Part VI

The dim outline of the girl's face swam in a filmy sea of red. He reached out with a trembling white hand. It was not emotion that caused it to quiver. Tristis's body was in decay: the muscles weak, the tendons unraveling.  

Regardless of his state, her vision in the darkness must have been far worse. She recoiled in surprise, biting down on a repulsed screech as soon as he came in contact with her skin. She backed away, sliding along the wall, firmly cornered. Back rigid. Palms flattened against the surface. Green eyes wide and blind. Her fear was positively delicious to him. 

"You won't get it… the spheroid." She said. There was a wonderful child like tremble to her voice. It only served to excite him. "I'll die first… if that's what it takes."

"Spheroid…" he repeated. "Spheroid."  

The mention of it jogged the nagging voice in his head, the only thing that tempered the delicious freedom. It preyed on his focus, insistent with its needling sound, so much like the voice of the hybrid creature. It ran a thousand writhing fingers into the tortured mass that was Tristis's brain, commanding him. Scorpius… 

The same disbelief threatened to overtake her. Time was playing tricks, returning her to the nightmare domain of her childhood under the dreadful tutelage of Lairn Tristis, the demon that Scorpius saw fit to appoint as her mentor. She recounted the horrible “lessons” from him: how to fear… to hate… to kill. How many times had she wished him dead as she cowered during one of his twisted games of cat and mouse? How many countless moments like this? 

I have you to thank for the killer I became, she thought, feeling the fear recede beneath a cooler tide of anger. 

She fell into a low crouch, wincing at how the sound of her jacket was against the wall seemed overly loud. Her hands groped around in the dark, searching for anything to use as a weapon. She could hear him, muttering to himself. He made a strange mewling noise then stopped abruptly. That was worse still, for she could no longer tell where he was in the darkness. 

Then her hands settled on a steel rod, its edges disfigured with corrosion. She seized on it. It was a pitiful weapon, but it would have to do. 

Now what? Attack? Wait for him to advance? 

Neither of the options was very good. Regardless of how used to the darkness her eyes had grown, he was still a black shape in a dangerous obstacle course that she could not glimpse. 

On trembling legs she decided to spring at him. She swung the makeshift weapon and felt the pipe connect, but it was not the solid strike she had gauged. Too late she realized her mistake. 

Instantly, his cold hand latched around her wrist. With amazing strength he pulled her forward and off balance.  In the dark, her feet stumbled over more fallen equipment. She twisted as she fell, landing on her back, one arm pinned beneath her. Her shoulder became a point of white hot fire. 

His weight was on her. His damp hot breath that reeked of death against her skin. The stench of rancid sweat and decay was cloying. It was as though his body had died and his brain had not yet caught up to that fact. Tristis had somehow become a horrible embodiment of the demon he had always been, she realized with numbing terror. 

Suddenly, the thing that was once Tristis sank his teeth onto the skin of her throat, harsh enough to bring blood. She released a furious wail of pain and lashed out with her legs, trying desperately to both force him away and escape him. 

Then just as quickly, he withdrew. There was a glint in the dark. A slicing insolent pain along her stomach, protracted and deliberately slow. He was cutting her! 

Pressing her wrist against the thumb of his grip she managed to free her arm. Before he could react, she grabbed the knife, barely feeling the metal dig into the flesh of her hand. With her remaining strength she turned the blade, fighting his command of it. Then she pushed against the ground with her feet and twisted her body, directing the knife to the floor and narrowly missing her side. As his weight shifted, she rolled to her side scrambled away on her hands and knees. 

A low rasping chuckle came from Tristis. He was letting her do this. He was toying with her, draining her strength. Just as he did when she was a child. And just as then, an overpowering hopelessness, laced with fury claimed her. 

"I learned to kill from you, Tristis. I was your student." She hissed. Desperately she searched the dark for him, knowing he was moving away, circling once again like a meat hound. "You taught me to be a monster." 

"Monster…" He repeated, in perfect acceptance of the word. 

Keep him talking. He was to the left… wasn't he?  

"Student…" Amused and dubious. “No… never you… prowler pilot.” 

"You twisted the mind of a frightened child." Her mind reeled as the pain of his cut caught up with her. With a distant panic she realized her shirt was sticking to her stomach now, wet with blood.

Think. Think.  

"What I learned… what you and Scorpius made me into… horrified my father." She side-stepped to her right, hoping she was avoiding him. It was a poor choice. 

His rough hand seized her plait at the base of her neck. His rotting voice was instantly in her ear. The knife blade pressed against her throat as he fell on her once more. 

"You're bleeding, prowler pilot." He slurred, burying his face in her hair. The stink of him enough to make her gag, despite her fear. "Good… good." 

She threw her elbow into his sternum. It did not create in him the gut wrenching reflex she had intended. The nerves that responded to it were sluggish and dying. But the momentum of the strike granted her maneuvering room to slip his grotesque embrace. Ellie whirled, her hand covering his that still held the knife. She rushed him, throwing all of her weight into it. Tristis stumbled backward slightly. 

Had it not been for the unknown dark terrain around them, the moment would have ended far differently. The back of the Peacekeeper's legs connected with another formless mass of discarded equipment, severing his balance and sending him sprawling. Ellie went with him, still fighting for control of the blade. Her hands slick with blood jerked at his wrist, twisting the knife up and around. Their landing sent the blade deep into his jaw, driving it up into his skull. 

Tristis's body convulsed beneath her and fell still. She scrambled away, cutting her arms on more unseen sharp ends. Ellie crouched low, watching his dim shape, unconvinced this dragon was slain so easily. She waited for what seemed like arns, the blood a nonsense roar in her ears, the spent muscles of her body quivering. But he did not move. 

Slowly, she relaxed falling back onto her haunches. She then sat, drawing her knees up to her chest, her eyes remained on his still form. One arm wrapped tightly against her torso, cradling the wound there. 

"I win…" She hissed at his fallen shadow. Her throat tightened. Silently she began to sob in the dark, the echo of it ragged and harsh. 

#

 Ellie turned the corner at a break neck pace, lost her footing and landed sprawling onto the floor. She lurched back onto her feet and fell into a painful sprint once again. 

Panic commanded her now. There was nothing of commando training. Nothing of control. The blood from the cut on her scalp dripped into her eyes, stinging. Its smell was copper, but it did nothing to rid the stench of Tristis on her skin. 

She wanted light. She needed light. Ix was not a concern. Zenetians would be a welcome site, in fact. There were voices in the dark corridors, but she did not care. 

Once more she stumbled. She fell forward, not expecting the raised edges of steps to greet her. Her outstretched arms met cool flat stone with a painful rush. It brought a fresh wave of pain to the wound at her side. This did little to faze her less-than-dignified scramble up the steps. 

Blindly, cradling one side, she climbed to her feet where the steps seemed to level off. Her outstretched hand met flat metal. A door. She pushed at it. Nothing. Then, with frantic fingers felt for a handle. A latch. Anything. 

Suddenly a hand encircled her wrist. She drew in a terrified breath to scream. Another heavy hand slapped down on her mouth. 

"That's a bad habit you've got, Crichton." Asher Korbyn said. "Opening your mouth." 

Relief flooded her. She squirmed away from him. "Korbyn… I thought you left.” 

"’Course not." A smaller more compact shadow at his side intoned. It was Rachel Northway. "And miss the fun?" 

"Rachel…" Ellie said in winded voice. She reached out to the woman and felt the doctor’s soft warm hands enclose hers. 

A small torch flickered on. Frowning, Rachel briefly panned it quickly over Ellie's face. The older woman prodded clinically at her forehead. It brought a brief rush of pain. Ellie swayed on her feet and felt hands steady her. The light shone into her face again and down. 

"Jesus! You're cut, Ellie." Rachel said. Her voice was hesitant. "Is that a bite mark? What the hell did you tangle with, girl?" 

“Gone now.” She heard her own voice say. It sounded tiny and unimportant. A distant buzzing began to fill her ears. “I won.” 

Nearly swallowed by the grayness and the din, the voices of their captors bounced down the blackened walls of the corridors. 

"Can we do this somewhere else?" Asher prodded eagerly. 

Rachel looked into the direction of the sound. Portable lights traced over the walls, coming in their direction. 

"Good idea." 

"This way," Asher said, grabbing Ellie's elbow. 

Compliant, Ellie staggered forward. Her head felt hollow. The quiver of her muscles worsened. The grayness attacked with a vengeance, more solid, intent to be victorious. Breathing, or what passed for it, was in painful shallow gasps. Each move of her torso she could feel the wound sink its teeth in deeper. Her knees buckled. She crumpled to the floor. 

"Not now… Crichton." Asher's voice was the drone of insects. "Time to sleep when you're dead." 

“You’d make a wonderful motivational speaker,” Rachel snapped. 

"I'm okay. I just need too… need to…” Ellie trailed off, uncertain just what it was she had been trying to say. She pushed herself up. But the floor was already slick with her blood. Her weak arms betrayed her own weight. 

She felt powerful arms underneath her and then the sensation of being lifted. A metal clasp bit into her cheek. Distantly Ellie realized she was resting against Korbyn's chest. She did not care. Thinking, reacting, talking… these were all monumental tasks, the energy required for them impossible. Gratefully, once again, she relented to the gray. 

#

 Something was wrong.  

Lieutenant Braca's brow knotted. He looked down at the small console keyed for intelligence at the moment. Nothing seemed amiss. Ending the interface, he stepped away and regarded the cramped confines of the marauder. The ship's systems hummed nonchalantly to themselves, ignorant of his pensive nature. He was alone on the craft for the moment. The small squad of commandos had been deployed, leaving him at the marauder as an outpost. They were not due back to report for another arn. 

The sensation plagued him. There was something… missing. 

Then he realized, allowing himself the brief luxury of a smirk. The frelling hybrid was not there. No needling gruesome voice to interrupt his daily duties. No standing at attention trying to master his own revulsion at the sight of the disfigured lunatic bastard's endless parade of medical ministering. What had always made those interviews worse was that Scorpius knew his first found them sickening. He had suspected the beast scheduled his time with Bracca to purposefully intercept such events. 

Braca had been less than enthusiastic for this particular assignment, having knowledge of the procedure that had been performed on Lt. Tristis. He held a certain smug spark of superiority in having predicted that Scorpius’s plot to send the “conditioned” operative out after the spheroid would not be successful. His glee was short-lived when Scorpius, desperate to avoid more scrutiny from First Command, sent Braca with a smaller retrieval detachment that would not raise attention. 

However, this mission was having its advantages. Braca's smile broadened. It had been a weeken that he was free of the sickening half-breed menace. He mused he could get used to this. 

The comms panel chimed suddenly and Bracca jumped. His face flushed, as though caught in some guilty act. He cleared his throat before activating the relay. "Report." 

"The operative has been located, sir." The commando’s voice was precise, cutting in the waiting air of the marauder. 

A cold stone of dread formed in his belly. The search had ended too quickly. It was too easy. And if there was one thing Bracca had grasped at an early age is that things were never easy. 

“Lt. Tristis has been neutralized.” She continued. 

No… not good. He swallowed several times before responding. “Is it with him?” 

This time there was a hesitance to the female squadron leader’s voice. “Sir… no, sir.” 

Bracca was beginning to think Tristis had gotten the better end of the bargain. “There has to be something—“ 

“Begging your pardon, sir. A beacon deployment control has been found with the operative. It has been activated and is tracking a moving target at this moment. The information it's returning suggest it's the device--” 

A rush of anxiety-wrought relief flooded him. “Off planet?” 

“Yes, sir. But mostly definitely still within this system.” 

“Recall your people. Return at once.” With that Bracca, snapped off the channel and breathed a sigh. The hunt was on, he grinned and he was still free of Scorpius. He could definitely think of worse things. 

#

There were new clothes to replace those that Tristis had sliced through. They were second hand by their worn look and sadly two sizes too large. Ellie had changed into them, trying her best to not look at the jagged maroon cut healing down her torso. An annoying itch had already begun to settle in there. There was a neat line of sutures binding it, no doubt Northway's hand. Had she a true paraphoral nerve, his strike would have been fatal. 

Ellie stood before the filmy surface of the reflecting glass, realizing it had been a long time since she had glimpsed her own image. What she found there could have been mistaken with a stranger. Her eyes reddened and shadowed. The hollows of her cheeks had sunken in, giving her a starved look. 

Tall. Lanky limbs. Muscles sculpted from years of grueling training and denial were wasting away. Beneath she imagined her skeleton. Ribs standing out plainly. Jutting hipbones. Across that skeleton, skin that would know more of hardship than of age. Skin that would not know the light of another alien sun. 

Yet housed in this imperfect battered body, existed something more. She was becoming something else. This transformation would be incomplete. And it was saddening to see this new being die. Her mother had offered her a challenge… being more. At one time she would have thrown up her jaded defenses in its face, calling it drivel. Nonsense. But now, she realized in her heart, that it was worth the effort and sadly much too late. 

"I don't think you imagined this end for your daughter." She whispered, feeling her throat tightened. "I meant to try… I swear it." 

"Try what, Crichton?" Asher's voice sounded from the doorway. 

Ellie finished fastening the sorrowfully large jacket and glared at his reflection. "You should wear a bell around your neck." 

"That sounds kinkoid." He smirked. "I didn't have you pegged for --" 

"What do you want, Korbyn?" She whirled. Self-consciously she dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. She looked at him briefly then away before limping back to the meager cot. 

He took a hesitant step toward her as she stumbled. She held a staying hand in his direction. "Please… spare me whatever response your razor sharp wit has produced." 

"I came to say I'm leaving." He leaned against the door frame. Casual and arrogant as ever. 

What did he expect? A festival in his honor? Hysterics? 

"Oh? Good bye!" She said, grimacing as she pulled on her boots. The simple act brought a fresh wave of vertigo. "Don't let me keep you." 

"Frell it. I don't need this. Have a nice life, Crichton." Asher said, pushing away from the doorway. He parodied a Peacekeeper salute and did a neat about face. She could hear his muttering trail off as he moved down the corridor.  “Frelling impossible… flat-assed…” 

In the ensuing silence, Ellie released a wounded sigh. She leaned forward, pressing her forehead into her upturned palms. It's only because I'm sick… Otherwise I would not care. 

Asher thundered into the room again, booted feet thudding on the worn wooden floor.

"You know…you could be more appreciative," he announced. 

"Excuse me! What?" She spouted, incredulously. Ellie looked up at him, eyebrows knitted together. She was fairly certain the genetic degradation had not damaged her hearing. 

"That's right. You heard me. You're an ingrate." 

"Oh… where are my manners?" Ellie rose, forcing her steps to be sure as she approached him.  She planted her hands on her hips. There was a sarcastic lilt to her head that would have made an uncanny imitation of her father. "Thank you! Thank you, Asher Korbyn, for kidnapping me… trying to sell me into slavery… and then abandoning me to a homicidal maniac! Did I forget anything?" 

"Don't be so frelling picky! You're alive now, aren't you?" He countered, squaring off to face her. "Who's the one that's saved your life…" 

He paused to count off on his fingers before holding his hand aloft in her face.  "Four… four times?" 

"And who placed my life in jeopardy for three out of those four?" She slapped his hand away. 

"Three? Twice…only twice!" He corrected, waving a dismissive hand in the air. Once more he turned for the door away and disappeared down the corridor. His shout found her. “Frell… Leave it to you to keep count, Crichton!” 

She hung her head and leaned heavily against the back of a rickety chair. But before long his heavy tread announced his return once more. He stood in the doorway a study in tortured curiosity and bemused agitation. 

"What! What now?" She shouted. "You can't even get leaving right!" 

"My life was fine before you, Crichton. I had a ship. Money when I needed it. Girls when I wanted." He began, stepping toward her. This time he was much closer. "Now look at me! I don't have dren! You are such bad luck, you can bottle it!" 

"Thank you for noticing." She sighed, kneading wearily at her temples, feeling the distinct beginnings of a headache on the horizon. "Anything else, Korbyn, before you hopefully carry on with your threat to leave?" 

"Yes… just this." Quickly he leaned forward and kissed her. 

#

Rachel Northway stood on the tiny terrace that overlooked the bustling commerce district on N’Dex. The morning air was chill and she folded her arms against it. Save for the pale green sun rising on the horizon it could have been Tel Aviv. Snatches of conversations drifted up to her, some translated, others continued in the guise of their alien tongue. 

Rachel had gone against her better judgment in trusting Korbyn to lead them here. She was reluctant to let down her guard, regardless of the hospitality of the ancient B'Nai woman that was their host. Rachel had tried to engage the gnarled old woman in conversation, curious about her relationship with the Peacekeeper deserter, but the woman seemed unwilling to do much more than insist that she eat. 

Whatever their ties were, the woman appeared genuinely fond of Korbyn, doting on him like son. Regardless, Rachel had seen too much while under the employ of Lucien Ix to allow appearances to fool her. As a result she spent the night only dozing occasionally, startling at each noise, the other half of her weary brain worrying about her young patient. 

A fairly risky plan to help the girl had begun to formulate for Rachel in the early morning hours. By the time full dawn had found her, she had convinced herself it could work. But as usual with the sanity of daylight came the realization that it was nearly impossible. She needed Jack Crichton, a wormhole and a ship. 

"Pipe dream," she muttered to herself. "Why not wish for a time machine too, Rach? You can go back and change your major to accounting…" 

She was conscious that someone else had entered the room beyond the terrace. Rachel turned and immediately frowned. Korbyn paused at the threshold before coming to stand along side of her at the balcony’s edge. 

"I thought you left." She said, turning back to the exotic scene. 

He made a strange smile, seeming more out of self-abasement than for her benefit. Asher Korbyn developed more layers by the arn, it seemed. He looked at her briefly, and quickly turned his attention to the landscape. 

"Ya…. I … um… surprise myself too." He said, hesitantly. A thick silence fell between them, punctuated by the street noises below. 

Rachel grunted to herself. She wanted to like him, but Korbyn was the same brand of trouble he claimed Ellie to be and that was begging for a catastrophe. It was clear he was attracted to the young woman and it produced in Rachel a fierce protectiveness. 

"I should check on Ellie." Rachel said, breaking their awkward silence. She turned to leave and the hulking commando stepped in her path. 

"Um… Let her sleep. She… we… were up late." He cleared his throat. In an attempt to look nonchalant he jerked a thumb over his shoulder to suggest the direction of Ellie’s room. His hand then retreated to the back of his neck. 

At that same moment, Rachel realized his black shirt was on inside out. He seemed to shift his weight from foot to foot. As she watched, he was literally squirming beneath her scrutiny. 

"Oh… okay." Rachel stammered, feeling the blood rush to her face with growing embarrassment. She pivoted back to balcony railing. 

"I don't want her to die, Northway." Korbyn’s voice startled her. She had half-expected him to slink back into the shadows of the house. But the measure of sincerity in his voice was unmistakable. 

"Me either." She looked at him. 

"How long?" He asked. Rachel knew the weight of the question. How much longer for the girl to live? How much strength did the beleaguered creature have left? 

"A week… two weeks. I can care for her but… it's just prolonging the inevitable." She hated hearing herself say that. It sounded so clinical, so much like the hushed speeches delivered in the mutely colored waiting rooms of the hospitals from her long chain of residencies. They were horrible words to say or to hear. 

He took this in with stoic silence, nodding to himself, as though understanding some universal constant to death that Rachel herself had missed. He looked at her. For the first time keeping her gaze. 

"There has to be something." He said, finally. Actually, it was more a refusal of reality. She understood a small portion, then, to his art of survival. 

Rachel sighed. "There's one thing, that could work. But… it's about as impossible as it gets." 

"What?" 

"The Peacekeepers had been keeping Ellie's condition from advancing by augmenting her own DNA with her father's. It's given me an idea to how I could treat her…" 

"I need human genetics--" 

"You're human--" He began. 

"No... she needs a compatible genetic donor." 

"You know one…" He prodded, seeming to judge the path of her thoughts. 

"I know two…” Rachel granted him a weak smile. “One's hell and gone from here somewhere in the uncharteds…possibly dead. And the other one is probably in his living room watching Jeopardy right now." 

She sighed and planted her hands on the railing. 

"Earth. I would need to get Ellie to Earth. But unless you've got a wormhole in your hip pocket…” She looked up only to see him striding purposefully off the balcony back into the house. “Where are you going?" 

"I'll be back in an arn, Northway." Asher grinned over his shoulder before vanishing. 

#

 Asher cautiously examined the semi-darkness of the runner's interior that had delivered them from Keurig. Sparing another glance out the narrow hatchway he made certain that he had not been followed. N’Dex might have been free of Ix’s influence, but it had its share of thieves and looters as well. Satisfied that there was no one lurking in the marshy landscape, he ducked back inside the craft. They had hidden it on the outskirts of the trading colony following their flight from Keurig. 

He had been impressed with Ix’s taste. It was a well-appointed craft with a fairly new and illegal modifications to what would have been otherwise modest Hetch drives. Discretely concealed additional shielding.  Fast. Sleek. But with some teeth to her. All in all it was a smuggler’s ship. And like all smuggler’s ships it had plenty of hiding spaces. 

Asher knelt beside the operations casing and pried away the compartment. Beneath was a false drive coil running the length of the ship. He spared another glance at the doorway before reaching down inside, feeling blindly around. A curious tugging sensation met his fingers as they brushed the surface of the object for which he was searching. Gingerly, he maneuvered it out of its hiding spot by its delicate frame of wires. Both Crichton and Northway had assumed this mysterious device lost. He had simply chosen not to correct their assumptions. 

He rubbed a disconsolate hand over the back of his neck as he sat down on the deck along side of his prize. In the growing morning light, the brushed metal skin of the spheroid's surface seemed to glow amber. He was not given to moments of awe. It took a great deal to impress Asher Korbyn. But he found himself in absolute wonder that this device, not much larger in diameter than a dinner plate could harness the power of a collapsed star, literally punching a hole through space. 

More so, he stood in absolute incredulity of what he was about to do. 

“Losing it… definitely losing it.” He muttered to himself before laughing. "You're the biggest fool in the Uncharteds, Asher Korbyn. All this… for a girl." 

He slowly unfolded from the floor and began rummaging through the remainder of the runner's compartments, ignorant that nestled within the delicate wire frame of the spheroid was a small device. On it, pulsing patiently, was the red light of a Peacekeeper tracking beacon, silently broadcasting its presence into the reaches of space.   

Part 7

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