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itsallovernowAgain, it's rough, but plot, look you can see plot developing:) And ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fbf says it's like reading a newspaper serial:) I'm having fun at least.
Chapter Eight
The shorter hair felt better, less raggedy and unkempt, he thought to himself as they bounced along through the streets in the back of the land vehicle. If he just could figure out a better way to shave than the revolting smelling creams used by the Sebaceans he wouldn’t have to look in the mirror at all, wouldn’t have to see his own clouded eyes or the glimpses of that freak that slid in behind him, sinuous and sly.
He was having trouble sleeping, his dreams full of swirling blue funnels, the dance of unknown equations and Sebacean women and children dying. When he didn’t wake up sweating and lost from dreams of his own ride in Scorpy’s chair, he came to crying out for Aeryn, her lithe body strapped down, so much smaller than that implement of torture, her throat raw and bloody from screaming. Everyone screamed. He was sure that she’d have held out as long as possible, resisted just on principle, but Crais’ piercing shrieks told the truth. Everyone -well maybe not Stark -but everyone else was equal in the chair.
She’d sat by him that night, after showing him the reality of this world, her slim thigh pressing against his, not looking at him, back ramrod straight and just said, “I’m sorry.”
He’d been scared and shaken by the specter of his personal bogeyman, disconcerted to suddenly be living in Aeryn Sun’s world again after finally making peace with her memory, but that threw him for a loop. “For what,” he’d asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
She’d continued to look forward, but she folded her fingers together tightly, and finally said, “I didn’t understand, before. How you could be afraid enough to stay here. To give up.”
He caught his breath, feeling a dull reminder of that ache, watching her walk away after asking if he was giving up. Maybe peace was too strong a word. She hesitated, brow furrowed.
“I, after I left here, Crais found me. I stayed onboard Talyn.” She looked briefly at her hands and made a conscious effort to relax her grip. John felt the old burn of jealousy, the deep seeded mistrust of Crais, but Aeryn’s voice held no resentment, only sadness.
“Anix said they were dead,” he offered softly and she dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement.
“It was not a bad arrangement. Talyn thrived for the most part, and Crais, well, Crais tried to do he thought what was best for Talyn, and eventually for me.”
That struck John as rather ambiguous, and he allowed himself to voice a thought that had been plaguing him all day, “So is he, she doesn’t look like, is Anix…?” he didn’t want to finish the sentence.
Aeryn just ignored him and continued her story, “I was captured on a planet, buying supplies.” She gave a short huff of laughter. “I was foolish enough to think that no one would care about a defected Peacekeeper. But I was wrong.”
She paused, and turned to look at him, “It was a marauder patrol, and I almost escaped, but they were determined to be rewarded. They took me to Scorpius. I wasn’t the prize he’d wanted, but he decided to put me in the chair anyway, just in case,” she added acridly. “Just in case you’d ever mentioned anything to me about wormholes. And there was nothing to stop him, no odd physiology, no interruptions, just the chair over and over again, and the retaliation from the guards who considered me a traitor.”
John felt his throat tighten at the acceptance in her words. He wanted to shout curses at Scorpius, to call revenge down upon everyone who had ever hurt the people he loved, but he knew he was as ineffectual as any creature in the universe so he let her continue.
“I escaped, thanks to Talyn and Moya, who had answered his distress call after Crais figured out what had happened,” she said softly, but with not hint of self-pity. “I opened my eyes, and I was on Moya, with D’Argo sitting by my bed, and I thought that I was dying, that my paraphoral nerve had been damaged, that we were on the Gammack base. I asked for you, and D’Argo gestured Zhaan over and she gave me a sedative, and I started to scream and couldn’t stop.”
“Aeryn,” he breathed out, his voice choked. She turned away from him. “I understand now, the need to be safe, to be free from that. I still have flashes from the chair,” she turned back to him, her brow furrowed. “It could be all that’s happening to you.”
He looked at her, self-contained and isolated, living a life he’d had no part in. Except now she shared his nightmares. He glanced down and saw that her hands were trembling slightly, whether from the memory or the strain of telling him this or from anger, he simply didn’t know, but it produced something overwhelming in him. He had to touch her, offer some sort of recompense for this atrocity.
Reaching up to her cheek, he slid his fingers along her the bone in a gesture of comfort. She continued to look at him unresponsively, detached from her surroundings, and he laced his fingers into the tightly woven hair. She carefully moistened her lips with her tongue and he felt the familiar heat stir at her nearness and the weight of her gaze and slowly angled his head towards her lips, brushing against her mouth delicately. She closed her eyes, surprising him, and a modicum of tension left her neck as she tilted towards him, her kiss gentle, barely tasting. It was an exercise in restraint for a few brief moments, and then as her tongue stroked his lips and his hand tightened in her hair, she darted her head back, forcing him away with her palm.
“Aeryn?” he pleaded, so softly that he could barely hear the syllables in his voice. She dropped her hand and stood up, facing away from him.
“I said I understood the fear, John. But,” she groped for the right words, then said with resignation, “I wouldn’t have stayed.”
She looked back at him, her grey eyes wide and fathomless. “I need to check in with my crew and with Anix.” She added, and guilt crushed him down. His wife was silent and alone measured only by her slow breaths and the baby inside her. He had a wife, and he had never had Aeryn Sun.
Well, he now thought wryly, bouncing along in the noisy vehicle, crammed between the combined bulk of Teyvn and D’Argo, technically, he’d had Aeryn Sun, but she remained as unattainable as ever for him, even if he could taste the hint of her sweetness still on his lips, days later.
He scratched his fingers through his hair again, catching Teyvn’s look of disgust. “What,” he prodded, “I don’t have fleas.”
Teyvn just snorted.
“I have a cut where the kid kicked me,” he insisted.
If Teyvn had been able to scoot further away he would have, but Atos was jammed into the other side of him and the other commando elbowed Teyvn sharply at the invasion of his space.
Anix sat across from them next to her mother. Her cat in the cream expression was perfectly matched by Aeryn’s dour annoyance. At least she’s equally pissed off at all of us, he thought, a grin forming on his face. He jostled Teyvn again as the commando dug a pointy elbow into his ribs, adjusting the short leather jacket. The pants were undoubtedly Teyvn’s. The Sebacean was taller and leaner than he was, but the pants were uniform weight, heavy and tight, and the shirt was soft and fitted, but not cotton. He felt like he was wearing his dad’s clothes. Close but no cigar. The coat, however, was a different story and John would be damned if it wasn’t actually his.
The vehicle slid around a corner, bumping over random debris, sending everyone sliding into D’Argo who grunted and heaved them back onto the other side. Anix started to giggle at them – being sensibly strapped into her seat, and Aeryn just growled in the back of her throat, causing all four of them to sit up straighter.
“Hey kid,” he shouted over the din, “Remind me to tell you about the Three Stooges tonight.” The girl’s eyes lit up and Aeryn snarled again.
When they reached the center of the city, however, the laughter broke off completely. John knew from his earlier excursion to the outer colonies that parts of the city had been decimated, but he didn’t realize that people were still living out here.
“Many people refused to move into the palace,” said D’Argo, handing out food and water to some Sebacean children playing in the rubble.
Parts of the palace were teeming with refugees from the city, and Aeryn’s troops worked with the remaining security forces to maintain order, but John didn’t go to that section unless he was able to be useful. These people had never faced anything like this threat before and they were scared, and watchful and understandably prone to hysteria.
A collection of troops met the vehicle and Aeryn debriefed them. “We haven’t seen any evidence of a ship landing anywhere near here,” one of her soldiers said, and then went on to elaborate the search patterns they’d used. “It’s kind of hard to tell what could be signs of someone invading, and what’s left over from the strifing runs,” another one added. It was the first time John had seen any of the troops who weren’t occupying the palace and he was amazed at how young and unmilitary some of them looked.
“That kid’s barely shaving,” he whispered in an aside to D’Argo. “No wonder Anna thinks she should be a soldier.”
D’Argo snorted, “Anix wants to be a soldier because it is guaranteed to make Aeryn furious.” He sobered then, “Many of the recruits for our forces are colonists or Sebaceans whose homes have been destroyed or families conscripted by the Peacekeepers. Many of them have nowhere else to go. They are poor soldiers, but completely loyal to Aeryn or any of their other leaders.”
“Mmmm,” John said thoughtfully. “Still it’s a hell of a job, training young people to die for a cause.”
“At least they’ll die for a reason, Crichton,” D’Argo said carefully. “They know what the risks are. Aeryn doesn’t recruit.”
After briefly consulting with Aeryn, he gestured for John to follow him as he explored the city center, accompanied by Anix. The heart of the city had been a teaming array of colorful shops, business and refreshment houses and inns. They were similar to the many commerce planets that John had visited, but hinting at elegance and wealth rarely seen elsewhere. Or, they had at one time. Many of the structures had been destroyed or burned. Rubble filled the streets, but the bodies had been removed. It was a sobering sight. As John made his way through the streets, he realized that the stores that remained intact were showing signs of shabbiness. A few of the food stalls and bars were even open for business and D’Argo and Anix followed John inside a more promising looking establishment.
They sat down at the bar and ordered fellip nectar from the weary looking bartender. Neither of them made an objection when Anix took a slug of the drink, wincing mildly.
John waved the bartender over to him after a few minutes of silence. “Hey,” he said. “Lucky break that this place is still standing.”
The bartender, an older looking man with white hair and a permanent scowl just grunted and wiped down the bar.
“Any of your neighbors survive?” John asked, and the man looked up at him with hard eyes.
“Does it look like anyone survived?” he asked sarcastically, and John shook his head, abashed.
“Is this your bar?” asked Anix, and the man nodded, clearly easier with her.
“Been in my family for generations. I thought we were going to have to shut down a few monens ago,” he added, “but the war did something for me after all.” The bitterness rested thickly in the air.
“Why would you have shut down?” John asked.
“The war,” he replied as if John were an exceptionally stupid child. “Can’t get the good stuff anymore with the blockades. Have to use smugglers and they charge a fortune now that the PK’s and the Scarrans are duking it out closer to this sector. Those fekkiks don’t care who they blow up as long as someone on the other side is pissed off.”
John looked at D’Argo, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Blockades?”
D’Argo shrugged, and Anix piped in, “They’re all over, but most of the soldiers serving in the outposts aren’t very vigilant.”
D’Argo snorted again, “You have been listening to your mother.”
Anix’s eyes were bright, her enthusiasm at being able to answer a question leading John to grin at her. He found himself doing that a lot, her large eyes and 100 watt smile a constant reminder of the things in his life that had been good.
“The Senate never discussed blockades, or people not having access to goods and supplies,” he said to D’Argo.
“They’ve been a reality in this sector for the past five cycles,” the Luxan answered. “Perhaps the planet is wealthy enough that they didn’t initially effect it.”
“Yeah, “ John said thoughtfully. He didn’t like the direction this was heading. Either the senate had been aware of the threat of the war and ignored it, or they didn’t know and the people had suffered the consequences.
He finished his fellip nectar and ordered another round. “Gotta be a bitch getting things through random space blockades,” he considered, and Anix giggled.
“What,” he asked, quirking his lips.
“Nothing, it’s just that,” she started.
“Anix!” D’Argo interrupted in that long suffering way John was growing used to. He like it better than the “humans are inferior” tone he’d gotten so much of.
“What?” John sat up, leaning towards them, curious. D’Argo looked embarrassed. “It’s nothing.” “It’s not nothing,” the girl insisted. “It’s cool!” She looked at John for confirmation. “That’s the right word, yes?” He chortled, “Yeah. But what’s cool.”
“D’Argo,” she said, gesturing at him with her chin. “He was a smuggler in the beginning of the war!”
John looked incredulous. “Heavy D. You were a pirate. Han Solo and all that?” D’Argo gave him a look of mingled confusion and disgust, but after being poked repeatedly by his godchild, gave in sheepishly.
“We helped supply some different groups of individuals for awhile after we left you on the royal planet,” he conceded finally.
“We?”
“Chiana and Zhaan and I sort of stumbled on the opportunity to carry some mercenaries from one part of the Uncharted Territories to the other.”
John nodded in encouragement. He knew that D’Argo and Chiana had met Zhaan soon after being banished from the planet and had stayed on Moya for some time, “And?”
“And mercenaries turned into guns turned into troops and supplies,” D’Argo finished grudgingly.
Anix’s glee over this lifestyle was apparent. She could barely stay in her seat in an effort to get D’Argo to elaborate. “And you never got caught, right!”
“No we never got caught, but we nearly did on many occasions.”
“Moya was too smart for them, and everyone was afraid of Talyn.”
“That I believe,” John said under his breath. “That’s a whole new side of you, D.”
D’Argo finished a full bottle of fellip nectar in one long swallow before replying. “It wasn’t intentional. We had no money, no way to get home still, and had lost both you and Aeryn. When the first group of mercenaries approached us, we didn’t know how to say no. We just prayed that they wouldn’t try and hijack Moya. Things developed from there, and once we found Crais and Talyn and Aeryn again, we decided to pool our resources. The Peacekeepers and the Scarrans had both had serious encounters with the Nebari and it was clear that war was inevitable.”
John nodded. “It’s just kinda wild, you know. You guys were still on the run, but were actually subverting the status quo. You were real revolutionaries. It’s very Che, very Star Wars.”
“It was mostly very exhausting and pointless. We ran guns for everyone,” D’Argo said heavily. “This planet could have been bombed by weapons we delivered that got sold to the Peacekeepers. And we should get back, I’m sure Aeryn is looking for us.”
John didn’t question that point, knowing full well that Aeryn would com them if she was concerned with their whereabouts.
The ride back to the compound was just as jostling and absurd, but Aeryn seemed lost in thought. John tried to catch her eye, in between playing footsy with the commandoes, but she wouldn’t look directly at him. The incident had put them all on alert though, and they made the trek into the city several times over the next few days, ostensibly to supervise and help with the rebuilding efforts, but John was pretty sure that Aeryn had suspicions that she wasn’t voicing about the nature of the ship. The online tracking system had been fixed and was working 80% of the time, but she was getting updates every couple of arns from her own people in space.
He spent a lot of time exploring the city with Anix, talking about her school work, which she liked despite her unwillingness to do it. She liked mathematics and they spent several afternoons talking about the theory behind some of the Sebacean principles of mathematics. He taught her a little basic Calculus which she picked up on easily.
They were in the midst of talking about his life as a student when he realized that they were much further from the city center than they’d previously wandered. D’Argo was busy being in charge somewhere and hadn’t come with them, Aeryn apparently deciding he was an adequate temporary guard for her child. The flashes of Scorpy were still frequent, and it chilled his blood when he stood by the young Sebacean, stroking his leathery fingers over her silky hair, but John was working very hard to conquer his delusions, and he did little more then tense up, gripping the butt of the pistol and counting back from 100. Anix had given him a funny look, but didn’t ask any other questions.
John looked around at the buildings and realized that bombing or not, they weren’t in a particularly savory neighborhood. The buildings were crowded more closely together and had the dilapidated feeling of Earth tenements. It was also eerily quiet.
“Maybe we should head back, kid,” he suggested quietly. Anix glanced around her, quickly assessing the situation and nodded. Turning around, John stopped in his tracks at the sight in front of him.
“Anix,” he whispered. “I want you to get out of here.” She shook her head fiercely.
“Yes,” he demanded. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She narrowed her eyes, but managed not to yelp as he shoved her to the side.
“Run,” he demanded. “Com Aeryn and tell her that there’s a Scarran here.”
She beckoned to him, but he shook his head, wrapping his fingers around Winona. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said. “Now go.”
She bit her lip, then took off, silent and quick, leaving him there, facing the back of a very large, very leathery looking Scarran who had just caught the scent of something unusual. John had an instant to regret not running before the Scarran turned around, his dead shark eyes narrowing in on John.
fbf says it's like reading a newspaper serial:) I'm having fun at least.Chapter Eight
The shorter hair felt better, less raggedy and unkempt, he thought to himself as they bounced along through the streets in the back of the land vehicle. If he just could figure out a better way to shave than the revolting smelling creams used by the Sebaceans he wouldn’t have to look in the mirror at all, wouldn’t have to see his own clouded eyes or the glimpses of that freak that slid in behind him, sinuous and sly.
He was having trouble sleeping, his dreams full of swirling blue funnels, the dance of unknown equations and Sebacean women and children dying. When he didn’t wake up sweating and lost from dreams of his own ride in Scorpy’s chair, he came to crying out for Aeryn, her lithe body strapped down, so much smaller than that implement of torture, her throat raw and bloody from screaming. Everyone screamed. He was sure that she’d have held out as long as possible, resisted just on principle, but Crais’ piercing shrieks told the truth. Everyone -well maybe not Stark -but everyone else was equal in the chair.
She’d sat by him that night, after showing him the reality of this world, her slim thigh pressing against his, not looking at him, back ramrod straight and just said, “I’m sorry.”
He’d been scared and shaken by the specter of his personal bogeyman, disconcerted to suddenly be living in Aeryn Sun’s world again after finally making peace with her memory, but that threw him for a loop. “For what,” he’d asked, curiosity getting the better of him.
She’d continued to look forward, but she folded her fingers together tightly, and finally said, “I didn’t understand, before. How you could be afraid enough to stay here. To give up.”
He caught his breath, feeling a dull reminder of that ache, watching her walk away after asking if he was giving up. Maybe peace was too strong a word. She hesitated, brow furrowed.
“I, after I left here, Crais found me. I stayed onboard Talyn.” She looked briefly at her hands and made a conscious effort to relax her grip. John felt the old burn of jealousy, the deep seeded mistrust of Crais, but Aeryn’s voice held no resentment, only sadness.
“Anix said they were dead,” he offered softly and she dipped her head slightly in acknowledgement.
“It was not a bad arrangement. Talyn thrived for the most part, and Crais, well, Crais tried to do he thought what was best for Talyn, and eventually for me.”
That struck John as rather ambiguous, and he allowed himself to voice a thought that had been plaguing him all day, “So is he, she doesn’t look like, is Anix…?” he didn’t want to finish the sentence.
Aeryn just ignored him and continued her story, “I was captured on a planet, buying supplies.” She gave a short huff of laughter. “I was foolish enough to think that no one would care about a defected Peacekeeper. But I was wrong.”
She paused, and turned to look at him, “It was a marauder patrol, and I almost escaped, but they were determined to be rewarded. They took me to Scorpius. I wasn’t the prize he’d wanted, but he decided to put me in the chair anyway, just in case,” she added acridly. “Just in case you’d ever mentioned anything to me about wormholes. And there was nothing to stop him, no odd physiology, no interruptions, just the chair over and over again, and the retaliation from the guards who considered me a traitor.”
John felt his throat tighten at the acceptance in her words. He wanted to shout curses at Scorpius, to call revenge down upon everyone who had ever hurt the people he loved, but he knew he was as ineffectual as any creature in the universe so he let her continue.
“I escaped, thanks to Talyn and Moya, who had answered his distress call after Crais figured out what had happened,” she said softly, but with not hint of self-pity. “I opened my eyes, and I was on Moya, with D’Argo sitting by my bed, and I thought that I was dying, that my paraphoral nerve had been damaged, that we were on the Gammack base. I asked for you, and D’Argo gestured Zhaan over and she gave me a sedative, and I started to scream and couldn’t stop.”
“Aeryn,” he breathed out, his voice choked. She turned away from him. “I understand now, the need to be safe, to be free from that. I still have flashes from the chair,” she turned back to him, her brow furrowed. “It could be all that’s happening to you.”
He looked at her, self-contained and isolated, living a life he’d had no part in. Except now she shared his nightmares. He glanced down and saw that her hands were trembling slightly, whether from the memory or the strain of telling him this or from anger, he simply didn’t know, but it produced something overwhelming in him. He had to touch her, offer some sort of recompense for this atrocity.
Reaching up to her cheek, he slid his fingers along her the bone in a gesture of comfort. She continued to look at him unresponsively, detached from her surroundings, and he laced his fingers into the tightly woven hair. She carefully moistened her lips with her tongue and he felt the familiar heat stir at her nearness and the weight of her gaze and slowly angled his head towards her lips, brushing against her mouth delicately. She closed her eyes, surprising him, and a modicum of tension left her neck as she tilted towards him, her kiss gentle, barely tasting. It was an exercise in restraint for a few brief moments, and then as her tongue stroked his lips and his hand tightened in her hair, she darted her head back, forcing him away with her palm.
“Aeryn?” he pleaded, so softly that he could barely hear the syllables in his voice. She dropped her hand and stood up, facing away from him.
“I said I understood the fear, John. But,” she groped for the right words, then said with resignation, “I wouldn’t have stayed.”
She looked back at him, her grey eyes wide and fathomless. “I need to check in with my crew and with Anix.” She added, and guilt crushed him down. His wife was silent and alone measured only by her slow breaths and the baby inside her. He had a wife, and he had never had Aeryn Sun.
Well, he now thought wryly, bouncing along in the noisy vehicle, crammed between the combined bulk of Teyvn and D’Argo, technically, he’d had Aeryn Sun, but she remained as unattainable as ever for him, even if he could taste the hint of her sweetness still on his lips, days later.
He scratched his fingers through his hair again, catching Teyvn’s look of disgust. “What,” he prodded, “I don’t have fleas.”
Teyvn just snorted.
“I have a cut where the kid kicked me,” he insisted.
If Teyvn had been able to scoot further away he would have, but Atos was jammed into the other side of him and the other commando elbowed Teyvn sharply at the invasion of his space.
Anix sat across from them next to her mother. Her cat in the cream expression was perfectly matched by Aeryn’s dour annoyance. At least she’s equally pissed off at all of us, he thought, a grin forming on his face. He jostled Teyvn again as the commando dug a pointy elbow into his ribs, adjusting the short leather jacket. The pants were undoubtedly Teyvn’s. The Sebacean was taller and leaner than he was, but the pants were uniform weight, heavy and tight, and the shirt was soft and fitted, but not cotton. He felt like he was wearing his dad’s clothes. Close but no cigar. The coat, however, was a different story and John would be damned if it wasn’t actually his.
The vehicle slid around a corner, bumping over random debris, sending everyone sliding into D’Argo who grunted and heaved them back onto the other side. Anix started to giggle at them – being sensibly strapped into her seat, and Aeryn just growled in the back of her throat, causing all four of them to sit up straighter.
“Hey kid,” he shouted over the din, “Remind me to tell you about the Three Stooges tonight.” The girl’s eyes lit up and Aeryn snarled again.
When they reached the center of the city, however, the laughter broke off completely. John knew from his earlier excursion to the outer colonies that parts of the city had been decimated, but he didn’t realize that people were still living out here.
“Many people refused to move into the palace,” said D’Argo, handing out food and water to some Sebacean children playing in the rubble.
Parts of the palace were teeming with refugees from the city, and Aeryn’s troops worked with the remaining security forces to maintain order, but John didn’t go to that section unless he was able to be useful. These people had never faced anything like this threat before and they were scared, and watchful and understandably prone to hysteria.
A collection of troops met the vehicle and Aeryn debriefed them. “We haven’t seen any evidence of a ship landing anywhere near here,” one of her soldiers said, and then went on to elaborate the search patterns they’d used. “It’s kind of hard to tell what could be signs of someone invading, and what’s left over from the strifing runs,” another one added. It was the first time John had seen any of the troops who weren’t occupying the palace and he was amazed at how young and unmilitary some of them looked.
“That kid’s barely shaving,” he whispered in an aside to D’Argo. “No wonder Anna thinks she should be a soldier.”
D’Argo snorted, “Anix wants to be a soldier because it is guaranteed to make Aeryn furious.” He sobered then, “Many of the recruits for our forces are colonists or Sebaceans whose homes have been destroyed or families conscripted by the Peacekeepers. Many of them have nowhere else to go. They are poor soldiers, but completely loyal to Aeryn or any of their other leaders.”
“Mmmm,” John said thoughtfully. “Still it’s a hell of a job, training young people to die for a cause.”
“At least they’ll die for a reason, Crichton,” D’Argo said carefully. “They know what the risks are. Aeryn doesn’t recruit.”
After briefly consulting with Aeryn, he gestured for John to follow him as he explored the city center, accompanied by Anix. The heart of the city had been a teaming array of colorful shops, business and refreshment houses and inns. They were similar to the many commerce planets that John had visited, but hinting at elegance and wealth rarely seen elsewhere. Or, they had at one time. Many of the structures had been destroyed or burned. Rubble filled the streets, but the bodies had been removed. It was a sobering sight. As John made his way through the streets, he realized that the stores that remained intact were showing signs of shabbiness. A few of the food stalls and bars were even open for business and D’Argo and Anix followed John inside a more promising looking establishment.
They sat down at the bar and ordered fellip nectar from the weary looking bartender. Neither of them made an objection when Anix took a slug of the drink, wincing mildly.
John waved the bartender over to him after a few minutes of silence. “Hey,” he said. “Lucky break that this place is still standing.”
The bartender, an older looking man with white hair and a permanent scowl just grunted and wiped down the bar.
“Any of your neighbors survive?” John asked, and the man looked up at him with hard eyes.
“Does it look like anyone survived?” he asked sarcastically, and John shook his head, abashed.
“Is this your bar?” asked Anix, and the man nodded, clearly easier with her.
“Been in my family for generations. I thought we were going to have to shut down a few monens ago,” he added, “but the war did something for me after all.” The bitterness rested thickly in the air.
“Why would you have shut down?” John asked.
“The war,” he replied as if John were an exceptionally stupid child. “Can’t get the good stuff anymore with the blockades. Have to use smugglers and they charge a fortune now that the PK’s and the Scarrans are duking it out closer to this sector. Those fekkiks don’t care who they blow up as long as someone on the other side is pissed off.”
John looked at D’Argo, raising a questioning eyebrow. “Blockades?”
D’Argo shrugged, and Anix piped in, “They’re all over, but most of the soldiers serving in the outposts aren’t very vigilant.”
D’Argo snorted again, “You have been listening to your mother.”
Anix’s eyes were bright, her enthusiasm at being able to answer a question leading John to grin at her. He found himself doing that a lot, her large eyes and 100 watt smile a constant reminder of the things in his life that had been good.
“The Senate never discussed blockades, or people not having access to goods and supplies,” he said to D’Argo.
“They’ve been a reality in this sector for the past five cycles,” the Luxan answered. “Perhaps the planet is wealthy enough that they didn’t initially effect it.”
“Yeah, “ John said thoughtfully. He didn’t like the direction this was heading. Either the senate had been aware of the threat of the war and ignored it, or they didn’t know and the people had suffered the consequences.
He finished his fellip nectar and ordered another round. “Gotta be a bitch getting things through random space blockades,” he considered, and Anix giggled.
“What,” he asked, quirking his lips.
“Nothing, it’s just that,” she started.
“Anix!” D’Argo interrupted in that long suffering way John was growing used to. He like it better than the “humans are inferior” tone he’d gotten so much of.
“What?” John sat up, leaning towards them, curious. D’Argo looked embarrassed. “It’s nothing.” “It’s not nothing,” the girl insisted. “It’s cool!” She looked at John for confirmation. “That’s the right word, yes?” He chortled, “Yeah. But what’s cool.”
“D’Argo,” she said, gesturing at him with her chin. “He was a smuggler in the beginning of the war!”
John looked incredulous. “Heavy D. You were a pirate. Han Solo and all that?” D’Argo gave him a look of mingled confusion and disgust, but after being poked repeatedly by his godchild, gave in sheepishly.
“We helped supply some different groups of individuals for awhile after we left you on the royal planet,” he conceded finally.
“We?”
“Chiana and Zhaan and I sort of stumbled on the opportunity to carry some mercenaries from one part of the Uncharted Territories to the other.”
John nodded in encouragement. He knew that D’Argo and Chiana had met Zhaan soon after being banished from the planet and had stayed on Moya for some time, “And?”
“And mercenaries turned into guns turned into troops and supplies,” D’Argo finished grudgingly.
Anix’s glee over this lifestyle was apparent. She could barely stay in her seat in an effort to get D’Argo to elaborate. “And you never got caught, right!”
“No we never got caught, but we nearly did on many occasions.”
“Moya was too smart for them, and everyone was afraid of Talyn.”
“That I believe,” John said under his breath. “That’s a whole new side of you, D.”
D’Argo finished a full bottle of fellip nectar in one long swallow before replying. “It wasn’t intentional. We had no money, no way to get home still, and had lost both you and Aeryn. When the first group of mercenaries approached us, we didn’t know how to say no. We just prayed that they wouldn’t try and hijack Moya. Things developed from there, and once we found Crais and Talyn and Aeryn again, we decided to pool our resources. The Peacekeepers and the Scarrans had both had serious encounters with the Nebari and it was clear that war was inevitable.”
John nodded. “It’s just kinda wild, you know. You guys were still on the run, but were actually subverting the status quo. You were real revolutionaries. It’s very Che, very Star Wars.”
“It was mostly very exhausting and pointless. We ran guns for everyone,” D’Argo said heavily. “This planet could have been bombed by weapons we delivered that got sold to the Peacekeepers. And we should get back, I’m sure Aeryn is looking for us.”
John didn’t question that point, knowing full well that Aeryn would com them if she was concerned with their whereabouts.
The ride back to the compound was just as jostling and absurd, but Aeryn seemed lost in thought. John tried to catch her eye, in between playing footsy with the commandoes, but she wouldn’t look directly at him. The incident had put them all on alert though, and they made the trek into the city several times over the next few days, ostensibly to supervise and help with the rebuilding efforts, but John was pretty sure that Aeryn had suspicions that she wasn’t voicing about the nature of the ship. The online tracking system had been fixed and was working 80% of the time, but she was getting updates every couple of arns from her own people in space.
He spent a lot of time exploring the city with Anix, talking about her school work, which she liked despite her unwillingness to do it. She liked mathematics and they spent several afternoons talking about the theory behind some of the Sebacean principles of mathematics. He taught her a little basic Calculus which she picked up on easily.
They were in the midst of talking about his life as a student when he realized that they were much further from the city center than they’d previously wandered. D’Argo was busy being in charge somewhere and hadn’t come with them, Aeryn apparently deciding he was an adequate temporary guard for her child. The flashes of Scorpy were still frequent, and it chilled his blood when he stood by the young Sebacean, stroking his leathery fingers over her silky hair, but John was working very hard to conquer his delusions, and he did little more then tense up, gripping the butt of the pistol and counting back from 100. Anix had given him a funny look, but didn’t ask any other questions.
John looked around at the buildings and realized that bombing or not, they weren’t in a particularly savory neighborhood. The buildings were crowded more closely together and had the dilapidated feeling of Earth tenements. It was also eerily quiet.
“Maybe we should head back, kid,” he suggested quietly. Anix glanced around her, quickly assessing the situation and nodded. Turning around, John stopped in his tracks at the sight in front of him.
“Anix,” he whispered. “I want you to get out of here.” She shook her head fiercely.
“Yes,” he demanded. “I’ll be right behind you.”
She narrowed her eyes, but managed not to yelp as he shoved her to the side.
“Run,” he demanded. “Com Aeryn and tell her that there’s a Scarran here.”
She beckoned to him, but he shook his head, wrapping his fingers around Winona. “I’ll be right behind you,” he said. “Now go.”
She bit her lip, then took off, silent and quick, leaving him there, facing the back of a very large, very leathery looking Scarran who had just caught the scent of something unusual. John had an instant to regret not running before the Scarran turned around, his dead shark eyes narrowing in on John.
