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Aeryn had learned a considerable amount from her prisoner. She hadn’t even had to hurt him much, which was almost a disappointment. He had quickly confessed that two Sebacean males matching her description of John and Crais were indeed being held inside this facility, though he swore that they were unharmed, which brought a grunt of satisfaction from Aeryn.
In a few more microts she had learned the general layout, the number of men on guard, and what the charge was. “Guns?” she asked incredulously. “No, don’t answer that,” she said in disgust when he tried to explain.
When Aeryn had finished with him, she walked him at gunpoint to a nearby alley, used the butt of her pulse pistol to knock him unconscious, and immobilized him with his own restraints. She smiled grimly imagining him trying to explain THAT to his superior officer. After a search of his pockets, she removed his ident chip and another chip she thought would operate his vehicle. Then she went to find Jool.
Jool was still at her post, awake and shivering. “No one’s come out,” she reported, and Aeryn nodded curtly.
“I know. They use the other entrance. Come on,” Aeryn said, leading Jool to a place where they could talk.
By the time it was light they’d worked out a plan between them. If it worked, they should have Crichton and Crais freed and be on their way to the spaceport about the time Talyn was due to return to check on them.
Based on Jool’s success with the shopkeeper the previous night, they had decided to continue the “traveler in distress” routine to gain access to the building. While Aeryn assessed their weapons supply, deciding to leave her pulse rifle in the vehicle she had acquired, Jool assessed their appearance. There wasn’t much to be done about the leather clothing overall, but she managed to talk Aeryn into removing her vest and just going with the shirt she’d been wearing underneath.
“There. That makes you look less like a threat,” she told Aeryn, turning her attention to her own appearance.
Aeryn glanced at her own reflection in a window, and shrugged. “Well, you never look like a threat,” she told Jool without malice. “Come on, let’s do this.”
“Can you do something with your hair?” Jool asked as they prepared to enter the building. “That braid just screams ‘tight-assed bitch,’ and that’s not what we’re after here.”
“Isn’t that what I am, though?” Aeryn asked, amused.
“Well, yeah, sure, of course,” Jool said. “But you’re more than that. Aren’t you.” It was a statement, not a question.
Aeryn went still, and for a moment, Jool regretted her big mouth.
But Aeryn simply said, enigmatically, “Well, that remains to be seen,” and set about undoing the plaits and putting her hair in a softer ponytail, leaving a few wisps along her cheeks to frame her face.
“Much better,” Jool told her approvingly.
Aeryn actually smiled. “John liked it,” she confessed. “Likes it, actually, I suppose.” She shook her head, loosening up the ponytail even further, and they entered the building together.
At the front desk the trooper glanced up at them. He eyed Aeryn with less suspicion than the shopkeeper the night before had, so perhaps the costume change HAD helped. His attention was quickly diverted by Jool, and Aeryn let her take the lead.
Jool had her replay of the robbery story down pat, embellished this time with fluttering eyelashes as well as tears. Aeryn tried to look harmless, which was hard since a scowl kept trying to appear on her face.
“And they just pulled everything out of my bag and when I begged them not to take it, they threw the bag back at me, EMPTY,” Jool wailed and leaned forward over the desk, holding the bag upside down to prove it was devoid of contents.
The trooper was completely captivated, first by her story, and then by her cleavage, which was now positioned in front of his face. He kept trying to look, while not looking like he was looking. Aeryn was hard-pressed not to snicker, but she had to admit, it WAS distracting him.
He finally tore his gaze away from Jool’s assets, and ushered the two women into an open room with several desks, where he began entering the information he’d been gathering from the “victim” into a computer.
Aeryn continued to let Jool do the talking and matched the reality of the base to her reconnaissance. It was all she could do not to show her disgust. She couldn’t believe they hadn’t been searched for weapons, and there was no automatic scanner. She could have brought the pulse rifles in as well as her smaller weapons, and this lot would have been none the wiser. This was going to be easier than she’d dared to hope, which was just as well, because she would have made the attempt in any case.
Perhaps because it was early in the morning, there were only two officers in the immediate area, one of whom continued to take Jool’s eminently creative report. Once Aeryn had her bearings, she brought up a pulse pistol, gesturing with it towards the wall, and announced loudly, “Right! Over there! Both of you!”
The officer who was helping Jool looked up, mouth gaping in astonishment.
Jool screwed up her courage and pulled out her pistol as well. She smiled at him sweetly and said, “You heard her. And I wouldn’t argue with her if I were you. She’s a very good shot.”
Aeryn acknowledged the compliment with a nod.
In the face of two forbidden weapons, the men did as they were told.
Knowing they only had a few microts before the surprise wore off or more officers arrived, Aeryn became all business once more. “The weapons you confiscated from the Sebaceans. Where are they?”
When the officers hesitated, any softness the change in clothing and hair style might have suggested completely vanished. She jammed her pulse pistol against the neck of the nearest officer and snarled, “I want the weapons, and I want the Sebaceans. NOW.”
The two men exchanged glances and led them to a storage locker from which they extracted the firearms. Each weapon was neatly labeled with an identification tag, but they appeared to be intact. Aeryn grabbed a pulse rifle and slung it over her shoulder, handing the other rifle to Jool.
Trying to loop the rifle over her shoulder, Jool held out her bag to the officers. Aeryn gestured for them to put the smaller weapons into it.
They did, and then things started to get more entertaining.
The man putting the guns in the bag shoved at Jool hard, but tried at the same time to yank the bag away from her. She held on for dear life, while Aeryn kicked him sharply in the knee. He crumpled, moaning in pain, and Jool pulled the bag to her chest.
The other officer took off down the hallway, and Aeryn got off a couple shots at him. One hit him in the side and he fell to the ground, effectively removed from the action, but the alarm was sounding now.
“Frell,” Aeryn said. “Move it,” she said to Jool. “Down here,” she added, heading down the hallway to the small group of holding cells, which, gratifyingly, were exactly where she’d been told they would be. She had to keep a couple of grunts back with a well-placed pulse blast.
Jool followed rapidly, carrying the bag which now contained all of the hand weapons that had been taken from Crichton and Crais.
Speed was more important than subtlety at this point. “John,” Aeryn called loudly. “Are you in there?”
“I’m here, Aeryn!” he shouted, pinpointing his location for her as the middle of the three cells on the outer wall. She could hear the pleasure in his voice.
“Stand away from the door!” she ordered.
“Crais is here, too,” he called.
“Well, he should stand away from the door, too!” she snapped, reaching down and getting the cartridge of chakan oil she had stored in her holster for this part of the plan. She set the cartridge down in front of the door and asked once again, “Are you standing away from the door?”
“Yeah,” came Crichton’s voice, sounding muffled. “We’re away from the door.”
“Around the corner,” Aeryn ordered Jool, who happily scurried away from the cell. She knew what to expect.
Aeryn followed Jool to cover, and then leaned back around the corner and took rapid aim at the container of oil. The resulting explosion blew the door off its hinges.
Behind them, Jool fired at a guard who had come running at the sound, and Aeryn hurried to the doorway.
There was smoke, dust and plaster everywhere, and through the haze, she couldn’t see the men they had come to rescue. “John?” she called, concern evident in her voice.
What she had assumed was a heap of rubble at the back of the room moved, and John and Crais stood up from behind a mattress they had evidently propped up for protection. Leave it to John to guess exactly what she was up to!
“Hey, Baby,” he said cheerfully, brushing plaster off his leathers and stepping across the room.
************
“Are you all right?” Aeryn asked briefly, touching John’s arm. A small puff of dust floated off his coat.
“Yeah. I’m fine,” he assured her, sneezing as the dust reached his nose.
“Crais?” she asked.
“Fine,” Crais said, heading past them towards the door.
Trinh the public defender chose to remain cowering against the wall. One glance told Aeryn he wasn’t going to be any trouble.
From outside the door Jool screamed, “We have company!” A squad of the special weapons control troops they had encountered the previous day came into sight, but halted some distance away, apparently assessing the situation.
“Here!” Crais shouted, and Jool tossed the bag of weapons into his waiting arms. Crais pulled a weapon out of the bag and then Aeryn grabbed the carrier from him.
While Crais rushed up to stand beside Jool, Aeryn reached into the bag and briefly sorted through the guns. With a glint of satisfaction in her eye, she pulled a pulse pistol out, tossing it to John.
He hefted the gun briefly and smiled. “Winona,” he said with contentment.
Aeryn looked at him as if to say, “And your point is?”
He frowned then, wondering how she’d picked his gun out with just a glance, but said only, “What now?”
Aeryn cocked her head at him, grinned, and said, “We go out. Through them, if necessary.”
“Sounds like a plan,” he said. “Shall we join the party?” he asked, gesturing to where Crais and Jool stood at the end of the hallway.
Aeryn nodded and the two of them rushed off to join their shipmates. Crais had appropriated the pulse rifle from Jool and was taking shots down the crossing corridor at the troops stationed there. Much to his annoyance, they appeared unharmed, though he was hitting his targets. He grunted in frustration.
Observing his displeasure, Aeryn noted, “The same thing happened to me yesterday. It looks like the pulse is absorbed somehow.”
John took it all in quickly and suggested, “Bullet-proof vests.”
“What?” Crais asked.
“Some sort of personal shield,” Aeryn proposed.
“Exactly,” John said, taking aim experimentally at a leg in case the apparent protection actually WAS limited to something like a vest-area. No such luck. “Damn,” he said.
“Doesn’t matter,” Aeryn said. “The regular troops don’t seem to have them. Let’s just go back out the way we came.” A quick glance at Crais and Jool confirmed their agreement. Aeryn took point, John following her and Crais bringing up the rear with Jool squeezed in between the two men.
Unfortunately, the special squad troops appeared to be better-trained than the locals, and a portion of the group had already circled around towards the entrance, cutting off the front door as a way out of the building.
“Great,” muttered John as they holed up in the office area. “When you came in here, you didn’t have a plan for getting out?”
Aeryn glared at him, and said, “The other side of the building isn’t a secure unit, there’s more likely to be some way out from there.”
John grunted his assent, as did Crais, and Jool went along without objection as the four of them moved further into the building, searching for a corridor that led into the civic offices. They occasionally paused to let off a round of fire to discourage pursuit.
“I sure hope you know where you’re going,” Jool muttered to no one in particular as they hurried past offices where various civilians were hiding behind desks. In her haste, Jool slammed into someone who was trying to rush past them to get out of the line of fire. She screamed, and Crais grabbed the local before she could get away.
“Are there any other ways out of this facility besides the doors?” John asked.
When the woman hesitated, Aeryn brought up her pulse pistol and snapped, “We’re not going to hurt you! Just tell us NOW!”
Jackpot!
The terrified woman, evidently a civilian secretary, led them to the opening for a trash chute which led to the service entrance of the building, giving them a back way to reach the door Jool had been observing the night before. They took the secretary with them as they went one at a time through the chute, Crais and Jool followed by John and Aeryn.
One by one they landed in the trash collection area, and briefly assessed the situation. They could hear troops nearby, but no one was actually in sight.
“Well, here’s hoping they’re not guarding this door from the outside,” John said, motioning Crais and Jool ahead once more.
As soon as Crais opened the door, another alarm sounded, joining the cacophony that had been going on the whole time they had been trying to leave the building. John and Aeryn abandoned their hostage, diving through the door right behind Crais and Jool and slamming the door shut behind them.
With a glance behind her to make sure no one was following them yet, Aeryn said, “This way,” and immediately dodged into an alley. She had left the vehicle she had appropriated from her earlier captive only two streets over, and the four fugitives gratefully threw themselves and the weapons they carried inside, panting from the exertion.
As she had the previous morning, Aeryn drove the vehicle, John in the passenger seat beside her, Jool and Crais in the back, weapons at the ready in case of pursuit. “Our pulse rifles are on the floor back there,” Aeryn said, and Jool retrieved them, handing one to John in the front seat.
“Don’t go too fast,” Jool said. “We might make it to the spaceport if we don’t attract their attention.”
The others ignored the comment, keeping watch out the windows as Aeryn continued to drive at a steady pace.
John stretched one arm out along the back of the seat, alternating between resting his hand lightly on Aeryn’s shoulder, and tapping his fingers nervously on the seat. When they had put some distance between themselves and the detention center, he commented to the group at large, “You realize they’re going to be waiting for us at the spaceport. They’ll have the transport pod staked out.”
“How soon is Talyn due back in orbit?” Aeryn asked, taking a corner carefully while avoiding several pedestrians.
“Within a quarter arn,” Crais answered promptly.
“Remember Dam-ba-da?” Aeryn asked.
“Yes, that could work,” Crais agreed, and elaborated for the benefit of Crichton and Jool, “Talyn came in on a strafing run to help keep the Charrids off of us. If I can contact him, he could do something similar here so we can reach the transport pod.”
“Or anything else that will fly,” Aeryn added.
“Crais, my man, batter up,” John told him.
“Do it,” Aeryn translated.
“As soon as I have contact with Talyn,” Crais agreed.
Jool simply hefted the pulse rifle riding in her lap and hoped for the best.
Aeryn parked the transport in a quiet street with a view of a side entrance to the spaceport. Although it was mostly undeveloped land opposite the port, there were many vehicles parked along the street, so they weren’t too conspicuous. They collected their weapons and other belongings, and waited impatiently for Talyn to make contact with his captain.
Crichton, arm still along the back of the seat, casually rubbed a few strands of Aeryn’s ponytail between his fingers as if for good luck.
She smiled at him ruefully, and they both scanned the street, hoping it would stay quiet.
“Isn’t he here – “ Jool began, only to be cut off by Crais’ firm voice.
“Hello, Talyn,” he said. “We need your help.”
At that moment, a squad of soldiers came around the corner, standing between them and the entrance to the port.
“Frell,” four voices said simultaneously, although the squad appeared not to have noticed them yet.
“As soon as possible, Talyn,” Crais said, giving the rest of his instructions to the Leviathan gunship silently. After a moment, Crais said, “All right, Talyn’s coming in.”
“Let’s move, kids,” Crichton said, and they exited the ground transport, weapons at the ready.
They rapidly crossed the street and pushed their way through the small crowd waiting to enter the gate, followed rapidly by the soldiers. Since both groups were reluctant to fire on civilians, it was only after Talyn’s crew made it onto the landing field that their pursuers really began to take aim and fire at them.
As they had expected, there were troops on the field between them and the transport pod. Pausing briefly under cover, Crais and Aeryn made a quick survey of other “available” craft while Crichton and Jool fired at those soldiers who seemed to have better aim than the rest.
“What do you think?” Crais shouted to Aeryn.
“I can fly most of them,” Aeryn yelled back, “but I don’t think they’ll be fast enough if there’s air pursuit! They’re too old!”
“Transport pod it is, then,” Crichton interjected loudly.
Crais nodded and said, “Talyn! We need you to clear the area between my position and the transport pod! Now!”
The soldiers on the field looked up at the noise as Talyn swooped in, then scattered as the gunship began his strafing run. Some of them didn’t make it, and their comrades struggled to pull the injured to safety. Several ground vehicles or fuel storage tanks were hit and exploded, adding to the confusion.
As soon as the strafing stopped, the four members of Talyn’s crew took off at a run, zig-zagging across the field and heading for their transport pod. Jool screamed once when a shot barely missed her, but for the most part, Talyn’s diversion was a huge success. They reached the ship without injury and raced up the steps.
“Let me fly,” Crais said as Aeryn started to step into the pilot’s seat. When she looked at him in surprise, he said, “It will be easier for me to coordinate with Talyn if I’m the one who is flying. He can read exactly what I’m doing.”
Aeryn nodded and stepped back, falling into a seat next to Crichton while Jool took the seat next to the pilot. The transport pod took off at a speed and an angle which were probably just barely within tolerances, followed by several pursuit craft.
“Hey, Crais,” John yelled over the noise.
“Yes?”
“Can Talyn keep them off our backs for a few microts? We could try to fly over that wreckage zone and see if it looks like it could have been a Leviathan.”
Aeryn glared at him and Jool looked like she was going to let out one of her metal-melting screeches, but Crais merely said, “I believe he can.” He began a banked turn towards the site they had been headed for on the ground the day before.
“Thanks,” Crichton said.
But it soon became obvious that although the wreckage belonged to a ship of impressive size, it had not been a living ship. Disappointed, they retreated to Talyn and safety.
* * * * * * * * * *
Back on Talyn, Jool and Crais both headed to their individual quarters to clean up. John and Aeryn, however, remained in the common area for a time, sitting side by side with John’s arm across her shoulder, looking out at the stars.
Aeryn turned to John at last and said, “Isn’t it time we rendezvoused with Moya?”
John tightened his mouth and looked away from her, then reluctantly admitted, “Yeah. If they haven’t had any better luck than we have, I guess we need to just move on to planning an attack without the cloaking collar.”
She nodded, satisfied, and they lapsed back into silence.
John reached out and touched a wisp of her hair for just barely long enough for her to realize he had. When she turned towards him he said, “Your hair looks nice like that. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you without the braid.”
Something that flickered across her face made him realize she must have worn the ponytail for the other him. But before he could react, the expression was gone, replaced by a twinkle in her eyes. “It was Jool’s idea,” she told him.
John was flabbergasted. “You’re taking fashion advice from Jool?” he asked. “In the middle of a raid?”
She laughed at the expression on his face.
“It all made perfect, logical sense,” she explained. “Jool noticed that they didn’t seem to be taking females very seriously, and she thought it would help if I looked less like ‘a tight-assed bitch.’”
John winced elaborately. “She said that?”
Aeryn merely said, “Mm-hmm.”
“Our friends were male chauvinist oink-oinks, huh?” John said, trying to distract her. “Did it work?”
She laughed, then, and said, “Yes, actually. They were extraordinarily careless.”
After a few more microts he said, “Thanks for getting Winona back.”
“You’re welcome.”
He rubbed his thumb over his lower lip momentarily, then asked, “When you handed me the pulse pistol, in the cell. How did you know it was Winona?”
Aeryn looked at him carefully. “I just knew,” she said. “The same way you do, perhaps.” She arched her neck backwards then, stretching, and the back of her head jarred painfully against his arm.
He felt her flinch, and asked anxiously, “Are you okay? How badly did you get hurt?”
“It’s just a bump on the head,” she reassured him, and repeated what she’d told Jool. “I’ve had worse.”
“You sure?”
“Jool would have dragged me off for an exam before she took the time for her shower if she’d thought I was in any danger,” Aeryn pointed out.
“Yeah, she takes this Marcus Welby thing pretty seriously.”
“I was unconscious for a while, though,” she conceded. “I had some very strange dreams.”
“I doubt you can top one of mine,” he grinned. “I dreamed you visited me in jail and brought me a cake with Winona baked inside!”
She laughed. “Why would I do something like that?”
“It’s traditional on Earth,” he told her. “When your loved one is in jail, you bake a cake with a file hidden inside and bring it to them. That way they can break out.”
She appeared to be contemplating that one, and he stayed silent, watching her bite her lip. “I dreamed about drowning,” she finally said. “About dying.”
“I’m sorry.”
She wrinkled up her face, thinking. “Mmm. I was frightened. But then the dream changed. And I was very old. Living on a very boring planet.” She looked at him, as if she was waiting for something.
“With me,” he said flatly, going very still.
“Yes.”
He looked in her blue eyes, wondering what was happening. “And a daughter. Or a granddaughter. Someone like that,” he added.
Aeryn sighed, letting out her breath. “I thought you might know that. On Valldon, he knew,” she trailed off. “It was the same dream.”
Watching her face, touching her cheek, John saw her push Valldon aside and return to now, to him.
“Did we live that life once, do you think?” she asked. “Or will we?”
“It’s damned peculiar that we both had that dream,” he said. “But I don’t believe in reincarnation.” He hesitated for a moment and then plunged on. “And I’d like to hope we could grow old together in some much more interesting place. Probably in space.”
John held his breath and waited.
Aeryn smiled. “Me too,” she said, leaning her head on his shoulder.
John kissed her hair and smiled. “Well, when we finish blowing up the Gammak base, we’ll have to see what turns up,” he told her lightly.
“I think I’d like that,” she said, and he turned and smiled at the stars in front of them.
