by

Shadow Guyver 007

E-Mail: Shadow_Guyver_007@yahoo.com

E-Mail 2: ShadowGuyver007@hotmail.com

E-Mail 3: GuyverDragon007@aol.com
 
 

Chapter 5
 

The Stargazer was rocked with PHASER fire as the Reliant continued it's relentless attack. "Well, so much for praying." Harriman said as he picked himself up from beside the Engineering console.

"Be patient. I have a feeling that we will get out of this alive." Garner said mere seconds before a torpedo impacted on the starboard bow of the already-battered ship.

"Yeah, well it was one of your 'feelings' that got us into this mess. If you hadn't contacted Mollari, then Khoj wouldn't be after us now. I told you that Unit would get us killed!" replied his more-than-disgruntled captain.

"As I said before, Captain, be patient. Our rescue is assured." Jeremy said in a surprisingly-calm tone.

Seven then turned toward harriman and said, "Sir, there is a Minbarri White Star closing in on the Reliant." then, after a short pause, "It's markings match that of the Dragon's Fang, registered to Leander Garner of Earth."

"Dad? Not quite what I had in mind, but it'll do." replied Jeremy as he walked over to the console and saw the warship approaching their stern. It fired three shots at the Reliant and Khoj turned his ship to atack the newcomer. The Sovereign, meanwhile, was moving to intercept another silver object streaking through the blackness of space. The image of a White Star control room replaced that of Londo's star cruiser and all were greeted with the sight of Gene Starwind.

"This is the Paladin calling the Stargazer. Ya need some help over there, Johnny?"

A sigh of relief escaped Harriman's mouth. "You came just in time, Gene."

Then, indicating the Sovereign, "Could ya keep long, dark and ugly over there busy while we get our engines running? Then we can all get out of here together."

Gene laughed and said, "Sir thing. But remember, this'll be another one that you owe me. I already have three uncollected favors from ya."

"Actually it's four, but who's counting?" Harriman said with a smirk.

"Evidently you are."

"Just do your job, Starwind, or I might just tell Starfleet about those 'charges' you built up on Romulas last month." Harriman mock-threatened.

"You wouldn't dare." Starwind's reply was about a serious as John's threat.

"All right. How many pieces do ya want Mollari in?"

"One, preferably. If he dies, I'll get blamed for it. Then I'll be arrested and there goes your business. Am I not the one who keeps sending ships over to you for repairs? Without me, you and Jim would go bankrupt."

"Yes sir!" Gene replied with a half-hearted salute as his image winked out.

"Smart-assed kids." Harriman said as he returned to his chair and watched the battle rage in front of him.

Garner meanwhile, was watching the Dragon's Fang hammer Khoj again and again with Plasma Torpedoes. With it's engines down and weapons offline, Reliant was going nowhere and Seven stared at the screen as Garner's father held the other warship in a tractor beam. Suddenly, the image of a man in his mid-forties appeared on Wesley's screen.

"Dragon's Fang to Stargazer. I have disabled the Reliant and am towing her back to Starbase One. Ambassador Khoj has some explaining to do, don't you think?" the elder Garner said with a slight chuckle.

"Thanks, Dad. Khoj was gonna fry us in a few more minutes." Jeremy replied, moving over to the other console.

"That you, son? I see you found a Guyver Unit. It's a beauty, too. I'm gonna have to tell the Counsel about this." There was a short pause as alarms went off on the bridge of the Fang. Seven looked at her instruments in shock.

"Commander, Khoj has activated the Reliant's self-destruct sequence!"

"Dad, get off that ship! We'll beam you over here if you need us to, but GET OFF THAT BLASTED SHIP!"

"Can't do that, son. Rules of the sea. Captain goes down with his ship remember?" As this was said, the image disappeared. Jeremy tapped his commbadge. "Bridge to Transporter room one. Lock onto a human lifeform on the bridge of that White Star behind us and energize!" A second later, the Reliant was engulfed in a ball of fire, taking the Dragon's Fang with it. "Transpoter room one, did you get him?"

There was a three-second pause that seemed like an eternity to Garner. Then, "We got him, sir, but he's pretty banged up. Shall we beam him to sickbay?"

"Affirmative." then, to Wesley, "Have Dr. Bashir standing by." Without another word, he stepped into the turbolift. Julian Bashir was already running a tricorder over Leander's body when the man's son entered the room. He looked up and saw Jeremy approaching the table, still clad in the armor. "Commander Garner, I presume?" then, "Your father has suffered severe blows to the head and, as a result, he has a mild concussion. There is also some internal bleeding in the large intestine and he breathed in several toxic gasses before he was beamed up. He's unconscious right now, but as soon as I caan clean up these wounds, I can wake him."

"How long will the procedure take?" Jeremy asked, his fear escalating to new heights. "Well, it should only take about a half-hour to forty-five minutes. However, that concussion should be watched carefully. If we turn our backs on it for even a second, he could go comatose and die."

"Do the operation and don't waste another minute." Jeremy insisted.

"But I don't have a nursing staff on board. I was prepared for a quick jaunt to Vulcan, not a star battle followed by major surgery."

The younger man replied, "I've just become your nurse. Anything else you need?

"Replicate me a tissue regenerator and we can begin." Bashir said, pulling on his gloves and mask.An hour later, the operations were complete and Bashir was administering a hypospray to the still-unconscious man laying on the table. In seconds, the middle-aged starship Captain was awake. Starnegely, though, he didn't seem to be very alive. Julian sensed this, too and ran a test on Leander's bloodstream. "What the hell....? I never saw this before."

"What is it, Doc? What's wrong?" Jeremy asked, now more concerned than ever.

"There's a toxin in his blood. If I had noticed it before the operation, I could have stopped it before the poison spread, but now it's too late." He closed the tricorder. "I'm sorry, Jeremy. it's my fault. Your father isn't going to make it."

Jeremy recalled the armor and moved to stand beside the doomed soul on the operating table. "Can I speak to him?"

"Yes, but there's no garauntee that he'll answer."

"Can you hear me, Dad? I'm sorry all this had to happen. I never expected anyone to react to a Guyver like that."

"You're not to blame, son. These things happen. Guess Iw as right, huh?

Captain goes down with his ship." After a labored chuckle followed by a few seconds of ragged breathing, he said, "Jeremy, I raised you to be the finest Starfleet officer I could. I see that I have done that. You're already a Commander after less than a year out of the Academy. It took me ten years to get that high. You have a lot ahead of you, my son. More than I ever could have hoped for." Leander fished around in his tunic and produced a small PADD. "Use this incription key to open up my personal file back at the Counsel Citadel. It's time you know the truth."

"What do you mean 'the truth'? Is there something you've been keeping from me, father?" asked the younger man.

"''Father'. That sound is like music to my ears, even though it isn't true." The other two men satared at him in shock for a few seconds, then he continued.

"Twenty years ago, I found you as an infant. I don't know who would have put you there, but you were chryogenically frozen, hidden in a cavern deep in the mountains about fifty miles east of San Francisco. I was hiking along them with Admiral Kirk when a storm kicked up. We found a narrow opening in the rock and slipped through. I lit one of the emergency flares in my pack to keep us warm and I found that the cave went even farther back into the mountain. Having nothing better to do until the storm died down, we followed the tunnel until we found a man-made cave lined with computers and various instruments that I could never describe. In the center of the room, there was a small cylinder with a glass cover. Inside was a human baby who's age I could not begin to estimate. That was you, Jeremy. Jim found a light source and I spent the next few hours deciphering the controls on the pod. After I had figured them out, I keyed in the sequence and began to awaken you. The storm died out in a few more hours and we got a message out to Starfleet to come pick us up. Once we were back at adquarters, I 'adopted' you, for lack of a better term. There are some other things in my file which you might find interesting, including the reason Khoj blocked your communications. Goodbye, Jeremy. Even though I wasn't your real father, it was nice raising a son like you." Then, as suddenly as the spark of life in Leander garner had been ignited, it was extinguished.

Tears began flowing freely from Jeremy's dark brown eyes. The streamed down his face, creating dark blotches on hi uniform. Harriman walked at this time and knew instantly what had happened. Seven entered the room behind the Captain and immediately tried to comfort Garner. She held him close, allowing him to cry on her shoulder. She ran her right hand through his black hair, all thw ehile thinking about the feelings for him that had emerged in her heart since their days at the Academy.

Three days later, the Guyver High Counsel, of which Jeremy was now a member, held a funeral procession for Leander Garner in front of the Citadel. Through the whole thing, Seven remained close to Jeremy, as if to somehow make her feelings known without actually speaking them aloud. While he was too upset to dwell on it right now, the young Guyver did return
Seven's love. While she did not know this, she did know that, for quite some time, he would not be in the mood to discuss it. After the ceremony, Jeremy sat alone in his father's old quarters, which were now his own, in the Citadel. He punched in the codes from the PADD onto the wall console and three file names were listed on the screen: Projects Delta, Phoenix and Claymore. Not sure who to trust now, he downloaded the files onto the PADD and erased the originals, being sure that no trace of them ever existed. After he was sure he had gotten everything, he turned off the console and the lights and then left the room. He had a lot to think about and this place held too many distractions for him. No, he had to be in a place that was totally isolated, a place that only he and a few others knew of.

An hour later, he was in the observation dome of the Battlestar Galactica. Apollo had asked Garner if he wanted someone to talk to, but Jeremy replied with, "No. I must be alone. I appreciate your kindness, my friend, but I'm sure that you understand."

"I do understand, Jeremy. You and I have known each other since your first trip to Babylon 5 when you were fifteen. If anybody would understand you now, it's me." With that said, the commander of the Galactica departed from the dome, leaving Garner to his thoughts. Turning on the PADD, he read over the file named Project Delta. What he saw increased his suspicions toward Khoj and the Gorn's reason for wanting to kill his father. The file contained plans for modifying the Delta Flyer, a shuttle built by the crew of the starship Voyager when they were still lost in the Delta quadrant. While the plans were complex, Garner knew what would happen if the data was used: The Flyer would become a timeship. While it was possible to travel through time by going to Warp and doing a slingshot around a star, it was incredibly dangerous. These plans, however, offered a safer alternative; using a TransWarp field to propel the ship at an incredible speed around a planet, not a star. Since the gravity of a planet was sverely less than that of a star, if time travel could not be achieved then the pilot could pull away from the sphere before he crashed. The TransWarp drive would have to be used for faster acceleration since a stronger gravity field was not being used. And, to top it off, a small shuttle landing would be less conspicuous than a huge starship.

After triple-encrypting the Project Delta file and the other two, garner left the dome and headed for the docking bay. He was going back to Earth. There was a mountain he needed to climb.
 

To Be Continued.....

I hope you guys liked this one. I was going for a tear-jerker and I think that goal was accomplished. What will Jeremy find in the cave? Is he afraid of what he might find? One thing is for certain, though: You guys won't know for another two or three chapters. Sorry to disappoint you, but I have to keep these things short if I want to get these out at least one every month.

'Til next chapter, adios, amigos!