CRICHTON SAW THE POWER GO OUT OUTSIDE and cursed. He ushered Rial and her daughters into the Commandant's office, told them to sit on the floor away from any windows and went about securing the large room as well as he could. Fortunately, the place was independently powered, and he had cameras and sensor nets to show him the entire prison, but it was only the three just outside the outer doors that concerned him now. He found a bank of controls, and began hitting buttons at random. Lights blinked and he saw indicators indicate things were happening. On a monitor before him, he saw a grid suddenly run over the floor representation just outside, and the effect it had on two unfortunate inmates who chose just then to run by. Electroshock in the floor from the looks of it – as they suddenly froze and twitched spasmodically before falling, smoking, to the ground. He saw beams of high-intensity energy crisscross hallways and figured that should hold them for a little while longer. He heard a scuff behind him and whirled – to point the barrel of his gun squarely in the face of a startled Rial.
"The point," he told her without preamble. "of staying down is actually staying down."
"True," she agreed, walking calmly past him and looking over the controls he had been hitting randomly. "And I will return to doing just that – in a moment."
She began activating certain sequences of controls with a deft touch and Crichton saw the outer defences come on in a more coherent and logical progression. Right. She could read the local lingo and thus the control labels.
"That should keep us safe until my husband's forces can arrive."
Crichton winced as he wound down a little, his wounds starting to ache again.
"No forces until we're off the planet." He told her, to her surprise. He sat in a handy chair, set his gun on the console in front of him, ran his hands through his hair. Rial nodded, and indicated a monitor behind him.
"I understand." She gave a him a look of suspicion. "You are not one of my husband's men, though you wear his livery. Now, who are you and why are Se'em'aari hunting you?"
"I'm the guy your husband hired to rescue you - and I assume they're hunting me because someone hired them to do that."
Rial shook her head.
"Your name." Crichton sighed tiredly.
"Would it make a real difference if you knew?" He cracked his neck, but it didn't help. "Why does it matter?"
"Are you a criminal?" She folded her arms.
"Of course I am," he told her, turning back to the monitors. He glanced back at her. "Look – the important thing is that I'm sticking my neck out to save yours and theirs. Just do what I say and maybe we'll get out of this dren alive."
She looked even more resolute.
"I will not listen to another word until I know who you are."
Crichton hung his head, and the sigh he blew was a disgusted one.
"I'm John Crichton," he said, and waited for the reaction. She blinked, looked to think a moment, and then a faint smile crossed her face.
"The way they describe you, I expected you to be much better looking."
"It's been a long day." He shook his head. They had more immediate concerns. "Look, what can you tell me about this setup? We can't sit here forever." Rial leaned past him, indicated the monitors.
"We are centrally located. There is an emergency lift over there, but it only leads to a bunker below this facility."
"No, no good. Locked in tighter won't do us a bit of good." He pointed at the electroshock-embedded floors. "What about those?"
"No. The power is out all over the facility. Those extend only beyond this immediate area, and even that won't last long. A few arns at the most."
"Fantastic. We can't stay here." He got up, stared out the big window for several long moments. She saw a look cross his face she couldn't identify, and he make a sound that could have been a sigh. "Go back in that center room, and be ready to move. Stay down and out of sight until I come back."
"Come back? What if you don't?" He was checking his pistols' charges. Then he popped a locker and searched until he found guard armor that fit him. It wasn't much, but it would offer more protection than he currently possessed.
"Then I don't. Send a distress beacon to your husband. It'll mean open war, but them's the breaks. Besides - we can't go wandering through the dark with those bounty hunters out there, anyway." He indicated the monitors and control boards. "Lock this place back up after I leave."
Rial nodded as he went. He was strong and obviously proficient with his weapons. If he was indeed John Crichton, and if even half the stories were true, she and her daughters' liberation was nothing more than a matter of time. She began handing out the rest of the guard body armor and instructing her daughters, but inside she was praying. Hard.
AIKIJJI SAW HIM FIRST.
As he stuck his head tentatively around a corner, she fired a volley of her quills. She waited to hear if there was any indication that she had hit him, paused for just a microt – and narrowly missed being hit by the return volley of pulse fire that suddenly speared around the corner. She admonished herself for being so thick-headed and crouched low, nodding in silent salute at his quickness – then activating her HUD on the inside of her visor, waiting to see what he would do next. She could see him clearly now. A leg edged around the corner and Aikijji put a strategic quill in it, just under his knee. That elicited a satisfying grunt. He pulled back in a hurry, and Aikijji silently signaled her Sisters… when suddenly Crichton vanished from her sensors!
Around the corner, Crichton had yanked the quill and realized with a curse that they could see him out here in the dark – and then he remembered his jammer, which he wasted no time in activating. Let's see how they do without the advantage. A sharp spike of pain speared up his knee as he moved, and he did his best to ignore it. He went to his belly on the floor, crawled across the corridor, doing his best to make as little noise as possible.
"Crichton…" came lightly down the corridor as he leaned against a doorframe. It was a Se'em'aari hunter – probably the one who'd hit him in the knee. Her voice was surprisingly lyrical, almost …gentle.
"What?" He answered, just for the hell of it.
"Surely you must know you have no way out of here. The Contract does not specify your death. You will live. I will even grant your females passage off this world." There was a slight pause. "We will both complete our missions."
"Nice offer. Don't buy it."
"I do not lie."
Crichton rolled his eyes. Of course she didn't. What was he – stupid?
"Sorry – can't take the chance. You want me, all you get's a corpse." He huffed. "That's all I'll be after you turn me over, anyway. Either way, I lose."
"I'm sorry – we have no control over that." A calm female voice said from directly behind him, and Crichton yelled and dove almost at the same time. Quills followed him. Nihijji crouched low as a return pulse blast went over her head. Crichton rolled, rose, and pelted down the corridor. It was so unexpected that he literally ran over Iskijji coming up the corridor to join her Sisters. They went down in a heap, but Crichton recovered first, Iskijji dazed as her head bounced off the floor. Aikijji indicated that Nihijji was to go off a branching corridor and thus flank him and she calmly followed him, stepped over her younger Sister as she went. She would recover and follow, of that Aikijji had no doubt.
Crichton, however, was nowhere to be seen. Aikijji slowed, her caution great.
"It is not personal," she said to his unseen presence. "It is only the Art. The Way. The Trade."
Crichton was wedged high up the wall, just around the corner from her, balanced precariously on an exposed beam. He knew that it wasn't much, but his jammer evened the playing field, and he used every advantage he could muster. Aikijji passed beneath him, and just as it looked as if she might pass, she stopped. She looked up at the exact moment Crichton dropped on her from above, beside her, looping his right arm around her neck and suddenly jerking her over his shoulder. A sharp wrench broke her neck and she died without a sound, and he felt like a murderer. She'd said it herself, though: not personal. Not at all.
So what if it felt like it anyway?
Nihijji suddenly appeared from the branch and he was enveloped instantly in a wall of quills, barely shielding his face in time. He backpedaled away, feeling the sharp barbs bouncing off his armor, but finding their marks in his legs and torso – a staccato of pain following their impacts. He stumbled, legs flailing and crashed hard to the floor.
He scrabbled backward, but Nihijji hadn't followed. A yell followed his crash, and several voices interrupted on the scene, and a small group of convicts came upon the pair. Nihijji turned, and had killed two before falling to the improvised weapons of the half-dozen left.
Crichton had been backing away when he saw that they had no intention of killing her quickly. Two cons were dragging her away, one fumbling with her clothing, trying to yank handfuls of quills out simultaneously. Her mask had fallen off, and he could see a surprisingly elfin face, dominated by large eyes. Crichton looked at her, saw her bloody and broken – and she looked back at him with a look he never forgot - and did the only thing he could think of – he shot her. She jerked once and shuddered, and was unceremoniously dropped by suddenly-disappointed convicts.
Naturally the cons advanced on him.
They did not get far.
Iskijji had regained her senses.
Crichton watched her kill the cons and pass by him. She checked Aikijji, and then Nihijji and felt both pride and sadness at their passing. From where she was crouched, she plucked, as she had from Aikijji, Nihijji's "Life Barb", the opalescent silver quill, the thickest and oldest, the Se'em'aari's First Quill. She placed them both in a small pouch at her waist, watched the male on the floor attempting to remove Nihijji's barrage.
She'd removed her Sisters' masks as well, and Aikijji's already hung from her belt. She contemplated Nihijji's for a moment.
"It is the Art." She told him – maybe. She sounded as if she recounted a memory of childhood. "It is the Way. The Hunt. The Trade. It is never personal." Crichton had already moved further away. Iskijji shook her head and hit him with two very precise strikes – and he stopped - gasping as his legs became suddenly useless – two quills stuck firmly in two nerve bundles in either leg. The pain was exquisite.
Another quill found its place in his wrist and the one pistol he'd drawn fell from nerveless fingers. Iskijji has come to him, stopped just short of his feet. She crouched down again, Nihijji's mask gleamed in her hand.
"Not personal…" Crichton ground out. "You turn me over and they strip me of everything I am to get what they want and dispose of what's left. How is that not personal?"
Iskijji went on as if he'd not spoken.
"A Sister does not receive her Mask until after her first successful hunt. I have hunted with my Sisters many times. No Triad has ever been crippled as you have done." She reached up, pulled the quills from thighs and wrist.
Crichton lay panting on the floor. He watched her do it. He did not appear anxious, or in fear. He was defiant.
She found that most satisfactory.
"You have killed my Sisters." Iskijji looked back at Nihijji's corpse. "Why did you kill her? She was no more threat to you."
"She didn't deserve what they had in store for her," he told her. It was hard to speak now and he realized that there must have been a soporific on her quills. The silver mask tilted to the left as the Se'em'aari contemplated his answer. A short nod followed.
"This may be a little late, but I can pay you more than the Peacekeepers can." He told her, tongue feeling as if it were weighted with lead. "What do you say we call this a draw, and learn from the experience, huh?"
A sibilant hiss answered him. She sounded… not angry – offended.
"It is not about money, Crichton… it is about honor. To capture the infamous, the greatest criminals, the most elusive – that is our goal. We test ourselves. Always there is an escape route for our Prey – if they can find it. It is not personal and never will be."
Crichton could feel his limbs beginning to respond.
"Okay - you want prestige over money? I can understand that. Very laudable. But the money's still good, right?" Her quills flared and then settled. She could not deny that, so she didn't.
"Only as a means to an end. Will you surrender?" A shake of the head answered her.
"I can't do that." His fingers twitched on the one pistol he had. "If I surrender I die. I can do that without giving up." He smiled a fierce smile at her.
"I understand." Iskijji stood, and as she turned, a V'rahn and a squad of the local Constables burst into the far corridor. They were under orders from Be'bari'a to kill every living thing in the prison – and they were falling to their task with relish. Seemingly unconcerned, Iskijji looked down at a now-armed Crichton.
"You will not make it out of this place alive, nor your charges, nor I, as we stand." Her quills flared, and he knew she was simply flexing muscles. "Do you fear this outcome?"
"No," he said, and found that he meant it. "It doesn't make any difference who or what kills you. The end result remains the same."
Iskijji nodded as screams rang up the corridor and the crackle of shock rods arced through the air. The air stank of ozone.
"To die without a reason." She said, almost melancholy. "This is the death all Se'em'aari fear."
She pulled out Nihijji's Life Barb, held it up next to Aikijji's. She added her own to them, held them up. He looked at them.
"My Elder Sisters: the first you killed - her name was Aikijji. This, from my Sister Nihijji. I am Iskijji. Will you remember our names?"
Crichton found the strength to nod slightly, watching her closely. For some reason he could never comprehend, he knew she wouldn't kill him. Some threshold had been reached, a line crossed in their particular code.
"You will remember?" She asked again.
"Aikijji, the Eldest. Nihijji, and you, Iskijji. I'll remember." He managed to grind out. She nodded, satisfied, and crouched back down next to him.
"I will tell you a true thing: to survive, you must rid yourself of those things which make you weak – even if in the doing you break your own heart." She knelt next to him, pulled her mask off, placed the three Barbs in it. She shoved all three masks and quills into the large pocket on his pant-leg. She had surprisingly delicate features, dominated by huge green eyes. Her nose resembled a cat's.
Down the hallway, the crackle of shock rods came closer. She stood. "I will cover your escape."
"What?" A flabbergasted Crichton huffed. "Why?" Strength was returning to his limbs.
"They, like Peacekeepers - think only of victory or defeat. They offer no choices but their way or death. We Se'em'aari understand that this is not important. Defeat, victory – nothing. We endure. That is what matters. We remember those who have taught us. Will you?"
"I'll remember." he told her. She reached out, grabbed his arm, pulled him to his feet. She was stronger than she looked.
"Keep our First Quills. Wear them openly and no Se'em'aari will ever hunt you again, no matter the price offered."
She sighed and turned away, facing the oncoming Constables.
"Go back and save your females. You have taught me this day, and I give you back your freedom. Escape if you can."
"Look, Iskijji…there's no need for you to…" he said, reluctant, but still backing away. "Come with me."
She looked back at him with questing and questioning eyes, and for a moment, he could have sworn he saw something in them that was almost… affectionate. It shook him. She shook her head slowly.
"Without my Sisters... no. It is over. But, I do not die for no reason." She murmured. "I have fulfilled the Way. I have chosen. I will endure." She flared her quills to their maximum flare, and touched a control on a bracelet on her wrist.
"Go now – or you will die." She told Crichton, blasting a hail of quills down the corridor - and he ran, something goading him. He hit the end of the corridor just short of the Security Office when a rolling explosion slammed up the hallway, blasting him into the wall and sending him spiraling into a grey unconsciousness.
THE COMMANDO HAD BARELY SURVIVED.
He'd been but microts from expiring when air had rushed back. Having collapsed back into a niche off the Command he'd gone unseen.
He'd hazily watched the Nok'Bari come onto command, begin her check on what had happened, and he had been prepared to overlook it, for it had appeared that she had been the one responsible for the negation of what had happened.
When Crais entered, however, all he saw was a deserter, traitor and condemned criminal and the probable cause of the death of his comrades. He'd not considered simply hiding – his cold hate simply powered him out of his alcove and straight at the defector.
A swift blow to the back of Crais' head dropped him, and a heavy-shod boot crashed into his back, bending Crais into a bow of pain. A sharp backhand flung the Nok'Bari aside and for a quick moment, the Commando pondered the many ways Crais could die – chose the immense satisfaction of choking the life from him. Another heavy blow stunned the ex-Captain and the Command threw himself down, pinned the renegade and pulled the garrote he had on his belt, lopped it around Crais' neck, locked it in and started pulling.
A choking gasp and renewed struggle exploded from him, but the Commando knew there was little he could do. In moments, one of the more infamous – and reviled – Peacekeeper Captains would soon be nothing more than a fading memory.
Crais' only thoughts were of a rapidly-receding hope of survival and Talyn. He fought, but was weakening fast.
Muukarhi came from a society of cultural divides. Not in the human sense of there being disharmonious divisions, a born-into caste system with no hope of advancement or crossover, but of a society that made clear delineations of who did what, bent toward society's overall good.
Those of an intellectual or scientific bent, pure rationalists, hardcore realists, the technicians, the engineers, architects, etc, formed one caste (usually the one that ran the planet and colonies) – the one to which she belonged. There were those castes of the artisans, craftspersons, entertainers, those of that ilk. The religious castes (these tended to be small on the Homeworld simply because there were few organizations that actually encouraged irrationality as it was blatantly counterproductive). The philosophers castes, the warrior castes. With a few obvious exceptions, there was very little overlap, and fortunately, there was very little discrimination. All talents were taken into consideration, and were taken with the utmost seriousness and cultivated as well as could be. A scientist in the Science Caste had access to everything that would allow that scientist or tech or engineer to become the absolute best one possible.
That said, it was no surprise that Muukarhi was neither a warrior nor even of the mindset that permitted her, as a rule, to consider personal violence on her part toward another. In the moment, and completely rationally, however, it was a different story. Her intellectual pacifism aside, it did not prevent her from bringing the butt of a heavy rifle down across the back of the Commando's head, and saving Crais' life.
It was not until she realized that she had killed the man did it begin to trouble her, and not until Crais thanked her – to her mind for the man's death and not Crais' life – did the full horror of what she'd done come over her; cause her mind to simply blank out and for her to faint.
Crais, for his part, dazed, very sore and hurting, made her as comfortable as possible, nursed his wounds as best he could, and pointed the Marauder back toward Abbanerex.
MIRIYA AND KOIBAN HEARD THE EXPLOSION as they exited the ductwork they had been crawling through. They'd found an air filtration system access and had crawled in. Miriya had been tracking Crichton until he'd vanished – probably her jammer – and found him again just as the explosion rattled the ductwork. Koiban pointed to an exit down to their left and they dropped out into chaos. Bodies were strewn everywhere and the walls and floors were slick with blood.
"Frell…" Miriya murmured as they followed her tracker. "Did Crichton do all this?"
"Unlikely." Koiban said behind her. He indicated two convicts locked in an eternal death-grip. "A riot." He called a halt as they came up to a still-burning hallway. The scattered parts of several Constables littered the area. "The explosion." Thick smoke drifted ahead of them, obscuring their view.
"John's ahead of us." Miriya indicated. "But he's definitely not alone." Koiban reached down, picked up a shock rod, checked it. It crackled to his satisfaction. Miriya sighed, pulled her pistol.
"All right," She muttered. "But is he ever going to owe me."
THE FUNCTION OF PAIN IN A HUMAN BODY SERVED A VERY SPECIFIC PURPOSE.
It wasn't that the brain registered pain to be vindictive or arbitrary – it used pain as an alert – an immediate, un-ignorable alert, that something was very wrong with its body or parts thereof, and Crichton knew that, but he really, really wished it would just deliver the message and then move on – not keep hammering the point home over and over. He felt as if he'd been beaten by several dozen really huge creatures with very sharp and heavy sticks while being racked and kicked by large horses. His throat burned as if he had swallowed the very lake of fire in Hell, making it hard to breathe.
He climbed painfully to his feet, looked down the still-burning hallway, Why the hell had she…? Nothing to do now. She'd bought him time, if nothing else. He looked down at himself. He was bleeding from seemingly everywhere, quills still sticking from him all over, gashes and lacerations crisscrossing him. He felt the searing effects of being burnt on his neck and the back of his head, knew he was probably missing hair, and counted his blessings.
He coughed blood, spat it all over himself and tried not to think about it, tried to get his bearings. His head hurt, a lot. Yeah - the Security Office. Just there. Don't waste it. Don't waste Iskijji. Why didn't matter. She was right. She'd done it, and that was enough.
Don't waste it.
He'd opened the door and saw Rial coming. She looked horrified at his appearance and shouted almost at the same time something hit him hard from behind, drove him to his knees.
"You!" a shrill voice keened at him, and he knew that the V'rahn had somehow survived. Another blow rocked him, and he flung an arm up defensively, deflected another. He managed a straight-arm punch that knocked the V'rahn back. The V'rahn stumbled, almost fell, but righted itself. It looked like hell, blasted and bloody. In its hands was the haft of a broken shock rod.
"You've ruined everything!" The V'rahn shrieked, brought the rod down again, broke Crichton's left forearm and then attacked him in a frenzy, smashing the rod down and laying open the side of Crichton's head.
He fumbled around, brought the other end over, found the switch. The shock rod hummed ominously. Without hesitation, the V'rahn rammed it against the side of Crichton's head and the human croaked and fell all the way to the floor. A louder scream echoed his choked grunt of pain and Rial stepped out, yelled at the V'rahn to stop it. Crichton was barely conscious, but he heard her, and he heard the V'rahn's strangled "Kill you!" and felt him step over to go after her.
Crichton grabbed the frothing, maddened V'rahn in a death grip. He could barely see, barely hear, but he would not allow it to end this way.
Rial would live. Her daughters would live and he would see to it. Talyn would live and Moya would be better and safer. The monster would win, but that was okay. He would die, but that was okay too.
A deal was a deal.
When the V'rahn roared and began to repeatedly bring the shock rod down on his head, Crichton didn't even feel it – only a warm pressure inside his skull and a blue light that distracted him, gently and lovingly called his name. His grip on the V'rahn didn't loosen. He didn't see Miriya and Koiban step out of the smoke, nor see Miriya kill the V'rahn with an expert shot to the head. He was too busy falling slowly down, dragging the dead with him, down into a comforting blackness that rose to meet him like the arms of a welcoming lover.
He smelled grass and wind and wondered if death had finally noticed him, prepared to thank it if it had.
THEY MANAGED TO STEAL A PRISON TRANSPORT SHIP JUST OUTSIDE THE PRISON.
It was under fire all the way into orbit.
They made it though - Strad'ail'leevis' ships stopped at their system's boundaries. No War Among Warlords, ran the Code.
Onboard, Koiban fought with the controls and communications and Miriya cradled the smashed and ruined head of John Crichton in her lap and felt things snapping on and off and off and on unexpectedly in her chest as hot blood ran over her hands.
Even with the supplies Koiban could find, it just held things together, but it really wasn't enough. The Interion Medic yelled at the controls as he attempted to go faster and Miriya felt Crichton's life tick down with every drop of bright red that ran through her fingers.
Rial stared down at the stricken man and shook her head. He was not one of her husband's men. He was nothing more, really, than a mercenary, an outlaw… yet… she could not understand it. They had had to almost break his fingers to get him to release the corpse of the V'rahn. He had, however, saved her and her children, at considerable cost to himself, and he would receive the best of everything, whatever he needed. That, at least, she could do for him.
Miriya breathed hard and held on to him tightly. She looked over at Rial and her daughters and shook her head. They meant nothing to him. They couldn't have. Why did he do it? Pride? Some crazy Human impulse? A frelling deathwish?
What!
Even as she asked herself the question, Miriya saw his eyes flutter and heard the breath rattle in his throat.
Crichton died in her hands and she yelled at Koiban to go even faster, completely rattled by the smile on John's face.