ELEVEN

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Rygel watched the Sidpimtinians race out of the landing bay, weapons drawn. He chuckled evilly and waved a hand over his shoulder.

"They're gone - let's go!"

He raced out faster than the three followers had ever seen him move, scuttling across the open landing bay and leaping at the ramp to the cargo drone as if it were made of currency itself.

Zhaan felt Chiana push past her and the Nebari was off at a run, too. D'Argo nudged Zhaan's shoulder forward and they hurried to the transport sitting on the grating.

D'Argo was the last up the ramp, pulling the stairs up and flinging them inside to slam the door. It sealed and he turned to find Chiana and the Hynerian squabbling over the controls. He strode up and simply swept them both aside.

"Both of you - get out of my way," he snapped. "I will pilot this thing."

"Like frell you will," Rygel countered. "Do you even know how to start the engines?"

D'Argo glared at him before turning to look at the controls. "How hard can it be?" he blustered.

.

.

Aeryn and John stared at the four Sidpimtinians watching them with their guns trained on them.

"Not such a lucky day after all," Aeryn observed.

She looked back at the human from mere inches away. He blinked at her and in the same instant both aliens drew pulse pistols.

Four shots and the pirates were on the ground, holes in their fronts smoking slightly.

"Then again, you have said before that you make your own luck," she nodded.

She hoisted him from the wall and he put his arm over her shoulder, trying to make his feet work as she turned them to walk.

"How many more?" he wheezed.

"Pirates? No idea," she said promptly. She kept her pistol up as they shuffled along the corridor toward the landing bay.

"Gotta be more," he grunted. "Gotta be."

"Shut up, Crichton," she ordered, shouldering more of his weight. "Just keep walking."

"Gotta be," he breathed painfully.

"Then we'll shoot them, too," she asserted.

"You're confident."

"Determined. Besides, you're not so useless."

"Really? Thought I was the worst shot ever?"

"I'd rather have you in a firefight than Rygel."

"Or D'Argo?"

"Or Zhaan."

"Or Chiana?"

"Or anyone," she allowed. She snapped her mouth shut quickly, re-grouping. "Anyone on Moya."

John said nothing. But he smiled.

They rounded the corner of the corridor to find the doors to the landing bay open and no-one inside.

"Too easy," John grunted, but she ignored him, making for the Prowler just thirty feet away. Beyond stood a transport and she could see figures moving about inside.

"Looks like the others are leaving too," she nodded.

"Good," John managed. "Prowler."

"Stop right there!" shouted a voice.

"Awww - shoot 'em!" John cried in frustration. "Whoever it is, just shoot 'em!"

Captain Pajjet stepped out from behind the tail end of the cargo ship slowly, his gun trained on them both.

"Now then," he said evenly. "I am going to shoot you two and then blow a large hole in your living ship. After I've roasted that lying Pilot over an open flame, I am going to take whatever there is of value from the ship before setting fire to her. And all the while, I shall be smiling," he stated clearly.

Aeryn took a breath but John's hand turned and gripped her shoulder. "Don't," he warned.

"No, don't," Pajjet nodded. "There is no way you could shoot me before I get at least one of you." He straightened up, smiling very broadly. "This is going to be a very, very good day."

"Just shoot us, don't gloat us to death," John sighed. "Can you do it soon? I think ah'm gonna fall over," he added, and Aeryn heard the slur to his words.

"Gladly," Pajjet smiled, raising the gun a little higher. "This is going to be so enjoyable."

He straightened his arm. Aeryn stiffened, her arm around John's side pulling him in slightly. John concentrated on not falling down where he stood. Pajjet aimed.

And then the engines of the cargo transport behind him roared into life. Splatters of unburnt fuel around the jet ignited. They burst into a huge ball of flame.

Pajjet was engulfed.

Aeryn was stunned.

John was sliding to the floor.

She holstered her gun and grabbed at him with both hands, keeping him on his feet as the transport began to lift off the ground.

"They just barbecued the sum'bitch!" John giggled insanely, his strength and command over his ability to speak clearly obviously gone. "That was D'Argo, right? He did that, right?"

"Come on!" she called over the noise of the engines, half walking, half dragging him to the Prowler. "They're about to leave and they need to open the landing bay doors to space to do it."

She shoved him at the side of the ship and he gripped it to stay upright. A quick scramble up and release of the hatch later and she was leaning over from the pilot's seat, helping him haul himself up into the vessel.

The landing bay doors began to open, the atmosphere rushing out into space. She yanked John into the Prowler, not caring where he landed. She rammed the hatch shut and sat back, hearing the seals pressurise and flipping switches to make the craft start its warm-up routine.

She caught sight of the transport leaving the bay and smiled, beginning to strap herself into the seat. There was a muffled noise behind her and she turned to see the passenger seat.

The human's head was jammed between the seat and the panel next to it, his hands struggling to get a grip on a chair that had no arms, and his knees bent to one side up against the back of her pilot's chair.

"Little help?" he managed.

.

.

Rygel sat back from the long table, burping and groaning in a very satisfied manner. "Now that," he said grandly, "was the good stuff."

"Even I am impressed," D'Argo put in. "With both the food and how you managed to get the landing bay doors open on that ship." He picked up another brightly coloured item and popped it into his mouth.

"Ah well," Rygel said smugly, "I have many skills you don't know about."

"You mean it was luck," Chiana grinned, making Zhaan smile.

"Well however he did it, he did it," she said wisely. "And we have adopted a Sidpimtinian transport ship."

"Most useful," D'Argo nodded. "It can be kept as a back-up or simply sold."

"I vote we keep it," Aeryn said, still chewing. "Just in case we do need a back-up."

"Agreed," D'Argo said. "I still think Pilot did an excellent job loading that chip with that destroyer code."

"Crichton told him to do it," Chiana pointed out faithfully.

"True. So how many pirates were left on that ship before we initiated starburst?" D'Argo asked.

"No idea," Aeryn shrugged. "There must have been quite a few - the Captain and his Second are dead, but those ships normally have a crew of around a hundred. Assuming someone has taken charge, they'll already be flying off to steal more loot."

"Hmm," Rygel pondered, and the table looked at him. "What?"

"Perhaps you should have stayed aboard," Chiana offered. "You could have been the Captain, snurching whatever you wanted."

"But I would have had to cut it amongst all of us," he grumped. "Nope, I like Moya much better."

"Of course you do - no-one here cares as much about you or valuables as you do," Aeryn smiled sweetly.

"Watch it, wench. I'll tell your pet human you made him that dental medic appointment on Sslaj," he threatened.

Aeryn simply smiled dismissively, picking up her drink.

D'Argo shook his head at them, then paused, looking at the small brown cube in his hands. "What is this?" he asked suspiciously, sniffing it.

"No-one knows," Aeryn shrugged. "Crichton said to get some from that commerce planet where I got the plants, so we did. What does it taste like?"

D'Argo bit off a small corner. "It's… pleasing," he managed carefully. He took another bite, then pushed all of it into his mouth. "Very pleasing."

"He thought it might have been something called chark-let," Aeryn offered. "Apparently it's much sought after on his world."

"And with good reason," D'Argo nodded, reaching for another cube. "If it is anything like this, then I think huge wars would be fought over the recipe."

"About Crichton," Chiana said, watching Rygel reach out and steal two lumps of 'chark-let', "how is he?"

"He is resting," Zhaan said with a smile. "He wasn't actually hurt too badly internally. It seems humans don't have too many essential organs where he was hit; he was lucky. He'll be fine in a few solar days."

"I told him it wasn't serious," Aeryn said with a snort. "Men. They nick a finger and think they're dying."

Chiana giggled and Zhaan allowed herself a small chuckle. But Aeryn caught D'Argo watching her.

"Human men," she amended. "Not all men. Obviously."

"Obviously," D'Argo echoed, but then he smiled. "He should have some of this chark-let. It will lift his spirits," he said decisively.

"The last thing he needs is your energy and thumping great enthusiasm when he's trying to rest," Aeryn observed rather scathingly.

"Then you take it to him," Rygel said, just the right side of ingratiating. Aeryn spared him a glance, then picked up the clear square plate the pile of brown cubes was occupying.

"I think I will. Irritating and inane as his conversation is, talking to him is still more enjoyable than sitting with you, Dominar," she said deliberately, making the Hynerian puff himself up. She let herself smile slightly and Rygel realised she was not entirely serious.

She got up from the table, nodding to D'Argo and Zhaan before walking out of the room.

"That'll lift his spirits," Chiana chuckled wickedly. "Hey, Frog Lips - pass me the raslak."

.

.

Aeryn stopped outside the door, looking through one of the holes.

"Crichton?" she asked. "Are you sleeping?"

"No," came a pre-occupied voice.

She pressed the opener and waited for the door to fan aside, walking in. She found the human propped up in bed against the wall, his knees raised under the blankets and a notebook on them. She ignored the fact that he was lacking a t-shirt and pressed the door button to close it. She wandered over slowly, the plate in her hand.

"Are you busy?" she asked carefully.

"Not really," he mused, his eyes and entire focus on his hand as it moved a small stick over the open notebook resting against his knee.

"Right. Well… I'll just leave you this and go," she said quietly, sensing she was rather superfluous.

"What is it?" he asked, his eyes not leaving his hard working hand.

"It's the brown foodstuff you had me buy on that commerce planet," she said, intrigued as to what he could be doing with the small book. "That stuff you thought might be chark-let."

His hand paused and he looked up. "Chocolate?"

She shrugged. "D'Argo thinks it's excellent. He thinks if it is indeed your chark-let then people must fight over it on your world."

John smiled suddenly. His right hand stopped and he let his knees slip down slightly. Her eyes were drawn to the large silver medical patch over his side before she managed to look away.

"Well bring it here, woman, I can't move so fast right now," he teased.

A single eyebrow raised but she moved to the side of the bed with the plate. He shifted up slightly and then looked at the empty half meaningfully.

"What happened to your t-shirt?"

"Well, it's an interesting story," he allowed, keeping his eyes on the blanket. "This lizard girl shot it, and then this Sebacean tore it into strips. Now I'll have to see if there are any other hidden caches of PK uniforms somewhere around Moya."

"You have your astro-nut's white one somewhere," she pointed out.

"Somewhere. God knows where it's got to." He nodded at the bed. "You can sit. I don't got cooties."

She allowed herself a small smile and sat, raising the plate at him. He picked up a piece in his free hand, smelling it.

"It doesn't smell like chocolate," he grumped.

"Taste it."

He licked it suspiciously and Aeryn snorted in amusement. He glanced at her before biting the corner off.

"That's exactly what D'Argo did," she smiled. "And then he said--"

"Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln," John interrupted. "It's just like chocolate!" He flung the rest of the cube in his mouth with glee. She watched him roll it round his mouth, surprised by the look of pure joy on him.

"Is it that good?"

"Try it," he said eagerly, picking up a piece and aiming for her mouth. She hesitated but he waved it under her nose. She opened her mouth and he pushed it all inside.

She froze for a long moment. She chewed down, her frown turning from concerned to angry. John paused, worried as to her reaction.

"Frell me dead," she growled. "This is wonderful!"

His face cleared as the look of dark anger on her face melted into outrage, presumably at not having tasted it before.

"Then knock yourself out," he said, indicating the plate in her hand, "before Rygel gets his dirty mits on it."

She looked at the plate, then began to smile. It faded as she looked past the plate to his knee, and the notebook.

"What's that?" she managed round the goo in her mouth.

"Oh - ah - nothing," he said quickly, closing the book. But she turned and put the plate on the side table, reaching over and taking the notebook from him. He let it go, less willing to have it torn than he was to be found out.

She opened the notebook out properly, her eyes running over all the strange little squiggles and doodles within. She studied the sketch of herself. "It's… me," she blinked, confused. "And… the pirate vessel?"

"It's just a record of stuff I think is important," he shrugged.

"Does my nose really look like that?" she asked, turning the book slightly to peer at the picture. "Why am I standing over something with a gun in my hands?"

"You shot that female pirate girl," he reminded her. "Right the same moment she shot me."

"And that's important because?"

"Well… you looked so cool doing it," he allowed. She looked up from the book at him, but he was looking at the blankets over his knees. "Pass the chocolate."

She reached behind her and picked up the plate. She set it on the bed between them and continued to flip through the book.

"So - ah - when I feel like getting out of bed, you owe me," he said bravely.

"Owe you what?" she inquired, taking some chocolate from the plate.

"An attitude stabiliser from your Prowler."

"I do not," she snorted.

"You do too - you promised me you'd let me have it and help me fit it."

"I don't remember saying that, Crichton. You've gone fahrbot on chark-let."

"No, outside the dentists' - you promised me."

"You're mistaken," she said primly, biting the chocolate cube.

Crichton huffed slightly, and she noticed his eyes turn resigned as he considered his hands. Suddenly he looked as though a hundred tiny things were about to break his back, and she had an abrupt stab of guilt.

"Ok," she said quietly. "Yes, I remember promising you."

He looked at her steadily. "Thank you," he replied, and she found his voice soft and warm.

"For what?"

"For admitting that I might be right for a change."

"You're not usually."

"Hence 'for a change'."

"Fix my nose."

"What?"

"Fix my nose," she commanded, handing the book back to him. "It's not like that."

"Yes it is!"

"It's huge."

"No it's not, it's regal," he said defensively, and she paused, surprised. "Any Roman emperor worth his salt would kill for a nose like yours."

"Then I'd better make sure we get more weapons the next time we're on a commerce planet," she said firmly.

John looked at her and laughed. She pushed at his shoulder, tapping the book.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Give me chocolate and I'll tell you."

"I'm not your slave," she tutted, but her tone was less angry and more playful than he had expected.

"Then why did you bring it to my room?"

"Just explain that drawing of a star system, human."

"And then I get chocolate?"

"And then I promise not to shoot you."

"And then I get chocolate?"

"Ok… and then you get chocolate."

"My lucky day."

.

FIN

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And that's a wrap - hope you enjoyed some of it.

Thanks to everyone who read it and left reviews - I am very much obliged and have read each one about ten times. :)