Cholak's Demon
Chapter 5
“Frell, frell, frell,” Gallenn muttered. The switching components were so far inside the engine compartment he
was nearly inverted; only his lower legs jutted out of the access hatch. He yanked on the damaged circuit for
the sixth time and it finally came loose, his knuckles striking a brace on the way out. He sucked on the bloody
scrape for a moment then continued his whispered complaints. “I’m going to make sure you get free, because I
want to kill you myself. No sane person puts these things this far inside.” He twisted his body to look out the
hatch, yelled “Watch your heads!” and heaved the useless circuitry out the opening past his feet. An angry cry
suggested that someone hadn’t heeded his call.
The new part slid into place more easily, the cabling was attached without trouble, and a quarter of an arn later
he was wriggling carefully out of the compartment. He fastened the outer hull plate into place and climbed
down the ladder to start working on the other engine.
“This yours?” a gruff voice demanded. A hand holding the discarded chunk of circuitry was thrust under his
nose, the rest of the angry tech officer appearing a microt later.
“Not really,” he answered. “Technically it belongs to whoever owns the ship.” It was out before he had time to
assume the more deferential tones of a Peacekeeper tech. “Sir,” he added lamely after a too-long pause. He
stared straight forward, waiting to see how bad it was going to get. The silence lengthened. “Sorry, sir,” he
added after a couple more microts.
“We’ve all got it bad enough being assigned here before the clean-up is finished. Don’t make it any worse for
the rest of us.” The lieutenant breathing down his neck was wearing the shoulder tabs of a non-combat
specialist, with the patches designating some sort of surveillance unit. “Don’t do it again.”
“Sir,” Gallenn acknowledged. He waited until the man disappeared inside the ship, then heaved a sigh of relief
and walked around the tail of the ship, headed for the hamman side engine. There were a couple of non-rated
techs working there, both of them wearing the same patches as the officer. They were removing every access
hatch, searching inside, and then carefully replacing the plates.
“What did you guys do to deserve this?” he asked nonchalantly. The stench in the hangar seemed to be the
topic of the day.
“We didn’t fini --” one of them started to answer.
“Nothing!” the other drowned him out. “We have a job to do, smell or no smell.” The two men went back to
work, their heads and shoulders disappearing inside the skin of the ship as they continued their search.
Gallenn bounded up the ladder to the second engine to discover that the maintenance panel had already been
removed, the cover clipped to one side of the opening. He wriggled in and began working without any delay.
Voices drifted up to him from below, muffled by the internal baffles of the ship, and he stopped moving in order
to listen.
“What’s the big deal?” came the voice of one of the men outside the craft.
The second man answered angrily. “You don’t know who he reports to, you frellnik! Tell him we didn’t really
finish the search the first time like we reported, and we’ll be next on the sign-up list for the Aurora Chair. Did
someone use a laser probe to sear all your neurons?”
“Aren’t you done out there yet?” a different voice called impatiently. “We could use some help inside. There
are a lot of places in here that have to be searched.”
Gallenn resumed his work, wondering if there was anything aboard that Aeryn didn’t want discovered. He had
little choice other than to listen and wait to hear if they found something. The damaged switch popped out
more easily than the previous one, sparing his knuckles this time, and he began securing the new one in
place. A loud clang sent vibrations through his body where he lay on the reinforcing struts, and he assumed
someone was working on the other side of the airtight hull.
“Sir!” a voice yelled in excitement. “I found something!”
Gallenn stopped working again, concentrating on the muffled voices. The conversation provided enough clues
that he was certain they’d found several gear bags hidden inside the maintenance space, and that they were
going through the contents. The officer must have been standing close to the open panel inside the ship,
because he heard every word clearly as they reported to someone named Braca and described the woman’s
garments they’d found, as well as the weapons and uniforms contained in the bags.
He stopped listening and focused on getting the ship repaired, ignoring the occasional scrape or cut knuckle as
he hurried. They’d found Aeryn’s possessions, which meant that they’d be searching for her, and their time
was running out.
* * * * *
Aeryn knelt near the bath, her entire body shaking as she struggled to restrain herself. The stimulants she had
taken earlier were goading her to do something foolish, encouraging her to give in to the violent, physical
solution to the scene unfolding before her. She’d retreated to this spot when Grayza had entered the quarters,
choosing the relatively empty area around the large tub because it gave her room to get out of the way if
Grayza brought John into this area. The ugly panorama had unfolded entirely on the bed however, every detail
illuminated by the bright, focused lighting.
Mele-On Grayza hadn’t bothered to look at John when she’d first entered. She’d strolled toward her work
surface with her usual arrogant elegance, tossed several data chips down and punched up some data,
pointedly ignoring him. John had gotten to his feet, nearly bumping into Aeryn before she could move away
from him, and had worked his way to the far side of the room, holding on to the half-height wall for support.
She’d used that moment to dodge around him and scamper up the stairs to where she could watch and not
worry about being detected or run over by the room’s other two occupants.
Grayza had pulled a chip out of the viewer, tossed it aside, and finally turned to look at him. “Save your
energy, Crichton. Answer my questions now, and you can go back to your cell and sleep.”
“And miss the best little whorehouse in the Uncharted Territories?” he’d asked, easing further to one side as
Grayza advanced.
“This resistance is futile, Crichton,” Grayza said, moving after him.
“Resistance is futile?” he repeated on a hysterical sounding laugh. His giggles had continued as he backed
away, sounding increasingly manic with every passing microt. “I’ll give it a shot anyway.” His retreat had ended
when he ran out of the half-wall to hang onto, barely able to stand as he jammed himself into a corner and tried
to slap Grayza’s hands away. It had taken only a small tug for the officer to yank him out of his corner. She’d
hung on to him to break his fall as he collapsed at her feet.
Aeryn had watched with horrified fascination as Grayza had knelt alongside him, fingering his lips, talking to him
too softly for Aeryn to hear. Microts later he’d become an obedient automaton, complying with every one of
Grayza’s instructions, whether it was delivered verbally or by gesture. He’d allowed himself to be guided to the
bed, and had let her strip off his clothes without a complaint.
And now she was trapped in this spartan, militaristic brothel, forced to watch and listen as Grayza somehow
turned John into a willing participant in this twisted version of lust. She hadn’t seen a drug being administered,
and he hadn’t been given anything to eat or drink, but she knew that he would never submit to this unless he
was being influenced in some way.
The energy booster’s effects surged through her, and she fingered her pistol through the slick fabric of the suit,
resisting the desire to put a pulse blast through the commandant’s naked chest. Aeryn eyed the pale, smooth
skin of the woman’s breasts and a memory teased her, suggesting that she should know how Grayza was
managing to alter John’s behavior without offering up the forgotten information.
“We have much to talk about, Crichton,” Grayza’s voice said firmly, projecting to where Aeryn knelt.
“The cheerful … interrogator.” John’s sarcasm was clear despite a mild slurring of his speech. “Colonel Von
Scherbach, I presume?” Aeryn nodded with satisfaction at the untranslatable term, the Earth phrase
demonstrating that his underlying personality remained unaltered.
“‘Colonel’ I understand. What is the rest?” Grayza was reclining next to him, one hand exploring his chest.
“Von Scherbach,” he repeated. “Officer and interrogator at Stalag 17. Never got Dunbar to break.”
“I seem to be doing better than this Scherbach,” the silky tones countered.
“Talking isn’t the same thing as breaking,” he disagreed with her.
Aeryn got to her feet and moved closer, her curiosity piqued by his defiant answers, and wished that she
hadn’t. Grayza rose to her knees and leaned over John’s motionless body, her hands beginning a slow
migration from shoulders to toes and back up -- exploring, caressing, and teasing him, finally moving to kneel
between his legs and concentrating her efforts there. He began to respond, but slowly, as though his fatigue
and his willpower had teamed up to fight a loosing battle against a common enemy.
“John, I’m sure you can do better than that,” Grayza’s oily voice purred from the bed, her hands continuing their
efforts. Aeryn took two more steps forward, needing to move to a spot where she couldn’t see what was going
on, the sight of what was being done to him making her lightheaded and clumsy. John’s head rolled away from
Grayza, coming to rest at an awkward angle facing the raised bathing area where she stood. His eyes
wandered about the room as the commandant continued to work over him, his expression empty and bleak, and
she nearly went to his rescue at that look of inner devastation.
That body belonged to her now, given to her freely the night he’d said ‘All right’. The simple phrase had been a
gift from him, delivering two precious items into her care: one more chance to be with him, and the right to
caress the lean angles of bone, rounded muscles, and the warm skin. She’d searched for him, fought to break
down the walls, provided the warmth to bring him back to life when he’d almost frozen to death, and had
persevered when he’d almost turned away from her. This was the man that fate and destiny had brought to her
side, and the sight of Grayza using him this way ignited an almost uncontrollable rage.
She held still, closed her eyes to block out what was happening in front of her, and fought the compulsion to kill
one more time.
It would have been easier if she could have spoken the words out loud, instead of reviewing the arguments
inside her head, but she envisioned each factor clearly and gradually got herself under control. John could
barely stand, let alone walk; there were four guards outside the quarters; she didn’t have a spare uniform with
her and she couldn’t traverse the corridors holding up a staggering ghost; and most importantly, by the time
she unsealed the suit and extracted the pulse pistol, she’d be seen and the guards would be inside Grayza’s
quarters. Getting him out safely had to remain her first concern.
Aeryn shuddered at the sounds of Grayza’s quiet encouragements, accepted the fact that she’d have to wait
through this interrogation, and opened her eyes. The view before her almost destroyed her tenuous control.
She would have to move to a spot where she couldn’t see what was going on. She took three steps forward,
headed toward the stairs to the lower level, and froze as John’s eyes swiveled in her direction. She stared back
into those empty blue eyes, unwilling to more even a finger until he looked away. His stare was a coincidence
of timing and placement, but she didn’t want to take a chance that he might actually notice the flickering
distortion of the suit against the even colored background. It would destroy him if he knew that she was
watching this abomination.
“You aren’t enjoying yourself,” Grayza’s voice rose from the quiet undertone she’d been using. “Let me help
you.” The officer’s long fingers wandered up her own chest, passing between the naked breasts, then she
reached to roll John’s head to face her.
“Let me,” she whispers. He kneels before her and lets her pull his shorts down, his hands resting on her wrists,
willingly allowing her to undress him …
Enamel crackled as she ground her teeth together, her body frozen in place by anger rather than by caution.
“No!” John’s slurred growl demanded. He grabbed at her wrist as she reached toward his face, missed, tried
again. “Don’t.” The second demand was closer to a plea, punctuated by a loud slap as he batted her hand
away. Grayza moved fast, pinning him down with one hand and her body, easily defeating John’s fumbling
attempts to escape. Aeryn shook herself free of her paralysis and used the distraction to drift carefully down
the stairs, looking for some place to wait until the doors to the chamber reopened.
“Don’t … do … that,” John demanded again. Aeryn turned slowly, hearing the desperation in his voice,
powerless not to look. Grayza brushed her fingers across his lips, caressing him in an odd manner. He jerked,
lunged beneath her, still fighting, and she repeated the soft fingering motions. A microt later John’s free hand
snaked behind Grayza’s head and he pulled her against him more firmly, yanking her down into a deep,
open-mouthed kiss. The two bodies on the bed rolled over, arms and legs entwining, torsos rubbing tight
against each other and Aeryn looked away.
She had the answer, but solving the mystery brought her no pleasure. It had to be heppel oil. As unbelievable
as it seemed, there was no other explanation. She’d heard that some of the less proficient members of Special
Directorate had resorted to the implantation, using the gland’s emulsions to achieve what their own talents
could not, but she hadn’t believed the rumors until now. She hadn’t believe it until John fell victim to its
influence.
The sounds of air circulation and the hushed rumble of machinery faded away, drowned out by the sighs,
grunts, and slobbering of the lengthening kisses coming from the bed. It had been her decision to follow him
here; her vow that she would rescue him that had brought her to this time and place. She never could have
foreseen this mutual torture.
Grayza sat up for a microt, pulling away from him. Aeryn flinched as he let out a quiet growl and pulled her
back down, one of his hands reaching between her legs. “Would you like to, Crichton?” Grayza invited him with
a husky whisper. “Would you enjoy that?”
His fingers drift slowly up her thighs, slowing to a stop as his laugh rumbles low and soft. “Can I Aeryn? Would
that be all right?”
She turned away too late, the sight of the slow touches burned forever into her memory, numb feet making too
much noise, but not enough to be heard over his sighs. She glanced around the lower expanse of Grayza’s
quarters, finally stumbling toward a small area of shadow near the side of the desk. Slanting shadows
concealed the suit better than most other lighting conditions. If she sat still, she would be undetectable. Aeryn
put her back against the smooth metal side of the desk, using the cool sensation against her shoulders as a
focus around which to gather her drifting thoughts. The sighs and moans behind her were accelerating,
becoming more frantic.
John’s familiar deep rumbles warned of an impending climax, the sounds carrying clearly in the otherwise silent
quarters. “Not yet,” Grayza said calmly, her voice empty of passion. “Not yet, Crichton.”
“Aeryn, wait,” he gasps, telling her he’s too close to losing control. She slows her movements, letting him ease
back from the edge so they can come together, so they can share the joy.
John let out an extended groan. “First I want you to tell me something,” Grayza demanded.
“What?” he asked, the word squeezed out at the tail end of a breath.
A confused snarl of emotions -- concern, love, guilt that she had brought him to this moment, and anger at
Grayza -- magnified her existing fatigue and distaste for what she’d been forced to do over the past days,
attacking on a physical level. She leaned forward, close to vomiting, her stomach twisting painfully in an
attempt to eject its contents. She sat with her head hanging between her bent knees and forced the surge of
pressure back where it belonged. The air inside the hood seemed to thicken, making it hard to breathe. Aware
that it was an enormous risk, she eased the face flap away, letting the fresh air flood in, deep breaths helping
to quell the nausea.
“Crichton. You must tell me.” Grayza’s voice interrupted her battle with her stomach. “Where is Aeryn Sun?
Where is the traitor?”
“She … left,” he groaned quietly. “The bitch took off.” His harsh pronouncement emerged on accelerating
explosions of air.
“Not true, Crichton. We know she found you at the repair facility. Your friend was most forthcoming once he
experienced the less gentle influence of the Aurora Chair.” John groaned long and deep, a rumbling statement
of despair rather than passion. “Aeryn Sun left that planet in the ship now impounded in this carrier. Where is
she? Where did she go?” Grayza insisted. Aeryn held her breath. Aside from being the ultimate aphrodisiac,
heppel was reputed to be an irresistible truth-drug. The entire rescue was in jeopardy.
“Don’t know.” John cried out in excitement, the tones more horrible for being so familiar. “Please,” he begged
the commandant. Aeryn began to get up, needing to see what the woman was doing to him. “Oh god!” he
moaned, and she subsided, revolted by the thought of watching.
“You are lovers,” Grayza prompted. “We wish to locate Aeryn Sun. Tell me where she has gone.”
“Not any more. She … she … doesn’t love me any more. I … don’t love … her,” he gasped.
“Aeryn Sun,” Grayza demanded again. “Where is she?”
“She left, she left, she left,” John insisted, sounding increasingly short of breath.
“She found you at the repair facility, which has since been destroyed. Where did you take her?”
“I … I … ” He growled long and deep, a sound of anguish rather than passion. Aeryn fastened the face flap
and stole a look at the bed. He was shaking his head frantically, continuing the denial silently. Her eyes
remained trapped on the horrible tableau as Grayza gathered more heppel oil and set about working Crichton
into a more unresisting state.
“She was there. Where did you take her?” Grayza demanded again. Aeryn tore her eyes away from the sight
and sat down again, hugging her knees against her chest as the interrogation continued.
“She … found … me,” John admitted. “I … sent her away!” He had sent her away when she’d found him in the
command carrier wreckage. It was a half-truth. The evasion seemed to give him strength in his struggle to
avoid the truth. “Rambo Chick took off on me a long time ago. This time I told her to take a hike. I don’t know
where … ” He broke off into a long series of shuddering sighs.
Somehow he was managing to lie against the heppel oil, resisting the mental influence even if he couldn’t deny
the physical arousal. Aeryn clamped both forearms across her ears, clasped her hands behind her head to
hold them there, and tried to ignore the remaining noises that made it through. She didn’t need to hear
anything more. His repeated evasion of the entire truth brought home what it had taken her almost too long to
understand -- that John Crichton would endure almost anything in order to keep her safe.
The voices continued to filter through the muffling of her arms, each of Grayza’s repeated demands followed by
the deeper-voiced jerking responses from John. Aeryn closed her eyes, trying to block out the visions being
provided by her imagination, but it only provided a dark backdrop for the mental image of the entangled
bodies. Louder cries infiltrated past her clamped arms, telling her that the ‘interrogation’ was drawing to a
close. Aeryn stared at the floor between her feet and concentrated on the sound of her pulse beating inside
her ears.
Silence reigned at last, and she slowly unclamped her arms, letting in first the quiet rush of air through the
chamber’s ventilation system, then the slightly louder sighs of post-coitus recovery. She got up slowly, giving
her legs time to adjust to the new position.
It wasn’t over. John was face down, limbs flung out in four directions, but Grayza was continuing to work over
the exhausted body. The slender fingers wandered up and down his ribs as she ran her tongue slowly along
the scar on John’s back, tracing its course from ribs to spine to shoulder, then moving on to nuzzle the side of
his neck. Aeryn remained standing, watching deliberately this time, allowing the knot of rage within to expand,
feeding on the sight, the heat of her anger compounding with every passing microt.
She took several steps toward the bed, already unfastening the front of the suit to get at her pulse pistol, intent
on killing Grayza. Her feet stopped at the bottom of the steps, coming to a halt as logic elbowed its way back
into her thinking. The factors she’d reviewed earlier paled before one additional consideration. If she
appeared out of thin air to kill Grayza now, John would know that she’d been there the entire time, and had
watched when she could have stopped it.
Aeryn sealed the suit and stepped back to her spot by the desk, her self-control restored. Commandant
Mele-On Grayza would have to die some other time.
“There are a few other things I’d like you to tell me,” Grayza began again.
“You’ve drained one part of me, why not my head?” he groaned. “I gave you everything I know.”
“You have not satisfied me on the topic of Aeryn Sun, and we need to talk about your engines again,” she
suggested. “They can be used as a weapon. Tell me about that.”
“Get frelled,” John responded weakly, his face buried in the pillows.
Mele-On Grayza laughed quietly. “I just did.” Grayza began moving his arms and legs, rearranging his body to
suit her tastes. “I’m afraid this may take longer than the last session. I hope you won’t find it too tiring.”
Aeryn gnawed on her lower lip, scanning the commandant’s quarters for any piece of equipment that she could
use to create a diversion. She had to bring this nightmare of voyeurism to an end, both for herself and for
John.
Help came from an unexpected source. “Commandant Grayza,” a familiar voice blared from the ship’s comms.
“I gave orders not to be disturbed, Lieutenant Braca,” she snapped back at her subordinate. Her tone used his
rank as a threat, clearly implying that he was facing a demotion if the interruption was not merited.
“Yes, ma’am. I think you’ll want to hear this. The search has yielded something.”
The commandant stood up, wrapping one of the satiny bed covers around her body several times, then pulling
a long tail over her shoulder. “Report,” she commanded over the comms.
“The search team has found a collection of uniforms and weapons hidden aboard the ship,” Braca’s
transmission continued. “The clothing belongs to a woman.”
“Get in here!” Grayza yelled, her calm demeanor shattering all at once. She turned back to where Crichton lay
motionless on the bed. “Aeryn Sun. She’s aboard this carrier, isn’t she?”
Aeryn watched with pride as he raised himself up on his elbows and turned to look at Grayza. His was barely
able to lift his upper body, but he remained defiant. “Aeryn who?” he mocked the Peacekeeper officer.
The door slid open, the lock released from the outside, and ‘Aeryn-who’ stepped out of the way as Braca
entered. She took a cautious step toward the open door, then retreated to a spot against the wall when she
saw that there were four guards in the corridor, their combined mass blocking the exit.
“Ma’am?” Braca inquired, waiting for orders.
She held her hand up to quiet him, concentrating on her victim who had slumped back onto the mattress. “This
has all been Officer Sun, hasn’t it?” He didn’t answer. “Hasn’t it?” she demanded more loudly.
“It was Claude Rains.” His voice barely carried to the lower level this time, and it sounded as though he was
finally going to sleep.
“Lies, it was all lies. You’re still lying.” The infuriated accusations increased in volume. “Where is she? Where
is she hiding?”
“She left, she left, she left,” chanted John’s rasping, shaking voice. They were the same words he’d used
earlier, but this time there was a note of triumph behind the repetition. “Gone, disappeared, not here,
bye-bye.”
Grayza turned with a quiet hiss of anger, leaving him there for everyone to see, undressed and uncovered.
“Get in here!” she barked at the guards. Two of them hustled inside, their armor clashing as they came to
attention. She flicked a finger absently in Braca’s direction to get his attention, consulting her work surface as
the displays came to life. “Take Crichton back to his cell and prepare the Aurora Chair. Crichton knows where
Aeryn Sun is hiding. She is the key. We must capture her.”
Grayza glanced at the motionless guards. “Move!” They clattered up the stairs toward the sleeping area.
“Cholak’s demon,” she hissed. “Crichton’s personal demon. She must have that mechanic with her. Watch for
both of them. Full security lock down. No one moves unless they have specific duties. How many personnel
have gone missing, Braca?”
“Twelve that we know of so far, ma’am.”
“Twelve. Find those bodies and find out where they were assigned when they disappeared. Track her
movements. It will help us trap her.”
Braca nodded an acknowledgement as he stepped back to allow the guards to pass, watching with satisfaction
as they dragged a clothed, barely conscious Crichton down the stairs and out of the chamber. “Right away,
Commandant,” he answered once they’d gone past.
Aeryn didn’t hesitate when the guards left the room. She pushed away from the wall and went out the door less
than half a motra behind John’s trailing feet. Grayza was still issuing orders to Lieutenant Braca as she turned
away, but she didn’t dare stay to listen. Time was of the essence now; security aboard the carrier would get
tighter with every passing microt. She gave John one last look and started to run toward the hangar deck.
* * * * *
Gallenn pulled an access panel off the treblin side engine cowling and ducked inside, pretending to tinker with
the components. More than an arn had passed since the search team had transmitted their findings to their
superiors, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hang around the ship much longer without someone noticing
that he wasn’t really working on anything.
“Come on, Aeryn,” he whispered inside the compartment. “Hurry up.” Every microt that she didn’t appear
made it more likely that she’d been caught, which meant that he was trapped aboard the carrier as well. He
surveyed the tangle of components, reviewing the hetch components for anything that would allow him to
destroy the rhotarri drive. The ship was useless to him without either Crichton or Aeryn to fly it; the best he
could do was to honor her request to keep the rhotarri technology out of Peacekeeper hands.
“You! Get down here!” He jumped at the shouted summons and banged his head on the inside of the cowling.
He backed out more cautiously on the second try. A chief technician was standing at the bottom of the
scaffolding with one of the helmeted security troops beside him. Gallenn pointed inquiring at his own chest,
trying for a look of innocent confusion. “Yes, you!” the chief called up. “Close the panel first!” the man yelled
as Gallenn moved toward the ladder.
He complied with the order, fumbling the process to give himself time. “It’s been fun,” he offered quietly as the
last latch slid into place, and turned to slide down the ladder. The best he could hope for now was a quick
death. “Sir?” he asked the supervisor, snapping to attention.
“You’re wanted for questioning. Something to do with a malfunction in the surveillance systems in the detention
block.” The security guard swung her pulse rifle around, aiming it at the center of his chest, and Gallenn
looked at the figure in armored leather more carefully. The rifle jerked to one side, ordering him to proceed,
and he headed obediently toward one of the exits. They passed through the security station without stopping,
the guards scarcely looking at them as a member of their own regiment escorted him out of the hangar.
“Hurry up,” the guard behind him ordered curtly, and they broke into a jog. “Stop,” he was ordered. “In there.”
The pulse rifle jabbed toward a maintenance crawlspace and he dove through the circular entrance headfirst,
scrambling out of the way as Aeryn came in behind him. “To the right,” she ordered again.
“Scared the stuffin’ out of me,” he complained as they turned the corner so they were out of sight of the
corridor. She gave him a small shove and he scuttled forward, spotting a pile of gear several motras ahead.
“They know we’re on board, and they know it’s me, but they don’t know about the stealth suit yet. This was the
only way I could think of to get you out of there without passing through the genetic scans.” She pulled her
helmet off and set it aside. “Change uniforms.” She tossed a security guard’s uniform at him, complete with
boots and helmet.
“Lake level rising again?” he asked, shucking off the tech’s overalls.
She grimaced. “This one got stuffed in a closet and the lock somehow got melted into fused slag. It’ll take arns
for them to open the door.” She was bundling a third uniform into a tight ball, wrapping everything inside the
jacket. “We’ve run out of time. Is the ship fixed?” He nodded, struggling to get into the leather pants in the
tight confines of the tunnel.
“Yeah. I heard the search team find your gear. I was starting to think you’d been caught.” He caught the boot
she’d loosened for him and pulled it on. “Too small,” he commented, lacing it anyway.
“Curl your toes and live with it.” She tossed him the second boot, then got to her feet, crouching in the
confined space as he finished dressing.
“They’re not that small, but thanks for the sympathy anyway. What’s the plan?” He was dressed, tugging at the
jacket to get the thick, built-in armor settled into place.
“We’re going to go into the control room, kill the guards, put John in the third uniform, and run. Shoot anything
that gets in our way. I saw him, but he’s not in very good shape. We’re going to have to practically carry him.”
She took a deep breath and pulled her helmet on. “Are you ready for this?”
“Ready for this? Oh yeah. I run around command carriers helping people escape all the time.” He pulled the
helmet on one-handed and took the pulse rifle she offered him. “And I always do it in boots that are too small.”
Aeryn looked over her shoulder at him, shaking her head. “What?” he asked, questioning the disgust in her
expression.
“I think Crichton’s worn off on you,” she said, giving him another quick shake of her head. “He’s been a bad
influence.” Then she turned the corner and was checking to make sure the corridor was empty before they
emerged from the tunnel.
“I always figured it was the other way around,” he offered, and followed her.
* * * * *
“Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel … ” Crichton stared at the metal wall,
trying to remember what it had felt like to have his brain torn apart by the Aurora Chair. He wondered if it still
revolved as it probed into its victim’s most personal thoughts and splashed them onto the screen for the
universe to review. “Time for the Marquis de Sade’s merry-go-round.” He was so damned tired. He snickered,
envisioning nothing more than a television test pattern appearing on the screen accompanied by its monotone
wail. “Tha’ would serve ‘em right,” he mumbled into the surface of the bunk.
It didn’t matter that he was out of energy; the power of the Chair would fuse itself with his mind and take
whatever it wanted. It would rip everything out, allowing Grayza to run her hands through his memories now
that she was done running her hands across his body. He could hear the boots coming down the steel-decked
hallway toward his cell; the dual hammering of feet setting up the echoing that said his brief moment of peace
was over.
“It’s déjà vu all over again …” But his old line brought the threat of tears this time, not the cynical laughter. He
was just so damned tired, and he missed Aeryn. He’d managed to keep her safe so far. The Chair would likely
change that. He devoted a little energy to rubbing at his eyes, forcing the stinging promise of tears back where
it had come from before the guards could see the liquid evidence of his weakness.
“Fly safe,” he whispered, trying to invoke the talisman of that phrase. She would fly nowhere at all if he couldn’t
keep the secret about the suit hidden from the invasive power of the Chair.
The door opened with its usual deep-throated grinding and the boots clashed into the cell. They’d dumped him
on the bunk facedown when they’d brought him back this last time, his head facing toward the wall, and he
couldn’t think of a reason why he should expend the effort to look at his captors. He’d save what little energy
he had left for what lay ahead.
“John,” the quiet summons broke into his daze. “Wake up. We have to move fast.”
They were always in a rush, hurrying to get him to Grayza’s soft killing ground, but they rarely asked him so
nicely. And never in a voice that sent chills up his spine in this manner. Crichton stared at the wall and thought
about the softly voiced demand, pondering the differences from the usual shouted orders.
“John … can you hear me?” The second question interrupted his consideration of the first one, and he had to
start over again at the beginning. “He’s unconscious. We’ll have to hope he comes to before we have to
move,” the voice said behind him.
“Aeryn?” He tried to turn over. His arms moved but not in the directions he’d hoped for, leaving him beached
on his stomach. They flipped him onto his back, two sets of hands rolling him over quickly but carefully. He
looked at the face framed by the helmet and he started to shake with relief.
“Aeryn,” he breathed, wanting to say more, but not able to find the words to describe what he was feeling. He
reached up with a shaking hand to touch her cheek, wanting to make sure that this was the real thing. None of
the other dream visitors had been wearing Peacekeeper black; they’d all been wearing the magic suit that kept
her secret and safe. She caught his trembling fingers and pressed them to her lips, confirming that she was
more than a projection of his exhausted subconscious. There was a second guard standing just out of sight
near the head of the bunk, waiting as she finished checking him for injuries, but he had eyes only for the pale
face bending over him. “Is ‘bout … time.”
She ignored his small complaint, remaining focused on the task at hand. “Can you sit up?”
Her hair was bound back in the obsessively neat braid she’d worn cycles ago, leaving the angular features
exposed in sharp relief. The uniform was standard Peacekeeper issue, the familiar gleaming black leather
emphasizing the clean lines of her face and the dark eyes. Aeryn was once again the meticulously perfect
soldier, the stolen uniform like a second skin on the body that had been bred to wear it.
“You’re beautiful,” he commented, wondering why she was in such a hurry.
The grayish eyes flicked toward his face, and she gave him a small smile. “Thank you. Come on, John, you
have to sit up.” She motioned to her companion and between them they yanked him upright.
“When is the last time they gave you something to eat?” Aeryn was kneeling in front of him, pulling his boots
off. “John? Think.”
“No food. She let me drink some stuff, but nothing to eat.” He blinked, trying to clear his vision as the second
boot dropped away.
“Swallow these,” she ordered, handing him a small fistful of tablets. He fumbled the rattling collection, the
shaking that had infected his hands making it difficult to juggle them to his mouth. “Frell,” Aeryn swore quietly,
tipping them back into her own hand. “Open up.”
“You can’t give him that many,” the second person objected as she thrust the collection into John’s mouth for
him.
“Shut up. Only two are the boosters, the rest are caloric supplements.” Aeryn placed a bundle of clothing on
the bunk and began separating out the different items. “Get him undressed. Move! We don’t have much
time.”
“Who’s he?” John asked. The cell made one huge looping orbit around him and he started to topple over. The
stranger grabbed him firmly around the shoulders and pulled him upright again. One hand steadied him and
the other flipped up the tinted visor on the helmet. “Frell,” John exclaimed. “How’d you get here?”
“Special invitation from the Peacekeepers,” Gallenn grinned at him. “They sent a ship all the way to find me,
and even blew the crap out of my repair shop to convince me that I should come with them.” He had two black
eyes and a split lip, suggesting that they’d treated him to a more standard form of interrogation. “You look like
dren, Crichton.” He finished unfastening Crichton’s coveralls and pulled them down to his waist.
“You look like you got --” John started to tip over, the drift arrested by Gallenn before it went too far. “Like you
got shot by an ugly gun,” he finished, snickering at the small joke. He was going to say something else to his
friend, but Aeryn pulled him closer to the edge of the bunk and the small motion spun his thoughts off into outer
space. “I’m in outer space,” he shared the revelation with them, trying to figure out why they were removing his
clothes. Only Grayza ever wanted him undressed, although he didn’t mind if Aeryn wanted to take his clothes
off. He just couldn’t think why she would want him undressed at a time like this.
“We’ll never get him into the uniform,” Aeryn said, talking past him. John was still wondering what type of
uniform she wanted him to wear when she abruptly yanked the overalls out from under his buttocks and tossed
them to one side. “John, for frell’s sake! You have to concentrate. Help us get you into these clothes.” She
was trying to feed his arms into a long sleeved black shirt. He stared at his hands for several microts, finally
managed to clench his fists and shoved them down into the fabric.
The next few moments felt like a roller-coaster ride as they shifted him, pulled him up, sat him down, shoved him
around, and finally managed to get him into leather pants, and a heavy jacket. Aeryn gave up on the socks
with a frustrated growl when it was taking too long to get them on over his unresisting feet. She jammed them
into the pockets of his jacket instead and stuffed his bare feet into the heavy boots without the extra layer,
yanking the laces tight. “Too tight,” he complained, because he never liked it when his boots were that snug.
“Too bad. We’ll fix them later.” She straightened up from adjusting his pants around the boot tops and faced
him eye to eye. “I know you’re tired, John, but I want you to concentrate.” His head was spinning, making it
difficult to keep her in focus, but he nodded anyway.
“You’re drunk,” Aeryn ordered him as they pulled him to his feet. “Remember that. You’re drunk, John. You’ve
had ten raslaks --”
“More like twenty,” Gallenn interjected, getting under John’s arm.
“You’ve had too much raslak and you’re drunk. Can you remember that?” She ducked down to retrieve her
helmet, sliding it on one-handed as she supported John on the other side.
“I’m drunk,” he repeated obediently. His legs promptly tried for an Oscar performance, giving out completely.
“Oh crap! Next stop bargain basement.”
“Crichton, you weigh as much as a budong,” came a complaint from Gallenn as the two levered him back up.
“Give us a little help here.”
“Not too much talking, it’ll give us away,” Aeryn instructed as they lurched toward the door. “Visor down,” she
ordered Gallenn, and he spared a hand to snap the shield into place. Crichton closed his eyes and tried to
concentrate on the fact that Aeryn was beside him and that his performance would determine if they all got out
safely.
“John, what are you?” her voice prompted beside him as they stood facing the door.
His first reaction was to answer ‘an astronaut’. He remembered something she’d told him. “I’m drunk.” Keeping
his eyes closed helped him focus, and the dark didn’t make the dizziness any worse than before.
“Good. That’s all you have to remember for a little while.” They started to move forward. “Wait,” she
commanded. Everything stopped. Gloved fingers pressed against the underside of his jaw. “John, close your
mouth.” He couldn’t remember how to make that happen. “John, you’re drooling. Even a drunk Peacekeeper
doesn’t drool. Close your mouth.” The fingers pushed harder and he clamped his teeth together.
“You obviously never saw him after an entire night in the bar,” Gallenn’s voice echoed from inside his helmet.
“Don’t distract him,” she snapped.
John kept his eyes closed, holding on to the few things that Aeryn wanted him to remember. Stay on his feet,
keep his mouth closed, he’s drunk … Aeryn had come to get him as she promised, she’d come back for him this
time. His knees buckled as the relief washed through him, and they yanked him upright. He set the mantra
running again, concentrating on the three small requirements. Stay on his feet, mouth closed, drunk. They
staggered forward together.
“Here we go,” Aeryn said, and the door slid open.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
Chapter 5
“Frell, frell, frell,” Gallenn muttered. The switching components were so far inside the engine compartment he
was nearly inverted; only his lower legs jutted out of the access hatch. He yanked on the damaged circuit for
the sixth time and it finally came loose, his knuckles striking a brace on the way out. He sucked on the bloody
scrape for a moment then continued his whispered complaints. “I’m going to make sure you get free, because I
want to kill you myself. No sane person puts these things this far inside.” He twisted his body to look out the
hatch, yelled “Watch your heads!” and heaved the useless circuitry out the opening past his feet. An angry cry
suggested that someone hadn’t heeded his call.
The new part slid into place more easily, the cabling was attached without trouble, and a quarter of an arn later
he was wriggling carefully out of the compartment. He fastened the outer hull plate into place and climbed
down the ladder to start working on the other engine.
“This yours?” a gruff voice demanded. A hand holding the discarded chunk of circuitry was thrust under his
nose, the rest of the angry tech officer appearing a microt later.
“Not really,” he answered. “Technically it belongs to whoever owns the ship.” It was out before he had time to
assume the more deferential tones of a Peacekeeper tech. “Sir,” he added lamely after a too-long pause. He
stared straight forward, waiting to see how bad it was going to get. The silence lengthened. “Sorry, sir,” he
added after a couple more microts.
“We’ve all got it bad enough being assigned here before the clean-up is finished. Don’t make it any worse for
the rest of us.” The lieutenant breathing down his neck was wearing the shoulder tabs of a non-combat
specialist, with the patches designating some sort of surveillance unit. “Don’t do it again.”
“Sir,” Gallenn acknowledged. He waited until the man disappeared inside the ship, then heaved a sigh of relief
and walked around the tail of the ship, headed for the hamman side engine. There were a couple of non-rated
techs working there, both of them wearing the same patches as the officer. They were removing every access
hatch, searching inside, and then carefully replacing the plates.
“What did you guys do to deserve this?” he asked nonchalantly. The stench in the hangar seemed to be the
topic of the day.
“We didn’t fini --” one of them started to answer.
“Nothing!” the other drowned him out. “We have a job to do, smell or no smell.” The two men went back to
work, their heads and shoulders disappearing inside the skin of the ship as they continued their search.
Gallenn bounded up the ladder to the second engine to discover that the maintenance panel had already been
removed, the cover clipped to one side of the opening. He wriggled in and began working without any delay.
Voices drifted up to him from below, muffled by the internal baffles of the ship, and he stopped moving in order
to listen.
“What’s the big deal?” came the voice of one of the men outside the craft.
The second man answered angrily. “You don’t know who he reports to, you frellnik! Tell him we didn’t really
finish the search the first time like we reported, and we’ll be next on the sign-up list for the Aurora Chair. Did
someone use a laser probe to sear all your neurons?”
“Aren’t you done out there yet?” a different voice called impatiently. “We could use some help inside. There
are a lot of places in here that have to be searched.”
Gallenn resumed his work, wondering if there was anything aboard that Aeryn didn’t want discovered. He had
little choice other than to listen and wait to hear if they found something. The damaged switch popped out
more easily than the previous one, sparing his knuckles this time, and he began securing the new one in
place. A loud clang sent vibrations through his body where he lay on the reinforcing struts, and he assumed
someone was working on the other side of the airtight hull.
“Sir!” a voice yelled in excitement. “I found something!”
Gallenn stopped working again, concentrating on the muffled voices. The conversation provided enough clues
that he was certain they’d found several gear bags hidden inside the maintenance space, and that they were
going through the contents. The officer must have been standing close to the open panel inside the ship,
because he heard every word clearly as they reported to someone named Braca and described the woman’s
garments they’d found, as well as the weapons and uniforms contained in the bags.
He stopped listening and focused on getting the ship repaired, ignoring the occasional scrape or cut knuckle as
he hurried. They’d found Aeryn’s possessions, which meant that they’d be searching for her, and their time
was running out.
* * * * *
Aeryn knelt near the bath, her entire body shaking as she struggled to restrain herself. The stimulants she had
taken earlier were goading her to do something foolish, encouraging her to give in to the violent, physical
solution to the scene unfolding before her. She’d retreated to this spot when Grayza had entered the quarters,
choosing the relatively empty area around the large tub because it gave her room to get out of the way if
Grayza brought John into this area. The ugly panorama had unfolded entirely on the bed however, every detail
illuminated by the bright, focused lighting.
Mele-On Grayza hadn’t bothered to look at John when she’d first entered. She’d strolled toward her work
surface with her usual arrogant elegance, tossed several data chips down and punched up some data,
pointedly ignoring him. John had gotten to his feet, nearly bumping into Aeryn before she could move away
from him, and had worked his way to the far side of the room, holding on to the half-height wall for support.
She’d used that moment to dodge around him and scamper up the stairs to where she could watch and not
worry about being detected or run over by the room’s other two occupants.
Grayza had pulled a chip out of the viewer, tossed it aside, and finally turned to look at him. “Save your
energy, Crichton. Answer my questions now, and you can go back to your cell and sleep.”
“And miss the best little whorehouse in the Uncharted Territories?” he’d asked, easing further to one side as
Grayza advanced.
“This resistance is futile, Crichton,” Grayza said, moving after him.
“Resistance is futile?” he repeated on a hysterical sounding laugh. His giggles had continued as he backed
away, sounding increasingly manic with every passing microt. “I’ll give it a shot anyway.” His retreat had ended
when he ran out of the half-wall to hang onto, barely able to stand as he jammed himself into a corner and tried
to slap Grayza’s hands away. It had taken only a small tug for the officer to yank him out of his corner. She’d
hung on to him to break his fall as he collapsed at her feet.
Aeryn had watched with horrified fascination as Grayza had knelt alongside him, fingering his lips, talking to him
too softly for Aeryn to hear. Microts later he’d become an obedient automaton, complying with every one of
Grayza’s instructions, whether it was delivered verbally or by gesture. He’d allowed himself to be guided to the
bed, and had let her strip off his clothes without a complaint.
And now she was trapped in this spartan, militaristic brothel, forced to watch and listen as Grayza somehow
turned John into a willing participant in this twisted version of lust. She hadn’t seen a drug being administered,
and he hadn’t been given anything to eat or drink, but she knew that he would never submit to this unless he
was being influenced in some way.
The energy booster’s effects surged through her, and she fingered her pistol through the slick fabric of the suit,
resisting the desire to put a pulse blast through the commandant’s naked chest. Aeryn eyed the pale, smooth
skin of the woman’s breasts and a memory teased her, suggesting that she should know how Grayza was
managing to alter John’s behavior without offering up the forgotten information.
“We have much to talk about, Crichton,” Grayza’s voice said firmly, projecting to where Aeryn knelt.
“The cheerful … interrogator.” John’s sarcasm was clear despite a mild slurring of his speech. “Colonel Von
Scherbach, I presume?” Aeryn nodded with satisfaction at the untranslatable term, the Earth phrase
demonstrating that his underlying personality remained unaltered.
“‘Colonel’ I understand. What is the rest?” Grayza was reclining next to him, one hand exploring his chest.
“Von Scherbach,” he repeated. “Officer and interrogator at Stalag 17. Never got Dunbar to break.”
“I seem to be doing better than this Scherbach,” the silky tones countered.
“Talking isn’t the same thing as breaking,” he disagreed with her.
Aeryn got to her feet and moved closer, her curiosity piqued by his defiant answers, and wished that she
hadn’t. Grayza rose to her knees and leaned over John’s motionless body, her hands beginning a slow
migration from shoulders to toes and back up -- exploring, caressing, and teasing him, finally moving to kneel
between his legs and concentrating her efforts there. He began to respond, but slowly, as though his fatigue
and his willpower had teamed up to fight a loosing battle against a common enemy.
“John, I’m sure you can do better than that,” Grayza’s oily voice purred from the bed, her hands continuing their
efforts. Aeryn took two more steps forward, needing to move to a spot where she couldn’t see what was going
on, the sight of what was being done to him making her lightheaded and clumsy. John’s head rolled away from
Grayza, coming to rest at an awkward angle facing the raised bathing area where she stood. His eyes
wandered about the room as the commandant continued to work over him, his expression empty and bleak, and
she nearly went to his rescue at that look of inner devastation.
That body belonged to her now, given to her freely the night he’d said ‘All right’. The simple phrase had been a
gift from him, delivering two precious items into her care: one more chance to be with him, and the right to
caress the lean angles of bone, rounded muscles, and the warm skin. She’d searched for him, fought to break
down the walls, provided the warmth to bring him back to life when he’d almost frozen to death, and had
persevered when he’d almost turned away from her. This was the man that fate and destiny had brought to her
side, and the sight of Grayza using him this way ignited an almost uncontrollable rage.
She held still, closed her eyes to block out what was happening in front of her, and fought the compulsion to kill
one more time.
It would have been easier if she could have spoken the words out loud, instead of reviewing the arguments
inside her head, but she envisioned each factor clearly and gradually got herself under control. John could
barely stand, let alone walk; there were four guards outside the quarters; she didn’t have a spare uniform with
her and she couldn’t traverse the corridors holding up a staggering ghost; and most importantly, by the time
she unsealed the suit and extracted the pulse pistol, she’d be seen and the guards would be inside Grayza’s
quarters. Getting him out safely had to remain her first concern.
Aeryn shuddered at the sounds of Grayza’s quiet encouragements, accepted the fact that she’d have to wait
through this interrogation, and opened her eyes. The view before her almost destroyed her tenuous control.
She would have to move to a spot where she couldn’t see what was going on. She took three steps forward,
headed toward the stairs to the lower level, and froze as John’s eyes swiveled in her direction. She stared back
into those empty blue eyes, unwilling to more even a finger until he looked away. His stare was a coincidence
of timing and placement, but she didn’t want to take a chance that he might actually notice the flickering
distortion of the suit against the even colored background. It would destroy him if he knew that she was
watching this abomination.
“You aren’t enjoying yourself,” Grayza’s voice rose from the quiet undertone she’d been using. “Let me help
you.” The officer’s long fingers wandered up her own chest, passing between the naked breasts, then she
reached to roll John’s head to face her.
“Let me,” she whispers. He kneels before her and lets her pull his shorts down, his hands resting on her wrists,
willingly allowing her to undress him …
Enamel crackled as she ground her teeth together, her body frozen in place by anger rather than by caution.
“No!” John’s slurred growl demanded. He grabbed at her wrist as she reached toward his face, missed, tried
again. “Don’t.” The second demand was closer to a plea, punctuated by a loud slap as he batted her hand
away. Grayza moved fast, pinning him down with one hand and her body, easily defeating John’s fumbling
attempts to escape. Aeryn shook herself free of her paralysis and used the distraction to drift carefully down
the stairs, looking for some place to wait until the doors to the chamber reopened.
“Don’t … do … that,” John demanded again. Aeryn turned slowly, hearing the desperation in his voice,
powerless not to look. Grayza brushed her fingers across his lips, caressing him in an odd manner. He jerked,
lunged beneath her, still fighting, and she repeated the soft fingering motions. A microt later John’s free hand
snaked behind Grayza’s head and he pulled her against him more firmly, yanking her down into a deep,
open-mouthed kiss. The two bodies on the bed rolled over, arms and legs entwining, torsos rubbing tight
against each other and Aeryn looked away.
She had the answer, but solving the mystery brought her no pleasure. It had to be heppel oil. As unbelievable
as it seemed, there was no other explanation. She’d heard that some of the less proficient members of Special
Directorate had resorted to the implantation, using the gland’s emulsions to achieve what their own talents
could not, but she hadn’t believed the rumors until now. She hadn’t believe it until John fell victim to its
influence.
The sounds of air circulation and the hushed rumble of machinery faded away, drowned out by the sighs,
grunts, and slobbering of the lengthening kisses coming from the bed. It had been her decision to follow him
here; her vow that she would rescue him that had brought her to this time and place. She never could have
foreseen this mutual torture.
Grayza sat up for a microt, pulling away from him. Aeryn flinched as he let out a quiet growl and pulled her
back down, one of his hands reaching between her legs. “Would you like to, Crichton?” Grayza invited him with
a husky whisper. “Would you enjoy that?”
His fingers drift slowly up her thighs, slowing to a stop as his laugh rumbles low and soft. “Can I Aeryn? Would
that be all right?”
She turned away too late, the sight of the slow touches burned forever into her memory, numb feet making too
much noise, but not enough to be heard over his sighs. She glanced around the lower expanse of Grayza’s
quarters, finally stumbling toward a small area of shadow near the side of the desk. Slanting shadows
concealed the suit better than most other lighting conditions. If she sat still, she would be undetectable. Aeryn
put her back against the smooth metal side of the desk, using the cool sensation against her shoulders as a
focus around which to gather her drifting thoughts. The sighs and moans behind her were accelerating,
becoming more frantic.
John’s familiar deep rumbles warned of an impending climax, the sounds carrying clearly in the otherwise silent
quarters. “Not yet,” Grayza said calmly, her voice empty of passion. “Not yet, Crichton.”
“Aeryn, wait,” he gasps, telling her he’s too close to losing control. She slows her movements, letting him ease
back from the edge so they can come together, so they can share the joy.
John let out an extended groan. “First I want you to tell me something,” Grayza demanded.
“What?” he asked, the word squeezed out at the tail end of a breath.
A confused snarl of emotions -- concern, love, guilt that she had brought him to this moment, and anger at
Grayza -- magnified her existing fatigue and distaste for what she’d been forced to do over the past days,
attacking on a physical level. She leaned forward, close to vomiting, her stomach twisting painfully in an
attempt to eject its contents. She sat with her head hanging between her bent knees and forced the surge of
pressure back where it belonged. The air inside the hood seemed to thicken, making it hard to breathe. Aware
that it was an enormous risk, she eased the face flap away, letting the fresh air flood in, deep breaths helping
to quell the nausea.
“Crichton. You must tell me.” Grayza’s voice interrupted her battle with her stomach. “Where is Aeryn Sun?
Where is the traitor?”
“She … left,” he groaned quietly. “The bitch took off.” His harsh pronouncement emerged on accelerating
explosions of air.
“Not true, Crichton. We know she found you at the repair facility. Your friend was most forthcoming once he
experienced the less gentle influence of the Aurora Chair.” John groaned long and deep, a rumbling statement
of despair rather than passion. “Aeryn Sun left that planet in the ship now impounded in this carrier. Where is
she? Where did she go?” Grayza insisted. Aeryn held her breath. Aside from being the ultimate aphrodisiac,
heppel was reputed to be an irresistible truth-drug. The entire rescue was in jeopardy.
“Don’t know.” John cried out in excitement, the tones more horrible for being so familiar. “Please,” he begged
the commandant. Aeryn began to get up, needing to see what the woman was doing to him. “Oh god!” he
moaned, and she subsided, revolted by the thought of watching.
“You are lovers,” Grayza prompted. “We wish to locate Aeryn Sun. Tell me where she has gone.”
“Not any more. She … she … doesn’t love me any more. I … don’t love … her,” he gasped.
“Aeryn Sun,” Grayza demanded again. “Where is she?”
“She left, she left, she left,” John insisted, sounding increasingly short of breath.
“She found you at the repair facility, which has since been destroyed. Where did you take her?”
“I … I … ” He growled long and deep, a sound of anguish rather than passion. Aeryn fastened the face flap
and stole a look at the bed. He was shaking his head frantically, continuing the denial silently. Her eyes
remained trapped on the horrible tableau as Grayza gathered more heppel oil and set about working Crichton
into a more unresisting state.
“She was there. Where did you take her?” Grayza demanded again. Aeryn tore her eyes away from the sight
and sat down again, hugging her knees against her chest as the interrogation continued.
“She … found … me,” John admitted. “I … sent her away!” He had sent her away when she’d found him in the
command carrier wreckage. It was a half-truth. The evasion seemed to give him strength in his struggle to
avoid the truth. “Rambo Chick took off on me a long time ago. This time I told her to take a hike. I don’t know
where … ” He broke off into a long series of shuddering sighs.
Somehow he was managing to lie against the heppel oil, resisting the mental influence even if he couldn’t deny
the physical arousal. Aeryn clamped both forearms across her ears, clasped her hands behind her head to
hold them there, and tried to ignore the remaining noises that made it through. She didn’t need to hear
anything more. His repeated evasion of the entire truth brought home what it had taken her almost too long to
understand -- that John Crichton would endure almost anything in order to keep her safe.
The voices continued to filter through the muffling of her arms, each of Grayza’s repeated demands followed by
the deeper-voiced jerking responses from John. Aeryn closed her eyes, trying to block out the visions being
provided by her imagination, but it only provided a dark backdrop for the mental image of the entangled
bodies. Louder cries infiltrated past her clamped arms, telling her that the ‘interrogation’ was drawing to a
close. Aeryn stared at the floor between her feet and concentrated on the sound of her pulse beating inside
her ears.
Silence reigned at last, and she slowly unclamped her arms, letting in first the quiet rush of air through the
chamber’s ventilation system, then the slightly louder sighs of post-coitus recovery. She got up slowly, giving
her legs time to adjust to the new position.
It wasn’t over. John was face down, limbs flung out in four directions, but Grayza was continuing to work over
the exhausted body. The slender fingers wandered up and down his ribs as she ran her tongue slowly along
the scar on John’s back, tracing its course from ribs to spine to shoulder, then moving on to nuzzle the side of
his neck. Aeryn remained standing, watching deliberately this time, allowing the knot of rage within to expand,
feeding on the sight, the heat of her anger compounding with every passing microt.
She took several steps toward the bed, already unfastening the front of the suit to get at her pulse pistol, intent
on killing Grayza. Her feet stopped at the bottom of the steps, coming to a halt as logic elbowed its way back
into her thinking. The factors she’d reviewed earlier paled before one additional consideration. If she
appeared out of thin air to kill Grayza now, John would know that she’d been there the entire time, and had
watched when she could have stopped it.
Aeryn sealed the suit and stepped back to her spot by the desk, her self-control restored. Commandant
Mele-On Grayza would have to die some other time.
“There are a few other things I’d like you to tell me,” Grayza began again.
“You’ve drained one part of me, why not my head?” he groaned. “I gave you everything I know.”
“You have not satisfied me on the topic of Aeryn Sun, and we need to talk about your engines again,” she
suggested. “They can be used as a weapon. Tell me about that.”
“Get frelled,” John responded weakly, his face buried in the pillows.
Mele-On Grayza laughed quietly. “I just did.” Grayza began moving his arms and legs, rearranging his body to
suit her tastes. “I’m afraid this may take longer than the last session. I hope you won’t find it too tiring.”
Aeryn gnawed on her lower lip, scanning the commandant’s quarters for any piece of equipment that she could
use to create a diversion. She had to bring this nightmare of voyeurism to an end, both for herself and for
John.
Help came from an unexpected source. “Commandant Grayza,” a familiar voice blared from the ship’s comms.
“I gave orders not to be disturbed, Lieutenant Braca,” she snapped back at her subordinate. Her tone used his
rank as a threat, clearly implying that he was facing a demotion if the interruption was not merited.
“Yes, ma’am. I think you’ll want to hear this. The search has yielded something.”
The commandant stood up, wrapping one of the satiny bed covers around her body several times, then pulling
a long tail over her shoulder. “Report,” she commanded over the comms.
“The search team has found a collection of uniforms and weapons hidden aboard the ship,” Braca’s
transmission continued. “The clothing belongs to a woman.”
“Get in here!” Grayza yelled, her calm demeanor shattering all at once. She turned back to where Crichton lay
motionless on the bed. “Aeryn Sun. She’s aboard this carrier, isn’t she?”
Aeryn watched with pride as he raised himself up on his elbows and turned to look at Grayza. His was barely
able to lift his upper body, but he remained defiant. “Aeryn who?” he mocked the Peacekeeper officer.
The door slid open, the lock released from the outside, and ‘Aeryn-who’ stepped out of the way as Braca
entered. She took a cautious step toward the open door, then retreated to a spot against the wall when she
saw that there were four guards in the corridor, their combined mass blocking the exit.
“Ma’am?” Braca inquired, waiting for orders.
She held her hand up to quiet him, concentrating on her victim who had slumped back onto the mattress. “This
has all been Officer Sun, hasn’t it?” He didn’t answer. “Hasn’t it?” she demanded more loudly.
“It was Claude Rains.” His voice barely carried to the lower level this time, and it sounded as though he was
finally going to sleep.
“Lies, it was all lies. You’re still lying.” The infuriated accusations increased in volume. “Where is she? Where
is she hiding?”
“She left, she left, she left,” chanted John’s rasping, shaking voice. They were the same words he’d used
earlier, but this time there was a note of triumph behind the repetition. “Gone, disappeared, not here,
bye-bye.”
Grayza turned with a quiet hiss of anger, leaving him there for everyone to see, undressed and uncovered.
“Get in here!” she barked at the guards. Two of them hustled inside, their armor clashing as they came to
attention. She flicked a finger absently in Braca’s direction to get his attention, consulting her work surface as
the displays came to life. “Take Crichton back to his cell and prepare the Aurora Chair. Crichton knows where
Aeryn Sun is hiding. She is the key. We must capture her.”
Grayza glanced at the motionless guards. “Move!” They clattered up the stairs toward the sleeping area.
“Cholak’s demon,” she hissed. “Crichton’s personal demon. She must have that mechanic with her. Watch for
both of them. Full security lock down. No one moves unless they have specific duties. How many personnel
have gone missing, Braca?”
“Twelve that we know of so far, ma’am.”
“Twelve. Find those bodies and find out where they were assigned when they disappeared. Track her
movements. It will help us trap her.”
Braca nodded an acknowledgement as he stepped back to allow the guards to pass, watching with satisfaction
as they dragged a clothed, barely conscious Crichton down the stairs and out of the chamber. “Right away,
Commandant,” he answered once they’d gone past.
Aeryn didn’t hesitate when the guards left the room. She pushed away from the wall and went out the door less
than half a motra behind John’s trailing feet. Grayza was still issuing orders to Lieutenant Braca as she turned
away, but she didn’t dare stay to listen. Time was of the essence now; security aboard the carrier would get
tighter with every passing microt. She gave John one last look and started to run toward the hangar deck.
* * * * *
Gallenn pulled an access panel off the treblin side engine cowling and ducked inside, pretending to tinker with
the components. More than an arn had passed since the search team had transmitted their findings to their
superiors, and he knew that he wouldn’t be able to hang around the ship much longer without someone noticing
that he wasn’t really working on anything.
“Come on, Aeryn,” he whispered inside the compartment. “Hurry up.” Every microt that she didn’t appear
made it more likely that she’d been caught, which meant that he was trapped aboard the carrier as well. He
surveyed the tangle of components, reviewing the hetch components for anything that would allow him to
destroy the rhotarri drive. The ship was useless to him without either Crichton or Aeryn to fly it; the best he
could do was to honor her request to keep the rhotarri technology out of Peacekeeper hands.
“You! Get down here!” He jumped at the shouted summons and banged his head on the inside of the cowling.
He backed out more cautiously on the second try. A chief technician was standing at the bottom of the
scaffolding with one of the helmeted security troops beside him. Gallenn pointed inquiring at his own chest,
trying for a look of innocent confusion. “Yes, you!” the chief called up. “Close the panel first!” the man yelled
as Gallenn moved toward the ladder.
He complied with the order, fumbling the process to give himself time. “It’s been fun,” he offered quietly as the
last latch slid into place, and turned to slide down the ladder. The best he could hope for now was a quick
death. “Sir?” he asked the supervisor, snapping to attention.
“You’re wanted for questioning. Something to do with a malfunction in the surveillance systems in the detention
block.” The security guard swung her pulse rifle around, aiming it at the center of his chest, and Gallenn
looked at the figure in armored leather more carefully. The rifle jerked to one side, ordering him to proceed,
and he headed obediently toward one of the exits. They passed through the security station without stopping,
the guards scarcely looking at them as a member of their own regiment escorted him out of the hangar.
“Hurry up,” the guard behind him ordered curtly, and they broke into a jog. “Stop,” he was ordered. “In there.”
The pulse rifle jabbed toward a maintenance crawlspace and he dove through the circular entrance headfirst,
scrambling out of the way as Aeryn came in behind him. “To the right,” she ordered again.
“Scared the stuffin’ out of me,” he complained as they turned the corner so they were out of sight of the
corridor. She gave him a small shove and he scuttled forward, spotting a pile of gear several motras ahead.
“They know we’re on board, and they know it’s me, but they don’t know about the stealth suit yet. This was the
only way I could think of to get you out of there without passing through the genetic scans.” She pulled her
helmet off and set it aside. “Change uniforms.” She tossed a security guard’s uniform at him, complete with
boots and helmet.
“Lake level rising again?” he asked, shucking off the tech’s overalls.
She grimaced. “This one got stuffed in a closet and the lock somehow got melted into fused slag. It’ll take arns
for them to open the door.” She was bundling a third uniform into a tight ball, wrapping everything inside the
jacket. “We’ve run out of time. Is the ship fixed?” He nodded, struggling to get into the leather pants in the
tight confines of the tunnel.
“Yeah. I heard the search team find your gear. I was starting to think you’d been caught.” He caught the boot
she’d loosened for him and pulled it on. “Too small,” he commented, lacing it anyway.
“Curl your toes and live with it.” She tossed him the second boot, then got to her feet, crouching in the
confined space as he finished dressing.
“They’re not that small, but thanks for the sympathy anyway. What’s the plan?” He was dressed, tugging at the
jacket to get the thick, built-in armor settled into place.
“We’re going to go into the control room, kill the guards, put John in the third uniform, and run. Shoot anything
that gets in our way. I saw him, but he’s not in very good shape. We’re going to have to practically carry him.”
She took a deep breath and pulled her helmet on. “Are you ready for this?”
“Ready for this? Oh yeah. I run around command carriers helping people escape all the time.” He pulled the
helmet on one-handed and took the pulse rifle she offered him. “And I always do it in boots that are too small.”
Aeryn looked over her shoulder at him, shaking her head. “What?” he asked, questioning the disgust in her
expression.
“I think Crichton’s worn off on you,” she said, giving him another quick shake of her head. “He’s been a bad
influence.” Then she turned the corner and was checking to make sure the corridor was empty before they
emerged from the tunnel.
“I always figured it was the other way around,” he offered, and followed her.
* * * * *
“Round and round the mulberry bush, the monkey chased the weasel … ” Crichton stared at the metal wall,
trying to remember what it had felt like to have his brain torn apart by the Aurora Chair. He wondered if it still
revolved as it probed into its victim’s most personal thoughts and splashed them onto the screen for the
universe to review. “Time for the Marquis de Sade’s merry-go-round.” He was so damned tired. He snickered,
envisioning nothing more than a television test pattern appearing on the screen accompanied by its monotone
wail. “Tha’ would serve ‘em right,” he mumbled into the surface of the bunk.
It didn’t matter that he was out of energy; the power of the Chair would fuse itself with his mind and take
whatever it wanted. It would rip everything out, allowing Grayza to run her hands through his memories now
that she was done running her hands across his body. He could hear the boots coming down the steel-decked
hallway toward his cell; the dual hammering of feet setting up the echoing that said his brief moment of peace
was over.
“It’s déjà vu all over again …” But his old line brought the threat of tears this time, not the cynical laughter. He
was just so damned tired, and he missed Aeryn. He’d managed to keep her safe so far. The Chair would likely
change that. He devoted a little energy to rubbing at his eyes, forcing the stinging promise of tears back where
it had come from before the guards could see the liquid evidence of his weakness.
“Fly safe,” he whispered, trying to invoke the talisman of that phrase. She would fly nowhere at all if he couldn’t
keep the secret about the suit hidden from the invasive power of the Chair.
The door opened with its usual deep-throated grinding and the boots clashed into the cell. They’d dumped him
on the bunk facedown when they’d brought him back this last time, his head facing toward the wall, and he
couldn’t think of a reason why he should expend the effort to look at his captors. He’d save what little energy
he had left for what lay ahead.
“John,” the quiet summons broke into his daze. “Wake up. We have to move fast.”
They were always in a rush, hurrying to get him to Grayza’s soft killing ground, but they rarely asked him so
nicely. And never in a voice that sent chills up his spine in this manner. Crichton stared at the wall and thought
about the softly voiced demand, pondering the differences from the usual shouted orders.
“John … can you hear me?” The second question interrupted his consideration of the first one, and he had to
start over again at the beginning. “He’s unconscious. We’ll have to hope he comes to before we have to
move,” the voice said behind him.
“Aeryn?” He tried to turn over. His arms moved but not in the directions he’d hoped for, leaving him beached
on his stomach. They flipped him onto his back, two sets of hands rolling him over quickly but carefully. He
looked at the face framed by the helmet and he started to shake with relief.
“Aeryn,” he breathed, wanting to say more, but not able to find the words to describe what he was feeling. He
reached up with a shaking hand to touch her cheek, wanting to make sure that this was the real thing. None of
the other dream visitors had been wearing Peacekeeper black; they’d all been wearing the magic suit that kept
her secret and safe. She caught his trembling fingers and pressed them to her lips, confirming that she was
more than a projection of his exhausted subconscious. There was a second guard standing just out of sight
near the head of the bunk, waiting as she finished checking him for injuries, but he had eyes only for the pale
face bending over him. “Is ‘bout … time.”
She ignored his small complaint, remaining focused on the task at hand. “Can you sit up?”
Her hair was bound back in the obsessively neat braid she’d worn cycles ago, leaving the angular features
exposed in sharp relief. The uniform was standard Peacekeeper issue, the familiar gleaming black leather
emphasizing the clean lines of her face and the dark eyes. Aeryn was once again the meticulously perfect
soldier, the stolen uniform like a second skin on the body that had been bred to wear it.
“You’re beautiful,” he commented, wondering why she was in such a hurry.
The grayish eyes flicked toward his face, and she gave him a small smile. “Thank you. Come on, John, you
have to sit up.” She motioned to her companion and between them they yanked him upright.
“When is the last time they gave you something to eat?” Aeryn was kneeling in front of him, pulling his boots
off. “John? Think.”
“No food. She let me drink some stuff, but nothing to eat.” He blinked, trying to clear his vision as the second
boot dropped away.
“Swallow these,” she ordered, handing him a small fistful of tablets. He fumbled the rattling collection, the
shaking that had infected his hands making it difficult to juggle them to his mouth. “Frell,” Aeryn swore quietly,
tipping them back into her own hand. “Open up.”
“You can’t give him that many,” the second person objected as she thrust the collection into John’s mouth for
him.
“Shut up. Only two are the boosters, the rest are caloric supplements.” Aeryn placed a bundle of clothing on
the bunk and began separating out the different items. “Get him undressed. Move! We don’t have much
time.”
“Who’s he?” John asked. The cell made one huge looping orbit around him and he started to topple over. The
stranger grabbed him firmly around the shoulders and pulled him upright again. One hand steadied him and
the other flipped up the tinted visor on the helmet. “Frell,” John exclaimed. “How’d you get here?”
“Special invitation from the Peacekeepers,” Gallenn grinned at him. “They sent a ship all the way to find me,
and even blew the crap out of my repair shop to convince me that I should come with them.” He had two black
eyes and a split lip, suggesting that they’d treated him to a more standard form of interrogation. “You look like
dren, Crichton.” He finished unfastening Crichton’s coveralls and pulled them down to his waist.
“You look like you got --” John started to tip over, the drift arrested by Gallenn before it went too far. “Like you
got shot by an ugly gun,” he finished, snickering at the small joke. He was going to say something else to his
friend, but Aeryn pulled him closer to the edge of the bunk and the small motion spun his thoughts off into outer
space. “I’m in outer space,” he shared the revelation with them, trying to figure out why they were removing his
clothes. Only Grayza ever wanted him undressed, although he didn’t mind if Aeryn wanted to take his clothes
off. He just couldn’t think why she would want him undressed at a time like this.
“We’ll never get him into the uniform,” Aeryn said, talking past him. John was still wondering what type of
uniform she wanted him to wear when she abruptly yanked the overalls out from under his buttocks and tossed
them to one side. “John, for frell’s sake! You have to concentrate. Help us get you into these clothes.” She
was trying to feed his arms into a long sleeved black shirt. He stared at his hands for several microts, finally
managed to clench his fists and shoved them down into the fabric.
The next few moments felt like a roller-coaster ride as they shifted him, pulled him up, sat him down, shoved him
around, and finally managed to get him into leather pants, and a heavy jacket. Aeryn gave up on the socks
with a frustrated growl when it was taking too long to get them on over his unresisting feet. She jammed them
into the pockets of his jacket instead and stuffed his bare feet into the heavy boots without the extra layer,
yanking the laces tight. “Too tight,” he complained, because he never liked it when his boots were that snug.
“Too bad. We’ll fix them later.” She straightened up from adjusting his pants around the boot tops and faced
him eye to eye. “I know you’re tired, John, but I want you to concentrate.” His head was spinning, making it
difficult to keep her in focus, but he nodded anyway.
“You’re drunk,” Aeryn ordered him as they pulled him to his feet. “Remember that. You’re drunk, John. You’ve
had ten raslaks --”
“More like twenty,” Gallenn interjected, getting under John’s arm.
“You’ve had too much raslak and you’re drunk. Can you remember that?” She ducked down to retrieve her
helmet, sliding it on one-handed as she supported John on the other side.
“I’m drunk,” he repeated obediently. His legs promptly tried for an Oscar performance, giving out completely.
“Oh crap! Next stop bargain basement.”
“Crichton, you weigh as much as a budong,” came a complaint from Gallenn as the two levered him back up.
“Give us a little help here.”
“Not too much talking, it’ll give us away,” Aeryn instructed as they lurched toward the door. “Visor down,” she
ordered Gallenn, and he spared a hand to snap the shield into place. Crichton closed his eyes and tried to
concentrate on the fact that Aeryn was beside him and that his performance would determine if they all got out
safely.
“John, what are you?” her voice prompted beside him as they stood facing the door.
His first reaction was to answer ‘an astronaut’. He remembered something she’d told him. “I’m drunk.” Keeping
his eyes closed helped him focus, and the dark didn’t make the dizziness any worse than before.
“Good. That’s all you have to remember for a little while.” They started to move forward. “Wait,” she
commanded. Everything stopped. Gloved fingers pressed against the underside of his jaw. “John, close your
mouth.” He couldn’t remember how to make that happen. “John, you’re drooling. Even a drunk Peacekeeper
doesn’t drool. Close your mouth.” The fingers pushed harder and he clamped his teeth together.
“You obviously never saw him after an entire night in the bar,” Gallenn’s voice echoed from inside his helmet.
“Don’t distract him,” she snapped.
John kept his eyes closed, holding on to the few things that Aeryn wanted him to remember. Stay on his feet,
keep his mouth closed, he’s drunk … Aeryn had come to get him as she promised, she’d come back for him this
time. His knees buckled as the relief washed through him, and they yanked him upright. He set the mantra
running again, concentrating on the three small requirements. Stay on his feet, mouth closed, drunk. They
staggered forward together.
“Here we go,” Aeryn said, and the door slid open.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
