Author's note:
Right, this here be my first submitted work to this fanfic site [first publication, Farscape Bboard]. So quite naturally, I'm assuming something will go wrong. No, actually, what I wanted to say was that the humor in this story is best recived if (a) you imagine the perfectly sane crew of Farscape, (b) if you realize that, despite its appearence, there is a suprising amount of logic and scientific truth weaved into the story and (c) if you actually get the logic and science. Also, the story takes place, oh, mid-late in the first season [since that was when I wrote it], and one of the titles considered for The Untold Encounter was Encounters of the Really Stupid Kind. But anyway, so without further ado....
The Untold Encounter
"Oh come on, I'm getting better!"
"True, you didn't get us stuck in some Flax this time..."
"I take that as a yes."
"But any yearling Peacekeeper could over take you."
The voices of John and Aeryn drifted down the passageways of Moya and reached the ears of the rest of the crew. "Ah, they're back," mused Rygel. "Alive too. Crichton must be getting better."
"He almost collided with a piece of space derbis," commented Aeryn as the doors swung open.
"The thing started heading towards us!" protested John.
"Space debris doesn't change course all of the sudden and try to hit the nearest leviathan transport."
"Well that one did, I swear. But the point is, it didn't hit us, and I'm getting better at moving the thing around."
Aeryn ignored him and strolled past the congregation of the crew, saying out loud in a general sort of tone, "Someone else gets to teach him next time!"
D'argo immediately declined, as did Chianna. Rygel flew away.
A scout ran up to Kaxev. "General, both the Hynerian and one of the peacekeepers has departed! And no one has noticed our presence yet."
Kaxev could see this without the help of a scout, but he said anyway, "Excellent! Lieutenant General, unload the rest of the troops! Meet me at the top of this structure, behind the boxes!"
Soon the troops and the rest of the ship were milling behind the large boxes, unseen by the crew of Moya.
"There he is," hissed Kaxev to the nearest Sergeant. "The fiend, the arch nemesis, the.. the.."
"Enemy?" suggested the Staff Sergeant.
"Exactly!"
An odd scent brushed D'argo's nose, but he assumed it had to do with Rygel coming in again. Rygel nearly collided with Crichton as they passed each other by near the entrance to the food-chamber.
"Wait for the giant's hand to move away," commanded Kaxev. "Then take the food supply hostage. Now!"
3 privates raced out and grabbed the supply of food cubes, then raced back. "Good work!"
John moved his hand towards the pile of the food cubes he had dumped on the table, and finding nothing, groped around then finally turned and found it was missing. He looked around briefly. "Zhaan, did you see where I put my food cubes?"
Zhaan, taking off her comm badge in order to do something with her sleeve, replied she hadn't.
"Aeryn? Have you?"
"What, you didn't eat them?"
"No I- never mind, I'll just get some more later."
Kaxev frowned. He had underestimated his enemy. They had an emergency supply of food. 'Never mind,' he thought, and gave a new order to one of his troops.
Zhaan frowned slightly. She was sure she had put her comm badge right . . . there. In the side of her vision she spotted Chiana.
"Chiana, did you borrow my comm badge?"
Chianna looked suspicious for a half an instance at the word borrow, but when Zhaan reached comm badge, she looked relieved then slightly annoyed. "Your comm badge? Why would I steal your comm badge?"
"I'm not implying you stole it, I'm merely asking if you have it."
"No, I don't have it, I bet- I bet he does though," Chianna argued, pointing at Rygel who was coming out of the food chamber. She realized how illogical that was, but it was too late.
"Me? Why should I take your food cubes?"
"Food cu- Comm badge! Who cares about food cubes?" cried Chianna exasperated.
"I do," interjected John from the side. "My food cubes are missing."
"Who cares about you?" replied Chianna.
Kaxev frowned even more. No matter how loudly his troops yelled, they were getting no attention.
"Ah, General? Sir?"
"Yes, private?"
"Maybe we can try comming them through the badges."
Kaxev turned around with a smile. "Excellent idea, private. Your promoted to First Sergeant."
"I feel honored sir!"
The crew of Moya were in a heated argument about nothing, with Pilot trying to understand what they were arguing about, when suddenly their comm badges made the usual -pwing!- opening noise and a voice spoke. "Attention all you oversized people!"
That cut their arguing off abruptly, and everyone started looking around. Where was the voice comming from? Outside the chamber?
"No look over here! Near the large structure with the boxes on top!" That really didn't help, because even for Rygel there were no large structure with boxes on top to be seen. Finally Kaxev ordered his troops to go out and start doing the Natae dance to get their attention.
"On top of the table!" informed pilot. John and Aeryn, nearest to the table, peered closely. Aeryn's eyes widened slightly, and John blurted, "What the crap!?" and started sniggering.
Kaxev ordered his troops to stop dancing, and grabbing hold of the comm badge, stepped forward.
The creatures stood only a half finger tall at most, and were mostly orange and brown colored. They had short stumpy bodies with thin oddly joined arms and legs. They stood on two legs and had two arms. Small beady dark green eyes were on top of their heads, and what looked like furry feathers sprouted from the back of their mostly-spherical heads. John couldn't see where the mouth was, assuming there was a mouth. They had little swords clipped onto their backs. The one carrying the comm badge stepped forward, and John assumed that was the leader..
The leader raised his, John wasn't sure what gender it was, little forearm in his direction. "Murderer of Brother Vexak! I have found you at last!" he shrilled.
For a half-moment D'argo thought Crais had been turned into an insect.
Then everyone sort of groaned.
"Crichton," started Rygel. "What did you do now?"
"I didn't do anything!"
The leader looked peeved, although it was hard to tell. "Not him, the other one!"
"Me?" said Aeryn in complete surprise.
"Yes you!"
"I didn't do anything?" asked John oddly relieved.
"Well, you too, I suppose!"
"What did *I* do?" said Aeryn, her eyes narrowing slightly.
"What did you do? What did you do? You killed my brother, that's what you did! You crushed him, killed him!"
"When did I kill your brother? I don't recall ever seeing a species like you, much less killing one of you!"
"You deny that you... you, a part cycle ago, came onto Vexak while he was presenting a speech to the mighty Diptera and after crushing him with the heel of your foot, did not even turn back? And you followed and ground the corpse of my brother into the ground even further!"
John and Aeryn look at each other, their faces full of question. "When did-" they both started.
John looked back at the Diptera, and told Aeryn, "I think you stepped on the Dip's leader's bro by accident. Back on that trading planet."
Aeryn replied, "And you stepped on him again, following my footsteps." She turned towards the group of Diptera, and said, "So now you've come to avenge your brother's death by killing me?"
"How did you know?" asked Kaxev in wonderment. Murmurs of awe spread throughout the troops.
Aeryn blinked.
John stepped forward, and began to explain, "Um, look, Aeryn and I are really sorry for stepping on your brother, we honestly didn't notice-"
Suddenly Pilot's holo sprang up. "Attention, brace your selves for a minor-"
The entire ship jerked roughly, then abruptly lurched to the side, and the chamber echoed with various yells and cries, punctured by chirping of a frantic DRD, as all the stools and tables fell violently. A shower of food cubes cascaded on everyone as Rygel lost his hold of them, and everyone fell over. The Dips bounced, mostly.
"-bump," ended Pilot.
A sarcastic comment was about to be made, when one of the Dips started moaning. Incidentally, it was the newly promoted First Sergeant. "Ow, my foot!"
Kaxev came over, looked at him, and announced he was demoted back to private.
"As soon as you heal, you'll be promoted to Sergeant."
One of the privates raised his arm. "I used to be Second Lieutenant, but I got demoted when I did something to my arm."
Kaxev thought for a moment, and said, "So you were. Ok, your promoted to Warrant Officer."
Another private raised his arm. "I used to be Captain."
A group of Dips slightly off to the side that hadn't been seen protested. "He's lying General."
Kaxev frowned. "So he is. I don't remember him being Captain."
"Nigithis!" the private cursed.
Chianna whispered, "A specie consisting of idiots. I love it."
Meanwhile, John had noticed the group of dips off to the side, and went over there. He squatted down, and asked, "So who are you guys?"
"Us? We're the servants. We follow them around," said one of the Dips.
"Why?" snorted Aeryn, who had decided to stand nearby.
"I don't know, it's fun watching them." Seeing John and Aeryn's face, the Dip added, "We aren't all idiots, just mostly idiots."
Meanwhile, the rest of the crew had been straightening chairs and were now sitting on them, watching the rest of the room. Zhaan took out a notepad or something and started taking notes.
Just then Kaxev declared war on Aeryn, and scuttling up to her proceeded to stab her in the foot with his sword.
"Ow!" cried Aeryn, and spinning around growled and started trying to stomp on him.
"Retreat! Retreat!" yelled Kaxev as the troops ran away in panic. The servants watch them, as do John and Aeryn.
D'argo, Chianna, Rygel, and Zhaan were munching on some sort of food resembling popcorn, and watching the antics of John, Aeryn, and the Dips. Zhaan continued taking notes.
The Dips ran into an air vent.
Moments later, they came running our again.
A DRD followed, chirping and beeping curiously.
The Dips stared fighting the DRD with their swords. The DRD continued to chirp. John, Aeryn, and the servants came over to the rest of the crew, and grabbing a chair started eating some of the popcorn-like food. Even Pilot watched with interest. Zhaan offered the servants some of the food, and they accepted politely.
Then the DRD moves off to clean up something, and a ragged cheer emits from the exhausted troops.
John raises his hand tentatively. "Um.. Did you want to kill me?"
The troops scramble at his voice, then suddenly out the door into the hallway. Everyone continues to sit around and eat the food. Suddenly a space ship comes zooming in, causing Rygel to nearly choke. "How the yotz did that think get in?"
Pilot looked slightly embarrassed. "Oh... I thought it was a piece of space debris. It ... must have come in with the transport."
Then everyone started to scramble, because the ship started shooting little neon pink beams of light. They were accurate, too, they actually hit everyone, and caused an irritating buzz where they made contact with skin.
Rygel started to fly away, and the ship chased after him. An areal combat followed, Rygel dodging the beams by swerving and darting around in the most spectacular ways, and the rest of the crew stood around watching him for a while. Then John said, "Um, right, we gotta get the ship to, you know, stop shooting Rygel."
D'argo offered to wack the ship with his qualta blade. "No, no," said the servants. "We don't want them actually killed. You grow fond of them after a while."
It turned out they didn't have to do anything. Rygel suddenly turned around, and flew straight towards the ship.
When Rygel's face suddenly zoomed towards the control-room, chaos erupted among the Dips. Trained as they were, nothing had prepared them for a close-up of Rygel's face.
The ship slowed down abruptly, Rygel turned a hard left and avoided it, and Chianna skipped over and jumped up to grab the ship and bring it down. When Chianna put the ship down, some troops came out accompanying Kaxev. "We will never surrender!" Kaxev declared, and ran back into the ship. Chianna placed a foot on top of the thing incase it tried to fly again. Zhaan picked up her notepad and continued writing notes.
"Uh.. Dips? I'm really incredibly sorry about stepping on your leader's brother. Or grinding him. Whatever," said John, not sure how to put it. He gave a glance towards Aeryn.
She mouthed 'NO!'
John mouthed 'Will you please?' back.
So Aeryn, rolling her eyes, muttered a complete apology.
"Ah, don't bother," said one of the servants. "Vexak was a nasty ruler anyway. They're all better all without him."
"He was?" said a Dip, popping out from a side-exit.
"Now that you mention it, he was, wasn't he?" said another Dip from on top of the ship.
"You know, Kaxev's much better than his brother," agreed another Dip.
Soon all the dips came out of the space ship, bobbing their head, agreeing that Vexak was actually pretty bad. Kaxev put a claw though his feather-thing, and proclaimed, "Maybe it was a good thing Aeryn killed him."
"Let's have a revolution!" declared a Dip.
"Yeah!"
"Revolution! Revolution!" they all chanted.
"Viva la Revolution!" added John helpfully. Everyone else either stared, munched on the remaining food, or chanted along. Zhaan took notes.
"Right," said Kaxev. "What do we do?"
"Get a new leader?" suggested a Dip. All the dips agreed.
"We already have one. Me," explained Kaxev.
"Ooh," said all the Dips. Zhaan continued taking notes.
In the end, it was decided that the servants would lead the Dips, since they hadn't done anything else other than stand around and watch them. As they all got onto the ship, John asked the new leaders if they could answer some questions. "Why not," they replied, and Zhaan stood nearby finishing her notes.
"Well, first, how come it took so long for any of that to happen? You know, trace Aeryn and me back to Moya, have a revolution?"
"Some idiots are more stupid than others," was the general reply. "Also Kaxev has a bad sense of direction."
"..Right. And no offense to any of you, but how the crap did you guys... well, evolve?"
"Technically, the chances of a small specie like us -even with mediocre hands/claws, hind libs enabling upright position and locomotion, and the rest of it- being intelligent enough for sentinence are slim. And at this size, 6 legs instead of 4 would be more logical, in a way. How we're able to translate what the rest of you say is also quite an enigma. We have a general theory. One is that our ancestors were very smart, but some genetic drift or environmental condition has resulted in mass degeneration of intelligence. The other is that we're actually some sort of specie who was created via bio-technology, messing around with DNA and whatnot. In other words, we really don't know."
"Ah."
With final farewells, the Diptera climbed aboard their spaceship and flew away into the hallway.
Sometime later, they came back.
A Dip, probably a leader, poked his (or was it a her? John never figured that deal out) head out from the top of the ship, and apologized, saying that they had gotten lost.
With final farewells from the docking bay, the Dips' ship flew away, and (because of its size) vanished into the star-speckled void faster than they had expected.
---Epilogue---
"That was... weird."
"That was phenomenally weird."
"But interesting."
"A break in the routine."
"Something to ponder on."
"New perspective on life and everything in general."
"...let us never mention it again."
On this, the crew of Moya, for once, agreed on unanimously.