Disclaimer: I do not own 'Farscape', the Peacekeepers, or Larell. Everything else here is mine, but I make no money out of any of it.
Rating: PG-13 for a some reference to adult themes, I guess.
Author's Note: Written for the X-Files title challenge on Farscape Friday. It means 'by hand' in Latin, and the episode in question was one of those
dealing with alien impregnation. It seemed appropriate.
"Everything appears to be normal."
The designs spinning before her look little like a starship, but she has reached the point where her mind processes the lines and numbers on the screen automatically, turning them into the solid shape of a growing organism without conscious thought on her part.
Larell senses rather than feels the lower-ranked tech's nod from beside her, eyes fixed on the display as the simulation repeats itself. She's certain that there was a flaw in the first hybrid's drexim distribution network, but the data they managed to salvage tells her nothing. Larrell frowns. This one seems perfectly healthy, and unlike the first it is being properly monitored, but still ...
She has been very lucky so far.
Even as she's drawing breath to ask for yet another viewing, the monitors flicker and die all around them, and her assistant curses. "Frell it. That's the third time today."
Larrell shakes her head and sighs. "The nature of the project requires certain discomforts. It's too late to go on now - you are dismissed for the day."
He nods, flicking his eyes over her body in a way that promises that he will see her later tonight. The project also has certain fringe benefits, and he is one of them.
Instead of leaving the shadowy confines of the pregnant Leviathan herself, she paces around the laboratory, peering the rows of blank monitors and other devices. All designed to give her information about the creature that's growing somewhere beneath her feet, and none of them any use at all without power. The dim emergency lighting is on a backup system, but running everything off batteries would simply be impractical. The empty screens and the silence make her uneasy - what if these outages are the sign of a larger problem? They know so little about Leviathan reproduction; about what constitutes normality for a hybrid they know even less.
The Pilot - pliant as such beings go, but still next to useless - is no help at all. It claims that its kind have little special knowledge of Leviathan breeding, which sounds ridiculous. Their species has been bonded to Leviathans for thousands of cycles at the least, and it seems impossible to Larell that they would not have closely investigated how Leviathans reproduce. Still, their most persuasive interrogators have not been able to obtain any useful information via the Pilot, so perhaps it is true. Larell will never understand aliens.
She is just about to decide that the power is not going to come back soon and go to think things over in her quarters, when her superior officer appears in the doorway.
"Captain Tannet," she says, snapping to attention. "I am afraid that now is not ..."
"I will decide when it is a good time to inspect your progress, Lieutenant," she says, not harshly. "At ease."
Larell feels herself blush slightly as she relaxes her stance. Even after all this time, the effect of being intimate with her previous captain lingers – sometimes the protocols slip her mind. "Of course. I only meant that there is not much to see just now."
"So I had noticed," the captain says with a smile. Then it fades, as she moves around the banks of dead equipment. "I hear this has been occurring regularly."
"I am afraid so – I believe that it is a sign that the pregnancy is nearing its conclusion. Without a control collar, there is little we can do to maintain constant power flow. Luckily only a few tech are truly inconvenienced by it." The ship has been kept mostly empty, for the sake of safely when the ship goes into labour.
"How soon will the hybrid be born?"
"It's difficult to say. We have limited information, but I don't think it will take long now."
She's inventing this out of nothing, and the captain knows that. Nobody has reliable data on how big the last one was when it was born. Tannet is kind enough to change the subject. "You believe that it will be born fit and healthy?"
That is not a statement that Larell is prepared to stake her career on. "I think we – that I - have been lucky."
Lucky that somebody dragged her unresisting body onto a Marauder, away from the destruction of her Command Carrier. Lucky that she managed to get a transfer away from Commandant Grayza. Lucky that the taint of failure - her own, and that of two separate commanding officers - has not prevented her from starting again on a new ship.
Lucky that Tannet is hungry enough for advancement to take risks.
"Luck may not be enough. You know that this is the last chance for both of us," the captain says, continuing to pace the room in the half dark, "that if the mother and offspring die, or the resulting ship is less than perfect, demotion will be the least we can expect."
It is the closest Tannet has come to confiding in her, and Larell cannot help but relax fractionally: the captain understands that they are in this together. It may mean that she knows blaming the tech staff for her failure will not help her in the event of a disaster. Not that bringing the captain down along with her inferiors will be must of a consolation to Larell, should the worst happen.
"I understand," she says. "I am ... grateful that you gave the Leviathan hybridization project another chance.
There are few within Peacekeeper Command – highly placed or otherwise – who can see beyond the immediate threat of the Scarrans, these days. They are always seeking new weapons, but over the past few cycles they have ranged in smaller circles, looking for something to bring them quick and easy victory.
No matter what Scorpius may have believed, there is more than one way to defend the Sebacean people. It is not only wormholes that can move troops quickly across enormous distances, and there is much to be said for
superior firepower. The first ship may have been unstable, but he was a triumph even so - she only wishes she'd had more time to look it over. She believes that many of the problems Crais reported were due to the less than optimal conditions the ship was forced to survive so early in its life. This one will be treated like the valuable specimen it is. Larell already itches to stand on the deck of the new creation, and hopes she will be allowed to do so.
"Your former commanding officer made things very difficult for me," Tannet says, with a wry smile. "For both of us, I expect."
Larell tenses again – she does not wish to talk about Bialar Crais, and yet she can hardly look at Tannet and not think of him. It is not only that the woman is a recruit, as he was. They even look rather alike, with the same dark hair, worn longer than is traditional among Peacekeepers, tied firmly back. The same dark eyes and olive-toned skin. The colonies they were taken from must be in the same sector of space.
Those eyes, though, lack Bialar's fire. And Larell is glad – she has had enough of fire to last her the rest of her life. She has decided that she prefers Tannet's calm regard.
"He made things difficult for many people," she says neutrally.
"Yet you still seem willing to carry on his legacy," Tannet says. "I find that somewhat puzzling, Lieutenant."
"If I may speak freely," she says, "not everything Captain Crais accomplished should be wiped out by his treason. The ship I saw was a marvel - having one under Peacekeeper control will be well worth the trouble of creating another. Also, I do not think of this endevour as his alone. He was the sponsor of the last incarnation of the project, but he was not the first to attempt Leviathan hybridization. Nor was he the one who had the technical expertise to make it a reality."
Tannet nods. "That is understandable; but I do not think it is a complete explanation. I read your last medical report, Larell," she says, "including the DNA test."
She forces herself to go still, and push away the instinct that tells her to put her hands around her abdomen protectively. She had expected this to happen eventually. "That has nothing to do with any - attachment to his memory. I have none. If you suspect my loyalty, captain, then I will apply for a special termination."
The Peacekeepers do not usually like to waste potential troops, but given the paternity they may understand her desire – her captain's desire – to be rid of it. She tries to tell herself that it would not feel like a betrayal of his memory, that she only hates him.
The captain stops walking around and comes to stand in front of her, uncomfortably close. "But that is not what you want."
Larell hesitates before answering. "I do not believe that Captain Crais' eventual corruption, contamination and madness were a result of genetic propensities. I believe that he made his own poor decisions. The child is as much mine as his. Still, if you think it necessary ..."
Tannet shakes her head. "I, too, believe that we are more than the sum of our genetic herriatage – I would be in an awkward position if I did not. Crais made High Command harder on recruits at all levels, even as he made it easier for us when he first became captain. I would sooner not be judged by his actions at all - one day, no doubt, the child will feel the same."
"If I may ask –" Larell said, then stopped herself.
"Please, Lieutenant, go ahead."
"If you wish to persuade them that you are not like him, initiating the creation of a new Leviathan hybrid seems a dangerous means of seeking promotion into High Command."
Tannet nods. "Yes, that is true – but think of the response, if the project is successful. I will prove that I can do what he could not - if they must compare me to Crais, they will do so favourably. Which brings me to another question. When the offspring is born, it will require a Peacekeeper pilot."
She nods. "There are a number of candidates among those under your command who may be suitable, although I have not examined their files closely."
"I was not thinking of choosing someone to pilot the ship for me," Tannet says. "I would prefer to do it myself."
Larell starts – this she had not expected, although in hindsight she should have. "I am not sure if that would be wise. From what little we know about it, the process is not without risk." She remembers the shock of removing Bialar's clothes, that last time, to find him covered in marks caused by the cybernetic bleedback.
"Do you believe me incapable of the task? That it would cause in me the same instability it caused in Crais? That I am not to be trusted?" There is an edge of anger in her voice, although she is adept at hiding it.
"Not at all," Larell says. "I fear he was already unstable long before he bonded with the ship. Yet there are physical as well as mental pressures involved. I understand your desire to handle this personally, but it may not be the most sensible course of action. To command such a ship alone would take your focus away from many other things that require your attention. It is a job that requires constant devotion."
"I didn't say that I planned to do it alone," Tannet said. "I gather from your reports that Crais indicated that he had briefly shared command; with the other rogue Peacekeeper who was with him?"
Larell nods tentatively. "Yes – but the time they spent sharing the neural link was too brief to produce reliable information, even by the standards of what I was able to learn from him. It would also require a high level of trust between co-pilots."
"Can I trust you, Lieutenant Larell?"
She finally realizes what she is being asked. "With my life and complete loyalty, captain." To experience neural bonding with the offspring, to feel the sensations that Bialar described so vaguely – she had not even dared to dream of it until now.
"I believe that you are the person with the greatest personal investment in this hybrid, and that you are well-placed to care for it when it is born. I would be responsible for military decisions, of course, and you for maintaining the ship in good working order. Would this be acceptable to you?"
"More than acceptable, captain," she says, and she cannot keep herself from smiling.
The captain smiles back and puts a hand on her shoulder. "I look forward to working with you more closely in future, Larell."
She nods – perhaps her assistant will have to find some other source of recreation tonight, after all - but before she can frame an appropriate response, the lights come back on and the monitors begin to start up again.
"Ah," she says, "everything appears to be working again."
"Hopefully it will remain functional long enough for you to find out what keeps going wrong," the captain says with another smile. "I will leave you to get back to work. Yout may contact me later if there is anything to report."
Tannet strides out of the room full of confidence, purpose and calm determination, and Larell watches her go with a sense of satisfaction. She regards the images flickering into life on the screens with a new sense of possession. This will be her offspring, more so than the zygote she carries inside her or the products of previous assigned matings.
And, although she would never admit it aloud to anyone, Bialar's too. Even if his name is now doomed to infamy, she has not quite forgotten all that he once was.
Larell hopes that her luck will hold a little longer, and the offspring will be male. She has too many things to worry about without coming up with a new name as well.
The End
Rating: PG-13 for a some reference to adult themes, I guess.
Author's Note: Written for the X-Files title challenge on Farscape Friday. It means 'by hand' in Latin, and the episode in question was one of those
dealing with alien impregnation. It seemed appropriate.
"Everything appears to be normal."
The designs spinning before her look little like a starship, but she has reached the point where her mind processes the lines and numbers on the screen automatically, turning them into the solid shape of a growing organism without conscious thought on her part.
Larell senses rather than feels the lower-ranked tech's nod from beside her, eyes fixed on the display as the simulation repeats itself. She's certain that there was a flaw in the first hybrid's drexim distribution network, but the data they managed to salvage tells her nothing. Larrell frowns. This one seems perfectly healthy, and unlike the first it is being properly monitored, but still ...
She has been very lucky so far.
Even as she's drawing breath to ask for yet another viewing, the monitors flicker and die all around them, and her assistant curses. "Frell it. That's the third time today."
Larrell shakes her head and sighs. "The nature of the project requires certain discomforts. It's too late to go on now - you are dismissed for the day."
He nods, flicking his eyes over her body in a way that promises that he will see her later tonight. The project also has certain fringe benefits, and he is one of them.
Instead of leaving the shadowy confines of the pregnant Leviathan herself, she paces around the laboratory, peering the rows of blank monitors and other devices. All designed to give her information about the creature that's growing somewhere beneath her feet, and none of them any use at all without power. The dim emergency lighting is on a backup system, but running everything off batteries would simply be impractical. The empty screens and the silence make her uneasy - what if these outages are the sign of a larger problem? They know so little about Leviathan reproduction; about what constitutes normality for a hybrid they know even less.
The Pilot - pliant as such beings go, but still next to useless - is no help at all. It claims that its kind have little special knowledge of Leviathan breeding, which sounds ridiculous. Their species has been bonded to Leviathans for thousands of cycles at the least, and it seems impossible to Larell that they would not have closely investigated how Leviathans reproduce. Still, their most persuasive interrogators have not been able to obtain any useful information via the Pilot, so perhaps it is true. Larell will never understand aliens.
She is just about to decide that the power is not going to come back soon and go to think things over in her quarters, when her superior officer appears in the doorway.
"Captain Tannet," she says, snapping to attention. "I am afraid that now is not ..."
"I will decide when it is a good time to inspect your progress, Lieutenant," she says, not harshly. "At ease."
Larell feels herself blush slightly as she relaxes her stance. Even after all this time, the effect of being intimate with her previous captain lingers – sometimes the protocols slip her mind. "Of course. I only meant that there is not much to see just now."
"So I had noticed," the captain says with a smile. Then it fades, as she moves around the banks of dead equipment. "I hear this has been occurring regularly."
"I am afraid so – I believe that it is a sign that the pregnancy is nearing its conclusion. Without a control collar, there is little we can do to maintain constant power flow. Luckily only a few tech are truly inconvenienced by it." The ship has been kept mostly empty, for the sake of safely when the ship goes into labour.
"How soon will the hybrid be born?"
"It's difficult to say. We have limited information, but I don't think it will take long now."
She's inventing this out of nothing, and the captain knows that. Nobody has reliable data on how big the last one was when it was born. Tannet is kind enough to change the subject. "You believe that it will be born fit and healthy?"
That is not a statement that Larell is prepared to stake her career on. "I think we – that I - have been lucky."
Lucky that somebody dragged her unresisting body onto a Marauder, away from the destruction of her Command Carrier. Lucky that she managed to get a transfer away from Commandant Grayza. Lucky that the taint of failure - her own, and that of two separate commanding officers - has not prevented her from starting again on a new ship.
Lucky that Tannet is hungry enough for advancement to take risks.
"Luck may not be enough. You know that this is the last chance for both of us," the captain says, continuing to pace the room in the half dark, "that if the mother and offspring die, or the resulting ship is less than perfect, demotion will be the least we can expect."
It is the closest Tannet has come to confiding in her, and Larell cannot help but relax fractionally: the captain understands that they are in this together. It may mean that she knows blaming the tech staff for her failure will not help her in the event of a disaster. Not that bringing the captain down along with her inferiors will be must of a consolation to Larell, should the worst happen.
"I understand," she says. "I am ... grateful that you gave the Leviathan hybridization project another chance.
There are few within Peacekeeper Command – highly placed or otherwise – who can see beyond the immediate threat of the Scarrans, these days. They are always seeking new weapons, but over the past few cycles they have ranged in smaller circles, looking for something to bring them quick and easy victory.
No matter what Scorpius may have believed, there is more than one way to defend the Sebacean people. It is not only wormholes that can move troops quickly across enormous distances, and there is much to be said for
superior firepower. The first ship may have been unstable, but he was a triumph even so - she only wishes she'd had more time to look it over. She believes that many of the problems Crais reported were due to the less than optimal conditions the ship was forced to survive so early in its life. This one will be treated like the valuable specimen it is. Larell already itches to stand on the deck of the new creation, and hopes she will be allowed to do so.
"Your former commanding officer made things very difficult for me," Tannet says, with a wry smile. "For both of us, I expect."
Larell tenses again – she does not wish to talk about Bialar Crais, and yet she can hardly look at Tannet and not think of him. It is not only that the woman is a recruit, as he was. They even look rather alike, with the same dark hair, worn longer than is traditional among Peacekeepers, tied firmly back. The same dark eyes and olive-toned skin. The colonies they were taken from must be in the same sector of space.
Those eyes, though, lack Bialar's fire. And Larell is glad – she has had enough of fire to last her the rest of her life. She has decided that she prefers Tannet's calm regard.
"He made things difficult for many people," she says neutrally.
"Yet you still seem willing to carry on his legacy," Tannet says. "I find that somewhat puzzling, Lieutenant."
"If I may speak freely," she says, "not everything Captain Crais accomplished should be wiped out by his treason. The ship I saw was a marvel - having one under Peacekeeper control will be well worth the trouble of creating another. Also, I do not think of this endevour as his alone. He was the sponsor of the last incarnation of the project, but he was not the first to attempt Leviathan hybridization. Nor was he the one who had the technical expertise to make it a reality."
Tannet nods. "That is understandable; but I do not think it is a complete explanation. I read your last medical report, Larell," she says, "including the DNA test."
She forces herself to go still, and push away the instinct that tells her to put her hands around her abdomen protectively. She had expected this to happen eventually. "That has nothing to do with any - attachment to his memory. I have none. If you suspect my loyalty, captain, then I will apply for a special termination."
The Peacekeepers do not usually like to waste potential troops, but given the paternity they may understand her desire – her captain's desire – to be rid of it. She tries to tell herself that it would not feel like a betrayal of his memory, that she only hates him.
The captain stops walking around and comes to stand in front of her, uncomfortably close. "But that is not what you want."
Larell hesitates before answering. "I do not believe that Captain Crais' eventual corruption, contamination and madness were a result of genetic propensities. I believe that he made his own poor decisions. The child is as much mine as his. Still, if you think it necessary ..."
Tannet shakes her head. "I, too, believe that we are more than the sum of our genetic herriatage – I would be in an awkward position if I did not. Crais made High Command harder on recruits at all levels, even as he made it easier for us when he first became captain. I would sooner not be judged by his actions at all - one day, no doubt, the child will feel the same."
"If I may ask –" Larell said, then stopped herself.
"Please, Lieutenant, go ahead."
"If you wish to persuade them that you are not like him, initiating the creation of a new Leviathan hybrid seems a dangerous means of seeking promotion into High Command."
Tannet nods. "Yes, that is true – but think of the response, if the project is successful. I will prove that I can do what he could not - if they must compare me to Crais, they will do so favourably. Which brings me to another question. When the offspring is born, it will require a Peacekeeper pilot."
She nods. "There are a number of candidates among those under your command who may be suitable, although I have not examined their files closely."
"I was not thinking of choosing someone to pilot the ship for me," Tannet says. "I would prefer to do it myself."
Larell starts – this she had not expected, although in hindsight she should have. "I am not sure if that would be wise. From what little we know about it, the process is not without risk." She remembers the shock of removing Bialar's clothes, that last time, to find him covered in marks caused by the cybernetic bleedback.
"Do you believe me incapable of the task? That it would cause in me the same instability it caused in Crais? That I am not to be trusted?" There is an edge of anger in her voice, although she is adept at hiding it.
"Not at all," Larell says. "I fear he was already unstable long before he bonded with the ship. Yet there are physical as well as mental pressures involved. I understand your desire to handle this personally, but it may not be the most sensible course of action. To command such a ship alone would take your focus away from many other things that require your attention. It is a job that requires constant devotion."
"I didn't say that I planned to do it alone," Tannet said. "I gather from your reports that Crais indicated that he had briefly shared command; with the other rogue Peacekeeper who was with him?"
Larell nods tentatively. "Yes – but the time they spent sharing the neural link was too brief to produce reliable information, even by the standards of what I was able to learn from him. It would also require a high level of trust between co-pilots."
"Can I trust you, Lieutenant Larell?"
She finally realizes what she is being asked. "With my life and complete loyalty, captain." To experience neural bonding with the offspring, to feel the sensations that Bialar described so vaguely – she had not even dared to dream of it until now.
"I believe that you are the person with the greatest personal investment in this hybrid, and that you are well-placed to care for it when it is born. I would be responsible for military decisions, of course, and you for maintaining the ship in good working order. Would this be acceptable to you?"
"More than acceptable, captain," she says, and she cannot keep herself from smiling.
The captain smiles back and puts a hand on her shoulder. "I look forward to working with you more closely in future, Larell."
She nods – perhaps her assistant will have to find some other source of recreation tonight, after all - but before she can frame an appropriate response, the lights come back on and the monitors begin to start up again.
"Ah," she says, "everything appears to be working again."
"Hopefully it will remain functional long enough for you to find out what keeps going wrong," the captain says with another smile. "I will leave you to get back to work. Yout may contact me later if there is anything to report."
Tannet strides out of the room full of confidence, purpose and calm determination, and Larell watches her go with a sense of satisfaction. She regards the images flickering into life on the screens with a new sense of possession. This will be her offspring, more so than the zygote she carries inside her or the products of previous assigned matings.
And, although she would never admit it aloud to anyone, Bialar's too. Even if his name is now doomed to infamy, she has not quite forgotten all that he once was.
Larell hopes that her luck will hold a little longer, and the offspring will be male. She has too many things to worry about without coming up with a new name as well.
The End