XOVER: The Farscape Project - part 3 of 5
Dawn341@AOL.COM
Sun, 20 Jan 2002 18:07:38 EST
The Farscape Project - part 3 of 5
For disclaimers and warnings, see part 1.
*****************************************
About 18 months later, somewhere in the uncharted territory...
"Crichton, you might want to take a look at this."
John Crichton hurried down the corridors of Moya toward command. Pilot
was usually calm and collected, but there had been a worried note in his
tone. "What is it, Pilot?"
"There is some kind of spaceship... I've never seen its like before..."
"Great, more critters." John sped up his pace until he burst through the
command center door.
"The markings on it are very similar to those on your module."
"What?" He hurried over to the view port, and looked at the ship
drifting in front of Moya. He shook his head, rubbed his eyes with both
hands and looked again.
It was the Collaroy.
"Can you bring it on board, Pilot?"
"Is that wise, Commander?"
"I have to know." Maybe the crew had been rescued. Maybe there were
other humans out here in the uncharted territories. Possible allies
against Scorpius, and his plans to create wormholes.
Or they could all be dead - unable to find a hospitable planet in time.
Suffocated to death. Or maybe they'd starved to death. It would be hard
to say which would have run out first. The oxygen was constantly
recycled as long as the generators were running. But if they'd run out
of fuel...
He turned and headed toward the landing bay at a dead run. D'Argo,
Aeryn, and Crais were there ahead of him, weapons already drawn.
"What is this, Crichton?" Crais demanded.
"It's the Collaroy - the space shuttle that I went up in to test my
Farscape module."
"Is it something we can use against Scorpius?" Crais asked.
"I doubt it. First, I need to find out what happened to the crew. Pilot,
is there any sign of life onboard?"
"None. There is no breathable air inside the module according to my
scan," Pilot replied in a matter-of-fact tone as if it were an every day
occurrence.
"If I open it up, can you force air inside so I can go in?"
"Of course."
John headed for the mid-deck access panel. It took him several minutes
to open it up, then he had to go into the airlock to open the second
door. He backed out of the shuttle to let Pilot do his thing, but even
in the brief time he'd been inside, he'd seen a body.
In all the time he'd been out here, he'd killed plenty of creatures.
Seen lots of dead bodies. But somehow this brought the horror of death
home. He knew the people on board the shuttle - one of them had been a
good friend. He didn't want to go back onboard. He wanted to tell Pilot
to just send the shuttle back out into space.
But his fellow astronauts deserved better than that. They deserved a
burial. "Pilot, are there any planets nearby that would support human
life? Preferably, non-inhabited."
"There is one, a few arns from here. There is now a breathable
atmosphere inside the craft."
John turned to his other shipmates. "If these are the crew of the space
shuttle, I want to give them a decent burial."
D'Argo nodded. "Do you want me to check out the shuttle for you?"
"No, I have to do this myself." John took a deep breath, then climbed
back into the shuttle. There were two bodies at the mid-deck level. One
of them was his friend, Ryan. "Oh, Richie, I'm so sorry..."
The other was one of the mission specialists, the only female of the
crew. It figured that Ryan would have the only female crew member next
to him. John headed up the ladder to the flight deck. Here he found the
remaining six crew members.
He slowly backed down the ladder, trying to control the churning in his
stomach. His ideas, his desire to prove he was right, had killed these
eight people. Had killed one of his best friends.
Just as his ideas might kill Crais, or D'Argo, or Rygel, or... or Aeryn.
It was a hard concept to deal with. He went back and knelt down beside
Ryan's body.
"I'm so sorry, Rich. I should never have let you get involved in this
project. It's all my fault that you're dead. You should still be back on
Earth, chasing around all the pretty girls." He closed his eyes,
remembering the good times he'd had with Ryan. Finally, he stood up and
headed for the exit door.
He heard someone take a deep gasping breath and spun around.
"Good God!" he yelled as he realized that Richie Ryan was alive and
staring back at him with a startled look on his face.
Ryan recovered first. "Hi, John. What's happening?" His eyes grew wide
and he jumped to his feet.
John glanced over his shoulder and saw Aeryn coming through the airlock,
pulse pistol drawn. She must have heard his yell, and still cared enough
to worry about him.
"It's okay, Aeryn," John assured her. "At least I think it is. Meet
Richie Ryan, fellow human and astronaut."
Aeryn didn't lower her gun. "How can he still be alive? Maybe Maldis is
trying to trick us again. Unless you think Zhaan brought him back, too."
"I don't know how to explain it, but he's definitely alive."
"Uh... hey, John, you can understand her?" Ryan asked, confusion evident
in his tone. "And you're still speaking English to her."
"Translator microbes. We'll get you set up in a minute. Uh... is anyone
else going to come back to life like you?"
Ryan shook his head. "No, they're not like me."
"And you are?" John wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.
"I'm... uh...an Immortal. I... uh... can't die." He almost looked
sheepish as he explained.
"What kind of human nonsense is this, John?" Aeryn demanded angrily.
"Everyone dies."
"I thought so, too," John replied, eyeing the man who looked just like
his friend somewhat suspiciously. Maybe someone was messing with his
mind again. If that was the case, he was getting really tired of it.
"It's true, John," Ryan promised. "I'm immortal. I don't know why. I
don't know how. I just am." He swayed slightly, and grabbed John's arm
for a moment to steady himself. "Sorry. Look, can I get some food? Or
something to drink? Then I'll try to explain."
John exchanged glances with Aeryn who finally nodded. "All right, let's
get out of here." He practically pushed Aeryn back through the airlock,
then followed her. He could hear Ryan coming out behind him, and knew
exactly when the other man spotted D'Argo, who had his Qualta blade
drawn, ready for action.
"Whoa! Maybe you should tell the big guy with the sword that I'm no
threat," Ryan said, backing up a step.
"Who is this, Crichton?" D'Argo growled.
"A friend. Pilot, translator microbes, please. Stand still, Rich."
A DRD rolled up to Ryan, and quickly injected him.
"Hey! What was that?"
"Just give it a few microts... uh... seconds. Jool, Chiana, Rygel, meet
us in the center chamber, please." John grabbed the other astronaut's
arm, and gave it a tug. "This way, Rich. Right now, you're on Moya, who
is a biomechanical leviathan ship."
"You mean it's alive?" Ryan paused to feel the walls.
"That's right. Her son Talyn is docked alongside. You can meet him
later. Be grateful, when I first came on board, I didn't have a tour
guide like you do." John couldn't miss the apprehensive looks Ryan kept
sending back over his shoulder. "Relax, they aren't going to hurt you."
"But that one guy... he's an alien! He's got tentacles!"
"They all are. Aeryn and Crais are Sebaceans - very similar to humans,
but still aliens. D'Argo is a Luxan. Wait until you see the rest of the
crew. Rygel is an Hynerian. Chiana is a Nebari, and Jool is an Interon.
They all look alien. Oh, and then there's Pilot. He runs the ship."
"Before you give him too much more information, Crichton, maybe we'd
better find out how he could still be alive after three cycles," Aeryn
pointed out, anger in her tone.
"Hey, I can understand her!"
"Translator microbes," John explained again. "They colonize at the base
of your brain and translate for you."
They finally reached the center chamber, and John was pleased that the
rest of the crew had gotten there first.
"Who is this person?" Rygel demanded, hovering on his throne sled.
John quickly introduced everyone, and then got out food and drink for
Ryan. Once his friend had a chance to eat something, he said, "Okay,
Rich, you're up first. Want to explain how you're still alive?"
Ryan had been busy staring at the various occupants of the room while he
ate, but now he turned to face his friend. "As I told you before, I'm
immortal and I can't die. No one knows where we come from. We are all
found as abandoned infants. We don't know who are parents are, and we
can't have children."
John nodded. He knew Ryan had been an orphan. "Go on."
"There's not a whole lot more to it. If we die a violent death, our
immortality kicks in. From that point on, we don't age and we come back
to life if we die."
"So, how old are you?" John asked.
"Well, I was shot by a street punk at the ripe age of nineteen. I was
twenty-five when we met. I don't know how long ago that was."
"Almost three years. You keep saying 'we'. Are there more Immortals on
Earth?"
"Yes. My mentor was over 400, Amanda was over 1000, and I know another
who claims to be over 5000."
John couldn't believe that something that big had been kept a secret for
that many years. He looked around at the rest of the crew. "Have any of
you heard of a race like that?"
"There are a lot of races that live longer than humans do," Aeryn
pointed out. "But I've never heard of ones that live that long, and that
don't age."
"Still, we've run into other species out here that you've never heard of
before. That doesn't mean they don't exist," John pointed out.
Aeryn drew her gun and pointed it at Ryan. "Maybe we should just shoot
him, and see if he comes back to life."
"Whoa!" John cried out, putting a hand out to stop her. "That's not
necessary, Aeryn."
"Maybe this would help you believe." Ryan picked up his knife, and
sliced open his palm. He held it out for everyone to see the blood
welling up.
"Rich! Why did you do that?" John reached for his friend's hand, only to
stop when little bolts of blue lightning flickered over the hand. A
moment later, Ryan wiped his hand off with a cloth. There was no sign of
a wound.
"Ooookay... so you heal really fast." John almost wanted to see it
again. He'd seen some really weird things out here in the uncharted
territories, but seeing his friend heal was something else. He turned
his attention back to his questions. "What happened on the Collaroy?"
"Well, first you and the Farscape module disappeared. We could see this
thing... The commander thought it was a wormhole. We tried to maneuver
away from it, but it just seemed to suck us in. By that time, most of
the fuel had been expended. When we finally shot out the other end, we
looked for you, but you weren't on any of our sensors. Then the fuel ran
out, and the oxygen ran out - and... and... everyone died." He swiped at
his eyes. "It wasn't easy watching them all die."
"But you knew you wouldn't die," Aeryn pointed out. "Even if the rest of
them did. That must have made it easier to stand by and do nothing."
"There was nothing I could do!" Ryan protested hotly. "We were all
dying, and that included me. There was no guarantee that I would ever be
rescued. I had no idea where we were. No idea that there were other...
people living out here. For all I knew, I was being condemned to drift
in space for an eternity, dead but not dead. And I knew the orbiter
could drift close enough to a planet, or sun and be dragged down by its
gravity. I may be immortal, but that doesn't mean I can come back after
being disintegrated!"
"That's enough, Aeryn," John said, throwing her a warning glance. It was
obvious she didn't trust Ryan, but until he had proof to the contrary,
this was still his friend. "We must have come out at different points in
the wormhole. We already know they have more than one exit, so it's
quite feasible that we ended up in different parts of this universe."
"Where exactly are we?"
"I wish I knew - they call it the uncharted territory. For all I know,
Earth could be somewhere around here, but I haven't managed to find any
good reference points yet. Or it might take another wormhole to get us
back home. If we ever get back home."
"Hey, I have to get home," Ryan said with a grin. "I have a date with
Melanie when I get back."
John laughed, and swung a fist at Ryan who easily ducked it. "How did
you manage that?"
"It's a talent." His eyes strayed toward Aeryn, and John almost reached
out and smacked him.
"If two Crichtons weren't bad enough," Rygel moaned, "now we have two
different humans. I need to get off this frelling ship."
"Two Crichtons?" Ryan sent a questioning look towards John.
"Long story. I'll tell you all my tales later."
Rygel zoomed up on his throne sled. "Be prepared for a long and boring
recital. Immortals, humph. I don't believe it."
Ryan just smiled. "I didn't believe it the first time I saw it, either,
but that didn't stop it from being true."
"Commander, I'm sorry to break up your meeting, but we have arrived at
the planet you requested," Pilot's voice interrupted the conversation.
"Thanks, Pilot." John turned to Ryan. "I thought we'd bury the crew
here. Will you help me?"
"Of course."
"I will help, too," D'Argo said, rising to his feet.
"So will I," Aeryn also stated.
There were no other volunteers. John didn't really blame them. It wasn't
a task he was looking forward to.
***** end of part 3