Favorite Episode, Favorite Scenes
Some of the comments listed under the last post reminded me of what, IMHO, is the funniest scene in the whole series. It might not be funny to others but it is to me.
In Flower Child Julia and Alonzo are in the dunerail chasing after the Martins while Yale and Devon monitor their progress over gear. At the same time the two are also watching over Danziger in the med tent. Julia and Yale are talking about the way the organism is acting and she makes a statement that it seems to be both keeping Bess and John alive and killing them at the same time. All of a sudden Devon gets this alarmed look on her face and immediately gets up and gives Danziger another dose of medication. In his weakened condition he can do nothing to stop her as she literally forces it down his throat!
Good acting, good direction, great scene.
It makes me laugh every time I see it.

Another favorite scene involves the Danzigers. I think it's at the end of Promises, Promises. The dead Terrian is taken back into the soil by the planet and the crew turns and walks away. There follows a scene between John and True that is done in one long take, no cuts at all. The acting is dead on and perfectly in character. Good performances by Clancy Brown and young J. Madison Wright. I'm always impressed when I see it.
It's this scene and her earlier ones with Tim Curry as Gaal that have me at the point where True can scream all she wants and it doesn't bother me! :)

My favorite episode is Mooncross. We learn more about the Terrians and the planet in that one storyline than we did in all the episodes that preceded it. We learn that the dream plane can keep restless spirits alive and that is probably why the grendlers never looted the biodome. It was never really uninhabited. We met Mary, a fascinating character who made "human" a dirty word.
I've often wondered if Mary would have turned up in the second season as a replacement in the group for the character, the pretty Edenite in the background, who died in AAE. (I mean if the original creators and writers had not been fired but allowed a second season, and the retooling of the show not taken place)
It is my favorite episode in spite of the fact that the narration is done, poorly, by Antonio Sabato, Jr. who also has a major role in the plot. He is not a good actor and his stumbling on some of the words in the voiceover is irritating, but I can overlook his nearly spoiling everything because Kelli Williams, Jessica Steen and Debrah Farentino just act circles around him throughout the story.

Earth 2
One of the main reasons I'm still writing fanfic for this series is because it has become a stable subject. The 22 hours of episode material is all the information we have and it never changes. Now, unless one of the creators decides to tell us more about what they had in mind for it in some way, or decides to remake the series, or get a reunion movie made, we can consider the episodes the definitive Earth 2 source.
I also write FF about Star Trek and Star Wars and other science fiction universes, but they are changing constantly. New movies, new books, new series, all continue to push fanfiction out of date sooner or later. Some of the best SW fanfics from just 5 years ago are no longer enjoyable because the movies have made their storylines inconsequential. Four years ago we were just finding out who was the mother of the twins. Before that we hadn't a clue.
The same with Star Trek. My sister wanted me to write a story finalizing the relationship between Picard and Crusher - something the series and the movies have ignored. All we got was the possible future where they married and divorced - a thing that will probably never happen because now that they know how it will turn out, they might decide to forego a relationship altogether!
I did start a story and ended up scrapping it after "Insurrection" made it pretty darn clear Picard was interested in playing the field or, at least, playing with Anij.
I might still try to write something later on, but for now I've lost interest.
Earth 2, on the other hand, is a universe I can be certain what I write about the characters won't be negated by something in the reunion movie (hint, hint, hint) or the next novel.
That, and it's just loaded with terrific characters to manipulate. I can make up my own reality for them to live in and still enjoy stories other authors write because the stories will always relate to the 22 hours of episodes we have to back them up. There will always be that common ground. For me E2 is the perfect universe to write about.

Banner Blurb



The story starts at the bottom of the last page.

Chapter 4
Alright. Finally came up with a way to get Mr. Solace out of the way for a short time but that doesn't happen until the next chapter. This is mainly a hit for the J&J junkies - with a little homage to Lynyrd Skynyrd thrown in.




CHAPTER 4

The main group stopped for a midday meal and took a few extra minutes to let the vehicles recharge even though they all wanted to be immediately on their way. Baines and Solace were far ahead of them, a reflection of sunlight in the haze was all that could be seen of them as they pushed farther and farther ahead. In the excitement of the day, no one really noticed the oddly subdued manner of the Martins.
When the solar collectors were sufficiently charged and the group resumed their travel, the couple hung back with the sentry bringing up the rear, and followed behind the ?rover.
"Morgan," Bess said, slipping her hand under his arm, "we've faced this situation before and we were able to get through it. These are good people. When they learn the truth, I can't imagine any of them turning away from us."
"Us? Of course not us!" He looked at her with uneasiness. "It's me they'll start to judge again! You can intervene all you want, but they'll never blame you. They know I was the one who took the pod. I told them so, remember?"
"Things have changed. All of us have changed."
Morgan rolled his eyes. "Bess, we were lucky the first time! Danziger didn't know about the? about the? He didn't know anyone was left behind. Do you really think it would have been the same if he'd known when we told them then?"
"I'm not going to second guess the past, Morgan. I'm talking about now. I believe in these people and I'm sure you're worried about nothing."
"Twelve dead people are not nothing! They're people who died because of what I did. Doesn't that get through to you at all, Bess?"
She gave him a stern look. "Of course, it does. I'm not saying there won't be anger or reproach, Morgan. I'm saying afterward these people will forgive and forget."
"How long afterward?"

The dunerail alternately weaved between the trees or skirted them altogether whenever the beach sand along the lake was wide enough to allow passage. After a while Julia stopped making notes and tucked away her gear. The glimpses of the ship looming closer and closer were far too amazing to ignore. Whenever they left the trees and had an unobstructed view she couldn't take her eyes from the craft.
She had never really looked at the ship when it was in dock at the stations, and while coming aboard in the shuttle her mind had been on other things, certainly not on the ship. Ships were the mode of travel among the stations and she never really took notice of the exterior of the vessels she'd flown aboard, only the interiors. Ships were commonplace, nothing special.
On land, Roanoke was so big it was almost frightening in it's size, and it was getting bigger with every meter as they approached.
Julia tried to keep her attention away from it and her mind off what she knew to be inside.
"Danziger?" she said. "I don't want you to think taking me along on scouts is going to become a habit. Just because my being here was a life altering experience for you this time, doesn't mean I'm going to come along every time."
"Life altering?? What the hell are you talking about?" He gave her a quick, frowning glance, not wanting to take his attention from the trees for too long.
"You said that after last night you were feeling better than you have for months. I heard you yelling around in the woods like a kid this morning. So I just thought I'd better tell you." She didn't look in his direction or she'd laugh, she just followed his reactions out of the corner of her eye.
He looked at her again and made a sound that might have been a laugh - it was hard to tell over the sound of brush, sticks and leaves being crunched under the dunerail's wheels. "Well, you're awfully full of yourself today. We found the ship, Heller! Remember? That might have a little something to do with it, don't you think?"
"Okay. If you say so."
"I'm not getting into this with you."
"Okay." She sat up straighter in her seat. "Okay."
He glanced her way one more time, though.

Danziger stopped their headlong pursuit of the ATV only twice. Once when they reached the rift in the ground where water had poured over the banks and rushed downhill, taking everything in its path with it. The foot of which was where they had found a way up the high hill. The beach sand had filled in the top of the broken area and they crossed a small downward dip with only a few bumps on the rocks sticking out of the sand.
The second time was when it became apparent Zero had reached the area of shore nearest the ship. His tiny white form walked stiffly toward the beach.
John got out of the dunerail and watched. He snapped on his gear. "Zero, can you hear me?"
"Yes, sir, I can."
"Stop on the beach and give me a three sixty visual." He swung the optics in front of his eyes. "Damn! I wish we brought a monitor with us."
"Yes, sir." The robot stopped moving a few steps later and began a slow, counterclockwise turn in place. The ship appeared as a black wall devoid of features directly in front of him, but soon the rippling surface of the lake appeared, and the blackness moved out of sight. From Zero's point of view they could see the water and distant shorelines, the gap in the treeline where they had made camp, the approximate area where Danziger and Heller thought they were now, then a long glimpse of the woods between them and Zero.
The ATV came and went from sight, more trees and, all of a sudden, both Julia and John yelled, "Stop!"
Zero complied immediately. Just off center of the video feed he was transmitting was a large, dark, square shape tucked in among the trees.
"Zero, is that a cargo pod?" Danziger asked.
"Negative. It is a dwelling."
"A what?!" the two of them said at once.
"It is a dwelling."
"Give us a close-up view," said Danziger.
"How can you be sure?" said Heller.
The perspective changed and the dark shape in the trees grew larger, but the image did not show the "dwelling" more clear in any way. The shade from the trees, thicker in that region of the wooded area, was not giving up it's secrets.
Julia was shaking her head. "That can't be, can it?" she asked in a low voice. Then, raising her voice. "Zero, what makes you think it's a building and not a cargo pod?"
"I am scanning power readings coming from the dwelling and a power source outside the dwelling itself."
"Why didn't you tell us before?" she asked.
"The readings are in powered down mode. I did not pick them up until I aimed my scanners directly at the dwelling."
"Okay, Zero," Danziger said. "Do what we planned for you. See if you can reach the ship and get to the cargo pod. We'll be there in a few minutes to check out the. . . The dwelling." He looked at Julia. "That explains why we didn't pick them up on our scans either."

Against all probability, the structure in the trees was indeed a thing built by beings and not something natural. And, it was not among the trees at all, Danziger and heller discovered, but in a shaded, small clearing and alongside it was a solar collector much like the one the group used to power their lasers and equipment. It was a storage facility, one of many such snap-together units that had been packed into the cargo pods for use by the Advance team after they arrived at G889 to begin work building the colony. And the door was locked.
Julia didn't know whether to laugh or curse, but, thankfully, Danziger still seemed to be feeling the effects of the last eighteen hours. After staring at the lock in disbelief, he motioned her back a few steps and blew the door open with the mag-pro. It flew open on its hinges and hit the wall with a thud. Inside the dark interior of the storage unit the unmistakable sound and flicker of medical bioscanners glowed faintly.
"What is this? Danziger, I need a luma?" She got no further. She'd no sooner stepped over the threshold than the inside of the small building was flooded with light. Though dim, perhaps from low power, a motion detector must have activated the lights. Whatever they might have thought would be inside, they certainly didn't expect to find five stasis chambers lined against the left wall, all operating within normal parameters. A single zero unit, in shutdown mode, stood at the end of the line of chambers. There appeared to be lines running from it's chest area to the floor. Along the other walls were gray lengths of material covering what appeared to be stacked freight.
The doctor rushed to read the life signs on the displays, glancing inside the chambers at each occupant. "I don't believe it! They're actually alive! Slow but steady. . . everything! Heartbeats, respiration." She gave Danziger a look of wonder. "The chambers are experimental, John! We were bringing them to perfect, to work the bugs out on animals or plants. Not humans. Well, volunteers, but only after experimentation." She knew she was babbling and made the effort to stop. "After extensive experi . . mentation."
Danziger was looking at the people and nothing else. They were in various states of undress with bandages or synthetic skin covering their flesh. "These two are crew. I know them. Don't recognize her or him. Colonists. That one is crew, too. They're all injured."
"I can see that! Burns, I'd guess," Julia answered, looking from one to the other as if trying to decide what to do. "If they were on the ship it most likely would be that, you know. Burns."
"Yeah." Danziger looked around, brushing his hair back as he did. "How the hell did they get off that ship?"
"I don't know!" she answered. "You tell me! You said you spent four years building the ship. How could anyone survive the heat and the crash?"
He shook his head slowly, still looking around the interior. "They couldn't have. The ship was shaking so badly it had to be breaking apart. We thought it was breaking apart. With all the pods gone, they would have? They would have? They must have made it to the lander! The ship out there is still in one piece, so if they were able to get the lander away ?"
"The lander?"
"The landing shuttle you and the rest of the Advance team were going to use to be brought to the surface." Danziger turned to look directly at her. "Come on, Doc. Why do you think Baines and Solace are in such a hurry to get here? They know about the shuttle. It was supposed to be the primary vehicle for the ground team to travel place to place on the planet."
Julia nodded. "Of course. I don't know why I didn't think of it. They think they're going to find it here." She started to look around the interior, too. "Well, there must be a record somewhere. Whoever erected this shed and put these people into the chambers must have left a message. Alonzo is going to want to know what happened to it; who took the lander."
A single gear chip lay under a draped cloth that also covered a stack of small crates, on top of which was a small com unit similar to the one the group used. The message was short and simple. When Danziger hit the power switch and placed the chip in the unit's slot, the face of the crew's warrant officer, Britt Navarro, appeared immediately on the screen. Her blond hair was tied back away from her face which was bandaged along one side and showed reddened areas across her forehead and the uncovered cheek and jaw. She was wearing a crew jacket over what appeared to be a dirty and torn jumpsuit. Part of her neck seemed to be bandaged, too.
Always by the book, Danziger thought. Never out of uniform. He looked at Julia. "Navarro was a sleep jump veteran. Good head on her shoulders. Whoever is with her has a chance."
Julia nodded.
The image on screen was saying:
"I am Britt Navarro, warrant officer aboard the Eden Advance ship Roanoke. It has been nine planetary days since we reached the surface of planet G889. I speak for the survivors of the ops crew of the Eden Project's advance ship, and for the members of the Eden Advance Team who didn't make it off the ship in the escape pods. Twelve crew and advance members were unable to reach them before they were jettisoned from the Roanoke. We were on our way to the lower decks to prep the lander and load personal items when the alarms went off. We could see the chaos on the decks above us after the ship started to shake. We wouldn't have been able to make it back up to the main decks. We were closer to the lander so I took it upon myself to order everyone with me into the shuttle. While we were powering up the engines, a couple of the mechanical engineers from the crew and some of Advance were worried we wouldn't be able to launch ourselves before we hit atmosphere. We heard over our gear that the cargo pods were not being jettisoned and were pulling the ship down. The five people you see in the stasis tubes volunteered to try to reprogram the codes to release the parachutes on the stuck cargo pods in the event the ship was to make it through the atmosphere in a stable enough condition to allow us to jettison the lander. They were inside the shuttle bay at the comp consoles through most of the ship's fall and they were badly burned by the rising heat. Fortunately the ship held together by some miracle and the interior didn't get hot enough to ignite. It was uncomfortable, but not what we expected. Some of us were able to get them back into the shuttle, suffering minor burns from touching surfaces in the bay in doing so. Whatever those five did, it worked. By the time the shuttle was ready for launch, the ship was through the atmosphere and the pods still attached to it were able to slow our descent just enough to give us a few seconds to launch the shuttle. We think the shuttle's engines might have helped slow the ship's descent somewhat, too. We were tossed around, but someone had the presence of mind to hit the auto-landing cycle of the shuttle before we crashed. We had a hard landing, but the craft stayed intact and we suffered only minor injuries. We did what we could for the injured, while those of us who were in better shape explored outside the lander. We came down about two kilometers east of this structure. We decided to call the sunrise east and the other directional points as they do on Earth. We found one cargo pod on land, another was in the water and a third is still attached to the ship. Seven days ago we got the nearby cargo pod open. We found some emergency rations inside, no doubt meant for Advance until they could start growing crops. We also found medical equipment and some enclosing chambers one of the colonists says are experimental stasis tubes. We have five people with severe burns on their hands and other burns on their bodies. We've been treating them with synthflesh from the med supplies, but we are running out of it fast, and it doesn't appear they are getting better. We decided two days ago to clean their wounds as best we can and bandage them with what supplies we have left and put them into the chambers. We built this storage unit for the tubes and we're going to power it with a solar collector one of the advance team knows how to erect and operate."
The image on the screen paused for a moment, as if to gather her thoughts. "It took us four days to get the lander's com equipment to work. The craft has damage somewhere we haven't been able to locate. We immediately picked up signals, nine in all, some to the south of us, more to the east and southeast of us. The ship is dead, no signal, and we were able to silence the signals on the pods. Over the last couple of days we've lost the signals to the east of us. They all went out one by one. We're still getting two steady signals from the southeast., and a very strong one is coming from the south. Gower, one of the colonists believes it to be the com dish which, he said, was supposed to be released first to provide a beacon for aiming the cargo pods when they were released and for the shuttle to follow down. We have no reason to believe it wasn't. As I said, the shuttle is damaged, so we talked it over and decided to try to fly to the com dish. Looking for the escape pods, whose signals we might not be receiving anymore, would take us farther away from the dish, and with no beacons to follow we might search in the wrong places. We're going to leave the stasis pods here and come back for them later. There is no room aboard the shuttle and no way to power them inside a cargo pod. We used the lander to pull the one out of the water. We're going to take as much as we can from the pod on the ground, the one we've been living in, and pack it into the second one. The building materials will stay here. We'll carry it beneath the lander and try to reach the com dish. If we can do it, we'll be back for the five who saved us, and then the pod still on the ship. We're hoping the escape pods came down safely. If they did, then we figure the people in them will know to look for the com dish signal, too, and try to reach it. If at all possible, when we're finished we'll try to fly the lander east, in the direction we heard what could have been the escape pod signals and look for survivors, or more cargo pods. We're leaving a damaged zero unit behind with all additional information we can think of. It will be hooked up to the tubes to monitor them and open them if anything happens to the structure while we're gone. We are leaving tomorrow, the tenth day since we made it to land. The five in the tubes are Stockwell, Mason, Hernandez, Lynch and Austin. The seven of us who will try to reach the com dish are Holden, Weigman, Kauffman, Gower, Vergos, Beach and Navarro."
With an audible intake of breath, Navarro deactivated the recording and her image disappeared. The monitor went dark.

Danziger hesitated only a moment before he started for the zero unit. "Tell you what. I'll hook up the zero and you look at whatever information he has. I'll go out and see how our zero is doing."
"One by one the signals to the east went out." Julia stood watching at the static flicker on the monitor. "I wonder what they thought."
He shrugged and spoke over his shoulder. "Don't know. Must have been when we stripped the pods for parts. We took a lot of wiring and power units from ours and the one the Martins had, not to mention the cargo pod we found."
"John, they left and never came back."
"You heard Navarro. The lander was damaged. Maybe they couldn't risk getting it back in the air." He was busy with the zero's interface panel. "Hand me the monitor cable, will you? I'll send the zero's data directly to the desk unit."
Danziger finished what he was doing and approached the doctor's still form. She was looking at the monitor, standing still with her arms crossed at her waist. From behind, he gripped her upper arms and gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Don't lose it on me, okay Doc? I'll talk to Yale while I'm outside. You find out if there is anything you can do for these five, and if there isn't, that's okay. They're alright where they are."
She nodded her head, and spoke in a low voice. "I know. But when we leave they'll have to stay behind. We can't take them with us either."
"You're always jumping ahead in the story, Heller. Just this once, take things as they come."
"I know, I know. Use my imagination."
He patted her shoulder. "What a good idea. See you later."
She sat on a box close to the com setup and listened as Danziger left the shed and walked away from it. Some things were easier said than done. It was too easy to feel an empathy for the people who had come to land here. Julia remembered all too well the first few hours after her own group found themselves in a similar situation.
Well, there would be time to think about it all later. There were things she had to do now.
She reached into her pocket for her gear unit and remembered she'd left it in the dunerail. She'd have to call Alonzo and tell him the news. She wasn't going to let Danziger handle all of the difficult parts when talking to the others. He'd handled them for too long as it was. Getting up from the box, she followed John outside.
Danziger went as far as the edge of the lake before stopping to snap on his gear and beep in a private channel to Yale. He looked upward at the ship to see if the robot was making any progress reaching the cargo pod. He didn't hear Julia behind him when she approached the dunerail and grabbed the jacket with her gear in its pocket.
"Is Morgan with you?" Danziger asked as soon as Yale answered his call. "What have you told him? Anything yet?"
"Yes. Last night after we stopped and set up the camp, I took the opportunity to talk to him and Bess at that time." The older man sighed deeply. "I found it difficult. They were stunned, as you can imagine."
"Yeah, well, things have changed. Tell Morgan to put on his gear. I need to talk to him."
"Of course."
When Morgan's image replaced that of Yale on the gear channel, Danziger lost no time in getting to the point.
"No one died on board the ship, Morgan. Everyone got off," he said and paused. "Everyone got off."
Julia listened and watched through her gear; saw the fear on the face of Morgan Martin turn to disbelief, to relief, to joy and then to nothing as he put his hands over his face and knocked his gear off his head.
Never taking her eyes off Danziger, she made the call to Alonzo.

Alonzo kicked the ground and raised his fist helplessly before swearing under his breath and stalking off across the grassy meadow in frustration. Behind him Baines sank to the ground beside the ATV and leaned his back against it, raising his face to the sky.
"Damn, damn, damn, damn!" Solace shouted at the clouds. "This can't be happening!"
Oh, it wasn't that he was cursing those who took the shuttle for saving their own lives. He was too disheartened for that. He'd been so sure the shuttle would be there.
It had been a long shot from the beginning, but seeing the ship in the water as close to whole as it would ever be again, had been electrifying to the two men. They had realized at the same instant that if the ship was down in one piece, the landing shuttle would have to be in it's docking port. From that moment on, nothing could have stopped Solace and Baines from reaching the site of the fallen craft in as short a time a possible.
The shuttle would have been their salvation. Assuming it was undamaged and not underwater, they might have been able to get it working and been in the position to reach New Pacifica in a matter of days.
Alonzo walked back to the ATV and sank to his knees in front of Baines. "Well. . ."
"Yeah." Baines looked at him. "I heard."
He had the grace to look embarrassed by his outburst. "It never once entered my mind that not everyone made it to the escape pods. We waited. . . we waited that extra few seconds and the passageways were empty. I thought I was the last one out." He drew in a breath. "I was at the hatch. I saw the ship hit atmo. I thought it was burning."
"Lonz," Baines said softly. "Britt Navarro might still be alive."

"Hey, come on, Julia, be sensible. The old snake charmer is almost here. We can't be doing this." Yet even as he tried to not follow her toward the shelter, he knew once begun only a change in their circumstances was going to end it. The trouble was, the change was not arriving fast enough.
"There's plenty of time," she told him over her shoulder. "That was a nice thing you did for Morgan. I can see everything so clearly now. Why you've been so hard on him. Why you've never tried to settle things with him. In spite of all of that, you did a good thing, John. I'd even call it a noble thing."
He made a ?come off it' gesture with his hands and head. "I told him the truth. You want to get all crazy over the truth, fine." He stopped in the doorway of the storage unit knowing he was going to continue inside, but making the effort to stop to ease his own conscience. After all, once begun. . .
"I'm talking about all of it," she said. "Not just what you did a minute ago, but how you kept the secret for so long. In spite of what you might have been feeling about Morgan - and I never understood why your antagonism toward him lasted for so long, until now - you protected him. Don't deny it!" She moved her hands upward and laid them on his shoulders. "That's exactly what you did."
Once begun. . .

Julia stayed on the padding made of fallen fabric, eyes closed, letting her respiration and heartbeat return to normal. She could hear Danziger getting dressed. Chicken! she thought, making herself smile. As if he couldn't take the old snake charmer if it ever came to that. Which it wouldn't. There would be no more opportunities for them once the others?
Wait a minute!
She opened her eyes and sat up quickly. "Danziger, did you call me a snake?"
Amusement immediately flashed into his eyes, but he tried to look nonplussed. "Just give me a three step head start. That's all I ask."

To be continued. . .

Story Ideas
I didn't start writing E2 fanfic until a year after the show went off the air. I had access to good computers and the internet when I started attending college, and that was when I discovered other people had put up their own sites with pictures and stories and background information about the show. There was a site to try to save the show at that time and many individual sites that are no longer around. Most of them had URLs ending with .edu. Most have been lost to inactivity by the owners, but some have been moved and are still available and even updated now and then.
I read the fanfic and decided, hey, I can do this, too. I started writing out my ideas and letting my siblings read them and rip them apart. Instead of taking the opportunity to pound me into the ground, they'd say, "Write another one."
We were raised on Star Trek and Star Wars and we all have our particular favorite science fiction stories. We all agreed Earth 2 was a cut above anything that had ever been shown on television before and we would talk about the show and wonder where the writers would have taken it next had the show returned for a second season. We all mourned it together and were stunned when there were no summer reruns to tape the episodes we'd missed during the first run airings. There were 5 shows I never saw during the NBC season and four I had seen only half way, either the beginning or the ending, and I didn't see the completed episodes until the SciFi channel began reruns.
My sister, Laurie, my brother, James, and I used to have huge arguments over this show. My sister is a D&D shipper, nothing can change her mind about that. As far as she's concerned TGLSNT remains untold to this day. That's an episode that just doesn't exist in her view of Earth 2. (And that's one of the main reasons why I refer to it as often as possible in my stories. [evil laugh])
My brother is a fan of future technology and has always been amused by the fact that these people have super sophisticated weapons and scanning equipment at their fingertips and yet the crash leaves them roughing it. Doing things for themselves nearly does them in.
I like putting the characters - all the characters - into the kind of situations you wouldn't see on the series because of the show's need to exhibit drama, peril of some kind, and a last minute resolution week after week. I like to look at them from different angles, have them do things you wouldn't see happen in the series: breaking up the realtionships, letting them see the planet in different ways, and giving different interpretations to what happened in the show.
There are writers out there who have written some great stories following the episode formula, so I really don't feel the need to do that, too.
("Danziger's Ghost", BTW, is at the top of my all time favorites list.)
Danziger'sGhost
So, my ideas come from looking at the show from behind the scenes instead of in front of an imagined TV screen. I use narration now and then, but for the most part I like to write about the characters and not so much situations.
If you like my stuff, great. If you don't, you don't. There is a lot of fanfic out there to look through and find some you'll enjoy.
Personally, I like it all. Earth 2 should have had a longer run with it's original premise. I miss the show and live for new original stories.
This is a link for Andy's archive, in case you don't have it:
Andy's

It's a good place to start looking for stories you DO like.

Odd Story
I don't remember where I was going with this story. I remember writing it, and I know I had something in mind, but what, I haven't a clue. Probably stringing completely different stories together to make a whole one. (I'm guessing from the title.)





A B C D Etc.
A. . .
Standing inside the shuttle may one day be claustrophobic to anyone born at New Pacifica. But the sights of metal walls, blinking readout panels, diffuse lighting, and the smells of machinery lubricants and hot electronics were sensations she never thought she would ever feel at home experiencing again, yet Devon felt eerily as if she had just walked into her home after a long absence.
She had thrived on this environment once long ago and helped to create structures a thousand times the size of this ship. Though she had willingly given up her life of wealth, fame and power to find the fulfillment of a dream on this planet, deep down in her soul a part of her had actually missed the stations. She felt it now, the need to be inside a manmade structure such as this was where she was born and nurtured and allowed to grow. No wonder people had such a hard time leaving the stations.
A sound of footsteps approaching brought her back to the present and she looked down a hallway to her left. A young man with pallid skin, a shock of white hair and what looked to be a tattoo on his cheek was coming along the passage and intently reading from a data screen in his hands.
"Excuse me," she said, and his head jerked up and his large brown eyes stared at her, startled.
"I'm looking for John Danziger," Devon said. "Can you tell me where he might be?"
He tilted his head in the direction she was facing. "Keep going to the third right and follow the signs to the old cryogenics bay. He's shutting it down."
"Thank you."
He opened his mouth to say ?You're welcome," but she was already running down the passage.
At the third turn she careened around the corner, grabbing the bulkhead with one hand to keep herself on her feet. Another right hand turn, another long passage and a final right , and she was in a large room lined with row upon row and stack upon stack of empty sleep capsules.
"John?" she called and took a few small steps into the room? "John? Are you in here?"
"Just a sec," a familiar voice answered, sounding as if it were speaking around something, and Devon whirled around, seeking a familiar face and form among the machinery. Where was he?
On a catwalk a good twenty-odd meters in the air, Danziger heard his name being called over the hum of the power units winding down. The strap of his datapad was clamped between his teeth to free his hands for turning off a series of switches in sequence. He shut the panel on the control switches, made an entry on the datapad, and walked to the end of the catwalk.
"Danziger!"
Man, that voice was familiar, almost like... He leaned on the rail and looked over and couldn't believe his eyes. "Adair?!"
She whirled around and looked up and wished she could fly for just the few moments it would take to reach the catwalk.
Next to where he was standing, out of the way, was a retractable ladder. He turned and stepped onto the rungs and the ladder dropped quickly. Danziger hopped off at the bottom, dropped the data screen into his jacket pocket and wiped his hands on a rag from a pants pocket.

There was just the slightest hint of ?wear and tear' in her face, a little different hairdo, the same slim body emphasized by the same taste in clothes. Only her eyes were different. The look meant only for her child was literally shining across seven feet of air straight into his soul.
"Devon?" He smiled. "Hey, so how long have you up?"
She was frozen to the spot where she stood. He tucked the rag back into his pocket.
"I've never been very good at this, John. You know that. I'm afraid if I touch you, I won't be able to let go of you."
"Well, that's the way it starts, Adair. You say, ?Welcome back.' . . . sometimes embrace, other times shake hands, and let it go from there."
"Welcome home, John." She threw herself into his arms.
"That wasn't so hard, was it?" his voice murmured next to her ear.
She shook her head, her face pressed against his neck. "The hard part will be twenty minutes from now when you try to pry me off you!"
He laughed and it was so good to hear his voice after such a long time apart. "Well, I guess I'll just have to carry you around. One Adair or the other, seems to be the first thing I do when I land on this rock."
After a time, Devon loosed her grip and stood back just a hair. "You've been gone a long time. I never would have thought exploring the other continent would take so long."
"The Council did a thorough job on the maps. We had to change quite a bit of what was on them. Took a while."
"You were away for more than a year."
Danziger shrugged and nodded his head to one side. "I'm sure Julia explained to you why we need to know the surface of the planet as precisely as possible."
"That's all I've heard since I woke up." Devon looked beyond him to the ladder leading up to the catwalk. "Are you finished? Anything I can do to help?"
"Uh. . ." He looked around. "Everything is done here. The plants and stuff we brought back have been offloaded. I was just making sure they turned off the refrigeration equipment before they left."
She smiled. "Good. Let's go."
They started along the hallways, arm in arm.
"You didn't answer my question," John said.
"About being awake? You know if you checked in once in a while instead of just sending messages back to us, you would know."
He laughed. "We were busy. Besides, when we left, Julia and Vasquez weren't too hopeful of finding out what was wrong anytime soon."
"Julia had a breakthrough four months ago, and after that it was just a matter of days. I still don't understand half of what she told me, how she found the virus, but she did."
The shuttle, actually the bridge and forward cargo holds of the former colony ship, was a big, wide, bulky craft and it had been the home of the mapping expedition for a long time. Heading back for the exit ramp, Devon noticed what she'd missed in her headlong rush to the cryo bay. Small cabins with hammock style beds or hard bunks were all along the longest stretch of hall. All were open, offering little to no privacy to the crew who'd lived in them for more than a Terrian year.
"This is where you've been living?" Devon said, more a comment than a question.
Danziger waved his hand. "We didn't have a lot of time to rebuild the interior. Maybe now that we're going to be here for a while, we might take out the bulkheads and build proper cabins. Depends, really."
"On what?" She slowed her pace and looked into a small sleeping area.
"Oh, mainly on who is going to be part of the next team."
"Won't two continents be enough room for all of us to hide?"
Danziger stopped walking outside a recessed cubicle and reached inside to lift a bag from the floor and heft it over his shoulder. "Has something changed? When I left it was agreed scattering in groups to areas with access to sunstones was the only way to keep the Council's ship from finding us."
Devon matched his pace as they continued toward the exit area. "Nothing has changed," she said quietly.
Danziger laughed quietly. "You don't like it, do you?"
They reached the top of the exit ramp before Devon answered. She turned to face him, stopping just inside the hatch opening."We came so far, John. Accomplished so much. I missed the building of the colony, the devastation aboard the ship when it reached us. The saboteur might still be out there in the wilderness somewhere for all we know. Instead of waking up to find we have our new home ready for the Syndrome families and a thriving colony on this land, I'm here to witness the dismantling of it, the separation of these poor people who came so far for a second chance."
"It isn't your fault, Adair. None of it is. The Council is responsible for all of this. They want this planet badly enough to kill us all in trying to find out how to conquer it."
She looked down at her hands on his arm. "No matter how many times Julia explains the Council's position and their need to stay in power, I can't help feeling guilty for playing into their hands. I brought all of us here to find a better life for the children. Why couldn't it have turned out to be that simple?"
Danziger shook his head and disengaged his arm and wrapped it around her shoulders. "Waste of time doin' that, Dev. Whatever is in the ship they sent after us, and I don't doubt Alonzo's dream of soldiers, we can beat them. We can scatter and hide and leave them to find a vanished colony and no trace of the families who should be here. If we're lucky our plan will set the Council's plans back another twenty years, and scare the troops into running back home to the stations."
Pressing her face against his chest, she was silent for a moment. "This isn't the homecoming I was planning for you. I was actually going to make it a happier affair, not this sorry, solemn talk it's turned into."
"Well, we can go back in and start over."
Devon laughed. "No," she said. "I still don't know how to fly."
Before he could ask what that meant, she'd tugged him into motion and they hurried down the ramp. "Come on. People are waiting at the meeting hall. Let's get the public homecoming out of the way and go somewhere a little more private."
As he was pulled down the ramp, he knew he could have said something about certain people never changing, always being bossy and doin' just as they liked no matter what anyone else thought. . . But, he didn't. Something more private sounded too promising to mess it up.

B. . .
From the air it was plain to see there had once been a small cluster of buildings near the rusted and partially disassembled com dish that sat on the beach like the actual dot on the map he held in his hands. The site looked no different from the ground. The captain stood beside the bottom of the steps of one of two troop carriers he commanded and watched his company of soldiers spill from both and sweep the area on foot. This should have been the site of the Eden Project colony if they had managed to reach the surface safely over four years ago. Looked like the Council was worried for nothing, as usual. There was nothing left here but crumbling foundations, rusted, ruined vehicles and long overgrown brush. If it wasn't for the pay bonus promised him by the Council, the captain would have called his twenty-two year sleep jump a damned, witless waste of time. Pure Council lunacy. The Bennett message should have been taken seriously. It was pretty damn plain to see there had been no one living here between the time the message arrived at the stations and the moment the first trooper set foot on the beach. Planet rejection, wasn't that what the Bennett message called it? This planet just plain didn't want human beings on it, and yet, here he was with his company checking out a ghost town.
The captain folded the map and tucked it under his arm. He followed his company across the sandy soil to the nearest of the ruined walls. A line of vehicles stood along it, looking as if they had been ripped apart by something. He activated his gear and asked his troops to report. There was nothing to be found but more ruins and a single structure among the trees. The one building partially standing was apparently a hospital at one time. Medical equipment, ripped apart forcefully, littered the sandy floors and stood testament to abandonment of the little town.
After the reports were done, the captain sent the information to the main ship in orbit and told the rest of his crew observing from its bridge, that they would start flying the lander inland to see if their scanners picked up anything in the area. They would report back to the ship before night fell on the coastal region.
The captain assembled his men at the hospital and led them through the trees back to the ruins of the main part of the colony. Muttering to himself about incompetent, inbred Council fools, the captain heartily wished things had changed on the stations. As the troop ship had secretly launched, two years after the fabricated Eden Project disaster, the winds of change had begun to sweep through the stations slowly but surely. If the Heller family, angered by the supposed death of a family member aboard the Eden Advance ship, had continued to gain strength and support ?
Though he'd almost jumped half a meter into the air at the sound of one of the troops yelling out a warning about the shuttles, the captain found himself frozen to the ground once he saw what his subordinate had seen.
Creatures!
Some kind of god-awful creatures walking on two legs and wearing animals skins were ransacking the shuttles. Screaming an incomprehensible order to attack, he ran forward and the men behind him followed.
The scream alerted the creatures, too. Grabbing what they could, the things lifted heavy pieces of the shuttles and equipment onto their shoulders and ran away with surprising speed in all directions.
Seats, electronics, arms and food, not to mention the steps and the hatches of both craft, had all vanished in the few minutes it had taken the company to process the village.

Hidden beneath a camouflage netting among the rocks and foliage of a slight rise a good distance inland, three colonists watched the havoc on the bluffs through jumpers. Cameron lowered his and looked at his companions. "How long are we going to let them walk around in circles before we rescue them?"
Solace chuckled, still watching. "Let's wait and see how well trained they are. They might be resourceful. Never know. They might not need us at all."
Cameron laughed. "Come on! They didn't even set a sentry to guard the ships!"
Magus said, "They will now! I agree with ?Lonz. Give them a chance. Right about now the guy in charge is cursing the Council for not telling him about the grendlers. If he's anything like O'Neill, he'll try to track them."
Alonzo rolled onto his back and looked at the sky. "We better get out of here then. When they find out their com systems are trashed and only their gear is operational, they'll get desperate. I don't want to be found by a desperate soldier."
Magus got to her knees and stowed her jumpers in her pack, sitting back on her heels. "I feel kind of sorry for them. I know how they feel."
"Yeah, well, if the grendlers took only what we wanted them to," Cameron said, looking at the bluffs again, "it should take a week or so for those guys to cannibalize one shuttle to get the other one flying. If they're smart they'll look for food, maybe find Bess' valley and the fresh water spring." He got to his knees, too, and looked at Alonzo. "What the hell are you doing?"
Solace winked. He was aiming his jumpers at the sky through the netting. "The sleep ship is somewhere up there, watching all this from space. They got no way to come down and rescue this bunch, and this bunch will never go back to the ship unless they get lucky and find one of the hatches. If the ones in the air are smarter than these yahoos and are looking at a wider search area than just the village, they've probably picked up anomalous readings from us. They're probably yelling at their monitors right now. ?On the hill! On the hill, you jackasses!' Maybe I'll dream at the guys up there tonight. Give ?em nightmares."
Cameron shook his head, looking at the military sensor he was carrying. "No. If they boys upstairs knew we were here, we'd be picking up readings from their sensor sweep. They aren't looking around. They're watching and laughing at those guys."
Magus barked a short laugh and got to her feet, starting for the bottom of the rise. "They're in for a big surprise when they find out the away squad won't be coming back anytime soon. Might as well go back and report. I still can't believe it all went off without anyone firing a shot."
"This is supposed to be an uninhabited planet except for a few idealistic Edenites - if we managed to reach the surface at all," Alonzo said, rising to follow her. "Bet they didn't even release the safety on their rifles."
The three skittered down the side of the hill to a network of caves well hidden among the rocks and brush the Advance crew had arranged and planted a year ago. A spider tunnel in the cave system would send them home across the continent, to a blackout zone far away from the place on the map called New Pacifica.

THE END

A Horse Story
First of all, thanks to all who have posted comments about the stories appearing here. I appreciate them and I thank you for taking the time to leave them.

Secondly, this is just something I wanted to write down because it made me feel like I'm doing something important in my small corner of the world.
Remember the horses my brother and I got back in April? They were an abuse case? I think I mentioned them in email at some point. When we first got them, they'd spent a good part of their lives confined to their stalls. They weren't physically abused as we think of the term. They were cared for, petted and fed, but they'd never been allowed out of their stalls for long periods of time. All they knew were areas about twelve feet square, the size of an average bedroom.
My horse (her name was Princess and I haven't changed it because my nieces call her Princess Leia, so I'll probably just keep the name) had a habit of staring at the railings around her. She would stand still, looking at the top rail or the top of the gate and her eyes would just move back and forth across it. When I opened the gate to let her go out to the paddock and get food and water with the other mares, she would just stand there or move to one side and find another rail to look at. So for a long time there I would lead her out to the food, to the water, then around the paddock to the gate to the pasture, just kind of show her around. Day after day of this. I'd leave her out and she would go to a fence and stand there and look at the railing. Her eyes just moving back and forth at it. Whenever I saw her doing that I'd pick up a few little pebbles and lob them at her until she stopped and moved away.
After a while she started to leave the stall by herself, I'd open the gate and she'd walk out with the other horses and eat, and after a while she would go to the pasture gate and follow the others out to graze. She stopped rail watching, too, and now stands right up at the gate every morning, waiting for me or my brother, whichever of us is doing it, to open the gates, and when I walk into the barn she looks down the aisle like all the others to see who's coming in.
This morning I let them all out and left them and went on to do other things. I was passing the paddock a while later and saw that two of the other mares were out in the pasture and Princess was in the paddock with my brother's two geldings and my sisters mare and her foal. When Razz, one of the geldings, went to drink some water, Princess rushed over and stood between him and the trough, stopping him. The other mare and the foal were still drinking.
It just made me laugh to see how far she's come since I got her. There is a definite pecking order among the horses and the geldings are at the bottom. Kasey, my first horse, is sort of the queen of the stables. She rules.
It was good to see that Princess has come to know the rules and she's prepared to enforce them when Kasey isn't around to do it!
Poor Razz had to wait until the mare was finished before he could get some water.

This Is An Excerpt. . .
. . .from the penultimate story in this series. This is just to let you know what happened to the colony ship and nothing more. You'll have to wait for the story after this so don't ask anymore questions, Rich!


A Brief Segment of "The Aliens Are Us"...watching the colony ship fall from the sky was awe inspiring, tragic and desperately lonely, isolating each person who witnessed the event from the others around them. The slow moving fireball, nearly as bright as the sun itself, was visible for quite a distance and for quite a long time - first as a bright point of light high in the sky which slowly turned into a ball of fire streaming smoke and flame as it steadily neared the surface of the planet.
It came from the north, crossing the sky from horizon to horizon, and at it's closest point it was a brilliantly burning object behind which a long plume of black smoke billowed and curled and marked the atmosphere with a slowly dissipating tail of gray.
It vanished to the south, falling into the ocean near the southern polar region of G889 according to Yale's best calculations.
The Eden Advance group and the pitiably few colonists well enough to be out of the hospital and walking around, gathered along the cliffs south of the settlement to watch the destruction of the colony ship. It was a sight none of them wanted to see, but it would be a sight none of them would ever forget, both for the spectacle of it and just for being witness when their last link to the space stations was taken away from them by the long arm of the Council.
John Danziger didn't wait for the remains to travel from sight before he broke away from the others and walked towards the sea. Hands in pockets and head bowed, he left the circle of his friends and watched his own footsteps carry him toward the sound of the surf. He stopped walking only when a large rock blocked his way. He went around and sat down upon it. Leaning forward, elbows on thighs, he smoothed his hair away from his face and stared at his boots and the footprints they left in the sand beside them.
He'd thought he'd accepted the fact he was going to be marooned here for the rest of his life, thought he'd truly faced it and accepted it. Maybe one part of him had, but he'd just felt another part of himself die along with the fiery object in the sky. Somewhere in his mind, or in his heart, or in his soul, a little part of him had been hoping they were all wrong and the colony ship would stay in orbit and they would be able to repair it, and it would take him and his ops crew back to the lives they'd left behind on the stations.
He stared at the sand and listened to the waves and wondered how he was ever going to fill the empty spot inside of him that had never had a real home of it's own, and, now, just lost it's only chance of ever returning to the closest thing he ever had to one.
Devon, catching movement out of the corner of her eye, turned to see Danziger leave the group and walk away. She felt a pang of sympathy for him. As silently glad as she was to know she would not be losing any of her friends- her family, really - she understood the disappointment he must be feeling. The one person in the entire EA group she knew from the beginning would be returning to the stations just as fast as he could get the colony ship prepped and turned around, Danziger was also the one member of the group she wanted to stay more than any other.
Of course, she had never let on to him how she felt, never let on to anyone, she thought, how much she needed him to stay. Still, as she watched him sit down on a rock with his back to her, she understood the helplessness he must be feeling. A part of her longed to try to comfort him, but she made no move to go to him. She couldn't. He wouldn't accept her offer without an argument, would he?
Someone brushed past her and she focused on whomever it was for an instant, and fought down the angry feeling the identity of the person caused to well up inside of her.
Not wanting to watch the final moments of yet another ship destroyed by the Council, Julia Heller was, instead, watching a crab-like crustacean dart to and fro in the sand along the beach below the rise on which the group was standing. She, too, caught movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see Danziger leaving the group and heading for a rock a short distance away. She also saw Devon Adair turn her head to watch him, saw the hesitation in Devon's stance as she considered going after him, saw the slump of her shoulders as she decided to stay where she was.
Julia couldn't believe it. Devon was just standing there letting him go! A golden opportunity to let him know staying on the planet wasn't going to be as bad as he was imagining, and Devon was going to just let it pass!
What is wrong with you, Adair? Julia thought and backed away from where she stood between Alonzo and Tim Cameron. She walked after Danziger, deliberately brushing close enough to Devon to get her full attention. Do I have to show you what to do?
"John? Are you okay?" Julia asked as she neared the unmoving figure on the rock. She leaned forward and placed her hands on his shoulders, giving him an impromptu massage. "John?"
He lifted his head and turned slightly to one side. "I'm fine, Jules. Reality bites, that's all."
Julia moved to his side and dropped to her knees, facing him and sitting back on her heels. She put a hand on his arm. "I'm sorry. I know how much you wanted to take True back for her mother's sake, but if it helps you in any way, I'm glad you're not leaving us. You have no idea how much we all depend on you."
Without realizing she needed to do it, Julia rose on her knees and leaned forward to wrap her arms around his shoulders and give him a fierce hug. "I mean it, Danziger. I'm glad you're staying."
He brought a hand up to give her arm a squeeze. "Thanks, Doc."
She pulled away slowly and sat back on her heels again. "You're welcome. You are needed and appreciated here, John, and not just by Alonzo and me."
He straightened his back and with his hands in his thighs, he looked to his left at the dissipating smoke trail of the dying ship. "You've got the golden touch with words today, Julia. All of a sudden I don't feel so far from home anymore. I might as well face the fact this is it."
He looked at her and poked a finger to her nose. "Alonzo is a lucky man and you tell anyone I said that, I'll deny it."
She laughed and pushed herself to her feet. "Come on," she said and grabbed his hand. "Let's get Mr. Lucky and go somewhere and cry on each other's shoulders because John Danziger can't haul his sorry ass off this rock as planned."
"Well, hell. How can I resist when you put it like that?" He stood and let her pull him back towards the rest of the group.
Noting the look on Devon's face, Julia couldn't stop the imp in her. Letting go of John's hand, she draped her arm around his waist and he naturally curled his arm across her shoulders.
"Lonzo!" Julia called. "I've volunteered us to help John feel sorry for himself. Are you in the mood for a good, hard sulk?"
The laughter greeting her words included only the youngest Adair.
"Self pity is my middle name!" Alonzo answered with a wide grin. "I can show you all the tricks of the trade, my good man."
Danziger laughed. "You know what? I always wondered how you did that staring off into space and muttering to yourself thing you used to do when your leg was broken. Hour after hour of that. Man, you were good."
Alonzo's smile was full of mischief. "I can teach you that, and the curling up into a ball and muttering to yourself thing, too. I drove Julia nuts with that one."
The doctor laughed shortly. "As long as you don't teach him the trying to drive the ATV off a cliff thing, right? Right?"
"That was my best one!"
"Julia's right," John agreed. "We'd better stay away from that one. There isn't a Terrian alive who would pop out of the ground to stop me."
Alonzo, hands in pockets, fell into step with the two of them as they went along in the direction of the village. "You'd be surprised, young man. The Terrians are actually very impressed with you."
Danziger looked at him with skepticism. "Since when, geezer?"
"You know since when."
"Oh." John glanced down at Julia, and as casually as possible removed his arm from her shoulders.
"Oh no," she said and grabbed his arm, putting it back where it was. "You're not getting away. You're not going off by yourself today, Danziger. You're coming with us."
"I agree," said Alonzo. "Seriously, Danz. When it really hits you, you don't want to be alone. Hell, I could use your company when it hits me." He turned and called out to everybody. "Let's get a fire going and have an old fashioned cookout, shall we?"
After reaching the settlement, the group of people dispersed, but most of the EA group and many others followed Alonzo, Julia and John to the long, low structure in which the colony's vehicles were stored. It was a favorite meeting place for them where they could build a fire and gather around it to unwind after the day's activities.
Old habits were hard to break. Some they didn't even try to break. This was an important one that still meant a lot to them.
As time went by and the newcomers adjusted to life on the planet, they would, one by one, begin to join the crew around the fire to hear the stories, share in the joking, and experience the camaraderie of the men and women who made the journey across the continent to found this settlement for them.
That day Devon had hovered in the background with Yale while a fire was built and food was cooked and the destruction of the colony ship became a celebration instead of a funeral...

"I Quit" Is Finished
It might interest some of you to know the final day of "I Quit" is finally up at the web page. I re-wrote the ending so that's what took so long. I decided to give the D&D-ers a little hope after all. It originally ended with a fight, as usual, as this was always the case with this pair, but now it doesn't.

A Short Story
This story was written years ago. It was one of the first in my series of stories where Danziger ended up with anyone except Devon.
They were written to get on the nerves of my sister, the big believer in a Devon/Danziger romance. She was so convinced the two were going to end up together living happily ever after at New Pacifica that I was compelled to write stories to prove her wrong.
Of course, she loved every last story. Thinks I'm so nice for writing stories for her. She knows how to take all the fun out of being mean. Grrrr.