Chapter 6
Aeryn stood on Moya's Command deck, hands at her hips and eyes forward on the visual -- the Earth ship, Terra-3, advancing into the wormhole before them. As it moved into the mouth of the swirling funnel, the inner diameter of the wormhole expanded around the ship, cycling in perfect balance.
"All right, Aeryn. We'll hold here while you form in around us," John commed.
"Understood," she answered, turning to her comms officer. "Contact Gilbin."
The officer nodded, complying.
"Officer Sun," came Gilbin's voice through the Command speakers. "Are we ready?"
"Affirmative," she replied. "Let's move up to one quarter-hetch. And watch your cables on the acceleration. He's heavy."
Aeryn turned to an adjacent clamshell displaying a visual of Moya's aft. Galen's battered hulk hovered in the space behind them, attached to Moya by a series of cables. At Moya's flank, Jango moved in unison, aiding in the tow of the massive Leviathan.
"Braca," Aeryn said. "Be ready to reverse thrust when we slow on the other side. We don't have much room for you to drift."
"Given that it's the only operational thrust we have, I should be able to manage its activation," Braca commed back.
"Just don't creep up on our eemas, Captain," Gilbin quipped.
"You're one to talk."
"Pay attention!" Aeryn bawled over them. "We're moving in now."
Ahead of them, other Leviathans moved in alongside Terra-3, some taking position at its fore and others along its flanks. Many of the wounded Leviathans were being towed by the healthier ones while others were pulled along by smaller tug ships from Terra-3's maintenance fleet. As they advanced, the funnel's walls swelled outward around the massive central vessel as if to accommodate their passage.
"The Dreadnaughts are moving closer," John said. "Let's pick it up a bit."
The fact that the Scarrans had remained relatively close to their position for the last twenty arns was a worrisome thing. What kind of intel had they been able to gather during that time? They had hardly moved -- opting rather to sit quietly and watch. Under any other circumstance, such unfettered reconnoitering would never have been permitted. Aeryn was certain this would cost them somewhere down the line.
As Moya moved into the rim of the wormhole, the walls and floors of Command fell awash in shimmering blue luminescence. The slow speed of their advance afforded more than ample time for thorough observation of the innards of the phenomenon, frightening in the immensity of its size but beautiful nonetheless. Amazement was apparent in the faces of all the crewmembers throughout Command, the heavenly cast flickering in their wide-eyed stares.
Wormholes. They had been the bane of Aeryn's existence for all the cycles she and John spent together. At first, they spat out the curse that ended her life with the Peacekeepers, although this sentiment was shortly-lived. Then, they threatened to steal away her new and secretly-cherished companion. But after that, they became the impetus for the relentless pursuit of John and everyone in his company.
Her mixed experiences made wormholes a difficult thing for her to process -- a majestic phenomenon on one hand, able to deliver wonders from across the universe, but a terrible weapon of destruction on the other. The latter attribute had cost one John his life in an attempt to prevent its use in such a manner. Now, the other John seemed to be casting them across space at will as if he were in full possession of them, holding the beasts by their reins. It seemed the very walls spread out before him like a procession bowing before its Emperor.
Aeryn drew in a deep breath and sighed. It was a coupling she found wholly unsettling.
"All Leviathans are within the funnel," the navigator announced.
"Dreadnaughts are accelerating!" said the radar officer.
"Crichton?!" Aeryn called out.
"We see them," he replied. "Keep steady. We're firing through the formation."
A volley of fiery, red blasts shot forth from Terra-3's aft, whizzing over Moya and through the caravan. There must have been twenty bursts in that series, enough to rip a frigate in half. Microts later, another series passed across their bow, speeding along a slightly different trajectory.
"They've taken evasive actions," the radar officer said. "Two are veering away from the wormhole. The third appears to be in an uncontrolled advance...drifting off-center into the funnel. They must've been hit."
Aeryn snapped her head to the aft display. The battered Dreadnaught of the previous solar day's encounter entered the wormhole. The funnel was considerably less stable at the entrance where the fleet had already passed. The Dreadnaught was yawing heavily to its hammond side, drifting gradually towards the wormhole's inner wall. Microts later, the wall shifted, lapping a wave of blue energy across the vessel's hammond-side fore. Gasps and caught breaths broke the silence in Command. In the area across the vessel where the wave passed, there was nothing – only a gaping wound and open decks at the edges of the missing chunk. Thousands of motras of the ship's surface and innards were swept away in an instant, simply disappearing into nothingness. Hopelessly out of control, the Dreadnaught was eaten alive, piece by piece, by the lapping surges of the wormhole's inner surface until it was swallowed finally by the rolling field of energy.
Cholak! It was a terrible thing to witness. Aeryn knew she should rejoice at the death of their attackers, but this display garnered no such feeling. It was one thing to see an enemy fall at the violence of her own hand, but seeing life smote out this way – it was too cold, and much too easy – total destruction on a massive scale, delivered instantly in a flippant whim. These were the hands of the gods, if ever there were any, and such power should never be wielded by mortals lest the universe itself become a force of its own rapid destruction.
After a couple of macrots, the caravan emerged on the other side of the wormhole, spreading out into a new formation within a dense gas cloud, asteroids and smaller rocks scattered throughout. The cover was adequate to block both photo and radio probing, and the electromagnetic interference would prevent anyone from detecting the wormhole within the cloud. For the moment, this was a suitable place to hide.
"We're steady now," Braca announced. "Disengaging cables."
"As are we," Gilbin answered.
Aeryn nodded to the helm officer, effecting Moya's release.
"Glad you made it through, Braca," she said. "We'll be moving off to continue working on Veleon now."
"Understood," he answered. "But do me a favor and have Velorek come to Galen when he's finished there."
Aeryn paused, brows furrowing. "I didn't realize he was on Veleon. I assumed he was with you."
"No, he was insistent that he get to work on the gunship. I know the vessel's in bad shape, but it seems mis-prioritized. We've got a lot of important systems that need repair here."
"Right," she sighed, rubbing her eyes. "I'll let him know." Of course he was tending to Veleon. Where else would he be? Suddenly, she felt trapped by the unsolicited courtesy.
Please don't make this hard for me, Velorek.[
"Hey babe," her com chirped.
Everyone on Command turned and looked, curious eyes belying the customary impassivity of the deck crew.
Aeryn met their looks with a quick sneer and exited to the corridor. She moved a few paces down the hall and leaned her shoulder into the wall.
"Hello, John."
"What 'cha doin'?"
"Oh, just basking in the afterglow of your wormhole. And you?"
He sighed, her com speaker distorting with the whoosh of his breath. She pulled it away from her head, recalling her annoyance at his tendency to hold the mouthpiece too close.
"Just tryin' to shut this baby down," he answered.
"Hmm," she grunted brusquely.
They were silent for a moment, the staccato of rapid button-pressing thumping through the com.
"You okay?" he asked.
"We're fine."
"I asked about you, Aeryn."
"And I'm fine, I said. Just a little tired, that's all."
"When's the last time you slept?"
"I don't know, two solar days ago, maybe?" She tried not to think of Velorek's image, recalling little slumber from that sleep cycle.
"Well relax -- get some sleep. You guys should be safe here for the time being."
"What?" she snapped, standing away from the wall. "Are you leaving?"
"Yeah – for a little while."
"Why?"
"We're doing a work-up on a Kalish colony. It supports several docking stations and construction platforms in low orbit. Turns out the fleet that came to Earth originated there."
She huffed. "If this is about revenge, let me remind you that the encounter hardly ended in their favor. If anything..."
"It's not about revenge, Aeryn. It's about sending a message."
"What message?"
"Don't mess with Texas – not in my backyard – beware of dog."
"Crichton!" she growled. "I know the colony you're talking about. If it's Nalthan, you're completely fahrbot! There are hundreds of planet-side batteries. Big guns. Never mind the defense fleet."
"We won't be in there long."
'You're right. You'll be torn apart before you fire your second shot."
"Aeryn..."
"No, John!" she snapped. "You've just come back to us. There's no way I'm going to sit by and watch you squander your life on some idiotic show of bravado. Now get over here this instant so I can beat some frelling sense into you!"
He laughed. "Sounds fun. Can we take a rain check?"
Cholak, the Earth man and his laughing! "Where's Jack?!"
"He's on his way back to Moya," John replied, his tone sobering suddenly. "I wouldn't take him into this without your approval."
"But you'll take yourself, just fine." She shook her head. "No. If you're going, then you get over here and say good-bye first. Come say it to my face." All she needed was a chance to get her hands on him, the frellnik.
"We don't say good-byes, Aeryn."
"Don't get clever with me, Crichton!"
"Wow," he muttered. "You really are a mom."
She lowered the com for a moment, clawing at the skin of her chin. Try to be reasonable. Reasonable. Reasonable. Sighing, she spoke again.
"Call this thing off, John. I'm certain we can come up with a better plan together."
"Look, we have special ordinance for this. I wouldn't risk our lives haphazardly. My daughter's on this ship, for cyrin' out loud."
"And what kind of intel do you have to go on?"
There was brief pause. "Mmm...not a whole lot, really. But that shouldn't be an issue."
"What the frell are you talking about, Crichton? How can charging blind into one of the most fortified Scarran positions not be an issue?"
"Aeryn, please. We've really gotta go. Just trust me. Jack will explain when he gets there. You'll see. Everything's gonna be okay. I'll be back in a day or so. I promise."
"No! Don't you cut me off! Crichton? Answer me! John?"
Silence.
"Frell!" she yelled, rearing back with her com in hand. She was just about to launch it when Pilot chimed in.
"Officer Sun?"
"What is it, Pilot?" she answered, hair whipping across her face with the caught throw.
"Jack has returned to Veleon with supplies from the Earth vessel. Moya would like to interface with him again and filter his transport fluids before they start infusing nutrients."
"Go ahead, Pilot. I'm headed there myself. Can we deploy the bridging tube yet?"
"I believe so. Pressure has been restored to Veleon's airlock deck."
"Excellent," Aeryn said, stalking off down the corridor. "Any more ship-to-ship travel and I'll be babbling with transit madness."
Macrots later, Aeryn walked into Veleon's darkened corridors. DRDs scrambled about, providing brief snatches of light from their illuminated eyestalks. Many areas were impassable, the hallways occluded by fallen support structures and thick snags of drooping cables. Carefully, she tread through the manageable debris, wary of live wires and loose structures overhead.
She understood well the pain of a wound. But this, the sheer enormity of the destruction – it was unimaginable what this poor creature was enduring. Leviathans felt pain just as Sebaceans did. If only Zhan were here to share the terrible burden.
Aeryn stopped for a moment and palmed the damp surface of the corridor wall.
"Be strong, Veleon. We'll all walk in the garden again one day soon. I promise."
Dead silence. No vibration. She trailed her fingertips along the wall as she moved down the corridor.
Eventually, she emerged into a populated area of the vessel. Techs worked feverishly to restore functions vital to Veleon's survival. Down the corridor, she heard Velorek shouting instructions to some workers on a lower deck. Footsteps scrambled her way, matching the advance of his voice. When he emerged into the chamber, his words trailed off into quiet utterance. He held her in his sights for a moment, frozen where he stood, shirt ripped and body covered in the grime of his labors.
Suddenly, he snapped his eyes away and walked over to an adjacent table. He rifled noisily through some tools on the tabletop and began stuffing them into a bag, the muscles in his neck and shoulders tensing with the snapping motions.
"I'm glad to see you're alive," he grumbled.
"Look, I apologize for not contacting you. I've barely sat since I saw you last."
"A simple acknowledgement that you were okay, Aeryn. That's all I would've wanted."
"I'm sorry, but reassuring people of my safety was the last thing on my mind."
"Am I 'people' then?"
"Don't be like this."
"I left message after message, Aeryn – and you couldn't do me the simple courtesy of a text transmission?" He shook his head, continuing to stuff the bag. "You really don't care, do you?"
"That's enough!" she yelled. "You've had a job to do and so have I. And it's nowhere close to being over. We're both alive, and that'll just have to be enough for now."
In the corner of her eye, Aeryn caught a glimpse of Jack walking into the chamber, eyeing them briefly before turning on his heels and exiting again.
"Hold it, Jack!" Velorek shouted. "I need your help in the neural cluster."
Jack padded back into the room, hands clasped behind his back. "Shall I run ahead and get things started then?"
"No," he answered, looking briefly at Aeryn before throwing the bag over his shoulder. "I'm coming with you now. Let's go."
"You're needed on Galen, Velorek," Aeryn said. "Jack and I can take care of things here. Braca made the request personally."
He stopped in the doorway. "Is that an order?"
"Would you follow it?"
"No."
"Then I'm asking. Please see to their needs."
He shook his head, snorting a brief, bitter chuckle. "Well I guess that's it then." He turned around and released the bag, the bundle of tools clanging on the metal floor. "I've never been able to say 'no' to you, have I?" He walked a few paces down the corridor.
"Velorek...," she called.
He paused, looking sidelong.
"I'll come to you as soon as I can. I promise."
He looked down briefly, seeming like he might speak, but then proceeded down the corridor, disappearing around the corner.
"Frelling men," Aeryn muttered.
Jack threw a flippant wave towards the corridor and laid back across the table, his feet dangling from the end. "Let it go. He's tired – you're tired – we're all farbot from exhaustion."
"I should've contacted him, though" Aeryn said.
"Funny, I don't recall you hearing from him since this began," Jack replied.
"My com was damaged in the attack. I'm sure he tried to reach me through other channels."
"Whatever the case, I think we both know what this is really about – a new breetlevox bristling in the burrow, as they say."
"Well this burrow's about to get filled in if behaviors don't improve."
Jack twisted at the hip and raised on his elbow, brow cocked in query.
"Crichton," she hissed. "He's completely mad."
"How so?"
"Going to Nalthan -- one ship against an armada. What in the hezmana are the Earthlings thinking?"
"You don't know what that ship can do. Trust me, it's a fair fight."
"I don't care what kind of power they have. They'll be fired on from every direction. Nothing can repel that kind of assault."
"That's just the thing," Jack said, snapping upright on the table's edge. "They can never be flanked."
"Why not?"
"Because they attack from within the wormhole. Anything tries to come at them and," SMACK, he clapped his hands together, eyes lighting up. "They simply draw the curtain closed on their attackers, then throw it open again to fire."
The zeal in his words turned her stomach.
"They use wormholes as weapons," she grumbled. "And this pleases you?"
"When Scarrans are on the receiving end – yes, it does."
"Well, I guess he died for nothing, then," she snapped, walking towards the door.
"You're wrong," Jack said, pushing himself off the table and following. "If there were ever a people able to wield this technology responsibly, it's them."
"No – you're wrong. I've seen what Earthlings are capable of. Should something happen to Crichton, I fear for everyone in this galaxy."
"He's not the only one with a clear vision."
"Military is military wherever you go, Jack. They're no different."
"Then go see for yourself. That ship is a war machine in pristine condition, at the peak of its service life, and guess who has the authority there."
She paused for a moment, turning back.
"Techs," he continued. "No decorated soldiers, no commandos, just techs. It's actually the military who serves them. To even have a position in command you're required to carry the title of 'dok-tor'. And you know what gets you that? Education. Learning. Not a killing record."
"I know what a 'doctor' is in their world," Aeryn bristled. However, the idea of constructing a command hierarchy in this way piqued her interest. It was completely opposite from the Peacekeeper arrangement where techs were relegated to second-tier lifestyles beneath members of the military culture. But when she imagined a bunch of Crichtons leading a military campaign, she almost laughed aloud.
"You gathered all of this from one solar day's visit?" she asked.
He nodded, mouth hanging absently. "I didn't sleep one wink. I rode trains on that ship, and still I didn't see it all."
"Why is it so enormous?"
"My understanding is, it's built to maintain the species should something happen to Earth. There are whole decks set aside for Earth animals and vegetation, too. The plan is to make an entire caravan."
"Noah's ark," Aeryn muttered.
"What?"
"It's an Earth story. An old man built a ship to escape rising waters, covering all the land. On it, he took some beasts to repopulate the planet when the water receded." She rubbed her chin. "But still, why would they make such preparations? With the Ancients helping, it's clear they can protect Earth from the worst we have to offer."
"It does seem a bit overkill," Jack acknowledged. "I hadn't thought to ask about that."
"Well I hope you get a chance to," Aeryn replied, moving down the corridor again.
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They spent the next several arns splicing nerves in the neural cluster. When there was a break in the repairs, Aeryn slept on the hard floor beneath a run of pipes. It was the best sleep she had gotten in a long while. She awoke to Jack's hand at her shoulder, jostling her from slumber.
"Mom. Mom, wake up."
Aeryn sat up from beneath the pipes, squinting against the brightness of the overhead light.
"Crichton?" she groaned.
Squatting beside her, Jack adjusted some knobs on his transmission descrambler. "You won't believe the chatter."
Aeryn listened to the various feeds coming through the little speakers. Luxan, Nebari, Halosian – dozens of languages chomped into the signal space, all buzzing about the raid on Nalthan.
"...there's nothing left..."
"...attacked by sebaceans...raided a science vessel..."
"...just opened on top of them...never saw it coming..."
"...now's the time...we should all move in."
Aeryn's eyes snapped open wide. That last voice...
"D'Argo!" she gasped.
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Three solar days had passed since the raid on Nalthan, and only now had Terra-3 returned to the Leviathan caravan. Aeryn paced across the open floor of Moya's terrace, watching the Earth ship emerge from the newly formed wormhole. It was a distant visual, but something was different. Across the forward section, darker patches were splattered against the gray-white surface.
"Pilot? Have they been damaged?"
"Yes – they've got numerous blast sites over the fore hull. They're contacting Galen now."
"Do they need help?"
"I'll know in a moment."
As the ship moved in closer, the details of the damage became more clear -- standard frag cannon blasts, sixteen impacts by her count. The ship wore them well, moving strong and true, but she knew all too well what the impact was like on the affected decks. There were surely casualties.
The ship came to rest within the scatter of Leviathans, numerous lights shutting down along the hull. They too would be tending wounds for a while.
"Officer Sun," Pilot commed. "I'm patching a private transmission through to you."
"I'm listening."
"Aeryn," Liz's voice chirped through. "We're sorry for the delay in returning."
"That's alright, Liz. Are you in need of assistance?"
"Negative," she answered. "But Dad's in the damaged decks now. He asked me to contact you and see if you could come over. We gathered some intel during the raid. Can I send a transport?"
"That won't be necessary. I'll come in my Prowler."
"Understood. I'll arrange for your arrival."
"Liz, is it bad?"
She was quiet for a moment. "It's definitely worse than it was before we left. But I don't know how bad 'bad' can get. You'll see when you arrive."
This was probably her first serious altercation in space where the damage was reciprocal. Aeryn pitied the young woman. If this was all she knew of battle damage, there was much for her to learn and endure.
"I'm on my way, Liz. See you within the arn."
"Very good. I'll meet you in the first level starboard hangar. Look for the green runner lights."
"See you there." Aeryn stalked off towards the inner corridor. "Pilot, have the DRDs prep my prowler. I'll be in the hangar in ten macrots."