Chapter Twenty-two: The Day After


"And the fire was just spreading through the Galactica, it had completely consumed the Alpha landing bay and was threatening to reach main fuel storage tanks in the center of the ship. If that happened, the Galactica would have exploded with the energy of a small sun."


They were sitting in the Moya's galley while D'Argo listened intently to Sheba's story, as she told about the suicide attack the Cylons launched on the Galactica a few yahrens back.


"The problem was that we couldn't fight the fire in the ship and in the landing bay at the same time, so Apollo suggested in outfitting pumps to three of our Vipers and making strafing runs at the Alpha bay firing boraton extinguishing chemicals into it." Sheba explained before taking a bit from a food cube on her tray.


"And what happened?" D'Argo asked, wanting to know the rest.


"Relax, I'm getting to it." Sheba smiled. "So Captain Apollo, Starbuck and yours truly were the three lucky pilots that were going to try it. As it turned out, it was Apollo made the first strafing run at the hangar. He immediately discovered a drawback to the plan and warned us that the added weight of the boraton tanks strapped to our Vipers made them rather unwieldy and more difficult to pull out of our attack run. To make it worse, we also had to get closer to effectively deliver the boraton. So I made my run at the target and successfully fired into the blazing bay with barely any room to spare to pull out at the end of the run. Then Starbuck steamed in and I noticed that his angle was too steep and his speed looked too high, but he still managed to shoot and pull out, completely dousing the fire. Naturally Starbuck later told everyone, 'I knew exactly what I was doing'."


"So you saved the ship."


"No, about a couple centons later, the pumps throughout the Galactica failed, and the fire in the bay soon restarted. So we had to resort to more drastic measures to put the fire out..."


Sheba suddenly stopped when John Crichton approached their table. "Am I interrupting anything?" He asked.

"Nothing too important," Sheba said politely. She was still a little angry from their encounter yesterday, so her politeness had an edge to it..


"You wish to join us?" D'Argo offered. "Sheba is telling me this incredible story from their battles against the Cylons."


"Maybe later," John replied. "I just came to give this back to you."


John handed D'Argo a bottle of unopened Luxan wine. "It's the last one, but I don't want it anymore."


D'Argo took the bottle of green alcohol and placed beside him. "I'm glad to hear that, Crichton."


"Me too." Sheba added when she noticed Aeryn on the far side of the galley at the food dispenser. "Is everything alright between you two?"


John glanced at Aeryn and shrugged. "I don't know, but it is better."


John's eyes returned to Aeryn, who left the food dispenser with two trays and sat down at the nearby table.


"I'll see you two after lunch," John said to D'Argo and Sheba before crossing the room to Aeryn's table and seating himself across from her. The former Peacekeeper smiled warmly at him and pushed the second food tray in front of him.


"They're going to okay," Sheba whispered.


"How do you know that?" D'Argo asked. He wanted to believe that everything was going to be alright between John and Aeryn, but he knew first hand how stormy their relationship could be.


"Woman's intuition."


D'Argo stared at her in surprise. "Crichton never told me that the female of his species had that sort of power."


***


"It has been almost two momens with no success in locating the Galactica or the fleet. Also the situation in the Uncharted Territories has grown much worse with more stories of the Goa'uld attacking and conquering various worlds.


"To make the situation even more difficult, the numerous Goa'uld conquests have attracted the attention of the Peacekeepers and Scorpius himself. Many formerly independent worlds in the Uncharted Territories had now turned to the Peacekeepers for protection from Goa'uld attacks. Almost overnight, the Peacekeepers had expanded their sphere of influence deeper in the Uncharted Territories than ever before almost without firing a shot. There have been at least six major battles between Goa'uld attack ships and Peacekeeper command carriers in the last weeken so far. To date, the current score for both sides has been 3 for 3. However, none of us are planning to stick around to see who will win. To quote John Crichton, we're getting the frell out of Dodge, whatever that means. We have little option. We're travelling further into the Uncharted Territories to escape the fighting.


"John Crichton also heard stories that Scorpius had personally taken an interest in the Goa'uld and seemingly forgotten about him. Which is not breaking his heart in the least. I don't know this Scorpius, but from what I heard from John, I wouldn't care to meet him under any circumstance.


"Also, while we're on the subject of John Crichton, the man from Earth. He and Aeryn had been steadily growing closer together again. I must admit, seeing them together is beautiful, they are so made for each other. But watching them is making me miss Apollo even more... I wonder what he's doing now? Lords of Kobol, I will never find him or the Galactica..."


Sheba shut off her voice recorder, and slumped into a chair in the command area. It was her turn for night duty and everyone else on Moya were pretty much asleep. She had talked to Crichton about her homesickness and he came up with this crazy suggestion about talking into her voice recorder. To her surprise, more or less, it did help some. Just hearing her voice, talking things out and pretending she was making messages for her friends did take the edge off her homesickness but still...


"Lieutenant Sheba?"


The Colonial warrior looked up to the clamshell with Pilot's imagine projected inside it.


"Hey, Pilot. Is everything okay?" Sheba was glad to see the soft spoken alien.


"Everything is well." Pilot informed. "I finally had a moment to check those symbols you showed to us, and I found something interesting."


"What did you find, Pilot?"


He tapped a few controls. "If you look to the strategy table you will see the six symbols you have shown us."


Sheba walked up to the table and she saw six holo-projected images of the Asgard symbols for the location of Earth. These six little symbols where regarded as so important that Adama made every Colonial warrior memorize them in case they should stumble across anything like it during their scouting missions.


Pilot continued to explain. "I've checked it against every known piece of information I have and found that they are not words. What you have here are in fact representations of star constellations for some sort of interstellar travel. As you know, to travel in any three dimensional environment like space, you'll need six fixed points of reference to find an exact location."


"They're star constellations? How could we have been so stupid!" Sheba gasped as she stared at the symbols floating across the table. Under Pilot's control, the table produced an image of a star field and moved the six symbols in position matching the constellations they represent in the starfield. Then between the symbols, he drew intersecting lines, pinpointing one star they surrounded.


"Is that...?" Sheba turned to Pilot, excited. "You found Earth?"


Pilot nodded. "Yes. I have a fixed location, and it lays about 39.5 light-years from our current location. Unfortunately even travelling at top speed it would take nearly..."


Suddenly, Pilot watched the Human female start to jump about, screaming and yelling. Apparently Crichton was not the only one of his people prone to this wild behavior, Pilot realized.


"Yeah!" Sheba raced up to the clamshell, grabbing either side of it. "Pilot, I love you and I could kiss you sweet adorable whatever-you-are! Never mind, I will kiss you!"


"Uh, you are welcome, Lt. Sheba." Pilot said, his head reeling back in surprise. "However, to be quite honest you are not my type."


***


Sheba didn't want to waste any more time, she had to tell John! Racing down the corridors of Moya, she soon arrived at his quarters. She began pounding on the double doors, calling his name.


"John?! Wake up, I have some incredible news! John?!"


After a moment, she heard a sleepy groan before the doors cracked open and John pushed the privacy curtains aside. Sheba blushed slightly, as John stood before her with no shirt on and wearing only pants that he probably thrown on in the dark before answering the door. She eyed his nicely developed upper body and arms before forcing herself to look at his face.


John rubbed his tired eyes. "Where's the fire, Sheba?"


"What? There's no fire." Sheba said in confusion, she immediately told him the great news.


"You know those symbols I showed you guys? The ones that the Asgard's used to plot Earth's co-ordinates? Well Pilot found out they weren't words, but star constellations used to pinpoint its location! John, Pilot has found Earth. Earth!"


For a moment, he stared at her in surprise. But beyond that, John barely broke a smile. "That's great news," he said noncommittally.


Sheba looked at him in amazement. She thought that he would been more happy. "John, didn't you understand me? I said that, Pilot has found... Earth."


Over John's shoulder Sheba saw Aeryn, wearing a black robe and stepping up behind him.


"Oh..." Sheba whispered. She known that they were getting closer again, but she hadn't figured that they would get CLOSE this soon. If she had known, she wouldn't have broken the news to John within earshot of Aeryn.


"I should go," Sheba mumbled.


"That'd be a good idea," John said softly. "I'll be up shortly to see what you and Pilot found."


"Okay and I'm sorry I woke you."


After Sheba left, John turned to face Aeryn. She walked over and sat down the edge of his bed. She looked terrified at the mention that Sheba brought, of Pilot discovering Earth's location. John went and knelt down before her.


"I'm not leaving you," John said gently, taking her hands into his. "You know that."


Aeryn finally lifted her eyes and stared into his. She leaned down, until their foreheads touched. "I know, but its your home, John. Its Erp."


John smiled. Even after all this time, Aeryn still couldn't say his planet's name right. "I know, but Moya has become my home and I can't imagine living in a world without you in it."


He stayed with her for a few microts. He leaned his head up slightly and kissed her. "I need to go now, and check what Pilot and Sheba found. This is important and besides that it may help Sheba's people."


Aeryn nodded in resignation. "I understand."


John wanted to believe her, but she seemed so insecure at the moment. To make matters worse, now she was worried about the discovery of Earth and that it would somehow it lure would him away from her. He had tried to reassure assure her as best as he could that he was only doing this for Sheba and her people.


John kissed her again and stared into her bright and lovely eyes. "I love you."


Aeryn held his hands a little tighter, afraid to let him go and whispered. "I love you too."