Chapter 10

John paced nervously. No one had met them when they arrived on the station. In fact, it seemed deserted. And there was something odd about it. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but this station seemed very different from any others he had ever visited.

He still didn't know what to think about Crais informing them that the renegade Peacekeepers had tracked them, or that an attack fleet would likely be arriving soon. They still had no proof that these aliens meant them any harm. In fact, the aliens seemed to be working hard to protect them. From what, he didn't know. And that bothered him.

"Crais, are you sure that attacking these aliens is the smart thing to do? I mean, Talyn's guns didn't seem to do anything to them. What's to say that your fleet will fare any better?" John asked. If there was one thing he had learned during his time in the Uncharted Territories, it was that violence very rarely solved anything, at least not without serious, often unforeseen consequences.

"Superiority in numbers can overwhelm their defenses, secure our escape," Crais said confidently.

"Aren't you the least bit curious as to what they want? They said they didn't want to harm Moya," John said. If they had been attacked, he would have felt differently about using force, but not everyone always needed to be destroyed.

Aeryn added, "But they didn't say anything about Talyn. And they have shown they are willing to fire upon him. Are Talyn's sensors registering anything?"

"Very little." Crais closed his eyes to more effectively use Talyn's sensors as an extension of his senses. "Their weapons appear to be powered up, but they are making no further aggressive moves at the moment." His eyes snapped open. "Talyn has lost communications with Moya!"

"What now?"

Crais ignored John. "Alien vessel, why have you severed communications between Moya and Talyn?"

John realized that Crais must be using the link to activate Talyn's communications system through his comms badge. "What do they say?" he asked after several microts.

Crais scowled. "I am getting no response." Suddenly he turned and began running toward the hangar.

John followed, sprinting to catch up. "Crais? What the frell are you doing?"

"I have lost communications with Talyn. I'm returning to my ship." He tried to activate the door controls to the hangar, but to no avail.

"Don't shoot it!" John shouted as Crais pulled out his pulse pistol. "If you break it, we may never get out of here."

Aeryn rounded the corner, disappointed to see them standing outside the hangar.

Crais spun to face John. "Do you honestly believe that they intend to let us leave?"

"He has a point. They have severed communications with both ships and secured the door to the hangar so that we can't get to our transport," Aeryn said. She looked nervously down at D'Argo. "It doesn't look promising."

"Well then, what do they want?" John asked. He had no interest in spending the rest of his life on the station, but he realized that might become reality.

"We could try breaking into their computer," Aeryn offered. "At the very least it would give us something to do. And it might give us more information about them, maybe even control of the hangar so that we can leave."

That sounded like a better idea than Crais's to take an unarmed transport pod against armed ships. "That's better than nothing. And it might actually be useful."

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Two arms later, they still hadn't learned anything. The station's computer seemed to be devoid of information. John had a puzzled look as he stared at the system.

"Does this seem familiar to either of you?" he asked.

"In what way?" asked Aeryn.

"I don't know. It seems… almost… Leviathan." He realized it sounded far-fetched, but the more he mulled it over in his mind, the more he believed it.

Crais arched an eyebrow skeptically. "Leviathan?"

"I've had a familiar feeling ever since we stepped onboard. There was something about the way the station sounded, the way it smelled. It reminds me an awful lot of Moya."

"Now that you mention it, it does," said Aeryn.

Crais furrowed his brow. "I have not spent that much time on Leviathans. Talyn is distinctly different from your average Leviathan."

"So what does this mean?" Aeryn asked.

John rubbed his lower lip with his thumb, momentarily lost in thought. "I'm not sure. What if the beings who've captured us are the same ones who created Leviathans?"

"The Builders? But Zhaan told us they exonerated Moya, that they didn't hold her to blame for giving birth to Talyn." Aeryn held D'Argo protectively.

"But what about Crais? He's the one that created Talyn." John knew that the Builders had not been happy to hear their 'children' had been corrupted with weaponry and were to be trained in battle. What if they wanted to destroy Talyn? And if they did, would they change their mind about Moya's reprieve too?

"If they wanted to destroy me, don't you think they would have insisted I stay on Talyn? And Talyn has preservation programming that Leviathans do not have. He would not believe these Builders are his gods," Crais said confidently.

John did not share Crais's optimism. "Oh, no? Then why did he stop talking to you? You know he has a lot of respect for Moya, and we know that she shut herself down and was willing to die because the Builders told her to. What's to say she won't convince Talyn to do the same?"

"Because I know Talyn!" Crais shouted.

"Look, just because you shared engrams with him doesn't mean that you know everything about him. You admitted that he changed after he was shut down." It was a subject they hadn't broached yet, but Crais had said that stabilizing Talyn's personality would fundamentally change who the gunship was.

Some of the confidence was gone from Crais's voice. "Yes, he changed, but his old memories are still there. And having spent time with him since then, I believe I am qualified to say that I do know him."

"I think I've found the controls to open the hangar doors," Aeryn announced.

Crais ordered, "Excellent. Open them, and I'm going over to Talyn."

"You aren't going alone," said John. The last thing he needed was an overly emotional Crais trying to deal with the Builders. While John wasn't always calm, he was definitely more diplomatic than Crais. And less emotionally invested, if he was right.

"We'll all go," added Aeryn.

He turned to face her. "No. I want you and D to stay here. It'll be safer. We have no idea what we are gong to find on Talyn. Besides, someone needs to stay here to operate the controls." The last thing he wanted was something to happen to either of them. He didn't think he could live with himself if that happened.

"Then you stay here and I'll go. I know Talyn better than you."

He placed his hand on her cheek and said softly. "D really needs you. I plan on being careful, but we don't know what we are going to find there. Please, stay here with him." He knew how much she hated being left out of the action, but it was necessary.

Aeryn didn't look pleased, but she agreed to stay.

Once John and Crais were in the pod, Aeryn manually cycled the doors. When they landed in Talyn's hangar, they found that the atmospheric cycler was not operating, and they had to don space suits and go through the manual air lock.

"I don't like the looks of this, Crais. Have you gotten anything from Talyn?"

"Nothing yet." Once they were through the airlock, he checked his scanner. "We have atmosphere, but I think it would be an excellent precaution to carry our helmets in case that changes."

"No arguments there. So, where to?"

"We should go to command where I can use the main sensor panels to ascertain Talyn's status and ascertain if there are any intruders."

"You are the intruders here," said a voice behind them.

Both men spun around and leveled their pulse pistols at the source of the voice.

"Who are you?" demanded Crais.

"I am Kahaynu."

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A/N: Once again, many thanks to nota, my loyal beta reader. Also, thanks to those who have taken the time to review. They really are important to me and feed the muses.