Setting: Moon Shadows takes place immediately after WISC. I've never
accepted the idea that Crais died, but sadly we'll never know if he would
have returned in season five. Sometimes you've just got to write your own
ending.
Disclaimer: Farscape obviously does not belong to me. I'm just going to borrow Crais because DK didn't seem to be using him at the moment.
Many thanks to SciFiChick66 and DJ3cats for the beta!
Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments.
Moon Shadows
Prologue
The distance between them and the carrier's last location was less than four arns at a speed of hetch five. The failure of the energy stream to properly channel might have been a factor, or the increased hull temperature. Crais was not certain what caused the abnormally short jump. It no longer mattered. His first priority was to plot a course as far away from the Peacekeepers as possible.
He hoped the others had escaped safely, especially Aeryn. He could not help but worry about her. She had confided in him, a final gift of trust that made the sacrifice he offered easier to make. Perhaps the child she bore would have a chance to grow up with a loving parent, free from Peacekeeper domination.
Still, he did not envy her situation. The man she loved was gone, and while it could be argued the other was an exact physical duplicate, he was truly not the same. Although less than a cycle of life had distinguished the two, from the microt they were twinned their lives took separate paths. A small part of the John Crichton who gave his life at Dam-Ba-Da believed in Bialar Crais, or maybe only wanted to believe. The inevitability of his death had left him little choice. Yet, the remaining Crichton had doubted him to the end. If not for Aeryn's influence, the human would never have agreed to his plan to implode the carrier. He wished it could have ended differently between them, with a civil word or perhaps even a handshake. Not that it mattered. Another could not grant the forgiveness he sought.
An arn had already passed. Since there was no reason to believe they had survived, he doubted that the Peacekeepers or Moya's crew would be searching for them. The greatest risk of discovery came from vessels in the quadrant rushing to assist the doomed carrier.
He worked quickly. Fortunately, the Peacekeepers' first priority had been to strip Talyn of his weapons, leaving his cartographs, data stores and maintenance bay supplies intact. The galley provisions also remained untouched. Everything Crais needed was still aboard; stevva crystals, chakan oil and threekay wire.
During the past cycle he and Talyn had collected all the data available on the remote, sparsely populated region known as Sector 12. Rumor had it that several colonies of Sebaceans, many of them former Peacekeepers, inhabited the planets Tarn and Mayatta7. Their lack of strategic positioning and raw materials had failed to attract the interest of either the Peacekeepers or the Scarrans. Even the opportunistic Nebari and Hynerians found too little to make a presence there worthwhile. To reach Tarn or Mayatta7, he would first have to navigate undetected through the quadrant and then slip though the Scarran held territories.
Almost too quickly, it was time. He set the last charge and activated the detonating sequence. In his haste he had managed to keep his grief at bay. He hesitated at the base of the boarding ramp and turned back, his eyes recording a final image, an imagined voice still rippling in his head.
His original plan was to destroy only the command area to cover his escape. Yet while collapsing the frontal tiers would serve his purpose, Crais knew that Talyn would not want to be boarded by the Peacekeeper Leviathan team, likely under Lieutenant Larrel's direction. It was probably best this way. There would be nothing left to study, perhaps a few small identifiable pieces at best...enough possibly for his mother to mourn, but little else.
As he had finally spoken his heart to Aeryn, and then Crichton aboard the carrier, he had done the same with Talyn during the hybrid's final moments. There were no regrets this time, no thoughts left buried to sprout guilt and eat away inside of him. Talyn fully understood the risk and had agreed of his own volition. In the end he had chosen to protect Crais above himself. The pattern of hull damage revealed that the Leviathan's shields were concentrated around Crais' location during starburst. While Talyn might not have survived even with his shields uniformly deployed, his actions had undoubtedly saved the Sebacean's life.
Crais launched the pod from Talyn's main hangar deck. The blast caught the ship from behind, pitching it forward in its wake. Within microts the turbulence crested and broke, a wave of energy spent in the vast ocean of space. He never looked back.
In every sense of the word, Renegade Peacekeeper Captain Bialar Crais also died that day. The man aboard the transport pod fast disappearing into the distance took nothing of that life with him. The regret and the anger of his former self floated away, dispersed like the molecules of a Leviathan gunship who no longer existed. He had kept his word, paid his debts. In a remote corner of the galaxy, without the burden of an unforgiving past, he would begin again.
Disclaimer: Farscape obviously does not belong to me. I'm just going to borrow Crais because DK didn't seem to be using him at the moment.
Many thanks to SciFiChick66 and DJ3cats for the beta!
Thanks for reading. I appreciate your comments.
Moon Shadows
Prologue
The distance between them and the carrier's last location was less than four arns at a speed of hetch five. The failure of the energy stream to properly channel might have been a factor, or the increased hull temperature. Crais was not certain what caused the abnormally short jump. It no longer mattered. His first priority was to plot a course as far away from the Peacekeepers as possible.
He hoped the others had escaped safely, especially Aeryn. He could not help but worry about her. She had confided in him, a final gift of trust that made the sacrifice he offered easier to make. Perhaps the child she bore would have a chance to grow up with a loving parent, free from Peacekeeper domination.
Still, he did not envy her situation. The man she loved was gone, and while it could be argued the other was an exact physical duplicate, he was truly not the same. Although less than a cycle of life had distinguished the two, from the microt they were twinned their lives took separate paths. A small part of the John Crichton who gave his life at Dam-Ba-Da believed in Bialar Crais, or maybe only wanted to believe. The inevitability of his death had left him little choice. Yet, the remaining Crichton had doubted him to the end. If not for Aeryn's influence, the human would never have agreed to his plan to implode the carrier. He wished it could have ended differently between them, with a civil word or perhaps even a handshake. Not that it mattered. Another could not grant the forgiveness he sought.
An arn had already passed. Since there was no reason to believe they had survived, he doubted that the Peacekeepers or Moya's crew would be searching for them. The greatest risk of discovery came from vessels in the quadrant rushing to assist the doomed carrier.
He worked quickly. Fortunately, the Peacekeepers' first priority had been to strip Talyn of his weapons, leaving his cartographs, data stores and maintenance bay supplies intact. The galley provisions also remained untouched. Everything Crais needed was still aboard; stevva crystals, chakan oil and threekay wire.
During the past cycle he and Talyn had collected all the data available on the remote, sparsely populated region known as Sector 12. Rumor had it that several colonies of Sebaceans, many of them former Peacekeepers, inhabited the planets Tarn and Mayatta7. Their lack of strategic positioning and raw materials had failed to attract the interest of either the Peacekeepers or the Scarrans. Even the opportunistic Nebari and Hynerians found too little to make a presence there worthwhile. To reach Tarn or Mayatta7, he would first have to navigate undetected through the quadrant and then slip though the Scarran held territories.
Almost too quickly, it was time. He set the last charge and activated the detonating sequence. In his haste he had managed to keep his grief at bay. He hesitated at the base of the boarding ramp and turned back, his eyes recording a final image, an imagined voice still rippling in his head.
His original plan was to destroy only the command area to cover his escape. Yet while collapsing the frontal tiers would serve his purpose, Crais knew that Talyn would not want to be boarded by the Peacekeeper Leviathan team, likely under Lieutenant Larrel's direction. It was probably best this way. There would be nothing left to study, perhaps a few small identifiable pieces at best...enough possibly for his mother to mourn, but little else.
As he had finally spoken his heart to Aeryn, and then Crichton aboard the carrier, he had done the same with Talyn during the hybrid's final moments. There were no regrets this time, no thoughts left buried to sprout guilt and eat away inside of him. Talyn fully understood the risk and had agreed of his own volition. In the end he had chosen to protect Crais above himself. The pattern of hull damage revealed that the Leviathan's shields were concentrated around Crais' location during starburst. While Talyn might not have survived even with his shields uniformly deployed, his actions had undoubtedly saved the Sebacean's life.
Crais launched the pod from Talyn's main hangar deck. The blast caught the ship from behind, pitching it forward in its wake. Within microts the turbulence crested and broke, a wave of energy spent in the vast ocean of space. He never looked back.
In every sense of the word, Renegade Peacekeeper Captain Bialar Crais also died that day. The man aboard the transport pod fast disappearing into the distance took nothing of that life with him. The regret and the anger of his former self floated away, dispersed like the molecules of a Leviathan gunship who no longer existed. He had kept his word, paid his debts. In a remote corner of the galaxy, without the burden of an unforgiving past, he would begin again.