Voices Of Reason
Chapter 12
D’Argo led the way into the field of debris scattered across the hangar bay, scouting for the large exterior armor
plates from the Marauder. John paused at the edge of the wreckage, just enjoying the view. A swarm of DRDs
had gathered to measure and cut the heavy plates into the correct sizes and shapes to be used to channel the
starburst energy into Moya’s conduits. He could see the little yellow pods weaving through the piles of
components, locating the sheets of metal and then waiting for someone to pull them into a clear area so they
could begin cutting with their lasers.
John shifted his gaze to look up at Moya’s high arching ceiling. He was just barely able to make out the farthest
reaches of the massive hangar, and experienced one of his increasingly rare moments of awe. The leviathan
and her droves of biomechanoid servants were a wonder that no other human might ever see, and he was
lucky enough to call it home now. He tore his eyes away from Moya’s softly gleaming bronze inner hull and
followed D’Argo, his boots crunching through circuits and kicking hardware aside.
Aeryn had been watching John in turn. She had seen him do this many times before, just standing and
admiring their gentle host. She had learned an appreciation for things she had previously taken for granted by
being around him. He had adjusted to his life here in so many ways over the past three cycles, she was
pleased to see that at least some of the wonder still remained within him.
John glanced to make sure Aeryn was still close behind him, and then commed their overseer. “Pilot, what’s the
final verdict? Is the Marauder plating strong enough to contain the starburst energy?”
“I believe so, Commander. But Moya is still very concerned about this plan. She is not sure whether her
conduits will be able to handle the overload from the starburst energy.” John could hear Pilot’s extreme
concern coming through the transmission before he received the feedback.
“I know Pilot, but what options do we have? If we don’t get Moya loose, she’ll be destroyed anyway.” John
caught up with D’Argo and together they looked at the first huge sheet of hull armor.
Pilot-->Aeryn-->Scorpy continued his mild complaint. “Moya is aware of that, and it is the only reason she has
agreed to make this attempt. Even if it does work, it appears that there may be extensive damage throughout
her systems.”
John looked at Aeryn as she finished repeating and shrugged his shoulders. “Looks like another round of
crawling around sealing leaks and ruptures. Pilot, we’ll fix everything if we get out of this. Moya must know
that.”
He could hear the fatalism in the reply and shook his head at Aeryn. He didn’t need her to repeat that one. He
terminated his transmission over the comms and looked at Aeryn and D’Argo. “This was a great idea. I don’t
think I would have ever considered using this junk.” The smiles were all he needed for an answer. He waved
for them to work together, and began picking his way toward where Stark was struggling alone.
Aeryn could hear him start to sing something almost inaudibly as he continued away from where she stood.
“Find and seal up all those leaks, doo dah, doo dah. Playing repair hide and seek … “ His voice faded out.
Despite the lightness in his tone, she suddenly noticed how heavily he was walking, how high he was carrying
his shoulders. She had only seen him hunch up like that when he was truly exhausted.
“John.” He took two more steps before he turned to look at her. “We can move the hull plate around for the
DRDs without you, at least until they get some of the pieces cut up. Do you want to try and get just a little
rest?”
A small internal shudder still went through her every time she watched the lag before he answered. She was
never going to be comfortable with seeing him do that. Never.
He shook his head. “We have less than five arns to get this done. If it works, we’ll have time to rest later. If it
doesn’t … we can rest in peace.” He saw that the last part didn’t have any relevance to Aeryn, that it didn’t
make entire sense. “There will be time later one way or another.”
* * * * *
Hasman crouched in plain sight in the middle of a corridor. His damaged arm hurt abominably and his search
to locate the final part for his weapon had so far been in vain. He put his makeshift rifle down for a moment,
and wiped the sweat of pain and fatigue off his forehead. It was so absurd as to be almost humorous. He knew
he could find what he needed inside a DRD, and after being chased by the frelling horde for more than a day,
he suddenly couldn’t locate one.
It was as if every drone on the ship had disappeared. He knew he could find one in the den with the pilot, but
until his pulse rifle was completed he couldn’t take a chance of entering that chamber. He picked up his
not-quite weapon again and went looking for a larger corridor, which might yield his latest quarry.
* * * * *
“Pilot, do we need to create the jam in the amnexus system in order to get Moya to decompensate or can Moya
do that herself?” John was holding a piece of plating in place while two DRDs worked their way around the
edges, spot welding it in place. Stark had helped him carry it down here, and had returned to see what else
needed to be done in the hangar bay. Crichton had stayed behind to do the grunt work for the DRDs.
He heard Pilot answer, and then Aeryn’s voice cut in, fighting for air and full of strain. He assumed she was
working together with D’Argo to move another sheet of metal. “Moya can do it herself, John. She’s already
begun modifying the amnexus fluid to create the blockage.” Aeryn was keeping her comms open, which
allowed him to continue using his.
“How long before she decompensates?” The DRDs completed their work on the panel he was holding, and
their glowing eyes turned in his direction, waiting for their next assignment.
“About another arn. How are you doing down there?” A loud clang reverberated from the comms, echoed by
the same noise just down the access tunnel.
John turned and saw the pair bringing the last piece of plating toward where he stood. “We’re done with this
one, and the one you have should be the last piece. If Moya needs an arn is that going to work out right with
when we get run over by the next gravity distortion?” Aeryn just nodded her head, waiting to catch her breath.
D’Argo looked at John and asked something. He had to wait while Aeryn finished sucking in more air. She
straightened up and asked, “What about that time warping thing you were talking about? How bad could that
get?”
John was going to launch into an explanation of the slowing effects of extreme gravity on the relative passage
of time, but the irony hit him that they didn’t actually have the time for a long description. “We could come out
of this hundreds of days or even cycles from when we started. If we encounter one of those dense areas of
space-time distortions, there is just no telling when we could wind up. It’s a crap shoot.”
“A crab shoe?” Scorpius was standing next to John as he translated Aeryn’s question. He began examining
the welding points that the DRDs had completed. “John, you need to stop confusing your friends like that. Are
these attachments points strong enough to hold when the starburst energy hits this panel?” The clone’s
personal interjection was the first one in arns, and it came as a shock.
John had become completely accustomed to Scorpius’ ever-present voice in his mind, and temporarily forgotten
the personality that lay behind it. Once again a wave of uneasiness passed over him as he considered how
easily he had adapted to having the clone riding in his thoughts all the time.
“Moya and Pilot say that they’ll hold, and they’re the experts. We don’t want those panels in there so tight that
we can’t blow them loose when we need to starburst.” John turned to look directly at the clone standing next to
him, something he normally avoided. “And you’re bothering me, Harv. Why don’t you just get back on the other
end of the telephone line and let me get back to what I need to do?”
He knew he had been distracted by the silent discussion longer than usual, and when he looked at Aeryn he
could see his own mental trauma reflected in her face. She had obviously seen his sudden discomfort and his
lengthier reaction. “Crap shoot. It means it’s entirely up to chance.” He couldn’t bring himself to answer her
unvoiced question.
“What about that time shift thing that happened when the Illonics were on board, John? Is that going to
happen again?” This was Aeryn’s own question.
“You mean a temporal dislocation?” She nodded. “That shouldn’t happen. We’re being affected by the
extreme gravity right now, not the singularity itself. Time is being warped but Moya’s sensors can only detect
the distortions, not what their effects will be. We’re going to have to just take our chances and hope we come
out somewhere … I guess that would be somewhen close to when we started.”
John was helping D’Argo stand the chunk of armor on its edge as he spoke, and now they swung it into place,
blocking the last of the outlets that normally channeled the starburst energy to Moya’s exterior. “Can you finish
here on your own?” he asked D’Argo. He received a nod and turned away to join Aeryn. Four DRDs began to
weld the shield into place.
“Now what?” he asked Aeryn.
“I’ll start setting the explosives and we can check with Pilot to see how our time table is running.” She walked
back to the end of the corridor and waited for him at the base of a ladder that would take them back up through
the leviathan.
D‘Argo watched as his two friends left and saw again the tight bond between them. They never tripped over
each other when they were working in tight spaces, rarely even bumped into each other. The careful dance of
two bodies was more obvious than usual today, perhaps because he was watching for it. Or perhaps because
John had to rely so heavily on Aeryn right now. “Remember that frelling Peacekeeper. Be careful,” he warned.
“Not to worry, big guy. We’ll be cautious,” John tossed back as he started up the ladder. It was a long climb to
the upper tiers.
Aeryn paused at the bottom of the ladder and looked back at D’Argo in surprise, meeting his equally
astonished gaze. She hadn’t forwarded his comment again and this time D‘Argo had been behind John. She
raised her eyebrows and shoulders in a query. Hands busy holding the patch in place, he simply shook his
head, not understanding either. She looked up at the disappearing boot soles and started to climb after him.
* * * * *
“What are you going to use for a charge, Aeryn? Grenades?” He stood above where she was working on a
table in the Central Chamber. Its surface was covered with several types of grenades and various other
ordnance. This was one of the weakest parts of the plan, because their stock of explosive materials was so
small.
“It will vary depending on what we are trying to blow loose. Some of the plates are going to burst outwards, and
those will need less explosive since they’ll be carried away by the energy flow. Others will take larger charges
because we sealed the opening the other way around.” Aeryn’s hands never stopped moving, arming some
items, and modifying others to meet their needs. She had resorted to dismantling two spare pulse pistols and
intended to use pulse chamber overloads for two of her detonations.
“How will you time the pulse chamber overloads?” He wanted to help, but Aeryn was working so quickly he
knew he should keep out of her way.
“I can rig those to a remote …” She was cut off by Pilot as his image appeared in the clamshell.
“Officer Sun, I have just lost contact with one of the DRDs. It has been destroyed.” Aeryn’s head snapped up,
looking at the unnaturally calm face that was in contradiction with the alarm in Pilot’s voice.
“Is there any chance it was an accident, Pilot?” The DRDs had been heavily involved in the work in the hangar
bay and the starburst chamber, and there was always a possibility that one had met with an accident.
“No. I dispatched two additional units to its position, and it was deliberate sabotage. The unit’s laser tool and
light focusing emitter have been removed.” Pilot’s transparent image was staring intently at Aeryn, waiting for
her reaction to confirm his suspicions.
She thought about who would destroy a DRD, and why that individual would take the laser, and turned to John.
“The Peacekeeper has built a pulse weapon of some sort.” She could hear the tension in her own voice as the
alarm build tension between her shoulder blades.
“Has Pilot warned everyone else yet?” He knew there was nothing they could do about it at this moment. They
were running out of time and had to solve Moya’s problem first no matter what the risk.
“I will take care of that immediately,” Pilot said.
“Aeryn,” John waited till she faced him again. “Will he have ammunition for whatever he’s got?”
* * * * *
Hasman finished assembling the rifle, crudely strapping the modified emitter to the outside of the pulse
chamber. It was ugly, he thought, but it was going to work. He’d had to hold the unit clamped between his
knees while he worked one handed, and that had slowed him down. The knots in the cabling holding things
together had been painstakingly formed with one hand and his teeth.
His injured hand had gone numb as the swelling from the untreated damage gradually blocked the transmission
of nerve signals. If he were in a position to survive this situation, he might be facing the loss of his arm, but he
didn’t expect to live through the day. He desperately wanted to ensure that he was the last one on this ship to
die.
He held the weapon between his knees again, and reached behind him to one of the utility pouches on his belt,
and pulled out a spare chakan oil cartridge. The quiet snick as it locked into place was a reassuring, familiar
noise.
* * * * *
Almost the entire crew was gathered in Pilot’s chamber, fatigue and stress showing in everyone. Everyone was
armed now, the threat of the Peacekeeper making their next half arn even more hazardous than it already had
been.
“Then are we ready to attempt this insanity?” D’Argo looked at the group around him. Everyone nodded back.
He realized that they had all begun slipping into visual signals without even being aware of it. He looked to
make sure John was watching him before he spoke, and knew that he was adapting to John’s disability as well.
Perhaps this would all work out after all … if they lived through this Erp-brained idea.
“John and Stark will position themselves alongside Moya’s amnexus conduits in the event that we need to
release pressure to delay the decompensation. I will help Aeryn place the detonation charges. Chiana and
Jool will stay here to make sure Pilot is guarded. Is there anything else we need to do?”
“Where’s Rygel?” John asked.
“No one knows. We’ve commed him several times, but there’s been no answer,” Aeryn’s unemotional response
was translated.
“So there’s a chance he’s dead.” John hadn’t thought that the Dominar was a person he would miss that
intensely, but the idea that the commando might have killed him filled him with anger.
“We just don’t know, and we certainly don’t have time to look now,” she answered. John just nodded,
understanding. Once again his response was immediate. Aeryn decided that he had to be reading their
emotional cues.
“I will need to plot a course for Moya. In what direction does everyone wish to go if we are successful?” Pilot
asked. He waited as the group stood silently, considering his question.
Aeryn was prepared for John’s blank expression this time, and repeated the question for him.
He began to think about the options, voicing his thought process out loud for everyone. “We have been here
long enough that we have certainly experienced some time relativity problems. Assuming that this singularity is
doing some temporal warping, we don’t have any way of controlling our exit to take advantage of that.” He
walked away from the group, staring into the dark cavern below Pilot, watching the glowing energies as they
flowed through the intricate tangle of conduits and cables. He ran through all the possibilities in his mind and
still came up empty.
“My Granddaddy had a saying … Don’t spit into the wind. But I’ve been on a real lousy run lately whenever I try
to do things according to the Crichton Rules of Correct Conduct, so I say we do exactly that. Let’s turn around
and run in the wrong direction. I say we aim ourselves back where this mess began and see if we can jump out
of the fire and back into the frying pan. It’s exactly the wrong thing to do, so it might work.”
If anyone had a problem understanding him they didn’t show it. Aeryn spoke to Pilot, who began setting their
course.
“How will we get in contact with Crichton if we need him to do something? Aeryn’s going to be pretty busy.”
Chiana looked at Crichton in concern.
Aeryn echoed and then gave John the microt pause he required. “I’m going to keep my comms open the entire
time, and One-Eye can come and be my wake up call if one of you needs me and Aeryn can’t talk to me. He’ll
be the last resort to let me know when it’s time to run.” He looked down at the faithful drone and nudged it a
little with his boot. The DRD chirped once. It was ready for action.
“All right then, let’s go kill ourselves,” Chiana laughed. “Stupid ideas are our specialty.”
John watched the others start in different directions and realized that the conversation was over. He stood for a
moment, trying to decide if he needed to double-check any of the information with Aeryn before heading to his
assigned station. He had finally concluded that there wasn’t anything else to be determined when he saw the
flash of yellow reverse to get some room, and then it headed for his ankle to get him moving. He danced out of
the way just in time, glaring at the DRD as it came to a stop exactly where he had been standing.
“Are you having fun?” A blink and a chirp. “You’ve just about battered both my ankles to smithereens. Do you
understand smithereens?” A chirp and then a blink. John squatted down in front of the drone and tapped it
lightly on the end of its undamaged eyestalk. “Okay, here’s a good one. For the car, the trip and the sixty five
thousand dollar prize, tell me who keeps bashing me in the ankles just for fun? If it is just you little DRD, blink
once. Moya, if you are having a little laugh at the expense of my ankles, blink twice.”
The DRD blinked five times.
“Having trouble with your little helper?” Aeryn was leaning on Pilot’s console, watching his discussion with
One-Eye. He looked up at the sound of her voice. He shoved Harvey out of his mind, the clone’s words
unheard as John concentrated on the look of tolerant amusement on Aeryn’s face. He looked down at his
nemesis and back at her.
“Yeah, he’s kind of an independent little twerp. We’ll do fine together though.”
“John?” He looked up at her, still smiling. “Do you think this is actually going to work, or are we just going to
blow Moya up?” As he listened to the echo, he glanced behind her at Pilot, the large eyes returned his gaze.
He knew that everyone was placing a staggering amount of trust in his idea, and was tempted for one moment
to lie and tell them it was all going to work out. He took a long moment to consider, Aeryn’s words from the
commerce planet ringing in his mind. She had made some strong points about his making decisions for the rest
of them.
“Aeryn, I can’t imagine a reason why this would work.” He paused to get the words right. “In my universe I
shouldn’t even be able to run the module on the power source I’m using now. There are things that work here
that my planet can’t even begin to dream about. So my answer is that I don’t have a frelling clue. But Moya
has survived worse than this, and Chiana was right. Idiotic ideas are our specialty. This is insane enough that
it might just work.”
Aeryn started to correct him. Chiana had said ‘stupid’ ideas, not ‘idiotic’. She caught herself. He was so close
that time. She started to ask him how he was doing it, but John hadn’t waited for a response. He gave her a
bright smile and hurried out of the Den, his yellow sidekick at his heels.
* * * * *
D’Argo peered into the well where Aeryn was placing the last of the charges. He watched with admiration as
she moved expertly from one perch above their makeshift blockage to another, carefully placing the charges
while sometimes hanging on with just an elbow looped around a handhold. He had a rare insight into the level
of instruction that she had been given from the time she was a child. He knew a lot of Peacekeeper training
was mindless drill and indoctrination, but it was moments like these that he was forced to admit they had
created a brilliant, if misguided, military force.
Aeryn finished placing the last of the modified grenades and reached for D’Argo’s offered hand, welcoming a
strong contribution to her climb out of the shaft. She was just pulling herself over the edge of the well when she
heard the noise. She looked up to see the commando officer in the archway to the corridor. He was filthy and
sweating, and seemed unsteady on his feet, but the ugly bundle of pieces he was aiming at them was rock
steady and time seemed to slow to a standstill as she watched his finger squeeze the trigger.
* * * * *
Crichton crawled through the access tunnel and came to a halt at the vent that he had visited once too often
during Moya’s pregnancy. He glanced behind him to make sure that the DRD had followed him, and settled
down to wait. He felt a swirling sensation of apprehension circle through his chest and stomach as he sat
there. He was manning what might turn out to be a useless post, and he was a bit uneasy at being part of the
plan when he couldn’t understand most of the chatter coming over the open comms. He tried to concentrate on
other things, setting his uneasiness aside.
The stench of Moya’s gradually clogging amnexus system washed over him, no better smelling than it had been
when it was unintentional. He looked around at the reinforcing struts that gave strength to all of her internal
passageways, and wondered how much damage his plan was going to inflict on their gentle host. They might
get out of this predicament, and lose their home all in the same instant. He fervently hoped that this plan
worked better than his last few ideas.
He could hear the vague chatter of the others as they went about their business making the last preparations.
He began to wonder how much longer it was going to be before the rift hit Moya and was about to ask Aeryn for
a relay, when he heard her gasp, an involuntarily intake of alarm. She yelled something but the clone didn’t
translate verbatim for once.
“John, there is some sort of problem where Officer Sun is working.”
“Aeryn?” he shouted. “I got that, Harvey!” There was indistinct yelling from both Aeryn and D’Argo and the
sound of a pulse weapon firing. “AERYN??” “What the frell did she say, Harvey?” He got up and began to
scramble up the shaft, knowing he was too far away to be of any help, but unable to remain where he was
anyway. “Aeryn!! What’s going on?” He heard another pulse weapon discharge and then the comms went
silent.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 12
D’Argo led the way into the field of debris scattered across the hangar bay, scouting for the large exterior armor
plates from the Marauder. John paused at the edge of the wreckage, just enjoying the view. A swarm of DRDs
had gathered to measure and cut the heavy plates into the correct sizes and shapes to be used to channel the
starburst energy into Moya’s conduits. He could see the little yellow pods weaving through the piles of
components, locating the sheets of metal and then waiting for someone to pull them into a clear area so they
could begin cutting with their lasers.
John shifted his gaze to look up at Moya’s high arching ceiling. He was just barely able to make out the farthest
reaches of the massive hangar, and experienced one of his increasingly rare moments of awe. The leviathan
and her droves of biomechanoid servants were a wonder that no other human might ever see, and he was
lucky enough to call it home now. He tore his eyes away from Moya’s softly gleaming bronze inner hull and
followed D’Argo, his boots crunching through circuits and kicking hardware aside.
Aeryn had been watching John in turn. She had seen him do this many times before, just standing and
admiring their gentle host. She had learned an appreciation for things she had previously taken for granted by
being around him. He had adjusted to his life here in so many ways over the past three cycles, she was
pleased to see that at least some of the wonder still remained within him.
John glanced to make sure Aeryn was still close behind him, and then commed their overseer. “Pilot, what’s the
final verdict? Is the Marauder plating strong enough to contain the starburst energy?”
“I believe so, Commander. But Moya is still very concerned about this plan. She is not sure whether her
conduits will be able to handle the overload from the starburst energy.” John could hear Pilot’s extreme
concern coming through the transmission before he received the feedback.
“I know Pilot, but what options do we have? If we don’t get Moya loose, she’ll be destroyed anyway.” John
caught up with D’Argo and together they looked at the first huge sheet of hull armor.
Pilot-->Aeryn-->Scorpy continued his mild complaint. “Moya is aware of that, and it is the only reason she has
agreed to make this attempt. Even if it does work, it appears that there may be extensive damage throughout
her systems.”
John looked at Aeryn as she finished repeating and shrugged his shoulders. “Looks like another round of
crawling around sealing leaks and ruptures. Pilot, we’ll fix everything if we get out of this. Moya must know
that.”
He could hear the fatalism in the reply and shook his head at Aeryn. He didn’t need her to repeat that one. He
terminated his transmission over the comms and looked at Aeryn and D’Argo. “This was a great idea. I don’t
think I would have ever considered using this junk.” The smiles were all he needed for an answer. He waved
for them to work together, and began picking his way toward where Stark was struggling alone.
Aeryn could hear him start to sing something almost inaudibly as he continued away from where she stood.
“Find and seal up all those leaks, doo dah, doo dah. Playing repair hide and seek … “ His voice faded out.
Despite the lightness in his tone, she suddenly noticed how heavily he was walking, how high he was carrying
his shoulders. She had only seen him hunch up like that when he was truly exhausted.
“John.” He took two more steps before he turned to look at her. “We can move the hull plate around for the
DRDs without you, at least until they get some of the pieces cut up. Do you want to try and get just a little
rest?”
A small internal shudder still went through her every time she watched the lag before he answered. She was
never going to be comfortable with seeing him do that. Never.
He shook his head. “We have less than five arns to get this done. If it works, we’ll have time to rest later. If it
doesn’t … we can rest in peace.” He saw that the last part didn’t have any relevance to Aeryn, that it didn’t
make entire sense. “There will be time later one way or another.”
* * * * *
Hasman crouched in plain sight in the middle of a corridor. His damaged arm hurt abominably and his search
to locate the final part for his weapon had so far been in vain. He put his makeshift rifle down for a moment,
and wiped the sweat of pain and fatigue off his forehead. It was so absurd as to be almost humorous. He knew
he could find what he needed inside a DRD, and after being chased by the frelling horde for more than a day,
he suddenly couldn’t locate one.
It was as if every drone on the ship had disappeared. He knew he could find one in the den with the pilot, but
until his pulse rifle was completed he couldn’t take a chance of entering that chamber. He picked up his
not-quite weapon again and went looking for a larger corridor, which might yield his latest quarry.
* * * * *
“Pilot, do we need to create the jam in the amnexus system in order to get Moya to decompensate or can Moya
do that herself?” John was holding a piece of plating in place while two DRDs worked their way around the
edges, spot welding it in place. Stark had helped him carry it down here, and had returned to see what else
needed to be done in the hangar bay. Crichton had stayed behind to do the grunt work for the DRDs.
He heard Pilot answer, and then Aeryn’s voice cut in, fighting for air and full of strain. He assumed she was
working together with D’Argo to move another sheet of metal. “Moya can do it herself, John. She’s already
begun modifying the amnexus fluid to create the blockage.” Aeryn was keeping her comms open, which
allowed him to continue using his.
“How long before she decompensates?” The DRDs completed their work on the panel he was holding, and
their glowing eyes turned in his direction, waiting for their next assignment.
“About another arn. How are you doing down there?” A loud clang reverberated from the comms, echoed by
the same noise just down the access tunnel.
John turned and saw the pair bringing the last piece of plating toward where he stood. “We’re done with this
one, and the one you have should be the last piece. If Moya needs an arn is that going to work out right with
when we get run over by the next gravity distortion?” Aeryn just nodded her head, waiting to catch her breath.
D’Argo looked at John and asked something. He had to wait while Aeryn finished sucking in more air. She
straightened up and asked, “What about that time warping thing you were talking about? How bad could that
get?”
John was going to launch into an explanation of the slowing effects of extreme gravity on the relative passage
of time, but the irony hit him that they didn’t actually have the time for a long description. “We could come out
of this hundreds of days or even cycles from when we started. If we encounter one of those dense areas of
space-time distortions, there is just no telling when we could wind up. It’s a crap shoot.”
“A crab shoe?” Scorpius was standing next to John as he translated Aeryn’s question. He began examining
the welding points that the DRDs had completed. “John, you need to stop confusing your friends like that. Are
these attachments points strong enough to hold when the starburst energy hits this panel?” The clone’s
personal interjection was the first one in arns, and it came as a shock.
John had become completely accustomed to Scorpius’ ever-present voice in his mind, and temporarily forgotten
the personality that lay behind it. Once again a wave of uneasiness passed over him as he considered how
easily he had adapted to having the clone riding in his thoughts all the time.
“Moya and Pilot say that they’ll hold, and they’re the experts. We don’t want those panels in there so tight that
we can’t blow them loose when we need to starburst.” John turned to look directly at the clone standing next to
him, something he normally avoided. “And you’re bothering me, Harv. Why don’t you just get back on the other
end of the telephone line and let me get back to what I need to do?”
He knew he had been distracted by the silent discussion longer than usual, and when he looked at Aeryn he
could see his own mental trauma reflected in her face. She had obviously seen his sudden discomfort and his
lengthier reaction. “Crap shoot. It means it’s entirely up to chance.” He couldn’t bring himself to answer her
unvoiced question.
“What about that time shift thing that happened when the Illonics were on board, John? Is that going to
happen again?” This was Aeryn’s own question.
“You mean a temporal dislocation?” She nodded. “That shouldn’t happen. We’re being affected by the
extreme gravity right now, not the singularity itself. Time is being warped but Moya’s sensors can only detect
the distortions, not what their effects will be. We’re going to have to just take our chances and hope we come
out somewhere … I guess that would be somewhen close to when we started.”
John was helping D’Argo stand the chunk of armor on its edge as he spoke, and now they swung it into place,
blocking the last of the outlets that normally channeled the starburst energy to Moya’s exterior. “Can you finish
here on your own?” he asked D’Argo. He received a nod and turned away to join Aeryn. Four DRDs began to
weld the shield into place.
“Now what?” he asked Aeryn.
“I’ll start setting the explosives and we can check with Pilot to see how our time table is running.” She walked
back to the end of the corridor and waited for him at the base of a ladder that would take them back up through
the leviathan.
D‘Argo watched as his two friends left and saw again the tight bond between them. They never tripped over
each other when they were working in tight spaces, rarely even bumped into each other. The careful dance of
two bodies was more obvious than usual today, perhaps because he was watching for it. Or perhaps because
John had to rely so heavily on Aeryn right now. “Remember that frelling Peacekeeper. Be careful,” he warned.
“Not to worry, big guy. We’ll be cautious,” John tossed back as he started up the ladder. It was a long climb to
the upper tiers.
Aeryn paused at the bottom of the ladder and looked back at D’Argo in surprise, meeting his equally
astonished gaze. She hadn’t forwarded his comment again and this time D‘Argo had been behind John. She
raised her eyebrows and shoulders in a query. Hands busy holding the patch in place, he simply shook his
head, not understanding either. She looked up at the disappearing boot soles and started to climb after him.
* * * * *
“What are you going to use for a charge, Aeryn? Grenades?” He stood above where she was working on a
table in the Central Chamber. Its surface was covered with several types of grenades and various other
ordnance. This was one of the weakest parts of the plan, because their stock of explosive materials was so
small.
“It will vary depending on what we are trying to blow loose. Some of the plates are going to burst outwards, and
those will need less explosive since they’ll be carried away by the energy flow. Others will take larger charges
because we sealed the opening the other way around.” Aeryn’s hands never stopped moving, arming some
items, and modifying others to meet their needs. She had resorted to dismantling two spare pulse pistols and
intended to use pulse chamber overloads for two of her detonations.
“How will you time the pulse chamber overloads?” He wanted to help, but Aeryn was working so quickly he
knew he should keep out of her way.
“I can rig those to a remote …” She was cut off by Pilot as his image appeared in the clamshell.
“Officer Sun, I have just lost contact with one of the DRDs. It has been destroyed.” Aeryn’s head snapped up,
looking at the unnaturally calm face that was in contradiction with the alarm in Pilot’s voice.
“Is there any chance it was an accident, Pilot?” The DRDs had been heavily involved in the work in the hangar
bay and the starburst chamber, and there was always a possibility that one had met with an accident.
“No. I dispatched two additional units to its position, and it was deliberate sabotage. The unit’s laser tool and
light focusing emitter have been removed.” Pilot’s transparent image was staring intently at Aeryn, waiting for
her reaction to confirm his suspicions.
She thought about who would destroy a DRD, and why that individual would take the laser, and turned to John.
“The Peacekeeper has built a pulse weapon of some sort.” She could hear the tension in her own voice as the
alarm build tension between her shoulder blades.
“Has Pilot warned everyone else yet?” He knew there was nothing they could do about it at this moment. They
were running out of time and had to solve Moya’s problem first no matter what the risk.
“I will take care of that immediately,” Pilot said.
“Aeryn,” John waited till she faced him again. “Will he have ammunition for whatever he’s got?”
* * * * *
Hasman finished assembling the rifle, crudely strapping the modified emitter to the outside of the pulse
chamber. It was ugly, he thought, but it was going to work. He’d had to hold the unit clamped between his
knees while he worked one handed, and that had slowed him down. The knots in the cabling holding things
together had been painstakingly formed with one hand and his teeth.
His injured hand had gone numb as the swelling from the untreated damage gradually blocked the transmission
of nerve signals. If he were in a position to survive this situation, he might be facing the loss of his arm, but he
didn’t expect to live through the day. He desperately wanted to ensure that he was the last one on this ship to
die.
He held the weapon between his knees again, and reached behind him to one of the utility pouches on his belt,
and pulled out a spare chakan oil cartridge. The quiet snick as it locked into place was a reassuring, familiar
noise.
* * * * *
Almost the entire crew was gathered in Pilot’s chamber, fatigue and stress showing in everyone. Everyone was
armed now, the threat of the Peacekeeper making their next half arn even more hazardous than it already had
been.
“Then are we ready to attempt this insanity?” D’Argo looked at the group around him. Everyone nodded back.
He realized that they had all begun slipping into visual signals without even being aware of it. He looked to
make sure John was watching him before he spoke, and knew that he was adapting to John’s disability as well.
Perhaps this would all work out after all … if they lived through this Erp-brained idea.
“John and Stark will position themselves alongside Moya’s amnexus conduits in the event that we need to
release pressure to delay the decompensation. I will help Aeryn place the detonation charges. Chiana and
Jool will stay here to make sure Pilot is guarded. Is there anything else we need to do?”
“Where’s Rygel?” John asked.
“No one knows. We’ve commed him several times, but there’s been no answer,” Aeryn’s unemotional response
was translated.
“So there’s a chance he’s dead.” John hadn’t thought that the Dominar was a person he would miss that
intensely, but the idea that the commando might have killed him filled him with anger.
“We just don’t know, and we certainly don’t have time to look now,” she answered. John just nodded,
understanding. Once again his response was immediate. Aeryn decided that he had to be reading their
emotional cues.
“I will need to plot a course for Moya. In what direction does everyone wish to go if we are successful?” Pilot
asked. He waited as the group stood silently, considering his question.
Aeryn was prepared for John’s blank expression this time, and repeated the question for him.
He began to think about the options, voicing his thought process out loud for everyone. “We have been here
long enough that we have certainly experienced some time relativity problems. Assuming that this singularity is
doing some temporal warping, we don’t have any way of controlling our exit to take advantage of that.” He
walked away from the group, staring into the dark cavern below Pilot, watching the glowing energies as they
flowed through the intricate tangle of conduits and cables. He ran through all the possibilities in his mind and
still came up empty.
“My Granddaddy had a saying … Don’t spit into the wind. But I’ve been on a real lousy run lately whenever I try
to do things according to the Crichton Rules of Correct Conduct, so I say we do exactly that. Let’s turn around
and run in the wrong direction. I say we aim ourselves back where this mess began and see if we can jump out
of the fire and back into the frying pan. It’s exactly the wrong thing to do, so it might work.”
If anyone had a problem understanding him they didn’t show it. Aeryn spoke to Pilot, who began setting their
course.
“How will we get in contact with Crichton if we need him to do something? Aeryn’s going to be pretty busy.”
Chiana looked at Crichton in concern.
Aeryn echoed and then gave John the microt pause he required. “I’m going to keep my comms open the entire
time, and One-Eye can come and be my wake up call if one of you needs me and Aeryn can’t talk to me. He’ll
be the last resort to let me know when it’s time to run.” He looked down at the faithful drone and nudged it a
little with his boot. The DRD chirped once. It was ready for action.
“All right then, let’s go kill ourselves,” Chiana laughed. “Stupid ideas are our specialty.”
John watched the others start in different directions and realized that the conversation was over. He stood for a
moment, trying to decide if he needed to double-check any of the information with Aeryn before heading to his
assigned station. He had finally concluded that there wasn’t anything else to be determined when he saw the
flash of yellow reverse to get some room, and then it headed for his ankle to get him moving. He danced out of
the way just in time, glaring at the DRD as it came to a stop exactly where he had been standing.
“Are you having fun?” A blink and a chirp. “You’ve just about battered both my ankles to smithereens. Do you
understand smithereens?” A chirp and then a blink. John squatted down in front of the drone and tapped it
lightly on the end of its undamaged eyestalk. “Okay, here’s a good one. For the car, the trip and the sixty five
thousand dollar prize, tell me who keeps bashing me in the ankles just for fun? If it is just you little DRD, blink
once. Moya, if you are having a little laugh at the expense of my ankles, blink twice.”
The DRD blinked five times.
“Having trouble with your little helper?” Aeryn was leaning on Pilot’s console, watching his discussion with
One-Eye. He looked up at the sound of her voice. He shoved Harvey out of his mind, the clone’s words
unheard as John concentrated on the look of tolerant amusement on Aeryn’s face. He looked down at his
nemesis and back at her.
“Yeah, he’s kind of an independent little twerp. We’ll do fine together though.”
“John?” He looked up at her, still smiling. “Do you think this is actually going to work, or are we just going to
blow Moya up?” As he listened to the echo, he glanced behind her at Pilot, the large eyes returned his gaze.
He knew that everyone was placing a staggering amount of trust in his idea, and was tempted for one moment
to lie and tell them it was all going to work out. He took a long moment to consider, Aeryn’s words from the
commerce planet ringing in his mind. She had made some strong points about his making decisions for the rest
of them.
“Aeryn, I can’t imagine a reason why this would work.” He paused to get the words right. “In my universe I
shouldn’t even be able to run the module on the power source I’m using now. There are things that work here
that my planet can’t even begin to dream about. So my answer is that I don’t have a frelling clue. But Moya
has survived worse than this, and Chiana was right. Idiotic ideas are our specialty. This is insane enough that
it might just work.”
Aeryn started to correct him. Chiana had said ‘stupid’ ideas, not ‘idiotic’. She caught herself. He was so close
that time. She started to ask him how he was doing it, but John hadn’t waited for a response. He gave her a
bright smile and hurried out of the Den, his yellow sidekick at his heels.
* * * * *
D’Argo peered into the well where Aeryn was placing the last of the charges. He watched with admiration as
she moved expertly from one perch above their makeshift blockage to another, carefully placing the charges
while sometimes hanging on with just an elbow looped around a handhold. He had a rare insight into the level
of instruction that she had been given from the time she was a child. He knew a lot of Peacekeeper training
was mindless drill and indoctrination, but it was moments like these that he was forced to admit they had
created a brilliant, if misguided, military force.
Aeryn finished placing the last of the modified grenades and reached for D’Argo’s offered hand, welcoming a
strong contribution to her climb out of the shaft. She was just pulling herself over the edge of the well when she
heard the noise. She looked up to see the commando officer in the archway to the corridor. He was filthy and
sweating, and seemed unsteady on his feet, but the ugly bundle of pieces he was aiming at them was rock
steady and time seemed to slow to a standstill as she watched his finger squeeze the trigger.
* * * * *
Crichton crawled through the access tunnel and came to a halt at the vent that he had visited once too often
during Moya’s pregnancy. He glanced behind him to make sure that the DRD had followed him, and settled
down to wait. He felt a swirling sensation of apprehension circle through his chest and stomach as he sat
there. He was manning what might turn out to be a useless post, and he was a bit uneasy at being part of the
plan when he couldn’t understand most of the chatter coming over the open comms. He tried to concentrate on
other things, setting his uneasiness aside.
The stench of Moya’s gradually clogging amnexus system washed over him, no better smelling than it had been
when it was unintentional. He looked around at the reinforcing struts that gave strength to all of her internal
passageways, and wondered how much damage his plan was going to inflict on their gentle host. They might
get out of this predicament, and lose their home all in the same instant. He fervently hoped that this plan
worked better than his last few ideas.
He could hear the vague chatter of the others as they went about their business making the last preparations.
He began to wonder how much longer it was going to be before the rift hit Moya and was about to ask Aeryn for
a relay, when he heard her gasp, an involuntarily intake of alarm. She yelled something but the clone didn’t
translate verbatim for once.
“John, there is some sort of problem where Officer Sun is working.”
“Aeryn?” he shouted. “I got that, Harvey!” There was indistinct yelling from both Aeryn and D’Argo and the
sound of a pulse weapon firing. “AERYN??” “What the frell did she say, Harvey?” He got up and began to
scramble up the shaft, knowing he was too far away to be of any help, but unable to remain where he was
anyway. “Aeryn!! What’s going on?” He heard another pulse weapon discharge and then the comms went
silent.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
