Archive of Our Own

PK VOODOO PT. 1

Summary: AU fic where John is rescued by the Peacekeepers.
Rating: NC-17.
Author notes: I got this idea from a Miami Vice fic that was written 20 years ago, but I don't know who the author is. Very special thanks to T. Driessen for her encouragement and love of the story and to Mayaan for the use of John's tattoo!
Story notes: This story starts at the end of DWTB. Spoilers up to that. Language, violence, torture. Angst and smut galore! I will be submitting a PG/R version for T! I didn't forget!

"I'm not the one who's so far away
When I feel the snake bite enter my veins
Never did I wanna be here again
And I don't remember why I came." – Godsmack

His module hung silently in space. Oxygen crystallized from his breath and the frozen condensation was glistening on the inside of his hatch, creating a sparking effect that might have looked pretty to John Crichton's eyes had it not been for death looming over him. Incredibly, Moya had been sucked down a wormhole of all things. He could still hear Jool and Pilot screaming. He found himself alone, with no fuel in the middle of space without a planet nearby. Not like the last time. He had found a planet in which to save himself.

Crichton again checked his gauges. He had only oxygen fumes left and he was feeling nauseous and light-headed. His teeth were chattering from the cold and his eyes heavy as if he had not slept in days. Which he hadn't. With the excitement of his escape from the imploding command carrier and his depression of all his friends, and Aeryn, leaving, he really hadn't been able to sleep.

'Sorry, Dad,' Crichton thought. He closed his eyes and he could see his father's face, smiling a small smile in understanding with a glint of sadness in his eyes. He couldn't believe he was going to die. He had so many things he still wanted to accomplish. If anything, to tell his father about the things he had seen in this whacked out part of space.

He had never felt so alone. Harvey had gone eerily quiet and Crichton couldn't rouse him. He wondered if the death of the command carrier had been the death of the clone as well. In a weird way, he missed him. Kind of like how you'd miss a pulled muscle when it wasn't there anymore. A pain he'd gotten used to, unexpectedly gone.

A new, harder bout of shivering abruptly caught him by surprise. John knew hypothermia was going to be coming along soon. And then sleep, followed closely by his death. He kept going over and over in his mind what he could have done different, but he never found an answer. Without his knowing, he stopped shivering and his eyes gradually closed. John Crichton, IASA Astronaut, and lost human, succumbed to deadly sleep.

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Mele-On Grayza couldn't believe providence would provide such a bounty. Not that she believed in luck. She believed any bonus that came her way was due to planning and hard work. One of her bridge officers informed her they had the Human's module on scanners and they were bringing it onto one of her carrier's docks. The same officer had computed several trajectories the human and his companions could have gone. It was on the third route they had tried that their prize was discovered. She stood with six commandos awaiting its arrival. She noted two alarming facts. She had been notified the outlaw was not responding to comms and a prowler pilot related the hatch had been covered in ice, so no visual could be made as to who or anyone was piloting the ship. The alien ship had also just been floating free in space.

The docking web set the ship down with a small thud and techs scrambled to lift its hatch. "Medic!" A tech shouted in alarm, looking towards where a med-tech was standing by. The commandos began to walk towards the little ship in a standard form of tactical move for taking criminals into custody. They silently waited.

The med-tech tapped his comm and spoke quietly, but urgently. This told Mele-On all she needed to know. Crichton was in the module either dead or unconscious. How he came to be in this predicament she couldn't understand. She observed, as she walked quickly closer, several techs pull Crichton's limp body from the cockpit. His skin was pale with a hint of blue coloring and she knew from experience this was a deadly situation for the human.

Mele-On followed the stretcher to medical. She wasn't about to let her prize out of her sight. The techs continued to work on Crichton as the stretcher came to a halt inside the medical unit. She stopped behind the protective glass and the doctors strove to save the alien. Commandant Mele-On Grayza knew she was in for a long wait.

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His coloring had returned to normal, but Crichton had yet to regain consciousness. Mele-On observed him as he slept. Her chief surgeon reported they had been able to save him and assured her he would have no permanent damage to his brain or any other organ. She ran her hand up his arm and felt his overly warm temperature. She had been also assured this was natural. Mele-On had many questions for this human to answer. The predicament they found him in was inexplicable. It was difficult to believe his companions would have deserted him, but knew from experience not to discount it.

As she placed her hand on his arm, Mele-On saw Crichton's face scrunch up and a moan escape his lips. She believed he was surfacing towards awareness.

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Crichton hurt. He felt as if his body had gone through a wood shredder. Head first. He tried to remember what had happened to him. At first his memories came back fuzzy, but progressed to clarity. He felt depressed as he recalled his friends had gone on with their lives. Without him. He worried about Pilot and Moya, remembering their screams as they were sucked down that wormhole he hadn't been able to sense. He then remembered how Aeryn had also left him. Depression hit him in full force and he wondered who had done him the disservice of saving his life. He felt a cool hand touch his arm. Curiosity getting the better of him, he forced his eyes open. All he could see was blurry light that hurt his head even more. He groaned and snapped his eyes shut in order to stop the daggers from stirring his brain matter into gray goo.

"Lights at 30%," he heard a soft feminine voice say. Even with his eyes closed, the dimmer glow was a relief. It washed over him like a soft wave of cotton. Even though he was exhausted, he again tried to open his eyes in order to see who was standing over him and had obviously saved his life. Straining to keep them open, his eyes gradually focused to reveal lavender eyes and a short crop of ebony hair.

'Ah, crap,' Crichton thought. 'PK's. From the frying pan to the fire as usual, Johnny-boy'.

"Doctor Donatto informed me you will recover, John Crichton," Mele-On said softly with a small, smug grin that Crichton hated right off. He also hated the predatory way she was staring at him. It made him feel like the fly in the proverbial spider web. "Now that I have you firmly in custody, I have many questions for you to answer. Where are your comrades? Did they finally succumb to their previous behavior and abandon you?" Crichton inwardly flinched and he hoped his pitiful belief didn't reflect on his face.

Grayza observed this and cataloged it for future use. She continued to study the human. Scorpius' reports were accurate. The alien couldn't seem to help but show the emotions flowing through him. She could use that. The half-breeds torture and pursuit of this being was going to make extracting information from him difficult. She knew he would fight her on every level. "I also want to know everything you do about wormholes and Scarrens."

With his eyes, Crichton followed the Peacekeeper Commandant as she walked leisurely around his hospital bed, never fully taking her hands off of his body and studying him with those seemingly unblinking eyes. For some reason, this gave him the creeps. She finally came to a stop at his other side. She rested her hand on his chest. Crichton decided to try to bluff her. He felt had nothing to loose.

"I don't know anything," John said in a soft voice, "I don't know what you're talking about." John claimed amnesia, but he knew they would subjugate him to some kind of torture or even the Aurora Chair. He just wanted to stall for as long as possible before the pain would start. Crichton knew he was probably going to die this time. He just wanted to put it off for as long as possible.

He didn't have to bluff that he was tired. He felt as if he hadn't slept in a year. Grayza looked down at him with a small grin. She gave a small laugh, smiled, and caressed the side of his face. He tried not to flinch and pull away. He felt his face get that hard look. The one that always seemed to get him into trouble.

"I thought about interrogating you myself," Grayza told him with a breathy laugh as if he had said something funny. Grayza had given this a lot of thought. Her Heppil Oil was effective during interrogations, but not for the type of procedure Commander Rayhez had proposed. She gently slid her hand down his cheek and over his lips. John tried to suppress a shudder. "Now that Scorpius is gone, duty has its demands." Grayza unexpectedly grabbed his chin, turning his face directly towards her own.

"I'll be turning your questioning over to Commander Rayhez, who has informed me of new techniques he is eager to employ," she declared with an obsessive gleam in her eyes and a maniacal grin that made Crichton shudder with apprehension. "We will tear all of your secrets from you, never fear. I WILL know everything you have stored in your mind, John Crichton."

He struggled to keep his face clear of any emotion. He wasn't willing to give voice to the fear bubbling up from his center. Exhaustion and terror was sapping what little energy he had woken up with. Against his will, his eye lids began to close until they shut entirely and Crichton felt the darkness envelop him. Grayza smiled with satisfaction as she saw her prize succumb to the after-effects of his injuries. She had witnessed his fear and that was always useful.

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When next he woke, he felt much better than he did the first time, but found he could not move. When he opened his eyes, Crichton found his limbs tied with thick leather straps to a metal table. To his alarm, he was also completely nude. He shivered from the cool air circulating around the room.

'Typical Peacekeepers", he thought to himself, 'No consideration for the lesser races.' He struggled briefly and it only demonstrated how securely he was tied down. The room was lit by a single light in the middle of the ceiling, revealing a dull, bare gray room. He saw a non-descript cabinet in the corner and a table with objects he couldn't decipher due to the only light in the room being directly over him.

The whole time Scorpius had been spinning him in the Aurora Chair, Crichton remembered he had wished for a plain, old-fashioned torture. He wanted to take that back now. From the looks of the room, that was exactly what he was in for. The room he found himself in was the anti-thesis to everything that was Peacekeeper. It was frightening.

"HEY! Anyone frelling out there?" Crichton shouted, picking his head up off the table to get a better look around the room. He knew he should keep his big mouth shut, but he let his situation get the better of him. He was scared, cold, and hungry. But what was worse, he felt helpless. This always brought out the worse in him. He made rash decisions when he felt helpless. Lying tied up and naked left him literally feeling exposed and vulnerable. "HEY! Anybody gonna frelling answer me?"

The door whooshed open and a thickly muscled Peacekeeper with the requisite short cropped dark hair walked into the room as if he owned it. John felt this was probably the tallest Peacekeeper he had ever seen. He was carrying a folder, reading as he walked. Crichton found the stranger's body looked as if it had never known fat or weakness. The unknown Peacekeeper had an aura of strength and capability.

"Well, Crichton, it seems as if you are ready to begin," The stranger turned his intense brown eyes to Crichton and set the folder on the bare table that had numerous mysterious drawers. John thought for a moment where he had seen eyes like those. He remembered old news reels and photographs from history classes and came to the conclusion this Peacekeeper had eyes just like a missing Nazi war criminal, Heinrick Mueller.

"I've been waiting for you to awaken. I have so many things I want to show you. My name is Commander Rayhez," he smiled at Crichton and the look he gave John reminded him of a shark; although they looked upon him with that intensity, they had a dead look as if his soul had been siphoned out. Rayhez opened one of the drawers and took some objects out that made metal jangling noises, like the sounds a dentist tools make as he's preparing to pull out your teeth. Crichton couldn't see what the objects were and he started to tremble with fear.

"Yeah, well, appearances can be deceiving," Crichton quipped, wishing his voice sounded stronger, surer. "Nothin's ever as it appears." Rayhez laughed and sauntered over to where Crichton lay immobilized. Rayhez trailed his fingers down the side of Crichton's face as though he were caressing the face of his lover. Crichton's shivering increased with new terror.

"I'll going to see how 'ready' you really are," Rayhez smiled and Crichton's eyes opened wide when he saw what Rayhez held in his hands. Some of the utensils were laid next to him on the table. With one ominous tool, the Peacekeeper leaned over Crichton's helpless body.

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Crichton lay panting on the table. He could feel rivulets of sweat or blood, maybe both, underneath his body, making the metal slippery. He felt really bad. Rayhez had used interrogation techniques similar to those John had heard of from Earth. Some he knew had to be from this side of the frelled-up universe. Like clockwork, the Peacekeeper would inject drugs into his system that left him befuddled and afraid. The drugs hadn't dulled the pain, just his mind. Electricity had also been arced through his body, starting in his testicles or seeming to exit from there. Rayhez had made cuts on his body and then he would rub a chemical in the wounds that made him scream and squirm. For the first few arns, Rayhez hadn't even asked him any questions.

Crichton heard the sound he was coming to dread as the door whooshed open and Rayhez again entered the room. Inexplicably, he began to undo Crichton's bindings.

"What's going on?" Crichton said as he rubbed his wrists and swung his legs gingerly over the side of the table, careful not to slip from the sweat he now knew was mixed heavily with his blood. It was a dark, pink tint all over the back-side of his body and the table. He was also dizzy from whatever narcotic was flowing through his veins. His world would tilt crazily at unexpected moments. He began to think that perhaps Rayhez was done torturing him for the time being and they would take him to a cell so that he could rest.

Without warning, Rayhez punched Crichton in the side, just shy of his kidney, so hard he fell off the table. He lay stunned before he was bodily lifted by his ears to his feet and slapped viciously. Crichton went careening into the table that had held the instruments of his torture, knocking it over and spilling its contents. Distractedly he thought the sounds the utensils made were like tinkling ice or chimes.

Rayhez advanced on his vulnerable victim. Crichton was lying on his side and was turned towards him. He looked to be in shock and minor trembling shook his limbs. He had a bewildered expression on his face and was staring at him as he came closer with traces of fear etched in the human's eyes. Crichton was endeavoring to retreat into the corner in an obvious effort to get away from him, leaving a pinkish red trail behind like a snail would make as it lazily covered a distance. Rayhez laughed with delight at the aliens' attempt to escape him and Crichton appeared even more terrorized by this. Rayhez relished his victim's terror like one would an aperitif to a wonderful meal.

Picking him up by the neck, Rayhez swung him around bodily and sent Crichton flying against the wall across the room. Walking quickly over, he grabbed John by his ankle and pulled him back to slide through Rayhez' legs. He sat on Crichton similar to how Aeryn had that first day he had arrived in the Uncharteds. Rayhez wasn't giving him any time to think of his love and where she could be, as he cupped Crichton's chin with one hand and clutched his throat with the other.

"So, Crichton? I again ask you how in hezmana did you end up in your frelled-up ship all alone?" Rayhez had been asking him the same questions over and over again, no matter what answer Crichton gave him. Rayhez was squeezing Crichton's throat little by little, making it hard to breath without completely depriving him of air. Crichton was hoping he'd pass out. He was using any and all of the fighting techniques Aeryn had taught him and Rayhez wasn't budging. The PK was just too heavy and Crichton was too weak from all the torture, drugs, the lack of food, water, and rest, and now the beating he was enduring.

"Me?" Crichton gasped, "I was just waitin' for someone to come along and give my dead battery a jump!" Crichton wanted to laugh now. Rayhez was just looking at him confused. John knew from past experiences, everyone got the battery part, but not the rest. Rage took over the look of confusion on Rayhez' face and Crichton knew he was in for a lot more pain, but he felt it was worth his small show of defiance. Crichton was hoping he could goad Rayhez into killing him quickly.

Blows from hands and feet rained down upon him and he never seemed to quite pass out. Rayhez continued to beat Crichton from one side of the room to the other and back again. It just seemed to go on and on. Rayhez never seemed to tire and just kept coming at him. He never gave him time to regroup or get his bearings. How many arns this had gone on, Crichton couldn't begin to tell. He just knew he was hurting and so tired he could feel his body beginning to collapse.

Crichton was also becoming very frightened. He was hurting, bruised and sore, but he didn't believe anything important was being damaged. He was bleeding all over the place, but not too much. He could feel that both eyes were almost swollen shut and his lips were split and bleeding. His mind felt groggy and his reaction time was sluggish, which was causing him to not be able to evade Rayhez' strikes. He was terrified the pounding he was suffering was eventually going to give the bad guys the answers they sought and not the unconsciousness or death he was looking for.

"Wondering why I haven't beaten you to death yet, Crichton?" As if reading Crichton's mind, Rayhez queried from his position standing over him as he lay shivering on the cold floor. Crichton looked back at him in fear through the slits in his eyes. He was still trying ineffectively to move away from Rayhez. "I've studied you, Crichton. I know you probably better than that traitor Sun. We had a lot of medical information on you from the times you have been in Peacekeeper custody."

Leaving his victim laying on the floor, Rayhez talked as he got up and wandered over to the cabinet in the corner. It had been too heavy to move away from the wall when Crichton had been thrown against it. "I know what not to do to injure you too badly. I know where I need to hit or kick you to inflict the most pain without causing irreversible damage."

He took out chains and walked to a side wall. Crichton futilely tried to crawl away from Rayhez as he attached the chains to rungs in the wall. Rayhez walked back to his human victim. Crichton was ineffectively trying to crawl to the door. He didn't know where he could go, just that he wanted to get away from this madman at all costs.

Rayhez didn't take the human's attempts to escape seriously. He easily picked Crichton up and carried him back to the wall. Struggling weakly, he watched in desperation as metal cuffs were locked around his wrists. The chains weren't long enough to sit fully on the floor, nor long enough to stand upright. His blood on the floor was making standing a slippery maneuver. Rayhez grabbed Crichton by the face and touched him in a rough caressing manner he knew terrified the human.

"I'm going to leave you now. I'll be back before you start to miss me," Crichton watched as his tormentor turned and walked out the door.

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Grayza listened to the aliens screams as she watched his interrogation on her monitor. The brutal sessions were recorded and forwarded to her desk for her to provide any direction of questioning if it was necessary. So far he hadn't given them any information they already had determined. They now knew what had happened to his companions. Grayza hadn't realized when she had briefly question Crichton as to the whereabouts of his friends that she had actually hit closely upon the truth. His companions had left him aboard the leviathan when their "mission" was over and thought themselves free to return to their home worlds, to go on with their lives. Without him.

They also now knew the traitor had also deserted him. Crichton had told Rayhez the whole bizarre story of his cloning during a particularly grueling torture session. Crichton had screamed out his pain to both the chemical being rubbed into a cut in his inner thigh, near his groin, and to the traitor's abandonment of him. His screams didn't move her to pity. She considered his interrogation as a means to an end, in order to save her people from eradication.

She knew they would need the information concealed inside his brain to save them when the peace talks with the Scarrens fell though. And fall through they would. It was a matter of time, as their intelligence gathering was indicating the Scarrens were just waiting for the time frame they had designated to start their war.

The information in Crichton's mind would also provide her with the promotion to the Council she wanted so badly. Grayza smiled as she thought of the benefits the human could bring to her people. As his questioning was proceeding quite well, she turned the monitor off and returned to the reports she had left off. Rayhez had promised quite a bit. Grayza thought that for his sake, Rayhez had better deliver.

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Crichton couldn't sleep. He couldn't find a comfortable position to even find rest. He had been hanging by his arms for arns. His shoulders felt like they were on fire. He still felt drugged and he hurt so bad he wanted to cry. His exhaustion and thirst was taking over much of his thought process and interfering with efforts to make any escape plan. He'd even thought of licking the blood off of his body in order to get some moisture.

The room he was in looked like a scene out of one of those horror movies his sister used to drag him to. His blood was smeared all over the walls, furniture, and floor. A little of it was pooled underneath him. He was still naked and covered in it. Some of the sores had opened up and seeped down his body to the floor.

The cold seemed to seep into his bones and make the ache in his body that much worse. The shivering only made him hurt more. Hypothermia didn't concern him as he didn't believe Rayhez would let it get to the point he would succumb to sleep or die, just that he stayed miserable.

He knew no one knew where he was and he believed rescue by his friends was a fantasy. Crichton believed that after Moya had been sucked down that wormhole, no one even knew if he was still alive. If he was going to get out, it would have to be under his own power. Thoughts of Aeryn only caused him mental anguish as he realized there would be no rescue this time from his "Radiant" Aeryn Sun. Crichton couldn't even begin to guess where she was or if she was also alive.

He had to figure out how to get Rayhez to leave him alone for enough arns to get some of the drugs out of his system, maybe get some rest and gather some strength. Crichton began to pray for the first time since his mother's death years ago.

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Crichton could not figure out how things could have gotten worse. But they were. He was so exhausted; he felt he was beginning to hallucinate. He kept seeing Aeryn bending over him as he lay there. He had carried on a lengthy argument with her over her leaving and cried when she just dissipated. He knew he had hallucinated more, had been visited by friends and family from both sides of the universe, but didn't want to think about them as they were creating more torment than he wanted to deal with.

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His thirst was over-powering in its intensity. Hunger had come and gone, leaving his stomach with a constant ache. The only change in his situation was Rayhez had allowed medical techs to close his wounds and dress him in gray overalls. However, his feet were still bare and he was still cold. Pain was all he seemed to know. He lost all track of time and could not remember how long his life had been like this.

The drugs were still flowing through his veins and he could not remember a time he hadn't felt everything had blurry edges. He couldn't seem to remember how he had come to be where he was. He didn't really know who he was. He had a vague memory his name was John, but aside from that he didn't know anything more. His mind didn't retain the information on why he was being punished. He had a vague memory Rayhez wanted something from him, but not what.

Rayhez' torture of him seemed to be his only memory and Rayhez his only outlet for communication. Although he could sometimes hear beings moving around outside his door, the only person he had contact with was his tormentor. He had a vague memory of other people in his life, people whose touch did not hurt. But that memory, just as all his others, eluded him.

Rayhez' newest torture was making him stand facing the wall. Crichton thought at first it was something he could bear easily. He had lost count of the arns that had past by and then the pain had set in his bones and muscles. The muscles in his back were burning as if they were on fire. The pain going through his body was profound. It was screaming through his body like wind through a cyclone. Crichton began to sob as all he had been going through was too much for him to bear.

"Come over here, John," Rayhez directed him from across the room. He watched as the human stumbled over in a state of near collapse. Rayhez had taught the human the proper behavior expected of him on a previous occasion. He was pleased with the progress he'd had with the alien in the last four weekens, but he knew he was not finished. He pointed to the floor at his feet and Crichton fell more than sat in a supine position at the spot Rayhez had indicated.

He gazed up at Rayhez in a glazed, apprehensive way as if he were expecting to be struck at any moment. Rayhez smiled at him and Crichton cringed slightly away. Crichton wouldn't dare move too far away in fear of incurring retaliation from Rayhez. In the weekens they'd had Crichton, he'd finally made Crichton to comprehend the only way he would acquire decent food and non-violent attention from Rayhez was by cooperating even on a fundamental basis. In a way Rayhez, and by extension The Peacekeepers, owned him. It was time to start the next and last phase of his reconditioning.

"So, I have been told you like to kill people, no matter the species. Is this true, John?" Rayhez already knew this was the opposite. He knew of the guilt Crichton carried around over taking the lives of the beings he had been forced to kill. Crichton had told him this in one of his more grueling sessions of torture of his abhorrence of killing. Even when it was had been in defense of his friends or himself. How he felt his hands were figuratively covered in a kaleidoscope of multi-colored hues of blood.

He had already used this information before to torture Crichton and was now going to use it to its fullest extent. He had previously convinced Crichton that he had tried to escape and killed several Peacekeepers in the process. He had even gone to the extent as to show the alien the "bodies" he had left behind and produce the pulse pistol he had used. There had been no dead Peacekeepers, but Crichton didn't know that.

"There is a colony whose members have been systematically usurping our authority and killing Peacekeepers," Rayhez began. "We need someone to go down with the commandos to restore order and to execute those responsible for the uprising. We have decided to send you down with them to do the mopping up."

Crichton visibly recoiled. Rayhez knew he was close to achieving his goal. He also knew if he acted too quickly, he would lose his subject. He taken a long time in planning this part of Crichton's conditioning and everything hinged upon it. Rayhez stood to leave the room. Crichton hadn't responded to his statements and still sat upon the cold floor in a drug induced daze. As he reached the door, Crichton seemed to explode from the floor and reached him, falling on his knees and weeping.

"Please? Please don't. Don't make me kill again? I'll do anything. Anything you ask. If you don't make me do it," Crichton had lowered his head in defeat and sobbed from his kneeling position. Rayhez grinned inwardly. He knew from studying the human this would be his breaking point and he was not disappointed.

"I am not your master, John. You must ask your master," he secretly provided the message for Commandant Grayza to enter the cell. She was to be the human's controller and the one responsible for him.

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Commandant Grayza entered and stood in the little cell Crichton had been occupying and couldn't believe her eyes. The confident, arrogant human was no longer in this room. In his place was a docile and groveling being. He smelled badly as Rayhez had not allowed Crichton to clean himself and he had a beard. His hair was longer than usual, dirty, and matted. Rayhez had instructed her prior to this meeting on what she needed to do.

"What is it you wish to ask me, John?" Rayhez had been adamant on her not calling the human by the name Crichton. Rayhez had used that name to associate it with death and killing. The human would now visibly flinch and withdraw into a catatonic state when someone used that name. One more factor on disassociating Crichton from his friends and his former life. Crichton crawled over to her and begged at her knees.

"Please don't make me go down to the planet and kill anymore?" Crichton asked softly and he raised his head and stared pleadingly at her. Grayza reached down and stroked his soft, but filthy hair. She was amazed at the change in him. As she caressed him, she became aware of his face beginning to crumble. When she had not responded, she realized he believed she was going to make him kill again. Rayhez warned her of this, saying it would break the human's mind irreparably.

"You do not have to do this, John. I will not allow it," as she said this, all the air seemed to leave the human and he appeared to deflate, almost collapsing onto the floor. He was no longer looking up at her and he was whispering something. She bent down to lift his chin so that she might see his face and hear him more clearly. He gazed at her in adoration as he said, "Thank you, Master."

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Commandant Mele-On Grayza was again in a place she was not accustomed to. She was again surprised. The Crichton in front of her was not the same being she had first seen on the ill-fated Command Carrier or the gray cell the day before. Before her stood a clean, groomed, docile and compliant Peacekeeper. He even seemed eager to please. He stood next to Commander Rayhez in full red and black uniform. She had left her possession with Rayhez in order for Rayhez to clean him up and train him as to the duties he would be required to perform. She had returned at the beginning of Alpha shift to collect her prize and the change was astonishing. Rayhez had performed a miracle overnight.

"John, where are your manners? Offer the Commandant a chair," Rayhez spoke softly to the outlaw, but from Crichton's reaction she'd have thought he had turned an electrical charge loose on the man. Crichton jumped as quickly as possible to do as he was bid. When he had finished, Crichton assumed a position of attention by the wall. Grayza looked at his bright, rare blue eyes and marveled at the difference. He still had the look of drugs in his system, but otherwise coherent. Rayhez had already informed her Crichton would have to continue taking a special blend of drugs and assured her they would have no lasting effects or impairments on the human. As she studied Crichton, she detected he had an air of vulnerability that was…..stimulating.

"Commander Rayhez," Grayza addressed him as she continued staring at her possession, "the work you have done is truly remarkable. The difference is amazing. But how can I be sure he truly belongs to me," Grayza turned violet eyes on Rayhez and examined him as if she could look into his mind and discover how he had performed this amazing feat.

"He more than belongs to you, Commandant. He will do anything you ask him to," Rayhez smiled, relishing his ability to shake the Commandant's composure. Shock was written all over her face at his last statement. "I have prepared him to follow any order you personally give, Commandant." He watched as a smile slowly spread across her face and she again turned to study her acquisition. Rayhez felt his promotion was a foregone conclusion. If he could achieve this with Crichton, he could do the same thing with any being, even traitorous ex-peacekeepers.

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It had taken some time and a lot of hard work, but Aeryn Sun had finally found Moya. She had searched for Moya, and particularly Crichton, for a monen. She had finally found her center working for the mercenaries and had also found that she still loved John Crichton. Any John Crichton. She only hoped he was still aboard the leviathan. She knew she had left him cruelly, but necessarily. She felt she had to have left to make the realization she had. Aeryn felt she had no choice but to do whatever was necessary to win him back. She had waited for this moment. She felt excitement as she tapped her comm.

"Pilot? Can you hear me? It's me, Aeryn. I'm asking permission to dock," she waited for a response and was surprised to hear Chiana's voice, "Come on aboard, Aeryn." She flew her prowler into the docking area and was surprised to see Dargo's ship, Lo'Lann inside. She had left the gentle ship after they had already gone on their respective searches.

Setting the prowler down as softly as she could, she jumped out of the cockpit and landed with barely a thud. She strode swiftly through the bay, in a hurry to get to command and to find out where Crichton was. She was somewhat disappointed he had not met her when she landed, but she knew ahead of time she was going to have to work to regain his trust and his love.

Just as she got to the main corridor, she was lifted off the ground as Dargo came around the corner, picked her up, and swung her around. Dargo stopped, set her back on her feet and hugged her.

"Friend, it is so good to see your face. I never thought I would see you again," Dargo said softly. Aeryn looked into his eyes for the first time in what felt like a lifetime. She could see the delight her presence brought him, but thought she could see something else as well. She felt her face crack into a smile. It felt good to be back where she belonged.

"It's good to see you as well, Dargo. I'm glad to be back aboard Moya," Aeryn said just as Jool, Chiana and Rygel came around the corner. She was almost knocked over by the hug Chiana gave her as much as the moisture in the girl's eyes. Straight away, questions were fired at her. Everyone seemed to want to know everything all at once. Even Rygel. Dargo raised his hands and the interrogation came to a complete halt.

"Let us allow Aeryn to stow her belongings and then we can meet in the central chamber to eat in half an arn. I think Aeryn could do with some food and we can ask our questions there," Dargo turned and began walking as if he expected everyone to follow. She turned to go down Moya's access way that led to the former cells that were now their quarters.

Less than half an arn later, Aeryn walked into the galley. Everyone was already there and all discussion came to an abrupt halt. Almost everyone was there. There was no John Crichton. Aeryn could feel apprehension begin to grow in her belly.

"Dargo?" Aeryn began. She hated the looks on everyone's faces. It was a mixture of sadness, guilt and something else she could not identify. Even Rygel was strangely quiet. Chiana and Jool were standing on each side of Dargo as if they were absorbing strength from him. Aeryn found Rygel hovering by the door as if he wanted to leave, but couldn't.

"Hey, Aeryn? Did you look for us long? Or did you find us right off?" Chiana asked softly. She approached Aeryn as if she was expecting some blow, but it was her eyes that told a different story. She looked as if she were on the verge to cry.

"Chiana, let Aeryn have time to sit down and eat before you start firing questions at her?" Dargo still had that sad, guilty look about him. He turned suddenly and sat heavily on a stool, where food was piled on the table. "Come Aeryn. Sit, so we may talk."

Aeryn sat down across from the Luxan. Her alarm was mounting. Where was Crichton and why were the others behaving so abnormally? She knew she was going to get the answers. She also began to believe she wasn't going to like them.

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"It took a monen to find out that the information Scorpius had given me was false and that Macton was already dead. Once I'd learned that, I began looking for Moya once more." The others had allowed Dargo to tell the story for the rest of them. This was another factor leading Aeryn's fear to grow. She was refusing to jump to conclusions, but her friends were making that difficult. Crichton's absence and her friends' odd behavior left her feeling anxious. Dargo was continuing.

"Chiana found she was too well known to get anywhere near Nerri. She finally got a chance to see him on a small, unpopulated planet. Although wishing the opposite, Nerri made it clear she could not stay with him or help in any way. So, she contacted Pilot through a beacon they had secreted in an empty sector of space for just that very reason." He stopped to hug the Nebari girl as she moved to him.

"And Rygel?" Aeryn asked. Dargo said with a sigh, "He's just visiting. He finally won his crown away from that despicable cousin and will again be leaving soon. He just came to tell us of his victory and to extend an offer of asylum." Rygel seemed to puff up with pride for only a moment before it too disappeared.

"You would be a most welcome and honored ally, Aeryn Sun," Rygel had floated closer to her and his behavior was the strangest of all to her.

"Thank you, Rygel. But Dargo, where is Crichton? Jool was with him when we left," Aeryn asked them. Aeryn turned to look at the Interon. "I never left Moya," Jool told her and then looked at the floor at her feet. Aeryn looked from one to the other of her friends as Jool stated the obvious. They seemed to become even sadder. Dargo look a large breath and held Chiana tighter to his side as if he were now seeking solace from her.

"When we left, Crichton had gone out in that piece of dren module to be by himself. Jool and Pilot told us he had been out there for some time and was almost out of fuel. He was just about to return to Moya when she was pulled down a wormhole." Aeryn sat stunned. If what her friends were telling her had occurred, Crichton was lost somewhere in the Uncharteds without friends, food, and probably without funds to buy fuel.

She realized he could quite possibly be dead. They – she - had left him to die alone. She hadn't wanted to watch him die again, but she couldn't bear the thought he had died alone with no one to comfort him in his last moments. There was a quiet roaring in her ears and her hands began to tingle. She lifted them to her face. She had only felt this way once before. She remembered when. She knew she would never forget it and that time had also involved John Crichton. She heard Dargo calling her name and his voice seemed to be going further away from her. Everything went dark.

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Aeryn opened her eyes. She was lying on the bed in her quarters. Dargo was sitting in a chair next to the bed looking at her. She recognized the look now. The one she had seen earlier, when she arrived. It was sadness mixed with guilt.

"How do you feel, Aeryn?" Dargo said softly. 'When did this Luxan become so calm,' she asked herself. "I have been worried about you, my friend." He reached over and held her hand.

"Did you look for him, Dargo? Did you find his body" Tears sprang to his eyes with her softly spoken question. He shook his head back and forth, unable to speak. He breathed deep and tried again. He held her hand tighter.

"We could not find him or his module. We began to think, to hope, he had gone home. Then we found the truth. Somehow, unbelievably, a Peacekeeper information disk found its way to us. Chiana was approached on some Commerce planet and it was slipped into her hand. The being ran away before she could ask it any questions. We still don't know why the disk was given to us." Dargo took another breath. Tears rolled down his checks as he looked at her. He looked down as he continued. He couldn't seem to continue if he was looking at her.

"The disk told us what happened to Crichton. He was captured by the Peacekeepers. He was almost dead when they found him, but I cannot thank them for saving his life. For what they did to him after that, I want to kill them with my hands," Dargo was gripping her hand hard and his tears continued to fall on Moya's floor. Aeryn attempted to comfort him with soft words. His grip on her hand loosened, but not the grief on is face. She needed him to calm, to tell her the rest. They needed to formulate a plan. She would bring John Crichton home.

"What did they do to John, Dargo?" She urged him. She was apprehensive at receiving the answer. Aeryn knew what her former comrades could and would do to get any information. She knew she didn't want the answer, but she did know they needed all available information to get an idea where John was and in what condition he was in, in order develop a plan to get him out. Dargo wiped his eyes, took another breath, and found some strength before continuing.

"The disk wasn't just an information disk, Aeryn. It came with holovids of Crichton's torture," Aeryn was shocked when she didn't think she could be shocked with anymore. "They have done something to his mind, Aeryn. The last view of Crichton in that holovid is one of him wearing a Peacekeeper uniform, standing next to that Peacekeeper Commandant we met on the Command Carrier."

"The one Crichton pointed the pulse pistol at???" Aeryn screamed, stunned. Dargo shook his head up and down. "I have to see that holovid, Dargo." Now it was Dargo's turn to be shocked.

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Crichton found his days were always the same. His routine was he went to work in an isolated part of the lab on the command carrier. He worked until his guard came to get him and he went to eat. Then he was escorted to his bed to sleep. However, he did remember a day when it was not so normal.

His guard was escorting him through the maze of corridors when there was an explosion and he had fallen on the floor. Smoke was thick and everywhere. It smelled of Chakin Oil and hot metal. He had felt hands pulling at his legs, felt his body sliding on the grid floor, more explosions going off, and the face of a member of his guard coming out of the smoke to pull him away from the other hands. He remembered how frightened he had been, the way his heart had raced and how he had been out of breath. He had been informed later all but one of his guards had died.

His master had told him later it had been an attempt to take him from her. She did not tell him who had tried, but assured him it would not happen again. After that, there had been a great number of troop movements off and then on board the carrier. The whole incident had terrified him. He still awoke at night with fear in his throat from the experience. A few times he knew he had awoken screaming as his master had come into his sleeping area to calm him.

He was also having dreams about people he felt he should know. The dreams always blew into fragments upon his awakening and left him confused. He thought he should ask his master what they meant, but for an inexplicable reason, he was terrified to do so. There were so many things in his life that terrified him and he often wondered if this was the way it had always been.

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Crichton found himself again strapped down to a metal table. This time his head was held immobile as well. He had been marched to medical without explanation and strapped to a gurney. He didn't understand why. He had done everything his master had always told him. Some things he couldn't guess she would want, he did without complaint. He had even made great strides in developing the new tech weapon she had asked him to work on.

Crichton felt a small sting as the medical tech injected something into his left facial cheek and then stood to the side. He felt his cheek start to numb. His master walked forward to stand over him. He received a jolt of memory of this having happened before. He rejected it as memories often came with physical pain and confusion.

"John, I am having you tattooed with the symbol of the Sebacean house of Grayza. It is to show everyone that you belong to me. It should also act as a deterrent to anyone who thinks of taking you from me," Grayza stated. John was unsure of why this was necessary, but his master's will was paramount.

Grayza motioned another Peacekeeper to come forward. He looked nondescript and John identified him as just another tech. Like him. Except he belonged to the Commandant and no one else seemed to belong to anyone. This had given him a sense of pride before, that it made him special somehow.

The tech put something next to his face that made a strange, buzzing noise. He felt a pressure sensation on his cheek. He sat docile, staring at his master with trust in his eyes. The procedure was over before he had time to analyze it. The tech walked away and his master approached again.

"It looks adequate. Appropriate," she said as she smiled and caressed his face. The techs began to release him. His master had begun caressing him recently. She had never touched him at first, when she first owned him. Lately, she had started to touch him in a caressing manner that was not altogether unpleasant. Most of his memories related that touch was always filled with pain. But this was different. "Now everyone will know you belong to me."

Once he was released, Crichton walked over to a mirror on the back of the wall as his master spoke with the tech. He stared at a tattoo of an intricate symbol in the usual Peacekeeper black and red colors. Strange emotions flowed through him. He knew they were not what he should be feeling right now. He rejected those feelings. He knew every Peacekeeper would now know he belonged to Mele-On Grayza. It again filled him with a sense of pride. He saw his master approach him and take his hand. She led him out of the medical unit. Unbeknownst to him, the Peacekeepers who were present didn't look on the event with anything but disgust.

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Grayza led him directly to their quarters. Not that he shared living quarters with the Commandant. As her slave, he slept in a room adjacent to hers. It could only be accessed through her sleeping area. She had told him in the beginning this was to keep him safe from others who would take him from her.

He didn't know why she was taking him there when it was in the middle of Alpha shift. It was not time to sleep, but he went wherever she led him. He knew it wasn't for him to ask questions of his master. That rule alone was drilled into him hard by Rayhez in the beginning.

The door closed behind them. She turned and started to touch him softly again. It felt so good to have someone touching him with gentleness and not inflict pain. He felt as if he was going to overdose on the feeling. Grayza observed his eyes glaze over. He had a distracted look upon his face as if he were overwhelmed by what was happening to him. She decided to stay along this track of gentleness. As she continued touching, caressing John, Grayza felt the tattoo coupled with his air of vulnerability was inciting and compelling her to sexually possess the human. She felt no need to disregard the compulsion.

Crichton became aware that his master had unhooked his jacket and she was caressing the skin underneath. He gasped and felt his knees start to buckle. In a daze, he felt himself guided to the large bed he often passed on his way to his own small room and bed. She pushed him down and he sat heavily on the soft mattress.

"Do you like that," his master whispered into his ear. He shuddered as she licked the delicate shell as she spoke. John couldn't answer her. John discovered even his masters lips were soft as they kissed him gently across his face. She kissed him softly and lingered where his new tattoo was located before settling on his mouth. She threw his jacket on the floor without him being aware she had even taken it off. His feet felt bare and this led him to believe she had also removed his boots. He was confused as his master had never seemed to desire to recreate with him before. No one ever touched him and seemed to go out of their way to avoid coming into contact with him. Now his master was doing more than just touching him.

His master slowly pushed him down on the bed, now kissing him aggressively on the mouth as she undid his pants. Her tongue pushed inside his mouth just as her hand slide inside his pants and she fondled his balls and hard cock. John found his lungs couldn't take in enough air and left him gasping for breath. His master began suckling on his neck as she continued to stroke him and he squirmed underneath her in pleasure. Groaning, he held her tight against him, trying to encourage her to do more.

He watched as she stopped kissing him and stripped his leather pants off of his hips and then his legs, leaving him lying naked on the black bedspread like an appetizer. He watched as she started to take her clothes off. He was now very confused and a little scared. But his master was looking at him kindly; with a little smile upon her soft, pale lips as she walked slowly back to the bed.

Pushing him further onto the bed, she sat astride his hips. He watched as she trailed her fingers between her breasts and then softly touched his lips. He immediately felt his pulse quicken and his body seemed to go completely out of his control. Lust took over his mind. He felt his cock grow extremely harder. He hesitantly began to caress her breasts. He heard her moan and knew he she liked what he was doing. He decided to return her caresses in tandem with hers and he would then know he wouldn't make a mistake.

She kissed him again, this time harder, and her caresses became rough. She ground down and rubbed herself on his cock. He felt his eyes almost roll back into his head and groaned. She grabbed his hard cock and positioned it at the apex of her body. She then sat down, enveloping him. He felt her tight muscles clench around his cock and almost climaxed then and there. He breathed deep, trying to control his body's reaction. Crichton was hit by a myriad of sensations, all of which were centered on his cock. She bent down and kissed him hard again. He couldn't seem to think, concentrate. He knew instinctively what he was now supposed to do, but he felt lost and confused. There seemed to be a part of him that didn't want this to happen. His head began to hurt, so he tried to ignore that part of his mind.

He watched as she sat up and moved her body up and down, causing intense friction along his cock and his excitement grew. He shuddered again and drew in a deep breath. She was incredibly soft where she gripped him inside. He rubbed her breasts, pinching her nipples. She moved a little differently and he groaned as the friction felt even better. He got a sudden urge to flip them over and drive himself deep within her. She bent over and was murmuring soft words into his ear, encouraging him to perform. He took this as an acquiescence to try something different. He flipped them over without losing rhythm.

His master laughed softly and urged him on even further. He was excited beyond measure. He kissed her hard, moved her legs over his shoulders and drove himself deep, pounding himself in her. She again touched his lips and he pounded himself even harder into her wet core. He couldn't seem to stop. He was mindless and couldn't get enough. His mind had shut down to all other stimuli.

He again groaned as he felt her body quiver and grip hard around his shaft. His master then screamed out his name. Everything, light and colors, exploded behind his eyes and in his mind, the intense pleasure causing him to yell out. He stilled his body and closed his eyes. His master lifted his chin and kissed him softly on the lips. The shock of it snapped his eyes open. His master looked content.

She then flipped them back over and lay on top of him. "You did well, John. I am very pleased," she gently caressed his face again. He felt drowsy and his eyes were getting heavy. He made a move to go to his room, but she placed a hand on his chest. Caressing his chest, she told him, "You have my permission to stay with me tonight, John." She turned him onto his side and spooned her body up against his back. This made him feel satisfied as it was clear he had pleased his master. He forgot entirely the disconcerting feeling he had when they had started to recreate. He relaxed and settled down for sleep. For the first time in monens, the first time in his known memory, John Crichton fell asleep with a sense of feeling wanted.

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Crichton had been working very hard on the wormhole project his master had assigned him. There were a team of techs working with him and things were progressing at a blistering speed. Inside, he was very confused as to why he seemed to know more about this new science than anyone else. He was only recently assigned and everyone listened to him and unbelievably went along with his ideas. It was baffling to him and made his head ache. Crichton forced himself to stop thinking about this new confusing problem and the pain went away. He often did this when a thought or memory hurt his head.

His comm chirped and he knew it was time for him to leave. He was attending his master at a Peacekeeper function on some planet and he had to be ready. Half an arn later, he was refreshed and properly attired in his best uniform. Seated beside his master, they waited for the marauder to take them down to the planet. He was excited as his master had never allowed him off ship before, let alone down to a planet. He looked over at her and she smiled at him.

"Remember John, stay by me. Do NOT leave my side," Grayza stressed the last part, but lessened the harshness of her words by caressing his arm. She caressed him often and there was a part of him that didn't like it. He continued to remind himself that he belonged to her and that he should like it. His master could do anything she liked to him and he would never be able to change that. His head began to throb and he went through the techniques he had taught himself to ease his discomfort and again rejected the thoughts that led to his headache in the first place.

He wondered instead at what wonders and dangers lay on the planet and was strangely excited by that. He could not remember a time he had been on a planet. As far as he remembered, he had always been in space on the carrier. The experience of going to a planet was one that would last for some time.

He had a sudden memory of a green and blue planet. He didn't understand what it meant and couldn't recall where he had seen the planet before. A headache started to pound inside his skull and he again went through his relaxation techniques. The ship vibrated slightly as it landed. Crichton and Grayza followed the commandos out of the ship and made their way to the center of the commerce planet.

Crichton looked all around him without physically appearing to and marveled at what he saw. There were beings of all races everywhere, selling all manner of things. Their voices sounding like a cacophony of noise that made his ears ring. There were odors assaulting his sense of smell. Some were enticing and others just plain repugnant.

He followed close behind his master, feeling safe within the group of commandos surrounding them as some of the looks they received were hostile. The looks did not stop their little group from going through the market area and entering a neat, park-like area that reminded him of the recreation areas on the Carrier. Just as he was admiring the neat, grass areas and trimmed trees, another group of aliens met up with them. It was their guide to the symposium.

After a short walk, they arrived at the building and were ushered into a conference room. He stood behind his master's chair at parade rest as she sat down and the talks started.

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Crichton was exhausted and the room had gotten darker as the sun set. He had remained standing at parade rest behind his master's chair for the last three arns. The meeting with the planet's leaders had droned on and on without a resolution. Just when he thought he could take no more, the meeting was abruptly over and the delegates began filing out. They were going back to the Carrier to rest and they would return in the beginning of Alpha shift the next solar day.

As they walked back through the still busy market, they detoured and entered a bar. The commandos cleared a path through the throng of people to a table in the back. Crichton was unsure why they were there, but was content to follow. What he did know was that hostile stares followed them and continued after they finally sat at the table. Crichton sat next to Grayza and watched and waited. His patience was rewarded as one of the delegates made his way to the table.

"Commandant, I'm so glad you waited," Delegate Rooshon sat and took a long drink on the beverage that had been placed in front of him. The delegate was sweating profusely and kept looking around nervously.

"I received your note, Rooshon. What do you have to tell me?" Grayza stared at the sweating alien with distaste. Rooshon had sent the note just prior to their leaving the meeting area. "What could be so important that it could not wait until tomorrow?"

"It's about the conference. It's not what it appears to be," Rooshon's eyes kept shifting around the bar nervously and his behavior was making the commandos, and Crichton, nervous. He didn't like this nervous Sebacean and suspected there was something more going on than even what Rooshon was hinting at. He just couldn't figure out what. He began to look around the room for any trouble that was coming their way.

Just then pain slammed into his brain as someone yelled out, "Crichton!" and he dropped out of his chair onto the floor into a fetal position of pain. Crichton felt as if needles were being pushed through brain matter as if it were a magnet pulling them from the other side of his head. He grabbed his head in a futile attempt to stop the flow of pain. He couldn't move or straighten his body out. He felt as if he were on the edge of losing consciousness.

He was doing everything he could to stay awake. He could hear his master's voice calling out to him and he opened his eyes with great effort. He saw his master reaching out to him. With all of his strength, he forced his arm out to take her hand. He heard pulse rifles going off over him as the battle was waged as he laid there. Pain increased and John's eyesight began to dim.

Grayza watched in frustration as his eyes slid shut and his arm dropped to the grimy floor. She could hear his scream of pain even under all the noise of weapons fire. The fight was getting hotter where they were and she knew she had to leave him and retreat. Grayza knew she would lose her possession, but she was determined it wouldn't be for long. John Crichton belonged to her and no one would change that.

The fire fight seemed to stop just as quickly as it started, but the pain continued on inside his brain. He again grabbed his head and whimpered as it increased. As he felt someone pick him up, the darkness rose at the same rate as the height he was lifted until darkness was all there was.

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Aeryn couldn't believe what she had seen. She was piloting her prowler away from the commerce planet, watching Dargo's back as he piloted the transport back to Moya with their precious cargo. They had been buying supplies and looking into a rumor about Crichton's whereabouts, when they had actually observed him slip into the tavern with the Peacekeepers.

What Aeryn couldn't believe was how he screamed in unexpected and massive pain at the same microt she had called out his name. She watched in horror as he collapsed out of his chair and onto the floor. Then the battle had started. She, Dargo, and Chiana had laid down enough pulse fire to beat the Peacekeepers back. She watched as Grayza attempted to grab at Crichton, calling out to him ordering him to follow her. She also saw Crichton attempt to reach out to Grayza. Aeryn could see John holding his head and tears flowing down his cheeks.

Aeryn laid down more pulse blasts and watched as the Peacekeepers moved slowly away from where Crichton was lying, to leave through a back door. "Dargo! Grab Crichton! I'll cover you!" Aeryn yelled over the blasts of her pulse rifle. She watched in her peripheral vision as Dargo at first gave her an incredulous look, but then did as she asked, carrying Crichton to the front of the tavern. She and Chiana laid down enough pulse blasts to destroy the room and followed them out. Then they had made a frenzied run for the transport pod and her prowler.

When they had arrived on Moya, Dargo was already taking Crichton out of the pod as she was jumping out of her ship. Dargo was running with Chiana close behind and it was obvious he was taking Crichton to what had been Zhaan's medical bay with Jool and Rygel in his wake. Aeryn ran after them.

"Pilot! Can Moya starburst?" Aeryn yelled as she ran.

"We are already making the preparations, Officer Sun. Prepare to starburst in 15 microts!" Pilot stated in an urgent tone. Aeryn knew he had been monitoring them through their comms and made the preparations ahead of time, expecting the request.

"Thank you, Pilot!" Aeryn breathlessly voiced as she ran.

When they arrived, Dargo laid Crichton on his side as he had not uncurled from his fetal position. Crichton was whimpering and tears continued to run down his cheeks. Aeryn and the others grabbed onto the table, door, and ribs of the great leviathan as she went into starburst.

"Moya has successfully starburst and I cannot detect anyone following us," Pilot stated in a more calm voice. "Thank you, Pilot," Dargo stated as he continued to watch Jool prepare to treat Crichton.

The crew gathered around as Jool put a smock on and busied herself in the lab. She gathered her utensils to examine him. Aeryn watched in shock as Jool injected something into Crichton that caused him to unexpectedly relax and fall asleep. Jool continued to examine him. After a quarter of an arn had gone by, Dargo could contain his impatience no longer.

"Well, Jool? What is the matter with him? He doesn't appear to be injured," Dargo hissed his impatience. Aeryn was continually surprised by the Luxan. He had certainly changed in her absence. He had asked Jool all of those questions in a hiss, without yelling. This was so unlike his behavior before she had left. Aeryn believed the weight of command had made positive changes in the Luxan.

"I can find no physical reason he should be in pain," Jool stated in frustration. "I only gave him something to sedate him. The pain seemed to be emanating from his head, but my examination revealed nothing out of the ordinary." She was wringing her hands as she looked at the others. Jool looked at a loss to explain what was wrong with the human. "All we can do is wait for him to wake up and see then. I'll continue to monitor and re-examine him until then."

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Crichton found consciousness seemed to come rushing at him at the same rate he had lost it. He could hear voices talking softly around him. He tried to open his eyes, but the glare of the lights speared through his brain. He blinked furiously to ease the shocking pain and to clear the tears the pain had caused. He hesitantly opened his eyes fully and found himself lying in a bed he didn't recognize. He had a golden thermal blanket laying over him and aliens he didn't know staring at him. Crichton felt fear overtake him in a rush and his limbs started to tremble.

PK VOODOO PT. 2

A cold drop of sweat tickled its way down his back like condensation on a bottle of cold Raslac as it slowly adjusted to room temperature. Rayhez knew there would be hezmana to pay when he had heard about the agonized scream that had come from the human's lips.

He believed he understood what had happened and why. He knew the alien. There wasn't one aspect of his personality he didn't understand or know; he believed the answer was very simple. Crichton's mentality and emotional connections all lead to the traitor. She was the root of all his pain and love. And it was she who had screamed his name.

Right now, he was standing in Commandant Grayza's quarters about to explain this to the one being who did not want to hear Crichton still had any connection to the ex-Peacekeeper.

"You never included in your brief on Crichton that there would be pain when the name Crichton was uttered. Just that every time his last name was spoken he would go catatonic and when his first name was said, his conditioning would be reinforced," Grayza did not shout. Her voice was colder than that of deep space. It was just as deadly it you were exposed to it. Rayhez knew if he didn't handle this right, it could mean his death. The council would agree to it. They had just lost the source to the only weapon capable of stopping the Scarrens.

"I never anticipated he would ever run into the traitor, Commandant," Rayhez started, "However, knowing Crichton as well as I do, it makes sense. She was always the origin of almost all of the human's pain." He stole a glance at Grayza and knew he was getting somewhere. She was sitting at her work station looking thoughtfully at the floor.

"Who should cry his name on that planet, but the one who can inflict the most mental and emotional pain on him and has done. When he was cloned, she cast him aside as though he were just a cheap copy. Then she deserted him, where he almost died. If not for being rescued by you." Rayhez felt calmer. He knew he was right and he now knew the Commandant also knew it. She abruptly stood up straighter and crossed to her desk.

"See to it that the price on their heads is raised. I want Crichton back as soon as possible. The weapon is not finished, though it was close. Dismissed." Rayhez turned and left her quarters. He was going to crash through every barrier and do anything to get that fekkick human back. His career depended upon it.

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Crichton was beyond frightened. His heart was trying to beat its way out of his chest like it was a frightened alien trying to get out. 'Where and what was that thought about?' A headache began to form, so he stopped thinking about it as usual.

He remembered what he had been warned about. Irreversible contamination and the consequences. He would lose everything, his life as he knew it, if he did not escape soon. He belonged to Commandant Grayza and he knew she would be looking for him. He wanted to impress her by at least meeting her half way. He just had to leave before it was too late, before he was contaminated. He just had to keep looking for his chance.

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"What the frell is that on his face???" Aeryn shouted. She was losing control of her emotions and she knew it. She attempted to exert more control over them and succeeded somewhat. She witnessed Crichton cringe even more away from them on the small examination bed. She turned to Dargo as if she were looking for help or an explanation from the warrior.

They had been so excited to have him back, terrified as to why he was unconscious, and anxious because of his inexplicable pain that they had not noticed the tattoo below his left eye. Aeryn thought she knew what it was, but it was so old and ancient in Peacekeeper lore that she was unsure.

"It's a Peacekeeper slave tattoo," Rygel stated from his perch across the bay. He hovered closer to Crichton, who in turn stared like he had never seen any being like the Hynerian before. "Yes, I'm sure of it. Durka often threatened to mark me that way. It's just another Peacekeeper trick to terrorize their victims." Aeryn heard sadness in the little monarch's voice. He, too, had changed while she had been away. She was beginning to think everyone had changed except her.

Aeryn was somewhat stunned. Grayza had marked Crichton as her personal property. She stepped closer and found it was a modified Peacekeeper symbol. The marking had to be the symbol of the Sebacean house Grayza's line came from. She looked into John's face as he began to edge away from her and found no recognition there. The idea that his memories had been wiped clean was abhorrent, but very possible. Crichton didn't seem to know any of them.

"Do you know me?" She asked him directly. His body language was screaming at her to move away from him. "I do not believe you have to worry about irreversible contamination. They will take you back." Aeryn could feel the shock reverberate around and behind her. Her friends did not consider this point, but she would have if she were in Crichton's "feet". She smiled to herself as she used one John's Erp sayings in her thoughts. They always made her feel better when she used them.

She saw his mouth move and if she had been further away she would not have heard his whispered word. She didn't know if he were answering her first question or if he were responding to his "contamination". Her heart went out to him. He was pale, sweating, and the wideness of his eyes was telling her of his fright. She really needed him to calm in order to determine the exact nature of his predicament.

"We're not going to hurt you. We just want to talk with you for awhile. Is that alright?" Crichton slowly nodded his head up and down. Aeryn looked back at her companions for confirmation and support. Her friends were still allowing her to lead the conversation with John.

"Please let me go? I am only a tech. I have no battle plans or vital intelligence. It only means my death to keep me here any longer," Crichton whispered as if she had not attempted to reassure him of the opposite. Aeryn watched his body language. He was coiled like a helix and she knew he was ready to bolt at the first opportunity.

"Do you know me? Any of us? Please try to remember," Aeryn asked softly. She watched as Crichton looked around the room at all of them, taking his time. This was part of his personality they couldn't steal from him or break. He was still a scientist and was going to do everything thoroughly. Her heart fell as his eyes again looked upon her and he shook his head from side to side.

"Does any of this seem familiar at all?" Chiana asked hopefully. Chiana shivered as his clear blue eyes settled on her with no recollection at all. She had been hoping at least Moya would have been familiar.

"I have never been anywhere, but on a Command Carrier. I was born there and I was told it was there that I would die," he said softly. Chiana watched as Crichton denched his way off of the exam bed, until he was standing next to it, with it standing between the crew and himself.

Aeryn felt herself beginning to crumble. She was waited so long for him, had waited so long to find him and get him home. As she stared at him, she realized the Peacekeepers had turned him into a stranger.

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Crichton saw his opening to escape. They were distracted with a dilemma as they believed he was a missing, long lost friend of theirs. He ran with everything he had, all the training he had ever been given on the Command Carrier. Just as he reached the door, he felt a sting on his neck. He felt blackness rising up inside his mind and it felt like he was drowning. He felt his body stop, turn and fall. He didn't feel anything as his body hit the floor of the Leviathan.

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Aeryn hadn't noticed Dargo position himself, even though she herself had believed and had seen the signs that Crichton would try to make an escape. He had taken John down with his anesthetic tongue. Dargo reached down and easily picked the human off of the floor.

"He's gotten…….quick. I think we should lock him inside a cell until we can decide what to do about his memory," Dargo declared as he turned towards Moya's halls.

"I agree, Dargo. We can't take the risk he would escape before we can figure out how to reverse this," Aeryn acknowledged. Ever the soldier, she fell into step with the Luxan on their way to the converted cell that used to be John's room.

"Should we take him to a healer?" Chiana asked as she followed along behind. Aeryn turned and observed Rygel was gliding in his throne sled behind Chiana with Jool trailing in the back. They entered the cell and gently placed Crichton on his own bed.

"A diagnostician should be able to determine what is wrong with him," Jool said from behind them.

"He's gonna be grumpy when he wakes up," Chiana murmured as she smoothed Crichton's soft hair, but the spiky ends just popped up again. Dargo nodded as she added, "He always gets grumpy when you tongue him."

She gently kissed Crichton's forehead before walking out of his quarters. "I'm going to make some of his favorite dishes. Maybe they will 'ding a rell', as John would say."

Aeryn sat down on the bed next to the human. He looked so normal and natural; she could almost imagine he would wake up and say, "Hey." Dargo walked to the door and she looked up, catching his eye. It had always seemed they could talk to each other this way. Two warriors communicating in a way only warriors knew how.

She knew they were going to leave John alone in his quarters and lock him in. Dargo turned and left to take his shift in command. Aeryn caressed John's face tenderly. She covered him with his furry "blanket", bringing it up to his chin. She slowly walked out of his quarters and palmed the door shut, locking it.

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The higher reward price was garnering a lot of attention. Grayza felt they were closing in on Crichton's whereabouts. She would have her prize, her property back. She would also have the traitor and her cohorts to torture and execute for taking him in the first place. Everyone would learn what happened when you stole something that belonged to Mele-On Grayza.

She turned from the readouts on her desk monitor as Captain Rayhez walked into her quarters. She was expecting good news. She knew he was not going to disappoint her. He came to attention in front of her and waited.

"What have you found out, Captain?" Grayza began. She watched the soldier's posture and knew the news was indeed good. She felt her heart rate increase with the thought she would soon have her possession back.

"Commandant, word has come through that the fugitives are looking for a diagnostician to treat Crichton's memory loss and we now have the coordinates where they are heading. A Peacekeeper outpost obtained the information and I have given the coordinates to the helm. We are awaiting your commands." Rayhez knew he had pulled his eema out of the blast jets this time. He knew that soon they would have the human back. He watched as she took a deep satisfying breath and a small, slow smile spread across her features.

"Let's return my property to where he belongs, Captain. Inform Captain Braca to make all haste to those coordinates," Rayhez turned around smartly and finally allowed a small smile to appear on his face.

He would prove to the Commandant and to the Council his "project" was still intact and still belonged to them. He believed he could work another promotion out of his work with Crichton. Although, it was necessary to obtain Crichton before his narcotics completely wore off. There was a danger the change he had produced in Crichton would be unstable once they did.

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Opening his eyes was easier this time. Crichton found himself under a furry blanket this time, instead of a golden, thermal one. He was also alone. 'What fools they are to leave me alone,' he thought. Throwing the blanket off, the cool air of the ship touched him with a tingling caress that brought out bumps on his skin. Ignoring this, he made his way quickly to the door. Passing his hand over the operating device, he looked in confusion as the door stayed shut. He tried again, but had the same result. He was locked in.

'That's not gonna stop me,' Crichton declared to himself. He looked around the cell and discovered a multitude of personal items. Some were curiously singular from any Peacekeeper device and he longed to examine them. He didn't though, as he knew he must get out now. He found some small tools and decided they would work. He walked back to the door and began working on the locking mechanism.

Memories began to crowd out his other thoughts and he shook his head vigorously to clear them from his mind. He had no time to ponder why these aliens were familiar to him somehow. He knew instinctively his dreams had some connection to the memories barging through his thoughts. He concentrated harder on the task at hand.

'Didn't they listen when I told them I was a Tech?' he asked himself. He knew he was close to unlocking his door when he heard footsteps coming in his direction. He moved back and lay down on the bed. He hid the tools under the mattress. Not a clever place, but the only one time allowed. He didn't pretend to be sleeping, just bored.

"I thought you might like something to eat," he heard a quiet, soft voice. Crichton turned and saw the grey female. She was holding a tray heavy with different kinds of food. Some of the dishes he didn't recognize.

"Are you gonna open the door to bring it in?" Crichton smirked and asked her. Her skin looked cool and soft to the touch. She looked young. He longed to touch her to find out. He knew it was forbidden, but he had never been this close to an alien before. He had spent his whole life on the Carrier and had only been in contact with Peacekeepers.

"No. They won't let me. I don't believe you would hurt me, but Dargo doesn't want to risk it," she said softly. She set the tray close to the grill of the cell, sat down and held a dish out to him to take.

He reached out and touched her hand as he took the bowl. She looked at him oddly. Crichton found out he was right. Her skin was soft. She was the first alien he had ever touched.

"What's your name?" Crichton asked. He watched as her face crumbled and her generous bottom lip trembled.

"Chiana. You saved my life within the first few days that we met," she answered him. "We've been like siblings ever since, even though I wanted a different relationship!" She let out a watery kind of tinkling laugh that Crichton liked instantly.

"I'm sorry I don't remember you. You're so beautiful and if you wanted a 'different' relationship with me, why didn't we?" He asked between mouthfuls of a dish he found he liked very much. He felt himself smile as she again laughed. Crichton found he was beginning to like this Chiana.

She was beautiful, thoughtful, and she wasn't mean to him. As a Tech, he was often on the wrong side of most of the soldiers. It was only due to the bodyguards his master had placed around him that had kept them from hurting him like they did other Techs. His master would never allow anyone besides herself to discipline him.

"You met Aeryn way before I came to Moya. She already had your heart, only you weren't willing to admit it to anyone yet. Not even yourself. Aeryn was never willing to admit it until a long time later," she smiled at him and he was mesmerized as her dark eyes sparkled like stars.

"Who's Aeryn?" He was enjoying this conversation even though he didn't have a clue as to what she was talking about. He put the bowl down as he asked his question and she had been handing him another, when she looked so shocked she almost dropped the flat plate. He quickly took the dish from her and started eating once again.

She seemed at a loss for words and Crichton just stared as her mouth kept opening and closing. He stopped eating as she huffed and shook her head as if she were mentally rejecting something.

"Who's Aeryn???? Why….why she's your love! Don't tell me you don't remember her?" Chiana looked aghast at him and it made him want to giggle. Crichton didn't remember ever wanting to do that before.

"No, I don't. What did she look like?" Now Chiana was sputtering. Crichton couldn't stop a laugh from bubbling up. He laughed outright. Chiana just stopped and stared.

"What's the matter? Never see anyone laugh before?" He said as he continued to laugh. She reached through the grill and gently held his hand. She softly said his name.

He gaped at their joined hands. Fear again was making it's way through his body. He recognized its tingling move as he jerked his hand away and moved rapidly across the cell, leaving the food where he had been sitting.

"Who are you people and what do you want with me?!" John shouted at the tiny alien. His head was pounding a heavy beat with his heart and he rubbed at his temples to assuage his pain. He was becoming 'contaminated'. His master would have him tortured before she executed him. She told him over and over what would happen if he were ever tainted! He couldn't begin to understand what these people wanted from him.

Chiana was just staring at him in shock and what he thought was hurt. He leaned his back against one of the ships struts and turned away from the alien girl. Crichton knew they would question him severely upon his return. He could not allow himself to jeopardize his life as he had been doing.

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"And he just suddenly turned from you, as if he had been stung by a Jillip insect?" Dargo asked. After leaving Crichton, she came immediately to where Pilot said Dargo was. She nodded her head. She was still too upset to speak without crying. Dargo knew her too well and suddenly gripped her in a fierce hug.

"He asked who Aeryn was. Like, he had no idea of who she is. Not like he had just seen her 500 microts before," Chiana said softly from inside Dargo's arms. "He really doesn't know any of us."

"Dargo," she said as tears wound a dark trail down her velvety cheeks. "He looked at his favorite dishes as if he had never seen or tasted their like before."

"We'll get him to a healer, Chiana," Dargo whispered as he caressed her hair, "He won't be alright again overnight."

"I know," she hugged herself tighter to him, "I was hoping for a glimmer of something that would tell me John was still in there."

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Aeryn hadn't meant to listen in. She had been on her way to Command to replace Jool when she had heard their voices coming from the cell. The news that Crichton didn't even know who she was, or who Aeryn was to John Crichton, was not a surprise, but hurt none the less.

She made a decision and turned towards the cell they had deposited John in. She contacted Jool to ask for a few microts to spend with John.

"I shouldn't be too long, Jool. Just a few microts and that's all," Aeryn assured her. She was rounding the intersection near the cell.

"Not a problem, Aeryn. Just don't be too long. I need a break," Jool answered her. Since her return, Jool was more amicable than before. She seemed more calm. Aeryn suspected Dargo was having an impact on the spoiled princess.

"Aeryn!!!" She stopped suddenly as she heard Pilot yell into her comm, "the Commander has gotten out of his cell!!" Pilot was shouting and Aeryn knew Crichton would be quickly on the move. She raced to the cell, past it when she found it empty and on to the quickest route to the landing bay. A Peacekeeper would head there first in an attempt to secure a ship.

She arrived just as he was exiting another corridor and she briefly wondered it Pilot had slowed him down by shutting some doors. She watched as Crichton picked up speed, heading for her Prowler. She was faster. Aeryn dove at him and, as her Sebacean physiology was heavier, drove him down to the floor. Then unbelievably, she found herself in a fight with another Peacekeeper.

She had never perceived Crichton could fight as well as he was. Grayza must have had him trained. She pulled out some tricks only Commandos were taught and he was out like a light. She could hear the heavy pounding of Dargo's feet and the light patter of Chiana's dancing gait. Jool's click, click heels followed close behind.
Aeryn was gasping for air as she tenderly turned Crichton over and checked him for injuries. Finding none, she looked up at Dargo as he approached.

"He almost made it," She gasped, "Dargo, he almost made it to my Prowler!" She got up off of the floor with the Luxan's help. Jool knelt and checked Crichton quickly for immediate medical problems that needed to be attended to.

"He also is a much better fighter than he used to be," Aeryn said quietly as she crouched next to the man who held her heart, but didn't know it. Or her.

"He's had to be, Aeryn. He's had to fight with others, who were not afraid to hurt him," Rygel said from across from her. He was staring down at Crichton with a mix of fascination and sadness. She watched as Rygel reached down and wiped off a little blood from a small cut on the side of Crichton's mouth. She had to punch him to slow him down a microt.

Her friends were continually surprising her. What she had missed while she was gone, she could never replace and would have to discover with their patience.

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They placed him once again on his bed. Jool had checked him for injuries and found only bruises. She had declared he would probably be sore later, but no other damages to his body or his head. Aeryn and Dargo went through his quarters to confiscate any tools or apparatus that he could use to escape his cell again. They came up with a motley assortment of equipment.

"Well, Dargo, he has enough paraphernalia in his quarters to escape from any part of this ship," Aeryn wiped the sweat off of her brow and began wiping the dust from her hands on a rag.

"He had been a bit paranoid those last few monens before all this started; with everything that he had gone through," Dargo sat heavily in one of John's chairs. "How long do you think he'll be unconscious this time?" Aeryn shook her head from side to side.

"I don't know," Aeryn walked over and pulled his blanket up to his chin again. She sat next to him as she had done earlier and caressed his face. Crichton moved his head to the side and Aeryn believed he was waking up. She and Dargo stood up and took positions of defense. Crichton groaned and his blue eyes opened.

Aeryn wondered if it were her imagination, but Crichton looked paler than he had two microts before. She could also see a light sheen of sweat on his face. He again closed his eyes and groaned again. She recognized the signs and grabbed a bowl just as he tipped to the side and regurgitated his stomach contents. She rubbed his head and back as he vomited a few times. She then deposited the remains in the waste unit.

He laid back and stared at them long enough to make them uncomfortable. He watched silently as Aeryn came back to his side of the bed. When she tried to again caress his face, he moved a little away from her.

"What do you want from me?! Why have you taken me from my home?!" he asked again. They had yet to answer his questions. He just wanted to know what they wanted from him. He didn't know anything of any importance. He couldn't help them. He couldn't even seem to help himself.

"John, we are your friends…." She started. Her quick eye saw a change in his. It was as if something had been switched off inside his brain. He pushed even further away from her and hostility was dripping off him in waves.

"I don't know who you are and I don't want to! I have to go back or they will kill me! Let me go now!!!" Crichton's shouting was escalating and it was more than apparent his was very agitated.

Jool came to the door holding a glass of blue liquid. She looked to Dargo and he shook his head up and down before he motioned to Aeryn that they should leave. Dargo palmed the door shut as they did so, but waited for Jool just outside the door.

"What do you want?" Crichton asked suspiciously. Jool approached him tentatively. She and Crichton had grown close while Aeryn and the 'other' were gone. She looked upon him as he were like one of her cousins that she missed so very much.

"I have brought you something that will replace the nutrients you need to survive as well as give you calories you may have lost," Jool took the steps necessary to give him the drink. It had never been in Crichton's nature before to hurt someone defenseless.

"How do I know you haven't poisoned it or put narcotics in it?" He was still suspicious, but his hostility towards her had dropped a notch. She sat down on the bed near him and held out the glass. His eyes opened wide as she changed direction and took a sip of it herself. He then shook his head, reached for the glass and downed it's entire contents.

Jool smiled at him beamingly and bounce-walked out of the room. She stopped next to Dargo and grabbed his arm as she started to slide to the floor. Dargo easily held her up and she smiled at him woozily. She sounded drunk when she explained what she had done to Crichton.

"I had to give him a sadative, setavive…" Jool stopped with a concentrated frown and continued, "a sedative. He wouldn't have taken it if I hadn't taken a small sip."

"This is what a small sip does??" Aeryn asked incredulously. Jool nodded her head up and down in such a way her curls were bobbing everywhere.

"Now he'll sleep all the way to the diagnostician's world." Jool smiled dreamily at Dargo. He just looked back at Jool with a tolerant, small smile. "Pilot just told us we'll be there in twelve arns." Dargo picked Jool up as she started to slide all the way to the floor.

"I'll put her to bed and meet you in Pilot's den," Dargo said as he turned to go to Jool's quarters.

Aeryn smiled as she watched him go. It was obvious to her, now that she understood emotions as much as she did. Another thing she owed Crichton for. She now understood her friends much better than she first did. It made the relationships she had with them much more full and complicated. She could taste the richness of them on her tongue.

Dargo had an admirer.

She turned and made her way to see Pilot.

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Crichton woke again from having the same disturbing dreams he had on the Command Carrier. He wanted to ask his master about them and what they meant. He was confused, sick. Everything would seem familiar, but not be. These people were recognizable, but he was threatened by their presence somehow. Something was very wrong with him, but he didn't know what.

He felt groggy. The red-haired girl must have slipped him a Mickey. What was a Mickey? And why would someone slip one? Crichton didn't understand these thoughts either. His head started to pound, so he got up to splash some water on his face. He still felt nauseated. It was as if he were ill and he couldn't remember ever being unwell.

'First things first,' he thought to himself, 'First priority is I escape and then I figure out what these dreams and thoughts mean.' Crichton decided he wasn't going to allow the headaches to stop him from finding the answers. He knew he would have to have answers before he saw his master again. She would demand them of him.

He dried his face and looked at himself in the mirror. His own reflection looked different somehow. His head throbbed even harder and the pain drove him to his knees. He grabbed his head as a whimper escaped his lips. He felt his body topple over. Things seemed to open in his mind, but in disjointed components.

A vision stood out in his mind. He saw a woman with black, flowing hair and light eyes. She looked strong and hard, but he knew she would be gentle with him. He knew her. It was one of the people who had captured him. She was smiling at him and the love in her eyes made them sparkle.

The pain increased substantially and he cried out, arching his back off the floor. He then felt hands picking him up and carrying him to the bed. These hands were gentle with him. No one on the Command Carrier, except for his master, had ever been gentle with him. It was a new feeling. But one he recognized.

Crichton opened his eyes slowly to gaze at the eyes from the images. They were still looking at him with love. She was using a cool towel to softly wipe the sweat from his face and tears from his eyes. The pain was still increasing and he could feel his pulse in his ears and eyes. His eyes even hurt. He groaned and closed his eyes. He felt his hand grab hers in response to the pain. He turned his face into the palm of her hand.

"Aeryn….." Crichton whispered as he fell unconscious.

PK VOODOO PT. 3

Aeryn watched over Crichton as he suffered in his collapse. She thanked Zhaan's Goddess John finally remembered her. He had held her hand and said her name as he fell into unconsciousness. It was a good beginning. If he remembered her upon waking, he was on his way back to them.

She watched with worry as he fidgeted in pain. It was etched on his beautiful face and his body was screaming out to them of his anguish. Jool hurried into the cell with a hypo. She held it to his neck as it hissed relief into his veins. Aeryn picked up Crichton's hand and he groaned. His body visibly relaxed as she watched.

Jool looked at him quickly, checking his airway, heartbeat, and his eyes, nodding her head before leaving John's quarters once again. Aeryn knew Jool was going back to Zhaan's medical bay for more equipment or medicine.

Aeryn turned to look at her crewmates, who were in various positions of worry in the converted cell. Dargo was leaning against one of Moya's struts staring unceasingly at his friend. He and John had fought hard for their friendship. They had almost killed each other on several occasions, but still cherished the friendship they had earned.

She found Chiana crouched at the end of John's bed. The Nebari was never very far away from the human as if drawn to him against her will or with it. John had always told her he felt as if 'Pip' were a sister to him, but it was always extremely obvious what Chiana felt. Whatever they felt for each other, it ran very deep and tied them together, possibly forever.
Aeryn found Rygel hovering in his throne-sled between the bed and the cell bars. He had a thoughtful expression, bordering on worry, on his face. Funny, a few cycles ago she hadn't really been able to tell the difference between his facial expressions. Now, she could tell the subtle difference of each.

Aeryn felt John stir as he neared the waking state. His eyes fluttered opened to reveal his clear, rare blue irises. He blinked to clear his vision. Aeryn could still see pain in their depths. She was not prepared to see the fear was still there.

"OH, God, Aeryn," he whispered as he grabbed her in a fierce hug, bringing her body down on top of him, "She's gonna find me again. She'll hunt me like Scorpy." Aeryn tried to sooth him as he shook. Silent tears ran down his pale cheeks as he held her. She knew exactly who he was referring to.

"We will keep you from her, John," Aeryn soothed him.

Abruptly, Crichton arched off the bed and holding his head, he screamed. Aeryn held him down once again as she heard Dargo hiss and contact Jool over the comms for immediate help. He then turned and held down Crichton's legs to stop them from thrashing around. "What the frell happened? Why is he again in pain?" Dargo shouted over the screaming.

"I don't know. I knew he was in pain, but he was talking and dealing with it. Then I told him we would protect him from Grayza and he started screaming in tormented pain. Something had to set it off, but I don't know what!" Aeryn finally held Crichton in front of her to keep him on the bed and to keep him from hurting himself. She would tense and grimace as he would arch and smack his head against her chest.

"I think I may have a theory," Jool said breathlessly as she once again ran on clicking heels into the room. She crawled over the bed in order to reach Crichton as fast as possible. She injected something else into his bloodstream thru the main artery in his neck. Crichton collapsed panting and dazed. Aeryn couldn't believe he was still conscious.

Pushing some hair out of her eyes and mouth, Jool looked into Aeryn's eyes as she stated, "I think…….I believe every time we say his name it inflicts pain on him." She took a breath and continued, "I have watched him and each time we say his name, there is a correlation between his name and his reactions."

Jool turned and the crew was looking at her incredulously. Nervously, she continued.

"I also think the reactions vary for whoever is talking to him at the time," Jool finished to a hushed audience.

"It kinda makes sense, Aeryn," Chiana told her as she denched up to hold onto Crichton's hand. Crichton was still in a dazed state of unawareness. "He ran away from me as if he were afraid of contamination. Every time you say his name, it inflicts pain. They tortured him into believing he was a Sebacean and a Peacekeeper, why couldn't they do that too?"

"I agree. But what do we do about it?" Dargo stepped closer. He couldn't seem to stop staring at Crichton. This was beyond his scope of understanding. He was a simple Luxan warrior. What did he know or understand of such things?

He was worried his friend would stay this way. He was angry the universe gave the impression it would always want to frell with John's mind. He didn't understand how the human kept going. He was also proud his friend was always stronger than everyone believed he was.

"The diagnostician should be able to help. But, we still haven't much currency to pay them," Jool added as she once again checked John's heartbeat and then turned his face to look into his eyes.

"I have some currency with me and I am sure I can have some sent to the doctor should we need more," Aeryn stared at Rygel. She couldn't believe this was the same Hynerian she had come to know for three cycles. She had missed so much while she was away.

"Thank you, Rygel," she whispered in gratitude. He nodded his head in what she perceived was a regal manner.

"It is the least I can do. I want my friend back as much as all of you," Rygel quietly murmured from his spot as continued to stare at the human. "I'll deny it if you ever tell Crichton I said that." Aeryn produced a small grin and nodded back at him.

"We should be there in two arns," Pilot interjected from the clamshell. "I have also taken the liberty of contacting them. They wish to speak to the being that has been treating Crichton." Pilot looked pointedly at Jool.

"We will all talk to them, Pilot," Dargo stated as he walked out of Crichton's quarters with everyone but Aeryn. She was not going to leave Crichton alone. Again. She looked up a few microts later as the whole conversation was played over Pilot's extended communicator. She was grateful Pilot was so thoughtful as to make it possible for her to listen as she cared for John. She listened as arrangements were made and Rygel assured the diagnostician's assistant the currency would be sent.

"Aeryn…." She heard Crichton whisper as she continued to hold him in front of her. Laying him down, she still found him looking at her in a dazed and pained way. He held onto her arm weakly, but with enough strength as to demonstrate his desperation.

"Aeryn….please don't leave me again," he whispered in an emotion cracked voice. Her heart nearly broke at his murmured plea.
"No. Not ever again," She replied as she softly kissed his lips and gently caressed his beautiful face. She tried to hold him tighter as she aligned their bodies. John tried to deepen their kiss, but she broke it off with reluctance.

"We'll be at a diagnostician in an arn or so to heal you. You're still in pain, 'Baby'," she smiled as she used John's own name for her. "We'll have to wait until you are restored to health for any of that." She smiled at him to soften the rejection. She could see he wanted to argue with her as his the skin crinkled between his eyes.

"You're all I need to get better, Aeryn," John told her as he again tried to continue kissing her. She tenderly kissed his soft lips before pulling away. She could see he knew she was right as she looked into his pain filled eyes, but he was so incredibly stubborn.

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Grayza surveyed the area she and the other commandos were positioned. Their intelligence informant notified them Crichton and the other outlaws were due to arrive in a little over an arn. They had immediately taken up designated positions to wait. She would soon have her property back.

She found all of her commandos were well trained and could not be seen from any angle. She then stationed herself for a clear view. Captain Rayhez had assured her he would be able to debilitate Crichton and get him to safety as the fire-fight was taking place. It would mean Rayhez' life if he were wrong.

Now, all they had to do was wait for their prey.

************************************************************************

Aeryn flew the transport pod with expert efficiency to the lush, green planet below. They had finally arrived at the diagnostician's planet and were awaited there. Dargo had carried John. Crichton was still dazed from Jool's medicine and had softly argued with the Luxan about being carried. John told Dargo that he felt humiliated being carried that way. She tried not to smile as Dargo gently argued with John all the way to the pod. It seemed as though they were back to their bickering relationship she knew they both enjoyed.

She quietly checked with Pilot and Rygel, who they had left on board, to again check on the coordinates. The crew felt the less of them went to the planet, the safer it would be.

She had started pre-flight start-up as Dargo fastened him into a safety harness. Once all the crew was secure, she followed the best and most fast course to the diagnostician's surgery. She would look over at her lover as often as it was safe and each time, found him barely conscious with a glazed look in his eye.

She brought the pod to a rapid, but soft landing. She was unbuckled before any of the others and kneeling in from of John, who gave a small smile and attempted to raise his hand. Aeryn knew he was trying to touch her cheek, so she grabbed his hand as it was falling back to his side. She brought it to her cheek and kissed his palm. Her reward was another brief smile and a twinkle in his blue, blue eyes.

Aeryn stood up and backed a little away as Dargo commenced on unbuckling Crichton from his seat. She had to turn away quickly as once again the bickering started as Dargo picked him up to carry him. She exchanges knowing smiles with Chiana and Jool as they following the quietly squabbling friends.

Aeryn caught up with them and passed the pair in order to take point. She knew instinctively Chiana would take up the rear position to guard their backs. She began the short trek through a small village to their ultimate destination.

They had passed through a residential area and were approaching an area she didn't like the looks of. She had "rattlers" in her stomach, as John would say. She began to say something to Dargo and the others as a pulse blast erupted the sand in front of her and cascaded in a stinging shower. The crew took up defensive positions as she and Chiana returned fire.

Aeryn looked over and saw Dargo had pushed Crichton into a niche between the wall and a building. She had a feeling John was arguing with Dargo over giving him a pulse pistol by the body language they were giving off. If the situation wasn't so serious, she would have laughed from the normality of the way they were acting.

Aeryn fired her pulse rifle in dismay as she heard almost simultaneously someone yell out Crichton's name and his responding cry of anguish. The fire-fight grew hot and Aeryn knew they would have to move their position back to a safer place. Every few microts she would hear someone shout out John's name until he was curled into a ball, whimpering and holding his head tightly.

Jool had crawled over to John as Dargo started firing along with she and Chiana. Aeryn could see in her peripheral vision Jool was trying to help John and to uncurl him from his ball of pain. She groaned through a volley of shots as she saw John collapse into unconsciousness. It would now be harder, and more dangerous, to move with him in this incapacitated state.

"Dargo! Carry him!" Dargo looked disbelievingly at Aeryn and felt as if he had returned to the Shadow Depository. Obligingly, he picked up his friend in the same manner and firing his Qualta Blade, he followed her to a better position. He heard Chiana scream and knew she was hit.

He turned, fired at the enemy again and witnessed Jool help support her as they hid in an unoccupied residence. He propped John up against a wall in a safe part in the back of the house and conducted a cursory check for injuries before returning fire again. He ascertained Jool was also bandaging Chiana's arm quickly. Jool looked terrified, but continued to bandage the injury. He exchanged glances with Chiana and felt assured the wound was not mortal. Dargo then returned to Aeryn's position in the front of the residence to continue fighting.

************************************************************************

Grayza was furious. One of her commandos had acted prematurely and ruined the ambush. He was now dead, but that was only an annoying issue. Her prize was safe inside a dwelling, and although Rayhez had reduced him to painful unconsciousness by yelling Crichton's name repeatedly, he continued to be outside her reach.

She fired her pulse pistol and hit the Nebari girl prior to her entering the dwelling. She hoped this would slow down their retreat. Grayza looked over at Rayhez. She could almost hear him thinking. He was almost too slow in his planning. Grayza always believed to be truly successful, you had to be thinking several steps ahead of your opponent to win at the game.

He was only one step ahead as she watched him move stealthily around to the back of the home. She turned and gave a commando an order as she gave the order for a barrage to pin down the fugitives and give Rayhez to find Crichton. She watched as the lone commando crouched low, running for all he was worth.

************************************************************************

Rayhez silently broke into a door in the back of the house. He had considered going in though a window, but he knew he would need to carry Crichton out and the door would be easier. He cautiously edged into the back of the house and listened for movement. Not hearing any, he moved further in and continued down a long hallway.

He hit the floor as pulse blasts erupted throughout the house and silently thanked the Commandant for her initiative thinking, giving him the distraction he needed to grab Crichton and go. He battle crawled down the hall, checking the rooms as he went. He found his quarry in the first room he came upon. It was also the safest room as none of the pulse blasts found their way in this far. The Luxan was a smart one. So different from the rest of his species.

John was unconscious, but Rayhez could still see the pain etched on his face. Rayhez smiled as he knew his programming was in effect in the human. He grabbed Crichton's foot and dragged him along after him as he back-tracked through the house.

He was just pulling Crichton around the last corner when pulse fire hit over his head. He had been spotted and they were attempting to stop his retreat with his target. Rayhez realized he was pinned down and was endeavoring to come up with an alternative when the room was unexpectedly hit with a bright light and then everything went dark.

************************************************************************

Grayza looked over at the abruptly silent building and then smiled at the commando. He smiled back at her thinking of a possible medal. The commandos approached the building in a standard two by two formation for entry. There was no resistance.

She was the last to enter and located the traitor Aeryn Sun, the Luxan and the Nebari in the front part of the residence. She found an Interion all by herself in a vacant room. All were unconscious due to the shock grenades thrown simultaneously into the building.

In the back of the house she found what she was looking for the most. He was pale and lying next to Rayhez, who had thrown himself in a protective manner slightly over the human. She bent down to examine Crichton and found him out cold and breathing shallowly. She wouldn't be satisfied until a medic proclaimed him unconscious, but healthy.

She allowed herself a small grin. She now had them all. She had her prize back, but also captured the fugitives all at once with relatively little loss of commandos. This would call for a celebration. She hoped Crichton was in good condition for one.

************************************************************************

The Peacekeeper aboard the Command Carrier was only there temporarily. They were between assignments and was now in what turned out to be the right place and the right time. Crichton had been recaptured along with the other fugitives the Peacekeeper regime had long sought.

The situation was impossible. Intolerable.

It was just Crichton's style.

************************************************************************

The pounding inside his skull and the nausea quickly told Rayhez what had happened. Opening his eyes and finding himself inside the medical unit of the Command Carrier told him who had lobbed the stun grenades. Commandant Grayza was true to her reputation and had thought ahead of everyone, even him.

Sitting up, he discovered Crichton on a bed nearby and still unconscious. He walked over and checked the human's pulse. Finding it not to his liking, he pulled a hypo out of the pocket of his BDU's and injected it into his prey's main artery in his neck. The response was immediate. Crichton's breathing became deeper and evened out. It was imperative he got Crichton back on the special mixture of drugs as soon as possible. Regardless of his own health, he was going to make sure Crichton was given regular doses of the drugs to guarantee his conditioning would stay intact.

************************************************************************

Grayza was standing by Crichton's bed after she had been notified he was waking up. She had also been notified that Rayhez was giving Crichton his 'medicine' doses on a regular basis again. If it meant she would have her prize back in one piece without the need for re-conditioning, she would tolerate someone else interfering with her possession.

She watched as John groggily opened his rare blue eyes. They were also glazed due to the drugs. Grayza watched as fear entered his eyes and he looked around the room. When he finally looked at her, he still had fear in them, but also relief. He released a deep gasp of air as he looked at her as if he were holding his breath.

"What are you afraid of, John?" Grayza asked. She watched as fear took over the look in his beautiful eyes and he paled.

"Contamination," he whispered. "I was with the aliens too long. I tried! I tried to escape, but they were on me each time, Master! Please? Don't induce the Living Death!" She thought he was on the verge of hysteria and attempted to calm him.

"Don't worry, John. You were well within the parameters of exposure. You have nothing to fear," Grayza assured him. She was very pleased. Crichton was still her possession. She caressed his handsome face and he closed his eyes, his body relaxing. There would be no retraining, no time lost in the wormhole project.

"When Doctor Donatto releases you from medical, you can return to your place at my side and in my quarters as if you were never taken from me," Grayza began as she continued to caress him. She smiled as John was almost sighing in contentment.

"He's ready to be released now, Commandant," Doctor Donatto claimed as he arrived at Crichton's bed, "He's healthy and awake. There is no need for him to take up one of my beds." Crichton looked over at Donatto, who was at attention and staring at Grayza.

"Get dressed then, John," Grayza smiled down at him, "I've brought a change of clothing. Your work awaits you, as does mine." She watched as he changed into his uniform. She had always admired his form and was gratified to see it undamaged. He had never been modest to her view and had always seemed to bask in her attention. He gave her a small smile as he found her watching him dress. Yes, he had not changed in his time with the fugitives.

************************************************************************

Aeryn had awoken in a Peacekeeper cell alone. She found out quickly her crewmates were in cells near her. All, but Crichton. She knew where he would have been taken. Interrogation cells were on a different level as theirs. Aeryn believed they would interrogate him to determine how far from his conditioning he had mentally traveled. Then his real pain would begin. She didn't believe he was strong enough right now to withstand another bout of conditioning. It had been too soon from the time they had found him again to his recapture.

She was unsure how long she had been in the cell. It could be arns or a solar day. Maybe longer. They needed to come up with a plan. They were too far away from each other to converse quietly and secretly. She would have to come up with a plan to free them, to get to Crichton, and then off of this 'boat', as John would say. She had searched her cell upon waking and knew she would have to wait for a meal to be brought to her, in order to obtain a weapon.

She heard a key in the door. As the door swung open, she attacked with fervor. There was a brief struggle before she was pinned to the floor.

"That's no way to greet a comrade who came to you with an offer to help," a woman's voice calmly whispered into her ear. The weight was lifted off of Aeryn's back and she came face to face with a Sebeacean she never thought to see on a Command Carrier.

"Surprised, Officer Sun?" Jenavavian Chatto asked impertinently with a grin. Aeryn could do nothing but stare at the female she had always thought of as nothing but a money hungry tralk. Aeryn stood. Chatto was in a Peacekeeper uniform as if born to it and Aeryn believed she must have. It also explained and made sense out of a lot of things that had happened on the Royal Planet.

"What do you want, Chatto?" Aeryn didn't trust her and wasn't about to. She edged toward the door.

"How far do you think you'd get without my help, Sun?" Chatto stood with her arms crossed in an illusion of relaxed posture. "I want to help you get Crichton and your crewmates out."

"Why would a Peacekeeper want to help us? That would be treason," Aeryn took another small step to the door.

"It would be treason. Normally. But, alas, Grayza has been under suspicion since she lost Crichton. High Command was eagerly awaiting the wormhole tech weapon. She lost him and they lost faith in her abilities. Especially after the manpower and expense she has used to find him again," Chatto explained.

"That's not a good enough reason to help us escape," Aeryn countered.

"Let's just say I owe Crichton. On the Royal Planet, he helped me conclude my assignment," Chatto explained with a smile. Aeryn didn't believe she was going to get any more information out of what was obviously a Peacekeeper Disruptor. Crichton had a lot of explaining to do. A lot more had happened on the Royal Planet than anyone had ever told her.

************************************************************************

Crichton's comm chirped and he knew it was time to return to his quarters. When he had gone to his work station he had been accompanied by his usual guards. They had picked up right where they had left off as if he had never left. There was still fear running through him, but he was managing it. He also felt sluggish and tired. As if he hadn't slept for some time. Everything was out of touch and out of focus.

When the door opened to the quarters he shared with his master, he wasn't surprised to see her already there and waiting for him in a long silky robe. He could see her bare feet. A table had food and some kind of drink, probably alcoholic, to the side of her bed. She met him as he walked in. She took his face in her hands and kissed him deeply.

"You look tired. Here, have something to eat. It'll perk you up," She plopped a morsel into his mouth and he dutifully chewed. It was wonderful. He still felt dazed and he watched at his master put a glass of the drink into his hand. He drank the fizzy concoction. His head felt 'swimmy' now as if he were swimming in water.

Grayza took the glass from his hand and kissed him deeply again. Dipping her hand between her breasts, she caressed his face. The 'special drugs' and his lethargy would not hinder his performance with help from her Heppil Gland. A look of arousal took over all others on his beautiful face and she unbuttoned his jacket.

Caressing his chest, she slipped the jacket off of his shoulders to let it drop to the floor. Taking hold of his hands, she led him to her bed. He had a mixture of trust and lust in his eyes as she pushed him onto her bed. She undressed him the rest of the way and sat upon his lap. Her robe covered his lower half almost to his feet in a sensual embrace. She was completely naked underneath. He stroked her breasts and she covered him with her body. She touched him everywhere.

Crichton felt out of breath and out of control. He didn't want to do this, but couldn't seem to stop himself. He was terrified, but unable to stop what was happening. He tried to close off his mind, but that didn't work either. His body had a mind of its own. He whimpered inside his mind.

She kissed him again, hard and deep. She then took his hands and held them above his body. Laughing, she clasped his wrists in manacles. These were attached to a chain bolted to a ring in the wall.

"I feel like playing," she laughed as she turned and trapped his ankles the same way. He was really frightened now. His heart was beating fiercely and he tugged helplessly on the manacles. She was smiling as she looked into his eyes filled with fear. She kissed him hard enough this time to split his lip and he whimpered into her mouth. She groaned and caressed him roughly, pinching his nipples. She laughed low in her throat as he again whimpered into her mouth.

"I always knew you would be so…… stimulating this way. I have dreamed of taking you like this since you were taken from me," he felt her glide down onto his cock and he gasped. She was so tight. He wanted to move, but he was restricted too firmly. Everything hurt, but this. She again rubbed his top lip and he moaned.

Their recreation seemed to go on for arns. She pumped him hard and rough. He was bleeding slightly from the scratches she inflicted with her sharp nails. He cried out often in pain and pleasure. How both sensations could fly through him in chorus was beyond him. She brought him again and again to the brink of completion, each time hindering his fall.

His gaze was unfocused and sweat slicked his body. Again he heard his master's laugh and he shuddered in response. He felt his body once more near climax. Gasping for breath, he fully expected to her to stop his orgasm yet again and began to weep. His master licked the tears from his cheeks with a chuckle. When it hit, his orgasm almost made his heart stop and he heard his master scream his name.

He felt himself start to fall hard into sleep. Vaguely, he had the impression his hands and feet were released then he was turned onto his side. Warmth curled at his back.

************************************************************************

PK VOODOO PT. 4

"I'm the man in the box.
Buried in my shit.
Won't you come and save me.
Save me." – Alice in Chains

************************************************************************

John had never believed sex could hurt. But hurt it did. And hurt he was. Every muscle was sore, he had bloody scratches everywhere, and his bottom lip was split and swollen. He felt as if he had been on the losing end of a fight, which he had. He hadn't been given the ability to fight back, shackled as he had been.

He tried to move his hands and found them again chained together. He thought he remembered his master unchaining him prior to sleep, so how could he be tethered again? He opened his eyes and discovered his master sitting in a chair facing the bed. She was just staring at him. She looked at him for a few moments longer after making eye contact, and then she stood up.

"Did you think I wouldn't know my own possession…….my prize?" 'My treasure', Grayza thought as she slowly paced around the large bed. John's fear was mounting. He knew what she was talking about and he knew he was in for a world of hurt, of pain. He now knew Grayza knew he had been faking he was still her little slave. He tried to keep his eyes on her as she paced.

There was a nerve shattering, baritone tinkling noise every time she brought her left hand in contact with her thigh. His imagination was telling him she was holding some kind of metal chain. He could feel beads of sweat start to form on his temples and knew his body was giving him away. Grayza would literally be able to smell his terror.

"Master? What…." He started, but she didn't let him continue and he flinched when the quiet word came from her soft mouth. He felt vulnerable laying on Grayza's big bed completely naked. He was helpless lying on his stomach with his hands shackled, chained to the wall.

"I knew your conditioning was no longer working as soon as you entered our – my – chambers," Grayza stopped at her night stand and stared at him without blinking, "My prize, my treasure, would never have responded as you did. My 'John' had always been eager for my touch; 'he' had – sighed – in contentment at my touch."

"You did neither," Grayza pushed a button on the night stand console and the main door opened. Rayhez walked into the bed chamber carrying an assortment of chains. Crichton's terror hit an all time high. He KNEW what was coming next.

"No…." Crichton whispered.

He also knew he could not…..would not…..survive another round in Rayhez' Fun House. If he didn't figure out a way out of this, the next time he would belong to the Peacekeepers. Body and soul. He had thought he had Grayza and Rayhez fooled. He had believed if he could hold out long enough, he could expect rescue or find an escape. He now knew his friends were waiting somewhere.

He looked at Rayhez. From the look on Rayhez' face and in his body language, this dance with Rayhez wasn't going be as pleasant as the first go 'round. Rayhez looked as if he were going to rip Crichton to shreds and scotch tape him back together like a paper doll.

"Master, no!" Crichton pleaded with Grayza and tried to play his part, but he knew his heart wasn't in it. Oh, he was frightened out of his wits, but he would never have made a good little slave without Rayhez' 'training'. He just wasn't the subservient type.

"If you are expecting or hoping for rescue, stop. We captured the other fugitives in the same moment we re-obtained my property. You," Grayza spontaneously struck out with the large chain she had used the evening before to restrain his legs. The chain hit his back with a resounding thud and a grunt of pain was ripped from his lips.
"That will seem like a loving caress compared with your new conditioning. I want my treasure back!" Grayza emphasized each word with a strike of the chain on his back. Crichton began to feel the chinks of the chain cut into his skin as she continued to strike him even after she stopped talking. As she continued, so did his screaming and his bleeding.

************************************************************************

"They are moving Crichton to the interrogation cells this very moment. They have one set up especially for him. The one he was confined to when they first brought him here," Disruptor Jena Chatto explained to Aeryn as they stealthily ran through the Command Carrier. She and Chatto ran for all they were worth when there were no others visible. They walked briskly when they observed soldiers. They had previously escorted Dargo, Chiana, and Jool to a supply ship they could use to escape. They were waiting there and prepping the ship for take off, awaiting their return with Crichton.

"Aeryn…" Chatto stopped Aeryn from moving. "He's not in good shape. She raped him six arns ago and then beat him repeatedly upon waking. Rayhez has him now. Crichton is scheduled to be re-conditioned." Chatto watched Aeryn for a reaction and found none.

"I'll worry about Crichton when we find him. All I need from you is a distraction to get him off of this ship," Aeryn said with determination. Nothing was going to stop her from getting Crichton off this Carrier. She felt as if she had let him down before, but this time she will again be his 'Radiant Aeryn Sun'. Chatto smiled and nodded before turning away.

Aeryn ran towards the interrogation unit with the speed and determination of a fully trained commando.

************************************************************************

Crichton's gasp for breath burned a swath down his throat and lungs as Rayhez cut a six dench diagonal line down his abdomen. This was Rayhez' third cut and Crichton dreaded what came next. His throat was raw, his voice raspy, from screaming and he was lying on his back on the now familiar metal table. His back was a stinging, burning torment due to the bloody wounds Grayza had inflicted.

It was his mind that worried him the most. He could feel its pull to seek his 'hiding place'. The place his mind had gone the first time to escape the horror and pain he was going through. He knew he was close to giving in. The torture seemed to be worse this time, he wasn't sure why. He only knew he was already conscious of his mind beginning to spiral down a tunnel to a point of focus where he could see nothing but Rayhez. It was starting.

They were also pumping him full of those drugs again. He could feel them coursing through his veins leaving a fiery trail. Every time Rayhez pressed the injector to his neck, it felt as if a dynamite fuse was being lit throughout his body.

Laughing, Rayhez held the bottle over his torso and looked Crichton in the eye as he slowly poured the chemical that would run over his cuts and over his sides to make contact with his open wounds on his back. It made him feel as though several hot, metal rods were being rammed through his body to connect with the table.

He screamed and thrashed on the table, but could go nowhere due to the leather straps holding him down just as before. He could not stop screaming. He remembered it all now. Every anguished moment. His own behavior after his conditioning tormented him almost as much as the physical pain. However, the pain he was suffering now felt more intense and singular than before. Something was different.

John shivered as Rayhez again laughed. He lifted a sponge like square and soaked up the chemical with it. Laughing harder at Crichton's realized terror, he roughly scrubbed the chemical drenched 'sponge' into all of his incisions. The pitch of Crichton's screams changed to one of a tormented soul. Sobs were interspaced between his agonized shrieks.

************************************************************************

It was the last shriek that stopped Aeryn Sun in her footsteps and the hair on her arms stood up. She had never heard screams like that before. It frightened her to think they were coming from John. Galvanized, she punched her fist through the mechanized lock. Sparks erupted in cascading showers, leaving slight burn marks on her hand and arm to mix with the cuts now there. She didn't care or feel them. The door opened to reveal horrifying carnage.

The sight would haunt her dreams for cycles to come and she would always tell Crichton her nightmares were of old battles and the deaths of comrades. She would never tell him her nightmares were from the sight of him lying naked in a pool of his own blood with a blood splattered Rayhez laughing as John screamed and screamed. Cried and screamed.

Rayhez was too enraptured at the sight of his struggling victim to notice a change in light or a rush of new air into the stale torture room. Aeryn was too stunned to think of any response other than to shoot Rayhez. His body flew to the other side of the featureless room, landing with a still thud. Aeryn believed his death would never be enough to satisfy her need to make him pay for John's suffering.

Crichton was quietly weeping. Aeryn didn't believe he even knew she was there or that Rayhez was lying as still as death across the room. Taking her commando knife, she slit the straps off of him. She hefted his almost dead weight off the table and over to an open
shower stall in the corner. She needed to get the chemicals off his body and out of his cuts. He was reeking of the substances. Aeryn could even smell the odor of it in his hair.

She glanced at his feet and saw the red water gurgling down the drain. The sight made her want to retch. She gave herself a mental shake. She was a soldier! Blood was not a new sight to her. She knew it was due to it being John's precious, irreplaceable blood that was alarming her. She hoped he hadn't lost too much of his blood to lower his immunity to infections. Her heart wanted to break as she listened to his quiet, hitching sobs.

Aeryn sat him down carefully on a metal chair in the stall and went in search of some garments to dress him with. Rushing back, she saw the marks on his back. The open wounds, bleeding and ragged, spoke out of his abuse. Aeryn thought the markings looked suspiciously like marks left by a chain.

Anger was building and she wanted to tear Grayza's throat out with her bare hands. Furiously, Aeryn knew from watching the other vid-chip, John had gone through similar torture upon his first arrival. She wished they had time for her to look for the monster, but she had to get John out of the room and off the Command Carrier.

She didn't have time to properly dress his wounds. She quickly dried and dressed John in a grey cover-all. She helped him up and waited for Chatto's distraction to start. It was never-the-less unexpected when it occurred. The Command Carrier yawned to Hammond side rapidly and she had to catch John before he hit the wall and injured himself further.

Taking one of his arms over her shoulders, Aeryn walked as swiftly as possible. Crichton appeared to be helping, but she was taking most of his weight. As she had been born and trained under a higher gravity than John, her muscles were denser and could handle his weight easily. It was his 'helping' that was lurching them sporadically through the decks.

Alarms were screeching loud and in waves. Alert lights flashed a staccato beat in her eyes. Aeryn Sun saw or heard none of this. Her focus was on getting John to their escape ship. He was quietly moaning and had almost stopped helping. This had her worried. He was slowly losing consciousness. At some point, she may have to drag or carry him to the ship. Aeryn stopped to get a better grip on John.

"You will not get off of this ship alive," a cold voice said behind her. Aeryn turned her face to the side and made out Grayza standing in the deck-way with a pulse rifle in her arms. Grayza's eyes were cold and pure hate was reflected in them. Aeryn carefully set her precious cargo on the deck. She noticed as she did so that Crichton was now unconscious and she was thankful. She had become aware as they were running that he was bleeding profusely through the grey coveralls.

"Oh, you are very wrong. I intend to leave here alive and with John," Aeryn addressed her opponent quietly. She was more determined now than she had ever been before. She was not going to allow this woman to take John from her. Grayza laughed softly at Aeryn's remark.

"You are going to leave. Through an air-lock and John will remain with me always," Grayza smiled. She stared at Aeryn for a few moments and then laid her pulse rifle carefully down on the deck. Taking out a commando knife, she slowly approached Aeryn in standard attack advance.

Aeryn swiftly took her own knife out and prepared to meet Grayza mid way. With a feral scream, Grayza attacked viciously and Aeryn received her first cut. Once it was over, Aeryn knew she wouldn't feel the next. Her adrenalin gland was pumping the stimulant into her blood. Everything was speeding up and visually slowing down simultaneously.

Holding her knife in a fighting stance with the point directed in the path behind her. Aeryn spun around in a sixty degree arch and cut a lengthy slash along Grayza's abdomen before coming to a stop again facing Grayza. She had opened Grayza's uniform in a horizontal slash, opposite to her 'tralky' vertical one. Blood oozed from the wound she had left behind.

Aeryn threw herself back quickly to avoid a death-blow slash from Grayza as she growled and swung at her. Grayza seemed to pull back upon herself as if trying to collect herself. Aeryn knew she had caused the confident Commandant to loose her temper. She knew then this was the tactic to use to win this fight.

"For every wound you inflict upon me, John will feel two-fold," Grayza softly snarled at her. "When I finally kill you and John is mine for all time, I will tell him of the time I rescued him from an assassin!"

Grayza was taunting her. She was also trying to use the same tactic against Aeryn herself. Aeryn just had to shut her ears to what the tralk was saying. She couldn't afford to lose this fight. John was depending on her. As she and Grayza slowly circled one another, Aeryn could see him in her peripheral vision and knew he was now comatose.

"When you and the Scarrens are dead, after John has built his worm-hole weapon, I will seclude him as my concubine at my Clan home on my Sebacean home world!" Aeryn felt herself becoming angrier at the picture Grayza painted of John's future with her. It would be her fault if she lost this fight and John had to spend the rest of his life as this woman's personal tralk!

"That is not possible," Aeryn said softly as she prepared herself to attack, "You will be dead long before the Scarren race will be gone." Then she attacked Grayza is a steady onslaught meant to drive her back and to defend herself. The opposing knives clashed with slicing metallic sounds vicious enough to send sparks flying. Concentrating, the women made no noise except for quiet grunting as each took a punishing blow from the other.

Aeryn heard a slight noise behind her and she saw Grayza's attention shift for a microt. This gave her the advantage she needed. Lunging and arching the knife in a rising sweep sent her blade deep in a long cut. Grayza's blood spurted out in a spraying pattern covering Aeryn and hitting the wall. Aeryn watched as Grayza stumbled and fell to the deck.

Aeryn Sun didn't wait to check if it were a killing blow. She knew it was. She sheathed her knife and bent to pick John up. She grunted as she hefted his weight over her shoulders and moved as quickly as she could to the waiting escape ship.

The movement behind her had been John. He had fallen over to the side and she knew he would be sliding fast towards a coma.

************************************************************************

Techs and soldiers were running in all directions as the Carrier was still yawning to the side. Aeryn received a few startled looks, but no one stopped her. She made it to the door of the ship, which opened as she approached.

"Frell, Aeryn!" Dargo shouted as he got his first good look at his comrades. He helped Aeryn by taking Crichton from her as gently as possible. There was so much blood, Dargo couldn't tell who was bleeding or how bad. Aeryn saw Dargo's appraisal and shook her head.

"John's hurt badly, Dargo. I didn't have time to dress his wounds and he's bleeding through that coverall," Aeryn wanted to stop and help John, but she knew she needed to fly the ship as she was the best pilot among them. They wouldn't be able to treat John's injuries until they were safely away. "Most of the blood on me belongs to Grayza."

"Did you kill the frelling tralk, Aeryn?" Chiana asked hopefully. Chiana and Jool were helping Dargo settle John securely. Aeryn turned and could see Dargo's nose crinkle from the strong smell of John's blood and Grayza's.

"Hopefully, Chiana," Aeryn informed Chiana as she strapped in. She was worried the gravity levels during their take off were going to be extreme and John's wounds would be taking the brunt of the punishment. She put the ship in motion and started out the bay doors at a high rate of speed. She needed to get them off the Carrier while the bay doors were still unbelievably open.

"What do you mean 'hopefully', Aeryn?" Chiana puzzled as he fastened herself in her safety harness against the increasing 'G' forces.

"Not now, Chiana," Aeryn could feel the normal pressure of take-off building and her back pressing into the seat. As she hit the maximum amount of lift, John gave voice to a scream, which ended with whimpering sobs. It was his sudden quiet which gave proof to his sliding into a deeper coma. Anxiety was making Aeryn's breathing become labored. She felt the pressure begin to slack off and she screamed at Dargo to check on John.

Dargo unhooked his safety harness and ran to Crichton. Kneeling in front of the human, he freed him from the harness to lay him gently on the deck of the ship. He efficiently stripped him of the grey coverall as Jool appeared at his side to help. Chiana kneeled at Crichton's other side and tried to assist in whichever way she could. Jool injected a pain inhibitor into John's neck. Chatto had left them with medical supplies before leaving them in the supply ship.

Dargo and Chiana both stilled as they took in the damage done to their friend. Shaking his tentacles, Dargo snapped out of his shock. Chiana looked at Dargo momentarily as Jool began systematically dressing John's injuries. Chiana wanted to vomit from looking at the open cuts in John's abdomen.

"Aeryn! We have to find Moya as soon as possible!" Jool shouted from her position at John's side. "I can't close some of his injuries! We have to get him to a diagnostician!" Aeryn was already setting her course for the coordinates she and Pilot had prearranged should a situation like this occur.

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Aeryn was afraid John was bleeding to death. By the time the crew joined Moya, he was bleeding through his bandages. Once aboard the Leviathan, it was one starburst to the coordinates to the diagnostician they had previously arranged to treat John before. Aeryn prayed to Zhaan's goddess that the Peacekeepers were too preoccupied to come here in search of them. Jool had been working non-stop to stop his bleeding, but only succeeded in slowing it. Crichton never regained consciousness during their harried trip.

Aeryn was leading the way as they burst threw the surgery doors. Pilot had contacted the diagnostician prior to their landing and Aeryn knew they were expected. Dargo was carrying John as gently as he could, running from the transport pod to the treatment center. Aeryn saw John's body jiggling in Dargo's arms like a child's doll and her fear jumped up a notch as his face looked pale and dead.

The diagnostician was waiting as Dargo laid his precious cargo onto the exam table. The assistant attempted to shoo everyone out of the surgery. Aeryn wasn't about to leave. She couldn't leave. She was holding onto his hand as if it was her oxygen line for a walk in space.

The diagnostician was of the same species as the others she had encountered and made the same high clicking language. They were stripping John of his blood soaked bandages and closing wounds at an extraordinary, dizzying rate of speed. The assistant began to pump a liquid into John that Aeryn supposed was going to replace his blood loss. This had always been a fear of hers. His blood was so rare, so distinct, she didn't understand what the diagnostician could use as a replacement.

"The doctor says you must leave now. He is going to perform surgery to stop some internal bleeding and insists you cannot be in here," the assistant continued to hook machines up to John's body and inject liquid in and then take liquid from John. Aeryn didn't want to leave, but she understood she placed John at a bigger risk for infection due to blood loss if she stayed. She slowly backed out of the surgery. Aeryn didn't take her eyes off of John until the doors cut off her view.

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Aeryn and Dargo paced. Chiana watched them from her position near Jool. Chiana suspected Aeryn would collapse. Jool had collapsed from exhaustion almost immediately after they had taken Crichton from them. But not Aeryn. Every few paces, Dargo or Aeryn would look towards the doors leading to the diagnostician's surgery.

It was here they learned Rygel had returned to his home-world after learning of their capture. Dargo had spoken with him through planet to planet communiqués. Rygel had been attempting to gather a force to come to their rescue. He offered them all a place to rest while John was convalescent. Aeryn marveled at the change in the little dominar. He was every bit the royal leader of his people. It was such a change from the obnoxious toad she had come to know.

John had been in there for four arns with no word as to his condition. Just as Chiana was also about to fall into fatigued sleep, the diagnostician came out. Chiana realized they never even knew his, her, name. They came to a stop in front of Aeryn and spoke in the high pitched, halting, clicking voice they all seemed to use.

"The hoomon…..is out….of danger, but…..needs lot of rest. Hoomon……lost large quantity….of life fluid and was…..difficult to….replace," the diagnostician seemed pleased and observed their sighs of relief. "You may….take him to ship…..in..two arns."

Dargo suddenly whooped and lifted Aeryn off the floor, swinging her around in a circle. Chiana could see tears in the former Peacekeeper's eyes. Chiana ran and gave them both a hug with enough strength to make Dargo grunt. He just picked her up in another hug and whooped his joy at his friend's recovery. Jool had roused herself upon Dargo's shout and was herself screaming in delight.

"Dargo why don't you take Chiana and Jool back to the ship to rest and let Pilot and Moya know of John's recovery," Aeryn started to say, but the crew objected. Dargo spoke for them all when he informed Aeryn they would all stay until John could come home to Moya.

"Moya and I have heard the good news, Officer Sun," Aeryn heard Pilots voice come from her comm. "Moya was very worried and is very pleased the Commander will be returning to her in good health."

"We are pleased as well Pilot," Aeryn couldn't seem to stop smiling. It felt as if her whole face was being stretched wider. The two arns wouldn't go fast enough as far as she was concerned. Aeryn turned and followed the diagnostician to where John was recovering.

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Aeryn was holding his hand. This was his first thought as his consciousness rose. This time, he was not disappointed to see the sight that greeted him. He tried very hard to open eye lids weighted with titanium and they opened to reveal the most perfect blue eyes he never thought he would see again. When he said 'Hey', she had enveloped him in a fierce hug and showered his face with kisses. John thought to himself that if this was a dream, he didn't want to wake up.

John had fallen back to sleep almost immediately and awakened again in his own bed aboard Moya to find Aeryn asleep sitting on the floor with her head on the bed. She was holding his hand. He still felt weak and he was content to just watch her sleep. He was caressing her hand when she began to stir. She looked up suddenly as if she didn't believe she would find him lying there. John was then treated to a brilliant smile that was going to make him cry. He reached out a shaky hand to touch her silky hair.

"Aeryn….," He whispered as a year trickled from his eye to flow into his hair, "You're really here." He was embarrassed as he found his last words were ended in a sob. His embarrassment didn't last long as she climbed onto the bed with him and just held him as he quietly cried.

"Shhh, John," Aeryn whispered into his ear as she caressed his hair and face, "You don't have to worry. I'll not leave you again." She tenderly kissed his mouth. She held him as he cried for a few moments longer and still held him as he quietly lay there. He couldn't seem to take his eyes off of her. He was terrified if he blinked, she would disappear and he would be in Grayza's arms once again.

"I told you I would never leave you and I won't. You have nothing to fear, John. Ever again," Aeryn promised him as she gave him a lingering, gentle kiss. He believed her. He would always believe his 'Radiant Aeryn Sun'.

The End