Beta-read by Caethes!
...
"Half-sister," Arthur corrected. "Morgana is my half-sister."
Honestly, Merlin was beginning to get a better picture of the Pendragons.
"Fine," Merlin said. "Just when were you going to tell me that the Space Witch is your half-sister?"
Arthur shifted in his chair. "I didn't think it was relevant to our situation."
"He asked us not to," Lancelot spoke up even though Merlin hadn't expected an explanation from either him or Gwaine.
"Well, that settles it." Merlin stepped forward and started shutting down the communications panel.
"If you're throwing us off the ship, just remember that Arthur was the one who did it, not us."
Lancelot elbowed Gwaine.
Arthur only scowled. "Settles what?"
"I'll help you find her."
If Arthur's mouth opened any wider, he was going to look like a star whale. "You will?"
"Yes."
It wasn't out of the goodness of his heart. If he did not go with them, Arthur was stubborn enough to keep hunting Morgana down until they actually caught her. She would then be at their - and probably Uther's - mercy. Despite what she had done, Merlin didn't believe that, at her core, she was an evil person. She was no worse than he was. And if Merlin accompanied the crew of the Guinevere, he could probably prevent them from killing her.
Arthur was still eying him suspiciously. "Let me guess. You want space credits?"
Space credits wouldn't hurt. "I just want to come," he said instead. "I don't have to give you my reasons."
"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth." Side stepping Merlin into the room, Gwaine slapped Arthur on the back. "We need all the extra help we can get. Unless you forgot what Morgana did to you at that banquet."
Lancelot laughed and then tried to disguise it as a cough that fooled nobody.
"I can still see your face-" Gwaine went on.
"We don't need to go over it again," Arthur snapped. "He said he would come with us. We don't need to convince him further."
"Did you ever get the smell out of your hair?" Gwaine leaned in to take a sniff, and Arthur pushed him away, standing.
"What smell?" Merlin asked.
"I'll never forget it-" Gwaine shook his head. "Think of muskrat combined with the essence of a skunk and-"
Arthur cleared his throat. "Shouldn't we be preparing for Mor - for the Space Witch?"
Why did Merlin have the feeling that Arthur's version of preparing was going to be drastically different than his? "Right," he said. "First, we need to track her down. I'm guessing that she's blazed a pathway across the galaxy that we can follow." He started flipping buttons on the communications dashboard to make sure Arthur wouldn't send out another beacon. "Kilghar, can you create a list of all the planets that have been destroyed by the Space Witch and list them in order of distance from the Havita?"
"Task initiating."
Arthur was frowning. "I think our first order of business should be preparing ourselves for meeting her. It would be ridiculous to walk into a fight with Morgana without training first."
"What are you going to do?" Merlin asked. "Calisthenics?"
"No. Weapons training. Lancelot and Gwaine have no doubt grown rusty, and you have no skills whatsoever. I think we would all benefit from a little refresher."
Merlin narrowed his eyes. "If you're talking about pulse rifles, the answer is no. They remain where they are."
"They're the only weapons we have against the Space Witch," Arthur countered. "It would be better if you let us have them."
So he could kill Morgana the first chance he got, he meant.
"We would be able to protect ourselves," Lancelot said. "Morgana will not be thrilled to see us."
"I'm not letting you have them." He still didn't trust Arthur not to do something - committing mutiny was the first thing that came to mind - and his plan was to get to Morgana before the rest of them could. Even if Gwaine looked disappointed.
Before Arthur could press the matter farther, Kilghar crackled to draw their attention. "Young warlock, the list has been assembled. Sending it to the control room."
"Thanks." Before leaving the communications room, he finished turning the system off and gave Arthur the stink eye.
Hopefully, they would be able to surprise Morgana instead of the other way around.
…
If one ignored the tendency to embark on a revenge- and rage-fueled burning spree across the galaxy, Morgana carried some positive traits - organization, for instance. Merlin plotted a map of the planets she'd attacked and found that she had been working her way systematically towards the Havita. Arthur's help beacon had probably been the last thing she needed to pinpoint their exact location once their group had moved from the Guinevere to the Havita.
For the moment, his plan was to lay as low as possible. No messages from or to the ship so they could not be traced. He was going to disconnect the Havita as much as possible from anything that could lead back to them.
While he kept watch in the control room, he looked up as much information about Morgana as he could. Most of it came from gossip columns that gleefully detailed her rebellion against Uther, and not much of it was actually about her.
After reading about fifteen variations of the same story of Morgana dumping wine down the front of some magic-hating senator during a banquet, he closed the articles and started plotting the Havita's next course. Arthur had requested that they pick up the rest of his crew. Although he was tempted to push it off until after they had dealt with Morgana, he decided to complete the task first. That way, he could get all of them off his ship at once. And maybe Arthur would breathe down his neck less with more company around.
Propping his chin on his hand, he listened to the humming of the ship and watched the whirling of the stars as it moved through the galaxy on the way to their next destination.
There was nothing quite like space.
…
Over the next couple of days, the Havita hit a dry spell in any dramatic revelations or villainous declarations of revenge. Merlin played about two hundred games of checkers with Gwaine while Lancelot worked on crocheting something from Merlin's yarn stash. Arthur sat in the corner like a gargoyle with his arms crossed.
"I've got a set of knitting needles somewhere if you want to have a hand at it," he offered while jumping three of Gwaine's checkers in a row.
"No, thank you," Arthur returned stiffly, going back to pretending to peruse through a book on the tablet in front of him.
Gwaine made his next move, and Merlin jumped another of his pieces.
It was kind of sad - if they hadn't been such enemies, it might have been a cozy night on board the Havita.
…
Later, after they had all gone to their respective quarters, Merlin lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. Around him, the ship worked on autopilot, but he couldn't fall asleep.
Maybe it was because he was still stuck looking like Arthur, he thought. Every time he looked at a reflection of himself, he wanted to punch the mirror.
He tried rolling over and pulling the covers over his head, but he felt like he was suffocating and threw them off again.
If he listened hard enough, he could hear Gwaine snoring through the walls of the ship.
"Kilghar, can you suppress the noise from the rest of the ship?" he whispered.
The AI did not respond.
Sighting, Merlin buried his face into his pillow. Although it did not seem possible, the sound of Gwaine's snoring grew even louder until Merlin couldn't even block it out with the down of his pillow.
With a huff, he sat up and yanked his boots on. He liked Gwaine, but he also liked his sleep. He shuffled down the corridor and rapped on the door of Gwaine's pod.
A few seconds later, Gwaine opened it, shirtless, bleary-eyed, and with a strand of his hair stuck in the corner of his mouth. "What's up, mate?" he whispered. The dim nightlights of the Havita glowed eerily against the shape of his nose.
"I couldn't sleep. You were snoring. Sorry," Merlin said.
"No, it's all right." Gwaine ran a hand over his face to wake himself up. Then, he cocked his head to the side. "Someone else is snoring, though."
Now that he mentioned it, the rumbling noise was continuing to fill the ship.
"Lancelot or Arthur?"
"I bet ten creds it's Arthur." Gwaine shut the door to his pod behind him and started padding down the corridor in his bare feet and pajamas. When he got to Arthur's pod, he rapped on the door. "Hey, Arthur, knock it off. You're keeping the rest of us awake."
A few seconds later, Arthur appeared, scowling. His hair was messy, and his cheek was imprinted with fabric. "You knock it off," he snapped. "You're the one walking down the hallways caterwauling loud enough to raise the dead."
Gwaine held up a hand. When Arthur started another hot protest, he shushed him.
The rumbling noise continued.
Down the other end of the hallway, Lancelot appeared, pulling a shirt over his head. "I thought Arthur was snoring," he said when he got his head through the hole and his arms in the right sleeves. "Anybody know what that is?"
"Kilghar?" Merlin looked at the ceiling. "What's making that noise?"
The AI took a little longer to come to life. "An unidentified object has attached to the spaceship."
Well, it was nice of Kilghar to warn him about it.
If another Arthur docked on his spaceship, came on board, and decided to dictate the rest of his life, Merlin was through. He was selling the Havita, buying a farm on a distant planet, and spending the rest of his days watching potatoes sprout from the ground. "What kind of unidentified object? Another spacecraft?"
"It is not a spacecraft. Would you like me to identify it, young warlock?"
"Yes."
"Object unidentifiable."
"Maybe we can catch a glimpse of it out the portholes," Lancelot suggested. "It would have to be very small for us not to be able to spot it."
"I told you it wasn't me snoring," Arthur muttered. "We should all split up."
Just like a horror film. What a brilliant idea. Merlin turned and headed down the corridor. At the nearest porthole, he peered out into the inky mass in front of him. The lights on the side of the Havita, which he had dimmed to keep them less visible, illuminated nothing. After making a round of the ship, he ran into Lancelot, who had gone the other way.
"See anything?" Lancelot asked.
Merlin shook his head.
Stepping forward, Lancelot ran a hand along the metal wall. "I think the sound is louder on this side of the ship."
He was right. The humming was more noticeable where they were standing. When Merlin copied Lancelot and ran his hand along the wall, he found that he could feel a slight tingling in the metal. Whatever "unidentifiable object" had attached itself to the ship was on the other side of that wall.
"Kilghar, what's on this side of the Havita?"
Although it was a computer and in no way could have sentience, Merlin could have sworn that Kilghar seemed very reluctant to answer. "The sensors are unable to operate at this time."
"Unable or unwilling?" Merlin muttered darkly. Sometimes, he really did dream of taking a screwdriver to the AI and putting a new one in the ship.
"Surely there's some way to tell what's out there." Lancelot leaned forward until his nose was almost touching the glass.
"Not unless one of us wants to suit up and go out there himself." Merlin knew the perfect person for the job, too. He was approximately six feet tall, blond, and had been dropped on his head as a child.
"Wait a minute," Lancelot murmured. "I think-" He jerked back from the glass.
Merlin took his place. At first, he could not see anything, but then a wide, yellow ring opened up in front of him. Blue and purple interlaced in the black center of whatever it was in a spiderweb.
The thing vanished.
It was an eye.
Shoot.
This was fine, Merlin reasoned. It hadn't decided to crush the Havita yet, so maybe the creature would be unaware that humans were inside the ship and leave them alone. He hoped.
"What is that?" Lancelot hissed.
"I don't know. I'm going to try to use my magic to encourage it to leave." Perhaps if he gave it a little nudge, it would be uncomfortable enough that it would abandon them as its resting place. He spoke a spell.
The creature reacted against it. The ship creaked, and the thrumming intensified.
All right, then. It did not want to be disturbed.
"I've been around the whole ship-"
At the sound of Arthur's voice, Lancelot and Merlin jumped.
"-and I haven't spotted a single-"
"Shhhh," Lancelot and Merlin hissed at the same time. Lancelot gestured at the porthole they were clustered around.
"What?" Puzzled, Arthur peered out the window.
The eye reappeared.
He jerked backwards.
"Moldy cheese." Gwaine had finished searching his section of the ship and followed Arthur to their spot. "What is that?"
"It doesn't want to leave," Merlin said. "I tried giving it a little push, and it latched onto the ship even harder."
Arthur jumped at his words. "This. This is exactly why we need pulse rifles. One blast, and that…thing would be gone. Well, what's your plan to get rid of it?"
Merlin scowled. "I don't know. I thought I would see if it was hungry and feed it with annoying guests."
"We don't have any of those," Arthur said.
Lancelot coughed.
Merlin was really, really hoping that it would give up its perch and find someone else in the galaxy to bug because he did not want to repair the Havita again. The poor ship could only take so many assaults before it just gave up, and Merlin didn't have the money - nor the heart, if he were to be honest - to buy a new spacecraft.
The eye reappeared. It stared at its little audience, rotating back and forth between them before it blinked again.
You know what, Merlin decided, sleep was perfectly overrated.
He had no idea what that eye was, but as much as it wanted them in its sight, he wanted it in his.
"I think one of us should venture outside the ship to get a better look at the creature," Arthur said. "Since your AI is unable to give us a better description of it."
Merlin swept a hand toward the porthole. "Be my guest."
Gwaine snorted. "I'm not going out there."
"I was thinking you since you're the one with magic." When the eye opened for a third time, Arthur took a step away from the ship's window.
That was going to be a hard no.
"I'll go," Lancelot said. "If you think it's necessary."
And here Merlin had thought that Lancelot was the responsible one of the group. "Nobody is leaving the ship. We'll just wait until it…gets bored with us and leaves."
Arthur looked skeptical.
Gwaine covered up a yawn.
"Gets bored with us and leaves," Arthur repeated, as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"Well, if that's the case, I'm going back to bed." Gwaine turned and started ambling down the hallway in the direction of his pod.
"I'll keep an eye on it. If it does anything, I'll deal with it." How he would do that, Merlin didn't know, but he was sure that staring at a wall for five hours until what passed for morning on a spaceship would be quite enlightening and inspirational.
Since there was nothing else anyone could do about the situation until the creature decided to move itself, Lancelot left, too, until it was just Merlin and Arthur in the corridor.
"You can go back to bed."
"I'll stay here," Arthur said stiffly.
The last person Merlin wanted to have a sleepover with on the cold hard metal floor was Arthur Pendragon. "You can go back to bed. There's nothing you can do."
Stubbornly, Arthur chose a spot on the opposite wall and sat, resting his back against it.
After waiting for three minutes to see if the prat would change his mind (he didn't), Merlin slouched against the wall, keeping a good five feet in between them in case Arthur was carrying an infectious disease. As he setted in, the eye reappeared.
A shiver ran down Merlin's neck.
It felt like it was assessing them.
Then again, they were doing the same thing to it.
He tried to stay awake.
But exhaustion, the hum of the ship, and the rumbling of the creature on the other side of the wall eventually broke down his resolve to stay awake even though the Havita's floor was freezing and Arthur snored like a beaver with a wood allergy.
The last thing he saw before his own eyes shut was the great eye watching them.
…
When he awoke, he was significantly warmer.
Someone - Lancelot or Gwaine - had dropped a blanket on him. He sat up, looked around to see where Arthur had ended up, and found the prat with his cheek smushed up against the floor, clutching his own blanket like it was a teddy bear.
The eye was gone. Through the porthole, asteroids and stars zipped by as the Havita sped onwards towards its next destination.
It was almost as though they had imagined the whole thing.
…
Over the next couple of days, the creature did not return although Merlin sometimes thought he heard rumbling deep somewhere. Kilghar refused to give him any information that meant anything ("Space is filled with numerous lifeforms beyond your understanding, young warlock"), and he didn't tell the others about it.
The Havita neared the planet that Elyan, Percival, and Leon had been left on to heal from a fight with another monster supposedly created by Morgana to scare them off. FF4 was a small space rock, almost too tiny to be given the title of "planet."
"It's a farming planet," Lancelot told him. "I think they grow some sort of kale that likes the amount of radiation that distance from its sun."
"Is it any good?"
"Not after you've eaten it for twelve meals in a row." He side-eyed Merlin. "Leon, Percival, and Elyan were against staying."
Merlin felt the need to defend FF4. "My mother lives on a farming planet. There isn't a lot to go around."
"Oh. What did - what does she grow?"
"Wheat."
Wheat was worse than kale. Kale sounded fancy and organic enough that all the aristocratic idiots on rich planets would pour out their money for it to put in their chakra-purifying smoothies. Wheat, however, was for the everyday man. Hunith had had to fight to keep their crops growing every day, and it yielded very little money in return. Merlin should have been on Ealdor, helping her, but people had started to become suspicious of Merlin after her crops had been the only ones to survive a hail storm.
The irony was that Merlin hadn't even used his magic that time.
He hoped that FF4 would be strictly an agricultural place. It had been a long time since he had stepped on a major planet, and the idea of running into certain kinds of people filled him with dread.
…
The Havita docked on FF4 without much ado, but they were greeted with a welcoming committee that consisted of one human, two goats, five cows, and an indeterminable amount of chickens.
"How's it goin'?" the sandy-haired man drawled after the passengers of the Havita emerged from the airlock.
"Fine," Merlin said.
"Harrison," Arthur greeted as the man looked back and forth between Merlin and Arthur as though he could not figure out what was going on. "I've come to pick up my men. I appreciate everything you've done for them."
After shrugging to himself, Harrison nodded a couple of times. "Always glad to be of help here. We don't get a lot of visitors, you know."
"Right. I know. Where are Leon, Percival, and Elyan?" Arthur asked, obviously running out of patience.
One of the cows had taken a fancy to Lancelot and was trying to reach up high enough to nibble on his ears.
"Leon, Percival, and Elyan?" Harrison echoed, scratching his forearm. "They're gone."
For a second, the only sound was that of one of the goats trying to eat the airlock.
"As in to another farm?" Lancelot asked, trying to push the cow away.
"Nope. Gone. Lady picked them up - said she was your sister. If I'd known you were coming, I would've told her to wait for y'all."
"Half-sister," Arthur muttered before cursing.
It appeared that their arrival on FF4 was a smidgen too late.
Morgana had anticipated their moves and had gained three valuable bargaining chips.
...
Arthur: We need to train.
Merlin: I have Prancercise and Richard Simmons' Sweatin' to the Oldies. Have your pick.