Fic: The Raggedy Edge (6/9)
Title: The Raggedy Edge
Author: Annerb
Summary: During a rescue mission gone awry, Sam and Jack end up stranded in another galaxy where they find themselves passengers on a ship called Serenity.
Wordcount: 40,000+
Rating/Warnings: Older teens for swearing in multiple languages, violence, torture, and such.
Categorization: SG-1/Firefly Crossover, AU, Action/Adventure, Drama
Pairings: BOB. Sam/Jack established relationship, hints of Daniel/Vala, Kaylee/Simon, Mal/Inara, and Jayne/Everyone (at least in his mind).
Season: Post-BDM for Firefly, early season 9 for SG-1
Dr. Jackson, I Presume
Metis was by far the nicest prison Daniel had ever been kept in.
The villa was rich, with fine sweeping views of lawns and fountains and winding garden paths. It was also simple though, almost to the point of monasticism if it weren’t for the obviously fine quality of everything-wealth and power embodied by the rich austerity. Of course it was still a prison, gilded or not, and he was fairly certain his comfortable treatment stemmed entirely from what they perceived as his usefulness.
His captors preferred to treat him as a guest, a colleague, even going so far as to including him in social events. The dinners were a weekly event, a ruse probably meant to make Daniel feel more connected to his hosts, as if a nice three-course meal in a beautiful room might cover up the fact that he was their prisoner. Manners seemed to be of utmost import to his hosts though, all the niceties observed.
In the months he’d been here, Daniel couldn’t recall a single time someone’s voice had risen above a moderated hush, unless it had been his own.
“How does your work progress, Dr. Jackson?”
Daniel looked up at Quincy, seated at the head of the table. He was the uncontested leader of the compound. All the other residents here treated him with near God-like reverence. Tonight he was dressed in simple black of the finest quality, his short silver hair standing out boldly in contrast. He was a small man of indeterminate age who spoke softly, never raising his voice. It seemed a measure of his complete control and Daniel long ago noticed the way it required those near him to lean in closer to hear him, a manipulation that seamlessly reasserted his power.
Control was important to Quincy.
“Excuse me?” Daniel asked, even though he heard the soft words perfectly well. It was a game they often played, Daniel tossing Quincy’s attempted manipulations back in his face.
On Daniel’s right, Cyrus, a younger devotee who was still wide-eyed and jumpy in the illustrious company of the weekly dinner, turned to Daniel and hissed in his ear, “He asked how your work progresses, Dr. Jackson!”
Daniel hid a smile, taking a perverse sort of pleasure in bringing any ripple to Quincy’s table, no matter how minor. The pleasure didn’t last though, as Daniel was more than aware that this foolish play was just a way to distract himself from his complete helplessness.
Not that it kept him from trying.
Turning to Quincy, Daniel countered the standard question with an overly loud question of his own, causing those near him to flinch. “When will Vala return?”
While ostensibly Daniel was cooperating with Quincy’s demands, helping them translate some documents as slowly as was humanly possible, mostly as a way to garner any useful information that Daniel carefully kept to himself, he was not above reminding Quincy that he was a prisoner despite any attempts at pretense. It was hard to ignore the locked doors, the subtle threats, and most blatant of all, the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Vala. She was his one ally in this damned galaxy, his one connection to his old life, a presence he had come to depend upon long before she was gone without a word.
It wasn’t just guilt that tied him to Vala. It didn’t seem to matter anymore whether this was all his fault because he was stupid enough to insist on using the Ancient device, or if it was really her manipulation and use of the damn bracelets on him that had been the thing to strand her here. He wasn’t going to give up on her, mostly because he knew she expected him to. She never expected anyone to stick and it pissed him off for some reason he didn’t like to spend too much time thinking about.
Quincy shook his head, his displeasure at Daniel’s continued stubbornness carefully hidden. “Put her from your mind, son. As we have told you ample times, she is well and enjoying her time on Shanton Shores.”
Daniel wondered if they really expected him to buy that, like Vala had simply requested a change in scenery and they’d granted her this wish.
Pushing back his untouched plate, Daniel got to his feet. “I’d like to return to my cell now, if that is permissible.”
This time Quincy couldn’t quite hide his flinch at Daniel’s uncouth words, waving him away with one imperious flick of his hand.
Daniel smirked. One point to Dr. Jackson.
As if it really meant anything.
+++
Daniel stepped into what he’d begun to think of as his cell, hearing the door lock carefully behind him. The room was swathed in shadows, only a few shafts of moonlight filtering in through the unbreakable windows that offered a view down to the lake. Not bothering to turn on a light, Daniel moved across the room to the large desk the dominated one side of the room. Two of the walls were covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves, a table nearby covered in folios of pages to be translated.
Daniel flicked on the small lamp on his desk and looked down at the messy, garbled translation that had been completed by someone long before Daniel came along. It was almost funny, how far off it was, and Daniel had to curb the instinct to fly through it, scratching out clunky phrasing that showed no understanding or respect for the Ancient language.
The last thing he actually wanted to do was help these bastards. He wondered how much longer it would take them to realize he was leading them on a merry chase. How long until he disappeared like Vala.
Pulling out his own journal, he painstakingly copied untranslated passages of Ancient text into it. Any that showed any promise of helping him understand this crazy galaxy. It was purely an intellectual exercise, something to distract him while he waited for the next thing to happen.
Most days he couldn’t be sure what he was waiting for.
Long hours later, Daniel shut the light off. The party would have died out long ago. They believed strongly in moderation after all and a solid eight hours of sleep was viewed as practically sacred here. Strength of the body, strength of the mind. Daniel felt like he’d been dropped in the middle of an insane cult.
With a sigh, Daniel crossed back over to the small bedchamber, collapsing back onto his bed.
And looked right up into the face of Vala, who was half hanging out of an open panel in the ceiling.
His first thought was that he had to be losing his mind. His second was to wonder if she’d been hiding in the vents all this time.
“Hi, Daniel,” she said as if it hadn’t been six months since they’d seen each other. “Are you done playing twenty questions with these creeps yet? ‘Cause I found us a ride.”
Daniel followed her glance towards the camera in the top corner of his room. The little red blinking light was no longer lit. Before Daniel could ask what the hell was going on, Vala gracefully folded out of the vent, landing smoothly on his bed, one foot on each side of his hips.
She bent her knees, bouncing the bed a little, throwing him a saucy look. “As much as I’d love to test out your bed, Daniel, we are on a bit of a timeline.”
With that, she hopped down and crossed over to the door, glancing at her watch. As if on cue, the door popped open, the lock releasing.
“Ready?” she asked.
Daniel scrambled to his feet, finally managing to find his voice. “What the hell is going on?”
“No time to explain, darling.” With that, Vala disappeared out the door.
Daniel swore, grabbing his notebooks from the desk and tossing them into a knapsack before peering out the doorway. The hall seemed empty and a quick glance at the ceiling confirmed that the cameras in this section were all also disabled.
“Vala,” Daniel hissed once he caught up with her, but she just shoved him hard around a corner and into a small alcove.
“We cannot be seen, Daniel,” she said, leaning into him. “Just do exactly what I tell you and we will get out of this damn place. Do you understand?”
This was not a side of Vala he had ever seen before-deadly serious and, if he didn’t know any better, almost a little scared.
“Where did they take you?” Daniel asked, his eyes traveling over her face. She seemed thinner, almost translucent and he felt his anger at these self-righteous bastards rising once again.
She stared back at him, her face paling.
“Vala,” a hushed voice called out, a tall woman with a large shotgun rounding the corner. She looked them both over. “Is this Jackson?”
“Yes, Zoe,” Vala said and by the time she looked back at him, her face was once more flippant and apathetic. “Time to go,” she said like some peppy flight attendant.
The other woman, Zoe as Vala had called her, nodded and spoke softly into a small radio. “We’ve got Jackson, sir. We are on our way back to the shuttle.”
“Okay,” a man’s voice answered. “We’ll finish up here and meet you there in ten.”
“Understood, sir,” Zoe said, letting go of the radio and ushering them both out into the hall.
Vala strode forward, pointing down the next turn. “Our exit is this way.”
Daniel silently followed after Vala, the other woman falling in behind him. Sure enough, a short while later they reached one of the sitting rooms with large French doors that opened out into the garden. Usually locked at night, these too were now sitting slightly ajar.
Apparently Vala’s new friends knew what they were doing.
They sprinted across the lawn under the cover of darkness. Daniel had just made out the bulky shadow of a shuttle behind the maintenance building when Zoe’s radio rattled back into life.
“Son of a bitch,” the man’s voice exclaimed. Behind them, Daniel could see lights turning on all over the compound. “We’ve been made. Get the hell out of here while you can!”
There was the sound of weapons fire and a voice swearing harshly and then silence.
Zoe paused on the edge of the path, her body tensing for a moment as if considering running to aid the man on the radio.
“Zoe!” a man’s voice hissed from near the shuttle. Daniel saw a well-armed man appear, waving them over.
Zoe muttered something under her breath, glancing at Daniel and Vala and squaring her shoulders. “Come on,” she said, her voice brisk. “We have to get out of here now.”
“But what about-,” Vala started to say.
“Move,” Zoe demanded, grabbing her arm. “There’s no time.”
They clambered into the shuttle, lifting off as soon as Zoe slipped in behind the controls.
Whether by luck or by plan, the shuttle managed to make a clean getaway, whizzing up into the atmosphere where a transport ship of some kind waited for them. Vala was quiet on the ride and Daniel followed her lead, spending his time wondering how she’d managed to arrange this rescue and what exactly had gone wrong back on the planet.
Docking to the waiting ship with a graceless thump, Zoe scrambled out of the shuttle without another word.
“Come on,” Vala said, following after her.
Daniel didn’t have much time to look around his strange new surroundings. Soon enough they entered a small room crowded with people. The moment he turned the corner, someone grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Daniel.”
He looked up to see a face he has begun to think he would never see again. “Jack,” he exclaimed, grinning back at him. “What-how?” he sputtered as a million half-formed questions rose in his mind. He glanced around the room in hopes for a few more familiar faces.
Jack just grinned back at him, his hands tight almost to the point of discomfort on his arms. Daniel didn’t particularly mind.
“More than enough time for your questions later,” Jack said, reaching up to ruffle Daniel’s hair.
Daniel good-naturedly rolled his eyes at the juvenile gesture, mumbling, “It’s so good to be home.” Jack’s high spirits were contagious and Daniel was more than happy to play his part.
Only then a young woman next to them said in a slightly tremulous voice, “Where’s the Cap’n?” and Jack’s entire demeanor shifted in a moment. He looked past Daniel’s shoulder as if expecting more people.
“Where the hell is Sam?” he demanded.
Daniel felt his stomach drop. Sam?
“They didn’t make it back to the rendezvous point,” Zoe said, her voice calm and seemingly uncaring. She turned to a small girl by her side. “River, get us out of atmo real quick.”
Jack stepped across the girl’s path, causing her to stumble to a stop. “The hell we are!”
Zoe didn’t even blink, just pulled her weapon on Jack. “You will stand down, or I will put you down.” Daniel had no inkling she was bluffing.
Vala was looking back and forth between them as if trying to decide where the winning side would be, but the other man from the shuttle, a gun hand from the looks of it, seemed to decide it, standing behind Zoe with his own weapon pulled.
Jack stepped up into Zoe’s gun, letting it press into his chest. “He’s your Captain,” he hissed.
“And I have my orders,” she bit out. When Jack didn’t move away, she cocked the gun, giving Jack a look that fairly screamed ‘Try me’. They stared at each other a moment, frozen there, a wordless power struggle. Daniel knew the chances of Jack standing down were nonexistent at best.
Zoe finally seemed to get that as well, because she said, “The longer we keep sitting here, the more likely we all end up in that cell. And that don’t do either of them any good.”
That finally seemed to penetrate Jack’s rage, as he swore harshly under his breath and stepped back.
“River. Go,” Zoe said, dropping her shotgun back to her shoulder.
“Do you have any idea what they are going to do to them?” Jack asked, his voice gruff.
Zoe’s lips pressed together. “We are going back. When I say we do. Do we understand each other?”
Jack didn’t answer, just slumped back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.
Zoe seemed appeased, but still cautious. “Jayne, watch them,” she ordered before disappearing after the girl.
Once Zoe disappeared up the stairs, Jack strode over to them, taking Vala aside, having a brief but intense conversation with her that neither seemed to enjoy. Jack came back looking decidedly grim and Daniel made the connection-Jack wanted to know exactly what Sam might be going through, wanted to know what they had done to Vala.
“They never hurt me,” Daniel said, trying to battle his own fear at Sam being down there with his meticulous, but bizarrely sinister captors.
“Then you were lucky,” Jack said.
Daniel didn’t like what that implied, his eyes finding Vala again.
Rather than joining them, Vala had crossed the room to stand near Jayne, any distaste for the memories she just had to relive hidden under a seductive grin that Jayne was more than receptive to. It earned them some privacy, but that didn’t stop the inexplicable burning in his gut.
“Jack,” Daniel said, turning back to him. “What is going on?”
Jack eased himself down onto a couch with a wince and Daniel felt another beat of worry. Jack looked up at him. “I don’t have time for storytelling, Daniel. Right now I need you to tell me everything you can about the people who had you.”
God, where even to begin?
“Are they Alliance?” Jack asked.
Daniel didn’t have time to linger over the fact that Jack seemed rather well versed in this galaxy. “Yes and no.”
“Daniel,” he said, loading the word with the infamous Jack O’Neill impatience.
Daniel sat down next to him. “They call themselves the Illuminati.”
“How original,” Jack quipped.
Daniel gave him a wry grin. “From what I can tell they seem to be a subset of the Alliance ranks, a secret society of sorts but pushing their own agenda, setting up their own strongholds within the structure of the Alliance itself.”
Jack nodded, as if this lined up with what he’d come to suspect. “Great. Do I even want to ask what their agenda is?”
“Well, they are completely obsessed with Ancient culture and technology.”
“Yeah, we picked up on that,” Jack said. “We just weren’t sure why or how.”
Daniel pushed back to his feet, suddenly feeling way too jittery to stay put. “They have a collection of artifacts they’ve found strewn throughout the solar system, apparently first found when they immigrated here after depleting their own home planet. As far as I can tell, when the crews started terraforming, they stumbled upon small caches of objects unlike anything they had ever seen. A group was formed who dedicated their lives to researching them. They’re almost religious in their zeal, their total dedication to the pursuit of learning.”
It was disturbing on so many levels for him, to see something held so dear to his own heart twisted into greed and maliciousness.
“Have you figured out what Ancient technology is doing in this galaxy in the first place?”
Daniel ran a hand through his hair. “They set me to work on translating their archive of texts, but honestly, most of it was technical stuff, or run of the mill logs of a single person.”
“An Ancient?” Jack guessed.
Daniel nodded. “As far as I can tell, this galaxy was purposively seeded by an Ancient centuries ago, most likely with people from Earth.”
“Then how are they so advanced? How is it that as far as they are concerned it’s the year 2519?”
“I don’t know. From the logs, I think she was studying them. Not working to enlighten them, but using them like guinea pigs, studying their habits and interactions like a sociologist. Maybe she accelerated it somehow. Maybe she influenced their growth. I don’t know. It’s probably why she chose this galaxy though.”
“Because out here, the other Ancients couldn’t interfere.”
“Right,” Daniel said. “From what I can tell though, it’s been a long while since she was actively involved. I don’t know if she got bored and left or just ascended and is still around somewhere, but one thing is clear: there is no natural instance of the Ancient gene in this population.”
For the first time, Jack looked surprised. “So, what, they have all the stuff, but can’t use any of it?”
“Pretty much,” Daniel said.
“She didn’t want anyone playing with her toys after she left,” Jack surmised.
“It’s possible. But either way, the Illuminati have begun to suspect it’s something physiological that they’re missing.”
“And that’s what they are so dead set on finding.”
“Yeah. They tested both Vala and me rather extensively when we first arrived, but we don’t have what they need.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jack swore. “When these guys suddenly changed their tune, stuffed Vala in a far off prison, when exactly was that?”
“About six and a half months ago.”
“Six and a half months…” Jack repeated, his eyes closing.
“What?”
“That’s when Sam and I were picked up by the Alliance.”
Daniel didn’t quite see the connection. “So?”
“In a puddle jumper.”
Realization dawned. “They found you in possession of a working Ancient ship,” Daniel said, finally seeing the pieces dropping into place.
Jack nodded. “It explains the one thousand credit bounty on our heads and the fact that we’ve been chased back and forth across this solar system ever since we got here. These Illuminati guys want to study us.”
Daniel’s brow furrowed. “But, wait. Wouldn’t they already have what they need then? Didn’t the Alliance do any medical tests on you when they captured you?”
Jack shook his head. “They didn’t get the chance. Sam and I ducked out the first chance we saw and never looked back. We’ve been on the run ever since.”
Daniel turned and looked over at Vala. “And then you pulled Vala out of their jail,” he mused. “And they knew that you would be coming after me too.”
“Shit,” Jack swore, pushing to his feet and pacing the short distance to the door. “They were waiting for us.” He kicked at the wall, a surprising burst of temper, both Vala and Jayne looking over in alarm. “I never should have let her go down there alone. What the hell was I thinking?”
“Jack,” Daniel said. “The last thing we need is for you, of all people, to be captured by the Illuminati.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re the only person in this entire galaxy with the Ancient gene, the one thing they need more than anything.”
Jack turned to him, the same belligerent aggression in his stance he’d been using on Zoe, enough that Daniel wondered when this became his base state. “If you think that means I’m not going back there to get Sam…”
Daniel wasn’t stupid enough to suggest it. Besides, if anyone could pull this off, it was Jack. “Of course not,” he said. “We’ll just…make sure you aren’t captured.”
Jack looked at him a moment, that far too familiar O’Neill kamikaze gleam in his eye before he shook his head. “That is if Zoe doesn’t decide to keep us locked up just out of spite,” he said, glaring in Jayne’s direction.
Daniel laughed. “Since when did we let that stop us?”
Jack’s eyes swiveled back to Daniel, staring at him like he’d said something completely unexpected.
“What?” Daniel asked.
Jack reached out and touched his arm. “I’m sorry it took so long for us to get here.”
Daniel shook his head. “Honestly, I’m surprised they even let you come.”
Jack’s attention shifted as if he suddenly found the wall next to him incredibly interesting. Daniel knew evasion when he saw it. “Jack?”
Jack scraped at something on the wall with his thumb. “I wouldn’t exactly say they let us.”
Daniel did not like the sound of that. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s just say this wasn’t an officially sanctioned rescue mission. We had an idea where you were, roughly, but… Well, the damn IOA has been cutting back funding at the SGC and shunting it into Atlantis ever since Anubis got his final comeuppance. They weren’t going to let us risk resources to come after you in what was sure to be a wild goose chase.”
That was exactly what Daniel had begun to fear as more and more time passed, that he and Vala had been written off. “But then how…”
Jack grimaced. “Sam and I stole the puddle jumper, and we got a lot of help from Thor.”
“You stole it?” Daniel asked, feeling his stomach drop off at the thought of how far they’d had to go for him.
Jack shrugged. “We knew what we were doing, understood that this could be a one way trip. We accepted that.”
“But your careers… They could throw you in jail!”
Jack smirked. “Since when did we let that stop us?”
Daniel blinked up at him, a little surprised to have his own words tossed back at him, but mostly just reassured. It had been a year since they’d seen each other, and even longer since SG-1 was together in any official sense, but standing there with Jack, none of that seemed to matter. He and Sam had traveled millions of light-years, tracking him down like the proverbial needle in a hostile haystack, damn the consequences. Getting Sam back should be trivial in comparison. And they would get her back.
Daniel glanced from Jack to Vala who was now staring at them both like they were quite possibly insane. She might be right.
Daniel looked up at Jack-saw the same unmovable determination mirrored in his expression.
They’d never let the odds stop them before, and they weren’t going to start now.
+++
“What are we going to do?” Kaylee asked, looking around at everyone.
Things had gone from strange to awful real quick after the second job, the one on Metis. Zoe’d had to make the decision to keep Serenity safe at the cost of the Captain and Kaylee knew that couldn’t have been easy, not when they couldn’t afford to lose any more. Serenity was empty enough these days without losing the Captain.
Zoe was on her feet, standing at the head of the table and managing to look amazingly calm despite the fact that they’d just lost two of their numbers. Mostly Kaylee wanted to panic, her fingers twisting in her overalls. Next to her, she could feel Simon shift in his seat, his hand brushing her arm, and she tried to find comfort in the gesture.
“We rescue the Captain,” Zoe said like it was a forgone conclusion.
“How exactly do you reckon we do that?” Jayne demanded. He was watching on from the door to the mess, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest as if trying to project ‘I told ya so,’ as loud as possible.
Zoe’s lips pressed together, her body making a little twitch of movement as if she dearly wanted to pace but wouldn’t allow herself the weakness.
“Don’t you think Jack and his friends will help?” Simon asked, making them all very aware once again of who was missing from this particular conversation. Zoe had ordered them locked back up while they brainstormed. Zoe had never trusted them from the onset, and from the way things turned out, Kaylee figured she couldn’t blame her none for that.
Zoe sidestepped the question, jutting her chin towards the contraption from Shanxi. “Can you make that work, Kaylee?”
Kaylee felt her heart slam in her chest, her eyes widening a bit. “I still ain’t even sure what it is,” she said, an edge of panic slipping into her voice. “Without Sam…” She shook her head. They’d have to find another way. She just hoped Zoe saw one, ‘cause she sure didn’t.
“Jayne?” Zoe asked. “Any ideas?”
He shrugged. “We went in to get one, came back minus two. I say we cut ‘n run while we’re ahead.”
“Something tells me Jack will have a problem with that,” Simon noted.
“Easy way to fix that. We turn in the ones we still got for the reward. Or, hell, if you insist on it, maybe they’ll trade us Mal for them other three.”
Kaylee looked over at Zoe, trying to see if she was really considering doing that, dumping their new friends. Were they really that desperate? Reaching for the alien device, Kaylee pulled it closer to her. “Maybe if I spend a bit more time with it?” she offered, grasping for any other solution.
Zoe looked over her, her face softening for a moment as if she knew exactly what Kaylee was thinking. “It’s okay, Kaylee. We’ll find another way.”
Zoe hesitated then, before turning and addressing the last person in the room. “River?” she asked.
River ‘n the Captain had always seemed to get each other. More than even Simon, ‘cause for all his closeness, Simon still saw that little girl when he looked at her, when all Kaylee could see sometimes was the fierce thing washed in blood. The Captain was the one who seemed to really see River, not as a machine, or a girl, or a victim, or a freak and even though Zoe didn’t often see it herself, she got that River mattered. The Captain trusted River, and today that must have been enough for Zoe.
River simply put out a hand to Serenity’s hull, the hum of the machine seeming to shift in pitch to Kaylee’s well-tuned ears. “Too many empty spaces,” River said, her eyes staring up at the ceiling. “She doesn’t like it.”
Kaylee heard Zoe make a soft sound of frustration and then River’s eyes swung straight to her, meeting Zoe’s gaze steadily. “Ask the new one. The scholar. Let them help.”
With that, River turned and slipped out of the room, back up towards the bridge. She practically lived there since they lost Wash. Kaylee felt her heart squeeze something painful. She didn’t particularly like the empty spaces either.
She slipped her hand into Simon’s.
“Did I mention the reward on them is one thousand credits?” Jayne asked in the following silence, his voice hopeful.
“Bring them up,” Zoe said, sounding resigned. “And hope they have some ideas.”
Kaylee breathed out in relief, her fingers tightening around Simon’s. It was going to be okay.
It had to be.
+++
Cracking the encryption on the files Sam took from Shanxi was fairly quick once they had Daniel to translate and River to work her mathematical genius. As far as Jack could tell though, Daniel wasn’t finding anything of particular help in those files. In fact, Jack was fairly certain he was rapidly approaching frustration meltdown.
As if on cue, Daniel threw his arms up, pushing back from the console. “This is pointless,” he complained. “All that’s on here are manifests and inventory lists and a mind-numbingly large backlog of academic papers that are so misguided they aren’t even funny.”
This was not at all what Jack wanted to hear, because those files were all they had, the hopes of both groups tied to them. He was about to launch into pep talk mode, anything to get Daniel working again, pulling that twelfth hour miracle out of his ass, but Daniel shoved to his feet, and Jack had to rethink his assessment of Daniel’s frustration level.
Daniel paced out into the hold, like the small common room was beginning to choke him. Jack followed him out. The room was empty other than River, who sat on the edge of a large packing crate, her bare feet swinging back and forth like a child.
“Daniel,” Jack said. “That’s the only lead we have.” Like either of them needed the reminder.
“Well, then we need to find another,” Daniel said as if the paths in front of them were plentiful.
Jack’s jaw tightened and he fought to keep his voice even. “And how exactly do you suggest we do that?”
“I don’t know!”
Daniel seemed to regret his outburst the moment he let the words out, but Jack just shook his head, pacing his own path down the hold. He understood. He was fairly close to charging his way back into that complex without a plan at all at this point. Pure nerve and stupidity had served him well in the past after all.
He just sure as hell wasn’t going to wait another six months to find a viable plan. Not when he saw the way Daniel’s eyes followed Vala, concern clear on his face, like he was finally beginning to understand just what the Illuminati were capable of.
Jack ruthlessly cut that train of thought off, because he was perilously close to thinking about Sam being in the hands of these nut jobs and his brain just shut down then in a pulse of rage and he needed to think straight. Needed to have at least some semblance of clear thinking.
Movement at the other end of the hold caught Jack’s attention. He’d almost forgotten River was in here with them. She had pushed to her feet, now standing on top of the crate like a heron, her arms held out beside her. He watched her walk along the top of the crates like a ballerina in slow motion, her skirt swirling around her legs. Reaching the end of the row, she paused over the last open crate, bending nearly in half at the waist to peer down into it. She cocked her head to the side.
“I can hear it,” she said, closing her eyes as if listening to music the rest of them couldn’t hear. “I just can’t understand it.”
Jack had explained to Daniel all about the girl and her special abilities. Daniel had taken it in stride, all things considered. Maybe he’d noticed the way the crew listened to her when she spoke, no matter how nonsensical it seemed, because Daniel didn’t hesitate to walk over to stand next to her.
He glanced down into the open crate, his mouth falling open with surprise. “Where did this come from?”
Jack stepped up next to him, looking down to see the Ancient device. He’d almost forgotten about it in the chaos after Metis. “Mal’s crew nabbed that out of Shanxi, back when we found Vala.”
“Don’t you know what this is?” Daniel asked, getting that super excited this-could-be-life-altering tone of his. Meaning Daniel didn’t bother waiting for an answer from Jack. “There was one in the Glastonbury cave. I sent it with translations to Area 52 with a bunch of other Ancient artifacts.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, none of this new to him. “It’s a phase-whatsis. Sam already demonstrated it for Mal.”
Daniel blinked back at him. “Jack. This is it. This is what we need to save Sam.”
Jack felt his adrenaline spike like a punch to the stomach at those words, but forced himself to be still, to be cautious. He squinted down at the object. “As I understood it, you can’t interact with anything in the real world when you’re out of phase.”
“Right,” Daniel said, nodding along in lesson mode, his voice slow and careful like he was hiding the punch line. “You can only manipulate the controls on the machine. It exists concurrently in both realities at once.”
“So you can turn it on and off,” Jack said.
Daniel stared at him as if he was missing something obvious. He jerkily gestured at the device, hands and arms akimbo. “There’s-there’s another one on Metis! I saw it myself.”
Jack crossed his arms, but didn’t say anything, waiting for Daniel to spin the rest of this out.
Daniel didn’t seem to notice, just pacing away from the box. “All we need is a way to get us on that planet. We can walk right in through the walls, find the other machine, grab Sam, and walk right back out.”
“Simple,” Jack said. Simple was rarely trustworthy, he reminded himself. “What about weapons?”
“Theoretically anything we have on our person when we shift out of phase should stay with us.”
Jack wasn’t sure there was another word he hated more than ‘theoretically’. “And getting back out?” he asked, poking for holes and desperately hoping not to find any. “Do we just get out of phase again and walk out?”
Daniel was looking towards the device again, his eyes slipping out of focus. “I think I might know an even better way,” he said, his voice slow and thoughtful. Then he turned on his heel and rushed back into the common room.
Jack knew that particular tone. It meant he was better off not asking until Daniel had a chance to work it all out in his mind. He’d be back to talking Jack’s ear off when this latest lead materialized. But until then…
Jack walked over to the box, reaching in to touch the smooth stone surface of the device. It hummed to life under his fingers, the familiar reverberation of recognition and power surging up his arm and for once he wasn’t suspicious of this strange connection he had with this alien technology, only grateful.
They had a plan.
Above him, the crate creaked as River moved, dropping into a cross-legged sitting position, her fingers stretching out to touch the floating display of text. She smiled as her fingers passed through without touching, snatching again at the colors like a cat chasing a sunbeam, and he was surprised by the joy on her face at such a simple, childish game.
“Thanks,” Jack said, his voice quiet so as not to scare her.
She jerked as if she’d forgotten he was there, her hand frozen mid-grab in the lights.
“Xie xie,” he tried again, purposively mangling the pronunciation.
River’s lips twitched then, one hand flying to cover her mouth, but he could see the sparkle of amusement in her eyes. “Bu ke qi,” she said through her fingers, almost perfectly matching his awful pronunciation like they were playing some game no one else knew the rules to.
Jack smiled.
+++
Zoe looked up from her untouched meal when Jack came rushing up the stairs. Across from her, she heard Simon make a sound of frustration, no doubt at Jack’s continued inability to simply convalesce like a sane person.
“Daniel figured out how to get them back,” Jack announced.
“How?” Zoe asked, refusing to get swept up in the excitement he was exuding.
“All we need is a way to get back on Metis,” he said. “Happen to have any friends in high places?”
Kaylee perked up immediately, staring at Zoe with bright eyes. “You mean like someone who might have legitimate business in that part of the system without raising suspicion?”
Jack’s attention swiveled to Kaylee. “Is that a yes?”
Kaylee nodded. “Yup.”
Jack gave her a feral sort of grin that was bizarrely comforting in a completely terrifying way. “Then give them a call. And let’s go get our people back.”
Zoe glanced over at Kaylee. “The Captain’s gonna love this.”
Kaylee laughed, jumping out of her chair and giving Zoe a squeeze. “I’ll go send ‘Nara a wave!” she said, disappeared out the door.
Zoe and Jack regarded each other over the table, and without Kaylee’s eager optimism the mood in the room cooled considerably.
“I’m not sending you and Dr. Jackson down there alone,” Zoe said.
Jack’s posture shifted, his body relaxed, but his eyes telling a different story. “Is that concern for our safety? I’m touched.”
Zoe imagined his strange mix of acerbic wit and downplay of his intelligence might throw most people for a loop when dealing with him. She wasn’t fooled. “No. More that I don’t trust you to have the Captain’s best interests at heart.”
Jack regarded her for a long moment, and she refused to react to his scrutiny. Eventually, he sat down across from her. “What are you going to do, come yourself?” he asked. “There are a hell of a lot of people out there looking for Serenity right now. Are you going to leave Jayne in charge?”
There was something of the man that’d grasped Simon by the throat visible in him now, but also competence and tightly wound control, and Zoe got the feeling then that was talking to a fellow soldier. A comrade.
“Or I could send Jayne with you,” she said. It was the same tangled game of variables she’d been shifting through in her mind since the moment the Captain was taken. Speaking them out loud with Jack was not something she would have expected to find useful.
Jack smiled. “Because the one thousand credit bounty on our heads is in no way a temptation.”
Zoe grimaced. “There is that.”
“That leaves you with River and Simon. Maybe little Kaylee?”
None of whom Zoe could send down on the mission, or trust to keep Serenity safe if they were discovered while she was away.
“Look, you don’t have a lot of choices here, and I know how much that sucks,” Jack said, giving her a look that made her think he understood exactly what she was struggling with. “But you do have one more option.”
“What’s that?”
“To trust me when I give you my word that I will bring them both back.”
As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She didn’t have a whole lot of options, each one more unpalatable than the last. But he was her Captain and leaving him behind was one option she refused to entertain.
She nodded at Jack. “You’ll leave Vala here.”
There were currently only two people with knowledge of Metis and the Illuminati on board. If Jack and Dr. Jackson failed, she’d need that other source of information to make even a dream of another rescue possible.
Jack seemed to get that. “Deal.”
He stuck out his hand and Zoe took it, a firm shake that was as straightforward and unyielding as the man sitting across from her. It was true that Jack had mostly been an ailing patient overshadowed by Sam’s bluster since he got on board, and it was only now, as Zoe stared across the table at him that she realized she might have misjudged him.
“Deal,” she echoed.
He pushed up from the table. “I’ll go tell Daniel.”
She nodded, looking down at her now cold meal and hoping this feeling that she’d made the right choice wasn’t just wishful thinking.
“Hey, Zoe?”
She looked up to find Jack regarding her from the doorway.
“I don’t know if you’ll find it a comfort or not, but this insane, all-odds-stacked-against-us kind of mission…it’s sort of our specialty back home.”
Zoe nodded, giving him a wry smile. “You’re right. That’s not particularly comforting.”
Jack laughed.
+++
Inara watched Jayne and the stranger load a large stone console onto her shuttle, carefully covering it with one of her silk hangings. They’d explained to her what it was a few times now, but that didn’t make it sound any less like a fairytale-distant aliens and magic artifacts.
Leaving them to it, Inara turned her attention to the shuttle itself and her part in the charade they were building. She’d had enough belongings left on Serenity to do a credible job of decorating the shuttle again. To her sharp eye, the discrepancies were obvious, but minutiae was her specialty and she knew most people never looked much closer once they thought they knew what they were seeing. A failing of the human spirit in most cases, but today she would take it as the boon it was.
“Good thing we still had so many of your things,” Kaylee commented as she passed by with another box, sliding her a knowing glance. Then again, Inara thought, some people still see too much.
“Thank you for doing this,” Zoe said, stepping up next to her.
“Of course, Zoe,” Inara said, surprised by her obvious gratitude, if not the new sort of distance the woman projected around herself. Serenity was Inara’s family too, their wounds hers, no matter her reasons for not staying.
“I hate to risk getting you into more trouble, drag you back in. Especially since these people seem a bit more…relentless than most.”
Inara nodded. “I’ve heard whispers of the Illuminati over the years, most of them more like storybook tales than fact.” Or boogeyman stories. It was amazing what men would say to a woman to impress her, the secrets they would spill in a moment of surrender.
Inara knew well that something was churning in the Alliance ranks, something beyond even the catastrophic reverberations of Miranda. The Alliance was pulling itself apart from the inside-conspiracies and paranoia. The most surprising part of all of this should be that Serenity managed to find herself square in the middle of it, but their Captain just wouldn’t be Mal Reynolds if he couldn’t find his way to the heart of trouble blind-folded.
Jack came up to stand with them then, his eyes traveling over the shuttle’s interior. “I appreciate you doing this.”
He was an interesting man (or rather alien, Inara reminded herself), as he didn’t even seem remotely flustered by her, and had barely blinked an eye when her profession had been explained to him. He’d just given her a rather piercing look and said, “Hope Reynolds knows how lucky he is to have you,” and somehow she’d ended up the flustered one, opening her mouth to explain that it was nothing like that, only to realize the denial would be just as telling.
In the end she’d simply nodded her head in acknowledgment and somehow felt like she’d passed a test when Jack grinned at her.
Very strange man.
His friend was a more curious sort, peppering her with all sorts of questions of ritual and perception until Jack had called out, “For God’s sake, Daniel, leave her alone!”
“We’re all set,” Jack says now, as the flurry of activity died down.
“Okay,” Inara says.
“All you have to do is land on that planet, we’ll do the rest,” he reassured her. They already had it all worked out how she’d land on Metis under the guise of suffering unexpected engine trouble, which Inara would create herself, pulling a few connections here and there that Kaylee had helpfully pointed out. Once the shuttle was repaired she was to take off again and rendezvous with Serenity a few planets over.
Simple. And yet Inara saw at least a hundred different ways for it to go terribly wrong. Not the least of which was leaving the two men on Metis when she had no idea how they planned to get back off.
“Don’t you think they will be suspicious?” Inara asked. “It’s no secret that I spent time on Serenity.”
“It doesn’t matter if they are,” Jack said, something fierce and almost feral shadowing his face. “They won’t see this coming.”
Inara felt a shiver travel her spine at the familiar words, the unwelcome memories they conjured. Looking across the shuttle, she met Zoe’s eye only to find the same hard look echoed there.
“Good luck,” Zoe said, turning and stepping out of the shuttle.
Next to Inara, Jack clapped his hands, his entire demeanor changing with a fluidness that part of Inara couldn’t help but admire. “Road trip time! I hope you packed the snacks, Daniel.”
With that, he disappeared back into the hold, leaving Inara blinking after him, wondering if she’d imagined that hard, predatory look on his face earlier. Definitely a strange man.
She had the feeling the strangeness was just beginning.
+++
With a soft click-whoosh the Companion’s shuttle detached from Serenity and for a moment Vala imagined the bulk of the larger ship swayed astern as if compensating for the loss. She shoved the errant thought aside though, as she had no more time for whimsy than she did for wondering the chances of Daniel or Jack ever setting foot on Serenity again-external variables that had no more influence on her own path than the dwarfed shuttle had on Serenity. In theory.
They didn’t ask her to go with them on their little rescue mission and she was grateful. Setting foot in that plush mansion with its veneer of lies and civility had been hard enough the first time. She’d done it because she felt maybe she owed it to Daniel. She didn’t like that feeling of owing anyone anything. But she was square now, and as much as she wished Sam and Mal good things, she wasn’t about to risk a return trip.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew why Sam bothered to pull her out of Shanxi in the first place, knew it had more to do with Daniel than any sense of responsibility or attachment to Vala. Daniel’s friends, they had no reason to save her, only as a means to Daniel and they had him now. And soon they would have Sam, the full set. And Vala would be obsolete.
Daniel didn’t seem to get that Vala didn’t need to be rescued, didn’t need to depend on their plans. She was more like these people on the ship, and she knew it. Criminals. Entrepreneurs. Predictable, because at least you could trust them to work in their own self-interest and never try to convince you something different. Not like the Tau’ri and their hard sold ideals.
Ideals never lasted in the real world. That was just the way things worked. No matter what galaxy.
“We’re coming back for you, you know that right?” Daniel had asked just before he loaded onto the shuttle.
She’d smiled the way she thought he wanted to see. “Good luck, Daniel.”
She was better off on Serenity in so many ways, she told herself. So it didn’t really matter what Daniel and his friends intended, if they left her behind.
“We break the yoke, only to fit ourselves with new ones when we can’t stand the weightlessness.”
Startled by the unexpected voice, Vala looked up to find River lying on the walkway above, her fingers stuck through the grating, hair fanned out on either side.
“Excuse me?” Vala asked.
River’s head rolled to the side, eyes slipping past Vala. “You think you’re being brave, never letting anyone ever control you like that again, never letting something take you over. But maybe being alone ain’t the bravery you hope.”
The kid’s voice was dreamy and insubstantial, but it wasn’t the tone that alarmed Vala so much as the words. “You’re cracked.”
“Sometimes,” River admitted, her eyes focusing in on Vala. “But that don’t make it any less true.”
Vala didn’t acknowledge the strange child or her words, just pushed off the wall and left the hold, not stopping until she was back in the small room that had been assigned to her. Her fingers were not quite steady as she checked and rechecked her supplies, slipping them back into their secret hiding places.
She didn’t need either of them, she reminded herself. Not this ship or Daniel’s promises.
She almost believed it.
:: next::
Author: Annerb
Summary: During a rescue mission gone awry, Sam and Jack end up stranded in another galaxy where they find themselves passengers on a ship called Serenity.
Wordcount: 40,000+
Rating/Warnings: Older teens for swearing in multiple languages, violence, torture, and such.
Categorization: SG-1/Firefly Crossover, AU, Action/Adventure, Drama
Pairings: BOB. Sam/Jack established relationship, hints of Daniel/Vala, Kaylee/Simon, Mal/Inara, and Jayne/Everyone (at least in his mind).
Season: Post-BDM for Firefly, early season 9 for SG-1
Dr. Jackson, I Presume
Metis was by far the nicest prison Daniel had ever been kept in.
The villa was rich, with fine sweeping views of lawns and fountains and winding garden paths. It was also simple though, almost to the point of monasticism if it weren’t for the obviously fine quality of everything-wealth and power embodied by the rich austerity. Of course it was still a prison, gilded or not, and he was fairly certain his comfortable treatment stemmed entirely from what they perceived as his usefulness.
His captors preferred to treat him as a guest, a colleague, even going so far as to including him in social events. The dinners were a weekly event, a ruse probably meant to make Daniel feel more connected to his hosts, as if a nice three-course meal in a beautiful room might cover up the fact that he was their prisoner. Manners seemed to be of utmost import to his hosts though, all the niceties observed.
In the months he’d been here, Daniel couldn’t recall a single time someone’s voice had risen above a moderated hush, unless it had been his own.
“How does your work progress, Dr. Jackson?”
Daniel looked up at Quincy, seated at the head of the table. He was the uncontested leader of the compound. All the other residents here treated him with near God-like reverence. Tonight he was dressed in simple black of the finest quality, his short silver hair standing out boldly in contrast. He was a small man of indeterminate age who spoke softly, never raising his voice. It seemed a measure of his complete control and Daniel long ago noticed the way it required those near him to lean in closer to hear him, a manipulation that seamlessly reasserted his power.
Control was important to Quincy.
“Excuse me?” Daniel asked, even though he heard the soft words perfectly well. It was a game they often played, Daniel tossing Quincy’s attempted manipulations back in his face.
On Daniel’s right, Cyrus, a younger devotee who was still wide-eyed and jumpy in the illustrious company of the weekly dinner, turned to Daniel and hissed in his ear, “He asked how your work progresses, Dr. Jackson!”
Daniel hid a smile, taking a perverse sort of pleasure in bringing any ripple to Quincy’s table, no matter how minor. The pleasure didn’t last though, as Daniel was more than aware that this foolish play was just a way to distract himself from his complete helplessness.
Not that it kept him from trying.
Turning to Quincy, Daniel countered the standard question with an overly loud question of his own, causing those near him to flinch. “When will Vala return?”
While ostensibly Daniel was cooperating with Quincy’s demands, helping them translate some documents as slowly as was humanly possible, mostly as a way to garner any useful information that Daniel carefully kept to himself, he was not above reminding Quincy that he was a prisoner despite any attempts at pretense. It was hard to ignore the locked doors, the subtle threats, and most blatant of all, the sudden and unexplained disappearance of Vala. She was his one ally in this damned galaxy, his one connection to his old life, a presence he had come to depend upon long before she was gone without a word.
It wasn’t just guilt that tied him to Vala. It didn’t seem to matter anymore whether this was all his fault because he was stupid enough to insist on using the Ancient device, or if it was really her manipulation and use of the damn bracelets on him that had been the thing to strand her here. He wasn’t going to give up on her, mostly because he knew she expected him to. She never expected anyone to stick and it pissed him off for some reason he didn’t like to spend too much time thinking about.
Quincy shook his head, his displeasure at Daniel’s continued stubbornness carefully hidden. “Put her from your mind, son. As we have told you ample times, she is well and enjoying her time on Shanton Shores.”
Daniel wondered if they really expected him to buy that, like Vala had simply requested a change in scenery and they’d granted her this wish.
Pushing back his untouched plate, Daniel got to his feet. “I’d like to return to my cell now, if that is permissible.”
This time Quincy couldn’t quite hide his flinch at Daniel’s uncouth words, waving him away with one imperious flick of his hand.
Daniel smirked. One point to Dr. Jackson.
As if it really meant anything.
+++
Daniel stepped into what he’d begun to think of as his cell, hearing the door lock carefully behind him. The room was swathed in shadows, only a few shafts of moonlight filtering in through the unbreakable windows that offered a view down to the lake. Not bothering to turn on a light, Daniel moved across the room to the large desk the dominated one side of the room. Two of the walls were covered floor to ceiling with bookshelves, a table nearby covered in folios of pages to be translated.
Daniel flicked on the small lamp on his desk and looked down at the messy, garbled translation that had been completed by someone long before Daniel came along. It was almost funny, how far off it was, and Daniel had to curb the instinct to fly through it, scratching out clunky phrasing that showed no understanding or respect for the Ancient language.
The last thing he actually wanted to do was help these bastards. He wondered how much longer it would take them to realize he was leading them on a merry chase. How long until he disappeared like Vala.
Pulling out his own journal, he painstakingly copied untranslated passages of Ancient text into it. Any that showed any promise of helping him understand this crazy galaxy. It was purely an intellectual exercise, something to distract him while he waited for the next thing to happen.
Most days he couldn’t be sure what he was waiting for.
Long hours later, Daniel shut the light off. The party would have died out long ago. They believed strongly in moderation after all and a solid eight hours of sleep was viewed as practically sacred here. Strength of the body, strength of the mind. Daniel felt like he’d been dropped in the middle of an insane cult.
With a sigh, Daniel crossed back over to the small bedchamber, collapsing back onto his bed.
And looked right up into the face of Vala, who was half hanging out of an open panel in the ceiling.
His first thought was that he had to be losing his mind. His second was to wonder if she’d been hiding in the vents all this time.
“Hi, Daniel,” she said as if it hadn’t been six months since they’d seen each other. “Are you done playing twenty questions with these creeps yet? ‘Cause I found us a ride.”
Daniel followed her glance towards the camera in the top corner of his room. The little red blinking light was no longer lit. Before Daniel could ask what the hell was going on, Vala gracefully folded out of the vent, landing smoothly on his bed, one foot on each side of his hips.
She bent her knees, bouncing the bed a little, throwing him a saucy look. “As much as I’d love to test out your bed, Daniel, we are on a bit of a timeline.”
With that, she hopped down and crossed over to the door, glancing at her watch. As if on cue, the door popped open, the lock releasing.
“Ready?” she asked.
Daniel scrambled to his feet, finally managing to find his voice. “What the hell is going on?”
“No time to explain, darling.” With that, Vala disappeared out the door.
Daniel swore, grabbing his notebooks from the desk and tossing them into a knapsack before peering out the doorway. The hall seemed empty and a quick glance at the ceiling confirmed that the cameras in this section were all also disabled.
“Vala,” Daniel hissed once he caught up with her, but she just shoved him hard around a corner and into a small alcove.
“We cannot be seen, Daniel,” she said, leaning into him. “Just do exactly what I tell you and we will get out of this damn place. Do you understand?”
This was not a side of Vala he had ever seen before-deadly serious and, if he didn’t know any better, almost a little scared.
“Where did they take you?” Daniel asked, his eyes traveling over her face. She seemed thinner, almost translucent and he felt his anger at these self-righteous bastards rising once again.
She stared back at him, her face paling.
“Vala,” a hushed voice called out, a tall woman with a large shotgun rounding the corner. She looked them both over. “Is this Jackson?”
“Yes, Zoe,” Vala said and by the time she looked back at him, her face was once more flippant and apathetic. “Time to go,” she said like some peppy flight attendant.
The other woman, Zoe as Vala had called her, nodded and spoke softly into a small radio. “We’ve got Jackson, sir. We are on our way back to the shuttle.”
“Okay,” a man’s voice answered. “We’ll finish up here and meet you there in ten.”
“Understood, sir,” Zoe said, letting go of the radio and ushering them both out into the hall.
Vala strode forward, pointing down the next turn. “Our exit is this way.”
Daniel silently followed after Vala, the other woman falling in behind him. Sure enough, a short while later they reached one of the sitting rooms with large French doors that opened out into the garden. Usually locked at night, these too were now sitting slightly ajar.
Apparently Vala’s new friends knew what they were doing.
They sprinted across the lawn under the cover of darkness. Daniel had just made out the bulky shadow of a shuttle behind the maintenance building when Zoe’s radio rattled back into life.
“Son of a bitch,” the man’s voice exclaimed. Behind them, Daniel could see lights turning on all over the compound. “We’ve been made. Get the hell out of here while you can!”
There was the sound of weapons fire and a voice swearing harshly and then silence.
Zoe paused on the edge of the path, her body tensing for a moment as if considering running to aid the man on the radio.
“Zoe!” a man’s voice hissed from near the shuttle. Daniel saw a well-armed man appear, waving them over.
Zoe muttered something under her breath, glancing at Daniel and Vala and squaring her shoulders. “Come on,” she said, her voice brisk. “We have to get out of here now.”
“But what about-,” Vala started to say.
“Move,” Zoe demanded, grabbing her arm. “There’s no time.”
They clambered into the shuttle, lifting off as soon as Zoe slipped in behind the controls.
Whether by luck or by plan, the shuttle managed to make a clean getaway, whizzing up into the atmosphere where a transport ship of some kind waited for them. Vala was quiet on the ride and Daniel followed her lead, spending his time wondering how she’d managed to arrange this rescue and what exactly had gone wrong back on the planet.
Docking to the waiting ship with a graceless thump, Zoe scrambled out of the shuttle without another word.
“Come on,” Vala said, following after her.
Daniel didn’t have much time to look around his strange new surroundings. Soon enough they entered a small room crowded with people. The moment he turned the corner, someone grabbed him by the shoulders.
“Daniel.”
He looked up to see a face he has begun to think he would never see again. “Jack,” he exclaimed, grinning back at him. “What-how?” he sputtered as a million half-formed questions rose in his mind. He glanced around the room in hopes for a few more familiar faces.
Jack just grinned back at him, his hands tight almost to the point of discomfort on his arms. Daniel didn’t particularly mind.
“More than enough time for your questions later,” Jack said, reaching up to ruffle Daniel’s hair.
Daniel good-naturedly rolled his eyes at the juvenile gesture, mumbling, “It’s so good to be home.” Jack’s high spirits were contagious and Daniel was more than happy to play his part.
Only then a young woman next to them said in a slightly tremulous voice, “Where’s the Cap’n?” and Jack’s entire demeanor shifted in a moment. He looked past Daniel’s shoulder as if expecting more people.
“Where the hell is Sam?” he demanded.
Daniel felt his stomach drop. Sam?
“They didn’t make it back to the rendezvous point,” Zoe said, her voice calm and seemingly uncaring. She turned to a small girl by her side. “River, get us out of atmo real quick.”
Jack stepped across the girl’s path, causing her to stumble to a stop. “The hell we are!”
Zoe didn’t even blink, just pulled her weapon on Jack. “You will stand down, or I will put you down.” Daniel had no inkling she was bluffing.
Vala was looking back and forth between them as if trying to decide where the winning side would be, but the other man from the shuttle, a gun hand from the looks of it, seemed to decide it, standing behind Zoe with his own weapon pulled.
Jack stepped up into Zoe’s gun, letting it press into his chest. “He’s your Captain,” he hissed.
“And I have my orders,” she bit out. When Jack didn’t move away, she cocked the gun, giving Jack a look that fairly screamed ‘Try me’. They stared at each other a moment, frozen there, a wordless power struggle. Daniel knew the chances of Jack standing down were nonexistent at best.
Zoe finally seemed to get that as well, because she said, “The longer we keep sitting here, the more likely we all end up in that cell. And that don’t do either of them any good.”
That finally seemed to penetrate Jack’s rage, as he swore harshly under his breath and stepped back.
“River. Go,” Zoe said, dropping her shotgun back to her shoulder.
“Do you have any idea what they are going to do to them?” Jack asked, his voice gruff.
Zoe’s lips pressed together. “We are going back. When I say we do. Do we understand each other?”
Jack didn’t answer, just slumped back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest.
Zoe seemed appeased, but still cautious. “Jayne, watch them,” she ordered before disappearing after the girl.
Once Zoe disappeared up the stairs, Jack strode over to them, taking Vala aside, having a brief but intense conversation with her that neither seemed to enjoy. Jack came back looking decidedly grim and Daniel made the connection-Jack wanted to know exactly what Sam might be going through, wanted to know what they had done to Vala.
“They never hurt me,” Daniel said, trying to battle his own fear at Sam being down there with his meticulous, but bizarrely sinister captors.
“Then you were lucky,” Jack said.
Daniel didn’t like what that implied, his eyes finding Vala again.
Rather than joining them, Vala had crossed the room to stand near Jayne, any distaste for the memories she just had to relive hidden under a seductive grin that Jayne was more than receptive to. It earned them some privacy, but that didn’t stop the inexplicable burning in his gut.
“Jack,” Daniel said, turning back to him. “What is going on?”
Jack eased himself down onto a couch with a wince and Daniel felt another beat of worry. Jack looked up at him. “I don’t have time for storytelling, Daniel. Right now I need you to tell me everything you can about the people who had you.”
God, where even to begin?
“Are they Alliance?” Jack asked.
Daniel didn’t have time to linger over the fact that Jack seemed rather well versed in this galaxy. “Yes and no.”
“Daniel,” he said, loading the word with the infamous Jack O’Neill impatience.
Daniel sat down next to him. “They call themselves the Illuminati.”
“How original,” Jack quipped.
Daniel gave him a wry grin. “From what I can tell they seem to be a subset of the Alliance ranks, a secret society of sorts but pushing their own agenda, setting up their own strongholds within the structure of the Alliance itself.”
Jack nodded, as if this lined up with what he’d come to suspect. “Great. Do I even want to ask what their agenda is?”
“Well, they are completely obsessed with Ancient culture and technology.”
“Yeah, we picked up on that,” Jack said. “We just weren’t sure why or how.”
Daniel pushed back to his feet, suddenly feeling way too jittery to stay put. “They have a collection of artifacts they’ve found strewn throughout the solar system, apparently first found when they immigrated here after depleting their own home planet. As far as I can tell, when the crews started terraforming, they stumbled upon small caches of objects unlike anything they had ever seen. A group was formed who dedicated their lives to researching them. They’re almost religious in their zeal, their total dedication to the pursuit of learning.”
It was disturbing on so many levels for him, to see something held so dear to his own heart twisted into greed and maliciousness.
“Have you figured out what Ancient technology is doing in this galaxy in the first place?”
Daniel ran a hand through his hair. “They set me to work on translating their archive of texts, but honestly, most of it was technical stuff, or run of the mill logs of a single person.”
“An Ancient?” Jack guessed.
Daniel nodded. “As far as I can tell, this galaxy was purposively seeded by an Ancient centuries ago, most likely with people from Earth.”
“Then how are they so advanced? How is it that as far as they are concerned it’s the year 2519?”
“I don’t know. From the logs, I think she was studying them. Not working to enlighten them, but using them like guinea pigs, studying their habits and interactions like a sociologist. Maybe she accelerated it somehow. Maybe she influenced their growth. I don’t know. It’s probably why she chose this galaxy though.”
“Because out here, the other Ancients couldn’t interfere.”
“Right,” Daniel said. “From what I can tell though, it’s been a long while since she was actively involved. I don’t know if she got bored and left or just ascended and is still around somewhere, but one thing is clear: there is no natural instance of the Ancient gene in this population.”
For the first time, Jack looked surprised. “So, what, they have all the stuff, but can’t use any of it?”
“Pretty much,” Daniel said.
“She didn’t want anyone playing with her toys after she left,” Jack surmised.
“It’s possible. But either way, the Illuminati have begun to suspect it’s something physiological that they’re missing.”
“And that’s what they are so dead set on finding.”
“Yeah. They tested both Vala and me rather extensively when we first arrived, but we don’t have what they need.”
“Son of a bitch,” Jack swore. “When these guys suddenly changed their tune, stuffed Vala in a far off prison, when exactly was that?”
“About six and a half months ago.”
“Six and a half months…” Jack repeated, his eyes closing.
“What?”
“That’s when Sam and I were picked up by the Alliance.”
Daniel didn’t quite see the connection. “So?”
“In a puddle jumper.”
Realization dawned. “They found you in possession of a working Ancient ship,” Daniel said, finally seeing the pieces dropping into place.
Jack nodded. “It explains the one thousand credit bounty on our heads and the fact that we’ve been chased back and forth across this solar system ever since we got here. These Illuminati guys want to study us.”
Daniel’s brow furrowed. “But, wait. Wouldn’t they already have what they need then? Didn’t the Alliance do any medical tests on you when they captured you?”
Jack shook his head. “They didn’t get the chance. Sam and I ducked out the first chance we saw and never looked back. We’ve been on the run ever since.”
Daniel turned and looked over at Vala. “And then you pulled Vala out of their jail,” he mused. “And they knew that you would be coming after me too.”
“Shit,” Jack swore, pushing to his feet and pacing the short distance to the door. “They were waiting for us.” He kicked at the wall, a surprising burst of temper, both Vala and Jayne looking over in alarm. “I never should have let her go down there alone. What the hell was I thinking?”
“Jack,” Daniel said. “The last thing we need is for you, of all people, to be captured by the Illuminati.”
“Why is that?”
“Because you’re the only person in this entire galaxy with the Ancient gene, the one thing they need more than anything.”
Jack turned to him, the same belligerent aggression in his stance he’d been using on Zoe, enough that Daniel wondered when this became his base state. “If you think that means I’m not going back there to get Sam…”
Daniel wasn’t stupid enough to suggest it. Besides, if anyone could pull this off, it was Jack. “Of course not,” he said. “We’ll just…make sure you aren’t captured.”
Jack looked at him a moment, that far too familiar O’Neill kamikaze gleam in his eye before he shook his head. “That is if Zoe doesn’t decide to keep us locked up just out of spite,” he said, glaring in Jayne’s direction.
Daniel laughed. “Since when did we let that stop us?”
Jack’s eyes swiveled back to Daniel, staring at him like he’d said something completely unexpected.
“What?” Daniel asked.
Jack reached out and touched his arm. “I’m sorry it took so long for us to get here.”
Daniel shook his head. “Honestly, I’m surprised they even let you come.”
Jack’s attention shifted as if he suddenly found the wall next to him incredibly interesting. Daniel knew evasion when he saw it. “Jack?”
Jack scraped at something on the wall with his thumb. “I wouldn’t exactly say they let us.”
Daniel did not like the sound of that. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Let’s just say this wasn’t an officially sanctioned rescue mission. We had an idea where you were, roughly, but… Well, the damn IOA has been cutting back funding at the SGC and shunting it into Atlantis ever since Anubis got his final comeuppance. They weren’t going to let us risk resources to come after you in what was sure to be a wild goose chase.”
That was exactly what Daniel had begun to fear as more and more time passed, that he and Vala had been written off. “But then how…”
Jack grimaced. “Sam and I stole the puddle jumper, and we got a lot of help from Thor.”
“You stole it?” Daniel asked, feeling his stomach drop off at the thought of how far they’d had to go for him.
Jack shrugged. “We knew what we were doing, understood that this could be a one way trip. We accepted that.”
“But your careers… They could throw you in jail!”
Jack smirked. “Since when did we let that stop us?”
Daniel blinked up at him, a little surprised to have his own words tossed back at him, but mostly just reassured. It had been a year since they’d seen each other, and even longer since SG-1 was together in any official sense, but standing there with Jack, none of that seemed to matter. He and Sam had traveled millions of light-years, tracking him down like the proverbial needle in a hostile haystack, damn the consequences. Getting Sam back should be trivial in comparison. And they would get her back.
Daniel glanced from Jack to Vala who was now staring at them both like they were quite possibly insane. She might be right.
Daniel looked up at Jack-saw the same unmovable determination mirrored in his expression.
They’d never let the odds stop them before, and they weren’t going to start now.
+++
“What are we going to do?” Kaylee asked, looking around at everyone.
Things had gone from strange to awful real quick after the second job, the one on Metis. Zoe’d had to make the decision to keep Serenity safe at the cost of the Captain and Kaylee knew that couldn’t have been easy, not when they couldn’t afford to lose any more. Serenity was empty enough these days without losing the Captain.
Zoe was on her feet, standing at the head of the table and managing to look amazingly calm despite the fact that they’d just lost two of their numbers. Mostly Kaylee wanted to panic, her fingers twisting in her overalls. Next to her, she could feel Simon shift in his seat, his hand brushing her arm, and she tried to find comfort in the gesture.
“We rescue the Captain,” Zoe said like it was a forgone conclusion.
“How exactly do you reckon we do that?” Jayne demanded. He was watching on from the door to the mess, leaning back with his arms crossed over his chest as if trying to project ‘I told ya so,’ as loud as possible.
Zoe’s lips pressed together, her body making a little twitch of movement as if she dearly wanted to pace but wouldn’t allow herself the weakness.
“Don’t you think Jack and his friends will help?” Simon asked, making them all very aware once again of who was missing from this particular conversation. Zoe had ordered them locked back up while they brainstormed. Zoe had never trusted them from the onset, and from the way things turned out, Kaylee figured she couldn’t blame her none for that.
Zoe sidestepped the question, jutting her chin towards the contraption from Shanxi. “Can you make that work, Kaylee?”
Kaylee felt her heart slam in her chest, her eyes widening a bit. “I still ain’t even sure what it is,” she said, an edge of panic slipping into her voice. “Without Sam…” She shook her head. They’d have to find another way. She just hoped Zoe saw one, ‘cause she sure didn’t.
“Jayne?” Zoe asked. “Any ideas?”
He shrugged. “We went in to get one, came back minus two. I say we cut ‘n run while we’re ahead.”
“Something tells me Jack will have a problem with that,” Simon noted.
“Easy way to fix that. We turn in the ones we still got for the reward. Or, hell, if you insist on it, maybe they’ll trade us Mal for them other three.”
Kaylee looked over at Zoe, trying to see if she was really considering doing that, dumping their new friends. Were they really that desperate? Reaching for the alien device, Kaylee pulled it closer to her. “Maybe if I spend a bit more time with it?” she offered, grasping for any other solution.
Zoe looked over her, her face softening for a moment as if she knew exactly what Kaylee was thinking. “It’s okay, Kaylee. We’ll find another way.”
Zoe hesitated then, before turning and addressing the last person in the room. “River?” she asked.
River ‘n the Captain had always seemed to get each other. More than even Simon, ‘cause for all his closeness, Simon still saw that little girl when he looked at her, when all Kaylee could see sometimes was the fierce thing washed in blood. The Captain was the one who seemed to really see River, not as a machine, or a girl, or a victim, or a freak and even though Zoe didn’t often see it herself, she got that River mattered. The Captain trusted River, and today that must have been enough for Zoe.
River simply put out a hand to Serenity’s hull, the hum of the machine seeming to shift in pitch to Kaylee’s well-tuned ears. “Too many empty spaces,” River said, her eyes staring up at the ceiling. “She doesn’t like it.”
Kaylee heard Zoe make a soft sound of frustration and then River’s eyes swung straight to her, meeting Zoe’s gaze steadily. “Ask the new one. The scholar. Let them help.”
With that, River turned and slipped out of the room, back up towards the bridge. She practically lived there since they lost Wash. Kaylee felt her heart squeeze something painful. She didn’t particularly like the empty spaces either.
She slipped her hand into Simon’s.
“Did I mention the reward on them is one thousand credits?” Jayne asked in the following silence, his voice hopeful.
“Bring them up,” Zoe said, sounding resigned. “And hope they have some ideas.”
Kaylee breathed out in relief, her fingers tightening around Simon’s. It was going to be okay.
It had to be.
+++
Cracking the encryption on the files Sam took from Shanxi was fairly quick once they had Daniel to translate and River to work her mathematical genius. As far as Jack could tell though, Daniel wasn’t finding anything of particular help in those files. In fact, Jack was fairly certain he was rapidly approaching frustration meltdown.
As if on cue, Daniel threw his arms up, pushing back from the console. “This is pointless,” he complained. “All that’s on here are manifests and inventory lists and a mind-numbingly large backlog of academic papers that are so misguided they aren’t even funny.”
This was not at all what Jack wanted to hear, because those files were all they had, the hopes of both groups tied to them. He was about to launch into pep talk mode, anything to get Daniel working again, pulling that twelfth hour miracle out of his ass, but Daniel shoved to his feet, and Jack had to rethink his assessment of Daniel’s frustration level.
Daniel paced out into the hold, like the small common room was beginning to choke him. Jack followed him out. The room was empty other than River, who sat on the edge of a large packing crate, her bare feet swinging back and forth like a child.
“Daniel,” Jack said. “That’s the only lead we have.” Like either of them needed the reminder.
“Well, then we need to find another,” Daniel said as if the paths in front of them were plentiful.
Jack’s jaw tightened and he fought to keep his voice even. “And how exactly do you suggest we do that?”
“I don’t know!”
Daniel seemed to regret his outburst the moment he let the words out, but Jack just shook his head, pacing his own path down the hold. He understood. He was fairly close to charging his way back into that complex without a plan at all at this point. Pure nerve and stupidity had served him well in the past after all.
He just sure as hell wasn’t going to wait another six months to find a viable plan. Not when he saw the way Daniel’s eyes followed Vala, concern clear on his face, like he was finally beginning to understand just what the Illuminati were capable of.
Jack ruthlessly cut that train of thought off, because he was perilously close to thinking about Sam being in the hands of these nut jobs and his brain just shut down then in a pulse of rage and he needed to think straight. Needed to have at least some semblance of clear thinking.
Movement at the other end of the hold caught Jack’s attention. He’d almost forgotten River was in here with them. She had pushed to her feet, now standing on top of the crate like a heron, her arms held out beside her. He watched her walk along the top of the crates like a ballerina in slow motion, her skirt swirling around her legs. Reaching the end of the row, she paused over the last open crate, bending nearly in half at the waist to peer down into it. She cocked her head to the side.
“I can hear it,” she said, closing her eyes as if listening to music the rest of them couldn’t hear. “I just can’t understand it.”
Jack had explained to Daniel all about the girl and her special abilities. Daniel had taken it in stride, all things considered. Maybe he’d noticed the way the crew listened to her when she spoke, no matter how nonsensical it seemed, because Daniel didn’t hesitate to walk over to stand next to her.
He glanced down into the open crate, his mouth falling open with surprise. “Where did this come from?”
Jack stepped up next to him, looking down to see the Ancient device. He’d almost forgotten about it in the chaos after Metis. “Mal’s crew nabbed that out of Shanxi, back when we found Vala.”
“Don’t you know what this is?” Daniel asked, getting that super excited this-could-be-life-altering tone of his. Meaning Daniel didn’t bother waiting for an answer from Jack. “There was one in the Glastonbury cave. I sent it with translations to Area 52 with a bunch of other Ancient artifacts.”
“Yeah,” Jack said, none of this new to him. “It’s a phase-whatsis. Sam already demonstrated it for Mal.”
Daniel blinked back at him. “Jack. This is it. This is what we need to save Sam.”
Jack felt his adrenaline spike like a punch to the stomach at those words, but forced himself to be still, to be cautious. He squinted down at the object. “As I understood it, you can’t interact with anything in the real world when you’re out of phase.”
“Right,” Daniel said, nodding along in lesson mode, his voice slow and careful like he was hiding the punch line. “You can only manipulate the controls on the machine. It exists concurrently in both realities at once.”
“So you can turn it on and off,” Jack said.
Daniel stared at him as if he was missing something obvious. He jerkily gestured at the device, hands and arms akimbo. “There’s-there’s another one on Metis! I saw it myself.”
Jack crossed his arms, but didn’t say anything, waiting for Daniel to spin the rest of this out.
Daniel didn’t seem to notice, just pacing away from the box. “All we need is a way to get us on that planet. We can walk right in through the walls, find the other machine, grab Sam, and walk right back out.”
“Simple,” Jack said. Simple was rarely trustworthy, he reminded himself. “What about weapons?”
“Theoretically anything we have on our person when we shift out of phase should stay with us.”
Jack wasn’t sure there was another word he hated more than ‘theoretically’. “And getting back out?” he asked, poking for holes and desperately hoping not to find any. “Do we just get out of phase again and walk out?”
Daniel was looking towards the device again, his eyes slipping out of focus. “I think I might know an even better way,” he said, his voice slow and thoughtful. Then he turned on his heel and rushed back into the common room.
Jack knew that particular tone. It meant he was better off not asking until Daniel had a chance to work it all out in his mind. He’d be back to talking Jack’s ear off when this latest lead materialized. But until then…
Jack walked over to the box, reaching in to touch the smooth stone surface of the device. It hummed to life under his fingers, the familiar reverberation of recognition and power surging up his arm and for once he wasn’t suspicious of this strange connection he had with this alien technology, only grateful.
They had a plan.
Above him, the crate creaked as River moved, dropping into a cross-legged sitting position, her fingers stretching out to touch the floating display of text. She smiled as her fingers passed through without touching, snatching again at the colors like a cat chasing a sunbeam, and he was surprised by the joy on her face at such a simple, childish game.
“Thanks,” Jack said, his voice quiet so as not to scare her.
She jerked as if she’d forgotten he was there, her hand frozen mid-grab in the lights.
“Xie xie,” he tried again, purposively mangling the pronunciation.
River’s lips twitched then, one hand flying to cover her mouth, but he could see the sparkle of amusement in her eyes. “Bu ke qi,” she said through her fingers, almost perfectly matching his awful pronunciation like they were playing some game no one else knew the rules to.
Jack smiled.
+++
Zoe looked up from her untouched meal when Jack came rushing up the stairs. Across from her, she heard Simon make a sound of frustration, no doubt at Jack’s continued inability to simply convalesce like a sane person.
“Daniel figured out how to get them back,” Jack announced.
“How?” Zoe asked, refusing to get swept up in the excitement he was exuding.
“All we need is a way to get back on Metis,” he said. “Happen to have any friends in high places?”
Kaylee perked up immediately, staring at Zoe with bright eyes. “You mean like someone who might have legitimate business in that part of the system without raising suspicion?”
Jack’s attention swiveled to Kaylee. “Is that a yes?”
Kaylee nodded. “Yup.”
Jack gave her a feral sort of grin that was bizarrely comforting in a completely terrifying way. “Then give them a call. And let’s go get our people back.”
Zoe glanced over at Kaylee. “The Captain’s gonna love this.”
Kaylee laughed, jumping out of her chair and giving Zoe a squeeze. “I’ll go send ‘Nara a wave!” she said, disappeared out the door.
Zoe and Jack regarded each other over the table, and without Kaylee’s eager optimism the mood in the room cooled considerably.
“I’m not sending you and Dr. Jackson down there alone,” Zoe said.
Jack’s posture shifted, his body relaxed, but his eyes telling a different story. “Is that concern for our safety? I’m touched.”
Zoe imagined his strange mix of acerbic wit and downplay of his intelligence might throw most people for a loop when dealing with him. She wasn’t fooled. “No. More that I don’t trust you to have the Captain’s best interests at heart.”
Jack regarded her for a long moment, and she refused to react to his scrutiny. Eventually, he sat down across from her. “What are you going to do, come yourself?” he asked. “There are a hell of a lot of people out there looking for Serenity right now. Are you going to leave Jayne in charge?”
There was something of the man that’d grasped Simon by the throat visible in him now, but also competence and tightly wound control, and Zoe got the feeling then that was talking to a fellow soldier. A comrade.
“Or I could send Jayne with you,” she said. It was the same tangled game of variables she’d been shifting through in her mind since the moment the Captain was taken. Speaking them out loud with Jack was not something she would have expected to find useful.
Jack smiled. “Because the one thousand credit bounty on our heads is in no way a temptation.”
Zoe grimaced. “There is that.”
“That leaves you with River and Simon. Maybe little Kaylee?”
None of whom Zoe could send down on the mission, or trust to keep Serenity safe if they were discovered while she was away.
“Look, you don’t have a lot of choices here, and I know how much that sucks,” Jack said, giving her a look that made her think he understood exactly what she was struggling with. “But you do have one more option.”
“What’s that?”
“To trust me when I give you my word that I will bring them both back.”
As much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She didn’t have a whole lot of options, each one more unpalatable than the last. But he was her Captain and leaving him behind was one option she refused to entertain.
She nodded at Jack. “You’ll leave Vala here.”
There were currently only two people with knowledge of Metis and the Illuminati on board. If Jack and Dr. Jackson failed, she’d need that other source of information to make even a dream of another rescue possible.
Jack seemed to get that. “Deal.”
He stuck out his hand and Zoe took it, a firm shake that was as straightforward and unyielding as the man sitting across from her. It was true that Jack had mostly been an ailing patient overshadowed by Sam’s bluster since he got on board, and it was only now, as Zoe stared across the table at him that she realized she might have misjudged him.
“Deal,” she echoed.
He pushed up from the table. “I’ll go tell Daniel.”
She nodded, looking down at her now cold meal and hoping this feeling that she’d made the right choice wasn’t just wishful thinking.
“Hey, Zoe?”
She looked up to find Jack regarding her from the doorway.
“I don’t know if you’ll find it a comfort or not, but this insane, all-odds-stacked-against-us kind of mission…it’s sort of our specialty back home.”
Zoe nodded, giving him a wry smile. “You’re right. That’s not particularly comforting.”
Jack laughed.
+++
Inara watched Jayne and the stranger load a large stone console onto her shuttle, carefully covering it with one of her silk hangings. They’d explained to her what it was a few times now, but that didn’t make it sound any less like a fairytale-distant aliens and magic artifacts.
Leaving them to it, Inara turned her attention to the shuttle itself and her part in the charade they were building. She’d had enough belongings left on Serenity to do a credible job of decorating the shuttle again. To her sharp eye, the discrepancies were obvious, but minutiae was her specialty and she knew most people never looked much closer once they thought they knew what they were seeing. A failing of the human spirit in most cases, but today she would take it as the boon it was.
“Good thing we still had so many of your things,” Kaylee commented as she passed by with another box, sliding her a knowing glance. Then again, Inara thought, some people still see too much.
“Thank you for doing this,” Zoe said, stepping up next to her.
“Of course, Zoe,” Inara said, surprised by her obvious gratitude, if not the new sort of distance the woman projected around herself. Serenity was Inara’s family too, their wounds hers, no matter her reasons for not staying.
“I hate to risk getting you into more trouble, drag you back in. Especially since these people seem a bit more…relentless than most.”
Inara nodded. “I’ve heard whispers of the Illuminati over the years, most of them more like storybook tales than fact.” Or boogeyman stories. It was amazing what men would say to a woman to impress her, the secrets they would spill in a moment of surrender.
Inara knew well that something was churning in the Alliance ranks, something beyond even the catastrophic reverberations of Miranda. The Alliance was pulling itself apart from the inside-conspiracies and paranoia. The most surprising part of all of this should be that Serenity managed to find herself square in the middle of it, but their Captain just wouldn’t be Mal Reynolds if he couldn’t find his way to the heart of trouble blind-folded.
Jack came up to stand with them then, his eyes traveling over the shuttle’s interior. “I appreciate you doing this.”
He was an interesting man (or rather alien, Inara reminded herself), as he didn’t even seem remotely flustered by her, and had barely blinked an eye when her profession had been explained to him. He’d just given her a rather piercing look and said, “Hope Reynolds knows how lucky he is to have you,” and somehow she’d ended up the flustered one, opening her mouth to explain that it was nothing like that, only to realize the denial would be just as telling.
In the end she’d simply nodded her head in acknowledgment and somehow felt like she’d passed a test when Jack grinned at her.
Very strange man.
His friend was a more curious sort, peppering her with all sorts of questions of ritual and perception until Jack had called out, “For God’s sake, Daniel, leave her alone!”
“We’re all set,” Jack says now, as the flurry of activity died down.
“Okay,” Inara says.
“All you have to do is land on that planet, we’ll do the rest,” he reassured her. They already had it all worked out how she’d land on Metis under the guise of suffering unexpected engine trouble, which Inara would create herself, pulling a few connections here and there that Kaylee had helpfully pointed out. Once the shuttle was repaired she was to take off again and rendezvous with Serenity a few planets over.
Simple. And yet Inara saw at least a hundred different ways for it to go terribly wrong. Not the least of which was leaving the two men on Metis when she had no idea how they planned to get back off.
“Don’t you think they will be suspicious?” Inara asked. “It’s no secret that I spent time on Serenity.”
“It doesn’t matter if they are,” Jack said, something fierce and almost feral shadowing his face. “They won’t see this coming.”
Inara felt a shiver travel her spine at the familiar words, the unwelcome memories they conjured. Looking across the shuttle, she met Zoe’s eye only to find the same hard look echoed there.
“Good luck,” Zoe said, turning and stepping out of the shuttle.
Next to Inara, Jack clapped his hands, his entire demeanor changing with a fluidness that part of Inara couldn’t help but admire. “Road trip time! I hope you packed the snacks, Daniel.”
With that, he disappeared back into the hold, leaving Inara blinking after him, wondering if she’d imagined that hard, predatory look on his face earlier. Definitely a strange man.
She had the feeling the strangeness was just beginning.
+++
With a soft click-whoosh the Companion’s shuttle detached from Serenity and for a moment Vala imagined the bulk of the larger ship swayed astern as if compensating for the loss. She shoved the errant thought aside though, as she had no more time for whimsy than she did for wondering the chances of Daniel or Jack ever setting foot on Serenity again-external variables that had no more influence on her own path than the dwarfed shuttle had on Serenity. In theory.
They didn’t ask her to go with them on their little rescue mission and she was grateful. Setting foot in that plush mansion with its veneer of lies and civility had been hard enough the first time. She’d done it because she felt maybe she owed it to Daniel. She didn’t like that feeling of owing anyone anything. But she was square now, and as much as she wished Sam and Mal good things, she wasn’t about to risk a return trip.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew why Sam bothered to pull her out of Shanxi in the first place, knew it had more to do with Daniel than any sense of responsibility or attachment to Vala. Daniel’s friends, they had no reason to save her, only as a means to Daniel and they had him now. And soon they would have Sam, the full set. And Vala would be obsolete.
Daniel didn’t seem to get that Vala didn’t need to be rescued, didn’t need to depend on their plans. She was more like these people on the ship, and she knew it. Criminals. Entrepreneurs. Predictable, because at least you could trust them to work in their own self-interest and never try to convince you something different. Not like the Tau’ri and their hard sold ideals.
Ideals never lasted in the real world. That was just the way things worked. No matter what galaxy.
“We’re coming back for you, you know that right?” Daniel had asked just before he loaded onto the shuttle.
She’d smiled the way she thought he wanted to see. “Good luck, Daniel.”
She was better off on Serenity in so many ways, she told herself. So it didn’t really matter what Daniel and his friends intended, if they left her behind.
“We break the yoke, only to fit ourselves with new ones when we can’t stand the weightlessness.”
Startled by the unexpected voice, Vala looked up to find River lying on the walkway above, her fingers stuck through the grating, hair fanned out on either side.
“Excuse me?” Vala asked.
River’s head rolled to the side, eyes slipping past Vala. “You think you’re being brave, never letting anyone ever control you like that again, never letting something take you over. But maybe being alone ain’t the bravery you hope.”
The kid’s voice was dreamy and insubstantial, but it wasn’t the tone that alarmed Vala so much as the words. “You’re cracked.”
“Sometimes,” River admitted, her eyes focusing in on Vala. “But that don’t make it any less true.”
Vala didn’t acknowledge the strange child or her words, just pushed off the wall and left the hold, not stopping until she was back in the small room that had been assigned to her. Her fingers were not quite steady as she checked and rechecked her supplies, slipping them back into their secret hiding places.
She didn’t need either of them, she reminded herself. Not this ship or Daniel’s promises.
She almost believed it.
:: next::