Chamber 13
by Ligrim

"Aeryn, can you hand me that key?" John's voice was coming from under the
PK vessel.
Black haired Sebacean Aeryn Sun dropped the tool from the top of the
vehicle and returned to repairing the cabin lock. She didn't seem to be in
a very good mood.
"I can't believe in this!" she grumbled.
"What?"
"I said I cannot believe in this! Those DRD's were always working
perfectly."
"Well, I'm sure Pilot did this on purpose..." replied John ironically.
"Since he broke that bond with Moya, all of them go crazy once in a while.
I think we just have to bear with this for a while..."
"Well, why they didn't start taking apart your piece of junk..."
"This is not a piece of junk and... Arrgh!"
Aeryn smiled when John started cursing after he got shocked by a small
amount of electricity. They were both so busy that they never even notice
the young Nebari standing in the passageway. Chiana smiled too. John
sounded very comically.
She giggled then tilted her head a bit and asked:
"How many chambers we have in the upper tier?"
"What?" Aeryn turned around. She looked confused. John was still cursing,
so he probably didn't hear the question. "Why don't you go and check? I
don't know..."
"Well, I did and it seems that there are more of them than usual..."
"Ok, I have no idea what the frell are you talking about Chiana, and
frankly - I don't care."
Chiana, didn't respond. She just turned her back and walked away. She heard
John's voice coming from under the ship.
"Was Chiana here?"
"Yes, but she is gone now..."
"What did she want?"
"I have no idea..."
Chiana decided to look for D'argo. He usually listened to her. She was
quite disturbed by her discovery, and she needed to share it with someone
else. She found the Luxan warrior in his room sharpening his Qualta blade.
When he saw her he smiled.
"Hello, Chiana."
"D'argo..." she sat next close to him and started to play with the piece of
cloth the Luxan used to clean and polish his blade. "How many chambers we
have on the top tier?"
"I don't know, I never counted them. Why do you ask?" He took the cloth
away from her, and wiped his blade clean.
"There are four doors on the right, just by the entrance, and five on the
left. Then, around the corner you have that big chamber and five other
rooms, right?"
"Yes, I think that you're right."
"Well, there's one chamber there that I never saw before... I'm sure that
it wasn't there yesterday."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there's a new chamber up there..."
"Chiana, I think you are wasting too much time on..."
"You don't believe me..."
"I didn't say that." D'argo put away his sword, and tried to touch her
face. "I'm just trying..."
"Don't touch me!" she moved away from him. "You think I'm crazy? Well, I'm
sorry that I wasted so much of your precious time!" She hissed and left the
room. He followed her to the door.
"Chiana, wait..."
She didn't listen. D'argo was nice at times, but once again he completely
failed to understand her. She had no desire to talk to Zhaan at all. Zhaan
would probably think that she lost her mind. As usual no one listened to
her. She wondered if they will ever start to treat her with respect. One
would suspect that after all of what they said on that graveyard planet
they would treat her differently. Sadly, nothing changed. She went to check
the chamber again. She knew that she didn't imagine it. She found it easily
- it was 13th one on this level. It was completely empty, except for a
table standing in the middle. She could swore that it wasn't there before.
"Pilot... How many chambers we have on this level?" she asked.
"12 Chiana, why do you ask?" replied Pilot after a short pause.
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, I'm positive."
"Strange..." she said quietly and entered the new room. "Can you send some
DRD's here?"
She touched the table. It was very cold. This was strange since walls and
furniture on Moya were always moderately warm due to the ships body
temperature. This table was, however, very cold and motionless. Chiana also
noticed another thing. Thanks' to her acute Nebari senses, she was always
able to hear the vibrations of Moya's walls. Yet this room was perfectly
quiet. All of this made her feel uncomfortable.
"Pilot?"
There was no response.
"Pilot, what's wrong with you?"
She stood there few microts in that complete silence. She could hear her
own hearth bit. She slowly turned around and left the chamber.
"Pilot..." she tried one last time when she was out of the chamber.
"Yes Chiana?"
"Why didn't you respond earlier?"
"You didn't call me."
"I did!"
"Hmm, to tell you the truth you disappeared from my sensors for a few
moments. I think something is wrong with your communicator. Please take
another one form the control room."
"Pilot..."
"Yes Chiana?"
"Could you send some DRD's to the top tier?"
"Well, most of them are busy right now..."
"Please pilot, this is really important!"
"Well... Ok, but what do you want them to do there?"
"Tell them to check all the walls... Tell them to look for the 13th
chamber."
"But there are only..."
"Just do it, ok?"
"Well, if this will make you happy..."

*

Chiana returned to the dining hall. Soon after she arrived, D'argo
appeared. He found some crackers and sat on the opposite side of the table.
He looked at her for a few moments.
"Can you show me that thing you were talking about earlier?"
"You don't think I'm crazy anymore?"
"You sure are crazy, but I have nothing better to do..." he smiled
friendly.
"Well, I guess I can show it to you..." she replied and took him by the
hand.
They both went to the upper level of the ship. Chiana was leading.
"Four on the right, five on the left and..." she counted the doors. "What
the frell..."
The 13th chamber disappeared. There was a wall where Chiana found the door
not so long ago, and there was no signs that the chamber ever existed. She
examined the wall very closely, and started to bang her fists on it. There
was no results. D'argo was standing in the middle of the corridor with this
hands crossed on his breast.
"What exactly do you want to prove, Chiana?" He asked.
"There was a chamber here... I saw it..."
"I don't know what game are you playing here but I don't like it..."
"But... I just can't explain it, but there was a chamber here..."
D'argo shook his head, and put his arm around her.
"Let's go Chiana..."
"No, you think I'm crazy! I saw it you know - I can prove it!"
"Let's just forget about it..." he took her back to the dining hall.

*

"You know Zhaan, I'm worried about Chiana..." said D'argo, quietly.
Zhaan was cleaning up the large table in her chamber, moving various
ingredients, glass tubes and bottles from one side to another. They were
alone in the room.
"Why D'argo? She doesn't seem ill..."
"She was acting strangely lately... I don't know what to think about it..."
Zhaan smiled.
"Sometimes we all do... You should not be worried by this, she is young
and..."
"I don't know Zhaan. We went to the upper level because she wanted to show
me something. Some new room that she newer saw before, and then she just
started to act crazy..."
"Maybe she's just trying to get your attention, D'argo. I think she feels
something for you..." Zhaan turned around and looked into the Luxan in the
eyes.
"No, Zhaan, I..."
"Don't deny it D'argo, I know that there's something developing between you
two..."
"Zhaan, I really..."
"You just have to listen to your heart, D'argo..." she brushed her hand
along his beard and smiled. "You should talk to her..."
"Zhaan, believe me, I..." He didn't finish. He just shook his head, and
walked away.
Zhaan smiled again, and returned to cleaning up the table.

*

"What was that?" asked Chiana during their dinner.
"What was what?" Rygel paused eating for a brief second.
"That, do you hear it?"
"I don't hear anything, Chiana..." said Aeryn
"Anyone seen D'argo?" asked John.
"Shhh, I think I hear something..." Zhaan turned her head to listen.
"Again, it comes from up there..." Chiana pointed up.
"I really don't hear anything."
"Shut up, John, I think that's something is going on up there!"
"Warning, I detected three... Four gun shoots on the upper level. One of
the walls is damaged and I lost two DRD's!" Pilot sounded very disturbed.
"D'argo..." whispered Zhaan.
John was first to react. He jumped up and ran toward the door. Aeryn was
right behind him. Chiana and Zhaan followed them. Only Rygel was left in
the room. He continued to eat, completely undisturbed.
They found D'argo in front of the wall Chiana showed him this morning. As
they appeared another blast of energy impacted the wall. D'argo was
screaming and cursing in fury, hooting at the wall.
"D'argo!" said John.
When Luxan noticed him, he just turned around and pulled the trigger. John
ducked to the side. Aeryn dropped to the floor, while Chiana pulled Zhaan
out of the way in the last second. The shoot hit the wall behind them.
D'argo cursed again and aimed at Aeryn. Before he was able to shoot, John
kicked his weapon. The Luxan Warrior missed again. He immediately closed
his weapon so that it became a sword and swung it at John. He missed, and
the human was able to hit him on his stomach with his fist. The blow didn't
affect D'argo at all. He grabbed John with one hand, but he wasn't able to
do anything else because Aeryn seized his sword arm with a tight grip. John
grabbed his second arm, while Zhaan approached him from behind and injected
the warrior with some tranquilizer. He managed to free his hand from John's
grasp, and smashed Aeryn against the wall before he collapsed down.
"What the hell just happened here?" asked John still lying on the ground.
"Help me move him..." said Zhaan.
Chiana was looking at the wall. It wasn't badly damaged and DRD's already
started the repairs. She shook her head. The door to the mysterious Chamber
exactly in the place D'argo was shooting at.

*

D'argo was lying tied in his Chamber. Zhaan was siting beside him, John and
Aeryn were standing in the passageway. Chiana was sitting on a chair close
to D'argo's bed.
"How long he will be asleep?" John sat down on the ground.
"He should wake up any minute now..."
"It's the Chamber..." said Chiana quietly.
"What?"
She didn't respond, because D'argo finally woke up.
"Why am I tied to the bead?" he growled.
"Well, you freaked out and tried to kill us. That's all..." said John and
walked closer.
Chiana sat on the side of the bed.
"What did you see in there?"
D'argo looked at her for a few seconds and then responded quietly:
"...my son..."
No one said anything. Chiana tilted her head a bit, and touched D'argo's
face.
"It showed me my son's death..."
John looked at Aeryn trying to figure out what's going on. She was clueless
too, but none of them asked anything. Zhaan looked at Chiana.

*

"Ok, what's going on here!" asked John when they left D'argo's room.
Everyone looked at Chiana.
"I tried to tell you... But you wouldn't listen. Even he thought I'm crazy
until this thing started to screw with his mind too!"
"What exactly is this 'thing' Chiana?"
"I don't know... The new chamber. The one that wasn't there..."
"Ok, I'm confused now."
Chiana told them how she found the chamber, how the table appeared and how
it was gone when she tried to show it to D'argo. When she finished John
shook his head with disbelief.
"I don't know what to think about it... Disappearing Chamber... What do you
think, Zhaan?"
"I don't know... I never heard about anything like that before..."
"It seems to be there only when one person is around... When D'argo was
with me it disappeared..."
"I don't believe in disappearing chambers!" said Aeryn "I think that you
just lost your frelling mind Chiana..."
"Well, Aeryn... How would you explain what happened to D'argo, then?"
Aeryn reloaded her gun. Chiana shivered, remembering the last time she saw
this weapon so close [see my last fanfic].
"I don't know what's going on, but I intend to find out..." she said and
walked away.
"Pilot, did you heard all of that?" asked John suddenly when Aeryn
disappeared around the corner.
"Yes, I was listening to your conversation..."
"So what do you think about that 'chamber' Chiana was taking about?"
There was a moment of silence.
"I truly don't know..." He responded. "Moya doesn't feel anything unusual
right now, but we lost few DRD's around that area..."
"Where are the DRD's that were repairing the wall?" asked Chiana.
"Well, they are..." Pilot paused. "Gone..." he finished surprised.

*

TO BE CONTINUED...