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The.Visit.Home.Part.1
By:
death2primechick
Summary:
Wayward astronaut John Crichton returns home after almost a decade away
from Earth, and brings his daughter. Insert your favorite disclaimer here.
Also, my only knowledge of any space program comes from re-runs of “I
Dream of Jeannie,” so don’t expect a lot of verisimilitude. Just suspend
your disbelief.
Spoilers: Anything up to “A Clockwork Nebari” may appear here, everything
after that is sheer speculation.
Feedback welcome.
Year:
2013. The Farscape module heads towards Earth.
“Daddy, are we there yet?”
“Almost, princess, it’s just up ahead – see that? That’s the Moon. It
won’t be long now.”
“How much longer, Daddy? I have to go to the bathroom.”
“Honey, I told you to go before we left Moya.”
“But I didn’t have to go then!” his pretty young daughter whined.
“You should have gone anyway, pumpkin!” Crichton laughed. He remembered
similar conversations on long car trips, when one of his sisters, Leslie
or Jessica, and their father would have the same conversation. “I’m turning
into my father!” John Crichton said with a laugh. ‘Well, there are worse
fates,’ he thought to himself. “Just try to hold it.” John Crichton was
happy to be having such a mundane conversation with his daughter. After
not just one but two wars, John would take ‘mundane’ over ‘fate of the
galaxy’ any day of the weeken.
“Daddy, I’m scared. What if humans don’t like half-breeds any more than
the Peacekeepers, or Scarrens? Will they lock us up? I don’t want to go
to prison again.”
“Oh, Katie,” John said tenderly. “No one is going to hurt you. I won’t
let them. Don’t worry, I have a plan. Everything’s going to be OK. Trust
me.”
“I do, Daddy. But after what Rygel said about the false Earth, I don’t
know who we can trust,” Katie said quietly.
“Yeah, that makes two of us, sweetie.”
***
The International Space Station
“The anomaly has disappeared, but I’m getting some weird signals from
the same vicinity as the anomaly. It’s very faint, but half of it sounds
English, the other half like white noise. It is a radio signal, and the
origin appears to be coming closer,” Sergei Ivanov, the Russian communications
specialist told the rest of the crew.
Toshi Nakahara, mission specialist, spoke next “Dudes! I’ve analyzed some
of the readings from the anomaly – the last time anything like this was
recorded was almost ten years ago, when Crichton screwed the pooch on
the Farscape experiment! Cool, isn’t it?” Toshi was happy to have something
to work on again. Things had been pretty slow on the Space Station.
The crew of the Space Station stopped talking and looked at Toshi. ‘Oh,
no, foot-in-mouth again,’ he thought to himself.
“Listen, kid, you were probably too busy cutting high school to go surfing
at the time, but that’s not what happened. Meteorology dropped the ball,
and by the time they announced the solar radiation wave, it was too late
to abort the mission,” Sarah Comiski spoke harshly to the youngest IASA
astronaut on board the ISS, but she was hurt by his words; she could only
imagine DK’s reaction to them. Sarah was just a new recruit herself, working
in Mission Control at the time of the Farscape incident, but she would
never allow anyone to say “pilot error” in her presence.
“Take it easy, Sarah. Toshi is too young to know what really happened,
he only knows the official version.” DK spoke softly.
“Captain!” Toshi turned around quickly. “I’m sorry if I said anything
stupid; I forgot you were involved in that mission.”
‘At least he has the decency to be red-faced about it,’ Sarah thought.
“Forget it, Toshi. Let’s get some more data on that anomaly, if we can,
and start analyzing it. Maybe it can help us figure out what happened
to John and Farscape all those years ago.” ‘Which is why I’m here,’ DK
thought to himself. No matter what the official mission was, DK was always
working on solving the Farscape mystery. He volunteered for so many missions
on the ISS that he actually held the Guinness World Record for “Most Time
Spent in Space.” He had passed up promotions and job offers from universities
and aerospace companies in order to keep working on the Farscape mystery.
Sergei had been too busy amplifying the radio signal to pay attention
to the general conversation, until he heard ‘Farscape’ again. “Don’t bother!”
Sergei said excitedly. “You can ask Commander Crichton yourself! The Farscape
has returned!” Seeing the look of disbelief on all faces, Sergei put the
transmission on the speakers. “Farscape, this is the International Space
Station. Please repeat your last transmission – no one believes me!” Sergei
said.
“This is Commander John Crichton of the Farscape project to International
Space Station. This is John Crichton to Space Station, come in Space Station.”
“Now do you believe me?” Sergei asked.
“Someone contact Mission Control, have them find Jack Crichton ASAP!”
DK said rapidly, as he grabbed the radio from Sergei. “John! John, is
that really you?”
“DK! It’s good to hear your voice after all these years! Pardon the expression,
but what on Earth are you doing on the Space Station? I thought you were
strictly a ‘Mission Control’ kind of guy!”
--Gibberish.
“Yeah, that’s my friend DK on the Space Station. Everything’s gonna be
OK, really. Trust me.” John said, the smile on his face was practically
audible.
--More gibberish.
“Primitive?” John said with mock indignation. “Why, I’ll have you know
that the International Space Station represents the height of human progress
and technology!” he finished before giving in to hearty laughter.
“Who is he talking to? I thought the Farscape was only big enough for
one person,” Uta Langwier, a mission specialist form Germany asked.
“Well, two people could squeeze into it,” DK said.
“Hold on! Are you telling me that one astronaut went up in that module,
and now there are two people in it?” Toshi interjected. “That’s impossible!”
“Who said the other occupant was a person?” asked Sven Johannsen, another
crewmember.
“John, two questions: What the hell happened to you, where have you been,
and who are you talking to?” DK said hurriedly.
“Actually, that’s three questions,” John said, “I went through a wormhole,
I’ve been on the other side of the Universe, and the lovely young lady
I’m talking to is my daughter, Katie. I’ll fill in some details, if you
let us on board. But first, I need to ask you a few questions. Is IASA
still an international, non-military entity?”
“Wormhole? Wormhole? How did—the radiation wave!” DK exclaimed, slapping
his forehead. “Did you just say ‘daughter’?”
“Yup! And she’s the prettiest half-Sebacean, half-human you’ll ever meet”
said John. He added, “so, what do you say, DK? Is IASA still non-political,
non-military?”
“Of course!” DK answered. “I mean, we still have military guards at all
the ground facilities, but not on the station – why are you asking?”
“Oh, no reason, except that we’ve found very few races that are willing
to accept children of, well, ‘mixed marriages.’ I just want to make sure
my daughter won’t be ‘detained for questioning,’ or worse, if we come
aboard.”
“Look, John, you and Katie can come aboard and you’ll both be safe. I’m
the captain of the Station, and you have my word on it. We’re just a bunch
of science geeks on the Space Station -- Oh, God – did you say ‘races’?
How many are there? --Do you see the docking bay? The Farscape module
will fit no problem. Give us 15 minutes to prepare – do you have enough
fuel? If not, we have a refueling port on the other side.”
John laughed. “DK, I ran out of your kind of fuel over eight years ago.
But I’ve got enough to keep going. You will flip when you see some of
the modifications to Farscape.”
Continued:
Part 2
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