Checking Out

Posted on Oct 14, 2014 @ 9:22pm by Commander Jacob Crichton
Edited on on Oct 14, 2014 @ 9:22pm

Mission: Birth Of An Empire

= Checking Out =

(cont'd from "In The Hours Before Dawn")


LOCATION: Papakura Stockade, New Zealand

SCENE: Interrogation Cell

STARDATE: [2.14] 1014.1350



Jake sat in the back corner of the cell, his cheek pressed against the cool metal wall. His eyes were swollen almost totally shut, and there had been a dull ringing in his ears for as far back as Jake could clearly remember. His jaw felt stiff, probably broken again. Apparently he hadn’t been given the courtesy of a sick bay visit after his latest round of questioning.



He couldn’t understand. He knew he’d given T’Prell the information he wanted, even if his specific memories of the event were fuzzy. He’d expected them to kill him after that, but T’Prell had simply signaled his guards to beat Jake into unconsciousness once again. Jake had awoken alone in the cell, and had laid awake ever since. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but based on the thick dry taste in his mouth and throat, Jake guessed it had at least been 24 hours since he’d had a drink.



Jake tried to remember why he was here. Sometimes it came easily: he was at the mercy of Neo-Essentialist thugs after confessing to negligence that caused the DISCOVERY to be destroyed. Jake couldn’t quite remember *why* he’d confessed, he just knew that it felt like the right thing to do at the time. Other times, Jake had to work at it, to grasp desperately for some context clue, some smell or sound, and occasionally everything would snap into focus and Jake knew who he was, where he was, and what was happening to him.



But every now and then, it would all just seem to swim away, and Jake would forget what he was trying to remember. Jake didn’t have a clear sense of time anymore, not since they’d dropped the pretense and started keeping him in solitary full-time, but that swimmy feeling seemed like it was happening more and more.



Somewhere far away, Jake heard the muffled sound of alarm klaxons.



Today was one of the good days. Jake placed the sound immediately. It was a facility-wide alert, an all-hands-on-deck call that could only mean something serious was going on. Jake thought it might be a riot, or possibly some kind of attack on the stockade—



**Attack on the stockade?** Jake thought. **No way Xana would try something like that… would she?**



Jake decided he couldn’t rule it out.



Jake struggled to get to his feet. He used the wall for leverage to force himself up. Pain flared in his head and for a moment he nearly lost his balance. He leaned against the wall, keeping his eyes clenched tightly shut, until the pain faded back down into a dull roar. He was in bad shape.



The cell door opened. Jake looked up as two guards stepped in. Jake recognized them.



“Sentence has been passed,” the guard said, his hand resting on the butt of his phaser.



“Must have slept through the trial…” Jake said, still supporting himself against the wall.



“Goodbye, Crichton,” the guard said. He drew his phaser.



“What’s your problem with me?” Jake asked, looking up at the guard with genuine curiosity. “Don’t give me that ‘orders are orders’ crap, either. You like what you’ve been doing to me.”



“You’re married to a blue-skinned freak,” the guard said. He sounded casual, like he was telling Jake something that Jake should already have known. “And your kid is a mongrel.”



Jake was too exhausted to muster anything like rage at these pronouncements. He sighed with something much closer to disappointment than anger.



“Racism,” Jake said. “That’s it.”



“Any last words?” the guard asked, pointing his weapon at Jake’s chest.



“Big goddamn galaxy,” Jake said. “Everything in it is just a reminder of how small we are. And yet you want to spend your time worrying about what makes us all different, instead of what makes us the same.”



“Poetic,” the guard said. “Goodbye, Commander Crichton.”



Suddenly the floor pitched wildly out from underneath them. Jake could hear the roar of an explosion from somewhere nearby, so loud that it drowned out the perpetual ringing there. Fire-suppression units kicked on throughout the facility, and suddenly Jake was standing beneath a sheet of fire-suppressant chemicals spraying out from the sprinklers overhead.



The two guards were off-balance, the lead guard’s phaser arm pointed momentarily at the ceiling. Jake summoned what strength he had left and launched himself off the wall of the cell. He crashed into the lead guard with his shoulder. The guard, already off balance, stumbled back, his feet losing traction on the now slippery floor of the cell. He fell back against the wall, the back of his head impacting the smooth metal with a satisfying *ping!* Jake kicked him in the stomach for good measure once, then again, then whirled to lunge at the remaining guard.



This guard was on his back, and was holding something in his outstretched hand. Jake saw what it was too late to change his trajectory; he was barreling down on the barrel of a phaser. He closed his eyes as the guard pressed the trigger, and the orange beam cut its way through the room, leaving a jagged black scar on the opposite wall, and passing quite neatly through the space where Jake Crichton used to be.



----------------------------------------------------------



LOCATION: USS PHOENIX

SCENE: Sickbay



There was a strange sensation of weightlessness, a sudden churning sensation in his stomach. Jake Crichton was suddenly laying on his back, staring up into what appeared to be large overhead lights. He thought he could hear murmured conversation, and the faraway sounds of machines that sounded somehow familiar. More than that, he felt a warm, familiar sensation tingling somewhere at the back of his mind. He would have known that feeling anywhere.



Xana.



But it wasn’t his wife who leaned over him now, blocking his view of the lights with a silhouetted head. Jake eyes were still adjusting, he couldn’t make out the features of the person standing over him, but he would have recognized that voice anywhere.



“Aloha, Monkeywrench. Long time no see.”



“Oh no,” Jake Crichton said quietly. “Not *you*.”



“So much for gratitude,” Cade Foster said, turning away from Jake to inspect the readout on a nearby machine. “You want the good new or the bad news first?”



“No games,” Jake said. “I’m in bad shape here.”



“Oh, so you’re a doctor now?” Foster snorted.



“How am I doing?” Jake asked.



“You’re in bad shape,” Foster said, repeating Jake’s previous diagnosis. “But nothing life threatening. So quit whining.”



“So what’s the good news?”



“That *was* the good news,” Foster said. “The bad news is your wife is outside with your kids. I did a paternity test, I’m afraid the rugrat really is yours.”



“I’m not dead, right?” Jake asked. “This isn’t Hell, is it?”



“You always said you’d see me there,” Cade said. “But no, you’re not dead yet. Thanks in part to the timely assistance of a handsome doctor.”



“Thanks,” Jake said. “Go to Hell.”



“Oh, this is going to be fun,” Cade Foster said. He injected a hypospray into Jake’s arm, and the world swam away again. But at least, for the first time in awhile, Jake Crichton felt safe again.



-----------------------------------



TIME INDEX: A few hours later



Xana was there when Jake awoke. She smiled when she saw his eyes open, and leaned over to kiss him on the forehead.



“Hey,” she smiled.



“Hey,” Jake said back.

“How are you feeling?”



“You know,” Jake said. Their connection was strong, stronger even than usual, as if their time apart had caused them to save up their feelings and to let them all go in a rush when they were reunited again.



“Cade says you’re going to be okay,” Xana said. “He wants you overnight for observation, but you should be able to come home tomorrow.”



“Home…” Jake said. “Xana, where are we? I know it’s a ship, but it doesn’t feel familiar.”



“It’s called the USS PHOENIX,” Xana said. “It’s experimental, some kind of warship.”



“You didn’t steal it, did you?”



“No,” Xana smiled. “Kane did.”



“What?”



“Kane and some of the other survivors of the CENTURY,” Xana said. “They beamed you out of the stockade.”



Jake tried to sit up. “The kids?”



“They’re here,” Xana said, putting a hand on his chest to keep him from rising. “Jake… there’s been an attack.”



Xana told him about what had happened while he was inside the Papakura stockade; about the Romulan attack, the war, Edgerton’s new powers… and their new status as fugitives from the Federation. It was a lot to take in.



“I’m sorry,” Jake said, after Xana had finished.



“Why?”



“You sacrificed your career, your home, your entire life…” Jake started.



“To be with my husband,” Xana said. “We’d already talked about me and the kids coming with you when you shipped out again. The circumstances have... changed... but my decision hasn’t.”



“But now the kids are mixed up in all of this,” Jake said.



“That’s Edgerton’s fault,” Xana said. “Jake, it’s not a perfect situation. But we’re safest on this ship, out of that bastard’s reach.”



“Okay,” Jake said. “You’re right, I know. It’s just…”



He trailed off.



“Another war,” Xana said, taking Jake’s hand.



“At least we’re out of the crossfire for once,” Jake said.



“This isn’t exactly the life I imagined we’d share together,” Xana said.



“Yeah,” Jake said. “Do you regret it?”



“No,” Xana said. “My family is worth fighting for.”



“Mine too,” Jake smiled.



======================================================

NRPG: Jake’s aboard and he’s gonna be okay.



Shawn Collins

a.k.a.

Jake Crichton

Chief of Engineering

USS PHOENIX