Well sorry about the long wait on this chapter guys, as all ways thanks to CharmedPeacekeeper my wonderful Beta and to HASMOT for an other review. So please if you like what you read, please review. If i get ten individual reviews for this chapter I'll post the next one this week.
Chapter 03
Aeryn pressed down the record button, thought about what to say, and then hesitated, finally understanding why John was having a hard time with this project.
Aeryn stopped the recording to gather her thoughts. John had already 'loosely' described what had happened during the war. He had not gotten around to describing the fallout. That, then, was where she should start.
Restarting the recording she began: "Well Jack, since John can never finish one of these letters, and can't seem to take a simple hint, I'm doing it, and I'm going to pick up where he left off.
"After the battle Moya was badly damaged, but she still wanted to transport the surviving Eidolons back to there home plant of Arnessk. It's pretty much pointless to argue with a Leviathan, so we let her do what she wanted. The journey took over three monens.
"It wasn't an easy trip, between repairing Moya and taking care of Little D, John and I were rushed off our feet.
"We finally made it there, but instead of a peaceful planet with little activity outside of the atmosphere, we found several heavily-armed ships in orbit above the plant. We prepared to run, and then comm'd them.
"It turned out that the ship belonged to a group known as the Guardians. They had broken away from the Peacekeepers over 600 cycles ago, when they realized that they were becoming what they had originally been created to stop. They broke away in an event know as the First Great Separation, taking over half the peacekeepers forces and territory with them. They had settled and fortified themselves in an area now known as Forbidden Space.
"It was also around this time that mass conscription became the norm in order to refill the gaping holes left in the Peacekeeper forces due to the Separation."
Aeryn tapped the pause button on the recorder, stopping to consider if she was babbling, which she saw as an un-likeable habit she had picked up from John. No…she was just being thorough with her description of the Guardians. That wasn't babbling. Hitting 'record,' she continued.
"The Guardians had come to re-swear there blood oath to the Eidolons and retake their place as Guardians of the peace. There must have been over two thousand soldiers at the ceremony held at the temple ruins.
"It was overshadowed by the realization that Jool and over a hundred of the ancient Eidolonian monks had survived the bombing that started the war by taking refuge in the deepest tunnels under the Temple when the Scarrens bombed the plant.
"We stayed there for about three monens to give Moya proper time to heal and for us to rest.
"When we did leave, Jool joined us as well as Rygel, staying with us so he could gain support in retaking his throne while we began transporting cargo.
"For the next two cycles, life was pretty quiet. We had set up a successful trade route around both the Uncharted and Known Territories, sometimes delving in to Tormented Space if the job paid enough coin.
"Then a couple of months after Little D second birthday, we encountered the flag ship of Jothee's trading fleet, a captured Scarren Stingray that he had been awarded for his services to the Luxan Empire, ahead of schedule.
"Jothee was one of our trading partners and would usually provide us with protection on some rough areas of a route as well exchange cargo for destinations out side our own trade routes but in side the others.
"This time however he had came early because he had information that his father was alive in a Zenetian slave labor camp. I remember seeing the recon pictures, focused on a proud warrior we all though had died telling the Scarrens "who their daddy was," as John put it.
"John and I dropped every thing and join Jothee to extract D'Argo. Every thing went well until we arrived back on board Moya.
"Chiana had been hit the worst by D'Argo's death and had only just gotten over losing over him. Seeing him step out of a Luxan transport pod messed her up, and it took weekens to prove to her that he real and wasn't some sort of illusion or hallucination like the ones she had suffered after his death."
Aeryn stopped the recording wondering if she should say what jumped in to her mind next. She looked over at John and saw he hadn't even moved in their bed. She laughed softly to herself.
"Jack" she said stressing her father in laws name. "What I'm about to tell you is secret. What John doesn't know can't hurt him.
"Three days before Jothee came to us with the information on D'Argo, I found out I was pregnant. If John had known, he would have never let me go on the rescue mission…not that he could have stopped me.
"But when the thing between Chiana and D'Argo settled down, I had the stasis removed and gave birth to your granddaughter a weeken later. I named her Xhalax after her grandmother, my mother.
"John had objected, asking why we should name our daughter after such an evil woman. But I didn't name her after that Xhalax, I named her in the memory of the woman who came to me when I was a child in the barracks and told me that I was loved, that I was wanted…not the woman the assassination squad had turned her into."
Aeryn was about to continue when a low click emanated from the recorder as the depressed button popped up and a light on the side of the device indicated the data spool was full.
"Great" Letting her head rest on the desk she relented to the fact that she would have to search their chambers for a second spool. This was proving to be more difficult than she thought.
TBC