Chapter Five

Morgan awoke on a bed in the med lab. He was still a little lightheaded, but mostly he was just grateful to be alive. He looked beside him to see the angelic face of his beautiful wife. He was so glad to see her. "Hey, Bess," he murmured with a smile.

"Oh, Morgan, honey, you're awake. I'm so glad you're awake," she cried, carefully stroking his cheek, keeping her hand away from the recently sealed cuts and gashes on his forehead.

"How's Zeke?" he asked.

"We don't really know," Bess answered sadly. "Baines says that his wounds are serious, but don't appear to be life threatening as far as he can tell. But unless we can get back into his programming and undo the failsafe, he's in a sort of hibernation state."

"So, get Yale and let's get in there and unlock him again," Morgan said, attempting to sit up. Residual pain shot down his arm and shoulder as he moved.

"Not now," Bess pressed him back with a firm hand. "We're going to need John to do this with us. I can't make solid enough contact with Mom by myself to get on the Dreamplane. Julia called and said that John had managed to get Devon on there while she healed. So with him here, we'll have a better chance."

"How did he manage it on his own there?" Morgan asked, mystified.

"I'd say he must have had a pretty strong motivation," Bess answered, giving her husband a soft kiss. A strong motivation indeed, she thought.

On the Council ship, Danziger had finally felt comfortable enough with Devon's sleep to lay her back down on the bed. Julia tended to the long scratch on his cheek, sealing it up so that only a red streak remained. Then the doctor ran her diaglove over her patient once again, glad to see that all her levels were approaching normal.

"She should be waking up soon," Julia said with a smile. "How about something to eat?" she asked.

"Yeah," Danziger answered. "It has been a pretty long day."

On the bed Devon stretched and yawned. "Where am I?" came her distant question.

Danziger was by her side in an instant. "Hey, Dev," he said with a smile. "You're awake on the Council ship. Julia and I have come to take you back with us."

"Danziger?" she asked, attempting to sit up. Danziger helped her sit, slipping some support behind her back.

"Yeah, it's me. You all right?" he looked at her with concern, a hint of question on his face. Did she remember the Dreamplane?

"I'm fine. Where's Uly?" she asked, her voice totally empty of any recollection that he could tell. Surely if she remembered laying a big passionate kiss on him, she'd react differently. Damn.

"Uly's fine. He's back at camp," Danziger answered.

"How long was I out?" she continued, rubbing her hand lightly across her eyes.

"It's only been about 30 days," he replied softly. "You want to talk to Uly?" He held out gear to her and she quickly accepted it, calling back to camp without hesitation.

Danziger listened as she talked to Uly, gratified by the peace and warmth it brought to her face. She could be so different around her son. At last, she signed off, dropping the gear with a tired hand and leaning her head back, eyes closed to rest.

After a bit, she opened her eyes again. "What was wrong with me?" she finally asked with a bit more energy than she'd had before.

"A nasty little creation Franklin Bennett dreamed up to keep anyone from settling this planet," Julia explained. "We've managed to isolate it and deactivate it."

"Julia managed to isolate it and deactivate it," Danziger corrected.

"It was a group effort," she countered. "Everybody helped." They looked across the bed at each other, aware of just how much effort from just how many quarters had gone into solving that particular problem.

"So, what all has happened since I was out of it?" Devon asked, her old self was beginning to return and she felt the deep need for a debriefing.

"Where do we begin?" he said with a quiet laugh. "Maybe if we start telling now, come tomorrow morning when we pull out of here, we'll have you caught up."

"Why are we waiting until tomorrow?" Devon began in her customary take charge fashion. "I'm ready to go now. How many days will it take to get to camp?"

"Well," Danziger stretched out the word to buy some time as he pulled up a stool, "we don't want to travel at night because of the barracuda, but if we leave for camp sometime in the morning, we'll get there before lunch."

At Devon's look of accusatory disbelief, he held out one hand and continued, "It's farther than it seems because Zeke and Walman souped up the transrover." At her continuing look of disbelief, he pulled Julia's line. "There have been extenuating circumstances that kept us from getting any further."

"Besides, you haven't seen camp yet," Julia replied. "When you do you'll understand why nobody was in much of a hurry to leave."

Devon tried her best to swallow her disappointment that the group had gone less than a full day's journey ahead, then remembered something. "Who's Zeke and what is a barracuda?" she asked.

Just then, a call came in from Baines over Julia's gear. She moved to the side to take it and Danziger decided it was better to start at the beginning. "It all started ten days after we put you in cold sleep," he began. "The power generator finally blew its catalyst, so I retrofit a sunstone the Martins had in its place."

Despite numerous repeated interruptions from Adair, Danziger told the story of the past several weeks, filling her in on all the happenings with Julia inserting the latest information from camp regarding the run-in Morgan and Zeke had with the barracuda while bringing back the last of the perimeter alerts.

"We'll have to get Zeke back up and running when we get back," Danziger stated.

"Are you sure about this?" Devon asked, still in shock that an actual ZED was now a part of the group. "I mean, this is a ZED."

"Zeke's all right," Danziger assured her. "A little full of himself right now, but he's been out of touch for the past 18 years."

"I still don't like it," she complained.

"Neither did I at first, but he made me a believer with the rover transmission," Danziger laughed.

Devon wanted to continue her protest, but yawned instead.

"Let's all get some shuteye," Danziger suggested. "I'm going to make a quick check on the rover. I've got it locked to voiceprint, but I still wouldn't put it past some Grendler to try to steal it." He stepped out of the sleep chamber and out into the hatch.

The next morning dawned bright and clear as Danziger loaded the equipment back into the rover. He still kept his eyes open for any sign of barracuda, especially after hearing the devastation the creatures had wreaked on Zeke and nearly Morgan.

How in the world would they manage to travel with those things roaming the countryside? Maybe with enclosures around the back of the rover, but the rail and the ATV would be harder if not impossible to protect that way. Plus, they hadn't even gotten around to working on the problem of an upcoming river crossing.

He suddenly realized that all this was no longer just his problem. Adair was back in action to help make these kinds of calls. Part of him was a little disappointed though. For the first time in his life, he'd been able to call the shots—no station bureaucrat second guessing him, no boss breathing down his neck for every second of time, every credit spent. It felt good for once to be free to act—just act. He'd miss it.

At the same time, he certainly looked forward to Adair's expertise and input, her vision and tenacity. She had a way of pulling people along with her that he hadn't quite managed to duplicate. There was a good reason they hadn't gotten very far without her.

The last of the crates was safely stowed in the rover's cab, barely leaving room for the three of them to ride. One eye on the horizon, one hand on the pistol at his side, he ran back to the ship's hatch to get Devon and Julia.

Devon was still weak, so he took her arm to help support her, ready at any moment to carry her if need be. She made it to the cab on her own, but he did give her a fairly aggressive boost into the seat. Out of the corner of his eye, he'd seen something move.

"Julia, you got that side?" he asked as she pulled the door closed firmly behind her.

An odd whuffing sound came from below as he quickly shut his own door. Glancing out the window, he could see the reflection of the rover's red cab in a spot where it shouldn't be. "Damn," he whispered.

Devon looked out the cab windscreen to catch her first look at a large barracuda standing on top of the wreckage of the Council ship. "John?" she began tentatively. "Can we outrun them?"

"Nope," he replied. "We're going to drive away casually and hope they aren't interested enough in us to follow." Ignoring the nervousness that ran down his spine, he started the rover and slowly backed away from the ship.

He was very, very glad to see that they didn't appear to be followed. The large animals just lifted their heads majestically and watched them with curiosity. "Looks like they already had breakfast," Devon managed to joke.

They drove in relative silence down the valley and into the rocky ravines that led to the huge open plain and the settlement compound. Danziger was on high alert, aware that the ambush he'd worried about so many weeks ago could actually occur at any moment.

"Do you want us to take the rail and come out to meet you guys?" Alonzo was asking on gear.

"No," Danziger and Devon replied simultaneously.

"There's been no sign that we're being followed," Danziger added. "It's too risky. How are Morgan and Zeke doing?"

"Morgan's healed up nicely. We need Julia to look at Zeke to be sure he's healing right. Then we need you to help bring him back online," Alonzo continued. "Morgan wants to remove the failsafe."

"I've got no problem with that," Danziger responded just as Devon broke in.

"We'll talk about it at camp, Alonzo," she interjected, then shut down the link.

"Do you have a problem with dropping Zeke's failsafe?" Danziger asked evenly.

"Yes, I do," she replied tartly. "He's a ZED. We've met a ZED before, remember? I chased a bullet around your gut for several minutes the last time we met a ZED."

"I do remember, Adair," Danziger made himself remain calm. "But Zeke isn't like that, you'll see."

Just as Devon took a breath to retort, the rover lurched twice, then stopped. "What is it?" all her argumentativeness drained away from her voice. "John, what happened?"

"No idea," he replied. Normally, he would immediately crawl under the hood or the drivetrain to find the problem, but with those barracuda anywhere out there, he felt like discretion would be the better part of valor and good sense. So he closed his eyes and began to do a mental inspection of the rover, taking into consideration the way the vehicle lurched, the speed they had been traveling, any odd movements or vibrations he'd felt, the recent modifications.

"Danziger?" Devon spoke up after a few seconds.

"Give me a minute," he replied, still mentally running down possible issues to investigate. He wanted to have a short list of the most likely candidates before leaping into action.

"I'll cover you," Adair offered helpfully. "It's dangerous out there. You don't have to go alone," she continued encouragingly.

"Devon," Julia cautioned. Sometimes Julia wondered if Devon truly had no clue.

But apparently Danziger had paid her no attention because he calmly called to Walman over gear and asked about certain modifications made to the rover. "You're sure you guys didn't touch the modulator coupling or the intake conversion?" he was asking.

After a few more questions of a similarly technical nature, Danziger signed off and reached over the two women for the box of tools on the floor. They wiggled out of the way as he pulled it across his lap, sticking a few select tools into the pockets of his vest. Then he pulled out the pistol and checked its settings.

"I'm going out to check the likely suspects," he began. "You two stay put, stay on the lookout, and let me know if you see anything coming. The magpro is right here if you need it. Morgan says they're fast and ruthless, so shoot to kill, okay?"

"Be careful, John," Julia said, but Devon was completely silent.

He gave them a nod and opened the door, taking a good look around before slipping to the ground.

"I accused him of being afraid, didn't I?" Devon said after a few seconds.

"Pretty much," Julia answered.

"That wasn't very smart," Devon added.

"No, it wasn't," Julia replied.

Out on the ground, Danziger looked around again for any sign of barracuda before crawling beneath the rover. The suspected problem that was easiest to check for was not the most likely cause of their breakdown, but he decided to check it first anyway.

With luck, that would be it. He banged his knuckles twice trying to break the seals on the cover, only to find that the connection in question was solid. No luck.

The next suspect was further in and further up. He darted a quick look around before sitting up fully under the vehicle to reach the junction between the main engine and the solar conversion panel relays. "Ladies, how's it looking up there?" he asked quietly.

"All clear for now, John," Devon replied.

"Good, I'm not able to see anything right now, so I'm counting on you to watch for me," he added. Working as rapidly as possible in the small space, he checked the suspected connections there too, only to come up short. Nothing.

In addition to his scraped knuckles, he'd managed to cut a nice sized gash in the top of his head too, he realized as he felt a warm wetness run down the side of his face. With his luck those animals could smell blood a mile off, he thought as he wiped his cheek and bleeding hand on the tail of his shirt.

His next suspect took him out from under the vehicle and under the hood. Darting a good look around, he crawled out from under the rover on the passenger side. He looked again carefully before opening the door, nearly scaring Julia and Devon to death.

"I thought you were watching," he chided.

"Not for something to come out from underneath," Devon said, a little out of breath from fright.

"What did you do to yourself?" Julia asked, taking in the blood running down his face.

"Job hazard," he explained. "Fix it real quick just in case these things are attracted to blood." The doctor grabbed the woundsealer out of her bag and went to work on his knuckles, then parted his hair to get to the gash on his head.

"Ouch," he complained. "Be careful."

"Careful or fast," Julia retorted. "Take your pick."

"Okay, fast," he answered, biting his lip against her probing touch. "I'm going under the hood. Please watch out for me, okay?"

"Of course we will," Devon assured him.

He made his way out to the front of the vehicle and opened the hood to reveal the front of the power conversion unit. A quick check with the diagnostic probe pinpointed the trouble. Unfortunately, it was going to take a few minutes to fix and he could not bring any of it into the relative safety of the cab.

"I'm going to be stuck out here for a bit," he informed them over gear. "If anything so much as breathes in my direction, let me know, okay?"

Julia and Devon waited nervously in the cab, each scanning the area as carefully as possible for any sign of movement. The rock walls rose on either side of them, rising in places too high to see past the cab of the rover.

"John?" Devon called to him. "I wish you'd let one of us come out and watch where we can really see what's out there."

"Nope," came the immediate firm reply. "Stay put. Just watch from where you are."

"There are too many blind spots from in here," she continued. "We can't see the tops of the ridges. I'm coming out with the mag pro."

"Stay put, Adair," he commanded again. "I can't work if I know you're out here. Just watch from there. It'll only be a few more minutes."

She waited as long as she could stand it, then she eased the door open. Julia just looked at her, then with a resigned sigh, handed her the mag pro. Devon looked down at it in dismay, realizing she wasn't even really sure how to turn the thing on. Weapons had never been part of her strategy in dealing with the planet.

So she passed the gun back to Julia and contented herself with standing in the door on the siderail where she could see better. Nothing. Not the first sign of movement.

Then she saw them. "John, John, get back in here," she hissed into her gear. "Two of them are walking along the top of the ridge to the left."

"My left or your left?" he asked, slowly extracting himself from the engine compartment.

"My left," she said, quietly watching as Danziger turned slowly in that direction, pulling the pistol out as he did so.

The two large animals danced down the side of the ridge into the canyon, their long strides bringing them to the bottom in only a couple of easy bounds. He'd never get to the cab in time. Those things were so fast. Her heart sank in her chest.

He was going to die. She was about to see John get ripped apart by those terrifying predators. She didn't have a weapon. There was nothing she could do. Maybe she could distract them. "John, I'm going to try to distract them," she said into her gear.

"Devon, you are going to do exactly as I say," he replied, a layer of steel in his deep voice. "You are going to be completely quiet and let me handle this, do you understand me?"

There was no arguing with that tone. He'd never talked to her like that before.

She could only watch as John raised the pistol before him and fired a shot into the ground in front of the animals. "Go on," he called to them. "Get out of here." He never moved, never wavered. He just stared them down coldly. They paced a little side to side but didn't come any closer.

"I mean it, boys," he continued firmly. "Don't make me hurt you. Go on."

Devon could only watch in wonder as the two animals turned and bounded away, leaving Danziger to return to his work under the hood. "Keep watching," he instructed over gear calmly. "They might be back with hungry friends."

But there was no sign of other animals and within a few more minutes, Danziger climbed back into the rover's cab, stowing his tools away carefully. He also had a seriously satisfied look on his face. "Look what I found in the engine compartment—it's the number three driver," he explained, holding up a tool Devon didn't recognize.

"Vehicle start," he called, and the rover rumbled to life. "Just like I thought. When they reworked the gearbox, they didn't compensate for the change in power frequency and it blew the conversion linkage," he explained seriously.

Then he realized that the two women were looking at him with dumbfounded amazement. "What?" he asked, pushing that wild blonde mop out of his face.

"You are amazing, you know that?" Devon offered. Suddenly she had a vivid image of herself grabbing a handful of curls and pulling John Danziger in to her for a deep, passionate kiss. And she almost gave in to the temptation to do just that.

Almost.

For now.

AN: Well, there you are folks. It has been the biggest blast to do these. I do admit to having more eps planned in my head—after all, Zeke is still out of action and we've got that whole terraforming thing and the uncrossable river and who knows what else lies ahead. But my immediate goal was to explore those end of Season One issues that just got dropped with the series and handle them in a way that was episodic in nature. However, I'm going to take a break for a while to work on some stuff that pays—in theory at least.

Those of you who've read my bio know that I've been resisting the urge to get physical with John for a good while now. Man, I love him. . . I didn't want to get so far into the D&D thing that it would put too much closure, but I sure had to give them their moment before leaving this for a bit. I've also had lots of fun with Morgan, another favorite character of mine. To those Alonzo fans out there, I apologize that he hasn't had much to do of late. I do have some ideas for him and for Yale that I hope to explore in the future. I might slip in a oneshot or play with the 100 situations like Ifvoy is running right now.

So check back ever so often. Meanwhile, do let me know if these story lines paid off for you. Thanks loads for reading and reviewing!!

Arcole