FARSCAPE
That Same Old Familiar Feeling
Rating: G
Category: Action
Description: Paralysed by a rare Leviathan disease
and being pursued by Peacekeepers, Moya is forced to take cover in a mysterious
nebula. But as her symptoms worsen, the crew begin to experience strange
phenomena all over the ship. Are they connected with Moya's ailment? Or are
they something stranger still?
Setting: Between "Different Destinations" and "Eat Me"
Spoilers: "Die Me Dichotomy"; "Liars, Guns and Money"; "Self Inflicted Wounds"
Disclaimer: Farscape and all its characters and settings are © the
Jim Henson Company. Please don't sue me for using them.
Part Two - Persistence of Vision
D'Argo
awoke suddenly, with the certain knowledge that something was wrong. A feeling
of unease prodded at him. I was dreaming... the Luxan tried to remember
the dream, but it was already hazy and indistinct in his mind. Broken,
disjointed images flashed through his thoughts - Stark, wearing manic
expression; Chiana chasing a DRD through the Command; John's face, looking
confused - that doesn't mean anything - John always looks confused...
Then, abruptly, another image, far more disturbing. Energy crackles down
empty corridors - skittering tendrils of blue-white that sizzle and flicker
with deadly beauty. Shadows leap and dance in the half-darkness, and the cyan
glow glitters off a thick layer of ice that lines the walls with its
silver-white crystals. Breath clouds the chill air.
"John?
Pilot? Aeryn?" Silence is the only answer. As a burning finger of energy reaches
out, time seems to slow. Fear recedes, replaced by calm - the sudden, complete
tranquillity that shepherds the certainty of death... A grating, scraping
sound of metal on metal jolted D'Argo from his disquieting vision. Looking down
at the floor of his quarters, his gaze lighted on the silver shape of his
Qualta blade. As he watched, the weapon began to move. Henta by henta, the
Luxan's prize possession was being dragged away from him by some unseen agency.
Angrily, D'Argo reached out to grab the Qualta. However, as he put out a hand,
the weapon jerked out of his grasp. Again, D'Argo made a grab for the blade,
and again it evaded him. He swore, a blistering Luxan oath. Viciously, he
snatched up the weapon. A lone DRD scurried for cover. Caught in the act, and
exposed, the thief chittered wildly as D'Argo swung the Qualta over his head.
Ten microts
later, it was all over. Pieces of yellow casing and fragments of electronic
circuits lay scattered across the deck. The Drone's innards were broken and
twisted, some hanging from the walls like bizarre trophies. In the corner of
the room, a single ocular sensor glowed weakly. D'Argo surveyed the scene with
satisfaction, but the sensation was tinged with an uneasy foreboding.
"Frelling
DRDs," he muttered, but he couldn't shake the nagging suspicion that a terrible
darkness was massing just beyond the periphery of his senses, outside the warm
circle of light that described his world. It felt like the long shadow of death
reaching out for him, clawing towards him... With an effort, he shook off his
morbid train of thought. Superstition ran strong in his Luxan blood, and he had
always believed that dreams could bring portents, and foretell the future. But
this dream - this nightmare - had seemed so real, more like a memory
than an omen. For a fraction of a microt, he had known he was going to
die. An icy shiver ran down his spine, and for a moment, he thought he could
smell a sickening, charnel odour. Then it was gone, and all that remained was a
splinter of dread lodged deep in his gut.
Aeryn
awoke, shivering. Her bunk was like a solid brick of ice, and the air felt cold
against the bare skin of her arm. Sleepily, she curled into a ball and tried to
ignore the biting chill, but it was no use. She felt a twinge of irritation
that she knew was a product of her own laxness. As a Peacekeeper, she had been
trained to hone her body's rhythms, waking and rising at the same time each
day, but in the past cycle she had grown used to sleeping as long as she wanted
- a luxury that some glitch in Moya's systems was now depriving her of. She
gritted her chattering teeth. Peacekeepers were trained to endure adversity,
but her Sebacean body was not equipped to deal with extremes of heat and cold.
Still shivering convulsively, she reached for her communicator. Her half-numbed
fingers found nothing but icy metal. Fully awake now, she sat up, pulling the
covers around herself and scanning the room for the telltale golden glint of
the device. It was nowhere to be seen.
"Frell."
Abandoning the idea of remaining in bed, she pulled on her clothes as quickly
as possible, her sluggish fingers fumbling clumsily with the fasteners.
She stepped
out of her quarters into the blessed warmth of the corridor, and her irritation
returned. She felt a sense of persecution - why is it only my
quarters that feel like they're within five degrees of the Glarion Frost Point?
It was an irrational emotion, but Aeryn was in an irrational mood this morning,
for some reason that her disciplined mind could not grasp. The feeling still
burned strong as she strode into the Command. The sight of John, Stark and the
rest clustered around the viewscreen only served to augment it - she felt as
though she were being left out of something important.
"What the
frell is going on?" she demanded, ignoring the odd look that John gave her.
"Pilot has just detected a Peacekeeper
taskforce pursuing us," D'Argo told her, with typical bluntness. She quickly
shifted her attention to the sensor display. The signatures there were easily
recognisable, an unmistakeable fingerprint she had committed to memory many
Cycles ago. Eight Prowlers, accompanied by a Pentac-class Vigilante.
"That's a Peacekeeper retrieval team,"
she concluded aloud. "What would they be doing in the Uncharted Territories?"
"Who the yotz cares?" Rygel demanded,
irritably. "How are we going to get away from them?"
"Why can't we just StarBurst?" Aeryn
inquired, wondering why she felt as though she should already know the answer.
Pilot looked slightly put out.
"Moya is not able to perform StarBurst
at this time," he informed her, stiffly. An unreasoned hint of fear flickered
through her mind, but it was quickly submerged by anger.
"First, my communicator goes missing,"
she complained, "then the temperature in my quarters suddenly drops to
freezing, and now we can't StarBurst. Pilot - what the frell is going on?"
"I'm... not certain, Officer Sun," Pilot
answered, haltingly. "It seems that several of Moya's systems are
malfunctioning, including life-support, StarBurst... and the DRDs." Aeryn thought
she detected a note of worry in his tone.
"OK, Pilot," John cut in, "here's the
sixty-four thousand dollar question - why?" There was a long pause from the
other end of the comm.
"I am... still not certain," came the
eventual response. "However, I am beginning to suspect that Moya has contracted
some kind of disease." Aeryn's surprise was tempered by a growing sense of
unreality. She glanced at John, who appeared to be staring intently at Stark's
left hand.
"Disease?" Rygel demanded, "What sort
of disease?"
"And how would Moya catch a disease?"
Stark added. Aeryn frowned. John seemed to be mouthing something under his
breath, but she couldn't make out what.
"I'm not sure," Pilot said, answering
both Stark's and Rygel's questions, "but it would explain why so many
systems are not functioning properly. She may have picked it up from the
supplies we brought on board at that Commerce Station." At last, the
seriousness of the situation snapped Aeryn out her malaise.
"Could the disease be dangerous to
Moya?" she asked, concernedly.
"Or dangerous to us?" Rygel added,
with typically self-centred alarm.
"I do not
think so, Rygel," Pilot replied, slowly, evading Aeryn's question. "Most
Leviathan viruses are not transmissible to other species."
"So, what,
Moya's got the 'flu?" John sounded incredulous, and Aeryn guessed that this
'flew' he referred to was some kind of Human disease.
"I do not
know what this 'flew' is, Commander Crichton," Pilot told Crichton, hesitantly,
"but I believe that I have made a diagnosis. It seems that Moya may be
suffering from Amnexial Paraiasis."
"Amnexial what?" D'Argo demanded.
"Amnexial Paraiasis," Jool repeated,
slowly, as though she were explaining something to a child. "It's a malady that
affects a Leviathan's Amnexus System." John looked as though he were about to
say something, but instead, he shook his head, looking puzzled. "It isn't
fatal, but it can cause the host entity to lose certain neural functions. It
can also linger for some time," Jool went on.
"How much time?" Aeryn demanded. For
some reason, she felt as though the answer were of vital importance. "Are we
talking arns, solar days?" There was a pause, and for once, the Interon woman
looked a little uncomfortable.
"Sometimes the disease can last for
over half a cycle," she announced. All eyes in the Command fixed on Jool. Stark
and Rygel both stared at her in open horror, and Aeryn fixed her with a grim
stare.
"We can't go that long without
StarBurst," she pointed out. "Especially not with that retrieval team hanging
around."
"Don't worry about that," Jool
said, dismissively, not reassuring her in the slightest. "I can easily
synthesise an antibody that will destroy the virus."
"We still need a way to hide from
those Peacekeepers..." Chiana put in, sounding uncertain. Pilot nodded.
"Moya's sensors are picking up a large
nebula only a few zacrons from here," he reported. "It should be dense enough
to hide us from the Peacekeeper scans." John looked up. The twinge of
irrational dread returned to Aeryn's gut, twisting her insides. She tried to
ignore it.
"Is anyone else having bad feeling
about this?" Crichton asked, seemingly irrelevantly. Aeryn shook her head.
"I don't know what you're talking
about," she lied. John frowned again.
"I've been having bad dreams," Stark
remarked, in a portentous voice. Rygel gave a snort of disbelief.
"You probably ate some stale food
cubes," he opined, sceptically.
"No, no, no." The Banik seemed
agitated. "You don't understand. I dreamed about Zhaan. She was warning me
about... something." Jool shot him a look of total contempt.
"So, what do we do?" she asked, her
voice dripping sarcasm, "Believe Pilot, or listen to Stark's insane ramblings?"
"I say we ignore the fahrbot and hide
in that nebula," Rygel put in, impatiently.
"For once, Rygel and I agree on
something." Aeryn looked up at Pilot.
"I can see no alternative source of
concealment within five thousand metras," he reported. John's expression
soured, but he nodded.
"Okay, go with the nebula," he acquiesced.
"Just don't say I didn't warn you."
Dread assailed Stark as he scurried
through the shadows of the darkened corridor. Moya's internal systems were
slowly failing, and the darkness was just one symptom - all over the ship, life
support was beginning to break down, plunging entire tiers into ice-bound
winter and even freezing Moya's Amnexus fluid. Muttering agitatedly to himself,
the Banik glanced from side to side.
"Wrong, wrong, wrong, something's
wrong," he mumbled, the echoes turning the sound of his voice into an inchoate
drone. "Wrong wrong wrong wrong..." His mouth snapped shut, and he came to an
abrupt halt. The air in front of him shimmered. Stark's eye widened - hanging
across the corridor was a glittering, phantasmal webwork of golden threads. The
softly glowing lines twisted and undulated, shifting and swirling in an
ever-changing matrix of gleaming, ethereal fibres. Stark closed his eye. When
he opened it again, the golden web was still there. Tentatively, he reached
out, but as he touched it, angry red lines rippled through the air, staining it
the colour of blood. Alarmed, he pulled his hand back, and the crimson colour
receded. The Stykera leaned forward. As his face touched the barrier, he felt a
tingling sensation run through his skin, standing his hair on end. He tried to
retreat. Vermilion obscured his vision for a moment, then a powerful force took
hold of him, sucking him through the shimmering web. His arms flailed wildly
before he was dragged through the barrier, emerging on the other side with an
audible pop. Immediately he was through, he knew something was
different.
"Something's wrong... something's wrong...
something's wrong." A furtive movement caught the corner of his eye, and he
turned his head. Nothing stirred. He glanced from side to side, edgily. The
shadows remained resolutely motionless. He stole a glance over his shoulder,
but the shimmering barrier was all he could see, and beyond that, the empty
corridor stretching off into the darkness. Carefully, he turned through three
hundred and sixty degrees. When he came back to where he had started, nothing
had changed. Somehow, this only made him more nervous. "Something's wrong
something's wrong something's wrong something's wrong something's wrong," he
burbled, anxiously.
"Stark." At the sound of his name, the
Banik stiffened. He spun, trying to locate the source of the whispered summons.
"Stark."
"Who - who's there?" Stark demanded,
his one eye roving frantically, searching.
"Stark." Abruptly, Stark recognised
the quiet voice.
"Zhaan?" A calming presence like a
cool breeze whispered through his mind.
"Yes, Stark." The voice conjoured up
vivid images in Stark's mind. A Stykera takes with him a small part of every
soul he sends into the next world - now, that part of Zhaan stirred in his
memory. It was almost as if the Delvian priestess were standing at his side.
"Stark, listen to me." The cyan-skinned Pa'u sounded concerned, her voice full
of the calm compassion that Stark remembered so well. "You did not heed my
warning." Though there was no censure in her voice, Stark detected a hint of
sadness.
"I tried!" he told her. "They wouldn't
listen, they never listen, no one ever listens..."
"Stark, please - listen to me." The
Banik fell silent. "You are in grave danger, Stark. Moya is trapped in a
network of temporal dislocations. If she does not escape, you will all perish..."
Her voice died away, as if she were fading, drawn away by some otherworldly
force.
"Zhaan!" Stark choked back his
pleading cry. Zhaan was gone.
"Stark..." Her voice breathed softly
inside his mind. "Please... heed my warning..." Stark nodded.
"I will," he muttered to himself. "I
will. I will."
In the open
space in the centre of one of the cargo bays, D'Argo raised his Qualta blade.
He took a deep breath, pushing his unease aside, and cleared his mind of all
distractions. Focusing all his attention on the weapon, he began the Luxan
discipline known as the Qu'ala pattern. Bringing the blade around, he blocked
the first imaginary attack, sweeping the intangible thrust aside and lashing
out with a swift counterattack. The first visualised enemy became a visualised
corpse. D'Argo moved through the sequence, merging his movements into one
fluid, flowing dance, whirling his sword, feeling his consciousness focus at
the tip of the blade. High block; low block; parry the slash and
counter-thrust. Feel your hearts beating - tune yourself to their
rhythms. As they pound faster, increase the cadence of the pattern, hacking and
twisting, always in balance, always at the edge of control. Sense your enemy -
see their attack before it comes, like a finger stretching out... a finger of
blue-white energy, crackling with death, surging out towards you... Angered
and momentarily losing concentration, D'Argo swept his blade viciously through
the air, cleaving his imagined opponent in two. The momentum of the swing
unbalanced him, and he barely brought his Qualta up in time to block the next
sequence of attacks. Sense your enemy - see their attack before it comes,
like a finger stretching out towards you. Move and strike, defeating their
assault and making your own, defence and attack combined. You are blood, hot
with anger; you are water, flowing into and around every stroke, filling the
room. You are fire, burning with strength; you are ice, cold and controlled...
ice, lining the corridor with glittering crystals like rauliss buds, chilling
the air until it boils silver smoke with every breath... Distracted, D'Argo
stumbled, breaking the precious rhythm of the Qu'ala. Struggling to regain his
equilibrium, he traced a graceful s-curve in the air and turned, fending off a
flurry of imaginary enemies. The light flashed off his weapon. You are fire,
burning with strength; you are ice, cold and controlled. Defence and attack are
one. Minds and body are one. Instinct and consciousness are one. As he
recited the silent mantra, his poise returned. Now he was entering the most
challenging phase of the pattern, and the imagined foes quickened the pace of
their attacks, hacking and slashing viciously. His blade flashed like a
whirlwind of silver death, fending off each assault and striking with practised
grace. With a final surge of energy, he plunged his weapon into the final
enemy. The pattern was over. He slid his Qualta blade back into its sheath, and
turned, to see Aeryn standing there behind him, motionless, staring. She has
been standing there since I began the pattern, he realised. He stepped
forward, not heeding the faint shimmering that rippled the air around him. He
felt anger rise up inside him.
"You've
been standing there watching me for over half an arn," he growled. "Don't you
have anything better to do?" D'Argo expected Aeryn to snap back an angry reply,
but instead, he shot him a puzzled look that began to stir up doubts in his
brains.
"Half an
arn?" she repeated, disbelievingly. "More like about 30 microts." The Luxan
frowned. Plagued by strange visions he did not understand, and perturbed by his
own lack of concentration, he tried, vainly, to bury his uncertainties with
more anger.
"30 microts?"
he demanded. "I just practiced the Qu'ala pattern, and you watched me the
entire time." For some reason, he felt an irrational urge to lash out, to show
the Universe that he was not cowed by anything it could throw at him.
"You were
moving pretty fast," Aeryn conceded, in a controlled tone, "but..."
"Ka D'Argo;
Officer Sun." Pilot's concerned voice cut off whatever the former Peacekeeper
would have said. "Moya has... just detected another... large energy surge in your
area," he continued. "Are you alright?"
"We're
fine, Pilot," Aeryn answered. His ire not diffused, only redirected, D'Argo
turned on Pilot.
"What do
you mean, another energy surge?" he snapped.
"Moya
detected... another, almost identical... surge a few microts ago... in the Command...
where Chiana and... Commander Crichton are," Pilot explained. His voice shook
slightly as he spoke, and as he finished, he gave a muffled gasp of agony.
"Pilot -
are you alright?" Aeryn inquired, with genuine compassion for the alien
navigator.
"Moya is...
in pain," Pilot replied, haltingly. "And my... connection to her is... weakening.
The Amnexial... Paraiasis is worsening... rapidly."
"I thought
Jool could cure it," the Luxan said, concern for his friend fuelling his
growing rage.
"She says
she is... ready to inject the... antibodies into Moya's... Amnexus system... now,"
Pilot managed.
"Then I
wish she'd get on with it," D'Argo snapped. At this, Aeryn rounded on him,
barking the irate response she had clearly been bottling up.
"She's
doing the best she can," she hissed, her voice hard as steel and colder than
the freezing air. "I don't notice you doing anything useful." The Luxan warrior
snarled, but before he could react, the entire room trembled. The lights
darkened, and a low rumble filled the shadow-shrouded air. Cargo crates tumbled
to the deck with a thunderous clatter, and the whole room shuddered. An instant
later, the tremor stopped. D'Argo shook his head, trying to clear it of the
sudden sense of foreboding.
"What the
frell was that?" he demanded, trying to hide the creeping dread that was slowly
insinuating itself into his thoughts. Static hissed through his communicator.
Frowning, Aeryn tried hers. Nothing.
"I don't
know," she answered him, slowly. " I don't know..."
As Chiana
made her way down the corridor, the sound of thumping and angry curses drew her
attention. Turning the corner, she saw Jool hammering ineffectually on the door
to the infirmary, an expression of annoyance on her face. As she watched, the
Interon woman kicked the recalcitrant portal venomously. When that provoked no
response, she lashed out with a cry of frustration, hitting the door with the
ball of her fist. Immediately, she drew back, clutching her bruised hand and
moaning in pain. Chiana laughed. Jool rounded on her.
"I don't
see what's so funny," she snapped. "Pilot won't open the door!"
"I have
already... told you - Moya is... losing control of some of her... systems." Even over
the comm, Pilot sounded harassed and impatient. "I could not... open that door...
even if I wanted to."
"I could,"
Chiana said, brightly. Jool looked at her with something close to distaste.
"I don't
believe you," she told the Nebari, flatly.
"Then watch
and learn." Chiana opened a panel on the wall next to the infirmary door, and
fiddled about for a moment. Triumphantly, she touched one wire to another. The
door ground open, and Chiana grinned infuriatingly. "Told you," she said,
impishly. Jool shook her head, and stepped into what had once been Zhaan's
apothecary. Peering into the viewer that was set up on one of the benches, she
nodded.
"The
bacteria have multiplied enough to inject the vaccine into Moya," she asserted.
Picking up a long, brushed-chrome canister, she slid it into an immense,
cylindrical device that looked somewhat like a very large syringe. She inserted
the end of the object into a cavity in the bulkhead, touched a control. With a
hiss, it discharged its contents into Moya's Amnexus system. Jool looked
pleased. "Moya's Amnexial Paraiasis should be cured within an arn," she said,
proudly. Chiana shot her a mischievous grin.
"Good for
you," she commented. "Bye." And with that, she pulled two contacts apart. The
infirmary door rotated closed. As muffled hammerings began to emerge from the
other side of the portal, Chiana doubled over with laughter.
D'Argo and
Aeryn were the first to arrive in Pilot's den. The many-limbed creature was
working like a Bretlik, frantically hammering controls, but to no apparent
effect, and two of his multi-jointed arms hung loosely at his sides. For the
first time, Aeryn saw a hint of panic in the alien's large eyes.
"Pilot,
what's going on?" she inquired, softly. "Is Moya alright?" Pilot looked up, but
the effort seemed to drain him, and his chin sunk back to his chest again.
"Something
has... caused Moya to stop... dead," he reported, shakily. A great, trembling
shudder wracked his chitin-covered frame, and as if in sympathy, a tremor
rippled through Moya. His limbs straightened convulsively, then slumped, to
hang awkwardly by his sides. He seemed close to despair. "I cannot... determine
what... it is," he told them, sadly. "Moya's sensors are... not functional."
Compassionately, Aeryn reached out and took the alien's clawed hand in her own.
"We'll find
a way out of this," she promised him, firmly.
"How?"
D'Argo demanded, unhelpfully. "We don't even know what 'this' is."
"I believe
I am... beginning to... understand our situation." Aeryn's words seemed to have
given Pilot new hope, and there was a new strength in his tone, beneath the
pain. "Moya appears... to be trapped... in a network of... temporal... dislocations of
some kind."
"Can she
StarBurst out?" Aeryn asked, already fearing that she knew the answer.
"Not until
Jool's... vaccine has... eliminated all traces of... the Amnexial... Paraiasis."
"So you
mean we're stuck here?" Standing at the entrance to the Den, John's voice
echoed in the unnatural silence. It sounded strangely loud and hollow,
especially in the absence of the familiar pulsing throb of Moya's systems. With
Stark and Rygel close behind, he made his way over the wide arc of the connecting
bridge, and stood in front of Pilot.
"What do
you mean, stuck?" The Hynerian demanded. "I thought once Jool had injected her
whatever-it-is into Moya, we could just StarBurst the juxt out of here." Pilot
rolled his eyes weakly.
"I have...
already told you," he reiterated. "Moya... cannot StarBurst until... Jool's vaccine
has eliminated the Amnexial... Paraiasis. Completely." Rygel looked
affronted, but Pilot continued anyway. With each word, his vitality seemed to
drain away. "In any... case, it may... not be wise... to attempt StarBurst until we
can... determine the... source of these... energy surges. We must... exercise caution."
"Caution,"
D'Argo echoed, in a scornful tone. "If we hadn't exercised 'caution' and hidden
in this frelling nebula, we wouldn't be dead in space and unable to StarBurst."
And I wouldn't be having these frelling visions, he added, silently.
"No,
Pilot's right," Aeryn argued, fighting to remain calm. She had the strangest
sensation that she had spoken these exact words before. "We don't know what's
causing these energy surges, and we don't know whether or not it's related to
these strange... what did he call them? 'Dislocations'?"
"What
dislocations?" D'Argo demanded, but John wasn't listening. Despite the Luxan's
loud voice, he had distinctly heard Stark say something.
"Stark -
did you just say you know what's causing the surges?" he demanded.
"Yes!" The
Stykera sounded relieved, as if he had been expecting to have to fight to be
heard. "I know what's causing the energy surges - it's the dislocations!"
"If you ask
me, the only dislocations around here are in your brain," Rygel jibed.
"I can see
them," Stark insisted, but the Hynerian just laughed.
"If you ask
me," he riposted, "you can see a lot of things that any sane lifeform..." John
reached out, but Aeryn pre-empted him, clapping her hand over the diminutive
alien's mouth.
"No one did
ask you," she told him, irritably.
"I was
supposed to do that," John muttered, then wondered why he had said it. Aeryn
shot him a puzzled glance, but she put it from her mind and returned her
attention to the matter in hand.
"Stark -
what is causing these surges?" The Banik looked at Pilot.
"It's the
temporal dislocations," he said, and Pilot nodded, weakly.
"The
dislocations... appear to be some... kind of space-time... discontinuity," he added,
completely failing to clarify the situation. John gave him a confused look.
"Space-time
what?"
"Discontinuities."
Stark told him. "They are everywhere - all over Moya."
"They slow
down time," Aeryn elaborated.
"Or... speed
it up," Pilot added.
"Or frell
with it in some other way," Stark put in.
"Whatever
they are, I say we StarBurst out of here as soon as Jool's vaccine has cured
Moya," D'Argo stated, demonstrating a particularly Luxan brand of stubbornness.
Aeryn was about to reply, when she was distracted by a stabbing pain in her
finger. She looked down. Rygel had fastened his teeth into her hand, hard. The
former Peacekeeper snatched it away, and Rygel spat, disgustedly.
"I agree
with the Luxan brute," he announced, but before he could go any further,
Aeryn's vicious left jab caught him right under the chin. He flopped backwards
off his ThroneSled, and his eyes rolled up into his head. She surveyed her
handiwork with satisfaction.
"Well, I
don't," she said, sounding pleased with herself. John restrained his desire to
applaud, and tried to shrug off his mounting feeling of dread.
"I don't
either," he agreed. "It's too dangerous."
"Dangerous?"
D'Argo sounded mocking, but Pilot fixed him with an angry glare.
"Officer
Sun and... Commander Crichton are... only trying to..."
"Keep out
of this, Pilot," the Luxan snapped. Stark rolled his eye.
"Shut up!"
he pleaded, but D'Argo ignored him.
"I say we
should StarBurst out of this frelling nebula..." he went on. Stark's eye bulged
madly.
"Shut up
shut up shut up!" he exploded. "Shut up!" Silence fell, and everyone turned to
stare at him. "Shut up," he repeated, quietly.
"Simmer
down..." John began, but stopped in mid-sentence. "Now that is really
weird," he remarked, half to himself. Aeryn shot him a bemused look.
"So is
talking to yourself," she pointed out. John looked startled, as if he had
forgotten that she was there.
"Uh... yeah."
"Why will
no one listen to me?" Stark's anguished cry echoed in the chill air. "Moya is trapped
- trapped amid the dislocations. She cannot escape, no, no escape, no escape..."
"How is she
trapped?" Aeryn asked him, cutting off his mutterings.
"The
dislocations mark the boundaries between timescales," the Banik explained.
Aeryn and D'Argo still looked confused, but John nodded.
"On either
side of them, time runs at different speeds," he added, with the relieved air
of a man who has finally begun to comprehend what is being said to him.
"Yes..."
Pilot, too, sounded as though he was beginning to understand. "When Moya...
moves, different... parts of her have different... momentum."
"Exactly,"
Stark and Crichton exclaimed in unison. "Moya is trapped amid the
dislocations," the Stykera went on. "She's being pulled in all different ways -
slow time, fast time." The former slave gestured wildly. "Slow time fast time
slow time fast time slow time fast time slow time fast time - it's tearing her
apart!" Aeryn nodded, absently. A thought had materialised at the back of her
mind, like a half-forgotten memory. She tried to grasp it, but it slipped away.
"If we don't escape, Moya will be ripped to pieces!" Stark continued, in a
panicked tone.
"Stark... is
right," Pilot agreed, despairingly. "Cracks... are already beginning... to appear
in Moya's... external bulkheads..." Cracks... The word sparked something in
Aeryn's brain, and the recalcitrant memory skittered to the forefront. Slowly,
she said,
"What if we
could align Moya's insertion vector with one of the dislocations? Could we
StarBurst away?" Pilot turned to look at her, but the effort was too great. His
massive head sank back down again, but when he spoke, there was new energy in
his tone.
"Yes... I
believe it... would be possible..." he managed to tell her.
"But Moya's
heavily damaged," John pointed out. "And her DRDs are all fritzed."
"That is...
correct, Commander... Crichton."
"We'll
begin repairs," D'Argo asserted. John turned to leave, then caught sight of
Rygel's unconscious form lying on the deck. He hid a grin.
"What about
Sparky?" he asked, to no one in particular.
"Leave him
here," the Luxan said, shortly.
It was
deadly silent outside Moya's transport hangar, and the gloom shrouded every corner
in murky grey-black shadows. Silently thankful for the darkness, Chiana slipped
through the doorway and into the vast, cold hangar. Creeping forward without a
sound, the young Nebari crouched in the cover of a stack of cargo crates. She
held her breath, listening intently.
A sudden
crackling sound shattered the tense silence. Chiana started, glancing around
the room, searching frantically for the source of the sudden noise. She saw
nothing. Another sharp crack echoed in the darkness. Chiana whirled, but
again, there was nothing there. Tentatively, feeling a growing sense of unease,
the young Nebari tapped her communicator.
"Pilot?"
There was no answer. "Pilot? You there?"
Abruptly,
there was another sizzle of energy. Chiana saw a flash of white light, a
burning wave of radiance so bright she threw up her hand to shield her eyes...
then, just as suddenly, the light was gone - and Chiana was running. There was
no transition, no sense of acceleration - one moment she was standing,
stock-still, in the centre of the hangar bay; the next, she was running. It was
like something out of a dream - sprinting down empty, echoing corridors, icy
vapour clouding the air with every breath, the cold biting her skin and numbing
her fingers, creeping into her muscles like an insidious disease. She was
searching frantically, but for what, or for whom, she didn't know. She tried to
cry out, but when she opened her mouth no sound emerged, only a cloud of silver
steam. All she knew was that she was searching... and that she had to warn
someone.
She could
hear something now, a long way off - a stream of muttered curses, muted by
distance; then a loud, echoing snap. She tried to run faster, to force
one last burst of speed out of her aching legs, but as she ran, the voices
seemed to recede, obscured by a half-heard humming that quickly built into a
crackling, keening wail. A single scream of agony pierced the all-pervading
shriek, and Chiana stopped running. She was too late.
The empty
corridors blazed brilliant white, and vanished, leaving Chiana alone in the
empty hangar. She shivered, convulsively, and when she put a hand to her face,
she found tears there. What did I just see? The vision had terrified
her, shaking her already frayed nerves. Abruptly, she realised that she had glimpsed
a tiny snatch of the future, and with that realisation came a surge of purpose.
I have to stop it happening again...
"OK, Pilot
- we've reached the neural cluster." Aeryn's voice was surprisingly steady -
too steady, in John's opinion. She was wrapped in one of D'Argo's immense,
fur-lined cloaks, insulated from the biting cold that seared his fingers and
face and turned his breath into a haze of glittering crystals. The only extra
clothing Crichton had was his thin IASA flight jacket, which was little proof
against the chill. Long icicles hung from the rime-lined bulkheads, and Aeryn's
hair crackled as she pulled a long-handled tool of some kind from her belt. She
handed it to him. "John, hold this while I try to find the damaged
connections," she ordered.
"Easy
f-f-f-f-for you to s-s-s-s-say," Crichton complained. "You're not the one whose
fingers are turning into popsicles."
"Just stop
moaning and take the wrench," Aeryn told him, but without rancour, sounding
almost thoughtful. John took the tool from her, and she turned back to the
complex, ice-hardened webwork of neural fibres. John couldn't see what she was
doing, but he was more worried about ensuring that his hands didn't freeze to
the handle of the wrench. The cold metal felt oddly familiar in his palm, as if
he had held it there before... he shook his head. This is stupid - of course
I've held it before. It's just a wrench. But somehow, he knew that it
wasn't simply that he had held this particular tool before. The whole situation
felt familiar... irritated, John tried to shake off the sudden feeling of déjà
vu. We've never done this before, he reassured himself. I'd
definitely remember if Moya had ever turned into a giant icebox... Abruptly,
he became aware of a tingling sensation in the palm of his hand. He looked
down, and realised that he had been holding the wrench in the same hand for at
least a minute. His skin was beginning to freeze to the metal. Surprised, John
dropped the tool with a clang, and blew frantically on his hands to warm them. Aeryn
stopped working, and looked up at him.
"I told you
to hold the wrench," she said, flatly.
"My hands
were freezing to it," he protested, between chattering teeth. "Now I know how
Luke Skywalker felt on Hoth."
"Who?"
"Ah, forget
it." Crichton shook his head, and picked up the wrench again, tentatively. "You
got anything useful I could be doing?"
"Yes - you
can reconnect those caloric veins behind you," Aeryn answered, turning back to
her work. With a sigh, John, walked over to the panel Aeryn had referred to,
and flipped it open. The tangled mass of organic conduits looked strangely
familiar, their jumbled curves under a frosting of silvery rime suggesting some
kind of pattern, an underlying order that John could sense at the edge of his
mind. Snatches of memory tugged at his consciousness. A voice, chanting
strange words... an icy blast of chill air washing over him... a terrible roaring,
throbbing sound... Aeryn's face, stiffened into a rictus of death, her black
tresses laced with ice crystals, her eyes fixed forever in a glassy, sightless
stare. Crichton's mind snapped back to the present. His first thought was
that he was remembering Aeryn's death, and a pang of remorse and anguish
stabbed through him as he recalled her lifeless, frozen form. But no - he had
never held her body in his arms, had never brushed his own tears from her cold
cheek, had never seen the burned, blistered skin on her hands... blistered
hands? The dread that had nestled in the pit of his stomach leaped upwards,
piercing his heart. Somehow, he knew that something was about to happen.
At the edge
of perception, he could hear a faint, sizzling hum, and for some reason, the
sound filled him with fear. He turned to warn Aeryn. Seeing the blaze of light
above her, he shouted a warning, a last, despairing cry that erupted from his
lungs in a fountain of silver steam, but it was too late. All he could do was
catch her as she fell.
Energy burned through Moya's systems. In the infirmary, Jool began to scream as sparks and debris cascaded down around her; in the freezing corridor, a searing blast leaped out, striking D'Argo down in a blaze of light. In Pilot's Den, Rygel recovered consciousness for just long enough to see a wave of white-hot light surging towards him. Convulsions shuddered along the entire length of the ship; Chiana threw herself to the deck with a cry of terror. And alone in the darkness, with Aeryn's frozen body lying in his arms, John Crichton wept.
Standing
alone in the Command, Stark took a deep breath, readying himself to perform his
final duty as a Stykera and usher Moya into the Other Realm. He raised a hand
to the metal mask that covered the right-hand side of his face.
"Stark." A
soft voice caused him to turn, but there was no one behind him. He shook his
head. The voices of the dead would wait... and soon, his own voice would be added
to the cacophony of departed souls. "Stark." He ignored the whispered summons.
"Stark." Abruptly, he recognised Zhaan's voice. He turned again, and this time,
he saw her. The blue-skinned Pa'u stood in front of the viewscreen, silhouetted
against the shifting, multicoloured miasma of the nebula. The shimmering light
glittered off the gold pinpricks of her stomata, and in the varicoloured glow,
she looked ethereally beautiful - serene, and yet stricken with sadness.
"Why... are
you sad?" Stark asked her, hesitantly. "We're going to be together again soon."
She closed her eyes, reflectively.
"You did
not heed my warning." An expression of remorse flickered across the Banik's
face.
"There was
nothing I could do, nothing, nothing..." he told her, his voice dying away into
silence. Zhaan opened her eyes again.
"There was
something," she insisted. "It's not too late to..." But Stark was already turning
away.
"No,
there's no time, that's it, it's over... no time, no time," he babbled, loudly,
blocking out the Delvian's voice. The Zhaan-phantasm began to recede, fading
like an azure mist, retreating into the depths of Stark's memory - a shadow of
the past, and nothing more.
"Stark!"
Her last despairing cry echoed in the Banik's mind. Ignoring it, he raised his
hand, removed his mask. For the first time in many cycles, peace overcame him,
washing over him, healing his tortured spirit and calming his mind. He knew
that Zhaan was wrong. It truly was too late.
Cyan energy rippled through Moya's vast bulk, searing through conduits not designed to bear such a heavy, destructive load. Systems failed and sparks exploded from bulkheads. Pain signals screamed down her neural fibres, and Pilot threw back his head and bellowed in agony, his voice echoing through the emptiness. A network of glowing blue-white lines slowly began to spread out over Moya's hull. Like grasping fingers, the cerulean tendrils crept along the immense curves of the Leviathan's body, enmeshing it in a web of sizzling energy. The dull bronze surface glowed brightly for a moment, reflecting the white light that surged out. The light grew brighter, building and building until it dominated everything, burning away the darkness in a single surge of purity. Then, slowly, it receded, leaving nothing behind but the vibrant colours of the barren, lifeless nebula. Not a single shred of the great vessel remained - it was as if Moya had never even existed.
To be continued...
