fic: Farscape: Left Behind, chapter 9
Left Behind
Timeline placement: earlyish season 3, spoilers for “Eat Me”
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,697
Disclaimer: The Farscape universe, and all that is in it, is not mine, but rather belongs to the Jim Henson Company. This is a work of fiction based in that universe. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has been or will be collected. No betas were harmed in the writing of this fic. Previous chapter links at the end of the post.
Left Behind, chapter 8
Chapter Nine
“…mation leading to the capture of John Crichton and his companions. Crichton is of a species known as ‘Human’ from a planet called Earth and is Sebacean in appearance. He is considered armed and dangerous. Use extreme caution if sighted. He may be traveling with other criminal companions: ex-Peacekeeper Aeryn Sun, Luxan Ka D’Argo, a Nebari girl called Chiana, Delvian Priest Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan, a Bannik Stykera called Stark…”
Chiana’s attention had been caught by the public service announcement as she crossed the central square of the bazaar. The announcement was being repeated continuously and frell if they didn’t have all of their likenesses in the accompanying hologram. At least the reward was for their capture alive. Guess they wouldn’t ever be collecting one for Zhaan, then… She blinked back sudden and unexpected tears.
The unfamiliar female voice droned on as people stopped to listen and watch, the small crowd ebbing and flowing as new faces took the places of those who had seen and heard the announcement and moved on.
It hadn’t been playing a couple of arns ago, when Chiana had been through here last. I wonder where it came from? she thought. It wasn’t a Peacekeeper wanted beacon, as far as she could tell. As her own image appeared again in the holo, she ducked back behind a stall and pulled one of her purchases from her bag: a traveling coat to replace the one she had left on Moya, this one with a hood that could be used to cover her hair. She shrugged it on and reslung the heavy bag which was now stuffed with cook pots, clothes for herself and Belima, a new shirt for Crichton, and ammunition for both her tiny pulse pistol and Crichton’s larger Winona. As the bag bounced into place, pulling at the fabric of her tunic, Chiana winced at sudden pain across her stomach.
She brought one hand to her midsection. She had gotten used to the dull throb that had become an almost constant companion over the last few days, hardly even noticing it, so the sharpness - the immediacy - of the pain surprised her almost as much as the public service announcement.
Glancing down between the flaps of her as yet unfastened coat, Chiana moved her hand and saw that blood had begun to seep through her tunic again. The stain wasn’t fresh, so she must have reopened the wound since her arrival on the station. As she watched, though, fresh blood darkened and enlarged the stain. Putting pressure on the spot, she realized the sharp pain had been the fabric of her tunic tearing a fresh scab away from the wound.
She wasn’t too far from the clinic, now, so she should be able to make it that far without any problems. And if she was caught, well, she was used to brazening things out. Just in case, Chiana pulled the hood of her new coat down a little lower over her face. Grimacing, checking to make sure her new pulse pistol was ready for use, if needed, she stepped back out into traffic as if she owned the place.
She had learned early on, never let ‘em smell fear.
***
Fancy meeting Johnny Crichton here, of all places and now, of all times, just when she had hit a snag in building a copy of his Farscape One module. Not that Furlow minded meeting him just about anywhere and anytime - he certainly was a pretty man - but here and now was just perfect. She had built a mockup of his module back home on DamBaDa, but there was something hinky in his engine design that was giving her fits, so it was still in dry-dock. She was sure, though, that he’d be able to point her in the right direction to straighten things out…
Having otherwise finished her business here on the station, Furlow was making her way back to her ship, located on the fringes of the station’s public dock. The ship was a design of her own making and built in her own shop, loosely based on a Peacekeeper marauder, but without the armaments - it wouldn’t do to have the Peacekeepers thinking she was any kind of competition. Aside from the benefits of a largish cargo hold, the design acted as a kind of deterrent against unwelcome advances from, say, Zenetan Pirates or other undesirables in this “neck ‘o’ the woods,” as Crichton had called it.
She shook her head at the man’s always odd turn of phrase and, not paying attention to where she was going, bumped into a slight woman dressed in a long, hooded coat. Furlow narrowed her eyes as she turned to visually track the slender figure moving away from the central square. She looked vaguely familiar… After the woman turned a corner, disappearing from sight, Furlow realized that the quick glimpse she’d had of the girl’s face had revealed perfect white skin and large, dark eyes. Nebari.
Thinking initially of the reward mentioned in the holographic announcement repeating in the central square, Furlow took a step toward where the girl had disappeared, but then she stopped. If the girl was with Johnny, then it might not be a good idea to turn her in for the reward. If she knew one thing about John Crichton, it was that she wouldn’t get any help from him at all if she did something to one of his friends. Nah. At this point, she’d get more value out of helping John Crichton than any of the posted rewards were worth - Peacekeeper or private.
Furlow continued on toward her ship to wait for her supplies to be delivered and for Johnny and whatever friends he had here with him to arrive.
***
“Pilot, you there?” John said into his comms.
“Of course, John. Where else would I be?” John had to smile at Pilot’s befuddled tone. He sounded so much like Moya’s Pilot when he’d first arrived here in the Uncharteds, when just about nothing he’d said made any sense to any of his new companions. His smile faded as a wave of homesickness washed over him, startling him with its intensity. When had Moya become just as much home to him as Earth?
“No place else, my man, forget I asked. I’m just checking in to let you know that you’ll be getting some deliveries any microt now.”
“Thank you, John, I shall watch for them.”
John had managed to stay out of the way of the group of PKs he had spotted earlier and had made his way to that bulk food merchant Beaker had directed him to. It hadn’t taken him long to negotiate a good deal. Since it was a fairly large order with a fairly large amount due, the station’s policy on payment was for the buyer to deposit the payment into the station-owned “bank,” which was conveniently located just a short distance from the merchant. Once the deposit was confirmed to the seller, the shipment was delivered. Once the delivery to the buyer was confirmed, the payment was sucked out of the bank’s account and into the seller’s account. It seemed to be a system that worked - John’d know for sure when they returned to Rohvu and found lots of food cubes and a lesser amount of more expensive real food. He wished he had more time to get some chakan oil for Winona, but with the PK wild card, he didn’t want to risk it.
Arriving back at the bazaar, John paused at an intersection of alleys on the central square. Hands on hips, he surveyed the square, looking for the symbol Chiana had pointed out to him as belonging to a clinic. He spotted it in the distance, right there past his own holographic image in Technicolor. Damn. A frelling wanted beacon. I guess that explains why the Peacekeepers are here, but how’d they track us? he thought, frustrated.
At least in the image from the beacon, he was wearing the long coat he’d left behind on Moya. He looked down at his vest - not much in the way of a disguise. He looked around at the shops, both rigid structures and tents, nearby, hoping for someplace that might at least sell a hat or some shades. There. Two tents to his right, there were some hats and other types of headgear hanging on a display just outside the tent. He turned and headed as nonchalantly as possible in that direction.
***
A bell sounded as Chiana pushed open the door of the clinic - one of the few more-or-less permanent structures on the central square. She sighed in relief when she saw there was no one else in the facility, save for a Sebacean woman who came out of a room in back at the sound of the bell.
“May I help you?” Her voice was rough, almost low enough to belong to a man. It matched the scar that ran down her cheek and crossed her throat, terminating at her collar bone.
“Yeah. I’m looking for a med tech.” Chiana craned her head a bit and straightened up to get a better view of the room behind the woman.
“You’ve found one.” The woman’s expression didn’t change, nor did her gruff tone, but she did step aside to allow Chiana to see that there was no one in the only other room of the clinic. “What do you need?”
“I got, uh…cut a couple of solar days ago.” Chi stepped more fully into the room, making sure the door was closed behind her.
Finally, the woman’s expression changed a bit as one dark eyebrow rose and she said, “You can lock it, if you’d like.”
“What?” The words startled her. “Oh! No, no, I’m, uh, expecting a friend.”
“Come in, girl. I won’t turn you in. Let’s take a look at that cut.” She gestured for Chiana to come closer.
“What do you mean, turn me in?” Chiana was the picture of innocence, she hoped.
“Everyone on this station has seen that announcement by now,” the med tech replied, nodding her head toward the room’s only window and the central square beyond. “You’re safe enough here. Don’t have much use for rewards.” She stepped aside and pointed toward the room from which she had come. “My office. You can hang your coat by the door.”
Chiana stepped into the room and lowered her bag carefully to the floor. As instructed, she unfastened her coat and hung it up on a peg by the door. When she turned back around, she watched the Sebacean woman’s dark eyes focus on the still spreading blue stain on her tunic.
“Couple of days ago, you said?” She tsked and motioned for Chiana to sit on the examination table. “Take off your shirt.”
As Chiana lifted the bottom edge of her tunic, she couldn’t stop a gasp as the motion tore the rest of the scab away. She hadn’t even gotten the garment off when she heard the sound of the bell in the other room as the clinic’s outer door was opened. Her hand drifted down to her new pistol, holstered at her side.
“Hello! Anybody home?” Chiana closed her eyes, relieved by the familiar sound of Crichton’s voice.
“I’m in here, Crichton!” she called to him. When he appeared in the doorway, wearing some sort of goggles over his eyes, Chiana said, “Maybe you should lock the door…”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Already done, Pip.” He took off the goggles and, with a glance at the Sebacean woman, continued, “We don’t need any Peacekeepers or cops barging in…” His tone had a bit of a challenge in it.
The med tech glanced up from her surprisingly gentle examination of the ugly cut across Chiana’s stomach. “That we don’t. So, you’re the infamous John Crichton.” It was a statement, not a hint of question in it.
“Is that a problem, Doc?”
“Not for me.” She returned to her examination as Crichton entered the room and started looking at things on her desk and shelves.
Chiana hissed as the woman poked at the wound. The med tech looked up at her and said, “You let this wound go too long. It’s badly infected.”
“Huh. I thought there wasn’t any such thing as germs on this side of the universe,” Crichton said, replacing a flimsy he had picked up from the tech’s desk.
The Sebacean straightened, pushing Chiana back to lay flat on the table. “We don’t have much in the way of disease, no, but there are definitely germs.” Chiana watched as she walked over to the shelves and took down a small leather case and a jar of something goopy looking.
“My name is Reyna Val, by the way.” Gesturing Crichton to another set of shelves on the far side of the room, she continued, “Make yourself useful and bring me a towel from those shelves and some clean water from the outer room.”
“Yes’m,” Crichton said, lifting one hand in a salute as he moved to comply with Reyna Val’s orders.
***
Belima had no idea how much time had passed since Chiana had taken away her freedom to move. With none of her old companions available to her, her sense of time had become hopelessly broken, anyway. John and Chiana did nothing the way her family had. Missing her family, she watched as a wet drop fell onto her chest, soaking into her clothes. She howled again as she pulled her other wrist free of its bonds - this hurt, too, but she had loosened the bindings enough that it didn’t tear off any more skin.
Angrily, Belima dashed away the tears that were still hanging onto her eyelashes, leaving a smear of blood from her scraped wrist behind. She was still angry and now both of her wrists hurt, though neither the anger nor the pain was as intense as they had been before. The hunger, though, was getting worse.
Her ankles were still tied to the sitting thing, but with both hands free now, she should be able to escape this room soon.
She needed food. Her earlier search of the world with John and Chiana had shown her that there was no food left. She didn’t want to starve to death. Belima had seen a man starve to death, long ago. He had done something to anger Kaarvok and, instead of using him for food, Kaarvok had chained him in a room just like this one and made it known that no one was to give him food. Ever. Belima had watched the man slowly die, first angry, then in pain, then just weak, over the course of many, many sleep cycles. When he had finally died, there wasn’t even enough of him left for anyone to make a decent meal.
No, Belima didn’t want to die like that.
***
John spotted a water cooler over in the corner by the window. He had grabbed a large bowl off the shelf, along with a couple of towels, when Reyna had issued her orders. The woman just had to be a Peacekeeper, with an attitude like that. Well, an ex-Peacekeeper, anyway - she certainly wasn’t in any kind of uniform he’d ever seen on a PK. For one thing, she was wearing a skirt, for another her shirt was yellow, of all things. Yep. Former PK med tech. Had to be. He wondered if she’d gotten that nasty scar leaving Peacekeeper service.
He skirted the window, glancing out at the square as he filled the bowl from the cooler. The square looked much the same as it had when he’d come in, maybe not quite as crowded as the day wore on. It looked like the wanted beacon was still playing, though, and one of the Peacekeepers he had seen earlier was watching it.
The bowl now filled with cold water, white towels draped over one arm, he felt like a maitre’d in a fancy French restaurant as he returned to Reyna’s office. Handing her the water, which she accepted from him and set down on a wheeled table next to Chiana, he asked, “So, Med Tech Val, did you serve on a command carrier? Gammak base? Someplace else?”
He saw that Chiana was also interested in the answer, indicating that Pip had picked up on the PK vibe, too.
Reyna didn’t miss a beat, taking the towels from him and sitting down on a stool she had pulled over to the examination table. “Command carrier, under Captain Bialar Crais. You’re acquainted with him, I believe…” Again a statement, rather than a question.
“Touché.” John took a step back and sat on the edge of her desk. “What brings you here?” Before she could tell him it was none of his business, he clarified, “You’ve obviously been here for monens, if not cycles and this ain’t no Peacekeeper outpost.”
Reyna didn’t answer right away, concentrating as she was on cleaning out Pip’s wound. The water in the bowl was rapidly turning more and more blue with each rinsing of the towel she was using.
“Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No, Crichton, that’s all right.” She dropped the used towel in the bowl of blue water and, picking up the clean one, began to dab the moisture from Chiana’s skin. Pip’s eyes were closed, now, but he was sure she was listening to the conversation. “It’s a fair question, from someone who’s being hunted by Peacekeepers. My mate and I have been here for almost four cycles.”
“Your mate? I didn’t think Peacekeepers had permanent relationships.”
“They don’t. That’s one of the reasons we were forced to leave Peacekeeper service.”
Chiana didn’t open her eyes as she interjected, “Is your mate Tokar Rhee?”
John raised an eyebrow at that.
Reyna paused in threading a needle and looked down at Chiana. “Yes, he is.”
Chiana opened her eyes to look at Reyna. She smiled a little at the older woman. “He…sold me a pulse pistol an arn or so ago. Crichton, if you raise your eyebrows any further, they’re going to fall off.” Returning her attention to Reyna Val, she said, “Your mate likes to flirt.”
John snorted. Reyna’s mate liked to flirt… He suppressed a chuckle at Chiana’s hiss when Reyna jabbed the needle into her skin for the first stitch. He loved Chi like his own sisters, but she was going to really get herself in trouble, one of these days. He watched Chi’s mobile face as Reyna drew a couple more stitches, careful to keep his eyes from straying to where the actual stitching was going on.
“Yes, Tokar does like to flirt.” Anything else Reyna might have been about to say was halted by a pounding on the clinic’s outer door.
***
Reyna quickly pulled the needle through the Nebari girl’s flesh, completing the fifth stitch. The girl needed several more to fully close the long wound, but that would have to do for now. She hoped she’d be able to finish her work, but thought that what she had already done would probably see the girl through if she and her companion had to leave in a hurry, as seemed likely.
As Reyna stood and turned, the man who hadn’t denied being John Crichton leapt to the doorway, pulling his pulse pistol, and leaning back against the wall. His blue eyes bored into her as she nodded and stepped out into her waiting room, pulling the door not-quite closed behind her so that he could see what was going on in the room beyond.
“Reyna! Open the frelling door!”
Relief coursed through her at the sound of Tokar’s voice. She didn’t relax, though - his tone was still urgent. Something had happened.
He hammered on the door again even as she unlocked and opened it. “Enough! Get in here.” She grabbed his wrist, stopping him from pounding again on the now absent door, and pulled him into the clinic. She slammed the door behind him and relocked it before leaning back against it. “What the frell is the matter with you?”
Just as Reyna had grabbed him by the wrist a moment before, Tokar grabbed her by the wrist now, pulling her toward the closed door of her office. “Peacekeepers.”
“What are you talking about? Of course there are Peacekeepers here.” What had gotten into him? Peacekeepers came here occasionally, always on their way to somewhere else. Crichton had been right, this was no Peacekeeper outpost - that’s why she and Tokar had settled here, why the rest of his unit came here for supplies in between missions.
“No. Not just passing through. Looking for us. Rashov just came through the shop to warn me, said your door was locked and you weren’t answering your comms.”
“You know I turn it off when I’m with a patient.” She saw the door to her office open a bit out of the corner of her eye. “Rashov said they were looking for you and me?”
“Yes. We have to leave, love.”
“Did you see them? Is it a Retrieval Squad?”
“No, I haven’t seen them, yet. Rashov didn’t mention a Retrieval Squad and you know he would have.” Reyna was relieved that Tokar sounded calmer. That meant he was thinking again. Ever since he had been forced to participate in Lieutenant Velorek’s execution, he had been prone to panic at the mention of Peacekeepers - it was the main reason he was here on the station with her and not out on missions with the rest of the unit.
“I have a patient to tend to. As soon as I’m finished, we leave.”
He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked over at the door to her office, then back at her. “All right, but hurry. Maybe I can use that wanted beacon as a distraction - I sold a gun and cartridges to the Nebari girl, Chiana, earlier…”
“Not a good idea, Tokar,” Crichton said from behind her. Reyna hadn’t seen or heard the door open, but she certainly saw the pulse pistol in her peripheral vision, aimed at Tokar’s head.
Left Behind, chapter 10
Timeline placement: earlyish season 3, spoilers for “Eat Me”
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,697
Disclaimer: The Farscape universe, and all that is in it, is not mine, but rather belongs to the Jim Henson Company. This is a work of fiction based in that universe. No copyright infringement is intended and no money has been or will be collected. No betas were harmed in the writing of this fic. Previous chapter links at the end of the post.
Left Behind, chapter 8
Chapter Nine
“…mation leading to the capture of John Crichton and his companions. Crichton is of a species known as ‘Human’ from a planet called Earth and is Sebacean in appearance. He is considered armed and dangerous. Use extreme caution if sighted. He may be traveling with other criminal companions: ex-Peacekeeper Aeryn Sun, Luxan Ka D’Argo, a Nebari girl called Chiana, Delvian Priest Pa’u Zotoh Zhaan, a Bannik Stykera called Stark…”
Chiana’s attention had been caught by the public service announcement as she crossed the central square of the bazaar. The announcement was being repeated continuously and frell if they didn’t have all of their likenesses in the accompanying hologram. At least the reward was for their capture alive. Guess they wouldn’t ever be collecting one for Zhaan, then… She blinked back sudden and unexpected tears.
The unfamiliar female voice droned on as people stopped to listen and watch, the small crowd ebbing and flowing as new faces took the places of those who had seen and heard the announcement and moved on.
It hadn’t been playing a couple of arns ago, when Chiana had been through here last. I wonder where it came from? she thought. It wasn’t a Peacekeeper wanted beacon, as far as she could tell. As her own image appeared again in the holo, she ducked back behind a stall and pulled one of her purchases from her bag: a traveling coat to replace the one she had left on Moya, this one with a hood that could be used to cover her hair. She shrugged it on and reslung the heavy bag which was now stuffed with cook pots, clothes for herself and Belima, a new shirt for Crichton, and ammunition for both her tiny pulse pistol and Crichton’s larger Winona. As the bag bounced into place, pulling at the fabric of her tunic, Chiana winced at sudden pain across her stomach.
She brought one hand to her midsection. She had gotten used to the dull throb that had become an almost constant companion over the last few days, hardly even noticing it, so the sharpness - the immediacy - of the pain surprised her almost as much as the public service announcement.
Glancing down between the flaps of her as yet unfastened coat, Chiana moved her hand and saw that blood had begun to seep through her tunic again. The stain wasn’t fresh, so she must have reopened the wound since her arrival on the station. As she watched, though, fresh blood darkened and enlarged the stain. Putting pressure on the spot, she realized the sharp pain had been the fabric of her tunic tearing a fresh scab away from the wound.
She wasn’t too far from the clinic, now, so she should be able to make it that far without any problems. And if she was caught, well, she was used to brazening things out. Just in case, Chiana pulled the hood of her new coat down a little lower over her face. Grimacing, checking to make sure her new pulse pistol was ready for use, if needed, she stepped back out into traffic as if she owned the place.
She had learned early on, never let ‘em smell fear.
***
Fancy meeting Johnny Crichton here, of all places and now, of all times, just when she had hit a snag in building a copy of his Farscape One module. Not that Furlow minded meeting him just about anywhere and anytime - he certainly was a pretty man - but here and now was just perfect. She had built a mockup of his module back home on DamBaDa, but there was something hinky in his engine design that was giving her fits, so it was still in dry-dock. She was sure, though, that he’d be able to point her in the right direction to straighten things out…
Having otherwise finished her business here on the station, Furlow was making her way back to her ship, located on the fringes of the station’s public dock. The ship was a design of her own making and built in her own shop, loosely based on a Peacekeeper marauder, but without the armaments - it wouldn’t do to have the Peacekeepers thinking she was any kind of competition. Aside from the benefits of a largish cargo hold, the design acted as a kind of deterrent against unwelcome advances from, say, Zenetan Pirates or other undesirables in this “neck ‘o’ the woods,” as Crichton had called it.
She shook her head at the man’s always odd turn of phrase and, not paying attention to where she was going, bumped into a slight woman dressed in a long, hooded coat. Furlow narrowed her eyes as she turned to visually track the slender figure moving away from the central square. She looked vaguely familiar… After the woman turned a corner, disappearing from sight, Furlow realized that the quick glimpse she’d had of the girl’s face had revealed perfect white skin and large, dark eyes. Nebari.
Thinking initially of the reward mentioned in the holographic announcement repeating in the central square, Furlow took a step toward where the girl had disappeared, but then she stopped. If the girl was with Johnny, then it might not be a good idea to turn her in for the reward. If she knew one thing about John Crichton, it was that she wouldn’t get any help from him at all if she did something to one of his friends. Nah. At this point, she’d get more value out of helping John Crichton than any of the posted rewards were worth - Peacekeeper or private.
Furlow continued on toward her ship to wait for her supplies to be delivered and for Johnny and whatever friends he had here with him to arrive.
***
“Pilot, you there?” John said into his comms.
“Of course, John. Where else would I be?” John had to smile at Pilot’s befuddled tone. He sounded so much like Moya’s Pilot when he’d first arrived here in the Uncharteds, when just about nothing he’d said made any sense to any of his new companions. His smile faded as a wave of homesickness washed over him, startling him with its intensity. When had Moya become just as much home to him as Earth?
“No place else, my man, forget I asked. I’m just checking in to let you know that you’ll be getting some deliveries any microt now.”
“Thank you, John, I shall watch for them.”
John had managed to stay out of the way of the group of PKs he had spotted earlier and had made his way to that bulk food merchant Beaker had directed him to. It hadn’t taken him long to negotiate a good deal. Since it was a fairly large order with a fairly large amount due, the station’s policy on payment was for the buyer to deposit the payment into the station-owned “bank,” which was conveniently located just a short distance from the merchant. Once the deposit was confirmed to the seller, the shipment was delivered. Once the delivery to the buyer was confirmed, the payment was sucked out of the bank’s account and into the seller’s account. It seemed to be a system that worked - John’d know for sure when they returned to Rohvu and found lots of food cubes and a lesser amount of more expensive real food. He wished he had more time to get some chakan oil for Winona, but with the PK wild card, he didn’t want to risk it.
Arriving back at the bazaar, John paused at an intersection of alleys on the central square. Hands on hips, he surveyed the square, looking for the symbol Chiana had pointed out to him as belonging to a clinic. He spotted it in the distance, right there past his own holographic image in Technicolor. Damn. A frelling wanted beacon. I guess that explains why the Peacekeepers are here, but how’d they track us? he thought, frustrated.
At least in the image from the beacon, he was wearing the long coat he’d left behind on Moya. He looked down at his vest - not much in the way of a disguise. He looked around at the shops, both rigid structures and tents, nearby, hoping for someplace that might at least sell a hat or some shades. There. Two tents to his right, there were some hats and other types of headgear hanging on a display just outside the tent. He turned and headed as nonchalantly as possible in that direction.
***
A bell sounded as Chiana pushed open the door of the clinic - one of the few more-or-less permanent structures on the central square. She sighed in relief when she saw there was no one else in the facility, save for a Sebacean woman who came out of a room in back at the sound of the bell.
“May I help you?” Her voice was rough, almost low enough to belong to a man. It matched the scar that ran down her cheek and crossed her throat, terminating at her collar bone.
“Yeah. I’m looking for a med tech.” Chiana craned her head a bit and straightened up to get a better view of the room behind the woman.
“You’ve found one.” The woman’s expression didn’t change, nor did her gruff tone, but she did step aside to allow Chiana to see that there was no one in the only other room of the clinic. “What do you need?”
“I got, uh…cut a couple of solar days ago.” Chi stepped more fully into the room, making sure the door was closed behind her.
Finally, the woman’s expression changed a bit as one dark eyebrow rose and she said, “You can lock it, if you’d like.”
“What?” The words startled her. “Oh! No, no, I’m, uh, expecting a friend.”
“Come in, girl. I won’t turn you in. Let’s take a look at that cut.” She gestured for Chiana to come closer.
“What do you mean, turn me in?” Chiana was the picture of innocence, she hoped.
“Everyone on this station has seen that announcement by now,” the med tech replied, nodding her head toward the room’s only window and the central square beyond. “You’re safe enough here. Don’t have much use for rewards.” She stepped aside and pointed toward the room from which she had come. “My office. You can hang your coat by the door.”
Chiana stepped into the room and lowered her bag carefully to the floor. As instructed, she unfastened her coat and hung it up on a peg by the door. When she turned back around, she watched the Sebacean woman’s dark eyes focus on the still spreading blue stain on her tunic.
“Couple of days ago, you said?” She tsked and motioned for Chiana to sit on the examination table. “Take off your shirt.”
As Chiana lifted the bottom edge of her tunic, she couldn’t stop a gasp as the motion tore the rest of the scab away. She hadn’t even gotten the garment off when she heard the sound of the bell in the other room as the clinic’s outer door was opened. Her hand drifted down to her new pistol, holstered at her side.
“Hello! Anybody home?” Chiana closed her eyes, relieved by the familiar sound of Crichton’s voice.
“I’m in here, Crichton!” she called to him. When he appeared in the doorway, wearing some sort of goggles over his eyes, Chiana said, “Maybe you should lock the door…”
He gave her a lopsided smile. “Already done, Pip.” He took off the goggles and, with a glance at the Sebacean woman, continued, “We don’t need any Peacekeepers or cops barging in…” His tone had a bit of a challenge in it.
The med tech glanced up from her surprisingly gentle examination of the ugly cut across Chiana’s stomach. “That we don’t. So, you’re the infamous John Crichton.” It was a statement, not a hint of question in it.
“Is that a problem, Doc?”
“Not for me.” She returned to her examination as Crichton entered the room and started looking at things on her desk and shelves.
Chiana hissed as the woman poked at the wound. The med tech looked up at her and said, “You let this wound go too long. It’s badly infected.”
“Huh. I thought there wasn’t any such thing as germs on this side of the universe,” Crichton said, replacing a flimsy he had picked up from the tech’s desk.
The Sebacean straightened, pushing Chiana back to lay flat on the table. “We don’t have much in the way of disease, no, but there are definitely germs.” Chiana watched as she walked over to the shelves and took down a small leather case and a jar of something goopy looking.
“My name is Reyna Val, by the way.” Gesturing Crichton to another set of shelves on the far side of the room, she continued, “Make yourself useful and bring me a towel from those shelves and some clean water from the outer room.”
“Yes’m,” Crichton said, lifting one hand in a salute as he moved to comply with Reyna Val’s orders.
***
Belima had no idea how much time had passed since Chiana had taken away her freedom to move. With none of her old companions available to her, her sense of time had become hopelessly broken, anyway. John and Chiana did nothing the way her family had. Missing her family, she watched as a wet drop fell onto her chest, soaking into her clothes. She howled again as she pulled her other wrist free of its bonds - this hurt, too, but she had loosened the bindings enough that it didn’t tear off any more skin.
Angrily, Belima dashed away the tears that were still hanging onto her eyelashes, leaving a smear of blood from her scraped wrist behind. She was still angry and now both of her wrists hurt, though neither the anger nor the pain was as intense as they had been before. The hunger, though, was getting worse.
Her ankles were still tied to the sitting thing, but with both hands free now, she should be able to escape this room soon.
She needed food. Her earlier search of the world with John and Chiana had shown her that there was no food left. She didn’t want to starve to death. Belima had seen a man starve to death, long ago. He had done something to anger Kaarvok and, instead of using him for food, Kaarvok had chained him in a room just like this one and made it known that no one was to give him food. Ever. Belima had watched the man slowly die, first angry, then in pain, then just weak, over the course of many, many sleep cycles. When he had finally died, there wasn’t even enough of him left for anyone to make a decent meal.
No, Belima didn’t want to die like that.
***
John spotted a water cooler over in the corner by the window. He had grabbed a large bowl off the shelf, along with a couple of towels, when Reyna had issued her orders. The woman just had to be a Peacekeeper, with an attitude like that. Well, an ex-Peacekeeper, anyway - she certainly wasn’t in any kind of uniform he’d ever seen on a PK. For one thing, she was wearing a skirt, for another her shirt was yellow, of all things. Yep. Former PK med tech. Had to be. He wondered if she’d gotten that nasty scar leaving Peacekeeper service.
He skirted the window, glancing out at the square as he filled the bowl from the cooler. The square looked much the same as it had when he’d come in, maybe not quite as crowded as the day wore on. It looked like the wanted beacon was still playing, though, and one of the Peacekeepers he had seen earlier was watching it.
The bowl now filled with cold water, white towels draped over one arm, he felt like a maitre’d in a fancy French restaurant as he returned to Reyna’s office. Handing her the water, which she accepted from him and set down on a wheeled table next to Chiana, he asked, “So, Med Tech Val, did you serve on a command carrier? Gammak base? Someplace else?”
He saw that Chiana was also interested in the answer, indicating that Pip had picked up on the PK vibe, too.
Reyna didn’t miss a beat, taking the towels from him and sitting down on a stool she had pulled over to the examination table. “Command carrier, under Captain Bialar Crais. You’re acquainted with him, I believe…” Again a statement, rather than a question.
“Touché.” John took a step back and sat on the edge of her desk. “What brings you here?” Before she could tell him it was none of his business, he clarified, “You’ve obviously been here for monens, if not cycles and this ain’t no Peacekeeper outpost.”
Reyna didn’t answer right away, concentrating as she was on cleaning out Pip’s wound. The water in the bowl was rapidly turning more and more blue with each rinsing of the towel she was using.
“Never mind. I shouldn’t have asked that.”
“No, Crichton, that’s all right.” She dropped the used towel in the bowl of blue water and, picking up the clean one, began to dab the moisture from Chiana’s skin. Pip’s eyes were closed, now, but he was sure she was listening to the conversation. “It’s a fair question, from someone who’s being hunted by Peacekeepers. My mate and I have been here for almost four cycles.”
“Your mate? I didn’t think Peacekeepers had permanent relationships.”
“They don’t. That’s one of the reasons we were forced to leave Peacekeeper service.”
Chiana didn’t open her eyes as she interjected, “Is your mate Tokar Rhee?”
John raised an eyebrow at that.
Reyna paused in threading a needle and looked down at Chiana. “Yes, he is.”
Chiana opened her eyes to look at Reyna. She smiled a little at the older woman. “He…sold me a pulse pistol an arn or so ago. Crichton, if you raise your eyebrows any further, they’re going to fall off.” Returning her attention to Reyna Val, she said, “Your mate likes to flirt.”
John snorted. Reyna’s mate liked to flirt… He suppressed a chuckle at Chiana’s hiss when Reyna jabbed the needle into her skin for the first stitch. He loved Chi like his own sisters, but she was going to really get herself in trouble, one of these days. He watched Chi’s mobile face as Reyna drew a couple more stitches, careful to keep his eyes from straying to where the actual stitching was going on.
“Yes, Tokar does like to flirt.” Anything else Reyna might have been about to say was halted by a pounding on the clinic’s outer door.
***
Reyna quickly pulled the needle through the Nebari girl’s flesh, completing the fifth stitch. The girl needed several more to fully close the long wound, but that would have to do for now. She hoped she’d be able to finish her work, but thought that what she had already done would probably see the girl through if she and her companion had to leave in a hurry, as seemed likely.
As Reyna stood and turned, the man who hadn’t denied being John Crichton leapt to the doorway, pulling his pulse pistol, and leaning back against the wall. His blue eyes bored into her as she nodded and stepped out into her waiting room, pulling the door not-quite closed behind her so that he could see what was going on in the room beyond.
“Reyna! Open the frelling door!”
Relief coursed through her at the sound of Tokar’s voice. She didn’t relax, though - his tone was still urgent. Something had happened.
He hammered on the door again even as she unlocked and opened it. “Enough! Get in here.” She grabbed his wrist, stopping him from pounding again on the now absent door, and pulled him into the clinic. She slammed the door behind him and relocked it before leaning back against it. “What the frell is the matter with you?”
Just as Reyna had grabbed him by the wrist a moment before, Tokar grabbed her by the wrist now, pulling her toward the closed door of her office. “Peacekeepers.”
“What are you talking about? Of course there are Peacekeepers here.” What had gotten into him? Peacekeepers came here occasionally, always on their way to somewhere else. Crichton had been right, this was no Peacekeeper outpost - that’s why she and Tokar had settled here, why the rest of his unit came here for supplies in between missions.
“No. Not just passing through. Looking for us. Rashov just came through the shop to warn me, said your door was locked and you weren’t answering your comms.”
“You know I turn it off when I’m with a patient.” She saw the door to her office open a bit out of the corner of her eye. “Rashov said they were looking for you and me?”
“Yes. We have to leave, love.”
“Did you see them? Is it a Retrieval Squad?”
“No, I haven’t seen them, yet. Rashov didn’t mention a Retrieval Squad and you know he would have.” Reyna was relieved that Tokar sounded calmer. That meant he was thinking again. Ever since he had been forced to participate in Lieutenant Velorek’s execution, he had been prone to panic at the mention of Peacekeepers - it was the main reason he was here on the station with her and not out on missions with the rest of the unit.
“I have a patient to tend to. As soon as I’m finished, we leave.”
He didn’t say anything at first. Just looked over at the door to her office, then back at her. “All right, but hurry. Maybe I can use that wanted beacon as a distraction - I sold a gun and cartridges to the Nebari girl, Chiana, earlier…”
“Not a good idea, Tokar,” Crichton said from behind her. Reyna hadn’t seen or heard the door open, but she certainly saw the pulse pistol in her peripheral vision, aimed at Tokar’s head.
Left Behind, chapter 10