Warning: Dark like a black hole. Angst. OOC. If you think the Tok’Ra is the best thing since sliced bread, you probably shouldn’t read this. Character death. (It’s D&C peeps!).

Spoilers: Divide and Conquer.

A/N: Was getting a timeline for my mega-multi crossover universe ready and this one was stuck on my brain as I was trying to align SG-1 with Torchwood and Terminator.

For my fanfiction.net reader: This is the last story I’ll publish here. The WIPS will be finished here as well, but any new ones, including new stories in the E:FC series, will only be available from my website, katjaboysen.dk

Last Stand.

You were a doctor once. You were a scientist. True, most would say that what you called science were only a decade short of leaches, but it was something you knew and was good at. Something that made you grow and challenged you.

Then THEY came. Wounded. Dying. Running.
You saw a chance for something bigger. Something much grander than other people’s petty woes and hypochondria. At least that was how you saw it at the time. A chance to REALLY make a difference. So when one of them DID die, you grabbed the chance to help with both hands and didn’t dare to look back.

Even when they marginalised your knowledge, little as it was, in favour of that of your Other. The one you saved with your choice.

Oh, they were grateful, very much so, but somewhere along the line, you realised you didn’t really matter to them. You were a necessary evil.

You tried to learn. To upgrade what you knew only to get shot down. You got used to hearing “You wouldn’t understand” and “It’s outside your grasp of understanding” more than once. And slowly you just gave up and allowed the Other to take over most of the time. You stagnated.

You still don’t know what hurt the most: To be dismissed as unimportant or that your Other either didn’t notice or didn’t care. You suspect it’s the later. After all, you’re just a necessary evil in the grand scheme of things.

Then you meet Her. Your other found a mate. And so did you, against all odds as it were. You loved her. Not her Other, but Her. And she loved you back. And for a while, you felt like you mattered. But ultimately you lost her. Your Other lost his mate as well, but to you it was inconsequential even as the rest of Them seems to mourn His mate more than yours, seemingly not understanding that He had simply lost a breeding opportunity, you had lost a world. But you were still just a necessary evil.

Then you seemed, in a roundabout way, to get Her back as the Taurii found you. You learned of Her demise on a foreign world at the hands of an Ash’rak. Of how her Other had abandoned Her in favour of a then healthy host, and then another as that one died at the hands of the same Ash’rak. And a terrible suspicion made itself know. For the first time in decades you started to wonder. You shook of your mental fatigue and started speculating. What if….

Your Other never truly suspected a thing. It is, after all, possible to keep secrets even in the bond between symbiot (parasite?) and host if one wants it enough. Oh, your Other suspected a secret. Even started to take over more. Hidden. Without the telltale signs. Your Other claimed it was for the best since you didn’t have the necessary knowledge, knowledge you were never encouraged to seek out, to handle the Taurii effectively. You can count on a hand the amount of times you were permitted to interact with Samantha without your Other interfering, hidden or otherwise. It just provided more evidence to your own suspicions.

And as the length of time between your possibilities to claim your body for your own and really interact with others grew larger, so did your suspicions. You rarely saw the other hosts interact as themselves, learning the little quirks that betrayed the Others even as they tried to hide their possessions. And you grew more and more alarmed. There are, after all many types of slavery and this seemed to be just another one, for all their claims of only having voluntary hosts. But then again, it’s less of a fight if the slave thinks there is a choice.

And then you heard about this. You remember the whispers in the upper echelons. The talks. Talks you are fairly certain you would not remember if They thought you a real threat. That you were something else than a convenient host body. About the Taurii and a growing need for hosts. About the restrictions on how the Taurii choose said hosts. And a concern that the Taurii would pull out of the fight against Ghoa’uld now that they were among the protected planets. You snorted inwardly when you heard that one. If anyone had cared to ask you, you would tell them that if O’Neill and the rest of the SG-teams were typical of the Taurii, then they wouldn’t bow out of the fight. They trust the Treaty even less than they trust the Ghoa’uld. And that was saying something. But they didn’t ask. Their loss. Their arrogant loss.

They finally agreed on a plan, you would call suicidal. One that also convinced you that your hidden concerns were true. After all, they were not sacrificing your Other, just you. Apparently the Hosts were an acceptable loss and not worth asking. And if it was pulled through effectively enough, the Taurii would have one hell of a reason to go after the Systemlords with a vengeance and would probably even to supply the Tok’Ra with more host with less restrictions than before. And silently you made a vow to make their plan go as awry as possible.

So you studied your memories, your predecessors memories and what you were capable of gleaning from your Other. And while you did, in the outside world, the first part of Their plan went off without a hitch as an SG team got caught and altered. You wish you could have saved them, but you could not even save yourself. And finally you found the knowledge to royally fuck up the Plan. You would still die, but you would drag your Other along for the ride.

The Taurii unknowingly help you and you giggle almost insanely inwardly as the fake president makes his entrance. Your Other never bothered to remember details about the Taurii, seeing them more as cannonfodder than anything else, uneducated, unskilled and foolish, but you did. And that’s most definitely NOT the President. But you remain silent. It’s not your time yet. And then suddenly it is. Per’Sus and the others were right in thinking that SG-1 would be the ones closest to you as your Other strikes. It’s not O’Neill, its not the “President” but its Jackson and he’s a good enough pawn for Their plan to work. If it’s executed perfectly. But as your Other starts to raise his weapon, you start to fight back. Jackson will not be a Host today. And the Zat in Samanthas hands makes the rest of THIS part moot.

But it’s not over yet. Not completely. Now for your final stand. Your Other can still take a new host and this will have to be prevented or your sacrifice is in vain.

*What are you doing?* Your Other demands as you force your own will on His wormlike body. Who knew that the Control went two-ways? The Tok’Ra certainly didn’t seem to think so. *This is not in our plan!*
*Your plan, not mine. I never agreed to enslaving the Taurii for the gains of the Tok’Ra. I never agreed to dying.* You fire back as you fight to keep It back, keep It from jumping into the nearest able bodied host, this time poor Samantha whom your Other was wooing only hours before, fight to keep control for those precious few seconds it will take before the worm is too weak to leave your body.
*I must survive! I must take one of them and keep them loyal to the fight! The Systemlords must be destroyed!* Your Other is getting desperate and you know you are winning.
You feel the Threshold being met and crossed. Your heart stutters, once, twice as your Other is no longer capable of sustaining it, never the less Itself.

This is the reason why the Others always leaves the body while it’s still sustaining itself. Their own biology, their own instinct forces them to keep fighting to keep the host alive even when it’s not possible anymore. And by then it’s too late for Them as well. They are caught in the dying body.

You have the strength to send one last burst of disgust towards your Other, your utter abhorrence of His, and the Others, hybris, Their utter arrogance of knowing what is best for the rest of the Universe. Of their more hidden slavery, but still slavery, of their hosts.

*Once a Ghoa’uld, always a Ghoa’uld, eh Lantesh?*

Darkness beckons you now. You know that your body is long dead and that your brain is finally shutting down as it runs out of oxygen. And finally you let go.

The Plan has failed.

The Taurii won’t have a Tok’Ra spy nested in their middle, needling them into battles of the Tok’ras choosing, manipulating them according to hidden plans. And they will hopefully be even more leery of the Tok’Ra now than before. You have had no chance of truly warning them after all.

As darkness claims you Lantesh howls at you in rage? Loss?.
You no longer care as you realise that

You

Are

Free.

Okie…Standard disclaimers: Don’t Own them, wish I did. Story and original characters (The Dragon Queen Varna of Atlantis and Joshua Ratcliff to mention the most important as well as the Red Dragon ‘melef) does belong to me though.

Anyone seen a cheap, slightly used ‘melef for sale around here? I could really use one to level my workplace to the ground.

Double Dragon:

Prologue:

Wind beneath my wings

By

Armitage 374

The wind was warm beneath her wings as she glided over the city, which she had fought so hard to protect.

She was satisfied to see that damages to the city had been few despite the fact that some of the last batles had taken place on the very shores of Atlantis itself.

Few damages meant few civilians hurt.

They still needed to find out how the people of Mu had gotten their hands on such a large contigent of Guymelefs.

And the way they fought indicated that someone had trained them expertly.

But the Espanics (AN: Spelling ?)were all over that one.

That and the finishing of the last Royal Guymelef, the Escaflowne.

It was a matter of pride to them.

Like her own, Escaflowne was built to protect against agressors, but where her Dragon was based in Atlantis, Escaflowne was to protect the newly formed Gaia.

The thought of Escaflowne brought her mind back to the recent war.

The only way someone could have gotten their hands on an army that size in that short a timeframe without going through the Espanics were to use the wishmaschine, something which were against the laws.

A shudder ran though her body and sent a rain of red feathers sailing through the air at the possibilities.

If it hadn’t been for her beloved turning up so unexpectedly, things could have gone terribly wrong.

A small smile curled her lips as a protest reached her mind through the mental bonds, which connected her with her lifemate, as her small shudder manifested itself in the other extention of her conscioness, the giant Red Dragon on which her mate was travelling.

Her blodred armour creaked as she made an elegant turn in the air, momentarily getting fiery red hair blown into her equally red eyes, and slipped back onto the dragon behind him, grasping the controls as she did so.

“Don’t like being all alone here, do you?” She whispered, allowing herself to nuzzle his neck with her face briefly before concentrating on flying.

Joshua went beetred. Oh, damn, busted.

Fact was, that he was terrified of flying the Dragon alone. And Varian bloodywell knew it!.

But at least she had stopped teasing him about his weird taste in clothes.

And the people of Atlantis had FINALLY gotten used to his trademark jeans and t-shirt, allthough the traders from the other contries like Greece and Arbia still gave him odd looks when they saw him on the throne next to her.

He had had enough trouble when suddenly finding himself transported back in time by that column of light and in the middle of a warzone, but the constant badgering about clothes had really gotten on his nerves.

T-shirt and Jeans kept him grounded, reassured him that he was neither dreaming nor going nuts.

The scar on his neck itched a little and he rubbed it absently.

That was the only thing he was a little sorry about.

He could no longer sing.

Or tell Varian exactly how much she really meant to him.

A wave of comfort washed though his mind as Varian figured out what the intense wave of sadness from her mate was all about.

“I know.” The husky whisper sent shivers down his spine.

Despite the weird circumstances surrounding them meeting eachother, he wouldn’t have had it any other way.

Atlantis had needed a seer. And he had been callen.

And he had met the one being in all history of man, who made his life worth while.

No longer being able to sing was a small price to pay.

A roguish smile made it’s way onto his face as he sent Varian a VERY graphic picture of exactly HOW he was going to show her his feelings for her that same evening.

This time it was her turn to turn 7 diffferent shades of red while fighting to regain control of the Dragon.

Laughter washed though their bond as the young american noticed her scowl.

Her anger didn’t last long though as she turned the Dragon towards the palace and prepared to land.

“Why wait for tonight though?”

Down on the ground, a pair of angry blue eyes followed the descent of the Dragon.

“Damned them..” a femal voice whispered, dripping with malice.

Why was Varian choosen to fly the dragon, when everybody knew, that she was the better pilot?

The hooded person slowly turned and walked down the avenue towards the wishmachine.

Well, at least noone had found out about the very interesting fact that it had been her who had used the maschine to supply their archenemies with weapons.

At the sight of the maschine, an evil smile twisted her face into an ugly mask.

Well, there was another chance.

And while she had hoped that muvians had taken care of her sister for her, she would have to take care of buisness herself it seemed.

What she was about to do was against the laws.

One could not use the maschine to wish death and destruction according to the people who build it.

Somthing about the fabrics of destiny.

But she really didn’t believe it.

All that mattered was the Dragon and the Pendant.

And ruling Atlantis.

“I wish…I WISH THAT VARIAN AND HER LOVER WERE DEAD!”

The ground started to rumble and shake as terrible forces started their work.

Cracks opened straight to the core of the planet, sending cascades of molten rock up into the air.

The island was tearing itself to pieces.

And the 16 years old princess, who had uttered the fatal wish could only stare in horror as the magnitude of her mistake manifested itself on her mind.

“Oh gods, what have I done…”

In the skies above, Joshua felt himself being dragged into a vision as Atlantis started it’s travel into oblivion.

In his mind he screamed.

And Varian screamed with him while the giant Red Dragon fought the sudden onslaught of wind in vain.

Below them, a giant crack in the ground opened, heading towards the last symbol of Atlantis still standing, the Tree of Life, a giant old tree, as old as Atlantis itself standing on a cliff overlooking the entire island.

Varian could feel the lifeforce of her Beloved flow away together with the lifeforce of the city.

Screaming could be heard from the city as building folded, burned and killed the inhabitants of her city.

With tears in her eyes, she did the only thing she could: She wished.

“I wish..” Her voice cracked a bit “I wish we were somewhere safe where they can heal Joshua.”

The pendant on her chest, one of the two in existance, started to glow.

And as Atlantis died, a giant column of light took the last Dragon Queen of Atlantis and her Lifemate, the Seer to the only place, where they could be safe.

AN: Well…Don’t Worry both Van and Hitomi are going to show up later in this story….

I’m sorry, but I haven’t had time to have a decent look at the reviews yet, but I promise I’ll answer

all of them next time.

I did, however, notice that someone asked about Max turning into Josh when he ran out of power,

and after revisiting one of my videoed episodes, I have to say that he doesn’t. But this particularly

incident is important to the situation at hand developing, so I’m exorcising my authors privilege of

creative freedom by keeping it this way. Hope you don’t mind.

So before another wonderful problem turns up in my moving to another city, lets get this show on

the road, I have to have it online tomorrow!

-

Exposure

Chapter 3

By

Katja Boysen

Denmark

-

The SAC-NORAD personnel stared as they saw the pair of young teens accompany Col. O’Neill

and his crew to the lower levels of Cheyenne Mountain.

Nobody really knew what was going on down below the 18th floor except the fact that weird types

kept coming and going and that whatever machinery they had down there swallowed enough energy

to keep Washington DC running for a year.

But it was the first time they saw other teens except that kid Cassie go down there.

Josh leaned closer to the colonel.

“Do they always stare like that?” He was used to staring when at extreme sports competitions or

when fighting as Max Steel, but this was eerie.

Jack smiled wryly.

“Yes. They haven’t got a clue about what we are doing, but they would love to find out.

Unfortunately for them they have standing orders not to talk to the inhabitants of the lower levels

unless addressed by us and that leaves them hanging in limbo. And they don’t like that at all.

Especially since they all are supposed to have the highest security level in the country to work

here.”

“Not high enough though.” Sam grinned a bit, remembering a couple of occasions where various

members of the SAC-NORAD personnel had tried to pump her for information.

“Just be careful if anyone of them invites you out on a drink. They don’t stop for anything.”

A low “Spoilsport” sounded from a radar operator at a nearby workstation, having Berto and Josh

sending each other a knowing grin.

Apparently this was a standing joke between the two groups of personnel.

“Don’t worry. That’s NOT going to be a problem.”

10 minutes later and 20 floors deeper, Josh and Berto was standing in front of their new

commanding officer, General George Hammond in the mission briefing room.

“Mr. McGrath, Dr. Martinez, welcome to the SGC.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Dr. Martinez, you will be interested to know, that the energy transfer machine have been

assembled in one of the old missile testing silos and is working perfectly. We have also had the

other items put there and are currently setting up the communications array in a corner of the gate

control room. It’s going to be a bit more cramped than you are used to due to a lack of physical

space, but we need you to be close to the gate. I have also taken the liberty to inform our chief

medical officer, dr. Janet Fraser, of the unique situation we have with you, Mr. McGrath. She’s

been given your medical files from N-Tek, but would like you to come down for a couple of

additional test. Both of you will need to go down to a physical test anyway.

I know, that you have not been out of contact with each other during missions before, but

communications is only possible while the wormhole is open, so I need to know if this is going to

pose a problem?”

Berto and Josh looked at each other for a second.

“No sir.” Josh beat Berto.

“Not if you give one of the other members a portable status display with connection to Max’s Bio

link. He has a tendency to overdo things a bit and someone need to tell him when to stop.”

Josh sent Berto a killer look, leaving the other teen completely unfazed.

Hammond carefully held back a smile.

Jefferson had told him of this small flaw of personality.

Taking a quick look at Jack’s face, he noticed the same fleeting emotion flash over the Colonel’s

face.

Jack felt like he was looking at his own younger self.

He too had been that way when he was a greenhorn: Too dedicated to stop to think about the

consequences on himself.

Only time and experience could tamper that.

And it was his job to make sure the kid survived it.

“I think we should give Carter the honour of that task, sir. She’s the scientist after all.”

“Good idea. Dr. Martinez and Mr. McGrath are to go through a series of tests before we can let

them loose on the universe, some here at the SGC, some at Alpha Site with the Tok’Ra and the

Jaffa Rebellion.”

“Sir, is that wise? The chances of there still being traitors at the Alpha Site is pretty big considering

the amount of new arrivals to the Jaffa Rebellion, even if we did manage to stop the last infiltrator.”

Hammond nodded.

“I know major, but ever since the incident with us having to shoot Anise at the treaty signing, things

have been tense with the Tok’Ra, even with the help of your father to mediate. We need to show

them a sign of good faith. And after reading the reports, I have come to the conclusion that we can

only get a realistic scope of Mr. Steel’s resources by testing up against a Tok’Ra since his powers

far exceed that of a non-blended human being. It will also give us a good idea of how he can hold

up against a system lord or pharaoh in close combat. Which is also why Te’alc will be in charge of

his training here on base.”

“Yes Sir.” Te’alc’s voice betrayed no emotion what so ever as he agreed to the assignment, but Josh

suddenly felt very small.

He had a feeling this was going to hurt before it was over.

“SG-1 will be on stand-by until the testing is over and our new arrivals can go active.”

A series of “Yes Sir” went through the room even if Colonel O’Neill’s sounded a bit hesitant.

“I believe Dr. Fraser is expecting the two of you. Dismissed.”

As the General left the room, the last thing he heard was the voice of Colonel O’Neill.

“I’ll take you down to Dr. Needles.”

A very nervous Berto asked:

“Dr. Needles?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll know what I mean before long…”

And then the door slammed shut behind the General.

-

Somewhere in an alley.

Midnight.

-

Keith looked at his watch once more.

Snowball was more than 1 hour late.

And that was not a good sign.

A small scraping sound had him turning for the other end of the Alley.

Apparently a false alarm.

Again.

Deciding that enough was enough, he turned to walk back to his car as a voice suddenly whispered

out of the dark.

“Easy, Fitzgerald. I had to make sure you were alone.”

Keith had been in many dire situations in Sierra Leone, Iraq and the other hotspots of the worlds.

But he had never been closer to a heart attack than now.

“Gee, Snowball, do you have to do that?” Turning towards the voice, he bit back a sudden urge to

grab the kid by the throat and throttle her, genius or not.

“I’m sorry, but it was just to tempting.” The little imp smiled back. Black hair and a heavy Goth-

make-up made her look older than her 16 years.

“Anyways, I got the intell you wanted. It wasn’t easy though. Those guys have more ICE than the

Pentagon.” She pulled out a folder from somewhere under her trench coat and handed it to Keith.

He had helped her out when the Mob had gotten a little bit too interested in her work and she owned

him big time.

But she wasn’t going to show how much he had grown on her during the shot time she had known

him.

“Your boy is locked up at Cheyenne Mountain, but I haven’t been able to figure out exactly why

there. The rest of his crew is placed at ordinary safe houses under the guard of the Feds. I’m still

digging at the Cheyenne Mountain computers, but that thing have been programmed by someone

almost as smart as me and that makes it a bit harder than usual.”

“Thanks. At least this will give me a start. Let me know when you got the rest. And Snowball, I

want you to be careful. I don’t want to visit you at Hansen Island.”

Snowball felt a shiver as Keith mentioned the government nuthouse where everyone, who knew too

much were placed.

“And I don’t want to end up there. Don’t worry, I’ll be careful. Mother.” A crocked grin flashed at

Keith as she turned around to leave. One of these days she would have to find a way of getting to

know that hunk a bit better.

Keith’s voice reached her as she turned the corner.

“And one thing more.”

She paused.

“Goth doesn’t do anything for you.”

Grinning widely, she disappeared into the night.

Yup, one of these days.

After all, she already had his address.

Keith walked back to his car.

Next stop Cheyenne.

TBC.

And a couple of comments:
Chase M. Dakota: I’ll be doing my best to hail your request…
Andrewjameswilliams: Thank you..And about the press: Oh yeah. Even the Danish press, whom used to be blessedly without that sort of thing, is starting to look like a bunch of a******* if you ask me. BTW: Just wait to you get to Jack’s reaction to Berto. And Keith’s reaction to Martouf (Go to and have a look at the filmography; It’ll give you a hint of what I’m talking about), if the two ever meet, (I’m still a bit uncertain about that one) should be quite interesting as well.

About the “No anonymous review” thingy: I completely forgot that I had that option on. It was turned on in a preemtive strike as this piece of scum surfed around, making little and extremely rude comments via the review option and seemingly just for the sake of being rude. The coward did this anonymously. However since I haven’t seen anything of the likes lately, I’ll turn it back off (Actually I already have).

Thanks for the review. And thanks for adding me to your favorites list.
Sockenfresser42: Cute name. From Germany are we? Although chewing on a sock seems a little..
eccentric.. And as previously said: I’ll do my best to comply. Thanks for the remark
Candydawn: Hope you’ll enjoy this chapter just as much.
HoneyB: Thanks. Both for the comments and the corrections on spelling. Right now there’s a Danish interpreter running around with a very pissed fan fiction writer out to get him. Or her.

Another note before starting today’s chapter:
I’m in the middle of moving 200 km away. That means I won’t be able to update more than once a month until august. Hope you won’t mind. But after that things should look better. Both for this story and my other stuff.

Second: I just discovered, that there are going to be two Rachel’s in this story: Rachel as in Josh’s girlfrind and Rachel as in Rachel Glass, the main producer and second in command at I24 from

Breaking News. So this is how it’s going to work:

Rachel= Josh’s Rachel
Rachel/I24= I24’s Rachel unless in conversations.

/Mental communication/ between host and symbiotes.
{Translation from Ghoa’Uld}
(Translation from other language)
And now on with the show:

Exposure
Chapter 2
By
Katja Boysen
Denmark

“So, what do you think about this entire thing?” Berto asked over the intercom as the Hawke neared Area 51.
“Oh come on, Berto. Aliens? A 10.000 year old device to send people to other planets? Snakes living inside people’s brains? Someone in Pentagon obviously blew a fuse.” Max retorted.
“Well, the scientific report done by this Major Carter seems solid enough. The theory behind the wormholes certainly holds water..”

A heavy sigh made it past Max’s lips before he could successfully suppress it. Not again. Berto had been talking about that report 50 miles a minute since reading it.
“Max? Are you asleep up there?” Berto had gotten suspicious when an uncharacteristic silence had erupted in the front seat.
“Not quite. Unfortunately” The addressed party mumbled beneath his breath.
“Well, you’ve got to think about it this way: With all the other warped stuff, which have happened to us over the last couple of years, what makes this impossible, Hermano? So far we are talking about cyborgs, killer laserbeams, crazy robots, people sucking electricity like others drink water and not to mention people turning into giant snakes.” Luckily Berto didn’t seem to have noticed anything else than the fact that Max was awake.
“You’ve got a point there. I guess I’m just cranky about not being able to help containing the situation back at N-Tek. I feel kind of helpless.” A beeping sound disturbed any kind of answer Berto would have made.
“We’re approaching Area 51. I hope they’ve remembered to leave one of their hangars open for us.”

Area 51
A hangar.

“This is silly.” O’Neill fidgeted with the tie of his dress uniform. He hated that thing, but unfortunately the General had insisted on it.
“What is silly, O’Neill?” Te’alc seemed to be totally comfortable. But that could be attributed to the fact that he, and Jonas Quinn as well for that matter, was wearing civics since they were not officially military personnel but civilian advisors. Or it could also very well be the fact that one would have a very hard time to break through that damned Jaffa stoicism of his.
“I believe the Colonel is referring to fact that we are standing in a hangar waiting for an invisible aircraft.” Jonas Quinn said quickly, not wanting to tempt faith. The Colonel had been short tempered since General Hammond had told they would be on stand-by until their new unit member had been cleared for active duty on the program.
“We have encountered this kind of stealth technology before.” Te’alc raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, but that was onboard a Tok’Ra tel’tac in outer space. Not on a fairly normal aircraft on Earth. Although, if N’Tek developed these Max-probes, the fact that they could develop something like a cloaking device is quite possible. I wonder why they never made any attempts to market that. The possibilities in medical research alone would be”
“Not nice.” A male voice broke in from behind.

And for the first time since a younger Samantha Carter first encountered, and went through, the Star Gate, she was silenced. Apparently their guests had not only entered the hangar but also landed without anyone noticing. As SG-1 got a good look at their new partners, Max and Berto got an equally good look at SG-1. Neither party really knew what to make of the other. To O’Neill, it looked as if Max could hold his own in a fight, but that could only be proven in combat.
As for the other one.
“Oh, for crying out loud. Not another one. And a teen at that.” He muttered under his breath.
“Not another what, Colonel?” Max’s voice could have cut steel. His Max-enhanced hearing had easily picked up the low muttering. Berto gulped. This was not good. Usually Max only used this particularly tone of voice when he was pissed about something, and that something was usually a bad guy. And that usually meant huge fight and a substantial amount of collateral damage. Berto put his hand on Max’s arm.
“Easy, Hermano. Whatever the Colonel meant, I’m sure it’s nothing seriously. Besides, we’re here to work with these guys, not beat them up.”

Max gritted his teeth for a moment, then forced himself to relax. Berto was right. These people were not the enemy. He couldn’t resist one final barb before letting the incident fade away though.
“We might have to work with them, but that doesn’t mean we have to like them.”

Sam could feel the little hairs on her neck standing on end. They were not 5 minutes into the partnership and the air was already thick with tension. Not the best way to start, if you asked her. And Jack’s jaw seemed to be trying to press itself into his skull. Doing the only thing to she could think of to alleviate the situation she jumped in vocally, diverting everyone’s attention to herself.

“I’m Major Samantha Carter, this is Jonas Quinn, the one with the baseball cap is Te’alc and that’s Colonel O’Neill. And incidentally, how did you hear that?”

Max opened his mouth to answer, but Berto beat him to the punch. “It’s the Max-probes. They enhanced his hearing. By the way: I’m Bertho Martinez, the big guy here is Max Steel. Are you the Major S. Carter who wrote the scientific report on the Star Gate?”
“Yes, and I’ve read some of your stuff from NASA as well Dr. Martinez. Quite impressive. If you don’t mind, there was something in that delayed experiment of yours I wanted to ask you about…”
” THAT is what I meant about another one.” O’Neill mumbled, this time directed directly to Max, backing the statement up with a suffering look as Carter and Berto went into what the SGC- personnel lovingly called the Carter-zone. Techno-babble extraordinaire. A half-smile showed on Max’s face.
“In that case, you’re forgiven. Call me Max. Or Josh. Depending on the situation.” He knew that feeling.
O’Neill took the outstretched hand and shook it.
“It’s Jack when not in service.”

A loud beeping sound made itself present from Max’s wrist.
“Damn. I’m almost out of energy. I better power down until we get to base.” He pressed a couple of buttons on what looked to be an oversized wristwatch and right in front of the astonished eyes of SG-1, the muscled Max Steel turned into an average teenage kid.
“Josh McGrath to your service.” Where Max had felt rather secure about the situation, Josh was just the opposite. But except from a nervous glimpse in his eyes, he managed to hide it well. He knew that they would accept Max, if not by anything else, then because of his special abilities. But would they be as forth coming about his more normal self? This was one of the reasons why he had never told Rachel. He dreaded her reaction. And that dread was also the reason why he had been pushing his conversation about the recent developments with her. He knew that sooner or late he would have to talk to her, but he would rather that it was later.

“Nice to meet you kid. Let’s get going, General Hammond can’t wait to meet you two.” O’Neill was rather impressed by the little show, but sensing the kid’s nervousness, he choose not to comment on it. And if the General’s estimates of the situation were correct, there would be plenty of time later.

“How much energy do you have left? Should I get the transportable charger?” Berto was not taking any chances. Normally when Max powered down, it was because his reserves were close to depleted.
“Don’t worry. After Dads little lecture the last time I went flat, I adjusted the gauge to strike the alarm bells a little earlier. Besides, we’re not on duty right now. I can wait ’till we get to the base.” Berto gave him a suspicious glare over the frame of his glasses.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” Deciding against checking the readings himself, Berto just nodded. 5 minutes later they were outside the base, making their way towards Cheyenne Mountain.

Richmond Inn
Room 345, North Tower.

“Rachel, what I’m telling you is, that no one at N-Tek are talking. It’s like hitting a brick wall. But if I can work alone, I’ll be more invisible against the rest of the crowd and I might get something. I got a couple of contacts, whom I can talk to, but only if I come alone.”
“Are you kidding? After scamming us about that guerrilla interview in Sierra Leone? I want someone there who can verify your story.” Rachel/I24 was still pretty pissed about that one, he could hear. And he could understand it as well. I24 had a tight budget and the fact that he hadn’t been able to deliver the promised interview had made the entire journey nothing but an unneeded expense. And then there was the fact that he had gone over her head to get his way. Not exactly a great way of making friends.
“I understand that, but I’m not asking you anything except borrowing me the camera. I’ll even pay the expenses myself in case this falls to the ground. ”

Rachel/I24 rubbed her eyes tiredly. It had just been one of those days. “Are you sure about this?”
“Positive. There’s something fishy about the entire thing. And if I’m right, not only can we get ratings for saving that poor kids life, we can also seriously affect CNN’s reputation and score more viewers on their account.” Keith went for the kill. If there was one thing he knew that producers valued more than ratings, it was the possibility to do it on a competing channels account.
“Don’t lay it on to thick, Fitzgerald. But you are right, if this turns out to be true, it could be the biggest story we’ve gotten so far, even beating that aircrash Mel was on.”
“So I get the camera then?” Keith couldn’t help a crocked smile to appear on his lips.
“Yes, you get the camera. And tell Tom to haul his ass back here. He’s needed.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. It’s a good story. But make sure it spins out.”
“I will. Bye.”

Rachel/I24 didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to anything else than a deadline. And Keith went online, trying to track down a contact he had used before. A brilliant hacker with the innocent alias “Snowball”. After all, when the purpose was good, weren’t the means indifferent?.

TBC.

Standard disclaimer:
I don’t own them, just borrowing them a little for this story. This Fan Fiction is done out of respect and I’m not making any money from it, so please don’t sue. An original character does belong to me, as does the story itself.

The following shows/animations had to suffer the temporary loan of characters and places:
Star gate – SG1
Breaking News
Max Steel

Archives:
My own pages, anyone else just ask first.

Feedback: Please send to: if other means are not available.
Rating: G
Type: Action, Drama, Crossover

Authors Notes: Well, I was up WAY beyond normal bedtime, high on sugar and writing on one of my other stories as Max Steel turned up on the tape in my VCR (background noise). That sort of kicked off my warped muse and suddenly this weird concoction popped into my head. Max Steel isn’t one of the shows I watch most (and when it happens it’s mostly by accident), so sorry if I get a couple of details wrong.

Secondly: There’s a real good chance that someone else has written a story looking a lot like this one, but I hope that everyone understands that this is meant to be an original piece of work, not a copycat thing.

Another thing: The SG-1 episode “Divide and Conquer” NEVER HAPPENED IN MY UNIVERSE! IT’S PART OF A DEVIOUS PLAN BY THE EVIL, EVIL POWERS THAT BE TO TAKE OVER THE WORLD AND IS ONLY A MASSHALUCINATION TO TRY TO TWIST OUR MINDS! : Pants loudly and steps down from soapbox:

Ok, on with the show while my muse is still warm on the idea:

Summary:
What will happen to Josh McGrath if his secret life as Max Steel is suddenly exposed on nation wide television?

Exposure
By
Katja Boysen
Denmark

Josh was trying very hard not to fall asleep during Monday morning’s biology class. It had been a very long, sleepless weekend, involving “Smiley”, nerve gas, a bunch of hostages, a couple of overeager CNN-reporters and, no surprise there, Max Steel. “Smiley” had for some reason found it very funny to kidnap a bus full of kids, using them as a decoy from his real target, the UN. Add to that the fact that a couple of CNN reporters had found out about the entire thing, ending up almost sabotaging the rescue mission when they found out that he, or rather; Max Steel, was out there and you ended up with no time to sleep.

That is if you, like Josh, had to do your homework as well. A chill ran down his spine as he remembered just how close it had been. The counter on that nerve gas canister had been only 10 seconds away from releasing the deadly toxin into the entire city. Millions would have died. And as usual he had overtaxed himself, leaving his energy supply exhausted, and him without disguise not to mention also deeply unconscious, only fractions of a second after he had dismantled the bomb. Rachel had gotten him back to N-Tek just in time.

His ears were still ringing after his dad’s lecture on the subject of being more careful. To top it all, “Smiley” had managed to get away again. But one of these days…

“Mr. McGrath!” The teacher’s high-pitched voice cut through his foggy mind like a warm knife through butter, ending his inner monologue effectively.
“Yes, ms. Cooper?” Josh tried desperately to remember what the lecture had been about.
“I would appreciate it if you listened once in a while in stead of daydreaming. God knows your grades aren’t good enough as it is.” Josh felt a slight blush creep over his face. Busted. And by the one teacher he could ever remember being afraid of. Scratch that: Terrified of. Not good.
“Yes ms. Cooper.” The rest of the very long 45 minutes he managed to stay awake. As the bell rang out and he went for his next class, he noticed the strange stares that both teachers and students outside the classroom were giving him. It was about then that he was ambushed. But not by one of the usual psychos. This time it was by a small army of reporters.

“Mr. McGrath? What’s it like to have superpowers?”
“How long have you been working as Max Steel?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about!” Josh was close to panic. How had they found out? And why hadn’t he been warned? Where was Berto? At that second Berto’s voice cut through the babble from the multitude of reporters via his bio link.
“Don’t say anything, just get out of there, Hermano! Rachel is on her way with the car. Details later at N-Tek.” Not good. Using as much of his powers as he dared without exposing himself as anything else than a normal teenager and throwing adamant denials around him with what he hoped was an honest voice, he pushed his way past the reporters, heading towards the parking lot, where Rachel was pulling up with screaming breaks in the same second.
“Get in!”
As soon as he had gotten in, she nailed the speeder to the floor, narrowly avoiding a news van from I24, which were pulling up. “What the hell is going on?” Josh had a nasty suspicion but hoped it wasn’t true. “Those CNN reporters last night managed to get pictures of you as you took care of that bomb. Including the part about your disguise failing. And they also managed to somehow get out of the UN-building before the rest of the team and I arrived. They ran a story on it an hour ago. We didn’t realise what was happening until the phones at the White House started ringing of the hook with questions.”
“Oh, God!” Josh ran his shaking hand through his hair. This was as bad as he thought. “Dad. Is dad safe?” Rachel gave a curt nod.
“He’s waiting at the alternative headquarters. We’ll be going there now. And Laura and the rest of your close friends as well as their families are being moved to safe houses until we can get a handle on this situation.”
“Oh, God! Laura! Why wasn’t I notified?” Josh was getting angry. This shouldn’t have happened. Rachel took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. Josh was dealing with enough without her freaking out as well. That she could do when this nightmare had been taken care of.
“We didn’t know until 15 minutes ago. And Berto got on the computer as soon as he could.” Drawing a shuddering breath, Josh managed to calm himself down. There was no reason to let it out on Rachel. It really wasn’t her fault.
“Sorry. I’m just worried.” An attempt to give a smile wasn’t too successful.
“It’s ok. We’re all a little bit on edge right now.” Rachel accepted the apology from the teenager. He had been through a lot since that accident with the Max-probes and had matured a lot. But he was still just a teen-ager at heart. “You are aware that Laura is going to kill you for holding secrets from her, right?”
“Oh yeah…” This smaller worry got his mind at least temporarily of his other, more serious predicament. Laura and he might not be a couple anymore, but he still wanted her as a friend, even if he couldn’t have her as a girlfriend, and it was likely that this could end the already strained relationship between them.

N-Tek alternative HQ
Somewhere in the Midwest.

Jefferson looked at his old friend on the videophone; one of his few friends with enough clearance to know what N-Tek was really about. He was also in charge of the only other project in the world with just as much security on it as N-Tek.
“Thanks for doing this, George. It really means a lot. And as things look right now, your project might be the only place where Josh can be just remotely safe and still feel like he accomplishes something. At least for the time being.” General George Hammond, base commander at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, gave a small smile.
“It’s a pleasure. Besides we can always use someone with as much resourcefulness as your son. Something I believe I told you when we discussed this contingency plan the first time.”
Jefferson allowed himself to relax a bit. “I’ll tell him that he’ll be transferred to Cheyenne as soon as he gets here. He and Dr. Martinez should arrive at your place in a couple of hours together with the necessary equipment. I’ll leave the briefing of the project and it’s purpose up to you. No one else here at N-Tek will know anything else than Josh and Berto are being shipped of to a safe house. I’ll join Josh personally as soon as things calm down a bit and then we’ll discuss the future.”
“That sounds like a plan. I’ll inform the team he’ll be joining and have maintenance make room for the energy transfer machine and the other items in store at Area 51.”
“George thanks again. And look out for him, will you? He sometimes acts before he thinks.”
“I will. Don’t worry; I’m placing him with my best team. Colonel O’Neill has dealt with that type of personality before. I’m looking forward to seeing you in person.” With that the connection closed. Jefferson leaned back in his chair with a tired sigh.
He had really hoped that it would never end up at this, but for now, Josh McGrath and Max Steel had to disappear for their own safety. He no longer had numbers for the times he had wished he hadn’t allowed Josh to join N-Tek, but at the time, it had looked like the best idea. And even with hindsight, he realised that there had been no other solution. “Smiley” had known about Josh’s accident and N-Tek had been able to provide some level of security towards the eminent danger from that point. Not to mention the fact that Josh would probably had found some other way of using all his newfound powers in the interest of the public good. His son was simply to big an idealist not to use this opportunity of making things better and this way Jefferson had been able to keep some level of control over the situation. At that moment the door burst open and both Berto and Josh more or less ran into his office.
“Dad, what happened?”
“Josh. Sit down, you too Berto. There are a few things you need to know.” With that Jefferson started to brief his two of his top agents about what had gone wrong in the past 24 hours and what could be done about it.
Which was just about nada.

Best Western Hotel.
The Restaurant.

Keith Fitzgerald looked at his cameraman, who was stuffing his face with some sort of curry. “You know, I’ve covered a lot of wars, terror attacks and general mayhem in my time as a correspondent both at I24 and other stations. But the look on that kid’s, Josh, face…” Keith looked at his own food, a vegetarian plate, but couldn’t eat it. The fear in the kid’s eyes kept coming back to him, haunting him much to vivid in his opinion.
“Hey, it’s only a story. Don’t get all emotional about it.” His cameraman, Tom, gave a shrug and then continued eating.
“Tell me, what do you think will happen to him now?” Keith felt a sudden anger emerge as he was once again faced with the cold-hearted approach to a story that most of the media business had.
“Dunno. 15 minutes of fame, a movie and a couple of books. Nothing to complain about.” Tom managed to get out between curry sauce, rice and meat.
“And what about all those terrorists and criminals the kid has managed to piss of these last two years? Don’t you think that maybe some of them are clapping their little, fat hands to get this information?” Keith’s anger grew. He might not be one of the highest paid correspondents in the world, but he had managed to keep his integrity and put an honour into thinking further than the next news segment and Nielsen Ratings when putting together a story.
“The Kid should have thought about that before going into the cloak-and-dagger business in the first place.” Was the uncaring answer from the other side of the table.
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice.” Keith shot back. He was really starting to dislike the other man. And he didn’t want a cameraman in the first place. He was perfectly capable of doing his own shoots.
“Don’t get your pantyhose up in a knot. It’s just a story. After that stunt you pulled in Sierra Leone, you shouldn’t start rocking the boat. It could loose you your job.”
“And it could just loose Josh his life.” With that Keith made a decision, stood up and threw the money for his uneaten food on the table, leaving the restaurant brimming from barely contained anger. Somehow he would find a way to help the kid out of a dangerous situation, which should never have arisen in the first place, had some of his colleagues thought about ethics instead of money. And in a world of fast money and loose morals, one of the last idealists of the world went looking for a young boy named Josh McGrath.

TBC..

Hope you liked it. There’ll be coming more later, but the next chapter is being kept hostage until I’ve gotten at least 3 reviews on what you think about it.

*Ca’el, the commander will most likely appreciate everyone’s concern, but you are disturbing me. Could you please move away? Liam was good at masking, an entire lifetime of hiding from the Taelon Commonality had taught him to keep his emotional involvement to a minimum to avoid making waves, but these last couple of months of peace had weakened his guards. And an experienced, Long-lived Kimera like Ca’el had no problem in sensing the underlying emotions of the direct broadcast.
*Liam, we are not only here for the commander, we are here for you as well. Never forget that.* With a last mental pat on the shoulder to reassure the young one, Ca’el ordered everyone else to move away.

A mental sigh was all Liam allowed himself before he dived into the mind of his friend, attempting to sort out the mess of twisted thoughts and false memories. The next second, he was standing in a Battlefield, the soil bathed in blood and the screaming of dying humans in his ears.

*Oh God…* Liam looked at the battlefield, utterly terrified. He had, off cause, known about Boone’s service record, about the battles and wars he had fought before joining the Taelons as a Protector. And of the battles after that. But nothing in the files he had read as part of his research used for his fake identity, had prepared him for this.
*It’s just a memory, Liam, it’s just a memory…They aren’t real..* A memory filled with screams and the coppery smell of fresh blood. But still only a memory. Feverishly grabbing hold of that one thought, he broke out of his shock, desperately ignoring the rapidly changing scenes, and began searching for the link between Anr’el and the Commander, the mind link, which he knew was there somewhere. The link, which he had, by accident, called into existence when he encountered Boone in his nightmares. The link, which was An’rel’s only chance of remaining sane. There. A faint string of silver in the midst of chaos, feeding An’rel’s mind with images from a life not hers and returning her memories to a man they didn’t belong to. He needed to reverse the stream first and then find some way of breaking the connection. His mind made up and acting on instinct, he reached out with his mind, calling upon faint memories from his father’s father’s mothers something, and slowly, oh so slowly, the rivers of images started to revert. The only problem was, that an amount of feelings and memories of that magnitude, needed someone to channel it. And that someone was Liam. Battered with all this information, he did the only thing he could.

He screamed. Memories aren’t real, but they can still hurt as hell.

-
The Becketts House
Strandhill
-

Fiona felt a sudden pang in the heart. Something was wrong.. Eyes filled with worry, she quickly went inside the living room, looking for Ambrose, believing it to be him. Finding him deeply engrossed in the latest issue of some horserace magazine, she felt a little more at ease. Nothing wrong there. And Liam was with the Kimera, so he was safe as well. It was probably just her imagination. But a sliver of worry remained as she went back to the kitchen, baking yet another batch of cookies for Liam.

-
The Larya
Approaching Earth
-

Closing in on the shuttle bay, Sandoval heard a sound, he had hoped never to hear again. Liam was screaming. Sparing only a short glance to Augur and the others, who had caught up with him, he picked up speed and race into the shuttle bay. Lily was there, dragging something out of a service tunnel. Something in a human shape and glowing an eerie green colour. Something whimpering in pain. Liam.
“WHAT HAPPENED?” Coming to a screeching hold next to his semiconscious son, Sandoval knelt down, putting his hands to Liam’s forehead in an attempt to examine him.
“DON’T!” Lily’s warning came to late as Sandoval was slammed up against the wall by a violent outburst of pure energy. She sighed, then looked at the Kid.
“The same thing happened to me, when I first tried to move him. Had to drag him out by his shirt.”
“That still doesn’t answer my question: What Happened ?”
“Liam sensed, that something was wrong with Anr’el, ran here like a bat out of hell, tore out the service hatch…and after finding her in the tunnels, looking like Boone, and before I knew it he…he merged with her?” Turning to one of the Kimera approaching them. “I didn’t know that this could happen?”
“Neither did we. May I suggest, that we just leave him and let him finish, what he started?”
Right about now, Sandoval had had it. “So you mean that all we can do is sit back and wait it out? And what do you mean: “Finish what he started?” The Kimera looked at the enraged man nervously.
“The Commander had a small…incident…In order to help her, Liam had to go into her mind…”
“Can’t we unmerge them or something?” Augur asked, not liking the prospects of Liam doing something like this. Who knew what he would encounter in there. From what he knew of An’rel’s life, it had been long, and not happy.
“No. To attempt that he would surely die.” The entire group looked at their fallen friend and did the only thing they could.

They waited.

-
The Golden Mug
Strandhill
Ireland
Earth
-

Abby Franklin muttered a very colourful curse under her breath, despite the cosy, rural setting of her room. She had literally spent HOURS on research and STILL had nothing to pin on Renée Palmer. Well, nothing of value. It was starting to look like Palmer had Teflon on her rear end. Nothing was sticking. During the Taelon occupation, Doors International had been involved with several shady things, but without the database of the mother ship, nothing could be proven.

And off cause DI’s own record were all squeaky clean. And unfortunately for her, her boss wouldn’t go on air with something not proven. As he so blatantly put it:
“We run a clean operation here and leave the lies to the others. Besides, it won’t do Liam or his grandparents any good if we get caught with our pants down.” She had to agree on that one. If they went on air with something not solid, it could easily backfire. Not only would Renée Palmer sue their a**’s of, but the chance of public turning even more against Liam and his kin were too big to be ignored. However he had agreed to run a series on various firms, who had dealt with the Taelons and drop more than a few hints on DI. Off cause nothing, which could end them up in court.

Rubbing her eyes tiredly, she decided against room service and left for the restaurant. She needed a miracle. Badly. On her way to a table, she didn’t notice the dark haired man watching her intently from a corner. But he noticed her. And he knew exactly who she was.

Dick Sanchez was feeling something unusual. A bad conscience. A REALLY bad conscience. His instincts about what Palmer were up to had been proven right. It had only taken a couple of discreet questions to find out that the inhabitants in Strandhill was rapidly changing from your average friendly neighbours to a horde of dangerous, perhaps murderous, vigilantes. And Palmer, with her innocent concern and supposedly good reputation was pulling the strings. But maybe that reporter was his way out of a bad situation. Now if only he could find a way of opening a conversation and getting her on his side. He had to be careful in case she weren’t “alien friendly”. But he really hadn’t anything to loose, had he? Grabbing his pint of beer, he rose from his table and approached Abby Franklin.

-
Sickbay
The “Larya”
Orbiting Earth.
-

Lilly was pacing the room, wishing she had brought her daughter with her on this trip. But Vorjak had been adamant about the child remaining with him and a nurse while Lilly went with Liam on his little trip. It was only supposed to be for a few days and Kimera Prime was more secure than Earth, especially since the latest Intel from the fifth brigade on Taelon had large parts of the Taelon war fleet coming in that direction. He didn’t really care that it would be 7 years before the hostiles reached their target or the fact that the Kimeran fleet had most likely crippled the invaders before they reached past Jupiter, he didn’t want any child of his anywhere near a future war zone.

She could have insisted off cause, but at that point domestic bliss and the promise of some time without a demanding kid around sounded just fine. But right now she would have loved the distraction. They had finally managed to get Liam to sickbay, but they didn’t dare using one of the blue tanks on him due to the unusual state he was in. He was still glowing a faint green, but at least he didn’t scream anymore. There was a faint whimper from the cot they had put him on. It caught the attention of everyone there.

Sandoval had barely moved since slumping on a chair next to his son’s bed, never moving his eyes from Liam’s face. Ron registered what was going on around him both Lilly’s pacing and Juliana’s question if he needed anything, but he took no notice, made no outward sign on having heard them. Liam looked so frail. So young. Ron had barely begun to know him and now there was a real chance, that he might loose him again. Damned it, it wasn’t fair! Unknown to him, Augur was having similar thoughts.

He couldn’t remember Liam ever having looked so happy as these last couple of months on Kimera Prime. He finally had the opportunity to be the kid he was meant to be. A faint moan and a slight movement caught his attention as Liam started glow more intensely.

Suddenly Sandoval, Augur and the rest of the people in sickbay were slammed up against the wall as Liam floated up under the high, vaulted ceiling and a whirlwind of energy seemed to radiate from him.

-
Liam’s Mind
Only moments before.
-

Liam was faintly aware of the commonality carefully prodding his mind in an attempt to figure out what was happening. But after a warning from him, the prodding stopped and he could concentrate completely on his task. He had reconstructed Boone’s memories completely, but because of An’rel’s almost frighteningly high age, it took a bit longer with her. A memory from the Taelon-Kimeran war grabbed him. It was a very strong one. And it involved a child. An’rel’s child.

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
Denmark
-

Jean allowed herself a breath of relief. After a short explanation of Liam’s, relayed through Ca’el, Boone had passed out and for a while things had looked kind of hairy. Not only had his brain activity increased dramatically, which was only to be expected, but Boone, she was getting tired of calling him the Clone all the time, had also reacted to the remembered memories psychosomatically, reopening old wounds, which would disappear just as mysteriously as they appeared, but the convulsions he had also gone through had forced her to strap him down to the table. She never liked doing that to a patient. A frown made a itself known for the 100′Th time since this entire nightmare started as she read the results of a scan.
“That’s strange.” She quickly turned around, picking up one of the other, more specialised scanner the Kimera had brought down after the situation had been explained.

Erik hated it when she said that. It usually meant that something was wrong. Something she didn’t quiet knew how to react to or treat.
“Why am I suddenly worried?” Eric looked over her shoulder.
“Boone’s brainwave activity is almost normal, but his CVI is breaking down. And rapidly at that.”
“The CVI is part of the connection to the Commonality.” Ca’el spoke up. “We can deal with the damages done to Boone’s brain, but if the connection to An’rel’s mind cease to exist or weakens to a next to nothing state before Liam has finished what ever he’s doing, there’s a rather large chance that both the Commander and Liam will be lost to us.”
“Lost?” Erik really didn’t want to ask, but some perverted need to know made him ask.
“They will go insane with the constant pressure of the remnants of a strange personality and ultimately join the Void.”

-
The Golden Mug
Strandhill
Ireland.
-

Abby looked up as a shadow fell across her table. It was a Hispanic looking man, who seemed somehow misplaced in this little corner of the world.
“Ms. Franklin?”
“Yes. May I help you?” Abby did her best to keep her suspicion out of her voice. It wasn’t each day she was confronted by strangers since she worked the stories, but rarely anchored them. And most of the time when she DID anchor, she was working the local cable version in DC. Maybe Palmer had spotted her and was trying something funny.
“My name is Dick Sanchez, I’m a private investigator and I have some information on Renée Palmer that you may find interesting.” It might be a trap. But she couldn’t resist the bait.
“Please sit down, Mr. Sanchez.”

-
Lias
Capitol of the Planet Kimeria somewhere in Orion’s
Belt
Some 200.000 years ago.
-

City Plaza was a gathering point to the Kimera. Beautifully outlined by living, growing architecture, the green glowing inhabitants of Kimera Prime met here to discuss politics, science or other subjects of more or less mundane nature. But where a gathering point to other species, which had to use verbal communications, was normally buzzing with noise, this one was almost completely silent, leaving the sounds of nature only broken by the sounds of the once and then arriving shuttles or the noises of an activating ID-Portal. Suddenly there was commotion in one end of the Plaza, and an angry yell echoed through the Commonality loud enough to be heard by most of the present Kimera.

*Hag’el, give that back! Right this instant! * Anr’el was in close pursuit of Hag’el, projecting her irritation directly through the Commonality to her best friend.
*That’s my Pad, you..* She couldn’t really come up with a word bad enough to call him.
*Come on, you have been studying that thing for hours! * He wasn’t for the life of him going to slow down. Not when the lady chasing him had murder in her thoughts and fire in her eyes. He wasn’t tired of living just yet. Anr’el narrowly managed to avoid colliding with several other Kimera, earning her a couple of rude comments on youth and the art of slowing down, when she suddenly remembered a trick she used to do when she was younger. Smiling widely, she reduced her matter to almost nil and simply made one big jump, putting her well ahead of Hag’el´s path of flight, carefully masking her feeling of smugness so that Hag’el wouldn’t notice it in the Commonality.

Hag’el glanced behind him nervously. He didn’t like the sudden silence from Anr’el. When she was this silent, she was usually up to something. Of all the scientists he knew, and that was a lot, she was by far the one most likely to find some probably very painful way of getting back at him. Suddenly his premonition was made true as a hard yank and an elbow in the mid section had him bending over, not only temporary airless but also minus one pad.

“Not fair.” He managed to choke out, all ability to use the Commonality lost to him for the moment.
“Ah, so we decided to use vocal language now?” Anr’el teased, jumping nearly 10 feet up in the air and landing on one of the branches of a nearby tree.
“So that’s how you did it.” Hag’el couldn’t help grinning at the ingenuity in using one of the most overlooked aspects of Kimeran biology: The ability to control the amount of mass and thus weight of ones body.
“What is it one of those great philosophers of yours once said:’ Remembrance is the way to the future and forgetfulness only get your rear end kicked.’”
“As usual, you are warping quotes to fit your own ends. But aside from that..” Hag’el jumped up next to Anr’el and made himself comfortable. “What’s on that pad that makes it so important you can’t even spend 5 centrums away from it with your best friend?”

Anr’el sighed and all but fell down in a sitting position on the giant branch herself, her feet dangling over the sides and her back leaning comfortably against the main bulk.
“It’s about the Taelons. And the Jaridians as well for that matter. Something we overlooked when we added our DNA to help the Jaridians and caused the evolutionary leap in part of the populous.” She looked serious enough for Hag’el to stop being the friend and start being the scientist.
“Bad?”
“Bad enough. If my calculations are correct, in future generations both species are going to have problems with reproduction. I can’t exactly say which problems, but I can say that it’s going to escalate with time and the intermixing of the genes in the general populous. Now, with enough research over the next decades, this can be corrected as our own problems in that area was in the past, but there is another and more pressing problem. The Taelon Commonality is still not as stable as I want it to be. The honour codex of the Jaridians is good enough on their level of evolution, but the Taelons it makes to rigid to securely evolve their Commonality into something self-maintaining. Their need for everything in life to fit into a certain pattern makes it stiff. You know, that our Commonality maintains itself to a certain degree thanks to the fact that it changes and evolves constantly, but as things are right now, the Taelons need to be in constant contact with it not only to maintain their evolutionary progress and prevent them from falling back into the Atavus stage, but also to prevent the Commonality from collapsing. Since the Taelons don’t have an subconscious connection to their Commonality like we have to ours, they have to stay awake all the time and that means…trouble.”

Hag’el nodded. “I see where you are heading. If any type of creature, matter based or energy based, doesn’t get enough sleep, it starts developing severe psychotic, not to mention paranoid, traits. I’ve seen it happen in other species. And with the level of technology the Taelons posses now, that could be dangerous not only to the Jaridians, but also to us. So, what’s your suggestion?”

The ghost of a smile shone in her face for a second. Hag’el always was good at reading her. Sometimes she wished he was her breeding partner. Or perhaps even life mate. But nature, or more specific instinct, had wanted it differently.
“I suggest we click in a couple of Kimera in the Taelon Commonality, just to kick-start the process of the changing matrix. With a little bit of luck, the Taelons will adapt and they will integrate the subconscious link in their minds in the process.”
” Did you send this to the Council?”
“Yes. But I wanted to make sure I covered all the bases and angles.”
“Don’t worry about it. If I’ve learned anything about you over the times, it’s that you always had a keen eye for details and eventualities. ” Hag’el rose and brushed of foliage from his body, then stretched out his hand toward Anr’el.
“So put that pad away and let’s have some fun.” A roguish smile and a feeling of mischief radiated towards her. “After all, we are still young enough to get away with it.”

-
Liam’s Mind
A moment ago.
-

Liam managed to break away from the memory for a while. Anr’el had know his father? That explained a lot. But not everything. For instance, why did these memories seem to go past so much slower than the others? Was it because of something he was meant to see? Or was it because of the strong feelings connected to it? Maybe Anr’el could help him sort it out afterwards. Provided they survived this of cause. And there was still the faint memory of a child somewhere in all this. Mentally steeling himself as well as he could, he felt himself once again being dragged backwards in time to the long gone home planet of the Kimera.

-
Lias
Kimeran Capitol
Kimeria
200.000 years ago.
-

A series of supersonic booms sounded above as Anr’el and Hag’el, laughing hard at a joke from a distant planet, made their way towards An’rel’s abode. Looking at the sky, Hag’el couldn’t help but wonder what that amount of Taelon shuttlecrafts did this far from Jaridia. Normally the diplomats would visit the Taelons at their home planet, since the Taelon Commonality became weaker with distance. But as Anr’el impatiently yanked at his arm to get him through the door, he soon forgot the entire thing.

But it was only moments later, as Anr’el was beating him once again at a game of lasha, when the screams began. Horrifying screams of pain and death echoed through the Commonality as through the physical world as both his and An’rel’s mind links flared open to signal the death of not just one or two but thousands of Kimera, both on Kimeria but also on the other inhabited planets in the Kimeran Coalition. The sheer onslaught of images assaulted them from all over, cascading over them like a tsunami, almost, but only almost, knocked them unconscious. And left one, lasting impression on their minds: The pictures of hundreds of Taelons willingly reverting into their Atavus stages in front of the unsuspecting Kimeran Elders and brutally starting to slaughter them.

Hag’el was the first to recover from the shock, realising one and crucial thing: They had to get out of here, out of the city and preferably of the planet as soon as possible if they were to survive. He also realised one other thing: The Kimera didn’t stand a chance because they no longer knew how to fight. And they hadn’t for millions of years. Grabbing hold of his best friends almost unconscious body, he groggily started across the room to the door, opening it just to stare into the face of an Atavus.

-
Liam’s mind
A moment ago
-

Liam felt a jolt go through his physical body as the link between him, Boone and Anr’el threatened to break.
NO!
He wouldn’t let that happen. Not now. He was almost through. Reacting purely on instinct and the desire to save the one being in this universe that he trusted completely, he reached out and connected directly to her soul, linking it to his own in one last desperate attempt to keep all of them safe. And was only granted one brief moment to be amazed as it actually worked and everything that was Anr’el imprinted itself on his core forever.

-
Sickbay
The Larya
Orbiting Earth.
-

The Kimeran doctor took one look at the spectacle in front of him as he collected himself of the floor, then yelled:
“Everybody out! NOW!”

Sandoval was of a mind to object, but thought differently when he saw the haste with which every Kimera in the room obeyed the order. Grabbing hold of Augur, he looked back one last time at his son as the door locked shut. The next second he grabbed the Kimeran doctor by the throat and slammed him up against the bulkhead.
“Mind telling me, why I just left my son alone in there?” The dangerous note in his voice was enough to tell everyone in the vicinity that this better be good or there was going to be bloodshed.
“If my assumptions is correct, Liam just did the one thing I never expected him to. Not at this stage in his development.”
“And just what is that?” Augur joined in, leaning in next to Sandoval’s face and looking just as dangerous.
“He Joined with Anr’el, didn’t he?” Juliana’s voice came quietly from the back of the small crowd.
“Yes.”

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
Denmark
-

“What the hell?” Boones voice echoed through the cave as he sat up abruptly, only to see more than a dozen assault blaster and quite a few glowing shaqarava pointed his way. Turning to the only face he recognized, he addressed his old army pal Liam Kincaid. “Mind telling me what in blazes is going on here?”

The ice in Kincaid’s eyes was almost tangible. “That depends what you are doing next, who ever you are.” Zeke wasn’t about to trust the man that looked and acted like his old friend just yet. He still remembered how the other clone had gone bezerk only hours earlier and how he had to shoot it to stop it. Something that had oddly enough hurt as if it really had been Boone he had killed.
“Who I am? Liam, it’s me, Boone, you know the guy who busted your sorry as out of that POW camp during the SI-Wars, you know, where you got that little souvenir on your face?”

Drawing a deep breath, Zeke slowly lowered his rifle. “That little detail never made it public. It’s him. Jean?”
“Excuse me, Commander.” A cute redhead dropped her handgun on a table and grabbed a scanner instead. The rest of the small group slowly relaxed as well.
“What are you doing?” He grabbed her hand as she held the strange scanning device up next to his head.
“I’m checking to see if your CVI is gone or not. We can’t have you running around with one of those things in your head. Especially not if it makes you dangerous.” He loosened his grip again. She had a point. And he had never liked that thing anyway. As the pretty doctor did her thing, he noticed something strange.
“Hey, this isn’t Condor!”
“Condor?” One of the people with the glowing hands looked at him questioning.
“Yeah, my skrill. And just who the hell are you people anyhow?”
“What are the last things you remember, Commander?” A guy to the left, if his memory still severed him right the leader of resistance region Scandinavia, Erik.
“The church. I was hunting Hag’el..” And then it clicked: Shaqarava was the glowing hands called, and the only ones to have them except Ro’Ha were Hag’el,
which meant… The strange skrill reacted just as Condor would have and powered up to full capacity as Boone raised his arm, aiming it at the man who had asked about Condor.
“Who are you?”

-
The Golden Mug
Strandhill
Ireland
-

Abby leaned back in her chair, trying very hard not to laugh out loud, hard and long. “And you are ready to go on record with this?”
“Hell, I’m ready to testify in court if need be. And I got the evidence to support it. As long as that bitch gets what she deserves.”
Abby fished out her handy, calling up her boss in Washington DC.
“Boss? About that story on Renée Palmer. You’ll never guess what just fell into my lap…”

-
The Beckett Cottage
Strandhill
Ireland
-

Fiona and Ambrose exchanged a worried glance. There seemed to be a rather big rally of people a bit down the road and things were kind of noisy.
“Maybe now would be a good time to contact the Kimera?” Fiona would rather that they could fix this themselves, but as things looked, it was getting more and more dangerous by the second. And the Kimera had already said, they shouldn’t hesitate if the Becketts felt like it. Ambrose thought about it.

“No. We’ve known these people all our lives. They are going to calm down soon.” He gave Fiona’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Don’t worry. They are going to see reason as soon as they give themselves time to think.” At least that was what he prayed.

-
Liam’s Mind
-

Even as Liam felt himself merge with Anr’el to secure her survival, he felt another memory tug at his mind. And just as before, he was powerless against it. But at least he could feel Anr’el becoming a singular being again and not the mixed memories and personalities of two people. He didn’t even stop to think about the ramifications of what he had done. He didn’t want to.

-
Lias
Kimeria
200.000 years ago.
-

Hag’el only had a second to react and an instinct he didn’t even knew he had, emerged from the most primitive parts of his memories as he raised his hands and fired his shaqarava without thinking. The blast was only powerful enough to knock the Atavus temporarily out, but it had to be enough and quickly he slung Anr’el over his shoulder, heading for the nearest portal. There was only one place he could go right now. His newly acquired repository. The Larya.

He only hoped that enough of his crew had stayed onboard to make a start possible. As he spurted towards the portal, he made one last gesture towards his fallen home and send out a message to those, who was still able hear him, thanking the Universe that the Taelons couldn’t hear the Kimeran Commonality. The message was a couple of space coordinates and one single order:

*Flee. Survive.*

And as he finished programming the portal, he knew a feeling, which no Kimera had felt for more than 50.000 years: Hate.

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
Denmark
-

Ca’el raised his hands slightly, trying to make a non-combative impression on the man currently aiming a skrill at him.
“Commander, I am not your enemy. My name is Ca’el. I am of the Kimera and currently assigned to the protection of Earth.” Boone’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“I thought the Kimera was extinct. Well, except from Hag’el.” His arm didn’t waver one bit. Zeke chuckled.
“Bettis, you now owe me 10 bucks. Cough ‘em up.” Bettis sighed dramatically, then reached in his pocket and pulled out his wallet as if every movement caused him pain.
“Here, you bloodsucker. Certain that you aren’t related to Zo’or?”
“Now, now Bettis, just because you lost the bet doesn’t mean that you should be rude.” Zeke answered with a smirk. At Boone’s clearly confused expression, the smirk grew into a full-fledged smile.

“We had a little bet on what you would say first when you realised that Ca’el was a Kimera. I won. The rest is a very long story that I think we should continue somewhere a little bit safer. My people have rigged this place to blow as soon as we are gone.”
“May I suggest we retire to the Kimera Mast ship in orbit? I need to get up to speed on what’s going on as I’ve been out of contact with the Commonality for most of my stay here.”

Erik shrugged. “That’s as good a place as any. And you have some data that we don’t have access to, which the Commander might find interesting.”
“What do you say Will? Sound agreeable to you?” Zeke turned back to his friend who looked more than a little bomb shelled.
“Do you trust them?”
“With my life.”
Boone looked back to Ca’el, trying to size him up with what he knew. The Taelons and the Kimera had been enemies. And as the old proverb said “The enemies enemy is my friend”. Zeke also seemed to trust him. And Ca’el hadn’t done anything hostile yet. He lowered his arm and mentally commanded his strange skrill to power down.
“Ok. But I reserve the right to be suspicious. ”
” That is your prerogative. And I expected nothing else.” Ca’el made a small movement of respect with one of his hands.
“There’s a kid I want you to meet. His name is Liam. You’ll like him.” Zeke secured his rifle and helped Boone of the table. As Zeke started bringing Boone up to speed with the last news since his death, the rest of the small band made final preparations for their departure, not knowing what they were up for as they returned to the Kimeran Mast ship.

-
The Larya
Sickbay
Orbiting Earth
-

Sandoval kept staring at the closed door. His son was in there. And there was absolutely nothing he could do.

-
The Larya
200.000 years ago
-

The sorry remains of his crew had thankfully had the same idea he had and even as Anr’el was slowly recovering from her shock, the powerful engines of the Larya carried the few survivors, they had managed to save, away from the smouldering remains of what had once been a thriving civilisation. The Taelons would pay. But first the Kimera had to find a safe place to reorganise and develop some sort of battle plan. The Kimera had time. And time would be the downfall of the Taelons.
“Hag’el? Do you have a moment?” A young doctor called Mat’hel, the youngest member of his crew fresh out of the medical education, approached him.
“Hm?”
“It’s about Anr’el. There’s something I think you should know. As her friend I mean.” The young one hesitated.
“Yes? She’s Ok, isn’t she?” Hag’el got worried.
“Yes. But…She was pregnant and the Child didn’t survive.” The statement fell rather bluntly. But the Doctors lack of experience and the entire ordeal they had just been through left no room for civilities.
“Pregnant?” Hag’el was shocked. He hadn’t known. There had been no echo of a second being in her mental signature. Mat’hel nervously looked at his pad.
“Yes. As far as the scanner was capable of determining she wasn’t that far along. It is possible that she didn’t know herself. Her medical records show that she only recently went through the Ka’arpatham. It is possible that the strain all of this caused the pregnancy to be aborted.”
“Have you told her?”
“No, not yet. She is still unconscious.”
“Good, don’t. I’ll do it when she’s strong enough. It is better that she hear it from me.”
The doctor nodded, then returned to his duties of taking care of the many wounded amongst the survivors. Hag’el leaned back in his command chair as the new information slowly sank into his mind. Yet another death, which the Taelons had caused. When was it going to end? Unknown to him, in the other end of the galaxy, a Taelon by the name of Ma’el had the same thought. Destiny had set wheels in motion, which could either destroy or save both species.

TBC…

Lily was getting worried. She had heard a scream from the bridge, but when she arrived there, there was no one to be seen. And no one was piloting the ship.
“Guardian, engage autopilot, destination Earth.”
“Autopilot engaged. Starting course corrections. Destination will be reached in t -8 hours.” The cold, metallic voice of the ships AI boomed out from the wall, and Lily was now more than worried. Course corrections meant that the ship had been without a pilot for quite a while. Where was Anr’el ? This was not like her.
“Guardian, locate Commander Anr’el”
“The Commander is currently approaching the shuttle deck via the maintenance tunnels on habitation deck 12.”
Deck 12? That was Liam’s deck, so that could be part of the explanation. But why the maintenance tunnels ? Picking up a jog, Lily started in the direction of the habitation deck, a feeling of dread slowly spreading in her body.

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
Earth
-

Zeke carefully approached his former commander and friend after having watched him just stand there for a few minutes. He hadn’t heard any more outbursts from him. How to best deal with this ? Boone was obviously fighting the CVI, but how much control did he have ? He really didn’t want to harm Boone, but if Will attacked him, he would have no choice. The man was after all, friend or no friend, armed with a skrill. But soon after the decision was taken out of his hands as his prey doubled over, falling to the floor in a series of violent convulsions.

-
Boone’s Mind
5 minutes ago
-

Everything was dark, had been for quite a while. Had it always been as dark ? He tried to remember if there had been another state of mind, but in vain. A fussy memory of being in a cave, fighting for something…Control ?…, briefly crossed his mind, soon to be forgotten. When his vision had finally cleared, he found himself in a strange place, surrounded by strange machinery. Even the dampened lights of this place hurt his eyes. He did the only thing he could and hid in the darkest spot he could find. His body didn’t react the way it was supposed to. Something was very, very wrong… He needed to get away. Shuttle… The word invaded his mind. A shuttle, he needed one of those. Relying on instinct to keep him out of trouble, he started to crawl.

-
Liam’s quarters
Now.
-

He looked into the mirror after splashing water in his face. What a sight ! Sweat drenched hair, puffy red-rimmed eyes. And he was shaking. That last dream had been a killer. He needed Anr’el. She would make it right. She kept the demons at bay. But first he needed control. He couldn’t let them know, he still wasn’t getting better. They would only get worried. And he had caused enough bother as it was. But something told him, he didn’t fool them one bit. Abandoning his towel on a chair, Liam went to search for Anr’el.

-
An’rel’s mind
Now
-

Consciousness was slowly returning. Pain. Aching joints. And a weird doubleness in her mind. What was wrong with this picture ? Control eluded her as she spun into darkness again.

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
-

Ca’el was getting impressed with the versatile use of earthly languages that the Doctor was presenting him with. Granted, most of it was not what he would call polite, but still.. Quite impressing. Quickly moving a couple of steps backwards as the whirlwind also known as Jean stormed between the various medical equipment and the clone, which they had been forced to remove from the stasis capsule as the clone went into a series of violent convulsions. Being a soldier and a diplomat, Ca’el’s experience into medicine didn’t go beyond the mere necessities, but still it was enough to know that right now, all he could do was stay out of her way.

“Så sgu da også !” Jean started another string of very imaginative curses as the clones brainwaves started to go erratic once again. If she didn’t know better, she would say, that two personalities were battling to get in control of the same body. But that was impossible, wasn’t it ?
“Ca’el, get over here !” She all but snarled “Do a share !”
“Pardon ?”
Jean resisted the urge to roll her eyes in frustration. Males. Instead she repeated: “Do a share ! There’s something weird going on here, and I need to know, who’s in there ! Stat !” She poked Boone’s clone on the forehead. Ca’el looked at her with apprehension in his eyes.
“Sharing is not something to be done without approval from the other party.”
“Just do as I say ! I have reason to believe, that there’s more than one personality in there and THAT is causing all these problems !” There was a couple of seconds of silence. Then Ca’el slowly extended his hands towards the clone..

-
Liam’s Deck
The Larya
8 hours away from
Earth.
-

Liam was going towards the bridge as he ran into Lily.
“Liam, have you seen Anr’el lately ?”
“No, what’s wrong ?” Liam sensed that something was out of order. A feeling that he had been having ever since he woke up. At first he thought it was just the aftermath of the nightmare, but seeing the hardly concealed worry on Lily’s face, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Lily sighed. That boy was way to perceptive. “An’rel’s gone awol. She’s somewhere in the maintenance tunnels, but I can’t seem to locate her.” Noticing the alarm on Liam’s face she kicked herself mentally. “Don’t worry, she’s probably just checking up on something. Could you..ehm..could you check on her over the Commonality ?”

Closing his eyes briefly, Liam felt for the special signature, which was Anr’el in the multitude of voices in the Commonality. There…Or was it really her ? The signature had changed somehow, gone darker and more turbulent. Something was very, very wrong and he seemed to be the only one to notice it. Then he felt it. The wrongness. And then he recognised it. His mental cry of alarm didn’t go unnoticed. In the real world, all Lily could do was watch as Liam suddenly spun around and headed for the shuttle deck.

-
Strandhill
Ireland.
-

She had just arrived from Belfast international Airport and was looking forward to some real rest before seeking out the Becketts the next day. Remembering the nice and open people, she had encountered once before, the barely hidden hostility in the air caught her by surprise. Noticing a particular platinum blond head disappear through the door, Abby frowned. What the hell was Renee Palmer doing in Strandhill, when she had a business to run ? Abby wasn’t the only one sensing trouble. From across the room, another pair of eyes followed the blonds exit.

Despite his own part in this, Dick Sanchez had decided to stick around after finally getting his act together and finding out about the Becketts and their connection to Major Kincaid.. And he was glad he had. Palmer was playing a dangerous game. One that could end bloody. And he was trying to figure out how to stop it. If only he had help.

-
The Beckets
residence
Strandhill

-

Fiona was doing some heavy-duty baking to get the events of the day out of the head as it happened. A cobblestone crashed though the window, sending splinters all over the kitchen area. Hearing the crash, Ambrose quickly rose from his chair in the living room and went out there, only to find a shaken Fiona, bleeding from several scratches in her face, unfolding a small piece of paper, which had been tied to the cobblestone. Silently she handed it over to him.

All it said was: “Freaks are not welcome in Strandhill”

-
The Larya
Shuttle deck
-

Ignoring Lily’s voice telling him to slow down, Liam ran, in an almost inhumanly speed, to the nearest maintenance access. Not bothering to open it, but simply tearing the door out of the hinges, never noticing the bloody cuts it’s edges carved in his hands, he proceeded to worm his way through the narrow opening, focusing entirely on the centre of his minds eyes focus. There ! A soft glowing, silently whimpering form was lying limply at a crossing between two tunnels. Liam was suddenly scared. This was so unlike his friend. She was always the strong one. To find her like this, hiding like an animal waiting to die..

“Anr’el ? Are you alright ?” He softly touched her shoulder, afraid to add to the pain than she was obviously already in. The violent reaction at this simple gesture took him by surprise. Anr’el jerked back as if burned. But the visible transformation was even more surprising. Ripples extended through her entire body as it changed into that of a human male. A desperate one.

“Get back !” The loud voice echoed through the tunnels.
“Anr’el ? What’s wrong ? It’s me, Liam..” Liam’s voice slowly faded as he realise that things WAS as bad as he suspected. Anr’el no longer knew who she was. Lily had finally caught up with Liam, navigating through the less than human size tunnels using the sound of voices as her compass. It was at time like this, which she felt lucky to be part Jaridian. If she had been human, the narrow tunnels and poor lighting would have had her bordering claustrophobia by now. She definitely had to talk to the Kimeran Engineers about resizing these tunnels. As she neared her goal, the sight of the two others made her stop dead in her tracks.

It wasn’t Liam. It was the other person. Someone, which Anr’el wasn’t even supposed to know.
“Boone ? Is that you ?”

-
The Kazamatz
Below Copenhagen
-

Ca’el never got as far as to share with the Clone. Instead, it suddenly sat up, the suddenness of the action making everyone spin around and point his or her gun at it. Not to mention Ca’el loosing his human guise. The recent fireworks from the other, now comatose clone had recalled old, almost forgotten reflexes in most of the fighters. When this newest Boone didn’t seem to be a threat, they all stepped down a bit, but not completely. Scanning the room quickly with its eyes, it locked its attention on Ca’el.

“Ca’el ? Have we arrived at Earth already ? Where’s Liam ?” There was a truly confused expression in Boone’s eyes.
“Pardon ?” Ca’el asked just as confused. Boone’s face took on a slightly annoyed expression that Ca’el recalled from Anr’el when someone did something incredible stupid.
“The Larya ! Have we arrived on Earth already ?” Anr’el clarified, not to pleased when Ca’el seemed to have lost his ability to recognise even the simplest of questions. Ca’el cocked an eyebrow. How could this human know about the “Larya”.

To Jean, however, it opened a completely different set of possibilities.
“Commander Anr’el, I suppose ?”

-
Shuttle bay 10
The Larya
-

Lily was scared and not afraid to admit it. What Liam wanted to do was dangerous. At first, the idea of something like this happening sounded completely ludicrous, but one had to remember that this was an area, where she was no expert. She preferred flying. But Liam had seemed so sure, knowing without a doubt that this was the only thing that would make things ok again. Probably some of those ancestral memories the Kid carried around in his head. She could only watch as Liam and the now green glowing “Boone” was locked in a deep share, trying to sort everything out.

-
The Kazamatz
Below Copenhagen
-

Ca’el was still trying to wrap his brain around the latest developments. But the questions he and the others had asked in the last hour, the mannerisms, even the memories all pointed to the same conclusion: Somehow Boone and the Commander had been swapped.
*No*
Liam’s voice reached him though the Commonality. Ca’el went in.
*What do you mean, no ? The person in front of me has all her mannerisms and memories.*
*Manners and memories, yes, but not the soul. When the second clone was activated and the transfer started, something that even the Taelons couldn’t have foreseen happened. Due to the Kimeran DNA, Boone has his own extremely weak Commonality link and he grabbed onto the only living relative he had in there and the Commanders memories and his own were all tangled up in the process.*
*But the Commander doesn’t have any relatives, who could have delivered the DNA. And it would have to have been fresh for this to work.*
*It wasn’t the Commander, who was his relative.* Liam seemed to hesitate. *It was I. Boone’s 3′rd DNA string came from Hag’el.*

-
The Data core
“Larya”
-

Augur was trying hard to find something to say to the silent figure, which handed him the various equipment as he asked for it, but was hell on conversation. Ok, maybe his little rant to Sandoval was not put in the most polite of terms, but he needed the air cleaned between them if they were to form any kind, however remote it might be, of friendship. But did the guy have to be this god damned silent all the time? Sandoval on his part felt an equal need for speaking, but didn’t know where to start. What do you say to a guy, whom you’ve spend the better part of 10 years harassing, chasing, torturing and generally being a nuisance to?. He couldn’t think of anything. Maybe he should just start from the only common point they had. Liam.

“So…Liam…What was he like when he was a ki..younger?” Augur sent him a quick glance. Sandoval seemed genuine enough. And the silence where really grating on his nerves.
“Really gullible.” He grinned as he thought of some of the more fun parts of Liam’s life. “There was this time, when..” But before Augur could tell Sandoval about the infamous Giant Doughnut Battle for Peace in the Flat Planet, Lily’s voice boomed from the intercom.

“EVERYONE, GET DOWN TO SHUTTLE BAY 10! STAT!” The urgency and fear in her voice had them hitting the nearby portal running. What on Earth had happened now?

-
Strandhill
Ireland
Earth
-

Abby Franklin was struck by the inspirational lightning as she watched how Palmer made her little lies go around. Getting angry and starting yelling wouldn’t help, but maybe she could beat her at her own game. After all, Abby had a major, worldwide news network to use, while Palmer only had herself. But she needed to find an attack point and for that she needed help. Smiling a little devilishly, the otherwise nice and calm Abby grabbed her mobile and started dialling. Palmer was about to get her plastic surgery tuned a** kicked.

TBC…

Jean send out an impressive, and very loud, string of curses. This was NOT a good time. Despite the many hours, she had spend familiarising herself with the alien technology, she was still not certain, as to what to do about a waking clone. She would, in other words, have to improvise. Again. As if she hadn’t done enough of that already during the occupation.

The clone in the chamber went through a series of violent convulsions, as it fought the artificial sleep. Punching in what she hoped was the correct series of commands on the consol next to the chamber, she vaguely recognised a skrill on one of “his” arms, as it ripped loose from the restraints holding it and hit the side of the cover. She had no time to contemplate the implications of this, though, as a new set of alarms went of. Not only was the clone waking up, there was nothing she could do to prevent it. It, HE, would die, if she didn’t do something. There was only one thing she could do. She send one final command through the consol and slowly the chamber opened.

-
Bridge
“Larya”
Enroute to Earth.
-

Lily sighed as she worked the controls of the ship. This interface was so…stiff in comparison to the one of the Taelon shuttles. But the new interface wasn’t finished yet. Punching her hand through the data stream making it out for controls, she adjusted their course as they went through a series of irregularities, the id version of turbulence. One thing about this old ship though. Once the new interface was finished, this ship would be one of the most agile in the fleet. And Liam would be flying again. A small smile caught the edges of her mouth as she remembered the joy in his eyes, as he was allowed to fly the ship during take off. Of cause Guardian had been monitoring his every move, making sure, that nothing went wrong, but still. Liam had obviously missed it, the flying.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Juliana approached her from one of the portals.
“Guardian, take over.”
“Acknowledged. Initiating autopilot. Remaining time to goal: 10 hours and counting.” A metallic voice answered, coming seemingly out of nowhere. Lily made a note to herself about having the voice altered. It’s robot like quality grated on her nerves. The controls morphed into a series of mathematical forms and a map of their course to Earth. They were just passing Sirius. She opened her security harness and rose from the command chair.

“So, what were you thinking about?” Juliana inquired. She had walked onto the bridge and found Lily looking completely lost to the world.
“Oh, this and that. Mostly about Liam.” A look of worry passed over her Jaridian*Human features. “Is he still having nightmares?”
Juliana rubbed her eyes tiredly. “Yes. And they are getting stronger. I’m starting to wonder if returning to Earth was such a great idea after all.”
“He’ll have to face it sooner or later, Juliana. And rather sooner.”
Juliana nodded. “I know, but it seems so hard.”
“You can’t protect him from everything. And his grandparents will be there if things goes out of control. Not to mention, that we’ll only be a portal away. Even Sandoval is here.” There was no love lost between her and the former implant, but Lily had to admit, that the former protector had come through for Liam.
“Speaking of Ron. Have you seen him or Augur around?”
“Knowing Augur, I would try looking in the computer core. As for Sandoval, who knows?”

-
The computer core
“Larya”
-

Lily was right. Augur WAS in the computer core. And so was, much to his own surprise, one Ronald Sandoval, leaning against the wall while trying to keep his amusement on the inside. The cyber wiz was trying to make one of the consoles run again after a small “accident” had fried a large amount of circuits.
“Augur, when are you going to learn NOT to mess around with technology you don’t understand?” Sandoval smirked as Augur send him a disgusted look.
“Well, if I don’t “mess” around with it, how am I to find out how it works? Ouch! Christ..” Augur jumped back, muttering curses as he had unwittingly touched a still electrified wire.
“By asking ?”
“Ha ha, very funny !”
“Well, you have to admit, it would save you a lot of trouble.”
“And where’s the fun in that ?” Augur walked over to another, still functional, terminal.
“Guardian, bring up the terminal schematics again.” Sandoval watched Augur go over the blueprints for a couple of seconds, then lost his patience and decided to come down to business. “What did you want to talk to me about ?”
“Liam.”
“Oh. What about him ?”
Augur abandoned his schematics, straightened up and looked straight at Sandoval. “Nothing much. Just don’t hurt the kid or I’ll rip out your spine and use it for a toothpick. ” The silent and dead serious tone in Augurs normally animated voice sent a shiver down Sandoval’s spine. But before he could open his mouth to defend himself, Augur waved a hand in dismissal.
“I know, that you have done a lot for him these last couple of months, but that doesn’t make up for the fact that you have the power of hurting him the most. Remember that, and we’ll probably all be friends for a very long time.” Sandoval was slightly taken aback by the unveiled threat in Augurs voice.
“I would never hurt him on purpose. You know that.” It came quietly, honestly.
“I know you say that now. Just don’t forget those words anytime soon, ok ?”
‘
Sandoval frustrated ran a hand through his hair. He had expected this for some time now. Had expected this to happen for quite some time now. They didn’t trust him. He couldn’t blame them. Not after what he had done. But it still hurt like hell. And as time had passed by, he had hoped as well. But there was only one way of dealing with it. The same way they were dealing with Liam’s recovery. One step at the time.

-
Strandhill
Ireland.
-

Renee Palmer was watching the Beckett couple from a distance. Ok, the thing about calling the press hadn’t worked out completely to her advantage, but if she could get proof, then maybe things would turn out to her benefit after all. A few rumours here, a few half-truths there and Voila, instant revenge. Of cause, she could have no obvious part in it, after all, she was the President of Doors international and supposedly above this kind of thing. The cold smile returned. This was going to be fun. A couple of hundred meters away, Fiona stiffened and looked around suspiciously.
“Fiona ? What’s wrong ?” A sigh.
“Nothing, just felt like someone walking over my grave.”

-
CNN offices.
Washington DC
-

Another dead end. Abby was frustrated. Palmer had seemingly disappeared from the face of the Earth. A couple of plane tickets invaded her line of vision as her boss threw them her computer keyboard. She picked one up.
“Ireland ? What the hell is in Ireland ?” Her annoyance shone through clearly in her voice.
“The Becketts.” Her boss answered nonplussed. “One of our informants from the Herald Tribune snatched up a rumour, that Liam Kincaid is returning to Earth. They didn’t pay much attention to it. We will.”
“What will our angle on this be ?” Abby asked suspiciously, not wanting to participate in anything, which would get her friend in trouble.
“I’ll leave that up to you.” He pointed a warning finger in her face ” Just doesn’t overdo it !” To be truthful, he had reviewed some of the stuff, they had run during Kincaid’s fall from grace, and felt more than a little guilty. Which was also why he put Abby on the story. He was very aware of her relationship with the man and hoped, that they could somehow make it up to him, or at least his family.

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
-

Jean watched the results on her monitor. The man on the table was stabilised. It had been a harried few hours. They had almost lost him twice already, only the grace of the Gods had pulled him through that last one.
“Jean ?”
“Hi Erik.”
“How is he ?”
“Stabile, should be waking up any moment now.” She rubbed her neck tiredly. “I just wish that some of the Taelon Medical stuff had survived. At this point, I’ve only got a vague idea of what they have done to him.”
“Maybe the Kimera can help ?”
She send him a smile. “Maybe. Could you contact them ?” He send her a crocked smile, then caught her hand and placed a gentle kiss on it.
“For you, anything my lady.”
“Ham.” As the couple continued to banter, none of them noticed that Boone had woken up and heard the entire thing. Nor did they notice how his skrill started to glow as he slowly raised his arm. And in the farthest recesses of his mind, all the former Commander could do was scream as his CVI took over.

-
Liam’s Quarters
“Larya”
-

Anr’el was pulled out of her restful sleep abruptly as a scream erupted from Liam’s lips.
“NOOOOOOOO!”

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
-

Later, Erik was never able to discover exactly WHAT had warned him. A shadow? A Sound? All he knew was, that if he hadn’t turned around that instance, both he and Jean would have been dead. As it was, he barely had time to throw them both out of the line of fire, as Boone, or who ever he was, fired his skrill at the exact spot, where they had both been standing.

In his mind, Boone kept screaming silently, cursing at every deity he could think of. This couldn’t be happening ! He needed to get back in control before more people got hurt. As the noise of running people reached him, his CVI-controlled body drew upon his military memories and disappeared into a nearby tunnel. After all, why fight a battle, when you are bound to loose it?

-
Liam’s Quarters
The “Larya”
Enroute to Earth
-

Liam’s heart pounded as fear slowly left him. As reality returned step-by-step, he became aware of the woman next to him, Anr’el, trying to calm him down.
“Calm, you are safe.”
Taking a deep, cleansing breath and listening to her soothing voice, he slowly managed to get his mind out of the hurricane of terror, which had caught him so unprepared. Normally Anr’el presence was enough to keep him from dreaming like this, but something about this dream had been vastly different. Anchoring himself in the feeling of a hand rubbing circles on his back, he finally allowed himself to think about the dream again. This time, it had skipped the part about the Man and the Room completely and entered straight into something else. A feeling of being trapped. Of being forced to do things against his will. Weird flashes of a cave. Trying to kill people, he was fairly certain was friends, even though he had never seen them before. And the Terror. A scream of anguish. A living hell. The scream was what had waken him up, finally. Liam took another deep breath, then focused his eyes on his friend.

“I’m OK now.” He smiled sheepishly. “Sorry for waking you up.”
“It’s OK. I was going to get up anyhow. There’s some stuff I need to do at the bridge.” Anr’el send him what she hoped was a reassuring grin, while resting her hand on his shoulder. His screaming had scared her something fierce.
“Want to talk about it ?”

Liam thought about it. He could feel An’rel’s worry, even though she tried to hide it. She had already done so much for him, she and his Family, as he had come to call the makeshift bunch of people now surrounding him. And now this.
“Nah, it’s ok, just a dream.”
Anr’el send him a suspicious look. “Sure ?”
Mustering up the last remnants of confidence, he forced a smile. “Completely.”

She didn’t believe him, but if he didn’t want to talk, there was no way she could force him, not without resorting to methods of a kind which went against everything she believed in. A soft sigh escaped her, as she tucked him in again. Brushing some damp hair from his forehead, she then, as on an afterthought continued. “You might feel better, if you tell me about it ?” There was an unspoken question in her voice.

His smile faltered a little, as he thought it over. Maybe he should…Then he remembered all the things this amazing creature had already done for him and his resolve returned. No, this he had to deal with for himself. He wouldn’t turn another one of his burdens over on her.
” No, it’s Ok, I’ll be fine.”

Acknowledging a lost battle, when she saw it, Anr’el let it pass for now. “You know, where to find me if you change your mind Liam.”

Another small smile, then he tapped his head. “Right in here.”

She gave a small laugh, then settled back in her chair for a while, watching his eyes glaze over with sleep and finally slide shut. Silently making her way to the doorway, she looked back one last time, to make sure he was still asleep. “One of these day, you’ll have to talk about it, Little One.” Turning around again, she made her way to the bridge. “Guardian, Lights out.”

-
Strandhill
Ireland
-

Reneé had booked a room at a small inn. It was, what most people would have considered a romantic little in, complete with straw covered roof, a pub*restaurant and a nice elderly couple tending to it. But to Rene’ it was only an annoyance. Here she was, the president of Doors International, and she had to put up with these hicks. But then she remembered her little revenge plot and that cruel smile made it back on her lips. Schooling her face carefully, she entered the restaurant area.

“Good evening. Ms. Palmer. What can we do for you tonight ?” The elderly woman, Meg, greeted her from the bar.
“Well, I am getting kind of hungry.” Putting on her best front, Reneé approached Meg, trying to look as friendly as possible.
“Well, we got the days special, a steak with chips, potatoes and the rest of the show, or what about a nice chicken soup with noodles ?”

Reneé groaned inwardly. Of cause this WAS farmland and out where the crows fly backwards, but couldn’t these people at least TRY to have something civilised on the menu. Wasn’t it enough, she had to put up with the SMELL ? Outwardly, however, she kept up her facade. “The special sounds good.”
“HENRY !” Meg’s voice cut through the air like a razor, making Rene’ wince with its volume.
“Yes dear ?” A timid voice answered from the kitchen area.
“One special for Ms. Palmer.”
“Yes dear.”

While they waited for her order, Reneé decided, that it was perhaps a good idea to start her little plan. Meg was as far as she knew, as big a busybody as anyone.
“You know, I almost didn’t come here, I mean to Strandhill, at all.” Reneé send Meg a hesitant smile as if she didn’t really know if she should tell her.
“Oh, why not dear ” Meg’s confusion was obvious.
“Well, I heard that that alien Liam Kincaid have family around here and after all the things he did in Washington…Well…I’m not one to run with gossip, but I could tell you things that would make your head spin.”
“Oh ?” Meg’s interest was firmly caught.
“Well, you wont tell anyone, will you ?” At Megs shake, Rene’ leaned closer. “Well, there was this time when…” And as she spun her lies, Rene’ couldn’t help but laugh on the inside. Liam wouldn’t get away this time.

-
The “Jira”
Orbiting Earth
-

“Sir, there’s a message from Bettis.”
Ca’el waved his data stream open. At least SOMETHING interesting was happening now. In the month, since he had been in command of this ship, due to an accommodation of An’rel’s, absolutely NOTHING had happened. And he was getting bored. “Bettis, what may I do for you ?” A genuine smile spread on Ca’el’s face as he saw the other man. This human had helped rescue Liam. And had turned out to be a true friend as well.

“Well, we’ve located the disturbance you asked us to investigate, it originates from some sort of Taelon cloning facility. We could really use some help in finding out what happened here ?”
“I’ll have a team on its way immediately. We’ll use the portal in the liberation headquarters.”
“Thank You.”
“Not a problem.” As the connection died, Ca’el smirked. “Yon’el, you have the bridge. I have an away team to lead.”
“But sir, protocol…”

Yon’el’s protest fell on deaf ears as Ca’el left the bridge. Yes, finally, something was happening.

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
-

Zeke stalked the tunnels warily. Boone, or rather his clone, was no easy prey. From what that resistance doctor, Jean, had been able to find out so far, the Taelons had found a way to copy one’s memories, even soul it seemed, from one body to the next. Remembering the cases during the occupation with the pad’ar warriors and the bio-surrogates, he figured this was some sort of experiment to go further. But what did it mean when concerning this man, they were now hunting ? He would most probably have all of his memories, including those from his black ops days, and that made him a very dangerous adversary. Boone had been one of the best, had almost been asked to join the ODK team, but then he had married Kate. Jean had also said something about genetic alterations, but she hadn’t been able to go into specifics, lacking the equipment to do a more exact analysis. And then there was the matter of the unprovoked attack. That just didn’t sound like Will. But with all the dirty tricks the Taelons had pulled, who could know, what they had done to his mind. They really couldn’t know, not until the Kimera had had a chance to examine him. And to do that, they would have to capture him first, preferably alive. Zeke stiffened and then fell back into the shadows, as he heard a sound, like falling pebbles, up ahead. Now was really NOT a good time to fall into thoughts about the past. Because as much as he respected Boone, and as much as he owed him his life several times over, he wasn’t going to let the other man kill him.

Altering his grip on his rifle, Zeke became one with the shadows as he stalked the man he had once called “Friend”.

A few hundred meters up front, Boone’s body stumbled again. Without the active participation of his mind, his CVI couldn’t move with the grace, which normally was such a big part of his persona. That gave him hope. If he could somehow keep up his struggles, then maybe, he could gain enough control back to make a difference, when it mattered. He could also feel a growing rage. How could Da’an have allowed this ? He trusted him ! The last thing he remembered was being put in that blue tank after his fight with Hag’el. That, and some fussy memories of facing a tall, lanky man on the bridge of the mother ship.

“This is not right…” Da’an’s voice. But when ? A name. Lazarus. Memories, to diffuse to distinguish or to make sense flew past his inner eye as he fought the special programming of THIS CVI. This was what he had feared, when Doors and dr. Belman first approached him. This loss of control. But there was something different. Sandoval had always been there 100%, even with the CVI, not fighting it. What was different ? And as Boone fought for control, Zeke started to close in.

-
Liberation HQ
Denmark
-

The Portal flared to life with a bright flash, spitting out a small group of Kimera from ID-space. Ca’el quickly took inventory of the church loft, wondering what human saw in a church, which made them seemingly always put up their refuges at this kind of places in their time of need. Granted, he had only been to two places like this…
“Ca’el” Bettis approached him.
“Bettis, how are you my friend ?” Calling on some memories from his last human host, he remembered to stretch out his hand for a handshake. While in Rome…
“Fine, but a small problem has arisen since our last conversation.” Bettis looked, and sounded, worried. He continued. “One of the remaining two clones woke up and are currently being chased though the underground maze, where we found the facility. And we don’t know exactly WHAT we are dealing with here, so I hope you people brought some medical scanners with you.” At Ca’el’s affirmative nod, Bettis lead him towards the exit. “Good. I’ll explain on the way.”

-
Bridge
“Larya”
Enroute to Earth.
-

It was An’rel’s turn at the con. The “Larya”, being equipped with an AI, only demanded a small crew, and she and Lily both enjoyed flying intensely, so they had agreed to being the pilots on this small outing. And the peace and quiet during the nightshift allowed her to do some serious thinking. Despite all of her own experiences during the Taelon*Kimeran war, she found herself at a loss at how to help Liam with his problems. But he needed help. And she was the only one who could give it. Or so the Council said. She was seriously starting to question the validation of that decision. Through the previous months, from when they had rescued him out of that Hellhole, he had seemed to cope with the entire thing, had shown a resilience, which had amazed everyone, even Juliana and Lily, who had known him all his life. Even with the nightmares, he had somehow managed to convince them all, that he was ok. And no one had questioned him. Not until now. She couldn’t help but feeling, that he was, once again, putting up a front, that he gave them what he thought they wanted. If she could only get him to open up. The last couple of training sessions before going to Earth, she had noticed a part of his mind with what in the real world would be a big sign screaming “No Access !” on it. She hadn’t wanted to push him, but now…Now she couldn’t help but feeling, that whatever was behind that wall of denial, could be the key to it all.

And that was when Liam’s mind suddenly screamed out in terror, grapping onto hers by instinct as yet another nightmare invaded his sleep. Caught by surprise, she felt herself sliding from one reality to the next.

-
Strandhill
Ireland
Earth.
-

Ambrose pulled over the car, as he and Fiona returned from getting yet another “We-really-need-this-for-Liam” item. This time they had to go to Belfast as well as making a small beeline to the local store. That last stop hadn’t been a pleasant one. They had both noticed the strange stares and whispering behind their backs as well as the downright hostile behaviour of the clerk. Not noticing where he was going, his vision obscured by the mountain of bags with “Absolutely necessary” things he was carrying, he didn’t notice Fiona’s sudden stop as she walked up to the main door, and almost knocked her over. She had gone completely white in the face.
“Why don’t you..”He started to complain as he noticed the…Thing…, which had stopped Fiona dead in her tracks. It was a black swarzsticker freshly painted on their front door.

In a parked car, not far away from there, Renee’ Palmer allowed herself a small, cruel smile. It had begun.

-
Liam’s Mind
-

Anr’el had her breath knocked out of her, mentally, as she impacted with the hard floor. The darkness around her was impenetrable. A feeling of pain and misery seemed to be in the very air of the place.
“Ok, you’ve somehow got sucked into Liam’s nightmare. Now how do you get out of here ?” She wondered out loud.
“You don’t.” She whirled around to see Liam, sitting at the floor with his back against the wall, hugging his knees and starring lost at a steel table, stained with the dark red of blood. Carefully she approached him.
“Why not ” Those eyes. No hope in them at all.
“Because there’s no escape. ” So final those words seemed. So lost.
“Liam…” She carefully moved over, slowly as not to frighten the Child, and put her hand on his shoulder. “Liam, there’s always a way out.” She tried to sound confident, but wasn’t having much success. Suddenly the surroundings changed. She was trapped in a stasis capsule and pure, unthinking panic washed over her. A cacophony of feelings not her own threatened to drown her, drag her into the abyss along with Liam. She didn’t care about herself anymore. She had already seen to many millennia to really care. But Liam. He was to young to loose like this. She barely deflected the onslaught on her mind, grabbing hold of Liam and fought to get them both out of there. She managed to get the situation somewhat under control and became aware of another presence in Liam’s mind. Male. That signature was definitely male. And not Kimera.

“GET OUT OF LIAM’S MIND RIGHT NOW !” With a roar of anger, she attacked the Other, not really caring who he was, just knowing instantly that here, this, was the reason of this weird twist of things. “GET OUT !” Then there was a blinding light as she felt the other consciousness loose its grip on Liam. And she saw no more.

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen
-

Boone felt an agonizing pain in his head. “GET OUT !” His own voice,, coarse with not being used, startled him. Where had that come from ? But at least he felt his CVI finally weakening. Encouraged, he renewed his assault on the alien mechanism’s mind control. Distracted by this internal battle, Boone failed to notice that Zeke had finally caught up with him.

-
Main Cave
The Kazamatz
-

Jean cursed. There were some weird fluctuations in the last stasis capsule. So far she had been able to keep it stable, but for how much longer ? A deep frown made an appearance. It seemed like some sort of data transmission, but directly into the clone’s brain ? And what was the receiver ? And why ?

“Jean !” Bettis’s voice cut into her train of thoughts, bringing her back to reality.
“Bettis. Did you…Oh, hello.” First now, she noticed the small group of strangers standing next to Bettis. One of the strangers moved, and she found herself staring into a familiar face.

“Greetings Doctor. I am Ca’el.” A slender, dark haired man looking like a complete double of Keanu Reeves stretched out his hand in greeting. Jean almost felt her mouth drop. The Kimera. She had forgotten about their ability to change shape.
“It’s an honour to finally meet you face to face.”

A little unnerved, she grasped his hand, finally remembering her manners. “Eh..Ca’el ? Next time, you might want to choose someone a little less…famous… as a host. And please, call me Jean.”
“Agreed on both counts, Jean. It is quit frightening how many people seem to accumulate around this person. Especially when you try to be invisible. ” Ca’el smiled crookedly at her. Well, at least this was one alien with humour. Ca’el was making a quick assessment of his own. This woman might have been surprised, but she still managed to function. She reminded him of Street in some ways. Or what Street would one day become. “Bettis said, that you have discovered some clones ?”

Better get down to business before his mind wandered to more pleasurable things. Jean sighed inwardly.
“Yes. This way please.”

Running over the displays on the capsule, Ca’el frowned deeply. It seemed like the Taelons had been up to some of their old tricks again.
“Look at this.” Jean pointed at the display with the transmission. “Looks like some sort of transmission to me. Ever seen anything like this before ?”
Ca’el closed his eyes, loosing his facade as some of his ancestral memories bubbled up, dragging along with them ancient pain. To Jean, this was most frightening. She knew from the tales of Zeke and the others, that the Kimera could maintain their facades in almost every situation.
“Ca’el ? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to…” Hesitantly, she reached out to him, placing her hand on his “shoulder”. The touch brought him back from the memories.
“It is quite Ok, Jean. I was just remembering something from a long time ago. Something, which happened to one of my ancestors.” Taking a deep breath while rebuilding his facade, he concentrated on finding the correct words in Earth’s English.

“During the Taelon-Kimera war, the Taelons captured and experimented on our children. Most of them died after going through hell, as you humans would put it. Some, however, were rescued. One of my ancestors was one of these children.” He turned his head to look straight at her. “She was barely sane, when she was rescued. You see, the Taelons had tried to force another mind into her body, tried to erase her own personality, her very soul, while doing it.”
Jean blanched at the prospect of doing something so utterly evil. “Why ? Why would anyone think of doing something like that to a child ?”

Ca’el gave a bitter laugh. “The usual. They would, once the method had been perfected by experimentation, have transferred some of their own into the bodies of Kimera’s then used these Taelon inhabited bodies to procreate, mixing their gene pool with ours. Even then, they didn’t conceive enough children to keep a constant populous and it was their hope that our genes would correct that.” He snorted, then looked down at the barely visible figure in the capsule. “Off cause, once the Kimeran bodies had served their purpose, they would have been “dealt” with. You want to know the most ironic thing about all this ?” He shot her a glance, then continued as she nodded. “If it hadn’t been for the war, the Kimera would probably have been able to help them solve their little problem. You see, we have been there as well. Not conceiving enough children, I mean.” There was a moment of silence as the echo of Ca’el’s voice died down in the cave.

Jean cleared her throat. “So, are you telling me, that some Taelon is about to download itself into Boone’s clone and use it to create children ?”
“No. First of all, the human brain is incapable of sustaining a Taelon consciousness for a long enough period of time to fulfil this purpose. Second of all, the human body would have to be female and carry the child, since no Taelon is capable of bearing a human*Taelon hybrid to term. There are simply too much of a difference between the matter based child and the energy based Taelon carrying it. Besides, all intelligence we have, point in the direction of the Taelons wanting to use the human race as cannon fodder in their war with the Jaridians, not for procreation.”

A shiver went down Jean’s spine at the calm voice this was said in. She had always known, that there was something rotten about the Taelons, but the facts, and they were facts she was certain, that she had been served these last couple of minutes, was worse than anything she could have come up with in even her wildest imagination. The resistance had always suspected, that the Taelons didn’t care if humanity lived or died, but still… There was a huge difference between guessing and knowing. Bettis jumped in.

“If it’s not a Taelon, then what is going on here ?”
“My guess is, that the Taelons found a way to download a human mind into a clone’s body, that way they could utilise the knowledge and experiences of that person time after time after time in their sordid little war.”
“Yeah..They did something like that with the Pad’ar warriors. They downloaded the minds of some old people into a new, artificial body.” Bettis frowned. He didn’t like the prospect of dying only to wake up and having to die again. Which led to his next question. “But wouldn’t the warriors at some point simply stop fighting ?”
“Not if they had a CVI. It would simply force them to do as their masters commanded. They wouldn’t have a choice.”
A thought occurred to Jean. “A CVI. ..I wonder…Ca’el, I need a medical scanner. Did you…” Ca’el grinned and motioned for one of the other Kimera to step forward.
“What are we looking for, Doc ?”
“I’m not sure…I’ll know when I see it…” Absentmindly she started scanning the body in the capsule, concentrating on the head area. Ca’el, watching over her shoulder, suddenly noticed something.
“Jean, could you bring up the DNA profile again ?” The result left them both in stupor.
“Oh my God. He’s part Kimera…”

-
The residence of the Becketts
Strandhill
Ireland
-

Fiona was standing at her window, not noticing the splendid day on the other side of the glass. Why now ? Why would something like this happen now ? She had hoped, that once the reporters had left them alone, the rest of the world would soon forget them as well. A hundred day and all that. But apparently not. She sighed, then returned to her kitchen. It had taken the better of two hours to clean of the swastika from their front door. At least they hadn’t broken any windows yet. She was eerily reminded of the many fights years before between the Catholics and the Protestants of Ireland. Even then, she had wondered why her fellow humans could not just accept, that there was people, who was different and move on. There were so many other things, which was more important than race, skin colour or religion. Ambrose entered the kitchen with his arms full of freshly chopped wood. He had his own way of dealing with the anger.

“Where do you want this ?”
“Put it next to the fireplace, dear.” Catching his eyes, a silent vow was exchanged between the two people. They wouldn’t let these people drag them into the mud with them. She felt lucky knowing, that what ever happened, he would be there. And so did he.

-
The Inn
Strandhill
Ireland
-

Renée was at her best. These people were more stupid than she had realised upon arrival. They were soaking her “innocent” stories up. Just speak a little to their dark sides, play on their fears, mixed it up with their prejudices, disguise it as the talk of a concerned citizen and Voila. Soon these people would believe that even the old people were aliens, just by association. Now all she needed was some sort of event to heat things even more up, and Liam and his darling grandparents would be ancient history. Some days, it was good to be her.

TBC…

Standard Disclaimers:
Don’t own them, but boycotts those who do. Anr’el, her gang as well as any original characters along with this story is mine though.
Rating: PG 13 due to language and mild violence.
Archive: my pages. Anyone else sure, but please ask first.Thanks.
Feedback ! YES PLEASE ! MORE !

Dedication:
Robert Leeshock for being him and Liam Hag’el-Sandoval-Beckett - Alien enough to be human.

Flames? Send them to the PTB’s. They deserve them more than me. At least I hope I’m not THAT evil!

-

Nightmares
Chapter 1
By
Katja Boysen
Denmark

-

The Shariad Mountains
Kimera Prime
-

He was standing at the edge of a ledge, totally ignoring the steep drop only inches away, his eyes staring greedily at the magnificent valley stretched out beneath his feet. Greens of every kind blended with the shrill colours of the alien flowers, which to him didn’t seem all that alien anymore, weaving patterns of yellow, purple, blue, any colour the human mind could name and properly a couple it couldn’t as well, through the undergrowth.

In the sky, flocks of the lizzardlike “birds” of this world soared through a sky a deeper shade of blue than that of the world he had know so far, filling the air with their song. Far away, on the plain, he could se a herd of Neeri, a small gazelle-like creature, making it’s way towards a small lake. He smiled and turned his eyes to the sky once more.

Over the horizon, he could see the triple moons rising as the dual suns slowly set in the opposite direction. It was getting late. And he had a long journey ahead of him tomorrow. He really should be getting back, or Anr’el, not to mention Juliana, Lily, Street or Sandoval, would be worried. But he couldn’t help himself. He looked at the sunset again, hoping to get a glimpse of the plasma bridge, which connected the two stars.

The suns were small compared to that single star of the world, which he had been born to, but then, they were also farther away. And that distance was what had made this world possible. A little closer, and the planet would have been an inferno of heat. There was a childish joy in his eyes as he took it all in on last time. Then Liam turned on his heels, and with a regretful sigh, made his way back to the small settlement, where he and his “Family” now lived. Home.

-
Strandhill
Ireland
Earth
-

Ambrose was watching vaguely amused, as his darling Fiona, the love of his life, seemed to be everywhere at once with the dust buster. That was, when she was not chasing helpless dust bunnies with a rag, scaring the living daylights out of the last surviving spider, cleaning of windows or making enough cookies to last a lifetime. She was determined to make Liam’s stay a good one. As she had said: “That poor boy has been through enough pain and agony to last a lifetime. At least we can try to make up for some of that lost time.” She had said that without knowing half of it. If she had known it all…

Ambrose had read Kimeran reports and some old resistance files before Liam left. In his mind, the words “Pain” and “Agony” didn’t quite cover it. “Hell” was more like it. He had seen some bad stuff in his life, but this… His face turned dark for a split second. Fiona was right; Liam needed a break. He spotted Fiona making her way towards his spot on the couch and quickly moved out of the way at the look of determination on her face. He knew better, than to get in her way, when she had her mind set on something.

“Good, now that you are standing, could you please go chop up some wood for the fireplace?” Fiona asked innocently, after getting her better half to stand up. The “I’ve-got-a-dustbuster-manouver” always worked.
“Wood? Its high summer, woman!” Ambrose always backed away from manual labour when he could. After all, what was retirement, if one couldn’t enjoy it by doing absolutely nothing?
“Don’t be daft, man! I don’t want to heat the entire house, just enough for a small fire, for comfort.” She smiled sweetly. “I’ll make you a batch of that cider you like so much, if you do it?”

Bribery. He shouldn’t do it. He was being manipulated. He KNEW he was being manipulated. But Fiona’s apple cider… Grumbling, Ambrose went towards the kitchen door. Fiona grinned smugly. The Cider was always a dead certain bargain chip. No use in telling him, that she had already started a batch. She stopped to look out her window, towards the hills and the stone circle. Liam was coming in a couple of days. She was, for once, grateful that their house was placed relatively solitary, away from the city of Strandhill. People were still pointing fingers, even if the reporters and tabloid people were long gone. It had been a couple of rough months.

Renee Palmer had lifted the true identity of all three of Liam’s parents in an act of vengeance, and as a result, she and Ambrose had become haunted not only reporters out to get a sensation, but also all the weirdoes, who wanted their fifteen minutes of fame. She sighed heavily. Their old friends were still there, but more distant now, than they usually were. At least the racist fractions hadn’t given them any trouble yet.

The sound of an axe hitting wood from the outside brought her back to reality. The smug smile came back. Yes, the cider angle worked every time.

-
“Golden Mug ” Inn
Strandhill
-

He was slowly unpacking his gear. Palmer was paying him good money to do this job. Better do it properly. The trick was for him to get in and plant the bugs. The old couple didn’t seem to leave their house much these days. He was kind of confused. What could an old, retired couple out here in the middle of now where, possibly know about industrial espionage? Well, he was not getting paid for asking questions. And private eye Dick Sanchez started making plans for completing this job.

-
Former Doors International HQ
Washington DC
-

She had been right. DI had not come through the recent events like a pro. They had just managed to survive the downfall of anything with Taelon Tech in it, but not without great sacrifices. And cutbacks. Big ones. And it was all because of that freaking alien Liam.

An expression of pure hatred scrunched up Renée’s face as she thought about recent events, watching as the last cardboard boxes was carried out by her secretary. She didn’t care how long it took; she would make him pay. Dearly. She knew he would be back sooner or later. And she would be ready.

Making her way out of the building, which no longer belonged to DI, she failed to notice the small van, which followed her. Inside, Abby Franklin ordered her driver/cameraman to follow. Right now, Renee Palmer and the downfall of Doors International was good news. And Abby couldn’t help but enjoy the other woman’s plight. Renee Palmer was a real piece of work. Besides, Colonel Zeke had asked her to keep an eye on the Ice Queen. She owed Liam as much. And she would make some good money, if she could find some dirt on the woman.

-
An’rel’s house
The Shariad Mountains
Kimera Prime
-

“Are you sure, this is such a good idea?” Sandoval was more than a bit worried. He didn’t like the prospect of Liam going back to Earth unchaparoned. Despite the fact things had calmed considerably down, it was still dangerous.
“I wouldn’t let him go, if I believed differently. He needs this. He needs some time away from here, from us.” Anr’el gave a small smile. Liam had done his best to hide it, but he was developing cabin fever and even his joy of exploring the mountains couldn’t quit make it up for him. She hoped that sending him to see his grandparents, and getting spoiled terribly, would ease it a bit.
“He’s not used to this life of having nothing to fear, Ron, he needs some time to figure out how to live without the constant adrenalin high. To help him, we need to take his mind of things for a while. And the Kimeran and Jaridians in orbit will be able to intervene quickly, if something was to happen.” She put a hand on Sandoval’s shoulder, hoping to convey a little bit of reassurance. “Relax, my friend. Nothing is going to happen.”

Sandoval closed his eyes shortly, took a deep breath, and then opened them again. Anr’el was right. Nothing would happen. So why did he feel like he just jinxed himself? And on Earth, Fiona and Ambrose came home from a shopping expedition, not noticing the small bugs that PI Sanchez had placed all over their cottage.

-
Space docks
Kimera Prime
Next day
-

He looked around with awe in his eyes. This place was HUGE ! Spaceships of every size and calibre was either parked on the ground next to the organic structures, which were the terminals, or hovering over their landing patches, crewmembers and technicians milling around them like busy ants. Not even the busiest airport on Earth had EVER been as busy as this ! He hadn’t been here before, they had portaled straight for An’rel’s house from the “Justice” when they had arrived, so Liam had been surprised beyond words about this place.

He had always thought, that these ships would stay in orbit, as with the Taelon mother ship, but obviously he was wrong. He spotted the “Justice” hovering close by and automatically started walking in that direction. A hand on his arm gently held him back.
“Sorry, Liam, you won’t be going on the “Justice” this time.” Anr’el send him a smile. She had guessed where he was going. “”Justice” seems to have caught some sort of a bug and is currently undergoing repairs.”
“Bug ?”
“Yes, a virus of some sort. You know, that these ships, or rather most of them, are alive. We think, that “Justice” caught a flue bug or something while on Earth, and she’s currently in quarantine. Heck, even I can’t get aboard until she’s been cleared.” The last part was said with much dismay. Anr’el hated not being able to board her ship. It felt as if some valuable part of her was missing. A soft sigh made it past her lips. Well, at least the technicians was getting the hang of the problem. There was no fun about a sneezing and head ached star ship. Ok, sneezing and sneezing…

It was more a series of unexplainable problems cascading through the ships systems at regular intervals. But still annoying as hell. It had been Street, who had come up with the term “flu”. When it had been discovered, two other ships had already been infected as well, but luckily, it hadn’t turned into an epidemic. A sick ship could be dangerous. A fleet of sick ships would be disastrous. Especially if rumours were true and the Taelons was on their way.

She vividly remembered the incident, where the semi intelligent ship, in a fit of a “headache”, had activated her hyper drives for no apparent reasons while still inside the planets atmosphere. The shockwave of the event had knocked over every nonstationary construction in a radius of 5 km and made the buildings sway under the pressure. It had taken 7 hours to just locate “Justice” again, and an additional 10 before they had been able to make the jump back to Kimera Prime. She would probably laugh at it in time, but right now, it was a…well, disaster was to strong a word…and then again…

Liam just nodded. That made sense.
“Which ship will I be going on, then ?”
“That one.” Anr’el pointed towards a distant ship, old and battle scarred. His eyes went wide with surprise. It was an almost exact replica of the repository, he had once seen.
“She may not look as much, but she’s tougher than virtual glass. She’s been around since the war. Her name is “Larya”, it means protector in ancient Kimeran.” Anr’el smiled again. She could feel Liam’s surprise through the link like a palpable thing. And he didn’t even know half of it. Her grin grew wider.

Liam couldn’t explain it, but as he watched the distant shape, a weird sense of Deja Vu running though his mind. That, and the hard to conceal laughter in An’rel’s mind. He turned towards her.

“I didn’t think, that there was anymore of them left.”
“She’s the last. We discovered her adrift in space some years ago, dragged her back here and polished her up.” After a short pause, she fired her bombshell. “She was also Hag’el´s ship. And now she belongs to you, if you want her.”

Liam could literally feel his jaw drop.He owned his own star ship ? Anr’el reached over and gently closed his mouth, not even trying to cover her amusement. Then, with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, she continued.
“Of cause, you won’t pilot her just yet, but she’s all yours. Now common, Sandoval and the others are waiting for us over there.” Setting up a brisk pace, she started in the direction of the “Larya”, struggling NOT to laugh as she felt the confusion and shock emanating of the young child behind her.

Liam was utterly dazed. He owned a star ship? And his fathers to top it all.. Then something, Anr’el had said popped up in his mind. He was not to pilot it? Liam had to run to catch up to her.
“What do you mean “Won’t pilot”? I’m a damned good pilot, why can’t I pilot ?” Liam’s voice was thick with questions as he finally caught up with her. That, and a starting anger. Anr’el decided, that her little joke had fallen flat and started to remedy the situation at once.
“Child, easy. I didn’t say you wouldn’t pilot it at all, just not right now. We need to recalibrate the controls, Lily is helping us with that right now. Until that happens, she will be the one to fly it for you.”
Liam face flushed at first, then he smiled sheepishly.
“Sorry..”
“Not a problem. Mostly my fault anyway. Now, don’t you want to take a closer look at your ship ?”
Anr’el could only laugh out loud as Liam immediately picked up a pace somewhere in-between running and walking. It didn’t take the small group long to cover the distance to the ship after that and Liam started exploring his new ship with an intense curiosity.
Anr’el couldn’t help but laugh again, as she watched the Child be seemingly everywhere at once. He wanted to know EVERYTHING about it. As it was his right. Soon the ship would have no more secrets from this one.

She briefly thought about the sanity in giving a child access to the amount of power, the “Larya” held, but then she remembered, that he wasn’t your usual child. His childhood had been everything but ordinary, both from a human viewpoint and a Kimeran one.
And the Guardian, the computer AI of this ship, would help prevent the worst of disasters. A flash of mental distress had her picking up her pace. She found him staring at the small stasis escapecapsules.

“Liam? Everything alright?”
A pair of distressed green-golden eyes meet hers.
“..I just can’t help…Hag’el was trapped inside one of these…all that time…” A shudder ran through his slender frame, as Liam’s mind conjured up images and ideas of how it must have felt like, even in the stasis induced sleep. He couldn’t seem to get his mind of the small space, which had been his fathers prison for so long. He wasn’t claustrophobic, but…that long, in that little space… Anr’el hugged him from behind, trying to give him some sense of comfort.
“He didn’t know. Believe me when I say, that in Stasis, things like that doesn’t matter.”

She closed her eyes, thinking about the times, when she had been in stasis herself.
“Time moves differently when sleeping in one of these. You are aware, but only to a certain degree, it’s like…” Anr’el found herself lacking words to describe the feeling of nothingness, and yet awareness that the stasis sleep contained. “It’s like things doesn’t matter. Like everything around you aren’t real. You know, what happens, but you don’t acknowledge it.”
“He didn’t know? About any of it ?”
“No.”

He let out a sigh of relief. From the files of the Taelon mother ship, he knew, that the Taelons had conducted several experiments on his father before setting him adrift in space, but he had never been awoken from his long sleep. Shaking his mind free of the last remnants of darkness, a small smile made it onto his lips, as a message reached him over the Commonality.
“We are about to take off. And Lilly promised, she would let me fly for a while…”
“She did, did she ?” An’rel’s voice took on a mock sternness. ” Well, We’ll have to see about that…”
“Awhh…Please ?” Liam pouted, playing along while knowing that Anr’el rarely denied him anything. She gave him a stern look, but the look soon melted at the sight of all that barely concealed eagerness in his face. “Well…I guess I COULD let you do it…Just this once!” Her last words was aimed at Liam’s back when he started hurriedly in the direction of the bridge.
“Kids ! Never any patience…”

-
Strandhill
Earth
-

Sanchez had just finished his first report to Palmer. There hadn’t really been any news, except the old couple expecting company from a guy named Liam, a bit of news, which seemed to interest that Palmer lady a little bit more, than warranted. But, as he kept telling himself, he wasn’t paid to ask questions. And still, somewhere in his mind, a small voice kept piping up. Something was wrong. Very wrong.

-
DI HQ
Renee Palmers office
-

A cold smile was covering her face. Finally. The Freak was on his way back to Earth. She would have her vengeance. Rummaging through one of her drawers, she pulled out a small, black book and started making some calls. After all, why make the dirty work herself, when she could get others to do it for her.
“Herald Tribune ? I’ve got some interesting info for you…It’s about that Alien, Liam Kincaid…”

-
The Kazamatz
Copenhagen.
-

Erik wasn’t sure exactly WHY he was down here, but he knew, that the Kimera wouldn’t have asked him to investigate unless it was important. They had gotten some weird energy readings from this place. He had only brought a few people with him. Turning a corner, he was suddenly faced with a large, human made limestone cave.
“My God !”

The monstrous, partly collapsed, cave was filled with stasis chambers and other equipment obviously made from Taelon Tech. But it wasn’t the half destroyed tech, which had him shocked, even though it shouldn’t have been able to survive the virus, which the Kimera had launched. It was the human figures in the chambers, most of them obviously dead, but still recognisable. They were exact replicas of each other. The same body structure, the same face. It was the face of William Boone…

Erik was slowly pulling himself out of the sheer shock of their little discovery. He needed to get his mind working again. What on Earth had the Taelons been up to ? Clearing his throat, he addressed the doctor on the team.
“Jean, go check on those capsules. Find out how many of them are still alive and what have been done to them. Jack, go up and contact the Kimera, as well as Zeke, from a secure location, all this limestone is interfering with transmission. The rest of you spread out and keep a look out for intruders. We don’t want to have any surprises.” The stunned expressions on every one’s faces slowly faded to one of purpose as they were given something to do.

In his own mind, Erik couldn’t help wondering. How many other installations like this had the Taelons had? What was their purpose ? Erik was rarely afraid. But now he found himself terrified at the possibilities.

-
A dark place
-

Eternal darkness surrounded him on all sides. It was impossible to tell up from down, left from right. No feeling either.. No lights, just a vast space of…nothing… He felt cold. So very cold. Confined. He had a name once. It was on his lips, but was whisked away again by some evil spirit as he tried to concentrate on it. Why couldn’t he remember ? He struggled to regain consciousness, but failed time after time. It felt like something was forcing him back there, in the darkness. He no longer knew, how long he had been here. Neither did he truly care. He wanted out. Didn’t he? Something he was supposed to do. He wanted out now !

-
Liam’s quarters.
“Larya
Enroute to Earth
-

Liam woke with a start as he felt a hand on his shoulder. Still caught up in his dreams, he lashed out at the person touching him, sending her backwards, hearing her hitting the floor with a soft thud. Her ? As he forced his eyes open, he slowly recognised his surroundings. He was about the “Larya”. They were enroute to Earth to visit his grandparents. He was safe. And on the floor, looking slightly annoyed, was Anr’el, his Kimeran mentor and friend.
“Anr’el ? What are you doing here ?” Sitting up on the bed, he reached out a hand and helped her up from the floor.
“You where having a bad dream, and I felt it through the Commonality.” Liam’s face flushed red. Had they all … Apparently Anr’el was picking up her old habit of reading his mind. A small smile appeared briefly on her face.
“Don’t worry, I was able to shield most of it out. No one else knows.”

Some of the tension eased out of Liam’s frame. The smile on An’rel’s face was replaced by one of worry.
“Want to talk about it ?” She sat down on the bed next to Liam, putting one hand on his back and began slowly rubbing the tension she felt there out. He felt himself relax. After a small pause, he started out.
“It starts off as the other ones. Me, the Man, the…the table..” Anr’el could see the ghosts pass through Liam’s eyes as he remembered his nightmare, his pain. That bastard, who did this to him, had gotten of to easy in her opinion. It wasn’t just the physical trauma, which had been easily mended. The invisible scars and pain in his mind would last for years, probably the rest of Liam’s life. Hubble’s little playmate had taken Liam’s spirit and broken it, taken the last remnants of innocence from him in the process. Every curse, Anr’el could come up with went through her mind. She hoped, that he had ended up in the deepest, darkest recesses of whatever hell he believed in. She turned her concentration back to what Liam was telling as he took up his narrative again.

“This time it changed though. Suddenly I was somewhere else, somewhere dark and confined…”
“That was probably brought up by the sight of those stasis capsules.”
“Yeah, you’re probably right. But it felt so REAL.” Liam’s confusion was evident, even to a non-Kimera.
“I know. Maybe there was some memory from your father in there as well. Those can feel pretty real at times, you know.”
Liam just nodded, then a huge yawn made it self present.
“Go to sleep, Liam. You need it.”
“Don’t go away.”
“I won’t.” She pulled up a chair next to his bed and watched over him as he fell asleep.

-
Strandhill
Ireland
Earth
-

Fiona and Ambrose were finally about to be finished with the arrangements for Liam’s arrival. Ambrose was in the basement, staring at the empty space, which where the only visible reminder of the cloaked Kimeran ID-portal, which where there. He had never trusted those things, had preferred to drive down to Belfast when visiting Siobhan in the Taelon embassy. There was just something unnatural about being transported that way. He could hear the phone ringing upstairs and Fiona going over to get it. Seconds later, he heard her angry voice yelling something. It shocked him. Fiona never yelled ? Hurriedly, he went upstairs.

-
Upstairs.
-

Fiona was dusting off one of the silver framed photos of Siobhan for God-knows which time, as the phone rang. It surprised her. These days it was a rare occasion, when some one rang.

“Fiona Beckett.”
“Mrs. Beckett, this is Rita Van Buren from the Herald Tribune.” At this, Fiona almost hung up on the woman. She had had it with reporters. As if sensing, what she was up to, the woman, quickly continued.
“Please, do not hang up. I just wish to have your comment on some rumours, which have been circulating lately, rumours that one Liam Kincaid, your grandson, is going to return to Earth shortly.” Fiona was stunned. How had they found out ? At the prolonged silence, the annoying lady pressed her luck.
“Mrs. Beckett, please, if you know anything, tell me. The people have right to know..” That was as far as she got, as Fiona’s temper got the better of her.
“The people ? THE PEOPLE ? AFTER WHAT LIAM WENT THROUGH, BY YOUR HANDS AND EVERYONE ELSE’S AS WELL, DID YOU HONESTLY BELIEVE, THAT I WOULD TELL YOU, TELL ANYONE, EVEN IF LIAM WAS RETURNING ?”
“Mrs. Beckett…Please listen, if we could just…”
“NO ! YOU LISTEN TO ME ! Liam has been through hell, and I will NOT let ANYONE do him more damage ! Stay away !” The line went dead, as Fiona slammed the receiver down. Her whole body was trembling with rage, as she supported herself to the small table with her hands. Dear God. She hoped, that that was a one-time occurrence. It was just a coincidence. It had to be. She couldn’t go through that again. It was in this position, that Ambrose found her when he came up from the basement.

-
Belfast Airport
Ireland
Earth
-

She smiled coldly as she approached the local DI representative. Renee Palmer had arrived, and she was ready to do some damage.

-
Kazamatz
Copenhagen
Denmark
Earth
-

Jean was going over some weird readings from the two clones, they had been able to salvage out of this mess. Her teammates, now enforced with the ODK people, were still busy with the grizzly task off packing up the dead ones in body bags. After hours of work, they had finally been able to hack through the Taelon security protocols. It seemed as it had had something to do, not only with cloning, but also with mind transfer. And some sort of genetic altering. That was when a set of alarms went of. On of the clones was waking up.

TBC…

Sandovals Quaters.
Aboard “Justice”

-

He leaned back on his bed, tired to the core eventhough he had slept plentifully during the night. His debilitating headache did nothing to help it either. He was starting to suspect, that his worst fears had come true, that his CVI was failing. And without the Taelons or Dr. Park around , it could not be replaced. The Taelons had taken that knowledge with them, when they left. But there had been none of the other telltale signs yet, the bleeding from the ears or the hallucinations. Maybe it was just stress.

“Dad ?” Liam’s low voice called from the entry portal. He didn’t want to wake up his dad, but he had woken up, feeling an sudden urge to be with him, talk to him just because he could. Sandovals face lit up in a genuine smile as he agile got up from his boneless sprawl on the bed.
“Liam !” he went over and gave him a warm hug, which Liam returned a little bit shyly.
“Dad, I wondered.. I was going to see Mom’s grave…” Liam hesitated, not really sure how to formulate it. ” I was wondering, if you wanted to go with me…” A serious expression showed on Sandoval’s face.
“I would love to.”
Liam’s face split in an ear to ear grin.
“Great, I’ll get an shuttle online..”
“Eh, Liam ?”
“Yeah ?”
“You may want to get into some clothes first.” Liam went beetred as he realised that he was still wearing his usual sleeping attire, tight sweats and no T-shirt. He groaned.
“Don’t tell me, that I just went halfway through the ship looking like this ?”
Sandoval couldn’t hide his amusement any longer.
“You did.”
Liam groaned again. Well, at least Street hadn’t been around to see.
“Hi Liam, cool sweats…”
What in the world had he done to the universe to deserve this ? Liam quickly disappeared in the direction of his own chambers, his face flushed with an interesting colour of red, before Street could make a smartalec remark, never noticing the look of intense worry in her eyes or the forced quality of her greeting.

-

A Park
Washington DC

-

She had been here for hours, watching the children play, while the sky got darker. Time was running out. A small child approached her.

“Hey lady ,why are you looking so sad ?”
She smiled a little. Such innocence.
“Well, ” She crouched down to be on eyelevel with the small 7 year old girl. “You, I’ve got this problem. Some people, children really, have done something bad, and now I need to find a way of punishing them.”
“Can’t you just ground them and take away their toys ?”
“No, little one, it’s a little more complex than that.”
“Jeannie, get away from the lady, don’t bother her !” The child’s mother rushed over, a little nervous about her offspring talking to a stranger. The kid was quickly whisked away in a nearby portal, one of her toys forgotten on the ground.
“Take away there toys…” Anr’el smirked. If it was only that simple. She stared at the portal. Then inspiration struck.
“From the mouth of children !” She quickly got up , leaving for the “Justice.” This might just work, both for the Council and her human friends.

-

Strandhill
Ireland.

-

The grave was small, almost to small to harbour the woman within, Sandoval mused.

Kneeling next to it, Liam carefully placed a bucket of wildflowers on his mothers grave. She had loved wildflowers, he remembered, drawing on his inherited memories. And all the stores had been closed since the sound of a Kimera shuttle had been heard. Everyone was hiding in their houses. Anr’els strategy of intimidation had worked a little to well. Then he got up, turning to his dad.
“You know ,she..” That was as far as he got, as the most terrifying thing he had ever seen in his life, got into his point of view. Sandoval saw the terror in Liam’s face, as he stared intently on his dad’s left ear.
“What ? A bug or something ?” Then he felt it. A small tickle. He reached up. And when his hand came down again, it was stained with blood. Then the world went black. Liam managed to catch his dad before he hit the ground. His heart was beating wildly against his ribcage. No. Not again ! He cursed every fate, every God in the universe, who were responsible for sending the Taelons in this direction. Sandovals Implant was burning out. And Liam did not know what to do. All he could do as his dad’s CVI created a major brain haemorrhage, was screaming for help.

-

Council Chamber
Aboard “Justice”

-

Augur was suprised. There was still a little more than 10 hours to go, but Anr’el had called them all together. The Kimera couldn’t be pushing up the schedule, could they ? He exchanged worried looks with the rest, as Anr’el entered the room, throwing out orders left and right in Kimera.
“Ah, good.” She send them what she hoped was a reassuring look. “You are here. Where’s Sandoval ?”
“He and Liam went to Ireland to visit the grave of Liam’s mother, Siobahn Beckett.” Ca’el informed, looking much more relaxed than the last time, they had seen him.
“OK, then someone will have to bring him up to speed, when they get back.” Anr’el quickly sat down. “I have found a suitable solution on the problem with the punishment of Earth’s population. One that I hope, you too will find satisfactory, as the Council have.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve genocide, sure.” Augur said, suddenly feeling a little bit more light-hearted than before. A feeling, which was quenched in the next second, as Anr’el suddenly lost all control of her human facade, grasping her head with both hands.
“LIAM !”

-

Strandhill
Ireland

-

An old couple had braved out of their house, when they heard the desperate cries for help. It came from the cemetery. As they got closer, they saw a tall man, on his knees, holding a smaller, Asian man unconsciously in his arms.
“Isn’t that…”
“Yes, it’s Sandoval. And that’s Liam Kincaid.” The elderly man grabbed his wife by the arm as she started to move towards them. “By the Fae, woman, stay here ! He’s alien !”
Fiona yanked her arm loose.
“He also needs help. And he’s a friend of our Siobahn.” Determinedly she trotted over to the unlikely pair. “Major Kincaid ?”

The hesitant voice of a woman yanked him out of the void, his mind had thrown him into. A pair of the most beautiful green-golden eyes, she had ever seen, turned to meet hers. There was so much pain in there.
“Please…” It came out a whisper. “Please help him ! Please help my dad…”

Dad ? Then she remembered all the tales from the news. About the Major only being a child really. And not a Major at all.
“I’ll do what I can. Why don’t we call an ambulance ?” She send her husband a stern look, telling him, that he better get to a communications panel or else…
And with 40+ years of experience with Fiona’s temper, he decided to comply immediately.

Liam felt something in his mind, a voice.
“Child…”
Anr’el.
“Please, he’s dying..”
“Easy, child.” She tried to dampen his panic. “I am here. This is what you must do..”

Fiona started to worry. Kincaids eyes had taken on a distant quality, so radically far from the desperate worry, which he had been in before. Was he going into shock? Slowly, like an automaton, he moved his hands, one to Sandovals head, and another one immediately over his heart.

“Good, now activate your shaqarava, use your inner eyes, your mind, to locate the damage and heal it.” Anr’els voice soothed in his mind. He tried. And failed. Then tried again. And failed.
“WHY WON’T IT WORK ?” Liam’s shout scared Fiona, so unexpected and loud. She backed up a few paces, just to be on the safe side.
“shhhh, don’t think, just do it..”
This time Liam simply allowed his instincts to take charge… And this time, it worked. Fiona watched in astonishment as a blue-white light emanated from Kincaids hands, flowing into Sandoval’s unconscious form. Liam could feel the damage in his fathers brain. And slowly, oh so slowly, he knitted the damaged tissue, bloodvessels and cells back together, not allowing himself to think about it, just doing it. The damage was terrifying, but he did it. There was only one thing left to do now.

The CVI. He found the foreign tissues and alloys, which the CVI was made from, and removed them molecule by molecule. This thing would never hurt his father again. He was shivering, as he returned to the real world, utterly exhausted as he were. Only to look into the worried eyes of his father.
“Liam ?” Sandoval sat up groggily. His headache was gone. Tears was streaking the his unhappy sons face.
“What happened ?” he asked gently, carefully wrapping his arms around him.
“Your CVI, it burned out…And I couldn’t do anything.” More tears threatened to fall.
Sandoval hugged him tightly, slowly rubbing circles on his back.
“It’s ok, I’m ok now..”

Fiona watched in amazement. Was this the dangerous alien, they had all been so scared of ? A child. She kicked herself mentally for actually thinking twice about those stories in the tabloids. Then she noticed at who’s grave, they were standing.

Siobahns.
Siobahn, who had been the last to see the alien Hag’el alive. Siobahn, whom had disappeared for almost 2 days, when said alien had been killed. An alien who had left a child, maturing to an adult within hours of birth, if those stories could be trusted. A child, which were right now sobbing his eyes out in the arms of his last surviving parent.

“God.” Her legs gave out beneath her. The distant vail of the ambulance could already be heard, as Ambrose returned to the cemetery. He started to run, as he saw Fionas slumped body.
“What did ya do to her ?” He glared angrily at Liam and Sandoval.
“Oh, will you be quiet ! Help me up instead !” Fiona managed to say with a hint of her old fire as she fought her way out of the shock. As she got up, so did Liam and his father, Sandoval still a bit wobbly. Sandoval thought, that he should recognise the old couple from somewhere, but he couldn’t remember.
Couldn’t remember ?

“Liam, what did you do to my CVI ?” He asked gently, trying very hard not to scare the kid even more. Liam had had enough upheavals for one day.
“I..I removed it…” His voice trailed off. Had he done something wrong ? Sandoval, sensing, that Liam uneasiness, gave a huge sigh.
“Thank God ! I was really starting to get tired of that thing constantly reminding me of things better forgotten.” A genuine smile was plastered all over his face. And it soon infected Liam as well. Sandoval turned to the old woman.

“Sorry, Mam, but I can’t help thinking I should know you from somewhere.” He stretched out his hand.
“I am Ronald Sandoval and this is Liam Hag’el-Sandoval..” He trailed of. That Siobahn had been Liam’s mother was not common knowledge.
“Beckett.” Fiona finished for him. At Sandoval and Liam’s stunned expressions, she grinned. “Well, I assume, that since our Siobahn was not married, you, young man, took her last name as your own.” She smiled, then gently placed her hand on Liam’s chin.
“Funny. I never realised you have her eyes…” Ambrose looked like he had been suckerpunched. Kincaid ? Siobahns son ? Not possible. And yet, the look on Kincaids face, like someone backed in a corner, told him, that it was all truth.
“Ambrose, pick up your jaw, you are looking silly.” Fiona gave her husband a glare. “Now, why don’t we all go to our place for a cup of coffee and talk this over.”

Liam looked varyly at the old woman. He wanted to, but what if they didn’t want him. Fiona didn’t look like someone, who would hurt him though. And she was his grandmother. At that moment, a Kimeran Shuttlecraft boomed out of ID-space right above their heads and landed just outside the cemetery.

Anr’el jumped out of the craft almost before the virtual glass shield had been deactivated.
“Liam, are you OK ?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. And so is Sandoval.” In a surprise gesture, he gave her a warm hug.
“Thanks.”
“It wasn’t me. It was you.” She put in a little distance between them and tappedhim gently on his chest. “It all came from in here.”
Then she turned her attention to the strangers.
“I am Anr’el of the Kimera. ”
“Fiona Beckett. And this is Ambrose.”

Anr’el quirked an eyebrow. Beckett ?

“I’m Liam’s grandmother.”
“ah, I see…Liam, we need to get back to the ship. Some things are about to go down, which could get nasty and I don’t want you down here, when it hits.” Sandoval looked at her sharply, an action, which did not go unnoticed. Anr’el gave a an almost invisible shake with her head. Not now. Liam shifted his eyes between Fiona and Anr’el.
“Well…I would really like to stay here for a while…Talk to Fiona and find out about my mom, not from inherited memories, but from people who knew her…”
“Why don’t I go pick up some things, then we go to this ship of yours and we’ll talk there ?” Fiona temporised, as she noticed, that Anr’el was about to protest. She, too, wanted to talk to this new grandson of hers. And this spaceship of theirs would be as good a place as anywhere. Liam looked questioning at Anr’el.
“yes, why don’t we do that.” She caved in, no fight. Liam would be safe enough aboard the ship and this woman did not seem like someone who would hurt him.
“Give me 5 minutes to pick up my stuff and I’ll..” The medics burst in, looking very confused.
“Dispatch told us, that there was an medical emergency ?”

Sandoval, wearing his best companion agent mask, simply looked at them blankly.
“Emergency ? Does any of us look like we may need help ?” And the day ended in a cascade of laughter.

-

“Justice”
Hovering above the White House

-

Liam had spend a great time with his grandparents, even Ambrose had thawn after a while. Ambrose wasn’t evil, just misinformed. Anr’el had a tender smile at her face. Liam was finally getting to know some of the things normal human children would do. Like getting terribly spoiled by his grandmother. Fiona had picked up a couple of photoalbums at her house, and had spend hours talking to the Child in his quarters about his mother, her childhood and all that stuff.

The briefing with the humans on how to punish Earth had also gone quiet OK. They weren’t completely satisfied, off cause, but they had agreed, that against massdestruction, this was the better option.
Augur had even said yes to helping implementing the plan. It turned out, that one of his old tricks from the resistance could be used in the plan fairly easy. His little trick needed to be modified, since it had backfired the last time, but still.

“Commander ?”
It was Ca’el.
“There is a woman here, a ms. Renee Palmer, who wishes to meet with you.” Anr’el’s eyes grew cold. Of cause. From everything she had heard about this woman, Palmer would try to make the best of this, somehow turn it into profit for herself. And the announcement hadn’t been made yet, so Palmer had no way of knowing, that the Kimera would be leaving soon.
“Have her wait on the Command bridge. I’ll need to talk to Augur and the others first.”
“Yes Commander.”
“And Ca’el ?”
“Yes ?”
“No need to be polite.” Ca’el grinned. They had all heard what had happened, when Augur went to Palmer for help. This was going to be fun. Anr’el picked up the spill over of Ca’els emotions. She would need to keep tabs on that one. Ca’el was starting to enjoy this way to much. Then she went to talk to Augur. It was payback time.

-

The Bridge.
“Justice”

-

“Where is that Commander of yours ? I’ve been waiting for 30 minutes ! Doesn’t she realise, who I am ?” Renee was furious. Her reception on the ship, when she had finally been allowed to portal up here, had been less than polite. She had only been spoken to when absolutely necessary and that Ca’el character had given her the cold shoulder. Even the Taelons had treated her with the respect, her position in society warranted. But not here. Ca’el was going to be in so much trouble, when she told his Commander about this.

“Palmer.” A cold female voice said from right behind her. Renee jumped a bit, an expression of fear shortly visible on her face before she plastered a big, fake smile on it.
“You must be the Commander.” Renee stretched out her hand to a handshake, but Anr’el simply ignored it.
“You wished to speak with me ?” Anr’el moved over to sit in her commandchair, trying hard not to show her disgust openly.
“Yes. Since you are undoubtedly going to be here for a very long time, I felt, that maybe we could find some common ground to work from. With we, I mean Doors International and the Kimera.” Renee forced herself to look sincere. “I believe, that such a venture could prove beneficial for us both and would serve to bring our two people together.” She changed her face into one of grief. “And now that my dear friend Liam is dead, perhaps I can also honour his memory by helping his people.”

“I am touched that you are so concerned about my memory, but I can assure you, that I’m quit alive.” Renee spun around, then turned completely white. The entire gang was there. And so was a very much alive Liam.
“But..But..”
“Renee, you really should have listened to me.” Augur couldn’t hide his grin. Oh, this was sweet indeed.
“Palmer.” Anr’el spoke again and her voice was not pleasant. “I do not know, what you hoped to gain by coming here. But you will not get it. You refused to help one of our children, you are a xenophobe and a selfrighteous bitch. I advise you to go home, throw one of your little parties and forget you ever heard the word “Kimera”, for if you ever cross my path again, you will live to regret it. And that is a promise.”

Renee got angry.
“I won’t tolerate being threatened ! You will see, I have more power than anything you could imagine ! You will bitterly regret this ! I got rid of the Taelons and the Jaridians ! I will get rid of you to !”

“You ? Got rid of the Taelons and the Jaridians ? That’s rich !” Lilly said from a doorway. She, her Jaridian mate and their child had just arrived on a summons from the Kimera. “As far as I remember it, there were more than one person involved in kicking the Taelons out and the Jaridians ? The only reason they left was because of the old treaty with the Kimera and Liam being part Kimera. That was the reason they left. Not your halfbacked attempt to seduce the commander of the Jaridian Fleet.” She moved over and bowed to Anr’el. “Commander, it is an honour to once more have the Kimera amongst us.”
“Do not bow to me. You have treated one of ours kindly and it will not be forgotten. It is the hope of the Council that you and your family will join us as ambassadors of the Jaridians when we reconnect our old ties.”

Lilly simply nodded, then moved over to Liam.
“Well, how about giving an old friend a hug ?” Renee had had it and stormed over to the nearest portal. These bastards ! Didn’t they realise, who she was ? They would pay ! In a flash of white-hot fury, she left the ship.

-

Lilly’s quarters
aboard the “Justice”

-

She could still remember the shock, which went through the Jaridian community when the Kimera repository had appeared at Jaridia. A smile appeared on her face with the Jaridian ridges, but still human features. The Jaridians had a long memory, and the help, which the Kimera had once served by saving them from a terrible disease, which had threatened to extinct them, had earned them the never-dying gratitude of the Jaridians through generations. If nothing else, they had honour.

That the cure had also caused the split in the race which had created the Taelons, had only been a minor annoyance. But the Taelon hunt on the Kimera had not been. From what she had understood on the crashcourse in Jaridian history Vorjak had given her before departing for Earth, the Jaridians saw it as a failure on their part, that they hadn’t been able to help the Kimera as they needed it. The plague, which had only just stopped haunting them back then, had left them weak and unable to stop the Taelons, almost not capable of keeping themselves safe either. That the Kimera had survived, was a miracle and a possibility for correcting their old mistakes, and thus restoring their honour, was now available.

The Jaridian government had not been pleased, that the Kimera had asked for her presence, they would have preferred to send one of their own, but the message had been clear:
The presence of Lilly Marquette, formerly of Earth now of Jaridia, was requested in important matters.

The letter, which had been addressed to her personally, had only one sentence:
Liam needs you.

That had been enough for her. A slight sound from the crib with her daughter caught her attention. There was also the possibility, that the Kimera would be able to help with the problem concerning the metabolism and childbearing, that the Jaridians were having. She hoped so. The door chimed. It was Ca’el.

“Forgive me the intrusion, Ambassador, but the Commander have called for a meeting and have requested your presence.”
“Lead the way.”

-

The Council Chamber
“Justice”

-

Again they were all there. Again it was about the punishment of Earth. But this time, there was a slight hope in the face of everyone, as Anr’el stopped speaking. This might work.
“Does anyone have anything to say on this approach ?”

Vorjak spoke up.
“The Jaridians will be most happy in helping the Kimera monitor the planet. We too, see no reason in destroying this planet, eventhough they have brought this upon themselves after the ancient ways of the Kimera.”

Liam was still pale after the revelation of just how close the people of Earth had been to getting themselves killed. Because of him. All because of him. The dark void in his own mind, filled with demons and accusations, threatened to swallow him again.
“Sh..” As usual, Anr’el had mentally picked up, that something was wrong and tried to soothe him. He closed his eyes and leaned back, listening in his mind.

***

“I’m not worth that kind of destruction.”
“Yes. Children are precious. YOU are precious. And if the Powers that Be on this world does not appreciate that, then they have no right to exist.”
A mental touch, feeling like a hand gently brushing away his hair from his forehead.
“But I am but one person.”
“And thus also unique. There will be no one else like you. And that makes you worth the effort. Rest now, child. Everything will be well.”

***

“Ca’el, open the comchannels for Earth. Override any form of communication, these people utilise. Use this room as a source.”
“Yes Commander.”

As the Datastream opened, signifying, that the connection was made, Anr’el dropped her human facade.
“People of Earth, you have broken one of our most sacred laws. For this you must be punished. People of Earth, this is what the Kimeran High Council have decreed…”

-

A Doors International Warehouse

-

“We cannot allow these freaking ALIENS to control our lives !” Renee had worked herself up to a full-blown rant. Things were not going as anticipated. The former resistancemembers, she had rallied here, for some reason couldn’t forget, that Liam had been one of them. Or maybe it was just battle fatigue.
“Palmer, they haven’t DONE anything yet !” Erik spoke up, tired of listening to this woman’s constant tirade.
“And what did you call what they did at Pentagon ? A peaceoffering ?” Renee was starting to hate the Dane. Why didn’t he understand, that these freaks of nature was a threat ?
“I call it a rescueattempt. And a very successful one at that.” Erik flexed his arms to stay awake, eyeing the coffee- pot on the table greedily. Portals or no portals, there was still one hell of a timedifference between Washington DC and Copenhagen. He should, by all means, be in bed by now. No, better not touch the coffee. One never knew, what Renee had done with it. He had never really liked her and suspected her capable of everything if things didn’t go her way.

“We better switch on the news !” A German woman said, after having received a message on her global. Each and every one flicked their globals open. A stunning beautiful being was speaking.

“People of Earth, you have broken one of our most sacred laws. For this you must be punished. People of Earth, this is what the Kimeran High Council have decreed:

Your natural development as a species was hampered by the untimely arrival of the Taelons and their attempts to control your species. Your actions towards the Kimeran Child Liam can therefor partially be explained, but not excused. According to the old laws, laws older than the human species, there is only one punishment: Death. But since you are still, in many ways, children and still growing as a species, an alternative punishment have been found:

You will be brought back to the level, you had BEFORE the Taelons interfered with your lives.
Since we cannot erase the imprint of their presence, and your memories thereof, we will start by erasing the technological improvements, improvements you have not earned and are not mature enough to handle properly. This will be done by launching a variant of a virus once used by your own resistance. The virus, soon to be uploaded to the Washington DC Taelon Embassy, will infect every piece of equipment using taelontechnology, from the smallest chip all the way up to the moonbase, and will subsequently destroy it.

You are given 24 hours to evacuate your personnel from the moonbase and move the people dependant on life- support to alternate systems, before the final collapse of the Taelon technology.

Even the shuttles and portals will self-destruct at this point in time.

The second part of your punishment will include seclusion.
Earth will be put into quarantine until you have proven yourself worthy of access to the outer reaches of space. Any attempts to spacetravels before this, will result in the crafts in question being shot down. The Jaridians have agreed to leave part of their fleet together with a couple of Kimeran motherships to monitor your planet.

You will be allowed to launch satellites only if they are not manned and carries no weapons. You are not allowed to attempt communication with the Jaridian or Kimeran ships of any kind, neither as datastreams or person to person. These ships will also serve to protect you from any further interference from the Taelons, should this protection be necessary.

As soon as the final arrangements for this punishment have been made, the remainder of the Kimeran Warfleet will take it’s leave.

I am Anr’el of the Kimera and you can consider yourself grounded.” The connection flickered out.

For the longest of times, there was a deathly silence in the warehouse, then an inhuman vail could be heard coming from Renee.
“THOSE BASTARDS !” Her life, as she knew it with parties, fast cars, designer clothes and all the riches in the world, was over. Doors International was not geared to survive the downfall of Taelonbased technology. All their research had been centred around it. “THEY’LL PAY FOR THIS !”

Erik decided right there and then, after seeing the seething, slowburning hatred slowly spreading across some of the faces of his “fellow” resistance fighters, to contact some of his old cellmembers, those he could trust 100%, and keep a sharp eye on things.

The last thing they needed right now, was a bunch of vigilantes going berserk.

-

Council Chamber
“Justice”

-

Anr’el was so tired right now. But no wonder. Since the first cry of help from Liam, she had barely had any rest, and eventhough the Kimera did not need as much rest as a human, she still preferred to get just a couple of hours of “sleep” in the energyshower every day. She rubbed her eyes, sighed and looked up again at the rest of the inhabitants of the room.

“Ca’el, Augur. Is the virus finished ?”
“Almost. We should be ready to upload it within an hour. The onboard computer is currently running a debug sequence so that we can be certain that the Taelon structures simply withers away instead of blowing up.”
“Good. Now, there is another subject to be approached.” She turned to Liam.

“Liam, I would like you to return to Kimera Prime with me. We can help you there and you’ll be safe.” She made a small motion of dismissal as Liam attempted to answer her. “Do not answer me right now, you’ll have a couple of days. Sandoval..” She turned her attention to the former implant. “I’ve managed to convince the council not to pursue any further ideas of punishing you. For what we know, the implant you carried, could have left a remnant of its original motivational imperative in your brain, causing you to be more susceptible for the orders of your superiors than normally. Besides” A corner of her mouth started to curl upwards. “You already died once in that cemetery, there’s no real need to kill you again.”

“Sorry, died ?” Sandoval was at a loss. Anr’el laughed.
“Yes, died. Since the Taelon CVI’s kill their carriers on burn out, so did yours when it burned out in Strandhill.”
Liam looked stunned, then he started to smile, when he caught her train of thoughts mentally.
“ehh.. Hallo ? I’m still here ?” Sandoval didn’t particularly like not being let in on the joke.
“Well, Liam could have brought you back from the dead. It’s been know to happen. And there was no doctor present to tell if you were alive or dead, so the Council and I decided, that the biggest chance were in favour of Liam bringing you back from the dead. ” She couldn’t help but laughing as she saw the stunned expression on Sandoval’s face.

The machiavellian schemer Ronald Sandoval, master of deception and in finding the door with the exit sign, had finally been outsmarted.
“The devil’s in the details, Sandoval.” Anr’el choked out, then continued to laugh, soon to be joined by Liam and the rest. Even Sandoval could, after a couple of dark stares directed at his son who was laughing his head off at the sight of his father stymied, see the funny aspect of it. Wiping tears of his face, he finally caught enough breath to say:
“Anr’el, a small favour ? Call me Ron.”
“Agreed.”

Anr’el pulled herself together, then addressed the rest of the room. “The rest of you also have a choice: To stay on Earth or come with us. If you choose to stay, you will be left with ways of communication so that, in case you should ever need our help either the Jaridian or the Kimeran orbiting Earth can be contacted. You are Liam’s family and friends and I would prefer to see you join him on Kimera Prime, but the choice must be yours. Fiona, Ambrose, I know, that it is hard to break up, when you have lived all your life here, so another alternative will be given to you. In order to allow Liam to visit you, a portal connecting your house with the commanding Kimeran ship in orbit will be produced. Due to the fact, that our ID-drives are considerably faster than those of the Taelons, the travel between Kimera Prime and Earth are counted in days, not years. Liam should be able to visit quit often.” A small frown of worry appeared on her forehead. “But let me warn you, all of you: The Kimera and anyone connected with the Kimera, are not particularly popular right now, so you may want to lay low for a while and not show of the technology we put at your disposal should you choose to stay. Liam, that is also something I want you to take into consideration.” She got up, moved over to Liam and crouched next to him. “You are a very known person on Earth and most people know of your heritage. There is no telling what the mob downthere ” She made a motion towards the Virtual Glasswindow with her head “are going to do with you. Please, think it over.”
“I will.”

-

Liam’s apartment at the Flat Planet
Several hours later

-

He had come here to think. This was the only home, he had known in a long time. Thank God, no one had thought about looking for him here. The faint roar of the rampaging crowds in the street reached him through the open skylight. People were in panic. But it was only to be expected. It wasn’t everyday, that one’s world got turned upside-down. He picked up the Taelon puzzle and ran a finger over it. Only one choice, but so many implications. Give up the things he knew here on Earth to go to a strange planet to start over. Stay here on Earth, live with his grandparents and maybe be in danger for the rest of his life. On one side, he could still visit should he chose to leave. On the other, he knew, that if things ever got dicey for him here on Earth, the Kimera would come for him.

A puzzle.
A crossroad.

His eyes fell on the picture of his mother. She would have wanted him to do what was right for HIM. And right now, it meant being himself for once, not what everyone else wanted to make him. The Kimera would allow him to do just that. Would the humans ? should he stay to find out ? God, he was so tired, in need of a break. Right then. Determined, his mind set, he started to pack.

-

Epilogue

-

-

A mountain range
5 days later.

-

He was lying on his back, staring in to the azure sky, trying to figure out exactly WHAT animal that cloud to the left resembled. A strange, birdlike song was filling the air. This place had so much resemblance with Earth, that it was uncanny.

But there was also so many differences. He had been suprised at how many of his “family” had chosen to go with him. Augur, Juliana, Street and Sandoval. Augur had mumbled something about him being broke anyway and since his computers no longer functioned, what was there left for him on Earth ? Juliana had made no secret of her doing it for Liam’s sake. Sandoval as well. As for Street, well everytime he tried to get her to talk, all she would do was blush, then tell him roughly to mind his own business.

But she had been spending quit a lot of time around Ca’el lately. The image of those two as a pair was mindbogling. How did that happen ? Lilly and her family was here as ambassadors for the Jaridian, so he didn’t get to see her as much as he wanted to, but she was HERE.

And Anr’el had promised to find some sort of solution to that problem. The rest of the small band, Zeke and his men, had chosen to stay behind to do their part in fighting the xenophobia on Earth. Last communications had shown them to have found some suprising support from a Danish cell of former resistance fighters. But like during the Taelon occupation, they had to be careful and quiet about it. Otherwise, they would get themselves lynched.

His grandparents had returned to their village. The thought of moving to a completely different planet had been to much. But true to their word, the Kimera had installed a hidden portal in the basement of the small cottage in Strandhill, allowing Liam to visit once in a while. He was already looking forward to his first visit.

Out of security reasons, the first visit had been scheduled to take place in a couple of months in order for the massive unrest on Earth to calm down, but there was no reason why he shouldn’t visit more often in the future.

As his eyes drifted shut, he mentally felt for the mental signature belonging to his mentor. Yup, still there. He was safe. Soon after a soft snore could be heard. A short distance away, a greenglowing creature appeared with a blanket, a soft smile on her lips. The Child was safe again.

Critically assessing the sky, she saw no signs of rain. After having covered Liam with the blanket to keep him warm, Anr’el sat down, keeping a silent vigil. Everything was going to be all right now.

-

Thousands of light-years away.
A mothership

-

“We have now identified the signature of the disturbance. It was as we feared.” The scientist was extremely nervous. The Leader had been highly volatile since his return from that small planet Earth. No one knew, what he would do face with this news. The scientist was dismissed with a arrogant handmovement.

Zo’or leaned back in his chair. So the Kimera was back. No need for worry. They would be dealt with. Soon. And then the Taelons alone would rule. An insane laughter echoed through the bridge. Then HE would rule ! And this time, there would be no Da’an to stop him !

THE END

To be continued in the sequels “Nightmares” and “Birds of War”