FicWad

The Road Home

Chapter Five

Peacekeeper Command Carrier

Sometime Later

Commandant Mele-on Grayza sat in the silence of her office reading the report that she had just received from Peacekeeper High Command with a sense of stunned disbelief. A full Command Carrier being defeated by a single small unknown alien warship in a few short microns was unheard of. Not even the mighty hostships and heavy cruisers of the Nebari could do that.

"This cannot be," Grayza muttered reading through the more in depth details of the report. They included the sensor logs of the carrier in question, a carrier still limping towards the closest Peacekeeper fleet base for repairs. What immediately grabbed her attention were the life sign readings from the Terran ship, the /Atlantis/. The bio-readings matched those that they had on file for the Human John Crichton, the only conclusion being that they were the same race.

That revelation sent a shiver down Grayza's spine but it also helped to explain a few things about Crichton that had otherwise seemed inexplicable. Like how one primitive Sebacean-looking alien had been able to cause the Peacekeepers so many headaches over the last few cycles. Grayza realised now from these readings that the primitive label no longer applied to Crichton, it was possible that his people had known about this region of space and in an incredibly shrewd move had sent him here under the guise of being primitive to find out information about them. It was obvious that Terrans were far from primitive, but were a technologically very advanced race that was probably on a par with the Nebari if not even stronger.

Grayza could see from the notes that a number of her colleagues on the council suspected the same as her. There was an addendum present from Scorpius as well where he was saying that all the Aurora-chair interrogations he had subjected Crichton to may no longer be accurate. Species with the ability to resist the chair and even project false images had been encountered before, plus Crichton had once demonstrated the ability to put up mental walls to block the chair. Scorpius was speculating as well that Crichton might have been a Terran equivalent of a disrupter, sent here to gather information on there part of the galaxy for an unknown purpose. Grayza found herself actually agreeing with her long term rival, Scorpius analysis certainly made sense. But what did they have to gain by sending him here, she thought thinking about Crichton, what was there goal? Are they planning to invade us? I must find out, hopefully they were merely curious about us and thought this the best way to find out. The last thing we need is an enemy even stronger than the Scarrens.

A thought abruptly occurred to Grayza and she smiled shrewdly. If Crichton's people knew about the Peacekeepers from him, then they would also know about the Scarrens. If she could convince them that the Scarrens were the greater threat to them then they might be willing to join forces with the Peacekeepers and destroy them once and for all. Reaching out she pressed her desk intercom control.

"Grayza to bridge, set course for the Kaylon system best possible speed," she ordered. "Then I want you to establish a secure communications link with Peacekeeper Command."

"Yes commandant," Captain Braca responded immediately.

***

Katratzi

Scarren Empire, A Short Time Later

Emperor Staalek carefully studied the intelligence report that had just been submitted to him with a sense of stunned surprise and disbelief. Intelligence drones had intercepted a transmission from a number of Command Carriers to Peacekeeper Command detailing a battle with a new and obviously powerful spacefaring race called the Terrans. The battle had taken place at the other end of a wormhole in the Kaylon system and had seen a full Command Carrier be defeated and driven back in a few short microns - an event that to the knowledge of the Scarren Empire was unheard of. Not even the Nebari could defeat the Peacekeepers so quickly.

The fact that these Terrans could defeat a Peacekeeper warship so quickly made them a new potential threat to the Scarren Empire and their carefully laid plans for galactic conquest. A threat that could be very dangerous indeed as the Kaylon system was located only a dozen light cycles from the boarder of Scarren space on one of the paths that had been carefully chosen for the eventual invasion of Peacekeeper space. What concerned Staalek even more though was the discovery by intelligence that the Peacekeepers would be sending additional warships to the system and that Commandant Grayza had been assigned to command them. Staalek knew Grayza would probably try to make an alliance with these Terrans to oppose the Scarren Empire, something that could not be permitted to occur as it could derail everything the empire had been working towards.

Staalek considered what to do to prevent that eventuality from occurring. The Peacekeepers could not be allowed to transit the wormhole to see these Terrans and possibly make an alliance with them. The question was how to stop them; a fleet of dreadnoughts should be more than enough to make the point to the Peacekeepers and Grayza that he knew what they were up to. The risk was great though especially as it was possible the Terrans would send there own warships to the Kaylon side of the wormhole to secure it, Staalek would if he were in their position. They could end up having a skirmish and possibly starting a war with the Terrans if their two groups of ships met.

After a few more moments of silently contemplating the options Staalek lowered the pad and pressed a button on the arm of his throne. He didn't really have a choice he was going to have to send ships to the Kaylon system and secure it before the Peacekeepers arrived.

"Have War Minister Akhta report to me immediately," Staalek said.

"As you command," the voice of his adjutant responded. Staalek switched off the comm. channel and leaned back on his throne to await the war minister arrival so he could give her his orders and hope she carried them out properly for once.

***

THS Atlantis

That Same Time

A soft groaning sound made Kirsten Roseberg look up from reading some of the results of the tests she'd done on Aeryn Sun as her scans of the human looking alien woman had revealed some interesting things about her biology. Things that should have been impossible even with the almost improbably occurrence of convergent evolution. The woman in question had since been treated for her concussion and returned to her holding cell under sedation, she would remain there until at least they had a chance to really talk to John and find out what he knew about that alien fighter that had fired at them after ignoring all hails and forcing them to fire a warning shot.

Looking at the bio beds Kirsten smiled when she saw that John was starting to come around, the nanites having finally finished there integration with his body and removed that dangerous, primitive neural implant from his brain. They had actually been finished with their tasks for over an hour but John had remained asleep, something that Kirsten had fully expected to happen as initial nanite integration could be mildly traumatic for the body though it posed no danger. Standing up Kirsten walked over and looked down at John Crichton's handsome features a moment before his eyes opened again, this time showing no sign of the exhaustion that he had been experiencing the last time he woke up.

"Welcome back to the land of the living John," Kirsten said warmly. "How are you feeling?"

"Great," John replied, then reconsidered. "In fact I feel brilliant." And he did feel brilliant, he felt fit and stronger, stronger and fitter than he had ever felt in his life before. His whole body felt different, better somehow. It was really strange - especially knowing that it was all being caused by tiny biomechanical robots fused with his cells or swarming through his bloodstream. Kirsten smiled.

"Excellent," she answered. "Though I expect it probably feels a little strange to you as you've never had nanites in your body before."

"You can say that again." Kirsten frowned.

"Why would I," she asked. John laughed and shook his head.

"Sorry something we used to say in the twentieth century," he explained. "Don't mind me, I shouldn't have expected you to know it given it was a thousand years ago. You know I'm still having difficulty getting my head around that fact, a thousand years."

"I understand at least as much as someone born in this time can understand." John nodded and sat up and nearly ended up throwing himself off the bio bed as he exerted a lot more force than he had intended to use. He was sure he would have ended up flat on the deck had Kirsten's hand not darted out and made contact with his chest stopping him in his tracks with a strength that belied Kirsten's slim appearance.

"Whoa careful," Kirsten said. "Remember your muscles are now capable of generating immense amounts of force, you're ten times stronger than you were before. It will take awhile for your body to properly adjust to its new abilities." John nodded and locked around the sickbay and frowned when he did not see Aeryn.

"Where's Aeryn," he asked.

"I treated her concussion easily she's since been taken back to her holding cell," Kirsten replied. "We're still not sure what to do with her and the other one from that alien fighter, what did you call him again D'Argo was it."

"Yes that's his name, he's the only one who can pilot Lolaan as the ship won't respond to a non-Luxan," John replied. "I can explain why he fired at you, though an aggressive move it was probably not an intentional one."

"What do you mean?"

"D'Argo is a Luxan, there a warrior species but male Luxans especially have hair trigger tempers and can be prone to reacting before thinking," John explained. "You told me you fired a warning shot after D'Argo and Aeryn did not return your hails, which would have been more than enough to provoke an angry response. D'Argo did something similar once to me and was very apologetic about it afterwards saying it was the curse of his peoples warrior heritage." Kirsten looked thoughtful.

"I'll let Captain Jackson know that," she said at last. "In fact I'll do that in a few moments, if you can confirm with this D'Argo that's what happened then we will almost certainly release both him and Aeryn to join the others."

"Others," John asked. "What others?"

"Oh that's right you don't know," Kirsten said. "Shortly before the battle with the unknown alien warship a biomechanoid starship of some kind came through the wormhole. It was clear to us that the warship was pursuing and had its sights on destroying the unarmed ship. We couldn't let such aggression be tolerated in our home system of all places, when we ordered them to stop they fired at us."

"Moya is here," John exclaimed, then grinned. "I'm glad there safe and the Peacekeepers didn't get them. Everyone on Moya, me included, have suffered enough at the hands of the Peacekeepers. Where are they now?"

"They docked in one of the diplomatic bays on Fairway Station - Terra's main orbital spaceport - about fifteen minutes ago. I believe a diplomatic team is currently in the process of shuttling up from the planet to meet with them."

"I would like to go and see them later. Zhaan and the others are probably worried to death about me."

"I'm sure that can be arranged. In the meantime I assume that you would like to go and see Aeryn." John grinned and nodded, he was about to ask if he could go and see her, once he talked to Aeryn he was sure he would be able to straighten out the mess D'Argo's Luxan temper had gotten the two of them into. "Very well I'll arrange it. Wait here."

John nodded and watched as Kirsten left to go and talk to Captain Jackson. He suspected that she actually didn't need to leave his side to call the Atlantis' master; they were bound of have some form of personal communications devices, but was leaving so he wouldn't hear what she had to say. For a moment John considered trying to figure out how the nanites could have enhanced his hearing - see if that would let him listen in - but decided that any personal comm. devices would have been designed with that kind of thing in mind so as to protect people's privacy. Carefully he swung his legs off the side of the bed and waited with as much patience as he could muster for Kirsten to get back to him.

***

Aeryn's Cell

A Few Minutes Later



Aeryn paced restlessly around the cell resisting the impulse to glare at the bare metal walls. Try as she might she had not been able to find away to get out of this cell, there was no visible door, not mechanism for her to tap into. Nothing but bare metal walls, it begged the question as to how she had been placed in here in the first place. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she was aboard the Terran ship, and she had already decided that she didn't like them. They were keeping her from finding John and she hated them for that, assuming of course that John was still alive and on a planet as his spacesuits oxygen charge would have long since been exhausted.

A sound abruptly caught her attention and Aeryn stopped her pacing to look at the wall opposite the bed. Just in time to see a seam appear in the wall and rapidly expand into a doorway, the wall seemingly flowing aside like a liquid as opposed to a solid metal surface. Faintly she heard the sound of footsteps approaching and stiffened preparing herself to make a break for freedom. She guessed that she was about to be taken somewhere else on this ship for interrogation and that could not be allowed. Not when she had to still find John, even if he were dead now she still wanted to find him and hope wherever his soul was that he would forgive her for how she had been treating him since the death of his clone. How she would get off the ship she had no idea, she would have to cross that bridge when she came to it, all she knew was she had to get off.

A figure appeared in the doorway and stepped into the cell and abruptly all thought of fighting her way off the ship vanished as he lungs tightened into an amazed gasp, even as profound feeling of relief blossomed inside of her. For standing in the doorway facing her with a familiar loving smile on his handsome face was one Commander John Crichton.