Chiana bit her lower lip and tried not to pace in the corridor as she waited outside the quarters the Shrike had been assigned to. While her sight was returning, it was best that she not participate in the practice else she just might trip over something she couldn't clearly see yet. Plus the fact she knew from past experience that pacing only made her more edgy.
When he finally left his room after cleaning up, she wasn't sure if she should be glad the wait was over or simply eschew the coming conversation she knew she had to have with the man.
As Berret left the doorway of the converted cell, at that present range Chiana saw him mostly as a large dark humanoid shape. Her half-healed eyes were still unable to focus clearly on objects at a distance yet.
Even though the last time she had actually laid seeing eyes upon him was during their escape from the Syndicate, she could still recall the deadly graceful way the assassin had of moving. Such was the quick bond they had developed in that short time together, she was sure she would know it anywhere.
Berret had always seemed to her during their bid to escape as if his next movement would be one of explosive violence.
The Nebari knew against better judgment that she had always found that trait in males to be especially exciting. Her life and past were full of affairs with dangerous men. Even her brother Nerri had warned her on more than one occasion that her tastes and passion for exhilarating thrills would led her into something she might not be able to get out of one day.
In some way, she thought of Berret as different than all the others. She remembered the look in his eyes as he shoved her into the escape pod. The moment they shared separated by the heavy door of the ship was etched into her mind. After he had torn out the hatch's control panel, his armor covered hand mirroring hers against the small porthole, just before he turned away to meet their enemies and buy her time to escape with his life. How she had screamed the name she had given him until her throat felt raw... and grieved him for so long afterwards, not even sharing her private pain with her crewmates.
She remembered the innocent kiss she had given him in a moment of delight and his even more innocent bewilderment afterwards.
She forced that image from her mind - she found she didn't want to remember the kiss. It was something best forgotten and left buried. She was back with D'argo now.
Chiana so very badly did not want to believe the things Rygel had told her just a short time ago.
Oddly, the ex-assassin seemed preoccupied with his thoughts and he hadn't noticed the lithe Nebari girl in the tier corridor until she called his name.
Berret spun toward her, almost dropping into an attack posture before realizing whom it was behind him.
Despite her resolve, the Nebari girl found herself pleased he moved just the way she remembered.
The Shrike relaxed and than straightened to wait while she carefully made her way over to him. About an arm's length away, the man's face finally came into a sort of blurry focus for the girl. She was glad to find that her vision had improved enough in the last few arns to be able to tell pick out that Berret's long hair was still damp from bathing. He basically looked the same as she remembered, but there was also something different that she couldn't put a finger on. Chiana told herself that what Rygel had divulged to her had tainted her thoughts and pushed the reflection aside.
She had to prove that he was the man she thought he was. The one who fought for freedom from the collar and the Syndicate, the person who saw something in her that inspired him to break his bounds.
The one who was willing to sacrifice himself for her because of what he saw.
No one had ever looked at her or thought of her quite like that.
"I need to speak with you," she told the former Enforcer as she came to a halt in front of him.
"Of course. About what?" he asked. His tone was as neutral as always, but Chiana could make out a slight curious rise of his eyebrow. The only hint of emotion she knew the man would probably show.
She took a microt to clear her throat and steadied herself to ask the questions she didn't want to ask.
"I had a talk... with Rygel," she began. Berret didn't respond in any way to her opening statement as far as she could tell, and she silently wished her eyes were better so she might be able to see what the Shrike might have let slip on his face... if there had been anything.
The wishing didn't improve her vision any at the moment, so she continued on.
"He told me privately what happened down on Qujaga."
"Did he?" Berret replied noncommittally.
Again, she received no verbal clue as to what was going through the Shrike's mind at that instant. She didn't want to go on. She found herself hurting in a way she never expected. She didn't want to believe what the Hynerian had told her about her friend, about the things he had done while planet-side.
Still she had to know the truth, so she pressed on despite wanting desperately to turn around and walk away from Berret without asking the questions.
"Is what he said true?" she suddenly blurted out, "Did you do the things Rygel said you did?"
The words hung in the air between them almost as solid as a stonewall. Chiana wished just as suddenly that she could take them back, to undo the question. But she had asked it, so now she waited for him to answer. Praying he would deny what the Dominar had told her, to say that Rygel was lying.
Her grief grew as Berret only regarded her with dispassionate eyes and silent voice.
"Is it true? Did you go out of your way to hurt more of the Qujagans then you had too?" she asked once more, this time with the tone of a demand in her voice. "Did you kill people you didn't absolutely have to?"
"I did what you asked of me."
"That's not an answer!" Chiana found herself snapping. "Did you do it?" The Nebari's voice broke slightly with the repeat of her question.
Unexpectedly, the Shrike's gaze shifted minutely away from her. The movement and its meaning were plain even to her injured sight.
Her still sensitive eyes began to well with hot tears, she felt something whither in her soul. Berret facade of unnatural calm faltered clearly at that moment. The gray girl's building grief was too deep to be surprised at the slight show of emotion from the ex-Enforcer.
Chiana took another step forward, bringing him more into clearer focus, and now saw the look on his face unmistakably. She knew in that instant that Rygel had been telling her the truth about the Shrike. She bit at her lip to keep from openly weeping and looked away from the man, wishing for her blindness once more in that moment.
"Why?" she asked quietly a few microts later. Berret's gaze had turned downward to the deck also.
"I do not know," he replied finally. "I just... did."
She knew instinctively he was lying.
A lone tear started to freely roll down the Nebari girl's cheeks at his admission despite her attempts to hold them back. Chiana suddenly felt as if something important had been ripped away from her. She brushed the teardrop quickly away, she did not want him to see how deeply she was hurt.
"No... that's not the man I thought I knew," she murmured in denial. "That's not the one who help me."
"Perhaps that person never really existed," Berret said a moment later in an equally quiet tone.
Chiana almost savagely shook her head in refutation of his comment.
"No, there has to be a reason why you did all that," she said almost as a plea, the hope of denial clear in her voice but faltering. "Tell me it was self-defense... they were going to capture you or Rygel and there was no other choice. Tell me anytime you killed, it had to be done. It was a case of them or you. Tell me... you weren't enjoying it... please!"
Berret remained silent again instead of answering and relieving her uncertainties. She turned back to face him fully, her hands balling into tiny fists worrying at his tunic front with frantic movements, trying to shake a corroboration to her entreaty from him, as if her limbs had minds of their own.
"Tell me you're still that person I escaped with. The one who saw all the good in me," she begged. Her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes lost all the focus they had gained as a new flood of tears overwhelmed her defenses and escaped to nearly blind her once more. "Tell me... tell me you're still that soul I grieved for all that time. The one who I thought died for me."
Berret swallowed hard, that dark voice in the back of his mind chuckled malevolently at Chiana's anguish. The specter's tone in his mind so rich in malevolence that for a moment he imagined the Nebari girl had to have heard it also. It was then Berret knew for certain he was losing that battle within himself for control.
That part of him that thrived on the death and destruction was seeping into every aspect of his life, slipping passed its bonds like sand through his fingers.
"I need to hear that you're still him somewhere inside, Berret," Chiana implored.
"I cannot..." he told her.
Chiana stared at him blankly for a moment as his words sank in. Then her still unhealed dark eyes turned from disbelief, to agony, to sad betrayal, all within a few brief heartbeats. She slowly lowered her eyes and broke eye contact with him a moment later, to gaze straight ahead at his chest. Her hands robotically untangled themselves from his shirt and slowly dropped lifelessly to her sides.
"I - I guess... I stopped grieving for my Berret too soon," she said more to herself as she took a step back from him. "I guess that person I thought I knew really did die helping me escape."
She looked back up at him and her eyes had changed. It was something the ex-Enforcer had seen countless times before in the eyes of his Syndicate victims.
To the Shrike it looked as if something had died in the girl's pain-filled dark orbs.
"You're just a ghost using his name and face," she told him in a tone that matched her faraway look.
"Chiana..." Berret started to say, even though he had no idea what he planned on telling her.
She stopped him before he could falter on much further.
"No, please... don't say anything," she told him in a tone that had become almost as emotionless as his. Chiana turned herself away from Berret and took several more steps further away from him. "I need to be by myself... and I can't look at you anymore."
This last she said over her shoulder as she moved away and headed back down Moya's corridor at a fast walk, a faster pace then what was probably safe with her impaired vision. That factor drove home the point that the gray girl... his savior... his once friend... could no longer bear to be near him.
Berret silently watched until she disappeared around a junction and was gone. The universe abruptly seemed to collapse and his stomach just as suddenly dropped into a space-cold pit somewhere inside him.
It had begun, what he had so feared the most. The beautiful Nebari, who had been his only true companion, was beginning to see the monster he actually was.
"Its for the best," he murmured at the long departed gray girl from where he still stood. "I am what I was designed to be."
In his mind, that vile voice shrilled with demented Scarran inflected laughter.
He wasn't sure if the mirth was over the slaughter he'd committed, or the way his bleak life was unraveling around him.
The only thing he had left for himself was his revenge against the Black Syndicate... and the voice impatiently shrieked at him once more to get on with it.
Chiana's sight steadily improved over the next three solar days.
Noranti administered the occasion herbal treatment once or twice daily as needed for the Nebari girl's discomfort, but the treatments were needed less and less frequently as the days wore on.
Even though his lover's eyesight was improving, the gray girl appeared more listless and at times depressed than she should be to the Luxan warrior. D'argo guessed that Chiana's funk had something to do with what Rygel told the group he had witnessed the Shrike do on the Qujagan homeworld.
His suspicions were confirmed more than a few times since leaving the Qujagan system when Chiana and Berret ran into each other in the Center Chamber or in Moya's corridors. Neither spoke to the other, and Chiana always seemed to direct her eyes in another direction from where the assassin was, and then make an excuse to go elsewhere.
D'argo simultaneously felt glad that Chiana was seeing the Shrike for the unstable creature he was, and sad because it made his lover so morose. She had built the ex-Enforcer up in her mind to be something he wasn't and then based part of her self image on how she thought he viewed her... only to find out that he was little more than a homicidal maniac.
Still it was a hard lesson for Chiana to learn and he hoped that she would get over it soon. She'd always been one to bounce back from difficult setbacks before.
The Luxan hoped that the ship could return to some form of normalcy in a few solar days as he'd recently learned from Pilot that the Shrike had begun working on his ship in preparations for departure. Berret had indicated a desire to the Leviathan's helmsman to return to the Syndicate planet he'd first met Chiana on to settle his score with the Scarran crime house that had enslaved him. And the assassin had asked for several starcharts from the Leviathan's data banks with that end in mind.
Oddly enough, Pilot was the only being that the Shrike would speak to over the last several solar days, ignoring everyone else the few times anyone tried to ask him anything.
Which suited Dargo just fine.
The warrior was on the Command Tier idly fingering through some starcharts of his own when Noranti commed him.
"D'argo?" the old woman asked over the link.
"Here," D'argo responded after tapping his comm badge. "What word?" he asked before she could say anything further. The old medicine woman had been helping Pilot and the DRD's try and figure out the device they had stolen from the prison.
"Nothing more, I'm afraid," admitted Noranti.
D'argo uttered a low curse. Before he could ask anything more Pilot formed in a hologram in the near-by clamshell.
"Moya and I have also exhausted our data resources attempting to learn how the device operates. There is simply nothing remotely related to it in our Peacekeeper technology databanks at this moment," the helmsman apologized.
"As you said before, the bio-deconstructor... or reconstructor - as however you would think of it since it performs both functions, is also far beyond my limited knowledge of medical devices," added the old woman's voice on the comm link.
The big Luxan sighted. It was beginning to look like they had risked stealing the machine for nothing.
"What about Jool? Did she know anything when you contacted her?" he asked.
"Princess laser commed us about an arn ago," broke in Chiana. D'argo was a little surprised to find that she was down in Maintenance Bay One with the others working on the machine. "She looked over the scans and the thing looks like it's new to her too, but she thinks she can figure out how to connect all the parts and get it working... but not much more than just that."
D'argo half-heartedly slammed a fist on the chart table. Disappointment was becoming a way of life as far as that frelling machine was concerned. He was hoping Jool would have all the answers they needed.
"At least that's something, if she can get the frelling thing hooked up and working," the warrior said.
"Joolushko still strongly desires to help and has requested that we make arrangements to rendezvous with her in the Arnessk system," Pilot added.
"She thinks it might be better if she can see the deconstructor machine in person," the Nebari explained. "I still think if anyone can figure it out, Princess can."
"I agree," said D'argo, finding himself strangely eager to see the red-haired Interion again. "Pilot, set a course to pick-up Jool," he ordered.
"Already done," confirmed Pilot. "We should arrive in one point three-six solar days."
"Jool has also made one other suggestion you may want to consider," advised Noranti
"But you're not going to like it," added Chiana somewhat nervously.
The warrior sighed once more. "There is already a lot I do not like about this task," he said, "What did Jool suggest?"
Noranti continued on, "Jool says that even if she can get the device to work, she will probably not have enough knowledge to be able to safely use it to restore Aeryn and Crichton no matter how long she studies it. Therefore she suggests that there might be one, possibly two others, we should try contacting and bringing in to help."
"And they are?"
"Scorpius and Sikozu," finished the Nebari.
They were right; D'argo didn't like that idea at all.
The big Luxan's mood did not improve much over then next solar day as the assembled remainders of Moya's crew met inside the Center Chamber to work out the last details of the new plan to recruit Scorpius and the Kalish woman to their cause.
Jool's reunion with her shipmates had been short but sweet before she was set to work examining the alien bio-device. Dargo found himself more than just pleased to see the redheaded Interion again, and Chiana greeted her like a long lost sister... even though she was keenly aware of how close her lover and Jool had grown in the time that they had spent on the Arnessk dig together.
Jool also made it obvious when she arrived that she was more than happy to see the big Luxan and just as obviously damped her interest when she learned that D'argo and the Nebari were a couple once more.
While the highly educated Interion woman turned her abilities to working diligently on uncovering the deconstructor's secrets and workings, she again showed how naive she could be by almost immediately becoming fascinated by Berret's presence aboard the Leviathan.
Jool pestered the moody man with insistent questions about the Scarran Black Syndicate and his life as an Enforcer for the criminal organization, failing in her enthusiasm to note the warning signs that the assassin was growing annoyed with her probing until Chiana took her aside and cautioned her that it would be best to live the temperamental Shrike alone.
Even Rygel's account of the raid on Qujaga did not temper the girl's thirst for knowledge about the assassin, nor Stark's persistent warnings about how dangerous Berret was.
What did rein in her quest for new facts about Moya's new passenger was the way Chiana's disposition changed whenever he was near by or mentioned in conversation. The Nebari became sullen and tight lipped whenever asked anything about the Shrike. And plainly outright uncomfortable the few times they were in the same area of the ship together, no matter how briefly.
And it was obvious that D'argo hated the Enforcer.
The bizarre situation and behavior only served to fuel Jool's curiosity more.
The warrior sat at the head of the table as befit the Leviathan's elected captain. He idly thumbed the edges of some data-films as he listened to what the others had to say about the plan they had come up with.
"As you can see," put in Noranti. "There is no other choice if we want the next part of the plot to bring John and Aeryn back to succeed... we must have Berret's help," she said of the absent Shrike.
"No!" spat Stark vehemently. "He is mad! A killer! The voices of the dead still scream at me... he will send more to the other side before their time. Zhaan would not approve of using him!"
Rygel took a pull at the pipe he was smoking and exhaled a puff of aromatic smoke before speaking.
"I have to agree with Stark on this one," the Hynerian Dominar said. "As much as it pains me to give credence to his endless ramblings. We cannot control Chiana's pet. There's no guarantee that he won't turn on us as well if the Peacekeepers start shooting and he starts killing."
"And there's no guarantee that anyone will start shooting to began with," added Jool. "Scorpius wants John alive and well for the wormhole knowledge he carries. Surely as a reasoning being, he will help us once we explain the situation and our need?"
D'argo snorted. "Reasoning is not a term I would associate with Scorpius," he muttered.
"And we damn sure don't dare tell him of Crichton and Aeryn's condition. That's all he would need to know to just attack us and take their remains and that frelling machine we stole," added in Rygel. "He doesn't need us for anything and if he gets his hands on everything he does need to reassemble Crichton himself - we're all frelling dead."
"So we're running out of options," Jool concluded. "I'm positive I can get the device working correctly in just a few arns. But I don't have enough study in life science theory to even began to figure out the proper procedure to reconstitute them from crystal stasis."
The Luxan sighed and then pushed the stack of data-films he'd been toying with away from him.
"It looks that way, as usual - we have almost no options. We need to trick that Peacekeeper bastard into helping us on our terms," he said glumly.
"Ka'D'Argo," Noranti said formally. "There is no other choice... and there is no one else. I am too old, Chiana is still recovering, Joolushko is not a warrior, Stark is... well, Stark. And Rygel will be very minimal back up for you while you deal with Scorpius. We must ask for 'his' help."
The Luxan slumped back in his seat and his frown deepened.
"The old hag is right... for once," put in Rygel, "We can't do this with just the two of us. Don't think for a microt I'm at all happy about this or frelling looking forward to it... but we're going to have to chance that frelling abomination's help again. "
"If he's inclined to give it," the big warrior rumbled.
"He will... if she asks," the old woman countered with a meaningful glance at the up until then silent Chiana.
"What! We cannot turn him loose!" shouted the Banik. "You know what he will do if given the chance!"
"Shut up, Stark!" the warrior snapped. Chiana looked as if she were somewhere else instead of in the Center Chamber with the rest of the shipmates. The Luxan turned his attention in her direction again.
D'argo regarded his gray-skinned lover and watched her carefully. "What do you think, Chiana? Will Berret help?" he asked her.
The young Nebari nervously glance around at the waiting faces, then focused her gaze somewhere at the middle of the empty table they were gathered around.
"I - I'm not... sure," she replied after a moment.
The Luxan captain twisted his lips in slight frustration. Before he could speak, the Hynerian cut in.
"Not sure or don't want to ask?" Rygel said irately. "You brought that maniac on board... and now that we're stuck with him and he nearly got me killed numerous times... you're not sure if he will help? I haven't risk all this, done all this work to bring Aeryn and Crichton back, for nothing!"
"Its not that easy..." Chiana began to say.
"I say make him help at gunpoint and maybe if we're lucky... Scorpius and the Peacekeepers will kill him for us!" the Dominar interrupted. "As a matter of fact, its too bad we don't have another one of those Scarran control collars. Then we can just snap it on the frellnik and..."
"SHUT YOUR FRELLING MOUTH!" Chiana unexpectedly bolted upright and shouted. She angrily pointed a forefinger at the Hynerian royal seething with barely contained fury. "Nobody is putting collar on anybody... for any frelling reason!"
The pair glared at each other for a few microts and than Chiana slowly sank back into her chair. The look of fury dulled on her features as she slid back into her private thoughts.
"It was just an idle notion," Rygel than said.
"Rygel! Be quiet!" snapped Jool. The red haired female was beginning to piece more of the puzzle concerning her gray shipmate and the Shrike together as Chiana now continued to sit silently with a numb look back in her eyes.
There was some sort of bond between the two, though surprisingly the Interion didn't think it was sexual in nature. Something about Berret was tearing the Nebari up inside.
"The Shrike will help if you ask," Noranti assured the gray girl once more.
"You will excuse me if I add..." broke in Pilot from the holo-comm where he was watching the meeting. "Berret has expressed a strong desire to return and settle his... affairs... with the Black Syndicate. Based on my past discussions with him, neither Moya or I believe he will be inclined to help us further."
"His... loyalty... to Chiana will change his mind," assured the old woman.
Jool frowned at the rest of the group. "Is that the moral thing to do?" she asked them. "To so blatantly use that against him for our own ends?"
Rygel tisked and rolled his frogeyes. "Who the yotz cares?" he said. "We've done far worse."
"My point exactly," Noranti put in with a satisfied look, that left the others wondering - though no one bothered to ask for an explanation from the eccentric woman.
"Chiana," D'argo cut in and waited until his lover raised her dark eyes up to met his from across the table. He leaned forward and made his voice as gentle as possible. "Can you get him to help us one last time or not?" he asked.
The Nebari thief held his gaze for a moment and then nodded minutely.
"Yes," she said quietly at first. Chiana nodded again more strongly a microt later. "Yeah... I can get him to help."
The Luxan slide back in his seat and grunted his stiff approval. Stark began to ramble to himself about more deaths. Rygel went back to smoking his pipe while Noranti placed her hands together as if in prayer and slightly bowed her head. Chiana went back to gazing off into the distance.
Jool found herself studying her gray friend and saw that behind her dark eyes, Chiana was battling with herself somewhere inside her thoughts.
When he finally left his room after cleaning up, she wasn't sure if she should be glad the wait was over or simply eschew the coming conversation she knew she had to have with the man.
As Berret left the doorway of the converted cell, at that present range Chiana saw him mostly as a large dark humanoid shape. Her half-healed eyes were still unable to focus clearly on objects at a distance yet.
Even though the last time she had actually laid seeing eyes upon him was during their escape from the Syndicate, she could still recall the deadly graceful way the assassin had of moving. Such was the quick bond they had developed in that short time together, she was sure she would know it anywhere.
Berret had always seemed to her during their bid to escape as if his next movement would be one of explosive violence.
The Nebari knew against better judgment that she had always found that trait in males to be especially exciting. Her life and past were full of affairs with dangerous men. Even her brother Nerri had warned her on more than one occasion that her tastes and passion for exhilarating thrills would led her into something she might not be able to get out of one day.
In some way, she thought of Berret as different than all the others. She remembered the look in his eyes as he shoved her into the escape pod. The moment they shared separated by the heavy door of the ship was etched into her mind. After he had torn out the hatch's control panel, his armor covered hand mirroring hers against the small porthole, just before he turned away to meet their enemies and buy her time to escape with his life. How she had screamed the name she had given him until her throat felt raw... and grieved him for so long afterwards, not even sharing her private pain with her crewmates.
She remembered the innocent kiss she had given him in a moment of delight and his even more innocent bewilderment afterwards.
She forced that image from her mind - she found she didn't want to remember the kiss. It was something best forgotten and left buried. She was back with D'argo now.
Chiana so very badly did not want to believe the things Rygel had told her just a short time ago.
Oddly, the ex-assassin seemed preoccupied with his thoughts and he hadn't noticed the lithe Nebari girl in the tier corridor until she called his name.
Berret spun toward her, almost dropping into an attack posture before realizing whom it was behind him.
Despite her resolve, the Nebari girl found herself pleased he moved just the way she remembered.
The Shrike relaxed and than straightened to wait while she carefully made her way over to him. About an arm's length away, the man's face finally came into a sort of blurry focus for the girl. She was glad to find that her vision had improved enough in the last few arns to be able to tell pick out that Berret's long hair was still damp from bathing. He basically looked the same as she remembered, but there was also something different that she couldn't put a finger on. Chiana told herself that what Rygel had divulged to her had tainted her thoughts and pushed the reflection aside.
She had to prove that he was the man she thought he was. The one who fought for freedom from the collar and the Syndicate, the person who saw something in her that inspired him to break his bounds.
The one who was willing to sacrifice himself for her because of what he saw.
No one had ever looked at her or thought of her quite like that.
"I need to speak with you," she told the former Enforcer as she came to a halt in front of him.
"Of course. About what?" he asked. His tone was as neutral as always, but Chiana could make out a slight curious rise of his eyebrow. The only hint of emotion she knew the man would probably show.
She took a microt to clear her throat and steadied herself to ask the questions she didn't want to ask.
"I had a talk... with Rygel," she began. Berret didn't respond in any way to her opening statement as far as she could tell, and she silently wished her eyes were better so she might be able to see what the Shrike might have let slip on his face... if there had been anything.
The wishing didn't improve her vision any at the moment, so she continued on.
"He told me privately what happened down on Qujaga."
"Did he?" Berret replied noncommittally.
Again, she received no verbal clue as to what was going through the Shrike's mind at that instant. She didn't want to go on. She found herself hurting in a way she never expected. She didn't want to believe what the Hynerian had told her about her friend, about the things he had done while planet-side.
Still she had to know the truth, so she pressed on despite wanting desperately to turn around and walk away from Berret without asking the questions.
"Is what he said true?" she suddenly blurted out, "Did you do the things Rygel said you did?"
The words hung in the air between them almost as solid as a stonewall. Chiana wished just as suddenly that she could take them back, to undo the question. But she had asked it, so now she waited for him to answer. Praying he would deny what the Dominar had told her, to say that Rygel was lying.
Her grief grew as Berret only regarded her with dispassionate eyes and silent voice.
"Is it true? Did you go out of your way to hurt more of the Qujagans then you had too?" she asked once more, this time with the tone of a demand in her voice. "Did you kill people you didn't absolutely have to?"
"I did what you asked of me."
"That's not an answer!" Chiana found herself snapping. "Did you do it?" The Nebari's voice broke slightly with the repeat of her question.
Unexpectedly, the Shrike's gaze shifted minutely away from her. The movement and its meaning were plain even to her injured sight.
Her still sensitive eyes began to well with hot tears, she felt something whither in her soul. Berret facade of unnatural calm faltered clearly at that moment. The gray girl's building grief was too deep to be surprised at the slight show of emotion from the ex-Enforcer.
Chiana took another step forward, bringing him more into clearer focus, and now saw the look on his face unmistakably. She knew in that instant that Rygel had been telling her the truth about the Shrike. She bit at her lip to keep from openly weeping and looked away from the man, wishing for her blindness once more in that moment.
"Why?" she asked quietly a few microts later. Berret's gaze had turned downward to the deck also.
"I do not know," he replied finally. "I just... did."
She knew instinctively he was lying.
A lone tear started to freely roll down the Nebari girl's cheeks at his admission despite her attempts to hold them back. Chiana suddenly felt as if something important had been ripped away from her. She brushed the teardrop quickly away, she did not want him to see how deeply she was hurt.
"No... that's not the man I thought I knew," she murmured in denial. "That's not the one who help me."
"Perhaps that person never really existed," Berret said a moment later in an equally quiet tone.
Chiana almost savagely shook her head in refutation of his comment.
"No, there has to be a reason why you did all that," she said almost as a plea, the hope of denial clear in her voice but faltering. "Tell me it was self-defense... they were going to capture you or Rygel and there was no other choice. Tell me anytime you killed, it had to be done. It was a case of them or you. Tell me... you weren't enjoying it... please!"
Berret remained silent again instead of answering and relieving her uncertainties. She turned back to face him fully, her hands balling into tiny fists worrying at his tunic front with frantic movements, trying to shake a corroboration to her entreaty from him, as if her limbs had minds of their own.
"Tell me you're still that person I escaped with. The one who saw all the good in me," she begged. Her lower lip started to tremble and her eyes lost all the focus they had gained as a new flood of tears overwhelmed her defenses and escaped to nearly blind her once more. "Tell me... tell me you're still that soul I grieved for all that time. The one who I thought died for me."
Berret swallowed hard, that dark voice in the back of his mind chuckled malevolently at Chiana's anguish. The specter's tone in his mind so rich in malevolence that for a moment he imagined the Nebari girl had to have heard it also. It was then Berret knew for certain he was losing that battle within himself for control.
That part of him that thrived on the death and destruction was seeping into every aspect of his life, slipping passed its bonds like sand through his fingers.
"I need to hear that you're still him somewhere inside, Berret," Chiana implored.
"I cannot..." he told her.
Chiana stared at him blankly for a moment as his words sank in. Then her still unhealed dark eyes turned from disbelief, to agony, to sad betrayal, all within a few brief heartbeats. She slowly lowered her eyes and broke eye contact with him a moment later, to gaze straight ahead at his chest. Her hands robotically untangled themselves from his shirt and slowly dropped lifelessly to her sides.
"I - I guess... I stopped grieving for my Berret too soon," she said more to herself as she took a step back from him. "I guess that person I thought I knew really did die helping me escape."
She looked back up at him and her eyes had changed. It was something the ex-Enforcer had seen countless times before in the eyes of his Syndicate victims.
To the Shrike it looked as if something had died in the girl's pain-filled dark orbs.
"You're just a ghost using his name and face," she told him in a tone that matched her faraway look.
"Chiana..." Berret started to say, even though he had no idea what he planned on telling her.
She stopped him before he could falter on much further.
"No, please... don't say anything," she told him in a tone that had become almost as emotionless as his. Chiana turned herself away from Berret and took several more steps further away from him. "I need to be by myself... and I can't look at you anymore."
This last she said over her shoulder as she moved away and headed back down Moya's corridor at a fast walk, a faster pace then what was probably safe with her impaired vision. That factor drove home the point that the gray girl... his savior... his once friend... could no longer bear to be near him.
Berret silently watched until she disappeared around a junction and was gone. The universe abruptly seemed to collapse and his stomach just as suddenly dropped into a space-cold pit somewhere inside him.
It had begun, what he had so feared the most. The beautiful Nebari, who had been his only true companion, was beginning to see the monster he actually was.
"Its for the best," he murmured at the long departed gray girl from where he still stood. "I am what I was designed to be."
In his mind, that vile voice shrilled with demented Scarran inflected laughter.
He wasn't sure if the mirth was over the slaughter he'd committed, or the way his bleak life was unraveling around him.
The only thing he had left for himself was his revenge against the Black Syndicate... and the voice impatiently shrieked at him once more to get on with it.
Chiana's sight steadily improved over the next three solar days.
Noranti administered the occasion herbal treatment once or twice daily as needed for the Nebari girl's discomfort, but the treatments were needed less and less frequently as the days wore on.
Even though his lover's eyesight was improving, the gray girl appeared more listless and at times depressed than she should be to the Luxan warrior. D'argo guessed that Chiana's funk had something to do with what Rygel told the group he had witnessed the Shrike do on the Qujagan homeworld.
His suspicions were confirmed more than a few times since leaving the Qujagan system when Chiana and Berret ran into each other in the Center Chamber or in Moya's corridors. Neither spoke to the other, and Chiana always seemed to direct her eyes in another direction from where the assassin was, and then make an excuse to go elsewhere.
D'argo simultaneously felt glad that Chiana was seeing the Shrike for the unstable creature he was, and sad because it made his lover so morose. She had built the ex-Enforcer up in her mind to be something he wasn't and then based part of her self image on how she thought he viewed her... only to find out that he was little more than a homicidal maniac.
Still it was a hard lesson for Chiana to learn and he hoped that she would get over it soon. She'd always been one to bounce back from difficult setbacks before.
The Luxan hoped that the ship could return to some form of normalcy in a few solar days as he'd recently learned from Pilot that the Shrike had begun working on his ship in preparations for departure. Berret had indicated a desire to the Leviathan's helmsman to return to the Syndicate planet he'd first met Chiana on to settle his score with the Scarran crime house that had enslaved him. And the assassin had asked for several starcharts from the Leviathan's data banks with that end in mind.
Oddly enough, Pilot was the only being that the Shrike would speak to over the last several solar days, ignoring everyone else the few times anyone tried to ask him anything.
Which suited Dargo just fine.
The warrior was on the Command Tier idly fingering through some starcharts of his own when Noranti commed him.
"D'argo?" the old woman asked over the link.
"Here," D'argo responded after tapping his comm badge. "What word?" he asked before she could say anything further. The old medicine woman had been helping Pilot and the DRD's try and figure out the device they had stolen from the prison.
"Nothing more, I'm afraid," admitted Noranti.
D'argo uttered a low curse. Before he could ask anything more Pilot formed in a hologram in the near-by clamshell.
"Moya and I have also exhausted our data resources attempting to learn how the device operates. There is simply nothing remotely related to it in our Peacekeeper technology databanks at this moment," the helmsman apologized.
"As you said before, the bio-deconstructor... or reconstructor - as however you would think of it since it performs both functions, is also far beyond my limited knowledge of medical devices," added the old woman's voice on the comm link.
The big Luxan sighted. It was beginning to look like they had risked stealing the machine for nothing.
"What about Jool? Did she know anything when you contacted her?" he asked.
"Princess laser commed us about an arn ago," broke in Chiana. D'argo was a little surprised to find that she was down in Maintenance Bay One with the others working on the machine. "She looked over the scans and the thing looks like it's new to her too, but she thinks she can figure out how to connect all the parts and get it working... but not much more than just that."
D'argo half-heartedly slammed a fist on the chart table. Disappointment was becoming a way of life as far as that frelling machine was concerned. He was hoping Jool would have all the answers they needed.
"At least that's something, if she can get the frelling thing hooked up and working," the warrior said.
"Joolushko still strongly desires to help and has requested that we make arrangements to rendezvous with her in the Arnessk system," Pilot added.
"She thinks it might be better if she can see the deconstructor machine in person," the Nebari explained. "I still think if anyone can figure it out, Princess can."
"I agree," said D'argo, finding himself strangely eager to see the red-haired Interion again. "Pilot, set a course to pick-up Jool," he ordered.
"Already done," confirmed Pilot. "We should arrive in one point three-six solar days."
"Jool has also made one other suggestion you may want to consider," advised Noranti
"But you're not going to like it," added Chiana somewhat nervously.
The warrior sighed once more. "There is already a lot I do not like about this task," he said, "What did Jool suggest?"
Noranti continued on, "Jool says that even if she can get the device to work, she will probably not have enough knowledge to be able to safely use it to restore Aeryn and Crichton no matter how long she studies it. Therefore she suggests that there might be one, possibly two others, we should try contacting and bringing in to help."
"And they are?"
"Scorpius and Sikozu," finished the Nebari.
They were right; D'argo didn't like that idea at all.
The big Luxan's mood did not improve much over then next solar day as the assembled remainders of Moya's crew met inside the Center Chamber to work out the last details of the new plan to recruit Scorpius and the Kalish woman to their cause.
Jool's reunion with her shipmates had been short but sweet before she was set to work examining the alien bio-device. Dargo found himself more than just pleased to see the redheaded Interion again, and Chiana greeted her like a long lost sister... even though she was keenly aware of how close her lover and Jool had grown in the time that they had spent on the Arnessk dig together.
Jool also made it obvious when she arrived that she was more than happy to see the big Luxan and just as obviously damped her interest when she learned that D'argo and the Nebari were a couple once more.
While the highly educated Interion woman turned her abilities to working diligently on uncovering the deconstructor's secrets and workings, she again showed how naive she could be by almost immediately becoming fascinated by Berret's presence aboard the Leviathan.
Jool pestered the moody man with insistent questions about the Scarran Black Syndicate and his life as an Enforcer for the criminal organization, failing in her enthusiasm to note the warning signs that the assassin was growing annoyed with her probing until Chiana took her aside and cautioned her that it would be best to live the temperamental Shrike alone.
Even Rygel's account of the raid on Qujaga did not temper the girl's thirst for knowledge about the assassin, nor Stark's persistent warnings about how dangerous Berret was.
What did rein in her quest for new facts about Moya's new passenger was the way Chiana's disposition changed whenever he was near by or mentioned in conversation. The Nebari became sullen and tight lipped whenever asked anything about the Shrike. And plainly outright uncomfortable the few times they were in the same area of the ship together, no matter how briefly.
And it was obvious that D'argo hated the Enforcer.
The bizarre situation and behavior only served to fuel Jool's curiosity more.
The warrior sat at the head of the table as befit the Leviathan's elected captain. He idly thumbed the edges of some data-films as he listened to what the others had to say about the plan they had come up with.
"As you can see," put in Noranti. "There is no other choice if we want the next part of the plot to bring John and Aeryn back to succeed... we must have Berret's help," she said of the absent Shrike.
"No!" spat Stark vehemently. "He is mad! A killer! The voices of the dead still scream at me... he will send more to the other side before their time. Zhaan would not approve of using him!"
Rygel took a pull at the pipe he was smoking and exhaled a puff of aromatic smoke before speaking.
"I have to agree with Stark on this one," the Hynerian Dominar said. "As much as it pains me to give credence to his endless ramblings. We cannot control Chiana's pet. There's no guarantee that he won't turn on us as well if the Peacekeepers start shooting and he starts killing."
"And there's no guarantee that anyone will start shooting to began with," added Jool. "Scorpius wants John alive and well for the wormhole knowledge he carries. Surely as a reasoning being, he will help us once we explain the situation and our need?"
D'argo snorted. "Reasoning is not a term I would associate with Scorpius," he muttered.
"And we damn sure don't dare tell him of Crichton and Aeryn's condition. That's all he would need to know to just attack us and take their remains and that frelling machine we stole," added in Rygel. "He doesn't need us for anything and if he gets his hands on everything he does need to reassemble Crichton himself - we're all frelling dead."
"So we're running out of options," Jool concluded. "I'm positive I can get the device working correctly in just a few arns. But I don't have enough study in life science theory to even began to figure out the proper procedure to reconstitute them from crystal stasis."
The Luxan sighed and then pushed the stack of data-films he'd been toying with away from him.
"It looks that way, as usual - we have almost no options. We need to trick that Peacekeeper bastard into helping us on our terms," he said glumly.
"Ka'D'Argo," Noranti said formally. "There is no other choice... and there is no one else. I am too old, Chiana is still recovering, Joolushko is not a warrior, Stark is... well, Stark. And Rygel will be very minimal back up for you while you deal with Scorpius. We must ask for 'his' help."
The Luxan slumped back in his seat and his frown deepened.
"The old hag is right... for once," put in Rygel, "We can't do this with just the two of us. Don't think for a microt I'm at all happy about this or frelling looking forward to it... but we're going to have to chance that frelling abomination's help again. "
"If he's inclined to give it," the big warrior rumbled.
"He will... if she asks," the old woman countered with a meaningful glance at the up until then silent Chiana.
"What! We cannot turn him loose!" shouted the Banik. "You know what he will do if given the chance!"
"Shut up, Stark!" the warrior snapped. Chiana looked as if she were somewhere else instead of in the Center Chamber with the rest of the shipmates. The Luxan turned his attention in her direction again.
D'argo regarded his gray-skinned lover and watched her carefully. "What do you think, Chiana? Will Berret help?" he asked her.
The young Nebari nervously glance around at the waiting faces, then focused her gaze somewhere at the middle of the empty table they were gathered around.
"I - I'm not... sure," she replied after a moment.
The Luxan captain twisted his lips in slight frustration. Before he could speak, the Hynerian cut in.
"Not sure or don't want to ask?" Rygel said irately. "You brought that maniac on board... and now that we're stuck with him and he nearly got me killed numerous times... you're not sure if he will help? I haven't risk all this, done all this work to bring Aeryn and Crichton back, for nothing!"
"Its not that easy..." Chiana began to say.
"I say make him help at gunpoint and maybe if we're lucky... Scorpius and the Peacekeepers will kill him for us!" the Dominar interrupted. "As a matter of fact, its too bad we don't have another one of those Scarran control collars. Then we can just snap it on the frellnik and..."
"SHUT YOUR FRELLING MOUTH!" Chiana unexpectedly bolted upright and shouted. She angrily pointed a forefinger at the Hynerian royal seething with barely contained fury. "Nobody is putting collar on anybody... for any frelling reason!"
The pair glared at each other for a few microts and than Chiana slowly sank back into her chair. The look of fury dulled on her features as she slid back into her private thoughts.
"It was just an idle notion," Rygel than said.
"Rygel! Be quiet!" snapped Jool. The red haired female was beginning to piece more of the puzzle concerning her gray shipmate and the Shrike together as Chiana now continued to sit silently with a numb look back in her eyes.
There was some sort of bond between the two, though surprisingly the Interion didn't think it was sexual in nature. Something about Berret was tearing the Nebari up inside.
"The Shrike will help if you ask," Noranti assured the gray girl once more.
"You will excuse me if I add..." broke in Pilot from the holo-comm where he was watching the meeting. "Berret has expressed a strong desire to return and settle his... affairs... with the Black Syndicate. Based on my past discussions with him, neither Moya or I believe he will be inclined to help us further."
"His... loyalty... to Chiana will change his mind," assured the old woman.
Jool frowned at the rest of the group. "Is that the moral thing to do?" she asked them. "To so blatantly use that against him for our own ends?"
Rygel tisked and rolled his frogeyes. "Who the yotz cares?" he said. "We've done far worse."
"My point exactly," Noranti put in with a satisfied look, that left the others wondering - though no one bothered to ask for an explanation from the eccentric woman.
"Chiana," D'argo cut in and waited until his lover raised her dark eyes up to met his from across the table. He leaned forward and made his voice as gentle as possible. "Can you get him to help us one last time or not?" he asked.
The Nebari thief held his gaze for a moment and then nodded minutely.
"Yes," she said quietly at first. Chiana nodded again more strongly a microt later. "Yeah... I can get him to help."
The Luxan slide back in his seat and grunted his stiff approval. Stark began to ramble to himself about more deaths. Rygel went back to smoking his pipe while Noranti placed her hands together as if in prayer and slightly bowed her head. Chiana went back to gazing off into the distance.
Jool found herself studying her gray friend and saw that behind her dark eyes, Chiana was battling with herself somewhere inside her thoughts.