Chapter Two
Tinkerbell, Diagnosan Tikrel's diminutive assistant, was the first to arrive for D'Argo's impromptu meeting – well, the first after herself and Crichton, anyway. At least, Chiana assumed it was Tink by the crashing sound against the door, just before it opened. Since the little Paakrit could simply fly through the openings on the old cell doors, she frequently forgot to open the solid doors before entering a room. Chiana didn't hear any footsteps between the time the door opened and when it closed, but she did become aware of a spicy scent wafting past her face as she leaned back against the wall. Crichton apparently didn't notice Tink's arrival, as she heard him still rummaging through Noranti's cooking supplies looking for something from his home world he called "kauffee."
Feeling a soft touch on her cheek, Chiana opened her eyes. Useless gesture, that – as if she could see anything. "Are you all right, Chiana?" The gentle touch and the question confirmed her guess as to who had just arrived.
"Yeah, Tink, I'm okay." That is, she was okay if being a bundle of nerves and frustration at not doing something was okay.
"Pilot said there is an emergency and that we were all to gather here."
"Sorry, Tink. We'll go through everything when the others get here. I don't wanna…don't wanna talk right now." She'd much rather scream. At least that might relieve some of her frustration, even if it wouldn't really do any good. She couldn't scream right at that microt, though – Tink didn't deserve that and Chiana was pretty sure the Paakrit would think that it was directed at her. Tinkerbell – Chiana never thought of her by her given name, even if she could remember it, since Crichton's name for her fit so well – Tink sometimes had issues with self-esteem.
"That's okayee, Chiana. You must not talk if you do not wish to. I know that you're very tired." Chi smiled a little at the concern in Tink's voice and thought about how quickly the outgoing assistant had become a friend and a part of Moya's crew, much more readily than the reserved Diagnosan.
"You know what, Tink?" Chiana asked, leaning her head back against the wall. She allowed her eyes to drift closed again. "I'm glad D'Argo talked you and Tikrel into coming with us." She was rewarded with Tink's faint hum of pleasure and another soft stroke to her cheek just before the little insectoid flittered off, probably to see what Crichton was doing.
The door opened again and Aeryn Sun entered the room. "John, are you all right?" Unlike Tink's spicy scent, the air preceding and following Aeryn smelled of leather and chakkan oil. She stopped next to Chiana. "Chiana, what's going on? Pilot said there's an emergency."
Chiana rolled her head toward the sound of Aeryn's voice, still maintaining contact with the wall. "I guess there is, Aeryn, yeah. Nothing's wrong with Crichton, though, so don't…don't worry."
"Yeah, Aeryn. I'm fine." Crichton's voice sounded muffled and Chi thought he must have his head stuffed into a cupboard, still searching for his kauffee.
Several things happened simultaneously then, and Chiana knew she had been right to worry that her latest vision didn't give them the early warning D'Argo and Crichton had hoped for.
She heard a loud crash that seemed to her to be coming from Moya's hull. The crash was quickly followed by scraping sounds, almost as though something had just attached itself to the Leviathan's outer hull. Her impression was further strengthened by a reverberation that she picked up through the back of her head where it still rested against the wall.
"Commander Crichton, Moya is—!" Pilot's voice, broadcast over the comms, had a frightened urgency to it even as whatever he was about to say was cut off.
A strange vibration began in Moya's walls and floors – Chiana felt it through her shoulders and the soles of her boots. Pilot began to moan incoherently, as if in pain. It was an eerie and frightening sound, blending as it did with Moya's own keening, which began at almost the same instant. She heard a muffled curse from Crichton's general location and thought that he must've cracked his head as he pulled out of the cupboard.
Moya suddenly shifted violently in a direction Chiana could only interpret as "down," causing the bench on which she sat to lift off the floor and then crash back before everything shifted just as violently toward the hammond side. There was a dull thud she thought might have been Aeryn hitting the wall against which Chiana had been leaning and a startled squeak from Tink from the other side of the room.
"Pilot! What's happening?" Aeryn shouted. She received only another anguished moan in response.
Crichton yelled into his comms, "D! You okay, man? D'Argo!" The sound of his voice grew closer as he ran toward Aeryn and herself.
Chiana was terrified. "Crichton! We…we've gotta get to the main hangar! We've gotta stop them!" This had to be an attack by the Nebari, as she had seen in her vision. She tried to stand as Moya again shifted violently, throwing her into the wall before she could catch herself. She fell to the floor, hitting her head on the edge of the table. Chiana started to push herself up even as the vibration rippling through Moya's hull stopped.
Pilot's moans faded to silence when the vibration ceased, but a thin keening from the big ship continued unabated. "Moya…" he began.
"What's wrong with Moya, Pilot?" Aeryn asked, her voice urgent as she helped Chiana to stand. The Nebari girl felt something trickling through her hair and down the back of her neck – even though she couldn't feel the pain yet, she knew she was bleeding.
"Moya has been forced into a control collar." The Leviathan shifted again as an incredulous Pilot answered Aeryn's question. Moya's movement felt like nothing so much as a shudder of revulsion to Chiana.
"D'Argo…" Chiana could hear the edge of panic in her voice as the vision returned, forcing out all other thoughts.
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Gurvis kicked a crate out of the way and knelt down, rolling the big Luxan over on the hangar floor, careful not to step in the black blood pooling around the fallen man's head. He reached out to peel back an eyelid. Judging from the reaction of the pupil to the lights overhead, the Luxan was still alive. Good. Gurvis' orders were to make sure no one died, if it could be helped.
"Gurvis!" An excited shout came from behind him.
"Yes, Verisa? Have you found something?" He had assigned her the task of determining what the Luxan had been doing in the hangar while the rest of the boarding party prepared to take possession of the Leviathan.
The unconscious man should not have been in the hangar. The crew of the Leviathan should have had no warning that anything might be amiss. Of course, he supposed the Luxan's presence here at this time could have been a coincidence, but believing in things like coincidence were a luxury they couldn't afford.
"It looks like a ship left the hangar just before we boarded."
"Are you certain?" There had been nothing on visuals nor had there been any indication on their instruments… Gurvis abruptly stood from his examination of the damaged Luxan and turned toward Verisa, who was reading information from a screen at one of the Leviathan's diagnostic stations.
"I couldn't find anything in the visual records, Gurvis, but instrument-only scans seem to indicate mass and a power signature. I don't know what it could be but some sort of smallish ship." She shrugged gray-clad shoulders.
Frowning, he gestured to his lieutenant to move out with the others into the rest of the ship. Taking the Leviathan herself had been successful, so far, but he guessed from their reputations that the inhabitants would not take the invasion lightly. Given the massive ship's convulsions when they had installed the control collar – an amalgamation of Peacekeeper and Nebari design – his crew could no longer rely on the element of surprise, as they had in the initial ambush of the Leviathan.
Gurvis watched as the other Nebari filed out of the hangar into the interior, confident that Noren knew exactly what to do to subdue the rest of the ship's residents. There should be no real problems as they had been careful to infiltrate the ship during what their intelligence had indicated was the crew's sleep cycle. True, they could no longer count the advantage of surprise, but they would nevertheless be dealing with beings newly awakened from what should have been a peaceful sleep.
And yet, here was the Luxan, bleeding still. "Verisa. Do we have any idea which part of the ship is set aside for the Diagnosan's use? This one may need his services." Taking off his jacket, Gurvis folded the soft gray fabric into a pad and knelt again, placing it under the Luxan's head, wondering how to stop the bleeding. He didn't know how serious the injury might be, knowing nothing about Luxans beyond their renown as fighters, but he didn't think allowing him to continue to bleed like that could possibly be good.
"I don't see anything here in the ship's databases, but I remember something in the intelligence reports about tier eight, toward the center of that level."
Gurvis nodded and tapped his comms. "Noren."
"I'm here."
"Finding the Diagnosan is your first priority. I need you to bring him back here to the hangar as soon as you find him. His quarters should be located on tier eight, near the center of the level."
"But I thought we were here for the girl?"
"If she's on this ship, she isn't going anywhere right now." He thought uneasily of Verisa's belief that a ship had left the hangar even as they had attached the control collar. "Our orders are to make sure no one on this Leviathan dies. The Luxan needs medical attention."
"I'll look for him, Gurvis, but it's a big ship."
Gurvis sighed. "Just bring him here when you find him." Why must they always question his commands? There were times he actually missed his days on Nebari Prime. He settled on a bench to wait for progress reports, a headache beginning to build behind his eyes. There were only ten people on the Leviathan, including her Pilot, who was in a fixed and known position. How long could it possibly take for them to subdue ten people who were supposed to be asleep?
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"I will not argue with you about this, John. You. Will not. Go near. The hangar." The ex-Peacekeeper's tone brooked no argument as her words hit him like shrapnel.
"Aeryn—" he began.
She cut him off with a look. "I will knock you out myself and lock you in one of Moya's cells, if it becomes necessary, John Crichton."
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, in as meek a tone as he could muster. "But—"
John received another withering look before she turned to issue orders to Chiana and an anxiety-orange Tinkerbell, completely ignoring him. Damn, he hated it when she went all PK on him, but he supposed that might not be a bad thing under the circumstances.
"Chiana, you and John will go to the…" she shot a sideways look at John before continuing, "…laundry room." Before the argument had started about who was going to the hangar to check on D'Argo, they had all four agreed that the amnexus chamber would be the last place the Nebari would look for any of them. "If the Nebari come too close, you can always hide for a while in Moya's amnexus fluid." It really wasn't funny; even so John almost laughed when Chiana visibly shuddered at the suggestion. "Tinkerbell, you—"
"Aeryn…"
"Oh, for the love of Cholak!" Her grey eyes flashed fire. "John, you can barely walk, let alone run if you need to. You're in no condition to try to lift D'Argo if he cannot move on his own."
John sighed as he raised his hands in surrender. "You're right. Go ahead. You go see if you can help D'Argo. Chi and I'll head for the laundry room and Tink can try to round up the others and have 'em meet us there when they can."
Her eyes narrowed in suspicion as she listened to him. "I mean it, Aeryn. I'll be a good little boy and go to the laundry room. I promise." Of course, that didn't mean that he'd stay in the laundry room or only go to the laundry room, but she really was right about his physical stamina. The baby was taking a lot out of him, and the frelling vertigo – it could be dangerous if he got into any kind of physical struggle while trying to help his friend. On the other hand, if D'Argo was bleeding the way Chiana's vision said he was, he needed help fast, before his blood went toxic.
"I will go to Diagnosan Tikrel's quarters first, Johncrichton," Tink volunteered. She still tended to run their names together whenever she was nervous. "If Aerynsun can get Capi-tain-d-argo to the lon-der-ree room, Diagnosan Tikrel can help him there."
John reached over and palmed the door open, gesturing for the little Paakrit to head out. She darted past him in an orange and red blur, leaving a faint trail of cinnamon and cloves in the air. "Be careful, Tink!" he called after her.
Aeryn checked the chakkan oil charge in her pulse pistol before slapping it back into its holster. She stepped over to her mate. Placing her hands to either side of his face, she leaned in, touching his forehead briefly with hers, and kissed him. "You be careful, John," she breathed against his lips. Then she was gone and he was left alone with Chiana.
"We make a great pair, Pip. A blind chick and a guy who's the frelling poster child for Murphy's Law." He let out a short, harsh laugh. "The Nebari should tremble in fear."
"It's not so bad, Old Man. The Establishment'd surrender like that," she snapped her nimble fingers in a gesture of contempt, "if they realized who they were up against."
John snorted as he reached out and took Chiana's hand. "Let's go do us some laundry."
