Phoenix Rising

Logan looked around at all his brothers. Along with his mom, and Daddy Joe, the only ones there were Logan and his brothers. They were in a room more then a hundred feet below the lowest level of the Unit Base in Utah. A room that not even Adam knew about.

Calling this place a room wasn't exactly accurate either. It was spider web of rooms and caverns all built by Daileass simply by transporting rock out. It took him almost a full day to scan each section as it was removed to make sure that he could safely remove more. Then shaping the rock that he transported out, and putting back into place to create the rooms and the support beams needed. Then a team came through with tri-corders to make sure that everything was stable. All in all, they had several hundred thousand square feet to work with. Which was needed with the equipment they had places down here.

The 'official' purpose of this area was what was contained in the main room. It held the only currently working micro wormhole, large enough to transport people and equipment through. The only way to get into the main room was to either come through the gateway, or to be transported in. Currently there were only two people who know about it, that could transport people. Daileass being the first, however, the other entity that transported people in and out was not even an AI.

Over half of the space in this secret cavern was dedicated to equipment that had been created on Archnania, specifically to be placed here. When Logan first visited Archania, when he was still a young child, he ran across a fledgling tree that was hurt. He nursed it back to health, and became very good friends with it. Logan realized almost immediately that this tree was a genius even by Archnanian standards. Through many conversations with this tree, Logan found a kindred spirit, who had a fascination with the stories Logan told about Earth.

The conversations were not only enlightening for Logan, but also for this tree as well. Soon this tree found himself growing not only in knowledge but wisdom as well as his conversations with Logan grew deeper and deeper. As the Tree grew, those around it started coming to try and learn the wisdom it had to offer.

This tree grew up to be known simply as 'The Ancient.' Not just for how big it had grown, nor how long it had been alive, but it became the basis for the saying 'wisdom of the Ancient.'

When Logan started to train the Death Knights, the ancient took a special interest in them, and began to aid in their training. When they developed the Micro Wormhole technology, The Ancient now had a way to 'see' what was going on.

To say it was not happy, would have been mild. It demanded that it be allowed to help in some manner. The fanciful picture it had in it's mind about this mythical world that Logan had painted was being torn asunder, and it would do what ever it could to not allow it to happen. Between the two of them, they developed a way that The Ancient could help. It became to the Death Knights, what Daileass was to the UNIT and Clan.

This hidden base held all the equipment that The Ancient was controlling to help coordinate that Death Knight Missions, as well as the gate way that allowed the Death Knights to get to their main base, deep under ground, beneath the Death Knight Training Island.

This is where their equipment was held, and where they would go before going out on a mission. The standard rules applied of course. None of the Death Knights were allowed to walk around unless they were in their armor. That way no one would be able to figure out who they were.

When a Death Knight was transported into the smaller base under Camp Bam Bam, they were first transported to their individual equipment room. That room held their armor and their individual weapons. The only door in and out would not be unlocked until they were in their armor. If they wanted to go back into their equipment room with out being transported, it not only took their personal access code, but also took Daileass or Logan or the Ancient to enter their access code. Saying that the Death Knights were a secretive, security minded group, would be like calling the ferrets 'slightly off balanced'.

But this small base also held something else. When they got back from Archnania, after creating the new tech that upgraded Daileass, and was the basis for all the new AI's, Daileass created another room down here. He then started to have equipment made and brought here, all with one purpose in mind. Today that purpose was about to either come to fruition, or crash badly.

Logan ran one last scan at the terminal he was at, then looked over at Janet. "Everything checks out here mom, how about on your side?"

"I'm showing green across the board. The body is alive, and functioning normally." Janet said deep in concentration as she to was double and triple checking everything.

"Okay." Logan called out. "This is it people, is there anyone who's seeing anything out of sink?" He glanced around, looking at all his brothers. Each of them had their own terminal they were watching, all of them shaking their heads. The tension in the room was so thick that it could have been cut with a knife.

"Okay Daileass, everything looks good down here. This is your last chance to back out." Logan said in a voice tight with concern.

It took Daileass several seconds to reply, which everyone knew was a VERY long time for him. When he finally spoke, his voice was somewhat shaky. "Lets do it before I chicken out."

"Okay." Logan said after taking a deep breath. "Alvin, spin up the transfer servers."

After a few brief moments, Alvin called out. "Servers up and showing green across the board."

"Okay people, here we go. Be on your toes in case something goes wrong." Logan said as he punched in the last commands, and hit the 'execute' key.

For several long moments, nothing happened, at least nothing that they could see or hear. However, deep in Daileass's main control room, years of developed programs were starting to run. Billions of command codes were being executed, redundancies were checking and re-checking the calculations.

Finally Janet called out, "Deactivating life support." Even her voice was choked with tension and emotion. Immediately, she rushed over to the modified bio bed that was sitting in the middle of the room.

Tri-corder in her hand, she started to run it over the body, just as it took it's first deep breath on it's own. Logan's hands were flying over the terminal in front of him running check after check after check to make sure everything was right.

When the body in the bio bed sat up, everyone let out a sigh of relief. Zed couldn't help himself. He started running around the room continuously crying out "IT'S ALIVE!!!!!"

As he ran by the bio bed, the figure that had just sat up, reached out and slapped him on the back of the head, hard.

 

---

 

Daileass was grinning as he transported people into one of the palaces conference rooms. The first to show up was Logan and Adam, both of them still in the full dress uniform due to the meeting that Alexei had with the Cadet kids.

Logan laughed and shook his head when he looked at Daileass. "You know, I was thinking once I got you to run around in a body, you'd stop causing so much trouble. Guess I was wrong."

"ME?" Daileass exclaimed in mock horror. "Cause trouble? I have no idea what you mean!" He said trying hard not to laugh, and failing miserably.

"You'd better have good news for us." Adam said in a quiet voice. "Any more bad news, or fucked up shit I gotta deal with, and I may just have to show Juan how to throw a real temper tantrum." Even though he was smiling, Daileass could tell the strain of the last few days was starting to get at him.

"It's good news." Daileass said with a grin. "But you're just gonna have to wait for everyone else to get here before I say anything." Daileass's eyes jerked over towards Logan and he frowned at him. "No fair peaking... just deal with having to wait like everyone else."

Logan actually pouted, which caused both Daileass and Adam to crack up. "Oh come on, you know how funny I find it when I see you putting up 'Do Not Disturb' sings on the rooms in your head? It's fucking hilarious, and just begs me to disturb!"

"You're disturbed all right." Janet said as she and Joe transported in, and heard the last part of the conversation.

"HEY!" Logan exclaimed indignantly. "You're supposed to be on my side!"

"Oh?" Janet said with a grin. "Was that in the manual on raising kids... you know, the one I threw away two months after you were born?"

"HUMPH!" Logan spat out while he crossed his arms across his chest.

Everyone was laughing hard now, as they took their seats. Finally, when everyone calmed down enough, Janet looked at Daileass and said, "okay kid... what trouble are you causing now?"

"HEY!" Daileass said as Logan and Adam cracked up. "Here I am, trying to do something nice for my family, and what do I get for my troubles..."

Janet cut him off with a patented 'mother look'. "Spill it boy."

"Jeez! Fine." Daileass pouted for a moment as the screen lowered from the ceiling behind him.

"First off, I would like you all to meet Misha." Daileass said as a new face appeared on the screen. It was a boy about thirteen or fourteen with longish dark hair, and brilliant green eyes. He had a slightly pudgy face, with a small spread of freckles across the bridge of his nose. When he spoke, it was with a voice of a boy going through the main part of puberty.

"Hello." He said somewhat nervously.

"Hello Misha." Janet said somewhat confused, as she looked towards Daileass for an explanation.

Daileass's grin grew bigger, as he sat forward excitedly. "Misha is a special project of mine... we just finished the stress tests on him, and he is now fully online. Guys... I'd like you to meet the Russian Imperial AI."

Janet's eye brows rose in surprise, but so did Logan's. "Damn bro, I knew you were working on something big, but I didn't think it was THIS big." Logan grinned at his brother, then looked up to Misha. "Hello Misha. I'm Logan."

"Oh... I know who YOU are. According to Daileass I need to make sure that the nation's BBQ supply is protected." The boy deadpanned, which caused Daileass, Janet, and Joe to burst out laughing, while Adam blushed, and Logan sputtered.

"Damn Misha!" Daileass exclaimed through his giggles. "Less than 10 minutes online, and you managed to make the biggest loud mouth in the Clan to be speechless."

"What is it that they say? Oh yeah." Misha started, still completely deadpanned, except for the small grin on his face. "To be the man, you gotta beat the man."

"Watch it, you bag of bolts." Logan started off. "Don't make me send the ferrets after you!"

"I'm not worried about that." Misha said with a sly smile. "Dad gave me access to his factories, plus I am in the process of building my own. I will have enough protection against those furry freaks."

"Oh boy, that sounds like a challenge!" Adam said with a grin.

It was then that Daileass got a very serious look on his face. "Sorry guys, but I gotta stop the fun, something important just came up."

Immediately everyone got serious as they looked towards Daileass, who seemed to be considering what to say. Finally he held out his hand, and a data padd appeared on it. He took it, typed a few things into it, then slid it across the table to Janet. "Mom, I need you to verify what I think I'm seeing."

Janet took a look what was on the padd, looked up at Daileass after a few moments, and looked back down at the padd. "Daileass..." she said in a warning tone.

"Sorry mom, please bare with me. What do you see." Daileass asked softly.

"Well..." Janet said after a few seconds. "There's two strands of DNA here, from what I can tell, they are of half brothers. The father's DNA is the same for both, but the mother's are different." She set the padd down and glared daggers at Daileass. Her look was as clear as if she said the words out loud. 'Explain.'

Daileass actually gulped, and wilted a bit under that glare. "Last night, Ezra called Haden to meet someone, that another Haden, from a different universe had known. This person came from the past, the early 1800's to be precise. Ezra gave Haden the memories his other self had of Paterson, and then asked Haden to take care of him. When I met him, and his friend Clyde, that came from the same time, I knew they were hurting, so I did a mind scan to try and figure out how to help them." Daileass quickly looked at Adam and said, "I got permission first."

Adam simply nodded his head, but said nothing. He still had no clue what was going on that would have upset Janet like this. "Anyways, what I saw told me that they were both having trouble dealing with being brought to the future, and what they needed was a family. The first person I thought of was you mom. I mean, you've become a mom to so many kids, whats a couple more?" He laughed nervously, and Janet's glare melted some.

"Anyways, when I did the scan, I saw Paterson's father, and thought, 'damn, Paterson's probably a great great uncle or something, so I asked Dr. Vince to do a DNA scan." Daileass paused for a second, then quietly added. The other set of DNA... well that was the result."

Janet sat back so hard, it almost looked like she'd been struck. "No..." she breathed out as tears started to trickle down her face.

Adam and Logan both jumped to their feet "MOM!" They both cried out, but it was Joe that wrapped her in a hug first, and she threw herself against his chest, and just started to cry. Logan glared at Daileass as he picked up the Padd. He looked at it for a few moments, before his legs started to give out on him. Thanks to Adam's quickness, he didn't hit the floor, but fell into the chair, still staring at the Padd.

Adam looked over at Daileass and his look was very clear. 'Spill it.' The look said. Daileass took a deep breath, and spoke in a shaking voice. "According to the DNA scans, Patterson and Logan had the same father."

"Oh fuck..." Adam said as he looked down at Logan who was silently crying.

 

---

 

Ten minutes later, after some very in depth discussions, and time enough to get emotions under control, Daileass mentally told Haden that they were ready for the three of them, and to let him know when they were ready for transport.

A few moments later, the three of them transported in. A moment after they appeared, everyone heard Janet gasp, her hand covering her mouth as she stared at Paterson. Paterson just looked at Janet nervously, then kind of took a step closer towards Haden.

Daileass jumped out of his chair, and ran over to Haden, Paterson and Clyde. "Come on guys, why don't you have a seat, and I'll introduce you to everyone."

Daileass walked them around the table, and had them sit down, making sure Paterson was placed next to Adam, who was sitting next to Logan. Once he was seated, Daileass went around and introduced everyone. "Paterson, Clyde, I'd like to introduce you to Adam Casey, Commanding officer of the Clan Short's Military. His partner and also Chief Intelligence Officer, Logan Hayes. Next to Logan is Mamma Janet Hayes, his mother, as well as the mom for more than six thousand kids." Daileass couldn't help but chuckle at the stunned faces of both Patterson and Clyde. "Next to her is Daddy Joe Casey, Adam's dad, and dad of the same six thousand plus kids."

"Six thousand?" Paterson gasped. "You must be Catholics."

"Thankfully." Joe said with a chuckle. "We each only have one child that is ours by birth, the rest have been adopted."

Once Paterson and Clyde seemed to calm down a little, Daileass continued. "When I looked into your minds, the one thing that stood out is that you guys didn't feel you belonged. You missed your families, and didn't know what to do. So I asked Mamma Janet, and Daddy Joe if they would be willing to adopt you guys like the did the rest of us."

Clyde looked toward Paterson and then back toward Daileass. "What do you mean adopt us? From what Brent was telling us yesterday, wouldn't Paterson and I already be kin, or what did he call it... wards of the clan?"

Logan stood up and moved to sit on the table next to Daileass, looking down at the two young, eight year old boys. "Well that depends. Wards of the Clan mean that every member of the Clan would be like your parents. It would be like have a whole bunch of people that would look out for you, and make sure that you had everything you need. If you agreed to have my mom and dad adopt you, then you would be my brother, not one of my sons."

"Alright," Clyde replied in understanding. "But if they have already adopted six thousand kids, why would they adopt us? And wouldn't that take a really big house for us all to fit in?"

Logan chuckled. "First off, they would adopt you, because you need it. That's how they work. That's what the Clan does. They find kids in need, and help them. As far as a house goes, well we do have one BIG house, it holds about twelve thousand people. But not all of our family lives there."

Logan paused as he got up, and then walked to the spot in between the two boys, and knelt. "I'll explain how that all works later on, but there's something else I need to talk to you about." He said the last part while looking right at Paterson.

Paterson looked a little nervous but nodded anyways. "When Dr. Vince did his scan on you, something interesting came up. Before you ask, there is nothing wrong with you." Logan said with a little chuckle, which turned into a full laugh at Paterson's relieved look.

"What we found is kinda hard to believe, but we're 100% positive that it's true." Logan reached out and took Paterson's hands into his own. "Some how, you and I are already brothers." Logan paused for a brief second. "Your father was also mine."

Paterson scrunched his face as he was clearly struggling to understand what the tall blond thirteen-year-old was telling him. Slowly, a look of realization came across his face. "So... you were brought here from the 1800's like Clyde and me? But how could that be? Papa never mentioned anything about me having an older brother."

Logan shook his head. "I'm not sure yet, But I can promise you I intended to find out. However the one thing I do know is that Mom and our dad knew each other since they were little kids. As far as we knew, dad died when I was three. We didn't come from the past like you guys did, which means, he must have went into the past."

"Huh?" Paterson's look became even more confused, "Are you sure about that? That doesn't even seem possible."

"Wait a minute," Haden jumped in hesitantly. "Logan? If Paterson is your brother.... does that mean... he's like you?"

"What do you mean, like him?" Clyde asked as he looked toward Haden.

Logan sighed and looked at Haden for a moment. He sort of wished it hadn't been brought up yet, but he couldn't be angry at Haden for asking. It was a very legitimate question. Looking back at Paterson, Logan spoke to both of them. "He may have some of the same traits that I do, but I doubt he is the same. Paterson, let me ask you a few questions, okay?"

The young boy looked nervous, but nodded anyways. "Have you ever been sick? You know, like a cold, or stomach ache, or anything like that?"

Paterson thought for a few moments. "Well, a few weeks ago, I got a bad cough that I couldn't get rid of and I started feeling really weak. And when Haden appeared, the guy in his head said that I was going to die in a few weeks. But before then, I was never sick. In fact, the doctor in our town would always make jokes about how something wasn't right about how I never got sick... and said one day it would catch up to me, which I guess it did."

Logan nodded, while Janet reached for the Padd again, and started to look though it fully. Trying to keep Paterson from worrying about what Janet was doing, he thought quickly, then came up with an idea. "In your schooling, did you get into maths at all?"

"I can answer that one," Clyde jumped in. "Miss Simmons hated Paterson, because he would always be correcting and challenging the math and science stuff that she would be teaching."

Paterson sighed and slowly began to sink down in his chair. "Gee, thanks Clyde."

Logan laughed out loud, which earned him a hurt look from Paterson. "No Paterson, I wasn't laughing at you. I was just remembering my first grade teacher always telling me that kids my age didn't have to worry about things like that." He squeezed Paterson's hands slightly. "I'm sure you're heard of collages or universities." When Paterson nodded, Logan smiled and continued. "Last year, just before I met Adam, I graduated from college. I was so smart that the teachers skipped me to the highest level of normal schooling when I was nine. It sounds like you might have gotten some of that too."

"Really? Wow," Paterson replied with surprise as he sat back up in his chair, "so you don't think I'm demon spawn or anything because I'm good with numbers?"

"No." Logan said with a chuckle. "I've met some Demon Spawn... you're certainly not one of them." The way he said it made it unclear if he was joking or not.

Both Paterson and Clyde nodded at Logan's response. As neither boy could figure out if he was joking or not, neither could really think of anything to say.

Janet came over and gently pushed Logan out of the way, so she could squat down between the two new boys. "What my 'loving' son is trying, badly, to say is this. I know a lot of stuff is new and different for you guys. It takes a lot to deal with being ripped out of everything that you've even known, and dumped somewhere completely new. But we'd like to help you guys deal with it. We'd like it if you guys would join our family."

Joe came over and squatted down on the other side of Paterson. "Yeah, we've got a lot of kids, and we do the best for them that we can. But we also have a core family that's a lot smaller. That's the one we would like you guys to consider joining. You don't have to move in with us, or anything like that. All you would need to do is know that we're there for you if you ever need anything."

He looked directly at Paterson as he spoke this next part. "I know I could never replace someone's father, especially one that loved loved their son. But, if either of you would let me fill in when you need it, I would be honored."

Paterson had tears flowing down his face by this point. He'd been trying to be strong, just like his dad would have been, but what he just heard made him loose the control he had on his emotions. Not able to form words, Paterson nodded and threw his arms around Joe. At the same time, Clyde smiled and Janet, and hugged her.

Daileass smiled as he sat back. It might have been a bit rough there for a bit, but he always loved being able to watch a new family form, especially when it made his family bigger.

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