.:: Season Four

It Takes a Little While to download be patient
 

"Crichton Kicks" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Svala Shanti Sugaysi Shanu Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Commandant Mele-On Grayza David Franklin . . . . . . Captain Braca Peter Whittle . . . . . . Ilkog Bob Nisevic . . . . . . Nukana Writer . . . . . . David Kemper Director . . . . . . Andrew Prowse	There are worse places to be adrift than a Leviathan graveyard. There are also better places. Hef's mansion comes to mind. But I got pretty lucky among the ghosts. The Leviathan Elack and his old female Pilot were ancient, sleepy and decent enough to offer me a home while they waited for death. I resurrected their DRDs, chugged moonshine, and became an honest-to-goodness mad scientist. Believe it or not, ladies and gents (drumroll) — I solved the equations for safe wormhole travel. And I did it in the nick of time, because with Elack getting ready to go to the big Starburst in the sky, those numbers represented what would soon be my only available means of transportation. Unfortunately, I guess blowing up other people's wormhole research ("Into the Lion's Den, Part 2: Wolf in Sheep's Clothing") was bad karma, because a tiny alien spacecraft collided with Elack and destroyed all my written notations. As a result, the craft's sole passenger and I didn't hit it off so well when she crawled out of the wreckage to find me pointing Winona at her. Sikozu Svala Shanti Sugaysi Shanu (say it five times fast, I triple-dog dare you) was a contractor for The Organization who had been hired by Grudeks to find elderly Leviathans. Why? Because the Grudeks harvest Leviathan Neural Cluster tissue, which apparently gets better with age. This stuff is called toubray, and health-conscious rich aliens fork over massive amounts of currency for a taste of it. Nobody involved cares that the harvesting process kills innocent Leviathans. Sikozu sure didn't. In fact, she'd naively done her job for the Grudeks too well: She discovered the Leviathans' Sacred Burial Space, a toubray jackpot. To keep the gold mine to themselves, the Grudeks decided to kill their employee. She made a run for it, and they were right behind her all the way to Elack. The last thing I was gonna do was let these thugs kill helpless old Elack. I woulda been dead weeks ago if Elack and his Pilot hadn't come along and taken me in. Sikozu helped me...sorta. She had major book smarts about Leviathan physiology, but she'd never set foot on one before. She talked a good game, but mostly she ran around on the ceiling and gave me smart-ass attitude. We laid an ambush for the Grudeks, but just when silence was golden — — Chiana's voice crackled over my Comms. Pip, love ya, but your dulcet tones nearly got me killed. The Grudeks' Brindz Hound, which had already snacked on my leg, bit off Sikozu's hand before we escaped. We met up with Chiana and Rygel in the Maintenance Bay. They'd learned, the hard way, that our little family is starring on Grayza's Most Wanted, a show that's become an overnight galactic hit thanks to the wanted beacons the Peacekeepers put on every planet, ship and Commerce Station in a 10,000-light-year radius. Pip and Sparky were bruised, beaten and plenty pissed at me over the traumas they'd endured. Chi was disturbingly hostile, and Rygel was eerily nice — relatively speaking. Seeing them made me wonder for the eight millionth time about Aeryn. I have so many questions I need to ask her.... Anyway — at that moment, I was getting a long-overdue shave, Sikozu was cutting a deal with the enemy, Elack was weakening as the Grudeks' harvest progressed, and Cujo's psychotic alien cousin was stalking the corridors. We were facing more than a few technical difficulties in disposing of the Brindz Hound. Worse, the Grudeks were well-armed, they outnumbered us, and Sikozu didn't want to kill her former employers so much as she wanted her job back. Our severed heads would have been a nice bargaining chip in that negotiation. Lucky for her, we clued her in that the head the Grudeks most wanted on a plate was hers. The plan we came up with relied on Chiana's growing ability to see the world in super slow-mo, which gave her moments of exceptionally clear, detailed sight — paid for afterwards by increasingly long periods of temporary blindness. With Pip's visions, lotsa rope, Sikozu's "help" and some basic physics, we had one shot to save Elack. If we blew it, we'd be a blind Nebari, a hacked-up Hynerian and a mad scientist with multiple fractures trapped aboard a dying ship, with no hope of rescue, no chance of escape and no backup plan. It was just like old times.
"What Was Lost, Part 1:Sacrifice" Tammy Macintosh . . . . . . Jool Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . The Old Woman Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Commandant Mele-On Grayza David Franklin . . . . . . Captain Braca Steve Le Marquand . . . . . . Oo-Nii Elizabeth Alexander . . . . . . Vella Kim De Lury . . . . . . Tarnat Writer . . . . . . Justin Monjo Director . . . . . . Rowan Woods	If Moya survived her trip down the wormhole ("Dog With Two Bones"), Chiana, Rygel, and I hoped she'd fly to her original destination: Arnessk, a planet where Jool's people had an archeological dig. Elack ("Crichton Kicks") agreed to take us there. Raise a glass — the long shot paid off. We found D'Argo, Jool, and the Old Woman with the Interion archeologists. Jool couldn't remember what happened in the wormhole, just said Pilot would explain when Moya returned. No one had heard from Aeryn. Instead, everybody'd gone ga-ga over the site's dusty history. Once upon a time, Arnesskan Priests built a temple there that somehow ensured peace between the Scarrans and Peacekeepers. Five hundred generations later, party poopers fired three Darnaz Probes onto Arnessk, creating the Darnaz Triangle. This screwed up the planet's magnetics. Eden vanished, the peace was shattered, and the planet became an inhospitable rock. During certain periods, people can still survive there — that's when the Interions schedule their digs. When the deadly magnetics intensify again, everyone has to leave. The dig leader, Instructor Vella, was the site's Nutty Professor, minus the sense of humor. She'd already located two Darnaz Probes. If she found the third, she believed she could free the planet from its magnetic prison. Whatever. I just wanted to rejoin Moya and find Aeryn. Sadly, up in orbit, old Elack was entering termination shutdown. While Rygel urged the ship to hang on, Sikozu meddled with my Module. Can't protest (much), 'cause she got it flying again and even rigged it to pick up Peacekeeper transmissions. I just wish she'd been faster to intercept the news that Grayza, Braca and muchos PK commandos were planning a surprise visit to Arnessk. Down below, oblivious to that particular threat, The Old Woman was all freaked out over some cryptic apocalypse or something. Instead of giving me a straight answer about Moya or Aeryn, she taught me how to turn on and drop out by snorting bug guts, then raved about the dangers of the Darnaz Triangle. Tagging along behind her was Oo-nii, who looked like a cross between a Brady Bunch Tiki idol and a Martian Aqua-Dude. Still don't know what his deal is. I also don't know the deal with D'Argo and Jool. Turns out, D'Argo enjoys playing Indiana Jones almost as much as Jool does. He and Jool seem close, but I wonder if they're truly compatible. After all, Jool worshipped Vella, who didn't think Luxans were the brightest crayons in the galactic box. Color me unsurprised. The day grew more confusing when Grandma declared that the planet's Interion "defilers" must die. To persuade me, she hit me with a faceful of herbs, inducing my biggest Technicolor vision yet: the Arnessk glory days. Temple. Priests. Probes — I even saw where the missing one landed. And a golden tile.... I woke up in the water, with Oo-nii Hasselhoff dragging me to shore. By the time I dried out, I realized Grandma'd scampered off with my pulse pistol and learned Vella'd been turned to stone by a Serax carver — a slick excavation tool and an even slicker murder weapon. D'Argo was drunk, grouchy, clutching said carver, and standing over Vella's remains. Call me crazy, but I still suspected Grandma. Looking for her, I discovered the golden tile from my vision. Gave me goosebumps, chills, the works — because I'm sure one of the markings on it was ancient Egyptian. As in, from Earth. At this point, Sikozu finally came planetside to warn us about the Peacekeepers' arrival, but Miss Fashionably Late only reached D'Argo in time. The rest of us found out the hard way: Grayza captured us. Then.... ...then things got weird. Grayza'd brought Scorpius along — on a leash. She claimed he was a peace offering. Claimed she wanted to be friends with me. And I — don't get me wrong, I felt dirty, sick — but I wanted her. Needed her. I can't explain it. Then.... I kissed her. And that was just the beginning.
"What Was Lost, Part 2: Resurrection" Tammy Macintosh . . . . . . Jool Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . The Old Woman (Noranti) Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Commandant Mele-On Grayza David Franklin . . . . . . Captain Braca Steve Le Marquand . . . . . . Oo-Nii Writer . . . . . . Justin Monjo Director . . . . . . Rowan Woods	After Grandma funky-dusted me into a cliff-diving lemming, I woke up in the ocean. Oo-nii reeled me in and dragged me underwater to his lair, where he began his own obsessive interrogation about the Darnaz Probes. Some rescue. D'Argo and Sikozu drove him off, then told me I stunk. As in, more than usual. Sikozu recognized the stench as Heppel oil, an aphrodisiac. Grayza apparently possessed a surgically implanted Heppel gland. The oil it secreted induced overwhelming lust, which explained what she'd done to me.... D'Argo had a plan to save us, but I didn't get to hear it. That's because step one involved me providing a diversion by gettin' it on with Grayza, and when she's working her oily mojo I can't keep secrets. The planet's magnetics were worsening. We'd be dead in 10 arns if we didn't escape. So I returned to Grayza and sucked it up. Wait — not literally. I mean, she — but I didn't — um, moving on now. Between innings, she made me spill my guts about wormholes, Scarrans, everything. I tried to stay sane by getting under her skin. I mean, not — except — anyway, I told her that she was Scorpy's minion. That I believed he was orchestrating everything. In response, she led me outside and had me dig Scorpy's grave. Yes, literally this time. Then Braca shot Scorpius. Point-blank. In the back. Sikozu said ol' Scorpy looked dead, and Grayza gave the order to bury him. I've dreamed about this day for years; now that I've seen it with my own eyes, it feels like it's still a dream.... ...that turned back into a nightmare. Grayza dragged me back to her love nest. I'm joking about it, but truth is, whatever guys say about there being no such thing as bad sex, there are limits. Heavy-duty, barbed-wire limits. What Grayza did to me was way the hell over that line. That's the last I'm saying. What made it worthwhile is that, while I was with Grayza, Sikozu helped Chiana, Jool and the Old Woman escape. When D'Argo finally signaled that it was time to go, I was more than ready. I jammed Laka bug guts up my nose just like Grandma taught me. Pow! Freed from Grayza's control, I escaped, only to get pinned down by a Peacekeeper squad. If I'd had Winona, they would've been toast. Unfortunately, Winona had been swiped by Granny, and I was using a pale imitation of my faithful pulse pistol that crapped out after a few shots. Lucky for me, Chiana and her posse were passing my way; Jool tossed me her pulse pistol and we all got the hell out of Dodge. Our goal was to reach D'Argo's ship. Rygel had persuaded Elack and his Pilot ("Crichton Kicks" and "What Was Lost, Part 1: Sacrifice") to end their lives by crashing into the planet and destroying the Peacekeepers' Marauders, marooning our pursuers while we flew to safety. But Elack left too early and nearly hit us. Rygel got word to Elack in time, and the ancient, dying Leviathan used the last of his energy to delay his impact. Even so, we barely escaped when the brave ship finally made his kamimaze attack. The explosion destroyed two of the Marauders, but Grayza and her PK G.I. Joes pursued us in the third. D'Argo launched a satellite probe ahead, hoping they'd chase it instead of us. They seemed to take the bait. Then, because D'Argo's ship was seriously banged up, we had to land on Arnessk once more. Bad news: The planet's magnetics were nearing lethal levels — we could barely walk and we were all looking more faded than a pair of old bluejeans. Grayza might return any moment, but we'd probably already be dead. Our last hope lay in finding the third Darnaz Probe. If we could reactivate all three, maybe we could neutralize the magnetics and restore the planet's original — read "safe" — environment. Then Oo-nii took a hand (or a flipper) in things: He wanted the powerful probes for himself and the magnetics didn't bother him — a dangerous combo. We were in for a fight, and I didn't have the strength to win by myself. But I wasn't alone: my amigos had my back. And Arnessk still held more secrets than any of us expected — if only we lived long enough to see them....
"Lava's a Many Splendored Thing"  Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti John Adam . . . . . . Raa'Keel Jack Finsterer . . . . . . Gleeg Alan Flower . . . . . . Frool Ross Newton . . . . . . Sloggard Teo Gebert . . . . . . Weldon Mick Roughan . . . . . . Airek Writer . . . . . . Michael Miller Director . . . . . . Michael Pattinson	I'll make this short and sweet, because today's been neither. D'Argo, Chiana, Rygel, Sikozu, Noranti and I were searching for Moya in D'Argo's ship, Lo'La. Since we hadn't eaten in about three solar days and there weren't any BBQ shacks on the horizon, we risked eating Noranti's chow. Cut to all of us puking our guts out on the first planet we could find. All of us except Sikozu, who was the only one of us smart enough to skip breakfast at Noranti's Intergalactic House of Nausea. (Maybe Sputnik really is a genius.) Then Rygel, who'd flown his ThroneSled into a volcanic cave so he could take a shlock in peace (or maybe because he thought a pit of boiling sulfur would mask the smell), discovered crates filled with valuables. Before we could talk him into leaving the stuff alone (like we don't have enough enemies dogging us already), he tripped a booby trap. An amber substance solidified around most of his body. An identical material sealed the cave's entrance. Chiana and Sikozu were outside; after a futile attempt to blast our way out with D'Argo's Qualta Rifle, he, Noranti, Rygel and I accepted that we were locked in. The first two gun-toting guards to arrive (I'll call them Larry and Curly) were stupider than Stooges. From our hiding place, D'Argo and I watched them poke Rygel, who — gotta give him credit — actually tried to cover for us and said he was alone. Before Big D and I could dot the I's and cross the T's on a plan, Noranti decided these guys were Tarkans — noble freedom fighters who'd forgive us for trespassing on their secret stash and probably thank us for stopping by. Granny stepped out to say hello, and suddenly everyone was shooting at us. (What a surprise. Like that's never happened before.) D'Argo and I still could've ended it right there if these clowns hadn't been wearing shield belts, devices that blocked our pulse blasts. Larry and Curly took Rygel — still stuck in amber like a Jurassic Park mosquito — deeper into the maze of lava tunnels. D'Argo, Noranti and I followed. Their buddy Moe tried to kill us, but accidentally fried himself when he released a river of lava on his head right in front of us. I beat my high school's long-jump record getting over that thing. Up above, Chi and Sputnik guessed that Lo'La's cannon could blast open the entrance, but they couldn't activate the ship without D'Argo's DNA. Too bad D'Argo hadn't left them a convenient supply of his bodily fluids. Oh, wait — he had. Large, steaming mounds of it, in fact.... Over comms, D'Argo and I negotiated with Raa'Keel, the leader of the Stooges. We explained this was all a big mix-up, and he seemed reasonable; said he'd send two of his guys to lead us to Rygel so we could pick up our li'l green buddy and skedaddle. Since we never trust reasonable people, D'Argo and I decided to attack the escorts and claim their shield belts for ourselves. Noranti mixed up one of her powders to help catch the guards, well, off-guard. Whatever she dusted them with must've been industrial strength, because it would take one hell of a hallucination to mask the horrors D'Argo and I were forced to see while stone-cold sober.... We got the shield belts, left Granny to put her clothes back on, and headed to the bottom of the cavern. There, our plan hit a snag. These guys were Tarkans, all right, but they were thieves, stealing from the real Tarkan rebels, and Raa'Keel didn't want any witnesses to his perfect plan. If our new belts blocked lava as well as pulse blasts, D'Argo and I still could've chilled out. But they didn't, so we were now at the mercy of a guy waving a bucket of molten rock in our faces. That's when Sikozu, her hands coated in D'Argo's vomit, blasted open the cavern entrance with Lo'La's cannon. Big D and I told Raa'Keel that our "squad" was coming in to whup his ass, and if "they" found us dead he was toast. We forgot to mention that our squad was a couple of girls who looked more like Catholic-school dropouts than the big, ugly thugs we said were on the way. Raa'Keel handed his bucket of lava to another of his sub-genius lackeys and told him to keep an eye on us. Then boss-man left to check out the explosion. While we were trying to talk sense to Raa'Keel's bucket boy, Rygel — who was looking sicker than a Delta House pledge at the end of Hazing Week — toppled head-first into another one of the booby-traps. The distraction helped me and D'Argo get the drop on the guard, but the trap covered Rygel completely in amber. And, just to make matters worse, our shrink-wrapped sovereign of stink fell ass-over-earbrows into a giant pool of lava nearby. There are adventures you volunteer for out of duty and honor, adventures on which the fate of civilization rests. Then there are adventures in which, because a talking frog with delusions of royalty tries to take a dump on a treasure pile, everyone you know nearly gets flushed down the galactic toilet. Personally, I prefer adventures that center around beer, girls, firecrackers on Cocoa Beach and nobody getting killed. Guess which one I had on my hands this time?
"Promises" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Grayza David Franklin . . . . . . Braca Richard Carter . . . . . . Ullom Anja Coleby . . . . . . Ponara Damian Hunter . . . . . . Rinlo Writer . . . . . . Richard Manning Director . . . . . . Geoff Bennett	As Crichton, D'Argo, Chiana, Rygel and Noranti returned to Moya, I hesitated to warn Crichton of what awaited him here. He found out soon enough: Aeryn Sun had returned, but she was dying of Sebacean Heat Delirium — and Scorpius was by her side. Scorpius had found her adrift in space, returned her to Moya, and given her one of his coolant suits to stabilize her body temperature. Crichton's horror at seeing his archnemesis as Aeryn's savior worsened when Aeryn made him promise not to harm Scorpius. Crichton grudgingly agreed, but remained suspicious that Scorpius was responsible for Aeryn's sickness. Scorpius denied this, claiming that he now wished asylum aboard Moya only to protect Crichton's wormhole knowledge. While Crichton and D'Argo escorted Scorpius to a cell, Aeryn returned to one of Moya's thermal chambers, where the cool air slowed the progression of her Heat Delirium toward what Sebaceans call the Living Death. I, meanwhile, encountered Sikozu, an arrogant, close-minded young Kalish who found fault with my care of Moya. It certainly didn't surprise me to learn that the others — especially Chiana — doubted Sikozu's integrity based on her odd affinity for Scorpius. I had hoped Aeryn would explain her predicament to Crichton, but she refused to tell even him where she had been or how she had become ill. While Crichton urged her to confide in him, Moya's senses detected a massive ship approaching at great speed. It stopped perilously close to us, its gravitational field overwhelming our senses and preventing a Starburst. Then its captain, Ullom, declared that he had induced Aeryn's sickness — and possessed its only cure. Crichton and D'Argo visited Ullom's ship, hoping to subdue Ullom and steal the antidote. But Ullom didn't risk meeting them in person; he appeared to them as a hologram. He explained that his world's Prime Hokothian had been assassinated by Sebacean mercenaries. Before the assassins escaped, Ullom, the Prime Hokothian's Chief Protector, induced Heat Delirium in them all. Consequently, Aeryn's condition proved that she'd been involved in the plot. Ullom demanded that Aeryn surrender and name her accomplices and employers. If she cooperated, he said, he would cure her Heat Delirium. Aeryn had other plans. Opening a visual Comms link to the Hokothian ship, she put a pulse pistol to her head, saying that her death would end the stalemate so that Ullom could release her friends, who had no part in her crimes. Crichton, still on the alien ship, begged us to stop her, and Rygel did just that, ramming her with his ThroneSled — a feat he couldn't have managed had Officer Sun been healthy. Crichton and D'Argo returned to Moya, and we were once again in a familiar predicament: facing the vengeful captain of a powerful ship. Crichton held another painfully fruitless conversation with Aeryn, who remained willing to die rather than break her oath of silence and accede to Ullom's demands. After leaving Aeryn, Crichton discovered Sikozu talking privately with Scorpius. Luckily, Crichton was more open-minded about this situation than Chiana or I might have been; he listened to Scorpius' explanation. Scorpius had a device that, he claimed, could remove the Neural Clone from Crichton's mind. If Crichton allowed Scorpius to help him in this way, Scorpius promised he would share further vital information with us — information that could save Aeryn's life. With the Neural Clone putting up a mental battle, Crichton consented to the procedure. This foolish risk paid off — the procedure worked. Crichton's mind was entirely his own once more. The Neural Clone was dead. Scorpius then revealed that he had a spy aboard Commandant Grayza's Command Carrier. This person had transmitted the chilling news that Captain Braca was piloting a Prowler, armed with a Leviathan-killing missile, toward Moya's location. The Peacekeepers had found us. Even if we had been willing to run from Ullom and, in so doing, abandon Aeryn's last hope of a cure, escape was no longer an option. The missile could ride Moya's slipstream through Starburst. We had no defense against such a weapon. Furthermore, if we didn't soon resolve our dangerous standoff with Ullom, Aeryn — and likely the rest of us — would be dead before Braca even arrived....
"Natural Election" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Writer . . . . . . Sophie C. Hopkins Director . . . . . . Ian Watson	Hi, Chiana here, pleeking around with Pilot's log. He's letting me record the plant battle since he's still helping Moya recover (and picking plant bits out of his teeth). So here we go.... We were all watching — especially that nerfer Sikozu — when a wormhole showed up just microts after Crichton predicted it would. The draddest, right? Nah, nothing that nice ever happens to us. After the wormhole closed, something rammed Moya from out of nowhere. Everything went black — even the stars. Moya felt like she was being burned alive. D'Argo and Crichton actually had to go outside to see the problem: Moya'd been snared by a gigantic space plant lurking near the wormhole. The frelling grislack was eating our ship! Meanwhile (speaking of frelling grislacks), I found Sikozu putting out a fire in Scorpius' cell. I thought Scorpy'd set it himself to make us free him. But it turned out the overloads and ruptures were starting fires all over Moya. While I put those out, Crichton and D'Argo took plant samples to Noranti and Sikozu for analysis. Then I came across Aeryn. And she told me she's pregnant. Crichton already knew — but what he didn't know was that she didn't know who the father was. Get me? The way Peacekeeper pregnancies work, it could be any lover Aeryn's had in the last seven cycles. I don't know if I could remember every guy I've — what'd ya say Pilot? ... (Sigh.) As I was saying.... After Aeryn blew my mind, Crichton and D'Argo flew out in Lo'La and shot the plant — just as Sikozu and Noranti realized that blasting it was the worst thing we could do. Attacking the plant made it retreat — into Moya. Now it was eating our Leviathan from the inside. 'Cause I was a stupid greebol, I crawled into the walls to investigate. There were plant tentacles everywhere — scared me grotless, and I was still a little tinked in the head when I met up with D'Argo later; maybe that's why I blabbed Aeryn's secret to him. A couple microts later, I was alone with Aeryn again, checking out Moya's neural lobes. Of course, that's when Aeryn asked me not to tell anyone about her secret — and to forget she'd even told me. Frell. I got out of there before I said anything else to get myself in even deeper dren. When the neural lobes started exploding, Aeryn escaped to Pilot's den, but the plant had attacked Pilot, too. We had to get Pilot conscious again. After Scorpius revealed that the plant shriveled up whenever he touched it, Aeryn chained him to Pilot's console and the tentacles pulled away. This wasn't 'cause the plant had good taste; it was 'cause the blue stuff in Scorpy's coolant rods could kill it. D'Argo and Crichton went to Scorpy's cell to snurch all his extra rods. And that's when D'Argo told Crichton about Aeryn's baby and its Big Bad Mystery Daddy.... Hey, did I mention that Rygel was temporary captain during all this? Just trying out the job 'til we held an election like Pilot asked. Well, by now His Royal Frellness was sulking and feeling guilty because Moya might die on his watch. Weird. Frogpuss never goes in for that guilt stuff.... Anyway, Sikozu diluted the coolant-rod formula. Crichton and Aeryn took a big bucket of it to the atmospheric scrubber complex, where fans could blow it all through Moya. A frelling drad idea.... Except the plant was already in the atmospheric scrubbers. It broke apart one of the big fans; the flying shrapnel knocked over the bucket of blue stuff and nearly killed Aeryn. And remember Crichton's wormhole? We'd drifted right over its coordinates, Moya couldn't move, and it was due to open again really soon. So either this stupid plant would eat us from the inside out, or the wormhole would suck us in and spit us out in pieces. Whichever way you looked at it, we were frelled — Hey, Pilot, can you finish this? Crichton's leaving for a Commerce Planet and I wanna go. How do I save this? Is it this one? ... Oops. I didn't break it, did I? Sorry. See you when I get back!
"John Quixote" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Paul Goddard . . . . . . Stark Virginia Hey . . . . . . Zhaan Lani John Tupu . . . . . . The Ogre Rowan Woods . . . . . . Male Zhaan (Big Ugly Blue Guy) Writer . . . . . . Ben Browder Director . . . . . . Geoff Bennett	On our latest trip to a Commerce Planet, Chiana bought a bunch of game blobs; squish one to bare flesh, launch a virtual-reality world. She was sampling them as I flew us home in a Transport Pod. Then, just as D'Argo commed to say there was trouble on Moya, Chi squeezed a must-see blob against my hand. The game was a bad flashback: Gammak Base. Gilina. Scorpius. Then, almost instantly, the program zapped us to a higher level: Swords. Armor. An ivory tower with a blonde Aeryn held captive up top. And, oh yeah — a falling television hitting me on the head.... Huh? I was confused, hurting and ready to leave. We demanded the exit. Instead, a simulated Stark showed up, calling himself the game's avatar. Incredibly, this game was based on my memories. When the other Crichton, my twinned self, was dying, Stark mystically eased his passage, absorbing that Crichton's memories in the process. After Stark left to search for his dead, beloved Zhaan, he apparently sold his — and my — memories to a game designer named Yoti. And Yoti turned Stark's neural template into Super Mario Crichton. Stark gave us two ways out: First, win the game by kissing "a princess fair, by ugliness enslaved"; or, second, find and open a green door. He also gave us three voucher pearls to squeeze if we needed more hints. Kissing princesses is risky, plus we needed out ASAP; our real bodies were helpless in the unpiloted pod, and Moya was in trouble. Looking for green doors, we met a big, ugly blue guy who claimed to be Zhaan. My memories of this part are kinda hazy — Pip won't say why — but, after Bizarro Zhaan freaked out about a fearsome ogre, he split. Back to our quest. One Hynerian Black Knight and one pearl voucher later, we ran into D'Argo, who was dressed like the Swiss Miss and holding Jool and another Chiana in a cage. (Totally Yoti's invention, by the way. I have my fantasies; D'Argo in lederhosen ain't one of them.) There was also a green door. I opened it, woke up on the pod, and commed D'Argo, who reported that Scorpius was loose, Sikozu was missing, and a Command Carrier was on the way. Yet another wonderful day in my life. Chiana was still in the game's trance. I tried to pull her outta Never-Neverland, but accidentally touched the game blob and got sucked back to D'Argo's gingerbread house. There, my Chiana was missing. I burned another pearl voucher asking Stark where she'd gone. He sent me to an elevator. On the way up, I had a chat with Crichton Headroom and slew a few monsters. Curiouser and curiouser. In the tower's penthouse was Aeryn herself, with a white dress, blonde hair, and a Southern accent scarier than her butler: Scorpius in a Pinocchio outfit. Then her boyfriend, The Ogre, arrived: It was Crais, complete with horns. Before things got violent, Chiana ran in and we skipped out a green door, returned to the pod, and raced back to Moya. There, Scorpius was taking over the minds of our crewmates. He had already enslaved Pilot and Aeryn. If we killed Scorpy, his neural links with our friends would kill them, too. Chiana avoided capture, but Aeryn locked me into one of Moya's cells. Once I was alone, Chiana brought me the game blob so we could speak privately. If I could force Scorpius to enter the game's trance, she said, the people under his control would be helpless. Chi could tie 'em up and we'd be back on top. Unfortunately, Scorpy got his hand around my neck before I could activate the blob. The game sucked him in, but, back on Moya, he was still choking me. I figured I was toast, but then Aeryn dragged my hand off the game. Free of Scorpy's clutches, we ran. Except Aeryn suddenly seemed too eager to be with me. She even professed her undying love for me.... Sad to say, that's what tipped me off. Finding the third pearl voucher in my pocket only proved it: Chiana and I had never left the game. Our bodies were still stuck on a speeding Transport Pod with no one in the driver's seat; our minds were still stuck in Stark's world. If green doors didn't work, that left us one option. Chiana and I set out to kiss ourselves a princess.
"I Shrink, Therefore I Am" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Duncan Young . . . . . . Axikor John Schwarz . . . . . . Bintog Writer . . . . . . Christopher Wheeler Director . . . . . . Rowan Woods	The Coreeshi bounty hunters attacked Moya so efficiently that Aeryn and I have no clear memory of our capture. Along with Rygel, we awoke in Moya's Command area, our hands restrained by powerful magnetic cuffs. Our captors, wearing full-body armor that fully covered their heads, were awaiting Crichton's arrival. Crichton and Noranti had been on a supply run in a Transport Pod. As they returned, Pilot, though threatened at gunpoint, tipped off Crichton to the danger. In response, Crichton rammed the Pod into the invaders' ship. By the time both vessels blew up, Crichton and Noranti had ejected. Noranti drifted peacefully in space in a drug-induced vacuum coma, while Crichton reached one of Moya's external hatches. Guessing that Crichton was on board, Aeryn and I gained some hope. Then, while the lead bounty hunter, Axikor, ordered his men to delay contacting the Peacekeepers, I smelled Crichton in the ducts above us. A moment later, John made a sound. Axikor heard him. I began talking to distract the bounty hunters; Aeryn and Rygel followed my lead, and Crichton escaped under cover of our noise. Axikor refused to begin a reckless pursuit. He interrogated Rygel, demanding insight into Crichton's probable plans. Rygel gave false answers that put himself at risk (I was surprised by his courage), but Axikor's next orders revealed that he knew precisely what Crichton might do. Grimly, we realized Axikor must have been able to read Rygel's thoughts. We could only wait and hope. Aeryn and I hate waiting — almost as much as Crichton does. We didn't know that Crichton had a new ally: Scorpius, who had escaped his cell before the bounty hunters discovered him. (That meant Scorpius could have escaped any time since he arrived — but didn't. A troubling notion.) The two set up an ambush in Moya's atmospheric scrubbers, killing one of the bounty hunters. Undeterred, Axikor ordered his men to "initiate containment procedures." At that, Aeryn and I counterattacked. Unfortunately, our restraints proved too effective, and Axikor too well-armored, but I managed to score one little victory: I snagged a comms with my tongue. Then Axikor hit me with a beam from his gauntlet. Almost instantly, I shrank — I had become shorter than a DRD. Axikor imprisoned me in a metal cylinder. He then shoved the cylinder directly into his chest. Chiana, Sikozu and Rygel similarly reduced and placed within Axikor's men, but not before Chiana used her special time-slowing vision to see how the procedure worked. The effort left her temporarily blind, as it had before, but this time she feared it might be permanent. We could only hope that she — and the rest of us — would survive to use her hard-won knowledge. Axikor forced Aeryn to tell Crichton that his friends were now within the bodies of his enemies; if Crichton shot a bounty hunter, he'd endanger those of us held inside. Then Axikor shrank Aeryn, as well. Crichton successfully killed a second Coreeshi without harming Aeryn and Chiana, whom he found trapped inside. But, hearing the skirmish from a few sections away, more bounty hunters raced to the scene. One shot Crichton in the leg. At that moment Scorpius intervened, sacrificing his freedom to enable Crichton to escape with Aeryn and Chiana. (Even more troubling ... why is he so protective of Crichton?) The girls were still tiny, and Crichton was wounded. The rest of us remained imprisoned in the bodies of our captors. Scorpius became my new cylinder-mate. I wasn't sure I could believe Scorpius when he told me he recognized Axikor's true identity, but he convinced me soon enough. The lead bounty hunter wasn't a Coreeshi and had no intention of turning us in for the Peacekeeper bounty, despite what he'd told his henchmen. Being turned over to Grayza would have been bad, but Axikor's real plans for us were much, much worse....
"A Prefect Murder" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Peter Whitford . . . . . . Jabuka Clan Chieftain Bruce Spence . . . . . . Prefect Falaak Ivar Kants . . . . . . Gaashah Brett Stiller . . . . . . Zerbat Jason Chong . . . . . . E'Alet Writer . . . . . . Mark Saraceni Director . . . . . . Geoff Bennett	Officer Aeryn Sun reporting. We've taken refuge from the Peacekeepers and Scarrans in Tormented Space. The region is as I remembered it: tormented. And tormenting, for those who traverse it. Moya was soon exhausted by the many Starbursts required here for escape, evasion and wormhole-dodging. Our reserves of drinking water were nearly empty. At last, we discovered a planet where we could resupply while Moya recovered. D'Argo, Crichton, Chiana, Sikozu and I landed while Rygel and Noranti stayed aboard Moya with Scorpius. This planet had recently quelled centuries of clan warfare to initiate a unified government. When we arrived, the current Prefect, Falaak, was about to finish his term and transfer power to his strong, well-intentioned successor, Gaashah. The clanspeople were nervous about the transition and suspicious of outsiders. After Chiana's indiscretions with certain clansmen, she was nearly executed and we were nearly banished (without the supplies we'd come for). D'Argo and Crichton's diplomacy convinced the tribal leaders to let us stay, provided that Chiana returned to Moya. We sent her back to Moya in my Prowler and the problem was solved — we thought. Chiana secretly returned to the planet, where she found Sikozu "recreating" with Gaashah's son, Zerbat. Then Chiana herself was discovered — by Paroos, the powerful priest who had unified all 200 warring tribes. He now threatened to turn this strength of will toward punishing us offworlders. I would say it's fortunate he was interrupted — but the interruption itself was a tragedy.... My hallucinations had begun so mildly that I didn't recognize their danger: I saw myself behaving violently toward a local child; I assumed my mind was merely venting frustration. The line between reality and delusion blurred so quickly that I never had a chance to fight back — or worse, tell my shipmates of the problem. Soon, it was too late: I drew my pulse pistol and killed Gaashah with one perfect shot. This time, it wasn't a hallucination. I fled. It's hard to say which upset me more: the murder I'd just committed or my absolute, inexplicable loss of control. In my absence, Crichton, D'Argo and the others faced the fury of the clanspeople. Paroos took charge, declaring Zerbat his dead father's successor. Crichton agreed to help Zerbat find me, with Sikozu trailing along. Zerbat wanted revenge. I waited until Crichton was alone before revealing myself. He had terrible news. My memory was wrong: Gaashah wasn't my only victim. I'd also hurt D'Argo, and slain many others. Seventeen people were dead. Murdered — by my hand. Seventeen. And I had no idea why. With the help of Paroos, I realized that I'd been stung by an insect shortly before the hallucinations began. Then Crichton was stung, as well — but Paroos said the planet had no native insects. As our suspicions grew, Crichton experienced his first hallucination. He had started down the same deadly road I'd just traveled. Paroos guessed that someone was using the insects to turn Crichton and me into assassins. Because the murder victims were political moderates, and the bugs weren't native, it followed that Prefect Faalak, whose loyal assistant, E'Alet, was an offworlder, was killing his rivals so he could remain in power. As we guessed this, Chiana was confirming it. She heard E'Alet tell Faalak that his sgabba flies implanted murderous subliminal signals in their victims — which E'Alet then amplified with his own psychic powers. Chiana even witnessed E'Alet producing more bugs — from within his body. By the time Chiana contacted us, Crichton and I were on our way to confront Falaak — but we were each bitten again — and again, and again. E'Alet was overwhelming our free will by dosing us more heavily with the bugs' venom. Our new mission, seemingly irresistible, became clear: Crichton and I both felt an overwhelming urge to raise our pulse pistols — and kill each other....
"Coup by Clam" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Bruce Spence . . . . . . Doctor Tumii David Field . . . . . . Ho'Ock Chris Mayer . . . . . . Mekken Sara Groen . . . . . . Mujombre Kelly Butler . . . . . . Selva Susan Prior . . . . . . Kiryah Writer . . . . . . Emily Skopov Director . . . . . . Ian Watson	The jumble of electrostatic impulses in Tormented Space was driving Moya mad. She needed additional zyntian filtration to muffle this "noise," and Khurtanan's mechanics could install it. But Khurtanan was a planet of misogynist hypochondriacs, and they wouldn't help us until one of their doctors, Tumii, declared us healthy. This took time. Meanwhile, the food Tumii offered us was sickening — as in deadly. If a Qatal Mollusk's two halves are eaten by two different people, the halves form a sensory link between those beings — and cause fatal food poisoning. We learned this because, after Doctor Tumii fed us the Mollusks, he explained our danger and announced that only he knew the cure. In exchange for a quarter-million currency pledges per poisoned crewmember, he'd save our lives. The scheming frellnik had us by the mivonks. Crichton and Sikozu had eaten one Mollusk, so they were sharing physical and emotional sensations. Same for me and Noranti; same for Aeryn and Rygel. Never mind the pain and embarrassment — without a cure, we'd soon become paralyzed and die. Since Chiana hadn't eaten a Mollusk, she supervised the mechanic who'd be fixing Moya. Noranti began researching a cure, while Crichton, Aeryn and I went planetside to visit Tumii's office. There, the doctor lectured us on how the Mollusks worked, which was almost more nauseating than the sickness itself. We agreed to pay him. Crichton offered Tumii double if he'd spare us the lecture. Then Tumii announced that he required additional Mollusks to cure us; he only had enough on premises to heal me and Noranti. Great news, if I could endure both the medicine's "special" ingredients and holding hands with Noranti for arns while the Mollusk's bacteria left our bodies. I returned to Moya to begin the waiting. As Tumii, Aeryn and Crichton waited for the delivery of more Mollusks, the doctor received another visitor — who shot him. (That made me very angry — I was looking forward to shooting him myself.) Though he survived, the assassination attempt opened our eyes to a new problem. Khurtanan's repression of females had spawned a resistance movement. These women imported the Qatal Mollusks to use as discreet murder weapons against the male government, who mistook the symptoms of poisoning for those of Space Madness. Tumii had discovered their plot and demanded that the women supply him with Mollusks for his extortion schemes in exchange for his silence. Their shooter was trying to end the blackmail. So the Mollusks we needed were in the hands of dangerous revolutionaries. Our luck never changes. While Rygel joined Crichton guarding the doctor, Aeryn and Sikozu visited a gentlemen's club. The women working there seemed submissive, but were actually the core rebel group. Their leader, Selva, didn't dare trust Aeryn and Sikozu. Instead, she ordered them captured. Knowing that the girls had eaten Mollusks, Selva hoped to lure their linked partners into coming to the club as well. Naturally, Crichton and Rygel did exactly that. To infiltrate the club, they dressed as females — which I really, really wish I'd gotten to see. Unfortunately, I was on Moya rubbing fingers with the old woman — I even missed the good stuff that happened onboard. For instance, Chiana realized that our mechanic was really a woman in disguise.... Anyway, suspecting that Crichton and Rygel were in the club, Selva told her henchwoman to cut off Aeryn's finger — guessing that whoever was linked to Aeryn would also feel the pain and scream, betraying himself. That would have been Rygel, who was searching the club's storage rooms for Mollusks. But Sikozu volunteered for the torture instead — so Crichton shared her pain. And Crichton happened to be dancing just then with some frisky pervert, right under Selva's watchful eyes. This all would obviously have been a really great joke if he and the others hadn't been microts from certain death....
"Unrealized Reality" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Paul Goddard . . . . . . Stark Lani John Tupu . . . . . . Captain Bialar Crais Virginia Hey . . . . . . Pa'u Zotoh Zhaan David Franklin . . . . . . Lt. Braca Tammy Macintosh . . . . . . Jool John Bach . . . . . . Einstein Writer . . . . . . David Kemper Director . . . . . . Andrew Prowse	It was risky business: I was spacewalking, by myself, expecting a wormhole to appear in front of me. Which it did, on schedule. It was a small wormhole, and it felt right. What could go wrong? As Daffy Duck once said, "Ha-ha, it is to laugh." The thing reached out and swallowed me. I landed on an iceberg adrift in a black ocean. That's what it looked like, anyway. It was actually a no-man's land between universes; it was the real Twilight Zone, but Rod Serling didn't show — just an extradimensional alien in human form, dressed like an undertaker and talking like Albert Einstein on 'shrooms. "Einstein" was there to execute me because of my wormhole knowledge. Luckily, he wanted to get to know me before pulling the trigger. And, like all the other cryptic beings I've ever met because of wormholes, he lectured me. I learned there are systems of wormholes with uncountable entrances and exits. Some connect places in the same universe and time. Others connect different universes; others, different times. Why? Because space is actually space-time, and wormholes are the interstate highways of space-time, with on-ramps, interchanges, and exits. No good road signs, though. Einstein represented a species from a different realm (universe? dimension?) that was incompatible with ours. Since travel between these realms is unnatural and dangerous to both sides, Einstein's people modified some of their own citizens to be able to live in our realm; this new subspecies became The Ancients. The Ancients' job was to keep the realms separate and safe, and to report back to Einstein's people, their progenitors. Instead, for their own reasons, the Ancients implanted wormhole knowledge in my brain ("The Hidden Memory") then disappeared to who-knows-where ("Infinite Possibilities, Part 1: Daedalus Demands"). Once that happened, Einstein snatched Moya ("Dog With Two Bones"), hoping to meet me. I wasn't aboard then, but he'd found me now. I couldn't give Einstein any answers. I've never really understood why the Ancients gave me wormhole knowledge. Einstein wanted me to realize just how dangerous that knowledge is. I already knew it was bad. He showed me that it was scarier than I'd ever dreamed. He sent me to a series of alternate realities — schisms from what should be, fractured fairy tales I could cause by careless wormhole travel. A world where Aeryn broke my neck my first day on Moya. A world where Peacekeeper Captain Crichton killed his prisoner Sikozu. A world where humans were Scarran slaves. A freaky mess in which Aeryn was actually Chiana, Sikozu was Stark, D'Argo was Jool, Noranti was Rygel — it's confusing, deal with it. In that world, Crais overran Moya — blood and betrayal galore. If I grokked Einstein right, your casual wormhole tourist doesn't know enough to cause these freak-show realities. Anyone can fly through a wormhole — but not just anyone can navigate. Thanks to the Ancients, I can. Einstein said I can enter complex wormhole systems and navigate myself to anything familiar. But because the correct reality that I want to reach is surrounded, in these complex systems, by a lot of similar but skewed "unrealized realities," it's mathematically possible — hell, probable — for me to screw up. Einstein told me that if I make a mistake, the thing to do is fix the first, closest thing that goes wacky, then get the hell out of there and hope for the best. With one accident, I could destroy everything I love, and extra universes besides. That fact scared me as few things have — to the point that I asked Einstein to kill me. Better I die than all of existence. But now that Einstein knew it was the Ancients who'd given me wormhole knowledge, his plan changed: He decided to let me live, and even hoped I'd be his people's new wormhole sheriff in our universe, keeping bad guys off the highways. (I said no.) By this point, he and his iceberg were both weak — talking to me had exhausted him. With the little time that remained, Einstein tried to tell me how to navigate wormhole systems. It's all about sensing familiar vibes, which are the only road signs to the correct exit ramp. Sound easy? No, it isn't. Einstein vanished. The iceberg dissolved. Now, it was up to me to find my way back through the wormhole to Moya. I plunged into the wormhole circuit, slipping through side branches everywhere. I reached out for Moya, and touched something familiar.... I went for it — and it was one hell of a wrong turn. Or maybe the rightest turn of all.
"Kansas" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti David Franklin . . . . . . Lt. Braca Kent McCord . . . . . . Jack Crichton Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Commandant Grayza Carmen Duncan . . . . . . Leslie Crichton Jamie Croft . . . . . . Young John Crichton Tyler Coppin . . . . . . Sheriff Casey Burgess . . . . . . Olivia Crichton Nadia Townsend . . . . . . Kim Kupperstein Louise Fox . . . . . . Mrs. Dot Levy Kosta Doukas . . . . . . Deputy Amy Salas . . . . . . Skreeth Writer . . . . . . Justin Monjo Director . . . . . . Rowan Woods	As with all my tales, this one was a constant tug-of-war between good news and bad news. Good news: After years of struggle, I had found my wormhole and come home to Earth. Bad news: Technically, I was orbiting Earth alone in a space suit with minimal oxygen. This was going to be a brief and lonely homecoming. Good news: D'Argo, Aeryn, Chiana, Rygel, and Noranti came through the same wormhole in D'Argo's ship and rescued me. Bad news: We'd pulled a Star Trek IV by accident. The wormhole had dumped us above Earth in 1986, and my presence had already screwed up the timeline. In this version of reality, my dad was about to fly on the NASA Space Shuttle Challenger and suffer its tragic fate. That would mean that I never got into space travel — so no Farscape One, no career change for Aeryn, no prison break for D'Argo, Rygel and Zhaan. If I could stop dad from accepting the Challenger mission, the timeline would heal. I know that might sound like good news, but when you consider that I've never been much good at convincing my father to do anything, you'll realize that it isn't. Luckily, it was Halloween. At any other time of the year, my friends from Moya would be more eye-catching than Mr. Spock at a Young Republicans convention. We set up base camp in an abandoned house in my old neighborhood, then I walked over to my home sweet home. Young Johnny Crichton (me at age 17) and his (my) parents were having a screaming blowout in the front yard. Ah, the good ol' days. My younger self fled from there to his/my favorite spot over by the canal. I followed him, and we had a chat. I didn't tell him who I was, just that he should insist dad skip the mission. Johnny, unfortunately, wasn't stupid enough to trust advice from a stranger he took to be a CIA spook. Plus, he pointed out that dad wouldn't listen to him anyway. I hated to admit it, but he was right. I began formulating a "Plan B." While I was off talking to myself, Aeryn, Noranti and Rygel were discovering the miracle of television. To her credit, Chiana got bored with the boob tube and went exploring. Meanwhile, light-years away in the not-so-distant future, Moya waited on the other side of a wormhole to guide us home. That's where the Peacekeepers found her. Commandant Grayza and a team of her PK goons came aboard looking for yours truly. Back on Earth, the oversized "kids" celebrating Halloween in the abandoned house caught the eye of the neighbors, who called the local sheriff. Before he could tell them about their right to remain silent, D'Argo insulted him and Noranti huffed-and-puffed John Q. Law into Never-Never Land with a handful of one of her powders. I, meanwhile, had been thinking. In my original history, I'd been trapped in a fire right before dad had planned to leave for the Challenger mission prep. He'd saved me, then refused the mission so he could stay home while I recovered. To fix the future, I would have to re-create that fire. Dad was planning to leave right away; I needed to stall him. Without revealing who I was, I talked to my mom. I convinced her to make dad stay home through the weekend, which bought us a little time. Seeing mom alive and healthy was so good — and so difficult. I wish I'd had time to warn her what was coming, to see a doctor sooner rather than later, but there was no way to tell her — and I feared causing further damage to the timeline. With dad's presence assured, Noranti concocted a syrup that would put the younger me into a brief coma to simulate smoke-inhalation trauma from the fire. She tested it on our pal the sheriff, then let him go. Chiana volunteered to lure young Johnny to the abandoned house and keep him busy till we were ready. I can guess how she did that, but I don't really want to know. Once we were all set, Chi gave Johnny, a.k.a. young me, Noranti's syrup. Good news: It knocked him out. Bad news: It knocked him out so hard his heart stopped. He died. And I vanished. Then the sheriff returned. Concerned citizens will be glad to hear that my hometown peace officers turned out to be very dedicated. Me? I had bigger problems. Not the least of which was the fact that I was dead....
"Terra Firma" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti David Franklin . . . . . . Lt. Braca Kent McCord . . . . . . Jack Crichton Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Commandant Grayza Murray Bartlett . . . . . . D.K. Geoff Morell . . . . . . Holt Sarah Enright . . . . . . Olivia Crichton Katherine Thomas . . . . . . Laura Kopecki Erica Heynatz . . . . . . Caroline Wallace Amy Salas . . . . . . Skreeth Joshua Anderson . . . . . . Bobby Crichton Writer . . . . . . Richard Manning Director . . . . . . Peter Andrikidis	I write to practice English. My name is Aeryn Sun. We are on Earth. I am learning a lot — Frell that. Sebacean is faster. I don't want John reading this, anyway. After we fixed Crichton's past ("Kansas"), we flew back through the wormhole to rendezvous with Moya above Earth, in the correct time period. Scorpius stayed behind in a Transport Pod monitoring a beacon that would guide us back through the wormhole to Tormented Space. We emerged from the wormhole to learn that Moya had been in Earth orbit for some time. As a result, Crichton's father and some local dignitaries were on board our Leviathan, waiting to greet us. At first, Crichton didn't dare believe that he had truly come home, and I can't blame him. He's been tricked before. But this time it was real. The officials from Crichton's country, which has two names — Amereeka and You-Essay — gave us sumptuous living quarters and more than sufficient currency. We became famous. We were even on television. (Crichton's people are obsessed with television; they serve its programs as fanatically as Peacekeepers serve the chain of command.) Earth's politicians wanted our friendship; its press wanted our pictures; its scientists wanted our technology. We gave them all that they asked for, as best we could. Crichton protected us from the worst of the onslaught, and the human security forces assigned to us were also minimally competent — at least against others of their own species. I enjoyed meeting the people whom Crichton has told me about during the past three cycles. His sister, Olivia, loaned me clothing and books and proved, through many small acts of kindness, that Crichton's generosity runs in his family. His friend D.K. seemed friendly as well; he had married another scientist while John was away. Crichton was glad to see his old friend, but he grew tired of answering D.K.'s questions about the Leviathan-inspired modifications Crichton had made to the Farscape Module. One person Crichton hadn't spoken of to me was his human girlfriend, Caroline. I imagine that she must have grieved after Crichton's disappearance, and I refuse to begrudge her the gladness she must have felt when he came home. It was good to meet Crichton's father, the real Jack Crichton, at last. He told me privately that he believes John cares for me. I didn't tell him about Crichton's recent coldness toward me. Jack's consolation didn't make Crichton's indifference any easier to bear, but it showed me that Jack himself cares for me, and that means more to me than I'll ever admit. Jack's government had designated him their "project director for extraterrestrial studies." Crichton argued with his father's decision to restrict other Earth countries from speaking with us or studying our technology. Crichton felt that allowing representatives from all of Earth's countries to travel aboard Moya would have a unifying effect. I agreed; Earth's countless warring nation-states are sadly primitive, and would benefit from the balance of technological equality. But Jack believed sharing such knowledge would be dangerous for You-Essay. He probably knew something I didn't. After all, Earth was not my place, not my home.... ...and I knew that if I couldn't be with Crichton, Earth could never be my home. And Crichton wasn't with me. Even after Caroline confessed to me that Crichton no longer loved her — even after Jack reassured me that he sensed John's connection to me — I knew that something was still broken between me and John. I decided to return to Moya and wait out Crichton's visit to Earth; I had planned to count the solar days until I could return to my own part of space. Crichton was home; he didn't need me any more. Except that he did. Somehow, a creature had followed us to Earth. It was vicious, strong and could turn invisible at will. Without more information, I won't speculate about its origins or how it got to You-Essay. It must have possessed some intelligence, however, because it had reached the planet surface undetected and tracked Crichton to his family home. And unless John or I could find its weakness soon, it would surely kill us both.
"Twice Shy" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Paula Arundell . . . . . . Talikaa Chris Pitman . . . . . . Nazradu Walter Grkovic . . . . . . Outurak Writer . . . . . . David Peckinpah Director . . . . . . Kate Woods	Journal of Sikozu Shanu, aboard the Leviathan Moya in Tormented Space: For once, disaster has ensued because this crew — Chiana in particular — tried to do something marginally sane. When two traders offered to sell us a slave girl named Talikaa, Chiana insisted that we liberate the girl by buying her. Talikaa showed us little gratitude for her rescue. Worse, the people she touched (which, ultimately, was everyone except Noranti) began acting strangely. Aeryn was colder to Crichton than their ongoing conflict could possibly justify, while Crichton became foolishly convinced that he and Aeryn would soon reconcile. Chiana was even more sexual than usual — toward Talikaa. Elsewhere, Rygel boasted to D'Argo that he'd cheated the traders, giving them cheap altered currency. Rygel is greedy, but rarely does his avarice betray him into making such a foolish admission. D'Argo's fury in response was equally disproportionate. It seemed that each crew member's dominant trait (Crichton's hopefulness, Rygel's greed, and so forth) had been magnified. Though Talikaa acted like a cowed ex-slave, Noranti and I suspected she was to blame for the others' odd behavior. I voiced my concerns to Scorpius, who convinced Crichton to track down our guest. After a shipwide chase, Crichton and Aeryn cornered Talikaa. Later, they couldn't remember how the girl had rendered them unconscious, only that it had been fast and vicious. They awoke feeling sick and empty. Talikaa soon attacked D'Argo, Chiana and Rygel in the same manner. I seemed to be immune to Talikaa's strange powers, but she assaulted me, too. Transforming herself into an arachnid monster, she severed my arm and leg and left me for dead. Noranti and Scorpius discovered my unconscious body in time. While Noranti aided me, Scorpius began waging a terrible mental struggle: Talikaa's touch had emboldened the dangerous, Scarran side of his mixed ancestry, overwhelming his normally well-balanced personality. Weak and sick, the others now realized that Crichton had become pessimistic, Aeryn overly emotional, D'Argo oddly placid, Chiana chaste and Rygel apathetic. Talikaa's second contacts with them had stolen the dominant traits that her initial touch had enhanced. Further, Moya sensed the traders' ship returning. The crew feared that the men had discovered Rygel's fraud and were coming to exact their revenge. But the traders actually were coming to plead for our help. They were too late — by the time we had brought their ship aboard Moya, the traders had died of a wasting disease. It was soon clear that they'd been Talikaa's previous victims. Crichton and the others saw their own grim fate in the traders' corpses. On the traders' vessel, the crew discovered a medical data file that explained Talikaa's behavior. Her species first enhances then "harvests" the neural energy of each victim's dominant trait. Each victim's stolen neural energy is stored in a unique orb in her nest for later consumption. If the crew could find Talikaa's nest and destroy the orbs, they could regain their vigor and defeat her. I regained consciousness and was comforted to find that Noranti had reattached my limbs properly. Though Scorpius was suffering terribly, I still considered him a valuable ally; Noranti, however, overreacted and knocked him out with one of her powders. No one could locate Talikaa's nest, and the crew was weakening physically and mentally. Crichton was despairing; Aeryn was near panic. Then the traders' vessel powered up and fled Moya. Certain that Talikaa had escaped, the crew raced to D'Argo's ship to pursue her. Crichton, now too weak to accompany them, stayed behind. But when D'Argo and the others boarded the traders' ship, they found it empty. It had been a diversion. Talikaa was still hiding aboard Moya. The only people left now to stop her were me (half-crippled), Scorpius (losing his mind), Noranti (old, unreliable), and Crichton (near death, though whether from neural collapse or suicide remained to be seen). If it weren't for Scorpius, my life on Moya would be beyond unbearable. Naturally, then, Crichton devised a plan to sacrifice him, the only competent being (other than myself) aboard Moya, in a desperate bid to trick the monster into revealing its nest. If only I knew what Scorpius saw in this Human....
"Mental as Anything" Blair Venn . . . . . . Macton John Brumpton . . . . . . Katoya Rachel Gordon . . . . . . Lo'Laan Writer . . . . . . Mark Saraceni Director . . . . . . Geoff Bennett	This is Ka D'Argo, Captain of Moya, Luxan Warrior. "Luxan Warrior." Whatever that means. It seems like we're mostly known for hyper rage, which does nothing for our image. Any species that's known for being physiologically susceptible to blinding fits of violent anger is risking a bad reputation. That's why my Sebacean wife, Lo'Laan, showed me such a great depth of love and trust when she married me. Why all the reminiscing, you ask? Crichton, Scorpius, Rygel and I recently attended Master Katoya's Mental Arts Training Camp. According to Scorpius, Katoya could tell us about the creature that attacked Crichton's friends on Earth. (Unsurprisingly, Scorpius's real motive for getting us to the camp turned out to be different: He wanted Katoya to train Crichton to resist Scarran interrogation tactics. For some reason — I wasn't paying the best attention — this meant that Crichton had to be locked in a cage with hot coals. What's worse, I believe it actually was good for him.) At our first class, as Katoya explained the rigors of our training in his TaskChairs, I recognized one of the other students: It was Macton — Lo'Laan's brother, the man who murdered my wife and framed me for the crime. I wasted no time attacking him. He yelled that I was denying the truth about Lo'Laan's murder. Regardless, he still would have been dead, problem solved, if Katoya hadn't stopped us both. Apparently, the Master disapproved of his students killing each other inside his facility. As Macton's scent filled my nose and fueled my rage, I really didn't care what Katoya did and didn't approve of. At the next break, Macton cornered Crichton. He told Crichton his version of the "truth" — that I had killed Lo'Laan in a fit of hyper rage but couldn't remember it because hyper rage causes blackouts. When Crichton repeated Macton's words to me, I couldn't believe it. First, because I'd learned to master my hyper rage by the time I got married; and second, because Lo'Laan had vowed to tell me if I hurt her — or even touched her — while I was in a hyper rage. She had never complained, and I trusted her promise. But when I entered the virtual world of the TaskChairs for the first time, Macton's accusations were working on my mind. The frustrations of the game nearly overwhelmed me. I barely pulled back from my hyper rage in time. My self-control was more fragile than I wanted to believe. Rygel said I should kill Macton and be done with it. For some reason — Fear? Doubt? Foolishness? — I hesitated to act. Macton confronted me again. He was persuasive. My memories started to get frelled. What if Lo'Laan had lied out of love for me? What if I had hit her? I could almost see it. If I'd assaulted her once, I could've done it again. What if my final attack had left her dead and me with no memory of it? What if my Luxan physiology had betrayed me — and my beloved wife — after all? Crichton still supported me, as I knew he would, but he was in the hot-coal cage by this point so he had his own problems. In desperation, I went to Katoya. He was a great master of mental discipline; I had hoped he could help me learn the truth. Sitting down in the TaskChairs once more, we entered the virtual world. Katoya guided me as we began to re-create my past inside his virtual environment. There was Lo'Laan, beautiful as ever. In the memory, I hit her. After my hyper rage subsided, I told her that I'd blacked out, and I asked her if I'd hurt her. She said I hadn't. While Katoya and I were embraced by this horrific moment from my past, our bodies were defenseless in the TaskChairs. And that was when Macton attacked and killed Katoya. He had me at his mercy ... but trapped in my own mind, all I cared about was the bruise on Lo'Laan's face, the fear in her eyes — and the shame in my heart....
"Bringing Home the Beacon" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Grayza David Franklin . . . . . . Capt. Braca Francesca Buller . . . . . . Akhna John Pasvolsky . . . . . . Pennoch Peter Lamb . . . . . . Rekka Peter Fenton . . . . . . Negotiator Olivia Pigeot . . . . . . Marella Writer . . . . . . Carleton Eastlake Director . . . . . . Rowan Woods	While the boys were off at brain camp, we girls — Aeryn, Sikozu, Noranti and me (Chiana) — went shopping. Not the drad kind of shopping, though. We had to visit this totally frelled commerce settlement and buy a sensor distorter for Moya. That's a device that makes Moya look like a harmless ore freighter to anyone scanning her. The dealers who could make the distorter tried to frell us on the deal, of course — and the one in charge, Rekka, was really rude when I offered him some extra attention. But we were still too smart for 'em (we live with Rygel, after all). They said they'd bring the distorter to our Transport Pod in four arns. Terrific. Four arns for us to get into trouble. Didn't even take us four microts. First, I followed our dealer-friends to make sure they didn't take our money and give us a pile of dren. I lost track of 'em when they went into a spa, so I went in myself. (Nothing like blezzing out with a massage and calling it work.) The problem was, this spa also sold genetic transformations, which make clients look like somebody else, right down to their DNA. Rekka could've changed his face to look like anyone. Meanwhile, Aeryn, Sikozu and Noranti had seen Grayza, Braca and some Peacekeeper deenals arriving on the planetoid — followed by a batch of Scarrans and Charrids. Know what was tinked about that? None of 'em were after us. They were having a secret meeting with each other. Tinked. While Aeryn and Sikozu spied on the meeting, they sent Noranti to tell me the news. When we realized the Peacekeepers had started asking around looking for us, I was really glad we were in a spa that sold appearance changes.... While we were doing that, Aeryn and Sikozu were watching Grayza get cozy with Ahkna, the Scarran War Minister. Basically, that tralk Grayza offered to sell out the Luxan homeworlds to the Scarrans. In exchange, she wanted a peace treaty — and the Uncharted Territories. Ahkna seemed tempted to accept, even though she wanted to discuss the PKs' wormhole weapons, too. If these two closed a deal, they'd both get all kinds of power, and the rest of the universe would get frelled. Anyway, pretty soon Noranti and I looked totally different, thanks to our transformations. We passed the PK scans, and went to find Aeryn and Sikozu. Aeryn wanted to assassinate both leaders, but she couldn't get a shot before a PK guard found her and Sikozu. By the time they'd blasted him, it was too late: Ahkna and Grayza had already signed the treaty. But it was a trap. Ahkna's guards started shooting, and Ahkna captured Grayza and Braca. We knew that if we let Ahkna interrogate Grayza, the Scarrans would learn that there are no Peacekeeper wormhole weapons. This would be great news for the Scarrans, who would invade and conquer the Peacekeepers. But it'd be awful for us. So we had to rescue the tralk. My job was to go meet the dealers at our Transport Pod. If we freed Grayza, we'd need a quick getaway — and the sensor distorter, which is what we'd come for in the first place and paid good crindars for. Unfortunately, Rekka didn't recognize me with my new look; that cost me a few bruises. Finally he kissed me, which grossed him out just like it had before. (Can I help it if the grislak has no taste?) I got the sensor distorter just in time. Noranti and Sikozu came rushing back; Aeryn had stayed behind to cover their retreat. They'd freed Grayza, but she'd escaped with Braca. We were getting really worried that Aeryn had been captured — then she scrambled in and told us to make a run for it. We still had to outrun the Scarran ships, but at least we were all safely back together. Or so we'd thought... .
"A Constellation of Doubt" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Nick Tate . . . . . . R. Wilson Monroe Sarah Enright . . . . . . Olivia Crichton Joshua Anderson . . . . . . Bobby Coleman Writer . . . . . . David Kemper Director . . . . . . Andrew Prowse	Journal of Sikozu Shanu ... still aboard the Leviathan Moya. Crichton will no doubt accuse me of lying if he reads this, but I respect what he sees in Aeryn. At the commerce settlement, I especially admired her cognition, composure and courage. Without her, we could neither have rescued Grayza from the Scarrans nor escaped in safety. Her sacrifice saved my life. Like the rest of Moya's crew, I'm sorry that Aeryn was abducted by the Scarrans that day. It saddens me to think that she is dead or dying in their hands. Few people deserve such a fate; she does not. No matter what Crichton and Chiana believe, if it were in my power to save Aeryn, I would try. What Crichton does not seem to understand is that it is not in my power. I have done all that I can, which is more than most. While the Scarrans were abducting Grayza, I heard them say that they were taking her to "Katratzi." I've never heard of such a place before; Pilot has never heard of it; even Scorpius has never heard of it. Nonetheless, this slim lead has given Crichton hope, and he has insisted that I track it down. Pilot and I have communicated with every source we can imagine. I've scoured every database I can connect to, and I've spoken to countless species, including Scarrans. No one has heard of Katratzi — or, if they have, no one dares speak of it. It must be a secret base, deep within Scarran territory. If that's true, Aeryn is all the more certainly lost. Even if we could enter Scarran space, she would be dead before we could begin to locate a top-secret base. Despite his grief, Crichton should realize that. Instead, he demands that I continue the search. Though I stopped looking a few arns ago, I won't tell him; if hope is all he has, why should I take it from him? But even this act of kindness did not go unpunished: Chiana discovered my well-intentioned deception and gave me a scolding of her own. As time passes, though, everyone but Crichton is beginning to face reality. Rygel has agreed with me from the start. Pilot and D'Argo understand that the odds are against us — and against Aeryn. Even Chiana has stopped arguing. Moya has become an oddly quiet ship. Except for Crichton. I believe the grief and worry are affecting his sanity (which has always been borderline, anyway). He has secluded himself in his quarters with a "videotape" containing an Earth transmission that Pilot intercepted near the wormhole. Crichton has spent arns watching this "documentary" — I will not spend arns rehashing it. It's filled with video recordings of us, all filmed by Crichton's young relation, Bobby, while we were visiting Earth. It's a piece of paranoid, isolationist propaganda masquerading as impartial journalism. (Then again, perhaps Crichton's people are correct to be frightened. If another species wanted to bother, Earth could be conquered or destroyed easily. It would be a calamity such as the Scarrans inflicted on the Kalish — except that the Kalish convinced their conquerors that they could be useful. I doubt that Earth could manage even half that much.) Crichton has also nurtured the irrational belief that he's heard the word Katratzi before. He can't say where, or when, though he insists that Chiana and I were there, and that we heard it, too. He's wrong. I've not always been honest with Crichton. But I am being honest about this. I wish he would believe me. And — though I sometimes admire his tenacity — I wish he would give up his irrational human hope. Then we could all mourn Aeryn together, in the manner that she deserves.
"Prayer" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Jason Clarke . . . . . . Jenek Sandy Gore . . . . . . Vreena Sacha Horler . . . . . . Morrock Writer . . . . . . Justin Monjo Director . . . . . . Peter Andrikidis	I've always worried that Scorpius would get a noose around Aeryn's neck and demand that I give up wormholes if I wanted her back. I knew that if it came to that, I'd break — I'd tell him everything, anything to get my Aeryn back. Well, that day's here. It's the Scarrans that have her, not Scorpy, but since I'll need his half-Scarran mojo to rescue her, he's holding the rope all the same. Me and Grasshopper have a deal: I'll trade him wormholes for Aeryn. Cue the Odd Couple theme music. Better play it on an organ, though. Think Dracula with irony. My only clue to Aeryn's whereabouts is the word Katratzi. I've heard it before, mixed in with Sikozu-Stark's gibberish on the alternate Moya that Einstein showed me. Scorpy and I shot ourselves through the same old wormhole, back to that freaky Moya. Once we arrived (and after only one wrong turn — I've done worse in Boston), we tracked down Sikozu-Stark, but she was clueless. Double-S explained that she must've picked up her knowledge of Katratzi while crossing a Scarran over to death — and ol' glow-face can only remember knowledge like that while she's in the crossing-over zone. So Scorpius hauled off and shot Rygel-Noranti. It was a waste, though: This Stark couldn't cross Rygel-Noranti over, because she can only cross over people she loves. We had to kill someone else. Someone she loved. Only one person on that Leviathan fit that description: Chiana-Aeryn. Am I really gonna blast off Chiana-Aeryn's head to save my Aeryn? Can I look into her eyes — Aeryn's eyes — and pull the trigger? I don't know who I've become. My friends are all in danger because of me. The galaxy could be on fire. The Peacekeepers could be slip-sliding away through wormholes to Earth with the Scarrans hot on their tails. Scorpius could be chilling on a throne, shooting Luke Skywalker full of blue electricity. But I'm thinking, "Who cares? If Aeryn's okay, then I done good." But right now, nothing's good. I've done nothing right. And I'll have to do more wrongs, unleash darker evils, if I want to save Aeryn. I can't believe I'm about to pull the trigger, but Aeryn needs me. I know she'll forgive me for this ... but will I ever forgive myself?
"Were So Screwed, Part 1: Fetal Attraction" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Jason Clarke . . . . . . Jenek Sandy Gore . . . . . . Vreena Shane Briant . . . . . . Trayso Rel Hunt . . . . . . Karohm Patrick Ward . . . . . . Ralnaht Ben Dalton . . . . . . Zepa Writer . . . . . . David Peckinpah Director . . . . . . Geoff Bennett	Journal of His Royal Eminence Rygel XVI – Dominar of Hyneria (currently in tragic and unjust exile) (Note to snoopers: You've already learned many of the disgusting things I can accomplish with my body's organs and orifices. If I find you reading this, you will learn more. Caw matan?) Aeryn had gotten herself abducted by Scarrans. We believed that they were taking her to a military base called "Katratzi," and Crichton had learned the location of the base. We proceeded forthwith to the appropriate border station to enter Scarran space. Upon our arrival, Scorpius introduced us as spies returning to our Scarran handlers. (It would be difficult to mistake me for a common spy, but don't underestimate my acting abilities.) To our excited surprise, we learned that Aeryn was aboard a freighter docked for inspection at that same border station. But the station, with its contingent of Scarran officers and Kalish functionaries, had tight security. Worse, the freighter had cleared quarantine and was about to depart for the even tighter security of Katratzi. Our Leviathan would be held here for several more solar days, at least. Typically, Moya's crew panicked. All would have been lost had I not intervened. I vomited as only a true Hynerian royal can, then explained to the Kalish medical officer, Dr. Trayso, that I had suffered from Hynerian dermaphollica many years ago. He immediately suspected that I might be suffering from a relapse of the disease. Ah! How the nik-nik trembled! Dermaphollica is highly contagious, but it shows visible symptoms only in Hynerians. Other species, if they are infected, die without warning. The quarantine was extended indefinitely, and all ships — including the one aboard which Aeryn was imprisoned — were held at the station. My share of the task accomplished, I settled in for a nap in the medical isolation ward while Crichton and the others plotted to finish Aeryn's rescue. To my irritation, Trayso soon grew doubtful that I was actually infected. I had everything under control, but Noranti took it upon herself to prove my lie true. That fahrbot barkan gave me a real case of Hynerian dermaphollica! Everyone on the station was now at risk of infection, except for the Scarrans and Nebari (two species undeserving of their natural immunity). Aeryn's rescue was going to hezmana. Sikozu struggled to access the station's schematics behind the back of Karohm, the station's Kalish operations officer. Crichton, meanwhile, attempted to seduce Aeryn's nurse with promises of a Sebacean cure for the disease. Intrigued, the nurse took him aboard the Scarran freighter. Crichton actually spoke to Aeryn herself before he was captured by the Scarrans. Scorpius covered for him, but both were forced to return to Moya without our quarry. Everyone was scared that Aeryn might succumb to dermaphollica. Her captors were particularly concerned; they wanted her fetus alive. Learning of the Nebari immunity to the disease, those bartantic Scarrans abducted Chiana and prepared to transplant Aeryn's fetus into her. I would have stepped in and solved everything, but my infernal illness prevented me. Noranti had taken me back to Moya, where she worked to find a cure. I bore my torment with stoic calm, excepting only those moments when I strategically stated my feelings to motivate Noranti. Did she show sufficient gratitude for my subtle leadership? I think not. Did anyone, for that matter, thank me for my sacrifices? No. Typical. Then, just as that three-eyed feznik was on the verge of finding a cure for me, the Scarrans took Noranti to the freighter to help them perform the fetal-transplant procedure. I was left alone on Moya, and I was quickly slipping into unconsciousness. ... Why can't these yotzes ever do anything without frelling it up?
"We're So Screwed, Part 2: Hot to Katratzi" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Paul Goddard . . . . . . Stark Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Commandant Grayza David Franklin . . . . . . Captain Braca Duncan Young . . . . . . Emperor Staleek Francesca Buller . . . . . . Minister Akhna Jason Clarke . . . . . . Jenek Jonathan Pasvolsky . . . . . . Pennoch David Downer . . . . . . Vakali Dean O'Gorman . . . . . . Zukash Jason Chong . . . . . . Rahzaro John Schwarz . . . . . . Tugar Sam Bettison . . . . . . Grek Writer . . . . . . Carleton Eastlake Director . . . . . . Karl Zwicky	Once upon a time, John Crichton and his amazingly great friends rescued the brave Aeryn Sun from the clutches of the evil Scarrans. The Scarrans imprisoned John's arch-nemesis Scorpius. John and Aeryn kissed; Aeryn's healthy, unborn baby waited for its birthday, the good ship Moya flew onward, and its crew lived happily ever— I wish. As I slept by Aeryn's side, Harvey woke up. Scorpius hadn't really removed his neural clone from my head, he'd just tweaked its programming. This new-and-improved Harvey 2.0 had stolen the wormhole equations from my mind and transmitted them to his boss. So Scorpius had my wormhole knowledge, after all. And the Scarrans had Scorpius. What choice did we have? My friends and I flew to Katratzi, the Scarran base. To pass the time, I put together a miniature Manhattan Project, fused it with my keen fashion sense, and created the latest must-have accessory: a wearable nuke. When I flashed my pret à porter plutonium powderkeg, the Scarrans very courteously invited me to join the negotiations between Grayza and Scarran Emperor Staleek. With the bomb wired to detonate if I suffered any physical or emotional distress, I finally got some frelling respect. I gotta tell ya ... after four cycles of having my ass kicked from one end of the Uncharted Territories to the other, even this variety of grudging, irate, "just-until-we-disarm-you" respect felt damn good. Sing it, Aretha! R-E-S-P-E-C-T, that's what this bomb means to me.... The Scarrans and Peacekeepers were now vying to buy my wormhole knowledge. Grayza offered me Boardwalk and a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Staleek, a savvier customer, asked to see the merchandise in action. Meanwhile, working under the radar, D'Argo and Rygel made nice with the station's contingent of Charrids, while Sikozu won over Katratzi's Kalish administrators. The Charrids and Kalish detested each other. If we could incite them to riot, that would cover our escape with Scorpius. We even had Chiana checking out alternative escape routes. We're getting good at this kind of thing. Still, time (tick-tock) wasn't our friend. Noranti had learned that Scorpius was locked into a Scarran-style Aurora Chair. He could break any minute. Plus the PKs and the Scarrans were searching for ways to disarm my bomb. Staleek, especially, wanted my blood, because my free-sample wormhole ate the minions he'd sent to observe it (never mind that he was the moron who ordered them to dive in when I told them not to). Tick-tock.... I wasn't the only impatient one. The Scarran Minister Ahkna let me and Aeryn visit Scorpy in the dungeons. As we expected, it was a trap: Ahkna slammed me with her heat ray. Apparently, she didn't believe I'd let the bomb go off. I convinced her otherwise. (Would I really have let the nuke blow? Fair question. If I survive, I'll ponder it in my memoirs.) Meanwhile, Sikozu had discovered that, deep underground, the Scarrans had a "secret cave." Only one elevator went down there, and only the Charrids had the security codes to that elevator — or so they thought. With the help of a member of the Kalish resistance, Sikozu now had them, too. Aeryn and I went to check it out. When the doors opened, we discovered that the secret cave was — I just love this — a flower garden. It was full of the Scarrans' favorite crystherium flowers (a.k.a. birds-of-paradise, those tropical spiky things). One of 'em was even a big-ass Stanley plant. I'll never understand Scarrans. When Aeryn and I were discovered in the garden, we claimed we'd ended up there by accident. The Scarrans yelled at the Charrids for leaving the Great Glass Elevator unlocked. The Charrids accused the Kalish of screwing them over. The Kalish denied everything, like true bureaucrats. And presto — we had our riot. Now we just had to break Scorpius out and escape undetected through the violence, without my heart rate climbing high enough to set off the nuke (premature detonation is never pretty). Plenty of things could go wrong, and I only knew about some of them. Someday — not today, but someday — I'll write the words, "We lived happily ever after," and they'll be true. "Star light, star bright, first star I see tonight...." I wish.
"We're So Screwed, Part 3: La Bomba" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Paul Goddard . . . . . . Stark Rebecca Riggs . . . . . . Commandant Grayza David Franklin . . . . . . Captain Braca Duncan Young . . . . . . Emperor Staleek Francesca Buller . . . . . . Minister Akhna Jason Clarke . . . . . . Jenek Jonathan Pasvolsky . . . . . . Pennoch David Downer . . . . . . Vakali Dean O'Gorman . . . . . . Zukash Jason Chong . . . . . . Rahzaro John Schwarz . . . . . . Tugar Sam Bettison . . . . . . Grek Writer . . . . . . Mark Saraceni Director . . . . . . Rowan Woods	Journal of Sikozu Shanu, documenting my infiltration of the Scarran base at Katratzi. Our plan to rescue Scorpius had gone unnervingly well, but, at the last microt, Scorpius himself assaulted Crichton and prevented our escape. The Scarrans placed us under guard as "guests" of the imperium. (Only Crichton's nuclear bomb prevented them from calling us "prisoners.") Crichton and the others were furious with Scorpius, but we soon learned that the Scarrans had secretly disabled D'Argo's ship, Lo'La, meaning that our escape would have failed. Scorpius had saved our lives. Regardless, he suffered the brunt of the group's rancor. Perhaps his motives were simply too complicated for them to grasp. Scorpius had discovered that the Scarrans' crystherium flowers were the source of the ruling class' power — and the blooms were cultivated only on Katratzi. If we could destroy the crystherium matriarch plant, the Scarran ruling structure would crumble. We, meanwhile, could ride the Rabrokator (a powerful drilling elevator) through the planetoid to the surface, and escape to Moya. Even after hearing this, Crichton obstinately insisted on exploring other options. He and Aeryn visited the Peacekeeper Command Carrier, only to learn that the Scarrans were ready to blow it up if it attempted to leave with Crichton aboard. D'Argo and Chiana inspected Lo'La, but to repair the Scarran tampering D'Argo had to initiate a full system restart — which meant that Lo'La would be useless for up to three arns. I met again with Zukash, the Kalish station worker who, like me, was a member of the resistance movement against our Scarran oppressors. He agreed to steal the master key chip that would give us control of the Rabrokator. Then, without warning, everything changed: Emperor Staleek's technicians disarmed Crichton's bomb. Our only protection was gone. Scorpius' plan instantly became our only choice. Pursued by Scarrans, everyone fled to the Rabrokator. Zukash raced to meet us there, and he gave me the key chip just as the guards shot him. His bravery made me proud to be what I am. We took the elevator to the crystherium chamber. I worked to activate the Rabrokator's drill, and Chiana held the door. Everyone else followed Scorpius to the matriarch plant. Everyone, that is, except Rygel and Noranti — they hadn't made it to the elevator in time. Left behind, they exhibited surprising resourcefulness by searching for their former shipmate Stark. They suspected that Stark was on Katratzi because Scorpius had told us that a bioloid copy of the Banik had been pretending to torture him. The real Stark knew Katratzi's layout, and Rygel and Noranti hoped that he could guide them to an exit. Just as I got the drill working, the Scarrans overrode the controls and the Rabrokator departed, nearly taking me and Chiana with it. We escaped to the crystherium chamber. There, Scorpius had been trying to destroy the matriarch plant, but it was well-shielded and all his attempts had failed. Without the elevator, we were trapped in the chamber. Any microt the Scarrans would send a squad in to kill us. Even Scorpius was out of ideas. That left me. I could save us, but it would endanger the Kalish Resistance by revealing my true nature. It would risk my life. And what would Scorpius think of me when he realized that I wasn't who I had claimed to be — that I was actually a bioloid, a biosynthetic machine created specifically to slaughter Scarrans? But I had no choice. As the Scarran squad arrived, I deployed my secret weapon: my body, which is designed to emit a radiation that targets the Scarrans' heat-producing glands. The effect kills them within seconds; unfortunately, its use renders me unconscious for much longer than that. The rest of our escape I know of only from the others — our return to the Rabrokator, the wild ride as it drilled out of control towards the surface ... and the moment when Crichton set off the nuclear bomb.
"Bad Timing" Raelee Hill . . . . . . Sikozu Melissa Jaffer . . . . . . Noranti Paul Goddard . . . . . . Stark David Franklin . . . . . . Captain Braca Duncan Young . . . . . . Emperor Staleek Francesca Buller . . . . . . Minister Akhna John Adam . . . . . . Pennoch Writer . . . . . . David Kemper Director . . . . . . Andrew Prowse	We had escaped Katratzi, and life seemed good. At least, it seemed good to me and Chiana. Then Braca's Command Carrier caught up with us. Braca had intercepted a Scarran communication. Emperor Staleek had ordered a ship to go through the wormhole to invade Earth and obtain the crystherium that grows there. Scorpius urged John to make an alliance with the Peacekeepers, to deter the Scarrans from moving against Earth. Instead, John banished Scorpius and Sikozu to the Command Carrier while we raced ahead to the wormhole. Pilot and Moya even employed an extra-nauseating extended Starburst to get us there ahead of the Scarran ship that was already on its way. John spent most of the trip working on wormhole equations. He was preparing to close the wormhole: Puncturing its "bubble" from the end nearest Earth would cause the wormhole to fold back in on itself and collapse. John was going to destroy the only way he knew to get home — forever. Unfortunately, John lacked the senses and reflexes needed to puncture the wormhole's bubble perfectly. He had given up hope and was about to make a deal with Scorpius. That's when Pilot volunteered to let himself be separated from Moya (a process that would cause him and Moya intense pain) and placed in a Transport Pod, so that he could fly the bubble-popping maneuver. There were only two problems. Moya objected, and Pilot would die if he were separated from her for more than an arn. The risk to Pilot was horrible, but there were billions of innocent lives at stake. I grudgingly severed Pilot's connection to Moya. It was heartbreaking to inflict such hideous suffering on them, even with their consent. Not even Stark could alleviate their agony. Pilot, John and Aeryn were soon on their way. John's final visit to his homeworld was too short. From Earth's moon he contacted his father and said good-bye. I think of the last time I saw my son, Jothee, and I can imagine how they both must have felt. Back on Moya, we could only wait. Most of the ship was dormant, although Chiana, using her special sight, had been able to memorize the most critical of Pilot's functions. The effort had blinded her, but because of it we had enough systems online to let us track the approaching Scarran Stryker craft. It fired at us as it passed, causing severe damage. After it disappeared into the wormhole, we all feared the worst. And as the captain, I couldn't help but feel solely responsible. But, as the wormhole opened on John's end, Pilot flew the Transport Pod perfectly through the wormhole's bubble. It began collapsing behind the Pod as our friends sped back to us. The Scarrans, flying straight into the wormhole's collapsing terminus, were obliterated. Our friends came home. Moya was injured, and she needed time to re-bond with Pilot, both mentally and physically. We landed on a planet called Qujaga, whose oceans contained minerals that would heal Moya's wounds and soothe her pain. While Moya drifted in the sea, my biggest concern was that Chiana was still blind. Her vision had always recovered before, but this time we feared it wouldn't. We planned to see a Diagnosan about it as soon as we left Qujaga. Meanwhile, John took Aeryn for a boat ride. We watched them from the forward portal as Aeryn told John something that made him shout at the sky. When he was done waving his fist, he knelt and gave her a ring, which Chiana said is what humans do instead of exchanging Union Tattoos. John and Aeryn were going to be married. Then the alien ship came out of nowhere. It buzzed blindingly fast over their little boat, circled, then headed for them again. John and Aeryn tried to make it back to Moya, but there was nothing they — or any of us — could do. The alien ship fired a strange weapon at them. John and Aeryn turned into crystal and shattered into a thousand glittering fragments. Just like that. Gone. For no good reason. For no noble cause. The universe has frelled with us for cycles. I felt it owed us some happiness: to Chiana for her dead brother and her blindness; to Rygel for the kingdom his cousin stole from him; to me for the loss of Lo'Laan and Jothee; to Aeryn for her suffering at the hands of the Scarrans. And especially to John, for giving up his only way home, for the tortures he has suffered, for the sacrifices he made and the risks he took for all of us. I had been dangerously close to believing the universe was going to pay its debt to us. But it doesn't work that way. The universe doesn't keep score, or care. Aeryn, you always had strength; John, you always had hope. I will not let these things die with you. I will live as you have taught me. And one day, I will avenge you. Be at peace, my friends. — Ka D'Argo, commander of the Leviathan Moya