Title: Rystal
Author: DOKChairman
Time/Spoilers: I really have no idea when this takes place, but if I had to say, it takes place before John was twinned, but after Zhaan dies. Everything before that is fair game.
Summary: After a disastrous fight with Aeryn, John is abandoned on a strange planet. He soon discovers an ancient and mysterious prophecy that leads to open warfare with the Peacekeepers, and maybe a way home.
Disclaimer: "Farscape", its characters, and its situations don't belong to me - they are the propertyof The Jim Henson Company, Rockne S. O'Bannon, the Sci-Fi Channel, Hallmark Entertainment, and Nine Network Australia. The only thing that belongs to me is the original story and characters.
Author's Note: I'll try to make this brief. This is my first ever story, so please forgive me for it. I am only writing this story because the idea has been plaguing my mind for months, and putting it on paper was the only way to stay sane. This will be a rather long story; it's actually a trilogy. This is just the first part of what I hope will be a decently entertaining epic in the Farscape universe.
Second Author's Note: I would like to thank those who have given me feedback; it is much appreciated. Like before, any and all feedback is encouraged, especially constructive criticism. Oh, in case anyone hasn't figured it out yet, this takes place in an alternate timeline than Season 3. I have no intention in dealing with any of the issues that occurred during that time.
Third Author's Note: I'm sorry about the briefness of this chapter, but this is mostly a filler chapter. Meant to add little details that will be important in future chapters.
"Perhaps you can. You have every incentive. The welfare of Earth hangs on your doing so and, as you have told me, your own career."
"What good is incentive? If you ordered me to fly by flapping my arms and told me further that if I failed, I would be promptly killed by slow torture and that Earth would be blown up and all its population destroyed, I would have enormous incentive to flap my wings and fly-and yet still be unable to do so."
-Isaac Asimov, The Robots of Dawn
Chapter 5: And the Human Makes Seven
Takes place around the same time as the events in Free as a Bird, Caged as a Lion-
"Where is he?"
Captain Von Stuben was not having a good day. In fact, for all intents and purposes, he was having the worst day of his life. Sure he had had bad days before, who hadn't? But none of the bad days that he had ever experienced could ever come close to what he was going through now.
It wasn't every day that a decorated war hero, like Captain Stuben, got his eema kicked by a completely fahrbot former Peacekeeper, an enraged Luxan warrior, and a very bizarre Nebari. If it were under normal circumstances, Stuben might have found the description of his assailants rather humorous. It sounded like the beginning to a really bad joke: A Sebacean, a Luxan, and a Nebari walk into a bar…
Unfortunately, for Captain Stuben, his situation was no joke, as was so eloquently proven by the fact that he most likely had a broken nose and a few cracked ribs, courtesy of the aliens who were currently beating the dren out of him for information that he did not have.
The Luxan growled, "I will ask you one more time Peacekeeper. Where is John Crichton?"
Captain Stuben practically yelled, "I already told you I have no frelling idea where John Crichton is!"
The Sebacean punched him in the face before speaking, "You are lying, Captain. We know that you are in charge of all Peacekeeper personnel in this sector, and that also includes prisoners. We also know that John Crichton was captured. Now you are going to tell us where the Peacekeepers are holding him or I am going to stop holding back my companion and let him interrogate you the way he has been wanting to interrogate you from the beginning."
As if to give credence to the Sebacean's threat, the Luxan reached behind him and pulled out a Qualta sword and growled menacingly at the Captain.
Captain Stuben began to panic. He had no intention of getting skewered with the Luxan's sword. But he had no idea on how to convince the three aliens of his ignorance. "I don't know where John Crichton is. I received no notification of his capture and no prisoners matching his description have been processed within the last monen. Perhaps you are mistaken and he was never taken prisoner. Or maybe no one reported his arrest. Regardless of what has happened to him, I have no frelling idea. Believe me, I would know if someone of John Crichton's prominence had been captured."
Seemingly frustrated by his inability to give her a suitable answer, the Sebacean gave him a Pantak jab to the face knocking him unconscious. "Frell! Frell!" The Sebacean was consumed by her anger and began hitting anything she could that was in range of her fists.
"Calm down Aeryn. Now is not the time to let our emotions get the better of us." The Luxan spoke to his obviously emotionally unstable companion.
Since they had begun interrogating the captain, the Nebari spoke up for the first time. "Why the frell did you knock him unconscious, Aeryn? Now we have to wait until he wakes up!"
Aeryn spun around to face the Nebari, her face flushed with anger and her hands clenching at her sides. "Shut up, Chiana! I don't need dren from you right now"
Chiana sarcastically replied, "Oh that's too bad. Poor Aeryn can't handle a little stress. If it weren't for you we wouldn't even have to be doing this. Sometimes I think you don't even care about finding John."
Chiana knew it was the wrong thing to say as soon as she opened her mouth. Whatever control Aeryn might have had, vaporized instantly. With a yell, Aeryn leaped at Chiana fully intending on killing her. Luckily for Chiana, the Luxan intercepted Aeryn before she could get within striking distance of Chiana. The Luxan wrapped his strong arms around Aeryn, locking her in place. "That is enough! Both of you shut up!"
Aeryn was still struggling wildly in the Luxan's embrace. "Stop it Aeryn! If you do not stop, I will tongue you." His comment seemed to calm the raging Sebacean. "We have more important things to deal with right now than your petty problems with each other, like finding John." The last comment seemed to do the trick. After she seemed relatively calm, he released her from his hold.
Aeryn looked embarrassed as she began to compose herself. "I'm sorry D'argo. You're absolutely right. I don't know what came over me."
D'argo nodded his head in understanding, "I think I know." He then looked at Chiana with an admonishing look on his face. Chiana just smiled at him innocently and gave him a 'Who, me?' look.
D'argo knew he better get them back on topic before another outburst occurred. "What do you think? Do you think he is telling the truth?"
Aeryn looked thoughtfully at the still unconscious captain before answering D'argo. "I don't know. He acted like he really didn't know anything. It's hard to tell."
Chiana inserted her opinion, "Hello! Professional thief and liar standing right here. I can tell when someone is lying and when they aren't, and he was telling the truth."
"I agree with Chiana. He seemed to not know anything."
Aeryn just let out a sigh of frustration. "Frell, so that leaves us back at where we started, with absolutely nothing."
"Agreed. We need to leave. There is nothing left on this planet for us."
D'argo and Chiana then left the room they were in, heading back to the transport pod. Aeryn moved to follow them, but turned back toward the captain. She walked up to him and kicked him hard in the stomach, as if to make herself feel better. She then turned around and left the room, following the others.
The transport pod ride back to Moya found Aeryn contemplating everything that had happened over the last monen. She had known that it would have been impossible for the others on board Moya to understand what she had done; after all, she didn't even understand why she had done it herself.
There were certain times, especially late in the sleep cycle, where she would briefly forget everything that had happened and find herself in front of John's cell wanting to talk to him. Unfortunately, the reality of the last monen would come crashing down on her each time she walked by his cell and she would see that his cell was empty and would most likely stay that way forever.
And then she would remember that it was her fault. It was her fault that the man she loved more than anything was probably being tortured by Scorpius, instead of in his cell sleeping. Ever since that day back on the commerce planet, she had been having nightmares of John in the Aurora Chair, or John being beaten by some anonymous Peacekeeper, or John lying on the floor of some cell broken and hopeless, a shell of the man that she had fallen in love with.
She couldn't get rid of the nightmares; in fact she didn't want to stop having them. She saw them as just a small part of the punishment that she rightly deserved. She knew she deserved everything that happened to her.
If it hadn't been for the fact that she had made a promise to herself to never stop, to do whatever was necessary to find John, she might have just given up. But she knew she could never do that, not before she knew what had happened to John. She needed to see him one last time and beg for his forgiveness. Aeryn knew she didn't deserve it and that John would not give it to her, but she had to ask. If she found John, she would never leave him ever again no matter what he did. She might have ruined whatever chance they might have had for having a romantic relationship but that didn't mean she couldn't still be his friend and companion. She would take whatever he gave to her.
The transport pod jarred Aeryn out of her contemplation as it hit a bit of turbulence leaving the atmosphere of the planet. Aeryn looked up to see if everything was all right and looked right into the eyes of Chiana. Chiana was looking at her with barely concealed contempt and hatred in her eyes.
Chiana had been a sore spot for Aeryn. They had never had the best relationship before what happened to John, and whatever relationship they might have had, it had been destroyed when Chiana had found out what Aeryn had done to John. Aeryn shouldn't have been surprised by Chiana's reaction, but she had. She would have never thought that Chiana, out of everybody on the crew, would have taken John's absence so badly. Aeryn had seriously underestimated the relationship that Chiana had with John.
Aeryn had expected D'argo to be the most angry and outspoken about his feelings, but in fact he had been the opposite. He had been furious when he first learned of what Aeryn had done, and he had come very close to going into hyper rage, but ever since then he had been relatively calm and quiet. Aeryn knew that he was still very angry, he just went out of his way to hide it. Aeryn knew, from previous interventions during arguments between Aeryn and Chiana that D'argo thought that anger was counterproductive to finding John.
The others aboard Moya had acted much the way D'argo did. Chiana was the only one who expressed her feelings so openly, and she was driving Aeryn crazy. Chiana never hesitated to tell Aeryn exactly how she felt, at any opportunity she could get. Aeryn was already incredibly hard on herself, she didn't need another person telling her every chance she got that she had betrayed John.
And so she and Chiana fought, frequently. Usually they were just verbal arguments, but sometimes when Chiana said something really bad, much like she had down on the planet, the arguments turned physical. Down on the planet had not been the first time that Aeryn had wanted to kill Chiana. She was just thankful that D'argo had stopped her. Aeryn already had enough to apologize to John for, she didn't want to have to tell him that she had also killed the person who she knew he considered to be like a sister to him.
Aeryn just hoped they found John soon. She didn't know how much longer she could stop herself from hurting Chiana. Unfortunately, they were having little or no luck in finding John. They had spent the last monen, moving from planet to planet trying to find whatever information they could on John's possible location. Aeryn knew from John's last transmission that he had been captured by the Peacekeepers, and so they had been searching for where he might have been.
Everyone knew that if they did find John, they would find him along with Scorpius. Aeryn knew that Scorpius would have wasted no time in grabbing his prize as soon as he heard about John's capture. It didn't really matter to Aeryn who had John; she would not rest until he was safe. As long as Scorpius had John, there was a very good chance that John would still be alive when they found him.
Aeryn felt a jolt as the transport pod touched down in Moya's large docking bay. She got up, along with Chiana and D'argo, and walked down the boarding ramp.
Surprisingly, waiting for them at the bottom of the ramp was Rygel in his thronesled. As soon as they reached the floor of the bay he spoke up, "So, did you get any valuable information?"
D'argo's gruff voice answered, "Unfortunately, no. We were not successful."
Rygel briefly looked sad and disappointed, and then without saying anything else, turned his thronesled around and left the bay. Aeryn was shocked by Rygel's show of emotion. He had seemed so indifferent to the whole situation with John that she was surprised to see that he actually cared.
"Ahhhh, it looks like froggy actually cares. Who would have thought?"
D'argo let out a gruff sound of chuckle at Chiana's comment and then left the docking bay. Chiana left soon after, saying something about getting something to eat, Aeryn wasn't really paying attention.
As Aeryn was about to leave the bay herself, Pilot's voice came over her comm. "Were you successful in finding any information on Commander Crichton's location Officer Sun?"
Aeryn slightly cringed at Pilot's cold tone. Ever since the "incident" (As Aeryn had taken to calling it, she couldn't actually say that she had betrayed John) Pilot had been cold and aloof when it came to interacting with her. Aeryn didn't blame him, but she missed his friendship. "No Pilot, I'm afraid not."
"Moya and I are sorry to hear that. Shall we prepare to starburst to the next location on the list?"
Aeryn sighed, "Yes, Pilot. Starburst to the next commerce planet."
Pilot promptly responded, "At once, Officer Sun." Pilot then activated the ship wide comm, "Everyone please prepare for starburst."
Aeryn felt Moya enter starburst, once again leaving another useless source of information and eating up valuable time.
Side note: The next chapter will contain the prophecy that sets the tone for my entire trilogy. It is a very important chapter. Please stay tuned!