A/N: Thanks to those that read and reviewed the first two chapters. This is not as popular as some of my other Chuck stories. I know FanFiction had a power failure and then failed to send out email notifications, which will have delayed readers knowing about the new chapter, but even after everything was working, views were low. However, I find this one exciting, so I'll be continuing with it.

Again, thanks to MicroGirl1225 for pre-reading and helping me make this as good as I can.

Sarah needs to share some facts with Chuck, so you'll get a lot more insight into his family in this chapter.

Chuck in a Far Distant Time

Chapter 3

Sarah and Chuck moved the bodies out of the cockpit to another room and she set the temperature down to freeze them. It was the best they could do.

She hadn't eaten or drunk anything for nearly a day and she suspected Chuck was the same. "Let's find some food and drink," she said.

Chuck looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "You can eat after moving dead bodies around?"

'Civilian,' she reminded herself. "With my life, I've learnt that you never know when you get to eat. I've not had anything for over a day. I now have time, so I am not squandering it. You should do the same, but it's your choice."

With that she set off. She quickly found the area set aside for meals, and spotted the replicator. She soon had food and drink and took it to one of the tables.

As she sat, Chuck walked in, frowned and pointed to what was in front of her. "Where?"

She sighed. He'd obviously never used a replicator. Another thing she needed to teach him.

Fortunately, she hadn't made hot food, so got up to help him. It wasn't quick with all of his questions and indecision on what to have, but eventually they walked to the table and ate together. He tried to talk, but she stopped him, holding up her hand, palm facing him. "Talk after," she said.

When she'd finished, she stood. "I'm getting another drink. Do you want one?"

He looked at her. "Will we be able to talk?"

She sighed. "I don't talk when I eat in order to savor the moment's peace."

"Then, yeah, I'll have the same again."

She took her bowl, plate and mug to the disposal unit, and then got them both drinks.

She walked back to him and set the drinks down. She sat back to wait for him to finish eating before she started. She certainly wasn't looking forward to this, but it was important.

He pushed his empty plate away and looked at her. "You're going to tell me about my uncle?" He then frowned. "It's going to take me a while to think of him as anything other than my uncle."

She'd never had one. "I understand that people often have uncles and aunts that aren't blood relatives."

He nodded. "I guess."

"I can tell you more. I know about your parents, too."

He looked eagerly at her. It was the first time his face had cleared. The frowns, pain and anger were no longer on display. He was an attractive young man, but that wasn't relevant, so she took a deep breath and started.

"Volkoff first met your father at college. A residential course they shared due to its practical nature. Combined electrical and bioengineering. They also attended computer science courses while there, where they met your mother." Sarah looked at him as she added, "Mary Gunter. She was attending the same college because she was also an athlete and it had a good reputation for that."

He looked stunned and finally spoke. "Mother, an athlete?"

"Well, she didn't continue with that, but she did learn various forms of hand-to-hand combat, to protect the two men."

That clearly confused Chuck. "Protect?"

She regretted saying that so soon. "Look, I'm not used to doing more than reporting on missions, so I'm not a talker. I'll try to tell this tale, but bear with me on it. I shouldn't have mentioned that so soon."

"But will you explain it later?"

"Remind me," she replied.

He nodded.

She took a sip of her drink before continuing. "Between the three of them, while still at college, they started the development of something no one else had ever achieved, but wisely kept quiet about it. This thing that Volkoff called the Intersect started life as a learning tool. After college, they stayed together. Well, your parents more intimately, but all moved to Faidral, a city on Vodana. Their jobs were with different companies, but all in the same city. In their own time, they continued the development of that tool."

As she'd mentioned, she wasn't used to talking a lot, so stopped for another drink. Chuck, thankfully, kept quiet after mentioning that his aunt had first met up with Volkoff there.

"They combined the skills the two men had acquired in electrical and bioengineering with Mary's computing skills to create something that could be downloaded into a human brain, along with learning modules. It would enable the individual to almost immediately 'know' the subject material."

He seemed less surprised than she'd expected. When she paused and looked expectantly at him, he said, "We've been covering the theory in class, but I didn't know it had been made real."

"Well, they hadn't perfected the download process, but they'd had it close. A rather painful injection into the top of the spine was where they got to, and I understand that didn't change."

Chuck visibly shuddered. "Not for me, then. I'll keep studying the normal way."

"Their lives changed when their creation was discovered by the Guild."

He looked at her. "The Guild? Wasn't that disbanded?"

"It no longer exists, but it was the controlling body for science before we were born." He looked at her quizzically. She smiled. "I'm twenty-two. Only slightly older than you."

He paled slightly. "I still feel I've underachieved."

She shook her head. "Don't think that way. It's not helpful."

He nodded and she continued, "The Guild took them in and they effectively worked for it from then on. Unfortunately, the war broke out very soon after and The Guild morphed into the Republic's military science division. The three were made to adapt their invention for military purposes. A tool to create the ultimate soldiers."

She looked at him. "None of them wanted that and they managed to escape from where they were forced to work. How they did that is still unclear, but they separated. The couple went into hiding, under aliases and virtually disappeared.

"Volkoff joined the army under his own name for some unknown reason, but no one after him would've expected him to enlist, so he remained invisible for about a year. He disappeared completely after that, but we recently found out who took him and why."

She'd been talking for far longer than she ever normally did. She took a long drink.

"Our enemy, the so-called 'Force for Freedom' must've found out about the invention and captured him. They changed his name to something totally ridiculous, Hartley Winterbottom. I think their belief was that he'd be so conspicuous with that name, that Volkoff would effectively become invisible. It probably would've worked, but no one ever saw him, so it didn't matter."

"I've heard of Winterbottom," Chuck said. "Wasn't he the inventor of many of the worst weapons they used?"

"Yes. Apparently, we assume that he claimed he couldn't remember how to create the Intersect, which may have been true. His was only one part of the input. We also believe he only stayed alive because the weapons he created were superior to ours."

"And this was my uncle?" he asked. She nodded.

"At some point, he did start to create a new Intersect, but must've escaped, taking it with him. I suspect you and I are going to where he hid it."

She knew this must be hard to take in, but had to continue. "Rumor has it that this Intersect drains the user of all emotion, but we don't know if that's true."

"So, they become more like robots," he said. "Why not just develop those?"

"Again, I don't know for sure, but robots are not quick and programming them is difficult."

He snorted. "Unlike the human brain."

She could tell he was being sarcastic. "Do you want to hear more?" she frostily asked.

He quieted down and nodded.

"We were searching for him, and they were too, but none of us found him until now."

"So you hadn't more to tell!" he exclaimed.

"Not about him," she replied.

"My parents?"

She nodded. "They weren't hiding, just stayed away from major science and research. They moved to Cordax and took up teaching children. Him science and her computing. Their basic skills. When we found them, they both claimed to have been just Volkoff's assistants and knew little. They were left alone and had two children." She looked at him. "You and your sister."

She had to stop again. She'd finished her drink and Chuck offered to get her another. When he returned she drank and said nothing for a while.

"The Force must have been ignoring the Bartowskis too, but we don't really know why. Maybe they thought that they might work out what Winterbottom was doing and sabotage it. They decided to kill them, and you two kids were just collateral damage. We think they did that about the time that he escaped them and hid his invention. You two children survived, but you disappeared. Obviously, Volkoff took you."

"And my sister?"

She knew he'd come back to this, but it would be a distraction from what they needed to do. "I think I know where she might be, but would have to investigate." He looked excited and she had to squash that. "This takes priority."

He looked like he was going to argue, but then slumped back in his chair. "I guess, but will you help me after?"

She wasn't sure they'd survive what they would face where they were heading, but said, "I will, if you help me first."

"I don't know what I can do to help, but I agree," Chuck replied.

Chuck had a lot to think about after Sarah finished. He would help her in whatever way he could. but that probably wasn't until they arrived at their destination. Before that, he needed to absorb what he'd learned and work out what it meant to him now.

"Thank you for telling me all of that, Sarah. I do really appreciate it, but I need to think about it now."

She had probably had enough of talking, so she said nothing, just nodded her understanding.

He stood, and after clearing away his breakfast, he headed to his bedroom for that contemplation.

Sarah just watched him go as she finished her drink.

As he lay down on his bed, Chuck's mind was spinning with all the facts.

His uncle wasn't really his uncle, but had been the evil man that everyone hated. That didn't fit with the man he knew who was just a farmer on a backward planet in the middle of nowhere.

His parents hadn't just been the teachers he remembered, but had assisted Volkoff in the creation of something that sounded terrifying. His mother obviously wasn't Alexei's brother as he thought, but the daughter of some rich parents. Sarah had mentioned that she'd protected the two men, which must've been when they worked together. He hadn't asked about that, but it seemed of little consequence now.

What he thought had been a terrible accident was actually deliberate. His parents had been murdered.

All of this would have seemed like some ridiculous fantasy if it hadn't been for the actual events that he had witnessed and been part of.

The thing he needed to hang onto was that Sarah could help him find his sister, when this craziness was over.

For the next five days, Chuck had little to do. He suspected Sarah wouldn't appreciate him just following her around or staring at her. It was hard not to, though. He definitely had a crush on her. How could he not?

He'd hardly spent much time with girls at school or college because he mostly studied from home. When he did go in for a day, there was little time to interact with other students. That was partly due to one-to-ones with teachers and tutors plus practical work that had drawn him in, but also him being the outsider, and not welcomed into the few groups there were.

What he did know was that he'd not seen anyone as beautiful as Sarah Walker before, and doubted that he ever would again.

They'd both found compartments to sleep in. He'd retired to his, following the news Sarah had imparted, and he spent a fair amount of time there, either sleeping, showering or just reading.

The room had a computer and access to the datanet, so he read up about his mother's Gunter family first. It was strange reading about relations that he hadn't even known existed.

It was a rich family, their money made from properties on many planets. His mother had two siblings, a brother and a sister. They both had families and lived on planets that he'd never even heard of, but he found were way across the galaxy. His grandparents were still alive and not so far away from where Chuck apparently grew up. Maybe he could reach out to them, and even visit them at some point.

He and Sarah had agreed to meet for their meals. She was always prompt, and he liked that about her. They didn't say much, but the interaction was pleasant. His crush seemed to increase each time. It wasn't just that she was so beautiful, he also enjoyed talking to her and hearing her voice. Obviously, he hated it when they separated each time.

Sarah spent a lot of her time in the cockpit, making sure she knew the controls and how to fly it if they got into any difficulty. She'd mentioned that on the first day, and he had worried about it for a while, but decided that worrying didn't help, so he pushed it to the back of his mind.

She had also been looking at the star charts and today invited him to look at the star system they were heading for. He wasn't sure why, but any opportunity to be with her was welcomed.

"There are ten planets in the system, but only two of them are habitable. One of those, the fourth planet, is fairly heavily populated with a human-like species, who are fairly well-developed, so an unlikely location to choose. The other, the third planet, is mostly populated with large creatures and is also an unlikely location, due to the ferocity of some and the still unstable nature of the land masses."

Chuck understood her reasoning. "So, where, then?"

She'd obviously been thinking this through and responded immediately, "I think he will have chosen one of the uninhabitable planets to avoid detection."

That made sense, but didn't help them know where.

"I think the fifth planet is the most likely as its gravity is most like what he will have been used to," she said.

"That seems reasonable. So, what will we do? Get there and scan for habitation?" That sounded like a lengthy process.

"He will have tapped into the planet's core for power, much like colonizers do."

He cursed himself for forgetting lessons on colonizing the galaxy. "So, a power source will be detectable?"

"I'm hoping so," she replied.

She looked at him and seriously said, "I'm hoping that with your engineering and computing skills, you'll be able to help me identify the Intersect system when we get there."

He stared at her for a moment. "Aren't we just going to destroy it?"

"We are, but there may be a number of systems there and we need to make sure we destroy the right one."

"Won't we just destroy everything?"

She looked at him. "What if we destroy everything we find, but he'd actually stored it somewhere else? We have to know we've destroyed the right thing, and to do that, we'll need to identify it, understand how it works, even."

His reaction is immediate, "I don't want it used on either of us."

She smiled and said, "I hope it doesn't come to that."

He breathed a sigh of relief.

Sarah squeezing his arm, seemingly affectionately, was a pleasant surprise.

So, Chuck now had a vague understanding of his purpose when they reached the planet and found their destination.

A/N: That evil Hartley Winterbottom! Sorry, I couldn't resist that twist, or the planetary system they're heading for.

I'd love to know what you thought of this chapter, so please drop me a review.