Checkmate!
(The Coup of Scorpius)

BY

Phi Phi "Le Trelk"

Disclaimer:
All original characters and episodes are property of Henson and Company.

Rating:
NC-13

Feedback:
Is always appreciated.  

Time / Summary:
This short fic falls between John requesting Scorpius' help finding Aeryn and their entrance onto Bizarro Moya.

John finds out just how much Scorpius had to do with Aeryn's capture.

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

"You set me up, not that I care. I don't care about much...war, death wormholes. I don't care about the things you care about...Peacekeepers ruling the Scarrans, Scarrans ruling the Peacekeepers. Let them both together...put your ass in cage. I care about one thing...one! God have mercy on my soul. I think I'm gonna need your help 'Mister Scarran half-breed' to get Aeryn back. Help me get her and I will give you wormholes.

"Aeryn for wormholes, that's the deal..."

JOHN'S MODULE...


John's fingers moved swiftly over the module's console. "Braca?" The word was said independently of any sentence.

Scorpius watched John make the necessary adjustments and held on as the module swung against the aftershocks of the closing wormhole. He knew what Crichton was asking, but why make it easy. "Braca?"

"The key." John answered.

"No, not Braca." Scorpius watched John's expression. "Though he has been quite instrumental."

"Yeah...your little sycophant. So he wasn't the key" John snorted. "Who? Me? No, I'm the answer, not the key."

"Aeryn. It has always been Aeryn. She was the key." Scorpius finally answered John.

"So how did you manage it?" The calm subtlety of John's voice belied the slow burn of turmoil spreading throughout his soul.  

"Manage it?"

"Scorpy...I gotta tell ya, I'm really not in the mood for your little games. Now how did you manage it?"

"John we really must find this other Moya. Now is simply not the time for such a discussion." Scorpius couldn't be certain that John's hold on his temper would last. He also couldn't be sure of his survival should John decide to loose control and go for his throat in such a confined space.

"Scorpy as the saying goes. There's no time like the present." John glanced over his shoulder at Scorpius' silence. "Awww come on Scorp my man! You can tell me. I won't hurt ya..." He turned back to tweak a gadget, murmuring under his breath. "Much."

"Alright then, John. You wish to know, then I shall tell you." Scorpius paused for a microt before continuing. "You were correct earlier, I did set you up...all of you actually. My plan required you all, but Aeryn...Aeryn was the key."

John stared out at the black space. "When did you figure that out?"

"Some time ago."

"How long is some time ago?" John insisted.

"The Command Carrier." Came the facile answer.

John's fingers stilled suddenly. "Comm...the one we destroyed?"

"Yes. The one you and the rest of Moya's crew destroyed."

"Okay so what exactly led to the Aeryn factor?"

Scorpius sighed heavily before launching into his answer. "While Officer Sun was aboard the Command Carrier, she received a full physical. The surgeon reported the findings to me. Imagine his mortified surprise to find that Officer Sun was pregnant. He was even more surprised and repulsed to find that the fetus was half human. " Scorpius paused, contemplating his next words. "He wanted permission to terminate the pregnancy."

"Ter...terminate?" John fingers stilled, he clenched them into fists then slowly relaxed them, letting them splay across the panel. "So did you plan to kill them both or just the baby?"

Scorpius shook his head. "To kill Officer Sun would have been useless...once a Peacekeeper, always a Peacekeeper. I would have definitely found uses for her. The child by Sebacean edict was a monstrosity and should not have been allowed to live. But of course with my own colorful DNA I could hardly condone that. Besides which the child carries your DNA and more than likely the knowledge of Wormholes."

"So you decided to let the baby survive, if only as a possible reference to Wormholes." He didn't bother commenting further on the revelation that the child was his or that the child might have Wormhole knowledge. "How sweet...should I thank you? You didn't confront Aeryn...or did you? Because she never said a word to me...then again she never tells me anything and was definitely not in the mood to talk to me back then."

"John you asked for answers, yet you continue to interrupt me with more questions before I can finish answering your previous inquiry." Scorpius snapped.  

"Fine Scorpius, go on...no more interruptions." John sighed. When would this nightmare end? All wanted was an as near to normal life with the woman he loved, a nice quiet home to bring up baby. Maybe spend Christmas with dad. Was that too much to ask?

"No, I did not confront Officer Sun. What would I have gained by tipping my hand? Nothing. Besides you, Officer Sun and the rest of Moya's crew were in the process of destroying my Command Carrier."

 John held his hand up. "Oh now be fair. Technically it was Crais' Carrier first. You just kind of liberated it from his grasp."  

"John please!"

"Alright...alright...don't get your leathers in a bunch. Fair is fair!" John forced a smile.

Scorpius grumbled under his breath before speaking aloud. "It wasn't until Arnesk, that the opportunity presented itself."

"Arnesk..." John's mind drifted into the past, amusement suddenly gone. Memories of his unpleasant sojourn on the planet, flowing through his mind.

"Yes...after Grayza's rather...huh...rather unique...interrogation."

John's voice broke in. " Yeah...yeah we know how unique"

"Yes well...after Grayza's interrogation of you, it was apparent to all that neither you nor any of the others was aware of Officer Sun's location. While Grayza kept you...or should I say...while you kept Grayza busy, I had time to formulate my plan." Scorpius could tell that memories of Arnesk were far from comforting.  Could he blame John? Arnesk was not a planet he himself cared to remember. One day soon, he'd make that Hepplized tralk pay for the whole boot issue.

"And?" John turned to stare at Scorpius. "Formulate...come on."

"Yes...yes well once you and the rest left Arnesk, believing me dead, I simple focused my search on Officer Sun. I needed her to begin."

"Why?"

"How else would I gain entry onto Moya?" Came the quick answer.

"When D'Argo and I asked you how you happen to find Aeryn, you said that you were looking...for all of us. Scorpy I should have recognized the pause in there. You were looking for her...not all of us." John grounded out. Why hadn't he seen it?

"You are correct. I was looking for her and only her. I was aware of Moya's location and knew you would all head her way. I knew I could find Aeryn..."

"How...how did you know where to look?"

Scorpius chuckled softly. "John do you really believe that I was unaware of what was going on aboard my Carrier? I knew about the vigilante squad...all of them actually, as does High Command."  

"And you just let them exist...no punishment...no execution...no induced heat delirium?" John asked, disbelief tainting his words.

"Of course not. Why would we do that? The vigilante squads serve their purpose and often do the jobs we don't have time to do. I realize that many of our defectors need a place to fit in, Office Sun was no different in that respect. She joined Moya's crew after leaving the Peacekeepers and made a home for herself. She was no longer with you, which meant there was only one other place for her to fit in...a life similar to that into which she was born. I was quite surprised to find her adrift in a prowler, unconscious and ill. It made everything easier. Once I revived her she was willing to give me all I asked in order to save her child."

"And just...how much did you ask...other than entry to Moya that is?" John's voice held the hushed cadence of circumspection. "Scorpy if you so much as..."

Laying a hand on John's shoulder, Scorpius spoke quickly. "John please, while Officer Sun is a very beautiful woman, our world...the world of the Peacekeepers strictly prohibits such a relationship. Officer Sun was...is above my touch." Scorpius shook his head emphatically.  "No...entry to Moya was all I asked and in return I promised to save her child and to leave you and your brilliant mind unmolested."

"Yeah and you've been the houseguest from hell ever since." John muttered. "So you gained access...go on."

"Yes I gained access. Once aboard Moya I ran a complete physical to make sure that the child was unharmed. Then I put Officer Sun in a coolant suit after which she promised not to mention to you that I was aware of the child's existence."

"Why would Aeryn agree to the last bit. What could it have mattered if I knew about the baby or not?" John knew Aeryn wouldn't have agreed to that without pressure, just how much pressure had Scorpius applied?

"A little heat conditioning goes a long way."

"You bastard..." John whispered.

"Enough John! I told I before that I did not harm her and I didn't. The conditioning simply served to entice Officer Sun further into my way of thinking. With the child in her womb, she yielded quickly enough. You and the rest of the crew arrived aboard Moya several solar days later."

"Yeah right, and why didn't Aeryn tell me you knew about the baby after her heat delirium was cured by Ullom?"

"Simple, Officer Sun lives by the warrior's code. Her word is bond. She will not break it." Scorpius answered smoothly. "Not to mention the one fact that has reared its amorous little head over the past four cycles."

"Yeah?"

"Love. It is the love that you and Officer Sun have for each other that drives the both of you. You would do anything to save the other, including destroying a Shadow Depository...or Katratzi."

"Aeryn was right you took advantage of a situation. Oh man... pretty good Scorp, I just know the tale gets better."

"You are correct John, it does get better, for me. Though I was a bit worried when you and Aeryn began avoiding each other. The tension between the two of you seemed endless. But you had wormholes to occupy your time. It wasn't long before you began working on them again. Other then Officer Sun, they were an obsession with you. While it was good to see you once again at work on the wormhole, I needed you and Aeryn to find your way back to each other. Together the two of you barely spoke to one another, separate you were too secretive. I had to resort to using the comms as a way of keeping track, but that yielded nothing. That is until Talikaa."

"Yeah spider-girl."

"After our encounter with Talikaa, things changed. You and Aeryn confessed over the comms that there was nothing more between the two of you and kept avoiding each other outwardly. But I know that you were meeting secretly. I even know where, Pilot's den...though he never told, the maintenance bay on level twenty-six...no one uses, even the secret room in the Neural Cluster. You don't know this but I followed the two of you on several occasions...you recreate quite beautifully." Scorpius teased.

John gritted his teeth. The mere thought of Scorpius watching them, spying on them was enough to make his skin crawl. He could never tell Aeryn. "Scorpy you sick, perverted..."

Scorpius interrupted John before he could finish his insult. "As I was saying. Things began to change and with your successful detection of wormholes and your burgeoning affection for Aeryn, I knew that you wouldn't just hand over the wormhole technology to me and because of my pact with Aeryn I could not afford to pressure you in anyway."

"I'm touched...Scorpy...truly I am."

Scorpius chose to ignore John's remark. "While I bided my time on Moya,  I kept my eyes and ears sharp within High Command.

"Braca" John's voice was full of contempt.

"Yes, he has proven indispensable. He faked my death, left a marauder for me and kept me apprised of Grayza's ever move. When he notified me that Grayza planned to enter into a peace pact with the Scarrans, I knew that the Scarrans would somehow find a way to betray the treaty.  Braca gave me the location to the meeting and I set the trap. The women were to travel to the Leviathan settlement and you, D'Argo and Rygel would accompany me to Katoya's training camp."

"You sent the women straight into the hands of the Scarrans?" John couldn't believe his ears. Just how sadistic was this son of a bitch?

"The plan was for Aeryn and the others to fall into the hands of the Peacekeepers, trying to stop the traitorous pact that would directly affect the Peacekeeper's treaty with the Luxans. But there was also a chance that the women would end up in Scarran hands. I knew that no matter where they ended up you would insist on rescuing them. That is where Katoya's training came in. With his training you would be able to withstand most Scarran interrogation."

John remembered Scorpius' words during his Mental Arts training at Katoya's camp. 'You are undergoing a very specific training, anti-Scarran training.'  "You knew! You knew all along that it would be the Scarrans and not the Peacekeepers who would take Aeryn! Other women my ass! You sold Aeryn out to the highest bidder!"

"I did not! My plan was for Braca to capture the women! But I did know that the chance of the women being captured by the Scarrans was just as great as that of the Peacekeeper capturing them. I needed to be sure that if we attempted a rescue from the Scarran base, that if captured you'd be able to withstand interrogation!"

"Get back to Aeryn!" John yelled.

"I knew that the Scarrans would be after us soon! We needed a way to disguise Moya's presence from them. I remembered a dealer from my past that specialized in sensor distorters. His name was Rekka. I contacted Braca who located Rekka on the Leviathan Settlement. On my orders Braca set up a meeting with him. It was Rekka's negotiator who was bought. He agreed to inform the Peacekeeper of the women's presence on the Leviathan settlement. I told Sikozu about the settlement and she passed the information on to you. Rekka's negotiator recognized Aeryn immediately from the wanted beacon. As soon as the Peacekeepers arrived, Braca was contacted. Unfortunately Aeryn being the good little soldier that she is, stuck close to Grayza and Ahkna and was captured by the Scarrans first. When all of the women returned to Moya, I assumed that the plan failed. That is until the bioloid was discovered, then I knew that the Scarrans had captured Aeryn. "

"Well scorpy, I gotta hand it to ya, when you plan...you plan big. You set Aeryn up knowing that if the Peacekeepers captured her I'd come to you because of your connection with Braca. Well now the Scarrans have her god knows where...doing god knows what to her and here we are once again doing the mind game tango. You son of a bitch! You've been playing us all since you stepped foot onto Moya! And like the fools we are, we let you." John dropped his chin to his chest. Head down, eyes closed he began to chuckle. He clapped softly. "Bravo Scorpy. Bravo. You know I would say encore but I don't think any of us would survive a repeat."

"John you are not seeing the larger picture..."

"THE LARGER PICTURE! Aeryn is in Scarran hands! The picture just doesn't get any LARGER than that!"

"John I needed the wormhole knowledge. You refused to give it voluntarily, so I used the only leverage I could."

"Aeryn."

"Chess."

"What?"

"Come now John, you have always been able to play the game twenty moves ahead of everyone else. It was difficult enough getting around Aeryn, she's usually ten steps ahead, but you ...you were virtually impossible to out think with out your Achilles'. Scorpius repeated the very words John had spoken to Aeryn just weekens before, letting John know just how thorough his spying had been even with the comms offline. "For her and only for her would you betray your world by giving me the wormhole technology."

John turned as far as the modules front seat would allow. "No! You said that you had no interest in Earth...that it was safe from your harm!"

"How could you be sure?" Scorpius baited before raising a single finger. "Calm down John. I didn't lie. I have no interest in Earth. I simply wanted to prove a point. You are relying on hope. You hope that I won't bother your precious Earth. That helps you accept the fact, that in order to save the woman that you love you will handed me the doorway to your world."

John chewed on the inside of his lip, drawing blood. "Do I have a choice Scorpy?"

"No, not if you wish to save Aeryn and your child." Scorpius could smell the blood welling up in John's mouth. The metallic scent winding its way through his senses.

This was the second time Scorpius had referred to the child as his. Could he be telling the truth, or was this just another plot of Scorpius' to throw him further off center?  "You keep saying that the baby is mine. But Aeryn said that the baby could have been conceived three years prior to our fist meeting. How do I know that you aren't just stringing me along? Aeryn could have gotten pregnant by..." he caught the bright blue light of the opening wormhole.

"You John! You are the father of Aeryn Sun's child." Scorpius informed John, sensing his desire for the truth.

"So you find out about the baby, weasel your way on board Moya and spy on us, all the while you're planning to have Aeryn kidnapped in order to manipulate me into giving you wormhole technology.  Braca is running around behind Commandant Napoleanette the Great, while sending you mental space mail...what...daily? But it didn't stop there!" John jabbed an index finger at Scorpius.  "You managed to split the boys and the girls up and even came off surprised when the girls were..." John made invisible quotation marks with his fingers. "delayed[/I in coming back from the settlement. All the while knowing that your plan was in play and Aeryn was about to be captured by the Peacekeepers...oh yes [I]and the other women. Only it didn't quite happen like that did Scorpy-Sue? The big bad Scarrans showed up and got first dibs. Now Aeryn and the baby are in danger. I've swapped blood with the UTs answer to Dracula and now I'm sitting in my module, looking for a Moya that's ten times more screwed up then the original!"

"If it will help, Aeryn was never meant to be harmed, just detained. Like you, she has a price on her head. If it becomes known that she carries your child, that price will more than triple."

"Tell me something. Did you have anything to do with that video, Pilot intercepted?"

Scorpius shook his head. "No. If I were to hazard a guess, I would say that it was a gift from the Ancients. They can't want wormhole technology to fall into Scarran hands any more than we do."

"How did you know...oh yeah...Aurora chair...Harvey...never mind. Just forget I asked."

"I do not believe that it originated on Earth...not the dimension we visited. Perhaps they relize what the Scarrans will know soon." Scorpius continued on. "That the child may carry the same wormhole technology that you do."

"Huh...you really know how to play the game don't you Mr. Scarran Half-breed? I mean for four cycles I've been looking over my shoulder waiting for that dagger you carry around to end up in my back...or my skull. Only it ended up in Aeryn's. What about the pact you made with her?"

"A casualty of the Greater Good" Scorpius shrugged nonchalantly.

John sneered. "She should have just let me kill you." John shook his head slowly sighed heavily to release some of the tension coursing through his body. "Twenty-one moves...I usually win the game in twenty-one moves."

Scorpius leaned closer, his nose close enough to touch John's. "Well John, I usually win the game before it's begun. Check!" Scorpius smiled.

John rubbed his lower lip slowly. "One thing Scorp."

"Yes?"

"If Aeryn or the baby are hurt in anyway. If either one of them dies. You're dead." John lips formed a smiled cold enough to make Scorpius squirm. "Checkmate!" Without another word, John turned the module and entered the wormhole.