Multiverse
Sep. 12th, 2005 07:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
itsallovernowWell, since the authors have been revealed for Multiverse, I can admit to writing a Farscape/Vorkosigan crossover for the fabulous ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shaye. Knowing her, I knew that the most important inculsion would be Ivan:) Actually, because I don't always pay the utmost attention to things, I had in my head that she had asked for Miles/Sikozu, when that wasn't the case, but I included Aeryn because I thought Aeryn and Sikozu would push all of Miles' buttons, distract Ivan and prove fun to play with. I like them together, the odd sort of relationship they have, one of equals that that Aeryn's relationship with Chiana or Jool or Zhaan never quite matched. There were always distinct seperations in those other relationships, but Aeryn and Sikozu looked at each other, sussed out strengths and weaknesses and met there.
So, anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this, but I will never again write in a book fandom. It was far too hard for me to maintain my own voice, and to hear written characters in my head with the same intonation that I hear "live" characters. It's a different kind of translation, and is one of the reasons I'm relatively uncomfortable writing book fic. But, there's not much I wouldn't attempt forshaye. She described it as frothy and gruesome and I think that's apt. It succeeded in part, fell flat in other areas, and ends exactly how I wanted, even if it's not how I intended.
Bonus points for anyone who guesses the origin of the title:)
Title: Hitchcocking Your Wagon to a Star
Author: Thea
Recipient: Shaye
Rating: PG
Fandoms: Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan series (post Memory, pre Komarr)/Farscape (Season 4, post Twice Shy, pre Mental as Anything)
Summary: Unexpected detours and blatant copyright infringement
His mouth tasted of copper and ash, head throbbing like the aftermath of particularly nasty maple mead hangover. He blinked, wincing as the pain lanced through him, and then blinked again. What the hell...
"Coz, you all right?"
Ivan. That had to be Ivan, voice muddied and concerned. He blinked once more and the interior of the small ship swam back into focus.
Ivan crouched beside him, blood caked on the corner of his handsome face. His mouth was turned down, eyes glassy with pain.
Miles groaned, put out his hands, feeling the familiar cold metal of ship flooring.
"What the hell happened?" It came out muffled and hoarse, thick.
"Crash landing?" Ivan offered and then reached out to poke Miles' shoulder when he didn't immediately get up. Not content to stop at a single prodding, Ivan continued until Miles summoned enough energy to swat him away. Awareness came thrumming back – the sudden realization that the ship was empty of anyone save himself and Ivan, the ship launching, going too fast, no response from their jump-pilot, the sickening sensation of a wormhole entrance and exit, and then blackness. Utter blackness.
Miles pushed himself to his feet, fighting the rising nausea. "Anyone else here?"
Ivan shook his head. "We're as alone as we were when we launched." He rubbed at his head, the rust of dried blood coming away on his fingers. His face paled and he gulped. "What the hell is going on, coz? We were in the docking bay, waiting for other passengers, then we were in space, going through the wormhole exit. This is a little strange, even for a normal day with you." His voice rose at the end, edging towards a mild hysteria, or at least an Ivan form of hysteria.
Miles set his mouth, feeling grim, struggling for a point of focus. Think, he bellowed at himself, think. Launch, wormhole, blackness. Find a first step, go from there. So what was the first step? He looked at Ivan, who's eyes were wide, probing, waiting for Miles to offer either guidance or command. Launch, wormhole, blackness. He repeated it as mantra. Someone launched them, took them through the wormhole jump. So step one. Find out who that someone was.
"I think we'd better go check on our jump-pilot."
Ivan shut his mouth with snap, nodded once in agreement.
The scene in the small cockpit was less than comforting.
The jump-pilot...wasn't. Instead, a thin man in worn undress greens laid glassy eyed and very dead across the console, hands fisted over the flight panel. Around him, smoke curled and electricity sparked. The room smelled acrid, bitter with death and fire and ruined wiring.
Grim was a distant memory. Right now, Miles was leaning towards downright dour. "Kidnapping an imperial auditor is punishable by death," he said through gritted teeth. "Whatever his intention, it can't have been ... beneficial towards us."
"Kidnapping a couple of Vor lords doesn't rate too highly on the life expectancy scale either," Ivan said sourly, continuing to rub away blood from his face. "This can't be good."
Miles stepped reluctantly towards the body and the sparking panel. "I don't recognize him."
He looked back at Ivan who shrugged. "Maybe we were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Miles sighed, "Unlikely."
Ivan's snort of disgust registered his agreement. "When we came out the exit, it felt like the ship was going too fast, but if we'd crashed completely, we'd all be dead."
A spark flitted out of the panel with a stinging hiss, landing on the man's shabby uniform where it quickly started to smolder. "Ivan, grab the fire extinguisher!"
Seconds later, the dead kidnapper and the console were covered in chemical foam. Ivan panted as the extinguisher dangled from his fingertips and Miles willed his heartbeat to slow to something more like a parody of normal.
"Well, coz," Ivan said through gritted teeth, setting the extinguisher down with a thump, "I hope in all those years of adventuring, you learned to coordinate wormhole jumps."
He glared at Ivan. "Let's just figure out where the bloody flaming hell we are, then worry."
Ivan grimaced. "I've been worrying from the get go."
***
"I'm telling you, it won't move any further."
Ivan pushed and huffed, using his weight to lever the body further into the opening but he wasn't exaggerating. The booted foot refused to budge. Miles stepped back, fighting back the rising edge of his own hysteria. "Maybe we can cover it with something."
Ivan gave him a dubious look. "With what exactly? Don't you think a cloth dangling out in the middle of a hallway is going to look suspicious?"
"Less suspicious than a uniform boot," Miles muttered.
"Don't you think," Ivan repeated, releasing the rigored foot and standing in front of it, "we should figure out where the bloody hell we are before worrying too much more about this poor sod, who by the way, in case you've forgotten, tried to kidnap and or murder us!"
Miles glared up at his much taller cousin. "Wherever we are, the need to not get arrested for murder and the need to not draw undue attention upon ourselves ranks pretty damn high, don't you think?"
"Almost as high as how to get ourselves home without a jump-pilot," Ivan said wearily, leaning an arm on the protruding limb.
Miles twisted his mouth. "There is that."
"Explain to me again why we're trying to hide this body?"
He'd been saving up his more withering looks, but this was really too much. He let fly with a combination of scorn and frustrated outrage. "One - we don't know where we are. And two, the screen showed that we were docked in some sort of hangar. Badly, docked, but docked nonetheless. Three, it also showed people in uniform going through the other ships docked here before escorting people out in handcuffs. And four, since we don't know where we are, explaining the dead not-jump pilot might be problematic, and six, the people in the viewscreen didn't look like any bloody people I've ever seen before and personally, I don't want to explain our ship, our dead pilot or our presence to creatures that look like they stepped out of some ancient form of Earth entertainment since, if you'll remember number one, WE DONT KNOW WHERE WE ARE!"
Ivan grunted. "You skipped five."
"It was deliberate," Miles growled.
The alcove they'd discovered was nicely dark and empty, offering an almost perfect slot to dump their would-be kidnapper's body. Or it would have been perfect had they been able to get the body to fit. More importantly, it offered some shelter from the uniformed guards with odd features searching the ships. Slinging the arms of the dead man over Ivan's shoulders while doing his best to aid the drag-flop momentum of the tall Vor and the shorter former kidnapper - well perhaps not his best, but trying none the less - they'd managed to channel their panic at the earlier sight of the authorities into action, escaping their ship without encountering anyone in uniform.
Moving as quickly as possible through the large bay, both Miles and Ivan had ground to a halt near a low window at the edge of the bay right before what they assumed was the exit door. The kidnapper's body thumped roughly against Ivan's side, and they struggled to maintain some balance from the odd tripod, but the sight before them would have been enough to shake their equilibrium, even without the dangling body.
The view outside the window was spacious, space bound, and entirely unfamiliar. An empty field of stars stretched out, filled with unrecognizable ships of various shapes and sizes hovering in the periphery. They zipped back and forth, sometimes darting towards the window, others heading to a small moon on the far edge of the otherwise empty horizon. Turning to each other, a raised eyebrow from Ivan communicated a further need to harness panic before stepping through the door. Miles had gulped back a combination of fear and exhilarating adrenaline, and together, he, Ivan and their extra weight walked into a dark, bustling center of commerce.
The noise had been deafening, gibberishly unintelligible. Creatures of all shapes and sizes moved through a huge open room filled with stalls. Food roasted, cloth draped, containers shone full of baubles and goods, and mechanical parts piled upon each other in an overwhelming melee of sheer stuff. Miles wasn't sure whether to be giddy or terrified, but as the body began to slide free of Ivan's neck, practicality won out.
"Let's find someplace to put him," he'd said, low under his breath, grabbing the back of the body's trousers.
Ivan had grunted in agreement as one heavy lifeless arm flopped down and whacked him in the belly.
Now, they crouched in a dark alcove, struggling to leave behind a body and attain some minimal sense of perspective.
"That...woman," Ivan wheezed, giving one more valiant attempt to shove the hijackers foot into the hole with the rest of him, "If she was a woman, four breasts certainly seems to qualify her as a woman, was definitely not speaking any sort of language that I've ever heard." He shifted uncomfortably, "And I'm not sure what she said when she took her hand off my crotch, but I'm not sure it was a compliment!"
Miles twisted his mouth. "I didn't recognize any of the words, the dialects, accents, anything."
"This just gets better and better, coz," Ivan stepped away, wiping his hands. "That's it, no more. He is not going to fit in that hole. What do you want to do?"
That was the heart of the question, wasn't it? Aside from the initial terror of the wormhole jump and crashing exit, they were unharmed and more than a little lost. Surrounded by new languages and new lifeforms like nothing either of them had ever seen, Miles' first instinct was to find a way home, immediately before they encountered any trouble that they were ill-equipped to handle. But running a close second, fueled surely by the tiny spark of Admiral Naismith that remained, was an almost irresistible itch to explore. Only the dead weight of their new friend, and the suspicion that he might be a little out of his depth whispered that perhaps he didn't want to explore at the expense of their safety. He'd seen a plethora of weapons that he didn't recognize. That alone was enough to make him giddy and nervous. But if they found a place for Harry, perhaps they'd be able to explore. Just a little. Thus, hiding the body. He sighed. In the mad dash out of the ship, he thought, it had made sense at the time.
"We could leave Harry here, hope for the best, or we could leave him somewhere else."
"Harry?"
"It's as good a name as any, and I can't keep thinking of him as ‘HIM'."
Ivan rolled his eyes. "Fine, Harry it is."
"So leave him or take him?"
"My vote is to leave him, assuming I really have a vote and you're not just humoring me because I'm playing body donkey," Ivan muttered, then scowled. "Wait, that'd didn't come out right." He narrowed his eyes at Miles, and pointed accusingly. "You're not the one dragging him all over this place, and I don't know what those two snakey faced people were saying about me, but it did not sound like a compliment." He wiped his face and shook his head, clearly offended. "Snakey faced people, Miles. Doesn't that bother you, just a little bit? Since when are there snakey-faced people? Because this goes way beyond genetic modification. Far, far beyond it. These aren't quaddies, or haut-ladies, or anything else. So, not to put too fine a point on it, but really, coz, where are we?"
"No matter how many times you ask, or I ask, Ivan, neither of us has any idea, so let's find a better resting spot for Harry here, and find out."
***
In retrospect, it had to have been the muttered cursing that made the small orangeish girl stop and turn in his direction. Clearly, the extra attention from her had caused the sleek, taller woman to reach out her hand to steady the dead man. When exactly the black, matted gun had come into play was a moment Miles had not yet been able to pinpoint, but there they were – Ivan, Ivan's uncomfortable necklace, and Miles with his hands up, staring into the ugly muzzle of a weapon and the beautiful faces of two women.
The corridor was empty except for the five of them, silence hanging like a tangible thing. When the orange girl spoke, Miles shook his head like a dog, mind racing to catch up. The girl's voice was a lilting jumble of syllables, catching only upon the word "English." At least he thought that was what she said. The other woman set her mouth in a hard line and shook her head. In the dimness of the hallway, her skin gleamed pale, eyes shining with a dark intensity. She held the gun with ease.
"I heard them accurately," the smaller one insisted, "English. Frell and fuck are not interchangeable. The consonants are...distinct." She punctuated the word with small twist of her mouth. "It was not a translation."
Now that was definitely English. Ivan made a strangled noise, and Harry slumped down into a rigid puddle at all of their feet. Four collective sets of eyes gazed at the dead man on the metallic ground of the quiet corridor.
"You speak English?" The glee in Ivan's voice was entirely inappropriate to the situation, but entirely appropriate to the gleaming skin displayed by the orange girl's revealing outfit. Miles fought back a groan.
"I told you." The girl sounded triumphant, but the darker woman didn't lower her weapon. Instead, her eyes grew hard and her aim even steadier, if possible. Her bearing was soldier straight. When she spoke to her companion, the clipped backwards language made the hair on Miles arms' rise.
"Are you human?" The girl asked, eyes wide, forthright and a little invasive, ignoring whatever her friend had said. Curiosity teased at her words and the woman with the gun took a slight step forward. Miles and Ivan took a large step back.
"Of course," Ivan said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Miles bit his lip, struggled not shake his cousin.
"Are you from Earth?" The dark haired woman had a voice like heavy wine and find silk, the words careful and deliberate, layered with menace.
"No," he said, "Barrayar."
The two women exchanged a quick glance and a shrug. The orange one shook her head, dismissive.
"They are in uniform," she said, voice light, precise. "Of sorts."
Miles remained at attention, willing himself not to look down at his chemical foam stained clothing.
The girl took a step forward, twining an orange curl around a delicate finger. "But, they clearly are not Peacekeepers. Nor local militia. And they do not look like any of the soldiers we saw on Earth."
"You've been to Earth?" Ivan asked, just as Miles queried, "Why can't we be Peacekeepers?" His detractors were right, curiosity would be the death of him.
Lowering her gun a fraction of an inch, the woman laughed, quiet and a little bitter. She looked intently at Miles. He could imagine her tracing his flaws – his height, his features, his deformity and dirty uniform. He stiffened under her perusal.
"You're a little...short, for a Peacekeeper." Her tone was not unkind, and he met her gaze. It was frank, but not cruel. He bit his lip, not letting his own eyes linger on the pale column of her throat, or the casual grace with which she held her weapon. A bright flash of Elli Quinn slipped through his mind, but he forced it back. This was not the time.
"What about me?" Miles didn't need to see his cousin's face to know that he was trying to work his fabled charm on these women.
The orange one gave a more honest, derisive laugh. "You are also too... human to be Peacekeepers. If you really are human."
"Red blood, old lineage, Barrayaran to the core, and fully human," Miles stated, squaring his shoulders. A rise of amused panic tickled at the back of his throat, knocking on the door of his curiosity. They had yet to establish whether these women were friend or foe or something in between. He wanted his guard firmly in place. He had no doubt that his Auditor status, or hell, his human status, had little meaning here.
The woman holstered her gun with a click and a weary sigh, something decided on her face. Miles allowed his spine to slump a fraction of an inch in relief. "If you are human," her eyes swept over the two of them dubiously, "you shouldn't be here. And you definitely shouldn't be dragging a frelling body through a commerce station."
It took a moment for Miles to come up with an appropriate response, and surprisingly, Ivan beat him to it. "Aren't you human?"
The woman barked out a laugh. "No," she said. "No, I'm not."
***
Harry sat in the corner of the small café, lids half closed, a metal flask of something called raslak fitted into his stiff hand. Two sips of the hot drink and Miles could feel his ears tingling. Three sips and he suspected that it could revive the dead, if only they could get Harry to raise his glass. The tingling wasn't an unpleasant sensation, and at the very least, it kept him from staring at the stark beauty of the tall, pale woman and the warm, gleaming cleavage of her companion. It wasn't his fault that said cleavage existed exactly at his eye level.
The women had positioned themselves so that they bracketed the table, allowing the one with the gun a view of the door without placing her back to any potential patrons. His impression of her as soldier or mercenary strengthened. She'd helped Ivan with Harry, not bending under the weight and her carriage was precise, confident. She was taller than Elli Quinn, thin and rangier, with the kind of fierce competence that Miles found nigh on irresistible. That her companion was his height, warm and sheened with a fiercely intelligent gaze and lush mouth was not lost on him either, but he'd long acknowledged his weakness for beautiful dark-haired women with a quick draw reflex.
"Human, but not from Earth," the woman said slowly, shoulders straightening under the silky rustling of her leather coat. "And clearly out of your... element." The lilt at the end of the word suggested a vague uncertainty, as if she was testing it out, making certain it fit.
Miles nodded. He'd decided during the slog to this tiny café that if these women could help them, he and Ivan should do everything in their power to encourage that. The trick was going to be getting Ivan to be useful, instead of starry eyed.
"Our jump-pilot, well, I don't know what happened to our jump-pilot, but Harry here commandeered our ship. We think. I've got no idea where he's landed us. Come to think of it, unless he's a former jump-pilot gone rogue, I don't know how he landed us." That thought had been niggling at Miles since they first saw the disaster in the cockpit. He'd been working very hard to suppress it though.
"You are in Tormented Space, Sautau Commerce Station," the orange one said, the pacing of her words more casual, more comfortable than her friend's. "And you are nowhere near Earth."
"Or clearly," Miles quirked his mouth, the humor black as pitch, "Barrayar."
There were a thousand questions to be asked, not the least of which was why he should believe anything they were saying, even if he couldn't understand half of it. But the part of him that had survived so long on instinct was screaming that if they were lying, it wasn't about where they were, or where they weren't. For now, that instinct was all he and Ivan had to go on.
The orange girl leaned forward, curiosity ripe on her features. "We have been to Earth..."
The other woman made a noise that sounded somewhere between a curse and a sneeze, but her friend ignored her, continuing, "They made no mention of such a place."
"I don't know what to tell you. I do know that I've never heard of Tormented Space either, so perhaps we're even."
"Not...exactly." She tilted her head to the side, oddly blue eyes blinking, orange hair catching in the neonish light of the bar. All right, that was it, he couldn't keep thinking of them in terms of shades and colors.
"I'm Miles Vorkosigan," he said, interrupting, "This is my cousin, Ivan."
Orange glanced at dark, who lifted her shoulders, tapped her fingers against the butt of her gun.
"Not Peacekeepers, and if they are spies, they are...unprepared."
The girl nodded. "Sikozu Shanu."
An arched brow preceded her name, "Officer Aeryn Sun."
He was right, a soldier.
"Thank you," Ivan started, 'Beautiful names for beautiful women."
Sikozu tilted her head at Ivan, blinking quickly. "Are you... always this easily distracted."
"Yes," Miles said, kicking Ivan under the table. Ivan grunted, and Miles struggled to keep his attention fixed on the conversation and the conversers. The café was rapidly filling up with creatures of all shapes and sizes and numbers of appendages. It was all he could do not to gape like a child in a confectioner's shop. This was better than Jackson's Whole. Hell, this was better than Earth.
"...wormhole."
Dammit. He had drifted.
"Sorry?"
Sikozu smiled, lips closed, eyes flashing bright. "You must have come through a wormhole."
He blinked in surprise. "Well, of course."
Sikozu Shanu turned to the soldier, eyes hot with interest. Officer Aeryn Sun picked up her small glass of alcohol, threw it back with a gulp, and slammed it down on the table.
"Frell," she narrowed her eyes, and Miles didn't need a translation to understand that word. "Frelling wormholes."
***
The women proved reluctant to help. More than reluctant. Sun's initial curiosity had clearly faded, rapidly replaced by a wariness of the sort of attention Miles and Ivan would draw to themselves, and by virtue of proximity, to herself and her companion. Miles listened to part of the muttered argument, conducted in a mixture of roundish syllables and harsh clicks, understanding none of the content but all of the intent. Finally, Sikozu Shanu turned towards them, a fixed grin on her face.
"She is advocating leaving you here to sort out your own affairs," Sikozu blinked slowly, a sultry exchange, showing that she had other interests, "but I find that I am... intrigued by your... technology." She dropped her lashes, working her bottom lip and Ivan gulped heavily. Not completely immune to the mild seduction, Miles remained silent, but wondered why she was bothering to translate. Then she turned back to Officer Sun, continuing the argument in her odd, formal English. The whole thing left Miles with the sensation of being caught in the tail end of whiplash.
"They can navigate wormholes, Aeryn. They do not simply fall through them and hope for the best," Sikozu leaned forward, cleavage a beacon of cream and distraction, mind fine and bright and calculating. "They navigate them with coordinates and precise timing."
Sun's words were fast and clipped, angry. The word Scorpius bubbled bright and hot, flushing Sikozu's face.
"The technology could help all of us, Aeryn," she hissed. "And I don't believe they are... smart enough, or sophisticated enough to be laying a trap. And let me reiterate, they... can ... navigate... wormholes. Don't you think Crichton might be interested in that?"
"They can't navigate them all that well if they've ended up in a system that they've never even heard of," the soldier muttered in English, clearly for their benefit, and Miles halfheartedly agreed. Except normally, the jump-pilots were entirely accurate. By all rights, he and Ivan shouldn't even be alive, let alone here. He shut down that line of thought, saving it for a moment more appropriate for terror.
"We could call Crichton," Sikozu said, voice wheedling. "He'd want to meet them, ask them about Earth, about wormholes."
"We just frelling got away from Earth and this system is filled with wormholes,'' Sun hissed back, then began another retort in her own language.
Miles finally interrupted, "Much as I find this whole place utterly fascinating, Ivan and I really do need to get home. We're expected at an...event." He let his voice trail off, opted for honesty. "We want to return home to our families, our lives and I'm not... entirely sure we have the resources to return," he paused, hating the necessity of the admission, "on our own."
Officer Sun set her mouth again. "That is not our problem. I'm sorry. We can't help you."
"No," Miles agreed, "It's not your problem, but I don't know who else we can turn to. We can't understand anyone else, unless there's someone else on this station who speaks English."
Sikozu shook her head. "You are two of three humans in Tormented Space. And it is surprising that you even speak a language that we know. More than surprising."
"So then, there isn't anyone else we can turn to." Miles took several more sips of his drink, feeling the flush spread down from his ears into his neck. Ivan's cheeks were bright pink, and he rolled his flask against the table. There was no telltale slosh of liquid. Ivan's mind had officially been blown.
"What do we get if we help you?" The light voice was full of pretty calculation, most likely for her companion's benefit. She'd already stated what she was interested in.
"Access to our technology."
Officer Sun gave a brittle, angry smile and finished her own drink. "What makes you think your technology would be of any use to us?"
Miles played his ace. "She's interested in wormholes. And so, I think are you. And this Crichton, whomever he is," he said the name with an upwards lilt, pretending he hadn't been quite listening. Sun's features turned to stone. " We navigate through a nexus, and our pilots rarely make an error. To me, it doesn't sound like you have that technology."
Sun didn't flinch, didn't move a muscle. Miles continued. "You may not want to help us, but she seems more... inclined."
Her voice was icy, smooth and cold as a frozen pond at Winterfair. "She is not going anywhere alone."
Sikozu made a sound of dismissive protest, turning her body towards Sun. "Just a look at it, Aeryn. To find out more about how their system works. And it would be information we could bring back to Crichton." Her wheedling was just as manipulative as his. Officer Sun narrowed her eyes, hand curling around her pistol grip. She swept her hard gaze over the occupants of the table. Ivan held up his hands, a gesture of submission and Harry remained motionless.
"Please," Miles said, allowing some of his very real desperation to creep into his request. "You're a soldier, right? Isn't it your duty, to do what you can, to help who you can."
He gestured to Ivan, then back to himself. "We are, were, soldiers. If the situation were reversed, we would help."
The moments stretched, taut, tight. Finally Sun nodded, short and sharp. "You know our names now, and if you stay here much longer, you will draw the notice of the local authorities. We will help you, if we can, with the express promise that you leave immediately afterwards."
"That is a promise I'm more than happy to make," Ivan breathed out fervently, eyeing a very large, hard shelled creature banging a fist on the bar.
***
"If we'd left him," Ivan said, his arm under Harry again, Officer Sun on the other side, bearing equal mass, "We were afraid that the guards checking would have confiscated the ship."
She snorted. "Not frelling likely." She hitched Harry up a little further. "They are looking for cargo and smuggled goods. They just want a cut of the profits."
Ivan stopped still and Miles almost barreled into him. "So I've been dragging this, this... corpse around this alien," he paused after the word and shook his head like a dog, "shopping center for four bloody hours for nothing?"
"Mmm hmm."
"Fuck. Coz, if we get out of here, you so, so owe me."
"Let's work on that first part first, Ivan."
They were at the entrance door to the bay when a loud klaxon sounded, followed by a flash of yellow lights. Miles and Ivan both jumped, startled, looking wildly around for the authorities coming to arrest them.
Officer Sun barked out a laugh, and adjusted Harry's weight across her shoulders. His arms kept slipping off the smooth leather of her long coat, and she circled his wrist with long fingers, pulling him flush to her body.
Miles glared at her. Glared up, and up, struggling not to grimace. It wasn't often he envied the luck of a corpse. Sun's mouth had softened, giving her features a warmth that had previously been missing. He sucked in his breath, and decided he really, really needed to stop mooning after women tall, dark and deadly.
"It's just a warning," she said, carefully. "The docking mechanism is retrieving a ship that got off course and it's a signal to not enter the bay until everything is settled."
Miles arched his brow, mind racing rapidly. "The mechanism brings in ships?"
Officer Sun nodded. Miles stepped forward, and looked at Ivan. "Well, at least we know how we survived that part of the journey."
The cockpit hadn't grown less messy in the interim. It had, however, grown increasingly crowded with the four of them standing near the console and flight controls, Harry sprawled on the floor by the door way. It was filled with the heady scents of leather and gun oil and clean, sweet female flesh, almost strong enough to cover up the sour-sweet odor of Harry's decomposition. Miles' gut clenched as sense memory grabbed him. Thoughts of the Dendarii rushed in - sharp soldiers, clean armor, Elli Quinn and command centers bustling with the excitement of a new mission. He'd given the Dendarii up deliberately, had shunted the longing aside, and it surprised him to find out how much the sense of loss remained, how much sting that arrow still offered. Officer Aeryn Sun, with her ugly gun, and intent features was a heady if brutal reminder of what he'd lost.
The lady in question was examining the flight controls as Sikozu Shanu curled her lithe body around the seat, scrolling through the computer's offerings.
"Your pilots interface with the ship's computer?"
Miles nodded. "They have a chip that allows them to navigate with the help of the mainframe. It's specialty work. Passengers barely notice the journey, but the pilots are exhausted by the end of it, spent. They train for years, have surgery to implant the chip, and even then, there's no guarantee that they'll succeed as pilots." He knew he was babbling, couldn't seem to stop himself.
"Two different time streams, perhaps," Sikozu mused, fingers light against the screen. "This is far less... primitive than I expected."
Officer Sun turned, and looked down at Miles. "The rest of the systems however..." Her voice trailed off. "They're only somewhat more advanced than those we saw on Earth." She tilted her head, fixed Mile's with a hard look. "You can move between systems, jump light years but there's no Hetch. You really aren't from this part of the universe. That works in your favor."
He gulped, held her gaze. So it hadn't been altruism or mere good will mixed with caution that had brought her here. Coming back to their ship had also been a test. His respect for her grew.
"Who programs the coordinates?"
"The pilots are given the data, vectors and official times by central flight command at the nexus mouths. They have to register the jump." So Ivan had been paying attention. Sikozu blinked at him prettily, but her own attention remained on their tech.
"Can you pilot this back to your home?"
Miles and Ivan looked at each other, both reluctant to speak. Then Miles shook his head. "Neither of us are jump-pilots, and I... can't pilot anything this complex for ... other reasons."
"Then how," Officer Sun asked silkily, "do you plan to get home?"
"That," Miles said, drawing himself up straight and tall, maintaining as much dignity as he could, "is the question."
"Frelling wormholes," Officer Sun muttered again, mouth sour. "Goddamned frelling wormholes."
Sikozu licked her lips and swiveled in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. "I think, gentleman, we may be in the unique position of being able to offer real assistance. For a price, of course."
Miles grinned fiercely at her. "Of course."
***
"Oh man, that's...that's just... gross."
Miles couldn't help but agree with Crichton. The man had stepped into the compartment and immediately covered his mouth. Miles didn't blame him. The sight of Harry with his brain open, wires protruding and running to the computer was enough to make anyone slightly queasy. Perhaps not anyone, Miles reconsidered. Neither Sun nor Sikozu seemed particularly bothered. But he and Ivan had both needed to step outside for...air... before the process had been completed and everyone avoided the blood, sticky and thick on the deck.
There'd been another fierce, heated argument between the two women, but at the end Sun had tapped a golden badge on the inside of her jacket, and summoned the man, giving him very little information, merely the location of the ship. Her voice had been sharp and precise, filled with something that Miles' couldn't quite parse, but which sounded an awful lot like regret. Crichton had arrived minutes ago, Sun meeting him outside the ship.
"Be glad you missed the surgery," Miles said as Crichton stared at Harry.
"No frelling kidding," he retorted, voice grim.
"All right girls, you invited me to this party, so what gives?" His eyes flicked up from Harry and there was no humor there to match the tone, "Aside from that poor bastard's skull, of course."
He looked at Miles, hand on a leather clad hip, eyes sharp and shrewd, tracking a glance over him and over Ivan. "You're human?" In another man, Miles' would have called the tone wistful. From this Crichton, it sounded more... resigned.
They both nodded, and the man's gaze grew distant, closed off. His voice was low. "But not from Earth, least not my Earth."
Miles had nothing to say to that.
"They," Miles gestured at Officer Sun who stood next to Crichton, and Sikozu, "said you might be able to help."
He hurrumphed. Sikozu, directing Ivan through the data from Harry's chip with bloody hands, paused in the work, body still, expectant. It was Sun who took the lead, though. "They need help getting through a wormhole," her voice was soft enough to hide a threat, too soft not to contain one.
Crichton scanned the small cockpit, taking in the scene, but didn't let his glance linger on anything, as if he were afraid of staying too long. "Wormhole navigation, huh? That's not exactly... cake."
"I believe that this chip will give us the coordinates that they traveled," Sikozu said primly. "And I can program them backwards into their system, but I cannot open a wormhole."
Crichton fixed her with a hard, angry look. "I don't conjure 'em up, Sputnik, I just sniff 'em out. Don't know that I can be much help here."
Insight blinked wide and fierce at Miles. Wormholes were the key here. He didn't need to know more than that.
"Whatever help you can give us would be appreciated," Miles said, pleasant as possible through the fence of his gritted teeth. The reality of the situation had slammed up hard and fast once Sikozu had suggested opening up Harry's head to find out if he had jump-pilot tech. In light of the answer, they'd been coasting on possibilities and miracles. The presence of the chip explained their continued existence, but gave no clue as to Harry's pre-death motivation. But Miles' was forced to shunt aside further speculation. If they couldn't get home, there was no sense worrying about the fate of their actual pilot, or the reasons behind this aborted kidnapping/assassination/ unnamed detour from reality. If they got back, he'd order a full investigation. Hell, he'd happily lead the investigation. If they got back. That uncertain possibility now resided with the man who stood in the middle of the tiny cockpit, bristling with twitchy unease.
"I'll...do what I can," Crichton said, hand straying absently to his mouth then back down to his gun. "But I don't know what that'll mean." He caught Miles' eyes, searching for something there, and clearly not finding it.
The air in the room held still and stagnant from strain until Officer Sun brushed her fingers against Crichton's thigh. The gesture must have had deeper meaning between the two of them. At the barely perceptible touch, Crichton relaxed, tension easing enough so that Miles felt like he could breathe again.
Sun said something to Crichton, low and rough, and he nodded
"You get samples of the ship material?" Crichton's body shifted a little, leaning in towards her, touching without making contact. Miles swallowed back a taste of bitterness at the intimacy. He didn't know this woman, didn't know any of these people. He had no right to the acidity; should chalk it up to long since lost opportunities, not reality. He made yet another vow to find a Vor lady, someone smart and kind, harboring nothing of a soldier in her bearing. He had chosen this life and this path, if not the current detour. And if he, if they, got home, he would start searching for a companion that matched said path. Miles turned his attention back to the more pressing issue at hand in time to hear Sun's murmured reply.
" Scrapings of the inside, and a breakdown of the polymers from their computer?"
She nodded an affirmative.
"That's my girl," Crichton murmured back, lips brushing her ear, so low that Miles barely heard him. Crichton's features went hard again as Sikozu turned towards them, looking over her shoulder. The tension flooded back into the man's big frame.
"I think I've captured the coordinates and reversed them," she said.
Ivan waved a hand up, "I helped!"
She gave him a pitying smile. Miles struggled to hide his own grin.
"I can't guarantee that it will be a smooth journey. But, if you both stay here, monitor the systems, and make certain that the coordinates match, you should survive." She paused, her teeth bared in a different parody of humor, "If you do not hit the wall of the wormhole. Assuming we can even find you the right wormhole, of course."
"Oh, no problem," Ivan said, half under his breath. "Nothing could be easier."
Sikozu turned her spotlight stare on Crichton. His mouth quirked down. "She's too frelling smart," he muttered. Miles had to agree. It wasn't everyday that you hooked a dead man up to a computer and hoped he'd guide you home. It certainly wasn't everyday when you thought such a thing might actually work. Still, he'd seen miracles before. His own continued existence was proof enough that they were possible. A dead man as tracking device was not the most impossible thing Miles' had seen. Not even before breakfast.
"So," Crichton sighed, "How do you wanna do this?"
***
In the end, Ivan stealthily slipped Sikozu the disk of info from Harry's brain and the computer when Crichton and Sun were discussing the best exit strategy. Miles saw the move, quick as it was, and decided he couldn't do anything about it, didn't think he wanted to. Whatever the politics between the three people helping them was none of his or Ivan's business. Besides, without Sikozu's resourcefulness, not to mention her lack of squeamishness, they'd have been stuck in this alien landscape. Fascinating as it was, he was not ready to give up all of his hard fought identity to forge a new one in an unknown universe. There would be plenty of time to process the whole unknown universe thing later, anyway. Much, much later. With luck.
He shook Crichton's hand, passed him the coordinates.
"All I can do is tell you where the closest one is and when it's going to cycle open," Crichton said. "I can't make any promises beyond that. It's not a tech that we," he paused, "have harnessed yet."
Miles nodded. "I understand completely, and it's more than we could have hoped for otherwise."
"I'd," Crichton stopped, looking discretely behind himself to where Officer Sun stood, straight backed, beautiful and focused. The sight of her seemed to offer him some ease. "Do me a favor, a trade off for us sticking our necks out to help you. 'Cause for us, help doesn't tend to end well."
Miles nodded, wishing the man would just get this over with. His neck was starting to crick. "When you get home, if you get home, erase the coordinates to this place. I, uh, I know that your Earth isn't mine, and man, I'd love to find out what it is, but well... just erase 'em. Destroy the chip, or the console, or whatever it is that records the flight patterns. Make sure you can't get back here on purpose."
His blue eyes were hard and serious, a little desperate. Miles found himself nodding despite himself.
"All right boys, you'd best saddle up."
Officer Sun moved back to Crichton's side. "You can follow the list I gave you, for exiting the bay, powering for the jump?"
"Between Ivan and me, we should be able to figure it out."
"The coordinates are set," Sikozu stroked a subtle finger between her breasts where Miles had seen her tuck the data disk. "Try not to die."
"Good luck," Officer Sun offered grimly, and then bustled wrapped a firm hand around Sikozu's arm, bustling her out of the hangar. The three men stood there, silent, watching the women walk away.
"You live with those women," Ivan said, after a beat. Crichton nodded.
"Not such a bad life," Miles suggested, feeling the warmth of irony.
Crichton crooked a half-smile. "Let's just say it has its moments."
The white pod hovered in the still of space far, far from the commerce station and the small moon. It hadn't moved for nearly and hour, and the waiting was starting to make Miles' itchy. It was all Miles could do not to fidget as badly as Ivan, but his dignity was at stake. Former mercenary admirals did not fidget before life-threatening situations. Or if they did, they did so in private. The both stood, straddling Harry and avoiding the protruding wires, waiting for the sign, for the wormhole that could take them home. Miles' nerves were fraying more with every passing moment, the delay only giving him more and more time to contemplate the sheer lunacy of this plan.
The comconsole crackled to life. "Five, four, tres, dos, uno, and there you go."
There was nothing, just vast blackness and a small white ship, and then, in the space of a heartbeat, the opening unfurled, blooming like a flower. It was amazing, beautiful and terrifying Miles' heart pounded like a rush of love, a jolt of fear. This was it.
"Straight on 'til morning, boys," Crichton paused, tinny through the com. "And good luck." The ship darted out of view.
"Crichton!" Miles couldn't help himself, needed to know, despite the time sensitivity. "Why...why did you help us? Why did any of you help us?"
Static fitzed through the console, and Miles thought for a minute that the man had left them far behind. But Crichton's voice, when it rang through, was steady.
"There aren't that many opportunities any more to do the right thing," he said. "I don't know why Aeryn or Sputnik didn't leave your sorry asses to your own fate, but as for me, well. You were an opportunity..." The console sputtered out and he was gone.
The wormhole mouth beckoned, lazy and open as a funnel. Miles took a deep breath.
"All right," he put his hand on the jump button.
Ivan swung himself into the pilot seat. "Let's do this, coz."
Miles pushed the button, and the ship shot forward
In addition, I was not at all surprised to learn that the author of the fabulous Six/Harvey story written for me wasleadensky. Catch a Tiger By the Tail has the sort of clean, precise immediacy that I value in Hossgal's writing. The story deserves every ounce of the praise it's gotten.
shaye. Knowing her, I knew that the most important inculsion would be Ivan:) Actually, because I don't always pay the utmost attention to things, I had in my head that she had asked for Miles/Sikozu, when that wasn't the case, but I included Aeryn because I thought Aeryn and Sikozu would push all of Miles' buttons, distract Ivan and prove fun to play with. I like them together, the odd sort of relationship they have, one of equals that that Aeryn's relationship with Chiana or Jool or Zhaan never quite matched. There were always distinct seperations in those other relationships, but Aeryn and Sikozu looked at each other, sussed out strengths and weaknesses and met there.So, anyway, I had a lot of fun writing this, but I will never again write in a book fandom. It was far too hard for me to maintain my own voice, and to hear written characters in my head with the same intonation that I hear "live" characters. It's a different kind of translation, and is one of the reasons I'm relatively uncomfortable writing book fic. But, there's not much I wouldn't attempt for
shaye. She described it as frothy and gruesome and I think that's apt. It succeeded in part, fell flat in other areas, and ends exactly how I wanted, even if it's not how I intended.Bonus points for anyone who guesses the origin of the title:)
Title: Hitchcocking Your Wagon to a Star
Author: Thea
Recipient: Shaye
Rating: PG
Fandoms: Bujold’s Miles Vorkosigan series (post Memory, pre Komarr)/Farscape (Season 4, post Twice Shy, pre Mental as Anything)
Summary: Unexpected detours and blatant copyright infringement
His mouth tasted of copper and ash, head throbbing like the aftermath of particularly nasty maple mead hangover. He blinked, wincing as the pain lanced through him, and then blinked again. What the hell...
"Coz, you all right?"
Ivan. That had to be Ivan, voice muddied and concerned. He blinked once more and the interior of the small ship swam back into focus.
Ivan crouched beside him, blood caked on the corner of his handsome face. His mouth was turned down, eyes glassy with pain.
Miles groaned, put out his hands, feeling the familiar cold metal of ship flooring.
"What the hell happened?" It came out muffled and hoarse, thick.
"Crash landing?" Ivan offered and then reached out to poke Miles' shoulder when he didn't immediately get up. Not content to stop at a single prodding, Ivan continued until Miles summoned enough energy to swat him away. Awareness came thrumming back – the sudden realization that the ship was empty of anyone save himself and Ivan, the ship launching, going too fast, no response from their jump-pilot, the sickening sensation of a wormhole entrance and exit, and then blackness. Utter blackness.
Miles pushed himself to his feet, fighting the rising nausea. "Anyone else here?"
Ivan shook his head. "We're as alone as we were when we launched." He rubbed at his head, the rust of dried blood coming away on his fingers. His face paled and he gulped. "What the hell is going on, coz? We were in the docking bay, waiting for other passengers, then we were in space, going through the wormhole exit. This is a little strange, even for a normal day with you." His voice rose at the end, edging towards a mild hysteria, or at least an Ivan form of hysteria.
Miles set his mouth, feeling grim, struggling for a point of focus. Think, he bellowed at himself, think. Launch, wormhole, blackness. Find a first step, go from there. So what was the first step? He looked at Ivan, who's eyes were wide, probing, waiting for Miles to offer either guidance or command. Launch, wormhole, blackness. He repeated it as mantra. Someone launched them, took them through the wormhole jump. So step one. Find out who that someone was.
"I think we'd better go check on our jump-pilot."
Ivan shut his mouth with snap, nodded once in agreement.
The scene in the small cockpit was less than comforting.
The jump-pilot...wasn't. Instead, a thin man in worn undress greens laid glassy eyed and very dead across the console, hands fisted over the flight panel. Around him, smoke curled and electricity sparked. The room smelled acrid, bitter with death and fire and ruined wiring.
Grim was a distant memory. Right now, Miles was leaning towards downright dour. "Kidnapping an imperial auditor is punishable by death," he said through gritted teeth. "Whatever his intention, it can't have been ... beneficial towards us."
"Kidnapping a couple of Vor lords doesn't rate too highly on the life expectancy scale either," Ivan said sourly, continuing to rub away blood from his face. "This can't be good."
Miles stepped reluctantly towards the body and the sparking panel. "I don't recognize him."
He looked back at Ivan who shrugged. "Maybe we were in the wrong place at the wrong time."
Miles sighed, "Unlikely."
Ivan's snort of disgust registered his agreement. "When we came out the exit, it felt like the ship was going too fast, but if we'd crashed completely, we'd all be dead."
A spark flitted out of the panel with a stinging hiss, landing on the man's shabby uniform where it quickly started to smolder. "Ivan, grab the fire extinguisher!"
Seconds later, the dead kidnapper and the console were covered in chemical foam. Ivan panted as the extinguisher dangled from his fingertips and Miles willed his heartbeat to slow to something more like a parody of normal.
"Well, coz," Ivan said through gritted teeth, setting the extinguisher down with a thump, "I hope in all those years of adventuring, you learned to coordinate wormhole jumps."
He glared at Ivan. "Let's just figure out where the bloody flaming hell we are, then worry."
Ivan grimaced. "I've been worrying from the get go."
***
"I'm telling you, it won't move any further."
Ivan pushed and huffed, using his weight to lever the body further into the opening but he wasn't exaggerating. The booted foot refused to budge. Miles stepped back, fighting back the rising edge of his own hysteria. "Maybe we can cover it with something."
Ivan gave him a dubious look. "With what exactly? Don't you think a cloth dangling out in the middle of a hallway is going to look suspicious?"
"Less suspicious than a uniform boot," Miles muttered.
"Don't you think," Ivan repeated, releasing the rigored foot and standing in front of it, "we should figure out where the bloody hell we are before worrying too much more about this poor sod, who by the way, in case you've forgotten, tried to kidnap and or murder us!"
Miles glared up at his much taller cousin. "Wherever we are, the need to not get arrested for murder and the need to not draw undue attention upon ourselves ranks pretty damn high, don't you think?"
"Almost as high as how to get ourselves home without a jump-pilot," Ivan said wearily, leaning an arm on the protruding limb.
Miles twisted his mouth. "There is that."
"Explain to me again why we're trying to hide this body?"
He'd been saving up his more withering looks, but this was really too much. He let fly with a combination of scorn and frustrated outrage. "One - we don't know where we are. And two, the screen showed that we were docked in some sort of hangar. Badly, docked, but docked nonetheless. Three, it also showed people in uniform going through the other ships docked here before escorting people out in handcuffs. And four, since we don't know where we are, explaining the dead not-jump pilot might be problematic, and six, the people in the viewscreen didn't look like any bloody people I've ever seen before and personally, I don't want to explain our ship, our dead pilot or our presence to creatures that look like they stepped out of some ancient form of Earth entertainment since, if you'll remember number one, WE DONT KNOW WHERE WE ARE!"
Ivan grunted. "You skipped five."
"It was deliberate," Miles growled.
The alcove they'd discovered was nicely dark and empty, offering an almost perfect slot to dump their would-be kidnapper's body. Or it would have been perfect had they been able to get the body to fit. More importantly, it offered some shelter from the uniformed guards with odd features searching the ships. Slinging the arms of the dead man over Ivan's shoulders while doing his best to aid the drag-flop momentum of the tall Vor and the shorter former kidnapper - well perhaps not his best, but trying none the less - they'd managed to channel their panic at the earlier sight of the authorities into action, escaping their ship without encountering anyone in uniform.
Moving as quickly as possible through the large bay, both Miles and Ivan had ground to a halt near a low window at the edge of the bay right before what they assumed was the exit door. The kidnapper's body thumped roughly against Ivan's side, and they struggled to maintain some balance from the odd tripod, but the sight before them would have been enough to shake their equilibrium, even without the dangling body.
The view outside the window was spacious, space bound, and entirely unfamiliar. An empty field of stars stretched out, filled with unrecognizable ships of various shapes and sizes hovering in the periphery. They zipped back and forth, sometimes darting towards the window, others heading to a small moon on the far edge of the otherwise empty horizon. Turning to each other, a raised eyebrow from Ivan communicated a further need to harness panic before stepping through the door. Miles had gulped back a combination of fear and exhilarating adrenaline, and together, he, Ivan and their extra weight walked into a dark, bustling center of commerce.
The noise had been deafening, gibberishly unintelligible. Creatures of all shapes and sizes moved through a huge open room filled with stalls. Food roasted, cloth draped, containers shone full of baubles and goods, and mechanical parts piled upon each other in an overwhelming melee of sheer stuff. Miles wasn't sure whether to be giddy or terrified, but as the body began to slide free of Ivan's neck, practicality won out.
"Let's find someplace to put him," he'd said, low under his breath, grabbing the back of the body's trousers.
Ivan had grunted in agreement as one heavy lifeless arm flopped down and whacked him in the belly.
Now, they crouched in a dark alcove, struggling to leave behind a body and attain some minimal sense of perspective.
"That...woman," Ivan wheezed, giving one more valiant attempt to shove the hijackers foot into the hole with the rest of him, "If she was a woman, four breasts certainly seems to qualify her as a woman, was definitely not speaking any sort of language that I've ever heard." He shifted uncomfortably, "And I'm not sure what she said when she took her hand off my crotch, but I'm not sure it was a compliment!"
Miles twisted his mouth. "I didn't recognize any of the words, the dialects, accents, anything."
"This just gets better and better, coz," Ivan stepped away, wiping his hands. "That's it, no more. He is not going to fit in that hole. What do you want to do?"
That was the heart of the question, wasn't it? Aside from the initial terror of the wormhole jump and crashing exit, they were unharmed and more than a little lost. Surrounded by new languages and new lifeforms like nothing either of them had ever seen, Miles' first instinct was to find a way home, immediately before they encountered any trouble that they were ill-equipped to handle. But running a close second, fueled surely by the tiny spark of Admiral Naismith that remained, was an almost irresistible itch to explore. Only the dead weight of their new friend, and the suspicion that he might be a little out of his depth whispered that perhaps he didn't want to explore at the expense of their safety. He'd seen a plethora of weapons that he didn't recognize. That alone was enough to make him giddy and nervous. But if they found a place for Harry, perhaps they'd be able to explore. Just a little. Thus, hiding the body. He sighed. In the mad dash out of the ship, he thought, it had made sense at the time.
"We could leave Harry here, hope for the best, or we could leave him somewhere else."
"Harry?"
"It's as good a name as any, and I can't keep thinking of him as ‘HIM'."
Ivan rolled his eyes. "Fine, Harry it is."
"So leave him or take him?"
"My vote is to leave him, assuming I really have a vote and you're not just humoring me because I'm playing body donkey," Ivan muttered, then scowled. "Wait, that'd didn't come out right." He narrowed his eyes at Miles, and pointed accusingly. "You're not the one dragging him all over this place, and I don't know what those two snakey faced people were saying about me, but it did not sound like a compliment." He wiped his face and shook his head, clearly offended. "Snakey faced people, Miles. Doesn't that bother you, just a little bit? Since when are there snakey-faced people? Because this goes way beyond genetic modification. Far, far beyond it. These aren't quaddies, or haut-ladies, or anything else. So, not to put too fine a point on it, but really, coz, where are we?"
"No matter how many times you ask, or I ask, Ivan, neither of us has any idea, so let's find a better resting spot for Harry here, and find out."
***
In retrospect, it had to have been the muttered cursing that made the small orangeish girl stop and turn in his direction. Clearly, the extra attention from her had caused the sleek, taller woman to reach out her hand to steady the dead man. When exactly the black, matted gun had come into play was a moment Miles had not yet been able to pinpoint, but there they were – Ivan, Ivan's uncomfortable necklace, and Miles with his hands up, staring into the ugly muzzle of a weapon and the beautiful faces of two women.
The corridor was empty except for the five of them, silence hanging like a tangible thing. When the orange girl spoke, Miles shook his head like a dog, mind racing to catch up. The girl's voice was a lilting jumble of syllables, catching only upon the word "English." At least he thought that was what she said. The other woman set her mouth in a hard line and shook her head. In the dimness of the hallway, her skin gleamed pale, eyes shining with a dark intensity. She held the gun with ease.
"I heard them accurately," the smaller one insisted, "English. Frell and fuck are not interchangeable. The consonants are...distinct." She punctuated the word with small twist of her mouth. "It was not a translation."
Now that was definitely English. Ivan made a strangled noise, and Harry slumped down into a rigid puddle at all of their feet. Four collective sets of eyes gazed at the dead man on the metallic ground of the quiet corridor.
"You speak English?" The glee in Ivan's voice was entirely inappropriate to the situation, but entirely appropriate to the gleaming skin displayed by the orange girl's revealing outfit. Miles fought back a groan.
"I told you." The girl sounded triumphant, but the darker woman didn't lower her weapon. Instead, her eyes grew hard and her aim even steadier, if possible. Her bearing was soldier straight. When she spoke to her companion, the clipped backwards language made the hair on Miles arms' rise.
"Are you human?" The girl asked, eyes wide, forthright and a little invasive, ignoring whatever her friend had said. Curiosity teased at her words and the woman with the gun took a slight step forward. Miles and Ivan took a large step back.
"Of course," Ivan said, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Miles bit his lip, struggled not shake his cousin.
"Are you from Earth?" The dark haired woman had a voice like heavy wine and find silk, the words careful and deliberate, layered with menace.
"No," he said, "Barrayar."
The two women exchanged a quick glance and a shrug. The orange one shook her head, dismissive.
"They are in uniform," she said, voice light, precise. "Of sorts."
Miles remained at attention, willing himself not to look down at his chemical foam stained clothing.
The girl took a step forward, twining an orange curl around a delicate finger. "But, they clearly are not Peacekeepers. Nor local militia. And they do not look like any of the soldiers we saw on Earth."
"You've been to Earth?" Ivan asked, just as Miles queried, "Why can't we be Peacekeepers?" His detractors were right, curiosity would be the death of him.
Lowering her gun a fraction of an inch, the woman laughed, quiet and a little bitter. She looked intently at Miles. He could imagine her tracing his flaws – his height, his features, his deformity and dirty uniform. He stiffened under her perusal.
"You're a little...short, for a Peacekeeper." Her tone was not unkind, and he met her gaze. It was frank, but not cruel. He bit his lip, not letting his own eyes linger on the pale column of her throat, or the casual grace with which she held her weapon. A bright flash of Elli Quinn slipped through his mind, but he forced it back. This was not the time.
"What about me?" Miles didn't need to see his cousin's face to know that he was trying to work his fabled charm on these women.
The orange one gave a more honest, derisive laugh. "You are also too... human to be Peacekeepers. If you really are human."
"Red blood, old lineage, Barrayaran to the core, and fully human," Miles stated, squaring his shoulders. A rise of amused panic tickled at the back of his throat, knocking on the door of his curiosity. They had yet to establish whether these women were friend or foe or something in between. He wanted his guard firmly in place. He had no doubt that his Auditor status, or hell, his human status, had little meaning here.
The woman holstered her gun with a click and a weary sigh, something decided on her face. Miles allowed his spine to slump a fraction of an inch in relief. "If you are human," her eyes swept over the two of them dubiously, "you shouldn't be here. And you definitely shouldn't be dragging a frelling body through a commerce station."
It took a moment for Miles to come up with an appropriate response, and surprisingly, Ivan beat him to it. "Aren't you human?"
The woman barked out a laugh. "No," she said. "No, I'm not."
***
Harry sat in the corner of the small café, lids half closed, a metal flask of something called raslak fitted into his stiff hand. Two sips of the hot drink and Miles could feel his ears tingling. Three sips and he suspected that it could revive the dead, if only they could get Harry to raise his glass. The tingling wasn't an unpleasant sensation, and at the very least, it kept him from staring at the stark beauty of the tall, pale woman and the warm, gleaming cleavage of her companion. It wasn't his fault that said cleavage existed exactly at his eye level.
The women had positioned themselves so that they bracketed the table, allowing the one with the gun a view of the door without placing her back to any potential patrons. His impression of her as soldier or mercenary strengthened. She'd helped Ivan with Harry, not bending under the weight and her carriage was precise, confident. She was taller than Elli Quinn, thin and rangier, with the kind of fierce competence that Miles found nigh on irresistible. That her companion was his height, warm and sheened with a fiercely intelligent gaze and lush mouth was not lost on him either, but he'd long acknowledged his weakness for beautiful dark-haired women with a quick draw reflex.
"Human, but not from Earth," the woman said slowly, shoulders straightening under the silky rustling of her leather coat. "And clearly out of your... element." The lilt at the end of the word suggested a vague uncertainty, as if she was testing it out, making certain it fit.
Miles nodded. He'd decided during the slog to this tiny café that if these women could help them, he and Ivan should do everything in their power to encourage that. The trick was going to be getting Ivan to be useful, instead of starry eyed.
"Our jump-pilot, well, I don't know what happened to our jump-pilot, but Harry here commandeered our ship. We think. I've got no idea where he's landed us. Come to think of it, unless he's a former jump-pilot gone rogue, I don't know how he landed us." That thought had been niggling at Miles since they first saw the disaster in the cockpit. He'd been working very hard to suppress it though.
"You are in Tormented Space, Sautau Commerce Station," the orange one said, the pacing of her words more casual, more comfortable than her friend's. "And you are nowhere near Earth."
"Or clearly," Miles quirked his mouth, the humor black as pitch, "Barrayar."
There were a thousand questions to be asked, not the least of which was why he should believe anything they were saying, even if he couldn't understand half of it. But the part of him that had survived so long on instinct was screaming that if they were lying, it wasn't about where they were, or where they weren't. For now, that instinct was all he and Ivan had to go on.
The orange girl leaned forward, curiosity ripe on her features. "We have been to Earth..."
The other woman made a noise that sounded somewhere between a curse and a sneeze, but her friend ignored her, continuing, "They made no mention of such a place."
"I don't know what to tell you. I do know that I've never heard of Tormented Space either, so perhaps we're even."
"Not...exactly." She tilted her head to the side, oddly blue eyes blinking, orange hair catching in the neonish light of the bar. All right, that was it, he couldn't keep thinking of them in terms of shades and colors.
"I'm Miles Vorkosigan," he said, interrupting, "This is my cousin, Ivan."
Orange glanced at dark, who lifted her shoulders, tapped her fingers against the butt of her gun.
"Not Peacekeepers, and if they are spies, they are...unprepared."
The girl nodded. "Sikozu Shanu."
An arched brow preceded her name, "Officer Aeryn Sun."
He was right, a soldier.
"Thank you," Ivan started, 'Beautiful names for beautiful women."
Sikozu tilted her head at Ivan, blinking quickly. "Are you... always this easily distracted."
"Yes," Miles said, kicking Ivan under the table. Ivan grunted, and Miles struggled to keep his attention fixed on the conversation and the conversers. The café was rapidly filling up with creatures of all shapes and sizes and numbers of appendages. It was all he could do not to gape like a child in a confectioner's shop. This was better than Jackson's Whole. Hell, this was better than Earth.
"...wormhole."
Dammit. He had drifted.
"Sorry?"
Sikozu smiled, lips closed, eyes flashing bright. "You must have come through a wormhole."
He blinked in surprise. "Well, of course."
Sikozu Shanu turned to the soldier, eyes hot with interest. Officer Aeryn Sun picked up her small glass of alcohol, threw it back with a gulp, and slammed it down on the table.
"Frell," she narrowed her eyes, and Miles didn't need a translation to understand that word. "Frelling wormholes."
***
The women proved reluctant to help. More than reluctant. Sun's initial curiosity had clearly faded, rapidly replaced by a wariness of the sort of attention Miles and Ivan would draw to themselves, and by virtue of proximity, to herself and her companion. Miles listened to part of the muttered argument, conducted in a mixture of roundish syllables and harsh clicks, understanding none of the content but all of the intent. Finally, Sikozu Shanu turned towards them, a fixed grin on her face.
"She is advocating leaving you here to sort out your own affairs," Sikozu blinked slowly, a sultry exchange, showing that she had other interests, "but I find that I am... intrigued by your... technology." She dropped her lashes, working her bottom lip and Ivan gulped heavily. Not completely immune to the mild seduction, Miles remained silent, but wondered why she was bothering to translate. Then she turned back to Officer Sun, continuing the argument in her odd, formal English. The whole thing left Miles with the sensation of being caught in the tail end of whiplash.
"They can navigate wormholes, Aeryn. They do not simply fall through them and hope for the best," Sikozu leaned forward, cleavage a beacon of cream and distraction, mind fine and bright and calculating. "They navigate them with coordinates and precise timing."
Sun's words were fast and clipped, angry. The word Scorpius bubbled bright and hot, flushing Sikozu's face.
"The technology could help all of us, Aeryn," she hissed. "And I don't believe they are... smart enough, or sophisticated enough to be laying a trap. And let me reiterate, they... can ... navigate... wormholes. Don't you think Crichton might be interested in that?"
"They can't navigate them all that well if they've ended up in a system that they've never even heard of," the soldier muttered in English, clearly for their benefit, and Miles halfheartedly agreed. Except normally, the jump-pilots were entirely accurate. By all rights, he and Ivan shouldn't even be alive, let alone here. He shut down that line of thought, saving it for a moment more appropriate for terror.
"We could call Crichton," Sikozu said, voice wheedling. "He'd want to meet them, ask them about Earth, about wormholes."
"We just frelling got away from Earth and this system is filled with wormholes,'' Sun hissed back, then began another retort in her own language.
Miles finally interrupted, "Much as I find this whole place utterly fascinating, Ivan and I really do need to get home. We're expected at an...event." He let his voice trail off, opted for honesty. "We want to return home to our families, our lives and I'm not... entirely sure we have the resources to return," he paused, hating the necessity of the admission, "on our own."
Officer Sun set her mouth again. "That is not our problem. I'm sorry. We can't help you."
"No," Miles agreed, "It's not your problem, but I don't know who else we can turn to. We can't understand anyone else, unless there's someone else on this station who speaks English."
Sikozu shook her head. "You are two of three humans in Tormented Space. And it is surprising that you even speak a language that we know. More than surprising."
"So then, there isn't anyone else we can turn to." Miles took several more sips of his drink, feeling the flush spread down from his ears into his neck. Ivan's cheeks were bright pink, and he rolled his flask against the table. There was no telltale slosh of liquid. Ivan's mind had officially been blown.
"What do we get if we help you?" The light voice was full of pretty calculation, most likely for her companion's benefit. She'd already stated what she was interested in.
"Access to our technology."
Officer Sun gave a brittle, angry smile and finished her own drink. "What makes you think your technology would be of any use to us?"
Miles played his ace. "She's interested in wormholes. And so, I think are you. And this Crichton, whomever he is," he said the name with an upwards lilt, pretending he hadn't been quite listening. Sun's features turned to stone. " We navigate through a nexus, and our pilots rarely make an error. To me, it doesn't sound like you have that technology."
Sun didn't flinch, didn't move a muscle. Miles continued. "You may not want to help us, but she seems more... inclined."
Her voice was icy, smooth and cold as a frozen pond at Winterfair. "She is not going anywhere alone."
Sikozu made a sound of dismissive protest, turning her body towards Sun. "Just a look at it, Aeryn. To find out more about how their system works. And it would be information we could bring back to Crichton." Her wheedling was just as manipulative as his. Officer Sun narrowed her eyes, hand curling around her pistol grip. She swept her hard gaze over the occupants of the table. Ivan held up his hands, a gesture of submission and Harry remained motionless.
"Please," Miles said, allowing some of his very real desperation to creep into his request. "You're a soldier, right? Isn't it your duty, to do what you can, to help who you can."
He gestured to Ivan, then back to himself. "We are, were, soldiers. If the situation were reversed, we would help."
The moments stretched, taut, tight. Finally Sun nodded, short and sharp. "You know our names now, and if you stay here much longer, you will draw the notice of the local authorities. We will help you, if we can, with the express promise that you leave immediately afterwards."
"That is a promise I'm more than happy to make," Ivan breathed out fervently, eyeing a very large, hard shelled creature banging a fist on the bar.
***
"If we'd left him," Ivan said, his arm under Harry again, Officer Sun on the other side, bearing equal mass, "We were afraid that the guards checking would have confiscated the ship."
She snorted. "Not frelling likely." She hitched Harry up a little further. "They are looking for cargo and smuggled goods. They just want a cut of the profits."
Ivan stopped still and Miles almost barreled into him. "So I've been dragging this, this... corpse around this alien," he paused after the word and shook his head like a dog, "shopping center for four bloody hours for nothing?"
"Mmm hmm."
"Fuck. Coz, if we get out of here, you so, so owe me."
"Let's work on that first part first, Ivan."
They were at the entrance door to the bay when a loud klaxon sounded, followed by a flash of yellow lights. Miles and Ivan both jumped, startled, looking wildly around for the authorities coming to arrest them.
Officer Sun barked out a laugh, and adjusted Harry's weight across her shoulders. His arms kept slipping off the smooth leather of her long coat, and she circled his wrist with long fingers, pulling him flush to her body.
Miles glared at her. Glared up, and up, struggling not to grimace. It wasn't often he envied the luck of a corpse. Sun's mouth had softened, giving her features a warmth that had previously been missing. He sucked in his breath, and decided he really, really needed to stop mooning after women tall, dark and deadly.
"It's just a warning," she said, carefully. "The docking mechanism is retrieving a ship that got off course and it's a signal to not enter the bay until everything is settled."
Miles arched his brow, mind racing rapidly. "The mechanism brings in ships?"
Officer Sun nodded. Miles stepped forward, and looked at Ivan. "Well, at least we know how we survived that part of the journey."
The cockpit hadn't grown less messy in the interim. It had, however, grown increasingly crowded with the four of them standing near the console and flight controls, Harry sprawled on the floor by the door way. It was filled with the heady scents of leather and gun oil and clean, sweet female flesh, almost strong enough to cover up the sour-sweet odor of Harry's decomposition. Miles' gut clenched as sense memory grabbed him. Thoughts of the Dendarii rushed in - sharp soldiers, clean armor, Elli Quinn and command centers bustling with the excitement of a new mission. He'd given the Dendarii up deliberately, had shunted the longing aside, and it surprised him to find out how much the sense of loss remained, how much sting that arrow still offered. Officer Aeryn Sun, with her ugly gun, and intent features was a heady if brutal reminder of what he'd lost.
The lady in question was examining the flight controls as Sikozu Shanu curled her lithe body around the seat, scrolling through the computer's offerings.
"Your pilots interface with the ship's computer?"
Miles nodded. "They have a chip that allows them to navigate with the help of the mainframe. It's specialty work. Passengers barely notice the journey, but the pilots are exhausted by the end of it, spent. They train for years, have surgery to implant the chip, and even then, there's no guarantee that they'll succeed as pilots." He knew he was babbling, couldn't seem to stop himself.
"Two different time streams, perhaps," Sikozu mused, fingers light against the screen. "This is far less... primitive than I expected."
Officer Sun turned, and looked down at Miles. "The rest of the systems however..." Her voice trailed off. "They're only somewhat more advanced than those we saw on Earth." She tilted her head, fixed Mile's with a hard look. "You can move between systems, jump light years but there's no Hetch. You really aren't from this part of the universe. That works in your favor."
He gulped, held her gaze. So it hadn't been altruism or mere good will mixed with caution that had brought her here. Coming back to their ship had also been a test. His respect for her grew.
"Who programs the coordinates?"
"The pilots are given the data, vectors and official times by central flight command at the nexus mouths. They have to register the jump." So Ivan had been paying attention. Sikozu blinked at him prettily, but her own attention remained on their tech.
"Can you pilot this back to your home?"
Miles and Ivan looked at each other, both reluctant to speak. Then Miles shook his head. "Neither of us are jump-pilots, and I... can't pilot anything this complex for ... other reasons."
"Then how," Officer Sun asked silkily, "do you plan to get home?"
"That," Miles said, drawing himself up straight and tall, maintaining as much dignity as he could, "is the question."
"Frelling wormholes," Officer Sun muttered again, mouth sour. "Goddamned frelling wormholes."
Sikozu licked her lips and swiveled in the chair, crossing one leg over the other. "I think, gentleman, we may be in the unique position of being able to offer real assistance. For a price, of course."
Miles grinned fiercely at her. "Of course."
***
"Oh man, that's...that's just... gross."
Miles couldn't help but agree with Crichton. The man had stepped into the compartment and immediately covered his mouth. Miles didn't blame him. The sight of Harry with his brain open, wires protruding and running to the computer was enough to make anyone slightly queasy. Perhaps not anyone, Miles reconsidered. Neither Sun nor Sikozu seemed particularly bothered. But he and Ivan had both needed to step outside for...air... before the process had been completed and everyone avoided the blood, sticky and thick on the deck.
There'd been another fierce, heated argument between the two women, but at the end Sun had tapped a golden badge on the inside of her jacket, and summoned the man, giving him very little information, merely the location of the ship. Her voice had been sharp and precise, filled with something that Miles' couldn't quite parse, but which sounded an awful lot like regret. Crichton had arrived minutes ago, Sun meeting him outside the ship.
"Be glad you missed the surgery," Miles said as Crichton stared at Harry.
"No frelling kidding," he retorted, voice grim.
"All right girls, you invited me to this party, so what gives?" His eyes flicked up from Harry and there was no humor there to match the tone, "Aside from that poor bastard's skull, of course."
He looked at Miles, hand on a leather clad hip, eyes sharp and shrewd, tracking a glance over him and over Ivan. "You're human?" In another man, Miles' would have called the tone wistful. From this Crichton, it sounded more... resigned.
They both nodded, and the man's gaze grew distant, closed off. His voice was low. "But not from Earth, least not my Earth."
Miles had nothing to say to that.
"They," Miles gestured at Officer Sun who stood next to Crichton, and Sikozu, "said you might be able to help."
He hurrumphed. Sikozu, directing Ivan through the data from Harry's chip with bloody hands, paused in the work, body still, expectant. It was Sun who took the lead, though. "They need help getting through a wormhole," her voice was soft enough to hide a threat, too soft not to contain one.
Crichton scanned the small cockpit, taking in the scene, but didn't let his glance linger on anything, as if he were afraid of staying too long. "Wormhole navigation, huh? That's not exactly... cake."
"I believe that this chip will give us the coordinates that they traveled," Sikozu said primly. "And I can program them backwards into their system, but I cannot open a wormhole."
Crichton fixed her with a hard, angry look. "I don't conjure 'em up, Sputnik, I just sniff 'em out. Don't know that I can be much help here."
Insight blinked wide and fierce at Miles. Wormholes were the key here. He didn't need to know more than that.
"Whatever help you can give us would be appreciated," Miles said, pleasant as possible through the fence of his gritted teeth. The reality of the situation had slammed up hard and fast once Sikozu had suggested opening up Harry's head to find out if he had jump-pilot tech. In light of the answer, they'd been coasting on possibilities and miracles. The presence of the chip explained their continued existence, but gave no clue as to Harry's pre-death motivation. But Miles' was forced to shunt aside further speculation. If they couldn't get home, there was no sense worrying about the fate of their actual pilot, or the reasons behind this aborted kidnapping/assassination/ unnamed detour from reality. If they got back, he'd order a full investigation. Hell, he'd happily lead the investigation. If they got back. That uncertain possibility now resided with the man who stood in the middle of the tiny cockpit, bristling with twitchy unease.
"I'll...do what I can," Crichton said, hand straying absently to his mouth then back down to his gun. "But I don't know what that'll mean." He caught Miles' eyes, searching for something there, and clearly not finding it.
The air in the room held still and stagnant from strain until Officer Sun brushed her fingers against Crichton's thigh. The gesture must have had deeper meaning between the two of them. At the barely perceptible touch, Crichton relaxed, tension easing enough so that Miles felt like he could breathe again.
Sun said something to Crichton, low and rough, and he nodded
"You get samples of the ship material?" Crichton's body shifted a little, leaning in towards her, touching without making contact. Miles swallowed back a taste of bitterness at the intimacy. He didn't know this woman, didn't know any of these people. He had no right to the acidity; should chalk it up to long since lost opportunities, not reality. He made yet another vow to find a Vor lady, someone smart and kind, harboring nothing of a soldier in her bearing. He had chosen this life and this path, if not the current detour. And if he, if they, got home, he would start searching for a companion that matched said path. Miles turned his attention back to the more pressing issue at hand in time to hear Sun's murmured reply.
" Scrapings of the inside, and a breakdown of the polymers from their computer?"
She nodded an affirmative.
"That's my girl," Crichton murmured back, lips brushing her ear, so low that Miles barely heard him. Crichton's features went hard again as Sikozu turned towards them, looking over her shoulder. The tension flooded back into the man's big frame.
"I think I've captured the coordinates and reversed them," she said.
Ivan waved a hand up, "I helped!"
She gave him a pitying smile. Miles struggled to hide his own grin.
"I can't guarantee that it will be a smooth journey. But, if you both stay here, monitor the systems, and make certain that the coordinates match, you should survive." She paused, her teeth bared in a different parody of humor, "If you do not hit the wall of the wormhole. Assuming we can even find you the right wormhole, of course."
"Oh, no problem," Ivan said, half under his breath. "Nothing could be easier."
Sikozu turned her spotlight stare on Crichton. His mouth quirked down. "She's too frelling smart," he muttered. Miles had to agree. It wasn't everyday that you hooked a dead man up to a computer and hoped he'd guide you home. It certainly wasn't everyday when you thought such a thing might actually work. Still, he'd seen miracles before. His own continued existence was proof enough that they were possible. A dead man as tracking device was not the most impossible thing Miles' had seen. Not even before breakfast.
"So," Crichton sighed, "How do you wanna do this?"
***
In the end, Ivan stealthily slipped Sikozu the disk of info from Harry's brain and the computer when Crichton and Sun were discussing the best exit strategy. Miles saw the move, quick as it was, and decided he couldn't do anything about it, didn't think he wanted to. Whatever the politics between the three people helping them was none of his or Ivan's business. Besides, without Sikozu's resourcefulness, not to mention her lack of squeamishness, they'd have been stuck in this alien landscape. Fascinating as it was, he was not ready to give up all of his hard fought identity to forge a new one in an unknown universe. There would be plenty of time to process the whole unknown universe thing later, anyway. Much, much later. With luck.
He shook Crichton's hand, passed him the coordinates.
"All I can do is tell you where the closest one is and when it's going to cycle open," Crichton said. "I can't make any promises beyond that. It's not a tech that we," he paused, "have harnessed yet."
Miles nodded. "I understand completely, and it's more than we could have hoped for otherwise."
"I'd," Crichton stopped, looking discretely behind himself to where Officer Sun stood, straight backed, beautiful and focused. The sight of her seemed to offer him some ease. "Do me a favor, a trade off for us sticking our necks out to help you. 'Cause for us, help doesn't tend to end well."
Miles nodded, wishing the man would just get this over with. His neck was starting to crick. "When you get home, if you get home, erase the coordinates to this place. I, uh, I know that your Earth isn't mine, and man, I'd love to find out what it is, but well... just erase 'em. Destroy the chip, or the console, or whatever it is that records the flight patterns. Make sure you can't get back here on purpose."
His blue eyes were hard and serious, a little desperate. Miles found himself nodding despite himself.
"All right boys, you'd best saddle up."
Officer Sun moved back to Crichton's side. "You can follow the list I gave you, for exiting the bay, powering for the jump?"
"Between Ivan and me, we should be able to figure it out."
"The coordinates are set," Sikozu stroked a subtle finger between her breasts where Miles had seen her tuck the data disk. "Try not to die."
"Good luck," Officer Sun offered grimly, and then bustled wrapped a firm hand around Sikozu's arm, bustling her out of the hangar. The three men stood there, silent, watching the women walk away.
"You live with those women," Ivan said, after a beat. Crichton nodded.
"Not such a bad life," Miles suggested, feeling the warmth of irony.
Crichton crooked a half-smile. "Let's just say it has its moments."
The white pod hovered in the still of space far, far from the commerce station and the small moon. It hadn't moved for nearly and hour, and the waiting was starting to make Miles' itchy. It was all Miles could do not to fidget as badly as Ivan, but his dignity was at stake. Former mercenary admirals did not fidget before life-threatening situations. Or if they did, they did so in private. The both stood, straddling Harry and avoiding the protruding wires, waiting for the sign, for the wormhole that could take them home. Miles' nerves were fraying more with every passing moment, the delay only giving him more and more time to contemplate the sheer lunacy of this plan.
The comconsole crackled to life. "Five, four, tres, dos, uno, and there you go."
There was nothing, just vast blackness and a small white ship, and then, in the space of a heartbeat, the opening unfurled, blooming like a flower. It was amazing, beautiful and terrifying Miles' heart pounded like a rush of love, a jolt of fear. This was it.
"Straight on 'til morning, boys," Crichton paused, tinny through the com. "And good luck." The ship darted out of view.
"Crichton!" Miles couldn't help himself, needed to know, despite the time sensitivity. "Why...why did you help us? Why did any of you help us?"
Static fitzed through the console, and Miles thought for a minute that the man had left them far behind. But Crichton's voice, when it rang through, was steady.
"There aren't that many opportunities any more to do the right thing," he said. "I don't know why Aeryn or Sputnik didn't leave your sorry asses to your own fate, but as for me, well. You were an opportunity..." The console sputtered out and he was gone.
The wormhole mouth beckoned, lazy and open as a funnel. Miles took a deep breath.
"All right," he put his hand on the jump button.
Ivan swung himself into the pilot seat. "Let's do this, coz."
Miles pushed the button, and the ship shot forward
In addition, I was not at all surprised to learn that the author of the fabulous Six/Harvey story written for me was
leadensky. Catch a Tiger By the Tail has the sort of clean, precise immediacy that I value in Hossgal's writing. The story deserves every ounce of the praise it's gotten.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 11:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 09:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 12:34 pm (UTC)Well, yeah. *Everyone* knows that. *g*
You asked for John Crichton and Miles and Ivan, too, didn't you? So seems to me that you got nearly everything you asked for, yes?
I will never again write in a book fandom.
Hmmm. (Allow me to go off on a tangent, here.) Barrayar is the only book fandom I've seriously considered writing fanfic for. (It helps that CJC has taken the official position of "please don't write ff about my characters", and that I out-grew Pern before I started really writing fanfic.)
And of course, LMB's own background as a ff writer gives one confidence that fanfic wouldn't upset her. (Unless it was *bad* fanfic, in which case she would likely roll her eyes and mutter, Kids these days. When *I* was writing fanfic, we had to make our own typewriter ribbons! And use purple copies! And...
There are parts of that universe that I love as much as any book universe I've ever encountered. I think your story did more than justice to Miles and Ivan - their sense of duty, in particular - and the way things around Miles fall into a Keystone Cops routine, just because that's the environment he lives in.
And I liked the Aeryn/Sikozu interaction. I agree with your assessment of their "partnership" - these two never give each other an inch, but know where the other can be relied upon.
And thanks again for your kind words about my fic. I'm very pleased that you liked it.
- hg
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:01 pm (UTC)I totally understand the temptation to write Miles, to write in that fandom, but I think for me, it's easier, if I'm going to write fic, to write characters that I have to interpret, instead of characters that someone else's words have already done such justice to.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-13 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-20 04:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 05:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-02-21 06:01 pm (UTC)