Wabbit Season -Farscape Epic RPG Story

ByChant99

Aeryn strolled casually down a corridor on Moya's fifth tier. She was wondering if she should try and find John to see if he'd found anyway to get into new trouble, but she put the task off for a few microts and tried to enjoy the few moments of solitude she rarely got to enjoy since coming aboard the Leviathan.

She'd just passed one of the corridor intersections when she realized that she'd caught something odd out of the corner of her eye. Retracing her steps, she went back to the intersection and glanced down the side hallway. To her bewilderment she saw Chiana in a combat crouch stalking away from her down the corridor. To make matters even odder, the Nebari girl was holding a glue-patch gun on guard like it was a pulse rifle.

The ex-Peacekeeper frowned to herself wondering what the girl was up too. The patch gun shot a blob of sticky blue hull sealant a short distance and was usually used to repair hull ruptures from the outside. The guns had come in handy on several occasions to catch ship-born rodents and pests and there was little harm Chiana could do with the device, but Aeryn still wondered what she was up to with it.

Chiana paused in her stalk several times to carefully look over the length of hallway in front of her before taking a few more steps and than stopping to repeat the scanning process.

The Sebacean woman moved down the corridor until she was near Chiana. The gray girl turned and glanced the ex-Peacekeeper's way while she was walking over, but turned back right away to scrutinize the area in front of her again… as if she were wary about taking her eyes from it for very long.

"Chiana? What are you doing?" Aeryn asked in puzzlement.

The Nebari held out one hand in a shushing motion and then beckoned Aeryn to step closer.

"I'm hunting Berret," she explained in a whisper when the other woman was close enough.

Aeryn was taken aback. "Why?" she asked with a baffled shake of her head.

Chiana cackled lowly. "We got into an argument about who was the sneakier, I mean… stealthier person." Chiana looked up at her with a wicked grin. "I bet him a month of laundry duty that I could sneak up on him before he even knew I was there."

"And Berret took this wager?" asked Aeryn.

"Ha-ha! Yeah!" chuckled Chiana proudly. "He fell for it hook and line-stinker as John says. It's a month free of laundry in the bag… pun intended." This last Chiana delivered with one of her trademark cocky smiles.

Aeryn looked at her with the doubt evident in her dark eyes. "This I have to see," she said. "Do you mind if I tag along?"

Chiana's grin faded. "Well… alright. But you have to be quite," she said hesitantly. "This is serious business."

"Oh, I quite imagine it is," Aeryn commented dryly, knowing how the small Nebari hated to do chores.

"Alright then, you can come along," Chiana said. "But don't make too much noise. He's close by, I know it."

Aeryn smirked. "I'll do my best not to trip over my own feet," she replied with a hint of sarcasm.

The pair moved off down the corridor and inspected several storage areas and bays, but didn't find any sign of the elusive Shrike. Aeryn watched in growing amusement while Chiana played commando. Cautiously searching a number of bins and crates for Berret and storming an almost equal number of equipment-closets, each time sure that the ex-assassin was hiding inside. On the next tier up, they searched Quarters with no better results.

They next entered Moya's maintenance access-ways and only managed to run across Rygel visiting one of his food hordes. The unfortunate Hynerian Dominar became the first casualty in the couple's little war game as Chiana mistakenly shot him with the patch gun, leaving the small grumbling being a sticky mess.

At least Chiana claimed to have shot Rygel on accident. Aeryn might have bought the first round of blue blob being a mishap, but around the third shot she pretty much had the idea that Chiana was shooting Rygel on purpose.

It didn't help that the grin she had on her face as she apologized to Rygel looked less then sincere.

Leaving the access-ways for more opened spaces, they managed to get themselves chased out of Zhaan's lab by the irritated Delvian. They entered Andar's lab to find the Sebacean teacher bend over his workbench. Andar barely acknowledged their presence as he continued working, and when he did, he absently called them Rygel and Sean. In Maintenance bay two; Chiana got into a running "gun battle" against a grease gun armed Sean with neither side scoring any hits on the other. The young human made as if to include Aeryn in the fun but a warning look from the ex-Peacekeeper made the man decide that getting Aeryn greasy might be bad for his continued health, so he went back to working on the Wanderer Module.

Chiana led Aeryn down another corridor to an Amnexus junction. As they arrived they spied a pair of feet protruding from a removed access hatch.

"Ah-ha!" exclaimed Chiana in glee as she raised her weapon and started to slink in for the kill.

"Chiana, wait," Aeryn said grabbing her arm, "that's John."

Chiana tilted her head quizzically at the Sebacean woman. "Are ya sure?" she asked.

At that moment the metallic ring of a fallen tool sounded from inside the panel, followed by several very Crichton-like curses as the man squirmed around trying to locate the lost item in the confined space.

"Yes, I'm sure," replied Aeryn. "I recognized his boots and the pants he's wearing," she added for good measure.

Chiana's mischievous grin grew wider. "You can't be too sure, ya know? Berret's crafty," she said with a devious wiggle of her eyebrows to emphasize her statement.

Before Aeryn could move to stop her, Chiana shoved the muzzle of the patch-gun into the access space with the prone man.

"Gotcha!" she said as she pulled the gun's trigger several times in quick secession.

A series of wet splats accompanied John's cry of indignation.

"Hey! What the hell?"

Chiana stood up straight with a mock look of surprise… as if she hadn't truly expected to hear John's voice. "Opps," said the Nebari girl. She realized that Crichton was attempting to scramble out of the tiny opening so she turned to the other woman saying, "Time for us to go!"

She grabbed Aeryn's hand and ran just as Crichton managed to free himself from the hatchway, all covered in blue goop.

"Jesus H…" he started just as he spotted the fleeing females. "Aeryn? Pip? What going on? What the hell just happened?" He saw the patch gun in Chiana's hands and put it together with what was covering him. "Damnit! PIP!" he roared.

Despite everything, Aeryn found herself giggling with Chiana as they made their getaway. John's condition and the look on his face was worth anything the man might do to them later in revenge. If anything, her new crewmates had taught her how to laugh, something she did rarely as a Peacekeeper.

Further down the corridor they resumed their hunt for the missing Berret. Aeryn suggested they try looking in D'argo's quarters but Chiana vetoed that suggestion knowing the huge Luxan was sleeping at the time. And she doubted the warrior have much of a sense of humor if they woke him. Chiana racked her brain trying to think of where else Berret could be hiding.

"I have an idea," she said out loud and went to the nearest holo-comm. She tapped in a code on the clamshell and Malika's image appeared an instant later.

"What?" said the Delvian's image testily.

"Ummm… is Berret down there in your lab?" Chiana asked.

Malika frowned at the interruption. "No, he isn't. I haven't seen him all day?"

Chiana didn't look convinced. It would be just like the ex-assassin to talk the Delvian girl into hiding him out, knowing because of the tenseness between the young Delvian and the Shrike assassin, Chiana would never think to look for him there.

But Chiana wasn't that easily fooled, she thought to herself smugly.

"Then you wouldn't mind if we came down there to look around then," the Nebari said cagily.

Malika's began to visibly lose her temper. "I know about that silly game the two of you are playing and Rygel was just here looking for some hull-patch solvent." Chiana put on her best "Who, me?" innocent look and hid the patch gun behind her back, not sure if the Delvian could see it in the holo. "If you think you're going to come down here and make a mess of my research lab… think again!"

Malika cut the communication link abruptly, leaving Aeryn and Chiana looking at a suddenly empty clamshell.

"Well, I guess that answers that question," said Aeryn.

They searched for another arn during which, Chiana attempted to gain Pilot's assistance in tracking down the Shrike. Moya's helmsman claimed not to know the man's whereabouts, even though Chiana insisted that he was helping hide Berret from her. Chiana's stomach soon started to grumble and she decided that while she wasn't going to give up on finding the Shrike, she would take a break and stop by the Center Chamber for something quick to eat before they continued the hunt.

They were discussing the possibility of commandeering some DRDs to help when Aeryn suddenly came to a halt outside the Center Chamber doors.

"Uh-oh," she said in an uneasy voice.

"What's wrong?" asked Chiana.

Aeryn looked over at her suddenly. "I should have thought of this sooner. I think I figured out where Berret is," she said.

"Where?" Chiana inquired as she perked up, "Let's go and get him then!"

Aeryn's expression turned painful as she slowly pointed upwards at the ceiling above them.

Dumbfounded, Chiana followed her gaze upwards to find Berret suspended over their heads between two hull braces in a makeshift harness cobbled together from surplus PK duty-belts. She saw he was smiling and his patch gun's muzzle was pointed right at her.

"OH DREN…!" she got out just as the wet sticky blue blob smacked her in the face.

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