Multiverse 2009 entry: Out of the Fire
Title: Out of the Fire
Author: : Kernezelda (kernezelda)
Fandoms: Blake's 7 & Farscape
Characters: Jenna Stannis, Talyn
Disclaimer: None of mine.
Rating: PG
Notes: Thanks to astrogirl2 for a fast beta. Set in Farscape post-Season Three, in Blake's 7 pre-GP.
Word Count: 3031
She woke with a gasp, grabbed frantically at controls no longer there. Jenna's eyes opened wide and as quickly shut, half-blinded by a fierce white-red glow. Behind closed lids, fireworks flared green and black. The shape of her dying ship painted itself across her vision.
She felt along her body, found herself securely strapped into a life capsule, its interior barely larger than a large man; Gan would have had to scrunch himself tight. Venturing to open her eyes again, Jenna blinked against tears and forced herself to focus on the control panel. The display made no sense. No signs of other ships, none of the planetary beacons that guided legitimate craft into Gauda Prime's orbit. GP's sun no longer hung from its central position in the solar system. And further confusing her surely-mistaken readings - the stars in this region of space were none that she knew.
Jenna noted with vague satisfaction that she was alone in space, so it was very likely her desperate maneuver had taken the gunrunners on her tail along with her battered ship. She bit her lip at the death of the Venture, and then harder when she realized Blake couldn't possibly know she had survived.
But first things first. There would be time to make plans later; at the moment, Jenna Stannis needed to learn where she was, where the capsule could put down safely, and how to find a way back to space she knew. She wriggled and worked her muscles, testing for injury that her first half-awake exam could have missed. A person in shock could die of blood loss without ever realizing it. But she was whole, uninjured save for bruises and a bump on the side of her head, and a bloody scrape along the back of one hand.
The instruments showed that the capsule had fuel and air for three days, provisions, too, a rule of thumb that only the most foolish spacer or ignorant planet-lubber would ignore. Jenna was neither, and carefully began to scan for local planets or stations or ships that might be within reach, or within sensor range of her hail. At this point, she had nothing to lose if she fell into the hands of the Federation; though false identification papers lay in her jacket pocket, and were the best money could buy, the alternative of a slow death drifting through unknown space did not appeal.
Jenna had been incarcerated before. She had escaped before. Not on my own whispered the small voice at the back of her mind. Not in a place - a space - I've never seen before. She suppressed it ruthlessly. There was always a way.
She just hoped she didn't die before she found it.
*
Cosmic dust raked along Talyn's metal skin, raw sensation clawing at his receptors. Parts of his body lay open to space. The void in his mind grew larger, ripping at memories, confusing what little sense he could make of unfiltered data. Crais was gone from him. The Sebacean's body - what was left of it - lay at the back of the bridge, but no DRDs came to clean. A few clustered at the edges of torn hull, encouraging new growth. Others - all that remained intact, all that Talyn could find - struggled to repair circuity, re-wire connections, jury-rig his mechanoid portions without adequate parts.
Talyn floated in empty space and watched pieces of his own hull drifting with him. He had not expected to survive. Young as he was, as confused and unhappy and frightened, too much of Crais filled his mind, and there had been no thought of after. Just before. A Sebacean's image that his captain called brother: a child and then a burning corpse. A pale alien who had exiled Crais and stolen his ship - a Peacekeeper ship, but not alive as Talyn was. Aeryn Sun, small in Crais' mind, and then as large as Talyn himself, joined to them, a wholeness, unity. Her voice was the first he remembered. She had rejected Crais. She had rejected Talyn and gone with the Human.
The vision of another Leviathan swam across Talyn's mind. All the DRDs stuttered in their work and fell silent under the burst of emotion and static. His mother, calling for him while shots blasted into her - while Talyn tried to drive her away....or destroy her. A low groan accompanied the flexing of his tail-ends, moving inward for starburst. But no surge of energy accompanied the motion. Talyn forced himself to become calm again. DRDs began to move again. Moya was alive. It was part of the plan, that she should hide while her crew worked with Crais to destroy his enemy.
Talyn didn't know if it had worked. Perhaps Moya was gone, as Crais was. His thoughts dipped and swirled like the dust and detritus around him, that endlessly brushed against his half-burnt hull. Some of it, though, was harvested in passing - food and fuel for re-building.
He could do nothing, yet. Talyn subsided, hanging in space he neither recognized nor found markers for in his star charts. He hurt. He was alone, and helpless. He was terrified.
*
A green light popped on and beeped loudly. Jenna jerked upright. "Damn!" She rubbed the crown of her head where it had impacted with the open door of the storage unit. Twisting, one of the last packets of rations in hand, she squinted at the control panel. "Yes!"
She opened the packet and munched absently while sorting out the reading. An object had just passed within sensor range, one that moved too erratically to be natural, though the vague configuration at this distance was nothing Jenna or the computer could identify. She didn't hesitate. Little food remained, oxygen levels would soon fall below normal, and she was more than tired of being cramped in the life capsule with limited mobility and limited toilet facilities. She had been broadcasting a distress signal for days, and now she tinkered within the open panel beneath the controls to boost the signal, though it sucked up power reserves that she'd been hoarding. If she was wrong, if this attempt failed, yet left her powerless for another... So be it. She was a free trader, first and last, and no woman worth her salt would pass on even a risky chance for life in favor of a lingering death.
If it came to it, Jenna had the medical kit and its supplies. She'd not wait to suffocate.
*
Talyn stirred. Something brushed against his mind, a signal. He scanned nearby without result, then fanned his senses outward. There! A small vessel, tiny and of unknown design. Not quite simultaneously, a survey of his own structure revealed that much of his hull had been re-grown. Thin yet, fragile still, but a barrier between internal areas and the cold vacuum of space. As yet, very little of Talyn beyond the bridge and the chambers immediately adjacent could support life. Crais' quarters were ruined. Talyn hadn't sent DRDs to clean there, either. And on the bridge...
The signal increased in strength. Talyn hesitated. He wanted to rush toward it, wanted it to contain a being he knew - wanted Aeryn Sun's warmth, or even the Banik's presence, confusing though his guidance had been. He would even accept the despised Human, a competent technician if nothing else. Drexim levels increased with Talyn's indecision, pushing him to move forward or retreat, urgency rising. Mist seeped through cracks in bulkheads, through the floors. A DRD scrambled from hull repair to fix this new problem.
Talyn didn't recognize the signal's code. It was as alien as its source. What if the other ship was armed, and hostile? His main cannon was gone, and he was in no condition to fight. Or...flee. Starburst was beyond him, and might be for monens longer.
It would be safer to ignore the signal.
Safer.
But he was alone. He had never been on his own before.
Talyn re-checked the sensors. He brought his internal weapons online, ready to spring forth. He drew several DRDs from their work and sent them to the hangar bay. Slowly, he altered course, turning against the slow river of particles that had fed him for days.
He was a warrior. He would investigate the signaling vessel. And if its inhabitants proved a threat, he would destroy them. Or die trying.
*
The approaching ship was like nothing she'd ever seen. Jenna craned her neck to peer out the capsule's small, thick window. Her eyes widened at the martial coloring, the scored and scarred hull. A warship, but moving slowly. And it had responded to her beacon. Jenn took a breath and opened a hailing channel. "Are you receiving me? This is Jana Tanner, of the civilian courier Venture."
There was no reply. Jenna toggled the switch off and on, but the readout for the ship remained steady. "Can you hear me?"
A warbling tone filled the capsule, arhythmic and loud. Jenna dialed the volume down rapidly, shoulders drawing up around her ears. A static-laced voice followed. It sounded male, but its language was alien. Jenna shuddered - what if, by some bizarre quirk of physics, she'd been flung into the Darkling Zone? Or worse, near Epinal, where the chances for a humanoid, much less a Human, were slim to worse than none.
"I can't understand you," she said. "Please, can you help me?" She refrained from banging her fist on the control panel. Surely they could see that she was in a life capsule, and no threat. But that was a pirate tactic, as well, one that Jenna had fallen prey to herself. She bit her lip and hoped those in the alien vessel weren't thinking the same thing.
A different voice spoke, then another and another. One sounded female, and the last one... Was that an Earth language? It wasn't Standard. "You!" she answered. "I understand you, hello?"
After a long pause, the warbling started up again. The capsule shook. Jenna grabbed the edges of the control panel as she lost balance, falling on her rear end on the flight couch. The ship grew nearer, larger. It was pulling her in. She touched the small gun at the small of her back, flattened her palm over the papers in the jacket's inner breast pocket. She was as ready as she'd ever be to greet her potential rescuers.
*
The docking web failed just before the pod touched down. The four DRDs scattered back, low hums and beeps protesting the sudden crash of metal on metal. The pod came to a horizontal rest, with what looked like a hatch containing a small window on top. The DRDs circled back in. After a few microts, the door slowly opened. A sebaceanoid figure crawled out and straightened, female in form, her arms at her sides. She regarded the DRDs ranged around her, then spoke and lifted her hands, palm-upward. One DRD moved forward while the others arrayed their weapons to cover it. It lifted up a small syringe of fluid and jabbed it into the woman's calf.
She shouted and flung herself back, kicking the DRD and sending it half-flying. "--the hell?!" Her arm went behind her back, and then a small device - a weapon - appeared in her hand. "What did you just do?"
Talyn sent orders. The DRD that had been attacked righted itself, and the four of them surrounded the woman. Electrical charges to her lower limbs urged her forward. With a scowl, she moved, her weapon still tight in her hand. Talyn watched her progress through the few corridors that held breathable atmosphere. The air there was thin, and she began to cough. He prioritized life-support for the bridge. By the time the little parade arrived, the oxygen mix and temperature had risen to Sebacean comfort levels.
The bridge doors slid apart, the DRDs guided the woman inside, and Talyn scanned her before she'd taken two steps. It confirmed what the earlier communication had implied: she was Human, not Sebacean. Talyn fought the urge to shoot her down on the spot.
She drew closer, unaware of his scan or his weapons waiting in their ceiling compartments. Her eyes, large and brown, examined the bridge. Her nose wrinkled. She spoke, but of course no voice replied. And then she turned.
*
Jenna had been injected with something, had been stung by the defense units, and had been marched through wrecked corridors. She had not yet seen a living soul. Until now, and what lay before her could hardly be called living. It was a man, or what had once been a man. She slammed her hand over her mouth and backed away, fighting the urge to vomit. The scent of decay should have warned her. Whoever he had been, his death had not been an easy one.
"There must be someone alive here." Someone had spoken to her, someone was directing the ship and the small machinery. "Whoever you are," she called out, trying not to breathe in the odor that permeated the flight deck, "I mean you no harm. You rescued me. I'm very grateful."
*
He could kill her easily. Humans were not Sebacean. They were inferior beings. They could and were willing to corrupt their betters. It would mean nothing to Talyn, the death of another of Crichton's race. As he had failed with Crichton himself, and so lost Aeryn Sun, and later Crais.
But if he killed the Human...
Talyn required assistance. He was far from healed. There were tasks which Sebaceans - Humans - could do that DRDs could not. He needed materials and equipment that he could neither grow nor manufacture via the DRDs.
He needed help, as this Human had needed his. And there was no one else. Crais and Aeryn had left him behind. Moya was far, far away, if she yet lived (as she must live).
Talyn spoke no verbal language. He had no desire to piece together Crichton's from various recordings. If this Human was to prove of value, she must learn to understand him. And that would require far closer contact than Talyn wanted.
He had the means. And the power to do what he must.
Behind the woman, a panel in the floor slid back. A mobile cable rose soundlessly, carrying a small round device, black with blinking red lights. Talyn judged the distance to micrometer precision. Humans and Sebaceans were quite similarly configured. The cable drove forward and slammed into position at the back of the Human's neck. Yellow hair flared outward as she was driven to her knees. Strands of it caught beneath the device. She screamed. Her body spasmed. Talyn watched, and hated her for not being Crais, for not being Aeryn Syn. He waited for her mind to touch his.
*
It was like lightning flashing through her body, her nerve endings seared and her eyes blinded by white. Jenna flailed at the deck, saw stars and saw the blood-red corridors she'd walked through, saw rooms and machines and people she'd never known. She saw her mother dying, and a man dying on a bed with a dark-haired woman at his side. She felt coldness in her limbs, felt space against her skin, and information poured into her mind, more and more, aliens and alien tongues, Humans who weren't, a dark-haired man with a beard who was herself, as she was the Liberator and was... Talyn!
Jenna bolted upright from the deck and fell back again. She rolled onto her back and panted. Her eyes felt as if they'd been glued open, her arms and legs twitched without direction. "Tal--" She moistened her dry mouth, tried again. "Talyn?"
It spoke inside her head.
This ship was nothing like the Liberator. Its voice was not like Zen's. And it was inside her head. Jenna finally dragged a hand up, scrabbled at the back of her neck, felt warm liquid flowing under her fingertips. Blood, she thought, dizzy with sights and sounds and sensations rushing through her mind - and pain bright and sharp in her/its/their flesh. "What've you done?"
She spoke in Federation Standard, and he - this ship was a he, it was alive in a way Liberator had never been - he spoke in tones, pulses of light. She felt what he needed, saw what he had done to her. Her fingers clenched tight on the device, its many prongs buried in her flesh, clamping it tight to her neck - and a central spike drilling down to the nerve cells. A cold sweat broke out on her skin. So close, too close, he could paralyze her in an instant. Cold satisfaction slipped into her mind.
"Why do you hate me?"
Because of the other one, the man like her, the Human.
Jenna looked at her bloodied hand, at the strands of hair clinging to a finger. She dragged herself to her knees and began to pull herself upright, using one of the red-tinted metal seams for support. She sagged against it and stared up at the light display in the ceiling, the red-black-white circles on the deck.
She swallowed hard, breathed deep and smelled the corpse (Crais-mentor-Captain). She was alive. She'd taken her risky chance, and she was still alive. Not like it had been aboard Liberator, when the merge of ship and Human had made her feel known, innocent in a way she hadn't been since girlhood. No, this was very different, and very, very dangerous.
Raising her chin, Jenna wiped her stained fingers on her trousers, then slapped her palms together. She felt the linkage in her mind, two-way and something she, too, could learn to use. The ship - Talyn - had tried to overwhelm her. And he still could, no doubt. But he needed her aid, as she had needed his. Jenna Stannis was no one's slave, whether they be Human, alien...or a living starship.
Talyn was a ship, and Jenna was a pilot.
She narrowed her eyes and spoke. "You need my help. I need information. Let's work together and see what we can do."
Author: : Kernezelda (kernezelda)
Fandoms: Blake's 7 & Farscape
Characters: Jenna Stannis, Talyn
Disclaimer: None of mine.
Rating: PG
Notes: Thanks to astrogirl2 for a fast beta. Set in Farscape post-Season Three, in Blake's 7 pre-GP.
Word Count: 3031
She woke with a gasp, grabbed frantically at controls no longer there. Jenna's eyes opened wide and as quickly shut, half-blinded by a fierce white-red glow. Behind closed lids, fireworks flared green and black. The shape of her dying ship painted itself across her vision.
She felt along her body, found herself securely strapped into a life capsule, its interior barely larger than a large man; Gan would have had to scrunch himself tight. Venturing to open her eyes again, Jenna blinked against tears and forced herself to focus on the control panel. The display made no sense. No signs of other ships, none of the planetary beacons that guided legitimate craft into Gauda Prime's orbit. GP's sun no longer hung from its central position in the solar system. And further confusing her surely-mistaken readings - the stars in this region of space were none that she knew.
Jenna noted with vague satisfaction that she was alone in space, so it was very likely her desperate maneuver had taken the gunrunners on her tail along with her battered ship. She bit her lip at the death of the Venture, and then harder when she realized Blake couldn't possibly know she had survived.
But first things first. There would be time to make plans later; at the moment, Jenna Stannis needed to learn where she was, where the capsule could put down safely, and how to find a way back to space she knew. She wriggled and worked her muscles, testing for injury that her first half-awake exam could have missed. A person in shock could die of blood loss without ever realizing it. But she was whole, uninjured save for bruises and a bump on the side of her head, and a bloody scrape along the back of one hand.
The instruments showed that the capsule had fuel and air for three days, provisions, too, a rule of thumb that only the most foolish spacer or ignorant planet-lubber would ignore. Jenna was neither, and carefully began to scan for local planets or stations or ships that might be within reach, or within sensor range of her hail. At this point, she had nothing to lose if she fell into the hands of the Federation; though false identification papers lay in her jacket pocket, and were the best money could buy, the alternative of a slow death drifting through unknown space did not appeal.
Jenna had been incarcerated before. She had escaped before. Not on my own whispered the small voice at the back of her mind. Not in a place - a space - I've never seen before. She suppressed it ruthlessly. There was always a way.
She just hoped she didn't die before she found it.
*
Cosmic dust raked along Talyn's metal skin, raw sensation clawing at his receptors. Parts of his body lay open to space. The void in his mind grew larger, ripping at memories, confusing what little sense he could make of unfiltered data. Crais was gone from him. The Sebacean's body - what was left of it - lay at the back of the bridge, but no DRDs came to clean. A few clustered at the edges of torn hull, encouraging new growth. Others - all that remained intact, all that Talyn could find - struggled to repair circuity, re-wire connections, jury-rig his mechanoid portions without adequate parts.
Talyn floated in empty space and watched pieces of his own hull drifting with him. He had not expected to survive. Young as he was, as confused and unhappy and frightened, too much of Crais filled his mind, and there had been no thought of after. Just before. A Sebacean's image that his captain called brother: a child and then a burning corpse. A pale alien who had exiled Crais and stolen his ship - a Peacekeeper ship, but not alive as Talyn was. Aeryn Sun, small in Crais' mind, and then as large as Talyn himself, joined to them, a wholeness, unity. Her voice was the first he remembered. She had rejected Crais. She had rejected Talyn and gone with the Human.
The vision of another Leviathan swam across Talyn's mind. All the DRDs stuttered in their work and fell silent under the burst of emotion and static. His mother, calling for him while shots blasted into her - while Talyn tried to drive her away....or destroy her. A low groan accompanied the flexing of his tail-ends, moving inward for starburst. But no surge of energy accompanied the motion. Talyn forced himself to become calm again. DRDs began to move again. Moya was alive. It was part of the plan, that she should hide while her crew worked with Crais to destroy his enemy.
Talyn didn't know if it had worked. Perhaps Moya was gone, as Crais was. His thoughts dipped and swirled like the dust and detritus around him, that endlessly brushed against his half-burnt hull. Some of it, though, was harvested in passing - food and fuel for re-building.
He could do nothing, yet. Talyn subsided, hanging in space he neither recognized nor found markers for in his star charts. He hurt. He was alone, and helpless. He was terrified.
*
A green light popped on and beeped loudly. Jenna jerked upright. "Damn!" She rubbed the crown of her head where it had impacted with the open door of the storage unit. Twisting, one of the last packets of rations in hand, she squinted at the control panel. "Yes!"
She opened the packet and munched absently while sorting out the reading. An object had just passed within sensor range, one that moved too erratically to be natural, though the vague configuration at this distance was nothing Jenna or the computer could identify. She didn't hesitate. Little food remained, oxygen levels would soon fall below normal, and she was more than tired of being cramped in the life capsule with limited mobility and limited toilet facilities. She had been broadcasting a distress signal for days, and now she tinkered within the open panel beneath the controls to boost the signal, though it sucked up power reserves that she'd been hoarding. If she was wrong, if this attempt failed, yet left her powerless for another... So be it. She was a free trader, first and last, and no woman worth her salt would pass on even a risky chance for life in favor of a lingering death.
If it came to it, Jenna had the medical kit and its supplies. She'd not wait to suffocate.
*
Talyn stirred. Something brushed against his mind, a signal. He scanned nearby without result, then fanned his senses outward. There! A small vessel, tiny and of unknown design. Not quite simultaneously, a survey of his own structure revealed that much of his hull had been re-grown. Thin yet, fragile still, but a barrier between internal areas and the cold vacuum of space. As yet, very little of Talyn beyond the bridge and the chambers immediately adjacent could support life. Crais' quarters were ruined. Talyn hadn't sent DRDs to clean there, either. And on the bridge...
The signal increased in strength. Talyn hesitated. He wanted to rush toward it, wanted it to contain a being he knew - wanted Aeryn Sun's warmth, or even the Banik's presence, confusing though his guidance had been. He would even accept the despised Human, a competent technician if nothing else. Drexim levels increased with Talyn's indecision, pushing him to move forward or retreat, urgency rising. Mist seeped through cracks in bulkheads, through the floors. A DRD scrambled from hull repair to fix this new problem.
Talyn didn't recognize the signal's code. It was as alien as its source. What if the other ship was armed, and hostile? His main cannon was gone, and he was in no condition to fight. Or...flee. Starburst was beyond him, and might be for monens longer.
It would be safer to ignore the signal.
Safer.
But he was alone. He had never been on his own before.
Talyn re-checked the sensors. He brought his internal weapons online, ready to spring forth. He drew several DRDs from their work and sent them to the hangar bay. Slowly, he altered course, turning against the slow river of particles that had fed him for days.
He was a warrior. He would investigate the signaling vessel. And if its inhabitants proved a threat, he would destroy them. Or die trying.
*
The approaching ship was like nothing she'd ever seen. Jenna craned her neck to peer out the capsule's small, thick window. Her eyes widened at the martial coloring, the scored and scarred hull. A warship, but moving slowly. And it had responded to her beacon. Jenn took a breath and opened a hailing channel. "Are you receiving me? This is Jana Tanner, of the civilian courier Venture."
There was no reply. Jenna toggled the switch off and on, but the readout for the ship remained steady. "Can you hear me?"
A warbling tone filled the capsule, arhythmic and loud. Jenna dialed the volume down rapidly, shoulders drawing up around her ears. A static-laced voice followed. It sounded male, but its language was alien. Jenna shuddered - what if, by some bizarre quirk of physics, she'd been flung into the Darkling Zone? Or worse, near Epinal, where the chances for a humanoid, much less a Human, were slim to worse than none.
"I can't understand you," she said. "Please, can you help me?" She refrained from banging her fist on the control panel. Surely they could see that she was in a life capsule, and no threat. But that was a pirate tactic, as well, one that Jenna had fallen prey to herself. She bit her lip and hoped those in the alien vessel weren't thinking the same thing.
A different voice spoke, then another and another. One sounded female, and the last one... Was that an Earth language? It wasn't Standard. "You!" she answered. "I understand you, hello?"
After a long pause, the warbling started up again. The capsule shook. Jenna grabbed the edges of the control panel as she lost balance, falling on her rear end on the flight couch. The ship grew nearer, larger. It was pulling her in. She touched the small gun at the small of her back, flattened her palm over the papers in the jacket's inner breast pocket. She was as ready as she'd ever be to greet her potential rescuers.
*
The docking web failed just before the pod touched down. The four DRDs scattered back, low hums and beeps protesting the sudden crash of metal on metal. The pod came to a horizontal rest, with what looked like a hatch containing a small window on top. The DRDs circled back in. After a few microts, the door slowly opened. A sebaceanoid figure crawled out and straightened, female in form, her arms at her sides. She regarded the DRDs ranged around her, then spoke and lifted her hands, palm-upward. One DRD moved forward while the others arrayed their weapons to cover it. It lifted up a small syringe of fluid and jabbed it into the woman's calf.
She shouted and flung herself back, kicking the DRD and sending it half-flying. "--the hell?!" Her arm went behind her back, and then a small device - a weapon - appeared in her hand. "What did you just do?"
Talyn sent orders. The DRD that had been attacked righted itself, and the four of them surrounded the woman. Electrical charges to her lower limbs urged her forward. With a scowl, she moved, her weapon still tight in her hand. Talyn watched her progress through the few corridors that held breathable atmosphere. The air there was thin, and she began to cough. He prioritized life-support for the bridge. By the time the little parade arrived, the oxygen mix and temperature had risen to Sebacean comfort levels.
The bridge doors slid apart, the DRDs guided the woman inside, and Talyn scanned her before she'd taken two steps. It confirmed what the earlier communication had implied: she was Human, not Sebacean. Talyn fought the urge to shoot her down on the spot.
She drew closer, unaware of his scan or his weapons waiting in their ceiling compartments. Her eyes, large and brown, examined the bridge. Her nose wrinkled. She spoke, but of course no voice replied. And then she turned.
*
Jenna had been injected with something, had been stung by the defense units, and had been marched through wrecked corridors. She had not yet seen a living soul. Until now, and what lay before her could hardly be called living. It was a man, or what had once been a man. She slammed her hand over her mouth and backed away, fighting the urge to vomit. The scent of decay should have warned her. Whoever he had been, his death had not been an easy one.
"There must be someone alive here." Someone had spoken to her, someone was directing the ship and the small machinery. "Whoever you are," she called out, trying not to breathe in the odor that permeated the flight deck, "I mean you no harm. You rescued me. I'm very grateful."
*
He could kill her easily. Humans were not Sebacean. They were inferior beings. They could and were willing to corrupt their betters. It would mean nothing to Talyn, the death of another of Crichton's race. As he had failed with Crichton himself, and so lost Aeryn Sun, and later Crais.
But if he killed the Human...
Talyn required assistance. He was far from healed. There were tasks which Sebaceans - Humans - could do that DRDs could not. He needed materials and equipment that he could neither grow nor manufacture via the DRDs.
He needed help, as this Human had needed his. And there was no one else. Crais and Aeryn had left him behind. Moya was far, far away, if she yet lived (as she must live).
Talyn spoke no verbal language. He had no desire to piece together Crichton's from various recordings. If this Human was to prove of value, she must learn to understand him. And that would require far closer contact than Talyn wanted.
He had the means. And the power to do what he must.
Behind the woman, a panel in the floor slid back. A mobile cable rose soundlessly, carrying a small round device, black with blinking red lights. Talyn judged the distance to micrometer precision. Humans and Sebaceans were quite similarly configured. The cable drove forward and slammed into position at the back of the Human's neck. Yellow hair flared outward as she was driven to her knees. Strands of it caught beneath the device. She screamed. Her body spasmed. Talyn watched, and hated her for not being Crais, for not being Aeryn Syn. He waited for her mind to touch his.
*
It was like lightning flashing through her body, her nerve endings seared and her eyes blinded by white. Jenna flailed at the deck, saw stars and saw the blood-red corridors she'd walked through, saw rooms and machines and people she'd never known. She saw her mother dying, and a man dying on a bed with a dark-haired woman at his side. She felt coldness in her limbs, felt space against her skin, and information poured into her mind, more and more, aliens and alien tongues, Humans who weren't, a dark-haired man with a beard who was herself, as she was the Liberator and was... Talyn!
Jenna bolted upright from the deck and fell back again. She rolled onto her back and panted. Her eyes felt as if they'd been glued open, her arms and legs twitched without direction. "Tal--" She moistened her dry mouth, tried again. "Talyn?"
It spoke inside her head.
This ship was nothing like the Liberator. Its voice was not like Zen's. And it was inside her head. Jenna finally dragged a hand up, scrabbled at the back of her neck, felt warm liquid flowing under her fingertips. Blood, she thought, dizzy with sights and sounds and sensations rushing through her mind - and pain bright and sharp in her/its/their flesh. "What've you done?"
She spoke in Federation Standard, and he - this ship was a he, it was alive in a way Liberator had never been - he spoke in tones, pulses of light. She felt what he needed, saw what he had done to her. Her fingers clenched tight on the device, its many prongs buried in her flesh, clamping it tight to her neck - and a central spike drilling down to the nerve cells. A cold sweat broke out on her skin. So close, too close, he could paralyze her in an instant. Cold satisfaction slipped into her mind.
"Why do you hate me?"
Because of the other one, the man like her, the Human.
Jenna looked at her bloodied hand, at the strands of hair clinging to a finger. She dragged herself to her knees and began to pull herself upright, using one of the red-tinted metal seams for support. She sagged against it and stared up at the light display in the ceiling, the red-black-white circles on the deck.
She swallowed hard, breathed deep and smelled the corpse (Crais-mentor-Captain). She was alive. She'd taken her risky chance, and she was still alive. Not like it had been aboard Liberator, when the merge of ship and Human had made her feel known, innocent in a way she hadn't been since girlhood. No, this was very different, and very, very dangerous.
Raising her chin, Jenna wiped her stained fingers on her trousers, then slapped her palms together. She felt the linkage in her mind, two-way and something she, too, could learn to use. The ship - Talyn - had tried to overwhelm her. And he still could, no doubt. But he needed her aid, as she had needed his. Jenna Stannis was no one's slave, whether they be Human, alien...or a living starship.
Talyn was a ship, and Jenna was a pilot.
She narrowed her eyes and spoke. "You need my help. I need information. Let's work together and see what we can do."