The mouth of the wormhole spilled out like hot blue wax across a
marble black sky. A tiny white craft, a speck of dust wafting from the
mouth of a monster, coasted out of the whirling blue expanse. And just
as soon as it had opened, the wormhole winked shut in a blaze of
white, like the eye of tired deity.
Inside his module, John checked a few censor readouts, marveling to himself at how well the ship still functioned after eight years in deep space. His gaze drifted from a consol above his head to a dusty red planet framed in the window. The sight seemed to awaken him from an indeterminable sleep, and youthfulness lost to him some years ago crept back into his face like a ray of light. Tears welled up in his eyes: everything looked so familiar, so achingly familiar. He was almost ready to forget it had all happened, the past eight years, his life away from home.
An arm clothed in silken black reached from the shadows behind his seat and grabbed tight to his shirt. Instinctively he put his own now shaking hand over hers and was calmed. A pale white reflection enveloped his view of Mars as she slumped over his back, pressing her face into his heaving shoulder. "You know this is the right thing to do..." Aeryn's presence was both calming and disheartening: it meant that he was once someone different, was once a wide-eyed scientist with dreams of reaching far-off realms and meeting new life forms, was once innocent of the universe around him. But all that had changed and his dreams had become frightening realities. "Is it?" John turned his head to look at his wife with bleary eyes. And at that moment the thing he wanted more than anything- as his own planet came into panoramic existence through the frosted window of his module- was to know that he'd made a difference, that he'd changed things for the better.
Yet he knew the undeniable truth: the universe is to grand a scope to even hope to make an inkling of a difference. He sniffled a little; roughly wiping his red eyes with a gruff hand, and went back to checking the censor readouts. She slowly swatted his hands away from the switches and dials, hugging his head close to her chest. Her fingers ran along the furrows in his forehead as if his thoughts were written in brail across his brow. She shook her head and smiled.
"You know…you know, if you hadn't blundered into this…this Ever Never Land, we'd never have met and grown to hate each other…" He hiccupped out a laugh.
She kissed him on the head. "And then of course there's all the other lives you've touched-" a dark cloud passed over John and he waved her words away as if they were tangible.
"HEY!" She grabbed his arm and looked straight into his eyes. "Now you listen: if it wasn't for you, we'd still be fighting a losing battle against the Scarrans, the entire Uncharted Territories would still be feuding like children, not to mention the fact that D'Argo, Rygel, Chiana, and the rest of Moya's crew- not excluding myself -would've died a hundred deaths already…"
John smoothed the air with flat hands, nodding furiously. "Yeah, baby, but what about the rest of the story, huh? Remember how it all panned out? Here's a little 'Where Are They Now' UT-1 recap for ya: Zhaan's spirit is still floating around in a hand basket halfway between hell and the realm of the Goddess; Talyn and Crais are both dead because of my own stubborn pride and morals; Scorpius was caught and tortured to death by Commandant Cleavage and Bracca became a genocidal Grayza lackey; Stark leads a suicide regime of Bannik slaves in an immense uprising against the Second Royal Hynerian Empire and ends up in commune with his long lost love for eternity; not to mention the crap I put D'Argo, Chi, and Jool through, among others-"
"But they are still alive because of you! Stark was a sad sacrifice, yes, but he managed to get Rygel back in power, and you managed to defend his throne with wormhole tech when the Scarrans sent in the Charrids to wipe out Hyneria. And yes, some of those 'pride and morals' seeped into D'Argo's head before he could kill Macton. He was a PK prisoner again, but you made an effort to find him and now he's living out his dream as a quiet farmer with Jules and Jothee." Aeryn saw he was about to speak and telegraphed his thoughts again. "Chiana chose her own path John; she's got a lot to deal with as a Galactic Representative in the UT Forum of Planets but she has a strong voice and a good heart, due in no small part to the care and understanding you showed her…and all of us…Don't you see it now?" She shook him abruptly. "Life cannot be measured by regrets and hardships, because the true denomination of life is change: in yourself, in those you have touched, in those close to you..." Aeryn trailed off, running frustrated fingers through her night black hair.
John saw his life up until then, swirling around them like a swarm of nightmares, and for the first time, he realized that he wasn't alone. The whole time he'd been lost in the Uncharted Territories, he'd never stopped thinking about getting home, about eating pizza and watching the game with dad, about seeing his little sisters all grown up. And all the while he'd never known that he was already there. Home is not a place, it is the people you surround yourself with; and as he grabbed hold of Aeryn's warm body, rocking her in his arms, he realized that this was as good a home as any. A flashing censor cut his thoughts short. John checked a read-out and swallowed hard. Chiana's premonitions were all coming true: everything was coming full circle. "I'm ready to do this…"
Aeryn looked up and smiled. She saw in him a resolve: that he had lived a life. It didn't matter whether his life had been filled with both hardships and triumphs, or riddled with both doubt and great pride: what mattered was that he, John Crichton, had lived it. John Crichton the astronaut, explorer of the deep expanses of the unknown, stranger in a strange world. John took one more glimpse at the planet he once called home, then quickly went to work. From the surface of the blue-green planet, a thin white IASA rocket shimmied up through the atmosphere, breaking up into slats of floating silver to reveal a small beacon of a ship. John switched on the long-range comms and a familiar voice crackled to life in the cockpit.
"Canaveral this is Farscape One, I am free and flying. Are you with me there Momma Bear?"
"Oh yeah, I'm here buddy." John pumped a red primer on the newly modified throttle, activating the bullet shaped wave initiator clamped to the dingy hull of his module.
"Oh yeah, Farscape, I'm reading you loud and clear."
He smiled to himself. Good to here DK again.
"Authorizing flight computer to initiate ignition sequencing...now!"
"Anticipating trajectory of solar flare." John slowly turned a dial on the consol in front of him, hearing the creak of the initiator rotating above his head. The device locked on to a signature and began to hum intensely, and a field of blue green light slowly rippled outward from its underside.
"Roger Farscape, you are go for insertion procedures."
John stopped everything. He looked out the window and saw the face of the universe smiling back at him, welcoming him with open arms.
"Approaching maximum velocity in 20 seconds.....18 seconds...nearing critical altitude phase."
"John," Aeryn grasped his shoulder with an austere hand, "It's time." John shook himself as if from a dream. "Releasing electromagnetic pulse." The light field that had billowed out to form a capsule of wild electric blue around the hull broke free and stormed out across the stars like a team of raging horses.
"Farscape One, hold on a moment."
John held tight to Aeryn's arm, looking on with a mix of fear and anticipation. His eyes withheld lives within lives.
"Hold...Canaveral what?"
"Meteorology reports some kind of electromagnetic wave, repeat some kind of wave. John do you read me?"
"Yeah, I'm reading you."
"Canaveral? John, abort!"
"Canaveral?!"
" Son, you have to abort! Abort-"
"Good luck John." He sighed and shut his eyes tight as the wormhole swallowed the old Farscape One module, blinking away in a flash of blinding light. A shaking hand paused a moment above the comms switch as the frantic pleas of DK and his father blared through the cockpit; suddenly, he brought it down with force, cutting off the radio transmissions. John opened his eyes to see Aeryn staring deeply into his. "Are you all right?"
"Uh…yeah Aeryn, I'm fine." His voice was quiet, internal. Aeryn dipped her head in close. "I mean…all right with sending yourself…with never seeing your home…" John stirred her soft jaw line with a calloused finger, kissing her taut lips. "Aeryn…you are my home…"
And with that, they slipped away once more through the mouth of eternity, never once stopping to look back.
Inside his module, John checked a few censor readouts, marveling to himself at how well the ship still functioned after eight years in deep space. His gaze drifted from a consol above his head to a dusty red planet framed in the window. The sight seemed to awaken him from an indeterminable sleep, and youthfulness lost to him some years ago crept back into his face like a ray of light. Tears welled up in his eyes: everything looked so familiar, so achingly familiar. He was almost ready to forget it had all happened, the past eight years, his life away from home.
An arm clothed in silken black reached from the shadows behind his seat and grabbed tight to his shirt. Instinctively he put his own now shaking hand over hers and was calmed. A pale white reflection enveloped his view of Mars as she slumped over his back, pressing her face into his heaving shoulder. "You know this is the right thing to do..." Aeryn's presence was both calming and disheartening: it meant that he was once someone different, was once a wide-eyed scientist with dreams of reaching far-off realms and meeting new life forms, was once innocent of the universe around him. But all that had changed and his dreams had become frightening realities. "Is it?" John turned his head to look at his wife with bleary eyes. And at that moment the thing he wanted more than anything- as his own planet came into panoramic existence through the frosted window of his module- was to know that he'd made a difference, that he'd changed things for the better.
Yet he knew the undeniable truth: the universe is to grand a scope to even hope to make an inkling of a difference. He sniffled a little; roughly wiping his red eyes with a gruff hand, and went back to checking the censor readouts. She slowly swatted his hands away from the switches and dials, hugging his head close to her chest. Her fingers ran along the furrows in his forehead as if his thoughts were written in brail across his brow. She shook her head and smiled.
"You know…you know, if you hadn't blundered into this…this Ever Never Land, we'd never have met and grown to hate each other…" He hiccupped out a laugh.
She kissed him on the head. "And then of course there's all the other lives you've touched-" a dark cloud passed over John and he waved her words away as if they were tangible.
"HEY!" She grabbed his arm and looked straight into his eyes. "Now you listen: if it wasn't for you, we'd still be fighting a losing battle against the Scarrans, the entire Uncharted Territories would still be feuding like children, not to mention the fact that D'Argo, Rygel, Chiana, and the rest of Moya's crew- not excluding myself -would've died a hundred deaths already…"
John smoothed the air with flat hands, nodding furiously. "Yeah, baby, but what about the rest of the story, huh? Remember how it all panned out? Here's a little 'Where Are They Now' UT-1 recap for ya: Zhaan's spirit is still floating around in a hand basket halfway between hell and the realm of the Goddess; Talyn and Crais are both dead because of my own stubborn pride and morals; Scorpius was caught and tortured to death by Commandant Cleavage and Bracca became a genocidal Grayza lackey; Stark leads a suicide regime of Bannik slaves in an immense uprising against the Second Royal Hynerian Empire and ends up in commune with his long lost love for eternity; not to mention the crap I put D'Argo, Chi, and Jool through, among others-"
"But they are still alive because of you! Stark was a sad sacrifice, yes, but he managed to get Rygel back in power, and you managed to defend his throne with wormhole tech when the Scarrans sent in the Charrids to wipe out Hyneria. And yes, some of those 'pride and morals' seeped into D'Argo's head before he could kill Macton. He was a PK prisoner again, but you made an effort to find him and now he's living out his dream as a quiet farmer with Jules and Jothee." Aeryn saw he was about to speak and telegraphed his thoughts again. "Chiana chose her own path John; she's got a lot to deal with as a Galactic Representative in the UT Forum of Planets but she has a strong voice and a good heart, due in no small part to the care and understanding you showed her…and all of us…Don't you see it now?" She shook him abruptly. "Life cannot be measured by regrets and hardships, because the true denomination of life is change: in yourself, in those you have touched, in those close to you..." Aeryn trailed off, running frustrated fingers through her night black hair.
John saw his life up until then, swirling around them like a swarm of nightmares, and for the first time, he realized that he wasn't alone. The whole time he'd been lost in the Uncharted Territories, he'd never stopped thinking about getting home, about eating pizza and watching the game with dad, about seeing his little sisters all grown up. And all the while he'd never known that he was already there. Home is not a place, it is the people you surround yourself with; and as he grabbed hold of Aeryn's warm body, rocking her in his arms, he realized that this was as good a home as any. A flashing censor cut his thoughts short. John checked a read-out and swallowed hard. Chiana's premonitions were all coming true: everything was coming full circle. "I'm ready to do this…"
Aeryn looked up and smiled. She saw in him a resolve: that he had lived a life. It didn't matter whether his life had been filled with both hardships and triumphs, or riddled with both doubt and great pride: what mattered was that he, John Crichton, had lived it. John Crichton the astronaut, explorer of the deep expanses of the unknown, stranger in a strange world. John took one more glimpse at the planet he once called home, then quickly went to work. From the surface of the blue-green planet, a thin white IASA rocket shimmied up through the atmosphere, breaking up into slats of floating silver to reveal a small beacon of a ship. John switched on the long-range comms and a familiar voice crackled to life in the cockpit.
"Canaveral this is Farscape One, I am free and flying. Are you with me there Momma Bear?"
"Oh yeah, I'm here buddy." John pumped a red primer on the newly modified throttle, activating the bullet shaped wave initiator clamped to the dingy hull of his module.
"Oh yeah, Farscape, I'm reading you loud and clear."
He smiled to himself. Good to here DK again.
"Authorizing flight computer to initiate ignition sequencing...now!"
"Anticipating trajectory of solar flare." John slowly turned a dial on the consol in front of him, hearing the creak of the initiator rotating above his head. The device locked on to a signature and began to hum intensely, and a field of blue green light slowly rippled outward from its underside.
"Roger Farscape, you are go for insertion procedures."
John stopped everything. He looked out the window and saw the face of the universe smiling back at him, welcoming him with open arms.
"Approaching maximum velocity in 20 seconds.....18 seconds...nearing critical altitude phase."
"John," Aeryn grasped his shoulder with an austere hand, "It's time." John shook himself as if from a dream. "Releasing electromagnetic pulse." The light field that had billowed out to form a capsule of wild electric blue around the hull broke free and stormed out across the stars like a team of raging horses.
"Farscape One, hold on a moment."
John held tight to Aeryn's arm, looking on with a mix of fear and anticipation. His eyes withheld lives within lives.
"Hold...Canaveral what?"
"Meteorology reports some kind of electromagnetic wave, repeat some kind of wave. John do you read me?"
"Yeah, I'm reading you."
"Canaveral? John, abort!"
"Canaveral?!"
" Son, you have to abort! Abort-"
"Good luck John." He sighed and shut his eyes tight as the wormhole swallowed the old Farscape One module, blinking away in a flash of blinding light. A shaking hand paused a moment above the comms switch as the frantic pleas of DK and his father blared through the cockpit; suddenly, he brought it down with force, cutting off the radio transmissions. John opened his eyes to see Aeryn staring deeply into his. "Are you all right?"
"Uh…yeah Aeryn, I'm fine." His voice was quiet, internal. Aeryn dipped her head in close. "I mean…all right with sending yourself…with never seeing your home…" John stirred her soft jaw line with a calloused finger, kissing her taut lips. "Aeryn…you are my home…"
And with that, they slipped away once more through the mouth of eternity, never once stopping to look back.