On The Wings Of Destiny (Farscape/Babylon Five Crossover)

Author's Notes: If altered the Farscape universe a little in that like in B5 they have hyperspace technology though its nowhere near as developed. Most starships are only capable of entering and exiting hyperspace via jump gates with only the largest ships able to open jump points on their own power. The only exception to this is leviathan ships, which can open jump points on their own, but only when enough power has been built up. Although they do use hyperspace beacons leviathans do not necessarily have to in that they have a spatial sense that shows them where they are in hyperspace relative to their position in normal space.

B5 universe events take place after Sleeping In Light.

Chapter One

Lanaro Sector

The Lanaro system was a quiet out of the way place on the edge of Interstellar Alliance territory. No one came here as the system had nothing really to offer there were no really exploitable resources certainly nothing as valuable as the Quantium Forty ore the element that was essential for the construction of both jump gates and jump engines. There were no habitable planets – even if there had been nobody would have bothered with it since the system was so far off the shipping lanes that colonising here would not be worthwhile. The systems only unusual feature was the odd gravitation and spatial fluctuations around its twin suns.

A large jump point opened and from it emerged three ships – two were Interstellar Alliance White Star attack cruisers, the other which utterly dwarfed the two White Stars was an Earth Alliance warship specifically one of the new Firebrand-class dreadnoughts which had recently replaced the Warlock-class heavy destroyers as the largest, strongest and most advanced warships in Earth Forces arsenal. Against a Firebrand few ships save a Minbari Sharlin-class war cruiser or an ISA Victory-class destroyer stood a chance.

Aboard the massive three thousand and fifty meter long dreadnought – the EAS Independence – Anla'shok John Crichton was deep in last minute preparations for his part of the mission that the Independence along with White Stars 73 and 74 had come here to do. Shortly after he'd joined the rangers John had approached the Interstellar Alliance with a proposal to properly examine the spatial fluctuations in the Lanaro system. He'd studied what little information was available for years before joining the Rangers – back when he'd been doing his doctorate in astrophysics – and had been unhappy at the lack of information available about them.

The ISA had been interested in his proposal – it had especially caught the attention of former ISA president turned Entil'zha of the Rangers John Sheridan before his recent death. Sheridan had convinced his wife President Delenn and the rest of the ISA Council that it could be beneficial and preparations had begun. The EA had joined in as well when John's old childhood friend and fellow scientist DK had convinced his father General Jack Crichton that it might be a good idea and that the ISA was backing it.

Preparations had taken some time especially designing the ship that would carry out his part of the mission, which was the dangerous bit of actually examining the spatial distortions up close. The result of their work was a ship that John had christened the Farscape, a modified version of a Blue Star scout ship, modified in that she was slightly bigger than normal fifty-eight meters long instead of the normal fifty-two, mounted a more sophisticated sensor suit and had stronger energy shielding backing up her bio armour hull. Until very recently true energy shields – not the gravitic dispersion shielding used by the Minbari, Centauri and a few others – had been specific to the White Star Fleet and before that the now gone First Ones. But when the Blue Star scout ships had been developed they'd successfully managed to retro engineer Vorlon-style energy shielding for them. As the ISA treaty demanded the new shield technology had been shared with the rest of the alliance races. So now all ISA member worlds were refitting warships with energy shields the result was ships like the Independence which mounted defensive energy shielding in addition to her thirty meter thick armoured hide and comprehensive point defence and counter measures systems. The Farscape also mounted an additional set of antimatter power cells to back up her micro quantum gravitic reactor and her fusion reactor.

Currently John was standing outside the Farscape on the Independence's main hanger deck going over some last minute test results with DK and a pair of the Minbari Worker Caste engineers who'd built the Farscape.

"Everything is looking good John," DK said. "Power, sensors, gravimetric engines, weapons and defensive systems, life support, artificial gravity everything is reading A-Ok." DK looked up at his old childhood friend and smiled and couldn't help but think how handsome John looked in his Ranger uniform. If Susanna were here she'd be green with envy, DK thought knowing that Susanna Dupree – a fellow scientist who'd worked on the Farscape development project – was secretly completely smitten with one John Crichton but could never pluck up the courage to ask him out.

"I'm glad to here it," John said smiling back. "It wouldn't do to come this far only for something to go wrong and us have to go all the way back to Minbar for repairs."

"That would be unfortunate," one of the two Minbari agreed.

The doors to the hanger bay opened and John's father came in and walked over looking very formidable in his blue Earth Force uniform.

"Is everything okay," Jack Crichton asked as he approached them. DK had to fight the urge to snap to attention as Jack approached even though he hadn't been in Earth Force for several years.

"Everything is fine general," the second Minbari replied giving a formal Minbari bow to Jack. Politely Jack returned it.

"Excellent then you better get ready to launch. Captain Roberts tells me we'll be in position in ten minutes. But before you do I want to borrow my son for a moment."

"Sure thing dad," John said then her turned to the two Minbari and said something in their language that had the two Minbari darting into the Farscape to bring all systems fully online. John would be flying the Farscape alone when the time came but first they were going to make sure everything was ready to go. DK for his part went to check to make sure the data uplink from the Farscape to the Independence's main computer was ready to go.

John for his part walked over to the far side of the bay with his father.

"You got rattlers in your stomach John," Jack asked giving his son an assessing gaze.

"A little," John admitted. "We've been working towards today for the last three years I just hope its all going to be okay."

"Its only natural to be nervous. When I was still a pilot I was always nervous before a mission." John knew what his father was referring to, his father had been a fighter pilot during the Shadow War and the Earth Alliance Civil War, he'd made a captain just before the Drakh War began and had commanded one of the few – then still brand new – Warlock-class heavy destroyers throughout the course of the war.

Before John could reply the link on the back of his father's hand went off.

"Yes," his father said into the offending object.

"Sir we've reached the deployment coordinates," Captain Roberts voice said from the tiny speaker.

"Very well stand by for deployment I'll be right there."

"Aye sir."

"I better go," John said as his father lowered his hand back to his side.

"Before you do take this," Jack replied pulling a small puzzle ring on a silver chain from his pocket and held it out for his son. "Take it."

"But dad that's your lucky ring," John protested.

"Look after it for me," Jack said. "You can give it me back when you return."

"Dad."

"I insist." John sighed knowing better than to argue with his father when his mind was made up. Reluctantly he took the ring from his father and put it around his neck before tucking it under the collar of his uniform.

"Good luck son," Jack said before they hugged briefly then when they parted John headed towards where the Farscape sat in the middle of the bay. Jack for his part left the bay for the bridge.

*****

Four Minutes Later

John Crichton sat alone in the command chair on the compact bridge of the Farscape as the ship launched from the Independence. With quick commands to controls on the armrests of the chair he increased power to the engines and shot away from the Independence and her escorting White Stars.

"Ship open communications link," he instructed. The AI unit immediately complied.

"Communications link open," the ships soft female voice said in response.

"Farscape to Independence. All systems operational proceeding to initial target zone," John informed the dreadnought that was rapidly receding behind him.

"Acknowledged Farscape," DK's voice replied from the bridge of the Independence.

A quick command into his controls activated the Farscape's shielding, a second quick command opagued the bridge windows so he was protected from the glare of the twin suns. A holographic display automatically shimmered into existence in its place.

A couple of moments later the Farscape announced that they were entering initial target zone.

"Begin scanning," John ordered.

*****

Bridge

EAS Independence

DK sat at the science station on the Independence's bridge observing and cataloguing the telemetry from the Farscape as it came in. So far everything was going perfectly. The scanners of the modified Blue Star were sending huge amounts of data back to them on the nature and composition of the spatial anomalies created by the fluctuating magnetic fields of the two suns. Sensors showed the anomalies to actually be small wormholes an extraordinary thing to occur. Nobody in history – except maybe the Shadows, Vorlons and the other First Ones – had ever really been able to study wormholes; they were such unpredictable and transient phenomenon that examining them in any detail had been impossible. Astrophysicists across the ISA would go nuts when they got this information to examine.

DK briefly glanced at the systems readout from the Farscape her shields were holding against the radiation output of the two suns and would continue to do so for sometime.

A bleep from the sensors caught DK's attention. He immediately looked at it a large solar flare was beginning to erupt from the surface of one of the suns. Though it wouldn't pass close to the Farscape the sharp radiation spike could damage her despite her shields and armour.

DK opened the comlink to the Farscape.

"John our sensors are picking up a magnetic flux on the surface of one of the suns. A large solar flare is forming. It's going to erupt quiet close to you I'd advise you withdraw for a short while until the flare passes."

"DK…say….again….cannot…..read….you….clearly," John's voice crackling with static distortion replied.

"John withdraw from the suns," DK said again.

"Can…re….ou."

"Increase power to communications array," Jack Crichton ordered from the command chair. The communications officer nodded and complied.

"Try now," he instructed to DK.

"John can you hear me," DK called into the comm.

"Barely," came the static washed voice. "I know what your calling about I can see it to. I'm going to try and withdraw."

"Sir the Farscape's coming around," sensors reported to Jack. "She's heading back our way."

Jack nodded he could see it himself on the bridge display screens. The Farscape spun around with an agility no Earth ship except for a Starfury could come close to mimicking and began to move back towards the safety of the Independence.

However before the Farscape could get more than a few kilometres disaster struck. The massive solar flare vomited up from the surface of the star though it missed the Farscape by a good thousand kilometres its accompanying electromagnetic wave slammed into the small scout ship with full force knocking her tumbling out of control her hull tight energy shielding crackling brilliant white as it struggled to keep the massive influx of energy away from the hull. Simultaneously one of the wormholes burst open and sucked the Farscape in before vanishing in a blinding flash of light that completely obscured the scene of the modified Blue Star tumbling out of control into the wormhole. The blast of light being caused by bits of stellar matter expelled from the surface of the star colliding and exploding producing a fusion explosion as the two sub critical masses of superheated hydrogen collided.

All this took less than thirty seconds before the horrified bridge crew of the Independence could even begin to react.

"In Valen's name," one of the two Minbari techs' on the bridge breathed. A shocked DK looked straight at Jack to see that the general's face had gone as still as iron as the older man brutally suppressed his own emotions. The only give away of what he could be feeling was the sudden pallor his skin had taken on.

"Deploy every single probe and sensor bot that we've got," Jack ordered his voice as cold as ice with the emotional control the general was maintaining. "Search that whole area. If there's any sign of John find it." Though the bridge crew to a man knew it was hopeless they didn't have the heart to disobey so they did as they were ordered.

*****

For several hours the Independence and the two White Stars searched the whole area using probes, robot drones and every single sensor that they had. They were incredibly thorough so thorough that had there been anything left of the Farscape bigger than a playing card they would have found it.

At the end of that time the three ships unhappily turned and jumped back into hyperspace having found no sign of the Farscape. General Crichton yielded command of the Independence's bridge to Captain Roberts and went to his quarters. Once there he locked the door behind him and the mask of iron willed general vanished and Jack Crichton screamed at the top of his lungs before dropping to his knees and breaking into open tears of pain and loss.