Author's Note: Took me a while to finish this chapter, but I hope the next one will be created faster. Once again thanks to Celina for beta reading this chapter.

chapter 11: Arts and crafts

Knox family residence, Los Angeles, Earth

DK sat in front of his computer and stared. He may have actually broken through the dark cloud surrounding the mystery. If that was a fact, it was disturbing to say the least.

He hit his lucky break when he was investigating the previous employees of the Cheyenne Mountain facility. A name – Catherine Langford – stood out, mostly because she was female and well over sixty at the time. He knew there was female personnel in the Air Force, and had been for a long time. Certainly not that long. She may have been a female contractor then, but the age still put her for pension rather than secret research. Intrigued by this simple inconsistency, DK decided to dig deeper into Ms. Langford and got all the way back to 1928. There the mystery started to unravel… or was it a fake, put in place to misguide people like him?

In 1928, Catherine Langford's father had dug up something large and unique in Egypt. The artifact had then been transported to the other side of the Atlantic in the early days of World War II and transferred to some secret facility. Then it surfaced a few years later, laid down in a military storage facility in Virginia… until Ms. Langford restarted the research in 1980s. The rest was mostly classified…

Still, DK managed to dig up some other facts, tying in to this story. The Cheyenne Mountain facility had its budget increased by several billion dollars in the next years, up to five billion in 1995. Then, for a year, the budget was decreased back to normal and in 1997 reinstituted and increased again, to seven billion dollars. And more, in the following years.

In 1995, just before the sudden pause in funding, Catherine Langford contacted, and probably recruited, one Daniel Jackson, an archeologist, later listed as civilian contractor for the facility. And that's what really disturbed DK. Doctor Jackson had definitely had a large impact on the project, the funding had been cut just after he was brought in. Brought in, and probably succeeded in moving the secret program to its finale. And the same doctor Jackson, while still a civilian, became known for his controversial claims that the pyramids were landing sites for alien spaceships…

If the secret project profited from bringing in Daniel Jackson, did it mean that he was right all along?

Peacekeeper Command Carrier, unknown location

As the Command Carrier's Hetch-drive decelerated, Scorpius stared at the small ship that remained after the escaping Leviathan starburst.

"Unknown vessel. This is Colonel Caldwell of the Earth's ship Deadalus. Please respond" was suddenly broadcast on all frequencies, the voice of the ship's commander tense and suspicious. It was probably to be expected after sending the scouting parties through the Ring, Scorpius thought, but totally besides the point here.

"This is Scorpius of the Peacekeeper Command Carrier Veneration" he decided to respond. "Did you say you come from Earth?" he asked only to listen to a few seconds of stunned silence.

"Yes" an answer finally came, the voice still more suspicious and even hostile.

Scorpius knew, from Crichton's neural clone, that something had been going on out there, on his home planet. A secondary space program was run by the military and in its early mishaps it even required Crichton's organization – the official space agency, NASA – to provide help in retrieving its spacemen from orbit (how those men got to the outer space without anybody on their planet noticing – Crichton did check all possible sources on that once – was beyond Scorpius and the neural clone). But that was a year before Crichton's pet project misfired him to Peacekeeper Territories. It would be ten to fifteen years later now. And somehow, an Earth vessel was hanging out there in open space, in another galaxy.

Scorpius decided to act. First, by closing the comm system.

"Prepare weapons, all Flak Cannons and whatever secondary system have them in range. Do it quietly, don't let them notice" he said. Just how the Deadalus was not to notice the largest guns in Peacekeeper arsenal bearing on it he left to his subordinates. "Prepare Prowlers to launch, they may have some fighters in those bays."

Meanwhile, he reopened the comm line to distract the Deadalus commander, at least for a little while. It was just a hundred microts before one of his subordinates signaled they were ready. He closed the comm system again… and paused to think.

The mere fact that an Earth vessel was here, in another galaxy, barely few years after all Earth was capable of was Crichton's module, was reason enough to act. If Earth advanced this far, it also probably had weapons more powerful than the Peacekeepers. And that meant that this single Command Carrier may be heavily damaged in this fight. Scorpius was willing to take the risk – enough intelligence gathered here and delivered to the High Council would be crucial to Peacekeeper survival and prosperity. Crichton could wait, this was more important…

"Fire" Scorpius said at last.

Knox family residence, Los Angeles, Earth

Newspapers. As far as DK knew, the main source of intelligence for, well, Intelligence. As in CIA. Following the stock exchange or just industrial output of foreign countries was often worth more than spy satellites and James Bond style moves. DK decided to follow the example, especially now, when he had some additional points to follow. Slightly disturbing points…

He checked the Colorado Springs', Denver's and other nearby newspapers and magazines for references to unusual military activity and, not coincidentally, aliens. There were quite a few hits, much more than the country average… and much more than Roswell… and much more than the supposed Area 51, Nevada (although there was a substantial rise of UFO observations there lately). It was… disturbing again.

Logistics. Another source of intelligence for the Intelligence. And a large part of any army and of any strategic military campaign. Logistics DK knew all about, as even his company had a large department dedicated only to logistics: transporting the raw materials to the company and transporting the produced aviation and military systems to the civil aviation companies and military warehouses.

And logistics were another point that disturbed Douglas even more. A large quantity of arms was transported to NORAD for the last few years. Large amounts of computer and medical equipment were constantly delivered to Cheyenne Mountain and sometimes removed from there as used up. How a magnetic resonance machine could be used so much as to be scrapped after a year or so was totally beyond DK. The amount of short-term usable medicines was staggering, as was the amount of all other types of drugs and even chemicals. The food requirements for NORAD doubled when the unknown secret project started there and somehow kept doubling every few years ever since. And still, that was not really disturbing…

Nuclear weapons made their way into Cheyenne Mountain Complex never to be seen again or to be transported to Nevada as enhanced. Hundreds of UAVs were used by the facility and usually reported as destroyed during recon later. It looked even worse for other types of unmanned vehicles. Once, components for a whole space rocket made their way into the mountain never to be seen again. And every once in a while, energy flew back from NORAD to the national electrical grid. Sometimes more energy than the United States needed in a year. It was…

An icon appeared on the computer screen as DK was still gaping at the information he uncovered. He put the notification there years ago, to let him know if anything new was uncovered about the Farscape catastrophe. And it was flashing now. Someone was downloading every bit of information there was about the Farscape mission.

M70-AM3, Deadalus

"Target the secondary hull and fire" Caldwell had no other choice but to respond to the enemy attack. The shields disturbingly felt the attack, even if it was just projectile based one. After just one salvo of the enemy's main gun, they were down to 78%.

"Prepare maneuvering thrusters to avoid further attacks" he decided to play it safe. He turned to the back of the room "Lieutenant Scott, set the railguns to kinetic shield mode." It was for once a strictly Earth based tech, first deployed by ground forces and now adapted to the BC-304s by some Californian company. The idea was not much different from anti-missiles – shoot down incoming projectiles. For the large caliber attacks the Deadalus faced now this should be enough.

Meanwhile the officer responsible targeted and fired the Asgard beam... which encountered enemy shield and seemed to dissipate… until it became obvious that it did penetrate. Some kind of atypical energy barrier shielded the hostile vessel, in some placed blocking the Asgard beam without any noticeable integrity loss, in others – the integrity must have been compromised from the start, for the beam partially penetrated there, hit the vessel itself and went through to dissipate on the other edge of the enemy shield.

"Hail them and demand a cease to hostilities" Caldwell decided. As it seemed the enemy did not stand a chance and he wanted to resume dialogue.

"Sir, they're firing again. Additionally it seems they're releasing fighters" Captain Karn responded to that. That was something Colonel Caldwell did not expect. The Deadalus moved out of the harm's way, with the railguns effortlessly destroying the incoming projectiles.

"Well then…" he thought it over again and decided to act. "Target the fighter bays and fire. Once that is done, concentrate on the main hull and fire at will." He turned. "Launch the F-302s…"

Knox family residence, Los Angeles, Earth

DK had only managed to trace the people downloading the Farscape data to an US military server in Nevada (after following it through a few satellites and thousands of kilometers of landlines all over the world) and expected to be getting closer, when a sudden sound startled him. He needed a while to realize that someone was at his doors. He stood up, shook his head once again in wonder and went to open the door.

Once he opened them, he looked in wonder at Colonel Carter and a man in civilian clothes, unknown to him.

"Doctor Knox" the woman said "I am afraid we will need to have a little chat."

Unknown planet

Scorpius exited the wormhole device, stepping onto the planet he designated as his staging area. A few officers followed and the device disengaged in a rain of sparks, leaving a rematerialized arm hanging in the air, at least for a little while.

Scorpius looked around the small camp he had prepared here, unmoved by the events behind him. The humans had won this battle, but he was confident Peacekeepers would triumph over them at some point. While their ship was formidable, Scorpius doubted they could have more than a handful of those. Not judging from Crichton memories of Earth being defenseless just years before. The Peacekeeper fleet would be enough to combat the threat. And when the High Command acquired the weapons currently in Earth's possession, the long brewing conflict with the Scarrans would flare again. But only for a short while…

Scorpius smiled looking at his small forces, a plan already forming in his head…

Author's Note: If you are wondering why the Deadalus won the encounter, check the Review page for a partial explanation.