Return to Dad's Worst Nightmares
A little late, with full disclaimers, and apologies to Terry Nation and Chris Boucher. ;-)
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Crichton pressed his back hard against the dark corridor wall. Crais’s long black Peacekeeper officer’s coat swirled around his legs, Wynonna nestled warmly in his hand. Far ahead he could see the bridge of the command carrier, where he would find the auto destruct. Crais had briefed him thoroughly, and had given him the procedures and codes to ‘make it so,’ just before Talyn disintegrated. If Crichton did nothing else with what remained of his life, he was determined to take out this carrier, and Scorpius and his frelling wormhole research with it.
He heard soft steps, and felt rather than saw Chiana and Jool press themselves against the corridor’s wall opposite him. Rygel’s throne sled hummed behind them.
Even in the extreme tension of storming a Peacekeeper command carrier, a small part of his heart allowed itself to feel desperately incomplete: Aeryn was not at his side, and D’Argo was not at his back. Aeryn still wouldn't speak to him outside of crisis mode, but when they worked together their harmony was greased lightening. This time, Aeryn had chosen to run a solo commando raid to prepare a secure path off the carrier, and Crichton had agreed. She knew the carrier's layout; he knew the destruct codes. And he didn't intend for any of them to die here.
D’Argo had flown off in the mysterious Luxan cruiser nearly a quarter cycle before, to find allies or opportunities; there had been no communication from him. Talyn had recently picked up odd reports of a renegade Luxan, roving the Uncharted Territories, causing mayhem to Peacekeepers and Scarrans. Crichton thought that if that Luxan were D’Argo, he would have contacted Moya somehow. Crichton could only assume that he’d meet his friend again in some other universe, on the day he saw Zhaan, and Stark, and his mother.
Amazingly, Chiana and Jool didn’t start talking or screaming when he snapped his fingers. He gestured with Wynonna at the brightly lit bridge. They all turned and ran stealthily toward the open doorway.
He saw movement ahead. A claxon started blaring and the light changed to red. His eyes adjusted quickly from the darkness of the corridor, and across the bridge he recognized a battered figure. Aeryn! Injured, unarmed, but alive! He wanted to envelope her, absorb her, join her, but he couldn’t seem to make his lips say more than, ‘I’m glad you made it.’
‘So am I. Crichton, I think he’s here!’
Before he could ask her who, or tell her that he loved her, two figures entered the bridge: a female Sebacean dressed in a soft tan garment, carrying a pulse rifle and obviously acting as a bodyguard, and a very large unarmed Luxan warrior. It was D’Argo, with a terrible scar across one eye. Crichton almost smiled, until Aeryn spoke loudly over the pulsing alarm.
‘He sold us John. All of us. Even you.’
‘John, it’s me, D’Argo.’ D’Argo took a step. Disbelief flooded Crichton. Rygel, yes, Rygel would sell them out and had tried to do so more than once, but D’Argo? But Aeryn wouldn’t lie!
Crichton raised his pistol at the Luxan. ‘Stand still!’ He opened his arms wide. ‘Have you betrayed us? Have you betrayed me?’ Anguish shook him, so near, so near and yet so far to go! It wasn’t possible, there wasn’t time to process it, not D’Argo, dear god, not D’Argo!
‘Aeryn doesn’t understand!,’ rumbled D’Argo.
‘Neither do I, D’Argo!’ Crichton brought Wynonna to bear, and cocked the weapon.
‘I set all this up!’ said D’Argo, as he stepped toward Crichton again.
‘Yes!’ That was it, then, the admission, the betrayal that he thought could never, ever happen. He didn’t know how, he didn’t know what lever Scorpius had used, but D’Argo had turned, turned against Crichton and Aeryn and Chiana and Moya and all that he had defended with his life for the past three cycles. And now Scorpius would implement the wormhole technology, the galaxy would dissolve into a terrible war, Scarrans would overrun everything, Earth would be destroyed, and Crichton could do nothing to stop it!
D’Argo continued walking. ‘I was waiting for you!’
Crichton fired point-blank at D’Argo’s torso. But the Luxan took another step, and another, and Crichton fired again, and again. The huge warrior swayed, and crumpled. Crichton, stunned, could only stare at the body at his feet. Obviously dead. None of Moya’s crew seemed able to move.
The bodyguard spoke. ‘You and this nest of rebels are now prisoners of the Peacekeepers. Your friend D’Argo said he couldn't tell anymore who was Peacekeeper and who wasn't. He was right. He couldn't.’
Aeryn smiled bitterly. ‘You’re a Peacekeeper?’
‘I’m a Disruptor.’
Rygel had floated next to the woman. He stopped the throne sled close to her face. ‘Oh, now, look, I've never been against Peacekeepers. I mean, I've only ever been along for the ride. I'm not even armed. You can't kill me. I'm completely harmless and armless,’ he said in a soft wheedling voice.
As Rygel spoke, Jool turned and raised her gun. The sudden movement caught the Disruptor’s attention. She fired her weapon just as Rygel rammed her. She fell to the deck, as did Jool on the other side of the bridge. Savagely crowing ‘Sorry, you bitch!,’ Rygel hit her again, and swung the sled back toward the others. A yellow bolt of light hit him, and he tumbled off the sled. Black-clad, helmeted Peacekeepers seemed to be pouring onto the bridge from every direction, firing randomly.
Aeryn gently removed Jool’s pulse pistol from her lifeless hand, and glanced up at Chiana. Chiana screamed her ululating grief cry, and with her rifle laid down a river of deadly light as Aeryn started moving toward Crichton. From across the bridge, a bolt struck Chiana in the back.
Suddenly there was no cover; a searing pain in several parts of her body knocked Aeryn to her knees. ‘John,’ she gasped, as she fell.
More and more Peacekeepers entered the bridge, pointing their rifles at him and pointedly not firing. Crichton stood alone, and he allowed a small smile to curve his lips. In the pulsing red light, he was surrounded by silent black Peacekeepers, and not one friend alive to aid him. As he raised his pistol, Crichton remembered the odd name Crais had given the carrier: Gauda Prime.
