Seeing the Elephant, Chapter Eight
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...
With the Peacekeepers being relentlessly ground down by Hammer's Slammers, a group of PK techs offer to surrender if Aeryn will personally assure them that they will be safe. John objects. Of course he objects. Neither John nor Aeryn should go near those techs with less than the Iron Division with them.
But they go anyway.
And now on Farscape...
It took another two days to get ready. First, Colonel Hammer had to approve the plan and then it had to be presented to President Azzule. Strangely enough, prisoners in human wars were returned after the end of hostilities. Peacekeeper prisoners might be impossible to return, even if it was not certain death for them to be sent back. President Azzule was thrilled at the prospect of over a hundred trained technicians accepting service with him. He ordered his regiments to cooperate fully. This then had to be explained to the techs who had to ask a million questions, most of which were unanswerable.
The plan itself was brutally simple. The area of the forest occupied by the tunnel system the techs were holed up in was carefully mapped. Then, Colonel Hammer brought up enough artillery to put a box of exploding artillery shells around that tunnel system. That would keep any Peacekeepers out that might want to keep the techs from surrendering. Then a small task force of tanks and combat cars would take John and I to the entrance to the tunnel system. Once there, we'd hop out and drop down into the tunnel and assure the techs that they'd be safe. Once they agreed to surrender, a small portion of the artillery box would be opened for a convoy of hover-trucks that would come in and take the surrendering techs out.
Alternatively, if we did not come back out, an incapacitating gas would be pumped in and infantry sent into the tunnels to remove the techs to be handed over to the K'hiffs tender mercies. By then it was assumed that John and I would no longer be in a position to care about things like gas.
Early in the morning of the third day, John and I were squeezed into a tank. For a vehicle that size, there was hardly any spare room inside. John sat on the floor of the turret with the tank commander's feet in his face. I sat on his lap and rested my head on his shoulder and stared at the tank commander's boots. Once the hatch was swung closed, the noise of the artillery barrage outside could hardly be heard. I put my lips against John's ear and whispered to him. "I want to apologize for the last time I lied to you." John just turned and gave me a look. "When I came back from being an assassin, I told you that death was nothing. I lied. That is how I felt for the whole time I was a Peacekeeper, but now death means losing you and that would mean losing everything. Which is why I don't intend for either of us to die."
John whispered back. "An occasional lie I can live with. Just don't die on me again." I nodded and we sealed our bargain with a kiss.
Before we knew it we were there.
"We're here. Time to un-ass." The tank commander's voice screamed in our helmets. He squeezed out of his hatch and onto the back of the tank so we could get out. John and I scrambled out after him. We dropped to the forest floor and ran for the biggest tree in sight. That was our landmark. We slammed to a halt against the trunk of the tree. There, on the other side of an exposed root was the entrance to the tunnels.
"Down there! This is Officer Aeryn Sun. I have Commander John Crichton with me." I yelled in Sebacean.
A voice called up. "Drop on down. It's only a little over two metras."
I stepped forward, but John caught my arm. "Me first. I'll let you know if it's okay." I put my ankle in front of John's and gave him a little push. As he sprawled onto the dirt, I jumped into the tunnel.
I landed with a pulse pistol in my face. Holding the pistol was a black uniformed Commando. No, she was wearing a Commando uniform, but she was no Commando. Her face was dirty and she looked exhausted, but under it all, she was too young to be a Commando. She was young, skinny, dirty, and frightened. I just hoped she didn't kill me.
John landed by my side. "Dammit, Honey, that's not funny." I gestured towards the girl and John brought his rifle up to cover her. Slowly, she lowered her pulse pistol.
"Officer Sun?" The voice was tired and very young. I tried to guess how old she was. Fourteen cycles? Fifteen?
"John Crichton and Aeryn Sun, The Dynamic Duo. Are your people ready?" John broke in.
The girl turned around and headed down the tunnel. "You'll have to talk to the Admiral. This way."
"The Admiral?" John asked. "I thought this was all techs. What the hell is going on here?"
The girl turned around. "The techs will surrender if you can convince the Admiral that they won't be enslaved or executed. We warriors won't surrender."
I wondered how long she had been a warrior, and how much longer she'd stay a warrior, but didn't say anything.
We followed the girl down the tunnel. As we went along, the tunnel started getting steeper, then it would flatten out for a bit and then get steeper. We passed dozens of techs huddling in side passages. From the snatches of conversation we heard, they knew why we were there and were happy to be about to leave. I saw only one warrior, a badly wounded Commando whose one remaining eye followed us as we went through the tunnel.
Finally the girl stopped at a doorway covered by a piece of cloth woven by the K'hiff. "Admiral Kurta is inside, Officer Sun," I nodded to the girl and pushed through the cloth with John right behind me. The girl followed right behind.
The space was lit by a battle lamp that revealed two people sitting on some piece of furniture the K'hiff had left. Nearest me was a burly man, whose uniform showed the rank bars of a captain. The woman was sitting slightly behind him. She had white hair tied with a dirty strip of cloth, dark eyes and a narrow, angular face. Her whole body was narrow and angular.
"Sun?" She asked. I nodded. "I'm Admiral Steen Kurta. Not active, of course, it's been twenty cycles since I had a command." She gestured to the man. "Arrick Neem used to be my Fleet Captain. Now we're both on the scrap heap." She rose easily to her feet and looked me over.
"So you're the infamous Aeryn Sun. I expected more." It wasn't said as an insult, just a statement of fact.
"What did you expect me to be like?" I almost laughed at her. What would a Peacekeeper think a successful renegade would be like?
"I don't really know. Someone larger than life. Someone who'd burrow into my headquarters with her teeth and take all the techs out whether I liked it or not. Not someone who looks just like every other frelling Prowler pilot I ever saw."
John did laugh. "Maybe you look at the wrong things? Or for the wrong things."
The Admiral stared at John. "You're Crichton, the human." John nodded, still smiling.
The admiral sighed. "You're not what I expected either."
"You expected me to be Godzilla with an attitude? That I'd come busting in here with a command carrier between my teeth? Shredding Scarrens with one hand and juggling worm holes with the other?"
"Actually, no." The Admiral said with a slight smile. "I expected less. When I first heard about you I couldn't imagine how even the idiots that half-breed had recruited to follow him could have allowed a non-Sebacean to just walk into a Gammack Base and then blow the whole frelling planet up while leaving. I just didn't believe that you could look exactly like a Sebacean. I really thought for a while that Officer Sun was the brains behind you. I couldn't believe how Sebacean you looked until I saw the surveillance tapes from the Shadow Depository."
"Our secret's out, Honey. Aeryn Sun, Superstar."
"I'm not stupid, Crichton." The Admiral growled. "Give me enough proof that you are a frelling dangerous enemy and I'll believe it no matter how much propaganda I've swallowed over the years about the inferior races."
"That said, you asked Aeryn and me to come here to help you get the techs out before they get slaughtered. Shall we get on with it?"
"Cadet Lekka," The Admiral said to the girl who'd brought us in, "bring those techs in."
The girl turned and pulled the door-covering aside and gestured for two female techs to come in. "Tell everyone what happened to you." The cadet commanded.
The two were older than the cadet, but not by much. They looked slightly less dirty and hungry than the cadet and I noticed one had a shirt with some sort of a human emblem on it. Had they met humans? They looked at each other as if each wanted the other to speak. Finally the admiral cleared her throat. That got one of them going.
"Tech Marlata, Admiral."
"I know who you are, girl." The Admiral snapped. "Tell us what you know."
"We were taken prisoner. By humans. Not those others. They had us working."
"You can do a better report than that!" The cadet cut in.
Both women stiffened and Tech Marlata continued. "We were captured with Lieutenant Maskaroff's unit. Fourteen techs and one wounded Commando were taken. We were moved to the rear in some sort of a vehicle and put to work. They had us techs unloading cases of rations. They took care of our wounds, which were minor. I don't know about the wounded Commando. I had never seen him before and they took him away. They fed us and did not hurt us. They had us working next to the humans and the furry locals."
"The K'hiff." John supplied for her.
She nodded to John and continued. "After two solar days, we were being moved when the convoy we were in got ambushed. The truck we were in was damaged. The human driver escaped. We were recovered and brought here."
The Admiral looked closely at them. "You saw no one being harmed? Nothing was done to you?"
"Marlata frelled one of them." The other woman muttered.
"I did not. You retract that or I'll bring charges."
"Enough!" The Admiral yelled over the din. "Get them out of here, Cadet." Cadet Lekka pushed the two women out of the room.
"I need guarantees that these techs will be well treated. I need more that the word of a renegade Peacekeeper and her.." The Admiral stopped for a microt…" bed-mate." She finished.
"The word you're looking for is husband." John said. "And you have all the guarantees you're going to get. One, you have us. We thought enough of the chance to save the asses of some ungrateful Peacekeepers to risk our necks by coming down here. If you want your second guarantee, just be real quiet and listen."
We all stopped and listened. I could hear nothing out of the ordinary.
"What you hear is the sound of Peacekeepers, hiding in a tunnel made by iron-age barbarians, while getting their asses waxed by humans. Your best guarantee is that no one cares about you. You Peacekeepers have been nothing but cannon-fodder on this planet since you got here. No humans are going to torture you for your secrets because no one thinks you know anything worth the bother. They won't enslave you because they have better ways of getting work done. The K'hiff are smart enough to know that you catch more flies with honey than vinegar." John caught the puzzled look and explained. "The K'hiff are smart enough to understand that keeping valuable technically trained people happy will get more work out of them."
Captain Neem laughed. The first sound I'd heard out of the Peacekeeper Captain. "A dangerous man, indeed! He tells the truth to admirals. Can't get much worse than that."
"Oh shut up, Arrick." Her tone of voice took any sting out of the rebuff. "That's why you never made admiral. You couldn't stop telling people the truth, no matter how unpleasant it was."
"And I was a better Captain than most admirals ever were."
"We can get out the family albums later, folks. Now we have to move." John cut in.
"We warriors will stay here." Cadet Lekka said sharply. "The techs are ready to go, all you have to do is give them their orders."
"What is the matter with you people?" John asked.
"I have to ask the same question, Admiral." I turned to Captain, "And I might ask you why you're not giving some hard, unpleasant facts to the Admiral right now."
"I am not interested, Sun." The Admiral's voice cut through John and my complaints. "Frell," she looked down at her foot, "my foot's become numb from being in one place. Your assistance, Cadet Lekka?"
As the Cadet moved to help Admiral Kurta, Captain Neem silently slid behind the girl. He jabbed the back of her neck with a small syringe. There was a sharp intake of breath and Cadet Lekka toppled to the dirt floor.
The Admiral and the Captain stood over her looking down for a microt and then turned their attention to John and I. "Cadet Lekka is at an age when dying for a lost cause is a noble gesture, not a sad waste. I have a message chip to give you for her. I hope it will explain things. Please see that she gets out all right."
"Just tell her yourself. And can we please get the hell out of Dodge?" John broke in.
The two Peacekeepers exchanged glances. "As Cadet Lekka said, we warriors are staying."
That was too much for me. "Are you two farbot? Did you manage to miss not only what John just said, but what you just said?"
Admiral Kurta turned on me with her eyes blazing. "Don't tell me what to do, Sun. I was a Peacekeeper when your grandmother was giving problems to the crèche technicians. I was a Peacekeeper when we had a purpose other than to gather personal power. I was a Captain when people actually cheered Peacekeepers when they arrived on a planet. I was an Admiral when people who weren't committed to the new way of doing things were purged. I was finally thrown on the scrap heap myself. I was an uninvited, honored, but ultimately ignored, guest on a command carrier that was run as one man's little personal kingdom. And now, according to Commander Crichton, I'm to be a nonentity in a new and strange universe. You two are so right. The humans don't want me, and the K'hiff would soon find that I'm a rather elderly warrior with none of the technical skills that they value. I can't see myself sitting in front of a little K'hiff hut and telling boring stories about the old days. I'm sure the K'hiff wouldn't stand for it. Or worse yet, they'd be too polite to shut me up and I'd ramble on, living a useless life for more cycles."
"Damn! You people are absolutely.."
I cut John off. "John, do you recall saying that sometimes I can be just a bit firm in my beliefs/"
John grinned in spite of our situation. "You are as stubborn as a mule, Hon. But a lot prettier."
I made a mental note to ask about mules at a later date. "I was only an Officer. This is an Admiral."
John looked back and forth between me and Admiral Kurta. Finally, he shook his head. "Okay, you win."
Kurta, who had obviously never expected any other outcome nodded briskly. "Right. Commander if you will pick up Cadet Lekka and carry her to the surface?"
Thirty microns later we were crouched inside a hollowed out tree not ten motras from where we'd entered the tunnels. The Admiral and Captain Neem crouched behind us. Behind us the techs waited quietly. Cadet Lekka was still unconscious and in a makeshift stretcher. The wounded Peacekeeper I had seen on my way in hadn't lasted long enough for us to try to move him. Outside the din of the artillery barrage was deafening, but I could faintly hear the high pitched whine of hover tanks headed for us.
As the tanks and combat cars roared past us to take up defensive positions, I yelled to the techs nearest to me. "First dozen of you, get ready. As soon as the hover truck stops, out you go. Your lives may depend on how rapidly you get on the trucks."
Within microts a truck slammed to a stop in front of our tree. John kicked a false panel out of the tree and the first dozen ran for the truck and hurriedly boarded. The truck moved away and another one took its pace. As the last groups of techs got ready, John looked at the two Peacekeepers. "Still time to change your minds. Hell, Aeryn found out living with humans isn't so bad. You might like it." Both just shook their heads.
The last hover truck pulled up and the last group of techs grabbed Lekka's stretcher and ran for it with John and me right behind them. We piled into the back of the truck and the driver took off, Lekka in her stretcher in the middle and the techs along the sides. As the truck convoy headed away from the tunnels, guarded by the tanks and combat cars, I breathed a sigh of relief. That feeling lasted for all of half a microt.
"Oh, shit!" It wasn't until later that I realized I had spoken in English. Just ahead of us a Peacekeeper pushed up through the dirt and started shooting at our truck, Other Peacekeepers were popping up all around us. As I started shooting at them, the explanation flashed through my mind. The Admiral had broadcast in clear and the Peacekeepers had picked it up. They couldn't push their way through the barrage of human artillery around the Admiral's tunnel system, but they could burrow under it from their own tunnels.
John and I each took a side of the hover truck and started shooting. The techs, although armed, cowered at the bottom of the truck bed and fired only an occasional shot at the sky. Our driver jinked madly to keep the Peacekeepers from getting a clear shot at us, but the frellniks were all around us. One Peacekeeper stuck her head out of a tunnel and our driver fishtailed over her. I heard a scream from behind me and whirled to see another Peacekeeper had leaped onto the back of the truck. He steadied himself with one hand and aimed his rifle at John with the other. I threw myself across the bed of the truck, but I knew I was too late. He'd shoot John before I could throw myself between them. I hoped I'd be seeing John soon if there was an afterlife.
But the Peacekeeper suddenly bent over double and I could see Cadet Lekka's boot had buried itself in his crotch. He cursed her and swung his rifle down to shoot her. John shot him off the back of the truck. He tucked and rolled and ended up on his feet. For a tenth of a micron he stood there trying to get a shot off at us. Then a fast moving combat car smashed into his back and ground his body into the soil. As I looked back I could see a group of Commandos standing by the tree we had hidden in, shooting at something on the ground. I tried a long shot, but missed.
I screamed at one of the techs to check Lekka and found John was leaning over me and shouting in my ear. "Don't you ever try that again, Missy!"
I shot at a tech that was firing at our truck and was disgusted that I missed. "We take care of each other, Crichton." Frell! I only called him Crichton when I was angry and I was not angry. Perturbed, perhaps, but not angry.
John hit a pilot squarely in the chest with a snap shot. "You do not throw yourself in front of me to take a pulse blast, Aeryn. That is not going to happen again."
Before I could reply, I heard a muffled scream from the front of the truck and the truck started to turn to the right and slow down. John and I both leaped for the driver's compartment. John, being more familiar with human vehicles, got there first. I had to content myself with a pulling the dead driver to one side. Since we had moved away from the convoy and slowed down, we had attracted the attention of every Peacekeeper in the vicinity. I fired my human powergun with one hand and my pulse pistol with the other, firing both as fast as I could.
"Aeryn, would you please get down?" John screamed as he rammed another Peacekeeper. I could hear his scream as the truck bounced over him.
"What do you expect me to do? Stay home and bake cooties?"
"Cookies!" John yelled back.
"Oh, now you're criticizing my English?"
"No, I am just trying to keep the woman I love alive."
"And I am not going to watch you die again." Frell! How could I have said that? The one thing that made both of us irrational was talking about the death of the other John.
"Yeah, but I killed you."
I bit off a reply as a Commando bounced up onto the front of our truck. She was still alive, but slightly disoriented. A quick shot to her head assured that she'd never recover her equilibrium.
"You did not kill me! It was that horrible clone in your head. Scorpius killed me and I don't ever want to hear you say it was you again! Never!"
As we approached the convoy, a combat car pulled along side of us the chivvy us into position. A tri-barrel burst from the car incinerated another Peacekeeper. As I looked around, he seemed to have been the last one standing.
"Aeryn, you're stuck with a human who has a very human tendency. I'm never going to stop worrying about you and I'll never allow you to be in any danger if there's anything I can do to deflect that danger, even if it's to myself."
Goddess! How human was that statement. "Just don't get killed, John. I couldn't stand it."
"Same back at you, Babe." John said as we moved back into the convoy and slowed down.
"Our only choice seems to be to die together." I said, glaring at John.
John glared back and then his lips started to move up into a grin. I could feel myself smiling, too.
"Right, we'll have to insist that anyone who kills one does us both. Maybe we can advertise a two for one sale or something?" John was laughing.
I actually laughed myself. "Given the fact that we're both still alive, perhaps we should just never give up." I reached over and took John's hand as we drove out of what was left of the forest.
The humans went back to their methodical destruction of the remaining Peacekeepers. They were able to move a little faster since so many Peacekeepers had been killed when they had tried to keep the techs from surrendering. John called it a Banzai charge, which after he explained it to me twice, seemed to fit. But the artillery kept firing around the clock and the tanks kept turning the blasted trees into ashes. And then the engineers and infantry went in to destroy whatever was left. I found myself wondering what the K'hiff tribe that had lived there would think when they saw their home again. I had changed.