"Officer Sun! Crichton!" Bialar Crais called out, pulling himself up the flashing red console, back to his feet.
"Yeah, yeah, keep your shirt on!" Crichton called out, crawling across Talyn's bridge towards Crais. Crais looked around, sparing Crichton a brief, uncertain smile. The expression gave Crichton pause to wonder at how he had come to this point: How Crais, the man who had marked him for death on his first day in the Uncharted Territories had become his ally and friend. The real watershed, for Crichton, had come two years ago when Crais had returned from evading the Peacekeeper retrieval squad, telling how Aeryn Sun and Crichton's twin had left for Earth after the twin had destroyed a Scarran Dreadnought. Somehow, those events had drawn the two men together. Perhaps it had been that they had both felt a degree of loss once Aeryn had gone? Perhaps it was their shared agenda of evading the Peacekeepers and safeguarding the secret of wormhole weapons? Whatever, it had not been long before John had found himself joining Crais on Talyn, whilst the rest of the crew went with Moya seeking more peaceful, private outcomes.
"I am fine," Officer Sun echoed from further back on the bridge. The bigger surprise, for both men, had come six months after the departure of Aeryn and John's twin for Earth, when Officer Sun had come up to them one day on a grubby commerce planet and asked to join them.
"Uh, what happened?"
"Where are we?"
"I am not sure." Crais replied. "That last Scarran volley, before we entered the wormhole... It seems to have caused some damage to Talyn's sensors."
"Well, at least no one is shooting at us now."
"That's almost a first!"
A planet came into view through the narrow windows at the front of Talyn's command centre as the gunship rotated slowly on its axis.
"I will go out in my Prowler. Tell me what readings you need." Officer Sun began striding towards the door.
John caught her arm. "No need. I know where we are," John Crichton said softly, almost unable to tear his eyes away from the window.
"Well, where the frell are we, then?" She snapped. John looked round. Despite her scarred cheek the irritated expression on her face reminded him of the woman he had once loved. Even after over two years together he still got a shock sometimes when he looked at her. She looked so much like her daughter, so much like the woman who had abandoned him, apparently to run off to Earth with his twin three years ago.
"Well, where are we then?"
"It's Earth, Xhalax," John replied, half ignoring the captain and taking a step towards the window. "My home."
The End