"Just don't make any big movements or talk loudly and we should be fine." Aeryn said softly
"Yeah. I'll try not to drop my handbag." He caught her confused look. "It was in a movie on Earth. There were people on a bus with a bomb on it and …well the details aren't really important but the bad guy realised he was watching a recording on a loop when he noticed that one lady dropped her bag and then it magically appeared in her lap again almost immediately when the tape went back to the beginning." He smiled. "He wasn't happy."
"OK, so lets not do that." She smiled back.
"So while we're stuck here, unable to make any violent movements or loud sounds, I'd like to say how much I enjoyed your code back there." He looked at her, all innocence. "So much better than my code. I especially enjoyed the bit where the 'small…very small… yellow …ahh…child' came along to tell us about our old friend with the missing arm. Very slick." His face broke out into a huge grin.
"Unless you've developed immunity to the Pantak jab, Crichton, I suggest you remember that in 600 microts violent movement will no longer be out of the question!" But she couldn't help returning his grin.
They sat quietly pretending to work with their backs to the DRDs until they heard D'Argo's voice over their coms "Rygel! Zhaan! Come to Chiana's room quickly! I think she is having some sort of seizure!" They could hear Chiana wailing and screaming in the background. "Pilot!" D'Argo's voice came again. "Lower the temperature in Chiana's quarters. She has some sort of fever!"
"Showtime." Crichton whispered and moved off his chair.
He quickly caught both the DRDs and watched as Aeryn popped open their backs, turned them off. She started pulling out wires and attaching them to a longer wire that she plugged into her prowler. Crichton got into the cockpit and watched as a recorded image of them appeared on the prowler's navigational screen "OK, start there." He called out and watched as the image moved forward at incredible speed "W…wait! Back a bit! There! Stop! Loop that and we should be OK." Aeryn attached the two DRDs together with a third set of wires to ensure that they both showed the same picture and turned the DRDs back on.
Crichton estimated that the whole operation took less than 180 microts.
"That it?"
She nodded.
"Where'd you learn to do that?"
She shrugged "I just know." She started for the door. " Come on. Let's go."
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"How long is she going to keep that up for?" Rygel grumbled quietly
D'Argo shrugged and watched Zhaan pretend to try and restrain Chiana who was screaming at the top of her lungs and flailing her limbs. She had been at it for nearly quarter of an arn.
"D'Argo, some assistance please." Zhaan looked over her shoulder at her friend. "I think she needs to be sedated until she is feeling calmer."
"What is the matter with her?" D'Argo tried to sound concerned.
"I don't know. Stress perhaps." Zhaan took out a sedative shot. "Hold her still." Only someone looking very closely would have noticed that there was nothing in the shot that Zhaan gave. Chiana flopped in D'Argo's arms.
The Luxan laid her carefully on her bed as the others gathered around. To the 4 DRDs stationed at the door, they looked concerned for their stricken friend.
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"Any idea where Pilot has left out the welcome mat?" Crichton was padding through Moya's corridors alongside Aeryn.
"If I were in his position I would grant us access to one of the passageways to the ceiling of the chamber. That way we can see what is going on before we make our move."
"Yeah, OK. But which one?"
"We'll just have to try them all."
"Great."
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"Rygel! Get away from there!" D'Argo said angrily
"I'm just looking to see whether she has any food in here. I'm hungry."
"You've just eaten!" Zhaan scolded.
"And now I'm hungry again." Rygel pulled a face and looked in another drawer.
"What is he doing?" Chiana whispered very softly, hardly moving her lips. "He'd better not be snurching my stuff."
Zhaan checked that the DRDs view was blocked by D'Argo's back before throwing the little Nebari a stern look and placing her fingers over her lips. "Shh."
D'Argo took Chiana's hand as a small gesture of support. "Rygel will not steal your possessions. I will see to it." He told her softly.
Rygel floated back to the bedside. "Nothing." As if on cue his stomachs rumbled. He sighed and lowered his voice, "What the juxt is taking them so long?"
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"Aeryn, look!"
As they approached it, the DRD turned and headed in the other direction. They followed it along the corridor until it stopped in front of a door.
Crichton placed his palm over the lock and to his relief it opened. "Nice work, Pilot." He said quietly to himself as he stepped through. Aeryn was right behind him.
There was very little light in the passageway that lay beyond. What there was came through some grating in the wall from Pilot's chamber. They crept forward and peered down.
They could see Pilot and standing just in front of his consol stood Tarone, studying a portable screen. He had his back to them, but they could clearly see the pistol in his hand. They backed away from the grating.
"What do you think?"
"He's standing very close to Pilot and his weapon is drawn. We will have to get this exactly right."
Crichton rubbed the back of his neck. "If we come down behind him his first instinct will probably be to turn around to look at the noise rather then shoot Pilot. It'll probably give us enough time to disarm him."
Aeryn shook her head. "Not good enough. We shoot him from here."
"We wound him." Part statement, part question.
Aeryn held his gaze for a moment, and then nodded.
"OK. You do the shooting. The moment you open fire I'll drop down and see that his weapon is out of reach."
Aeryn nodded again.
They moved back towards the grating. Crichton judged that it was about a 15 foot drop – although if he missed the platform the drop was a lot bigger than that. Leaning back he placed his foot against the metal. "Ready?" He looked at Aeryn who was already taking aim with her pulse rifle.
"Yes."
"OK then. On three. One. Two. Three!" He heard the blast from Aeryn's rifle as he hit the grating with his foot as hard as he could. The grating fell away and he launched himself after it, landing messily but unhurt on the platform below. Scrambling to his feet he saw Tarone's prone figure lying face down a short distance away, his gun lay beside him. For a moment Crichton feared that Aeryn had killed him, but as he drew closer he could see that he was breathing. He reached down and took his weapon away. "Pilot, you OK?"
"Yes, thank you Commander. I am very pleased to see you and Officer Sun."
"And we are pleased to see you Pilot." Aeryn approached, smiling.
Crichton knelt by Tarone's body. Aeryn had got him in the shoulder. He turned him over, pushing back the hood of his coat and stopped. Although humanoid in the sense it had two eyes, a nose and a mouth in the right places, the face he was looking at was deep red. The hair was short and dark but grew across almost all of his forehead and halfway across the cheekbones. It was a striking combination, but that was not why Crichton paused. As he pushed back the hijacker's hood, he found himself looking at the face of a boy. He looked no older than a 15-year-old child from Earth.
"Ah, Aeryn? Look at this." He pinched the bridge of his nose while he waited for her to come and stand beside him.
"What is it, Crichton?"
"Look at him. He's just a kid. He looks younger than Chiana. We shot a child." He looked up at Aeryn expecting to see some regret in her face, but instead she looked unmoved.
"Have you forgotten that he was going to kill Pilot and then space the rest of us?"
"No, but…"
"But what? You wish I hadn't hurt him? I would have thought that one lesson that you would have learnt from your time in the Uncharted Territories is that some problems cannot be solved without violence. He threatened us without provocation and I shot him to ensure that others were not hurt. And I would do the same again, even knowing how young he is. Do not expect me to feel bad about it."
He shook his head slowly and looked at her for a moment. Sometimes her matter of fact approach to violence still surprised him. It was during those moments that she seemed truly alien to him. He looked away and activated his com. "Hey, everybody. Everything went fine and Pilot is back in the driving seat. We are going to need one of the 8th tier cells to put our guest in. I'll bring him down now. Zhaan, can you meet us there? He's wounded."
"Certainly, John."
Crichton lifted the boy up over his shoulder and turned to Aeryn. "Coming?"
"I'll stay with Pilot a little longer."
"Fine."
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TBC