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Disclaimer: Nothing here belongs to me, they just come over to play in my mind. They're all okay, I promise.
Setup: AHR missing scene
Spoilers: minimal
“Worm hole stability down to twenty-eight percent,” Pilot announced.
Crichton’s module was gone. They’d received no signal from him for over a hundred microts, but no one wanted to leave as long as they could still see the worm hole that had taken him….
Except Chiana. “Can we go now?”
“No,” three voices answered in unison.
Zhaan turned to the pouting Nebari and continued, “You must understand, Chiana, we—“
“Yeah, yeah, “ Chiana interrupted. “You ‘need to make sure he’s okay.’ So you’ve told me. I’ll, uh, be in my quarters if anything changes.”
“Of course.”
As Chiana left Command, Zhaan returned to stand between D’Argo and Aeryn who both remained where they had been when Crichton flew home, still gazing out the viewport. Rygel hovered just behind them, still unwilling, Zhaan guessed, to really believe Crichton was gone either.
The worm hole as Crichton had called it, was quite beautiful. Zhaan pulled her hands along both sides of her head again; silently praying this one had indeed taken the human home.
“Pilot!” Aeryn cried. “What’s happening?”
Zhaan looked up to see Aeryn’s hands passing over the control panel in front of her, her gaze flicking from it to the viewscreen and back.
D’Argo had also become a mass of activity. “I do not understand these readings,” he shouted.
“Worm hole stability still at twenty-eight percent,” Pilot intoned calmly.
Zhaan looked out the viewscreen to see what had gotten her friends so agitated.
“Then where’s Earth?” Aeryn demanded.
As the worm hole flicked, Zhaan saw that indeed, Crichton’s home world was no longer visible. Something inside jumped. Could we have been wrong? Could Crichton have been wrong? “Goddess, help us.”
“Pilot,” Aeryn called again, clearly worried.
“Yes, Officer Sun.”
Aeryn glanced at D’Argo before replying, then commanded, “Get a transport pod ready.”
“Yes, Officer—“
“Do you really think that is wise?” Zhaan asked, putting gentle a hand on Aeryn’s arm.
Zhaan thought Aeryn’s eyes looked more moist than usual, but said nothing else as the Sebacean answered.
“I have to know he’s okay.” Once said, Aeryn strode off Command, D’Argo following without a word.
Zhaan knew she could count on the gentle Luxan to watch out for Aeryn, ensure that she didn’t behave too rashly.
“I’ll keep them out of trouble,” Rygel told Zhaan, zipping his throne sled out the door of Command.
Zhaan nodded once and returned her gaze to the viewscreen, intoning a prayer of guidance and protection. She hoped her friends were doing the right thing. She needed what remained of her family to stay strong and whole.
Chiana darted into the maintenance bay just in time to see Aeryn pull herself into her space suit. D’Argo, Qualta Blade unslung, was doing last minute checks on the transport’s exterior, despite Pilot’s audible assurances that all was well.
“So it’s true,” the Nebari stated flatly, trying to keep worry out of her mind and voice. “You’re… you’re really following that crazy human?”
Aeryn actually spared a glance at Chiana as she pulled the ebony suit up her arms and fastened it. “We are just making sure he made it, Chiana. We’ll be back, then we can all leave.”
Chiana nodded as if that’s what she’d wanted to hear, but the worry in her gut grew. She looked at D’Argo for some kind of reassurance.
Rygel’s throne sled hummed behind her. Chiana turned and stopped the Hynerian with a hand on either side of the sled.
“You goin’ too, Slugface?”
Rygel’s earbrows came together slowly as he responded quietly. “I only want to see if this planet has anything useful to offer.”
Chiana didn’t think his words were convincing even to himself, but she let him continue as if they were.
“I’m sick of eating food cubes.” Rygel maneuvered his throne sled away from Chiana, following Aeryn and D’Argo into the pod. “I know they won’t have Hynerian mardules, but they may have something almost as good.”
“Yeah, well, uh… take care, Froggy.”
Chiana backed away from the bay’s inner doors as the pods’ engines flared. As the pod backed toward the outer doors and the inner doors closed it off from her view, Chiana sent a silent hope to them that Aeryn would be right and they’d all come back… soon.
The worry in her gut turning to dread, Chiana turned to go back to her quarters. She found herself, only microts later, on Command with Zhaan, watching Moya’s transport pod fly silently toward Crichton’s worm hole.
A crackle of static preceded D’Argo’s report over the comm. “We’ll be at the threshold in twenty microts. Pilot, what is the stability?”
“Still twenty-eight percent and holding,” Pilot responded immediately. “Transmitting entry angle now.”
“Any new information?” Aeryn’s voice intoned.
“None,” Pilot and Zhaan responded together.
Aeryn reported, “Five microts to entry.”
Chiana stepped close to the viewscreen. The pod looked so tiny, floating above the swirling ‘waste funnel,’ as Rygel had called it.
“Zhaan.” Aeryn’s voice mixed with the static on the comm. “We’ll return as quickly as—“
The signal cut off.
“Aeryn?” Zhaan called. “D’Argo? Rygel?”
Chiana reached a hand toward the last spot she’d seen the pod, gone now.
“Pilot? Anything?”
“No,” came Pilot’s shaky reply. “They’re gone. Just like Crichton.”
The pod tumbled, but Aeryn fought to retain at least a semblance of control. “Hold on,” she said through clenched teeth as much to the pod as to her shipmates.
D’Argo did everything as told, helping to keep the worm hole from tearing the pod apart in spite of his lack of training. At least he knew how to follow orders.
Aeryn had no idea where Rygel was. His throne sled bounced from bulkhead to floor, empty, as the gravitational stresses of the worm hole tossed the pod. Aeryn could hear the Hynerian, but couldn’t spare a glance to see if he’d been hurt when he lost his perch. She’d check on him later, if they made it through this.
Suddenly, all was calm.
Rygel’s throne sled hit the floor as gravity returned and its damaged power cell finally failed. A pale blue sky filled the viewscreen as the pod raced closer to the mass of the planet below.
Earth? Aeryn wondered.
D’Argo’s voice interrupted further thought. “Is there any signal from Crichton?”
“None that I can see here,” answered Aeryn. “Try comming him.”
As D’Argo complied, Aeryn leveled the pod’s trajectory and banked through cloud cover. Wondering about the Hynerian’s wellbeing again, she asked, “Rygel?”
The Hynerian moaned. She heard his feet slapping the floor and assumed he was fine, until, “Why the hezmana didn’t you warn me about that?”
“I didn’t know, Rygel, or I would have insisted that you strap in.” She knew this wasn’t the last she’d hear from the royal about the bumpy ride, but she was good at tuning him out by now.
“No answer from Crichton,” reported D’Argo. Aeryn was grateful for the Luxan on this expedition. He was proving himself much more useful than just another gun these days. “Perhaps he...” Aeryn waited for the warrior to finish, but her emotions changed. “Perhaps his comm was...” D’Argo sounded unable, or unwilling to finish.
“What, D’Argo?” Aeryn’s anger flared, as did her concern. “Crushed in the worm hole? Destroyed when he crashed?” Perhaps D’Argo wasn’t so useful after all.
“That is NOT what I was going to say.”
“What, then? Perhaps, D’Argo, the comms don’t work here at all. Crichton may have been calling us all this time, thinking we abandoned him. Perhaps—“
“He did not abandon us, Aeryn.”
Aeryn’s emotions tumbled again and she couldn’t identify the one that rose first. “I didn’t say—“
“No, but you felt it.” D’Argo’s insight seemed too astute at times. “And he knows we did not abandon him. He went home.”
Aeryn forced her gaze back toward the forward viewscreen, willing her concern for Crichton’s safety beneath the surface where she could control it. She had to maintain control and find the most likely place to land.
Ignoring the others, she searched the comms control panel for a signal from Crichton’s module.
“What the frell is that?” Rygel nearly gasped, looking up through the hamman side viewport.
Aeryn spared a glance, but D’Argo rose from his seat and crossed to Rygel, lifting the little Hynerian so he could see better as well.
A small, unfamiliar ship paced the pod. Gray in color, the ship looked about the same size as Crichton’s module, but much deadlier in design. Were those weapons?
“I think we should try moving away from this,” D’Argo suggested, trying to keep his voice calm.
“We can’t.” Aeryn’s voice, while calm, sounded threatening, barely restrained, while her hands flew across the control panel. “We’re surrounded, and they’re forcing us down.”
