Chapter 6
The Pegasus leapt from hyperspace. A beautiful blue planet filled the window in the cockpit as John steered the ship down towards a small village about 50 kilometres from the capital city. He touched down close to Beckett's home, and as he did he could see the doc and his lovely young wife Laura standing at the entrance, waiting. He powered down and headed back to the cargo hold where the others were gathered. As they walked down the ramp, Carson and Laura walked up to them. Laura hugged Elizabeth, then John, then the others, whilst Carson shook hands with most, and hugged Elizabeth and Teyla.
"It's great to see you all... but I'm guessing something's wrong?" Carson asked.
"Not exactly... we have a problem for you to solve." Elizabeth replied.
"What's this now? A problem Rodney can't solve? Surely not!" Carson laughed at Rodney's irritated expression as they all walked into the cool house.
"Yes, yes, laugh all you want. It's a medical problem, so your brand of vodoo is probably needed." Rodney replied sourly.
"Well, none of you are bleeding...what's going on?"
John emerged from the medical scanner, blinking the spots away from his eyes.
"Alright Doc, that's the fourth test, any closer to an answer?"
"Patience is a virtue, son... wait... I think I've got something... look here," he tapped the screen which displayed a sequence of John's DNA "this area is normally junk DNA in most humans, but in yours it seems to be different."
Elizabeth walked up behind them.
"Does that explain why John can fly the jumper?"
"It's possible... we already have genetic security scanners in some facilities...this might be a more advanced security system... but I'm not doing much more than guessing."
"Ok, thanks Carson." She led John away from the doctor. "You ok?"
"Yeah... I mean I just found out I have ancient DNA but other than that I'm great."
"Hey." She placed a hand on his arm. "It just means you have an extra gift, it doesn't make you a freak." He nodded, and they walked back into the kitchen where the rest of the crew was sitting around the table. Rodney was looking annoyed and everyone else was laughing, so John guessed that Laura was telling yet another story about him (where did she learn them all?) As they sat down, Lorne looked over.
"So Sheppard, what's the deal?"
"Ah, no biggie... I just have some freak DNA which lets me control ancient tech."
"Cool!" John laughed at the younger man's eagerness. "So we're keeping the jumper, right?"
"Hell yes!" John exclaimed, then looked over at Elizabeth, who looked dubious.
"I don't know John... taking it from the Genii was one thing, but holding onto it? They'll be after us whenever we fly into the outer rim."
"Well, what choice do we have? We can't just destroy it, the good archeologist is dead... do you want to give it to the government?"
"No... I guess you're right.Alright Rodney, can you fix the damage?" The engineer swallowed a huge mouthful of food before replying.
"It looks fairly minor, yeah, shouldn't be a problem."
"Good. Laura, Carson, thanks for the hospitality but we probably shouldn't stay." Carson smiled as they all stood.
"It's always lovely to see you, drop by any time."
The Pegasus' engines activated and John slowly eased her up, waving to Carson and Laura as the ship rose above them.
"Well... was an interesting few days." John remarked to Elizabeth.
"Yeah," she chuckled "you can say that again. Still, the ship's intact, and we even managed to replace the skimmer with something better. Not bad."
"And we managed to irritate the Genii – that's always a good thing."
"Maybe. Anyway, we've got another job, set course for Torus."
"Oh goody, hope it turns out better than the last one." John remarked dryly. Elizabeth glanced over, and smiled as she remembered their earlier conversation on the way to Boron.
"Relax Sheppard," she said as they entered hyperspace, "it's just a simple escort job. What could go wrong?"
Right, that's it for now. I had plans to turn this into a full scale AU, maybe even a community, but that doesn't look likely due to real life issues and the fact that not many people seem interested in this world (my God, anything to do with Firefly is doomed!). Thanks to everyone who kept reading, and extra thanks to those of you who chose to review, it's great to get feedback
