Title: Written on a Thumbnail
Author: cofax
Rating: R
See Part 1 for complete headers.
I started posting on a morning schedule but I can't do that during the week so I'm switching to the evening. This chapter is in 2 parts, which are both posted tonight.
***
*Part 3: Land of the Bottom Line*
Of course I needle the guy. Braca's easy; he's still embarrassed about getting cold-cocked at the Depository. After my second crack about the Henchman's Guide he's had enough and has me gagged, none too gently. Peacekeepers aren't known for gentle.
Down three hallways, up a few levels on an elevator, around a corner, and into a lab. A lab is a lab is a lab. Techs of various species, lots of terminals, lots of activity. Some holographic imaging systems in the center. And there, off in the corner talking to a white pig-faced fella, is my dear pal Scorpius.
I stop moving. I can't help it -- it's complete instinct.
My breath gets shallow and fast, and my peripheral vision disappears. Harvey's talking to me, and Braca's goons are yanking on me, and all I can think of is Getting. Out. Of. The. Room.
But I can't. They've got me by the arms and the legs, and my hands are cuffed. They haul me twisting and turning through the lab. I'm wrenching at my bonds, howling through the gag. I get in a couple of good kicks. I even knock down Braca. But it's not enough and they drag me down a short flight of steps and into another room.
Where there is an Aurora Chair. It's not the same set up; it doesn't have the big turntable, and the room's a lot smaller. But it's definitely an Aurora Chair. They leave the door open, and as they strap me into the Chair -- I think I might actually be whimpering now -- I can see Scorpius, still talking to the pig-faced tech. Scorpius says something, and smiles, and I can just see the tech nearly piss his pants.
Some things never change.
Now he's done with the tech, and he walks through the door, closing it behind him. The light in here is brighter than the light outside, and Scorpy reflects off the windows, a blurred black smear in the corner of my eye. The walls are dark grey with a red stripe below the ceiling. I know there's a decorator's term for that but interior design was never my thing. I'm not making a sound, and I look everywhere in the room but at Scorpius. There are a couple of techs at the controls, and one of the linebackers who brought me to see the blonde.
But Scorpy can't handle being ignored. Braca spins the chair to face the monster directly. I can't move my head, and I won't give Scorpius the satisfaction of closing my eyes. He leans forward and favors me with a gentle smile; his gums and lips are as unattractive as ever.
"Well, John. Here we are again. And, once again, you're going to tell me everything you know about wormholes." He nods to Braca, and the little bastard removes the gag.
I'm way past terrified. I remember the Chair some nights, and it's enough to keep me awake pacing Moya's floors, visiting Pilot, reprogramming the DRDs to steal Chiana's underwear. I will say anything, do anything, to pass on the chance to get reaquainted with this piece of furniture.
"Oh, we are *not* going there again! We have *been* there and *done* that already, Scorp! I don't know anything! Peel me down to my bones -- ain't nothin' left you didn't already get!"
"You are welcome to believe that, John. But courtesy of the chip, I know better. You're going to share your knowledge with me, and help save us all."
He steps away and nods to Braca. And the Chair begins to turn.
God knows, I love to hear myself talk, but after a while, even I get bored with the screaming.
***
"Dead, dead, they're all dead --" Stark's dithering and wailing again. I don't know if he's gotten worse since Zhaan died, or if I'm just imagining everything was better then. Before Zhaan died, before Aeryn died. But I'd have to keep looking further and further back, to find a time when Moya didn't stink of our desperation and her fear -- eventually I'm back at high school graduation and terrified Dad will find out what I did to the Mustang. There never was a golden age, kids.
"Stark." Aeryn places her pulse pistol, very carefully, on the table in front of her. He shuts up. Gotta love a woman of few words.
We're in the galley; it's the only room on Talyn with a table large enough for all of us. Like the rest of the damned ship, the primary decor motif is scarlet. I'm so tired of everything being red and black. Moya's nearly monochromatic, but brown and gold are a hell of a lot easier on the psyche.
Crais leans across the table toward Stark. "Moya is *not* dead, she's merely disabled. Talyn has targeted her with a narrow-beam comms signal on an electromagnetic wavelength. If anyone on board is still alive, they should be able to reconfigure their system and respond. However there will be a noticeable delay as the signals carry back and forth."
We're at the outer edge of the system. Moya's there, hanging stable in orbit around the moon of a gas giant. She's apparently alone, but Talyn's not fooled. There's evidence of a significant number of ships in the area recently, although we can't spot any now. They're probably on the other side of that giant. Right now we're running in the shadow of a tiny planet at the very edge of the system, so we figure we're safe. Not even Peacekeepers can scan through a billion tons of rock and metal to find us.
For the moment all we can do is wait to see if Moya or Pilot responds. Stark and Rygel start doing their Felix and Oscar routine again -- or is it Ernie and Bert? -- and Crais kicks them out of the galley before going off to check on Talyn's drexim levels. He's very careful about the fluid levels these days. I roll my eyes and look at Aeryn, who's just sitting at the table, tapping her fingers on her pistol. Her eyes are hooded, and she won't look at me.
She's been quiet since we got the original message from Moya. The other guy looked kinda bad, pretty worn. I wonder -- I don't want to, but I wonder what it would be like, Moya half-empty, no Zhaan, no Aeryn. Knowing that Aeryn's with someone else. Chiana and D'Argo can fill a room, but there's a lot of empty space on Moya. A lot of ways to get lost inside your own head.
We don't talk about him. Aeryn's brought him up once or twice but I don't answer and she lets it go. I don't know what she thinks about him; I'm afraid to ask. If Jool's right, if we're really the same . . . what happens when we're back in the same room?
If he's me, he loves her too. Some nights, I wake up and think I should feel bad about that. But she's warm under the blankets, and she'll mutter something and pull me back down to her. It's too good to last.
"Whattaya think?" I ask, and drop into the chair next to her.
She frowns a little, and I lean into her, nuzzle her ear while she thinks. She twitches, not hard enough to pull away, and then sighs, and leans her weight against me.
"I think we don't have enough information yet. I think your twin would have resisted being captured again." But that's not all she thinks. I pull away and look at her; she shakes her head. She looks worried.
"And?" I prod.
"And this is Moya. We cannot abandon her, John." Is that what she thinks? That we've abandoned Moya?
"We'll save her. I'll come up with a plan." God knows what.
She grins. "Oh, a Crichton plan. Because those *always* work perfectly."
"Well, they work! They just need a little finesse on the details. Better than going in the front door guns blasting, Sunshine."
"You shouldn't complain; blasting through the front door has saved your ass more than once, John."
Don't I know it. Nothing beats a girlfriend with a gun.
Everyone gathers on the bridge to hear Pilot's response to our message. Whatever happened on Moya, it's bad. Pilot looks distraught, he's waving his arms around, and Chiana and Jool look battered. Chi's got a huge purple bruise across the left side of her face.
Pilot's barely coherent: all he can say is "It's a trap! It's a trap!" Ok, fine, we got that, Pilot. What we need is data. Damn this tape-delay anyway. Thankfully, Chiana takes over.
"Moya's in bad shape. They hit her with an immobilizer pulse, and all the systems went frelnik. No propulsion, and even the environmentals are frelled. Then they shot her full of repnart gas --" at that Stark wails but Crais slaps a hand over his mouth so we can hear the rest. "--go and John were trapped in the hangar bay. So the princess and I got some breathing masks to Pilot, and hid in the pressure chambers. John and D'Argo went out in a transport pod to distract them -- "
Oh, no. No, no, no, no -- bad idea, guys, what were you thinking?
But of course, they were thinking what I would be thinking. Save the girls and Pilot, go out with a bang. It's the frelling Gammak base all over again.
"-- and then whoever it was started shooting. It wasn't Scorpius, John said -- and that was it. That was, uh, three solar days ago. Then the command carrier went behind the gas giant." So that's why we haven't spotted it.
Chi stops, cocks her head -- man, I've missed her -- and peers at me, like she can spot me, with all that space in the way. "Can you guys help? Pilot, well, he's still not doing so good, and Moya's in a lot of pain. We're pretty much frelled if we don't get some help in the next 50 arns. I hope you're all okay but we, we really need some air and water. That -- I guess that's all." The screen goes dim.
There's a long pause. I don't remember the last time I saw Pilot that overwhelmed, or Pip that serious.
"So, what's the word, people?" I have a germ of an idea, but we need a lot more information before we do anything.
"It's hopeless. Moya's dead, they're all dead, let's get the frell out of here." Rygel's standard position, but it seems kinda half-hearted. Maybe the little jerk has grown a soul; unlikely, but then who knows? Anything is possible -- like that old story about the condemned prisoner who promised to teach the king's horse to fly in a year. In a year, the king could die, the horse could die, the horse could learn to fly. Maybe someday Rygel will learn to fly.
"Your opinion is noted, Dominar," says Crais. "But we must find out if we can do anything for Moya before giving up."
"We can assume that Command Carrier is definitely waiting around for us. I'm thinking Moya's the spinner, and *we* are the ten-pound trophy bass." They all stare at me blankly.
*Why do you do this, John? You're certainly capable of speaking a language they can understand -- why don't you?*
*Because it's all I got left, Harve. It's all I got.*
"Moya's the bait for a trap -- she's gotta be. I mean, any other Leviathan, she'd be collared and on her way for use as a transport, right?" Aeryn thins her lips and nods. I suddenly realize what's been bothering her. She's worried about -- me. I'm still here, but I'm also there, and I'm dead, or captured, or drifting in a damaged pod. Kaarvok may have been straight out of a late-night second class horror movie, but he sure did know how to frell up a guy's life.
Crais nods. "Yes, Crichton is probably right. Defeating the retrieval squadron may have merely encouraged High Command to send a full task force after us."
"All of us," Aeryn says. "They want us *all* now. Talyn, Crais, John, me, Rygel, and D'Argo."
Rygel snickers. "They're probably still hunting for Zhaan! Well they can't have her, and they won't have *me*!"
"No Zhaan, no Zhaan, Zhaan is safe, yes, safe, but Talyn and John and John -- it's very dangerous. Too dangerous! But John is captured! Oh, this is bad." Thank you Stark for that insightful assessment. I'd give a lot to have D'Argo here: I'd trade in the lot of them for the big guy. Between Crais's plotting, Rygel's self-interest, and Stark's general freakishness, we're really short on common sense.
"Yes, Zhaan is safe, and Moya is safe for now," Aeryn notes, "but John and D'Argo are not." She pauses for a moment, then looks sharply at Crais. "Talyn has intelligence capabilities. Can he tap into the Command Carrier's internal networks? Find out whether John and D'Argo are still alive?"
*Smart* woman.
So they're alive after all. Talyn can't get all the way in; there's some serious security on the files, especially on his, mine, whatever. The file marked Crichton. But we get some useful data. They're alive, they're being interrogated, and they're being held on Decca Level of the command carrier.
I know Aeryn is with me; I try not to think about why. I expect an argument from the others, but it's over fast. Stark's hung up on saving me -- the other me, at any rate, and Rygel's easily overruled. Crais, now Crais is interesting. Crais is trapped; because Talyn won't leave Moya. And Crais won't leave Talyn. And we need a distraction before Talyn can get to Moya to help her. Round and round and round we go and where it stops nobody knows.
He's been in Scorpius' hands for three days. I was only in the Chair for two. By day three my mind would have been jello.
***
Continued in Part 3b
I am the darkness in your daughter
I'm the spot beneath the skin
I'm the shadow on the pavement
I'm the broken heart within
-- Yes Virginia I Am --
http://cofax.freeservers.com
Author: cofax
Rating: R
See Part 1 for complete headers.
I started posting on a morning schedule but I can't do that during the week so I'm switching to the evening. This chapter is in 2 parts, which are both posted tonight.
***
*Part 3: Land of the Bottom Line*
Of course I needle the guy. Braca's easy; he's still embarrassed about getting cold-cocked at the Depository. After my second crack about the Henchman's Guide he's had enough and has me gagged, none too gently. Peacekeepers aren't known for gentle.
Down three hallways, up a few levels on an elevator, around a corner, and into a lab. A lab is a lab is a lab. Techs of various species, lots of terminals, lots of activity. Some holographic imaging systems in the center. And there, off in the corner talking to a white pig-faced fella, is my dear pal Scorpius.
I stop moving. I can't help it -- it's complete instinct.
My breath gets shallow and fast, and my peripheral vision disappears. Harvey's talking to me, and Braca's goons are yanking on me, and all I can think of is Getting. Out. Of. The. Room.
But I can't. They've got me by the arms and the legs, and my hands are cuffed. They haul me twisting and turning through the lab. I'm wrenching at my bonds, howling through the gag. I get in a couple of good kicks. I even knock down Braca. But it's not enough and they drag me down a short flight of steps and into another room.
Where there is an Aurora Chair. It's not the same set up; it doesn't have the big turntable, and the room's a lot smaller. But it's definitely an Aurora Chair. They leave the door open, and as they strap me into the Chair -- I think I might actually be whimpering now -- I can see Scorpius, still talking to the pig-faced tech. Scorpius says something, and smiles, and I can just see the tech nearly piss his pants.
Some things never change.
Now he's done with the tech, and he walks through the door, closing it behind him. The light in here is brighter than the light outside, and Scorpy reflects off the windows, a blurred black smear in the corner of my eye. The walls are dark grey with a red stripe below the ceiling. I know there's a decorator's term for that but interior design was never my thing. I'm not making a sound, and I look everywhere in the room but at Scorpius. There are a couple of techs at the controls, and one of the linebackers who brought me to see the blonde.
But Scorpy can't handle being ignored. Braca spins the chair to face the monster directly. I can't move my head, and I won't give Scorpius the satisfaction of closing my eyes. He leans forward and favors me with a gentle smile; his gums and lips are as unattractive as ever.
"Well, John. Here we are again. And, once again, you're going to tell me everything you know about wormholes." He nods to Braca, and the little bastard removes the gag.
I'm way past terrified. I remember the Chair some nights, and it's enough to keep me awake pacing Moya's floors, visiting Pilot, reprogramming the DRDs to steal Chiana's underwear. I will say anything, do anything, to pass on the chance to get reaquainted with this piece of furniture.
"Oh, we are *not* going there again! We have *been* there and *done* that already, Scorp! I don't know anything! Peel me down to my bones -- ain't nothin' left you didn't already get!"
"You are welcome to believe that, John. But courtesy of the chip, I know better. You're going to share your knowledge with me, and help save us all."
He steps away and nods to Braca. And the Chair begins to turn.
God knows, I love to hear myself talk, but after a while, even I get bored with the screaming.
***
"Dead, dead, they're all dead --" Stark's dithering and wailing again. I don't know if he's gotten worse since Zhaan died, or if I'm just imagining everything was better then. Before Zhaan died, before Aeryn died. But I'd have to keep looking further and further back, to find a time when Moya didn't stink of our desperation and her fear -- eventually I'm back at high school graduation and terrified Dad will find out what I did to the Mustang. There never was a golden age, kids.
"Stark." Aeryn places her pulse pistol, very carefully, on the table in front of her. He shuts up. Gotta love a woman of few words.
We're in the galley; it's the only room on Talyn with a table large enough for all of us. Like the rest of the damned ship, the primary decor motif is scarlet. I'm so tired of everything being red and black. Moya's nearly monochromatic, but brown and gold are a hell of a lot easier on the psyche.
Crais leans across the table toward Stark. "Moya is *not* dead, she's merely disabled. Talyn has targeted her with a narrow-beam comms signal on an electromagnetic wavelength. If anyone on board is still alive, they should be able to reconfigure their system and respond. However there will be a noticeable delay as the signals carry back and forth."
We're at the outer edge of the system. Moya's there, hanging stable in orbit around the moon of a gas giant. She's apparently alone, but Talyn's not fooled. There's evidence of a significant number of ships in the area recently, although we can't spot any now. They're probably on the other side of that giant. Right now we're running in the shadow of a tiny planet at the very edge of the system, so we figure we're safe. Not even Peacekeepers can scan through a billion tons of rock and metal to find us.
For the moment all we can do is wait to see if Moya or Pilot responds. Stark and Rygel start doing their Felix and Oscar routine again -- or is it Ernie and Bert? -- and Crais kicks them out of the galley before going off to check on Talyn's drexim levels. He's very careful about the fluid levels these days. I roll my eyes and look at Aeryn, who's just sitting at the table, tapping her fingers on her pistol. Her eyes are hooded, and she won't look at me.
She's been quiet since we got the original message from Moya. The other guy looked kinda bad, pretty worn. I wonder -- I don't want to, but I wonder what it would be like, Moya half-empty, no Zhaan, no Aeryn. Knowing that Aeryn's with someone else. Chiana and D'Argo can fill a room, but there's a lot of empty space on Moya. A lot of ways to get lost inside your own head.
We don't talk about him. Aeryn's brought him up once or twice but I don't answer and she lets it go. I don't know what she thinks about him; I'm afraid to ask. If Jool's right, if we're really the same . . . what happens when we're back in the same room?
If he's me, he loves her too. Some nights, I wake up and think I should feel bad about that. But she's warm under the blankets, and she'll mutter something and pull me back down to her. It's too good to last.
"Whattaya think?" I ask, and drop into the chair next to her.
She frowns a little, and I lean into her, nuzzle her ear while she thinks. She twitches, not hard enough to pull away, and then sighs, and leans her weight against me.
"I think we don't have enough information yet. I think your twin would have resisted being captured again." But that's not all she thinks. I pull away and look at her; she shakes her head. She looks worried.
"And?" I prod.
"And this is Moya. We cannot abandon her, John." Is that what she thinks? That we've abandoned Moya?
"We'll save her. I'll come up with a plan." God knows what.
She grins. "Oh, a Crichton plan. Because those *always* work perfectly."
"Well, they work! They just need a little finesse on the details. Better than going in the front door guns blasting, Sunshine."
"You shouldn't complain; blasting through the front door has saved your ass more than once, John."
Don't I know it. Nothing beats a girlfriend with a gun.
Everyone gathers on the bridge to hear Pilot's response to our message. Whatever happened on Moya, it's bad. Pilot looks distraught, he's waving his arms around, and Chiana and Jool look battered. Chi's got a huge purple bruise across the left side of her face.
Pilot's barely coherent: all he can say is "It's a trap! It's a trap!" Ok, fine, we got that, Pilot. What we need is data. Damn this tape-delay anyway. Thankfully, Chiana takes over.
"Moya's in bad shape. They hit her with an immobilizer pulse, and all the systems went frelnik. No propulsion, and even the environmentals are frelled. Then they shot her full of repnart gas --" at that Stark wails but Crais slaps a hand over his mouth so we can hear the rest. "--go and John were trapped in the hangar bay. So the princess and I got some breathing masks to Pilot, and hid in the pressure chambers. John and D'Argo went out in a transport pod to distract them -- "
Oh, no. No, no, no, no -- bad idea, guys, what were you thinking?
But of course, they were thinking what I would be thinking. Save the girls and Pilot, go out with a bang. It's the frelling Gammak base all over again.
"-- and then whoever it was started shooting. It wasn't Scorpius, John said -- and that was it. That was, uh, three solar days ago. Then the command carrier went behind the gas giant." So that's why we haven't spotted it.
Chi stops, cocks her head -- man, I've missed her -- and peers at me, like she can spot me, with all that space in the way. "Can you guys help? Pilot, well, he's still not doing so good, and Moya's in a lot of pain. We're pretty much frelled if we don't get some help in the next 50 arns. I hope you're all okay but we, we really need some air and water. That -- I guess that's all." The screen goes dim.
There's a long pause. I don't remember the last time I saw Pilot that overwhelmed, or Pip that serious.
"So, what's the word, people?" I have a germ of an idea, but we need a lot more information before we do anything.
"It's hopeless. Moya's dead, they're all dead, let's get the frell out of here." Rygel's standard position, but it seems kinda half-hearted. Maybe the little jerk has grown a soul; unlikely, but then who knows? Anything is possible -- like that old story about the condemned prisoner who promised to teach the king's horse to fly in a year. In a year, the king could die, the horse could die, the horse could learn to fly. Maybe someday Rygel will learn to fly.
"Your opinion is noted, Dominar," says Crais. "But we must find out if we can do anything for Moya before giving up."
"We can assume that Command Carrier is definitely waiting around for us. I'm thinking Moya's the spinner, and *we* are the ten-pound trophy bass." They all stare at me blankly.
*Why do you do this, John? You're certainly capable of speaking a language they can understand -- why don't you?*
*Because it's all I got left, Harve. It's all I got.*
"Moya's the bait for a trap -- she's gotta be. I mean, any other Leviathan, she'd be collared and on her way for use as a transport, right?" Aeryn thins her lips and nods. I suddenly realize what's been bothering her. She's worried about -- me. I'm still here, but I'm also there, and I'm dead, or captured, or drifting in a damaged pod. Kaarvok may have been straight out of a late-night second class horror movie, but he sure did know how to frell up a guy's life.
Crais nods. "Yes, Crichton is probably right. Defeating the retrieval squadron may have merely encouraged High Command to send a full task force after us."
"All of us," Aeryn says. "They want us *all* now. Talyn, Crais, John, me, Rygel, and D'Argo."
Rygel snickers. "They're probably still hunting for Zhaan! Well they can't have her, and they won't have *me*!"
"No Zhaan, no Zhaan, Zhaan is safe, yes, safe, but Talyn and John and John -- it's very dangerous. Too dangerous! But John is captured! Oh, this is bad." Thank you Stark for that insightful assessment. I'd give a lot to have D'Argo here: I'd trade in the lot of them for the big guy. Between Crais's plotting, Rygel's self-interest, and Stark's general freakishness, we're really short on common sense.
"Yes, Zhaan is safe, and Moya is safe for now," Aeryn notes, "but John and D'Argo are not." She pauses for a moment, then looks sharply at Crais. "Talyn has intelligence capabilities. Can he tap into the Command Carrier's internal networks? Find out whether John and D'Argo are still alive?"
*Smart* woman.
So they're alive after all. Talyn can't get all the way in; there's some serious security on the files, especially on his, mine, whatever. The file marked Crichton. But we get some useful data. They're alive, they're being interrogated, and they're being held on Decca Level of the command carrier.
I know Aeryn is with me; I try not to think about why. I expect an argument from the others, but it's over fast. Stark's hung up on saving me -- the other me, at any rate, and Rygel's easily overruled. Crais, now Crais is interesting. Crais is trapped; because Talyn won't leave Moya. And Crais won't leave Talyn. And we need a distraction before Talyn can get to Moya to help her. Round and round and round we go and where it stops nobody knows.
He's been in Scorpius' hands for three days. I was only in the Chair for two. By day three my mind would have been jello.
***
Continued in Part 3b
I am the darkness in your daughter
I'm the spot beneath the skin
I'm the shadow on the pavement
I'm the broken heart within
-- Yes Virginia I Am --
http://cofax.freeservers.com