Categories > TV > Farscape > The Road Home
Chapter One
0 reviewsAU. When John was pulled down the wormhole at the end of Unrealized Realities a series of events is set in motion that will change the balance of power in the Uncharted Territories forever.
1Exciting
Chapter One
Chapter One
Moya
That Same Time
Aeryn Sun stood staring at Moya's front screen at the softly glowing and rippling bluish vortex in space that was the wormhole that had just swallowed John Crichton whole. She couldn't believe what had just happened, how the wormhole had seemed to latch onto the human and pull him in, and she couldn't help but feel that it had just pulled in a part of her as well.
Thinking about John Aeryn couldn't help but wince as she realised how she'd been treating him recently, ever since she'd returned to Moya after the death of his twin on Talyn after the other John had used a wormhole based weapon to completely destroy a Scarren dreadnought. She'd been so lost in her grief over that John's death from radiation poisoning that she had treated the John who'd been here on Moya all along like dren, and he'd done nothing wrong. All he'd done was worry about her while she'd been away on Talyn, both D'Argo and Zhaan had repeated told her how John had worried about and missed her. She hadn't realised until now that with the John here on Moya she'd been given another chance to be happy, but now that chance was seemingly gone.
She barely noticed when D'Argo came into command with Zhaan only a few steps behind him.
"Aeryn," D'Argo said drawing her attention. Aeryn turned to look at D'Argo and the Luxan noticed the faint tear tracks running down Aeryn's cheeks. Pilot had told him what had happened as soon as it occurred and it was obvious that Aeryn was taking it badly, fearing that she had once again seen John die.
"Yes D'Argo," Aeryn asked as she felt the tears on her cheeks and angrily wiped them away.
"I'm going to be taking my ship into the wormhole to see if I can find John before the oxygen supply in his spacesuit runs out," D'Argo said. "Do you want to come?"
"Yes I would like that," Aeryn replied silently hoping that they would get to John before the oxygen supply in his spacesuit was depleted. She had no idea how much oxygen John had in the spacesuit, but he had been out observing the wormhole for a considerable period of time. Probably long enough that the oxygen in the suit would have dropped to a low level. She hoped that wherever he was drifting through space wherever the wormhole had spat him out he was okay and not out of air. She would hate to get there and find nothing but a lifeless body.
D'Argo nodded and then turned and led the way out the command towards the transport hanger and his ship.
***
Medical Bay
THS Atlantis
Doctor Kirsten Roseberg frowned in confusion as she studied the information being display on holographic screens from the scan she had just done of the human-looking alien who had just been rushed to her medical bay after collapsing from oxygen-deprivation in one of the ships airlocks.
The scans indicated that her patient wasn't an alien at all, instead as amazing as it seemed he was Terran. The question was where had he come from? Terrans didn't regularly make a habit of travelling via wormhole without a ship of any kind. What was also puzzling was the fact that he had no nanites of any kind in his body, though there was a colony of microbes at the base of his brain that seemed to do the same job as translators. There was also the remains of somekind of neural implant present in the strange Terrans brain, the neural circuitry was quite primitive as such things went and there were signs that the implant was slowly breaking down. The deterioration was slow, the Terran could live another fifty years without any ill effects from the implant, but it would eventually kill him, unless something was done about it.
Kirsten sighed and keyed a command into the diagnostic console again running another scan. The results appeared almost instantly and showed exactly the same results as before, she turned away from the diagnostic console and looked at her patient lying unconscious on the biobed. He was quite a handsome young man, the scan showed he was only in his thirties, he should have a century or two of life ahead of him, not be doomed to die in fifty years because of a neural implant. But he will die unless I do something about it, she thought going back to the diagnostic console and running another scan this time focusing on the neural implant.
The scan results appeared instantly and Kirsten frowned as she examined them. It looked like someone had surgically removed a considerable portion of the neural implant and grafted neural tissue to bridge the gap and enable the stranger to continue to live and function. But the rest of the implant was still present and slender metallic tendrils from the implant were woven deep into her patients brain, removing them surgically would be impossible, the risk of fatal brain damage was far to great. But there was another way, but that would require her introducing nanites to the stranger, something she was reluctant to do without knowing who he was or where he had come from. The nanites would recognise the implant as something dangerous and destroy it without damaging the rest of the brain, but they would also merge with and enhance the stranger's body.
Kirsten turned and looked back at the stranger again debating with herself what she should do, the moral dilemma weighing heavily upon her. If she did nothing then she was condemning her patient to what would eventually be a painful death as the implant broke down and caused his neural pathways to begin collapsing. But without knowing where he came from she could be violating the rules of his culture. It was known that in the early days of interstellar flight some colony ships, filled with people who wanted to explore a different way of life to the rest of their race, had left Terran space and most had disappeared without a trace. It was possible that her patient could come from a colony founded somewhere in space by one of those first interstellar pioneers.
After a few moments as if in response to her looking at him her patient groaned softly and the sensors monitoring him bleeped for her attention. Kirsten turned around again and looked at her holographic displays to see that her patient was rapidly approaching the threshold of consciousness, he would be awake in a few more moments.
Calmly she pressed a section of her uniform activating the communicator built into it.
"Medical bay to the bridge," she said. "Captain our guest is coming around."
"Very well doctor I'll be right there," the calm voice of Captain Aiden Jackson replied immediately before signing off. Kirsten turned off her comm and returned to checking her patient's vital signs as he approached consciousness.
***
Bridge
Captain Aiden Jackson signed off with Doctor Roseberg and stood up from his command chair.
"Commander Nakamura you have the bridge," he said looking over at his first officer. "I'll be in the medical bay."
"Aye, sir," Commander Nakamura replied immediately. Aiden smiled and started to leave the bridge of the Atlantis when the sensors chimed for attention.
"Captain we're picking up increased gravitic and neutron emission activity from the wormhole," the lieutenant crewing the sensor station reported. "There appears to be a ship coming through." Aiden turned around and returned to his command chair.
"Show me," he ordered.
"Aye, sir." A holographic screen appeared in front of him showing the image of the softly glowing silvery blue vortex of the wormhole. For a moment nothing happened then a small ship came shooting up out of the wormhole's event horizon.
"Sensors what do you make of it," Aiden ordered.
"The ship appears to be a large fighter of somekind," sensors reported. "The ship has a powerful but more primitive form of a Henderson drive system, but no hyperlight system, the hull is armoured, they do have shields as well but they are nowhere near as powerful as ours. I also detect a cloaking device and a single large directed energy weapon, type unknown."
"Life signs?"
"Two life forms aboard. Sir from these readings there two separate species."
"Interesting. Have they seen us?"
"Yes sir. I'm picking up sensors attempting to probe us."
"Communications hail them."
"Aye, sir. Channel open sir." Aiden nodded.
"This is Captain Aiden Jackson of the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel. You are in Terran space identify yourself."
"No response sir." Aiden frowned and tired again.
"Repeating this the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel, you are violating Terran space identify yourselves immediately."
"Still no answer sir."
"Can they hear us?"
"Yes, sir there just not responding."
"Hmm weapons power up one of the proton cannon turrets and fire a warning shot."
"Aye, sir."
***
Lolaan
A Few Moments Earlier
Both D'Argo and Aeryn were startled when they emerged from the wormhole into an unfamiliar solar system that there navigational system showed was in one of the spiral arms of galaxy, far from the Uncharted Territories, beyond even Tormented Space.
Aeryn was about to beginning scanning looking for any sign of John either by his suit beacon - assuming it hadn't been damaged by passage through the wormhole, or by his life signs when an alarm sounded indicating that Lolaan had picked up a potentially hostile contact. Instantly Aeryn's Peacekeeper training kicked in and she turned her attention to the tactical sensors, her concern for John pushed aside by the conditioning that had been ingrained in her since birth. Oh frell, she thought as she read the sensor displays.
An unknown alien vessel that was definitely a warship of somekind was hanging in space less than ten metras away from them. The sensors showed it was about twice Moya's size and was bristling with weapons of unknown kind. The ship was also putting out a huge amount of energy every micron, several times what a command carrier could generate in an arn. Strangely she couldn't detect a hetch drive as she understood it though the ship was generating the same field around its hull that a hetch drive put out to allow a ship to travel at faster than light speeds in normal space without relativistic effects. Obviously it had to have a hetch drive, or something so similar that it made no difference. She scanned the ship more closely and saw something that made her gasp in complete and total shock and amazement. There was writing on the hull; the same writing that was in John's module. It was English and it said THS Atlantis. She could read it as John had taught her how to read and speak his language just as she'd taught him to read and speak Sebacean. They'd taught each other so if they were ever in a situation where their translator microbes weren't working for some reason they'd be able to understand each other.
Before she could speak to advise D'Argo the comm chirped as a signal came in from the unknown ship.
"This is Captain Aiden Jackson of the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel. You are in Terran space identify yourself," a voice said from the, could it be, Human ship. Terran what's a Terran, Aeryn thought confused.
"What is a Terran," D'Argo wondered aloud debating with himself if he should answer the hail though he was not happy that they'd come out of the wormhole, expecting to find John drifting helpless in space and instead come face to face with an alien warship.
"D'Argo I think their Crichton's people," Aeryn said.
"That can't be John's people are technologically primitive just look at his module. There is no way they could build a ship like that," D'Argo replied a moment before the voice from the Atlantis came again.
"Repeating this the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel, you are violating Terran space identify yourselves immediately."
"It might be advisable to answer them," Aeryn pointed out. "And I know it's hard to believe but that ship has Human writing on it. Who else could have built it?"
"Point and if there is one thing I've learned from John its where his people are concerned its expect the unexpected," D'Argo replied a moment before Lolaan's sensors bleeped a warning of increased energy emissions from the /Atlantis/.
A few microns later a point on the Atlantis' hull flashed and a bolt of golden energy shot forth and flashed passed them in a clean miss. But it was immediately obvious to Aeryn that the bolt of weapons fire had not been intended to hit them and had merely been a warning shot. Lolaan's sensors reported that the pulse was somekind of proton based particle weapon and its energy level was three times that of a bolt from a command carriers frag cannons, if it had hit them full on they would have been instantly obliterated.
"Why you," D'Argo growled instantly incensed that someone had fired at his ship. Acting without thinking he raised the defence screen and brought /Lolaan's /weapon on line, before locking onto the /Atlantis/.
"D'Argo don't," Aeryn said trying to dissuade the Luxan from acting on the impulse from the volatile temper of his species, but she was too late. D'Argo fired.
A blue-white pulse of energy shot forth from Lolaan and streaked across space to hit the bow of the Atlantis/. A bright flash erupted on impact but then faded away as the energy dispersed back out into space in a rainbow blaze of diffusion. As the light faded it showed the /Atlantis was completely undamaged, there was not even carbon scoring at the point where the blast had hit her armour.
A moment later a different point on her hull flashed and a bolt of brilliant red laser fire flashed towards them. The shot hit immediately and Lolaan rocked violently and D'Argo's eyes widened as he saw that that one shot had reduced the defence screen to fifty percent. Another bolt of laser fire struck and Lolaan was thrown tumbling out of control as sparks shot out of panels all around the cockpit.
"Shields are down," Aeryn said. "Minor damage to the outer hull. One more of those will destroy us."
A jolt abruptly shook Lolaan but not the kind of jolt that came from weapons fire, as it occurred a blue light abruptly filled the view ports and there motion halted.
"What the frell," D'Argo exclaimed angrily. "We're being pulled towards them. It's like a docking web but much more powerful and focused and I've never seen one with this range."
Before Aeryn could reply a reddish light came through the hull and terrible exhaustion and numbness abruptly hit her system. Darkness began encroaching upon her vision and then she lost consciousness completely slumping forward over the controls. A moment later D'Argo too blacked out and slumped forward on his controls as Lolaan was drawn towards the Atlantis.
***
Bridge
THS Atlantis
"The unknown ship has been immobilised sir and the crew are unconscious," the sensor lieutenant reported.
"Good. Bring them into the hanger bay and get a security team down there. I want those two in the brig before they wake up."
"Aye, sir."
Chapter One
Moya
That Same Time
Aeryn Sun stood staring at Moya's front screen at the softly glowing and rippling bluish vortex in space that was the wormhole that had just swallowed John Crichton whole. She couldn't believe what had just happened, how the wormhole had seemed to latch onto the human and pull him in, and she couldn't help but feel that it had just pulled in a part of her as well.
Thinking about John Aeryn couldn't help but wince as she realised how she'd been treating him recently, ever since she'd returned to Moya after the death of his twin on Talyn after the other John had used a wormhole based weapon to completely destroy a Scarren dreadnought. She'd been so lost in her grief over that John's death from radiation poisoning that she had treated the John who'd been here on Moya all along like dren, and he'd done nothing wrong. All he'd done was worry about her while she'd been away on Talyn, both D'Argo and Zhaan had repeated told her how John had worried about and missed her. She hadn't realised until now that with the John here on Moya she'd been given another chance to be happy, but now that chance was seemingly gone.
She barely noticed when D'Argo came into command with Zhaan only a few steps behind him.
"Aeryn," D'Argo said drawing her attention. Aeryn turned to look at D'Argo and the Luxan noticed the faint tear tracks running down Aeryn's cheeks. Pilot had told him what had happened as soon as it occurred and it was obvious that Aeryn was taking it badly, fearing that she had once again seen John die.
"Yes D'Argo," Aeryn asked as she felt the tears on her cheeks and angrily wiped them away.
"I'm going to be taking my ship into the wormhole to see if I can find John before the oxygen supply in his spacesuit runs out," D'Argo said. "Do you want to come?"
"Yes I would like that," Aeryn replied silently hoping that they would get to John before the oxygen supply in his spacesuit was depleted. She had no idea how much oxygen John had in the spacesuit, but he had been out observing the wormhole for a considerable period of time. Probably long enough that the oxygen in the suit would have dropped to a low level. She hoped that wherever he was drifting through space wherever the wormhole had spat him out he was okay and not out of air. She would hate to get there and find nothing but a lifeless body.
D'Argo nodded and then turned and led the way out the command towards the transport hanger and his ship.
***
Medical Bay
THS Atlantis
Doctor Kirsten Roseberg frowned in confusion as she studied the information being display on holographic screens from the scan she had just done of the human-looking alien who had just been rushed to her medical bay after collapsing from oxygen-deprivation in one of the ships airlocks.
The scans indicated that her patient wasn't an alien at all, instead as amazing as it seemed he was Terran. The question was where had he come from? Terrans didn't regularly make a habit of travelling via wormhole without a ship of any kind. What was also puzzling was the fact that he had no nanites of any kind in his body, though there was a colony of microbes at the base of his brain that seemed to do the same job as translators. There was also the remains of somekind of neural implant present in the strange Terrans brain, the neural circuitry was quite primitive as such things went and there were signs that the implant was slowly breaking down. The deterioration was slow, the Terran could live another fifty years without any ill effects from the implant, but it would eventually kill him, unless something was done about it.
Kirsten sighed and keyed a command into the diagnostic console again running another scan. The results appeared almost instantly and showed exactly the same results as before, she turned away from the diagnostic console and looked at her patient lying unconscious on the biobed. He was quite a handsome young man, the scan showed he was only in his thirties, he should have a century or two of life ahead of him, not be doomed to die in fifty years because of a neural implant. But he will die unless I do something about it, she thought going back to the diagnostic console and running another scan this time focusing on the neural implant.
The scan results appeared instantly and Kirsten frowned as she examined them. It looked like someone had surgically removed a considerable portion of the neural implant and grafted neural tissue to bridge the gap and enable the stranger to continue to live and function. But the rest of the implant was still present and slender metallic tendrils from the implant were woven deep into her patients brain, removing them surgically would be impossible, the risk of fatal brain damage was far to great. But there was another way, but that would require her introducing nanites to the stranger, something she was reluctant to do without knowing who he was or where he had come from. The nanites would recognise the implant as something dangerous and destroy it without damaging the rest of the brain, but they would also merge with and enhance the stranger's body.
Kirsten turned and looked back at the stranger again debating with herself what she should do, the moral dilemma weighing heavily upon her. If she did nothing then she was condemning her patient to what would eventually be a painful death as the implant broke down and caused his neural pathways to begin collapsing. But without knowing where he came from she could be violating the rules of his culture. It was known that in the early days of interstellar flight some colony ships, filled with people who wanted to explore a different way of life to the rest of their race, had left Terran space and most had disappeared without a trace. It was possible that her patient could come from a colony founded somewhere in space by one of those first interstellar pioneers.
After a few moments as if in response to her looking at him her patient groaned softly and the sensors monitoring him bleeped for her attention. Kirsten turned around again and looked at her holographic displays to see that her patient was rapidly approaching the threshold of consciousness, he would be awake in a few more moments.
Calmly she pressed a section of her uniform activating the communicator built into it.
"Medical bay to the bridge," she said. "Captain our guest is coming around."
"Very well doctor I'll be right there," the calm voice of Captain Aiden Jackson replied immediately before signing off. Kirsten turned off her comm and returned to checking her patient's vital signs as he approached consciousness.
***
Bridge
Captain Aiden Jackson signed off with Doctor Roseberg and stood up from his command chair.
"Commander Nakamura you have the bridge," he said looking over at his first officer. "I'll be in the medical bay."
"Aye, sir," Commander Nakamura replied immediately. Aiden smiled and started to leave the bridge of the Atlantis when the sensors chimed for attention.
"Captain we're picking up increased gravitic and neutron emission activity from the wormhole," the lieutenant crewing the sensor station reported. "There appears to be a ship coming through." Aiden turned around and returned to his command chair.
"Show me," he ordered.
"Aye, sir." A holographic screen appeared in front of him showing the image of the softly glowing silvery blue vortex of the wormhole. For a moment nothing happened then a small ship came shooting up out of the wormhole's event horizon.
"Sensors what do you make of it," Aiden ordered.
"The ship appears to be a large fighter of somekind," sensors reported. "The ship has a powerful but more primitive form of a Henderson drive system, but no hyperlight system, the hull is armoured, they do have shields as well but they are nowhere near as powerful as ours. I also detect a cloaking device and a single large directed energy weapon, type unknown."
"Life signs?"
"Two life forms aboard. Sir from these readings there two separate species."
"Interesting. Have they seen us?"
"Yes sir. I'm picking up sensors attempting to probe us."
"Communications hail them."
"Aye, sir. Channel open sir." Aiden nodded.
"This is Captain Aiden Jackson of the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel. You are in Terran space identify yourself."
"No response sir." Aiden frowned and tired again.
"Repeating this the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel, you are violating Terran space identify yourselves immediately."
"Still no answer sir."
"Can they hear us?"
"Yes, sir there just not responding."
"Hmm weapons power up one of the proton cannon turrets and fire a warning shot."
"Aye, sir."
***
Lolaan
A Few Moments Earlier
Both D'Argo and Aeryn were startled when they emerged from the wormhole into an unfamiliar solar system that there navigational system showed was in one of the spiral arms of galaxy, far from the Uncharted Territories, beyond even Tormented Space.
Aeryn was about to beginning scanning looking for any sign of John either by his suit beacon - assuming it hadn't been damaged by passage through the wormhole, or by his life signs when an alarm sounded indicating that Lolaan had picked up a potentially hostile contact. Instantly Aeryn's Peacekeeper training kicked in and she turned her attention to the tactical sensors, her concern for John pushed aside by the conditioning that had been ingrained in her since birth. Oh frell, she thought as she read the sensor displays.
An unknown alien vessel that was definitely a warship of somekind was hanging in space less than ten metras away from them. The sensors showed it was about twice Moya's size and was bristling with weapons of unknown kind. The ship was also putting out a huge amount of energy every micron, several times what a command carrier could generate in an arn. Strangely she couldn't detect a hetch drive as she understood it though the ship was generating the same field around its hull that a hetch drive put out to allow a ship to travel at faster than light speeds in normal space without relativistic effects. Obviously it had to have a hetch drive, or something so similar that it made no difference. She scanned the ship more closely and saw something that made her gasp in complete and total shock and amazement. There was writing on the hull; the same writing that was in John's module. It was English and it said THS Atlantis. She could read it as John had taught her how to read and speak his language just as she'd taught him to read and speak Sebacean. They'd taught each other so if they were ever in a situation where their translator microbes weren't working for some reason they'd be able to understand each other.
Before she could speak to advise D'Argo the comm chirped as a signal came in from the unknown ship.
"This is Captain Aiden Jackson of the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel. You are in Terran space identify yourself," a voice said from the, could it be, Human ship. Terran what's a Terran, Aeryn thought confused.
"What is a Terran," D'Argo wondered aloud debating with himself if he should answer the hail though he was not happy that they'd come out of the wormhole, expecting to find John drifting helpless in space and instead come face to face with an alien warship.
"D'Argo I think their Crichton's people," Aeryn said.
"That can't be John's people are technologically primitive just look at his module. There is no way they could build a ship like that," D'Argo replied a moment before the voice from the Atlantis came again.
"Repeating this the Terran Hegemony starship Atlantis to alien vessel, you are violating Terran space identify yourselves immediately."
"It might be advisable to answer them," Aeryn pointed out. "And I know it's hard to believe but that ship has Human writing on it. Who else could have built it?"
"Point and if there is one thing I've learned from John its where his people are concerned its expect the unexpected," D'Argo replied a moment before Lolaan's sensors bleeped a warning of increased energy emissions from the /Atlantis/.
A few microns later a point on the Atlantis' hull flashed and a bolt of golden energy shot forth and flashed passed them in a clean miss. But it was immediately obvious to Aeryn that the bolt of weapons fire had not been intended to hit them and had merely been a warning shot. Lolaan's sensors reported that the pulse was somekind of proton based particle weapon and its energy level was three times that of a bolt from a command carriers frag cannons, if it had hit them full on they would have been instantly obliterated.
"Why you," D'Argo growled instantly incensed that someone had fired at his ship. Acting without thinking he raised the defence screen and brought /Lolaan's /weapon on line, before locking onto the /Atlantis/.
"D'Argo don't," Aeryn said trying to dissuade the Luxan from acting on the impulse from the volatile temper of his species, but she was too late. D'Argo fired.
A blue-white pulse of energy shot forth from Lolaan and streaked across space to hit the bow of the Atlantis/. A bright flash erupted on impact but then faded away as the energy dispersed back out into space in a rainbow blaze of diffusion. As the light faded it showed the /Atlantis was completely undamaged, there was not even carbon scoring at the point where the blast had hit her armour.
A moment later a different point on her hull flashed and a bolt of brilliant red laser fire flashed towards them. The shot hit immediately and Lolaan rocked violently and D'Argo's eyes widened as he saw that that one shot had reduced the defence screen to fifty percent. Another bolt of laser fire struck and Lolaan was thrown tumbling out of control as sparks shot out of panels all around the cockpit.
"Shields are down," Aeryn said. "Minor damage to the outer hull. One more of those will destroy us."
A jolt abruptly shook Lolaan but not the kind of jolt that came from weapons fire, as it occurred a blue light abruptly filled the view ports and there motion halted.
"What the frell," D'Argo exclaimed angrily. "We're being pulled towards them. It's like a docking web but much more powerful and focused and I've never seen one with this range."
Before Aeryn could reply a reddish light came through the hull and terrible exhaustion and numbness abruptly hit her system. Darkness began encroaching upon her vision and then she lost consciousness completely slumping forward over the controls. A moment later D'Argo too blacked out and slumped forward on his controls as Lolaan was drawn towards the Atlantis.
***
Bridge
THS Atlantis
"The unknown ship has been immobilised sir and the crew are unconscious," the sensor lieutenant reported.
"Good. Bring them into the hanger bay and get a security team down there. I want those two in the brig before they wake up."
"Aye, sir."
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