Almagest Fan Fic (Crossover with Vanessanon)
Chapter One – Keejana meets Amy

I knew that Liam's stay on Earth's moon was not really voluntary, though Harvey had tried to convince me otherwise. "Mother and son bonding time" 'sure! I had snorted. But Liam had assured me that he was fine.

Usually I would have stayed and figured out a way to get Liam away from the lectures, but there was someone who needed rescuing, and right now I was the only hope they had.

The distress call must have seemed somewhat urgent, since I had even been given a ship to captain that was in better shape than mine.

I could barely believe my eyes as the image came onto the viewfinder. I was at the right co-ordinates – wasn't I? A huge giant earth tree, something I had only read about in books, was there in front of me - floating in space AND quite alive and well - at that.

Overcoming my initial shock, I inspected the viewfinder more closely. I noticed a faint light flashing from the arcane organic material. I decided to humour it and opened a signal to see if this really was where the request for help had come.

After initial contact I could hear a childish female voice, "yays! we're rescued" in the background of what seemed to be the voice of this obscure ship's captain.
"Yays!? What is this kindergarten?!" I muttered to myself.

I ordered the standby crew I had been assigned to complete the rescue, while I ensured the steering of my latest acquisition was helpful to their attempts.

Pretty soon there were our 3 refugees standing in front of me. They had already been checked for weapons to be sure that this wasn't some kind of trick or ambush. "What are your names?" I asked in the most authoritative sounding voice I could muster.

"Well mine is Shalis Dhast." the red-haired, pale skinned girl answered in a rather exuberant voice. "But that's not my earth name. I guess since I'm not on earth it doesn't matter. But when I was on earth. I mean my earth name is…"

Her hyperactive voice grated on my nerves. This girl had clearly over-indulged in the emergency oxygen supply. She was babbling excitedly and looking so cheerful about it I wanted to hit her across the head.

I ignored her previous comment and asked about the bizarre style ship they were transporting in, since I believed it looked like a tree.

"Oh it is a tree. At least it was a tree, when we were on earth. But it's actually designed with this organic matter from my home world, where the species survive on…"

Once again a bunch of babbling non-sensical words in an over-exuberant tone. Whatever this girl took, it wasn't gonna wear off in a hurry by the sounds of it.

I managed to grasp at least a part of what she was saying. "Wait a minute! There are no trees on earth, there haven't been for over a hundred years now. What ARE you talking about?"

"We did it!" Her eyes lit up, as she proceeded to pour out an explanation. Suddenly, I wished I hadn't asked.

"I'm trying to get to my home planet. Anyways, gyso here said we should travel through time and space 'cause we would get there quicker. Now I don't know much about these scientific things, but I went along with it – what else could I do – right?! Hey…." – she suddenly cut herself short – "how far did we get?"

"It's the year 2274. But you have only made it one galaxy from earth."

I could see her mind ticking over but couldn't bear another of her verbal outbursts. In fact, with all this going on, I seriously needed a coffee. It's not like a had a lot of the stuff left, but I guess politeness took over, "I'm getting a coffee. would you like one?'

"Oh no, I never drink coffee. That stuff will kill you. Do you know what it…"

If she didn't shut up, she wouldn't have to be worried about coffee killing her! I was glad that she had said no though, because it meant I didn't have to share my coffee with someone as clearly as insane as this girl was.

"Ok, Ames. You might wanna just simmer for a sec." I recognized the voice from the young man as the ship's captain. Up 'til now I had barely noticed his existence, in fact he was kinda cute to look at. I smiled at him and shook his hand., "Captain Brooks, Keejana Brooks. You can call me Keejana" at that moment I was glad Liam wasn't there to start eye-rolling at the way I was drooling all over this poor boy.

"I'm Kyle, and this is gyro." A short bald man smiled at mention of his name.

You're the captain of this, this…'ship'?

"I guess you could say that. It's a little complicated."

I could see he was nervous but I wasn't sure if that was because I was female, or because he was worried that I might kill his friend. It wasn't that the thought hadn't already crossed my mind.

"Jared, were we given a medic team on this ship?" I turned to one of the standby crew I had been given on this mission.

"I believe so, Captain Brooks" I still wasn't used to being addressed so formally, but I tried to act as though I was, it didn't hurt to throw my weight around a little in front of the new recruits.

"I think it would be a good idea to take these three down there and check the state of their health before we continue to the next port for supplies"

"The next port? We're leaving already? What about our ship, the tree? We can't just leave it here – surely if organic matter is so rare – it would be valuable to…."

The red-head was babbling again. "I didn't say organic material was in short supply, just that none exists on earth. If your 'tree' means so much to you, you are welcome to stay with it." I admit, the suggestion was a little harsh and even managed to get this overly- happy teenager to recoil slightly. The sad thing was, I was partly hopeful she would jump at the offer. In my head I could imagine Liam's look of disapproval at my manner, I wasn't really that cruel. But after this ordeal, I REALLY felt the need for a long, hot undisturbed bath.