Title: Redemption
Author: Banshae, 2001
Rating: R (violence, implied rape, cussing)
Disclaimer: You know and I know that I don't own these characters. I'm just
borrowing them for my own little passion plays. However, I DO own the original
characters and places, so no snurching!
Spoilers: All of seasons 1 & 2, pretty much all of season three, up to IP:
Dadelus Demands
Archiving: You actually want this?! Just let me know: morgayne@hotmail.com,
so I can jump up and down and do a happy dance.
Summary: Takes place after IP: Dadelus Demands. Talyn's crew stops off at a
commerce planet and Aeryn turns up missing.
Special thanks to Felix, who argued with me and encouraged me and gave me
great ideas. This fic wouldn't have been the same without him. Thanks also to
Darkman., Intrepid Beta Reader.
Redemption: Part 9
John moved through the crowd as quickly as he dared, one hand hovering near his pulse pistol and the other grasping the Singer. He spotted two pin-headed bouncers looking at him suspiciously and he dropped his hand from the alien's arm. He was just about to ask her if she knew of another way out of the auction room when all hell broke loose behind them.
There was a splintering crash; someone started shrieking in a guttural tongue. The bouncers forgot all about him and the Singer and ran by them, practically knocking the little alien over in the process. John didn't even bother to look to see what was going on. The crowd-murmur was turning ugly and weapons started to appear in the hands/claws/appendages of others around him.
"Come on!" He urged the Singer, striding to the doors. They made it out into the corridor without incident, but a group of heavily armed humanoids was headed right toward them. John pressed the Singer behind him and yelled at them, "Hey guys! You better hurry, I think there's some real bad dren hitting the fan in there. Some buyers arguing over who's gonna get the blue girl!"
A volley of weapons fire from the auction room followed his words. The guards barely cast a look in his direction, breaking into a run to the doors. They were met by a group of buyers trying to get out and in the confusion John and the Singer slipped past.
They'd only gone down the corridor a short way before a voice snarled from her comms, "Alaethe, where are you, you trelk?"
"Is that-" John turned to the Singer.
Alaethe nodded, "Kelhvek. He is no doubt looking for me."
"Well he can keep looking." John glanced past her; the corridor was beginning to fill with buyers from the auction room. A spidery looking alien graced with head-high eye-stalks moved with incredible speed past them, legs a clicking blur. "We gotta jam. This place is gonna get a lot uglier if I know Crais and D'Argo."
Kelhvek's angry voice erupted from the Singer's comms again and John tore the badge off her, tossing it over his shoulder. He grabbed her arm and started running down the corridor.
"Wait-" Alaethe struggled against his grip.
"We don't have time to pick up souveniers, lady!" It sounded like the mother of all bar fights was going on back in the auction room, complete with breaking glass, shouting and general pandemonium.
"No, I-" she pulled the veils away from around her shoulder and head, gesturing to a thick metal choker around her neck. "It's a control collar. If I don't go back, he'll-"
John was just about to tell her to worry about it later when she let out a blood-curdling shriek and fell to the ground shuddering. He looked down the hall and realized the trickle of departing buyers had turned into a flood. They were likely to be trampled if they didn't get out of the way. Spotting a small alcove, he gathered her thrashing body up and ducked out of the corridor. Choked whimpers escaped her clenched teeth as he laid her down. He reached for the control collar, Gotta get this damn thing off-
An agonizing moment later, he was picking himself up off the ground, every nerve in his body buzzing. "What the hell-" he started to crawl back to where she lay writhing when a shadow fell over him.
"Crichton, what are you doing?" Crais pushed him out of the way and used his own weight to pin the Singer down. "Help me hold her or she may damage herself!" He snarled.
John managed to sit on her legs, "She's got a-"
"Control collar, I know! We need to incapacitate her," Crais said. "Once she is unconscious, the collar looses its affect." He turned to John, "Use your pistol- the back of the head or temple!"
"No way, I'm not gonna cold-cock her, we could kill her!"
"Crichton, there is no other way! We cannot get the collar off here, and we cannot carry her like this!"
Something hissed in the air between them and the Singer abruptly fell silent. "That should suffice," D'Argo said, looming over them.
John slid off the woman's legs, "UhI hope that tongue trick doesn't do more than knock her out, big guy,"
"We will worry about that later. We need to get to the transport now." Crais said, standing.
D'Argo picked the Singer up and slung her over one shoulder. John peered out into the corridor, which was now thick with bodies and occasional weapons fire. Who was shooting whom, he didn't know and he didn't really care. "Let's go," he said.
********
Within a quarter arn, they had left the planet's surface and were speeding toward a destination Aeryn could only guess at. It was then that Talyn came back to where she sat. He began looking through a cari-sak on the floor, seemingly unconcerned that she hadn't said a word since they picked her up.
Aeryn eventually broke the silence, "You're not my father."
Talyn glanced up from the device in his hand. "We'll know in a few microts if you're right," he said.
Aeryn recognized the device as an identity scanner, the type that cross-referenced the Genetics Directorate's database. Every Peacekeeper's individual DNA code was stored in GenTech's records for security verifications, as well as to identify the dead and wounded after battle.
He sat down in the seat next to her, "I've set it for a blood reading, so there's no mistake. I just put your specimen in," he gestured to one of the reddened bandages he'd swabbed her shoulder with earlier. "Here's your reading," he said, tilting the scanner so she could see the display:
OFFICER AERYN SUN: SERIAL NUMBER 5483761A52
SPECIAL COMMANDO, PLEISAR REGIMENT, ICARIAN DIVISION
IN VIOLATION OF SECS. H5481 AND T98.12 OF MARTIAL JUSTICE CODE
WANTED BY HIGH COMMAND ON THE CHARGES OF TREASON AND IRREVERSIBLE CONTAMINATION.
Aeryn stared at the screen for a long moment. She knew the charges against her, but to see them in bold letters was another thing altogether. The words cut her more sharply than she would have thought possible.
"Strange isn't it, how the life you left behind can be summed up in so few words," Talyn said. His eyes met hers in silent understanding for a microt before he looked down at the screen. "My turn."
He drew a knife and quickly made a small wound on the tip of one finger, then pressed the cut to the specimen tray on the scanner. It gave a beep:
SCANNING RECORDS
Absently, he wiped his finger off and sheathed the knife. The scanner beeped twice. He tilted the screen again and Aeryn's breath caught:
LIEUTENANT COMMANDER TALYN SPERA: SERIAL NUMBER 3864278K21
DECEASED
"It's-that is--" Aeryn struggled to speak. She stared at him, wanting to believe and at the same time wanting not to believe. "It's a trick! My father is dead!"
"I wanted the Peacekeepers to think I was dead, Aeryn. They had to believe it because it was safer for me, and for you."
"No! This is all a lie!" Furious, she grabbed the scanner from him and threw it against the bulkhead. Hot tears welled up, blurring her vision. She fumbled with the straps of the safety harness, suddenly needing to be away--to be anywhere but here. "What right do you have to torture me like this? Why are you lying to me?" She cried past the thickness in her throat.
"Aeryn, stop it." He put strong hands over hers and she froze as she looked down. Those are my hands, she thought. They were bigger than hers, more masculine-- but the shape, the long fingers--the slightly crooked little finger identical to hers
She looked up at his face and suddenly recognized herself in the shape of his generous mouth and his mutable blue eyes, now dark with concern. Oh Hezmana. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again, unsure of what she should say.
"You may not believe it, Aeryn, but I am your father." He let go of her hands and went to pick up the scanner. "I had to run the identity check for your peace of mind as well as my own. I had to be sure you are my daughter."
"Wh-why?"
"Jaina and I are part of a resistance...an underground. We help those among the Peacekeepers who want to do more with their lives and skills than mindless killing."
"A resistance?" Aeryn was trying to process what he was saying. For some reason, her mind was still stuck on He's my father!
"We call it aBeko."
"'The Changing?'"
He smiled at her, "I didn't know you understood old Sebecean. Where did you learn that?"
"I- I've been on a breakaway colony before." Aeryn said and let it go at that. It would be too difficult to explain all that had happened on the Royal Planet and she didn't have the patience for it right now.
Talyn looked at her pensively, "I've followed your career as best I could from the beginning...But I know there's so much I've missed in your life. I hope you learn to trust me with that part of yourself."
Aeryn was saved from having to answer him when Jaina called from the pilot's seat, "Is everything all right back there?"
"Of course," Talyn replied.
"Right then. We're getting close." Jaina activated the comms, "Eano Mine Colony, this is Kanta Mar. Requesting permission to approach and dock."
"Kanta Mar, transmit verification codes."
Jaina keyed in a code and then answered, "Transmitting."
"Authenticated." The toneless voice became warmer, "Welcome back, Jai. Were you successful in procuring the package?"
Glancing back at Talyn and Aeryn, Jaina smiled, "Yes, very successful ...."
********
"We should go down to the planet now," John said. "If we go back to Talyn, it will take too long.".
Crais looked up from the display console, "Crichton, we are not going down there in the transport. It may be a trap."
"But Aeryn may down there, wounded or-"
"John, he's right." D'Argo said. He made sure the still unconscious Singer was securely buckled into her seat and then came up behind them. "We have no defensive weapons, and I do not relish walking into what may be a Peacekeeper ambush unarmed." He glanced at the display, "Talyn is less than an arn away. We can come back and scan the planet from a safe distance. If she is there, we will find her, I promise you."
"I still think we should-"
"What is that?" D'Argo interrupted, pointing over Crais' shoulder at something on the display.
Crais brought up a rear view of Tesso3. Kelhvek's ship was undocking, apparently without first disengaging from the station's superstructure. Myriad lines providing power, life support and fuel stretched to their limit and then broke as the freighter strained free. Atmosphere and fuel sprayed into vacuum. The last third of the docking umbilicus was snapped off with a soundless explosion and hung raggedly from the underside of the ship as it began accelerating away from the station.
"What the hell is he doing?" John asked, incredulous.
"He is going to try to outrun the Marauder," Crais said grimly. "He will not make it, but it will serve as a distraction for us."
"There's the Marauder," D'Argo said. A small dark shape flitted from behind the station, homing in on the fleeing freighter and quickly landing on the larger ship's hull.
"They are going to force dock. The crew will use explosives to breach the hull, then invade the ship and complete their mission." Crais' brows drew together as he spoke. "That is not the usual procedure for a single Marauder..."
"Get us out of here Crais!" D'Argo suddenly hissed. They all saw it at the same time: a fully armed Reaver, complete with two Marauder escorts, was speeding toward Tesso3 with deadly intention. Instead of slowing as it entered the station's proscribed airspace, the Reaver fired on whatever hapless craft happened to be in the way, destroying them. Station security had belatedly scrambled several patrol craft after the freighter's precipitous undocking, but the small ships were no match for the Marauder escorts, much less the Reaver itself. After seeing several of their compatriots blown to smithereens, the remaining patrol craft began fleeing back to the dubious safety of the station.
"Christ, I thought there weren't any Peacekeeper forces out here!" John threw Crais a look.
"There are no established bases in this sector," he retorted, hands working quickly over the flight controls. "But I should have expected more than one Marauder. The Reaver was probably the closest ship and was sent to make sure the mission was accomplished."
"Peacekeepers are nothing, if not thorough." added D'Argo, his eyes fixed on the viewscreen.
John watched with fascinated horror as the Reaver easily overtook Kelhvek's freighter, firing on its engines. They went with a bright flash and the freighter slowed, listing slightly. It fired back, getting in one or two hits before the Reaver reduced its guns to slag. The two Marauders darted in and out, finally landing on the freighter's hull like the first Marauder had. "What will they do when they find out Aeryn's not on the ship?"
Crais glanced up at him, "Destroy it of course. Peacekeepers do not allow slavery-"
D'Argo snorted, "Unless it benefits them."
Crais shot the Luxan a look, then continued, "Kelhvek will be killed and his ship destroyed."
The three of them fell silent. Kelhvek's ship was beginning to list as though nav-control had been lost. An explosion flared brightly from amidships and the whole freighter suddenly shuddered. Another explosion, closer to the engines, and one of the Marauders disengaged itself to hover nearby. Several hundred microts later, the other two Marauders broke free of the larger ship, which had obviously begun its death throes. The freighter's lights dimmed, flickered and then went out.
"Hull breach." Crais said flatly. John saw it a second later: near one of the two engines, the hull was beginning to buckle where it had been weakened by the Reaver's earlier attack. There was a moment where he thought it might hold, but then the metal peeled back like the skin of a banana, and atmosphere and debris fountained out into space.
"Oh man, there are people on that ship who aren't part of the slaver's crew!" John turned to Crais, "What about them? They're innocent!"
The ex-Peacekeeper captain didn't answer. John looked back in time to see the Reaver firing on the freighter with all guns. The ship's engines imploded in a brilliant flare of white light.
Before anyone could say anything else, Crais changed the display to a forward view, his movements short and angry. "We go now."
TBC
