WEIGHT OF THE WORLD 
Part One: Promises To Keep



It started without fanfare. One moment the stars glittered passively
on their smooth, black backdrop, shining their ancient light outwards
and onwards without complaint into infinity. And then, out of nowhere,
a glorious, beautiful cascade of swirling color and distortion was
born from nothing. If there was a shape to describe, funnel might be
the closest, but he was partial to seeing a bit more than that. Too
simple to say that it was a funnel of coruscating light. Perhaps
tunnel was better... but *gateway* was what he liked best.

Yes. Gateway. An opening into other dimensions, other realities, other
possibilities. So much was suddenly different now that this one
singularity had come into being.

He clasped his hands behind his back as he gazed on it from the
distance and safety of the research vessel. A wormhole. Finally. So
much effort and energy had been expended. And now, it all seemed
worthwhile.

"Sir?" The voice came from slightly behind him and he did not turn
from his view. "Shall we send in the probe for readings?"

"Of course, my dear." His voice was light with good cheer. Even if the
gateway collapsed within the next few seconds, it didn't matter. What
did matter was that *he* had initiated it. He had managed to call it,
create it, shape it from his own will. He wanted to glory in the
moment, he wanted to bask in it. The murmuring voices of the techs at
the control panels did not distract him as they went about their
business, the sight of the probe shooting out towards the gaping,
watery swirl did not disturb his focus. He only had eyes for the
vision he had wrought.

A thin smile cracked his face, more of a grimace when painted on his
ghastly features. He almost felt young. This would be the moment he
remembered long after he had perfected the technology. The moment
before. That crystalline span of microts between his life spent
striving and his life spent capitalizing.

He blinked then, the moment over. His eyes slanted down to a nearby
panel displaying the data the probe was collecting as it neared the
Neck. Extraordinary.

And when the silvery capsule entered the boundaries of the wormhole
and the entirety of it destabilized and sucked itself and the probe
into nonexistence, he did not stop smiling.

This was only the beginning, after all.

++++

A narrow marketplace stretched on either side of a dusty street,
dealers and sellers haggling and arguing and threatening. No animals
brayed, not that deep in the Uncharteds. Not on a dry, dead moon. It
was pure commerce, a waystation for travelers and traders. Men and
women of assorted alien races walked and shoved their way to and from
the space port, and to ears without translation, it was a babble of
incomprehensible syllables and inflections. But there were no ears
without translation, and only one set that was still young to that
translation.

"Just give her the credits already, Crichton." Her voice was an
impatient hiss, too low for the haggling shopkeeper to hear. He
ignored his companion and continued smiling his biggest 'I'm John
Crichton, aren't I charming and adorable' smile. The older Sebacean
behind the counter wasn't having any of it, but she did seem to slowly
be softening. 12 more credits, then he would go. "Crichton!" Her voice
was a little louder and he kicked her in the shin where the shopkeeper
couldn't see. Aeryn quieted, but he knew he would have to pay for that
later.

"I understand that you're a hard working lady," he said, folding his
arms on the counter, hitting her with both barrels of his blue eyes.
"But you know and I know that these spanners are not new. They're not
even just used, they're one step away from being tossed in the trash."
His voice was amiable, light. He could read it in the woman's eyes,
Jalaya, that she was enjoying the attention she was getting from him,
even though he could also see that she knew he was smooth-talking her.
She tilted her neatly groomed head of gray hair to one side, eyeing
him with just one corner of her mouth turned up. She moved closer to
him, putting both hands on the counter and leaning forward,
unabashedly meeting his eyes. Unafraid to get into his space.

"You're pretty used to getting your own way, aren't you my handsome
friend?"

It threw him, but only just a little. He let his smile broaden. He
could sense Aeryn fuming next to him, her annoyance burning like
someone had turned on a heater nearby.

"Not at all, actually. I don't think the Universe has been very
accommodating in that regard."

"It never is, darling. There's not much in life that's fair, as you
must know, and, realist that I am, I go with the flow."

"You saying that you're not fair?" John grinned.

"Darn straight, cutie." She leaned back then, turning to rattle
through one of the neatly organized bins behind her. Jalaya Tunn was
perhaps one of the most organized used-parts dealers he had ever seen.
And after almost three cycles of hopping from one commerce planet to
the next, he had seen more than a few. "But," she was saying as she
rummaged, "that's not to say that I can't recognize a true master in
the fine art of flirting to get what he wants." Her voice was a little
muffled as she leaned further into the bin. She re-emerged, turning
and holding up an odd twisted bit of bio-mech circuitry. For a moment,
his face forgot to be charming and it went blank. He glanced over at
Aeryn and saw that even through her irritation, she was shocked.

"I thought you said that you didn't have the regulator. That 'no one
had that kinda fancy part this far out in the Uncharteds'. Aeryn's
voice was just one step up from cold. It was a part that had been on
their list for a cycle and a half. Bio-mech was not standard, and very
hard to come by. Neither of them ever expected to actually *get* the
part when they asked for it. Jalaya shrugged, unrepentant, smiling
benignly.

"Let's just say that I like you. That it's been a long time since
anyone even bothered to try and charm their way through a negotiation
with me." She grinned then, reaching out to poke John right between
the eyes. "And you look a lot like my son mighta, if he'd listened to
me and not joined the PKs."

"How much?" Aeryn was not going to stand for much more of this. Her
voice spoke volumes about how little *she* appreciated John's charm
technique. He was unapologetic. You got a skill, you should use it.
Jalaya glanced at Aeryn, smiling faintly, still holding up the
precious regulator. They would be able to *finally* fix Moya's
overly-patched-up amnexus relays properly.

"I'll sell it for 120, and I'll throw in the spanners for free."

120. And her face said no haggling, a set price. It was a lot of
damned credits, but he already knew they would pay. He glanced at
Aeryn once more and he could see the same conclusion in her
expression. It was actually a fair amount. Considering.

"Nice doing business with you, ma'am." John counted out the credits
onto the scuffed metal countertop. Her eyes twinkled as she collected
the currency and swept it into a container somewhere out of sight.
Aeryn had already taken the regulator and tucked it safely into her
already bulging scrip. The day was nearly over. Almost time to go meet
the others. He reached across the counter with his hand to shake
Jalaya's hand. She reminded him a little of his mom, maybe how she
might have been if she'd lived into old age.

"It's a custom from my world. You take it," he explained to her raised
brows. "It's a way to seal a deal, say thanks and farewell all at the
same time."

She put her hand in his and shook it, her face more serious now.

"Very efficient gesture."

"Thanks and goodbye," he said it for good measure anyway. Aeryn had
already started to walk away. Jalaya released his hand and smiled once
more.

"I'm almost sorry to see you go, cutie. It's not often I have this
much fun in my line of work."

John didn't know where it came from, it just burst from his mouth, a
sentence that seemed to echo from deep inside him, rumbling through
his bones and sending all the hairs on his arms standing straight up.

"Don't be sorry to say good-bye. You need to say farewell before you
can meet again."

It was a nice enough thing to say, ordinary charm. Why did it drive
needles of pain into his heart? Where had he heard it before? It set
his heart to pounding like a heavy drum and his skin had gone icy
cold.

"Crichton!" Aeryn's voice snapped him out of it, and he stood there,
in front of Jalaya's Used and New Parts like a man waking from a
dream. Jalaya was starting to stare at him strangely and he quickly
gave her a jaunty salute and trotted off down the dusty street towards
where Aeryn waited.

Already, it was fading, whatever it had been. He didn't repeat the
sentence to himself. For some reason he didn't want to. It had brought
with it impressions of old grief and a pain so deep he shied away from
unburying it. Later. He would think on it later. A mystery that he
could easily pass off to the loss of some of his brain tissue a cycle
earlier.

By the time he caught up with Aeryn's slender dark-clad figure, he'd
already put it off as something not worth dwelling on, unaware that he
had set light to a fuse that was even now unfurling and sparking
somewhere in the darkness of his soul.

"Well, Crichton," Aeryn's voice was grudgingly filled with acceptance
as he fell into stride next to her, "I guess all that mindless chatter
in you has some uses after all."

"Chatter?" He grinned evilly down at her profile. She was studiously
not meeting his eyes, but he could see the corner of her mouth was
twitching. "You don't give any credit to my charming personality?"

"None. She was numbed into submission by your incessant blathering.
She sold us the regulator to make you go away."

"How do you live with it?" He asked, putting on a straight face. She
glanced up at him quizically.

"Live with what?"

"All that pent-up jealousy and envy of my inherent talent?"

Her eyes widened at the zinger and she finally let the laughter out
that she'd been so studiously holding back.

"That would be the day, Crichton. Jealous of what talent? Your
inherent insanity, more like." He reached down and pulled her against
his side, refusing to let go even when she gave a half-hearted squirm.

"What does that say about *you*, then?" He looked down at her, both of
them coming to a slow stop without even realizing it.

"I guess that makes me insane, too." Her eyes dropped off his then to
eye something behind his head. "Here we are. This is the place we're
supposed to meet the others."

He dropped a kiss on her forehead before releasing her.

"Sure, change the subject, coward."

"When given the option between sitting down and having a drink after
spending 10 arns wandering this dusty rock, or standing and basking in
your *charm*, I chose sitting." Even as she spoke, she vanished below
the low doorframe out of sight.

His feet were aching, come to think of it. And it *had* been a long
day. But still, basking in his charm? Was there a contest? He chuckled
and followed her into the dark interior of Hoque's Refreshment.

Aeryn was already at the bar and he found a place to sit along the
wall of the main room, only realizing once he was sitting, just how
much his booted feet really *did* hurt. He had just put his feet up on
the low table when Ms. Sun reappeared with two tall foamy drinks of
some sort in each fist. Taking the drink from her he lifted it in
silent salute to her.

"Thanks," he grunted. She made a noncommittal noise in return and
settled her own feet up on the table next to his.

"To the lovely Jalaya and our new surprise regulator." She took a long
draw from the dented metal mug, throat working.

"Amen." He sniffed at the drink a little suspiciously before looking
at her profile. "You think the transport's all loaded?"

She took a smaller sip, nodding.  Her eyes were already scanning the
interior of the dim bar even as she sat back.

"I'm sure it is. We can leave any time now, I suppose. At least as
soon as the others get here." Her eyes narrowed slightly as they
tracked a group of Peacekeepers in gray jumps trooping into the bar.
John watched them just as carefully, despite his exhaustion. They
weren't soldiers, they looked like techs.

"Mannies," Aeryn said quietly, as if reading his mind. "They do all
the sorts of jobs that soldiers won't do on a base. They're probably
here to pick up supplies for a carrier or something."

Manual laborers. Mannies. The PK version of the workin' man. As long
as no one was going to start shooting at them any time soon, he didn't
care what they were doing.

"Where's D'Argo and Jool?" He a second sip of whatever it was that
Aeryn had given him. It tasted like Grandpa's old socks might, dry and
stale with the faintest whiff of chemicals. He gave an internal shrug
and took a larger mouthful. At least it set a nice warmth going in his
gut, distracting him from his throbbing feet.

"I saw them heading this way just before we came in here. D'Argo did
not look happy." She finally met his eyes and he saw the guilty smile
written in her face. John shrugged, his own grin stretching his mouth.

"He drew the short straw. He gets to watch that spoiled debutante for
a change." Aeryn raised her eyebrows, taking another long draw from
her foamy drink.

"About that," she said after she'd swallowed. "Did you, or did you
not, maneuver the short straw his way?" The ghost of a laugh was
hovering around her lips and he wanted to help it along. Obviously
finding that regulator had chased away any trace of irritation from
his long-winded banter with Madame Jalaya.

"Hey," he said with a grin and a shrug, "it was just past due time
that someone else spent some quality Jool-sitting duty. I'd noticed
that he'd been managing to avoid it. It was only fair."

Aeryn did laugh then, her head falling back on the top of the
backrest. She finished her drink with another long pull and then
leaned forward to put down the mug.

"Just don't let him find that out." The tilt of her brow was
mischievous and he eyed her suspiciously. She grinned evilly. "Oh, I
won't tell him. Not unless I see a need to..." she let the sentence
trail away suggestively. D'Argo and Jool chose that moment to walk in,
the Luxan grimacing like a thundercloud. Jool had an expression on her
face that made her look like she had smelled something bad. D'Argo
left her by the door and stalked over to where John and Aeryn sat.
Grabbing John's drink out of his hand, he downed it in one gulp and
then slammed it back down onto the low table.

"You will all pay for this." He growled before he turned and headed
over to the bar. Jool was picking her way distastefully over to them
and neither John nor Aeryn moved over on the bench to give her room to
sit down.

"This place is horrid." she said, lifting her chin and looking around
the room. "I don't understand how you people can stand it. And you
come into these stys for *fun*?"

Groaning under his breath, Crichton did push up off the bench then,
studiously ignoring the doom that Aeryn's stare promised if he
abandoned her to Sorority Sally.

"Gotta answer the call," he mumbled as he pushed past her towards the
back of the room.

"Vulgar, as if we care what you..." Jool's deprecating remarks were
thankfully lost in the rumble of conversation that hummed through the
packed interior of the low slung building. Running his hands through
his hair, he pushed his way to the back where several different sized
closets clustered. He had long since gotten used to the setup. If no
one else cared that he was essentially pissing in the same room with
them, he didn't care either.

"-orpius won't like it."

The words startled him so badly he actually stopped moving, causing
someone behind him to barrel into his back.

"Watch where you're going, you frelling moron." A big sebacean pushed
impatiently past him, knocking him against the wall. He recovered
easily and quickly slid onto an open stool, frantically scanning to
see who had spoken.

It was the table of mannies that Aeryn had noticed earlier. There were
about seven of them and they were all drinking like they'd never
tasted the stuff. He waved a server over to his stool and concentrated
on blending into the wall. All thoughts of urination were gone. In
fact, an icy coldness had settled over him like a shroud, chasing away
the dulled fuzz of the old-sock drink.

"-so he has to wait an extra arn or three, he won't even notice." The
biggest of them, a beefy fellow with a bald head sat back as he spoke,
sipping his drink. A few others nodded, looking over at a woman with
short, dark hair. The woman was not drinking. Nor was she smiling.

"That's true, Gwyinn. Since he got the Phaze Generator running, he's
been happy as a rit on a Quorin. What's an extra load of Chakan Oil
going to mean to him?" This was from a skinny youth who looked like he
couldn't be a day over 18.

"You are all fools." The woman, Gwyinn, narrowed her eyes at the lot
of them, and her stare could have frozen a sun flare. "You only think
of Scorpius, but what of Commander Haymin? What of Lieutenant Porda?
You think that when they go to check off their little lists they won't
notice an entire cargo ship's worth of Oil is late?"

Silence around the table. The tough looking woman leaned forward,
fixing each of them with a stare.

"I don't care how nice it is to sit back and drink and whore and stuff
your faces. In 18 arns we are leaving this rock and returning to the
base on schedule. Understand me?"

There was stony silence around the table and then sullen agreement.

"I guess ole Scorpy might have noticed at that," the big man mumbled.
"He notices everything."

The woman nodded thinly and then sat back again, her eyes returning to
skim the room. Crichton's heart was pounding, his head felt light.
Scorpy? Alive? Happy? Phaze Generator? The server brought him his
drink and he turned the mug in his hands, staring into the dirty foam
as it dripped down the sides and over his fingers. There was, of
course, only one thing that Scorpius wanted, had ever wanted. The
clone that nested in his brain had even told him.


Just like that, he had gone from tired feet and a full bladder to
paralyzing, icy fear. A base. The villain was ensconced on a base
somewhere, had to be nearby if these mannies were here for supplies.
And he was happy. That could only mean one thing. Real progress.

He lifted the new drink he'd been brought, still listening with half
an ear to the table of grunts. Their conversation had turned to
foolish mundanities and off of matters that he wanted to know about.
But really, did he need to know more?

Yes.

Scorpy had stolen the knowledge from his very brain. Information on
how to reach Earth. Information that had been given to *him* to go
home. Did it stand to reason that, using that information as a
blueprint, that the half-breed would be led right to Earth?

Yes.

He drained the mug in one long series of swallows, but the alcohol did
nothing to still the voices that shrieked and fretted in his head.

*Just what are you thinking, John?*

He hadn't heard the clone in monens. Harvey had shut himself up,
sulking somewhere in his subconscious, some time back. John had not
wanted to question his good fortune. A part of him knew that Harvey
would be there for a long time to come, and he simply accepted the
clone's silence with relief whenever he was gifted with it. This time,
he welcomed the thing.

*Is it true, Harv? Scorpy alive?*

*As I told you before...* The clone sounded cautious. Perhaps it
already knew what John was only still contemplating somewhere just
beyond the fringe of awareness.

*And he has a new base, just like you said.*

Silence.

John slammed the doors in his head tempermentally, effectively cutting
off the clone. He *did* know what he had to do. It was the only thing
he could do.

The metal handle of the mug was cutting into his hand as he gripped it
tighter and tighter. He didn't even notice when it cut into his palm
and he started to bleed.

++++

Aeryn stepped out onto the Terrace quietly, tucking her arms against
her body as if it were as cold as it looked under the canopy of
starlight. Crichton lay spread-eagled in the center of the oval space,
staring out into space as if it might give up its answers at any
moment. She paused a microt, studying him, studying the signs she had
come to know fairly well over the cycles since they had first met. He
was troubled about something, but to what degree, she couldn't tell.

"Hey." He spoke first, startling her slightly. She hadn't realized he
had noticed her. She padded softly on bare feet to his side, dropping
down cross-legged next to him.

"Hey."

"Still up?"

"Couldn't sleep. It seems there was too much room in my bed." She
smiled, hoping to get a grin out of him. Instead, he rolled his head
to the side, finding her eyes with his. He was solemn, not a joke in
sight, never a good sign in Crichton. One hand moved towards her and
she took the cue by unfolding her arms and letting her fingers meet
his. They twined together casually and she let him pull her down to
his side until they were both sprawled on their backs, looking up. She
settled her head against his shoulder and waited. He had something to
say. If she knew anything about him at all, she knew that much.

He didn't disappoint her.

"Sometimes I wonder if light from the sun -the star my planet orbits- 
if it ever touches us here. I mean, it's light, it doesn't fade or
stop or die. It just keeps going. Who's to say that it's never reached
Moya? Reached me?"

She sighed very softly. Were they going to have the Earth conversation
again? She wasn't sure she was up for it. Nothing had changed since
the last time. They had talked it to death and she still wasn't sure
she would be able to follow him home if he ever went. Even now.

But he didn't ask. Instead, one hand came up to tangle in the hair
near her temple, stroking it softly away from her face. She closed her
eyes and let herself revel in the intimacy. A simple closeness she had
never had with anyone but him.

"I've told you that I love you, right?"

She smiled into his shirt.

"You've mentioned it."

"Good. Just checking."

There was something in his voice that tripped an alarm in her brain,
that set her pulse to pounding slightly harder. She lifted her head to
look him in the eye, coming up on one elbow.

"What are you up to, human?" She asked it before she could stop
herself, and the flicker in his expression, almost too quick to see,
made her suck in her breath.

"Nothing, sebacean. What makes you say that?" He looked perfectly
innocent, of course. And, thinning her lips, she could almost believe
she had imagined the surge of alarm she had felt. He was stroking one
of his hands up her side, curling around her curves and she raised her
eyebrows at his blatant manipulation. There was something he wasn't
telling her. Something important.

But then she was no paragon of transparency herself. And there were
worse ways to be distracted. She nodded every so slightly, as if to
tell him that she knew what he was doing, and that she was going to
let it slide. This time.

She pulled herself against him and let her mouth meet his, feeling his
arms come around her and pull her close. The heat was already
simmering in her body and she knew it was only a matter of moments
before she wouldn't care whether or not he was using the sparks
between them to distract her. One of her hands slipped through the
soft bristle of hair at the back of his neck and cupped the base of
his skull gently. He tasted warm and musky and purely Crichton. It was
addictive. Her doubts seemed to fade into insubstantiality under the
onslaught of sensation.

A simple thing to let him fill up the empty spaces. A simple thing to
pretend that his hands did not tremble against her skin.

+++

Broken promises. He stared up at the ceiling of Aeryn's quarters with
dry, heavy eyes. No sleep for him, no chance of it. He hadn't wanted
to, couldn't even if he had. Guilt was eating at him like a hundred
starving rats. He had promised her that he would never leave her.
Promised.

His free hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose almost brutally.
What was it about him that made him let people down? What was it about
the universe that seemed to take a perverse delight in making him the
tool to hurt others? He looked down at Aeryn's sleeping face nestled
against his shoulder. I'm sorry, baby. God, I'm sorry.

But she couldn't go with him. She wouldn't even if he so desperately
wanted it. She'd told him as much with each downcast glance and
diversionary kiss. Whether she acted out of fear or reason, either
way, he had to leave her.

To stay here, with her, would mean abandoning his world to a morally
bankrupt evil scientist and a rapine bunch of pirates. The good of the
many outweighs the good of the few...or the one, thank you very much
Mr. Spock. His eyes burned from the effort to keep his emotions in
check and he carefully brushed a strand of glossy black hair out of
her face. My burden, my responsibility.

'My choice, though I make it at great cost to my heart'. All he could
do was stare at her, memorize her, bury his nose in the soft scent of
her hair, and finally, silently, say goodbye. Another thing he had
promised never to do.

Moya's corridors were still when he carefully slipped from the warm
tangle of Aeryn's limbs and dressed in silence. There was a time when
she would have sprung awake at the slightest movement from him, but
she had slowly grown accustomed to his constant movement during the
night. That fact only made him more reluctant to leave her sleeping.

He paused for only a moment, indulging in one last look at her
slumbering features. Her mobile lips were parted slightly, her cheeks
rosy in the charming, rumpled way that only sleep brings. The dark
curtain of her hair curled in wild contrast against the pillow and
over her pale skin. His hand reached out involuntarily towards her
face, but he stopped himself. She would wake. Every second he spent
standing over her was a risk. He forced himself to turn and walk, step
by step, out of her chamber. No looking back.

He moved quickly down to his own quarters, the mental clock in his
head ticking away. He had only one arn left before the cargo ship was
ready to depart. Not much time at all, but it had been so hard to
leave her. So hard.

He filled a bag with necessities. Weapons, easily stored food, water
and little else. He twisted the tiny braid of Aeryn's hair into his
Dad's ring and clasped it around his neck. The ring he had arrived
here with. The lock that he had cut from her. So long ago it all
seemed now. A lifetime. If only it had been that. In the scope of
things, they had only had a span of moments truly together.

He supposed it was more than most people got.

Pilot's Chamber was quiet as he walked in, and he was acutely aware of
the large creature who watched him as he approached.

"Commander? Are you going somewhere? We are about to leave orbit."

"I know, Pilot. You still are. Just wait for a couple more microts
before you do."

A silence spread between them for countless seconds.

"You are leaving us." He said it flatly and without accusation. John
took a deep breath, adjusting the small bag on his shoulder.

"I wish I didn't have to. I just can't ask any of you to back me on
this one. You would understand if I could tell you."

"But you can't."

"No."

John swallowed. It was harder than he had thought it would be to say
goodbye. On all fronts. How ironic that he had wished so hard to get
out of here in the beginning, how much he had wanted to go home. This
was his home now. And now he had to leave it.

"Have you said goodbye to the others?"

"No. I can't. I'm asking you to tell them for me. They would try to
stop me, or help me. I can't allow either one. Not for their sakes.
Not for Moya's. Please let me leave without alerting them."

Pilot stared at him for another long moment and then dipped his
massive head.

"I don't understand, commander, but I ...will miss you. Moya will miss
you." Was it his wishful immagination, or did the ship thrum around
him in empathy?

John's eyes were stinging and he blinked back tears with an effort. He
held out a hand instead.

Pilot looked down at it and then proffered one of his own. John
gripped the heavy claw with both of his.

"I'll miss you too, you big octopus."

And then he turned and walked out.

It was worse than anything he had ever done, getting into the module
and initiating the start-up sequence. It was his family he was
leaving, sneaking out in the night like a thief. They would not
forgive him for it. Aeryn...

He shied away from the thought of her. This was the only way to do it.
Deep down, he knew it as well as he knew his ABCs. Farscape One lifted
off the floor of the docking bay, and without looking back, he shot
himself and his module into space, back down to the moon. It would
have been better, easier to take a transport, but he would have felt
bad doing so. Even more like a thief than he already did. If they came
looking for him, all they would find would be Farscape One. They could
recover it or leave it at that point.

The module was another part of his life to bid farewell to. He knew
very well that he would probably not be coming back for it himself.

++++

Aeryn woke up to the sensation that something was missing. It didn't
take much detective work to figure out what it was. Sitting up and
brushing the morning riot of her hair back she glanced around her
chambers. His clothes were gone. It was not the first time he had
gotten up before her, she was becoming used to his odd sleep habits,
but nonetheless, she felt a thrill of alarm travel up her spine.

It was because of the night before, she realized. His behavior had
always been odd to her, and easily dismissed as such, but even
Crichton had lines to cross. Flinging back the coverlet and pulling on
the clothing she had worn the day before, she quickly stalked out into
the hall.

Much of her life had been based on instinct. It was something that all
Peacekeeper cadets had to develop simply to survive. On some level she
was interested to know that those instincts had risen to envelop
emotional issues as well. On the other, she mostly just felt a rising
sense of distress.

"Pilot?" She walked at a good clip towards the center chamber. It was
usually where she found him when he rose before her.

"Yes, Officer Sun?" Even Pilot sounded off, his tone uncertain.

"Have we left orbit yet?"

There was a long silence and her brow furrowed.

"Pilot?"

"No, Aeryn. I thought that... well, I wasn't sure you would want us
to. Any of you."

She sighed and shook her head. Sometimes Pilot could be too obtuse.

"Why is that?" She came around a curve and walked into the center
chamber. Jool and Rygel were sitting at the table, playing Tadec in
silence. John was nowhere in sight. Her concern clicked up another
notch.

Pilot appeared on the clamshell as she entered the chamber, a look of
concern on his face.

"Well, he told me to leave orbit after... but I thought I should wait
until you all arose."

"Just tell me, Pilot. Are you talking about John? *John* told you to
leave orbit...?" It hit her then, all the sentimental dren that he had
whispered to her the night before, the pensive mood, the warning
signs. "Where has he gone?"

Jool looked up from the board.

"Who's gone?"

"The Commander asked me to tell you all goodbye, but he did not say
where he was going."

"Frell!" Aeryn hit the wall with her fist and spun around, breaking
into a run towards the docking bay. "How long ago, Pilot? Why didn't
you wake us?"

"He asked me not to, he said that you would all try to stop him."

"Well he was frelling right about that!" she gritted through clenched
teeth. Just what was that fool trying to do now? Something insane, no
doubt. Something he thought he wasn't going to return from. She lashed
out and struck the wall again as she swung around a corner. Frell him
and his honor!

"Pilot? Please wake D'Argo and tell him to meet me in the docking bay.
We are going back down to the moon."

"I have already done so, Aeryn. And I thought you might say something
like that. Which was why I did not leave orbit as Crichton asked." Was
that a smile in Pilot's voice? At the moment, she didn't care.

"How much of a head-start does he have, Pilot?" she entered the bay
and found D'Argo was already climbing into the transport, grumbling
and muttering to himself. No doubt about a certain human nuisance.

"He left only 3.6 arns ago, Officer Sun."

She swore. It was a lifetime. Anything could have happened. Hezmana,
what had set him off? He had been fine earlier. She needed to pinpoint
just when he had gone fahrbot on her.

D'Argo was starting up the engines as she strapped in beside him.

"Why are we going after him? Maybe he just went down on his own for
something." D'Argo was not a morning person.

"He snuck out. He told Pilot to leave orbit. He's abandoning us for
something."

"What?" She could see the unspoken, reluctant question in the Luxan's
face. Why go after him if he wanted to leave? He didn't understand.
But D'Argo hadn't seen and heard Crichton the night before.

"I think it was the bar." She said suddenly. He glanced at her,
frowning. She took up the controls and guided the transport out of the
docking bay with an ease that spoke of hundreds of such maneuvers.
"The bar was where he started acting strange."

"He always acts strange," D'Argo growled.

"Not this strange. It must have been after he came back from relieving
himself. He was quiet, pensive."

"For Crichton, quiet *is* strange," D'Argo agreed. "So it must have
been something he saw or heard in the bar. Was there anything unusual
about the bar itself?"

They angled for the terminus of shadow that divided light from dark on
the moon below. She could make out the blotchy discoloration on the
pale surface that spoke of the spaceport. For a moment, her vision
unfocused, losing herself in the words Crichton had whispered to her
only hours before when she was drowsy in his arms.

'I'll always love you.' She could still hear the timbre of his voice,
the soft palette of the words painting tones of warmth against her
sleepy skin.

Her fingers gripped the console tightly. The weight of D'Argo's hand
on her shoulder broke her out of it and she glanced at him, seeing the
sympathy in his face.

"We'll find him. We always do." There was certitude in his voice. He
had the strength of his convictions. He hadn't heard Crichton's
unspoken goodbye.

He had never said goodbye to her before.

+++

It was dark in the cargo container he'd stowed in, dark and stuffy and
godamned uncomfortable. Something sharp was poking into his back and
there was the king of all cramps in his right leg. A leg he could not
unbend.

What there was, was time. Time to think about just what exactly he
thought he was going to do. He was infiltrating what he hoped was
Scorpy's new research base. Once there, what? Enjoy the fine cuisine
of the Base brig? Experience the fun and excitement of being a PK
prisoner again? There, in the dark, he could understand his motives,
but the whole *how* of it was still a big mystery. He was going to
have to get the lay of the land before he did anything, but the end
result had to be the same. 1) Destroy the wormhole research. 2) Kill
Scorpy for once and for all.

Simple enough, right?

His chest felt tight, and he fumbled in the blackness for the small
oxygen mask he had brought, sucking on it deeply. He was getting
sleepy in the close, unventilated container and he knew that his own
carbon dioxide was probably responsible for it. Checking the gage on
the mask with a tiny hand light, he saw that he had well over 22 hours
left of air. Hopefully it would be plenty. If it wasn't, then his
grand plans were going to end, quite uneventfully, before they began.

He'd been in the dark box for only a few hours and he was already
going stir crazy. The need to stretch out, the need to move, was
building. He took a few more deep breaths and then closed his useless
eyes against the opressive blackness. Sleep. Maybe he could sleep his
way through the whole ordeal.

Forcing his mind to lighter topics, like the way Aeryn had felt in his
arms that morning, was not as hard as he thought it would be. And
definitely not hard to lose himself in them.

But oddly, when he did fall asleep half an arn later, it was to the
disturbing memory of a single sentence spoken in a familiar voice that
was not his own:

You need to say farewell before you can meet again.

+++

It hit her like a Sheyang fireball.

"That frelling mannie crew!" It burst from her lips as they were
striding down the narrow streets of the port, pushing through a
marketplace that was slowly starting to fill with the day's business.

D'Argo had been scanning the scattered groups of early morning
shoppers, his head swinging from side to side as he searched. He
looked down at Aeryn with a frown.

"What are you talking about? Someone in the bar?" She nodded, her eyes
narrowing as she remembered them. It hadn't occurred to her until she
had starting trying to think like Crichton. Never an easy task, but
one she felt she was the only one truly qualified for. What was there
that would make him sneak out like a thief? Really only a few things.
Scorpius and Wormholes. Possibly Earth. And what if it were all three?
The only way all three could be connected would be if a) Scorpius was
alive and b) he had successfully opened a wormhole. Only those two
would bring in the third factor, Earth. She knew, because John had
obsessed over it, that the human worried Scorpy would somehow find a
way to Earth through the knowledge he had stolen. It was only the fact
that he believed Scorpy to be dead that forestalled panic.

But if the half-breed were alive?

She had even said it, a fact she wanted to kick herself for, that the
mannies were probably picking up supplies for a carrier or a *base*.
What if John had overheard something? Something that hinted his
nemesis were alive? It had to be it. If he were to go haring off to a
secret peacekeeper base, he would not want to put Moya in that kind of
position. He wouldn't want to put any of them in that kind of
position. She gritted her teeth. The frelling bastard. She would have
gone with him, she would have helped. How dare he presume to take that
choice away from her.

She ignored the whispers in the back of her skull, the whispers that
hinted that maybe he took the choice away to save her from making it.
That he knew something she didn't want to consider. That she wouldn't
have gone with him.

"Yes, someone in the bar," she snapped. She stopped and reversed
direction abruptly, heading back to the docks. D'Argo grunted in
surprise and then quickly matched her strides.

"A PK crew? Why would he go after them?"

"Why else? He must have discovered that Scorpius is still alive. Or
that someone has created a wormhole. One or the other, D'Argo, take
your pick. Maybe both. But a mannie crew could only mean a supply run
for a base or a carrier. If he heard them talking, what would make
Crichton abandon us?"

D'Argo hissed in a breath and then nodded grimly.

"You are right. He should have told us." She didn't even look up at
the Luxan.

"And you know why he didn't."

D'Argo had nothing to say to that, his brow creased. The truth was all
too clear. He would have vehemently argued against John going to a
Base. They all knew what had happened last time. They had barely
escaped with their lives intact. It was becoming obvious that Crichton
had done the only thing he could have done.

"Frell!" Was it guilt she heard in his curse? Guilt for something he
hadn't even done? If it was, she understood it all too well. She could
almost hear her own voice trying to talk John out of it. He had taken
that guilt away from them. Taken away everything. It was just like
him.

They were walking down the docks towards the dockmaster's office when
D'Argo suddenly grabbed her shoulder.

"Hold on a microt," he was flaring his nostrils. "He's been here." She
stopped and cast around, taking a few steps down one of the passages
to a slip. "No," he held up a hand. "This one." He gestured down
another slip and they both half ran down the ramp, Aeryn's pulse
pounding slightly harder. She was revving herself up to lay him flat
if he presented himself.

They came into the slip, a large open area where several small
skimmers were docked. Skimmers and one white, primitive looking
module. There were a couple of workers refueling and unloading several
of the ships and one of them looked up as they approached. Tall,
skinny, wiry hair sticking up at odd angles from beneath a dirty cap,
he walked towards them carrying a datapad.

"You Aeryn and Durgo?" He looked down at his pad and then back up at
them again. Aeryn frowned.

"Who wants to know?" The tech shrugged thin shoulders.

"The guy who left that crazy pile of junk over there said a Luxan or a
dark-haired Seb might come by for it." He jerked his thumb over
towards the familiar outlines of John's module sitting innocently and
oh-so-tellingly against the far wall. "He said to tell you the dock
fee was paid and that if you wanted you could sell it for parts or
take it back with you. Whatever you wanted. He signed it to ya."

Aeryn would have staggered if she hadn't been stiff as a board. It
flooded her then, the icy shock that she had been staving off. The
reality of what she had known all along. He was gone and he didn't
expect to come back.

She couldn't have spoken if she had tried and she was distantly
grateful that D'Argo stepped forward to take up her slack. She felt
like she was reeling. Over the last two cycles she had fought
desperately against the fear of this very thing. And then, only a few
monens ago, she had finally given in. Allowed him to have so much
power over her. She had taken the risk knowing that there might be a
reckoning later on. In all her worst estimations, she could have never
imagined it would be this painful.

D'Argo's voice as he made preparations to take the module back up to
Moya was muffled and dim to her ears. The cold surface of the slip's
wall met her back and she concentrated on keeping her face from
crumpling, from letting her knees buckle.

She had known all along.

He was really gone.


++++

The cargo container bumped and he was jarred out of his uncomfortable
doze with a start. Disturbing and uneasy visions of Harvey, the neural
clone he'd seen hide nor hair of in almost half a cycle, sitting on
top of a coffin and staring coldly at him disapated into smoke and
memory. Blinking heavily around in the darkness, he quickly reminded
himself that he was locked in a box before he started to panic. He was
reaching back around his cramped body for the small oxygen breather
again when the container bumped once more and then tilted sharply to
the side. They had arrived. Maybe.

He could hear muffled voices outside the container and he began to
fervently pray that they would not unload the boxes immediately. His
hand crept towards where his weapon lay tucked against his leg. It was
going to be a quick and pointless hero's journey if he had to start
shooting. He was a fish who just happened to be in a barrel.

Light did not crack in, instead the crate was dropped with a thunk
that rattled his teeth and then went still. The voices faded and he
could hear the sounds of other containers being offloaded. He had to
be here.

Voices came and went, but seemed reluctant to vanish altogether. He
had fought his cramping limbs with a decent amount of cool throughout
the hellish journey, but now the pain seemed to be escalating
exponentially. Finally he could take it no more. He waited for a long
enough space of silence between noises and then he braced his oxygen
starved legs against the lid and pushed.

A dim reddish light streaked into the darkness of his den and he
blinked painfully against it, taking deep gulps of the fresh air that
poured in the crack. He held the lid carefully still for a long
moment, waiting for the outcry. When none came, he slowly,
methodically set the lid ajar and wrenched his head up to see out.

The enormous yard was strewn with shadows, he was relieved to note.
Easier to hide in. There were people about, mannies in jumpsuits and
overalls going about their business. A long line of about 7 or 8 cargo
vessels stretched in a neatly staggered pattern away from him. An
enclosing wall nearly 50 feet tall stretched upwards on all sides and
he could see the black shielding above that spoke of a containment
field. Asteroid? Moon? Something without an atmosphere of its own.
That might make things tricky later on, but then, he had not come here
with any real hope of leaving again.

Not that he wasn't going to try anyway. He had always been a fan of
both having and eating cake.

Area lighting set into the tops of the mottled, gray walls flooded the
yard in streaks of rusty light, drawing long, stretched shadows off
the moving workers. There were two exits that he could see, enormous
sets of metal gates that each merited its own pair of guards.

Forcing his dead muscles into action, he pulled himself and his bag
out of the crate and quickly scuttled out of sight behind the towering
stack of containers, clenching his teeth as his limbs filled with the
excruciating sensation of pins and needles. Sucking in deep breaths,
he took another look around, this time with more leisure.

It was a big yard. Too big for the few cargo vessels he could see.
There was an enormous empty space area that seemed meant for a much
larger vessel. Possibly, he thought, for a research vessel. There were
also a number of smaller podlike one-man modules set against the wall.
For test runs into the singularity itself, no doubt. If it had even
been opened.

He couldn't help looking up, squinting through the semi-opaque field
that blocked the base from space, trying to see if a wormhole already
spiraled above. As if he could, even if it had.

The doors to his right opened up and a crew of mannies poured in.
There was new activity, lights flickering to life on the large empty
area. It didn't take a genius to figure out that something was coming
in for a landing. He pressed himself tighter behind the crates,
peering through the crack between containers. A rush of atmosphere
gusted around him, flattening his clothes to his body as the ship
passed through the shield.

It *was* a research vessel, as he had thought. It swayed and sank onto
the yard floor with a deafening hiss and whine of repulsors, spouting
pressurized vapor. Almost immediately after it settled, it popped the
entry hatch and lowered a ramp.

John felt his  breath catch in his throat as an all too familiar
figure flowed down the decline, black leather and pale features
triggering that old feeling of panic in his gut. He clenched his jaw.
Even though he had known in his heart that the half-breed was alive,
seeing him in the flesh was another story altogether. Every instinct
he had was telling him to flee or fight, every hair on his body
standing straight up with the adrenaline rush. His heart beat against
the roof of his mouth and his pulse throbbed behind his eyes.

It would be a death wish to fire on Scorpy now. Every soldier in the
place would turn on him. And it was highly unlikely that a simple shot
from his pulse pistol would even give the half-Scarran a headache. He
shook his head violently, squeezing his eyes shut and clenching his
hands into fists. No. He had not given up everything...given up
Aeryn...for this. He would kill Scorpy, but not now. Not like this.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes again. Scorpius was gone,
his contingent following him out of the yard like a gathering of
chicks trailing their mother. In a moment, all that was left was a
collection of maintenance workers.

He needed a disguise and he'd seen Indiana Jones enough times to know
what he had to do next.

++++

"I'm sorry sirs, but even if I had that kind of information, which I
don't, I would not divulge it." The woman lifted her tattooed chin and
gave them her best look of apology. "We protect our clients. As I'm
sure you are aware, our business depends on our customers trust."

Zhaan nodded sympathetically before placing both her hands flat on the
countertop and leaning forward conspiratorially.

"I understand, my dear, but a friend of ours is in trouble. This
information could be the only thing that might save him."

Hirana Cixx, 10 cycle veteran of handling the varied cantankerous
customers that paraded their way through the space port's dockmaster
offices, was not moved. Instead, she let her false smile of sympathy
fade. She had tried it the nice way.

"Feel free to find another avenue of saving your friend. We are not in
the rescue business here." Her face was tight now, her eyes cold. "The
transport you wish to discover the flight path for did not file one
with us, and as I said, even if they had..."

"You would not tell us. Yes, I understand. We all understand." Rygel
had put on his most haughty demeanor. "But while they may not have
filed a flight path with you, certainly there are Port records on the
vectors they left on."

Cixx thinned her lips and folded her arms. She said nothing.

Rygel then gently and without any more words, pushed a small stack of
trade credits across the polished stone counter.

Her eyes slanted down to the pile, mentally counting without moving a
muscle of her face. Cold eyes flicked back up again, sweeping back and
forth between Zhaan and Rygel before she finally nodded. A tiny, sharp
movement.

"I can see that you are very concerned for this friend of yours. I
sympathize. Certainly, I will see what I can do for him."

"I thank you for your concern," Zhaan's voice was cool with sarcasm.

Hirani tapped a few times at the screen that was hidden just out of
sight behind the counter, her eyes scanning the material that skimmed
up. The credits that Rygel had passed her had mysteriously vanished
from the counter.

"It was a peacekeeper cargo vessel," she said finally in a low voice.
"It departed on a vector of oh-zee-gamma flying at 445 metrons per
microt."

"That's a long-distance speed," Zhaan murmured. She looked down at
Rygel briefly and then back at the woman. She inclined her head very
slightly. "Thank you, my dear. You have been very helpful."

Rygel snorted as the pair of them turned and left the small office.

"That was expensive information, Zhaan. I am still doubting its actual
value."

"Come now, Rygel." The Delvian did not look down at him, "you are as
worried about Crichton as the rest of us." Rygel said nothing for a
moment before he cleared his throat.

"That's not the point, Zhaan. The point is that I seem to be the only
one around here who *agrees* with Crichton for once. He left on his
own because he knew he had to. I think its foolhardy to chase after
him for the very reasons he chose to leave us. Moya will not survive
close proximity to a Gammak Base again. It was a fluke before, and
there's no way we will be that lucky twice."

"Be that as it may, Rygel, he is part of our family and we do not
simply let our family walk into danger alone."

Rygel had nothing to say to that, and he was silent for the rest of
the walk to the small cafe they had left Aeryn and Chiana at. Zhaan
was not sure if he was contrite or merely thinking of another way to
talk them out of their intention to go after Crichton.

Aeryn half stood as they approached and Zhaan supressed a new twinge
of concern for the sebacean. She looked like dren. Pale and drawn, her
eyes hard and determined. If only for Aeryn's sake, they had to do
something. The ex-soldier would hare off on her own otherwise. There
was no doubt in her mind.

"What did you find out?"

"We have the vector and speed they left on. It is not good news. Even
if they kept to the same path and it was not a diversionary tactic to
keep their direction a secret from the port authorities, their speed
indicates that they were planning for a long trip. At least longer
than two days."

Aeryn nodded, her face expressionless. Chiana gnawed on her lower lip
for a moment before speaking.

"And if we followed that path, it would be two days before we got
there even if it was the right direction."

"It's all a cover." Aeryn sat back down again, picking up her
forgotten and long-cold drink. "Standard procedure for special ops.
They would choose a speed and vector that would not point to the base
or the carrier they were supplying. The base, wherever it is, is no
more than two days out. They would have established it close to a
spaceport for obvious supply issues."

"But that doesn't help us, my dear. Even if we searched in a radius of
two days around this port, it would takes us monens. I doubt that
Crichton will wait that long before doing whatever foolishness he has
planned." Zhaan's face was full of concern. At the moment she wasn't
sure who it was for. The whole lot of them, she supposed.

D'Argo and Jool walked into the cafe then, the Luxan's face
expressionless and hard to read. Jool looked simply put out. Zhaan
guessed that she really didn't mean to be such a selfish person. She
was just young. Aeryn's eyes fixed on D'Argo with that same predatory
stare she had given Zhaan a few microts earlier.

D'Argo grunted as he took a chair and pulled it close to the table.

"I found something, but I don't know how useful it is. They were
carrying Chakan Oil. A lot of it. And a small load of Ritaxin Gas."

Zhaan's eyebrows shot up.

"Ritaxin? That's used for atmospherics and not much else."

D'Argo nodded. Jool cleared her throat. She seemed to be trying to
make a helpful expression. It was only partially successful.

"It's actually for very specific atmospherics. It's expensive and
unusually volatile so it would only be used in a situation where a
high amount of radiation was present."

"You mean, too close to a star?" Chiana was frowning.

"Unlikely. That would not be very cost effective. They would need to
use too much gas in their shielding to make it worth their while to
base so close to a star. No, I'm thinking of something else. Perhaps
an old mine field or even a 'Troid mining facility."

"So, it's possible to narrow our search down to a debris field of some
kind. Something within two days that contains a high level of latent
radiation. Pilot?" Zhaan raised her voice.

"Yes, Zhaan?"

"Has Moya, in the past few days since before we arrived here, detected
anything in the vicinity like an asteroid field? Anything with a high
amount of radiation?"

"I will check."

Everyone at the table was still, almost holding their breath while
they waited for a break or a dead end. Pilot was not silent long.

"Something did pass on the edge of her scans a few days back. An old
series of free moons in a debris field that could have only once been
their planet. It is possible that the wreckage of a planet, depending
on how it died, might be radioactive."

No one said a word.

Aeryn spun her drink between her palms slowly, staring into the
swirling liquid thoughtfully. There was a crease between her brows and
a stretched quality to her expression. They were all silent, as if
each of them, unspoken, were waiting to follow the sebacean's lead.

She looked up then, suddenly, her eyes sharp.

"Look, whatever it was that Crichton went off to do, I think we can
all say that it was dangerous. That's why he left us. Now I have to
say that I think he was right to leave Moya behind."

Zhaan had been expecting something like this, but she said nothing,
waiting for the woman to finish.

"I will go after him and rendezvous with Moya at a preset time and
place. I think we all agree that it would be insane and foolhardy for
Moya to go anywhere near that base. If Scorpius is still alive, as I
know Crichton believes, then even the sight of Moya might expose
John's presence on their base. If he hasn't been captured already."

D'Argo stared at her impassively.

"Aeryn, I'm sure you think you are being logical, but logic is not
what drives you now. You may be right about Moya's involvement, but I
*will* go with you. And there is no point in trying to tell me
otherwise."

The pair stared at each other for a count of microts before Zhaan
stood, breaking the tableau.

"Aeryn is right. Crichton was even correct to do this as he did it,
misguided as it was. Moya should not go near that base. If Aeryn and
D'Argo, as our two warriors, intend to go alone, then perhaps this is
the wisest course."

Both Aeryn and D'Argo stared at her as if she had grown another head.
They had been expecting to fight, she knew. But Rygel's earlier words
still rang with her. Indeed, you could often count on Rygel to speak
the realist's truth. It had to be leavened with compassion, but it was
still the truth.

"The only question now is: how are you going to approach that base
without being shot from the sky?"

And that was the question. They had no time to wait for another cargo
vessel to arrive. They had no handy peacekeeper vessel of any kind
with which to infiltrate the base without any questions.

A very small humorless smile stretched Aeryn's mouth all of a sudden,
her eyes sliding to first D'Argo and then Zhaan.

"I have a  plan."

++++

There are defined moments in your dreams when you realize that you
*are* indeed dreaming. That the places you stand in and the things you
experience are not real, no matter how strangely rational they seem to
you at the time. Like how driving a car made of celery to your dead
uncle's wedding through a haunted house seems perfectly logical. John
had a moment like that almost immediately. Not because things were too
wild or crazy, but because they were too real. Because he *knew* that
he was not sitting on the edge of a worn, ancient dock somewhere in
the everglades. He *knew* that he had fallen asleep in the supply
cabinet waiting for the Base to hit their quiet sleep-cycle.

Looking around, he recognized the spot almost instantly. It was a
place he had come once when Melissa was driving him back down to IASA.
After mom's funeral. It was old pain, but it never failed to clutch
around his heart with cold, unforgiving fingers. Even now, in a dream,
he could feel it as if it were fresh. As if she had just died three
days ago instead of five years.

Two Snowy Egrets moved gracefully and slowly along the shore on their
stilted legs, long white necks snaking down to jab into the sawgrass
for insects and tiny fish. A flock of nameless brown waterbirds swept
overhead in a rush of wings and air against the peach-dawn sky,
skimming and splashing down as one. Mosquitoes were starting to hum
and buzz around his dangling legs, and the silence was broken
periodically by a lone Anhinga in the trees, calling out in a harsh
echoing voice to potential suitors. Already he could feel the heat of
the coming day.

"Don't tell me, another one of your favorite spots?"

The voice shocked him, slicing through the silence like a knife. He
knew it. Scorpius. Only not Scorpius. His clone. Harvey, the creature
that had lived in his mind like a shadow even after the mechanics of
the clone had been removed.

And this was different too, though he could not put his finger on how.
The clone seemed solid, bigger, sharper. In focus. Moreso even than
the surroundings. It sent a chill through him. As if he had suddenly
discovered he had rats living in his walls. All pink, fat tails and
sharp clicking little claws.

He didn't turn around, instead watching the shadows stretch across the
Everglades in long green swathes. The rotted boards of the old dock
creaked under his weight as he shifted back to lean on his hands. He
would go with it, see what the clone wanted. Clearly it was the clone
who had brought him here.

He'd come out here the day after his mom had died, trying to find
peace, trying to understand. He didn't understand. He still didn't.
His sister was waiting in the car, he could just see the silvery flash
of the chrome bumper down the rutted tracks that wound through the
tall grass.

"You have places like this where you come from, Harv?" A pair of
grebes walked along the edge of the water, heads bobbing ungracefully.

"Thankfully, no." John slanted his eyes to see the clone swatting at a
mosquito. He returned his gaze out across the water and took a deep
breath. It was so real. The humidity, the heady scent of palmettos and
sawgrass. The very reality of it made him feel like there was a
buzzing in his veins.

"Do you know why I brought you here, John?" The boards creaked again
and the clone settled down next to him with an air of long suffering.
There was something about Harvey, something definitely different. He
couldn't pin his finger on it. The clone was idly playing with what
John recognized as his Dad's old Buckmaster. A knife that had always
accompanied his father whenever they had gone fishing or hunting. Back
and forth, Harvey passed it from hand to hand, almost hypnotizing.
John frowned.

"Because you've got this great chunk of real estate out here to sell
me?"

The clone did not look at him, instead staring out over the swamp.
There was a smile on the thin lips that was giving John the creeps. It
was a smile of self-satisfaction. The sun was just over the tops of
the cypress trees. A marsh hawk screamed.

"No, that's not it. Guess again."

"How about you just tell me, pal. I don't like guessing games." He
could feel irritation bubbling just under the surface.

Harvey laughed softly.

"Good, that's just the answer I was looking for."

John looked over at him, puzzled and annoyed.

And that was when the clone drove the knife directly into John's
chest.


...He blinked awake with a start. One hand flailed for his breastbone,
finding unbroken cloth and skin. He took a deep breath and let himself
relax. Just a dream. No reason to think otherwise even if a part of
him felt deeply disturbed about the whole situation. Why would Harvey
reappear only to give him a foolish nightmare? What was the point?
There was always the fact that the clone made no secret about the fact
that he wanted freedom, that he wanted John to die. Perhaps this was
part of that? If the clone intended him harm, he would have to be
extra careful not to let the thing make him slip up at the wrong
moment.

He was treading in a viper pit here, and everything was on the line.

Taking a deep, cleansing breath, he pushed up to his feet, working the
kinks out of his back. He felt strangely sore all over, but dismissed
it as a byproduct of sleeping first in a cargo container and then
propped in a closet.

Switching the door to manual, he pushed it open just a crack. He
peered out into the hallway, nodding to himself when he saw that the
passage was almost completely empty.  Slipping out of the tiny space,
he smoothed the folds of the new tech uniform he had found hanging in
a supply cabinet. It not only fit better than the mannie jump he'd
stolen to get out of the ship yard, but it also would give him easier
access to the part of the base he needed. There was no way anyone
would be on the lookout for anything strange. This place was like a
fortress.

He headed down the hall at a good clip, the sort of stride that he
used to use when he first got into high school and he'd wanted to
avoid freshman hazing. Best to just walk quickly and look down, no eye
contact, pretend like you're really on your way somewhere important.
It hadn't worked, but the instinct was still valid.

Crichton passed a pair of guards, a lone mannie lugging a cart and no
one else. He had no idea how long he had dozed into the sleep cycle,
so he knew he had to work quickly. Damned Harvey. His eyes lit onto a
communications hub and he quickly slipped inside, letting the narrow
slot door shut behind him.

The tiny space was very similar to the one he'd first found Gilina in
on the last base, but this one was newer. The shine and polish of it
all didn't make it any easier to understand. PK tech was something he
was still pretty rusty at. Now, biotech, that was a different story.
Give him an amnexus regulator and a neural cluster any day of the
week.

But Mama Crichton's boy had always been good at figuring things out.
Or at least taking things apart. Just ask Mama Crichton's toaster. And
her clock radio. But, regardless of the electric corpses he had left
behind as a child, there was always a logic to everything. He just had
to decipher a basic and simplified blueprint to how PKs thought and
how they laid things out. He knew a little from working on Aeryn's
now-dead Prowler, from the Zelbinion and from watching Gilina...it
would have to be enough.

His legs folded neatly under him as he settled in front of what looked
like the comm systems. There wasn't much of an interface, only enough
of one for a tech to make repairs if needed, but it would be enough.
All he wanted was to get an idea of the layout of the base, and where
the majority of the research would be stored. Simply following the
network would eventually show him everything he needed.

Taking a deep breath, ignoring his strangely growing headache as best
he could, he got to work.

++++

"Pretty frelling shaky, Aeryn." He was complaining, but not arguing.
That was a good sign. She slid out from under the panel of the small
ship and eyed him.

"I'm still waiting for a better idea from you, D'Argo." She pushed to
her knees, dusting off her hands on her hips. She grimaced when he
said nothing. That's what she thought.

He grunted.

"We're going to be killed, you realize that, don't you?" He was still
complaining, but at least now he was working. He had pulled off a top
panel and was dragging connections down.

"No one said you had to come." Replacing the cover and sealing it back
up, she reached on top of the control console and lifted her voice.
"Pilot? I'm going to transmit now, let me know if it works or not."

"Yes, Officer Sun. We are ready."

She flicked a switch and waited, meeting D'Argo's doubtful eyes.
Pilot's voice filled the cockpit.

"It works, Aeryn. We are getting a transponder signal that reads as a
Peacekeeper prowler." She didn't say anything for a moment, she just
smiled up at D'Argo triumphantly. Then she leaned her hip against the
panel and folded her arms.

"Thanks, Pilot. Inform the others that we will be leaving as soon as
possible." D'Argo grunted again and leaned back in the co-pilot chair.

"All the dren you bought on the surface is loaded?"

"It is."

D'Argo was still looking at her in a way that might have made her
distinctly uncomfortable only a cycle ago. It was a mix of empathy and
concern lightly flavored with uncertainty. He wasn't sure her
judgement was sound on the matter of Crichton. Fact was, he had every
right to be worried. She was worried, too. But she was also crystal
clear. There was no other option. Not for her.

"You don't have to come, you know." It wasn't meant to be a back door,
it wasn't meant to imply that he was a coward. It was simply a
statement that she felt was obvious. If John never came back, the
Luxan would loose a great friend, but she would lose part of herself.

He continued his stare and she met it levelly, honestly. Silence
filled the cockpit for a few heartbeats and then he nodded ever so
slightly.

"I will go with you. You will need help."

"You understand that once we get there, you will have to provide only
backup, that you will not be able to infiltrate the base. That you
cannot show your face on the comm for risk of Scorpius or Bracca
seeing it."

"I am not stupid, Aeryn." He grumbled.

"Just being clear." She moved past him to check on the cargo once
more. Boxes of, as D'Argo said, dren. Mining equipment. Their cover
should they be caught. And one very important bit of gear, a one-man
Borer. There had been no way to test the thing, no time. They would
just have to pray that the dealer they had bought it from was on the
level. Or this would all end very badly.

She checked the bindings on the crates to make sure they were secured
and then went through her pack once more. Nervous. She was more than
nervous. Not for her own safety or the stability of her plan, but for
the man who was out there somewhere with too much courage and not
enough common sense for his own good. She leaned against the hull and
closed her eyes. Annoying, really. The things that had made her love
him were the same things that caused her such pain now.

"Aeryn, they're here. Let's make our good-byes and get going. We've
lost enough time already."


++++

Crichton blinked aching, bleary eyes and set the panel back into
place. There was nothing more he could do from here. It was like being
just around the corner from a carnival. You could hear the music and
the rides and the screams of delight, but you couldn't see it. He knew
the research data was there. But it was just out of reach. Of course,
he may as well be back on Moya for all the chance that he would be
able to gain access through the multiple security walls in the system,
but at least he knew where it was. That would be enough. He only had
to get a few things from supply again... then he would be able to get
this ball rolling.

He had found a way to tap into the low-level comm systems and he'd
overheard enough to tell him that Scorpy had, indeed, opened a
wormhole successfully. No one had yet been able to enter past the Neck
without collapsing it and ripping both ships and probes alike into a
zillion particles, but John knew it was only a matter of time.

Funniest of all, he even thought he knew what Scorpy was doing wrong.
He had learned a great deal from his time spent with the treacherous
Neeyala. It was a little frightening, actually. To think that if he
was caught now, it was entirely possible that Scorpy might decide to
sift his brain again. The half-breed bastard would find the key to
stabilizing the singularity *because* of John. Because he had come
here.

If that wasn't irony, he didn't know what was.

John closed his eyes in weariness. How long now? How long since he had
gotten any sleep that didn't involve slumping in a box or a closet? Or
even caught more than 2 consecutive hours napping? No way of knowing
how long he had been in transport here, but he had not gotten any
solid sleep in the crate's formless, stuffy darkness. His body felt
like a stranger's, his eyes dry and puffy. His gut twisted with
hunger. And damn if he didn't have to pee like a racehorse.

He'd been in the cramped comm-hub for almost 19 hours, best he could
determine, but it had been productive time spent. As productive as it
could be, anyway. considering that he couldn't really do any decent
damage from his nice little hidey hole.

And then there was the clone. Whatever the creature was up to,
Crichton wasn't so out of it that he didn't realize it was only a
matter of time before Harvey got him. Tripped him up. Sold him down
the river. He shivered slightly and zipped his jump all the way up
under his neck. It seemed to be getting colder in the tiny space, and
he caught himself shivering. Without even noticing, one hand came up
to rub at his breastbone.

He hunched himself into a ball, tucking his arms against his body and
pulling his knees up. The next sleep cycle was in another arn and he
would have to wait at least two more before it was safe to go out and
find the research core. He swallowed thickly and gave in to the
temptation to close his eyes. Tired as he was, much as he needed
sleep, he was frankly afraid to return to his dreams. The image of
Harvey stabbing him was somehow more frightening than it should have
been, considering it was only a dream.

His muscled ached. He wanted to lie down. He wanted Aeryn. He wanted
his mom. He rested his forehead on his knees, trying to force himself
to stay awake and alert, but it felt like he was fighting a losing
battle.

"Why not just lie down for a sec?"

The couch in the family room was one of those pieces of furniture that
looked like it needed to be swept back into the time-hole it had
sprung from. Brown and orange plaid, torn and cat-clawed on the
armrests, cushions stained and faded from both years and children. But
goddamn if it wasn't the most comfortable thing in the universe. His
mom had tried to throw it out for years, but the entire family fought
her on it. It had finally been relegated to the basement corner
instead of the goodwill truck. And somehow, instead of being buried
under boxes and forgotten, the family room had reshaped around it. The
TV moved across the room, the foosball table scooted closer and the
minifridge ended up as one of the side tables. This was the couch that
had drawn the family together when it had been the centerpiece of the
living room, and now it still functioned that way. Only the family had
moved down to it when it had been banished.

It was huge and soft. Two things that any couch needed on its resume.
But better yet, this one was deep and long enough for a guy to stretch
his legs all the way out. It had been the spot for many an afternoon
nap in the lazy summer months, listening to the sprinkler hiss and
chop just outside the basement window and the muffled rattle and
clatter of his mom in the kitchen baking for the weekly church social.
She hadn't done that much baking in those last years, but then, he
didn't want to think about that.

He rolled over, shifting his weight and letting one arm drop down off
the side, pressing his face into the bunched up afghan Melissa had
made in home EC. His body hurt all over and his throat felt thick and
tender. A little sleep would help. He was just tired, that was all.
Sleep deprivation tests had shown how drastically motor skills and
brain functions altered without rest. DK had made fun of him for weeks
after the IASA tests were over and a purloined video tape showed John
Robert Crichton Jr. in all his hazy splendor, trying to find a
circular peg in a mess of square ones...when he had been holding it in
his own hand all along.

Cold too. Maybe if he pulled that afghan out from under his head and
wrapped himself in it... Hands were tucking a blanket around him,
hands in leather gloves. Black leather gloves.

"Don't worry about a thing, Johnny." It was his mom. Why was she
wearing black leather gloves? Gardening? "I'll bring you some soup
down, and a grilled cheese sandwich. How's that?"

That would be great. His stomach rumbled anxiously. So cold. Hot soup
would be good. He reached down to pull the blanket up to his chin and
his hand bumped into something hard. Cracking open his eyes, he saw
blood. It soaked the afghan and the dirty, worn plaid of the couch
upholstry. And there, protruding from the center of his chest... the
hilt of his Dad's buckmaster.

He started awake with a choking gasp, looking down and patting his
chest automatically. There was nothing there. He let out his breath in
a relieved, shuddering sigh. Fucking clone. Swallowing, his throat
making a dry clicking sound, he staggered up to his feet lifting his
hands to blow on them for warmth.

It was only when he touched his fingers to his cheeks that he realized
something. Something terrible. His skin was hot to the touch.
Suddenly, his body aches, his weariness, his thick throat, and the new
obvious pain spreading from the spot where Harvey had stabbed him, it
all made sense in an awful, dreadful way. His own body was shutting
down. And worst of all, he could feel the clone's cold fingerprints
all over it. Harvey was doing it. Somehow the creature had regained
control of John's nervous system.

And there was nothing he could do to fight it.


+++

The trip did not take two days. It took barely one in the Growler, as
they had named the odd vessel. Quick, easy to maneuver, it had
everything but comfort. Nonetheless, she forced herself into an uneasy
doze, curled awkwardly into the co pilot chair while D'Argo flew. They
had argued about who would fly, but in the end, he had been right. She
would need the rest for her crazy scheme to work.

"Insane," Rygel had said. "You're crazier than Crichton is."

"Are you sure about this, my dear? I realize that you want to find
John, but-" Zhaan had folded her hands and pursed her lips in concern.

Jool had only shrugged her shoulders. Chiana'd opened her mouth and
then shut it again.

"It will work. It has a good chance. And since no one else seems to
have any ideas..." She'd raised her eyebrows in a challenge that no
one had met. "All right then. I will purchase some mining equipment
from the port and a one-man borer if I can find one. It should have
enough power and life-support to get me to the base. Wherever it is.
If we are stopped or searched, we will look like scavengers aiming to
mine the debris field. D'Argo can park the Growler in the Field and I
can make the trip to the base once we discover where it is."

"Won't the Peacekeepers send out a squad to kill you?"

"They won't want to draw any attention to themselves. They will lay
low and quiet until we move on. In this case, until D'Argo moves on.
He will leave me in the borer, and I will be able to make my way to
the base undetected. I will be too small and irregularly shaped for
them to pick out from amidst the rest of the debris. I should be able
to land and enter the base."

"What if you are stopped before you get there? There will be scouts on
the lookout, an early warning system."

"I will modify the transponder to read like my old prowler. They will
see us as a prowler until they get visual. By then, we will be able to
shoot them down, or simply avoid them."

"Crazy."

That was D'Argo, and he was speaking to her. She peeled her eyelids
open, stifling a yawn.

"What?"

"I said, crazy. You're fahrbot, this will not work." He was muttering
to himself as he flew. "You're going to get yourself killed or
captured or worse and then we'll have lost *both* of you."

She didn't say anything, instead taking note of their position. Still
a few arns away from the debris field.

"No sign of PK patrols. What if this isn't the place?"

She wasn't going to let him distract herself with such thoughts. It
had to be the place. John was there. She knew it instinctively
somehow. She turned back onto her side and closed her eyes again.
D'Argo was just voicing his fears. She had enough of her own. But if
Crichton had taught her anything at all, it was how to hope. And that
was what she had to do now. Hope that he was still alive and unharmed.
Hope that Scorpy had not caught him.

Not more than a few monens ago, Moya had stopped briefly at a sparsely
inhabited planet to stock up on fresh foods. She had walked through
fields of waist high orange grlla reeds with him, swatting at insects
the size of her hand and gasping in the 100% humidity. Born in space,
she had never thought she would ever feel truly comfortable
planet-bound, but walking out there, bantering with him and ducking
bloodthirsty flies, sweating and cursing, she couldn't remember being
happier. It had been him, of course. It wasn't just that he made her
happy to be with him, he had made her learn how to *be* happy. It had
been a revelation of sorts, out there in the muggy dampness covered in
insect bites. When she remembered it now, it was only the simple,
honest joy she'd felt that stood out.

And of course, it had been fun to rub the numbing ointment Zhaan gave
them all over each other's bite-riddled bodies later that night.

She let her mind draw a picture of him in strokes of memory. Soft
light falling across his sleeping face. The lines of his back as he
bent over a console. The furrow between his brows when he was
perplexed by the universe. The curve of his pretty mouth when he
teased her. Zhaan called him innocent, and it was true. He wore his
innocence like a mantle, a coat that sometimes vanished beneath
despair and disappointment, but always reappeared every time he looked
on something with wonder. A tiny smile touched her lips involuntarily.
There was a time when she would have thought such naked emotion, shown
so unapologetically to the world, was a weakness. Now she knew better.
It was his strength. And he had enough of that strength to share with
her. He had made her more powerful than she had ever thought she could
be.

She finally let herself drift back into a doze, the pungent smell of
that anti-itch ointment and the sensation of warm skin under her
fingers weaving through her thoughts. Wait for me, John.

For once, just wait.

++++

He didn't get sick much. Wasn't the sort, really. Even when he was a
kid he would brush off illness. His attack of the chicken pox lasted a
total of two days before he was on his feet again. When some bug was
going around, it never hit him. DK, on the other hand, would catch
every damned thing that came down the pike. Colds, flus, pneumonia,
strange food poisonings, the guy was a walking bacteria trap. State of
mind, John would say as DK lay moaning on the ratty couch of their
college apartment amidst a field of crumpled kleenex. Just gotta shrug
it off, pal.

Fugg yu, was DK's normal muffled response, followed by the finger.

Shrug it off. Right. Wasn't working this time.

His bones hurt, his *hair* hurt. He wanted nothing more than to curl
up and die in a corner somewhere. Let Scorpy find him there. Let him
invade Earth. Whatever. Somewhere along the way, the headache had
intensified. And then, soon after that, the shooting nerve pain.
Whatever it was, it wasn't a cold. The fever gave that away. His body
was fighting something. Something bad. Something that wore black
leather.

But now was not exactly the time for this.

He concentrated on walking steadily and evenly down the hallways,
keeping his head down and praying to every god and deity he had ever
even *heard* of that Scorpy didn't walk by. He kept having flashbacks
of the last time that bastard had picked him out of a crowd just by
his body temperature. With his fever, he had to be glowing like a
Christmas tree light right now to someone like the Scarran half breed.

His tech satchel was already full of the items he had stolen from the
supply closet. The things he would need to blow the data core sky
high. The Phaze Generator needed some blowin' up too. And he needed to
make sure, more than anything else, that when he finished here, Scorpy
was dead for once and for all. Otherwise the cockroach would just
skitter back into the shadows and start building all over again.

The sleep cycle had started half an arn ago and the halls were
starting to lighten up in traffic. Which was good. He paused at an
intersection and sluggishly referred to a folded flimsy that showed
the layout of the base. Left.

'Right'

He reached to scrub at his face almost violently.

'Shut up Harvey. Just. Shut. Up.'

Regardless of the admonition, he pulled the flimsy out and focused his
eyes on the layout again. Right, it was left.

He went left, trying not to weave. His muscles felt like jelly and his
empty stomach was clenching like a fist. Visions of a bed, even a hard
floor, were dancing through his mind. It seemed all he could think
about. Lying down.

A door whooshed open before him and he slipped inside what he had
determined would be the data recording chamber. The research core. Two
techs were sitting at the far consoles, working. Thankfully, they did
not look up when he came in. Orienting himself, trying to keep his
head clear, he aimed for an empty workstation and slid in behind it.
His limbs were not his own, they were heavy and clumsy, his hands
shook. He could feel the heat radiating off of him in waves and his
vision was blurring a little. It was a bad fever, he didn't need no
school nurse to tell him that.

Shrug it off.

Files scrolled up before him in sebacean. He understood very little of
what he was looking at, but he had gotten Aeryn to give him a primer a
couple times. He could get the most basic of basics. He tapped a few
panels, trying not to hunch his shoulders as his muscles ached, trying
not to shiver as his body forced itself hotter and hotter. Violent
nausea was starting to circle over his head like a vulture.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Search there. Here. Down two levels of security. He hit
a file, almost by accident, and suddenly, there it was. He almost
gasped out loud, almost pushed his chair back in shock.

Images. Hundreds of them. Earth. It was Earth. He could see trees and
people and movie stars and pyramids. Things that he had never been
sure he would see in any other place than his memories. Scorpius had
done exactly what John had feared. The wormhole easy-bake instructions
in his brain had led straight to his home world. The bastard must have
gotten these images from the probes and ships he had sent into the
Neck just before the wormhole destabilized each time.

He sat there frozen, staring at one particularly unimpressive shot of
a field of cows for a long, long moment. It was only once he reached
up to brush at a tickle on his chin that he realized he was crying
silent, stony tears. This, he reminded himself, was why he had come.
Why he had given up the people he had come to love. Why he had left
Aeryn sleeping in her bed with a whispered goodbye he had promised he
would never give her.

"John Crichton. Just when I think that you have surprised me for the
last time, you go and do it again."

That was most definitely not Harvey. Harvey didn't talk outside of his
head, only inside.

It was enough to slice through the thudding, feverish pain in his
spine. Enough to splash a cold, clear wash of adrenaline in his face.
He didn't turn around, but his new, shocked clarity allowed him to see
what he had not a moment before. The flashing alarm on the screen that
showed that he had blundered into restricted files. He had been too
muzzy to notice.

'Sorry, John. It will all be over soon.' The voice, imagined or real,
was not sorry in the least. Smug was a better word. Triumphant,
another. Frell it all.

He turned in his chair.

Scorpius stood there, smiling benignly, flanked by several heavily
armed guards.

"Well, Scorpy, old pal. I was just in the neighborhood and I thought I
would look you up. Sorry I didn't ring the bell, the back door was
open." His voice was a surprisingly hoarse croak, sorta diminishing
the sarcasm. Scorpius did not lose his smile, instead he looked down
for a moment and then back up at Crichton, lips pursed.

"I'll find out soon enough how you breached my security, dear boy. Not
to worry about that. Mostly I'm curious to what you thought you were
going to accomplish here? Have you come to *stop* me?" Soft chuckling.

John was reeling. The words that were coming out of his nemesis' mouth
were gibberish, he might as well have been quacking like a duck.

'Just give up, John. It's over now. You can rest.' That inner voice
was so relieved. Even gleeful.

He didn't think he had a choice.

It was almost worth the entire godawful mess, from the moment of his
birth all the way up to when he tumbled from the chair. Almost worth
it all just for the look of surprise on Scorpius's face when he
collapsed in a dead faint.

++++

She woke with a start, a tiny gasp puffing from her mouth as she
jolted upwards. Blinking in confusion, she looked to her left to see
D'Argo frowning at her.

"Dream?"

I don't dream, she started to say, and then closed her mouth. There
was a gnawing sensation in her gut, a crawling dread. Something was
wrong. And she *had* been dreaming. Dreaming that John was already
captured. That they were too late. She gritted her teeth. Nonsense, of
course. Next thing she knew, she would be losing all her hair and
turning blue.

"No. Nothing." She would not voice her new and strong sense of
foreboding. It might make it real if D'Argo heard her speak it out
loud.

"The debris field is ahead. I can detect nothing. No signs that there
might be a hidden base of any kind."

"Well," she leaned forward and tapped at the scanners, "it wouldn't be
hidden if we could see it, now, would it?"

He grunted.

"Do you think John is still alive?" He spoke the words with
reluctance, and it echoed her terrible sense that something was wrong
too closely. She looked at him.

"Of course!" She snapped the words out like they were weapons. D'Argo
gave her a long slow look.

"You have to prepare yourself for the worst, Aeryn. We both know that
if he was captured, it is unlikely he is still alive. Scorpius no
longer has any need to refrain from killing him."

She said nothing, instead tuning the scanners for a specific
frequency. It was much easier to ignore the Luxan and concentrate on
the here and now. She would not consider the option that John was
dead. It was impossible to contemplate.

For one terrifying moment, the universe yawed beneath her feet with a
great, gaping, toothless mouth, ready to swallow her in despair at the
possibility that it might be true. Taking a deep breath the darkness
receded gently, but it did not vanish. It only waited.

She finished entering the specs into the scanner control and scaled it
up.

"What are you doing?"

The debris field spread before them in an oddly beautiful stretch of
horizon line. It was unusual to find a two dimensional plane in space,
and it was both lovely and strange. Somewhere out there, Crichton
needed her.

"I'm tuning the scanners to a specific frequency. Jool told me that
certain atmosphere shields contain specific resonance factors. That we
might be able to pick those factors up by fine tuning."

Her eyes widened suddenly as one of the lower ranges jumped slightly.
"Did you see that?" D'Argo leaned over and peered at the screen.

"What? You have something?"

"I think so." she turned up the range slightly, adjusting for the
frequency she'd seen move. This time there was no mistaking it. There
it was. And it seemed to be coming from a specific portion of the
debris field.

"Set course, D'Argo. Oh-Four-six. That should put me within range to
go out in the borer, and not get the base freaked out over our
proximity."

"'Freaked out'?" D'Argo shook his head, a smile playing the edges of
his mouth. "You really have been irreversibly contaminated."

They shot forward into the field, and Aeryn could only laugh softly.
The foreboding was not gone, but at least she felt like she was only
arns away from doing something about it.

+++

Black leather. Used to have all sorts of connotations before. Whips
and chrome, stiletto thigh-highs and wallets with chains. But that was
before. Before it was all in a fun Halloween kinda way. Dominatrix and
sex games. Bikers and rock-stars. Attitude, man. That was what black
leather meant.

Not anymore. Now black leather had a whole new set of associations.
Big guns and opaque black visors. Pale, reptilian features and The
Comfy Chair. Incarceration and running. Always running.

There was a ceiling to go with the leather now. A ceiling and a
woman's face. Short brown hair and gray eyes. Her hands were cool. She
was spraying something on him that made him burn. Scorpius talked.
Words that sliced like tiny, sharp kitten claws against the skin of
his face. Hurting him.

"Did you think to stop me, John?" Hell yeah. Nothing to say I still
won't. Soon as those wolverines stop playing tug of war with my spine.
Leather fingertips on his face. "You think he will die?" Murmuring.
Heat. Unfamiliar concepts. Nothing like anything I've seen.
Inconclusive.

He was going to die. There was a small comfort in knowing that Scorpy
still didn't know how to make the Wormhole stable. The only comfort he
had to cling to.

"Can a man get a drink in here?" Slapping the bar at Monaco's with his
hand. Where was everyone? Harvey sat next to him wearing sunglasses
and a straw Bermuda hat.

"Hot, isn't it? Interesting to experience it without fear." The clone
sipped from a large banana daiquiri. The paper umbrella in it was
blood red. "I admit that it was not easy figuring out your nervous
system in the limited capacity I am operating at now. Not easy at all,
you know. Finding the controls, so to speak, of your internal systems.
But extremely satisfying now that I have. I doubt that you will be
able to get out of this one, my friend. Freedom awaits."

It was hard to concentrate on what Harvey was saying. Several small
Spanish peanuts had sprouted legs and were doing the Mambo across the
chipped wood bar. He watched it with an odd disconnection. Was the air
conditioner broken? The front of his aloha shirt was soaked with
blood.

"Barkeep! I need a drink, man! Water, something!"

No one appeared. The fan in the ceiling hung motionless. He felt like
he could see waves of heat distorting his vision.

"Here, drink this."

A hand was supporting the back of his head, and cold water touched his
lips. The woman with the short hair. He wanted his mom. He wanted a
grilled cheese sandwich.

"We don't have such foodstuff here. You must drink the water."

He slit his eyes, wincing as the light shot bolts of pain into his
brain. She was looking down at him dispassionately. He couldn't move
his head to see if Scorpy were still spitting bats at him. The woman
placed her hand on his head and frowned.

"I don't know how you can survive this. You are getting worse."

His eyes rolled back in his head as he attempted to gather his
strength. There was no lucidity left in him, but he needed to tell her
what to do. Fevers this high caused brain damage and he needed all the
cells he had left.

"Cold."

"You're cold? That's impossible." She was sitting on the side of his
bed and now she leaned down closer to him. "You are in delirium."

"Cool me down. Water. Cold. Soon."

Harvey peered sideways at him at the bar suddenly, eyes slitted in
suspicion.

"No, John. I don't think so. You're not getting out of this." He never
saw the hand approach or felt the knife in his chest twist, he only
saw a soft, gentle blackness as he slipped off his bar stool and into
the void of unconsciousness. +++

Bayla had never seen anything like it in all her years as a med. A
Sebacean would have died long before, slipping into the living death.
This one was not Sebacean, as Scorpius had explained. Though he might
look it on the outside. 'Do not let him die just yet.' Scorpius had
said the words amiably enough, but she had seen enough in the monens
she'd been assigned to the base to know failure was not an option. It
made her feel lightheaded with fear. This man's species was not one
she was familiar with. She had no idea what was occurring inside his
body. It made her terrified to try and administer drugs.

All she could do was respond to his requests when he was able to make
them through his obvious delirium. Water. He was always begging softly
for water. For a drink. For cold water. For airkonditionar. Once he
asked her to take the knife out. He made no sense to her. It was
similar to the early stages of the living death, but stranger.

Now, he said to cool him down. Cold water. She could only assume he
meant submerging. Swallowing, she made her way to the com and asked
Jenna to bring a large container and fill it with cold water. Then she
leaned back against the com panel and took a deep breath, letting
herself look back at the flushed, moaning alien. The wall rumbled
almost imperceptibly, meaning that the Phaze Generator  must have
fired again. Scorpius would be leaving soon in the research ship to
take readings, perhaps to send another pilot to his death.

She shrugged it off. It was none of her concern, and everyone in the
service knew they were expendable for the cause. They all also knew
that Wormholes would make them the unquestionable dominant power in
the galaxy. It was worth the lives of a few pilots.

Bay pushed off the wall and walked back towards the tossing, twisting
human. He was soaked with moisture, staining the tech jump he still
wore. Pressing her lips together, she began to methodically strip him
out of it in preparation for the ice that was coming. Hezmana help
her, but she didn't want to die so pointlessly, for this pathetic
alien.

Scorpius, she reminded herself, thought him important for some reason.
She would have to trust that her commander knew what he was doing. He
was, after all, working to make the Peacekeepers the effective
galactic leaders that they should be.

John Crichton, whatever he was, was certainly attractive to look on
she thought distractedly. He would turn heads, Sebacean or not. Even
with the color high in his cheeks and his hair soaked with sweat. She
was alarmed to note that there was a pale cast cloaking his features,
sunken purple hollows forming under his eyes. He had also stopped
moving. It was a sign she was sure was bad. Where the hell was that
water?

As if on cue, the door to the cell slid open and two mannies pushed an
enormous wheeled container into the room. It was filled with water.
Testing it with her finger she was happy to note that it was cold.

"Help me get him in there."

The pair did not question her, they simply each took half of his
now-naked form and set him into the container. Hezmana he was hot. She
dipped a cloth in and started squeezing the liquid over his face.

Now what?

Biting her lip she waved the pair out, pulling open her med kit and
retrieving her medical scanner. Running it over his face, she raised
her eyebrows. His temperature was the same, but even as she watched
the numbers, they dropped by a fraction of a degree. Almost shaking
with the effort not to hope, she continued to squeeze a stream of
water on his exposed head, ignoring the stinging discomfort of the icy
cloth against her skin.

He was mumbling again. That was better than the deathly stillness of
before.

The door slid open again and she looked up in time to see Scorpius
himself stride through, two of his attendants behind him. His pale
eyes flicked over the tub, the water and the human before resting on
her.

"Medic Fenn? May I inquire about the patient?"

She nodded a little nervously and gestured at the human.

"I think he's better, sir. His temperature is finally stabilizing."

They stood in silence, listening to John Crichton mumbling to himself.
His head jerked to one side and then he was still again. She held her
breath until he started mumbling again.

"That is good news, medic. I hope that he will soon be able to carry
on a conversation."

"No way to tell, sir. I really don't know what's wrong with him. It's
very likely that he will die."

"Unacceptable, medic. There are things I need to speak with him about.
If he must die, he will do it after we have our conversation. But not
before."

It was a warning. She wasn't stupid. Her heartrate increased
exponentially.

"Yes, sir." There was nothing else she could say. Scorpius did not
have a high tolerance for excuses.

"No talkin' to you, Scorpy. Notta chance." It was a garbled series of
words, but both of them understood him. Scorpius took a half step
forward. His eyes had gone sly.

"Talk to me about what, John?" His words were gentle and amiable.

"Y'kno what. An' yer not gettin' it." The half-breed smiled, tilting
his head to one side.

"But John, I already got it. I have the calculations. I have
everything and you have nothing but vengeance."

The human started giggling softly. His eyes were still closed, his
pallor more marked. She quickly ran the scanner over him again. His
temp was down almost two entire degrees! The cold water was working.
Scorpius didn't even notice her actions. He was staring at the man
intently, an odd light in his eyes.

"Just what do you think you have that I want now, John?" So soft,
those words. They sent a shiver up her spine. "Do you know why the
wormhole continues to be unstable?"

"Pooor Scorpy..." It was a whisper, bubbling as his mouth slipped a
little under the waterline. "Pooor, poor Scorpy. So close. Not close
enough..."

He slipped under then and Bay jumped forward to pull him up again
before he breathed in water. No more mumbling, his head slumped to one
side. She looked up to find Scorpius staring at her, all trace of his
earlier casual friendliness gone.

"I will talk to him. You will find a way. I don't care if he falls
into a thousand pieces afterwards, but I will talk to him."

She swallowed and nodded.

++++

It was not something that she would recommend to anyone. Ever.

By the time Aeryn bumped down on the surface of the dead moon she was
nearly ready to lose her mind. The claustrophobia of the Borer was one
thing. Unable to move no more than her hands, she had had to remain
still for almost 4 arns. Her limbs were cramped and her wrists ached
with the effort to make the borer look like any other piece of
floating debris to the base's sensors. The worst had been the utter
solitude of it.

As soon as she had left the security of the Growler she had found
herself hanging in space, moving through a bottomless universe. She
lost sight of D'Argo almost immediately. There was no contact between
them for fear of being overheard, so she traveled in silence. The only
thing keeping her from drifting off, lost, into the void was the
scanner signal off the atmosphere shielding. It blipped comfortingly
at her, guiding her through the darkness amongst the silent chunks of
stone that made up the debris field.

One scrape against the wrong rock and the skin of the Borer would be
compromised. One wrong move and she might be detected as something
other than a floating piece of jetsam. Vulnerable and alone, it had
been the longest four arns of her life. She would have given a great
deal in those eternal moments to hear Crichton's pointless babbling.

When she had spotted the nearly camouflaged dome amongst the craggy
topography of the moon, she had very nearly passed out with relief.
Not just that she had found it, but that it was above ground. An
underground base would have opened up a whole new jar of trouble.

The other thing she saw as she drifted towards the base on an oblique
vector, was the enormous piece of machinery that was set into the
rock. It appeared to consist of a massive dish and several large
igniters that curled around the dish inwards like a huge claw. She'd
never seen anything like it. Perhaps something to do with generating a
wormhole?

Discarding the Borer and carefully concealing it from the air, she
began to approach the base in a slow, zero gee amble. There would be
maintenance hatches in the perimeter of the field. Probably guarded,
but she guessed that it would be minimal security. The base operators
had to be pretty certain that any security breach would be from the
air, not the surface. Why would they?

Her breathing echoed loudly in her own ears as the closest maintenance
hatch drew nearer. It was just across an open stretch of craggy rock.
She would be visible to anyone watching. If someone saw her, if she
missed a single exterior sensor, it would be over.

Gritting her teeth, she forced insecurities down and moved. One step,
another. She was completely out in the open now. If there were
sensors, she was already spotted. She began to run. At least as well
as she could in the suit. The moon had almost no gravity at all. It
was too small for it.

No alarms flashed, no exterior weapons fired at her. In fact, she got
to the hatch and found that it was manual and not coded at all.
Swallowing at her good fortune, and more than a little leery of it,
she depressurized the lock and stepped inside. It was probable that
there was an alert on the door itself, but hopefully they would think
it a malfunction. After all, who would be entering in from the outside
on a dead moon in a debris field? When no ship had been detected
landing?

She didn't dare celebrate as she pushed open the interior door and
slipped inside a dim tech room. Jumpsuits hung on the walls near the
EVA suit lockers and she quickly stripped and donned one, hiding her
suit as best she could amongst the others.

Hurrying as fast as she could, knowing that someone would be down any
microt to check the door alarm, she slipped out into the hall and
dashed off into the shadows.

+++

He stood in the twilight of a hospital room. The drapes were drawn but
light glimmered along the edges of the fabric, bordering it in gold.
The narrow, white bed before him was empty, tightly made and neat.
There were three chairs along the far wall and they were occupied by
his Father, Melissa and Jenn. Each of them, oddly enough, wore
blindfolds. He frowned.

Looking down, he saw that he was wearing his orange flight suit and
that the whole front was painted with blood. The knife still protruded
unnaturally from his chest. He could not move.

"Won't you just die?" Did the voice sound a little fainter than
before? A little less like a paper cut? Harvey was leaning in the
corner behind the door, nearly engulfed by the shadows. John said
nothing. There was something about the room that made him mute, his
throat closed tight with grief. "Just give up. What's left here? You
can't beat Scorpius. You won't stop him. You came here alone knowing
that you would fail."

He did know. But he'd had to try. He closed his eyes. Failure.

"I don't see how you can say you've failed."  Aeryn's voice made him
open his eyes. She stood at the foot of the bed, holding an
incongruous bouquet of lilies. She wore her PK flight suit. Black,
dark and dangerous.

His heart tripped a beat at the sight of her and he tried to take a
step forward but could not move. She looked at him with contempt, her
brow furrowed in frustration.

"I think he has. More importantly, *he* thinks he has, don't you,
John?" Harvey countered her statement, but did not move from the
shadows. His poisonous voice was still satisfied if softer.

"You shut up!" Aeryn lifted one hand and pointed at the clone angrily. 
John, hypnotized, watched the bouquet fall apart, petals and leaves
flying across the empty bed. The air felt thick. "You're doing this.
Why don't you just let him be? What are you hiding from?"

From farewells.

She turned back on John suddenly, her anger beautiful to see.

"You certainly think highly of yourself, don't you Crichton? Weight of
the world on your shoulders? Who are you, Atlas?"

How did she know about Atlas?

"Nothing to do with that." Harvey snapped. He still hadn't moved, but
the clone looked slightly less confident, even worried now. God, she
was beautiful. It was easy, looking at her, to forget how much the
knife hurt. Blinking, he suddenly noticed that the bed was gone, that
his family no longer sat in the room.

"Back off, bitch! You don't know what you're doing!" Harvey finally
stepped out of his dark corner. "John wants this, don't you John?
Atone for the things you've done."

"Frell you!" Aeryn - or was it someone else? She looked a little like
the parts dealer suddenly, Jalaya - turned towards John, and the clone
seemed to gather what she was going to do.

"NO!"

She took one step, two, her hand coming up towards the knife.

And she yanked it out, a spray of crimson spattering the white walls.
One more move, slick, sleek, fast - she spun her body in a fluid
motion and flung the blade at the clone, skewering his throat.

He shouted up from the darkness, lunging upwards to the sensation of
hands grabbing his shoulders and pressing him back down. Water
splashed. Disoriented, gasping, he blinked and tried to move his head.
Mistake. Reeling from the pain in his spine and head, he lay still,
panting from the agony. What the hell had he just seen? God above, was
he finally going insane?

"How do you feel?" The voice was a woman's. He refocused his attention
to the here and now with a gargantuan effort, driving away visions of
Jalaya Tunn stabbing Harvey. It no longer hurt to breathe. A woman
with short brown hair was bending over him. Swallowing, he cracked
open dry lips and tried to speak. It was hoarse and uneven, but it was
his voice.

"Like someone chewed me up, digested me, and then vomited."

The woman made a small noise that was neither a laugh nor interest.
She tapped a comm at her breast and murmured words into it that he
could not make out. Cool fingers touched his head and then pulled down
his lower lid.

"Whe...where am I?" His sore eyes tried to make out details. He
vaguely remembered Scorpy finding him at the console.

"In custody. Scorpius will be here shortly to speak to you now that
you are coherent."

He did move his head then, gritting his teeth at the pain. A medic.
Why would Scorpy bother? Why not just let him die? His pulse picked up
a little as he tried to remember if he had said anything in any phase
of his delirium. Did the half-breed suspect that John might know why
his wormholes were unstable?

"He doesn't want to talk to me, he already has everything he needs
from me."

She only shrugged.

"I don't care. As long as I keep you alive long enough for him to talk
to you, I'm happy."

The sound of the door opening precluded any further comment, and even
though he couldn't move his head, he knew it was Scorpius who entered
the cell. He silently gathered the little strength he had left,
exposed as he felt in the cold tub.

The black-hooded deaths-head entered his field of vision and smiled.

"Hello, John. Nice to see a little reason back in those eyes of
yours."

"What do you want from me now, chuckles?" He felt utterly vulnerable
lying paralyzed, nude and weak before the creature.

"Simple enough, dear boy. I want to know what it is exactly that you
think you are still hiding from me. Tell me and I will make your death
quick. Refuse and I will have to put you in the Chair again." His
smile broadened at the flicker of fear in John's eyes. "Yes, I had a
Chair installed here. I've found it to be invaluable in the past." He
tilted his head at his own sense of humor.

"You've already roto-rootered my brain, Dr. Death. There's nothing
left for you to play with."

"Well," he straightened and clasped his hands behind his back. "That's
what I had thought. But you said something yesterday that made me
think otherwise. I've learned a lot about you since our first meeting,
and I know better than to underestimate you any more. You are a
scientist in your own limited fashion, and far from stupid."

"Wow, Scorpy, a compliment from you. You have no idea what that means
to me."

"No more banter, John. I am on a tight schedule. Tell me what you are
hiding or the Chair will dissect what is left of your brain while you
still have one." His false amiability vanished all at once, and John
could sense something more beneath the exterior. He blinked, his brain
painfully chugging to keep up and then he slowly smiled. A true smile.

"Pressure from the head office, Bro? They looking for results from all
this hubbub you've caused in the last cycle and a half? Running around
the Galaxy like Crais did, trying your gosh-darnedest to track down
one pathetic sub-species. Built a new base, spent bazillions o' bucks
and man-hours...and your wormholes to date are ... worthless." He
grinned. "Bummer."

He didn't see the hand until it closed around his throat and squeezed
until he saw spots. The water in the tub sloshed over the sides as
John tried to find purchase.

"I know you are trying to provoke me, John. I can be provoked, but I
will never act unthinkingly like the ever-foolish Captain Crais did on
such numerous occasions. I will have what it is you know. And I can
see that I will have to use the Chair to get it."

John stubbornly remained silent. He was terrified of the Chair but he
could not bring himself to give in so easily. Not with his world at
stake.

"Will he survive transport to the Aurora Chair?" This was directed to
the medic who stood against the wall.

"I believe so. He seems to be stabilizing."

"Excellent." He snapped his fingers and the two men who had been
standing at the door moved forward, grabbed him by either arm and
dragged him out the door.

He was too weak to even struggle.

+++


Where do you start looking for a single saboteur?

When it was John Crichton doing the sabotage, you started looking in
the cells first. The base seemed to be on alert, but it didn't
necessarily mean it was because they had found John. Always best to
assume the worst, however. At least where Crichton was concerned.

It was a simple enough thing to find the detention area. A small
affair, only two cells, but they were both empty. One contained a
container full of water, but nothing more. Certainly no wayward human.
She moved on, unable to stop her hand from straying to the bulge where
her pistol was concealed as she went. There might be people who would
recognize her. A slim chance, but a possibility. And it was best to
try and foresee every possible mishap.

She found a comm panel but was unable to access any real information.
Her concern was rising every microt. Was he even here? It seemed
incredible that they had found this base purely on conjecture from
trying to understand Crichton's actions, and now he was nowhere to be
seen.

He's just hiding, she scoffed at herself. Of course he's just hiding.
He's not going to be parading up and down the halls with a sign.

It was then that she heard the scream.

It set every hair on her body standing up straight. She knew that
voice very well. Forcing herself to keep from running towards the
sound, she carefully put one foot in front of the other, moving
nonchalantly in the direction of the sound. Her sense of foreboding
had been right then. It made her stomach churn.

There was no way to simply walk into the chamber. Without a doubt
Scorpius would be in there. She had already seen enough to know that
he was indeed still alive as John had thought. She could not loiter by
the entrance either, there were guards posted. Instead she had to
settle for walking by.

"Most ingenious, John. I will have to make sure that all cargo ships
are scanned thoroughly from now on to make sure this security breach
is not repeated."

"Yeah," his voice was wasted and hoarse, she shivered with the
weakness she heard in it. "Thanks, pal. You know I live for your
approval."

"But of course, this is not the information I am looking for -"

She passed out of hearing range and turned the corner. The guards had
not given her a second glance. She took a deep breath and concentrated
on moving. He must have been in one of the cells, then, she thought.
Scorpy would return him when he had whatever he wanted.

She hoped.

Attacking the guards at the entrance would do no good, not with Scorpy
and who knew how many of his men inside the chamber with John. She
knew from past experience that the Chair would not harm John
permanently, at least not physically. She could wait for him.

Retracing her steps to the detention area, she hesitated over the
cells. Which one? After only a moment, she chose the one with the tub
of water in it. Holding her breath, she quickly disarmed the locking
mechanism by jamming a tiny piece of scrap metal into it. It would
still open and shut like normal, only it wouldn't lock. Hopefully the
guards would simply dump Crichton and leave.

It was a lot to base hope on, but if there was a problem she could
always wing it. Her hand felt for her pistol again, this time
deliberately.

She pressed herself into the far corner, thankful for the dim light.
This was no murky dungeon, but at least it was dark. She settled in to
wait, locking her knees to keep her exhausted body pressed against the
wall. Once she got John, she still wasn't sure how they were going to
get off the base. It had been the fuzziest part of her plan. Obviously
they both would not fit into the Borer, even if it had enough fuel for
the return trip. Which it didn't. Her thought was that they would
steal a ship. Somehow.

Of course, Crichton would not want to leave without destroying the
base. It was why he had come, after all. It might actually work to
their advantage in that case. If they were able to at least create a
small scene of destruction, they might escape under its cover. Pretty
shaky, as D'Argo had said. But there would have to be a way. Once they
got off the moon, it was only a matter of signaling D'Argo. The
Growler was faster than any PK ship. They would be able to outrun
pursuit.

Perhaps just under an arn was all she got before the doors slid open.
She held her breath. A dark figure was dumped onto the floor and the
door slid shut behind him. She counted to twelve before moving.

Falling to her knees next to him she quickly checked his pulse and
pulled his eyelids up. Unconscious. She lifted his head into her lap
and stroked his hair back from his face. He was ghostly pale, she
could see his pallor even in the dim light. His lips were cracked and
dry, hollow circles painted under his eyes. He looked like death.
There were tremors running through his body at intervals and she tried
not to frighten herself with thoughts of what might be wrong with him.

"Crichton?" She bent over him and whispered against his cheek. She
slapped him lightly a few times, trying to rouse him. Nothing. Biting
her lower lip, she gently wiped his face clean of spittle and tears,
aching for his pain. The amount of suffering Scorpius had caused both
of them was almost too great to calculate. "John, it's me." She bent
even lower, her breath ticking against his ear.

She almost gasped when his eyes cracked open, exposing bloodshot blue
orbs. She stayed very still, her thumb the only thing moving as it
caressed his temple. He smiled up at her.

"Hey, baby." His voice was casual, almost light. She frowned, sliding
her hands down under his shoulders and pulling.

"Come on Crichton, we have to get you out of here."

One of his hands trapped hers, bringing it to his lips.

"I miss you. I'm sorry I had to leave you. It was hard..."

He thought she was an apparition. She frowned. His eyes were
unfocused, and she could feel the trembling in his hand. He was on the
verge of shock. She'd seen it before in him.

"John." Her voice was firm now and she finally levered his upper body
up into a sitting position. He got a better look at her, and she could
see a flash of confusion in his face. Good. "John, listen to me. We
don't have a lot of time. I'm real. I'm here. I've come to take you
back to Moya. D'Argo is waiting for us."

He blinked at her.

This time she was not gentle when she slapped him. Shaking his head,
he frowned at her, staring hard.

"Aeryn? What the frell are you doing here?"

"That's how you greet me?" She smiled, but it had a hard edge to it.
He gaped at her for a moment, still trying to process it all. Then his
hands shot out and gripped her arms, almost bruisingly hard.

"Good god, can't you ever just stay put? You can't be here!" His eyes
were slightly wild. And then suddenly his mouth was on hers and he was
kissing her for all he was worth, pouring all the grief and fear of
the last interminable days into her. She indulged him, indulged
herself, giving back for all she was worth before pushing him back
with a gasp.

"We have to go. Now, Crichton."

He shook his head, staggering to his feet and then almost falling
again. She caught his arm, grimacing at his weakness.

"Not yet." His mouth was a grim line. "I couldn't stop him, Aeryn. He
took it. Because of Neeyala. Because of her ship, I *knew* why his
wormholes weren't stabilizing. He knows now. Because of ME, he knows
how to make the wormhole viable." His teeth were clenched, his eyes
stony and full of self-hatred. He wasn't even looking at her. "I have
to destroy this Base. I have to kill Scorpy or the Peacekeepers will
destroy my home." He looked at her then and she almost winced at the
naked pain there. "*You* have to find a way off this thing."

"Not without you." she said stubbornly. He grabbed her arms then,
shaking her a little.

"No! Aeryn, It's no sure thing I'll make it off. I have to kill him or
die trying."

"I *will* help you, Crichton. You're not sending me off to be safe
like a good little pet. That's not the way it works. And frell you if
you think that you get to be some kind of martyr here. I didn't -
D'Argo and I- didn't come all this way just to watch you die."

They stared at each other for a long moment, the whole face-off made
almost comical by the fact that John could barely stand. She lifted
her chin contemptuously. "Besides, look at you. You can hardly hold up
your own arm. How are you going to do anything besides give Scorpius a
good hard stare? You need me."

He didn't look away from her, but his face softened just a hair. One
side of his mouth slanted up infinitesimally.

"I always have." She didn't let the words affect her, instead she
frowned.

"What do we need to do?"

++++

It bloomed like the sweetest flower anyone had ever seen.

"It looks the same, sir." No matter his uses, Bracca had always been a
fool.

"Ah, but it's not." His voice was a jubilant whisper. He could tell
already, just by looking at the readouts, that the wormhole was
stable. It had only been a matter of moments to adjust the variance on
the Phaze Generator. So simple it almost made him angry. Or it would
have, if he hadn't been so very happy. "Send in the probe. And have
the scout standing by." He did not turn his head from the viewscreen
as he gave orders.

He had boarded the research vessel only moments after he had left
Crichton. No time to waste. The High Preklate would be arriving soon.
Very soon. He *needed* the funnel to be viable.

His eyes tracked the probe as it streaked across space towards the
Neck. It didn't occur to him that Crichton might be wrong in his
thinking. It only made the most perfect of sense. That he was not
building the harmonics in correctly, that he was essentially off-Phaze
with the dimensionality that the wormhole needed to exist in. It was
why when a ship from the reality that he existed in, the set of rules
that he existed in, entered the Neck, the wormhole was unable to
function in the same place and time.

Nonetheless, he held his breath as the probe entered the Neck.

And when it held, when the data came pouring in and the crew of the
research vessel cheered, he only smiled.

++++

Seeing her move quickly and efficiently down the hall in front of him,
he had to remind himself that she was real. Even as they had been
talking in his cell, he'd had to re-convince himself over and over
that she wasn't just some vision his beleaguered brain had come up
with. Especially after the deal with Harvey and the knife and
Aeryn/Jalaya.

His head still throbbed unmercifully, but the cold water or his own
subconscious had wrested control of his own body back. His
faux-illness was gone, leaving only a terrible weakness and a hideous
headache. The image of Harvey with his Dad's knife in his throat was
one that would not leave him. If it was real, then the clone at least
seemed to be disarmed for now. If it was real, he wasn't sure he could
even understand how or what exactly had happened. And there was no
time to concern himself over it at the moment anyway. As long as he
was no longer in the grip of the strange illness, he couldn't worry
about unnatural dreams.

Aeryn had come back to the cell with two soldiers' uniforms, a pair of
ID chits, and two rifles and he hadn't asked her how she had gotten
them. At this point, as far as he was concerned, it was war. His home
was at stake and these people were the enemy.

Scorpy had told him. Told him while he was strapped in the Comfy
Chair. High Command was sending out several carriers in preparation
for the imminent creation of the wormhole. One of High Command itself
would be coming. Scorpius was under the proverbial deadline to have
the wormhole viable before they arrived. And they would need an
example of how it could be used.

"I'm sorry about your world, John, it will only be the first in a long
line of conquests. You, and soon the resources of your world, will
have helped the Peacekeepers achieve what they have only dreamed of
for so long. Of course, if it were up to me, I wouldn't care one way
or the other about your Earth." He shrugged. "But High Command will."

Now that grinning skull knew about the Phaze variance. Now he *knew*
why the wormhole was disintegrating as soon as matter entered the
Neck. It was such a simple thing, Scorpius had gloated. Such a simple
thing.  The next wormhole would be stable, John was sure of it.

And a major problem had presented itself. How did he kill Scorpy when
the bastard was probably already up in space ensconced safely on his
research vessel? He would not be able to sneak on board it.

One thing at a time, John, he thought. Aeryn's presence changed
things. He would have to get her to safety first. It was one thing to
throw himself into the fire, but he would not drag her in alongside.

His headache pounded a slow, steady war beat behind his eyes as he and
Aeryn walked down the corridors side by side. He was feeling stronger,
but did not shrug off her ocassional steadying hand. It was kinda
rough on a guy to go from unconscious to Aurora Chair to destroying a
base. He would be able to write a book on pressure after this was
over. 'How To Deal With Enormous Physical Stress And Still Blow Things
Up'.

They came to a stealthy stop around the corner from where he knew the
research core was, where he had been captured earlier, and peered
carefully at the doorway. Two guards that had not been there when he'd
walked into the core before stood at attention to either side of the
entrance. He exchanged looks with Aeryn, giving the faintest of nods
at her inquiring glance.

And then, without any further debate or conversation, he and Aeryn
simply lifted their pulse-rifles, stepped forward, and fired on the
guards. The pair barely had time to even look up at their attackers
before they collapsed in silent heaps to the floor.

The pair of them did not hesitate as they stepped into the doorway. He
had told her what needed to be done. It was a simple thing, but it
would set off a chain of events that could not be stopped. He
swallowed, resisting the urge to cross himself, and then he took a
deep breath and raised his rifle. As one, they rained a hail of
weapons' fire indiscriminately into the room, systematically
destroying one core after the other in a series of shattered consoles,
popping circuitry and smoking panels.

Alarms began to blare in loud and shrieking bursts of sound, chemical
systems hissing into play in futile attempts to tamp out the fires.
Only once the damage was past the point of recovery, he waved his hand
at Aeryn to catch her attention, closing his fist in a gesture meant
to cease fire.

And then they ran.

Amusingly enough, the plan was that there really was no plan. As so
often happened, carefully created blueprints went out the window and
shooting and running became the new course of action. In this case,
they had foregone the plan from the start and gone straight to
shooting and running.

The Phaze generator was next on the list.

His legs were jelly, he'd never felt so weak. Not only because his
recently hijacked body was still recovering, but because he had not
eaten or even really slept since he'd started this crazy
Three-Hour-Tour.

A checkpoint loomed ahead and they played the same card. Walking
confidently up and then mowing down all four guards like a couple of
mafioso in Goodfellas. He wondered if the sick feeling in his stomach
was normal for a cold-blooded killer. Knowing there was no time for
either regret or soul-searching, he followed Aeryn into the lift that
would take them up the trunk of the Phaze Generator.

Both slipped inside the small space and slammed the doors shut behind
them. Their pursuers were only a small group at the moment, but from
the buzzing of their stolen comms, he knew it was only a matter of
time before the whole base was on them. He glanced over at Aeryn again
as the lift rose abruptly, wishing he could see her behind the
faceplate. He wanted to tell her so much. The most of which was that
he wished she wasn't here. And that he had never been more grateful
that she was.

As if she could read his mind, she reached out and squeezed his upper
arm with her gloved hand. Then they both lifted their rifles and
waited for the doors to open.

There was no one there, to his surprise. Aeryn poked her helmeted head
out onto the gantry the doors had opened onto first, holding her hand
up to forestall him. Then she gestured for him to look himself.

There. At least ten suited guards were tramping their way down a
catwalk towards them. He glanced quickly at Aeryn and took a deep
breath, knowing that little more than adrenaline and will was keeping
him upright.

Aeryn gave a silent count with her fist and then they both burst from
the lift as one. They ran straight ahead, bobbing and ducking pulse
fire down a perpendicular catwalk, the one that led to the network
that braced a framework around the base of the Phaze Generator itself.

Neither of them wasted any time once they were close enough and had a
good vantage. The main powerhousing for the machinery was, as near as
he could tell from what he had seen what seemed like eons before in
the comm hub, in a boxlike structure that connected directly to the
core of the generator. They found a series of struts to shield them
from the incoming fire, and they turned their pulse rifles to the
highest settings before they started to blast indiscriminately at the
thing.

The guards were closing, and he could see that there were other
clusters of men approaching from another side of the networked
catwalks. They would be cut off in a moment. Aeryn tapped his arm and
gestured, ceasing fire. She jerked her head up. He looked. There was a
ladderlike structure that extended up to another level of catwalks.
More men were clambering towards them from above like swarming ants.

He jerked his head down to look at the generator.

The explosions were getting bigger. Blooming light and rioting fire
shot upwards in great gouts of flame and smoke. Already the entire
massive structure was choked with a haze. He was suddenly very
thankful for the shielding of the suit even as he gloried in the
destruction of the generator.

But.

But now there was nowhere to go. He and Aeryn were surrounded on all
sides. He looked over at his lover. She was motionless, her face
unreadable behind the opaque faceplate. This was why he had wanted to
come alone. He had never wanted this for her. This was his crusade. He
wanted to say something to her, but he was empty of everything but
regrets.

The PKs were close now, had them trapped well enough that they had
actually stopped shooting for fear of hitting each other.

Suddenly Aeryn grabbed his arm and slapped his hand around the rail of
the catwalk, forcing him to grab on tightly. He watched as she did the
same, locking her