The Eidolon Job (Studio Edit)
This was written for astrogirl2's Zhaanathon, and is shamefully late, for which I debase myself before the long-suffering kernezelda with gifts of extra-long fic to atone.
Title The Eidolon Job (Studio Edit)
Setting/Spoilers AU, with allusions to spoilers through PKW
Rating Mostly G, with little dips towards the PG-13 in places.
Disclaimer Um... not mine, etc?
Archive No archiving
Notes Thanks to astrogirl2, kalypso_v, lyssie, and vilakins for betas. Thanks to astrogirl2 for use of the drabble in the introduction and for failing to send the hitmen after me when I let the extended deadline fly past. And, with luck, the studio edit of this story will one day be followed by a director's cut.
The Eidolon Job
by RSR
When Delvian priests go bad, they go mad. But if you're expecting a gibbering wreck behind those red eyes, it's likely to be the last expectation you ever have.
They say she took over a Peacekeeper prison ship, slaughtered its crew and pressed her fellow prisoners into her service. They say she robbed a Shadow Depository, destroyed a Command Carrier, blew up a moon. And now, say the whispers, she's performed the ultimate act of piracy: wrested a superweapon from the hands of ancient gods with which to hold the whole galaxy hostage.
If the galaxy's smart, it will surrender.
I.
“It's a very difficult job and the only way to get through it is we all work together as a team. And that means you do everything I say.”
She swept down the corridor, her silver-blue cloak streaming behind her. “It's a very simple choice, John Crichton. The others have made it. You have until morning.”
“That's not much of a choice. Sign up or, what, you'll turn me over to Captain Ahab back there? Kill me?”
“Yes, and in your case, it's more than generous, considering you're totally without skill. By morning, John.” She turned off quickly towards another dark, maze-like passage and left him standing there in the nexus, staring after her.
Great. His first day on the new job, apparently, and already his big blue boss-lady had it in for him.
“Don't worry so much,” said D'Argo, passing him a cup of something purple and refreshing like motor oil.
“Easy for you to say, you've got the big sword. Er, gun.”
“Qualta blade. Look, John, she understands what it is to be a warrior, she has the mind of a tactician. It's an honor to serve under her. She's not a mere priest.”
John nearly spit out his mouthful of purple juice. “Zhaan's a freakin' priest?”
The little slug in the hoverchair chuckled nastily. “Oh, yes. She's a Delvian pa'u. True, they're large and ugly, but v-e-e-ry powerful. Possibly a tactical advantage when I return to Hyneria.”
“But you're not honored to serve, huh?”
“I am a Dominar, it would be her honor to serve me. However, this arrangement is, shall we say, expedient. And a Dominar does not leave debts. I consider the benefit of my vast experience for a short time to be more than ample reward for freeing this ship and its inmates from the Peacekeepers.”
The dark-haired woman cleaning her gun in the corner snorted.
“Let me guess,” said Crichton, “it was her honor to serve you and your fine noble regiment, too, huh? Or is it just expedient for you as well?” He backed off a few paces when she stood up, to avoid the gun she was being none too careful about waving around.
“Thanks to you, Crichton, I have no regiment to go back to, no home, no friends, no future. All I have is my skills to survive on, and guess what Zhaan needs: a soldier, a pilot, and a Prowler. So I guess now I have a job. You want to take that, too?”
“No. No! I just... awww, forget it.” Crichton looked around the room. “Really, none of you see anything at all wrong with this picture?” They shook their heads.
Funny, thought John as he sat at the base of the console in Pilot's den, the big lobster-guy is a really great listener. “And ever since I fell through the goddamn looking glass, I haven't been able to make heads or tails of this crazy wonderland. There's the Blue Queen, the pack of cards, everyone all 'off with their heads!', and, man, all I can think is that I just want to find my white rabbit to guide me though this place, and click my heels three times and say 'there's no place like home', you know what I mean?”
“No...” said Pilot, looking down worriedly.
“Well, no, of course not, because the ruby slippers are a different movie altogether, but you get the idea. So now I've got until morning to decide whether to become Bluebeard's cabin boy, which is crazy, except everyone's acting like it's normal. Tell me, dude, is that sort of thing really normal out here?”
“I think you'll find,” said Pilot, “that what people will accept as normal depends a great deal on their circumstances. Gratitude--” he stopped to press a series of buttons “--and survival are very powerful considerations for people in difficult situations.”
“Whoa, do you think I'm being ungrateful?”
“She did save you from the Peacekeepers, too.”
“And that means I owe her a hand in pillaging, plundering, and probably murdering her way across the galaxy?”
Pilot waved a large claw. “Well, put it this way... how else do you plan to survive here, so far from your home?”
That was a very good question.
II.
“Everybody in the world is bent.”
This world, this universe, and all the people in it, are fragile things, thought Stark. He sat huddled against one of the biometallic ribs of Moya's hull, and looked out into space, a dark expanse punctuated by isolated groups of fragile, mortal beings trying to go about their lives, a quiet flicker of life in the distance.
The things people did to preserve that tiny guttering candle-flame of their lives were not always kind, and not always right. It was not always without cost. But it was always done to preserve something precious.
He watched the small gunship depart from Moya's side, and held his hand to the window to say goodbye to the ship and its captain. He hoped it wasn't a lonely life, even though he knew Aeryn would say it didn't matter. But she wasn't quite a Peacekeeper any more, and a not-quite-Peacekeeper ship was erratic company, even if he seemed to be thriving in the arrangement. Talyn had grown larger since the last time they'd returned to Moya, and he strained against her discipline, but he learned it.
Zhaan rolled over in the bed and gazed at him. “Our beautiful gunship,” she said, with a hint of pride. “Aeryn has been training him well. Soon they can rejoin us, and provide us with enough firepower to go up against a Command Carrier. As our numbers grow, we can expand the crew into both ships. We will not need to rely so much on stealth or retreat as now. Our supply raids can be many times more efficient. Think of it, Stark.”
Stark thought of many things when he considered the future, but very few that were actually part of the future. He thought mostly of the past; of the whips laid into his back by revered princes and officers, of the stains on his soul from his own misdeeds and those of others, of soft fingers fresh from pulling a trigger and setting a fuse resting against his lips as he fumbled with a blue breast. He thought of the things he'd left by the wayside and the things he kept with him, a future made of a mosaic of his past. It was all frelled-up and beautiful, and waiting for him.
He always smiled when he thought of the future, and she smiled back, even though she knew he never thought about the same things she did. “My sweet, beautiful Stark. I'm so glad you stayed.” He went back to bed and put his arms around her. He had very little to give her, he knew, but perhaps, in the dark and cold of space, he reminded her of the value of something warm and flickering and precious.
Two levels down, Crichton stuck his arm through the latticed prison cell door. “Look, D, I'm perfectly fine. I mean, some headaches, yeah, I get dizzy, but they'd go away with a bit of exercise, and I can't get that stuck in here.”
D'Argo pursed his lips. “You expect us to believe that one again?”
“D'Argo, c'mon, man. She's had me locked up for weeks. It's... inhuman, or whatever the equivalent out here is.”
“For good reason, John, and we all agreed to it. You're well provided-for. Your clothes are clean, you get three meals a day, just like any working member of the crew, you get counselling--”
“If you consider that wacky Banik a substitute for Dr. Ruth, yeah, okay, it's counselling, but--”
D'Argo raised his hand and spoke very calmly, as if to a child. “--counselling to handle your little 'problem', and it's hardly solitary confinement. You have nothing to complain about, John.”
“Nothing to... for starters, I'd appreciate something a little more solitary! It's not like the company's great down here, or else you'd keep Darth Vader upstairs with the crew, wouldn't you? What good reason could she possibly have to keep me down here? What reason could you all have?”
“John, you're frelling insane! Half the time you're doing what the voices in your head tell you to!” The words hung there for a few silent moments. “Um. I'm sorry. Look, just enjoy your meal, John.” D'Argo shoved the tray into the slot in the cell door and walked away.
In the next cell over, Crais picked at the slightly stale food cubes on his own tray. “You've hardly made the past few weekens a joy. Who,” he licked his fingers to clean them, “is Darth Vader?”
“Silence!” Crichton snarled, his face twisting into a narrow-lipped sneer. “I should have burned your brain out in the Chair. How many weekens have you been rotting away here, without finding a single method of escape on your own prison ship? My apologies, your former prison ship. Incompetent. An embarrassment to the Peacekeepers. If you were worth your commission, Captain, and I use the term loosely, you'd be helping me find a way out. When I... when Scorpius takes this ship, you'll burn with the rest.”
“Frell you,” said Crais, munching his last food cube.
III.
“You must learn, there are more things to life than breaking and entering.”
“Hey.” The voice came from above him, where a pale gray face hovered, white hair falling away as Chiana's neck craned at an awkward-looking angle. “Whatcha doing?”
“Working.”
“Cuz, uh, it doesn't look like you're working.”
John sighed and slid out from under the wing. “Pip, you better have a real good reason for interrupting my daily session of staring up hopelessly. That don't get done by itself, y'know, takes a pro. Ain't nobody stares at broken modules like Mama Crichton's baby boy.”
She shifted on her feet nervously. “Um. I was just... gonna eat. And... talk. Eat and talk. You coming?”
“Sure. Ain't got nothing better to do.” He wiped his hands on a rag and followed Chiana out into the corridor. “Her Blueness emerged yet?”
“Uh, not yet.”
Once in the galley, they sat in silence and ate. It wasn't until halfway through his plate of food cubes that he caught on. “Chiana, you've got a plan!”
“No!”
“And by 'no', you mean...”
“Well, yes.” She laughed and leaned in. “Just you and me, right? While Zhaan's still doing her funny plant thing.”
“I don't know, I'm kind of on the shit list already, you know?”
“Oh, come on, Crichton. We've been floating around out here for nearly a monen doing nothing, while she 'waits for Stark', or some frelling nonsense like that. There's a Berzan supply ship coming right through this system. We need supplies, and I need something to do.”
“Tried D'Argo?”
“That's not funny.” Chiana paused. “Yes.”
“How about the princess, then?” He put his hands up as she glared. “Okay, okay. But, it's the big blue lady's ship. Yeah, we saw Stark disintegrated when we separated the ships, and we know he ain't coming back, but Zhaan thinks he is, so we wait, and we find something to do on Moya.”
Chiana thought for a moment. “How about your module? You want to fix your module? They have parts...”
“They have parts to fix my module?”
She laughed. “It's a supply ship, they have everything!”
The Berzan security officer watched the derelict Leviathan pod dock in the lower hangar, and advanced as the refugees emerged. The girl ducked her head shyly. “Thanks,” she said, “we were, y'know, starving out there. We thought we'd never find anyone.”
“No problem, ma'am,” he said. “We have a policy of--” He stopped abruptly as she punched him in the face and kneed him in the groin, and he dropped to the deck.
“Was that necessary, Pip?” whispered the Sebacean man.
“Yeah,” she whispered back. “I can't stand self-righteous frelniks. Now come on, let's do this.”
Zhaan trembled and her eyes burned red. “You had no permission!”
“But, Zhaan--” Chiana shifted awkwardly, and John stared down at his feet.
“Be silent! You had no permission. You took the transport pod, when you knew we were awaiting word from Stark, just to entertain a bored child and feed the obsession of the man who caused the wormhole accident that killed Stark in the first place?” She put down the mask she had clutched to her chest and shoved a box of trinkets and spare parts across the table. John winced, hoping the coupler he needed wasn't in that box.
“But that's just it, Zhaan,” he said. “I'm real sorry about it, God, you know I am, but Stark is dead. He's not coming back. We all saw him disintegrate. We need these things to keep going with our lives, you know?”
“Stark is coming back,” Zhaan repeated, advancing on him. “He spoke to me.”
Chiana spoke up nervously, just before Zhaan put her hands on him. “Maybe, uh, you imagined it, cuz you wanted him to, you know?”
“That seems very clear to me,” said Jool. “What?” she whispered to D'Argo as he glared at her.
“Now, just wait,” said D'Argo, stepping between Zhaan and the others. “It's strange, it's definitely beyond my experience, but it's not beyond Zhaan's. If she says it's so, then it's so.”
“Faithful D'Argo.” Zhaan stroked one of his tankas lightly. “All these years as my second in command, and I can still count on you. As for these others, this is what I get for indulging their whims and caring for them when they're in need, but you, you serve well and loyally.”
On the table, the mask flickered to life as Stark's ghostly face filled it. “Zhaan? Zhaan, are you there? Hurry. And... I have information.”
IV.
“You must have shot an awful lot of tigers, sir.”
“Yes, I used a machine gun.”
“This is crazy.”
Zhaan stood over the lab bench, measuring drops one by one into the test tube in front of her. “Is that your considered opinion, John?”
“You know it is. Whose plan is this, Stark's?” He sat on a bench, tapping his fingers on the dark metal tabletop.
“Stark is a valued member of this crew. His plans are no less successful than your own have proved.”
“Yeah, but the guy's nuts! He hears voices in his head, and...” She was staring pointedly at him. “Um, I mean, ones that aren't really there.”
“Not in your perception, perhaps. Stark was of great help to you by teaching you to maintain your own self-control.”
“Yeah, okay, I suppose I do owe the guy one. But I still think his plan is nuts. Another Gammak Base? He's just got them on the brain, or something.” He leans over and sniffs. “Hey, what is that? It smells great.”
Zhaan swirls it a bit. “High-density liquid explosive.”
“Whoa!” Crichton jumped off the stool and three feet back. “Watch where you wave that thing.”
“Relax, John. It's perfectly harmless in its current state.” Zhaan capped the vial with a small black stopper, and slipped it into a small leather bag hanging off her belt. “And you need not worry about this plan. Stark provided only the technical aspects. I have gone over it myself.”
“Right. Good. Hey, Zhaan, speaking of current states and hearing annoying voices, could you maybe work on something to prove I'm the real me?”
“There's no need, John. Of course you're the real you.”
“Yeah, I know that. But he doesn't.”
She smiled gently. “He's the real you, too.” She glided out of the lab, leaving John standing there.
“So not what I wanted to hear.” He followed after her.
Stark gave Crichton a funny look as he walked into the meeting. “What happened to your shirt?”
“It got dirty. I changed it.” John grabbed a piece of fruit and sat down without looking at his counterpart.
“No! I mean, there are rules.” Stark looked from one to the other. “Green shirt, black shirt, green shirt, black shirt. Rules. You see?”
“Dude. It got dirty. I changed it.”
The other Crichton looked up. “That's my shirt.”
John rolled his eyes. “No, it's mine. Like the module. Like Winona. Like everything you have on.”
Zhaan stood up. “Crichton, be quiet. Argue between yourselves as much as you like on your own time, but not on the job.” A sensible man doesn't argue with a six-foot-tall blue priestess in cleavage-revealing tight black leather, John thought. Of course, he also thought that sensible men rarely met six-foot-tall blue priestesses in cleavage-revealing tight black leather to begin with, but, hey, life's a crazy thing. “Now, you all know your parts in this plan. John and Rygel shut down the security cameras, John posing as a Peacekeeper and Rygel slipping through the ducts. Stark, D'Argo and I will lay the explosive charges. The other John and Crais will bypass the command codes and raid the laboratories for all of Scorpius's wormhole data. What you cannot salvage, you destroy, no exceptions. Chiana and Jool will be ready on Lo'La. Twenty minutes after the charges are laid, Aeryn and Talyn strafe the base to take out primary defenses and distract command, and we leave the base for Lo'La.”
“And then we get the hell out of Dodge. Got it.” John stood and looked at the other Crichton. “Rock, paper, scissors for who does security and who does wormholes?”
“Gentlemen, you will stop your bickering and do as you're told. You've already been assigned your roles,” said Zhaan. “One way or another, this pursuit by Scorpius ends here and now. If we do not work together, it will end with Scorpius getting his hands on John and throwing the rest of us to the drakvas. But if we do pull together, we can deal such a setback to their wormhole weapon program that we cease to be of use to them. And then we shall be free. Is everyone clear on this?”
“Yeah,” said Chiana, giving Jool a warning look, “we got it. Don't we, Princess?” She headed out, not bothering to avoid hitting John on her way.
“Just don't frell around instead of keeping our escape route safe, Pip,” he said under his breath.
“Sure. And just don't forget who you're supposed to be fighting in there, okay?” She left, and the others streamed out after her.
Frelled. They were all frelled. John and Crais ran blind through the smoke as Peacekeepers swarmed around them, running the opposite direction. John held his comms badge near his face. “Zhaan, half the base just lit up like a bonfire, what the hell's up with that?”
“Aeryn's fire set off the charges in the secondary generator room, and the resulting overload blew out several power conduits.” Her voice was breathless, and he could hear screams around her, only some of which were Stark's. “Just run, John. It's the best cover we could have hoped for.”
“I dunno, I was hoping for something a little less fatal, y'know?”
Crais grabbed his arm. He had soot smeared across his face and his hair was falling out of his ponytail, and all John could think of was Jerry Garcia as a fireman. Either that thought was hysterical or he was. “She's right. Stop stalling, and run.”
“Right. I can shut up and run.” With the best of them. Around the next turn, Crichton stopped dead. “Do you see, um... Scorpius in front of us?”
Crais looked through the swirling smoke at the illuminated figure standing there in the haze, waiting, with Braca and six commandos ringed around him, and Peacekeepers streaming past down the corridor. “Yes.” He ducked back behind the corner with Crichton.
“Frell. I thought so.” John fumbled with the data storage crystals. “Take these. Double back, blend in with the crowd. Get them to him. Me. The other Crichton.”
Crais tucked them into his uniform. “You'd make a good diversion from my escape, but a bad hostage for all of us.”
John rotated his neck to work out the kinks. “You heard the boss lady. Salvage what we can, destroy the rest. Go on. You do the salvaging.”
Crais turned and fell into file with the evacuating Peacekeepers until he could reach another maintenance corridor leading to the roof. Behind him he heard John yell, “Yo, Scorpy!” He hoped that by the time John put his gun to his own head, in that last moment before Scorpius had Braca confiscate it, he'd be close enough to Lo'La, and far enough from here, that he wouldn't hear it.
From space, the explosions rocking the asteroid were silent; brief clusters of flame that bloomed in the darkness and then faded. John turned the data crystals over in his hand, and stared out behind them as they returned to Moya.
V.
“Hang on lads, I've got a great idea. Uh...”
“I can't tell you how much I appreciate this,” said John, stretched out on his back. “I mean, who'd have guessed I missed Zhaan Capone and the gang, but I do, even though, as you know, Sparky's a pain in the ass and Chiana's a bit high-strung, and all. I love the kid, I really do. And even though Zhaan's a real slave-driver... well, not a real one, I guess. Stark would probably complain more if she were. But I do miss her, you know, even though she's a big, freaky plant-priest thing, and even though she's a thief, a murderer, and really unpredictable on top of it all. And don't think it's because you and 1812 aren't great, because you are... hey, Pilot, you awake? Pilot?”
Pilot coughed, and looked up groggily. “I'm sorry we're not better company, Commander.”
“No, don't you worry your pretty little helmeted head, you need your rest. Besides, it's like Zhaan said, when she wouldn't let me and me split up, one on Talyn and one on Moya, a man who can't be at peace in his own company will never know peace in his lifetime.”
“And... do you?”
John looked at the elderly Pilot and stroked his beard. “Ah, well, my life's not over yet, I guess.”
Pilot nodded. “We should reach Arnessk soon, Commander.”
“It's fascinating, Crichton, it really is,” said Stark, crouching by the stone wall. “The religious remnants of an ancient civilization. And not just any ancient civilization, but the Ei--”
“Hey, you still have that old woman with you?” John interrupted.
“Noranti. Noranti. Yes,” said Stark. “She finds it fascinating, too. She's very wise. She knows a great deal about the Eid--”
“Hey, hey, I didn't ask for the crazy old witch's life story. And D'Argo, he's here?”
“Yes. Yes, with Jool.”
John dragged his fingers across rough stone, just to feel the abrasion on his skin. “With Jool, huh?”
“Yes. Her people are leading the expedition here. They're very interested in artifacts, in artifacts left by the--”
“Yeah, I'll get the archeology lesson later, Indiana Jones. I gotta go see D'Argo.” John walked away, leaving Stark blinking in the sunlight, until he, too, scurried off.
As John ran his fingers over stone, Zhaan ran hers through dust, and thought on the final fate of stone and of all things. “This feels like holy ground,” she said, finally brushing long blue fingers against black leather.
“It is.” Noranti smiled her approval, and her hair blew in the breeze. She inhaled the air almost reverently.
“Five hundred generations of peace,” said Zhaan. She put on her pale blue cloak against the dust kicked up in the breeze. “The Goddess surely shines on this place, for it to have known such grace. I feel... a serenity here. As if some part of it lingers.”
Noranti's third eye opened to the energies of Arnessk, allowing her to see things unbound by visible dimensions. “It does. Despite the best efforts of the enemies of Arnessk, despite the devastation of the Darnaz Triangle, it lingers.”
“There was also great power here.”
“Peace is a great power,” Noranti said. “The power to effect it is great indeed.”
“And what of the power that can put an end to it? What of the Darnaz Triangle? It is too great a power for the Interions to wield, too great a power to be stored away in a museum vault. But it is well within the imaginings of those who pursue a conflict infecting all known space.” Zhaan was not cold, but she pulled her cloak closer around her.
“You understand.” Noranti was quiet, pleased, almost exultant. “There was peace here once, I can never let what happened here happen anywhere else. Vella shall not have the Darnaz Triangle.”
“No,” said Zhaan, her eyes beginning to glow red. “I shall. I must find D'Argo.” She pulled the light crepe hood of her cloak over her head, and headed deep into the buried stone tunnels.
“Oh,” said Noranti. “Oh dear.”
John held her in his arms, gently, as though she'd break if he held too tight. “You wouldn't believe the crazy things that old woman showed me. Visions. Here, but with these bits of home. If what Tarnat says--”
“Visions.” Chiana's voice was bitter. “Visions aren't all they're cracked up to be, Crichton. They usually have a price, you know?”
“Oh, Pip.” He stroked her cheek. “Pip, we'll fix that. We'll go see a Diagnosan, get that all sorted out.”
“Yeah?” She laughed nervously.
“Yeah. I promise. First chance we get.” His fingers touched her lips as they bent into a smile. “God, I missed you, all alone on Elack.”
Her voice was husky in his ear, and her hand wandered between his thighs. “Well, y'know, we could do something about that, now that we're back together. And not fighting for our lives or anything, for a change.”
It was then he noticed the pulse rifle pointed at her head. “Uh, Chi?” said John. The small tunnel slowly filled with dark figures. “Peacekeepers.” John released Chiana and raised his hands slowly.
After being shackled and escorted to their knees by the impact of a rifle butt, they waited in silence until a woman almost as pale as Chiana made her entrance, leisurely and regal. Grayza stopped in front of John. “Remember me?”
“Oh, yeah.” John didn't look up. “I remember a couple of things.”
Frell, the old woman was right, but he didn't care. About anything. He had bug guts up his nose, and he was electric, his blood not a thing of earth but of air. It glittered. He glittered. And her hands, her scent, her restraints, passed right through him without touching him. He slapped her ass and made her laugh, made her think it was a game, he was her toy, in and out, in and out, slap and tickle, all in fun. Things are just warmin' up, sweetheart, things are just getting to the good part.
“John.” And that was his signal; the soft, low voice of a priest in the darkness, mother superior come to listen to confession and assign penance. “Go now. Rejoin the others. It is time.”
Grayza struggled in her bonds. “What's this?” Oh, what a pretty little thing, like a wolf in a trap. He wondered if she'd gnaw her leg off, or if Zhaan'd have her hide first. God damn, bug guts were good stuff. “Crichton? Release me!”
“I don't think so, sister.” He leaned in over her. “Hey, try to enjoy this, huh? She'll do things I won't do to a lady, but you're hardly that, so you might like it.” He grabbed his gun and his shirt and walked out.
“Untie me,” said Grayza, with every note of authority she could muster.
Zhaan smiled gently and knelt beside the pallet under Grayza, and she rested her chin on folded hands. “This is unfortunate for you.” Grayza's field of view was filled by the rounded curves of soft blue breasts barely restrained under black leather cord. The light smell of chlorophyll and sunshine filled her nostrils, exotic like an imported bloom on a command carrier. Then she remembered herself, and tried to shift forward to reverse their roles, and fill Zhaan's head with the scent of her own breasts. Zhaan laughed, and ran a long finger over the droplets of oil forming over Grayza's sternum, and waved it below her nose to inhale it. Grayza's hopes rose for a moment; a high dose at close range, surely... and Zhaan leaned in, to kiss her, surely. Surely? “Heppel oil,” Zhaan whispered, “only works on animals.” She stood and circumnavigated Grayza, slowly strolling past the periphery of her vision.
“That's all you are,” said Zhaan, more sharply, her eyes shifting to red once more. “You're a filthy animal. You excrete your implanted glandular secretions like a prevtik-beast sow in heat, and wallow in whatever semen, blood, or vomit results. You roll in carrion. You feed on it to make your way in the world.” A tiny blue energy flicker formed between her fingers, and Grayza shivered with a delight that bloomed at the top of her spine and flowed down her. “Your talents are crude, both your talents for pleasure and your talents for pain.” Zhaan picked up a short crop and a discarded metal talon. “Now we shall have a real interrogation.”
The sun shone low in the sky, filling the land with soft colors, and the past unfolded below them. “Twelve thousand cycles,” said Jool breathlessly.
“You shall stay, child,” said Zhaan. She stood behind Jool, resting a hand on John's shoulder, while Stark crouched by her side, full of devotion and the disorientation of memories from both Pilot and Leviathan, aged and alien, minds vast and unlike his in the crossing. As Jool turned sharply, Zhaan raised her hand to stop the question. “This is your life's work, is it not? Now you will do it for us. We will return to Arnessk.”
“But if I stay, the Peacekeepers--”
“The Peacekeepers will not return once we have left. We have what they want. You shall nurture what we need.”
“This must not be lost again,” said Noranti. She looked proudly into the valley, as if she had brought forth life from nothing, formed by her own hands.
Jool smiled and started on the path down from the cliff. “I'm going to say hello.”
Zhaan dropped one-third of the Darnaz Triangle into the bag hanging at her hip.
VI.
“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
Stark trembled near the dying man. Zhaan leaned in and whispered softly in his ear. “Do not let Jool's work mean nothing. Do not let the gifts of Arnessk mean nothing. Do this for me, Stark.” He put aside the lingering nausea that went with crossing over important people on Scarran ships, he put aside the fear of drawing notice from people with the power of gods, and he removed his mask. The glow of his true form settled over Yondalao's features, and Stark felt, truly felt, with all his senses, as body and soul merged together in one last moment of intimacy, the last breath of a life... and then the world splintered into purple shards around him. He struggled to integrate these remnants of Yondalao as the world around him lagged on his retinas: explosions in the mist; Luxans forming out of nothing seconds after he heard their voices; a shaking hand, tinged with purple and passing through the solid console in front of him, reaching out with an unknown ritual instrument and his own hands reaching back while they still hung at his sides; Moya's beautiful skin covered in the dancing shadows of people acting out the rending and mending of flesh, century after century.
John looked over at the Banik cowering and whimpering in the corner. “Yo, Zee, your boy okay?”
“Yes, John, he'll be fine. Please don't interrupt.” Zhaan continued laying out transparent sheets covered in charts and small, delicately-carved icons.
Rygel hovered around the room. “Of course he will. He's always frelling fahrbot. He's used to it by now. You should be, too.”
“You're all heart, Sparky.” Crichton knelt by Zhaan, eye-level with the objects she'd laid on the table. “Hey. We're really up against the wall, aren't we.”
“We are in the grip of the darkness, John.” She pushed the pieces around with one finger. “Even if Aeryn and Talyn have survived the defense of Qujaga, which is unlikely, we will not be able to fight our way out. And we can no more run from this than one can run to safety from the top of an erupting volcano.”
John picked up a small cube inscribed with the symbols of the names of Khylenn, and turned it over in his hand. “There's someone I should introduce you to, then. Real party animal, you'll like him.”
The wind whipped around them. Zhaan was grateful for the thicker layer of leather close against her skin; the loose-woven fabric of her cloak would not have kept out the cold without it, and the small crystalline snowflakes bit into her. This place was illusion, but the inhospitable welcome was real. She was all but concealed against the glistening white iceberg dressed in the silvery-blue of a pa'u's cloak, while the man beside her and the man in front of her stood out starkly, motionless black-clad figures facing each other.
“Zhaan,” said Crichton eventually, “this is Einstein. He's the man with the mojo.”
She bowed her head in a respectful greeting. “I shall not waste your time, even in a place out of time such as this. I wish to know if John possesses the knowledge to build wormhole weapons.”
The ancient who stood before her had such black eyes, deep and black. “No one should have that power.”
“Of course no one should have that power. But someone will, if we do not first. There are vast empires out there, rapacious, seeking to expand and conquer and cleanse at an unimaginable pace. They are as a force of nature, and they will drown small beings such as John or I. And then they will build those wormhole weapons. They will use them to swallow, and to enslave even greater numbers.” When she was young, when she had spoken before groups of anarchists on Delvia, when she had argued with Bitaal, had her voice quivered so much, or had this desperation crept in over time?
“And you feel you are better?”
“Whose judgment shall I give? The Goddess alone sees my soul for what it is. I can say only that I am smaller, and far less significant. But my goal is better. I desire a peace that does not come at the expense of those who are also small and insignificant. The cost should be borne by those who have the resources to pay it, or those who choose it.”
Crichton interrupted. “Trust me, she's better. A lot better. I've met the other guys, and Zhaan's a saint. Okay, she's stolen a bit here and there, and there have been some regrettable incidents with guns or explosives, but, hey, everyone makes mistakes, right?”
“Yes, thank you for your help, John,” she said curtly.
Time passes in a place with no time, and it holds meaning; not in the change of position of celestial bodies, but in the change of mind and the change of heart. So as the snow blew and the three figures stood still, the truth was that the snow stood still and the three figures moved.
Einstein tilted his head towards Crichton. “Time?”
“Flies.” Zhaan took a breath of relief as Crichton answered.
“Time.”
John winked at Zhaan. “Bandits.”
“Time.”
It was time. They sat staring out into space telling themselves it wasn't.
Zhaan turned away first. “Pilot, send a message to the Scarran and Sebacean fleets, and to the Nebari. Tell them I shall destroy their presence beyond their homeworlds if they do not immediately send representatives to enter into a non-aggression pact.”
“Whoa,” said Crichton, “the Nebari? We're threatening Chi's folks?”
“Have you forgotten them so quickly, John? Their aspirations are no less destructive, merely more subtle. What peace shall we have, if the combatants step down and the Nebari step up?” Outside the viewing port, command carriers and dreadnoughts filled visible space around Qujaga; it was hard to imagine anything so distant as a few gray bureaucrats held any menace.
“Hey,” said Chiana at his side, “you've met my folks, remember? I don't have a problem with this. You got a problem with this?”
“No,” he said, putting an arm around her, “no, I guess I don't.” He looked around; at Zhaan, tall and alone; at Crais, standing in the place D'Argo always used to stand, probably unaware how much of the role of her right hand man he had assumed since D'Argo's death; at Rygel, who either had a rare feeling of sympathy right now or a rare form of indigestion; at Aeryn, who looked more comfortable and more like a soldier now than when they had first met, as though she and Talyn had grown into themselves together; at Noranti, peering around the doorway with a small, coy smile as she returned from helping Stark with the surviving Eidolons in the maintenance bay. “I guess I don't.”
“Then I suggest we begin.” Zhaan's voice was quiet, kind. It helped. “We are with you on this, John. The responsibility, and the fate that accompanies it, belong to all of us, despite your fears to the contrary. Remember this.”
He nodded and stepped into the machine, a man about to become the wormhole weapon both Peacekeeper and Scarran had tried to manufacture. Outside, a small black hole formed and grew. It swallowed some of the distant ships of both fleets and obliterated them as if they had never existed, while transmissions flew furiously. Inside Moya, they held their breath and waited to see whether this was a day for endings or beginnings.
-fin-
Title The Eidolon Job (Studio Edit)
Setting/Spoilers AU, with allusions to spoilers through PKW
Rating Mostly G, with little dips towards the PG-13 in places.
Disclaimer Um... not mine, etc?
Archive No archiving
Notes Thanks to astrogirl2, kalypso_v, lyssie, and vilakins for betas. Thanks to astrogirl2 for use of the drabble in the introduction and for failing to send the hitmen after me when I let the extended deadline fly past. And, with luck, the studio edit of this story will one day be followed by a director's cut.
The Eidolon Job
by RSR
When Delvian priests go bad, they go mad. But if you're expecting a gibbering wreck behind those red eyes, it's likely to be the last expectation you ever have.
They say she took over a Peacekeeper prison ship, slaughtered its crew and pressed her fellow prisoners into her service. They say she robbed a Shadow Depository, destroyed a Command Carrier, blew up a moon. And now, say the whispers, she's performed the ultimate act of piracy: wrested a superweapon from the hands of ancient gods with which to hold the whole galaxy hostage.
If the galaxy's smart, it will surrender.
I.
“It's a very difficult job and the only way to get through it is we all work together as a team. And that means you do everything I say.”
She swept down the corridor, her silver-blue cloak streaming behind her. “It's a very simple choice, John Crichton. The others have made it. You have until morning.”
“That's not much of a choice. Sign up or, what, you'll turn me over to Captain Ahab back there? Kill me?”
“Yes, and in your case, it's more than generous, considering you're totally without skill. By morning, John.” She turned off quickly towards another dark, maze-like passage and left him standing there in the nexus, staring after her.
Great. His first day on the new job, apparently, and already his big blue boss-lady had it in for him.
“Don't worry so much,” said D'Argo, passing him a cup of something purple and refreshing like motor oil.
“Easy for you to say, you've got the big sword. Er, gun.”
“Qualta blade. Look, John, she understands what it is to be a warrior, she has the mind of a tactician. It's an honor to serve under her. She's not a mere priest.”
John nearly spit out his mouthful of purple juice. “Zhaan's a freakin' priest?”
The little slug in the hoverchair chuckled nastily. “Oh, yes. She's a Delvian pa'u. True, they're large and ugly, but v-e-e-ry powerful. Possibly a tactical advantage when I return to Hyneria.”
“But you're not honored to serve, huh?”
“I am a Dominar, it would be her honor to serve me. However, this arrangement is, shall we say, expedient. And a Dominar does not leave debts. I consider the benefit of my vast experience for a short time to be more than ample reward for freeing this ship and its inmates from the Peacekeepers.”
The dark-haired woman cleaning her gun in the corner snorted.
“Let me guess,” said Crichton, “it was her honor to serve you and your fine noble regiment, too, huh? Or is it just expedient for you as well?” He backed off a few paces when she stood up, to avoid the gun she was being none too careful about waving around.
“Thanks to you, Crichton, I have no regiment to go back to, no home, no friends, no future. All I have is my skills to survive on, and guess what Zhaan needs: a soldier, a pilot, and a Prowler. So I guess now I have a job. You want to take that, too?”
“No. No! I just... awww, forget it.” Crichton looked around the room. “Really, none of you see anything at all wrong with this picture?” They shook their heads.
Funny, thought John as he sat at the base of the console in Pilot's den, the big lobster-guy is a really great listener. “And ever since I fell through the goddamn looking glass, I haven't been able to make heads or tails of this crazy wonderland. There's the Blue Queen, the pack of cards, everyone all 'off with their heads!', and, man, all I can think is that I just want to find my white rabbit to guide me though this place, and click my heels three times and say 'there's no place like home', you know what I mean?”
“No...” said Pilot, looking down worriedly.
“Well, no, of course not, because the ruby slippers are a different movie altogether, but you get the idea. So now I've got until morning to decide whether to become Bluebeard's cabin boy, which is crazy, except everyone's acting like it's normal. Tell me, dude, is that sort of thing really normal out here?”
“I think you'll find,” said Pilot, “that what people will accept as normal depends a great deal on their circumstances. Gratitude--” he stopped to press a series of buttons “--and survival are very powerful considerations for people in difficult situations.”
“Whoa, do you think I'm being ungrateful?”
“She did save you from the Peacekeepers, too.”
“And that means I owe her a hand in pillaging, plundering, and probably murdering her way across the galaxy?”
Pilot waved a large claw. “Well, put it this way... how else do you plan to survive here, so far from your home?”
That was a very good question.
II.
“Everybody in the world is bent.”
This world, this universe, and all the people in it, are fragile things, thought Stark. He sat huddled against one of the biometallic ribs of Moya's hull, and looked out into space, a dark expanse punctuated by isolated groups of fragile, mortal beings trying to go about their lives, a quiet flicker of life in the distance.
The things people did to preserve that tiny guttering candle-flame of their lives were not always kind, and not always right. It was not always without cost. But it was always done to preserve something precious.
He watched the small gunship depart from Moya's side, and held his hand to the window to say goodbye to the ship and its captain. He hoped it wasn't a lonely life, even though he knew Aeryn would say it didn't matter. But she wasn't quite a Peacekeeper any more, and a not-quite-Peacekeeper ship was erratic company, even if he seemed to be thriving in the arrangement. Talyn had grown larger since the last time they'd returned to Moya, and he strained against her discipline, but he learned it.
Zhaan rolled over in the bed and gazed at him. “Our beautiful gunship,” she said, with a hint of pride. “Aeryn has been training him well. Soon they can rejoin us, and provide us with enough firepower to go up against a Command Carrier. As our numbers grow, we can expand the crew into both ships. We will not need to rely so much on stealth or retreat as now. Our supply raids can be many times more efficient. Think of it, Stark.”
Stark thought of many things when he considered the future, but very few that were actually part of the future. He thought mostly of the past; of the whips laid into his back by revered princes and officers, of the stains on his soul from his own misdeeds and those of others, of soft fingers fresh from pulling a trigger and setting a fuse resting against his lips as he fumbled with a blue breast. He thought of the things he'd left by the wayside and the things he kept with him, a future made of a mosaic of his past. It was all frelled-up and beautiful, and waiting for him.
He always smiled when he thought of the future, and she smiled back, even though she knew he never thought about the same things she did. “My sweet, beautiful Stark. I'm so glad you stayed.” He went back to bed and put his arms around her. He had very little to give her, he knew, but perhaps, in the dark and cold of space, he reminded her of the value of something warm and flickering and precious.
Two levels down, Crichton stuck his arm through the latticed prison cell door. “Look, D, I'm perfectly fine. I mean, some headaches, yeah, I get dizzy, but they'd go away with a bit of exercise, and I can't get that stuck in here.”
D'Argo pursed his lips. “You expect us to believe that one again?”
“D'Argo, c'mon, man. She's had me locked up for weeks. It's... inhuman, or whatever the equivalent out here is.”
“For good reason, John, and we all agreed to it. You're well provided-for. Your clothes are clean, you get three meals a day, just like any working member of the crew, you get counselling--”
“If you consider that wacky Banik a substitute for Dr. Ruth, yeah, okay, it's counselling, but--”
D'Argo raised his hand and spoke very calmly, as if to a child. “--counselling to handle your little 'problem', and it's hardly solitary confinement. You have nothing to complain about, John.”
“Nothing to... for starters, I'd appreciate something a little more solitary! It's not like the company's great down here, or else you'd keep Darth Vader upstairs with the crew, wouldn't you? What good reason could she possibly have to keep me down here? What reason could you all have?”
“John, you're frelling insane! Half the time you're doing what the voices in your head tell you to!” The words hung there for a few silent moments. “Um. I'm sorry. Look, just enjoy your meal, John.” D'Argo shoved the tray into the slot in the cell door and walked away.
In the next cell over, Crais picked at the slightly stale food cubes on his own tray. “You've hardly made the past few weekens a joy. Who,” he licked his fingers to clean them, “is Darth Vader?”
“Silence!” Crichton snarled, his face twisting into a narrow-lipped sneer. “I should have burned your brain out in the Chair. How many weekens have you been rotting away here, without finding a single method of escape on your own prison ship? My apologies, your former prison ship. Incompetent. An embarrassment to the Peacekeepers. If you were worth your commission, Captain, and I use the term loosely, you'd be helping me find a way out. When I... when Scorpius takes this ship, you'll burn with the rest.”
“Frell you,” said Crais, munching his last food cube.
III.
“You must learn, there are more things to life than breaking and entering.”
“Hey.” The voice came from above him, where a pale gray face hovered, white hair falling away as Chiana's neck craned at an awkward-looking angle. “Whatcha doing?”
“Working.”
“Cuz, uh, it doesn't look like you're working.”
John sighed and slid out from under the wing. “Pip, you better have a real good reason for interrupting my daily session of staring up hopelessly. That don't get done by itself, y'know, takes a pro. Ain't nobody stares at broken modules like Mama Crichton's baby boy.”
She shifted on her feet nervously. “Um. I was just... gonna eat. And... talk. Eat and talk. You coming?”
“Sure. Ain't got nothing better to do.” He wiped his hands on a rag and followed Chiana out into the corridor. “Her Blueness emerged yet?”
“Uh, not yet.”
Once in the galley, they sat in silence and ate. It wasn't until halfway through his plate of food cubes that he caught on. “Chiana, you've got a plan!”
“No!”
“And by 'no', you mean...”
“Well, yes.” She laughed and leaned in. “Just you and me, right? While Zhaan's still doing her funny plant thing.”
“I don't know, I'm kind of on the shit list already, you know?”
“Oh, come on, Crichton. We've been floating around out here for nearly a monen doing nothing, while she 'waits for Stark', or some frelling nonsense like that. There's a Berzan supply ship coming right through this system. We need supplies, and I need something to do.”
“Tried D'Argo?”
“That's not funny.” Chiana paused. “Yes.”
“How about the princess, then?” He put his hands up as she glared. “Okay, okay. But, it's the big blue lady's ship. Yeah, we saw Stark disintegrated when we separated the ships, and we know he ain't coming back, but Zhaan thinks he is, so we wait, and we find something to do on Moya.”
Chiana thought for a moment. “How about your module? You want to fix your module? They have parts...”
“They have parts to fix my module?”
She laughed. “It's a supply ship, they have everything!”
The Berzan security officer watched the derelict Leviathan pod dock in the lower hangar, and advanced as the refugees emerged. The girl ducked her head shyly. “Thanks,” she said, “we were, y'know, starving out there. We thought we'd never find anyone.”
“No problem, ma'am,” he said. “We have a policy of--” He stopped abruptly as she punched him in the face and kneed him in the groin, and he dropped to the deck.
“Was that necessary, Pip?” whispered the Sebacean man.
“Yeah,” she whispered back. “I can't stand self-righteous frelniks. Now come on, let's do this.”
Zhaan trembled and her eyes burned red. “You had no permission!”
“But, Zhaan--” Chiana shifted awkwardly, and John stared down at his feet.
“Be silent! You had no permission. You took the transport pod, when you knew we were awaiting word from Stark, just to entertain a bored child and feed the obsession of the man who caused the wormhole accident that killed Stark in the first place?” She put down the mask she had clutched to her chest and shoved a box of trinkets and spare parts across the table. John winced, hoping the coupler he needed wasn't in that box.
“But that's just it, Zhaan,” he said. “I'm real sorry about it, God, you know I am, but Stark is dead. He's not coming back. We all saw him disintegrate. We need these things to keep going with our lives, you know?”
“Stark is coming back,” Zhaan repeated, advancing on him. “He spoke to me.”
Chiana spoke up nervously, just before Zhaan put her hands on him. “Maybe, uh, you imagined it, cuz you wanted him to, you know?”
“That seems very clear to me,” said Jool. “What?” she whispered to D'Argo as he glared at her.
“Now, just wait,” said D'Argo, stepping between Zhaan and the others. “It's strange, it's definitely beyond my experience, but it's not beyond Zhaan's. If she says it's so, then it's so.”
“Faithful D'Argo.” Zhaan stroked one of his tankas lightly. “All these years as my second in command, and I can still count on you. As for these others, this is what I get for indulging their whims and caring for them when they're in need, but you, you serve well and loyally.”
On the table, the mask flickered to life as Stark's ghostly face filled it. “Zhaan? Zhaan, are you there? Hurry. And... I have information.”
IV.
“You must have shot an awful lot of tigers, sir.”
“Yes, I used a machine gun.”
“This is crazy.”
Zhaan stood over the lab bench, measuring drops one by one into the test tube in front of her. “Is that your considered opinion, John?”
“You know it is. Whose plan is this, Stark's?” He sat on a bench, tapping his fingers on the dark metal tabletop.
“Stark is a valued member of this crew. His plans are no less successful than your own have proved.”
“Yeah, but the guy's nuts! He hears voices in his head, and...” She was staring pointedly at him. “Um, I mean, ones that aren't really there.”
“Not in your perception, perhaps. Stark was of great help to you by teaching you to maintain your own self-control.”
“Yeah, okay, I suppose I do owe the guy one. But I still think his plan is nuts. Another Gammak Base? He's just got them on the brain, or something.” He leans over and sniffs. “Hey, what is that? It smells great.”
Zhaan swirls it a bit. “High-density liquid explosive.”
“Whoa!” Crichton jumped off the stool and three feet back. “Watch where you wave that thing.”
“Relax, John. It's perfectly harmless in its current state.” Zhaan capped the vial with a small black stopper, and slipped it into a small leather bag hanging off her belt. “And you need not worry about this plan. Stark provided only the technical aspects. I have gone over it myself.”
“Right. Good. Hey, Zhaan, speaking of current states and hearing annoying voices, could you maybe work on something to prove I'm the real me?”
“There's no need, John. Of course you're the real you.”
“Yeah, I know that. But he doesn't.”
She smiled gently. “He's the real you, too.” She glided out of the lab, leaving John standing there.
“So not what I wanted to hear.” He followed after her.
Stark gave Crichton a funny look as he walked into the meeting. “What happened to your shirt?”
“It got dirty. I changed it.” John grabbed a piece of fruit and sat down without looking at his counterpart.
“No! I mean, there are rules.” Stark looked from one to the other. “Green shirt, black shirt, green shirt, black shirt. Rules. You see?”
“Dude. It got dirty. I changed it.”
The other Crichton looked up. “That's my shirt.”
John rolled his eyes. “No, it's mine. Like the module. Like Winona. Like everything you have on.”
Zhaan stood up. “Crichton, be quiet. Argue between yourselves as much as you like on your own time, but not on the job.” A sensible man doesn't argue with a six-foot-tall blue priestess in cleavage-revealing tight black leather, John thought. Of course, he also thought that sensible men rarely met six-foot-tall blue priestesses in cleavage-revealing tight black leather to begin with, but, hey, life's a crazy thing. “Now, you all know your parts in this plan. John and Rygel shut down the security cameras, John posing as a Peacekeeper and Rygel slipping through the ducts. Stark, D'Argo and I will lay the explosive charges. The other John and Crais will bypass the command codes and raid the laboratories for all of Scorpius's wormhole data. What you cannot salvage, you destroy, no exceptions. Chiana and Jool will be ready on Lo'La. Twenty minutes after the charges are laid, Aeryn and Talyn strafe the base to take out primary defenses and distract command, and we leave the base for Lo'La.”
“And then we get the hell out of Dodge. Got it.” John stood and looked at the other Crichton. “Rock, paper, scissors for who does security and who does wormholes?”
“Gentlemen, you will stop your bickering and do as you're told. You've already been assigned your roles,” said Zhaan. “One way or another, this pursuit by Scorpius ends here and now. If we do not work together, it will end with Scorpius getting his hands on John and throwing the rest of us to the drakvas. But if we do pull together, we can deal such a setback to their wormhole weapon program that we cease to be of use to them. And then we shall be free. Is everyone clear on this?”
“Yeah,” said Chiana, giving Jool a warning look, “we got it. Don't we, Princess?” She headed out, not bothering to avoid hitting John on her way.
“Just don't frell around instead of keeping our escape route safe, Pip,” he said under his breath.
“Sure. And just don't forget who you're supposed to be fighting in there, okay?” She left, and the others streamed out after her.
Frelled. They were all frelled. John and Crais ran blind through the smoke as Peacekeepers swarmed around them, running the opposite direction. John held his comms badge near his face. “Zhaan, half the base just lit up like a bonfire, what the hell's up with that?”
“Aeryn's fire set off the charges in the secondary generator room, and the resulting overload blew out several power conduits.” Her voice was breathless, and he could hear screams around her, only some of which were Stark's. “Just run, John. It's the best cover we could have hoped for.”
“I dunno, I was hoping for something a little less fatal, y'know?”
Crais grabbed his arm. He had soot smeared across his face and his hair was falling out of his ponytail, and all John could think of was Jerry Garcia as a fireman. Either that thought was hysterical or he was. “She's right. Stop stalling, and run.”
“Right. I can shut up and run.” With the best of them. Around the next turn, Crichton stopped dead. “Do you see, um... Scorpius in front of us?”
Crais looked through the swirling smoke at the illuminated figure standing there in the haze, waiting, with Braca and six commandos ringed around him, and Peacekeepers streaming past down the corridor. “Yes.” He ducked back behind the corner with Crichton.
“Frell. I thought so.” John fumbled with the data storage crystals. “Take these. Double back, blend in with the crowd. Get them to him. Me. The other Crichton.”
Crais tucked them into his uniform. “You'd make a good diversion from my escape, but a bad hostage for all of us.”
John rotated his neck to work out the kinks. “You heard the boss lady. Salvage what we can, destroy the rest. Go on. You do the salvaging.”
Crais turned and fell into file with the evacuating Peacekeepers until he could reach another maintenance corridor leading to the roof. Behind him he heard John yell, “Yo, Scorpy!” He hoped that by the time John put his gun to his own head, in that last moment before Scorpius had Braca confiscate it, he'd be close enough to Lo'La, and far enough from here, that he wouldn't hear it.
From space, the explosions rocking the asteroid were silent; brief clusters of flame that bloomed in the darkness and then faded. John turned the data crystals over in his hand, and stared out behind them as they returned to Moya.
V.
“Hang on lads, I've got a great idea. Uh...”
“I can't tell you how much I appreciate this,” said John, stretched out on his back. “I mean, who'd have guessed I missed Zhaan Capone and the gang, but I do, even though, as you know, Sparky's a pain in the ass and Chiana's a bit high-strung, and all. I love the kid, I really do. And even though Zhaan's a real slave-driver... well, not a real one, I guess. Stark would probably complain more if she were. But I do miss her, you know, even though she's a big, freaky plant-priest thing, and even though she's a thief, a murderer, and really unpredictable on top of it all. And don't think it's because you and 1812 aren't great, because you are... hey, Pilot, you awake? Pilot?”
Pilot coughed, and looked up groggily. “I'm sorry we're not better company, Commander.”
“No, don't you worry your pretty little helmeted head, you need your rest. Besides, it's like Zhaan said, when she wouldn't let me and me split up, one on Talyn and one on Moya, a man who can't be at peace in his own company will never know peace in his lifetime.”
“And... do you?”
John looked at the elderly Pilot and stroked his beard. “Ah, well, my life's not over yet, I guess.”
Pilot nodded. “We should reach Arnessk soon, Commander.”
“It's fascinating, Crichton, it really is,” said Stark, crouching by the stone wall. “The religious remnants of an ancient civilization. And not just any ancient civilization, but the Ei--”
“Hey, you still have that old woman with you?” John interrupted.
“Noranti. Noranti. Yes,” said Stark. “She finds it fascinating, too. She's very wise. She knows a great deal about the Eid--”
“Hey, hey, I didn't ask for the crazy old witch's life story. And D'Argo, he's here?”
“Yes. Yes, with Jool.”
John dragged his fingers across rough stone, just to feel the abrasion on his skin. “With Jool, huh?”
“Yes. Her people are leading the expedition here. They're very interested in artifacts, in artifacts left by the--”
“Yeah, I'll get the archeology lesson later, Indiana Jones. I gotta go see D'Argo.” John walked away, leaving Stark blinking in the sunlight, until he, too, scurried off.
As John ran his fingers over stone, Zhaan ran hers through dust, and thought on the final fate of stone and of all things. “This feels like holy ground,” she said, finally brushing long blue fingers against black leather.
“It is.” Noranti smiled her approval, and her hair blew in the breeze. She inhaled the air almost reverently.
“Five hundred generations of peace,” said Zhaan. She put on her pale blue cloak against the dust kicked up in the breeze. “The Goddess surely shines on this place, for it to have known such grace. I feel... a serenity here. As if some part of it lingers.”
Noranti's third eye opened to the energies of Arnessk, allowing her to see things unbound by visible dimensions. “It does. Despite the best efforts of the enemies of Arnessk, despite the devastation of the Darnaz Triangle, it lingers.”
“There was also great power here.”
“Peace is a great power,” Noranti said. “The power to effect it is great indeed.”
“And what of the power that can put an end to it? What of the Darnaz Triangle? It is too great a power for the Interions to wield, too great a power to be stored away in a museum vault. But it is well within the imaginings of those who pursue a conflict infecting all known space.” Zhaan was not cold, but she pulled her cloak closer around her.
“You understand.” Noranti was quiet, pleased, almost exultant. “There was peace here once, I can never let what happened here happen anywhere else. Vella shall not have the Darnaz Triangle.”
“No,” said Zhaan, her eyes beginning to glow red. “I shall. I must find D'Argo.” She pulled the light crepe hood of her cloak over her head, and headed deep into the buried stone tunnels.
“Oh,” said Noranti. “Oh dear.”
John held her in his arms, gently, as though she'd break if he held too tight. “You wouldn't believe the crazy things that old woman showed me. Visions. Here, but with these bits of home. If what Tarnat says--”
“Visions.” Chiana's voice was bitter. “Visions aren't all they're cracked up to be, Crichton. They usually have a price, you know?”
“Oh, Pip.” He stroked her cheek. “Pip, we'll fix that. We'll go see a Diagnosan, get that all sorted out.”
“Yeah?” She laughed nervously.
“Yeah. I promise. First chance we get.” His fingers touched her lips as they bent into a smile. “God, I missed you, all alone on Elack.”
Her voice was husky in his ear, and her hand wandered between his thighs. “Well, y'know, we could do something about that, now that we're back together. And not fighting for our lives or anything, for a change.”
It was then he noticed the pulse rifle pointed at her head. “Uh, Chi?” said John. The small tunnel slowly filled with dark figures. “Peacekeepers.” John released Chiana and raised his hands slowly.
After being shackled and escorted to their knees by the impact of a rifle butt, they waited in silence until a woman almost as pale as Chiana made her entrance, leisurely and regal. Grayza stopped in front of John. “Remember me?”
“Oh, yeah.” John didn't look up. “I remember a couple of things.”
Frell, the old woman was right, but he didn't care. About anything. He had bug guts up his nose, and he was electric, his blood not a thing of earth but of air. It glittered. He glittered. And her hands, her scent, her restraints, passed right through him without touching him. He slapped her ass and made her laugh, made her think it was a game, he was her toy, in and out, in and out, slap and tickle, all in fun. Things are just warmin' up, sweetheart, things are just getting to the good part.
“John.” And that was his signal; the soft, low voice of a priest in the darkness, mother superior come to listen to confession and assign penance. “Go now. Rejoin the others. It is time.”
Grayza struggled in her bonds. “What's this?” Oh, what a pretty little thing, like a wolf in a trap. He wondered if she'd gnaw her leg off, or if Zhaan'd have her hide first. God damn, bug guts were good stuff. “Crichton? Release me!”
“I don't think so, sister.” He leaned in over her. “Hey, try to enjoy this, huh? She'll do things I won't do to a lady, but you're hardly that, so you might like it.” He grabbed his gun and his shirt and walked out.
“Untie me,” said Grayza, with every note of authority she could muster.
Zhaan smiled gently and knelt beside the pallet under Grayza, and she rested her chin on folded hands. “This is unfortunate for you.” Grayza's field of view was filled by the rounded curves of soft blue breasts barely restrained under black leather cord. The light smell of chlorophyll and sunshine filled her nostrils, exotic like an imported bloom on a command carrier. Then she remembered herself, and tried to shift forward to reverse their roles, and fill Zhaan's head with the scent of her own breasts. Zhaan laughed, and ran a long finger over the droplets of oil forming over Grayza's sternum, and waved it below her nose to inhale it. Grayza's hopes rose for a moment; a high dose at close range, surely... and Zhaan leaned in, to kiss her, surely. Surely? “Heppel oil,” Zhaan whispered, “only works on animals.” She stood and circumnavigated Grayza, slowly strolling past the periphery of her vision.
“That's all you are,” said Zhaan, more sharply, her eyes shifting to red once more. “You're a filthy animal. You excrete your implanted glandular secretions like a prevtik-beast sow in heat, and wallow in whatever semen, blood, or vomit results. You roll in carrion. You feed on it to make your way in the world.” A tiny blue energy flicker formed between her fingers, and Grayza shivered with a delight that bloomed at the top of her spine and flowed down her. “Your talents are crude, both your talents for pleasure and your talents for pain.” Zhaan picked up a short crop and a discarded metal talon. “Now we shall have a real interrogation.”
The sun shone low in the sky, filling the land with soft colors, and the past unfolded below them. “Twelve thousand cycles,” said Jool breathlessly.
“You shall stay, child,” said Zhaan. She stood behind Jool, resting a hand on John's shoulder, while Stark crouched by her side, full of devotion and the disorientation of memories from both Pilot and Leviathan, aged and alien, minds vast and unlike his in the crossing. As Jool turned sharply, Zhaan raised her hand to stop the question. “This is your life's work, is it not? Now you will do it for us. We will return to Arnessk.”
“But if I stay, the Peacekeepers--”
“The Peacekeepers will not return once we have left. We have what they want. You shall nurture what we need.”
“This must not be lost again,” said Noranti. She looked proudly into the valley, as if she had brought forth life from nothing, formed by her own hands.
Jool smiled and started on the path down from the cliff. “I'm going to say hello.”
Zhaan dropped one-third of the Darnaz Triangle into the bag hanging at her hip.
VI.
“You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!”
Stark trembled near the dying man. Zhaan leaned in and whispered softly in his ear. “Do not let Jool's work mean nothing. Do not let the gifts of Arnessk mean nothing. Do this for me, Stark.” He put aside the lingering nausea that went with crossing over important people on Scarran ships, he put aside the fear of drawing notice from people with the power of gods, and he removed his mask. The glow of his true form settled over Yondalao's features, and Stark felt, truly felt, with all his senses, as body and soul merged together in one last moment of intimacy, the last breath of a life... and then the world splintered into purple shards around him. He struggled to integrate these remnants of Yondalao as the world around him lagged on his retinas: explosions in the mist; Luxans forming out of nothing seconds after he heard their voices; a shaking hand, tinged with purple and passing through the solid console in front of him, reaching out with an unknown ritual instrument and his own hands reaching back while they still hung at his sides; Moya's beautiful skin covered in the dancing shadows of people acting out the rending and mending of flesh, century after century.
John looked over at the Banik cowering and whimpering in the corner. “Yo, Zee, your boy okay?”
“Yes, John, he'll be fine. Please don't interrupt.” Zhaan continued laying out transparent sheets covered in charts and small, delicately-carved icons.
Rygel hovered around the room. “Of course he will. He's always frelling fahrbot. He's used to it by now. You should be, too.”
“You're all heart, Sparky.” Crichton knelt by Zhaan, eye-level with the objects she'd laid on the table. “Hey. We're really up against the wall, aren't we.”
“We are in the grip of the darkness, John.” She pushed the pieces around with one finger. “Even if Aeryn and Talyn have survived the defense of Qujaga, which is unlikely, we will not be able to fight our way out. And we can no more run from this than one can run to safety from the top of an erupting volcano.”
John picked up a small cube inscribed with the symbols of the names of Khylenn, and turned it over in his hand. “There's someone I should introduce you to, then. Real party animal, you'll like him.”
The wind whipped around them. Zhaan was grateful for the thicker layer of leather close against her skin; the loose-woven fabric of her cloak would not have kept out the cold without it, and the small crystalline snowflakes bit into her. This place was illusion, but the inhospitable welcome was real. She was all but concealed against the glistening white iceberg dressed in the silvery-blue of a pa'u's cloak, while the man beside her and the man in front of her stood out starkly, motionless black-clad figures facing each other.
“Zhaan,” said Crichton eventually, “this is Einstein. He's the man with the mojo.”
She bowed her head in a respectful greeting. “I shall not waste your time, even in a place out of time such as this. I wish to know if John possesses the knowledge to build wormhole weapons.”
The ancient who stood before her had such black eyes, deep and black. “No one should have that power.”
“Of course no one should have that power. But someone will, if we do not first. There are vast empires out there, rapacious, seeking to expand and conquer and cleanse at an unimaginable pace. They are as a force of nature, and they will drown small beings such as John or I. And then they will build those wormhole weapons. They will use them to swallow, and to enslave even greater numbers.” When she was young, when she had spoken before groups of anarchists on Delvia, when she had argued with Bitaal, had her voice quivered so much, or had this desperation crept in over time?
“And you feel you are better?”
“Whose judgment shall I give? The Goddess alone sees my soul for what it is. I can say only that I am smaller, and far less significant. But my goal is better. I desire a peace that does not come at the expense of those who are also small and insignificant. The cost should be borne by those who have the resources to pay it, or those who choose it.”
Crichton interrupted. “Trust me, she's better. A lot better. I've met the other guys, and Zhaan's a saint. Okay, she's stolen a bit here and there, and there have been some regrettable incidents with guns or explosives, but, hey, everyone makes mistakes, right?”
“Yes, thank you for your help, John,” she said curtly.
Time passes in a place with no time, and it holds meaning; not in the change of position of celestial bodies, but in the change of mind and the change of heart. So as the snow blew and the three figures stood still, the truth was that the snow stood still and the three figures moved.
Einstein tilted his head towards Crichton. “Time?”
“Flies.” Zhaan took a breath of relief as Crichton answered.
“Time.”
John winked at Zhaan. “Bandits.”
“Time.”
It was time. They sat staring out into space telling themselves it wasn't.
Zhaan turned away first. “Pilot, send a message to the Scarran and Sebacean fleets, and to the Nebari. Tell them I shall destroy their presence beyond their homeworlds if they do not immediately send representatives to enter into a non-aggression pact.”
“Whoa,” said Crichton, “the Nebari? We're threatening Chi's folks?”
“Have you forgotten them so quickly, John? Their aspirations are no less destructive, merely more subtle. What peace shall we have, if the combatants step down and the Nebari step up?” Outside the viewing port, command carriers and dreadnoughts filled visible space around Qujaga; it was hard to imagine anything so distant as a few gray bureaucrats held any menace.
“Hey,” said Chiana at his side, “you've met my folks, remember? I don't have a problem with this. You got a problem with this?”
“No,” he said, putting an arm around her, “no, I guess I don't.” He looked around; at Zhaan, tall and alone; at Crais, standing in the place D'Argo always used to stand, probably unaware how much of the role of her right hand man he had assumed since D'Argo's death; at Rygel, who either had a rare feeling of sympathy right now or a rare form of indigestion; at Aeryn, who looked more comfortable and more like a soldier now than when they had first met, as though she and Talyn had grown into themselves together; at Noranti, peering around the doorway with a small, coy smile as she returned from helping Stark with the surviving Eidolons in the maintenance bay. “I guess I don't.”
“Then I suggest we begin.” Zhaan's voice was quiet, kind. It helped. “We are with you on this, John. The responsibility, and the fate that accompanies it, belong to all of us, despite your fears to the contrary. Remember this.”
He nodded and stepped into the machine, a man about to become the wormhole weapon both Peacekeeper and Scarran had tried to manufacture. Outside, a small black hole formed and grew. It swallowed some of the distant ships of both fleets and obliterated them as if they had never existed, while transmissions flew furiously. Inside Moya, they held their breath and waited to see whether this was a day for endings or beginnings.
-fin-