Title: King's Opening

Rating: PG-13/R

Category: M/L, M/M, Ky/I

Disclaimer: I don't own Roswell and I never have. Don't sue me, I'm just a poor college student, you wouldn't get anything anyway.

Summary: Part One of the Battlefield Antar series. The group is summoned to Antar after a year roaming the US in their battered VW van.

Chapter 9 - Ships in the Night

The sun was beginning to set as Serena led Max, Liz, Michael, Maria, Isabel, and Kyle out of town. They had decided to walk to the place where Serena had hidden her ship, figuring that it would be harder for any FBI agents who passed through to figure out what had happened. There would be no abandoned car to mark the place where an alien ship had taken off.

As to the Volkswagen van they'd travelled in for the last year, Jim and Phillip were going to drive down to the Mexican border, one in the van, one in another car. Then they were going to drive home in the car. Max hoped that would be enough to put the FBI off their trail, not that it would matter once they were on Antar. He just didn't want the FBI bugging his family.

The gang had been walking in silence for about five minutes when Kyle spoke.

"About how far out of town is your, uh, our ship?"

"About an hour's walk," Serena answered, looking over her shoulder at Kyle. "We'll make it before it gets completely dark, don't worry."

"How are you holding up, Max?" Liz asked in an undertone.

"I'm holding up," Max responded quietly, dropping Liz's hand only to wrap his arm around her waist. "What about you? Are you okay?"

Liz smiled. "I'm with the man of my dreams, and I will be forever. I'm doing fine."

"You once told me you didn't want to give up your family..." Max said hesitantly.

"That was almost two years ago, Max. And all of us pretty much gave up our families when we ran away from graduation."

Max nodded sadly. "I'm sorry for that."

"Max, even if my life hadn't been in danger, I would have gone willingly. And look at Maria and Kyle. They had a choice, and they came. We're a unit, the six of us. We may have lost the families we grew up with, but we gained a new family." Liz stretched up to kiss Max's cheek. "Don't feel guilty, Max."

Max smiled. "I'll try."

As Max and Liz continued their soft conversation, others were also talking. Michael, Maria, and Serena were discussing the merits of classic television. Kyle and Isabel were talking about Jesse.

"You have to figure out a way to tell him, Izzy. I know you, and you won't be able to live with yourself if you don't give him closure...tell him to stop waiting for you."

"I know," Isabel acknowledged, her face eloquently expressing the pain she felt. "I just don't know how to do it. I mean, do I dreamwalk him, call him, should I have written him a letter..."

"Wait, wait," Kyle interrupted. "How do you propose to call him?"

"I still have my cell. I brought it in case something went wrong between the Crashdown and the ship."

"Paranoid much?" Kyle asked jokingly. "Sorry, bad time to joke," he said apologetically at Isabel's hard stare. "Look, Izzy, you know you have to tell him. You're down to the wire. Just search your heart and it will tell you what the right thing to do is. Buddha says..."

"Please, Kyle," Isabel broke in. "No Buddhist stuff, okay? Not in the mood."

"Sure, Iz. No problem."

Michael was on a roll defending his love of the show Bewitched, when suddenly Serena interrupted his ranting.

"Okay, ladies and gentlemen, we're here."

"Here?" Kyle repeated in disbelief. "I see no ship."

"Honestly, Kyle," Maria said condescendingly. "Do you think she would have just left it so that everyone and their brother the FBI agent could see it?"

Kyle said nothing as the rest of the gang chuckled quietly. Then his mouth dropped open in shock when the chuckling stopped because of the sight in front of them. Slowly materializing in the middle of the desert was a massive spaceship.

"Now there's something you don't see every day."

The group rolled their eyes at Kyle's understatement.

"Now then," Serena began, her tone businesslike. "I know you all must have brought along your cell phones just in case something happened between the Crashdown and here." She watched as six faces registered surprise and embarrassment. "I would ask that you please turn them off before entering the ship. Once we reach Antar, we'll probably be able to modify them for use there, and it won't even cost you anything."

Six people sheepishly smiled and pulled out their cell phones. As they turned them off, Serena pulled a small stone out of her pocket. She approached the ship and pushed the stone into the metal of the ship. As if by magic, a door appeared and a small staircase leading up to it was lowered to the desert floor.

Serena smiled at Max and adopted the accent of an upper crust British butler. "Your carriage awaits, my lord."

Max blinked, laughed, and slipped his hand into Liz's. He walked towards the ship. "Thank you, my lady," he said in as snooty an accent as he could muster as he passed Serena. She giggled, then gestured that everyone else board the ship. They did so in awe. She followed them in, then turned and somehow pulled the stone she'd put into the wall to open the door out of the wall to close it. The staircase disappeared and the wall appeared to have no door whatsoever.

"Come with me," Serena said happily. She was excited. She'd fulfilled her mission; the king was coming home. In a week's time she would be home with Liam, and in the meantime she had six very impressed people to show off her ship to. Serena loved to fly, and she loved gadgets. Her ship provided her with an outlet for both loves. It was a top-of-the-line spaceship, and she'd installed in it, with Liam's help, every new invention to come along.

The gang was surprised when they went through a doorway and essentially found themselves in an upscale living room.

"These are the living quarters," Serena was cheerfully explaining. "The kitchen's through there, and the dining room in past the kitchen. There's a game room through there, with all sorts of games." She gestured as she spoke, pointing at doorways and making expansive motions with her hands. Liz figured that if Serena had been from Earth, she would have Italian blood.

Before Liz could share her musings with Max, Serena was leading them up a staircase in the back of the living room.

"These," she said proudly, "are the bedrooms. There are six in all, so I guess we'll have an extra one for now. If you'll just set your things down here in the hallway, I'll give you the rest of the grand tour and then you can come back and choose rooms and such."

The gang nodded, setting down their bags and following Serena back down the stairs. They exited the living quarters and Serena took them through the entire ship. She showed them everything, from the engine room to the bridge to sick bay. There was no crew on this flight, she informed them, but the ship could support a large crew if the pilot wished to have one. The ship could run without one, and Serena preferred it that way. She showed them gadget after gadget, and told them all sorts of useless bits of information about space travel. Finally she led them back to the living quarters.

"All right, I've a few things to do to prepare the ship for space travel, so you've got about an hour and a half until you'll want to be on the bridge to see us take off. It's a grand sight to see. You'll be all right unpacking on your own?"

Max smiled and answered for the group. "We'll be fine. Oh, Serena?" he added as she began to walk away.

She turned back to face Max.

"Which room would you like?"

Serena smiled. "Oh I don't care. I like them all."

"All right then. See you in an hour and a half."

A/N - As always, thanks for the feedback. J Some friends and I are going to one of my friends' river house, where there probably isn't a computer, so there'll probably be a few days between this post and my next. So that's why I worked really hard to come up with four whole chapters to post at once! Hope you liked them, please tell me what you think! (Did the goodbyes work? I was a bit concerned with them.) Anyway, thanks for reading my fic! ~~Liz