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The Reach Negotiator says it as fact. “There’s no known way to remove the scarab without killing the organic host.”
From then on, Jaime treats it as fact. Removing the scarab—removing his scarab—removing Khaji Da would be deadly. No hero dares to try, from Doctor Mid-nite to Zatanna. Most of them have strict moral codes that take killing off the table, and it doesn’t get any more enticing for them when they’re looking at the amber lenses covering what they know to be a teenager’s wide eyes. They tend to take back their offers to help him.
No one wants to risk his life.
Jaime struggles to take a deep breath, focusing on the feeling of blood trickling down his forehead between his eyebrows. Apparently nobody told these guys to worry about that.
“Scarab,” he croaks, because calling the scarab Khaji Da out loud has come to him easier and easier but he won’t bring that name out where these people can hear it, “it’s okay.”
The figure in the lead, the one with armor made from scavenged pieces of a Reach ship, pries Khaji Da’s mandibles from his flesh. Jaime’s spine screams, bone exposed to the air. Jaime doesn’t know what they’re saying. Usually the scarab can translate for him, but it’s hard to translate when you’re being violently clawed from the spine of your host.
(Host is a word used to describe parasites, but it can also mean a person who is entertaining guests. Khaji Da is not a parasite except in the truest definition of the word, as “an organism that lives in a member of another species." Khaji Da is his guest.)
“You’re going to kill me,” Jaime does his best to rasp. He feels the agony of the first set of Khaji Da’s “legs” being ripped from him abruptly cease, the apparent nerve block shutting it all down, a final gift from his scarab as the rest of Khaji Da’s body is torn free. But his scarab isn’t quite fast enough to turn off the parts of his brain that recognize sound, so he still has to hear the awful noises it makes.
They were calling him weak before Khaji Da stopped being able to translate for him. If they’d known there was a group of Reach-worshipping fascist sympathizers hiding out on this planet, he doesn’t think Guy would’ve accepted bringing him along. Maybe he should’ve turned it down anyway. Jaime doesn’t have the best track record with space.
Their leader lifts Khaji Da up, Jaime’s own blood dripping down onto his back. With the nerve blocker in place, he just feels it as thick, heavy wetness.
Two of the aliens chatter something to each other. One of them presents their back to the leader, and they hold Khaji Da up as if measuring their fit. Protectiveness blooms in Jaime’s chest as he imagines the scarab on someone else, someone who won’t understand, who will think of Khaji Da as a parasite, albeit a blessed one. And that’s if Khaji Da survives the process, which is… unlikely. Scarabs aren’t supposed to work like that.
He manages to push himself up onto his hands. Guy must be tracking his location. Even if he doesn’t know where he is, he’ll know soon. But if he gets here and Khaji Da is clearly separated from him, then he’s going to think Jaime is as good as dead already. He won’t abandon him here, Jaime doesn’t think, but—
Not only does he not have the best track record when it comes to space, the times he’s been abandoned in space is neck and neck with the times he’s been rescued, and he doesn’t really feel like giving the former a chance to outpace the latter.
At least this time his family knows where he is. Paco wanted him to bring back an asteroid as a souvenir. Brenda pretended not to be interested but had agreed that a reasonably-sized piece of an asteroid would be cool. Of course, his parents just wanted him to come back in one piece, a step Jaime has already failed.
(Milagro had asked for a Green Lantern Ring. Jaime had shot that one down outright. Khaji Da had suggested perhaps another color, and Jaime had shot that down too, in the privacy of their connection.)
The leader cheers something that sounds like the sound the Reach Negotiator made when they were lying to Jaime’s face about coming in peace. It was the same conversation where they said that Jaime would die if the scarab was ever removed from his body. Jaime struggles to breathe, his lower back pinned by the foot of one of the other aliens. It reminds him a little of being held down by Parasite, only less scaly and more slimy.
Off in the distance, Jaime sees a flash of green light.
“Khaji,” he whispers, mouth full of this planet’s dirt. He’s pretty sure he hears the scarab click in response. He didn’t want these guys to have Khaji Da’s name—if they can read the serial number, that’s all they’ll think it is—but desperate times call for desperate measures. Dying is pretty desperate. Is he dying? Jaime’s not sure if there’s a difference between this and shock. “Khaji—Khaji Da, I need you.”
He didn’t say it when they were on the Reach ship. He didn’t have to. That was their understanding. Jaime needed Khaji Da or else the whole plan wouldn’t work, and he needed the truth that Khaji Da had whispered in the scarab way when they first realized what needed to be done.
It is possible to remove a scarab from its host. That it’s impossible is a lie the Reach tells to stop those same hosts from trying to excise the scarab themselves or convincing someone else to do it—generally, “organic hosts” are too driven by self-preservation to commit suicide just to get rid of something they didn’t even realize was planning the downfall of their planet, and that was if they found out about it before their scarab had totally consumed their mind and turned them into a puppet.
It was still dangerous, of course. It could disable a human for life. Some organic organisms would do their equivalent of bleeding out. To use a totally random and not at all topical example, if a group of unknown aliens ripped it out of the organic host’s body while holding them down, it did tend to be very deadly. That kind of thing. But it was possible.
In the end, their plan hinged on it. If the Reach Negotiator didn’t try to disable Jaime by ripping out the scarab, it all went up in smoke. Jaime had trusted Khaji Da’s intentions and believed, really and truly, that the scarab was telling the truth about his survival. Their survival. And Khaji Da had pulled through.
Jaime needs the two of them to pull through again now.
“Khaji Da,” Jaime repeats at a desperate, cracked whisper, and the scarab squirms to life in the strange alien’s hand.
Autonomous movement was easiest for Khaji Da on the Reach ship. It was designed for the more bipedal members of the Reach’s infiltrating party, but that didn’t mean it was difficult for a scarab to traverse. Here, Khaji Da has to scuttle in the manner of the scarab’s namesake Coleoptera, darting as quickly as possible across the rocky outcropping.
There is no time for these aliens to react before Khaji Da is back between Jaime’s shoulder blades, sinking into his skin with clear relief. The brilliant starburst at the back of his brain that now means comfort, safety, and friendship rekindles. Jaime sighs with relief just as Guy hits their camp with the force of a meteor strike, washing the alien pinning him down away in a wall of green.
“Kid!” Guy shouts. Jaime cringes as Khaji Da makes a valiant effort to reform their chitin. Too close. That one was too close.
“Hey,” he manages to say, partially because Khaji Da is helping him move his jaw. He currently doesn’t really have the energy to make quips by himself. “Nice of you to finally show up.”
The battle that briefly rages over him isn’t much of a battle at all. A bunch of Reach-worshipping aliens isn’t much of a match for a Green Lantern on a good day, and with the element of surprise and Guy’s… unique style of fighting, it doesn’t take long for them to start running for the hills.
Jaime just closes his eyes and tries to breathe. When it became obvious what the leader’s intentions were, Khaji Da tried to respond by creating stronger physical roots under his skin to prevent them from being pulled apart, but it wasn’t enough. It’s the opposite of what they did when they had to infiltrate the Reach ship. Khaji Da had receded, becoming easier to remove, although it was still freaking painful. Especially since they couldn’t risk making it obvious to the Negotiator what their plan was.
“Glad they weren’t able to claw the scarab out,” Guy says seriously once he’s done shouting insults, lifting Jaime up on a light construct platform. Nice of him. Jaime doesn’t feel like moving any time soon. “They could’ve killed you.”
“Yeah,” Jaime says, voice raw. He puts his hand over his shoulder and takes a deep breath as Khaji Da chatters a status update only he can hear. Yeah, yeah, he agrees with his guest. There’s still so much blood on him. Way too close. “I guess they could’ve.”