Space was quiet. Calm and soothing, but also cold.

Very cold.

Talyn tried to StarBurst as the Command Carriers surrounded him, but Crais advised him not to, knowing that it was pointless to resist. The Carriers would destroy Talyn before he even had powered up his engines. Or his weapons.

Talyn chose to accept Crais's decision and he waited for the Peacekeepers to react.

The large, frightening Carriers came closer and closer.

"He is hurt badly." Aeryn said.

Talyn heard her gentle, but also powerful voice, which made him feel much more comfortable staring at the approaching Carriers. Messengers of death and destruction. But also brothers. Because they were all Peacekeeper. Including Talyn.

"At least I think he is." Aeryn said. "I'm not sure. I am neither a doctor or an expert on Ancients."

In the background, they could hear a Peacekeeper voice talking over Talyn's comms.

"Unknown vessel. This is the Peacekeeper Command Carrier 'Genesis'. We demand a full and unconditional surrender."

As Aeryn examined Jack's wounds more closely, Crais responded to the Peacekeeper's hail.

"My name is Captain Bialar Crais." Crais said. "I surrender. Repeat: I surrender. "

"Then prepare to be boarded." the Peacekeeper said before terminating the transmission.

"Help...Jack." Crais said. "I will try to negotiate with these Peacekeepers."

"Good luck." Aeryn said as she carried Jack's body out the door, towards Talyn's infirmary.

Talyn saw how a Marauder emerged out of the Carrier called 'Heritage' and made it's way to board Talyn.

Crais saw it too.

"You don't have to be afraid." Crais said to Talyn.

"Don't worry." Talyn said to his mentor. "I'm not afraid of them. Not anymore."


Crichton ran like hell.

Every cell in his body hated himself for not killing Scorpius.

A frenzy of pulse-blasts and fire-bolts chased him down the ruined and destroyed facility.

He remembered walking down these beautiful corridors just one day ago.

And now look at it.

The marble floor was covered in blood and dust and dirt. Red tapestries with the Peacekeeper logo marked on them were either burning or had already turned into black dust.

Corpses were lying everywhere; Crichton had to be careful not to trip over them.

Suddenly he realised he had two guns in his hands.

He decided to fight back.

John turned around and started firing.

All of his shots missed their targets.

"Damn!" he shouted.

The Peacekeepers fired again and would've almost blown Crichton's nuts off if he hadn't jumped away in time.

"Crichton!" Bracca shouted. "We can do this the easy way, or the hard way! Surrender now, and your death will be painless!"

Bracca had followed Crichton, but he wasn't glad he did.

He'd rather stayed with Scorpius to help him, but Scorpius ordered him to pursue Crichton.

"Stop telling me to surrender!" Crichton said. "I already have a voice in my head who won't stop buzzing in my ear about it!"

"What's it going to be Crichton?" Bracca shouted.

Crichton wiped the sweat off of his forehead.

He sat with his back against a large white pillar in the middle of the destroyed hall, as he noticed that one of the Peacekeeper corpses had a unused grenade in his hands.

Crichton gently took it out of the hands of the dead soldier.

"I've always preferred the hard way!" Crichton shouted as he pulled out the pin and threw the grenade at his opponents.

The blast was enough to scatter all of the debris in the chamber around the room, and it created enough smoke for Crichton to escape unseen.

The Peacekeepers started firing through the smoke, hoping to hit Crichton, but he was already gone.


Footsteps were heard all over the icy facility.

Sensors were ringing and alarms were going off.

Grunchlk was thrown aside by the Scarran as even he was unable to determine what was going on.

"Dozens of men!" Grunchlk shouted. "And they're all coming this way!"

"Get out of my way!" Artokh growled as he headed for the door.

The door opened, and 7 Charrid warriors entered the chamber.

"Charrids!" Artokh rumbled as he aimed his arm at the warriors and gave them a taste of heat.

"Artokh!" a voice shouted.

Artokh recognised the voice.

As the Charrids stepped aside, a small but intimidating figure approached Artokh.

One of the Scarran Leading Caste.

War Minister Ahkna.

She looked upon the dead Charrids, and then onto Artokh.

"You just killed two of our allies." Ahkna said.

"Allies?" Artokh repeated surprised. "Has the Scarran Empire really forged an alliance with the Charrids? I find that unbelievable."

"With the Charrids as our allies, the Scarran Empire has now doubled in strength." Ahkna said.

Ahkna spoke with an arrogant and aristocratic tone.

"Now tell me, where is the Hynerian?" Ahkna asked.

Artokh turned around, to find out, to his own surprise, that Rygel the XVI had escaped.

Artokh aimed his anger towards Grunchlk, who hollered because of the intense heat which was aimed at his face.

"I don't know where he is!" Grunchlk said. "I know as much as you do! I didn't see what happened!"

Artokh ended the heat-probing, but kicked him instead.

"You have are a disgrace to the Scarran Empire, Artokh." Ahkna said.

"You are a failure, and a waste of good flesh."

Artokh growled.

"Luckily, for your sake," Ahkna continued. "we managed to capture the Luxan and the Nebari as they attempted to flee the planet. I have brought them aboard my Dreadnought, and I plan to interrogate them as soon as possible. Finding Crichton is our top priority."

"The Emperor..." Artokh tried to say, but the small Scarran female interrupted him with her intimidating voice.

"The Emperor will not hear about this. Not by you, and not by anyone."

"He will find out sooner or later." Artokh said.

"Oh, I'm sure he will." Ahkna said. "But when he does, it will already be too late for him to stop me."

Ahkna walked even closer to much taller Artokh.

"Yes." Ahkna said. "What you are thinking is correct. I intend to overthrow Staleek. But that is not important right now. What IS important, is where YOUR loyalties lie.

With Staleek? Or with me?"

Artokh knew that if he did not tell her the right answer, he would die.

"With you." Artokh said reluctantly.

"I thought as much."

Rygel watched their conversation from one of the ventilation ducts above the chamber.

It was warm in there. Hot air was being pumped through the ducts so that it would not be as cold inside as it was outside. That way it was much comfortable inside the facility.

Still cold, but not as freezing as outdoors on the cold, icy and inhospitable planes of the Ice Planet.

"They've got Chiana and D'Argo." Rygel thought to himself. "I'm all alone!"

Rygel began thinking about ways to get off of this planet.

Transport Pod?

Captured by the Scarrans.

Did Grunchlk have a ship?

Yes, but Rygel bought it. Without fuel.

Did this facility have any fuel? Stocked somewhere to be used on occasions like this?

Rygel doubted it.

And even if he could find fuel, and managed to activate the Pod and fly away, he'd still have to evade the Dreadnought and find Moya, who has probably StarBursted away by now, in order to evade capture.

"Yotz, this is impossible." Rygel said.

But there was one thing he could do.

"I surrender!" Rygel said as he climbed down. "I surrender! Please don't hurt me!"

The Scarrans looked up and saw the Hynerian climbing down the wall.

"The Hynerian." Ahkna said. "Take him."

Rygel let himself be caught, in order to survive.

And with Rygel as their prisoner, the Scarrans and Charrids headed for their Scarran Transport Vessel and flew to the Dreadnought.

"At least I'm still alive." Rygel thought to himself.


Crichton looked up.

The moonlight shined directly in his eyes as he looked outside, through a broken window.

Outside, he could hear the roaring of a Marauder's engine.

"The Marauder." Crichton said to himself.

Then he realised this was going to be the second time he was going to steal a Marauder.

And then he realised that this was the second time he was doing something for the second time.

"Say that three times fast." Crichton said.

Shots were fired at him again.

"There he is!" Bracca shouted.

As Crichton climbed out of the window and onto the roof, Bracca pursued, but before he had the chance to enter the room, he was ambushed by Moxan's men, who fired upon them from all corners.

Several of Bracca's men were killed, and Bracca and the remainder of his squad were pinned down inside a crater of debris against the wall of the round chamber, unable to pursue Crichton.

They couldn't even move without risking their lives.

Crichton opened the back door of the low flying Marauder.

Surprisingly enough, there was no-one inside. Apparently the ship was left on the auto-pilot.

Crichton quickly jumped into the pilot's seat and started to calculate his trajectory to the stars.

Little did he know that he was being expected...

Crichton powered up the engines and engaged in flight.

The Marauder slowly increased in speed as it made his way towards the dark heavens.

Crichton did not hear the faint sound of footsteps in the back of the Marauder, and neither did he see how Aenos approached him from the shadow.

Aenos attacked Crichton by grabbing his head and throat.

Crichton gasped for air as he let go of the ship's controls and reached for his head.

"Hello Crichton." Aenos said as he tightened his grip. "I hope you recognise my voice."

Crichton's face turned red in his attempts to escape Aenos's grip, but he still could not breathe.

The Marauder kept on climbing towards space, until it eventually began to leave orbit.

With a punch to his guts Crichton managed to free himself.

He quickly gasped for air in the few seconds he was not attacked by Aenos, and he drew his gun to aim it at the Peacekeeper.

Aenos kicked it out of his hands and attacked Crichton again.

But Crichton drew his second gun, which Aenos did not see, and shot his opponent onto the floor of the Marauder.

"This is the Command Carrier 'Kronos'. This is your first and final warning. If you do not transmit the proper codes, then you will be destroyed. End of transmission."

Crichton looked at the view-screen.

In the distance, a small dark figure was growing larger and larger.

Crichton's Marauder was flying straight at Scorpius's Command Carrier, and was about to be shot at.

As the Command Carrier fired it's cannons, Crichton turned to the bleeding Aenos who lay on the ground.

"What are the codes?" Crichton asked.

Aenos spit blood on Crichton's shoes.

"What are the codes?" Crichton asked again after kicking Aenos in the face.

The Marauder trembled and crumbled as it sustained heavy damage because of the Carrier's attack.

"Give me the codes!" Crichton shouted.

"I will never give you those codes!" Aenos shouted. "If I give you those codes, you'll escape!"

"But if you don't give me those codes, we will both be blasted into dust!" Crichton shouted.

"I bet Scorpy wouldn't like it if I get killed, now would he?"

Aenos faced a dilemma.

Either Crichton would die, or Crichton would escape.

The choice was easily made, but Aenos wasn't glad to make it.

"They will find you again, Crichton!" Aenos said after he gave Crichton the codes. "I promise you that you will never truly escape the Peacekeepers! You will spend your entire life running in your futile attempts to..."

Crichton kicked him in the face again, knocking him unconscious.

When Crichton transmitted the codes, the Carrier stopped firing, just like they said they would.

At first, Crichton feigned a landing-trajectory, but at the last moment he speeded away into the asteroid-field, and in the confusion which erupted on the Command Deck of the Carrier, Crichton got away.

He flew into the asteroid-field, looking for Moya's last known location.

Crichton figured it would be the most logical place to look.

"Moya?" he transmitted carefully over the comms channel. "This is John Crichton. Pilot? Can you hear me? Moya?"


Aeryn thought of Zhaan as she laid the Ancient on a bed in Talyn's infirmary.

She was usually the expert on medical issues, and Aeryn definitely needed her help right now.

Without the Ancient she would never get back to Moya.

"Aeryn..." Crais's voice suddenly said over the comms.

"Aeryn..."

"Yes, Crais?" Aeryn answered.

She was neurotically searching through Talyn's limited medical supplies, hoping to find anything she could use to help Jack.

"Could you please join us at Command..." Crais asked.

"I'm a little bit busy here..." Aeryn answered.

"Please come, Aeryn..." Crais said.

His voice sounded strange.

"You have to see this..."

Aeryn left the Ancient lying on the bed as she headed to Command.

The red walls of Talyn's corridors reflected what she was feeling right now.

Anger.

Jack forced them to come here, saying things about Crichton being alive, Crichton being dead, wormhole-technology and Scorpius's Command Carrier.

The Ancient seemed desperate.

Like he was desperately trying to cover up for a mistake he had made.

Aeryn approached the door to Command and tried to open it, but it wouldn't listen.

"These controls are malfunctioning." Aeryn said as she tried opening it for the third time.

This time it did work, as the door opened and Aeryn stepped onto Command.

She saw Crais standing at the back.

A Peacekeeper soldier stood in every corner.

And in the centre, stood a man, obviously a Peacekeeper officer of some sort, with his back turned towards Aeryn.

That man reminded her of something.

A feeling. A memory. A smell.

He seemed familiar.

Slowly the man turned around.

Aeryn was shocked to see who it was.

"Now there's a familiar face." Sub-officer John Crichton spoke.

Aeryn's heart stopped beating.