Chapter 4: war council

Disclaimer: the characters belong to SyFy©, "project Pegasus" – to BBC and Impossible Pictures ©.

Eureka's latest council of war (against senator Wen and whatever allies she had) had grown some: now, besides Jack, Jo, Henry, and Andy with SARAH (auxiliary members because they were machines, very intelligent machines, but still machines), there were Kevin and Zoe (previously, Zoe was out of town, but she came ASAP when she heard that Allison and the rest of the Astraeus crew were missing).

"So, what do we know?" Jack was the unofficial chairman of this meeting, as usual. He did not exactly wanted to be one, he would rather give it over to Henry, but presiding over this meeting he was.

"Wen is behind this," Kevin said brightly. "I don't know why, since Astraeus' mission success would've made her look good as well, but she is regardless of that fact."

"Not 'is', but 'is behind this'," Zoe said while sticking her tongue at Kevin: the two teenagers did not get along.

"Zoe, shimmer down," Jack said sternly. "Kevin, you raise a good point. Henry, you know the politicians the best out of all of us here – what can be Wen's possible angle?"

"I have no idea," Henry said, rather crossly. "Contrary to popular opinion, I didn't run PR for Eureka – Nathan did. That's why he took over from me... eventually."

"How eventually?" Zoe could not help but ask.

"Do not push it," Henry said flatly. "My wife is there as well, remember? Now, I am thinking about a possible angle, and the closest thing I can come up with is Project Pegasus."

"That's before our time, right?" Jack exchanged glances with the others.

"Yes," Henry nodded. "It was launched in 2004 and you came to our town in 2006. And Project Pegasus is much classified, considering that its flight didn't go very smoothly."

The others exchanged confused looks. "What are you talking about, Henry?" Jack quietly asked.

"In 2004, the US, the Russians and the Europeans – well, us and our foreign counterparts – launched the first spaceship ever designed to go through the whole Solar System and back, carrying a live crew of scientists and astronauts, albeit a small one. The flight didn't go smoothly: not all of the objectives were carried out, and some people – I think, the flight medic –died in the journey, but overall Pegasus did what it supposed to do."

There was a general pause as everyone else thought over what Henry had told all of them.

"So, Astraeus was sort of redundant?" Zoe said slowly. "But wouldn't it be easier to be told so? I mean, if anyone should be aware about this Pegasus project, it should have been Eureka-"

"As I was saying, not all objectives were met; among those, which failed to meet their mark were the excursions to two of Jupiter's moons, Io and Europa. Astraeus was supposed to go Titan, another one of Jupiter's moons, and immediately problems began..."

"Jupiter," Jack slowly said. "You're not implying that we're dealing with politicians and ex-astronauts who are being dominated by aliens from the moons of Jupiter?"

"No, I'm not saying that," Henry said crossly. "Jack, maybe this situation is grave enough for you to feel a need to break the tension with humour, but-"

It was then that Holly Marten made her way inside, and she had a 'friend' with her.

"Hi everybody!" she waved a little wave and smiled a bright, brittle smile of a time-displaced hippie from the 1970s. "Jack, it's so nice to meet you for real, and not as an imaginary or virtual version that tries to kill me!"

Normally, Jack Carter would have said something to deny Holly's pointless, not to mention crazy, accusations, but he was too busy looking at Beverly Barlowe, who was standing behind Holly like a dark and solemn contrast to the (now admittedly paler) redhead.

"Just so that you know, sheriff," Beverly said in a conversational tone as she took off her dark glasses (like the Terminator; somehow she actually made them work) "I'm the crazy one here, not her."

TBC