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Just Another Day in the Life of John Crichton, Pt2
Just Another Day in the Life of John Crichton or Is It?
continued from page one
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Meandering through the halls, Chianna laughed to herself, thinking of the look on D’Argo’s face, as he had stood there with the gooey Kylian Fectar soothing around his feet. She still pondered how things had turned out so completely frelled up. But living in the Uncharted Territories was beginning to show her that nothing should surprise her. Guilt began to creep into her conscience as she realized the situation was partly her fault. Chianna was in such deep thought, that she barely had time to step out of the way when she saw him coming. He was running at full speed right towards her. Did he even see her? Chianna was about to call out his name when he flew right past her, his force sending a chilling breeze across her face. Chianna started back a few steps, almost losing her balance. She glanced back at him as he disappeared from view.
“How the frell did he do that?” Chianna asked with a furrowed brow. She stood in her usual pose, wondering how the human could have possibly avoided the head-on collision. She shook her head and continued on down the hallway. Must be seeing things, I guess.
John ran towards Zhaan’s quarters with beads of sweat pouring down his forehead. He was beginning to get freaked out. A million scenarios passed through his mind. For everything they had been through since he arrived in the Uncharted Territories, there was always a clue that showed itself sooner or later. Something that at least gave a hint as to what could possibly be causing things to go haywire. How could he have so many near-death experiences in one day and not have one scratch on his body? Did he suddenly become somehow invincible, defy the laws of science, and react with light speed motion?
John nearly missed Zhaan’s quarters, sliding past her doorway and clinging onto the opened doors to stop his body in motion. At that moment, the doors began to slide shut at amazing speed, threatening to slam John’s hand. John thrust his hand back, for sure thinking he was too late. Somehow, once again, as the doors slammed shut just inches from his face, he had avoided harming himself. Zhaan had turned at the shuffle at the doorway and was standing with a look of confusion. She noted John’s stressed expression and opened the doors to stand face to face with him. John barely noticed that she was completely in the nude. He shuffled over to the farthest side of the room away from the doorway and leaned up against the wall.
Zhaan opened her mouth.
“Don’t ask.” John said. He ruffled his hands through his hair and looked down at his black shirt and leather pants he was wearing today. He barely noticed how dirty and slime-coated his clothing was. He thought of his module and looked up to Zhaan.
“Zhaan, something weird is definitely going on here. It’s like I’m stuck in an episode of the Twilight Zone. Things…keep happening to me. I can’t avoid them but then I don’t need to, ya know?” John asked with a frown and looked to Zhaan. For the first time, he noticed the pile of blue clothing scattered amongst the floor. John blushed and barely hid a smile. He didn’t mind looking at Zhaan but he didn’t feel it was appropriate. Zhaan must have sensed this because she scooped down and picked up some clothing. She wrapped her robe around herself and stepped up to John.
“Crichton, I was in the middle of a very important part of the Seek. If you don’t mind, I’d like to continue…alone.” Zhaan stated, with an inquiring look. John sensed that Zhaan really didn’t care too much at the moment what was happening. She probably figures I’m just on another one of my unusual Earth tangents. Crichton thought, tightening his lips. He held up his hands to show he would back off and dropped them loosely to his sides. He spun around Zhaan, keeping an eye on her and backed out of the room, carefully observing each step near the clothing, in the event that he should somehow slip. Zhaan smiled at Crichton, her eyes following him all the way out of the room.
Crichton sighed heavily and headed towards Pilots den. Maybe he’d know what was going on.
*****
“Pilot, you’re sensors are wrong! Moya is not functioning properly in the docking bay. How do you explain the huge gaping hole in her interior wall where the transport pod stopped? Surely, there are components that have been damaged. Where was all that steam coming from?” Aeryn was arguing with Pilot as she stood at the edge of his control center, leaning over to view the controls. She threw a stern glance at Pilot when he tried to shove her hand off of a control but continued her pursuit in finding what was causing all the chaos.
“The DRDs are finishing their analysis of the transport pod and find nothing but a few shorted wires in the hetch drive. Very minor and common, in fact. Now Moya will have to grow another transport pod. That’ll only drain her further and we’ll need to stop at another commerce planet for more Iriscentent Fluid.” Pilot argued, ignoring much of what Aeryn said.
“Oh, I’m sure Chianna wouldn’t mind that. Something went wrong.” Aeryn said with a smirk. She looked at Pilot and dropped her tense shoulders.
“Sorry, but it was like Commander Crichton stated…a freak accident.” Pilot said, maintaining eye contact with Aeryn. Aeryn let out a frustrated sigh.
“Pilot!” John’s voice carried into the large den from down the hallway. Aeryn turned to look as Crichton appeared through the doorway with a slightly frazzled look on his face.
John took one step towards the two and stopped. He looked to his left. Then he looked to his right. He glanced over his shoulder to look back into the hallway. He peered up, inspecting with his eyes every dench of the dimly lit ceiling. Finally, he let his slightly satisfied gaze fall upon Pilot and Aeryn. Aeryn had a look of bewilderment on her face, which was mirrored perfectly by Pilot behind her.
“Just checking.” John stated, nodding his head. He took a few more steps, being careful to be at the center of the walkway towards Pilot. He leaned to look over the edge into the darkness below. He wondered for a moment just how far down this room stretched. But he sure as hezmana didn’t want to find out.
“What…never mind.” Aeryn stated, shaking her head.
She started to turn back to Pilot, but something caught her eye. There was movement behind Crichton. A DRD was blindly zooming towards Pilot, somehow being damaged during the crash of the transport pod. Aeryn shouted out a warning as Crichton drew closer. Crichton, oblivious to the DRD, only blinked, thinking, whatever it was, it probably wouldn’t hurt him. Aeryn grabbed her pulse rifle and aimed it down towards the DRD to stop it in its tracks. She thought for sure the creature would somehow trip Crichton, sending him over the edge of the pathway. An energy blast streaked past Crichton’s right leg. Crichton spun to watch the events unfold. The energy blast struck the DRD, but to everyone’s dismay, bounced off of its metal exterior and struck the ceiling. Suddenly, another loud cracking noise exploded into the den. Crichton knew that sound all too well. His initial plan was to jump forward. But as part of the ceiling began to fall down towards him, he realized there was only one way out. He leapt off the pathway.
“John!!” Aeryn shouted in surprise.
“Crichton!” Pilot shouted.
Bits and Pieces of metal shattered onto the pathway with dusty debris trailing down from a gaping hole in the ceiling above. Aeryn rushed forward. Relief spread over her. Two white-knuckled hands held dearly onto the edge of the pathway. Aeryn followed the hands with her eyes down to see Crichton dangling helplessly off the edge of the pathway, a look of frustration settling over his face. Aeryn helped John up and pulled him onto the pathway, falling onto her butt in the process. John nearly rolled onto her lap and lay flat over the rubble, taking in a deep breath before sitting up beside Aeryn. They glanced at each other and both immediately stood up and cleared their throats, aware of Pilot’s presence. John glanced around to see the little DRD cowering in a corner near the entrance into the den. He turned to Pilot and walked up to him sternly. Aeryn followed, unsure of what he was thinking.
“Pilot, please tell me I’m dreaming. Enlighten me, please. Just make something up.” John stated. He looked at Pilot’s confused expression and threw his head back in frustration. He rubbed his eyes and looked back at Aeryn, who was staring at him with a look that stated that he was going insane.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Commander Crichton.” Pilot stated, more confused than ever. Sometimes those DRDs just didn’t do a good enough job showing him everything that went on in Moya with these inhabitants.
“I’m talking about what just happened here. What happened with Sparky’s floating throne, the door malfunction in Zhaan’s quarters…the frelling duct that nearly squashed me to death in the docking bay! I’ve had just about enough of this. I want to know what the joke is and why I’m not laughing!” John roared, pointing to the mess on the pathway as he spoke.
“You should be happy you’re still alive. You shouldn’t be so worried because if you’re not dead by now, I’m sure nothing else can happen to change that.” Aeryn stated, with a raised eyebrow and a smirk. She then turned and left the two alone, stepping carefully over the rubble as she walked out of the den. John watched her exit with a gaping mouth. John let his arms out and dropped them with a slap on his sides and turned back to Pilot. Pilot wore a blank look on his face. His large eyes blinked at John. The look was making John really annoyed. He huffed and spun around. He then charged out of Pilot’s den, not being careful to step over the mess on the pathway.
*****
Somehow, John ended back up in the docking bay. He raised his eyebrows, impressed by how well D’Argo, Chianna, and the DRDs had cleaned up the mess. Chianna was polishing off what was left of the goo on D’Argo’s boots, humming a song that actually sounded somewhat nice to John. D’Argo was busily clearing away the damaged duct that had nearly ended Crichton’s life earlier. He still had an expression of disgust on his face. The DRDs were finishing repairing the wall where the transport pod had stopped. The transport pod rested off to the side with several DRDs musing over it, fixing any damages. John caught sight of his module and was once again reminded of why he didn’t want to be in there in the first place. The damage would take months to repair. His heart sank as he walked over to it, wondering what could have possibly damaged the exterior.
“Hey, D’Argo, did you see anything near my module that could have caused this?” John asked, turning to look at D’Argo.
“If you’re wondering what smashed into that worthless pod of yours, ask Chianna, she’s the one that started all this!” D’Argo stated. Chianna stood up immediately with a call of surprise rising out of her throat. She slammed D’Argo’s boots down on the floor and walked straight up to D’Argo.
“Oh boy, here we go.” John muttered, barely loud enough for them to hear. It didn’t matter. D’Argo and Chianna immediately began to get into a fighting match, shouting at each other and blaming each other for everything that had gone wrong that day. John rolled his eyes and leaned onto his module, his back to the ‘music’ and looking at the damage with impatience.
“If you hadn’t bought that worthless cargo, we wouldn’t be cleaning up this dren, would we?” D’Argo charged.
“If you hadn’t decided to venture down on another commerce planet to find some more useless information on your son, we wouldn’t have had a problem, now would we?” Chianna stated. She had hit below the belt. Crichton frowned and mouthed an “ooh” as he listened on.
“You didn’t have to tag along like a little child, scaring away the local merchants, you Tralk!” D’Argo returned the bite of the argument. John raised his eyebrows, waiting for more. Chianna started back with her usual shocked squeak. This was becoming amusing. Suddenly, the argument stopped. John almost didn’t want to turn around. He could read their expressions already. They were turned on by the argument. Suddenly, they exited the room faster than the argument had started, leaving John alone to his thoughts and the damage before him.
Letting out a sigh, John twiddled with the exposed wires, inspecting what was still intact. He was not aware of the dangling wires from the module hanging beside his knees. Dangling dangerously close to a small puddle of oil pooling onto the floor at his feet. Suddenly, the module somehow activated and power was turned on, John jumped in surprise, throwing back his hand after a small shock from the live wires. He moved to turn the ship off, when he suddenly slid on the oil, losing all sense of balance.
John opened his eyes. He was lying on the floor beside his module. His left leg soaked in oil. He glanced around to see if anything was about to fall on him. The room was quite still. John noticed the sparking wires dangling just denches from his foot. He nervously rolled to his right and shuffled several metras away from the oil, unfortunately leaving a slight trail of oil in his wake. He scurried up against a wall and scanned everything around himself, making sure he wasn’t in any immediate danger to any more “freak accidents”. He began to replay the entire day in his mind, raking through every moment, trying to pin point just exactly where everything began to go wrong. But as he replayed the day over twice in his mind, he came up with nothing.
“Wrong place at the wrong time?” John mumbled out loud. “Just a bad day?”
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