The Way Home – Going Home Rework

by Warringer

Chapter 1

--

Personal Log, Jeffrey Sinclair, 10th August 1260 (estimated)

Its been four weeks since I have gone into the past with Babylon 4 and there are still no signs of the Minbari or even Vorlons.

The Station has appeared in a high orbit around a massive gas giant and it seems that it is stable as far as I can tell. I have been forced to activate the experimental Artificial Intelligence that should have taken over control over the station. I can't control a station this large on my own.

I'm getting a little impatient, but its only a matter of time until the Vorlons and the Minbari arrive.

I hope...

--

Personal Log, Jeffrey Sinclair, 14th August 1260 (estimated)

I did have a visitor today...

I have absolutely no idea how he got on the station without Jack, that is the name of the AI, informing me.

The being introduced himself as Lorien. And he has talked with me.

Now I know why there are no Vorlons and Minbari coming, at least according to what he said. I don't have any idea what exactly he said, as he talked about quantum physics, but the gist of it is that Babylon 4 and I are 'quantum copies' that have been transferred into a parallel universe during the transfer into the past.

My 'original' has traveled safely into the past and I'm stuck here, in another universe with no idea what to do.

I can't even leave this system as there seems to be no jumpgate anywhere near. And even if there was, I doubt that I would be able to get far with just a shuttle.

--

Personal Log, Jeffrey Sinclair, 16th August 1260 (estimated)

I made a decision...

I have ordered Jack to put the entire station on standby, powering down all systems and pump the atmosphere into the tanks to depressurize the station. Than he will start a radio and tachyon beacon. Maybe it will be heard by someone.

I am going to enter an emergency cryo chamber in one of the Med Bays.

I hope someone finds us sometime...

--

There was a dry chuckle coming from another corner.

Harry and von Bismark turned their head to look at another human, or near human at the very least, who was looking directly at them. By the looks of it the human was female, and in similarly ragged clothing. Once those clothes might have been a uniform, but now it wasn't much more than what most Doranian slaves were wearing, through it did look like the woman had taken sowhat care of them.

The woman might have looked attractive, but that was at least forty years in the past, as she looked like she was in her sixties.

"1998, eh?" she asked as she slowly walked over to them.

Harry looked at her as she slowly sunk back down to the ground to sit by them. He winced slightly as he heard some of her bones creak. The woman winced as well and grunted as she settled herself on the ground, muttering something about micro-gravity and youth.

"I doubt my watch is going wrong," he said and sighed.

The woman grunted.

"Elenor McPherson, formerly Earth Force," she introduced herself." And I think I'm in the wrong time, just like Herr von Bismark here."

Next to Harry, von Bismark raised an eyebrow.

"Wrong time?"

She shrugged.

"Most likely even the wrong universe..."

Harry shook his head. He was willing to believe just about everything right now. He was a wizard, able to do magic, had survived an alien invasion, been forced into slavery by said aliens and now he was meeting a man from before World War II and a woman that was from another universe.

Next he knew they would be rescued by Luke Skywalker and brought to a rebel space station or something...

"And that would be?"

She sighed.

"I'm from the year 2210. I used to be a crew member of the EAS Kubayashi Maru. I have no idea what exactly happened, but the ship was attacked and raided by Doranian slavers. So... Here I am..."

Harry snorted. It was hard to forget that one Star Trek movie, especially since it was the first science fiction movie he had ever watched.

Von Bismark on the other hand looked at her with interest.

"A space ship?" he wondered out loud." Do you know how to fly one?"

"Hah," Elenor made and shook her head a little." I might know how to pilot an Earth Force shuttle, but I doubt that this ship got the controls of an Earth Force shuttle. Besides I have piloted my last shuttle thirty five years ago."

Von Bismark leaned back at the bulkhead and closed his eyes for a moment.

Harry looked at him and than at Elenor, who sighed.

"How old are you?" she wondered as she looked at Harry.

"Eighteen..." he answered truthfully and heard Elenor breathe in sharply before getting a rather loud 'fuck' from her.

"Eighteen?" she asked and looked at him.

Harry nodded.

"The cats got kids younger than me during the invasion."

Elenor grit her teeth and Harry's glance wandered away from her for a moment. His eyes fell on the group of Shin'bi. They had stopped arguing with each other and were looking towards them, through he guessed that they were mostly looking at von Bismark.

After a moment one of the Shin'bi slowly walked towards them and looked at von Bismark. After a moment she, at least Harry assumed that the Shin'bi was female, bowed at them.

"We are willing to help you with the break," she said after a moment.

Von Bismark opened his eyes and smirked. He looked back at Elenor.

"Maybe you can learn how to fly this ship."

--

"Bloody hell."

Hermione Garnger ducked her head behind a low crate as red and yellow plasma bolts raced over her head. Some of them hit the crate, sending bits and pieces of burned and burning plastic through the air.

No, this was not one of her better plans. Who could have known that the invaders had reinforced the security after the last raid?

"Fire in the HOLE!" someone screamed from the size and Hermione looked up and over the crate for a moment.

Another plasma bolt nearly scalped her as it flew over her head yet again. Cursing again she ducked behind the crate again, scowling herself for making such a rookie mistake.

Over the sound of the plasma bolts, they sounded eerily like blaster shots from Star Wars to her ears, she could hear the swooshing sound of a missile launched from a Carl Gustav streaking down range, followed by the large explosion that silenced the plasma fire for a few moments.

There was a short silence and she jumped up from behind her cover, pointing her wand downrange.

"Reducto!" she called out sending the curse downrange, followed by the three other wizards in the raid squad, who send their own curses downrange.

Another Carl Gustav missile streaked downrange, detonating as it hit a Doranian in heavy powered armor. Another sound mixed into the explosion, that of tracks on asphalt.

"About damned time," Hermione muttered under her breath as a Warrior ISV rounded the corner and its small turret turned into the direction of the Doranian warriors.

"Reducto!" she called out again, knocking over a Doranian medium powered armor.

She ducked behind the crate again as the 30 mm autocannon of the Warrior opened fire. She breathed in deep and reached for the salvaged and modified Doranian plasma rifle, easy the size of a L2 machine gun, but charmed with featherweight for easier handling.. For a moment she closed her eyes as she put her wand into its quickdraw holster and jumped up again, leveling the rifle downrange and opening fire together with the others of the raid squad.

Several more Carl Gustav missiles streaked past them and two minutes later nothing alien was standing anymore downrange.

Silence, save for the sound of a motor, descended onto the field of battle and Hermione turned towards the Warrior. The hatch opened up and a head popped out of it.

"Did they get them?" she asked out loud.

"A complete load! And a new goodie for Professor Hawking!"

Hermione smiled grimly and nodded.

"Everyone get in!"

The rear hatch of the Warrior opened up and the look into the interior of the tracked ISV showed that the Plasma Rifles weren't the only things that had been modified by the Joint Resistance made up from what had remained from the Wizarding World, the British Army, the British government and whatever civilians were lucky to escape the Invasion.

Larger from the inside than from the outside the Warrior was able to carry two dozen people and freight, making it perfect for fast raids of Doranian installations like this one.

Instead of entering the rear hatch of the Warrior, Herminone climbed on top of the tracked vehicle and placed her hand on the turret hatch. Hearing the rear hatch closing, she smirked slightly. It had been a stroke of genius to charm an entire tank as a portkey.

"Cassiopeia," she called out and disappeared with the Warrior.

Several hundred kilometers north of the Doranian Armory in Essex, the Warrior appeared in the center of the large encampment that surrounded Hogwarts Castle and stretched between the shores of the lake, Hogsmade and the Forbidden Forrest.

The entire area had been placed under a Fidelius Charm in the aftermath of the Invasion and as Dumbledore had followed 'Operation Atlantis', something he had planned during the Battle for Britain in the Second World War, together with Winston Churchill and the members of the muggle and magical governments of that time.

'Operation Atlantis' had been a fall back plan should Germany manage to invade the British Isles and Grindelwald succeed in helping Hitler. It would have enabled the British Governments to remain on the islands and help along the Resistance against the occupation.

Now it was in effect as the result of an alien invasion.

"Did you get them?" the familiar voice of Sirius Black asked as he approached the Warrior.

Hermione smiled lightly.

"I haven't looked yet, but," she patted the hatch of the ISV," Carpenter says that we got a full load of Plasma Rifles and something for the Professor."

Sirius chuckled.

"Last time you managed to get a fusion rector. What will it be this time?"

Hermione shrugged.

--

The powerful V-12 engine roared as air pressed harder against the four blade propeller of the diving plane.

Bolts of yellow orange plasma shot over the cockpit as the plane dived from three thousand feet. The Doranian assault shuttle pulled down after the slower, but much more agile air craft, the pilot trying to keep it in his sights.

Inside the smaller, slower, but vastly more agile British aircraft, Charlie Weasley's hands were craped around the steering horn, adrenalin pumping through his body.

'Lets see if he falls for it,' he thought as he continued to dive down towards the ground north of Essex.

"I seriously hope he does..."

Sweat poured out of every pore as he stared at the closing ground. He had done something like this several times before. Once he had managed to find out the limits of maneuverability of his machine, he had figured out how to apply more than one Quidditch move into aerial combat, something that had saved his hide more than once.

'NOW!'

Ha pulled hard at the steering horn and pressed his whole body wight into the seat. A short glance at the speedometer told him that he had now reached about 600 miles per hour, which explained the strength he needed to pull back the horn.

The G-forces of pulling the plane back into level flight pressed him even further into his seat and his vision began to become a little gray on the edges. Breathing in deep he clenched his chest and stomach muscles trying to keep on as long as possible.

His mother would kill him if he slammed into the ground. And the twins would kill themselves to follow him into the afterlife and prank him for all eternity for wrecking their best work.

Finally the plane had gone back into level flight, not even four meters above the ground. He breathed in again, swallowing. He had never cut it this far before. He could nearly count the grass below as he streaked over the ground more than five times faster than the fastest broom.

Hell, this was more fun than riding a dragon.

There was a massive flash if yellow-orange light behind him, reflecting in small mirror outside of the cockpit bubble.

Charlie allowed himself a slight grin, mentally striking out one assault shuttle. That left two more.

And those two made themselves known as plasma bolts impacted left and right into the ground.

Again he pulled the horn closer to his body and the plane back up into the air. He was going nearly vertical up as he yanked it to the left and pressed his feet into the rudder pedals. A short glance into the mirror and the bulky gray blue object passing his peripheral view let him know that the shuttle was not longer behind him.

His head shot around, his glance following the shuttle as it slowly turned around to follow him again. Acting on pure instinct, learned from numerous aerial ballets of death like these, he pulled his plane around again, listening to the slight groans of the airframe and the wings.

'Showtime!'

He pulled the plane around, following the shuttle that had just passed him. Sure the shuttle was faster, but the way it turned at the moment, he had the chance of a strafing run. As he pulled closer towards the shuttle, he pressed his thumb on the trigger, sending a stream of '0.303 inch Weasley special' bullets towards the shuttle.

Each of the bullets was engraves with a pair of runes, Bill's speciality. One to enlarge the bullet by five times after leaving the gun, while the other detonated like a reducto on impact.

Charlie grit his teeth as he watched how the tail of the shuttle was reduced to fragments of metal as dozens of bullets slammed into it. He pulled the plane around just in time, as the reactor of the shuttle detonated.

That left...

There was another yellow and orange flash of a detonating reactor and Charlie smirked a little. It looked like his partner in crime had just taken care of the other shuttle.

"Took your time, Tooth," he said over radio, chuckling a little, and gently directed his plane towards Hogwarts.

A grumble was the answer as a Gloster Meteor pulled up to his plane, close enough that he could see the pilot giving him The Finger.

"Shut up, Ridgeback."

Charlie grinned and gave the other pilot a thumbs up.

"You're just jealous that my brothers gave me the Spitfire and not you."

Again he looked at The Finger and heard a grumble over the radio.

"Lets wrap this up," Charlie said after a moment." Engage the cloak and lets head back home. The Essex raid should be over by now..."