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The fic © Cyril the Sixteen Goldfish
Oh yes, and there was music. It sounded like - he strained his ears - D-I-S-C-O. Disco...disco...Pilot! He struggled to sit up and succeeded, after a while, in dislodging enough crates to push out his head and shoulders and look around. He could now identify the source of the thumping and bouncing as the heavily-booted feet of a large number of Peacekeeper troops milling around the room, peering into corners and digging into the piles of junk and, he realised with amusement, doing it with their footsteps in perfect time.
The amusement quickly faded when one of them glanced in his direction and began to hurry over, head bent to shout into his comm. John struggled to free the rest of his body from the heap and only succeeded in bringing it down slightly more heavily on his legs. Whatever happened, he was stuck until someone decided to dig him out. Looking at the expression on this guy's face, it wouldn't be too long until that happened, but, somehow, that wasn't very comforting.
Unexpectedly, his arms were wrenched behind his back and his wrists snapped into what felt like handcuffs. The first man was still in front of him - someone else must have noticed him, too. He snarled and tried to twist out of the second person's grip, but with his legs trapped and his arms already shackled, he had no chance of preventing himself from being dug out of the heap, dragged to his feet and frogmarched out of the room between the two.
~~~
Five minutes and several corridors later, John stood in the doorway to the den for the second time that solar day. He understood perfectly well that handcuffed between two heavily-armed Peacekeepers who were, in all probability, going to kill him, was a bad time to start laughing. They certainly didn't seem to be terribly amused. Then again, they didn't have the right alphabet, let alone the general knowledge, to understand that Pilot's flailing arms were, in fact, forming letters - and the significance of those letters. A 'Y' and an 'M', followed by 'C', then 'A'. The disco lights swung dramatically and refocused on his face as he swept into the next verse, head raised and arms executing elegant arcs through the air in front of him.
John giggled. The leather-clad figure gazing up at the spectacle on the console cocked its head at the sound, then turned and gave John a warm smile. He stopped giggling. Scorpius strode over and leant forward until he could speak directly into John's ear, over the racket that Pilot was making. Even so, he had to raise his voice.
"I wondered why we were able to catch up with you so easily, Crichton. I believe I may have found my explanation."
Bluff? John wondered. Oh, who're you kidding? He knows you can't fix this, and he knows you're crippled. What, exactly, do you have?
"Do you have any idea at all what has happened to this ship, Crichton?"
"Do you?"
"I may. The Peacekeepers have some..."
Scorpius cut off in mid-sentence, the last shouted syllable echoing through the suddenly silent room, and smiled again. John glanced around nervously, wondering what had caused Pilot to shut up so suddenly and aware that when Scorpius looked cheerful bad things had a tendency to follow. Eventually, he spotted the back end of one of the Peacekeepers who had formerly been scuttling around the room, bent over the console next to Pilot, who was, as well as silent, suddenly very still. Unnaturally so.
"What," he asked softly, "have you done to our pilot?"
Scorpius waved an arm airily.
"Nothing permanent, so don't be concerned for his wellbeing. He's merely drugged for the time being, to allow us to talk." He walked back towards the console, turning to continue his interrupted explanation.
"As I was saying, the Peacekeepers have some experience with pilots in whom the process of indoctrination proves too...stressful. Are you aware that the species has some telepathic ability as far as the occupants of its ship are concerned?"
"No?"
"They do. Often, in the case of the ones who become...irrational, they use this to find a kind of alternative occupation - a form of distraction. I imagine, from your reaction to the nonsense which your pilot is singing, that his chosen scenario came from your own memories."
So that was what Stark was whimpering about. Weird.
"Basically, you're telling me that Pilot has gone insane, which I knew?"
"Yes."
"And that it's because of what the Peacekeepers did to him, which I could have guessed?"
"Yes."
"And he's reading our minds, which is why he's gone all disco diva in a place which, frankly, is not too near to a karaoke bar?"
Scorpius sighed and appeared, for a moment, to be debating whether it could possibly be worth asking for an explanation of the terms 'disco diva' and 'karaoke bar'. The human seemed determined to have made it his lifework to be as confusing as possible to the poor translator microbes, but the meaning of the sentence was still more or less clear, so he decided against it and settled, instead, for complaining about the unnecessary questions.
"Yes. Crichton, is it a normal method of conversation on your planet to restate the entirety of what has just been said to you before you contribute something?"
"Just wanted to be sure. So, you know what's wrong with Pilot, which is a step up from anyone on this ship. Do you know how to fix him?"
"So you can leave? This hardly sounds like a mutually beneficial agreement."
Ahhh. So he wants something. Houston, we may have a chance.
"Oh, really? Well, what would you like to be your benefit? 'Cause, you know, we're kinda short on...well, anything, really."
"There is only one thing I want from you, and you are perfectly aware of what it is."
"Yeah, see, I thought you might have got that by now, what with putting a chip in my frelling head. Or did that not work?"
"It worked to an extent. However, it appears that I still need your assistance to decipher the information it provided."
"And if agree to this, you'll fix Pilot?"
"If it's possible, yes."
"And if I don't?"
"Your ship is going nowhere, you are hopelessly outnumbered and there are...ways of obtaining your cooperation. It would be easier for both of us, and especially for you, if you were to agree."
"How do I know you won't just take my friends prisoner and use your other methods on me to start with, or get the information you want and then refuse to keep your half of the bargain?"
Scorpius sighed, again. He had, in fact, been planning to keep to the bargain, but one of the disadvantages of his infamously...direct...methods of questioning was that people weren't inclined to trust you when you offered an honest deal involving no torture whatsoever.
"I can offer you several guarantees. Firstly, your friends can remain aboard your ship if they wish to - there is no need for anyone to come aboard the command carrier except yourself. The...treatment of your pilot can be completed before you begin to help me, if you wish."
"And you know I won't split when he's fixed how?"
"You will be on the carrier from the start-" he held up a hand to stall John's next protest "-and there are these." He held up two heavy black leather-and-metal circles, adorned with buttons and little lights. "I-yensch bracelets - a guarantee to me that you will not attempt to escape without fulfilling our bargain, and to you that you will not be harmed."
"What do they do?"
"They link the nervous systems of the wearers. Each feels the other's pain, and if one dies, so do both. I will wear one; you will wear one. I cannot harm you without doing the same to myself, and you will not attempt to escape because..."
"I don't want to be linked to you for the rest of my life. Well, that's true enough."
"So, do we have a deal?"
"I...guess so, yeah."
