Farscape fic: Left Behind, chapter 14 (pg-13)
Left Behind
Timeline placement: earlyish season 3, spoilers for “Eat Me”
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,941
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.
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Chapter Fourteen
“No, no, no, Furlow.” John Crichton, leaning on the table directly across from her, reached over and took the stylus from her fingers, turning toward him the blueprint that was laid out flat on the table’s surface. “Like this.” With a couple of long, sweeping strokes of stylus on flimsy, he changed the look of the design he had earlier dubbed the Farscape Two, apparently bringing it more into true with his Farscape One module.
“I would’ve gotten there…” Furlow protested, intrigued in spite of her irritation. She got up from her command chair and rounded the table to look over Johnny’s shoulder as he made more modifications to the blueprint they had been working on for the past three arns. Her arm brushed against his as she reached out, pointing at the new lines he had added to the representation of the hetch drive. “What does that do?”
Johnny moved rather quickly out of contact with her and replied, “Stabilizes the field that generates the wormhole.”
“Huh.” Furlow leaned in for a closer look. “Some sort of a phase stabilizer?” she asked.
“Um, sure. I never thought about what to call it, but that’s as good a term as any.” He shrugged, tossing the stylus to the table. It rolled a few denches when it hit, but stopped just short of rolling off.
“That must be what they were missing…” Her words trailed off, barely audible even in the quiet of her ship. She had hacked into every Peacekeeper database she could find for the past two and half cycles, looking for anything, any slip of information, that might help her stabilize a wormhole so that she could fly through without fear of being liquefied. After all, there was no profit in creating a wormhole if everyone who flew through it turned to mush, but none of the information she had been able to access had been useful in that regard.
“Missing?” Johnny sat back down in his chair again, rubbing his hands across tired blue eyes.
“Well…yeah.” Furlow sought to cover her tracks out of pure instinct. John Crichton was definitely the type of man who would try to sabotage her plans if he thought they might become a threat to anyone else. If he found out that she had spoken to both Peacekeepers and Scarrans about wormholes… “From that data chip you gave me. You know, back when I saved your ship from the scrapyard.”
“Saved my ship…?” One eyebrow arched over a beautiful blue eye, distracting her for a microt. “In your dreams, Furlow,” he continued. “There was nothing wrong with my module that I couldn’t have fixed myself.”
“Maybe, Johnny, but I’m the one who had the equipment.”
He shook his head, conceding her point. Leaning forward in the chair, which he had pushed back from the table, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, John asked, “You found your Leviathan-made hetch on Relkor, but did you come across any of the other parts you’ll need?”
She shrugged. “Most of ‘em. I figure what I didn’t find there, I ought to be able to find in the Leviathan burial space.”
“You’re going to loot a bunch of dead or dying ships?” Johnny’s upper lip curled in disgust - a fascinating display, she thought.
“Why not? They won’t be needing ‘em anymore. It’s not like I’m going to be killing off any healthy ships.”
“Damn, Furlow, you are a real piece of work, you know that?”
“Didn’t know you were so squeamish, Johnny-boy.” Surprisingly, she found she didn’t care for his obvious disapproval, so she turned her back on it, returning to the blueprints for the Farscape Two.
***
Having nothing better to do at that microt - all of Rohvu’s systems checked out and there was nothing more threatening in the forward viewscreen than a distant nebula - Reyna Val sat back and watched her mate as he took apart a pulse pistol. They were in Command, as it was her turn on watch, and Tokar was theoretically there to keep her company, although he was currently ignoring her.
“Isn’t that Crichton’s?” Her question abruptly broke the relative silence and caused Tokar to drop something on the table, but he caught it before it went too far. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem, love.” He plugged the runaway piece into the grip of the pistol. “Yes, it’s Crichton’s. It’s been giving him some problems and he asked me to take a look at it.”
“Oh.”
Tokar went back to working on the errant pulse pistol, leaving her again to her own devices. He was always so focused when he had a project - especially one that dealt with any kind of weapon. She smiled at him fondly, watching his nimble fingers reassemble the complex weapon as though it were the simplest child’s toy.
Reyna allowed her attention to stray from Tokar and his project, her eyes wandering over Command until they focused on the glowing green button that had recently been added to the main console.
Over the last few days, they had done some brainstorming as a group to determine not only their best course of action for returning to the lives that had been disrupted, but also for their own immediate survival in the face of their ship being bent on his own destruction. Furlow’s ship might look like a Peacekeeper Marauder, but it didn’t have the long-range capabilities they needed, as far out as they were now.
Since Furlow’s ship wasn’t an option, one of the things they had done was to rig what John Crichton called a “failsafe” into Rohvu’s manual controls. So long as the switch here in Command and a similar one they had installed on Pilot’s control console remained green, Rohvu’s systems were functioning appropriately. If they turned red, then Rohvu was actively doing something to act on his self-destructive tendencies. Anyone in either Command or in Pilot’s den could stop whatever Rohvu was doing by hitting the switch, allowing them the time needed to take manual control of the ship.
“Tokar?”
He lifted his head, focusing his dark eyes on her. “Reyna.”
“Crichton’s failsafe…”
“What about it?”
“I’m a bit puzzled. I thought that all one had to do to take manual control of the ship was to activate the manual controls from the main console.”
Tokar Rhee set down the partially reassembled pulse pistol and leaned back in his chair. “Well, Rey, that’s true for maneuvering using manual controls, but not for actually controlling the ship’s systems. The switch isn’t so much for piloting him as it is to take his entire consciousness out of the loop.”
“Pilot can’t do that on his own?”
“No. The Leviathan-Pilot relationship isn’t designed for that. Neither being is supposed to be capable of actually controlling the other.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” She shook her head. “I wonder what I was doing during that part of the discussion?”
Tokar shot her a lopsided grin. “Sleeping, if I recall,” he teased.
She laughed. It was a running joke between them that if the subject of any meeting or discussion wasn’t something she could medicate or cut up and stitch back together, then she’d be hard-pressed to stay awake for it.
***
She sat in the middle of her bed, arms wrapped tightly around upthrust knees, cheek resting on the sharp angle they created. She rocked back and forth, back and forth, and tried to think of nothing, but it wasn’t working. Every time Chiana tried to empty her mind, images, feelings, fears all invaded, charging past every defense.
Even now, as she rocked and tried to just simply be, images of John and D’Argo and Jool seen through a haze of green and pink light kept hammering at her. She began to hum tunelessly, just to give herself something to listen to, something that might distract her from the feelings that she was possessed by something else, that she wasn’t Chiana anymore.
She shook her head and shut her eyes tightly, blocking out all traces of ambient light and hummed a little more loudly, the volume increasing until she sprang from the bed with an angry cry. “Frell!”
Without a break in momentum, Chiana pounded her palm against the door control - unnecessary, but somehow satisfying - and burst through the door, running away from the fears and the images and the voices in her head. She didn’t know where she was headed other than away.
Several microts later, Chiana found herself at the door to the center chamber. She started to wave her hand over the control, wanting something to wet her dry throat, but paused, hearing voices on the other side of the door. Backing away, she leaned against the opposite wall, breathing deeply. She felt the minute vibrations of the living ship, felt Rohvu’s warmth against her back through the cloth of her tunic, and felt strangely comforted. For just a few microts, hearing Crichton’s muffled voice through the door to the center chamber, she could almost convince herself that she was back on Moya, safe.
“Fekkik,” she said, pounding her idiot head once against the wall for emphasis before pushing off and opening the door.
***
The door behind John swung open just as he popped a blue food cube into his mouth. Chewing it as though it were a bite of the finest sirloin steak, rather than something closer to the texture and taste of Playdoh, he turned his head enough to see who the newcomer might be.
“Hey, Crichton, how’s it hangin’?” Chiana said as she bopped into the room.
He swallowed his lump of Playdoh and replied, “Do you even know what that means, Pip?”
In response, she just raised smirked at him and swung a chair around, straddling it so she could prop her arms up on the back of the chair. Furlow watched the interplay with keen interest.
“Never mind. Of course you do.” He took a swallow of Tang and returned to the interrupted conversation. “I dunno, Furlow, there’s just something about the idea of looting spare parts from the burial space that feels like, well, looting.”
“Looting is bad for business, Johnny. Disruptive. Unprofitable. Since I doubt there’s anyone carrying on much business in a Leviathan graveyard and the ships there aren’t able to use their parts anymore, don’t think of it as looting. Think of it as more of an acquisition.”
He shot a sour look Furlow’s way and noticed that Chiana, sitting next to her, was staring at the entrepreneur with an expression of distaste. “Chi?”
Her black eyes cleared a bit as she looked over at him. “Are we going to raid the burial space?”
“Since we’re headed there anyway,” Furlow replied, “we might as well take advantage of the situation.”
Chiana cocked her head, returning her attention to the self-styled businesswoman. “I’m all about taking advantage, oh Queen of Acquisitions, but not of the dead or dying.”
“What are you two? A couple of priests?” Furlow popped an orange food cube into her mouth, chewing as she continued, “We’re not stealing from anyone. We’re not taking anything that’ll be missed.”
“Well, that makes everything just hunky dory, doesn’t it?” John drawled sarcastically.
“I don’t generally have a problem with stealing, Furlow, it’s just…it’s just that some of my best friends are Leviathans.” Chiana reached over the table and stole a cube from John’s plate.
“All I’m saying is we get a couple of DRDs from a Leviathan in the burial space, maybe a few more spare parts that you’ve got to admit this old beast could use, transfer some calorics from one that’s still alive, and Rohvu here’s back in business.” Furlow shifted back from the table a bit so that she could see both John and Chiana.
“Sort of a blood transfusion,” John said. That did make some sense, so long as the donor wasn’t dying of some sort of disease that could be transmitted to Rohvu. And they could certainly use a DRD or two to help get some of his systems back on line, provided they could get him to accept a transfusion. “I suppose we could ask permission to board, make sure the Leviathan and his or her Pilot know the situation…”
“More like us asking for help, than taking something by force,” Chiana added, again reaching over the table, this time to grab at his cup of Tang.
“Hey! Get your own snack!” John pulled the cup out of reach.
Chiana shrugged and stood. “What’s that on your hand, Crichton?” she asked as she wandered over to the refrigeration unit.
“On my hand? Don’t drink out of the container, this time,” he ordered, looking down at his left hand, which was covered in notations.
“You’re not my mother, Crichton.” With exaggerated movements, she poured the liquid into a cup. “Your hand?”
“The writing? Furlow and I were working on the plans for the Farscape Two and I was hit with a thought about wormholes. Didn’t want to frell the blueprint with the equation, so I wrote it on my hand.”
“Won’t you be frelled now, if you wash your hand?” she teased.
John snorted. “I’ll transfer it to flimsy when I get back to my room.” He swallowed the rest of his Tang and stood. “Which I’d better do now, or I’ll be late relieving Reyna.”
***
“Pi…lot?”
Belima’s tentative voice came to him through the darkness. “Yes, Belima?”
Pilot had turned down the lights in his den earlier, as much to save some of Rohvu’s power as to test the control he had over his newly regrown arms, just long enough now to reach the closest controls on his console. He reached out now to bring the lights back up to their normal level, allowing him to see the Sebacean as she clung to the doorway directly across from the front of his console, clearly afraid to come any further into the room.
“Belima sorry, Pi-lot.”
As she was unarmed and he now had the means to call for help if it became necessary, he wasn’t worried. Much. “You may enter, Belima.”
He watched her as she slowly walked across the catwalk toward him, careful to stay in the center of the walkway. Considering the fall she had taken from these same catwalks not so long ago, he thought he understood her trepidation.
When she reached his console, she simply stood there for a few microts, staring at one of his arms. The appendages were still soft and pinkish, the carapace not yet having hardened to its darker shade, since the arms themselves still had several more days of aching growth. She gingerly reached out one hand and Pilot held himself still, trying hard not to jerk away from her as she gently stroked a claw. “Belima sorry,” she repeated.
Seeing the genuine contrition in her green eyes, her gentle touch feeling more like that of Crichton or Chiana than the Xarai that Belima had once been, Pilot allowed himself to relax. Not knowing how much the girl understood - the repeated twinnings had brought the Xarai to the level of animals during Kaarvok’s reign - Pilot told her, “I do not condemn you, Belima. Rohvu and I understand what it is to be starving.” He turned the claw over, covering her hand.
She smiled at him, the expression as tentative as her voice had been earlier. She nodded once, pulled her hand gently from under his claw, and turned, retracing her steps across the catwalk.
Pilot watched her go. When she had been gone for a hundred microts, he reached out and reduced the chamber’s lights again. “Ahh, Rohvu, I wish you could understand that you, that we are not alone.” Rohvu had not responded to anything through their link in days, but now Pilot felt a brief surge of affection from the Leviathan, reminding him of the days many cycles ago, before they had ever heard of Peacekeepers. For the first time since Rohvu had cut himself off from their link, Pilot felt hope.
***
Another day, another dollar. Or something like that. Not much has happened since I last wrote. Tokar, Furlow and I got a failsafe switch installed into Rohvu’s main computers that should allow us to completely take control, if it becomes necessary. I hope it never has to be used.
I have no idea what you’d make of Rohvu and his Pilot, Aeryn. Pilot’s got a lot in common with Moya’s Pilot, but Rohvu is so different from Moya, I’m not sure there’s much to compare. Poor guy’s been through so much, I’m not sure he’ll ever fully recover, even if we can convince him not to kill himself. Pilot told me, though, that he finally picked up some of Rohvu’s emotions through their link today, and they weren’t negative, so maybe there’s some hope.
Furlow and I spent some time working on blueprints for a new Farscape module (I know how much respect and love you have for the Farscape One…). In some ways, that woman scares me. She has this amazing mind, but I don’t think she has a moral bone in her body.
She’s got this idea that Leviathan-made parts, organic or semi-organic, help to shield the pilot from the effects of wormholes. During some of her early research into designing a ship, she learned that previous experiments, even if they produced a viable wormhole, were considered failures because of the little problem of the pilots turning to goo. My Farscape One is the only ship she knows of where that didn’t happen. Even though I pointed out to her that I didn’t have access (or knowledge of) any Leviathans when I built her, I think she’s onto something with this theory.
Speaking of organic parts, Winona jammed on me during a firefight not too long ago, so I had Tokar Rhee - ex-PK grunt who served under dear Bialar, said he never met you, but he had heard of you - take a look at her. He’s kind of an arms dealer/mercenary right now, a weapons expert. Says she doesn’t look right to him, like the pieces weren’t machined properly, but without instrumentation he couldn’t measure anything to tell me exactly what was wrong. Sounds to me more and more like she was twinned and that the process wasn’t nearly as perfect as good ol’ Kaarvok seemed to think.
What does that say about me? Or Chi?
On that happy note, John laid his stylus down on the flimsy. “Damn, I’ve got to stop doing that to myself at bed time,” he said aloud.
Shaking his head, he stood up and headed over to the bed. Stripping down to t-shirt and underwear, he punched his makeshift pillow into a comfortable shape and flopped back onto his bunk. Tired as he was, he was asleep in minutes.
***
John could hear nothing but his own breathing, the sound redoubled by the helmet of his EVA suit. In the middle of a space-walk - which should have been in space, hence the name - he approached a wall of…he wasn’t sure what it was made of. It looked vaguely organic and, well, nasty, really. Spongy and soft.
“Okay, I’m there. Man, you guys should see this ugly, sticky flesh. Kinda like my Aunt Ruth’s special jello.”
And then he was no longer looking at ugly, sticky flesh, no longer outside a ship at all, but rather he was in Pilot’s den. Not Pilot’s den as it was now. Not Pilot’s den on Moya, either. Pilot’s den on Rohvu, as it was weeks ago, dark and filled with ugly, nasty things, filled with Xarai, holding back in deference to their master. Their master, whom John currently had in a death grip, the sticker thingie the bastard used to suck out his victim’s brains just inches from Kaarvok’s ugly, sticky face as well as his own. John couldn’t let Kaarvok use it on him.
“What the hell you still doin’ here, Karvee?” John asked, using all his strength to keep that sticker from approaching any closer. “I thought we killed your ugly ass?” he asked, momentarily disoriented and confused.
“Others will come,” Kaarvok replied, voice dripping with his insanity. “More and more of you will come. To me, to my family, my farmland. My…my perfect, perfect dish.”
John fought back a surge of nausea. He could hear the Xarai whispering and scurrying all around them.
“Crichton?!” D’Argo’s voice cut like his Qualta blade through the white noise of the Xarai.
“D’Argo,” John whispered. D’Argo was dead. No, wait, not dead, just not on Rohvu.
Kaarvok, still pinning John to Pilot’s console, looked back over his shoulder toward the sound of D’Argo’s voice. During the momentary distraction, John shoved for all he was worth, finally managing to break free of Kaarvok. He jammed the sticker down into a soft, rotten spot in Pilot’s control console and jumped away, looking over to a group of Xarai.
“Hey, kids! It’s dinnertime and it’s finger-lickin’ good.” As he watched, the Xarai jumped hungrily on Kaarvok. The device on Karvee’s arm began to glow, brighter and brighter as they bore him down and John turned away to run across the catwalk and, hopefully, to escape from the this insane ship.
Before he even made it to the catwalk, though, he was hit by something from behind. Something that knocked him from his feet and tore him into pieces, screaming.
***
John woke screaming, sitting upright in his bed in his quarters on Rohvu. Gripping one arm tightly enough that his fingernails drew blood, he was able to get a grip on his terror. “God.” He had forgotten - or blocked - what it felt like to be twinned. He wished he didn’t remember it now.
“Crichton!” Chiana skidded to an abrupt stop at his door. “Was that you? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, Pip. Just a nightmare.”
“Can I…can I come in?” She sounded a little unsure of herself.
“Yeah, Pip, it’s not locked.” He swung his feet from the bed to the floor, keeping the blanket covering his legs as she sat down on the bed next to him, their arms touching.
Chiana didn’t say a word as she lay her head on John’s shoulder. Her hair smelled good. Clean. He needed clean after that damn dream. He reached an arm around her shoulders and just held her, he didn’t know for how long, letting her warmth soak into him, trying to let the - dream, memory, whatever it was - go.
Chiana turned a little in his arms, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him. He couldn’t really see her in the darkness, but he could see the faint glitter of her space black eyes in what little light leaked into the room.
John inhaled sharply and held his breath when he felt her teeth nip at the point of his jaw, just below his ear. His whole body stiffened when he felt the feather touch of her breath on his mouth, just before she kissed him.
Before he could kiss her back - from the signals his body was sending him, it would be more than just a kiss - he leaped away from her, stumbling over one of his boots in the darkness. “No! No, we will not do this.”
“Why not?” She sounded breathless.
“Because I…you…we-” He couldn’t think of a single logical thing to say. Couldn’t think at all, really.
He heard her stand and walk to the still-open door. “I’m not your sister, Crichton,” she threw back at him as she walked away.
Left Behind, chapter 13
Left Behind, chapter 15
Timeline placement: earlyish season 3, spoilers for “Eat Me”
Rating: PG-13
Words: 3,941
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.
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Chapter Fourteen
“No, no, no, Furlow.” John Crichton, leaning on the table directly across from her, reached over and took the stylus from her fingers, turning toward him the blueprint that was laid out flat on the table’s surface. “Like this.” With a couple of long, sweeping strokes of stylus on flimsy, he changed the look of the design he had earlier dubbed the Farscape Two, apparently bringing it more into true with his Farscape One module.
“I would’ve gotten there…” Furlow protested, intrigued in spite of her irritation. She got up from her command chair and rounded the table to look over Johnny’s shoulder as he made more modifications to the blueprint they had been working on for the past three arns. Her arm brushed against his as she reached out, pointing at the new lines he had added to the representation of the hetch drive. “What does that do?”
Johnny moved rather quickly out of contact with her and replied, “Stabilizes the field that generates the wormhole.”
“Huh.” Furlow leaned in for a closer look. “Some sort of a phase stabilizer?” she asked.
“Um, sure. I never thought about what to call it, but that’s as good a term as any.” He shrugged, tossing the stylus to the table. It rolled a few denches when it hit, but stopped just short of rolling off.
“That must be what they were missing…” Her words trailed off, barely audible even in the quiet of her ship. She had hacked into every Peacekeeper database she could find for the past two and half cycles, looking for anything, any slip of information, that might help her stabilize a wormhole so that she could fly through without fear of being liquefied. After all, there was no profit in creating a wormhole if everyone who flew through it turned to mush, but none of the information she had been able to access had been useful in that regard.
“Missing?” Johnny sat back down in his chair again, rubbing his hands across tired blue eyes.
“Well…yeah.” Furlow sought to cover her tracks out of pure instinct. John Crichton was definitely the type of man who would try to sabotage her plans if he thought they might become a threat to anyone else. If he found out that she had spoken to both Peacekeepers and Scarrans about wormholes… “From that data chip you gave me. You know, back when I saved your ship from the scrapyard.”
“Saved my ship…?” One eyebrow arched over a beautiful blue eye, distracting her for a microt. “In your dreams, Furlow,” he continued. “There was nothing wrong with my module that I couldn’t have fixed myself.”
“Maybe, Johnny, but I’m the one who had the equipment.”
He shook his head, conceding her point. Leaning forward in the chair, which he had pushed back from the table, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands, John asked, “You found your Leviathan-made hetch on Relkor, but did you come across any of the other parts you’ll need?”
She shrugged. “Most of ‘em. I figure what I didn’t find there, I ought to be able to find in the Leviathan burial space.”
“You’re going to loot a bunch of dead or dying ships?” Johnny’s upper lip curled in disgust - a fascinating display, she thought.
“Why not? They won’t be needing ‘em anymore. It’s not like I’m going to be killing off any healthy ships.”
“Damn, Furlow, you are a real piece of work, you know that?”
“Didn’t know you were so squeamish, Johnny-boy.” Surprisingly, she found she didn’t care for his obvious disapproval, so she turned her back on it, returning to the blueprints for the Farscape Two.
***
Having nothing better to do at that microt - all of Rohvu’s systems checked out and there was nothing more threatening in the forward viewscreen than a distant nebula - Reyna Val sat back and watched her mate as he took apart a pulse pistol. They were in Command, as it was her turn on watch, and Tokar was theoretically there to keep her company, although he was currently ignoring her.
“Isn’t that Crichton’s?” Her question abruptly broke the relative silence and caused Tokar to drop something on the table, but he caught it before it went too far. “Sorry.”
“Not a problem, love.” He plugged the runaway piece into the grip of the pistol. “Yes, it’s Crichton’s. It’s been giving him some problems and he asked me to take a look at it.”
“Oh.”
Tokar went back to working on the errant pulse pistol, leaving her again to her own devices. He was always so focused when he had a project - especially one that dealt with any kind of weapon. She smiled at him fondly, watching his nimble fingers reassemble the complex weapon as though it were the simplest child’s toy.
Reyna allowed her attention to stray from Tokar and his project, her eyes wandering over Command until they focused on the glowing green button that had recently been added to the main console.
Over the last few days, they had done some brainstorming as a group to determine not only their best course of action for returning to the lives that had been disrupted, but also for their own immediate survival in the face of their ship being bent on his own destruction. Furlow’s ship might look like a Peacekeeper Marauder, but it didn’t have the long-range capabilities they needed, as far out as they were now.
Since Furlow’s ship wasn’t an option, one of the things they had done was to rig what John Crichton called a “failsafe” into Rohvu’s manual controls. So long as the switch here in Command and a similar one they had installed on Pilot’s control console remained green, Rohvu’s systems were functioning appropriately. If they turned red, then Rohvu was actively doing something to act on his self-destructive tendencies. Anyone in either Command or in Pilot’s den could stop whatever Rohvu was doing by hitting the switch, allowing them the time needed to take manual control of the ship.
“Tokar?”
He lifted his head, focusing his dark eyes on her. “Reyna.”
“Crichton’s failsafe…”
“What about it?”
“I’m a bit puzzled. I thought that all one had to do to take manual control of the ship was to activate the manual controls from the main console.”
Tokar Rhee set down the partially reassembled pulse pistol and leaned back in his chair. “Well, Rey, that’s true for maneuvering using manual controls, but not for actually controlling the ship’s systems. The switch isn’t so much for piloting him as it is to take his entire consciousness out of the loop.”
“Pilot can’t do that on his own?”
“No. The Leviathan-Pilot relationship isn’t designed for that. Neither being is supposed to be capable of actually controlling the other.”
“I suppose that makes sense.” She shook her head. “I wonder what I was doing during that part of the discussion?”
Tokar shot her a lopsided grin. “Sleeping, if I recall,” he teased.
She laughed. It was a running joke between them that if the subject of any meeting or discussion wasn’t something she could medicate or cut up and stitch back together, then she’d be hard-pressed to stay awake for it.
***
She sat in the middle of her bed, arms wrapped tightly around upthrust knees, cheek resting on the sharp angle they created. She rocked back and forth, back and forth, and tried to think of nothing, but it wasn’t working. Every time Chiana tried to empty her mind, images, feelings, fears all invaded, charging past every defense.
Even now, as she rocked and tried to just simply be, images of John and D’Argo and Jool seen through a haze of green and pink light kept hammering at her. She began to hum tunelessly, just to give herself something to listen to, something that might distract her from the feelings that she was possessed by something else, that she wasn’t Chiana anymore.
She shook her head and shut her eyes tightly, blocking out all traces of ambient light and hummed a little more loudly, the volume increasing until she sprang from the bed with an angry cry. “Frell!”
Without a break in momentum, Chiana pounded her palm against the door control - unnecessary, but somehow satisfying - and burst through the door, running away from the fears and the images and the voices in her head. She didn’t know where she was headed other than away.
Several microts later, Chiana found herself at the door to the center chamber. She started to wave her hand over the control, wanting something to wet her dry throat, but paused, hearing voices on the other side of the door. Backing away, she leaned against the opposite wall, breathing deeply. She felt the minute vibrations of the living ship, felt Rohvu’s warmth against her back through the cloth of her tunic, and felt strangely comforted. For just a few microts, hearing Crichton’s muffled voice through the door to the center chamber, she could almost convince herself that she was back on Moya, safe.
“Fekkik,” she said, pounding her idiot head once against the wall for emphasis before pushing off and opening the door.
***
The door behind John swung open just as he popped a blue food cube into his mouth. Chewing it as though it were a bite of the finest sirloin steak, rather than something closer to the texture and taste of Playdoh, he turned his head enough to see who the newcomer might be.
“Hey, Crichton, how’s it hangin’?” Chiana said as she bopped into the room.
He swallowed his lump of Playdoh and replied, “Do you even know what that means, Pip?”
In response, she just raised smirked at him and swung a chair around, straddling it so she could prop her arms up on the back of the chair. Furlow watched the interplay with keen interest.
“Never mind. Of course you do.” He took a swallow of Tang and returned to the interrupted conversation. “I dunno, Furlow, there’s just something about the idea of looting spare parts from the burial space that feels like, well, looting.”
“Looting is bad for business, Johnny. Disruptive. Unprofitable. Since I doubt there’s anyone carrying on much business in a Leviathan graveyard and the ships there aren’t able to use their parts anymore, don’t think of it as looting. Think of it as more of an acquisition.”
He shot a sour look Furlow’s way and noticed that Chiana, sitting next to her, was staring at the entrepreneur with an expression of distaste. “Chi?”
Her black eyes cleared a bit as she looked over at him. “Are we going to raid the burial space?”
“Since we’re headed there anyway,” Furlow replied, “we might as well take advantage of the situation.”
Chiana cocked her head, returning her attention to the self-styled businesswoman. “I’m all about taking advantage, oh Queen of Acquisitions, but not of the dead or dying.”
“What are you two? A couple of priests?” Furlow popped an orange food cube into her mouth, chewing as she continued, “We’re not stealing from anyone. We’re not taking anything that’ll be missed.”
“Well, that makes everything just hunky dory, doesn’t it?” John drawled sarcastically.
“I don’t generally have a problem with stealing, Furlow, it’s just…it’s just that some of my best friends are Leviathans.” Chiana reached over the table and stole a cube from John’s plate.
“All I’m saying is we get a couple of DRDs from a Leviathan in the burial space, maybe a few more spare parts that you’ve got to admit this old beast could use, transfer some calorics from one that’s still alive, and Rohvu here’s back in business.” Furlow shifted back from the table a bit so that she could see both John and Chiana.
“Sort of a blood transfusion,” John said. That did make some sense, so long as the donor wasn’t dying of some sort of disease that could be transmitted to Rohvu. And they could certainly use a DRD or two to help get some of his systems back on line, provided they could get him to accept a transfusion. “I suppose we could ask permission to board, make sure the Leviathan and his or her Pilot know the situation…”
“More like us asking for help, than taking something by force,” Chiana added, again reaching over the table, this time to grab at his cup of Tang.
“Hey! Get your own snack!” John pulled the cup out of reach.
Chiana shrugged and stood. “What’s that on your hand, Crichton?” she asked as she wandered over to the refrigeration unit.
“On my hand? Don’t drink out of the container, this time,” he ordered, looking down at his left hand, which was covered in notations.
“You’re not my mother, Crichton.” With exaggerated movements, she poured the liquid into a cup. “Your hand?”
“The writing? Furlow and I were working on the plans for the Farscape Two and I was hit with a thought about wormholes. Didn’t want to frell the blueprint with the equation, so I wrote it on my hand.”
“Won’t you be frelled now, if you wash your hand?” she teased.
John snorted. “I’ll transfer it to flimsy when I get back to my room.” He swallowed the rest of his Tang and stood. “Which I’d better do now, or I’ll be late relieving Reyna.”
***
“Pi…lot?”
Belima’s tentative voice came to him through the darkness. “Yes, Belima?”
Pilot had turned down the lights in his den earlier, as much to save some of Rohvu’s power as to test the control he had over his newly regrown arms, just long enough now to reach the closest controls on his console. He reached out now to bring the lights back up to their normal level, allowing him to see the Sebacean as she clung to the doorway directly across from the front of his console, clearly afraid to come any further into the room.
“Belima sorry, Pi-lot.”
As she was unarmed and he now had the means to call for help if it became necessary, he wasn’t worried. Much. “You may enter, Belima.”
He watched her as she slowly walked across the catwalk toward him, careful to stay in the center of the walkway. Considering the fall she had taken from these same catwalks not so long ago, he thought he understood her trepidation.
When she reached his console, she simply stood there for a few microts, staring at one of his arms. The appendages were still soft and pinkish, the carapace not yet having hardened to its darker shade, since the arms themselves still had several more days of aching growth. She gingerly reached out one hand and Pilot held himself still, trying hard not to jerk away from her as she gently stroked a claw. “Belima sorry,” she repeated.
Seeing the genuine contrition in her green eyes, her gentle touch feeling more like that of Crichton or Chiana than the Xarai that Belima had once been, Pilot allowed himself to relax. Not knowing how much the girl understood - the repeated twinnings had brought the Xarai to the level of animals during Kaarvok’s reign - Pilot told her, “I do not condemn you, Belima. Rohvu and I understand what it is to be starving.” He turned the claw over, covering her hand.
She smiled at him, the expression as tentative as her voice had been earlier. She nodded once, pulled her hand gently from under his claw, and turned, retracing her steps across the catwalk.
Pilot watched her go. When she had been gone for a hundred microts, he reached out and reduced the chamber’s lights again. “Ahh, Rohvu, I wish you could understand that you, that we are not alone.” Rohvu had not responded to anything through their link in days, but now Pilot felt a brief surge of affection from the Leviathan, reminding him of the days many cycles ago, before they had ever heard of Peacekeepers. For the first time since Rohvu had cut himself off from their link, Pilot felt hope.
***
Another day, another dollar. Or something like that. Not much has happened since I last wrote. Tokar, Furlow and I got a failsafe switch installed into Rohvu’s main computers that should allow us to completely take control, if it becomes necessary. I hope it never has to be used.
I have no idea what you’d make of Rohvu and his Pilot, Aeryn. Pilot’s got a lot in common with Moya’s Pilot, but Rohvu is so different from Moya, I’m not sure there’s much to compare. Poor guy’s been through so much, I’m not sure he’ll ever fully recover, even if we can convince him not to kill himself. Pilot told me, though, that he finally picked up some of Rohvu’s emotions through their link today, and they weren’t negative, so maybe there’s some hope.
Furlow and I spent some time working on blueprints for a new Farscape module (I know how much respect and love you have for the Farscape One…). In some ways, that woman scares me. She has this amazing mind, but I don’t think she has a moral bone in her body.
She’s got this idea that Leviathan-made parts, organic or semi-organic, help to shield the pilot from the effects of wormholes. During some of her early research into designing a ship, she learned that previous experiments, even if they produced a viable wormhole, were considered failures because of the little problem of the pilots turning to goo. My Farscape One is the only ship she knows of where that didn’t happen. Even though I pointed out to her that I didn’t have access (or knowledge of) any Leviathans when I built her, I think she’s onto something with this theory.
Speaking of organic parts, Winona jammed on me during a firefight not too long ago, so I had Tokar Rhee - ex-PK grunt who served under dear Bialar, said he never met you, but he had heard of you - take a look at her. He’s kind of an arms dealer/mercenary right now, a weapons expert. Says she doesn’t look right to him, like the pieces weren’t machined properly, but without instrumentation he couldn’t measure anything to tell me exactly what was wrong. Sounds to me more and more like she was twinned and that the process wasn’t nearly as perfect as good ol’ Kaarvok seemed to think.
What does that say about me? Or Chi?
On that happy note, John laid his stylus down on the flimsy. “Damn, I’ve got to stop doing that to myself at bed time,” he said aloud.
Shaking his head, he stood up and headed over to the bed. Stripping down to t-shirt and underwear, he punched his makeshift pillow into a comfortable shape and flopped back onto his bunk. Tired as he was, he was asleep in minutes.
***
John could hear nothing but his own breathing, the sound redoubled by the helmet of his EVA suit. In the middle of a space-walk - which should have been in space, hence the name - he approached a wall of…he wasn’t sure what it was made of. It looked vaguely organic and, well, nasty, really. Spongy and soft.
“Okay, I’m there. Man, you guys should see this ugly, sticky flesh. Kinda like my Aunt Ruth’s special jello.”
And then he was no longer looking at ugly, sticky flesh, no longer outside a ship at all, but rather he was in Pilot’s den. Not Pilot’s den as it was now. Not Pilot’s den on Moya, either. Pilot’s den on Rohvu, as it was weeks ago, dark and filled with ugly, nasty things, filled with Xarai, holding back in deference to their master. Their master, whom John currently had in a death grip, the sticker thingie the bastard used to suck out his victim’s brains just inches from Kaarvok’s ugly, sticky face as well as his own. John couldn’t let Kaarvok use it on him.
“What the hell you still doin’ here, Karvee?” John asked, using all his strength to keep that sticker from approaching any closer. “I thought we killed your ugly ass?” he asked, momentarily disoriented and confused.
“Others will come,” Kaarvok replied, voice dripping with his insanity. “More and more of you will come. To me, to my family, my farmland. My…my perfect, perfect dish.”
John fought back a surge of nausea. He could hear the Xarai whispering and scurrying all around them.
“Crichton?!” D’Argo’s voice cut like his Qualta blade through the white noise of the Xarai.
“D’Argo,” John whispered. D’Argo was dead. No, wait, not dead, just not on Rohvu.
Kaarvok, still pinning John to Pilot’s console, looked back over his shoulder toward the sound of D’Argo’s voice. During the momentary distraction, John shoved for all he was worth, finally managing to break free of Kaarvok. He jammed the sticker down into a soft, rotten spot in Pilot’s control console and jumped away, looking over to a group of Xarai.
“Hey, kids! It’s dinnertime and it’s finger-lickin’ good.” As he watched, the Xarai jumped hungrily on Kaarvok. The device on Karvee’s arm began to glow, brighter and brighter as they bore him down and John turned away to run across the catwalk and, hopefully, to escape from the this insane ship.
Before he even made it to the catwalk, though, he was hit by something from behind. Something that knocked him from his feet and tore him into pieces, screaming.
***
John woke screaming, sitting upright in his bed in his quarters on Rohvu. Gripping one arm tightly enough that his fingernails drew blood, he was able to get a grip on his terror. “God.” He had forgotten - or blocked - what it felt like to be twinned. He wished he didn’t remember it now.
“Crichton!” Chiana skidded to an abrupt stop at his door. “Was that you? Are you okay?”
“I’m okay, Pip. Just a nightmare.”
“Can I…can I come in?” She sounded a little unsure of herself.
“Yeah, Pip, it’s not locked.” He swung his feet from the bed to the floor, keeping the blanket covering his legs as she sat down on the bed next to him, their arms touching.
Chiana didn’t say a word as she lay her head on John’s shoulder. Her hair smelled good. Clean. He needed clean after that damn dream. He reached an arm around her shoulders and just held her, he didn’t know for how long, letting her warmth soak into him, trying to let the - dream, memory, whatever it was - go.
Chiana turned a little in his arms, lifting her head from his shoulder to look at him. He couldn’t really see her in the darkness, but he could see the faint glitter of her space black eyes in what little light leaked into the room.
John inhaled sharply and held his breath when he felt her teeth nip at the point of his jaw, just below his ear. His whole body stiffened when he felt the feather touch of her breath on his mouth, just before she kissed him.
Before he could kiss her back - from the signals his body was sending him, it would be more than just a kiss - he leaped away from her, stumbling over one of his boots in the darkness. “No! No, we will not do this.”
“Why not?” She sounded breathless.
“Because I…you…we-” He couldn’t think of a single logical thing to say. Couldn’t think at all, really.
He heard her stand and walk to the still-open door. “I’m not your sister, Crichton,” she threw back at him as she walked away.
Left Behind, chapter 13
Left Behind, chapter 15