The crew of Moya was all gathered in Pilot's den, anxiously waiting for Solaris to begin to speak. Stark stood to the left, leaning against the consoles; Noranti standing on the right side of the panel; Chiana camped out right in front of it; and, of course, Rygel was hovering in his ThroneSled, conveniently right next to her.
Solaris was standing on the walkway with Jace at her side, her blue eyes saddening, "Everyone, D'Argo is dead."
Chiana gasped, "What!?!?!?"
"So he finally did it..... the frelling Luxan finally lost his marjools," murmured the disposed Dominar.
Crichton's daughter flashed him a disgusted look, "Wrong, Guido. He died trying to save me."
"And not only you, but your new friend, I see," quipped Noranti, looking strangely at Jace.
"Jace is an.... acquaintance only," Solaris heard herself reply, "He was the one in charge of guarding me on the Command Carrier, but apparently, he had a change of heart."
"Acquaintance?" Jace seemed to resent the remark, but a foul look from her was all he needed to shut up.
"The last thing we need is another frelling Peacekeeper."
"Hey, HEY, I AM HALF PK thank you very little!" The words were harsh and venomous, "Besides, Jace isn't sticking around. In fact, neither one of us are. Pilot, how long until we get to the rendezvous point?"
"Qujaga is still several arns away, Solaris. At impulse speed, which is our current rate, it will take four arns, at least."
She nodded, "Get it to about three, and we're in business. I can fly my module from that point on." Turning to leave, she announced, "I'm packing for the trip. I'm going to have a hard time convincing Mother and Dad that I'm their child, so I better come prepared with props."
"I'll come with you," replied Chiana, and held out her hand for her friend to find. The blind Nebari didn't have to wait long before a warm hand grabbed hers. Suddenly, Chiana recoiled in anguish, screeching out, "The Command Carrier, the COMMAND CARRIER!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
"Pip! What is it?" questioned Solaris, worriedly.
"The. Command Carrier is........ heading this way! Their weapons are charging...." the Nebari gasped out the words as they came to her before she fainted dead away, with Solaris catching her in her arms, "We only have about an arn."
"AN ARN!?!??!" gasped her human-Sebaceanoid friend, "That's not enough time!!!!"
"Solaris....." Noranti piped up, "Solaris, you must continue on..." she grabbed the younger by her shoulders and shook her profusely, "You must continue, Solaris. I cannot stress this enough!!!"
She started to protest, but Stark interjected, "She's right Solaris. If any of us should survive this encounter, it should be you. By going into the past, you'd help prevent this future from ever happening. You would be doing us a great service to continue!"
"Yeah..... murmured Chiana, half conscious in her arms, "Go, Lari.... you... you gotta go."
"For once, I agree with the slave and the trelk," agreed Rygel, surprisingly, "As much as it may go against my own personal issues, I suspect that you have the best chance of all of us to fix our problem. By it never happening, we wouldn't be here."
Solaris managed to smile through her tears, "Thanks Buckwheat. Oh, and if you make it out ok? You can have whatever I don't take. Don't go through it until I've gotten what I want, alright?"
"Solaris, you can't be serious....."
"I'm dead serious Jace," She replied back to him. Stuffing one of her favorite Peacekeeper outfits that she herself modified, Solaris continued speaking, "This is the only way. Pilot?"
"Yes, Solaris?"
"Are you absolutely sure that you want to do this?"
"Yes. Moya and I are completely agreed."
"There's no way that Moya can get out of the Command Carrier's target vector?"
"No. Because of the damage she endured to receive you and the Prowler, and the damage it caused to her inner hull, there is no way she can move fast enough to avoid the blast completely. Moya and I are in agreement that the life we have spent serving you was memorable, and neither her nor I would bear to return to the Peacekeepers as slaves."
Her entire body ached with the pain in her heart, as she grabbed her mother's locket, its dulled metallic surface reminding her of a planet she had never been to, and had only seen it in her dreams. It was the place where Aeryn and John grew old together, almost died together, and had lived together as one. This locket is like my mother's entire world, and everything she held dear was inside it..... Solaris smiled sadly, remembering that her own father's picture once graced the inside. She strung it around her neck, and made a grab at the second precious object of she had: her mother's engagement and Grandmother Crichton's wedding ring. Crying, a memory flashed again in her mind, but this time, the pain was only a dull throb. It was when her father was proposing to her mother, and how beautiful she looked, crying as she did when she nodded yes. Looking up, she felt closer to her parents right then than she ever had in a long time.
Along with the ring, she picked up her ingrot locket, and looped the ring through it. Sensing Jace could see what she was doing, she opened the little panels on the locket, and he gazed at her parents over her shoulder.
"That's your parents?"
"Yes."
"You have your father's eyes, and his smile. You have your mother's lips and her hair."
"My hair's brown."
"I meant the way it falls on your face, the way it frames it."
She moved her head a little to the right slowly, and met his eyes. Cautiously, he moved in, and his mouth hovered inches from her neck and shoulder, barely kissing it here and there before he got to the sweet spot underneath her chin. Her lips met his for a slow and steady kiss before he pulled away.
She looked at him with those eyes of hers, "What did you do that for?"
He grinned, "Because you're beautiful. And it seemed like a good idea at the time."
Punching him, Solaris laughed, "You're horrible."
"At least I'm honest."
"That you are." She turned back to the open locket, snapped it shut, and pulled it over her head, "I've got all the lucky charms any girl can ask for, right here. Now if only I can get that Leprechaun......"
He looked oblivious, "I'm going to assume that was a human expression."
Before she could answer, Pilot came on over the comms, "Solaris! The Command Carrier has been spotted! It's following us at a rapid pace, and before long, it will engulf us!"
"On my way to the module. Pilot, I—"
"GO Solaris! Say your good-byes later!"
"Lari! Do what Pilot says!" moaned Chiana, from wherever she was.
"Got it. I'm going know," she replied, stuffing even more things in the duffle that she could fit in there, including her father's NASA uniform, every bit of his notes/journals/logs, his trusty tape recorder, and even a few of her mother's things, such as extra clothes and a belt or two. The daughter turned to leave, but decided to go back, sliding a hand under the hypersonic mattress she slept on, and retrieved her most prized possession: a bag of borinium ingrots. Somehow, she knew these would come in handy some day, and with what all she could make from them, it seemed like a good idea to take them.
Jace stood in the doorway, already half out of the room when she had to go back into it, "Ready to leave?"
"Yes. I think so," she replied, and smiled a brief grin, "Let's hope we don't forget anything."
"You still have to figure out how to install that transmodulator."
"Pilot, how much time do we have?"
"A half arn."
"That's plenty of time. Let's go." She started dressing in the flight suit that was positioned on her mattress, "We only have so much time here before everything goes to hezmana, as D'Argo would say." Voice cracking and hands shaking, she growled at her zipper which wouldn't close, "Frellin'......"
"Here, let me get that for you," Jace zipped it, and tapped her nose, "It's going to be ok."
"How can you say that so calmly?"
"Practice. I was a Peacekeeper technician, and we were required to speak to ill pilots that were mentally damaged due to hypothermia, or what we called the 'Space Delirium'." He chuckled, "We were required to be a bit more hospitable than most Peacekeeper officers."
"Oh, so that's the reason how you charmed me from day one?"
"Something like that."
It seemed like all the way down the halls, a dirge loud enough to wake the dead pounded in her mind. Solaris's heart ached at the thought of what was to come, and it grew heavier with time. Jace strode alongside her, now fully decked out in a flight suit as well, as they both made their way to the docking bay that contained her father's module.
My module, she heard herself saying in her mind, This module's as much mine as it was Dad's. She shook her head, and grabbed the transmodulator on the table she had put it on before meeting everyone in the den, I have to stop thinking like that...
Quickly grabbing one of the sliding boards, she slid forward into it on her stomach and rolled over, inertia carrying her under the ship with ease, "Now let me see here, the red wire's connected to the electric box, the electric box is connected to the exhaustion fan, the exhaustion fan is connected to the........" she started singing out the parts of the module, and what they were connected to, in an old fashioned tune her father sang when he was a kid, only with the bones of the human body and not with ship parts. She demanded tools, "Micro laser...... Transitive difibulator...... can I get a donut? Maybe a raslak or two or six? I'm feeling a definite urge to party, for once."
Jace laughed at her and handed over the tools she wanted, "Maybe when we go back into the past, I can buy you a drink at whatever bar we come to."
She smiled, and wheeled herself out as she made the final adjustments, "I'd like that, Officer Jace Kohen."
"Don't you mean EX-Officer Jace Kohen?"
"Hey, I'm an Officer by default, so don't look at me."
He was about to reply when Pilot's voice sounded from the comms once again, "SOLARIS! The Command Carrier is HERE! Their weapons are almost fully charged! If you don't go now, we will be destroyed!"
"Pilot, you know what to do, right?"
"Yes, now go!"
"Wish I had time to fix those pulse cannons......"
"GO!"
"Alright! ALRIGHT!!!!!!!" Popping the door open, her hand graced the first curve of the module and she started to climb into it, when a sudden flashing pain throbbed behind her eyes, much stronger than she had felt before. "Oh god, not another one," She moaned, and collapsed straight into Jace's arms below her.
Flashes of things passed before her eyes, colors, shapes, species and people: D'Argo, Aeryn, John, Zhaan, The Scarrens, Halosians, Peacekeepers and many others that she couldn't possibly name. It was like her mind was being stretched out, warning her that this might not be such a good idea after all, but, of course, after all she was the daughter of Commander John Crichton, and of Officer Aeryn Sun. Both who have stubborn streaks that could go from the last point of the universe to the other.
With Solaris and her bags in his arms, Jace climbed the last few steps into the module, and stuck her in the back seat, "Come on, Lara, you have to tell me what to do! Don't faint on me now!" He panicked, and flipped the top of the module door down, and they both were alone. "Lara, please, wake up!"
"You.........can't...... pilot......" she whimpered, her eyes popping open lazily, "Need......DNA....... scan....."
He looked down at the dashboard, "How do you activate the controls?"
"Ignition sequence..... the levers..... to the left..... red ones....."
His fingers flipped them all, and automatically, the power came on. Like in the Prowler, a panel slid open and a prickly metallic thorn popped up. "DNA scan required," he noted, and looked worriedly behind him, but by this time, Solaris had passed out cold for the moment. "Frell," he moaned, then shrugged, sweating bullets, "Hope this works......" He jammed his own thumb on the prick and immediately, it retracted.
They waited.
The next thing, he didn't even expect. Suddenly, his quick technician's mind studied the controls and noted the strange symbols written beneath or above each switch, button and lever. And as if suddenly he had been infused with the knowledge, he gained a rough idea of what to do.
What he didn't expect though, was for the module to move when he grasped the joysticks.
What he didn't expect was the full control over the module that he had.
What was going on here?
Please read and review! I've actually gotten this entire story finished, so all i need to do is upload a few more chapters and I'm done! WHOOO HOOOO! Just might start the next one. Anyway, YES, DSP, you are absolutely correct, Lara does tend to go back and forth in how she feels. I thought that since she was the dughter of both Aeryn and John that her own identity would shift back and forth, depending on the conditions. I actually thought that she was always more like her father than her mother, which i'll explain in a couple chapters here, and even in the past couple chapters i thought she was more like her father than anything else. John has this way of turning himself into something cold, hard, almost, well, Peacekeeper-esque. We saw that when Harvey made him 'kill' Aeryn. It was to the point where he didn't care what it took, he wanted Harvey out of there, instantly, and he almost killed himself doing it. When someone he loves dies, he draws himself inwards, something that Solaris tends to do as well. her PK side just makes it that much easier. You'll see how much she is like her mother in coming chapters.
Solaris is such an interesting character. I basically put her through hell and she still can come out of it with flying colors. But all these things that make her who she is puts not her body through punishment, but her own mind. She's constantly battling her feelings, bouncing back and forth between them, and she feels dually and absolutely lost within herself because she has no idea who she is. Her character identity is questioned so continually that she has no idea what ideas are her own, and not her parents'. It's a tough situation when you have a character who could be John, could be Aeryn, could be a blending of the two, or she could be herself, apart from either one, but as of right now, she's severely unstable. In the next fic, you'll really see her break down because of this.
And YES, DSP, the whole "how can Jace control the Prowler" thing will be answered soon, don't worry!
ANyway, ciao all! must get the other chapters up!