A Day's Work
by Gonzai
Rated PG-13
Summary: John and Aeryn try to unravel the mystery of a lifeless Command Carrier.
Disclaimer: Decidedly not mine.
Author's Notes: Thanks to Kernezelda for the beta!
"Pilot, this had better be good, I was just having this great dream about the Baywatch babes," Crichton groused as he joined his shipmates on Moya's bridge.
The reference fell flat, of course. "I do not believe it is good, Commander," Pilot cocked his head, "but it is extremely unusual, and rather disturbing."
"So why the hezmana aren't we starbursting to somewhere else?" complained Rygel. "There's no point in sitting here waiting to be shot."
"Shot by wh-whoa, Charlie!" Crichton now saw the Peacekeeper fighter ship floating in space, not so far away from Moya. "I vote with Broom Hilda, let's pick a direction and go."
Aeryn was staring at the Peacekeeper ship grimly. "I don't think we'll be shot. The ship hasn't even flinched since we came within scanner range. No communications, no movement."
"Pilot's scans aren't showing any life signs," added D'Argo.
"So, what, the lights are on but nobody's home?" Crichton was beginning to understand why Pilot hadn't just hightailed it out of there. Peacekeepers had a lot of tricks, but sitting quietly wasn't one of them. Something wasn't right.
"Your description is unfamiliar to me, but it sounds accurate," Pilot replied. "This ship appears to be abandoned."
Crichton turned to Aeryn. "Well?"
"Peacekeepers do not abandon vessels," she answered without looking. "They are destroyed. Nothing left."
"A trick?" D'Argo asked.
"Not one they've ever used before." Aeryn was clearly puzzled. "Pilot, can we do a more detailed probe? Send a DRD?"
"Already done," Pilot answered, "and the report is normal atmospherics, no sign of unusual organisms or disease."
"Curiouser and curiouser, Alice said as she went down the rabbit hole," Crichton turned towards the door. "I never could say no to a good mystery, and while I'd prefer to go straight to the last page, looks like we're gonna have to read a couple chapters first. Anyone coming with?"
"You're insane," Rygel pronounced.
"Like that's a change," Crichton shot back.
"I'll probably regret this, but I'll go with you," D'Argo announced.
"I'll go. I already regret it," Aeryn added.
Pilot looked concerned. "May I recommend you take great caution?"
"Don't we always?"
The fighter's bays were as the DRD had advertised: deserted, with no sign or indication of a struggle. The air was fine, and they could detect nothing unusual, at least not of the organic variety.
"Did they just leave?" asked Chiana. "Just like that?"
"Not by prowler," Aeryn remarked. "Only two missing."
Crichton activated his com. "Pilot?"
"Yes, Commander?"
"This ship is missing two prowlers - do us a big one and give us the heads up if they come back around?"
"Certainly, Commander."
"Crichton out." John continued his visual inspection of the ship, his unease growing by the microt.
"The evacuation and transport vessels are untouched." D'Argo continued his own scan of the bay. "Cargo carriers here as well. No one left the ship."
"Except the two flyboys, and Pilot'll let us know if they make a guest appearance," Crichton concluded, and entered a standard open code for the bay doors. "I'm going in - what the frell?" The doors were trying to open, but something blocked them from doing so. Muttering in disgust, D'Argo grabbed a door and tore it free. John immediately wished D'Argo had left it alone.
The torn-off bay door revealed the fighter's inner chambers, which were devoid of life, but not death. Peacekeeper corpses littered the chamber. Those closest to the door were piled tightly against it, and many bodies fell into the hangar once the support of the was removed. Many of the Peacekeepers seemed to have been killed by pulse pistols, but from the looks of them that might have been a bonus. All the dead appeared to have suffered tremendously from some horrific disease, all of them pale, sickly, and stinking to high heaven. As Crichton stepped over the corpses into the ship, the bodies showed fewer signs of violence, but just as much of sickness. Almost like a plague.
Crichton picked his way through the bodies. "Uhhh, it's a bit late to be asking here, but are we getting any readings for biologicals? Virus? Anything?"
"Nothing. Everything's normal." D'Argo answered.
Chiana was verging on panic."Then what killed them? They look frelling sick to me! I'm going back to Moya, frell this!"
"You're staying here," D'Argo snapped. "If it's a disease, we'd take it back to Moya. We're staying."
"I vote with big D," Crichton agreed. "But I'm thinking everyone killed each other."
"Or themselves." Aeryn leaned in close for a better look at one corpse. "Some of these wounds are self-inflicted."
Crichton nudged a body with his foot. "Swell. What kinda plague is that nasty?"
Aeryn looked grimmer. "Heat delirium."
"They had heat sickness?" Crichton tried adding two and two but kept coming up with three. "It's definitely room temp in here, good ol' sixty-eight degrees, how do they get heat delirium from that?"
"Good question." Aeryn stood up again. "Possibly there's a record in the computers." "We'll check the computers," D'Argo pushed Chiana ahead of him. "See what you can find."
"Gotcha," John called back as he wandered further into the ship. "But somehow I suspect we won't find anyone alive." The silence was creepy and the mystery wasn't quite so appealing anymore. It was his idea to play Jessica Fletcher though, so until they knew who the murderer was, well...
Aeryn followed Crichton deeper into the carrier, but took her time, examining each corpse in its turn. She had noticed the doors to the hangar were scratched and dented as though escape had been attempted, and most of those dead were likely crushed. The others appeared dead by their own hand or mutual agreement, as though these Peacekeepers sought escape from the delirium before they reached the point of the Living Death.
But now the corpses were beginning to appear organized, often lined up in rows and neatly executed by pulse pistol. Further, these dead seemed to have been at the last stages of delirium or already suffering Living Death. But in their condition, they could not possibly have been there on their own; the sufferers must have been placed there by someone else, prior to taking mercy on them. But who could possibly have survived this plague? Only Peacekeepers would have been allowed aboard the vessel. The puzzle was beginning to sorely vex her when Crichton exclaimed loudly from the next chamber, which happened to be the Command Room.
"Commandant Cleavage has left the building!" Crichton yelped. "Something funky definitely went down. Aeryn, you should check this out. Damn."
"Everything is odd in here, Crichton," she called back, turning to join him in the Command Room. 'Everything,' she muttered to herself. And then someone - something - grabbed her arm. It was all she could do not to scream, a reaction unworthy of a Peacekeeper, but her breath left her all the same. She wheeled violently, tearing herself free of the grip, and drew her pulse pistol in the same motion, ready to fire upon her attacker.
Immediately she realized she was not in danger. She found herself facing Captain Braca - or what was left of him. Pulling away from him had pulled him away from the wall he had been clinging to, and the wall appeared to be the only reason he had been in anything resembling an upright position. He was quite thoroughly drenched in his own sweat, his hair plastered flat to his head, his skin sickly pale pale. He gasped frantically for breath as he choked on his own spittle, and he stared at her with wild eyes.
Heat delirium. Final stages. Braca could not harm her now had it been his fondest wish, and at the moment, she doubted it was. She dropped her pulse pistol back to her side. "Braca," she said dully. "I should have known."
Braca clawed uselessly at the wall; it was no longer enough to hold him up and he sank to the floor, grunting and whining, trying his best to speak to her and not succeeding. He was in agony, and yet she could not quite feel any sympathy.
How ironic, Aeryn considered. He wants something from me. "You'll have to say it, I won't guess," she told him evenly.
His eyes rolled back in his head and he started retching. "You're wasting my time," she began to tell him, when he finally spat out something vaguely resembling words.
"Uhlll. Nnneee," he croaked.
Hardly intelligible, but having had heat delirium herself, Aeryn had a very educated idea of what he meant to say. "You want me to kill you? Why should I?"
Braca remained silent except for his rasping breaths. Aeryn was tempted to oblige his request, indeed, her own experience suggested to her she should. However, Braca was likely the only being left alive on the ship who might explain what had happened here. If he could.
"Aeryn? Hey, I figured you'd want to see what hap-" Crichton came into the room, expecting to find only her, and upon seeing Braca more or less alive, immediately drew Winona and pointed it at the hapless Peacekeeper. "What the hell?"
"He has heat delirium." The words nearly sounded like someone else was speaking them. "He won't last long."
With a moment to assess the circumstances, Crichton realized Braca was harmless, and lowered his gun. "Think he knows what happened next door?" He shoved the Peacekeeper tentatively, with no reaction except the slightest of groans. "Hmph. Think he'll last long enough to tell us?"
Aeryn shrugged. "He won't die. Only the Living Death."
"Right." Crichton looked puzzled. "Okay, million dollar question. Why is he alive at all? Shouldn't the heat - er, the imaginary heat - have killed him already?"
Good question. And that had been bothering Aeryn as well. She dropped to one knee next to Braca, grasped his jaw and pulled his head upright. She shook his head until he finally opened his eyes. The heat radiating from him was sickening. "What happened? Tell us, and I'll kill you. I'll make it quick."
Several arns earlier...
Braca headed for the Command Room, as fast as he could walk without running. If he ran, the crew might realize just how serious the situation was. He couldn't risk any of them panicking. It was bad enough as it was. He'd be lucky if Grayza didn't order him shot right there and then for allowing such a failure in security.
She was waiting for his arrival. Frell. "Ma'am," he tried to appear as calm as possible, but given her likely reaction to his news, it was difficult. "Security reports the carrier's systems have been tampered with."
"Tampered with how?" Grayza's expression had not changed. Not a good sign.
Braca swallowed hard. "A computer virus, ma'am. The techs have not identified the damage yet, but expect to report within half an arn."
"I see," Grayza settled back in her chair. "And how exactly did a virus come to be in our systems, Captain Braca?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Braca could see the Command security officer shift slightly. 'Maybe I have 30 microts to live. If that,' he thought. "A traitor, possibly in league with the Scarrans."
"Really. How could such a thing happen, Captain?" she spoke calmly, but her eyes were as malevolent as her voice was soothing.
"I...don't know." Hopefully it would be quick.
"And where is the traitor now?"
"Stole a prowler, Ma'am. A retrieval squad is being assembled." His throat was so tight he could barely force the words through it.
"No squad. I won't waste more than one prowler on this. And you will be in that prowler, Captain," Grayza stood up suddenly. "You have six arns to find the traitor and return him to this ship." She tugged at the collar of his uniform, in a manner that was almost, but entirely not, sexual. "Return without him and your life is forfeit. Is that clear, Captain?"
She wasn't going to kill him? At least, not now? The surprise drove him to stammering. "Y-y-yes m-ma'am, I understand p-perfectly. We will capture him. I assure you."
"You had better, Captain, or I'll execute you myself." Her eyes were steeled, and Braca had no doubt she would find some tremendously horrible means of carrying out the sentence.
"Understood, Commandant."
The young prowler pilot was more than a bit surprised - and distressed - to find a Captain crammed into his prowler, and Braca was not much happier. He was glad to be alive for the moment, but the odds of finding the escaped operative were poor. He had nearly an arn's headstart, and it quickly became clear they were not going to apprehend him. To the increasing discomfort of the pilot, Braca ordered him to continuing searching, well after it was obvious the operative would not be found. Postponing the inevitable, Braca knew, but he was going to use the full six arns he had remaining to him.
They returned to the carrier only microts before Grayza's deadline. Oddly, the carrier did not respond to Braca's hails. Nor was anyone in the hangar bay when they landed, and the doors to the main ship compartment refused to open. They appeared to be jammed. The idea of taking the prowler and fleeing while the opportunity presented itself was briefly appealing, but then Braca considered the certain, extensive manhunt and its likely outcome. No, he would take his admittedly bleak chances with Grayza. If he was going to die, he would do so according to Peacekeeper regulation.
Braca climbed a ladder up to the hangar's second level and opened a hatchway that dropped back into the main compartment, an emergency exit that was rarely used and known only to high ranked officers. Opening the hatchway caused a tremendous burst of hot air to escape, blasting directly into his face and leaving him gasping. Shocked, he cautiously peered into the compartment.
The compartment was littered with dead and dying Peacekeepers. Some alive and clearly in agony, but most were dead or...in the Living Death. The heat inside the ship was stifling; it was not difficult to ascertain why so many were dead.
"Sir? Captain? What's going on? What's happened?" the pilot called from the hangar floor.
Braca paused. "The atmosphere - something's wrong, it's far too hot."
"H-hot?" the pilot asked warily.
"They're all dying," Braca answered. "All of them."
"Frell!" the pilot ran back to the prowler.
Braca yelled back. "Where are you going?"
"Anywhere else! I'm not staying here to die," snapped the pilot, leaping into his prowler and starting the engines.
Braca briefly pondered threatening the young soldier, but given the circumstances, it would be wasted breath. Perhaps the pilot was not entirely wrong in his thinking. Going into the ship, with the current temperature, was likely suicide. But this was still his command, he bore responsibility for this carrier until such time as Grayza withdrew that responsibility, and perhaps he might yet be of service on board. He pulled himself through the hatchway and dropped down to the floor.
There were few still alive in that area of the ship. And most of the dead had not died of heat delirium, nor were they suffering the Living Death; they had, quite clearly, killed each other; either crushed in a desperate attempt to escape the death trap that was the carrier, or they shot each other, trying to avoid the inevitable. The ones that were still alive had all succumbed to the Living Death; it was too horrific for Braca to even contemplate, and knowing these were his own troops that he had however unintentionally abandoned for a time, did not help matters. Still, he had a duty remaining to his crew, and he fulfilled it. Anyone he found still living, he quickly killed with a pulse blast.
As he worked his way through the carrier, Braca was beginning to feel profoundly unwell himself as his lungs protested the hot air that infiltrated them. In retrospect, perhaps he should have gone with the pilot. But he had already committed himself to learning what had happened in his absence. The Command Room was particularly disturbing; he found Grayza slumped across her chair, felled by a dozen pulse blasts, and the remaining high-ranked officers were scattered about the room. Most of them appeared to be suicides. Surely suicide was preferable to the Living Death, but as Braca had already observed, not many Peacekeepers had the resolve for that act. He had thought of that option himself, but he was reasonably certain he could not go through with it. He had conditioned himself to survive for so long he no longer had the capacity for such an act. And that was a pity now, he thought, because his thoughts were beginning to swirl in a haze, and tremors were beginning throughout his body.
Believing all the crew dead, Braca hoped he would yet be able to make it to the carrier's Systems Center; there, he could erase all records of the ship, and set the self-destruct. No one would ever know what became of this particular carrier. It was one of the most critical instructions contained in the Decca; a Peacekeeper vessel must never be allowed to fall into non-Peacekeeper control. The sickness was now more tortuous than he expected, more debilitating than he would have believed. He wondered if he would make it to the carrier's systems while he could still think clearly enough to set the destruct. He staggered towards the door, his legs declining to cooperate even as they had microts ago.
Before he could reach the door, he was surprised to hear a weak, pained voice. "C-cap...un," a man groaned. Braca searched the corpses, letting the wall support him as his limbs cooperated less and less. In time, he found who spoke. A junior officer, whose name he could not recall, was in the last stages of the heat delirium. Braca raised his pistol to finish off the man, but paused.
"Wh...what happened here?" he gasped.
The officer was silent and Braca was about to assume his death, when he spoke. "Sys...ems...rus. Los...amo...ere. Doors...lod. No conrol."
'Frell,' thought Braca. That explained the panic, the crushing at the doors. "The Comman'ant?" he forced out the words.
The officer smiled weakly. "'illed 'er. 'lamed 'er." Braca could imagine. With the entire carrier panicked, Grayza would have been considered responsible.
"Thank...you," Braca told the officer, and killed him.
No sooner did Braca step in the direction of the door, however, but his legs failed him entirely, cramping in an excruciating and agonizing manner, and he fell. The effort required to overcome the weakness and rise to his feet again was all the strength he had remaining to him; if he fell again, he knew he would not make it to Systems. And would it even matter? If the ship's controls had failed...
But even as he thought this, he could feel the rumble of the life-support systems, usually a forgotten background sound, as they began to whir and grind. The sickly hot and deadly air began to stir. A wisp of cooler air drifted across his face. The fresh air sparked his mind just enough for him to understand now what the sabotage had been; the systems had been hijacked only long enough to trap the Peacekeepers aboard and kill them with the heat. The carrier would now return to normal...and the first passing ship would find it, and discover nothing wrong or dangerous about it. Perhaps whomever the operative worked for - almost certainly the Scarrans - was waiting for the ship's operations to return to normal, then they would take what they wanted. Information? The ship itself? There was no knowing. But it was all the more important now that he destroy the ship.
Braca hoped that the rapidly cooling air might halt or even undo his condition, but he was scarcely into the next room before he knew that hope was false. The damage to his body was irreversible. And he no longer had the strength to take even another step. He leaned against a wall, and in his few remaining lucid thoughts, berated himself for failing his command. He had not failed his men, none of them suffered any longer, but the ship itself was lost. And for this, he deserved the Living Death.
"What happened? Tell us, and I'll kill you. I'll make it quick."
Braca struggled to speak. "Ssscuh. Ruhh. 'roy ip."
"Scarrans?" Aeryn asked, feeling completely unsurprised. Braca barely nodded. "How did they attack?"
Braca closed his eyes. He moved his head slightly.
"I don't think he knows," Crichton said quietly. "That might be all we get here."
"Naahh. Errr," Braca croaked the words.
"He wasn't here? What the frell?" Aeryn was getting frustrated. Then the coms crackled to life.
"Crichton? Aeryn?" D'Argo sounded urgent.
"Yeah D, we're here. You find something?" Crichton used the excuse to walk away, but Aeryn remained with Braca. She could hear whatever D'Argo had to say. And to her own amazement she was beginning to feel a twinge of sympathy for the suffering Peacekeeper.
"The computers were frelled with. Reprogramming. They lost control of the atmospherics," D'Argo advised.
"It was the Scarrans," Crichton answered. "They musta made it downright smoking in here."
"Scarrans? Are you certain?"
"We found Braca. Little twerp's still alive, he says it was Scarrans, but he wasn't here when they did it. I don't buy that."
"The computer is showing normal signs now, Chiana is checking the logs."
"Great. 'cause I don't think we're getting much more out of Smithers."
Aeryn was listening half to D'Argo and Crichton, half to Braca's tortured breathing. There was something missing to the story here. Something that suddenly clicked into place. Someone had been alive to euthanize the victims. And Braca was the only one alive on the ship. It must have been him. Who else could have?
She shook him back to some degree of consciousness. "It was you, wasn't it?" Braca did not understand. Given his present condition, she wondered if he ever would. "You killed them all? The ones with Living Death, you killed them?"
"Ulll. Ziih."
"They were all sick? All but you?"
The slightest of nods. "Ull ziih. Ullem."
"You came back and found them sick and you killed them?"Aeryn confirmed. Braca scarcely flinched. "Why didn't you leave before you got sick?"
"Ahbun. Ih ehn." The faintest trace of a smile.
Aeryn understood what Braca had done. Too well. Her years of Peacekeeper training would never be entirely erased from her and she understood precisely. A maelstrom of thoughts settled on her mind - could she have ever done this when she was a Peacekeeper? Could she do that now for her shipmates on Moya, if need be?
"Aeryn? I was thinking leaving might be a good idea. Preferably before Scarrans drop in for dinner."
"They had the Living Death, he killed them. All of them."
"So..."
"He could have left. He stayed to kill them. Decca Code of Conduct for a superior officer. He has the sickness because he spared the others the Living Death. He could have left."
Crichton looked at her sympathetically. "He sacrificed himself for everyone else. Sure, that's really noble and everything, but he's dead now. You can't help him."
"What if we could?"
"You promised Braca you'd kill him. Might be a good time to start keeping promises."
Frell, Crichton was right. Braca hadn't moved when she picked him up. He might already have gone to the Living Death, and if he hadn't, it was a matter of microts wasn't it? He was conscious, just barely, and she whispered in his ear, too low for Crichton to hear. "Good job, Captain."
She started to stand but, amazingly, Braca caught her wrist. "'soy ip," he coughed.
Of course. That was where the Captain was going next. One more duty to be carried out for his command. "You were going to Systems. To set the destruct." Braca didn't answer. "We will, Captain. As soon as we're off it."
"Does that mean we're leaving?"
Aeryn ignored Crichton and commed D'Argo. "Can you activate the ship's self-destruct?"
"Probably. How long do you need?"
"Long enough to get us back to Moya, that's enough."
"Quarter of an arn, then. We'll meet you in the hangar - and you'll explain then." D'Argo left no room for argument.
Aeryn turned off her com, and drew her pulse pistol. She aimed it at Braca and tried to fire, but her hand shook violently. She grabbed the pistol with her other hand but still, even with both hands, she could not steady the gun long enough to fire it. Crichton breathed deeply and walked over to her, putting one arm around her. "You tried. Your heart's in the right place," he murmured in her ear softly. "I just hope his is, too." He raised Winona with his free hand, and shot Braca squarely in the chest. He waited a few microts before he spoke again."We need to split. Nothing left to do here."
Aeryn stared at the fresh corpse on the floor and fought tears. "Right. Nothing left."
THE END
©copyright 2000 Gonzai