Chapter Twenty Eight

"Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today."

James Dean


Kam and Jack arrived to the bridge at the same time as An Cho; she was wearing the same long skirt she'd had on the day she'd been too under the weather for duty, and a camisole that was hardly fit for wearing on the bridge. Not that she'd given her attire much thought, given the circumstances under which she'd been roused from sleep. When she saw the Welshman's Captain and pilot, however, she ducked her head apologetically. "I'm sorry, Sir—" both men were dressed for duty, even though there was an emergency.

Jack waved it aside. Under the circumstances, strict adherence to a dress code was the last of his worries. Just the same, he didn't make an issue of it when she stepped aside to allow both he and Kam entrance to the bridge first. Certain protocols were too ingrained in people like An Cho.

She wasn't the only one; as soon as he was on the bridge, James Smeed gave up his chair.

Likewise, Mr Chinball vacated the pilot's chair so Kam could take his place. He seemed to give up his seat without a second thought, sliding over the chair next to him, settling into the role of secondary navigations without complaint or even comment.

For his part, Kam assumed his station and his role just as easily as Tom Chinball had vacated it, seemingly without second-guessing either himself or the other man. Under different circumstances, Jack's heart would have swollen with joy and pride, however…

"Ok, people, talk to me," he ordered, as Kai Jennings was making room for Ms Cho at comminications console behind him.

It took An only a couple of seconds to assess the situation and report that as far as she could tell, they hadn't been spotted by the military vessel. "I'm tapping into their communication's array," she told him.

Jack raised an eyebrow at her over his shoulder; he hadn't realized she could do that.

"Assuming the Captain has no objections…?" she queried.

"No, Ma'am," he smirked. "Mr Anders, Mr Chinball—?" he had moved to stand behind them, one hand perched on the back of each man's chair—the door slid open again.

Leah Ali looked around the room…since there was no place for her to sit, no station that needed manning, she took up a position quietly near Mr Smeed, waiting for orders or at least for someone to tell her what was going on, why she'd been ordered to the bridge. (Like Avi, she spent her time split between the bridge and down below.)

"Our course has already been altered, Sir," Kam reported smoothly. "We're still going to pass through their sensor range, but they won't be able to get a naked eye visual on us at this range."

Jack nodded at Chinball for a job well done. "All right, Ms Cho, about masking our signal—" he began. Even if Jennings couldn't do it, she should be able to.

"Working on it, Sir," she reported.

The bridge door slid one more time—it was Julian. Jack smiled. "Just the man I wanted to see. Give Ms Cho a hand," he told the younger man.

Neither Jule nor An questioned the Captain's order, although the latter wasn't pleased. She was more than competent to do her job, she didn't need some gypsy… An shoved her ire aside. It wasn't the time and it wasn't as if Mr Kyle had ever been anything but professionally courteous to her, despite the fact that it was obvious he went after anything with a pulse, just so long as it was gorgeous—something she clearly wasn't. Not that she would have wanted him to notice her the way he seemed to notice most of the rest of the crew. It was repulsive. He was like a dog in heat. As far as she'd ever seen, the only people immune to his attentions were the Captain, First Officer and Mr Garrison. And her.

She started to give up her seat to Kyle, but he waved her to sit back down and leaned over her shoulder instead. He reached around her shoulders as well. In any other circumstance… "If you'd like the chair…" she began.

But he didn't seem to be listening. "Just keep doing what you're doing and ignore me," he flashed a thousand watt smile that rivalled one of the Captain's. "I'm going to see if I can make our signal look a little more 'local'."

He apparently used the same cologne, as the Captain did, she noticed absently. And spent as much time on personal grooming.

She went back to concentrating on tapping into the other ship's internal commutations. Within moments, she had an 'ear' on their internal feed… the Welshman had been spotted but was being treated as a minor blip on their radar. She reported as much to the Captain.

"All right, people," he tightened his grip on the back of Kam's chair; the younger man looked up at him. Caught his attention. Smiled. It was the same tight lipped smile he'd seen so many times on another man's face so very many years ago. Ianto never questioned his orders, never acted like he was afraid even when he must have been scared out of his mind… but he never let me see it. Kam must be just as scared as the rest of them were…as he was… but it didn't show on his face.

An held her breath right along with the rest of the crew as they entered the other ship's scanner range… a light on her console blinked causing her heart caught in her throat. "We're being hailed, Sir," she told the Captain in a grim tone.

"Let me handle it," said Kyle, before the Captain could speak. He sounded entirely too cavalier for her.

"Captain?" An questioned…Kyle was still over top of her, making it impossible for her to see the man who was actually in charge... but much to her surprise, he agreed to the other man's 'request'.

"Let him get it," Jack said, giving over a warning look that An couldn't see. Julian had better know what he was doing.

"Relax, Old Man. I learnt from the best, remember?" he smirked, settling the ear piece into his ear. When answered the military vessel's hail, he spoke in an alien language that sounded to the rest of the crew like little more than gibberish.

An shot him a look of her own; she'd understood just enough of what he was saying to get the gist of it… after all, a communications' expert was only as good as her translation software and to call the translators on most ships unreliable was an understatement. It paid to know a handful of alien languages at least well enough to get permission to dock in a spaceport and find the loo once you got there.

Jack, understanding considerable more than just a few words, grinned and fell into line with the ruse, bellowing out in the same language, demanding to know why they were being held up by a bunch of 'tourists', which was what most of the alien races in this part of space considered humans, even the military.

He doubted that anyone except the Empire vessel's comm. officer could actually understand him, and doubtless he would only understand every third or fourth word, but having two voices blathering at them in the same alien language, one that onboard translation software was ill-equipped to fully sort out, would lend credence to their feigned identity as an Arrgorian trading vessel on its way to the outpost on Tonga Prime—with a 'delicate' cargo of prize ypukis, he noted as he glanced over Julian's shoulder at the fake manifest his thrice great grandson had just sent to the human vessel, as per their Captain's request. Ypukis were large, smelly beasts with foul tempers and equally foul tasting flesh... at least as far as the average human pallet was concerned. The threat of a ship full of them should be enough to keep the Empire from getting too nosey. He hoped.

He shot Julian a wink and demanded again to know what the hold up was; as the Captain of an Arrgorian vessel, he certainly wouldn't have been expected to waste his time learning Human-Speak, it was beneath his dignity. That was why he had an expert like the communications officer Julian was pretending to be. He stepped over to the comm. station and commented loudly that he had to get his cargo to market before the ypukis came into heat and started mating. There was little doubt in his mind that the other ship's comm. officer had understood that little tidbit.

The rest of the bridge crew, unable to understand a word of what was being said, held their breath and prayed to their respective deities, patron saints and ancestors. An, although she understood some of what was being said, held her breath and closed her eyes because surely a ruse so thin, so out and out childish, would never fool anybody, least of all the an Empire military vessel. Those were the men and women charged with defending the Human Empire. They weren't idiots.

A few moments of silence passed… then the other ship's communication's officer came over the channel, speaking in halting Arrgorian. He thanked them for their cooperation and closed out the channel… An couldn't believe it! She gaped up at Harkness and Kyle. It shouldn't have worked…

Jule very deliberately cut the ship to ship transmission and counted to three before letting out the whoop of laughter he'd been holding back. "Mating ypukis?" he questioned his thrice great grand father when he could finally speak.

Jack was laughing just as hard. He clasped the other's shoulder affectionately, "As I recall…"

"Whatever works," Julian echoed back Jack's own advice to him, from all those years ago. Sometimes you have to do whatever works and pray it does work, because sometimes you don't have a chance to think a plan through, you just have to go for it.

Still grinning, Julian cast a quick glance in Kam's direction. He'd been so very much younger than the Welshman's pilot when he first met Jack—and even to him Kam seemed like a hardly more than a child. How must Jack see him, he wondered. In all that time, Jack hadn't changed a bit… no that wasn't entirely true. He seemed happier than he remembered him being back then. He smiled more. But he looked the same. He would still look the same in another thirty or forty years, in thirty or forty years after that… For Jack's sake, he hoped Kam would really be ok with that. It wasn't something most people could live with... it was something James Smeed couldn't live with.

Jack moved back to stand behind his partner's seat as he addressed the rest of the bridge crew, explaining that they were out of the woods. "At least for the moment," he added in a cautionary tone. He didn't go into detail about how they'd managed to pull it off. He'd seen the look on Cho's face. Clearly she understood at least part of what was being said and couldn't believe it had worked. Frankly, neither could he.

"Everybody back to your stations," he told them. "And let's not have any more surprises," his gaze took in everybody, but settled on Jennings for just a second longer than the others.

Kai didn't meet the older man's blue eyes. "Sir…" he began, awkwardly, clearly expecting a reprimand for getting them into the situation in the first place. He wasn't sure what the Captain would do to him, but...

He waved him silent. "Just don'tlet it happen again, Mr Jennings," he told him in a sharp tone. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather not spend the rest of my life making license plates on some penal colony," he added with a rueful smirk. As soon as they reached Tunga Prime, he was going to have Roberta and Buddy go over the sensors with a fine toothed comb. He hoped the problem was nothing more than damaged done by the beetles that they hadn't caught yet.

He turned his attention back to the others. "Good work, everybody. Ms Cho—now get some sleep," he ordered her. Cho's expression didn't escape his notice. An wasn't used to getting compliments from her superiors. None of them were. They had all been expecting him to rip into Jennings like a Hoix attacking an all you can eat buffet… "You all did a great job," he told them earnestly, making sure to catch Jennings' eye when he said it. "I mean that."

"Thank you, Sir," came the younger man's soft answer. The use of corporal punishment wasn't uncommon in the Empire, especially out in the fringes… but not on the Welshman, Jennings thought. Jack wasn't like other Captains. He wasn't like anybody any of them had ever known before. When Kam stood up, he resumed his seat; Leah took the seat next to him, quickly and quietly, probably glad not to have been noticed or in the way.

………………………………………………………………

"I thought the Captain told you to get some sleep," Julian said when he sat down, uninvited, next to An Cho in the mess. He was drinking coffee; it looked like she had a cup of tea.

She regarded him a moment. She wasn't about to tell him that she wasn't tired, not after the last…she glanced at her watch…forty five minutes. Had it really only been forty five minutes since she'd been woken up? Did it take so little time to come face to face with possible arrest…death…find a way through it, ridiculously implausible as it was, and settle in for a cup of tea?

"How did you come up with something like that?" she asked, ignoring his question.

Kyle smirked. "My…grandfather…" he took a sip of his coffee to hide his broadening grin, "was a smuggler, a con artist. He told me this story once about having to get past a military checkpoint with a cargo of stolen military supplies," he grinned. "He pulled the exact same stunt. Of course he tells…erm…told… the story better than I do," he added. He would definitely leave the story telling to Jack, he just didn't have the flare for it that the Captain did.

She narrowed her eyes at him. That might explain Mr Kyle's ability to think on his feet like that, but the Captain…? He'd fallen right in line with the ruse…she shrugged and drank her tea. It wasn't any of her business. So what if Captain happened to have known Julian Kyle's grandfather, a smuggler and a con artist…and a gypsy like Kyle, no doubt. She suspected that trafficking with gypsies was the least of the Captain's 'crimes' against the Great and Bountiful. She still couldn't deny that he was a good Captain, a good man, not after their little 'talk' a few weeks ago.

She and Julian settled into comfortable silence, her with her tea, him with his coffee.

…………………………………………………………………

"Cariad?" Kam asked as he snuggled back into his lover's arms, once they were finally back in bed. Before returning to their cabin, Jack had wanted to stop by the engine room for a 'quick chat' with Buddy Garrison about the sensor array. Kam went with him, expecting that it would really be a quick chat. That was almost an hour and a half ago.

Only about half the conversation had been about the sensors or the Empire vessel. Buddy was still content to let things stand the way they were between he and Anneke and no amount of cajoling on Jack's part could get the big man to budge. It was better this way, he insisted, for both he and Anneke. Kam wasn't sure he agreed…

"Hmmm?" Jack responded to his previous query; he sounded sleepy.

"What's a license plate?"

The older man let out a soft chuckle. "Hopefully something neither of us is going to have to worry about, any time soon." He pressed a gentle kiss to the young man's forehead. "Get some sleep, Sweetheart."

Kam nodded against his chest and readjusted himself into a more comfortable position, one arm wrapped snugly around his lover's torso, the other tucked up under his pillow. Jack held him. Nothing had ever felt so good as having those strong arms around him, protecting him, keeping him safe.