Since I'm all Farscape right now, I'll add in my two cents to a great Farscape epic.

Kodiakkemax's In the Company of Ghosts trilogy takes everything you knew about Farscape and turns it outside in. Her prose is magnificent and her Captain Aeryn Sun far more formidable than the Aeryn Sun we all know. The universe she creates is sprawling and staggering and so real it hurts.

In the Company of Ghosts: Part 1. The Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies

Summary: A mere moment, passing unnoticed. A choice, unremarkable in a daily web of choices. And thus two Prowlers, two pilots... and two very different destinations. KM changes one moment in the premiere and leads us to an extraordinary journey and pushes and recreates Aeryn Sun into a formidable, flawed character beyond her Farscape roots. John is broken far more than he is, in search of something he doesn't know he lost.


"Lieutenant." He stopped, faced the other man in the corridor. "Do you know why I keep Captain Sun around?"

"No, sir."

"Precisely. You don't know. Rest assured, however, that I have my reasons, and they are very, very good."

"Yes, sir."

Not quite there. "When she comes to ask me if she can go back into the Fringe, I allow her. Without question, and without fail. Do you know why I do that?"

"No, sir."

"Because she needs the vast wastes of space, Lieutenant. She is empty inside, and out there is the only place where she can truly be at peace. If she were here, she would try to fill that emptiness inside of her. It's a . . . very unique talent she has, and one I have found extremely useful on more than one occasion." He smiled. "Although useful to me, it is not so beneficial for her, or rather, for those who make the mistake of . . . arousing her interest." He paused to emphasize his point; looking at Braca, he knew he was making it well. "You do not want her attention on you, Lieutenant. You are not enough to fill that void inside of her."

Braca gulped. "No, sir."





In the Company of Ghosts 2: Escape Velocity

Summary: John Crichton and Captain Aeryn Sun meet again. All hezmana breaks loose.

KM hits her stride, finally deviating away from the first three seasons of Farscape Escape Velocity is fast and furious, filled with glimpses of an even bigger plan besides the Scarran threat.


He hesitated for one moment, then pressed on. No guts, no glory. No risk, no jackpot. "You ever think about what you're doing?"

Silence. Her weak spot. She did think, and she obviously didn't always agree. Because she'd helped him, on the Carrier, while never going against her orders. She'd balanced that line like a trapeze artist from Cirque du Soleil, and the assured way she'd done it -- so well that it had taken him hours, alone in his Prowler, to figure out all the ways she'd cleared his path -- told him that it wasn't the first time she'd done something like that.

"Yes," she answered. Finally.

"So how do you do it? Day after day, cycle after cycle, even when you know the orders you're given are wrong?"

"How are you defining wrong?"

Her voice had changed; he knew her well enough to feel the difference. The edge. Something made him push harder, a desire to get past that distance between them. Knowing he had to dare, to risk, in order to gain anything, get anywhere. And where do you want to go today? Hell, she'd hit him where it hurt. Could he do the same to her? But more than that, could he truly read her that well? "You're smarter than that, Aeryn. You know better, and it's obvious -- you're not exactly the PK poster girl, happy to run around the universe and dominate the inferior races."

"No culture is perfect, John. Or will you tell me that Earth is a peaceful place?"

"No," he replied quietly. "I've never claimed that. But . . . it's my home, Aeryn. It's a world that I want to make a better place. Can you say the same about Peacekeepers?"

"Some . . . think about it. But most -- no." She was honest; he wasn't really surprised. "But it is a part of who I am, where I'm from. You can't forget Earth. I can't forget . . . what I was. What I was bred to be."

Past tense. "Aeryn . . . you can be more."

In the Company of Ghosts 3: Effects at Perihelion

Summary:
Peri-he-lion (n): The point in the path of a celestial body that is nearest to the sun.

Is it obvious? I love this trilogy too much! Aeryn and John's paths are now inexorably linked. Aeryn enters the lion's den racing against time to unravel a conspiracy threatening to unleash a war. It's far more than romance, its a universe, it's action, it's intrigue, politics and tactics.


Darwa paid for it. Again, and in spades. She was on him in an instant, hands and feet flying. John stared at her, stunned. He'd never seen her go all-out, hand-to-hand. Watching her and her team work out had been impressive as hell, but he'd never seen what a Ghost was really taught. She wasn't pulling her blows, and when he saw her face, something in him shuddered. Totally blank. Devoid of everything. She was going for the kill. Darwa was struggling to keep her off him, concentrating on defending himself.

"Darwa could pound me into the mat on any good day."

It wasn't a good day for Darwa. John cast around quickly, looking for something that he could use to sneak up behind her, drop her without hurting her.

"Commander--" Darwa was breathing heavily. "Get out of here -- she's gone -- won't be able to hold her off -- much longer."

"We can't just leave her here like this!"

"In med lab -- trank--" He yelped as she did something to his hand; John winced as he heard something snap.

"Aeryn!" John lunged forward, grabbed her from behind, cocked his hip and threw her across the floor, a wrestling move he'd picked up in high school. She bounced to her feet like a cartoon character, like Freddy Krueger, and stared at him from across the distance. She was far away, gone. Nothing there in her eyes.

Darwa was, at least, behind him. "She's gone," the commando whispered, and it sounded suspiciously like a prayer


Farscape pushed to its limits, picked bare bones and exposed to this lush and sprawling universe. Read.