Author's Announcements - a.k.a., The Rules
1. This takes place before Justice, and I will follow the story line up until the episode after 'Divided'. I like those episodes. I also should notify you that I have a horrible memory, and therefore cannot always recall all the details of one scene, and forgive me if I'm missing a character or point.
2. I reserve the right to change the grammar of the English language
3. This will be an Eli/OC novel length (or more) story. It will be a humourous, romantic, action/adventure, but unfortunately there aren't enough Genre slots for that to be displayed.
4. Blanket disclaimer: I am not making any monetary profit off of this story, nor will I ever intentionally copy any aspect of the Stargate: Universe series without stating as such.
5. There will be Chloe bashing. I hate that character. I mean, she only just started to realize that she's nothing but a waste of resources when she just so happened to find the journals of Dr. Jackson's that someone just so happened to bring from the exploding base that they just so happened to be on even though their owner was a couple hundred thousand light years away. Maybe, while she's reading them, she can enjoy a nice mug full of imported swiss hot chocolate, and perhaps get some caviar and lobster.
6. Don't like, don't read. Don't bother me with pathetic whinging about how you don't like this or that. Don't pester me for updates. I will be going to university in September, and will write on my own schedule. I'm writing this for my own enjoyment, and to refine my writing skills. Therefore, I don't mind recieving suggestions, but only if they are worded as such.
7. If you have questions, review and I will email you.
8. This first chapter should cover some character relationship introductions, and the now-altered events of 'Justice'.
9. I'll make it clear that I find people who knowingly copy others to be the lowest form of life on this planet, second only to politicians. If anyone feels that any finite aspect of my story is a direct violation of their already posted property, email me with your proof, and we'll compare publishing dates. I do, however, realise that there are only so many ideas currently withing the SGUniverse, and therefore something must be identical to be termed plagerism.
Happy Reading,
Jenn
The Destiny Chronicles
Chapter One
"Hi TJ. Can I talk to you for a minute?"
The blonde medic looked up from her work, surprised at not seeing the speaker injured in some way. It seemed like ever since they arrived on this ship, she'd done nothing but work.
"Sure Tali. Could you wait in my office?"
"'Kay."
The young woman sat down in the utilitarian chairs that one could consider uncomfortable. She wore black ankle - high boots with a heel, black dress pants, and a short-sleeved shimmery gold top covered by a professional black dress jacket (slightly smudged with dirt), with a matching gold cloth belt loose around her hips, with the end trailing down her thigh. Her strawberry red hair fell to her upper back, and a gold cross rested on a gold chain around her neck.
"So," TJ announced as she entered the sparse room, "what did you want to talk about?"
"Well, after everyone came back from what Eli calls the Firey Sand Planet of Doom all burned up like that, I realised that I am utterly useless on this ship. I'm a forensic scientist, TJ, I can't help anything. So, I've been thinking for a while, and I was wondering if you'd teach me what you know? I hate not being able to do anything."
"That's a great idea! There's way too much work here for just one person - I can't believe I didn't ask you to help out sooner!" Waving for her to follow, TJ led her out to the main infirmary, and started listing off basic first aid and CPR.
Talitha slowly felt her brain be turned to mush.
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
"Well, aren't you inordinately upbeat and chipper."
"Shut up Eli, I've got a headache. Just deal me in."
The math whiz snorted, "Sure thing Miss Cranky."
"What's up sis? You look exhausted."
"Gee, thanks for that glowing complement Matt. Just what I needed." Tali sat up at the table and grabbed the cards Eli zoomed towards her, trying to make her miss. "I asked TJ if I could help her today. I don't know how she expects me to remember everything."
"What made you want to do that?" Matt looked at his sister, trying to guage her cards from her expression. She didn't seem focused on the game itself, though.
"Hello? Forensic Scientist here! Unless people start dropping dead, I've got nothing to do. I'm completely useless." she tossed in some chips (really just initialled, torn up pieces of paper).
"You're not useless Tal." Eli absent-mindedly threw in, glaring at his hand. Eli was horrible at poker - he couldn't bluff to save his life.
"Name one good thing I've done."
"Set up poker nights."
"Doesn't count."
"Why not?"
"I don't see that saving lives, Mr. I'll just stick my arm in this pretty blue thing and see what happens!"
"Kids, cut it out! Little kid, your turn." Ron had tossed in his chips.
Tali scowled. "I'm two months younger than Eli. Two months! And that makes me the little kid?"
"Yes."
Rolling her eyes, Talitha set her cards on the table. "Well, then the little kid is about to burn all of you. Full house, aces and kings."
Eli softly cleared his throat as the others groaned in exasperation. "Flush. Guess I win again!" he said cheerfully, raking in the chips.
"Beginner's Luck." Tali claimed.
"Times seventeen?" Ron asked exasperatedly, throwing in his hand, and getting up. "I'll see you guys later. I've got patrol.". The group played a few more hands for another hour. At that point, Matt's watched beeped, signalling that it was nearly nine o'clock.
"My patrol starts in five minutes, so I'd better go too. G'night sis, I'll see you later Eli."
Tali observed her last companion as he yawned and wearily put his head on the table, "Well, aren't you inordinately upbeat and chipper." She mocked.
Lightly glaring Eli replied, "Rush has me going over the gravity controls in the apple core. It's actually gotten heavier in there. It's not a huge problem, but annoying. Not to mention insanely complicated."
"You really should take a break more often."
Grinning wryly, Eli shook his head. "That's impossible - I'm Math Boy. I have to be available night and day for people to order around."
"Math Boy. I can see it now - duh nuh nuh nuh duh nuh nuh nuh MATH BOY!"
The young man laughed, "Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound?"
Giggling, she said "Judging from the looks I'm getting, yes, I do." Her eyes lit up as soon as she saw the kino lightly hovering beside Eli. "Oh, that is going on your documentary. Every time you enter a room, that is SO going to come on. It's your new theme song!" Getting up, she raced around the table and grabbed the kino.
"Oh no you don't! Get back here!" Though the idea of his own theme song was incredibly cool, he wouldn't want that one, even if he deserved it.
Laughing madly, Tali ran out of the mess, Eli hot on her heels. Neither of them were very good runners, but that just meant that they were at each other's level.
They ended up running right passed Matt, who saw the kino and guessed the events. "If only you guys would run like that during calesthenics!"
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
Tali slipped into her quarters breathlessly, having been chased from the mess to the infirmary to the apple core, where Eli grabbed the kino from her.
Personally, she thought that the kinos were creepy: every single movie she had ever watched had that black rim around the vision when viewing from an enemy's point of view. She had termed them the Kreepy Kinos, which had sparked an indignant debate from Eli.
Her quarters were the standard aboard Destiny, with a small bathroom, double bed with gold (the shade clashed horibly with her shirt and belt) quilt, bedside table, desk and chair, and a set of drawers. While on Icarus, she had been in her guest quarters preparing to leave when she heard the emergency evacuation siren. Startled, she had only grabbed her purse and jacket from her room. Not knowing that there was a ship in the atmosphere, she had raced towards the gateroom, running into her brother's group on the way.
Closing her door, Tali removed her clothes until she was in her bra and underwear, and climbed under the gloriously soft covers. She made doubly sure nowadays to close her door, and had been the one to discover that tapping the button three times gave a small glimpse of whoever was on the other side. She had tended to forget to close the door, but never forgot now; Matt had once ran into a kino in search mode right outside her door, and thrown a fit. It was thanks to Rush that Eli didn't get in trouble, as the bitter scientist had quickly testified that the younger man had been snoring away at his console in the apple core at the time. Eli had then deleted the footage for that timeslot without looking at it, under the watchful eye of both Matt and Ron. She didn't want Eli to get in trouble again, and closed the door.
Shutting her eyes, Talitha began to hum herself to sleep.
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
Tali was in the infirmary the next day when TJ handed the infirmary radio over to her. Never having used one, she held it awkwardly.
"Uh, hello?"
"Don't press the button, hold it down."
"Kay. Hello? Tali here."
"Tali, this is Young. We have a little trouble up here in Spencer's quarters, get up here." the Destiny's commander ordered.
Shrugging, the young forensic scientist said "I'll be right there.", handed the radio back to TJ, and left the infirmary.
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
"Do you see a gun?!"
Tali walked into the room to see the one thing she had not expected - after purple polka dotted dancing elephant bumblebee hybrids, that is. A dead body. Looking first at Wrai, wondering if her bemused expression had anything to do with Ron's exclaimation, she turned to Young.
"Colonel, normally I would say that this was a murder due to the lack of weapon, but I am going with my gut and saying that this was suicide. Someone must have interferred with the scene after."
"Are you sure it isn't just a murder from some angry crewman?" the colonel asked skeptically.
"I can't be positive Colonel, I've just arrived. But something here seems off. Look at the position of the body. He's facing the door, ready to climb into bed by his state of dress. An attacker hidden in the room wouldn't have waited for that, especially an angry one. He would've seen someone come in, and there would have been signs of a struggle. It's not like someone can shoot straight at him, and then curve the bullet to hit the side of his head."
"Uh, Miss Scott, I can't help but notice the lack of a gun."
Tali shrugged. "Hence the 'someone interferred with the scene after', Sergeant. While there may be a noticeable lack of a firearm, the gun-shaped imprint in the bed covers, empty bottle of pills in the open drawer, lack of a struggle, and Spencer's it's-all-over attitude all point to one alternative. Suicide."
Young and Greer nodded as though this made perfect sense. Wrai looked at her incredulously, and appeared to be trying to say something.
"...S-so, is there any way of telling who interferred?" she asked.
Tali shrugged. "Not until we find the gun. Then I might be able to get some fingerprints, but first I'd have to get copies of the entire crew's prints, and find a suitable powder. I'd also need records of who else has handed that gun. All in all, it's possible, but a long shot."
"Can you tell us what time it happened?"
Tali nodded. "Yes, but it'd be more accurate if we could get the body to the infirmary. I think Lt. Johansen mentioned something about a small morgue."
Young nodded. "Greer, get one of Eli's hover boards down here, and tell Scott to get everyone in the Gateroom. Nobody is to leave until I say."
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
"Lt. Scott, Eli, Dr. Park, and Airman Dunnings were playing cards in the mess at the time, and can coroborate each other's alibis, and as such, I will be turning the investigation over to Lt. Scott."
"Thank you sir. Okay people, what we're going to do first is a search of all personal quarters-"
"There's no way you're going through my stuff without me there!" Franklin shouted from the front row.
Matt sighed. "Of course, if you want to be present while your room is searched, you have every right to be." with that, people started loudly voicing their desires to be present.
Matt looked over to Eli hopelessly. The young genius shrugged, not being able to put up a viable argument to keeping them in here. "Okay, it'll take all day that way, but... All right then, Franklin, you can go first."
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
"Do you think whoever it was moved the gun after hearing about Tali's work?" Eli asked as he and Scott went to Colonel Young's quarters.
Thinking for a moment, Scott shook his head. "Nah. Only the card group, TJ, the Colonel, and Wrai knew that Tali was an expert in her field; some people don't even know why she was on the base in the first place..."
"Tell me about it."
Matt winced. "Sorry buddy. It just seems like you've been around forever. It's classified though."
"Yeah, I know." They had reached the door.
Scott pressed his radio. "You're up Colonel, do you want to be here?"
Their commander's voice broke through, filled with static. "No, you guys go ahead. I'm going to keep an eye on things here."
"Okay." Scott opened the door and the two started looking around. Matt realised that this would be the perfect opportunity for someone to undermine the Colonel's authority on board, but didn't want to voice that opinion to Eli; not only was he generally the honest type, but the kid usually had a kino floating around somewhere near him, and Colonel Young wouldn't be happy to hear such a comment. As a result, Scott searched half-heartedly.
"Well, there's obviously nothing here. Let's go, Eli."
Nodding, Eli quickly shined his flashlight into the air vent. He'd been thinking about having a network of kinos floating in the air vents in public places. Obviously not in people's rooms, but if the idea had occured to him to hide something there, he figured that it would've occured to someone else long ago. He didn't want to find anything - the Colonel seemed to be the type of guy who tried to do the best all the time. He hadn't even seen the man lie, when it seemed that plots and schemes were the general past time for the majority of the crew.
Luckily, the vent was empty.
For the sake of those probably surrounding the man, Scott called over the radio and said the room was clean. Young made some comment about not having socks to throw on the floor, before the duo moved on.
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
Dr. Park gasped as she saw the weapon. "Colonel Young, Ms. Wrai, Talitha, you guys want to get down here." she said into her radio.
In the gateroom, Tali shrugged at TJ and Vanessa, before following Colonel Young and Wrai down to her quarters. She opened the door for them, and they filed in. Four faces turned to her, as she stared at the 9mm handgun.
"Well, Miss Scott, what do you have to say for yourself?" Wrai interrupted the silence.
"That I didn't do it?"
Young interrupted. "One of Eli's kinos saw her going down the corridor to her room, she has an alibi."
"The corridor to this room is on the way to Sergeant Spencer's quarters! For all we know, her brother gave her this gun 'to defend herself' and she realized that Spencer annoyed her! She went and shot him, and then claimed it to be suicide to get us off her trail."
"Oh, so now your the all-knowing one? Why didn't you just accuse me earlier, it would have saved you time!"
The argument was cut off as Eli and Matt raced into the room, having heard the shouting from where they had just finished searching.
Wrai was beginning to feel threatened - the military now outnumbered the civilians, three to two. Eli and Talitha were more neutral than anything. "I demand to use the communication stones to report the happenings to my superiors, immediately."
"Oh, you demand? Be my guest, I have to report too. Tali, for the sake of due process, please stay here. You can have visitors, though."
"Uh...what's going on?" Matt asked as Wrai and Young left the room. Tali sat down on her bed and burried her face in her hands.
"It seems that, since the gun was found in my purse, her Wraithness has decided that I'm a cold-blooded killer."
Dr. Park smiled at her. "Don't worry Tali. The girl humming Eli's theme song ("It's not my theme song!") way too loudly in the mess this morning was no killer. They don't have a case against you, so don't worry." she and Dunnings took the gun, and left.
Matt sat next to his sister, while Eli commandeered the chair. "Listen, sis, Eli brought up a good point earlier today. Whoever did take the gun from Spencer's quarters heard that you had deduced the suicide, and moved the gun from wherever they had orrigianally hidden it, and moved it here."
Tali nodded. "Yeah, that's a good theory. Tryin' to take my job, Math Boy?"
Eli grinned half-heartedly. "You bet."
Tali looked at him. "Do you think I did it, Eli?"
"No," he shook his head, "I'm trying to figure out who switched the gun, and who told them about you're involvement and subsequent declaration of suicide."
"Twenty bucks it was her Wraithness."
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
Eli sighed. The stupid IOA representative had been given authority to hold a de-facto trial, and he had been gong over and over the kino footage, but found nothing. Tali wasn't even being allowed out of her room, but Eli had decided to go and let her watch it on the kino's controller screen. It was only fair that she got to see her own trial. Meanwhile, Eli had been asked to comb through the kino footage and try to find out who had taken the gun. Matt was watching the trial, and Chloe had been asked by Colonel Young to represent Tali.
Eli grabbed his laptop and hard drive (the kino footage actually required a console to view and store the information, so Eli had set it up to automatically backup to his hard drive so he wouldn't be stuck in his room all day), and made his way to Tali's room. Ringing the bell, a bedraggled Talitha Elizabeth Scott made her appearance, letting him in and shutting the door again. Completely ignoring her guest, the forensic scientist went and laid face down on the bed.
"I'm so bored!"
Eli snorted. "The trial of the week is going on just two floors down, and you don't wan't to watch it?" He tossed the kino kontroller on the bed beside her, again commandeering the chair for himself.
"It's my trial. Either Chloe'll do a good job in something she's never done before, or I'll be stuck here until we get home. I don't know if I want to watch it."
"Well, you can either not watch it, and not be prepared for whatever verdict they come to, and have no say in it, or you can watch through that and shout out your frusteration at the people themselves. And don't worry, Chloe'll do fine." he added defensively.
Rolling her eyes, Tali said, "Right, sorry. Just worrying about the possibility of being confined to the endless black chasm of abysmally eternal boredom here." she stood up, and walked over to Eli's - her - desk, and looked over his shoulder at the rapidly passing numbers and words, written in Ancient, that showed what a kino registered. Well, that was assuming that that was what the kino registered, and not really an Ancient porno novel describing that the method to ascention was, in fact, an intergalactic orgy, and not some scientific or religious thing. Tali couldn't read any Ancient other than what was in the Infirmary.
"I'm looking at the time codes. I've searched through all the footage with a fine tooth comb, and there's absolutely nothing." Eli answered her unspoken question, "the only option left is that there's a bug in this particular kino, that deleted some data. Unfortunately, you have to start from the very beginning when checking the time codes, so this might take a while."
"So, where are the time codes on this screen?"
Looking pleased that someone was actually interested in the method instead of just demanding answers, Eli quickly taught her basic Ancient numbers. So, after jotting them all down on a piece of paper, Tali dragged Eli and the laptop to the bed so they could both sit down to work. She quickly caught on to the patterns in the timecodes, so Eli split the screen in two segments, so that it would go twice as fast. The kino kontroller lay on the pillow, forgotten.
"I think it's time we take a short recess. We'll meet back up in an hour."
"I-I-I got it." Eli said suddenly, stunned. The screen suddenly changed back to it's singleness, and the gap in the time codes became apparent.
"We can't view it here. Come on." apparently forgetting the fact that Tali was in house arrest, he grabbed her wrist and made his way to the door.
"Uh, Eli? Remember? I can't leave the room."
The young genius urgently shrugged her off. "This'll exonerate you, I'm sure of it! Then, who cares if you went two corridors down? Come on!"
The duo made their way over to Eli's permanently open quarters. "Doesn't that ever bother you?" Tali absent mindedly asked, gesturing to the stuck door.
"No, not really. My mom and brother used to barge in all the time, it was like I didn't even have a door. Anyway, off topic."
They quickly activated the console that was in Eli's room, and the math boy typed away at something, when suddenly Spencer came on the screen.
Eli and Tali watched as he shot himself. Rush came into the room about five minutes later, saw the gun, and grabbed it. The kino followed the close organism, and watched as he put the gun in the air vent in Colonel Young's quarters. At that point, the bitter scientist spotted the little floating camera ball, swore veraciously, and grabbed it. The screen went blank.
Eli wasn't sure what to think when he realised he was happy about seeing Spencer shoot himself. It was solid proof that the girl beside him was innocent, but he shouldn't be happy to see a man die. However, the fact that the perpetrator of the framing was Rush, had them both speechless.
"Uh, C-Colonel Young," Eli spoke into the radio as Tali shakilly stole his seat next to the blank screen, "Could you come down here?"
"I'm on my way. What is it?" Young's gruff voice replied.
"J-Just get up here sir." Eli shut off the radio. Rush had managed to frame Tali for murder, just because her handy dandy forensic science degree interrupted his plans. Who knows what else he might do if he knew about what was going on now?
"Tali." Young seemed shocked that the woman had left her house arrest, "Shouldn't you be in your quarters?"
Eli jumped to her defense, seeing that she was still unsettled. "Colonel, w-we were there, but we came here to watch the new footage. I back up all the footage on my hard drive, and when we realised there was a gap in the time codes of the kino's database, we had to come here to see it." he said rapidly, "Tali's innocent, and her hypothesis about Spencer's death was one hundred per cent accurate."
"You know who interferred?"
He hit the play button, and let the militalistic man observe the happenings of the first suicide on Destiny.
Sighing, Young turned to Tali. "Well, he framed you. What do you think we should do?"
"Other than stopping the trial." Eli put in.
"Other than stopping the trial, which still has half an hour before resuming." Young corrected.
"...Don't let him know about it. Say the footage was destroyed or something, but it won't do anyone any good to let Rush know that we know."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah."
He nodded. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. Tali, go back to your room - relax, cool off a bit, something. Eli, in ten minutes, call Scott, Wrai, Rush, and I here and say you found something, but don't show them Rush taking the kino. Make up some excuse, but let's keep this on the QT. Act as if the first thing you did since watching this was call us. Don't mention Tali, Rush, or me. Not even to Scott and Greer?" he asked her.
Tali shook her head. "Them least of all. They'll go ballistic."
Young nodded, turned around and left, with a reminder to Eli, "Ten minutes."
-O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O--O-
It was all over. Nobody was any the wiser, although Eli had seen the relieved looked that had crossed Rush's face when he had stuttered out that the files had been corrupted. Tali was welcomed back with open arms, only a few people brave enough to come and apologize for not taking her character into account when she was accused on being a psychopathic cold-blooded killer. Only Young, Eli, and Tali knew that Rush was more of a threat than they had origianally expected; an enemy with no morals was dangerous. The fact that they still didn't know who had told Rush to change the gun's location told them that they had another enemy, although everyone seemed to accept Tali when she said that there was no telling who had handled the gun - there were far too many prints.
They had encountered an alien spacecraft on the planet, but hadn't been able to stay long enough for anything but a brief look. Rush seemed particularily upset by this.
Eli was curious about something though. With that in mind, he made his way to Tali's room. The reason she had chosen this room, despite it's small size, was because of the wonderful view that was seen in a full-length window. She was watching the light show that FTL provided.
"Hi Tal."
"Oh hey Eli. Did you need something?" she turned away from the flashing colours.
He sat down on the chair. "I was wondering why you decided to let Rush off. I agree with you, but I was wondering why."
"Two reasons, really. First, however much I may personally dislike him, no good would come from telling on him. You and him are the only ones that have the slightest clue what's going on here, and it would over work you to an unhealthy point if he were to be restricted to quarters or something." Tali smiled, leaning against the window.
Grinning in thanks, Eli asked "And the other reason?"
Sitting down on the bed across from him, she answered, "As I'm sure you've noticed, everyone on this ship seems to be plotting against each other. We're going to get thrown into it eventually, whether we like it or not. I thought that it might be better to have a defense ready, just in case."
Eli frowned. "That's a bit of a pessimistic view."
"It's nicer to think of it as a more realistic view."
Snorting at the irony, Eli took a moment to think. It wasn't like they were going to be blackmailing Rush anytime soon, even though Rush had proven himself capable of more deplorable acts. "Well...it is a good idea to be prepared."
Tali nodded. "A good defense is a good defense. Rush has proven himself to be dangerous. It'll be like keeping a can of mace in case of rabid dogs." Eli nodded in agreement. "Actually, I'm curious about something too. We could've kept Rush's involvement completely to ourselves. Why'd you call Young?"
The genius shrugged. "We had to stop the trial. Nobody would believe you, since you were the accused, and even though the scientists and a few of the military have started looking past my age, nobody else is. Young's the only one with the proper authority."
"Good point. Anyway, want to go play poker?"
"Yeah, sure."