candygramme | "500 Light Years From Home" Part 3

The question was enough to drive all other thoughts from their heads. There didn't appear to be any other doorways, and the one window was high above their heads. A swift look around the storeroom revealed no other doorway, and nothing that spoke of escape. Sighing, Jared fumbled for his communicator and plugged it into his comm port, aware as he did so that the kid - Jensen - was watching, eyes wide and a little horrified. Shrugging, he allowed himself to fall into the trance that would hook him to Sandy if she were anywhere close by.

"Where are you, San? Did you get away?"

"Oh, God, Jay! Where are you? There were things coming alive all around. There was a dinosaur. What happened...?

Jared cut across her babbled thoughts. "We'll discuss things later. I need your help right now. Did Chris make it out? Can you patch me in to him?"

There were a few seconds of silence, and then Sandy responded. "Okay, he's here with me now. Misha's still missing though, so I can't do a direct link through the comm. Better tell me now what you need, and I'll relay it to him."

Swiftly, Jared explained the situation to Sandy, and Chris was fast to propose a solution. Signing off, Jared disconnected and turned to his two companions to relay the information.

"You... you have a..." Jensen was apparently hyperventilating, his face white and shocked, his entire body poised for a flight that would be impossible in their current circumstances. "Where is this place? What are you? What's happening?"

Chad had been ransacking storage lockers in search of anything that might help them to get out of their predicament, but at that he looked up and smirked. "You're the skipper, Jay. Over to you."

Biting his lip, Jared ignored Chad and reached for the horrified kid. He really did not want to be the one that had to break the news to this young man. "Listen, man, it's okay. Let's get away from this wall, shall we, and I'll try and explain things to you."

Putting a firm hand on Jensen's shoulder, Jared managed to steer the two of them over into a corner of the room and took a deep breath. There was no time like the present. "I don't know how you got here, Jensen, but there's no easy way to tell you this. The year is 2299, and you've been an exhibit in this place since... since I don't know when."

If Jensen had seemed pale before, now he appeared absolutely ghostlike. His freckles stood out like dirty marks, and his eyes were wide and shocky. "I don't understand. You mean I can't go home?"

"I mean that we just found you here, and this isn't the Earth. It's a planet that's almost 500 light years away from the Earth, and..." At that moment there was a loud rumble, overlaid by a high pitched whining sound, and Chad gave a whoop.

"Pack your suitcase, children, it's time to go."

Any further conversation that might have taken place was lost amidst the sounds of masonry disintegrating, and within a minute there was a gaping hole in the wall of the storeroom, through which they could see the nose of the Piñata Novia as Chris maneuvered her away to allow them to exit their erstwhile prison.

A swift glance at Jensen showed that he was having some kind of meltdown. Grabbing hold of him, Jared hoisted him up into a fireman's carry and followed Chad out through the new portal. Seconds later, Sandy was swarming down the ladder from the Piñata Novia and rushing to hug them.

"Oh, my goodness," she said, hanging from Chad's neck. "I thought you were dead. I thought that huge dinosaur thing had eaten you."

"See, she doubts me all the time," murmured Chad turning towards Jared with an aggrieved expression. "I always come through. This lack of trust unmans me."

"Keep at it, big boy." Sandy giggled as she followed Chad's gaze. "Who is that?" she asked. "I don't remember him being on board."

"This is Jensen." Jared bent his head to study Jensen's pale face. "He's had a bit of a shock, all told, and I think we need to get him somewhere quiet and give him a tranquilizer or something."

Chris and Steve had followed Sandy out of their ship, and Chris gave Jensen a cursory once over, and then indicated that Jared should take him into the cabin. "We've got some stuff that'll help," he said. "Where's Misha? He's the one that knows what all the drugs and shit are for."

Indeed, Misha did seem to be missing. As Jared climbed into the main cabin of the Piñata Novia, the others all tried to recall when he'd last been seen.

"He was in that control room with me, but I never saw him after that." Chad frowned ferociously as he wracked his brain in an attempt to remember if Misha had followed him out. "You don't suppose one of the creatures got him, do you? There were other things with teeth in there, not just the dinosaur."

"We need to go back and find him if we can. We can't just abandon him. We need to get him out." Steve was quietly arming himself, stun gun at his hip and laser rifle slung over his shoulder. "I'll bring the disintegrator, just in case."

"Right. Jay, stay with the kid, and make sure he's okay. We'll go back in and see if we can rescue Misha." Chris didn't wait for a response, merely turning to lead the way back around to the front door of the building.

There were a number of creatures grazing around the entrance, and several that appeared to be unconscious or maybe even dead. In the distance, something that looked vaguely elephantine was shuddering and screaming as if it were in pain. Jared and his charge watched as the three men passed it by and went back into the museum, ignoring the T-Rex's hindquarters protruding across the corridor. As they made their way back into the hall, Misha appeared, looking somewhat battered. "Oh, my God!" he mumbled and staggered a little before toppling forward and collapsing against Steve.

Between the three of them, they managed to get Misha back to the Piñata Novia, and laid him down on the small table in the alcove that doubled as their sick bay. There was a gash on his forehead at the center of a blossoming bruise that spoke of a blow that had prevented him from escaping along with the others. Steve had set his guns aside and begun to rummage through the first aid kit, when Chad stepped in, carrying the small instrument that he'd found.

"Hold on. I worked out how to use this thing." He offered no further explanation, merely pointed the glass-like lens at the front of the device towards the wound on Misha's forehead, and, despite Misha's attempt to back away, he turned it on, bathing the injury in a soft, green light. "It's a healing ray. I'd read about it, but I didn't think I'd ever find one. Do you know how much money we'll make on this one item alone? We'll be able to buy our own planet... each!"

Jared had been sitting quietly in the main cabin, holding the young exhibit in his arms as he began to try and understand what had happened to him. As he heard Chad's cocky statement, he called, "Better make sure you didn't addle Misha's brains first. If he starts clucking like a chicken, you're grounded."

The ray had shut itself off, and Misha reached up to prod at his forehead, which now bore no vestige of bruising. "You idiot!" he rasped, glaring at Chad. "You experimented on me. What if it had been some kind of death ray?"

"I knew it wasn't." Chad smirked. "I tried it on the screaming heffalump out there, and it got frisky and trotted away, so I knew it would work."

Misha didn't seem to be much mollified by Chad's confession, but he grunted and rolled to sit on the edge of the table without saying anything more.

After a while, the crew of the Ladybug took their leave and headed back to their own ship, taking with them the young man named Jensen. Sandy had left a little earlier and as they clambered up the ladder into Ladybug, the rich scent of stewed beef in wine tantalized their senses.

"Why, Sandy, baby, you cooked for me. You love me." It was Chad, of course, and Sandy gave him a winning smile as she spooned out portions for each of them.

"Of course I love you, Chad. How wrong of me would it be to hate the mentally handicapped?" She beamed at him as she handed him a bowl and spoon.

Jensen appeared to have recovered a little, and thanked Sandy gravely when she handed him his portion. "Thank you, ma'am," he murmured, and she giggled.

"Well, aren't you precious," she said, reaching up to pat his cheek. "Too bad that certain engineers can't take a leaf out of your book."

The snort that was heard from Chad was echoed by that of Jensen himself.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

The fourth bunk had been made up for Jensen, and they'd all headed to bed, when Jared, never a sound sleeper, first heard the noise. Sitting up to listen more carefully, he waited, and after a moment he heard it again - muffled sobs - and he bit his lip.

Rising to his feet, he padded across the passageway to the bunk where Jensen was and tapped on the door to announce his presence before pushing the panel open and going in.

Jensen was sitting up in his narrow bed, rocking as his eyes ran with tears, and Jared didn't think that there was anything he could say that would make the youngster feel any better. Sitting himself down on the edge of the bed, he reached to pull Jensen into his arms and held him, murmuring wordless comfort sounds as he tried to calm him.

"I was at a party," mumbled Jensen, sniffing as his weeping subsided, and he finally became able to talk. "It was my birthday."

"And somehow you got hijacked by a Gray spaceship?" Jared was running his fingers through Jensen's hair, ignoring the fact that his sleep suit was soaked through. The pain that his young passenger was experiencing was something Jared couldn't even imagine. To be so alone and divorced from everything he knew would probably have sent him screaming. Finally, he realized what he could say to Jensen - the only thing that he could think of that might reassure him.

"You're gonna have to trade one family for another," he murmured. "But I promise you, you're not alone. We won't let you be alone."

For a few moments he didn't think that his words had been heard, but then Jensen whispered, "Thank you," and gave a sigh. Moments later it became evident that he'd fallen asleep.

Easing him back onto his pillows, Jared laid Jensen down and pulled the blankets up over him. Jensen was beautiful even red eyed and puffy, with his mouth open as he snored. Jared felt the tug of desire again as he gazed down at him. Bending, he pressed a gentle kiss to Jensen's forehead and then turned and went back to his own bunk to pass the night in sleepless fantasy.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

The morning brought with it a lightning storm, and Jared, who had wanted to go and take a look at the city they'd seen prior to landing, was forced to declare that they would have to stay put for the day. "We can't risk damaging the ships. We've not only got a whole stash of good plunder, we've got a civilian on board, and it's not good to risk him. He didn't sign on for this expedition the way we did, and we owe it to him to bring him home safely."

"We should really load up all the stuff we've found and get it back to Earth before we go prospecting around the city anyway," said Sandy, frowning.

"San's right. We've got enough shit to fill both holds without actually looking for more," agreed Chad. "And I'm sure there's going to be stuff in the city. We should take Sleeping Beauty here back to old terra firma, and then come back." He paused to do things to the box-like gadget he was playing with. "Look at this. I don't know what its function is, but this part emits a ray, and it sure as hell doesn't induce a stasis field."

"You've got a point, both of you." Jared nodded, considering. "Sandy, patch me through to Chris, okay? And Chad, just don't point that gizmo at anyone until you're absolutely sure of what it does."

"You got it, Jay." Reaching for her com interface, Sandy attached it and fell into her calling trance. Nothing happened for a moment or two, and then she came out of it, her face ashen. "Jay... I can't raise them. I've got no signal."

"Perhaps they're out of the ship?" Chad looked up from the alien unit he was tinkering with. He'd been dismantling what he'd thought was a stasis field inducer that seemed to be malfunctioning, but given up when it seemed that it just wasn't going to work and snapped it back together before setting it aside. Now he was tinkering with a strange looking device made from some very light alloy, and covered in a psychedelic paisley pattern that seemed incongruous in the plain interior of the Ladybug. "They'll be back soon, I'm sure."

"No, you don't understand," said Sandy, looking panicked. "I can't even raise the Piñata. Even if there was nobody on board, I should still be able to get in touch with the ship and leave a message. I'm just getting dead air."

"Jesus!" Chad was already up and out of his seat, alien technology forgotten as he groped around for weapons and safety gear. Jared was swift to follow his example, and Sandy, who had dropped back into her trance for a moment to make sure that the Piñata really was silent, shook her head and uncoupled herself from the comm unit.

"Nothing."

"We need to go over there and make sure they're okay." Jared pulled on his helmet and turned to the door, ready to unfasten the hatch. "Could be anything from some weird animal, to alien microbes to a computer malfunction. Suit up."

There were no complaints from the others. Jensen had watched what was happening without comment and sat, wide eyed, afraid to say anything.

"It'll be okay, sweetie." Sandy reached to squeeze his hand. "Just stay here while we go check out the others, and then we'll talk about getting you back home."

"If what you say is right, then I don't have a home any more," murmured Jensen, somewhat acidly. "I could go with you if you want. Give me a gun, and I'll shoot anything that looks like it's about to eat you."

All three crew members eyed him sadly.

"I'm sorry," said Jared. "We don't have an extra pressure suit, or I would let you. Just wait here for now. We'll be back in a few, and then we can talk about things."

"You'll be fine," said Sandy, taking pity on the forlorn young man. "Look, there's a lot of things you could be learning about the world you're in now. Let me hook you up to the library." Deftly booting up one of the auxiliary terminals, she loaded in some travelogues and a documentary about the Gray invasion with its subsequent defeat. "Here. Watch this, and keep an eye on the ship for me. If you need me, just press this button, and I'll come running."

Defeated, the young man hung his head and turned away, resigned to being treated as unwanted baggage. "Yeah, okay," he sighed as the others headed out of the ship to go and find out what had become of the Piñata Novia. Turning back to the console, he settled down gloomily to start watching the feelies that Sandy had programmed for him.

Outside, the lightning was constant and eerie. Greenish clouds hung low overhead as the trio made their way across the blue green sward, and great, crimson flashes split and tore at the sky, There was a smell of ozone, and the three hurried, not wanting to be struck, even if they were wearing protective gear.

The door to the Piñata Novia stood open, and Chris and Steve were both in their seats, but neither of them looked up as Jared called for permission to come on board, and after a minute or two, he climbed in anyway. "Chris, what's happened to your ship? Sandy says it isn't receiving messages. Are you... Son of a bitch!"

Reaching forward, Jared passed his hand in front of Chris's face, and frowned when he realized that he might as well have been back on Earth for all the notice Chris took of it. He was evidently still alive; his breathing was visible, but there was no life in his eyes, and when Jared shook him he didn't respond.

He was plugged into the ship's computer jack, and Jared reached to disconnect him, then turned to Sandy. "Should I be pulling this out?" he asked her.

"I would," she nodded. "If he's got trance sickness, you'll never get him back unless you disconnect him, and it looks like Steve's in the same condition." Her nimble fingers were busily unplugging Carlson from the engine console and running her fingers over his scalp, carding through the soft yellow curls, searching for anything that might give a clue to his current condition. Blue eyes gazed, glassy and unfocused, and when she moved one of his hands to raise it into the air, it remained there as if held by some invisible string. "I've never seen trance sickness that looked quite like this," she said.

Chad had been back into the sleeping quarters before returning to watch the others, but now he reached for Jared's elbow, shaking it to attract his attention. "Where's Misha?" he asked. "He was okay. The ray healed him, so he should be here."

"Well, he isn't." Sandy shook her head. "I don't see any sign of him."

"What are we going to do with Chris and Steve?" Chad was peering anxiously at Steve, who was the engineer for the Piñata. "I don't like this at all."

"If it's trance sickness, it's just a matter of disconnecting them from the computer with the virus, and then waiting for them to come back." Sandy still looked worried. "I've never heard of two people at once being affected though. I wish I knew what had happened to the Piñata."

"We need to find Collins." Jared rose to his feet. "I guess he may have gone back into the building to see if he could find anything to fix these two. We should go and check. We can't let him poke around in there without backup; it's too dangerous. I don't think it's a good idea to be prowling around alone in there at all."

Chad and Jared were busily moving the two stricken spacemen into their sleeping quarters and making them comfortable, while Sandy, frowning, unclipped the fascia from the comm unit where Misha would usually sit. Crouching down to access the keypad, which was the backup means of access, she began to run a sequence of diagnostic tests.

Once the stricken crew were in their bunks, Jared and Chad headed back to the museum to see if they could locate Collins, leaving Sandy to carry on with her repairs. All was quiet in the little control room, and when the nanobot she'd sent into the computer to begin diagnosis suddenly beeped and started to print out information on her portable PDA, she jumped. A brief study of the printout showed her that for some reason, one of the ship's batteries had malfunctioned, and because of it the whole Comm system had crashed, taking down the NavDeck and most of the engine monitors in a kind of cascade effect. Rapidly cutting power Sandy traced the connection to the culprit and headed to the drive bay to bring a reserve battery online. Once she'd isolated the afflicted battery, she powered the new one up and then hurried back to the flight deck to reboot the ship's system. She was just metaphorically dusting her hands and sitting back to wait for the computers to come on line again when there was a stirring from the sleeping quarters, and Christian stumbled onto the bridge, clutching his head, hair sticking out in wild tangles, putting Sandy in mind of a dandelion puffball.

"What the hell happened? Feels like I was kicked in the head by one of those zebra striped kangaroo things that escaped yesterday."

"Battery malfunctioned." Sandy gave him an encouraging smile. "I switched it over and rebooted everything. She'll be purring like a kitten in a few more minutes."

"Where's Steve? And Misha?" Kane looked around, eyes red-rimmed and watering.

"Steve's in his bunk. He had the same problem you did. Don't know about Misha. He wasn't in the ship when we came in to see what the problem was. Jay and Chad are out looking for him right now, because, chances are, he's wandering around in a fog following the crash." Sandy looked a little worried. "I hope he doesn't get completely lost and come to harm."

Just then Steve poked a bleary head around the door, and just as he was about to ask what was going on. Sandy's portable comm unit beeped; Jensen was on the line, sounding worried.

"Sandy? There's a guy at the door. I don't know who he is. He wants the captain, but when I told him to go to your ship he didn't go. He's being a little strange." Jensen sounded a little stressed, and Sandy smiled in relief.

"It's okay, Jensen. There's been an accident here, and he's probably disoriented. Let him in and hang tight. We'll come and get him." Disconnecting, she swiftly dialed Jared and told him where to find Misha and then went to find analgesics for Steve and Kane, who were both reporting killer headaches.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Back at the Ladybug, Chad and Jared were faced with a scene of chaos. Jensen had allowed Misha to enter on Sandy's instructions, and the Piñata Novia's communication officer had stumbled into the flight deck and promptly fallen against the controls, knocking loose the cover plate to the navigation computer, spilling a nearby half empty cup of coffee into the comm unit and sending a stack of printouts flying. As Jared stepped into the room, Jensen was just helping the fallen man back to his feet and leading him over to slump into a chair. Misha seemed to be completely disoriented, and had at first resisted Jensen's help, arms flailing and body rigid, almost as if he were having a seizure. It took several minutes for the three of them to calm him down and help him get his bearings, but at last he appeared to be grounded once again, although still a little shaky on his feet.

"Okay, guys." Jared eyed the mess around him. "Chad and Jensen, would you try and sort this place out for me. I'm gonna go take Misha back to the Piñata. If he has any further motor problems, I can just carry him, okay?"

What Jared was saying seemed to be reasonable, although it meant cleaning, which was not something Chad enjoyed. Sighing, the two men began to restore order to the chaos while Jared helped Misha back to his feet to accompany him over to his own ship.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Much later, Misha had been returned to the Piñata Novia, and the crews had begun loading their precious cargo, prior to ferrying it back to earth. Jensen, who had helped Chad load in several of the valuable stasis machines, had excused himself, and now sat on the step outside the main door of the Ladybug, watching the sky slowly turn purple as the dusk crept inexorably towards full dark.

There were tiny fireflies skimming the herbage, and several of the dark, green-blue plants that dotted the sward had put forth creamy white blossoms that gave off a heady, spicy scent. Thunder still rolled in the distance, and the red, angry spikes of lightning could still be seen from time to time, stabbing across the darkness like knives of fire.

Jared watched Jensen through the open hatchway for a while, his heart heavy as he gauged his young passenger's thoughts. It was obvious from Jensen's body language that he was unhappy, and Jared had no idea what he could do to take his pain away. Finally, he rose to his feet and went to join him, sitting down wordlessly beside him and nudging against him with one well muscled shoulder.

Jensen said nothing at first, but he shifted a little, moved closer to Jared, and gave a heavy sigh. They sat watching the fireflies for a long time. When Jensen finally began to speak, it was in a low voice, almost as if he were talking to himself.

"I had a family," he said, softly. "I had a big brother and a little sister. I had a mom and a dad, and a grandma and grandpa. I had friends." He shook his head. "Now what have I got?"

It took a moment for Jared to acknowledge the question, but finally he looked over at Jensen. "I guess it depends on what you want, doesn't it?" He reached to put a hand on Jensen's knee and give it a friendly squeeze. "I don't know how it must feel to be isolated from your own time like that. It must be awful." He gave a shudder. "But you aren't alone in being alone. When I was 14, the Grays came to Antares 2. My family were part of the advance guard sent to evaluate the potential for mining certain elements there. Earth was running out of some of the more exotic elements, and Antares had a whole lot of magnesium. I was in school that day, and they hustled us down to an underground shelter, but my mom and dad and my older brother were out doing readings on the resources Earth needed, and when the Grays blew the offices up, they took my family too. Meggie was only 8, and of course I was way too young to take care of her. I still remember her crying as they took her off to board a ship for Earth to be fostered. I decided then that I was gonna be a pilot and go after the Gray bastards that had done this to me. That's how I got my start. You need to decide what's gonna give you your start, Jen."

Jensen's eyes had widened as Jared talked, and now he blinked hard, trying to resist the tears that pooled in the corners and failing completely as they spilled over to trickle down his freckled cheek. Sliding his arm around the young man, Jared held him once again and let him grieve for what he'd lost, murmuring soft words of encouragement as he rocked him gently.

When Jensen finally lifted his head and rubbed at eyes that were red and puffy, Jared lifted his fingers to wipe away some of the moisture from his cheek. "You're strong. You're young, and we'll help you; I'll help you. You don't have to worry about not fitting in."

Jensen offered him a watery smile, and Jared smiled back. "What is this?" he asked, indicating the logo on the black T-shirt that was stretched across Jensen's chest.

"Metallica?" Jensen gave him a stunned look. "Metallica is a band. They play really awesome music."

"I never heard of them. Don't think I even know what the music was like three hundred years ago." Jared smirked, and Jensen, suddenly animated, rose to his feet and hurried into the ship to find the jacket he'd been wearing and rooting through the pockets to pull out a small, circular item with a cable attached.

"Here," he said. "This is Metallica." He handed Jared the object and indicated that he should put the end of the cable on his head. Puzzled, Jared looked for the plug that would interface with his nervous system, and Jensen snickered before showing him that the disk-like things at the end of the cable should cover his ears. Baffled, Jared did as he was bidden, and Jensen pressed a button.

Jared nearly leaped out of his skin as the metal intro of "Enter Sandman" began to play. He sat motionless as the song unfolded, and then raised his eyes to where Jensen stood watching him, a grin on his face. "You used to listen to this?" he asked. "It's so... primitive."

Jensen's face fell, and Jared was swift to correct his turn of phrase. "I didn't mean that in a bad way. I meant... earthy... uh... makes me want to dance."

"You like?" The handsome face broke into a blinding smile, the first that Jared had seen from Jensen, and, all of a sudden, Jared felt Jensen's presence like a punch to the gut, his heart stuttering, and the air too thick for him to breathe. He gazed at Jensen, eyes wide and stunned and slowly leaned in towards him.

"I... I think I do," he murmured. "I'd like to hear more."

Jensen nodded, smiling still. He turned to meet Jared's eyes and froze. "Jared?" he said, white teeth biting into his full lower lip as the smile faded, replaced by a frown.

"I just... It's..." Jared didn't quite know what to say next. He'd thought Jensen beautiful back when he'd believed the young man to be a sculpture devised by alien hands to represent human physiology. When he'd first seen the boy standing there on his plinth, he'd had a moment's thought that he'd have loved to have a boyfriend like that. The thought had been forgotten in the events of the past day or so, but now they returned with a vengeance. Everything about Jensen made Jared shiver with lust. The beauty of the young man's face was enhanced by the intelligence that lurked behind it, and Jared suddenly realized that he'd fallen for him hook, line and sinker. It was too late to back away.

He drew a deep breath. "I... uh... I'd love you to teach me more about your era. I bet there's all kinds of cool stuff that you know, that I don't. I'm shocked at the stuff we seem to have forgotten about the past.

"You bet." Jensen's smile made a reappearance. "And it'd be good if you would tell me about some of the weird shit you guys are doing that I've never seen before."

"You got it!" Jared idly toyed with the idea of convincing Jensen that all men had boyfriends in his time, but realized that Chad would knock that on the head as soon as he found out. Sighing, he put a hand on Jensen's shoulder and squeezed it. "Don't worry. You'll be a member of my crew before much longer. You'll see."

The eye roll that Jensen gave at that made Jared determined to make sure that Jensen found a place to belong, and preferably with him. He watched as the young man rose to go back inside the ship and wished he could find the words to give Jensen some hope.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

"We'll leave the rest here and come back to take a look at whatever else there might be, once we get this back to Earth," murmured Jared the next morning as the seven of them sat around the control room of the Ladybug, eating breakfast. Steve, who loved to cook, had made them a celebratory meal that had Jared groaning with pleasure, although now he felt as if he was weighted to the spot.

"The Piñata won't be able to make it straight back to earth with just one twist," murmured Misha. "Because the gravity well is gonna fuck with our computer. When it crashed yesterday, something happened to the NavDeck, and I suspect we'll need to break the journey into at least three separate jumps to allow the deck to cool down between twists."

"You decided on the stops yet?" Chad leaned over to inspect the star chart that Misha was pulling up. "Looks like the best route would be via Rigel 4 and then Proxima 1. That would give you a comfortable spiral down into the solar system while avoiding Neptune."

"Are you sure?" Jared frowned and rose to come and inspect the printout. "I thought Sandy managed to get everything back on line again."

Misha nodded. "Yeah, she did, but it's like there's a patch of code in there that seems to be masking the error, and I can't get in past it. We'll need to spend a day down on Earth getting it wiped and reinstalling the software. I don't know what happened to it."

"It's not something I ever saw before, either." Chad nodded his agreement, a ferocious scowl on his face. "It's like there's a virus embedded in there, and it's there specifically to mess with the NavDeck and send everything haywire if a jump is longer than about 150 light years."

Jared had been listening intently, and now he shook his head. "Rigel 4 is dangerously close to Gray Space, Misha. You sure you know what you're doing?" He raised an eyebrow at Kane as he spoke, and Christian smirked at him.

"Misha knows what he's doing, Jay, and besides, there's only Rigel 4 within the range we need. We'll be okay, and you'll see us on the flipside."

"Are you kidding, man? We'll come with you. You need someone to watch your back when the ship's playing games like that. Suppose the NavDeck packed up completely? You need us along for insurance." As he was speaking, Chad, Sandy and even Jensen all made sounds of agreement, and Chris held up a hand. "You don't need to persuade me, you guys," he said. "I'll admit that I was a little concerned about the trip back for those very reasons."

"We should probably think about setting up some more advanced weaponry than we have," murmured Steve, who until then had remained silent. "I bet me and Chad could put a disruptor together from some of that stuff in the museum. It'd just be like amplifying the stasis ray and raising it to a higher frequency."

"That's a great idea!" Chad rubbed his hands together in glee. "Wouldn't take long either. That way we'd be protected from the Grays by their own technology. Hell of a deal!"

"How long will it take?" Chris looked over to his engineer with a hopeful expression. "If it won't take too long, I think we should do it."

"We could get something like that organized this morning with luck. I think I've got something that might do that. I was trying to make it work as a stasis ray, but it's slightly different. Come on over to the Ladybug, and we'll check it out." Chad was very definite in his opinion, and Jared nodded.

"Make it so," he said with a grin, and both Sandy and Jensen snickered.

"I see Star Trek is still in reruns," smirked Jensen.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Chad and Steve worked very swiftly, and the others gave them what help they could. Chad was gleeful as they began to dismantle the alien technology, and was soon lost in contemplation of the inner workings of the generator, while Steve, with help from Sandy, began to work on modifying the software.

They were making good progress, although Sandy apparently had been bitten by something, and had started to feel unwell. She soon developed what promised to be a severe migraine and ended up making for her bunk to try and sleep off the effects of it with the aid of the medication that Misha offered her. It was almost lunchtime when Chad laid down his screwdriver, told Steve to load the new software, and rose to his feet, arching his neck to get the kinks out of it. "I guess we're good," he announced. "Or we will be, once Steve here finishes loading his masterpiece of coding into the control unit."

Jensen and Kane had been packing the hold of each vessel with as much alien tech as would fit, while Misha had gone over the Piñata's jump drive with a fine tooth comb, hoping that there would be no other problems that would stop them from reaching home.

Lunch was sandwiches and beer, and Jared, who had spent the morning checking over his own control equipment, brought out a cheesecake he'd saved for a special occasion.

"Too bad Sandy won't get any," said Chad, reaching for a second slice. "Sucks to be her."

"You're kind of a brat, aren't you?" said Jensen, eyebrows almost hitting his hairline as he heard the engineer's words.

"You'd best believe it, bro," nodded Chad. "She wouldn't eat it anyway. She'd say that it would make her fat. It hasn't made me fat, so what's her problem? Do women have some kind of fat making machinery we guys lack, or something? I don't get it."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Steve was finishing the last piece of his dessert, and he smiled as he pondered the question. "Can't remember any girl I ever knew actually eating a complete meal. They all pick at good food. Makes me want to smack 'em, sometimes."

"Hey! No smacking any women on my ship!" Kane aimed a punch at Steve's bicep that made him yelp. "Not that we've got any. You can send Sandy over to replace this big idiot any time you like!" he said to Jared, indicating Misha. He shook back his plentiful shock of hair, pulling out a bandana that would leave his interface socket free to plug in the controls to the NavDeck array. "Let's get cleaned up. Jay wants us to lift off in 45 minutes."

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Rigel 4 loomed beneath them as they fell into orbit. There had been no apparent problems from the jump, and both Jared and Chris were keen to move on as soon as possible.

"I hate the fact that we have to land here at all," said Christian for what seemed like the hundredth time. "How long do we need to let the NavDeck cool down?"

"At least an hour, or it's going to go squirrelly again," said Steve, taking a quick look at the readings that were flashing at him. "Let's just do it and get it done. Sooner we bite the bullet, the sooner we can be on our way to Proxima."

Nodding, Christian checked his own readings, and Misha, who had been listening, flicked on Christian's view screen revealing Jared's face. Jared grinned. "Ready to go down?" he asked.

"Wish we didn't have to," muttered Chris in reply. "But yeah. I guess we must, so let's do it."

The planet was a little smaller than Earth, and the gravity was somewhat less. Their touchdowns went without hazard, and the little group settled in to await the cooling off of Chris's beleaguered navigation system. Sandy had risen from her bunk, announcing that she felt better, although she was still looking a little pale. As the clock ticked away the hour they'd decided to wait, and the time to depart approached, the crew of the Ladybug readied themselves for the liftoff. Jared had been trying to take some of the load off Sandy, and when he suddenly thought of something he wanted to ask Kane, he buzzed the other captain from his communication board. There was no reply.

"Jesus, San, did I do something wrong? I can't raise Chris, and I was talking to him a minute ago."

"Oh, come here," said Sandy, the ghost of a smile on her face. "Men are helpless, I swear." Taking her seat at the Comm Unit, she plugged her interface in and flicked on the connection.

That was the moment when everything began to turn pear-shaped. Sandy gave a strange little cry and seemed to slump, and at that second the ship went dead, and the lights went out, leaving only the small emergency light casting a blue glow that made the surroundings eerie.

"What's going on?" Chad scrambled for his own interface. "There's something weird happening." He plugged in the communication cord as Jared swung back to his control panel.

There was a sputter of light along the NavDeck control panel, and then both Jared and Chad joined Sandy in unconsciousness.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Jensen Ackles had been feeling under the weather all day. He was still trying to come to terms with the fact that everything he'd ever known was gone for good. Like Sandy, he'd felt the beginnings of a migraine coming on, and had gone to lie down. When the lights went out he didn't think too much of it, but after a few minutes, he began to feel anxious since there was absolute silence on the ship. Rolling out of his resting space, he padded out to investigate.

The emergency light was still on, and it showed the silent forms of the three crew members. Filled with dismay, he dropped down on his knees beside Jared, remembering that Sandy had told them Kane and Carlson needed to be disconnected from their ship when this had happened to them.

He gazed at Jared for a long moment, willing the man to open those slanted eyes and grin at him as he told him he was only kidding. It didn't happen, of course. The beautiful eyes remained obstinately closed, and the slack mouth refused to be bracketed by the ubiquitous dimples. Jensen felt cold, his stomach lined with lead. He was terrified that the one thing he needed - the one person who had been able to give him comfort, might be gone too.

Gritting his teeth, he pulled the jack free from its socket and brushed Jared's soft, chestnut hair back over the place to disguise it. He was about to go and do the same thing for Chad and Sandy, when the airlock door slid open, and Misha Collins stepped inside.

"Oh, God, help. Something happened, and they've passed out. We have to get them disconnect..."

"Well, if it isn't the monkey-boy from way back before civilization." Misha raised a cylindrical object and pointed it at Jensen's head. "I forgot you don't have the direct route into your brain, but that's okay, we'll get there. It'll just take a little longer; that's all."

"What do you mean?" Jensen's eyes were wide, and although he had no idea what the thing was that was being pointed at him, it looked enough like a weapon for Jensen to know it was nothing good.

"You think this all happened by accident, kid?" Misha's grin widened until he looked vaguely deranged. "Not so. It was me."

"But why? I don't understand. Chad thinks you're all going to get rich, and Jared thinks you're amazing, and..."

"Much as the prospect of getting rich might appeal, I find that I'd rather reclaim my race's superiority. Padalecki is the one responsible for destroying the ship that contained my hive-mates, and I made a sacred vow to destroy him and those he holds dear in return. Watching his adoring glances at you and reading between the lines, I suspect that you might well qualify under those terms, so I intend to suck your life force out in much the same way as I've done to these... pathetic individuals." Misha gestured around at the fallen crew of the Ladybug. "But first, they're going to take me back home to Gray Space and stand before the council to be ridiculed. The device I installed beneath the main console in each ship has made sure of that."

"You're... an alien?" The realization that this man that everyone had believed was a colleague had turned out to one of his race's enemies made Jensen's brain race. "It was you that set the dinosaur after us, wasn't it?"

"Very good, monkey-boy. It was, and how it didn't get you, I have no notion. It doesn't matter though, because my psych ray will finish the job. In just a few minutes, you'll be a mindless idiot, and subject to my control like all the others in here." Misha gestured with the silvery tube in his hand and then gave him a nod. "You might want to sit down or something - leave a good looking corpse." He didn't wait for a response, but pressed some invisible button on the device, and a purple ray shot out to tingle across Jensen's skin.

Nothing seemed to happen, and Misha spat out a curse, then tossed his device to the side and drew something else from his belt. "If that won't work, I'll just have to improvise," he growled and fired the thing he was holding. A silvery globe appeared at the muzzle, and shot, swift as thought, to strike Jensen's forehead.

There was a buzzing in Jensen's ears that rose to a shriek, and as the young man found himself bathed in an impossibly bright light, he crumpled and folded to the ground.

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Jensen floated in a place where nothing made sense. He could hear something pounding, a deep, steady double-beat that made him sleepy, wanting to drift along with the sound. It took him a few minutes to realize that it was his own heartbeat, steady and strong, and for a moment more he wondered why it was so loud.

Slowly, images of the crew - of Jared - slumped over the terminals of the spacecraft, came back to him, and he remembered. He listened, and could hear shuffling footsteps moving around the cabin. Cautiously, he opened his eyes a little. He was still where he had fallen, and the alien spy hadn't bothered to restrain him, leaving him lying awkwardly to one side of Jared's chair. Jared's big feet blocked his view of the rest of the cabin, but almost beside him he could see the edges of the blocky device that Chad and Steve had been building earlier. What had they called it? A matter disruptor? That sounded somewhat lethal, and Jensen wondered if he'd have an opportunity to use it.

The ship seemed to be back to normal now - the faint hum of the fans in the computer were somehow soothing, and the lights had returned to normal, driving the shadows back and washing the small room with gold.

Jensen couldn't see Misha, although he could hear him talking. "You'll fly this ship into Gray Space to the following co-ordinates,” he said, his voice a curious monotone as he began to reel off figures. He heard Jared’s voice mumble an affirmative and risked a closer look. Jared was no longer slumped against his console. He was sitting up, ramrod straight, and Misha was training the purple light on his forehead as he recited the co-ordinates to him.

Thinking swiftly, Jensen slowly reached for the gizmo that the two engineers had crafted earlier, hoping against hope that it would work, and that he could find the right direction to point it in.

It resembled an old, box brownie, blocky, with a lens on one side, and Jensen assumed that the lens was the business end of the device. Misha suddenly turned towards him, and he froze. For a moment it seemed that he would be discovered, but Misha was only going to help himself to a coffee from the carafe that Chad had made, moments before they were struck down.

“You’re going to face Gray justice,” said Misha, "And once I have you safely inside our solar system, yours will be destroyed. I’ve got psych rays deployed all over the moon’s surface, just waiting for my command, and once I set the timer to trigger the master ray on Deimos, they’ll all fire at once. Mars, Venus and Earth will be wiped clean of you scavengers, and we’ll colonize it at our leisure once it’s been sterilized.”

Jensen had heard enough. It seemed to him that if the ship actually took off and jumped into Gray Space, they would be lost, along with any chance of saving the Earth. He slid his hands around the disruptor and sent up a silent prayer that he would be able to make it do what he wanted it to.

He rose to his feet, the device in his hand, and raised it to point at Misha. The alien spy looked aghast. “How did you…?” he muttered. “Goddamned monkey!’ His hand flashed out to strike a button on Sandy’s console, and he gave Jensen a grin. “Doesn’t matter anyway. The psych ray has been triggered now, and it will fire, cleansing the Earth, in about 12 hours from now. You can’t stop it; I've got defenses in place that would fry the typical human's brain. You’ll have to sit here and watch as your planet is wiped clean of humanity. My people will have their revenge.”

“I guess if that’s the way it is, we don’t need you any more!” Jensen gritted his teeth and pushed the button on the top of the device hoping against hope that Chad and Steve had got it right. For a moment nothing happened, and he was about to throw the thing against the wall, but then there was a high pitched whine from it, and Misha went rigid, cried out and simply faded away as if he’d been erased, leaving his metal belt, and the purple ray gun to fall, clattering, to the ground.

Hurrying over to gather the ray gun Misha had used, Jensen picked it up and examined it. It seemed logical enough to work, so he turned it on Jared, who was methodically programming in the coordinates that Misha had given him, aiming the ray the way he’d seen the alien spy do it. “Wake up, Jared,” he commanded. “Come on, forget those coordinates and wake up. We need to get back to Earth, quickly.”

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Opening his eyes wide, Jared Padalecki, scourge of the spaceways, looked around himself in fright. His heart sank, because before him, aiming a ray gun at him, was Jensen, the man of his dreams. “What…? Jensen, why have you done this to me?” he asked, reaching to try and take the gun from him.

“No, Jay, hold on a minute. You don’t understand!” Whirling, he pointed the ray at Chad, who was closest to him. “Come on, Chad, wake up. Forget anything Misha told you to do and be just who you were.”

He wasn’t a moment too soon. Jared hit him low and took him to the ground, rolling on top of him as he struggled to reach the gun.

“Dude!” Chad’s voice was suddenly audible above their fight. “I take a nap, and you bring your gayness right into my control room. I need to wash my eyeballs with bleach now, you guys do realize that?”

Jared froze, lifted his eyes to Chad for a long moment, and then slowly lowered them back down to where Jensen was suddenly grinning. “You did something to save us?” he asked softly.

“Sure did,” smirked Jensen. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

There was only one thing to do, and Jared did it. Lowering his head to Jensen, he captured the young man’s pretty mouth in a soft, gentle kiss that soon escalated into something rather more passionate as Jensen responded wholeheartedly, leaving Chad to continue whining that he hoped their gay wasn’t going to be catching.

"Been wanting to do that since we got stuck in that cupboard with the dinosaur trying to eat us," whispered Jensen.

"I beat you then." Jared's voice was husky with emotion. "It was when I first saw you up on that pedestal that I wanted you. I thought you were a statue, and found myself wishing that you were real."

"Excuse me! Hello..." Chad's aggrieved tones distracted them. "I'm really happy that you're plighting your troth and all that, but may I remind you that Sandy's still a zombie here, and I don't want to watch you two having sex. That's her gig, not mine."

Reluctantly, Jared rolled away from Jensen and glanced over to where Sandy was still slumped over her terminal. "What do we do to help her?" he asked Jensen, even as the young man was busily unplugging her interface and employing the purple rays the way he had on the other two.

"She'll be okay now, but we should go make sure Chris and Steve don't need any help," murmured Jensen, and Chad nodded, taking the ray gun from him and swiftly hopping to his feet to suit up and go see what the situation was on the Piñata Novia.

It took Sandy a while to come around. Chad was back leading Chris and Steve with him by the time that the little Venusian opened her eyes.

Jensen quickly explained what had happened, and described what Misha had told them about their predicament. “We’ve only got 12 hours to get to Deimos and that psych ray, or we’re all going to become homeless vagabonds real quick," he said as he completed his account.

"How are we gonna do that?" Chris sounded dubious. "We're a crew member light, and that turncoat put something in my ship to mess with the NavDeck."

"He told me that he'd installed a device beneath the main console on both ships." Jensen said. "Don't know if that will help with the NavDeck, but that's what he said."

As he finished talking, Jared was already unfastening the panel that covered the console, and Chad had thrown up a holographic image of the circuit boards for him on the monitor above. Settling down on the floor, the two men began to trace the circuitry, looking for any anomaly that might have affected the ship. It was Steve who finally spotted it. He had picked up the panel to move it out of the way so he could join the search, and as he moved it, a tiny, silvery patch adhering to the grey plastic of the panel, no bigger than a dime, caught the light.

"That's it," yelled Chris, making for the door, followed by Steve. "Hang on, and I'll go get rid of the one he put in the Piñata." He dashed out, and a few seconds later the viewscreen showed his excited face. "Yup. There are two of 'em in here. Maybe we'll be able to jump further with them out of the way."

"That's a start," said Jared, who had been watching Chad disable the little device and flush it away into the disposal unit to be broken down into its component atoms and used as fuel for the replicator. "I guess we should head for Deimos, if that's where Collins has actually stashed the triggering device for his psych bombs."

A yell from Steve sounded through the monitor at that moment, and as Chris turned away from the view screen to find out what was going on, Sandy elbowed Jared. "Do we have an hour to spare? I could show Jensen how to operate the comm systems. He won't be able to do it by thought - he'll have to use the manual override, but he'll be able to get enough done to get us to Deimos, and that way I can go sit in on the Piñata, so Kane and his ship can make it too."

"Do it," said Jared, tersely, as Chris suddenly came back into view, followed by a grinning Steve.

As Sandy reached to pull Jensen over towards the comm console, Jared was already listening to what Chris was telling him.

"Steve decided to search through Misha's bunk," Chris said. "He found a couple of charts that might be interesting - one is the surface of Deimos, and the other is of Callisto. Seems that he's booby trapped Deimos. Anyone trying to get to the trigger on Deimos is going to be mindwiped by rays from Callisto, so it looks like we're going to need to go there first. It's a drag, but at least we know where the traps are located."

"That's good." Jared was typing rapidly as he calculated the route they must take to reach their goal. "Send the charts through, will you? We'll lift off in twenty. I'm gonna send Sandy over to you on loan, and Jensen will be acting comm officer here."

"Are you kidding?" Chris was silent, but Steve's voice was plainly heard over the relay. "He's not been engineered. How..."

"Sandy says he can do it, and anyway we don't have a choice, so just get ready to go, all right?" As the first chart spread over the NavDeck, Jared hit the button that would lock in their destination and began feverishly calculating their course." The others nodded grimly, and Chris said, "Okay, we'll wait for Sandy. Hopefully we're still gonna be there in time."

~~~~~~~oo(O)oo~~~~~~~

Part 4 | Master Post

"500 Light Years From Home" Part 3

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