Chapter 5:
"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"
Captain John Kovack, 82nd Airborne division, currently attached to the USAF Rapid Capabilities Group, stirred and sat up. He hadn't been sleeping anyway, and that was nothing to do with the hardness of the floor of the alien cell in which he found himself. He hadn't seen or heard from the rest of his team since they had been taken, and that worried him. He knew this was a big ship, and their captors could just be keeping them apart, but who knew what these aliens were capable of? He knew that several of his team had injuries including numerous broken bones and he had no idea how the aliens would react to such injuries: Would they give his injured aid, leave them to suffer or treat them worse, maybe kill them, if they were injured?
The crew of the alien ship had really done a number on him and his team, almost like they had known they were coming and had been waiting. Damn, of course, it was so obvious now. It was a trap all along: They'd gone and walked into a trap, like a bunch of greenhorns. He almost had time to curse himself for his stupidity before he heard the sound of footsteps approaching. They sounded like heavy boots, but whoever was wearing them had a lightness about their step which belied their choice of footwear. He peered through the deep gloom of the cell, through the lattice work door, to try to make out who was there. Although he was sure someone was standing there watching him, he could not see them.
From the other side of the cell door Aeryn, with her superior night vision, assessed the man who John had identified as the most senior officer on the captured ship. She had come to get some answers. She thought she had met his sort before, not least on her brief sojourn on Earth, and she knew that he was unlikely to willingly cooperate. But she was determined to get answers and, although he might have been trained as a soldier for a few years, she had been learning her trade for her whole life. And, courtesy of her time as an assassin and at the hands of such people as the Scarrans, that had included many much harder lessons in interrogation than he would ever have known. She called to Pilot to raise the lighting in his cell by three radions.
After maybe a minute, Kovack heard a series of sounds from the corridor, which he took to be the aliens' language, and immediately the lights came up in his cell. The illumination wasn't daylight bright, far from it, and, in a way he was glad, as that would have rendered him blind and at a disadvantage for a moment. No, the light level was more like that of a nightlight in a kid's bedroom, throwing sinister shadows across everything he saw.
What he saw included a female-looking alien who stood beyond the cell door, glaring at him with a stare that could freeze hell.
She looked human, tall, young, slim, dressed all in black leather. Leather pants and vest, and a big, black sidearm strapped to her thigh. And, of course, those long, heavy, masculine black boots, which he had heard walking up to his cell, boots which shouted "fuck you" rather than "fuck me". Her long, black hair was tied back in a severe business-like way. She clearly had a thing about the colour black, Kovack mused. She was a looker, in an unconventional kind of way. Dark eyes, long nose, high cheekbones thrown into dark shadow. But she had the darkest, grimmest stare he'd seen since at least boot camp. Kovack reckoned from the way she looked, from the way she was looking at him, that this was unlikely to be any sort of social call. She waved her hand to one side of the door, and the grating slid aside, just long enough for her to enter his cell.
Kovack rolled onto his knees, just as she spat out what to him sounded like a series of tones and clicks. She stood, hands on slender hips, as though waiting for a reply. Her words seemed to be a question or a demand, but he had no idea what she was saying. She sighed in frustration, tapped a small metallic badge on her tunic, above her left breast (nice breasts, he thought, not too big, not too small) and made a few more unintelligible noises, before, to his shock, speaking to him in what seemed to be perfect English.
"Get up," Although the words were familiar to Kovack, there was not a hint of friendliness in her tone. Kovack eased from his knees to his feet. She could only be half his weight, if that. If he waited for the right moment, he should be able to take her easily, and if he could get the gun, then he stood a chance of getting out, then getting his people away. He grinned at her.
"Gee, you're the first person I've met out here who speaks English, where'd you…"
"What do you want?" Aeryn interrupted, again in English. She was speaking aggressively, but not shouting, dredging up her PK training to keep the lid on her fury. Kovack wondered if she was speaking quietly because she didn't want to wake anyone. After all, the hour was late: How considerate of her. The fewer people up and awake, the easier his escape plan should work. First, he'd see where this conversation might be going, though, gather some intel.
"Captain John Kovack, serial number…" he didn't have time to finish before she snapped her gun out of it's holster and had it pointed at his head in a steady, two handed grip. All in one smooth, rapid move, Kovack noted with professional respect. She'd obviously practiced that draw a few times.
"I don't care what your name is," Aeryn said, her manner as cold as a frozen Alaskan lake. "What were you doing on my ship?"
"Hey, lady, we heard a distress call, we came to help," Kovack insisted, holding his hands up defensively.
"Bushlit," she said. Kovack frowned for a second, before comprehension dawned. So, her English wasn't perfect. Interesting. He wondered for a second where she had learned it. He began to smirk, and he saw a look of rage cross her face as he did so. Excellent. Angry people make mistakes, Any moment now he was going to get his chance, and she wouldn't know what hit her: What hit her would be a captain in the elite 82nd Airborne. There was a movement off to one side of the cell, which seemed to catch a part of her attention, at almost the same moment as her arms dipped and she started to say something in anger. Kovack saw the moment he had been waiting. He made his move, twisting to one side even as his arm and leg shot out to trip and spin her.
Kovack blinked at the deck plating into which his nose was pressed: Geez that hurt. He assessed his position. He was face down, and she was kneeling on him, her knee pressing between his shoulder blades. The cold barrel of her black side arm was pressed against the back of his head. How the hell did that happen, he wondered? At that moment, a small, squat yellow drone, the size and shape of a day pack, rolled past his line of sight, then he felt a sharp jab to his arm. Geez, what had they done to him? Injected him with some sort of ….. Poison? Anesthetic? Mind-altering drug? What? The woman spoke again, first a few words in her own language, then abruptly back to what seemed to be English again.
"Listen to me, Kovack: This is my ship, I am the Captain here. There is not a single member of my crew who would object if I spaced you. Well, maybe my husband, but, all things considered, I do not think he would object much. So you will answer my questions. A weeken ago your people attacked a diplomatic ship and took two very important people prisoner: Those people are under the special protection of the three main powers in this region of space. You understand so far?"
"Ugh." he grunted, as he options for more detailed conversation were limited by the deck plating in his face.
"So you do as I say, or I might turn you over to the care of one of those powers. If I do that, you will end up wishing I had spaced you. Do you still understand?"
"Ugh," he grunted again.
"Good. Now, there is something else you ought to consider: Those two people, the ones that your people took. They are my offspring." And with that, Kovack felt something, her hand, most likely, slam into the back of his head, the force of the impact breaking his nose against the deck plating. He was lucky the blow hadn't killed him, one way or another, he reflected.
Satisfied that she had established sufficient dominance in the interrogation, Aeryn stood up and Kovack rolled onto his haunches, cradling his bleeding face. Through his blood, pain and fingers he could see the black-clad woman holstering her gun. "And if you ever try to attack me again, I will kill you. I will give you no second warnings." She said matter-of-factly. Five minutes ago he wouldn't have believed her physically able to do so, but now Kovack believed she could and indeed likely would kill him if he didn't cooperate. He had clearly underestimated her and he resolved not to make that mistake again, should another opportunity to escape present itself.
"Geez, woman, you broke my nose…. Can I get a medic in…."
"I thought you were some sort of elite soldier?" her tone was contemptuous. "If you are still bleeding in the morning, perhaps I will get our healer to look at you." Kovack began searching his pockets for something to staunch the flow of blood. "If I let you live that long." She added with a shrug.
Kovack found a small field dressing in his fatigues and, ripping it open, applied it to his nose. "You're not serious about that?" he said, knowing, even as he looked at her, that she might well be. At that moment, Kovack heard other steps approaching. Aeryn didn't even look round as the newcomer entered.
"Hello, John," Aeryn said in a voice notably softer than that she had used with Kovack so far. It was a moment before Kovack realised that she meant the man standing behind her rather than himself. Although the newcomer was apparently also called John, a familiar, human name, the man seemed to be another po-faced black-leather-clad alien lunatic, Kovack thought.
"Hey honey, I thought I'd find you here. How are ya?"drawled the newcomer, not only in English, but with a strong Southern US accent.
"I am fine, John." Aeryn's gimlet stare never left Kovack as she spoke.
"Thought I'd better swing by, check our guest was safe."
"He is fine too. I have not done him permanent harm."
"Yeah, I see you've got the meet-and-greet over with. What've you gotten outta him?"
"Actually, our guest was about to tell us about why he kidnapped our children and where they have been taken."
"Pfff!," Kovack answered with a raised eyebrow, expressing his reluctance to cooperate with his captors. He'd had enough banter from the happy couple. Then the woman's words sunk through to him and he exclaimed "Your children?" The single statement seemed to set something off inside the male: The alien called John took a step forward, seeming to be spoiling for a fight, but the woman laid her hand on his arm and he stopped and fell back.
"Or, if he does not cooperate with us, he can tell one of Rygel's inquisitors, or we can give him to the Scarrans to torture or maybe we could ask Commandant Zobrek to put him in the Aurora chair for us? I really don't care which if he will not tell me what I want to know." Of course, little of what she said meant anything to Kovack, but the man's reaction to her words spoke volumes. Crichton looked at her, genuinely shocked.
"Honey, you can't mean that," Crichton said softly.
"It is who I am, John, what I was born to. And don't forget, he has our children." She said with a shrug. "Besides, you are not so different. Think of what you were willing to do to rescue me from the Scarrans."
John considered this for a moment before himself shrugging, it seemed, in agreement with whatever point she was making.
"If you two are done with the good cop, bad cop routine, I'd best tell you, you failed," Kovack snorted defiantly, although he quietly doubted the truth of his own words. The options the female had presented, and the male's reaction to them, had left him unsettled.
"More fool you: She scares the Hezmanna out of me…" Crichton supplied.
"We do not have time for this," Aeryn broke in and tapped the badge on her breast. "Nybar, meet us at the Hammond tier 5 airlock with a couple of the prisoners. I do not care which ones," Aeryn wanted answers as to what had happened to her children now and, from what she knew of humans, had come to a decision as to how she might get them.
"Now hang on there…" Kovack responded, protective of his people, but Aeryn simply drew her sidearm and waved it to indicate he should start walking towards the cell door. Crichton, deferring to Aeryn, drew his own sidearm and shadowed her move. With the two of them holding their guns on him, Kovack didn't rate his chances of escape as terribly high.
Five minutes later Kovack found himself at an airlock, still accompanied by the biker-couple from hell but now joined by two of their heavily armed, black leather clad sidekicks. The new guards, their faces hidden behind the black-tinted visors of their helmets, looked even less sympathetic than the captain and her husband. At that moment, yet more helmeted guards arrived, harshly escorting two humans from Kovack's team.
"Put one of them in the airlock," Aeryn ordered the latest guards without emotion or hesitation.
"Captain," Nybar confirmed, helping to shove a protesting human into the airlock before closing the door.
Aeryn fixed Kovack with the coldest look he had yet seen from her.
"Your people took my children. Help me get them back or you and your people will see no….. compassion…from us." She glanced at the Crichton, as though confirming something between them.
"Now wait just a minute!" Kovack began to protest, causing his two guards to tighten their grips on his elbows and shoulders.
"Pilot, give me manual control of airlock decompression," Aeryn ordered.
"Granted," came a disembodied reply. Aeryn nodded and marched across to a dial near the door and began turning it. Kovack could make out Technical Sargeant Peterson's concerned face at the small transparent view portal into the airlock, but could not hear his cries. It was more than Kovack could stand.
"Wait!" Kovack shouted. "Look there's two of our ships operating out here, OK: It must've been the other one that took your kids, if it was us at all!"
"If it was you, then yeah, right," Crichton interjected. Aeryn paused in turning the dial, but her hand still hovered over it.
"OK, OK! So we did hear they took two aliens back for further investigations. But that was last week. They'll be back through the wormhole by now, though. Maybe even on Earth."
"Earth!" John exclaimed almost together with Aeryn hissing "A wormhole?" The couple stared at each other for a few seconds, the looks they exchanged saying more than any words could.
"Shit!" John paced back and forth for a couple of seconds, stopping almost toe to toe with Kovack. He stared at Kovack with piercing blue eyes. "So, you do know Earth?"
"Know? You could say that. We're from Earth," Kovack confirmed, both shocked into revealing more than he had planned and a little unsettled that these aliens knew what planet they were from.
"Figures. We'd already guessed as much, just didn't really believe it. How'd you get out here?" Crichton snapped. He was not really surprised by the revelation, but was most definitely upset.
"Oh, that's a long story."
"So, you gonna entertain us?" Crichton asked, nodding towards the airlock. "Or we gonna have to review your motivation?"
"I'll talk."
"Clever man. Remember, we can always revisit that motivation thing if we think you're not being forthcoming."
"Nybar, take the other prisoners back to their cells, then meet us at the central chamber," Aeryn ordered. "Bring this one with us," she added to the guards holding Kovack.
A few minutes later, with Crichton bringing up the rear, they entered a new chamber. From it's appearance Kovack correctly guessed it to be some sort of apothecary or medical bay, with beds, seats and tables laden with a variety of strange, alien medical equipment. Aeryn indicated that Kovack should sit on an unpadded, wipe-clean chair.
"Would you have done it? Spaced my crewman?" Kovack asked, sitting.
Aeryn ignored the question whilst Crichton simply shrugged and snorted, before giving an equally non-committal answer. "Thanks for talking, my body count's already too high."
Before he could reply to that, Kovack found himself distracted as an almost human, female-looking alien with a mass of red curls and strange ridges on her too-large forehead blustered into the chamber. She made straight for the human captain.
"Is this the one whose nose you broke?" She asked Aeryn, whilst appraising the damage to the man's face.
"You tell me," Aeryn shrugged, settling on a nearby stool to oversee matters.
"Hold still and put your head back," the redhead snapped at Kovack. "Let's get that nose fixed up." Kovack allowed the woman to inspect his face and smiled slightly when she added. "Did you have to break his nose, Captain?"
"He's lucky that's all she broke," snorted Crichton, who was watching the scene carefully whilst slouching against what Kovack took to be a medical bed. The redheaded woman sighed resignedly and got to work on Kovack's nose.
Ten minutes, and a short walk through some of Moya's golden corridors later, Kovack found himself in what appeared to be a galley-cum-refectory, shifting uncomfortably under the unfriendly glare of about half a dozen humanoid aliens.
"So, this is the pathetic excuse for a soldier who led the attack on us?" sneered another red-haired woman, this one with a slightly scaled appearance to her skin and a much more belligerent attitude than that of the medic.
"Easy, Sputnik," Crichton responded, laying a gentle, restraining hand on her elbow.
"Such a weak species would have been wiser to have tried trading for what they wanted," she snarled back, before tossing her head and retiring to the other side of the room from where she glowered at the newcomer.
"Sikozu has a point," Aeryn commented, eyeing Kovack.
"Hmm, so, what is so wrong with trading?" John asked, before picking up and munching on a piece of purple fruit. Kovack was silent. "You gonna say anything, or we gonna have to go for another walk?" John snapped once he'd swallowed his mouthful.
"We don't have time, we don't have the resources and we couldn't risk bringing more unfriendly aliens down on us," Kovack responded.
"He's probably right John, after all, what does Erp have to offer anyone out here?" Aeryn put in, the implication of her words more sarcastic than conciliatory.
At that moment, a grey-skinned woman with white hair entered the room with a strange gait, half cat, half string-puppet.
"Hey Crichton, is he talking yet?" Chiana asked.
"Yeah Chi, pull up a pew," Crichton replied.
Kovack stared at Chiana, the grey woman's distinctive looks, and what she had called the man finally tripping a memory in his head.
"Y…You're that astronaut, John Crichton, the one who came to Earth with a bunch of aliens years ago, aren't you?"
John shrugged. "Maybe. What if I am?"
"Then you should be on our side…"
"You reckon?" Crichton snorted in reply.
"Geez, shouldn't you be much older by now?" Kovack continued, letting Crichton's question slide. "You don't seem to have aged a day."
"Yeah, neat huh? Our doc. is just dying to suck my blood and find out why." Crichton responded dryly, his lack of enthusiasm for such a medical investigation evident in his sarcastic delivery.
"I didn't recognize you: Your crew's changed a bit."
"There was a war out here," Crichton shrugged.
"Two, actually," interjected Aeryn.
"And, you know, it's been a long time, people come and go. Aeryn, Sikozu and Chi are the only ones left aboard who went to Earth."
"John, what is the point of all this? I want to know about Deke and Livvy," Aeryn demanded.
"Just getting there, babe," John reassured her, before turning back to Kovack. "Look, I don't want to be funny, but what the hezmanna has been going on back home?" John asked, his consciousness not even registering that, even when speaking to a fellow human, the spicier parts his vocabulary now owed more to the UT's than to Earth.
"How d'ya mean?" Kovack replied, feeling defensive.
"Well, you could start with when and how the space programme turned from scientific exploration to armed piracy?"
"You…. wouldn't understand." Kovack avoided answering.
"What, because I'm not with the programme, or because I've been out of town too long?"
"Yeah, either. Both, if you like," Kovack shot back with defiance. "You don't know what we've been through."
"Oh, I think I have a good idea of the possibilities," John retorted. Kovack remained silent, the set of his jaw showing he was unconvinced by Crichton's argument. "Look, Kovack, my first few cycles out here were hell: I didn't tell the half of it when I visited Earth." John tried to explain. "I know up close and personal how unfriendly the big, bad universe can be. Hell, half the critters out here were after me, my wife, my friends. And when they caught us, and they did catch us, there'd be torture, murder, the works. That's one of the reasons there are faces missing now from those that got to Earth."
"And your point is?"
John resisted the urge to strike him. "After we left Earth that time, the Scarrans, big nasty lizards, they captured Aeryn. She was pregnant with our eldest at the time, and the Scarrans had this whole Mengele thing going on. We almost didn't get her'n the little un' back alive. So don't give me all that 'You Wouldn't Understand bullshit'. I want to know where my kids are and what brings a nice species like you a plunderin' and a kidnappin' in my neighbourhood!"
Kovack reckoned that he didn't have much choice but to tell them some of the details of what had been going on back on Earth. Not if he wanted to get him and his crew out of this mess. Kovack took a deep breath. "It all started out OK. Maybe five years after you left. That's when we got the whole FTL drive thing figured."
"Based on the hetch drives Crichton left?" put in Sikozu.
"Yeah. Anyway, we got a couple of ships made and set to exploring."
"Exploring? What, the whole Star Trek we-come-in-peace thing? Coz you kinda missed, there, buddy."
"Hmm. Look, we were pretty naïve. You shoulda warned us…."
"Why? We're, what, 60 years or more from Earth at maximum hetch out here. You shouldn't have gotten out here for decades, centuries even. I closed the wormhole to make sure of that."
"We found another one." Kovack shrugged. John nodded. He had already guessed as much, and it fit with the general pattern of the Universe in frelling him over. John raised his hands to the ceiling in despair, allowing them to settle across his forehead after a couple of microts.
"Of course you did. How else could you have gotten out here so quickly?" John said, more to himself than to Kovack. "And that's when your troubles started?" Crichton added as a statement more than a question, but Kovack nodded in confirmation regardless.
"We had some good encounters, some not so good. But then something big and unfriendly came through the wormhole, and threatened Earth. That's when things changed."
"That's when you decided to start going around robbing and kidnapping people?"
"Look, Earth needs the tech to defend ourselves, and no one is going to give it us or trade for it. Surely you of all people can understand that, Commander!"
"Oh, I understand that bit right enough. What I'm not getting is why take my kids?"
"That wasn't my team," he quickly claimed, shaking his head. "Must've been Sorenson's ship. But I can imagine…."
"Imagine what?" Aeryn asked, grim-faced and not for a moment fooled by his 'it wasn't me' excuse.
"Y'know, he comes across a couple of human looking and sounding kids. Things have been none too friendly for us out here. He's gonna want to take them back home, find out what's their story."
"I hope, for your sake, that's all they plan on doing. You haven't seen my wife pissed yet, and believe me, you don't want to," John began, but was interrupted by Aeryn's hand falling softly on his forearm.
"John, can we talk privately for a microt?" Aeryn asked.
"Sure thing, honey," he replied, following her out of the central chamber.
An age seemed to pass, while the two Peacekeepers remaining in the chamber, along with Chiana and Sikozu, alternately stared menacingly at Kovack or ignored him. He made one or two attempts to start a conversation, but was rebuffed with silence.
"Look, what's your problem?" he asked Chiana after his third approach was blanked.
"What's MY problem?" Chiana almost screamed. "Y…you abduct my best friends' narls, you attack my home, and you ask what MY problem is!" She stood and stalked off to the other side of the room to stand next to Sikozu. "Can you believe this guy?" Chiana asked of the Kalish, who snorted to indicate that indeed she could not, then the Nebari turned back to look at Kovack, composed herself, and seemed about to continue her rant when John and Aeryn re-entered the chamber.
"Well, Captain Kovack, I've a little proposal. Earth needs friends out here. And some free advice," John opened.
"So what's your proposal?" Kovack asked, putting on his best poker face. He had no doubt that whatever Crichton was about to suggest came from Sun: She seemed to be both the one in charge and the one with the most level head and it had been her who had instigated the couples' private conversation outside the chamber.
"Seems we've got a common cause. I want to keep Earth safe, just like you say you do. That's why I shut the wormhole."
"And?"
"And so I recommend you stop going down the path you've chosen, as Earth doesn't need any of the real powers out here as enemies..."
"And in return you'll help Earth get the technology we need? To defend ourselves?" Kovack asked suspiciously. He couldn't bring himself to trust Crichton or the aliens that he consorted with. However, Kovack didn't have time to dwell on his suspicions, as Crichton was talking again.
"You keep forgetting, my wife and me, we want our kids back. Safe and sound. But I think I can see the beginnings of something here that'll help you, and'll help me and mine."
"Go on," Kovack prompted non-committally.
"First up, you help us get to Earth, help us get our kids back, that might lead to you and your people going home rather than us handing you over to the authorities out here. Second, Earth gives up the whole Space piracy thing. Then, and only then, we might start introducing you to the right sort of aliens. Kappish?"
"You know that making that sort of bargain is not within my purview, Crichton," Kovack stated.
"P'raps not. But you can help the powers-that-be come to the right decisions. So this is how I suggest we play it: Most of your people get to stay on Moya as security, but we take your ship down the rabbit hole back to Earth to get my kids. And talk to the suits in charge. Not necessarily in that order."
Kovack sighed. It seemed he was going to have to agree to take the former astronaut back to Earth. After all, he told himself, at least Crichton was a human, with Earth's interests at heart. And, by local standards the crew of Moya did seem to be the good guys. It might even work out to be for the best, for Earth, if they could develop some useful allegiances this side of the wormhole.
"If I help you get to Earth, I will not do anything to betray our country… my country," Kovack stated flatly.
"I wouldn't expect anything else," Crichton shrugged. Kovack relaxed a little at that. But then he caught Captain Aeryn Sun's stony expression, and suddenly he didn't feel half so relaxed after all.
"~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~"
End of Part One
Coming up in Part 2: We learn what has happened to the children, some old acquaintances are renewed and Aeryn surprises John with her taste in music.
I'm doing much better than I expected with the writing and reviewing of this story, so I hope to start upping the post rate. Hopefully I'll only pause when I have a killer cliff-hanger (and I have a few of those lined up) or run out of stuff ready to post. I'll probably start posting Part 2 at a different time and/or day, as I have a busy couple of weeks at work ahead.