Title: Necessity
Author: cofax
Email: cofax7@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Season 1 through "A Bug's Life"
Category: post-ep for "A Bug's Life"
Rating: PG
Distribution: Just let me know where, please.
Summary: Practicality is cold comfort in the Uncharted
Territories.
Disclaimer: Not mine, and no money involved. An attempt at a
transformative use under the "fair use" provisions of US
copyright law.
Notes: Working my way through Season 1. Beta by Melymbrosia.
Feedback makes me do the wacky; send it to cofax7@yahoo.com
***
Necessity
by cofax
September 2001
There was nothing to be done with the bodies but space them.
Zhaan had said some words over them before Pilot closed and
vented the airlock. For all the good that would do --
Peacekeepers didn't believe in an afterlife, so Zhaan's words
would have been just so much alien noise. John wondered if
translator microbes survived death, and if so, what they had made
of Zhaan's prayers.
The pale figures tumbled slowly off the port side as Moya turned.
Moya's crew needed the clothes, the weapons. It made sense. But
Hassan had been so tiny without her leathers. So frail, so
naked. Zhaan had said the cause of death was severe cranial
bleeding from three massive blows to the head.
She'd reminded him of Gilina. He remembered having a thing for
competent blondes. From what D'Argo had said, he still did, or
his body did. When it wasn't killing them.
He saw the blue figure move up beside him but didn't turn, his
eyes still focused out the viewscreen. She smelled of --
lavender, maybe. Something soothing. It seemed out of place.
"She didn't suffer, John. She was almost certainly unconscious
when she died." Zhaan's voice was as comforting as if she had
never put off the robes of a Pa'u. Zhaan, their priest and
healer, had been ready to kill the Peacekeepers when they came on
board, before the shit hit the fan. Before anyone had died.
She paused, then spoke again. "Aeryn seems to be recovering
well."
"Yeah." His voice felt thin, stretched; he swallowed with
difficulty. "She came back to the world of the living a little
while ago. Think she's gonna be okay."
Zhaan stepped closer and looked out the viewscreen. They had long
since moved away, but he imagined he could still see, burned onto
his retinas, the flash of the Marauder exploding. Larraq was
dust, and the virus with him. Larraq had liked Aeryn, and she
him. He was probably a pretty good guy out of uniform. Someone
you could play pickup basketball with, get a beer with.
"We are lucky the knife missed any major organs," Zhaan said.
John nodded.
Larraq was dust; Hassan's corpse, naked and frozen, would spin
through space for millennia before succumbing to some star's
gravity; and Aeryn had nearly bled out her life on Moya's warm
floor. All in all, a good day.
It had been necessary. Larraq would never have let him close
enough to administer the vaccine. Larraq would have sicced Crais
onto them again, and the virus would have killed millions. They
would all have died. Dad would have understood the necessity.
He wondered what 'a necessary evil' sounded like in Sebacean. If
he really wanted to find out, he could ask Aeryn. When she woke
up.
John peeled off the red coat on his way out the door, kicked it
to the side. Moya's endless corridors lay before him, curving
upon themselves in a looping mobius. "Boom," he whispered.
He might never find his way out now.
*Boom.*
***
End
Notes: Again, many thanks to Melymbrosia who made me justify my
characterizations and told me it was ready to go.
Author: cofax
Email: cofax7@yahoo.com
Spoilers: Season 1 through "A Bug's Life"
Category: post-ep for "A Bug's Life"
Rating: PG
Distribution: Just let me know where, please.
Summary: Practicality is cold comfort in the Uncharted
Territories.
Disclaimer: Not mine, and no money involved. An attempt at a
transformative use under the "fair use" provisions of US
copyright law.
Notes: Working my way through Season 1. Beta by Melymbrosia.
Feedback makes me do the wacky; send it to cofax7@yahoo.com
***
Necessity
by cofax
September 2001
There was nothing to be done with the bodies but space them.
Zhaan had said some words over them before Pilot closed and
vented the airlock. For all the good that would do --
Peacekeepers didn't believe in an afterlife, so Zhaan's words
would have been just so much alien noise. John wondered if
translator microbes survived death, and if so, what they had made
of Zhaan's prayers.
The pale figures tumbled slowly off the port side as Moya turned.
Moya's crew needed the clothes, the weapons. It made sense. But
Hassan had been so tiny without her leathers. So frail, so
naked. Zhaan had said the cause of death was severe cranial
bleeding from three massive blows to the head.
She'd reminded him of Gilina. He remembered having a thing for
competent blondes. From what D'Argo had said, he still did, or
his body did. When it wasn't killing them.
He saw the blue figure move up beside him but didn't turn, his
eyes still focused out the viewscreen. She smelled of --
lavender, maybe. Something soothing. It seemed out of place.
"She didn't suffer, John. She was almost certainly unconscious
when she died." Zhaan's voice was as comforting as if she had
never put off the robes of a Pa'u. Zhaan, their priest and
healer, had been ready to kill the Peacekeepers when they came on
board, before the shit hit the fan. Before anyone had died.
She paused, then spoke again. "Aeryn seems to be recovering
well."
"Yeah." His voice felt thin, stretched; he swallowed with
difficulty. "She came back to the world of the living a little
while ago. Think she's gonna be okay."
Zhaan stepped closer and looked out the viewscreen. They had long
since moved away, but he imagined he could still see, burned onto
his retinas, the flash of the Marauder exploding. Larraq was
dust, and the virus with him. Larraq had liked Aeryn, and she
him. He was probably a pretty good guy out of uniform. Someone
you could play pickup basketball with, get a beer with.
"We are lucky the knife missed any major organs," Zhaan said.
John nodded.
Larraq was dust; Hassan's corpse, naked and frozen, would spin
through space for millennia before succumbing to some star's
gravity; and Aeryn had nearly bled out her life on Moya's warm
floor. All in all, a good day.
It had been necessary. Larraq would never have let him close
enough to administer the vaccine. Larraq would have sicced Crais
onto them again, and the virus would have killed millions. They
would all have died. Dad would have understood the necessity.
He wondered what 'a necessary evil' sounded like in Sebacean. If
he really wanted to find out, he could ask Aeryn. When she woke
up.
John peeled off the red coat on his way out the door, kicked it
to the side. Moya's endless corridors lay before him, curving
upon themselves in a looping mobius. "Boom," he whispered.
He might never find his way out now.
*Boom.*
***
End
Notes: Again, many thanks to Melymbrosia who made me justify my
characterizations and told me it was ready to go.