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prueturnerTitle: 5 lies that Aeryn Sun tells herself when she first arrives on Moya [+ 1 truth much later]
Fandom: Farscape
Rating: T - Teen
Characters: Farscape
Wordcount: 5,100
Summary: So she’s the unlucky one that ends up on a prison ship with a crew of criminals and a man from Erp who acts like he’s never heard of any of these things before. That doesn’t mean she has to act like a criminal, however irreversibly contaminated Crais declares her.
(or, a collection of moments on Moya)
also here on AO3
Notes: for![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
space_swap 2024
1. She will never trust any of these frelling fools.
So she’s the unlucky one that ends up on a prison ship with a crew of criminals and a man from Erp who acts like he’s never heard of any of these things before. That doesn’t mean she has to act like a criminal, however irreversibly contaminated Crais declares her.
She’s still Sebacean, after all. Still who she was the second she followed that frelling Leviathan through starburst, still the woman with all the Peacekeeper training that has led her to being one of the best Prowler pilots around. “You can be more” says Commander Crichton of Earth, but what if she doesn’t want to be?
The Luxan should have left her behind. Left them both behind, and then at least Aeryn would be able to prove herself to Crais, to figure out a way to remove any Erp contaminants. It’s stupid. A daydream, a thought that flies through her mind and is gone before she can grasp it in her hands.
It is replaced with a new one: She isn’t like them. She’s not a criminal, and she doesn’t have to be more. What would be the point of Peacekeepers if they had ‘compassion’? She put that away. She had had to put all of it away, locked up in some corner of her mind with Velorek so she could be a Prowler pilot.
And for what? If Crais was the good officer she knew he was, then she would be in every single Peacekeeper database. There would be no returning to her life before, and her hands clenched into fists at the very idea of it. It was initiative! Drive, the goal to serve the Peacekeepers. To keep her life as it was.
And now everything has to change. Now everything will be different, and Aeryn has no idea if she can handle it. Crichton is the only one on board who even resembles a Sebacean, as much as he insists that he is not, and it helps that he has argued in favor of her life.
Still. She is a Peacekeeper, and they are criminals. Every one of them wanted or being hunted down by a man whose brother is dead. And she is now one of that number.
Does that make her a criminal? Despite everything? That can’t be fair. It isn’t fair, and she holds herself back from screaming into her fists in the middle of the night for the first few nights that she sleeps on the Leviathan, the floors booby-trapped with a rudimentary alarm system.
They are criminals. They cannot be trusted.
She wanders at night, looking through the empty cells. How strange. Three prisoners (and a human) was all it took, and her life has changed forever.
“Pilot?” she calls out once she has reached command. Do Leviathans and their Pilots sleep? It’s not something she thought of before. A connection so deep – do they share dreams?
“...yes, Officer Sun?”
She can hear the hesitancy in his voice. She doesn’t blame him. The way that the Peacekeepers have treated him and the Leviathan? Brutal, and she knows it, as much as she pretends it doesn’t bother her. They aren’t Peacekeepers, after all. Aren’t Sebaceans, and are so strangely alien. What must it be like, to be a living ship? To know that lifeforms (parasites) walk through like it is nothing?
“Do you know where we are, exactly?” Aeryn says, knowing that it must be too far into the Uncharted Territories for her to have any sense of familiarity with the planets or stars around her, but hoping for a sense of control anyways. Something that will put her at ease.
Pilot hesitates again. Is he calculating, conversing with the Leviathan? Maybe wondering if he should tell her. Of the ship’s passengers, she is by far the one to trust the least, by far the one to keep an eye on.
Aeryn crosses her arms. At this point, she doubts that she would be allowed back as a Prowler pilot if she brought back 50 Leviathans full of criminals, let alone this tiny one. And although she’s keeping her distance, and doing a fine job at it, she’s also helpful when they need her to be.
And she doesn’t even sneak food into her room when nobody is looking like Rygel does.
“No certain location.” Pilot says, looking at her and then tilting his head to the side. “Although it will be approximately one week and five days until we will need to stop for supplies.”
Aeryn acknowledges this with a nod of her head, and then starts making a list of what she will need to retrieve on that day, of what can be purchased out in the Uncharted Territories.
“Thank you, Pilot.”
She sits down on the floor, crossing her legs. She can see the stars. It has been all she could see for so long, and now she has to learn new ones. All this, for just one mistake. A new set of planets and stars, a new crew. No Captains or Prowlers or Commanders, at least, not Peacekeeper ones. Do they look at her and wonder where she has been before? What she has done? Do they feel her eyes crawling over them as she waits to see if she will outlive whatever usefulness she has?
Aeryn Sun, former Prowler pilot of the Pleisar regiment, Icarion company, current fugitive, falls asleep under the blanket of stars. Not once does she stir, as left out in the open as she is. And when she wakes in what may well be the morning under that same blanket of stars, she finds that she has all her limbs intact.
2. She will never get Crichton’s humanisms.
He calls them references, and states that she’s clearly missing out on some major “pop culture.” It’s endless. Every time that she thinks she has grown to understand one of the many, many things he says, he will flip it, change it around, playing with the words as if they were meaningless.
If Aeryn tries, she never gets it right. He makes a face, sometimes laughs at her. Sometimes she laughs along, although she really, truly doesn’t understand how there can be so much entertainment on Earth. Don’t they have more important things to do?
“God, what I wouldn’t do for a TV, VCR, and a couple dozen tapes.” Crichton says after Aeryn misattributed a quote to “Bags Bunny.” They sit in one of Moya’s many rooms, where Crichton had previously been repairing one of the DRDs. That task is forgotten, now, and the small creature sits, one eye-stalk blinking involuntarily.
She stares at him, wondering about all the acronyms that go into making up a brain like Crichton’s, but she leans on the wall anyways and waits for him to go on. The explanations, if nothing else, are always entertaining.
“Recordings. Playbacks. Is any of this translating?” Crichton continues, looking into her eyes. Aeryn looks away. She knows screens and all that, but mostly thinks of the way that Pilot appears, or on a few planets where they hold advertisements. He keeps talking, but she’s mostly tuning it out. The technicalities of Earth screens and broadcasts aren’t interesting, considering she’s almost certain that she’ll never go there.
She’s also almost certain that Crichton won’t, either, but she won’t tell him that, even if she’s pretty sure he believes the same thing.
“It’s translating,” Aeryn says, finally, interrupting a diatribe on alien culture and television. “I understand what they are. I just don’t get how one could spend so much time on something that is, ultimately, meaningless.”
“Meaningless?” Crichton says, eyes widening, “It all means something, Aeryn. You know, stories and stuff. They have to have some fairy tales at Peacekeeper pre-school, huh? No ‘Sebacean Sally and the Purple Pulse Pistol?’”
Aeryn shakes her head, rolls her eyes at the idea of something that could waste as much time as that. “Peacekeeper children don’t have the leisure time that Earth children get, it seems.”
“I’ll say.” Crichton adds, shaking his head, “Maybe if you got to watch a few more episodes of Tom and Jerry , you’d all be able to relax a little bit more. Actually, scratch that. Tom and Jerry is probably the last thing you want on the TVs around a bunch of kids with weapons training.”
“ Tom and Jerry? ” Aeryn asks, although an image of two crudely sketched out animals is already jumping into her mind. It is far more fun to pretend that she has never heard Crichton talk about his TV shows, and then poke holes and ask seemingly innocuous questions about them, than it is to just laugh at whatever it is he says.
“Seriously? I feel like I’ve mentioned that one at least once. Y’know, cat and mouse, trying to kill each other?”
“This seems typical of predator and prey animals.” Aeryn says, playing up the ignorance.
“No-no-no,” Crichton says, “These are crazy shenanigans. Animals turning into accordions, being punted so high they make a few orbits and come down in flames, that kind of thing.”
“It seems like the show would be over relatively quickly. Or do they replace the cat and mouse for each episode?”
“It–what? It’s a cartoon, they’re just drawings. It’s the same two, Tom and Jerry, that’s why the show is called Tom and Jerry .”
Aeryn shrugs, “It seems like a fine show to allow children to watch in order to understand the natural life cycle of animals.”
“Natural?” Crichton says, “What part of ‘accordion’ was natural to you?”
“The remains of animals can be used for a great many things after they are deceased. An accordion, assuming that this is, of course, a weapon, would be an excellent choice for a child who would need to defend herself in a situation with few resources.”
“No, an accordion is a musical instrument. Er, well, in this case it’s more like–” Crichton waves his arms back and forth, as if demonstrating this accordion’s shape or structure.
“I see,” Aeryn nods thoughtfully, “A device to be used in case of emergency.”
“Exact–you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” Crichton says, snapping his head to look at her before he can continue his explanation.
“Why, Crichton, I am simply trying to learn the intricacies of Earth culture in comparison to that of the Peacekeepers. Is that so wrong?” Her voice is the picture of innocence, but she grins at him wolfishly.
He stands up, hands on his hips in an exaggeration of anger. “Clearly there are many more important things to be doing.” Crichton gestures to the DRD, which continues blinking involuntarily, or perhaps not. Has it learned some form of communication?
“Ah, yes. Very important.” She grins, “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
And she walks away, considering whether or not it would be appropriate to add on an Earth reference as she goes. She decides on a minor one.
“In a while, crocodile!” And then she ducks away, not quite running down the hall as he shouts something about the proper order of reptiles.
3. She will never let her guard down around D’Argo.
Spending time on a ship gets boring. There are only so many ways one can pass the time, only so many ways to keep yourself amused without relying on one of the on-board companions, who may well be doing something else. If John is messing with his Earth toys and Zhaan is busy meditating, that leaves D’Argo and Rygel.
Aeryn picks the lesser of the two evils, certain that even if Rygel were to be doing something the least bit interesting, he might tell her to buzz off of his royal business. Sometimes it feels like their lives are far too interesting. Of course, the days when they are being chased by whatever is new in their section of the galaxy are tempered by stretches of boredom in which all they have is themselves and whatever entertainment they might have picked up on a supply stop.
“D’Argo. What are you up to?” Aeryn says, finding the Luxan wandering down Moya’s corridors. Is he as bored as she is? Somewhat jealously, she hopes that the answer is yes, because otherwise it means changing her plans and finding something else to do.
He tilts his head when he looks at her, which is always a little bit unsettling, if only because almost all of her training says that anyone not Sebacean is supposed to be treated with the utmost suspicion.
“I was simply on my way to ask Pilot when we will next be going for supplies.”
This time, Aeryn tilts her head and taps her badge, then juts her head towards his, “Isn’t that what these are for.”
D’Argo stammers for a microt before eventually coming up with, “Luxans are well known for their need to exercise,” which is one of the flimsiest excuses that Aeryn’s ever heard. What could possibly be so embarrassing?
“Well, if you are otherwise unoccupied, perhaps you would be up for a sparring session?”
D’Argo, eager to cover up whatever it is he seemed to think needed to be covered up, agrees.
“Fantastic! I’ll see you in five microns. That should give you enough time to figure out the proper way to contact Pilot.” Aeryn’s face is serious, though just below the words she has a hint of humor. Just the way she likes it.
She sits on the mat, stretching. The good thing about living with a bunch of fugitives, the one that almost outweighs the negative of now being considered a fugitive, is that she can almost always have someone to fight with. Her former allies, people who want them dead for a variety of reasons, various crewmembers at various times for various reasons (she does not want to think about the incident with the ice planet’s food). It does a body good to be moving around, doing something.
As she stretches, she hears the sound of someone walking behind her. She keeps stretching, getting into a standing position. Then, she hears it: the ever so subtle sound that D’Argo makes when he is about to lash out with his tongue. Aeryn jerks to the side to avoid it, then throws one of the training knives in D’Argo’s direction
He drops low to the ground, then in a fluid motion pulls out his Qalta blade. Aeryn is already sprinting for the rack of weapons. Of course she could have a weapon by her side. But that wouldn’t be very fun , now, would it? She slides in behind the rack, using it as a shield as D’Argo swings down with his Qalta blade.
The weapons rack is sturdy, but some of the training weapons are not. Pieces go flying everywhere, and Aeryn takes the distraction to start running off in the opposite direction, a grin lighting up her face.
The sparring match goes throughout Moya, with only the occasional interruption–”Hello, Zhaan!” “Sorry, Pilot!”-- but it is a chase. It is a game. Aeryn turns it around a few times, but in the end they are both exhausted. It is she who drops the blade first, holding her arms up in surrender.
D’Argo sheathes the Qalta blade, and they both take a seat. A few helpful DRDs bring them some water, and they both thank Moya. There will be a little cleaning up to do afterwards, if the DRDs aren’t already on it.
“It was a good match,” Aeryn says when she finally catches her breath.
“Everyone else is far too slow.” D’Argo agrees. “Although, Rygel does make for an entertaining target.”
“It does him good to keep him on his toes every now and then.” Aeryn says. Then, after a brief pause, adds, “What were you doing before?”
D’Argo looks at her, then stares at the wall for what feels like an arn. She is about to tell him to forget it when he finally says, “It is the anniversary of the day I first met Lo’laan.”
Her breath catches, because while she knows exactly how to hide around a corner, she knows that this is not the right move for this moment. The trouble is, she is not sure what is. What would John say? “Oh, my buddy-pal, D’Argo, thanks for sharing?” No, that is not helpful. And perhaps the slightest bit inaccurate.
“I–” Aeryn starts out, then cuts herself off. “Did you do anything special? While she was alive?”
These are the things she doesn’t understand, the attachments. Does explaining help at all? She follows D’Argo’s eyes, the way he relaxes almost imperceptibly, and ignores the impulse that says now is the time to strike.
“We would often retrieve herbs from a nearby garden. Lo’laan said they made the house smell like a home.” D’Argo sighs wistfully, then wrinkles his nose. Aeryn freezes, thinking the slightest movement will spoil this memory.
“Of course, I thought they smelled awful, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that.”
Aeryn stifles a laugh, but quickly goes back to looking quite serious. “Yes, well. I understand that is what one goes through for love.”
D’Argo nods, as if she has said something insightful. She rewinds it in her head to figure out if she has, but can’t quite find it.
It is quiet for a while. Aeryn leans back onto her arms. D’Argo tags her with the Qalta blade and takes off running with a mock growl. Swearing, she runs to catch up with him.
4. She will, if at all possible, avoid being alone with Rygel.
The first time she met the slimy Hynerian, she thought he was a liar and a thief. Both things are still very much true, but she’s changed so much since then that it hardly seems to bother her. From initial encounters of stolen food that ended up in either of them hitting each other, to where they are now.
She isn’t sure she would call Rygel a friend–but she’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t either. Subject, maybe. And yes, there are times when he seems to consider the idea of selling her or any one of the others out in order to save his own skin, or worse, in order to get some luxury that life on board Moya usually prohibits.
But Rygel is, for all of his faults, somewhat predictable. And Aeryn appreciates that. There are some things that life as a fugitive is slow to change, and being used to a routine is one of those things.
“Good morning, your highness.” Aeryn says when she drops into the seat beside him. It’s been approximately two hours since they made it back up to Moya after a stop for supplies, and already he has found a rather savory treat she had been saving for herself and finished it.
Exactly predictable, which is why she had bought two and hidden one away behind a fruit arrangement that he had referred to as “worse than dren.” She holds it in her hand, as tightly as she dares without the risk of breaking the container.
Rygel, half awake and half stuffed, grumbles something about people who are far too cheerful far too early. Aeryn grins before she takes the wrapping off of her prize.
It is far too easy to tease Rygel, another aspect of His Highness that doesn’t quite get old.
“Is that–” he immediately perks up, wafting the smell to his mouth.
“Another bag of ‘Space Cheetos’?” Aeryn says, popping one into her mouth. “Why, yes, Rygel, I believe it is.”
It is Crichton’s name for the snack, which does make Aeryn wonder if Earth actually does have the type of insect required to make them, or if he would just rather not think about that aspect.
Rygel floats up closer, as close as he dares. “Perhaps—“
“Yes?” Aeryn says, slowly crunching on another Space Cheeto.
“Perhaps you’d like to share?” Rygel ekes out. Precisely as expected.
“Well, I would,” Aeryn says, dragging out the words, “But you see, I’m in a bit of a bad mood. Someone…” she stares him down “Someone took one of the crystals from the blade I got on that moon.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?” Crunch . Another Space Cheeto, gone.
“Hm?” Rygel feigns disinterest as he drifts slowly away, “A crystal? Why, I have so many. Perhaps one might, by chance, manage to fit into your meek blade.”
Aeryn stands up, container still firmly in her grasp. “By all means. Lead the way.”
Rygel putters off, faster than she’s seen him go for anything short of an emergency. She is almost impressed.
The well-organized hoard of treasures in the rooms that Rygel calls his own sparkles in the light. Perhaps why he is so fond of it, many of the baubles do have their charm. Not to mention the material value.
“Hm. How about this one, Officer Sun?” Rygel says, polite as can be. “I suppose I might be willing to part with it.”
Aeryn inspects the offered jewel and crunches down on one last Space Cheeto. “Why, yes, I believe this will fit perfectly.”
She tosses him the container and tucks the gem into her pocket. He scarfs a few of the delectable creatures down.
“Aeryn?” Rygel says as she is leaving to go fit the gem back into its place.
“Yes?”
“I do believe it’s been quite some time since we’ve had any of those fried sweet crisps that D’Argo likes.”
Aeryn considers this, “I believe you’re right. I would have to say that we are getting into that region again.”
“Hmm, yes, quite right.” Rygel says thoughtfully.
“And it is really quite a shame that D’Argo leaves his silver cutlery out so often.” Aeryn says, “In fact, it’s quite near to where I left the blade that this gem resides in.”
“Ah, yes.” Rygel says, “The tribulations one must go through when living with commoners. Present company excluded, of course.”
“Naturally.” Aeryn says. “Well, I will be seeing you, then.”
“Hm? Oh, yes.” Rygel says. Aeryn can still hear him humming in thought as she leaves.
5. She will never understand Zhaan’s philosophies.
The Delvian ideal of life is different from that of the Peacekeepers. When Aeryn is mad, she reacts, she fights back. It is easy, when you are surrounded by a number of people with the exact same training as yourself. When Zhaan is mad, her fury is righteous, but calm.
This is no one that Aeryn would rather want on her side, if only to keep her off of the opposing side. For example, it is, at the moment, extraordinarily helpful to have Zhaan by her side now, calling out responses to the flying aliens while Aeryn takes the controls.
“Please!” Zhaan pleads over the comms to their enemies, “This is a time to talk, not a time to shoot.”
Like Aeryn, their pursuers disagree with Zhaan, sending two bolts of something right towards Moya. Pilot’s face pops up on the screen, filled with concern.
“They keep coming closer!” He declares.
Aeryn turns the controls sharply, “Yes, I can see that, Pilot.”
The problem with the Uncharted Territories is that they are so utterly and completely uncharted. Who knew that a fluffy lifeform like the one that was chasing them even existed, let alone that it would take exception to Moya?
Zhaan is murmuring something quietly, leaning her head down. Aeryn’s hands clench around the controls. Say what you will about Peacekeepers (because, as Aeryn has learned, there is a lot to say), but they are actually quite useful in a fight.
She bites her tongue. Zhaan knows what she is doing. Zhaan is who can remember how many hundreds of cycles old, and Zhaan has had more experience than Aeryn.
But, frell , if she doesn’t wish she could understand exactly what Zhaan’s mind is working through right now.
“Wait!” Suddenly, Zhaan looks up at Aeryn, her eyes wide. “You need to turn towards them.”
“Towards them?” Aeryn says, her voice coming out just a little bit shrill. Regardless, she does as Zhaan says, relinquishing control back to Pilot and Moya when her hands shake just a little too much. This is not in her training. Being a Prowler pilot does not mean flying around ships big enough for more than one person.
Ah yes, the perks of Peacekeeper training. Avoid the dangerous parts, and everything will be fine. Aeryn feels her heart racing the way it always does when she’s not fully in control. The thing about Prowlers is that they are far, far smaller than Moya, which means they are far more responsive. Moya, as loyal as she is, does not move as fast as Aeryn wants to, as fast as her blood is burning to go.
She looks at Zhaan, who has started laughing just a little as Moya turns to the side as rapidly as she can go. From somewhere below, where John and D’Argo are fixing some of the damage, Aeryn imagines a scream. From what she can see, they’ll avoid a head on collision. Moya and Pilot are smart like that, even without Aeryn’s input.
It is the weapons that Aeryn worries about, and behind that, the speed of the alien ship. It could ram them if the occupants wanted to. Of course, that would do considerably less damage to Moya than to the enemy ship, but there will be damage.
Just as Moya seems to stand right in front of the ship, the comms open, and the aliens declare a loud, “Aha!” of victory.
“Well met! It is a brave foe who acknowledges their losses and greets the enemy head on. Alas, the game has changed now!” One of the aliens declares from something that might be a mouth.
“We do so prefer to be the chasers. But we are equally adept at running! Find us, if you dare, large and foul creatures!”
And suddenly, they turn around, zooming away, leaving Moya and her crew behind. Aeryn stares for a second.
“Was that a joke?”
“Not a joke. A game. You didn’t hear it? They sounded very childish. Or at the very least, competitive.” Zhaan smiles, though it’s a bit breathless.
“How did you–?” Aeryn waves her hand at the spot where weapons fire has short-circuited something within Moya, “They could have been trying to kill us. We could have died.”
Zhaan looks at Aeryn in that way of hers, as though she is summing up everything she has ever heard Aeryn say or seen her do into one little picture of her friend. It makes Aeryn feel uncomfortably seen. She bristles.
“I had a bit of a hunch.” Zhaan admits, “And while it is entirely possible that I could have been mistaken, I was lucky that I was not.”
“So you guessed?” Aeryn says, finding herself irrationally angry. The threat is gone. There is no one to be mad at, because now there is no threat, and she does not need to be fighting with Zhaan. Not even when her adrenaline really needs somewhere to go.
“I decided.” Zhaan says, “There was no way to outrun them. They did not seem to respond to our words. So there was another option.”
“That mumbling, then?”
“Prayers.” Zhaan spreads her hands wide. “There are times when all you need is a little faith.”
Aeryn always finds it jarring how freely and openly Zhaan believes. There is no analog from her time as a Peacekeeper, and it’s something she has struggled with.
But she knows this: Zhaan asked her to do something, and she did it. There was no time for an explanation, only an action, and even then there was uncertainty. And Aeryn had believed in Zhaan.
She lets out a little bit of a huff, but brings her arms around Zhaan in a tight hug anyways. They are alive now, and isn’t that something to celebrate?
Zhaan squeezes Aeryn back, and they stand there, just for a little bit, before John and D’Argo come surging up and wondering what the frell just happened.
+1. She will never forget this family.
They have changed since she first came aboard. Losing and gaining, being twisted into new shapes. They are not the same people they were at the beginning of all of this. There are times she wishes for one more day with Zhaan, or to travel back to before things became oh-so-complicated. But then she’ll see a smile on someone’s face, or think about what they do now. And yes, there are things that she would change. But so, so much of it is good. More than she could’ve ever thought.
The sky might well be the same one that she peered up into, so many days and nights ago, wondering where her new home would be when she was no longer welcome among the Peacekeepers. But she has found it. In John and D’Argo, Pilot and Chiana. Even Rygel and Stark, as annoying as they can be.
This is her family, in a way that the Peacekeepers could never have been, in a way that her parents were not allowed to be. And despite all the many, many ways in which they differ, she finds that she needs them. They would have to pull her kicking, biting, and screaming from all of them, and she knows they would do the same for her.
She is not the same, either, as when she first met them, but people rarely stay the same, as much as they might insist on it at the start. She is glad she is no longer the scared woman who felt that she had to bottle up any and all emotions. Glad that the fury is allowed time outside, but so is joy. So is trust, and companionship.
When Aeryn Sun sits at the table with the people she now calls family, when she gives Crichton a squeeze and Rygel makes a comment, when she pretends to ignore D’Argo and Chiana’s shenanigans and pretends to care about Stark’s, this is who she is.
So yes, she has been changed. But it was not being “irreversibly contaminated.” It was realizing that there is trust. That there is so much good out there to discover. Good friends, good food, good experiences. So much she would have missed if she had never been that ambitious Peacekeeper in her tiny ship. These people have changed her, maybe irreversibly, but definitely for the better.
Fandom: Farscape
Rating: T - Teen
Characters: Farscape
Wordcount: 5,100
Summary: So she’s the unlucky one that ends up on a prison ship with a crew of criminals and a man from Erp who acts like he’s never heard of any of these things before. That doesn’t mean she has to act like a criminal, however irreversibly contaminated Crais declares her.
(or, a collection of moments on Moya)
also here on AO3
Notes: for
space_swap 20241. She will never trust any of these frelling fools.
So she’s the unlucky one that ends up on a prison ship with a crew of criminals and a man from Erp who acts like he’s never heard of any of these things before. That doesn’t mean she has to act like a criminal, however irreversibly contaminated Crais declares her.
She’s still Sebacean, after all. Still who she was the second she followed that frelling Leviathan through starburst, still the woman with all the Peacekeeper training that has led her to being one of the best Prowler pilots around. “You can be more” says Commander Crichton of Earth, but what if she doesn’t want to be?
The Luxan should have left her behind. Left them both behind, and then at least Aeryn would be able to prove herself to Crais, to figure out a way to remove any Erp contaminants. It’s stupid. A daydream, a thought that flies through her mind and is gone before she can grasp it in her hands.
It is replaced with a new one: She isn’t like them. She’s not a criminal, and she doesn’t have to be more. What would be the point of Peacekeepers if they had ‘compassion’? She put that away. She had had to put all of it away, locked up in some corner of her mind with Velorek so she could be a Prowler pilot.
And for what? If Crais was the good officer she knew he was, then she would be in every single Peacekeeper database. There would be no returning to her life before, and her hands clenched into fists at the very idea of it. It was initiative! Drive, the goal to serve the Peacekeepers. To keep her life as it was.
And now everything has to change. Now everything will be different, and Aeryn has no idea if she can handle it. Crichton is the only one on board who even resembles a Sebacean, as much as he insists that he is not, and it helps that he has argued in favor of her life.
Still. She is a Peacekeeper, and they are criminals. Every one of them wanted or being hunted down by a man whose brother is dead. And she is now one of that number.
Does that make her a criminal? Despite everything? That can’t be fair. It isn’t fair, and she holds herself back from screaming into her fists in the middle of the night for the first few nights that she sleeps on the Leviathan, the floors booby-trapped with a rudimentary alarm system.
They are criminals. They cannot be trusted.
She wanders at night, looking through the empty cells. How strange. Three prisoners (and a human) was all it took, and her life has changed forever.
“Pilot?” she calls out once she has reached command. Do Leviathans and their Pilots sleep? It’s not something she thought of before. A connection so deep – do they share dreams?
“...yes, Officer Sun?”
She can hear the hesitancy in his voice. She doesn’t blame him. The way that the Peacekeepers have treated him and the Leviathan? Brutal, and she knows it, as much as she pretends it doesn’t bother her. They aren’t Peacekeepers, after all. Aren’t Sebaceans, and are so strangely alien. What must it be like, to be a living ship? To know that lifeforms (parasites) walk through like it is nothing?
“Do you know where we are, exactly?” Aeryn says, knowing that it must be too far into the Uncharted Territories for her to have any sense of familiarity with the planets or stars around her, but hoping for a sense of control anyways. Something that will put her at ease.
Pilot hesitates again. Is he calculating, conversing with the Leviathan? Maybe wondering if he should tell her. Of the ship’s passengers, she is by far the one to trust the least, by far the one to keep an eye on.
Aeryn crosses her arms. At this point, she doubts that she would be allowed back as a Prowler pilot if she brought back 50 Leviathans full of criminals, let alone this tiny one. And although she’s keeping her distance, and doing a fine job at it, she’s also helpful when they need her to be.
And she doesn’t even sneak food into her room when nobody is looking like Rygel does.
“No certain location.” Pilot says, looking at her and then tilting his head to the side. “Although it will be approximately one week and five days until we will need to stop for supplies.”
Aeryn acknowledges this with a nod of her head, and then starts making a list of what she will need to retrieve on that day, of what can be purchased out in the Uncharted Territories.
“Thank you, Pilot.”
She sits down on the floor, crossing her legs. She can see the stars. It has been all she could see for so long, and now she has to learn new ones. All this, for just one mistake. A new set of planets and stars, a new crew. No Captains or Prowlers or Commanders, at least, not Peacekeeper ones. Do they look at her and wonder where she has been before? What she has done? Do they feel her eyes crawling over them as she waits to see if she will outlive whatever usefulness she has?
Aeryn Sun, former Prowler pilot of the Pleisar regiment, Icarion company, current fugitive, falls asleep under the blanket of stars. Not once does she stir, as left out in the open as she is. And when she wakes in what may well be the morning under that same blanket of stars, she finds that she has all her limbs intact.
2. She will never get Crichton’s humanisms.
He calls them references, and states that she’s clearly missing out on some major “pop culture.” It’s endless. Every time that she thinks she has grown to understand one of the many, many things he says, he will flip it, change it around, playing with the words as if they were meaningless.
If Aeryn tries, she never gets it right. He makes a face, sometimes laughs at her. Sometimes she laughs along, although she really, truly doesn’t understand how there can be so much entertainment on Earth. Don’t they have more important things to do?
“God, what I wouldn’t do for a TV, VCR, and a couple dozen tapes.” Crichton says after Aeryn misattributed a quote to “Bags Bunny.” They sit in one of Moya’s many rooms, where Crichton had previously been repairing one of the DRDs. That task is forgotten, now, and the small creature sits, one eye-stalk blinking involuntarily.
She stares at him, wondering about all the acronyms that go into making up a brain like Crichton’s, but she leans on the wall anyways and waits for him to go on. The explanations, if nothing else, are always entertaining.
“Recordings. Playbacks. Is any of this translating?” Crichton continues, looking into her eyes. Aeryn looks away. She knows screens and all that, but mostly thinks of the way that Pilot appears, or on a few planets where they hold advertisements. He keeps talking, but she’s mostly tuning it out. The technicalities of Earth screens and broadcasts aren’t interesting, considering she’s almost certain that she’ll never go there.
She’s also almost certain that Crichton won’t, either, but she won’t tell him that, even if she’s pretty sure he believes the same thing.
“It’s translating,” Aeryn says, finally, interrupting a diatribe on alien culture and television. “I understand what they are. I just don’t get how one could spend so much time on something that is, ultimately, meaningless.”
“Meaningless?” Crichton says, eyes widening, “It all means something, Aeryn. You know, stories and stuff. They have to have some fairy tales at Peacekeeper pre-school, huh? No ‘Sebacean Sally and the Purple Pulse Pistol?’”
Aeryn shakes her head, rolls her eyes at the idea of something that could waste as much time as that. “Peacekeeper children don’t have the leisure time that Earth children get, it seems.”
“I’ll say.” Crichton adds, shaking his head, “Maybe if you got to watch a few more episodes of Tom and Jerry , you’d all be able to relax a little bit more. Actually, scratch that. Tom and Jerry is probably the last thing you want on the TVs around a bunch of kids with weapons training.”
“ Tom and Jerry? ” Aeryn asks, although an image of two crudely sketched out animals is already jumping into her mind. It is far more fun to pretend that she has never heard Crichton talk about his TV shows, and then poke holes and ask seemingly innocuous questions about them, than it is to just laugh at whatever it is he says.
“Seriously? I feel like I’ve mentioned that one at least once. Y’know, cat and mouse, trying to kill each other?”
“This seems typical of predator and prey animals.” Aeryn says, playing up the ignorance.
“No-no-no,” Crichton says, “These are crazy shenanigans. Animals turning into accordions, being punted so high they make a few orbits and come down in flames, that kind of thing.”
“It seems like the show would be over relatively quickly. Or do they replace the cat and mouse for each episode?”
“It–what? It’s a cartoon, they’re just drawings. It’s the same two, Tom and Jerry, that’s why the show is called Tom and Jerry .”
Aeryn shrugs, “It seems like a fine show to allow children to watch in order to understand the natural life cycle of animals.”
“Natural?” Crichton says, “What part of ‘accordion’ was natural to you?”
“The remains of animals can be used for a great many things after they are deceased. An accordion, assuming that this is, of course, a weapon, would be an excellent choice for a child who would need to defend herself in a situation with few resources.”
“No, an accordion is a musical instrument. Er, well, in this case it’s more like–” Crichton waves his arms back and forth, as if demonstrating this accordion’s shape or structure.
“I see,” Aeryn nods thoughtfully, “A device to be used in case of emergency.”
“Exact–you’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” Crichton says, snapping his head to look at her before he can continue his explanation.
“Why, Crichton, I am simply trying to learn the intricacies of Earth culture in comparison to that of the Peacekeepers. Is that so wrong?” Her voice is the picture of innocence, but she grins at him wolfishly.
He stands up, hands on his hips in an exaggeration of anger. “Clearly there are many more important things to be doing.” Crichton gestures to the DRD, which continues blinking involuntarily, or perhaps not. Has it learned some form of communication?
“Ah, yes. Very important.” She grins, “I’ll leave you to it, then.”
And she walks away, considering whether or not it would be appropriate to add on an Earth reference as she goes. She decides on a minor one.
“In a while, crocodile!” And then she ducks away, not quite running down the hall as he shouts something about the proper order of reptiles.
3. She will never let her guard down around D’Argo.
Spending time on a ship gets boring. There are only so many ways one can pass the time, only so many ways to keep yourself amused without relying on one of the on-board companions, who may well be doing something else. If John is messing with his Earth toys and Zhaan is busy meditating, that leaves D’Argo and Rygel.
Aeryn picks the lesser of the two evils, certain that even if Rygel were to be doing something the least bit interesting, he might tell her to buzz off of his royal business. Sometimes it feels like their lives are far too interesting. Of course, the days when they are being chased by whatever is new in their section of the galaxy are tempered by stretches of boredom in which all they have is themselves and whatever entertainment they might have picked up on a supply stop.
“D’Argo. What are you up to?” Aeryn says, finding the Luxan wandering down Moya’s corridors. Is he as bored as she is? Somewhat jealously, she hopes that the answer is yes, because otherwise it means changing her plans and finding something else to do.
He tilts his head when he looks at her, which is always a little bit unsettling, if only because almost all of her training says that anyone not Sebacean is supposed to be treated with the utmost suspicion.
“I was simply on my way to ask Pilot when we will next be going for supplies.”
This time, Aeryn tilts her head and taps her badge, then juts her head towards his, “Isn’t that what these are for.”
D’Argo stammers for a microt before eventually coming up with, “Luxans are well known for their need to exercise,” which is one of the flimsiest excuses that Aeryn’s ever heard. What could possibly be so embarrassing?
“Well, if you are otherwise unoccupied, perhaps you would be up for a sparring session?”
D’Argo, eager to cover up whatever it is he seemed to think needed to be covered up, agrees.
“Fantastic! I’ll see you in five microns. That should give you enough time to figure out the proper way to contact Pilot.” Aeryn’s face is serious, though just below the words she has a hint of humor. Just the way she likes it.
She sits on the mat, stretching. The good thing about living with a bunch of fugitives, the one that almost outweighs the negative of now being considered a fugitive, is that she can almost always have someone to fight with. Her former allies, people who want them dead for a variety of reasons, various crewmembers at various times for various reasons (she does not want to think about the incident with the ice planet’s food). It does a body good to be moving around, doing something.
As she stretches, she hears the sound of someone walking behind her. She keeps stretching, getting into a standing position. Then, she hears it: the ever so subtle sound that D’Argo makes when he is about to lash out with his tongue. Aeryn jerks to the side to avoid it, then throws one of the training knives in D’Argo’s direction
He drops low to the ground, then in a fluid motion pulls out his Qalta blade. Aeryn is already sprinting for the rack of weapons. Of course she could have a weapon by her side. But that wouldn’t be very fun , now, would it? She slides in behind the rack, using it as a shield as D’Argo swings down with his Qalta blade.
The weapons rack is sturdy, but some of the training weapons are not. Pieces go flying everywhere, and Aeryn takes the distraction to start running off in the opposite direction, a grin lighting up her face.
The sparring match goes throughout Moya, with only the occasional interruption–”Hello, Zhaan!” “Sorry, Pilot!”-- but it is a chase. It is a game. Aeryn turns it around a few times, but in the end they are both exhausted. It is she who drops the blade first, holding her arms up in surrender.
D’Argo sheathes the Qalta blade, and they both take a seat. A few helpful DRDs bring them some water, and they both thank Moya. There will be a little cleaning up to do afterwards, if the DRDs aren’t already on it.
“It was a good match,” Aeryn says when she finally catches her breath.
“Everyone else is far too slow.” D’Argo agrees. “Although, Rygel does make for an entertaining target.”
“It does him good to keep him on his toes every now and then.” Aeryn says. Then, after a brief pause, adds, “What were you doing before?”
D’Argo looks at her, then stares at the wall for what feels like an arn. She is about to tell him to forget it when he finally says, “It is the anniversary of the day I first met Lo’laan.”
Her breath catches, because while she knows exactly how to hide around a corner, she knows that this is not the right move for this moment. The trouble is, she is not sure what is. What would John say? “Oh, my buddy-pal, D’Argo, thanks for sharing?” No, that is not helpful. And perhaps the slightest bit inaccurate.
“I–” Aeryn starts out, then cuts herself off. “Did you do anything special? While she was alive?”
These are the things she doesn’t understand, the attachments. Does explaining help at all? She follows D’Argo’s eyes, the way he relaxes almost imperceptibly, and ignores the impulse that says now is the time to strike.
“We would often retrieve herbs from a nearby garden. Lo’laan said they made the house smell like a home.” D’Argo sighs wistfully, then wrinkles his nose. Aeryn freezes, thinking the slightest movement will spoil this memory.
“Of course, I thought they smelled awful, but I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that.”
Aeryn stifles a laugh, but quickly goes back to looking quite serious. “Yes, well. I understand that is what one goes through for love.”
D’Argo nods, as if she has said something insightful. She rewinds it in her head to figure out if she has, but can’t quite find it.
It is quiet for a while. Aeryn leans back onto her arms. D’Argo tags her with the Qalta blade and takes off running with a mock growl. Swearing, she runs to catch up with him.
4. She will, if at all possible, avoid being alone with Rygel.
The first time she met the slimy Hynerian, she thought he was a liar and a thief. Both things are still very much true, but she’s changed so much since then that it hardly seems to bother her. From initial encounters of stolen food that ended up in either of them hitting each other, to where they are now.
She isn’t sure she would call Rygel a friend–but she’s pretty sure that he wouldn’t either. Subject, maybe. And yes, there are times when he seems to consider the idea of selling her or any one of the others out in order to save his own skin, or worse, in order to get some luxury that life on board Moya usually prohibits.
But Rygel is, for all of his faults, somewhat predictable. And Aeryn appreciates that. There are some things that life as a fugitive is slow to change, and being used to a routine is one of those things.
“Good morning, your highness.” Aeryn says when she drops into the seat beside him. It’s been approximately two hours since they made it back up to Moya after a stop for supplies, and already he has found a rather savory treat she had been saving for herself and finished it.
Exactly predictable, which is why she had bought two and hidden one away behind a fruit arrangement that he had referred to as “worse than dren.” She holds it in her hand, as tightly as she dares without the risk of breaking the container.
Rygel, half awake and half stuffed, grumbles something about people who are far too cheerful far too early. Aeryn grins before she takes the wrapping off of her prize.
It is far too easy to tease Rygel, another aspect of His Highness that doesn’t quite get old.
“Is that–” he immediately perks up, wafting the smell to his mouth.
“Another bag of ‘Space Cheetos’?” Aeryn says, popping one into her mouth. “Why, yes, Rygel, I believe it is.”
It is Crichton’s name for the snack, which does make Aeryn wonder if Earth actually does have the type of insect required to make them, or if he would just rather not think about that aspect.
Rygel floats up closer, as close as he dares. “Perhaps—“
“Yes?” Aeryn says, slowly crunching on another Space Cheeto.
“Perhaps you’d like to share?” Rygel ekes out. Precisely as expected.
“Well, I would,” Aeryn says, dragging out the words, “But you see, I’m in a bit of a bad mood. Someone…” she stares him down “Someone took one of the crystals from the blade I got on that moon.
“You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that?” Crunch . Another Space Cheeto, gone.
“Hm?” Rygel feigns disinterest as he drifts slowly away, “A crystal? Why, I have so many. Perhaps one might, by chance, manage to fit into your meek blade.”
Aeryn stands up, container still firmly in her grasp. “By all means. Lead the way.”
Rygel putters off, faster than she’s seen him go for anything short of an emergency. She is almost impressed.
The well-organized hoard of treasures in the rooms that Rygel calls his own sparkles in the light. Perhaps why he is so fond of it, many of the baubles do have their charm. Not to mention the material value.
“Hm. How about this one, Officer Sun?” Rygel says, polite as can be. “I suppose I might be willing to part with it.”
Aeryn inspects the offered jewel and crunches down on one last Space Cheeto. “Why, yes, I believe this will fit perfectly.”
She tosses him the container and tucks the gem into her pocket. He scarfs a few of the delectable creatures down.
“Aeryn?” Rygel says as she is leaving to go fit the gem back into its place.
“Yes?”
“I do believe it’s been quite some time since we’ve had any of those fried sweet crisps that D’Argo likes.”
Aeryn considers this, “I believe you’re right. I would have to say that we are getting into that region again.”
“Hmm, yes, quite right.” Rygel says thoughtfully.
“And it is really quite a shame that D’Argo leaves his silver cutlery out so often.” Aeryn says, “In fact, it’s quite near to where I left the blade that this gem resides in.”
“Ah, yes.” Rygel says, “The tribulations one must go through when living with commoners. Present company excluded, of course.”
“Naturally.” Aeryn says. “Well, I will be seeing you, then.”
“Hm? Oh, yes.” Rygel says. Aeryn can still hear him humming in thought as she leaves.
5. She will never understand Zhaan’s philosophies.
The Delvian ideal of life is different from that of the Peacekeepers. When Aeryn is mad, she reacts, she fights back. It is easy, when you are surrounded by a number of people with the exact same training as yourself. When Zhaan is mad, her fury is righteous, but calm.
This is no one that Aeryn would rather want on her side, if only to keep her off of the opposing side. For example, it is, at the moment, extraordinarily helpful to have Zhaan by her side now, calling out responses to the flying aliens while Aeryn takes the controls.
“Please!” Zhaan pleads over the comms to their enemies, “This is a time to talk, not a time to shoot.”
Like Aeryn, their pursuers disagree with Zhaan, sending two bolts of something right towards Moya. Pilot’s face pops up on the screen, filled with concern.
“They keep coming closer!” He declares.
Aeryn turns the controls sharply, “Yes, I can see that, Pilot.”
The problem with the Uncharted Territories is that they are so utterly and completely uncharted. Who knew that a fluffy lifeform like the one that was chasing them even existed, let alone that it would take exception to Moya?
Zhaan is murmuring something quietly, leaning her head down. Aeryn’s hands clench around the controls. Say what you will about Peacekeepers (because, as Aeryn has learned, there is a lot to say), but they are actually quite useful in a fight.
She bites her tongue. Zhaan knows what she is doing. Zhaan is who can remember how many hundreds of cycles old, and Zhaan has had more experience than Aeryn.
But, frell , if she doesn’t wish she could understand exactly what Zhaan’s mind is working through right now.
“Wait!” Suddenly, Zhaan looks up at Aeryn, her eyes wide. “You need to turn towards them.”
“Towards them?” Aeryn says, her voice coming out just a little bit shrill. Regardless, she does as Zhaan says, relinquishing control back to Pilot and Moya when her hands shake just a little too much. This is not in her training. Being a Prowler pilot does not mean flying around ships big enough for more than one person.
Ah yes, the perks of Peacekeeper training. Avoid the dangerous parts, and everything will be fine. Aeryn feels her heart racing the way it always does when she’s not fully in control. The thing about Prowlers is that they are far, far smaller than Moya, which means they are far more responsive. Moya, as loyal as she is, does not move as fast as Aeryn wants to, as fast as her blood is burning to go.
She looks at Zhaan, who has started laughing just a little as Moya turns to the side as rapidly as she can go. From somewhere below, where John and D’Argo are fixing some of the damage, Aeryn imagines a scream. From what she can see, they’ll avoid a head on collision. Moya and Pilot are smart like that, even without Aeryn’s input.
It is the weapons that Aeryn worries about, and behind that, the speed of the alien ship. It could ram them if the occupants wanted to. Of course, that would do considerably less damage to Moya than to the enemy ship, but there will be damage.
Just as Moya seems to stand right in front of the ship, the comms open, and the aliens declare a loud, “Aha!” of victory.
“Well met! It is a brave foe who acknowledges their losses and greets the enemy head on. Alas, the game has changed now!” One of the aliens declares from something that might be a mouth.
“We do so prefer to be the chasers. But we are equally adept at running! Find us, if you dare, large and foul creatures!”
And suddenly, they turn around, zooming away, leaving Moya and her crew behind. Aeryn stares for a second.
“Was that a joke?”
“Not a joke. A game. You didn’t hear it? They sounded very childish. Or at the very least, competitive.” Zhaan smiles, though it’s a bit breathless.
“How did you–?” Aeryn waves her hand at the spot where weapons fire has short-circuited something within Moya, “They could have been trying to kill us. We could have died.”
Zhaan looks at Aeryn in that way of hers, as though she is summing up everything she has ever heard Aeryn say or seen her do into one little picture of her friend. It makes Aeryn feel uncomfortably seen. She bristles.
“I had a bit of a hunch.” Zhaan admits, “And while it is entirely possible that I could have been mistaken, I was lucky that I was not.”
“So you guessed?” Aeryn says, finding herself irrationally angry. The threat is gone. There is no one to be mad at, because now there is no threat, and she does not need to be fighting with Zhaan. Not even when her adrenaline really needs somewhere to go.
“I decided.” Zhaan says, “There was no way to outrun them. They did not seem to respond to our words. So there was another option.”
“That mumbling, then?”
“Prayers.” Zhaan spreads her hands wide. “There are times when all you need is a little faith.”
Aeryn always finds it jarring how freely and openly Zhaan believes. There is no analog from her time as a Peacekeeper, and it’s something she has struggled with.
But she knows this: Zhaan asked her to do something, and she did it. There was no time for an explanation, only an action, and even then there was uncertainty. And Aeryn had believed in Zhaan.
She lets out a little bit of a huff, but brings her arms around Zhaan in a tight hug anyways. They are alive now, and isn’t that something to celebrate?
Zhaan squeezes Aeryn back, and they stand there, just for a little bit, before John and D’Argo come surging up and wondering what the frell just happened.
+1. She will never forget this family.
They have changed since she first came aboard. Losing and gaining, being twisted into new shapes. They are not the same people they were at the beginning of all of this. There are times she wishes for one more day with Zhaan, or to travel back to before things became oh-so-complicated. But then she’ll see a smile on someone’s face, or think about what they do now. And yes, there are things that she would change. But so, so much of it is good. More than she could’ve ever thought.
The sky might well be the same one that she peered up into, so many days and nights ago, wondering where her new home would be when she was no longer welcome among the Peacekeepers. But she has found it. In John and D’Argo, Pilot and Chiana. Even Rygel and Stark, as annoying as they can be.
This is her family, in a way that the Peacekeepers could never have been, in a way that her parents were not allowed to be. And despite all the many, many ways in which they differ, she finds that she needs them. They would have to pull her kicking, biting, and screaming from all of them, and she knows they would do the same for her.
She is not the same, either, as when she first met them, but people rarely stay the same, as much as they might insist on it at the start. She is glad she is no longer the scared woman who felt that she had to bottle up any and all emotions. Glad that the fury is allowed time outside, but so is joy. So is trust, and companionship.
When Aeryn Sun sits at the table with the people she now calls family, when she gives Crichton a squeeze and Rygel makes a comment, when she pretends to ignore D’Argo and Chiana’s shenanigans and pretends to care about Stark’s, this is who she is.
So yes, she has been changed. But it was not being “irreversibly contaminated.” It was realizing that there is trust. That there is so much good out there to discover. Good friends, good food, good experiences. So much she would have missed if she had never been that ambitious Peacekeeper in her tiny ship. These people have changed her, maybe irreversibly, but definitely for the better.
