Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Two

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: This belongs to Henson and Co or to David Drake. Rating: K Time: The future.

Author's note: This is a crossover between the universes of Farscape and Hammer's Slammers. Seeing the Elephant was an American Civil War term for seeing combat.

Previously on Farscape, John, Aeryn, D'Argo, Chiana and Jool have been chased by the Peacekeepers into a decidedly odd solar system. Our heroes land on a planet, only to be followed by the Peacekeepers. John and his friends are trapped by the Peacekeepers and face certain death. But, it's the Peacekeepers who die, ambushed by unseen attackers.

And now on Farscape.

"Jee-sus!" John finally breathed. "Who are those guys?'

I pointed to a tree not more than twenty motras ahead of us. A being like the prisoner we had seen stepped out from behind it and very deliberately slung his rifle over his back and stood there looking at us. I stood and slung my carbine over my back and stood there. John quickly joined my and then with a snarl, D'Argo moved to my other side. Chiana and Jool huddled behind D'Argo.

"I frelling hope this isn't the sign that we want to be ritually massacred, Aeryn." I heard Chiana mumble.

The local strode up to us and stopped a few motras away. Up close, he was about my height and more slender. He was wearing a hooded coat that hung to his knees, light green in color and covered with darker green patches. Altogether a good low-tech camouflage outfit for this world. His weapon was not low tech. I couldn't identify it, but it wasn't something some village blacksmith had built.

He stared at all of us and then pointed to John. "Human?"

John was too shocked to speak for a dozen microts. "Yeah, I'm human. You've met other humans? Where are they? Can you take us to them?"

He ignored John and pointed to D'Argo and the two women behind him. "Not human?"

Apparently I had been included in the human category. Over the alien's shoulder I could see his troops disarming the dead Peacekeepers. Waste not, want not as John has said.

Something finally got through to John. "You speak English? You just spoke to me in English."

The alien soldier nodded. "Priest teach me. Go to school, now officer."

A party of three more alien soldiers was coming up to us with a wounded Peacekeeper on a stretcher. Two of the aliens put the wounded Peacekeeper down and the third made some sort of gesture to his throat.

"Captain, this is most strange. These humans are not human."

The captain stared at him. "I always said education was lost on you, Doc. The humans aren't human? That doesn't even make sense."

Doc gave a very human shrug. "Look at the readings I got off of this one. She's close, a lot like human, but she just isn't human."

It was obvious these beings didn't have translator microbes and that they had never heard of Sebaceans before. That could be useful.

The officer dropped to one knee and examined some sort of monitor clipped onto the stretcher. The Peacekeeper was young, but commando trained. A huge bruise was starting to creep across one side of her face. She must have been captured after being knocked unconscious. She also appeared to have a wound in her stomach, though. Then the officer leaned close to her and inhaled deeply. Did he depend on his sense of smell to the same extent Vorlags did, I wondered?

He stood and sniffed at both John and I. "She like her, not like you, human." He was pointing at me accusingly and a good fifty or so of his soldiers were now gathered around us and starting to look at me in a way I didn't like. Before I could say or do anything, John had has arm around me and pulled me close. "This is my wife. She is not human and she is the same race as these Peacekeepers, and was one of them a long time ago, but now they're our enemies, too. They were chasing us for God's sake. They would have killed us or worse. You must have seen that, otherwise you would have killed us."

The Captain turned and called to someone behind him. "Scout, over here."

The scout pushed his way through the crowd around us. The crowd got the Captain's attention. "Benka, is your platoon taking a little vacation? Check our damned back trail. See who's behind us, if anyone. Lieutenant D'Elp, do you need some help comming headquarters to keep them up to date?" In a few microts, the officers and sergeants had the troops hard at work. That left us with the Captain, what I guessed was his command staff, and the scout.

The scout was dressed differently from the rest of the alien soldiers. His uniform blended in perfectly with the surrounding terrain. As he moved, the uniform changed to mimic whatever he was in front of. Up close you could see the blurred edges where the uniform ended and the background began, but with the hood, now pushed up over his head, in place, he be invisible at ten metras. These being's equipment were an interesting blend high and low tech. I hoped we lived long enough to unravel the mystery.

"What about this group." The Captain asked, pointing to us.

The scout shrugged. "I was watching the dumb-ass militiaman who got himself caught by the enemy patrol. I caught the scent of this group," He nodded towards us, "on account of they were different. Not human and not K'hiff, either. But I was busy and didn't check 'em out. Then the militiaman redeemed himself. 'Bout that time another enemy came up behind this human and his companions and said something to 'em and got shot for her pains. They traded fire with the enemy and took off. I commed you and said an enemy patrol was headed yours and would be too busy chasing these people to be paying any kind of close attention." He nodded back to the dead Peacekeepers around us. "I was damned well right, too."

The Captain stared at the scout and then at us and seemed to make a decision. "You talk to chiefs, tell what you know about enemies?" He asked us.

I nodded. "They're my enemies, too. We can all help you." The Captain nodded. "D'Elp? Comm command and tell them we're sending them some friendlies" He turned to us just as a sudden burst of firing could be heard in the distance.

D'Elp was apparently the unit communicator. "Captain, we got a big enemy patrol in contact with An Duman's platoon. Perka's joined up with him and the local militia. Enemy seems to be headed towards the grasslands to the east. Villagers at Pruffle and Genda have evaced and are rallying at the caves. Orders for the rest of us?"

The Captain stroked his long snout and thought. "Headed for the grasslands?" He stared sharply at me. "They fight better in the open, do they?"

I nodded. "They can use their aircraft to support them there. It's hard to pick up what's happening under the tree canopy. In the open, they can use their aircraft to chop you up. You'd better try to lure them back into the forest."

The Captain smiled, but said nothing.

In twenty microts we were on our way to whatever the headquarters of the locals was. One thing, we had been promised that more humans were there. A dozen or so alien soldiers accompanied us along with the medic we'd met earlier and his Peacekeeper patient who was carried in a crude stretcher. I dropped back to talk to him about the commando.

"How's she doing?" I began.

He shook his head. "She's not responding as well as I'd like to medications. The concussion is no problem, but she took some flechettes in the stomach. Are you a medical person by any chance?"

I shook my head. "Not at all. But I can tell you something about your prisoner, though."

"Patient. My patient." He broke in.

"Patient, then. I was like her once. I was captured and because I was exposed to unclassified aliens for too long, I was declared irreversibly contaminated. I was lucky, I had people….Well, I had one person actually, not that the others aren't…" I stopped. Would I never be able to explain John and what he meant to me in a few simple sentences?

"Your husband helped you?" The medic offered, helpfully.

"Yes, but that's not my point." He stared at me expectantly and I pushed ahead. "She'll hate you, all of you. The more so because you saved her life. She may try to kill herself and take some of you with her. Be very careful."

The medic examined her carefully, noting the readouts on the device plugged into her arm. "More anesthetic is in order, I think."

I walked along silently looking at the commando and wondering what her future would be. "How did you learn our language?" The medic asked suddenly.

"What?" I blurted out.

"The Captain was too busy to notice, I think. But it was obvious to me you understood what the scout and the others were saying about you. Body language, humans call it." He smiled. "By the way, I've been alternating between English and K'hiff for most of this conversation."

I cursed under my breath. "We don't speak your language. We have translator microbes that translate almost any words in any language we hear. So we can understand you, but can't communicate unless we know the language. My husband and I speak English." My husband. How easily that had come out. "The others speak a little."

The medic stared at me. "It would be a good idea if you mentioned that when you get to headquarters. They have some suspicious people around there. Not like me."

I nodded to him and sped up to catch up with John and the others. So much for the advantage of being able to understand the aliens without them noticing it.

After two arns, we were stopped by a group of heavily armed aliens. The medic and his patient were sent off and we went off to see whoever was in charge.

We were politely relieved of our weapons and ushered into the largest of a group of tents in the middle of the forest. The exterior of the tent blended into the forest. The inside was part command center and part luxury quarters. Dozens of K'hiff milled around doing the incomprehensible things headquarters types did. A half a dozen weren't K'hiff. They were humans, of course. Body language was a useful concept. There was no possibility they would have been mistaken for Sebaceans, much less Peacekeepers. Although they did wear uniforms like the K'hiff scout had worn and were armed.

One of the humans detached himself from a group of K'hiff and approached us. "Staff Colonel Dieter Yost, military adviser to His Excellency, President Azzule, your servant. You are Mr. Crichton and…?" He left the question hanging. John stepped forward and offered his hand, which Yost shook. "I'm John Crichton and this is my wife, Aeryn Sun, my friends Captain Ka D'Argo, Professor Joolushko Tunai Fanta Hovalis and Chiana."

Yost stared at me and then smiled. "Am I correct? Your wife is not human?"

Yost was a tall slender human with close-cropped blond hair and dark eyes. His smile was tinged with disbelief.

John grinned. "Not a bit. But we love each other." He glanced at me as if he expected an argument.

"Please, introduce me to our guests." A voice boomed from behind us.

He reminded me of some Peacekeeper senior officers I had known. Interested in you, concerned, ready to help. I hadn't liked or trusted a one of them. This alien might turn out to be different, though. Look at how I had initially felt about the crew of Moya.

Yost cleared his throat, "May I present Mr. John Crichton, who is a human and his wife Aeryn Sun, who in spite of appearances is not. Also, the imposing Captain Ka' D'Argo, Professor Joolushko Tunai Fanta Hovalis and Miss Chiana." Yost executed a small bow to the alien and turned to us. "May I present His Excellency, President Azzule of the Salween River Valley Dominion."

Chiana snaked through the crowd surrounding the President and slipped her arm through his. "President Azzule? My, what a lovely planet you have. I'd love to see more of it." Azzule smiled encouragingly at her. He either had very odd tastes in female companionship, or he had decades of experience dealing with people trying to get something from him. I strongly suspected the latter. Either way, Chiana was arm and arm with him and was not going to let go if I knew her.

"I control only the river valley, from the foothills to the sea, Miss Chiana. But it's a not inconsiderable tract." I tried to match the memory I had of the planet with Azzule's claim. If he did control the entire river valley I remembered, he controlled a large area indeed.
President Azzule managed to turn back to us without dislodging Chiana. "Is it true that you came through the Anomaly?"

John nodded. "If you mean the ship-eating planet just out from you, we've met. We were being chased by two Peacekeeper warships when we all got slam dunked here. How, I don't know."

An elderly looking K'hiff leaned in to enter the conversation. Chiana wasn't the only one hanging on to the President, I noticed. "Seventy years ago the first human exploratory ship stopped here on K'hiff, or Hurate's World, as humans prefer to call it. They said they were going to explore the next world out, but no one ever heard from them again. Those days we only had crude telescopes and saw nothing of them." The old K'hiff gave a delicate little shudder. "The next human ship to arrive in system sent a ship's boat which disappeared when it got within one planetary diameter of the Anomaly."

A bulky human spoke up next. "The Sikander was from the Greater Albegnesian Free Trade Area. We sent a two dozen damned unmanned probes after the cutter and never got a damned thing back. How'd you manage to get through?"

The human was starting to sound accusatory, as if we were responsible for whatever had happened all those years ago.

"A good question, Mr. Crichton." Azzule's voice boomed out. "Tell us everything."

It took John an hour to tell our story and he didn't come close to telling them everything.

When he was done they all just stared at us silently. I wished I could have told what they were thinking. Finally, Colonel Yost spoke up. "That is the damndest story I have ever heard, bar none."

"When did you say you left Earth, Mr. Crichton?" Someone asked.

John grimaced and waited a microt to answer. "The year was 1999. It's based on the Christian religious calendar, but we also called it the Common Era." He stopped for another microt. "How long have I been gone?"

Strangely, it was the old K'hiff who answered. "Almost a thousand years, I'm afraid. I'm Tunch Belunch, by the way, and I'm a Christian myself, so I keep track of the years in the Christian manner."

John pushed his way through the crowd and out of the tent. I followed right behind him, away from the tent, past the sentries until he stopped behind a monstrous tree.

"Damn!" Was all he said.

I desperately needed to understand John and the emotions he was feeling now. This was just the sort of opportunity that I routinely frelled up. "If you want to make a home here…"

He didn't let me finish. "Sure, John Crichton will amaze you with his stories of an Earth of a vanished age. I could do a Renaissance Pleasure Faire schtick. I may be the only human who still understands the infield fly rule."

Frankly, he was sounding a little hysterical. "All right, John. We'll head back through the Anomaly. The secret seems to be going through with the engine off so it won't explode.."

He interrupted again. "Oh great. That's based on one occurrence, Aeryn. Maybe we got through because we accidentally picked just the right trajectory. Maybe Lo' La told the Anomaly a dirty joke in ancient Luxan and it was laughing too hard to slap us hard enough to kill us all."

I was starting to get annoyed. "All right, we can't stay in this Universe and we can't go back. So we go to plan B."

John turned away from me and leaned against the tree. A million different apologies went through my mind before I saw he was laughing. He turned, put his arms around me and lifted me off my feet. "What ever would I do without you, Aeryn?"

"I don't intend to let you find out, human. Depend on it." I whispered in his ear. We walked back to the K'hiff' tent.

The old K'hiff, Belunch, met us at the door of the tent. "Hammer's Regiment Command wants to see you all to get more intelligence on these Peacekeepers. They're sending a squad for you. They should be here tomorrow morning."

Body language! Was something wrong here? "Is that a bad thing?"

The K'hiff shrugged. "You do not know our history."

"All we know is history. Ancient history." John replied.
The K'hiff guided us to a quiet corner of the tent. "We are a planet of some wealth in natural resources. The asantee trees, especially."

"Trees?" That was John.

"I do keep forgetting, " Belunch said apologetically. "The leaves are picked in spring and boiled down to a gooey sap. The sap is sold to a race called the Gentai some small distance from here. It's a medicine for a form of bone disease they suffer from."

"Virtually all organic medicines can be manufactured." That was Jool, suddenly joining us. "Given that humans have a technology similar to ours, any chemical plant should be able to provide the Gentai's medicine by the cubic metra."

Belunch looked at Jool and then questioningly at us. "Jool's a friend and a standup lady."

The old K'hiff nodded. It was strange to meet a race that actually seemed to understand John. "The Gentai are a race of bioengineers and have a strong distaste for what they consider to be products made by dead machines. And, I might add, there are millions of square kilometers or trees and many poor K'hiff capable of harvesting the leaves at low pay. I'm not sure a factory could compete economically even without the Gentai's preferences."

Jool and John promptly got into a discussion as to how big these "kilometers" were. Belunch waited for a microt and kept talking. Often the wisest course with John. "There are mines, built with off-world capital to the south, aromatic woods, and a wine far to the west that I hear sells well. There are other items of worth to off-worlders here."

"And off-worlders want them." John made a statement, not a question.

Belunch smiled ruefully. "Pancahate is a wealthy and powerful world not far from here. When other worlds were preoccupied, they hired Hammer's Slammers to "protect Pancahate's just interests" here. The other world's trading representatives were forced off the planet and Pancahate was the only customer for our wares."

"Wait one. Aren't these Slammers the group that works for the Prez?"

Belunch shook his head. "They are mercenaries. Three years ago they worked for Pancahate against us, today they are the heart of the Hurate's World Protective Force."

"A human army?" D'Argo had joined us. "Now that is something I'd love to see."

Belunch obviously didn't understand the sarcasm, assuming there was any, in D'Argo's remark. The K'hiff went on. "There's more than Hammer's Regiment. To the west of us are the Connaught Rangers, on the plains to the south are Waldenheim's Dragoons, and the deep forest to the north is patrolled by the Skutatoi, and more around the world. All are good units, but none can compare with the tanks of Hammer's Regiment, the more so since they have recruited some specialist companies to support them."

Tanks? My translator microbes must have missed another Earth word. How could liquid containers be dangerous?

"And, His Excellency has ten thousand regulars armed with off-planet infantry weapons and forty thousand militia. If he had the money, he could arm twice that number." We all turned to face the newcomer. He was another human, of course. Younger than most, I thought, although I could have been wrong. Young and fit, and in a uniform. A soldier I assumed.

"Major Guiscard." Belunch said quietly and turned away from the newcomer as if to exclude him from the conversation.

This Major Guiscard just smiled and pushed his way into our little group. "His Excellency has made long term contracts with the Albegnesians, on good terms for our dear competitors. He uses the money to buy modern weapons for his infantry, not to mention the artillery and anti-tank weapons he has hidden in the forests where he thinks no one knows about them."

Belunch sighed. "Major Guiscard is the military observer from Kersaint, another planet with which we have good relations." Belunch smiled unpleasantly at Guiscard. "Presumably those relationships will not be strained by Kersaint's military observer repeating groundless rumors?"

Guiscard laughed heartily. "Last time, Pancahate hired the Slammers and got them here before anyone knew what was happening. By the time the Albegnesians, or Kersaint, much less places like Minas Gerais or Gujerat had woken up, the Slammers we're all dug in and it would have taken a major war to blast them off planet again. An expensive major war." Guiscard turned his smile on Belunch. "His Excellency's plan, and a good one it is, is to become strong enough to fight long enough to give his off planet allies time to come and save his furry bacon." Guiscard lowered his voice. "The Albegnesians would prefer the planet be guarded by a less expensive version of the Hurate's World Protective Force. And, one paid by them, of course."

"And one loyal to the Albegnesians and not the K'hiff." Jool added.

"Beautiful and smart. You all will certainly have a fine future in our, what? Time? Universe? Where exactly did you come from I wonder? An alternate Universe? Or are we the alternate Universe?" Guiscard wondered.

Jool got him back on the subject. "We were talking about weapons for the K'hiff?"

Guiscard looked around to see if we were being watched. "His Excellency has bought overpriced weapons from the Albegnesians to arm his infantry. Good enough to become a power on this world, without being a danger to any off planet expeditionary force. But, he's also bought some artillery, anti-tank guns, and off-planet mercenaries to instruct his troops, all hidden deep in the northern mountains at the borders of his territory." Clearly, Guiscard was talking only to Belunch now. "Kersaint has no objection to this."

"And even if you did, you're too far away and too weak to do anything about it." Belunch sniffed.

Guiscard continued, but looked upset. "We can provide anything His Excellency needs. Artillery, armor, mines, powerguns, communications, AI, calliopes, personal armor. You name it, we can provide it."

Belunch nodded. "His Excellency wishes only to have the best relationships possible with all of his offworld allies." He then bowed to us and walked off. Guiscard glared at us and also walked off.

"You don't ever take me anyplace nice." John said.

I snuggled a little closer to John in the tent that the K'hiff had provided us. We had been discussing the conversation with Belunch earlier that evening. At least I had thought that we were. Why was he talking about me taking him someplace?

"Do you ever notice, Aeryn, that we never end up anyplace nice? We get shot into an alternate Universe and what do we get? A pleasure planet? A peaceful, quiet planet where the worst thing that ever happens is rain on prom night? No, we end up on a planet where one human army is sitting around waiting for another human army to invade and an army of Peacekeepers drops by instead. I bet this wouldn't happen if I dated Sikozu."

I waited a few microts and then elbowed him sharply in the ribs. I got a nice grunt for my efforts. "And, if you dated Sikozu, you'd have Scorpius for a best friend. And do you know who your new worst enemy would be?"

"Aeryn Sun?" Came the prompt reply.

"And, I do not take you to these places, John. We end up in places like this purely by accident. And if D'Argo's right about human armies, we have nothing to worry about except getting away from the Peacekeepers in the confusion. Do you know what I think we should do?"

Too late. John had already found something to do that I was enjoying too much to continue the conversation.