SEVEN

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John's knee came up as he pushed Aeryn down. She felt her feet stumble on the grating - and then there was no grating.

She felt herself falling and simply anticipated for the short sharp shock at the end. It came sooner than she was ready for but she landed on her feet. She slammed into the wall, her hands still manacled together. She stumbled backwards quickly.

Not a moment too soon. John shot down the same way she had come. Weapons fire accompanied his grabbing of her wrist. He yanked her after him down the narrow duct. She bent over nearly double to avoid hitting the metal ceiling and he was forced to let go of her. She tried to get her bearings even as she ran after him.

He stopped short and she didn't have time to halt her stride. She whammed into his backside, propelling him forward at speed. He cried out as his arms pin-wheeled. She tried to lean back but toppled after him.

The next moment she was crashing into something mostly soft. She sat up, counting her blessings and shaking her hair from her face. She looked around, finding it predominantly discarded clothes and refuse. She looked down and was surprised to see a standard-issue Peacekeeper boot in front of her. She blinked, then realised there was another one three feet to the right of it. A horrible, horrible feeling of unease began to creep over her as she made out ragged, pained breathing from behind her.

She turned slowly, almost afraid to look behind her. She gasped and struggled to the side, sliding off the warm, comfortable crashmat made of Crichton. He had one hand on his pulse pistol, the attached arm splayed out at right angles. His left hand was on his chest as he attempted to wheeze air back into his lungs.

"Crichton," she managed guiltily. "Are you alright?"

He puffed air out in small measures, sucking fresh air in as if any that went unused would be charged for. She knelt next to him and grabbed his open jacket in two hands. She wrenched him to a sitting position, shifting onto one leg and bending her other knee to bolster his back. She lifted both hands, balled them, and whoomfed them into his back with all of her weight.

He spat carbon dioxide and any saliva not tied down in shock and pain. He panted in air, sounding much like an aged bellows organ, before waving his hand.

"What - are you - doing - woman?" he heaved on each expulsion.

"Countering the effects of being winded," she nodded. She raised her hands again.

"Stop!" he cried. "How is - beating the crap - outta me - gonna help?"

"I'm punching your penaumal bags to get them filling with air!"

"I don't have - pen ow mul bags," he panted. "I have lungs. And they're not there!"

"Oh," she replied in a small voice. "Well…"

He put his hand to his mouth quickly. "My tongue!"

"What about it?" she demanded, scooting round to his side again and finding him poking himself in the mouth. "Don't do that," she chided, slapping his hand away. "Who knows where you've had your hands today."

"My tongue! My tongue works!" he cried happily. "I can talk again!"

"Frell," she sighed. "I knew it couldn't last forever. Come on, get up. Show me the plans for this place, let's find the others and get back to my Prowler." She pushed herself to her feet, putting her hand out for his. He holstered the pistol and took her palm with his, hauling himself up.

"Plans?" he echoed. "What plans?"

She stared for a full second. "You came onto this ship without asking Pilot for a rough guide to the layout of this place?" she asked dangerously.

"Hey, I came, didn't I?" he protested. "And I came with weapons!"

"Two pulse pistols and a flapping tongue? Wow, this will be easy," she intoned.

"You know, you're picking up sarcasm really well," he shot back, hands on hips. "How's this one: I had less than an arn to think of something, so I stopped by the copy shop and made nice little brochures on the advantages of owning a Sid Vicious-inian pirate ship - and yes, Aeryn, they came with maps!"

"Now look--"

Shouts and movement from the vent ten feet up the wall distracted the pair of them. He grabbed the foot-long chain between her manacles without hesitation. He pulled her toward the far hatch, not even stopping to look back. He swung a boot into the door and it burst inwards.

Aeryn blinked, almost impressed, as he crouched down and drew his pistol. He shuffled in head-first, disappearing down the small duct on his elbows. Aeryn waited for his boots to disappear, then threw herself after him.

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Rygel risked a look over the lip of the Prowler's pilot seat, looking around the landing bay so slowly he risked growing moss.

The place was deserted. He sniffed to himself, secreting the comms badge inside his robe and grabbing the straps on the side of the craft. He hauled himself up, looking left and right with care. When nothing moved and no-one shouted, he looked up to the ceiling, searching for surveillance devices. Shaking his head, he climbed up and over the lip, sliding down the outside and landing on his bare feet with unexpected grace.

He turned left and right. "Now then," he grumbled to himself. "If I were a pirate hoarding loot, where would I keep it?"

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"Larraq!" Pajjet screamed into the refuse room. "You're on a ship, you fahrgak! You can't get away!"

He tapped at his comm badge on his wrist. "Second Rou'Mou - check the Prowler is guarded. Move!"

"Done," she snapped back from the miniature badge. Pajjet nodded to himself, keeping his gun ready as he let himself drop down into the refuse.

He looked around carefully, eyeing the mounds of loot that had proved to be less valuable once they had taken a closer look. He climbed over it steadily, keeping wary eyes out for movement. His slitted gaze halted as he caught sight of the open vent.

"Second Rou'Mou," he snapped into the comm unit. "They are in the pruhellicac duct - level four, breet side."

"I will send men to the other end," she replied.

"You go too. I need someone with brains."

"Yes, Captain."

He crept toward the opening before crouching and looking down it. He grinned and pushed himself in head-first.

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"Crichton," she called hoarsely, in a perverse attempt to be heard without the entire ship being a party to their conversation.

"Keep going," he replied simply. They shuffled along as fast as their elbows would carry them. "Now I know how Bishop felt in Aliens," he called over his shoulder.

"Which aliens?"

"The last good one," Crichton called back. "Before it went sequel-for-the-sake-of-sequelly."

"I have no idea what you're talking about - as usual," she grunted. "How much farther?"

"The conversation about me not having a map? Were you here for that?" he countered.

"Then shut up and keep moving," she warned.

"That's what I--. Whatever," he sighed. He paused suddenly and she stopped before she crawled into his boots. "Oh," he managed.

"What is it?" she demanded.

"Ok, we're going to have to slide down now," he said with a marked load of false cheer.

"Do what?"

"Back up a little," he called. "I am not taking this one headfirst."

Aeryn moved backwards and John tucked himself into a ball, the back of his head pressing into the wall as he struggled to get his boots round in front of him.

"Hurry," Aeryn urged.

He struggled and wrenched, and after a few nail biting minutes she put a hand out and cracked his head against the side. He froze, cursing.

"Give up - it's impossible," she observed. "You're just going to have to go down headfirst."

"Ok, but if it knocks my new tooth out I am not going back to Dr E.T. and getting it replaced." He pushed himself back round, flat on his stomach, and inched forward. "Right. Don't land on me this time. I don't have many more ribs to bruise."

"Oh don't be such an infant." She slapped at the ankle of his boot in front of her face and he moved forward. "Now go. It won't take them long to figure out where we are."

"Yes sir," he grunted.

Then he was gone. One moment he had been lying in front of her, the next his boots just slipped away from her. She gasped slightly, shuffling up hurriedly to check. She looked down the incline, finding it not that steep, and had time to see his boots disappear around a corner about twenty feet down the slide.

She pushed herself after him.

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The four pirates took up a corner of the landing bay each, watching the Prowler with one eye and the bay exits with the other.

So they didn't see the Hynerian creeping along the metal catwalk above them, stifling his malicious chuckles as he climbed in through an inspection hatch and found himself in a small, dark steel duct. He rubbed his hands together and pulled his robes straight, heading for the far end and the light it was displaying.

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Aeryn whizzed down the chute, smiling despite the uncertainty of what lay around the slight bend in the metal tunnel. Manacled hands stretched out in front of her, her boots lifted slightly to reduce drag, she simply careered down the narrow duct with ease.

"Crichton!" she called. A muffled noise whooshed past her and she grinned more widely. "Is this what you call 'fun'?" Because this is what I call 'fun', she realised. She felt the bend now moving to her right and the incline was becoming much less steep. She slowed a tiny amount, almost sad to leave the speed behind as she rounded the bend.

She gasped and slapped her palms against the metal, trying to stop herself. She failed and instead curled her arms round her head.

A second later she hurtled into the human currently parked on his back, looking up.

"Ho! You are determined to bruise every bit of skin I've got, right?" he protested.

She moved her hands and found her head and shoulders a few inches above his knees. She let her arms fall and they slapped into the belt for his leg holster.

"I didn't know you were going to stop like that," she said defensively.

He put his elbows under him and managed to look down his front at her. "This is the end of the line," he pointed out, and she noticed the shiny wall behind his head. "We'll have to go up from here."

"Pity," she observed before she could engage her brain.

"Why's that? You liked the ol' water chute back there?" he smiled.

"Actually? I think I did," she nodded. She watched his face for a long moment, noticing he was doing the same to her. "It was… fun. You know?" she dared. "Not that we should be having fun while we're down here."

He grinned suddenly and she had a sinking feeling he was about to unleash some Crichton Cheekiness.

"Talking of while you're down there," he teased.

She lowered her eyes to the zip-fly on his black leather trousers splayed out under her, not six inches away. She swallowed and looked up the front of his now very dusty black t-shirt, his specially-borrowed red Captain's jacket still open and now sprawling around him happily. She did eventually find his eyes.

"Something you'd like me to bite off?" she smiled sweetly.

His smile fell. "Let's go before they catch up to us," he said quickly, and she grinned at him. He rolled his eyes, shaking his head at his gullibility before he thought for a moment. "You want to go first?"

"Why?" she asked cautiously.

"You're lighter than I am. If you fall, I've got you," he pointed out.

"If I go first, you can watch my backside as I climb up the duct," she replied, deliberately clearly.

He snapped his fingers, apparently in defeat. "Damn. Y'know, I never thought of that."

"Like frell you didn't," she retorted, but she smiled anyway. "Ok, get back."

He shuffled as far as he could go before he was up against the bulkhead. She got to her hands and knees and crawled over him, turning onto her back and inching up his front. She put her hands to the lip of the duct above them and studied it for a second.

"Even though this has been the highlight of my day, I really think you should move. I mean, I don't want you to, but I think you should," he managed, perhaps a foot behind her head.

She smiled to herself but grasped the two small ridges on the inside of the duct. She began to pull herself up. She felt his hands catch at the sides of her trousers and push up, and she wondered in a detached way if he would grasp anything else.

She pushed the thoughts aside, remonstrating herself for losing focus. She heaved and got herself up the duct with steady determination. She began to climb, using the ridges every foot or so as a toe-hold or something to wedge her hands against. With her wrists manacled twelve inches apart it was difficult, but not impossible.

She heard shuffling and grunting and knew the human was not far behind her.

She heard another noise and paused, listening. Something knocked at her boot.

"Aeryn! Move!" John hissed from below her.

"What?" she demanded.

They froze, listening. A steady thud-thud-thud echoed louder and louder.

"Someone's coming!" they managed together.

He pushed at her behind roughly. She began to climb.

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