Thanks for all your great responses to the last chapter, I'm glad there are some of you reading and enjoying! I'm trying to make this a somewhat elaborate story, but of course I realized that means Wash and Taylor won't be reunited for a while, so Ill have to think of something creative! For now though, some more badass Wash for your reading pleasure


Chapter 2

Jim Shannon stood silently, his eyes fixated on the large stone at his feet. He hadn't moved in a while and his feet were slowly becoming numb, though he did not mind. He felt weary, an odd sense of exhaustion that was only partially due to the physical toll of the last few days. He breathed deeply, the letters on the stone blurring as he read them over for the thousandth time.

It was a nice stone, really, black and smooth and likely very hard to find. It was evidence of the respect and affection the colonists as a whole had held for Lt. Washington. They had not found her body, although Taylor had called off the search after just a short while. He had never explained why, but Jim had a feeling the Commander suspected either a likely location or condition of his lieutenant's body that he thought too gruesome to share. So they had merely put up a marker in Memorial Field, prominently enough that one could not walk into the graveyard without seeing it. Boylan had offered the black stone, free of charge, even though he had been pretending Washington's death didn't affect him.

A gust of wind rushed across the field, ruffling the blades of grass surrounding the memorial stone. Jim heaved a sigh and leaned down to touch his fingers to the stone. His eyes swept across the letters one more time, burning her name into his memory.

"Thank you, Wash."

As he stood his radio crackled, signaling he was needed. He turned to walk back to the colony, activating his radio. "Go for Shannon."

The radio crackled again before his wife's voice came across clear. "Jim, there's something I think you need to see."

She sounded worried. Jim picked up his pace.

xxxxxx

Lucas Taylor was afraid. He would never admit it to anyone, but here, in the dark and in his head, the truth was harder to evade. He was afraid of his father, even if he pretended that he was not. After their last encounter Lucas knew the times the Commander would refuse to kill him because he was his son were over. In all honesty, he had not expected to survive that last encounter either, had bet it all on a last emotional plea. Lucas had seen his father's eyes and knew how much he had hurt him. Lucas didn't have to wonder whether the Commander had survived; his father simply refused to die.

Much like his lapdog, Lucas thought as he was bent over the unconscious woman. In his fear he had realized, much too late really, they had never checked the Lieutenant's body for a tracker. It was stupid of him not to think of it sooner and Lucas had, half-panicked, jumped out of bed to ensure his father was not tracking them right now. He should have known something was wrong when Washington had practically volunteered to die.

"Sir, what are you looking for? Perhaps I could help you."

Lucas threw a disparaging glance at the soldier assigned to guard the prisoner. He recognized her from before, when she'd insisted on providing medical aid to his enemy. She had sounded anything but subordinate then and he could easily tell she did not want him around.

"Perhaps you need to shut up and do your job," said Lucas bitingly, his hands roaming across the Lieutenant's body to check for a tracker imbedded in skin or clothing.

"If you are looking for a tracker, I can save you some time," said Sgt. Black, watching as Lucas searched the Lieutenant by lamplight.

He glared at her, but nevertheless motioned for her to go ahead. The fear of his father was more pressing than his wish to shoot the soldier. She knelt across from him next to Wash. "I threw away her dogtags when we left the colony. Commander Taylor doesn't believe in tracking implants in his soldiers, but if she does have one it would either be in her neck or somewhere near the collar bone."

Lucas thrust the lamp into her hands to get better light. He searched the two areas the sergeant had mentioned meticulously, but found nothing. Someone entered the tent, sounding harried.

"Lucas, we need you."

Lucas scoffed, wondering again why he was the only competent one in this operation. He stood anyway and followed the man out of the tent, temporarily forgetting all about his fear of his father and paranoia about his prisoner.

"You lied to him."

Sgt. Black looked down at the suddenly very conscious lieutenant, her face betraying no emotion. "I didn't lie. Taylor never believed in implants. He said any commander who lost his soldiers was no commander at all. What do you think he'd say about you now?"

Wash tried to shift as much as was possible with her hands still tied behind her back and her head still feeling like it had been used for target practice. She stared at the soldier she'd once fought with side-by-side, but said nothing. Wash had long since figured out which people needed to fill silences and could be relied upon to spill almost anything given some time. Sgt. Black didn't disappoint.

"Well, unlike him, and most of this sorry operation, I don't take a prisoner into my camp without checking they're not bugged. Your chip isn't active; there's no need to tell him about it."

"I have a feeling Lucas is not going to agree with that," said Wash, trying to keep the sergeant distracted while she freed her hands. She figured it must have been a few days since she had been shot, as her hands were incredibly numb even though she could tell her wrists were slick with blood.

Sgt. Black shrugged unperturbed, as if Lucas had not demonstrated his willingness to execute someone. "You're my fall-back plan. If these people really do have a way for us to get back home, I don't care what happens to you. But if something goes wrong, you'll be my ticket into Terra Nova."

Wash actually laughed, though she regretted it almost immediately when more pain shot through her jaw. "What makes you think Taylor would let you in, after you've taken me prisoner?"

"I would also have helped you escape. If it becomes necessary I will take you out of here, activate that little tracker of yours and wait until the cavalry arrives."

One of her hands slipped through the rope and Wash almost shouted in triumph. She flexed her fingers carefully to return the feeling to them, struggling to remove the rest of the rope from her other wrist. "Why don't you just do that now? He would never believe you waited so long to spring me."

The sergeant frowned and looked away. "I don't want to stay here. If I have no other choice, then Terra Nova will be the safest bet, but until then, I'm hoping for a way home. And when you tell Taylor how I helped you, he'll have no choice but to take me in."

Wash saw her chance as soon as the sergeant looked away. She just had to overcome this one soldier and she could make a break for it. Wash had taken on more enemies than this and won easy. With her newly freed hand she reached for the pistol in Black's leg holster and even though her hand was slick and numb, she managed to pull it out. Wash's injuries seriously slowed her reflexes and the sergeant was already moving as she raised the pistol to aim. The gun recoiled in her hand as she fired. A blow struck her jaw and the pain that erupted was enough to momentarily paralyze her. Her vision turned black, but unlike before there was no mercy in unconsciousness. Wash felt the pistol being taken from her hand and she could do nothing to fight it. Her heart pounded heavily. She didn't think she was even breathing. It took several long seconds before the black receded and her vision returned.

Sgt. Black would have been amused, if not for the graze in her upper arm. She looked through the hole in her uniform top at the damage, but decided it wasn't serious enough to warrant attention just yet. She shook her head. "I'd forgotten how good you were, Lieutenant. You almost got me."

Wash sucked in a painful breath as the intensity of the pain ebbed. She stared at the soldier, at the red soaking through part of the uniform sleeve. "I did get you."

The sergeant smirked. "We'll have to find some better restraints for you. Until then, you'll just have to be asleep."

Wash knew the blow was coming, but was unable to stop it. Darkness claimed her once again.

xxxx

The table was strewn with a mess of electronic pieces, chips, circuit boards and cracked plastic housings. None of it looked operational, or even particularly important. Jim turned to give his wife a confused look. "What am I supposed to be looking at?"

Elizabeth moved to the side, where Malcolm had been working with the salvageable pieces. She pulled over a small plastic container. "Now that we've been cut off from 2149 we need to salvage as many pieces of medical equipment as we can. We've sifted through some of the debris the Phoenix Group left behind to find anything we can still use. Malcolm found this."

Jim peered into the container, his confusion multiplying. There were only a few relatively small pieces of cracked plastic, some wires and circuitry. "It looks like a portable bio scanner somebody stepped on."

"Yes, but look closely at the casing," said Elizabeth, slowly trying to guide him to whatever conclusion she had already arrived.

He looked closer, finally noticing the dried, red flakes clinging to the white plastic. Jim looked at Elizabeth. "Is that blood?" She nodded and he wondered if there was something he was missing.

"Is blood on a bioscanner something unusual?" he asked, wondering briefly if she was trying to pull one over on him.

"No, not normally. But I tested the blood, I don't know why, really," said Elizabeth, trying to keep a calm demeanor at the possibility of what she had found.

"And?" Jim did not want to appear impatient, but it really seemed as if she was playing with him.

"The blood belongs to Lt. Washington."

Jim's face lost whatever amusement he had conjured up at her the possibility of her trying to mess with him. He stared back down at the broken scanner. "Wash?"

Elizabeth granted him the few moments he needed to shake off the melancholy he felt every time someone mentioned his late friend's name. After a few seconds he shook his head. "I still don't see the big deal here. We know Lucas…he…we already knew she was probably bleeding."

The hurt in her husband's voice almost made Elizabeth regret bringing this to his attention. But if she was right, he had to know. "Yes, but Jim, you said Lucas shot her in the head, so we naturally assumed she was dead. You do not scan a dead person. You do not cover your hands in a person's blood if there is no chance to save them."

"What are you saying?" asked Jim, his voice uncertain, yet leaving no room for doubt. Elizabeth knew she had better be very sure of what she was about to tell him.

"Jim, I think Alicia was alive after Lucas shot her," said Elizabeth carefully, knowing how much damage her words could inflict. Jim seemed about to protest, but she held up a hand to stop him. "She was alive long enough for someone to consider using the bioscanner on her. She was bleeding enough for whoever scanned her to have their hands covered in her blood. Dead people don't bleed, Jim."

He scoffed, part disbelief and part anger. He'd just started dealing with Wash's death and he dreaded ripping this wound wide open again. It would be even worse for Taylor, Jim surmised. The Commander had performed all his duties to form, but Jim could tell how hard Taylor was struggling. He could see how much Taylor was grieving over his lieutenant's death, even if he pretended he was fine.

Jim ran a hand through his hair. He needed to really think about this. "What are the chances, if she was alive after being…shot…would she still be alive now?"

"I don't know. I don't know how severe her injuries were, if she could survive them for long without proper treatment. I just don't know, Jim." Elizabeth sounded exhausted, defeated almost, as if she'd just realized how problematic her discovery was.

Jim pointed at the broken scanner. "Can you recall the information of the last person scanned?"

She nodded half-heartedly. "Yes, but, this chip is too damaged to function."

"Can you repair it?"

"Perhaps Malcolm might be able to, but Jim, even if we did repair the chip, there is no guarantee the information still remains."

Jim sighed, feeling an entirely different kind of heaviness now. "We have to try, Elizabeth. If there is even the slightest chance Wash is still alive…we have to know."

Elizabeth nodded, feeling better at having shared her discovery with her husband. She squeezed his arm and gave him a soft smile, which he returned, even if it did not compare to his past smiles. He turned to leave, but Elizabeth stopped him before he exited the room. "Are you going to inform Commander Taylor about this?"

Jim hesitated only briefly before giving his answer. "I think it would be best if we kept this just between us. For the time being."

She nodded in agreement, though she wasn't sure it was the right decision. Jim left the infirmary, his thoughts now in turmoil.

to be continued