," he said, emulating the boy's parents by speaking towards the octagonal badge in Crichton's hand. "Our ship does whatever you ask it to in your mind. Right now, what you want it to do is go invisible—just think about that, like a blanket, and you should see a screen with a green indicator on it."
A second later. "Y-Yeah…I think I see it."
"Good, that means it's working. Whatever you do, don't make any noise and stay inside the jumper, understand?" Feeling some of his stripped authority slowly returning, the colonel turned to the parents. "So long as they don't run into him on landing, he'll be fine. Listen, these creatures you're about to meet probably aren't like the kind you've met before. You can't trust, negotiate, or agree with Wraith—the only thing they want is to suck the life out of you and your whole planet."
"What the frell is that supposed to mean?" snapped Aeryn, challengingly.
"They eat people," McKay cut in with an unpleasant grimace. He wiggled his fingers as if to demonstrate. "Using their hands. They drain every last ounce of life from your body until you're nothing but a shriveled little corpse."
"And that's after they use their telepathic knack of interrogation, pretty much forcing you to say things the usual kind of torture wouldn't," Sheppard added.
"Yes, hmm. The…usual… kind," Rodney said smugly, giving the colonel a look he obviously assumed was superior.
Before anyone had a chance to respond to that, Pilot's image came up on the clamshell. "Commander, a smaller Wraith vessel has landed in the hangar bay. They have not noticed D'Argo or the Builder's ship."
"How many are there?" asked Sheppard.
Pilot turned his carapace to regard him coolly. "There are six," he said without ceremony. "Although I must point out how the craft is barely designed to fit one."
Somehow, Crichton got the underlying suggestion in that statement and turned his full attention on the colonel, slamming his palm against he panel and storming right up to him. Before he could get much closer, Ronon stepped forward so that he was partially between the driven commander and Sheppard. This powerful message was enough to stop Crichton in his tracks, but it wasn't near enough to stop him from yelling out.
"What the hell does that mean, huh, Lt. Colonel? One ship, six crew. That math's a little wrong, don't you think?"
His own temper aside, Sheppard found himself glaring straight back into Crichton's eyes with a great deal of challenge. "McKay?" he grated.
"What? What do you want me to say?" whined the scientist, exasperated. He threw his hands in the air. "Take a look around, Colonel! I honestly doubt they're going to believe that a race of life-sucking aliens has the ability to scoop people up in their flashy beam rays into their noisy little darts to be carried away to some unimaginable fate!"
Crichton had that stone-faced, shifty-eyed look that usually happened when he couldn't decide whether to take something seriously, or continue being angry. He chose to do neither, and said, "Do they?"
Rodney mellowed. His metaphorical hackles went down. "Oh. Well…yes, they do."
"Fine." Crichton backed off, waving his hands a little manically. "Everybody grab something that shoots something. Preferably something dangerous, if at all possible."
"Hold on a second, Rambo," Sheppard stopped him. "Pilot, can you tell how many of them have masks?"
The question was obviously a surprise to Moya's pilot. "Four of them are wearing masks…and are considerably larger than the others. The smaller ones appear to be the ones in charge, and they are—" He broke off, before continuing with an edge of reproach. "They have destroyed all of the DRDs currently active on tier four. Somehow they're aware of the their surveillance capabilities."
"They don't want us to know when they're gonna show up. As you can guess, they make pretty lousy house guests," Sheppard mentioned. He was getting a bad feeling about this—on top of the bad feeling he was already experiencing about these people. For one, the Wraith were supposed to be predictable. For another, why they hell would Wraith be interested in this ship, rather than the planet not ten minute's flight from here? Why settle for a fistful of sardines, when there was a whole ocean just a click away? Not that he wanted the natives on the planet to get culled, but the Wraith's intentions were…pretty impulsive.
"How could they?" Aeryn wondered out loud, bringing him back to the 'here and now'. "They weren't doing a frelling thing to provoke them. And what if D'Argo had been outside the ship when they landed?"
"They probably wouldn't have shot him," said Sheppard.
She scowled at him. "Oh, really?"
"Yeah," he said with a bond of both condescension and gravity. "They would have done a lot worse."
A heavy silence fell, where the members of both teams took a moment to survey each other.
"Shall I…have the DRDs open fire?" asked Pilot, breaking the mood. It wasn't a very like him to suggest such a thing, but he had more than enough cycles to understand Moya's crew to the point where he could envisage their responses.
"No, Pilot," Crichton refused, glancing back at the clamshell. "You'll just end up losing more DRDs, and that can't be good for Moya. Besides, you need as many as you can get fixing that Starburst drive."
"You can't let them reach this spot," Sheppard advised. "I'll assume that 'special' place where you did all our weapons isn't somewhere we can get to right now."
"Oh, so we're all blaming the over-zealous protector of the Leviathan, not to mention loving father for being careful, are we?" Crichton snapped back. He shook a finger. "Ah, ah! Don't answer that. Pilot, can you seal off the command center before these fun-loving freaks dig their claws, or palms, or…whatever, into us?"
"I…I can't," Pilot replied, tentatively. "Fortunately, it…won't be necessary."
"What?" growled Crichton. "What's that supposed to mean? Pilot?"
No answer.
Aeryn folded her arms anxiously. "Pilot, speak to us. What's wrong?"
"The…Wraith are not moving in your direction, Crichton," came the shocked reply. "They are headed straight for…my den."
And just like so many times before, Sheppard felt that 'bad feeling' pop in his stomach like cherry bomb. Oh, the Wraith were doing exactly what any Wraith would do—they weren't being cunning, he was just completely blind. Was that even possible? He didn't even think Wraith could even feed on something other than human beings, but this made that point seem wrongly overlooked. "This…can't be good," he said, rather stupidly.
"Point of interest!" exclaimed Crichton loudly, raising a single finger. "These Wraith feed on life energy, right?"
"Pretty much," said the colonel in his least threatening 'yeah-we're-screwed' voice.
"Oh my God," Rodney half-choked, going a bit paler than usual. "This ship. That's what they want, it's…it's the all-you-can-eat buffet for a Wraith!"
Crichton moaned and placed his hands over his face, moments before he dropped his arms, grabbed his gun, loaded it and ran for the leftmost corridor. "Pilot!" he roared. "Get that door closed, now! And put as many DRDs in front of you as you can!"
"I am…trying, Crichton," said a very flustered Pilot over the comm. "Most of Moya's functions are still completely inoperable, including the mechanism for locking this door!"
"Then have the DRDs weld it shut! Just think of a way, and do it already!"
"There is no other way! My connection to Moya is as unstable now as it was several arns ago!"
At this point, even the formal inconsistencies between Crichton's and Sheppard's parties were null. Aeryn cared less about what threat they posed now as opposed to before, taking both her guns to hand and rushing after her husband. The colonel's team and Rygel were the only ones left behind.
"Well, don't look at me!" the Hynerian snapped irritably. "I'm no more fit for battle than a mother negnik! You do something about it!"
"We plan to," Teyla responded evenly.
"Where are our weapons?" said Ronon, not so 'evenly'.
Rygel went stiff in his chair. "How should I know? I was unconscious when that happened! If I were you, I'd go for the pulse rifles hidden in that floor compartment just over there." The Hynerian chuckled impishly, floating towards the corridor that led to the hanger. "You didn't hear it from me!"
Ronon was already pulling open said compartment and distributing the weapons stored there. John couldn't stop thinking it was all too convenient how these people handled themselves in the face of a threat—almost as if they expected it all the time. But then, he didn't know a damn thing about this place, except that a rather strange assortment of individuals lived in it and treated it like one of their own. If Weir were here, she'd probably be the first to respect that.
Besides, he really didn't want the Wraith getting their grip on something that was not only apparently capable of intergalactic travel, but a means to feed themselves along the way. And to spread it all out, he felt like it was necessary to confront the old 'miracle' Wraith again. Only this time, he wasn't going to let it escape alive, 'brother' or no 'brother'.
Moya, Hangar (16 arns, 2884 microts after contact)
D'Argo watched the aliens pass by the Sebacean ship, ignoring it completely. He couldn't help his fear when he saw them—they reminded him of ghosts, with sickly pale green skin and teeth the colour of bat dren. If these were the creatures the voice had been telling him about, and he might possibly be wrong about the Sebaceans before…
He'd never believe that! The voice was wrong, he was sure of it. All the strangers wanted was to take away his home, and hurt everybody. He had to do something to stop them before they did anything. He had to follow the strange creatures—they'd prove the others were bad people.
He gave the interior of their ship one last, hard look before scrambling to the back of the 'jumper'. The hatch opened after he struck the mechanism off to one side—it hadn't taken him long to find it—and he was down on the hangar floor again in a shake of a gordep's wing. He would track the six creatures down Moya's tiers, until they met up with Sheppard and his bunch. Then he'd turn on his comm and prove to everyone that they were up to something bad.
Wanting. Hungry. Coming. Wraith…want…Moya. Eating us! Eat Moya, eat Pilot, Pilot, Pilot…protect Moya!
D'Argo froze in place. Wraith? Wraith? he thought to the voice, as if asking it to confirm. Will they really hurt Moya? But…only because Sheppard told them to! He knew they were going to hurt Moya! His parents might be trying to stop them, but…no he couldn't talk to them. His comm was still in the command center, and the communications system of the Sebacean ship wouldn't help him now. He had to get to Pilot's den before Sheppard did, before the Wraith did, and warn him! The eight-year-old, invigorated by this, mad-dashed down the corridor to tier four faster than a bat out of Hezmana.
He'd only reached the junction that led to the second tier, when he was thrown off his feet by a brain-squashing force from behind. He was raised into the air by the collar of his shirt, flailing against his unseen assailant. Slowly, he was rotated around to face it.
The Wraith's ugly yellow eyes pierced the fragile barrier of his courage. D'Argo whimpered softly as the creature bared its teeth in a satisfied grin. Its breath washed over him like a warm, poisonous breeze.
"Sleep," it hissed slowly.
The last thing he heard before drifting into the dark void, was the voice in his head whispering urgently…
D'Argo, D'Argo, D'Argo…
TBC