"Aeryn! Officer Sun!" Pilot's voice sounded over the comms. He seemed frantic, distressed even.
"Yes, Pilot?" Both Aeryns answered together, echoing each other as they looked up from the meal that they were sharing with Olivia, Chiana, Noranti and Young D'Argo in the central chamber.
"Moya and I have just detected a small vessel, moving fast towards us in an orbital trajectory..."
"How did you miss it?" MoyaAeryn demanded.
"How long till it gets here?" TalynAeryn asked simultaneously.
"Is it Scarran?" Added Chiana as the two Sebaceans finished speaking. The chamber fell into hushed silence as everyone waited for Pilot to reply.
"It has a Scarran signature, it came from behind the planet, and we have fewer than 100 microts till it reaches us!" Pilot supplied, the tone of his voice slightly elevated, betraying his obvious distress at the situation.
"Is the armoury still in the same place?" TalynAeryn called over her shoulder, having already reached the door leading out into the corridor.
"Chiana, take D'Argo to the safe room!" MoyaAeryn commanded, as she headed for the door on the heels of her less encumbered twin. "And yes!" she called after the other Aeryn as she followed her out into the corridor.
Chiana watched them go, then shook her head and pulled out her own small ivory-coloured pistol. It was an elegant affair, designed for civilised foes. Not lizards with armoured skins that were resistant even to some Peacekeeper assault weapons. She shook her head. "Dren!" She shouted angrily as she slammed her hand down on the table. "Frell that!" Olivia looked at her with a clear mixture of shock and confusion. D'Argo and Noranti meanwhile were both behaving as though nothing untoward was afoot, he calmly continuing to eat, she stacking away dishes. "NORANTI!" Chiana snapped. At least the narl had the excuse that he was too young to know what was going on.
"Yes, dear?" the old woman replied, pausing to smile at the young Nebari.
"Stop frelling about and take D'Argo and Olivia to the safe room!"
"Yes dear." Noranti replied absentmindedly as she stacked another plate.
"NOW!" Chiana insisted. Olivia was looking nervous by now, and had stood and moved across to D'Argo, taking his hand and helping him down from his table before pulling him into her arms. "I'm going to go help my girlfriends."
"But Aeryn said..." Olivia began.
"If it's Scarrans they're going to need all the help they can get!" Chiana checked her little pistol again. "Gonna need a bigger frelling gun..."
'~'
"It was like this with the Scarrans and Talyn at Dam Ba Da," TalynAeryn explained as the two ex-Peacekeepers, now both armed with shoulder-slung pulse cannons, headed towards the docking bay indicated by Pilot. "They sent a single-occupant craft a couple of arns ahead of the Dreadnought to scout the place out for them."
MoyaAeryn nodded. "When they tried to attack Earth in our reality they sent a Stryker ahead of a Dreadnought."
"Well, let's hope it's just one Scarran rather than a Stryker full," TalynAeryn responded as they rounded the last corner before the docking bay.
"Amen to that," MoyaAeryn replied, not even aware that after their cycles together she had adopted a John-ism. TalynAeryn arched an eyebrow at that and stopped, gun level and ready, in front of the door. She nodded to her companion to indicate that she was ready and MoyaAeryn palmed the door control.
'~'
"Commander Crichton!" Collins shouted, running into the workshop. Both Johns looked up, one from his position in the module's cockpit, the other from beneath the open cowling of the displacement engine.
"Wassup?" they asked together, one voice an echo of the other. They exchanged a wan look.
Collins slid to a halt between them, eyes darting from one to the other.
"We've just had word from your ship, the Leviathan. The Scarrans are back!"
"Frell!"
"How long have we got?"
"Umm, we think they're already here. Boarding your ship from something called a Stryker."
"By the time we get up there..." TalynJohn left the rest of the sentence hanging.
"Small ship... with luck, the girls can handle it," MoyaJohn added, although his expression betrayed how worried and concerned he really was by the news.
"We haven't been able to detect any large vessels." Collins continued. "Yet."
"It'll be an advanced scout, probably curious to find a Leviathan orbiting Earth." TalynJohn continued. "The mother ship, the Dreadnought, will probably be here in an hour or two, if Dam Ba Da was anything to go by."
"Same thing when we closed the wormhole to Earth," MoyaJohn agreed.
"Well, is that thing ready?" Collins asked, inkling his head towards the module.
"Pretty much," TalynJohn replied. MoyaJohn nodded his agreement. "Just got to bolt the hood down."
"Good, then we'll need one of you to fly it."
"Both of us," MoyaJohn stated emphatically.
"No! No way!" Collins stared back at him. Then, getting nowhere with that approach, he turned and stared at the other John. "We need one of you down here. In case..."
"Both of us go up or no deal." TalynJohn insisted. His twin nodded. Collins pursed his lips, put his hands on his hips and stared at the ground.
"Too much of..."
"See if you can find some other sucker to fly the module and conjure you a wormhole weapon, then... I'm sure they're queuing round the block."
Collins looked up at the two Crichtons, who seemed united, for once, in their insistence that it was both of them or neither.
"Time's a-ticking..." MoyaJohn reminded him.
'~'
Chiana shuffled forward into the docking bay, moving slowly and carefully, one of Aeryn's pulse rifles clutched tightly in her hands. She hadn't seen a Scarran since the events at Quajaga, not since the day they had killed her lover, D'Argo. She heartily wished not to see one today, either, or ever again, for that matter, but it didn't look like today was going to be her lucky day.
The docking bay was full of crates and smoke - fortunately it wasn't the one where they kept their ships - Aeryn's Prowler and the two transport pods. By the illumination which spilled from a scattering of broken, randomly blinking ceiling and wall lights she could just about make out part of the shape of a Scarran Stryker parked at the far end of the huge chamber. However, the bay was eerily quiet. There didn't seem to be any sign of either of the Aeryns, or of any Scarrans, for that matter.
Chiana shuffled forwards another couple of steps, wondering whether or not to call out to Aeryn, let her know that she was here - she didn't want Aeryn to accidentally shoot her, after all. But then, if she called out, the Scarran would find out about her, too.
The unheralded whomp of a heavy pulse weapon discharging battered her ears and gripped her heart. It sounded again. It must be Aeryn, barely two rows of crates away by the sound of it. Caution forgotten, but rifle still held at the ready, she began running towards the sound.
Chiana skidded around a corner in time to see Aeryn - the other one, the one from Earth by the lack of baby bump, go crashing into a crate, propelled by a backhanded blow from a long-face Scarran. The heavy pulse rifle fell from the Peacekeeper's hands as she landed, leaving her with no weapon capable of penetrating her attacker's armoured hide. The lizard stood between Chiana and her shipmate, its back to the Nebari, and began limping towards Aeryn, hand outstretched to burn her with his heat ray. From the creature's gait, Chiana guessed that at least one of Aeryn's shots must have hit him, but the Sebacean was too stunned now to grab her gun and shoot him again.
Chiana ululated and unleashed a volley of shots from her own, lighter rifle. The Scarran staggered beneath the shots but did not fall. Instead he turned and began to close the short distance on Chiana. In a microt she could feel the nauseating, crippling waves of heat start to wash over her. She slumped to her knees, the rifle tumbling from her grip. She looked up at her attacker, struggling to focus through the haze of heat. Was it the end for her?
His body jerked. Then jerked again. Then his head seemed to explode.
The heat faded in the space of a microt and Chiana slumped to the floor, breathing heavily.
"Chiana? Are you alright?" she looked up to see Aeryn, still on the ground close by, the heavy pulse rifle now back in her hands, aimed at the smoking corpse of the Scarran. Chiana realised she must have given Aeryn time to recover her more effective weapon by distracting the intruder for a couple of microts. Funny how things worked out, sometimes.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think so. And you?"
"Fine. Just give me a microt." Chiana nodded. And just then Aeryn's heavy boots, her Aeryn's heavy boots, appeared at the corner of Chiana's vision.
"I think this is the only one. Pilot is scanning for more now, just in case," came Aeryn's reassuringly calm voice from just above her.
"Good," TalynAeryn responded, taking her twin's offered hand to help pull herself back onto her feet.
"Looks like you two did just fine without me," MoyaAeryn remarked, stepping back to cover the area with her gun and allow her twin to hold out a hand towards Chiana.
"Yeah." Chiana replied with the closest thing to a smile that she could manage, taking TalynAeryn's hand and using it to pull herself to her feet. "Looks like we did."