Wreckage. That was all that was left of the once mighty Peacekeeper Command Carrier 'Kalvanion' after Crais and Crichton's treachery had destroyed it. Wreckage and the desiccated remains of the uncounted Peacekeepers who had lived, served and died aboard the craft. And now, despite his best plans and preparations, it looked like the wreckage of the Kalvanion was going to be the last resting place of its final captain as well.
Scorpius had escaped from the destruction of the carrier, monens earlier, only to be captured and tortured in the Aurora chair as a traitor by that self-serving fool, Commandant Grayza. When he had met Crichton again both of them had been her prisoners on the planet of Arnessk. There Grayza had ordered Scorpius executed, which, amusingly, had allowed him the opportunity to escape. Interestingly there had been no sign of the previously ever-present former Peacekeeper Officer Sun at Crichton's side on Arnessk, but he had not been able, at the time, to determine why. Crichton and his band had affected a spectacular escape from the Commandant by crashing an ancient Leviathan onto her operations base and the flotilla of ships parked there. Scorpius had then taken the opportunity afforded by Crichton's swathe of devastation to depart from Arnessk aboard an abandoned, badly damaged Marauder. He had returned to the site of the Kalvanion's destruction, attempting to seek answers to various riddles, and perhaps a more spaceworthy ship, amongst the debris.
The wormhole was still there, close enough to the Command Carrier's wreckage to see with the naked eye, its blue maw intermittently appearing and disappearing. However there was nothing of any significance to be salvaged from the cloud of Command Carrier debris. And, of course, his Marauder's main drive had finally ceased to function. That was not the end of his bad luck, though: He doubted if the life support systems on the damaged Marauder would last much longer either.
And then the wormhole spat forth something most unexpected. A Prowler, one of the Kalvanion's own, from the markings and ident beacon, scorched by weapons fire but looking essentially intact, tumbling end over end as if the pilot were dead. Most likely they were: Prowler pilots did not survive wormholes - not even Crichton seemed to know why.
Scorpius's mind went into overdrive: If the Prowler were spaceworthy, all he needed to do would be to net it, clear out the remains of the late, unfortunate pilot and his most immediate threat of death would be solved. Then he could use the small craft to search for some way, some place, to find refuge from Grayza.
Scorpius fired up the Marauder's manoeuvring thrusters and edged towards the Prowler, finally bringing it into his larger vessel's tiny, one-Prowler docking cowl - big enough to open the small fighter craft's canopy, but not big enough to contain the whole ship.
He popped the Prowler's hatch. And, for the first time in many cycles, Scorpius expressed his surprise with a profanity, like a common soldier.
The pilot of the Prowler was none other than Officer Aeryn Sun. She looked slightly different to how he remembered - her hair was much longer, for one thing. And she was clearly very sick - feverish, unconscious. But, extraordinarily, and as far as he knew uniquely amongst Prowler pilots who had flown through a wormhole, she was alive. So, that was why she had not been on Arnessk.
Scorpius allowed himself a slight frown of confusion, after all there was nobody to see his show of weakness. And then he began to ponder the situation. He was fairly certain Officer Sun had formed some sort of emotional attachment to Crichton and vice versa. As such, she could prove very useful. If he could save her life then he could take her to Crichton and somehow use her as leverage both for his own safety and, ultimately, to access the human's knowledge of wormholes.
But first he needed to stabilize Officer Sun: she was hot and feverish. He was only too aware that heat delirium could be fatal to a pure-bred Sebacean such as her. He had a spare of his own coolant suit in the Marauder - one of the only things of value he had managed to salvage from the remains of the Kalvanion. With a little modification the spare suit should do the job nicely.
He began unbuckling the harness which held her to the pilot's seat and grunted as he began to heave her out of the tight space and into the larger Marauder. A broad smile slowly spread across Scorpius's features as a plan began to take shape in his labyrinthine mind.