Spoilers: up through Dog With Two Bones

Rating: R (some difficult topics)

Summary: J&A angst, some Butch and Sundance.

Disclaimers: Blah, blah, blah. Not mine.

Huge thanks to my betas: Aeryncrichton and WalkingTheBeam



DISPOSSESSION



PART 4b

*************

John had closed the door behind him and had stood aimlessly right behind it, feeling miserable, his arms hanging limply by his sides. His right hand had brushed his thigh and he had realized with a start that he had left his pistol in the other room but had thought better of it than going back in to retrieve it. So, for lack of a more efficient means of defence, he had made sure the door leading to the outside was bolted shut and had draped the curtains over the windows, even though the night had finally fallen outside and the room he was in had been completely dark.

Pacing had been the best thing he could come up with afterwards but physical exhaustion had soon taken over and he had slumped against the wall by the office door, one arm draped over his injured ribs, his head resting against the wall, his eyes staring numbly at the outside door in front of him, his mind too tired to think.

He remained in his prostrated position until the office door opened and Uru's gravel voice cut through his haze. "Your turn."

John got up wearily, awakening the throbbing pain on his left side and followed Uru back in the other room. He blinked as he discovered Aeryn still lying on the examination table but now wearing pants three sizes too large and five inches too short, as well as a similarly oversized tee-shirt under her vest. He could see her deep and even breathing as he approached her and let out a sigh of relief at the sight of her face, which had recovered its normal complexion. He brushed stray strands of dark hair away from her forehead and felt its normal coolness; her fever was gone. His hand moved away from her face and hung back limply by his side.

"It's gonna take her some time to fully wake up," Uru told him as he rolled in another examination table from the storage room and placed it next to Aeryn's, "I sedated her more than I could have but I didn't want to risk her waking up and reacting irrationally to her surroundings until I was done." He motioned for John to sit on the second examination table. "Take off your vest and shirt."

John stood still, engrossed in Aeryn's peaceful features. It had been a while since he had seen her face so relaxed and open. He had come to remember it only with lines of worry and pain crisscrossing it at all times.

"Take off your vest and shirt," Uru repeated a little louder, yanking John back to reality.

"Thank you," John murmured.

"Don't thank me yet," Uru replied gruffly, "I'm not finished."

John went to sit gingerly on the examination table and proceeded to remove his vest with awkward moves, his muscles sore past discomfort. His tattered tee-shirt proved out to be a completely different matter; the material had become glued to his skin as his blood had dried away. He tugged at it a few times, wondering if he would have to just rip it off and be done with it.

"Don't do that!" Uru scolded as he saw John's gestures. "You're gonna start bleeding again. Just lie down."

John obeyed him and laid still as Uru cut his tee-shirt around the wound and attempted to soak the attached remaining material in warm water to unglue it from the wound as neatly as possible. John watched the proceedings with a detached eye at first but then his expression took a tinge of worry when Uru's hands stood poised in mid-air after having removed the last of the material and puzzlement spread across the alien's face.

"You're not Sebacean?" Uru asked, shooting John a clearly perplexed look.

John couldn't stop the ironic and rueful smile. "Story of my life," he murmured back. Uru raised an inquiring eyebrow. "Just pretend I'm one," John told him off-handedly, "it won't make much difference."

Uru pressed his lips firmly together and blew air noisily through his large nose. "Fine!" He grumbled and went to discard the tattered remains of John's shirt. "Who cares if I happen to puncture anything that is significantly different from Sebacean physiology?!" He picked up his scanner and ran it over the wound.

John's face crunched up apologetically. "OK then..." he let out a deep sigh and bit his lower lip, "I'm a human," he started explaining calmly, "from a planet called Earth that no one has ever heard about and, unfortunately for you, the only human this side of the universe…" his gaze slid toward Aeryn lying next to him on the other table and he smiled sadly, "… except for a little while."

"You'll have another chance," Uru stated matter-of-factly at the sight of John's expression of longing.

John looked up sharply, surprised by his perspicacity and assurance.

"If you follow some basic precautions."

John's brows furrowed in perplexity.

"It makes more sense now," Uru nodded to himself as his speculative gaze left Aeryn's face to look back at John. "The fetus was viable," he started explaining, leaning to his left to bring his tray of medical instruments closer to him. He selected a syringe filled with a yellow liquid. "So, whatever differences there are between Sebaceans and… Humans, they do not seem to ban the production of healthy offspring between your two races."

John swiftly cast his eyes down, unwilling to let Uru realize he had had another human in mind.

"However," Uru continued, glancing at Aeryn, "her Peacekeeper biological status makes that quite special."

"She's not…" John started and stopped at Uru's 'don't give me bullshit' look. "Not anymore… she left them many cycles ago." He gasped slightly as Uru injected him with the yellow liquid.

"But she was one of them, right? And I'd say that's what caused her to lose the fetus," Uru affirmed, picking up a sharp instrument from his tray, "well that and the wound of course which was essentially superficial for someone like her yet instrumental in the loss. It triggered an immune reaction, hence the fever, that rejected anything alien from her body. A Sebacean fetus could have pulled through. Your hybrid child certainly did not stand a chance. A regular Sebacean might not have had such a problem but Peacekeepers have enhanced immune systems and in her case, it worked as efficiently as programmed."

John closed his mouth and pressed his lips together; he had been listening religiously to Uru's explanation. "I see," he murmured.

"So, if you really want to have an offspring together," Uru continued in a lecturing tone, his hand waving the sharp instrument in the air to stress his words, "you'll have to make sure she remains in a biologically friendly environment and away from anything that might bring her physical harm for the entire duration of her pregnancy." He paused for a second. "And of course, it'd be better if you didn't try again before another quarter cycle."

John ran a weary hand over his face, almost tempted to laugh out loud at the unintended irony of Uru's words. "Some of that shouldn't be too difficult," he quipped humourlessly and then grimaced as Uru's fingers dug sharply into his hip to hold him still. He closed his eyes for a second, expecting to feel some pain from the instrument knifing through his flesh but none came; the yellow liquid had probably been a painkiller.



They lapsed into a mutual silence as Uru proceeded to treat John's wound. Though John wasn't watching and couldn't feel a thing either, he could tell from Uru's deep concentrated silence that he was doing a delicate job and that the resulting scars would be minimal and heal quickly. However, he was pretty sure that his entire left side would bear the mark of the alien's fingerprints for quite a while. Uru had a way of gripping his body that, at first, had nearly made John remark that he wasn't going anywhere but after a while, he had concluded that it was more likely that Uru didn't realize his strength or the humans' more fragile constitution and he gradually learned to accommodate himself to his rather rough ministrations. Besides, there was something… comforting about that discomfort. Something… familiar…

"Turn on your right side," Uru instructed, starting to roll John himself as he spoke.

John willingly complied and settled himself on his side, his right arm squeezed under his head, his left arm folded before his chest so as not to hinder Uru's access to his side and back. His eyes came to rest on Aeryn's peaceful profile.

Where his mother had always been all softness in her embrace, his father had always held him tight to a point of near painful discomfort. Yet, as much as he had enjoyed the warm protective cocoon his mother wrapped around him, he had craved the sheer physical strength of his father's arms, especially as a young child when he would be carried and pressed against his father's chest, parts of his body sometimes going numb from the sustained pressure. Back then, he had never needed anyone to tell him his Dad was a super hero, he knew it in his child's body, in the sense of security before danger those muscular arms gave him, for only a super hero would have such palpable strength. Only later did it occur to him that his dad, like many other fathers, had simply been awkward in his embrace, going for tighter instead of more comfortable the way mothers do. Still, when his height had kept him from being carried around anymore, he had missed that embrace with the extra bit of strength that had seemed to diffuse through his own powerless child's body. He was a super hero's son, bound to become a super hero too.

He felt Uru's hand slide along the back of his lower ribs, following the outlines of the wound; fingerprints pressed against his spine.

"I'm really sorry about pointing a gun at you earlier…" John murmured without turning his head.

"Hmmm…" Uru mumbled dismissively.

"I haven't always been like that, you know…" John ploughed on, feeling the urge to justify himself, "pointing guns at people's faces…" He held his breath as Aeryn turned her head toward him and sighed softly. Her eyes remained closed and her breathing even but he could sense that she would wake up soon and the lines would reappear on her face and tension stiffen her body. He exhaled a shaky breath, reached out his hand tentatively toward hers, lying palm up along her side and delicately traced the outlines of her fingers and of her palm with the softest caress of a fingertip.

"I wasn't prepared for all this dren, not at all," John started again in hushed tones, shaking his head slowly. "On my planet, I was a scientist, the only weapons I ever held were at the country fair to win plush toys for girls and the only politics I cared about were the ones that would enable me to finance my space project." He paused, wondering when Uru would tell him to shut up but the alien continued his task in silence and John couldn't keep the words inside anymore. "One day, my ship gets thrown out here and I fall in the middle of a battle between escaped prisoners on a Leviathan ship and a Peacekeeper vessel trying to arrest them. I get lucky enough to escape a crash that sends a PK prowler to extinction and earn the undying hatred of the PK captain whose brother was piloting the prowler. As if that wasn't enough, some ancient race decided to plant wormhole knowledge in my unconscious, making me the Uncharted Territories' most wanted man." His fingers moved upward to draw meaningless figures on the softer skin of Aeryn's inner wrist. "For three cycles now, I've put all my strength into surviving through fear and pain, torture and manipulation, I've tried to find sense in the incomprehensible, I've done my best to make things right whenever I could but the picture is just too big for me. All I've ended up doing is screwing up more times than I care to remember, hurting and killing people myself without so much as a second thought…" He brought his arm back against his chest, his eyes boring into Aeryn's sleeping face. "I hate the person I've become."

The pressure finally eased completely from his back and reappeared on his shoulder. "Sit," Uru simply said, helping John to get into a seating position.

John rolled reluctantly away from Aeryn, swung his legs over the table and sat, facing Uru, who was looking back at him with a pensive frown. John cast his eyes down and sighed deeply. "And now, I've probably bored you to death with my moans of self-pity," he looked back up apologetically, "but it feels as if you're the first normal person I've met in such a long time."

The ghost of a wistful smile tugged at Uru's lips and gave his features the trustful quality John had sensed in his behaviour. "I could say the same thing about you," the alien replied, his gentle tone a stark contrast to his previous gruff remarks.

John nearly chuckled then shook his head in strong denegation.

"That boy, Dabaroo, that came bursting in before?" Uru asked him while skillfully applying a healing bandage on John's fresh scars. "Every morning, I wake up wondering if today is the day I'll have to attend his burial ceremony. I nearly buried his arm two cycles ago."

John's brows furrowed in puzzlement.

Uru sighed deeply and picked up a large roll of white material. "This planet is one uneventful place save for one particularity, we have the most diversified array of dangerous wild animals." He started corseting John's chest with the white material, looping it around in several tight circles. "For whatever reasons, ages ago, people started keeping those beasts as house animals, taking pride in having the most dangerous ones close at hand. I started as a wildlife doctor and soon found myself treating owners and animals alike, since their shared existences usually result in numerous 'accidents' ranging from minor bites to deaths for both. When you simply can't pry them apart, you end up treating both at the same time. Here, scars and funerals define your social status and half the days are spent attending burials of all kinds: men, animals, body parts the beasts felt like ripping or the owners like keeping at bay." He tucked in the last end of the white material and John gratefully lowered his weary arms. "I delivered Dabaroo the day his mother lost her life to a Batom and have kept an eye on him since then. I had been hoping to keep him away from all this and it worked for a while but peer pressure won over and he's just like the others now, excited about his next animal, hoping to buy one that will outgrow his others in ferocity and dangerousness."

"Your people are strange I'll admit but I don't see how you can find me normal in comparison," John remarked softly.

Uru's gaze bore into his. "At least you question your life. They never do."

John smiled ironically. "I wish my questions brought some answers."

"You survived in a dangerous environment for which you said you were not prepared. You must have found some answers, even if you don't like them."

John's gaze dropped to his hands, resting on his lap. His face froze into a mask of pain. "I don't."

"That woman, Aeryn, you obviously love her very much." Uru paused and watched John's silent assent. "You were starting a family with her, something you can still hope to do, build on that."

John tried to swallow the lump in his throat, amazed at how outsiders could so completely misread the situation when unaware of the facts. "It's too late, she's lost to me." He let out a deep sigh and continued haltingly. "At first, I just tried to earn my keep with the others on the ship and think of a way to go home. I did what I could to become what they needed me to be… what Aeryn wanted me to be." He stopped, trying to keep the tears from welling up in his eyes. "I even hoped that I could have it all, Aeryn and Earth. It was a difficult road but, little by little, I changed for her, she changed for me and we were to find each other somewhere midway. Apparently, it could have worked perfectly that way but… perfection got frelled. I lost her." He finally found the courage to look up again into Uru's deep gaze. "All that time, I've lived through her eyes and now when she looks at me, I can tell she doesn't like what she sees…"

An insistent pounding on the outside door startled them. John immediately looked for his pulse pistol and spotted it, lying on the ground in a far corner of the room. Uru had remained still, his hand on John's knee to keep him still as well. The pounding continued.

"Stay here," Uru instructed John in hushed tones. He went to pick up the dirtied jacket he had discarded earlier on and the thick padding as well then left the room, closing the door behind him, but not before throwing John another commanding look to remain quiet.

John turned around to check on Aeryn and felt a jolt of electricity as he found himself staring into her wide-opened eyes. He brought a shaking finger to his lips, signalling her to remain silent and motioned for her to stay put. She nodded wordlessly. He slid from the examination table and walked cautiously across the room to retrieve his pulse pistol. His ears, tuned toward the other room, were unable to make sense of the muffled sounds he was hearing. He bent down with difficulty to pick up the gun on the floor and when he turned back, saw that Aeryn was now standing up beside her examination table. He nearly scowled at her but the door opened again and it was Uru who gave him that look. John swiftly holstered his pulse pistol.

"That was Dabaroo," Uru informed him, getting rid of his jacket and thick padding again. "There's a group of Peacekeepers on the other side of the town looking for two armed Sebaceans. He came to see if I was alright."

"Nice boy this Dabaroo," John said with relief.

"Unfortunately," Uru sighed with a sad smile.

He seemed only mildly surprised to see Aeryn standing up and John wondered if Uru knew exactly when she had awakened during their conversation.

"They will be searching this place soon."

"We'll be going right away," John said immediately, picking up his own bloodied jacket. The material itched against his naked skin but it was still better than nothing. "We don't want to cause you any trouble. We'll just leave the same way we came."

Uru strode toward Aeryn, picking up a small cylinder on his way. He planted himself before her. "There was nothing I…" he started in a gentle voice.

"I know," she interrupted him curtly, her hand brushing absentmindedly against the bandage on her side.

He cocked his head at her then simply nodded before her stubborn expression and opened the cylinder, taking her hand and placing a green pill on her palm. "Swallow that," he ordered her with the same gentle voice and looked on as she complied, "it's a stimulant, it will help you recover your strength. You'll take one every six arns for the next two solar days." He handed her the cylinder and went to open a cabinet from which he retrieved her holster and pulse pistol. "I had to dispose of your clothes, you can keep the ones you have on now."

Aeryn replaced her holster and clicked in her pulse pistol. "Thank you," she murmured.

John came to stand next to her and extended his hand toward Uru. "Thank you for everything." Uru extended his hand as well after a moment's hesitation and John grasped it and kept it in his longer than usual, his gaze locked with the alien's to strengthen the bond. "Goodbye."

"One last thing," Uru said as their hands separated. He went to a refrigeration unit nearby and retrieved a small white crate the size of a shoebox. "This is yours." He held the box between John and Aeryn. "But, if you prefer," he added before their puzzled looks, "I can have it buried for you."

"Oh…" John let out, understanding dawning in a rush of adrenaline. He glanced swiftly at Aeryn whose face had suddenly paled and jerkily extended his hand again. "I'll take care of it." He placed the box inside the crook of his left arm, wondering how it could feel so light and heavy at the same time and then started toward the storage room. Aeryn followed him automatically with Uru in tow.

John opened the door whose lock he had cracked a few hours ago and cautiously peered outside. His gaze travelled up and down the badly lit back alley several times. Satisfied with the absence of movement, he nodded toward Aeryn, waved a final goodbye at Uru and stepped outside, the cold immediately biting his body, a stark reminder that the protection of the last few hours was definitely gone.



*************

Aeryn took the lead as soon as they left the town's outskirts, her superior eyesight proving decisive in the forest's dense darkness. She hardly ever glanced at their orientation unit, marching ahead with an assurance John had trouble following as he stumbled over roots and earth mounds every other step.

Silence ruled between them and John found himself paying undivided attention to all the sounds around him. On their way in, he had heard numerous creepy sounds, regular forest sounds he had thought then but now that he knew the particularities of the planet's fauna, he wasn't particularly interested in finding out who or what exactly made those sounds. However, he became gradually aware of a change in the tonality of those sounds, less chirping and squealing and more growling. He started to look behind him any time he could, squinting hard to distinguish anything in the forest's recesses and nearly bumped into Aeryn who had stopped without warning.

"We're a metra away from the Marauder," she informed him matter-of-factly.

"Good," John replied, looking around him once more. "I don't like these surroundings."

"They'll be expecting us."

He nodded knowingly. "How many of them?"

"Four soldiers maybe five."

"What's the best strategy?" He asked in the flat tone she was using. A cold conversation was still better than no conversation.

"Surprise and maybe some distraction." She started to move forward again, speaking to him over her shoulder. "You'll have to move exactly like me from now on, Peacekeeper standard procedures on an operation like this call for…"

"Oh, shit!" John interrupted her.

Aeryn whirled around to face him, worried by his tone of alarm. "What?"

"How fast can you run?" He asked her softly, standing unusually still on his feet, his right hand resting on the butt of his pulse pistol.

She raised a quizzical eyebrow. "Faster than you," she replied dryly.

He thought best not to rephrase his question and nodded slowly toward a spot on his right. "Let's hope I'm faster than them."

Her gaze followed the direction he had indicated and came upon three pairs of glowing orange eyes a stone's throw away from them, flashing in and out of her sight and changing positions between two occurrences.

"What are they like?" John asked in hushed tones. "I could only make out their eyes."

"They're large," she whispered back, her eyes trained on the animals, trying to determine their physical characteristics while carefully avoiding eye contact. "Quadrupeds, hide not fur, bulky, strong jaws, probably pack hunters," she enumerated slowly.

"Strong jaws?" He repeated, his shoulders sagging slightly. "Do they look like they can run fast?"

"Huh uh," she replied non-committally, moving closer to him to better hide her scrutiny from the animals' awareness as they kept moving around. "Their legs seem rather short and not built for speed but I wouldn't bet on it. Didn't that doctor tell you about the animals they have here?" She asked and immediately bit her lip, realizing her blunder.

He felt his heart leap in his chest at her question and wondered again exactly when she had woken up and what she had heard. "Only the general overview, he didn't get into specifics," he replied with his most casual tone, pretending not to have noticed her embarrassment and fighting over his own. "But enough to discourage me about meeting any of them face to face."

Aeryn slowly shook her head and sighed. "I could kill the three of them before they have a chance to reach us, but using my pulse pistol will mostly make the soldiers aware of our position and that's an advantage we can't afford to give them. We're too close now."

John nodded in understanding.

Aeryn glanced at the animals again. "Perhaps we could use them…"

"As a distraction," John finished for her.

"Yes."

They locked eyes.

"And for now, we're bait," John stated more calmly than he expected.

"Yes."

They resumed their silent walk, their senses, stretched to a maximum awareness, bringing them information about their changing surroundings. And more. They were tuned together, Aeryn still leading the way and John stepping in her prints, moving exactly like she did. She took them on a zigzagging trail toward their Marauder, sometimes even backtracking a little for reasons she only knew about and John trusted her enough not to question, though he started wondering just how long that last metra was going to be. The animals were closing in on them and…

"Aeryn?" He breathed out as silently as he could.

He saw her braid bob slowly up and down in acknowledgment. The number of animals following them had just doubled. She unholstered her pulse pistol without even a click.

John unzipped his jacket halfway, shivering immediately at the biting cold on his naked skin and tucked in the small white box he had been carrying, pressing it painfully against his sore chest. He couldn't zip his jacket back up much but the garment would hold the box securely enough as such and he knew he was going to need his two hands. He grimaced in concentration as he tried to unholster his pulse pistol as silently as she had.

They broke into a wild run as soon as Aeryn caught her first glimpse of the Marauder's shape, yet still too far away from it for John's taste. The number of animals had increased again and they had been nearly encircled. Legs pumping in unison, they dashed between the trees, realizing that at one point they would find themselves right in front of the soldiers' line of fire and with the animals breathing down their necks. John silently prayed that his legs would not trip on a root, slowing him down or worse making him fall. He couldn't afford the luxury of losing a single millisecond on the animals; the latest glances he had managed to throw toward them had brought back in his mind the myth of the beast of the Gevaudan he had read about in his teens and, however awe inspiring he had found it back then, that was one myth he didn't care to see up close and personal.

They heard shouts and movements ahead of them. With the ruckus they were making in their running and the beasts' growls getting louder, the soldiers didn't seem to care much about silence themselves. Aeryn suddenly disappeared from his sight a few feet before him.

"Climb!" She hissed at him and he reflexively grabbed her extended hand to haul himself up on the first low branch of a large tree. She grunted as his weight pulled hard on her arm and braced herself against the trunk to keep from falling. His left knee hooked around the branch and he released the pressure on her arm, balancing himself on the branch on his own. He swung his legs behind him before the beasts could make a leap at them, stood up on the large branch and swiftly climbed his way further up the tree behind Aeryn, well out of harm's way.

The encounter below did not go well, for either side. Though the three soldiers who had come running in were clearly outnumbered by the dozen of beasts before them, they seemed to face up to the challenge rather well at first, their aims never missing their targets and the beasts growled in anger and pain. But the soldiers soon realized that it was taking more than one hit to put one beast to rest and found themselves encircled by an angry pack. And those beasts certainly did have strong jaws.

Aeryn brought John's attention away from the gruesome battle. "The other soldiers must have already called for reinforcements," she whispered to him. "And we'd better not wait for the beasts to remember us." She pointed to the branch under her feet. "We can go from one tree to the next using branches like these. They're not large but they're strong enough to support our weight. Once we've put some distance, we can climb down again and worry about the remaining soldiers."

John nodded wearily. He was having trouble breathing. The run had taken most of his already diminished stamina and the bandage was wound up too tight around his chest, only allowing him small hiccupping breaths. His heart was beating a wild rhythm in his chest, reverberating against the small box tucked in his jacket. A throbbing pain was starting again on his left side, the painkiller having finally worn out. He looked at Aeryn as she was positioning herself on the branch, hanging by her arms and legs to inch her way along since the branch was not large enough for her to walk on and wondered how she could still be going on so strongly. Maybe, he should have asked for some green pills too or perhaps it was just a matter of genes and his did not carry the inexhaustible physical strength codes. He knelt awkwardly and took his position on the branch, suppressing a moan of pain, when the strain on his arms threatened to rip his wound open again.

They put five large trees between them and the rat race. As he was inching his way on the branch leading to the trunk of the last tree, John came face to face with a pair of glowing green eyes belonging to an animal that, though significantly smaller than the previous ones, seemed to take a particular interest in him as its gleaming fangs soon proved. Of course, since this planet had a diversified array of dangerous animals, there were no reasons for those animals to be limited to ground territory. Trees were so much more fun, John thought ironically.

The animal slowly craned its neck toward John from the overhead branch it was balancing itself on. John's left arm and side were so sore that it was impossible for him to hang on the branch with just his left arm so as to reach for his pulse pistol without falling. He fixed the animal's stare with his own and tried to will it out of his way. Don't even think about it, he silently urged it with all the power of persuasion he could put in his stare. The animal continued its slow advance toward him, unabashed but then squealed and bounced off the branch pursued by some other critter. John didn't even sigh in relief, he finished his painstaking progress along the branch, climbed down the tree and let himself fall by the trunk next to Aeryn, his knees taking the brunt of the fall with an audible crack.

They made their way, unhindered, to the edge of the small clearing where they had left the Marauder. Two Prowlers were stationed next to it but no soldiers were in sight. Aeryn sighed in frustration and disappointment and John realized she actually looked nearly as worn out as he felt he was.

"They're probably inside the Marauder," she whispered to him as she continued to advance as close to the spaceship as possible.

Engine noises above their heads made them retreat momentarily into denser shadows. Three other Prowlers made a slow descent next to the other two, on the other side of the Marauder from John and Aeryn. Two fully geared soldiers left the Marauder to greet them.

"Idiots!" Aeryn hissed.

John didn't have time to wonder about her comment that Aeryn, hidden from the soldiers' view by the Marauder's massive shape, had already broken into a run for the ship and he stumbled after her. Instead of going for the main hatch on the other side where the Prowlers were, she reached out for a nearly invisible latch and brought into relief some sort of ladder. They climbed along the hull and went in through a beacon launch hole that she opened as casually as techs before her probably had.

"Keep the main hatch secure. Don't close it until I tell you to," she ordered him over her shoulder as she trotted to command.

He nodded wordlessly, picked up a pulse rifle on the way and settled himself by the main hatch. He had no idea what was going on outside, he couldn't see the soldiers but then, neither could they see him. The Marauder's engines came bursting through life.

"Now," Aeryn ordered over the comms and he smashed his fist on the closing mechanism.

Mayhem erupted inside the clearing as the Marauder fired on the Prowlers and smashed them to pieces before veering off abruptly in a steep vertical vector away from the ground.