Chapter 14
Traveling through slipspace was the unsc frigate UNSC The fire of Prometheus. THis ship had been traveling for past two months toward the planet of Tollana and was another week from its destination.
(0900 Hours/ April 30th, 1998/ Slipspace/ UNSC Fire Of Prometheus: Bridge)
Crew members sat at their stations as they worked the controls of the massive ship while it was moving through slipspace toward their destination. At the moment they were engaged in a drill to see how the borrowed US navy crew members would respond to emergencies in space, In this drill they were being tested in combat scenarios ranging from defence of earth from goa'uld attack to defending the ship from jaffa boarders while also fighting off a hatak
Overseeing the drill was the ship's xo lionel pendergast as he sat in the commander's seat. He watched as the crew did their beast but they seemed to not understand how combat was fought when using the ship's mac gun since they were all taught in the academy that the use of cannons were a thing of the past and so never really instructed them in how to fight in direct, close range combat using the ships onboard cannon. This was translating to space as they tried to act like they were trained for a combat situation. He had to admit that he too thought that the use of cannons were in contradiction to what he too was taught but the commander told him that the unsc used missiles but they were a secondary weapon because anti missile countermeasures had rendered them almost useless by the turn of the next century and had forced there near abandonment until the founding of the unsc. It had shocked him when he heard that unsc ships had only a few weapons with which to fight battles and that it was this overdependence on the few weapons that they had that led to their near destruction.
As he watched the ship's helmsman attempt to use evasive maneuvers while the Ai was attempting to line up the mac gun for a shot against the simulated hatak, pendergast pulled up the ship's systems manager and began to look over the the status of the ships systems. He had gotten into the habit of using the touchpad built into the captain's chair in order to view the ships systems, position in space, tactical view and even view the status of its weapons during combat.
As the bridge personnel went about their tasks, nobody noticed the sound of the bridge door opening except for the guard that stood there as part of the security detail. He turned to see who had just entered the bridge and saw an auburn haired women in a dark blue skirt suit with a briefcase in one hand and a clipboard in the other.
"Ma'am, you are not authorised to be on the bridge. I'm going to have to see your id." The marine said as he moved to stand in the woman's way.
"That won't be necessary sargent, She is supposed to be here." Pendergast said as he stood from the command chair and approached Dr. Weir as the sg. stood to the side with a salute to his commanding officer.
"Thank you. mr. pendergast. I have a meeting with the commander that he has been ducking me on for the past week straight." Dr. WEir said as she looked at her clipboard to check on her notes for the meeting.
"I am sorry, but he is in his quarters and has asked not to be disturbed unless it was important." PEndergast said as he stood from his chair and walked around the bridge to check up on the progress of the crews training and attempt to avoid the argument that was coming when she felt that he was stonewalling her for any reasons that civilians would not understand. This though was not the case as she simply turned to leave since she knew where the captains quarters were. as he watched the back of her head disappear as the elevator doors closed, he sighed in exasperation at the woman's aggressive and patronizing manner with which she treated the military. He knew that this was going to lead to another argument between her and the commander about the delay
Pushing these thoughts from his mind, Pendergast returned to his seat and prayed that they would reach tollana soon.
(0910 Hours/ April 30th, 1998/ Slipspace/ UNSC Fire Of Prometheus: Commander's quarters)
Sitting in a chair in front of his desk, Lt. Commander Lovell was busy writing out his report regarding the mission to tollana that his ship had been assigned to. This was the part of his promotion that he had not enjoyed at all since he had to use pencil and paper.
"Summary report, April 30th, 1998.
It has been nearly two months since the ship left earth orbit, we are reaching the end of our journey to the Tollan homeworld. This voyage has taken longer than we had estimated due in no small part to the slipspace generators inability to live up to the estimations we had given it during the research and development stage. Captain carter has assured me that the drive is running normally with no signs of degradation resulting from constant use, so I am not entirely sure why it is underperforming. I have had the chief engineer check for any signs of tampering but so far he has found no evidence that the generators have been compromised. He says that the generators are operating at peak efficiency in comparison to the data we gathered during the test jump to abydos. His report also indicates that the problem is not in the reactors, which is no small relife to me since it was built with less advanced technology by scientists and engineers who lack experience in the construction of anything bigger than a science experiment."
Lovel put down his pencil as he shook his right hand in order to get the soreness out. 'This century is a living Hell. How can the people of this time keep doing this for hours?' He thought sourly as he picked up the evil wooden object and stuck it back in the sharpener as he thought about the happenings of the past two months. The ship AI had proposed the theory that ONI's research into the drive had been incomplete when cortana had taken it. This had made a bit of sense but a part of him also suspected that it was another one of ONI's failed projects that had been too over budget and possibly had it's head researcher die during an experiment.
As he went about writing more of his report, his thoughts drifted to the ship Ai. It had been a boon that The Ai had been on the pillar of autumn during the fall of reach as there would have been no way for them to get through the what he had been told, he was one of cortana's prototypes though he had not been made from Dr. halsey but she had been involved in his creation. He was created from a brain copy of an admiral in high command though the donner was classified. He was sure that the Admiral must have been a real wise guy as the ai was known to reply with snappy comebacks when he was either bored, or thought that somebody was appealing to make fun of. This had only been encouraged by cortana during their journey to the earth of this time,though he was beginning to believe that this might not be the same timeline as they had not had a stargate in his time.
As these thoughts continued to fill his mind, he had barely heard the sound of the door to his Captains quarters study and was only pulled out of his thoughts when heard the door guard clearing his throat to get his attention.
"Yes?"Lovell asked as he looked up from writing his report to regard the young Marine that looked to be of Native American which he felt kind of strange as they had stopped existing in his time period five hundred years ago due to cultural degradation and outside influence.
" is here to see you sir." The Marine said as lovell shook his head to focus on what the marine had said and let out an exasperated sigh at having to deal with the aggravating woman again. This makes it the third time this month she had bothered him about the delay in reaching the tollan homeworld within the allotted time that they had predicted. HE understood that she had many other things to do back on earth such as the negotiations going on between Israel and Palestine in which the jewish state wanted to join the forming UEG but was told that they had to end their conflict with Palestine and make peace with their neighbors if they wanted to join. Last he heard, the Two leaders were negotiating on ownership of the temple mount and he knew that was going to be the hardest talks as both sides had claim to the hill and would not give it up willing since it was a holy site for both of them. The other problem was that the Palestinians were making things difficult by giving statements to the UN that the process was unfair to them which was causing the other arab nations to continuously micromanage and delay the peace process on their fronts as they were already angry about the fact that nations joining the UEG were giving up oil for a synthetic oil whose formula was given to them by Cortana to make the transition away from fossil fuels easier on the western nations which was causing them to lose huge amounts of money and adding to rising global tensions between developing nations and the civilised world. In all it was a mess, but he was certain it would resolve itself in time.
"Show her in." Lovell said reluctantly, knowing what was to come but deciding against trying to avoid the persistent woman as she had proved over the last month that she could find him no matter where he went on the ship.
(0930 Hours/ Mess hall.)
AS the Commander went into his meeting with Dr. Weir, SG-1 was getting lunch and discussing how things were going with their individual assignments after they had been brought there (Or in sam and daniel's case, were ordered to join the colonel and teal'c) in what the team knew was their leaders way of calling them into as private a meeting as they could get on this ship.
"So Carter, any idea what is wrong with this ships warp drive?" Jack asked in between bites of what he assumed to be analogous to steak with a side of cornbread and mashed potatoes. He was not sure if it was all real as he knew what scientists had said about taking meats and vegetables in space given the dangers of radiation but so far it tasted almost real. As He pondered this for a moment he almost missed carters reply.
"For the last time sir, It is called the Shaw-Fujikawa Translight Engine. As for why it is not working like was expected is anyone's guess but I am inclined to believe that it might not be that the drive itself is the problem, the problem has to do with the fact it was in the experimental stages and had barely been tested when cortana picked it up. According to what the engineers from the autumn tell me, It is still faster than the standard unsc slipspace drives from their time since this trip would take an original drive four months to make the trip then four more months to make it back. Instead, it will take half that time to make the trip to tollana and back." Carter replied in a dumbed down reply since even she had a hard time understanding the principles behind the unsc's faster than light travel but she was learning fast. She did also wonder if the ships Ai was right and this had been another one of oni's failed projectes where the research was rushed into testing without fully crunching the numbers involved in the simulations and that had possibly been the reason the main researcher had died.
As carter contemplated these thoughts, the door to the mess hall opened to reveal Narim and Omac who walked in and made their way to the line to get something to eat. After filling up their trays with some of the earth food, the two looked for a place to sit until narims eyes fell onto where Sam was sitting. As if feeling that she had a pair of eyes on her, the blond looked up and saw narim looking at her and smiled a bit despite herself which he returned. Beside him Omac shook his head a bit at Narims obvious infatuation with the girl that he felt was a bit foolish as he was certain that the cultural differences between them along with the distance between their worlds would keep them from interacting on a regular basis for any relationship other than friendship to form. HE pushed these thoughts aside as he followed narim over to where sg1 were sitting when cater waved them over.
"Hello Samantha. Dr. jackson, Colonel O'neill, Teal'c." Narim greeted the team as the two tollan sat down in the only two available seats remaining. Omac remained mostly silent as he began to experiment with the food which consisted of a strange off white mush they had called potatoes, a tan crusted cake with yellow in the center that was called cornbread though he was uncertain why it was called that as he had eaten corn before and this looked nothing like it. the last item was a piece of meat that was called a steak. He was not sure how these people could be advanced as they are but have such a simple diet but that was not his business and he knew it would be rude to question the food that was provided on the ship since it was originally meant for the crew but was being shared with them during the journey to tollana and he knew it was best not to insult their hosts and he had told his people as such.
As omac began eating upon seeing as the food was edible, he began contemplating the future of his people since he had discovered that they were not alone as the galaxy's most advanced humans anymore. This was more than likely going to cause some shifts in his people's way of thinking as they had long gotten use to the idea that they were the only advanced humans but now that notion had been thrown out the window, he was not sure how they were going to react, especially the curia. He was not sure how they would handle this new information or what they might decide to do in the wake of this discovery. He knew that half of the members of the curia would be open talks with the people from earth unlike travell and the others of her half but he knew with certainty that all would continue to agree that they should not hand over their technology though he was not certain if this line of thinking would hold up to possible changes in the peoples opinion on the matter. He knew that big changes were going to happen from this encounter but whether they were for the best or the worst he did not know yet.
He was brought out of these thoughts as a bright flash occurred outside the viewpoint of the mess hall. At first it had happened so fast that he wrote it off as a part of this strange dimension but then it happened again but this time much brighter so as to catch the attention of the other occupants of the mess.
"What the hell is that?" Asked one marine as many looked toward the viewpoint only for the flash to happen again, this time temporary blinding those that had been looking out into the black abyss outside.
"Carter, what is happening?" Jack asked as he tried to get his sight back as he and teal'c looked the manual override to close the view points blast shield.
"I Don't know sir, but I'm going to head to engineering to find out if it is affecting the slipspace drive." Sam replied as she made her way out of the mess and toward the rear of the ship.
(Commander's quarters)
"As i was saying, this is the schedule that me and omac have drawn up for when we land on tollana." Dr. weir bagan again as the commander continued to do his paperwork. He had had this conversation before she went into cryosleep to wait out the journey and was not eager to go over it again.
As he continued to nod his head and continue with his work, Dr. weir felt a bit exasperated by the fact that the commander was seeming to ignore her though she decided not to bug him about it because she had done it to her assistant on a couple of occasions herself. As she continued to go over the requirements for the meeting that she had discussed with omac in preparation for their arrival and the meeting to held with the curia after.
"Is there anything else that I should be aware of doctor?" Lovell asked as he put down the pencil and looked her weir in the eyes, to let her know he was serious.
"Yes, I was hoping to talk to you about your recommendation to have armed escorts while on the surface." Elizabeth said which caused the unsc ship commander's face to take on an exasperated look. This was the one thing that she was giving him the hardest time about as she had the thought of it being seen as hostile to the people of tollana. While he may agree on that point, it was still a part of his mission to ensure safety for both his ship and for the diplomat.
"I have decided that I would like to take Sg-1 with me to the surface." This statement took him by surprise as he was certain she was going to continue to give him guff about armed escorts. "I know that many in the military have certain predispositions about me for my opposition to military spending and the use of military solutions over diplomatic solutions but I can assure you that I am not opposed to a protection detail." This caused the commander to be slightly embarrassed that he had assumed that she would be like every other politician of this time.
"I think that would be advisable given that they were going to be my choice anyway." Lovell said with a smirk as he began working on another report when he felt a slight vibration in the desk under his hand.
'What the hell?' He thought as he waited for a moment to see if it would happen again. When it did not occur, he disregarded it with a mental shrug and turned his attention to dr weir who was still sitting in the chair opposite to him looking over her notes for the coming negotiations.
"Is that all Dr?" HE asked as he looked to see if she had noticed the vibration.
"Just one more thing. When they accompany me down to the planet, SG-1 is not to bring any weapons as I believe that it will send the wrong message to people of tollana." This statement brought a sense of exasperation to him as he tried to think of why she would want the escort if they were not going to be armed in the first place.
But before he could say anything as the deck vibrated harder, which caught Dr. Weir's attention this time. AS she looked at him with a confused and slightly alarmed look in her eyes, Lovell reached for the ships intercom.
"Bridge, this is the commander. What the hell is going on up there?" He asked as the deck shook harder, nearly throwing them from their seats as the intercom spat back static before they heard the Executive officer reply.
"Commander, you need to get up here. We are getting turbulence from slipspace that we are unable to identify the cause of." To punctuate that statement, the deck bucked underneath them and threw Dr. weir from her chair onto the deck while the commander clung to his desk which was bolted down. When the rumbling stopped, he quickly moved to check on Dr. Weir and found that she had a mild concussion. As he helped her up, the ai called the medical bay to come collect this taken care of, Lovell rushed to the bridge as the ship rocked again. As he ran, he could hear the ships hull groaning as it was subjected to the stress of slipspace turbulence which he knew from training to be a bad thing as it meant that either they had hit a very turbulent current of slipspace which was normal when humans traveled in slipspace for too long or that the drive was malfunctioning and was about to kill them all.
'What the hell is going on? Could the drive have been sabotaged by a rouge group or maybe one of the tollans had tried to find out how it worked and had screwed it up?
These questions were pushed to the back of his mind as he reached the elevator to bridge and found it in a state of frenzied activity as the crew rushed held to their stations as the deck buked again from the unstable currents of slipspace buffeting the ship while unknown flashes happened in the dark abyss.
"Report!" Lovell ordered as he used his hand to shield his eyes from a bright flash outside the main bridge viewpoint. As he regain his sight, he could see that the flashes were not made of light be were some undocumented disturbance in slipspace. Just as he made it to his chair, the deck lurched violently enough to throw him to the deck where he landed on his arm and heard wet snap as he landed on his left arm. The pain raced up into his shoulder as he picked himself up off the deck to see the flashes coming quicker as the deck quivered with a steady thrum as he felt something warm running down his face as his vision began to blur as he lost conscience. before he blacked out, he saw the black of slipspace being replaced with the star studded black of space as his vision darkened.
(2020 Hours/May 1st 1998/Location: unknown/UNSC Fire Of Prometheus: Med bay)
Pain. That was the first thing he could feel through the darkness that clouded his sight. It became more acute as his mind cleared the dark fog and returned to the waking world of the living. AS he began to wake up, Lovell could hear voices from the med bay staff as the possibly talked to him in order to see if he was indeed waking. Their voices were at first blurred and muffled but as he woke some more, he could hear them more clearly.
"Commander Lovell, Can you hear me?" Ther doctor asked as she looked over the younger mans head injury.
As the doctors were looking him over for any other injury,Lovell looked around to see where he was and saw through the viewpoint the star studded black of space
"Where are we? He asked as he tried to sit up.
"We are not certain where we are but you must stay still. You have a head injury along with a broken arm. Now lay back so we can check you for any other injuries." The nurse said as she pushed him back down with a firm but gentle motion as she guided his head back down onto the pillow.
As the doctors began to flash a light into his eyes, he head the automated door open which caused him to turn his head to see his second in command.
"Nice to see that you are up commander." Pendergast said as he walked into the room while the doctors looked the commander over for any concussions or lasting effects from his head injury.
"Where are we? What the hell happened?" The Lovell asked while the doctors checked his pupil responses.
"not certain sir. The chief engineer has been going over the data with captain carter to pinpoint but i'm not sure how long it will take for her to figure it out."
"Well, tell the chief to inspect the engine and see if it was tampered with." Lovell said as the doctors walked out of the room for a moment.
"You suspect foul play?" The xo asked as he looked at his commander seriously.
"Not yet, but it is better to keep an eye open all the same." The commander said which caused pendergast to relax a little.
Just as the xo began to walk out, his earpiece beeped.
"Pendergast."
"Sir, this is the bridge, we have manage to restore sensors but they are only operating at 50% capacity."
"Damb." Pendergast cursed as he made his way to the elevator at the end of the hall that would take him back up the bridge. "any good news?" He asked as he pushed the button.
"Yes, we've managed to identify our position in relation to the rest of the galaxy and have found that we are at least halfway to our destination but we are in uncharted space. We are not even in a solar system meaning that we have come out of slipspace in interstellar space." Pendergast pinched the bridge of his nose as he listened to the lack of discipline in the voice of the ships ai that was on loan from the autumn. From what he had been told, this Ai had been put on the ship before launch because the crew would not have time to be fully trained in the ship's systems before the launch. While it comforted him on the fact that the Ai was a smart ai taken from the mind of a dying fleet commander who had been scanned before the fall of reach, he felt that the way they made them should be illegal. The only thing that had kept him from total revulsion was the fact that the man had already volunteered for this and that they needed a new smart ai to help cortana with her tasks of raising earths technology while also doing their best to solve all of the problems that would soon raise it's head when people got us to the new normal. None of this made the crew feel any better as the stigma with AIs ran deep in most cultures on earth.
"So what you're saying is that we have no idea were we are, are possibly stranded, possibly in enemy territory no less. Do we at least have a way to contact earth?" Pendergast said as he arrived on the bridge level and began to make his way down the corridor that led to the bridge. AS he passed through the automatic doors, he saw through the forward viewpoint and could see the starfield in front of him had a big black emptiness in it that took up the whole front viewpoint.
"Rickland,what are we looking at?" Pendergast asked to seemingly no one until the bridge holotank came online with the small figure of a small holographic man that seemed dressed in a large overcoat,trousers and boots with a rimmed hat on his head and a rapier sword on his left hip and a pistol on his right. He was the former ai of the autumn that had been assigned to her for operation red flag and fought through the fall of reach but when they arrived to earth, he had been taken out and put to work tracking down all the terrorist groups while cortana had gotten to work solving many of earth's problems such as the fuel dependency. There was a rumor going around that he was possibly one of Dr. halsey's experimental Ai before she made cortana.
"From what I have been able to put together, It appears to be a large celestial body in the middle of deep space. The sensors are not functioning at one hundred percent but it seems to be the size of the planet jupiter with a similar gravity. It is my understanding that what we are looking at is what scientists call a rogue planet." The Ai concluded as the commander moved toward the holotank. He understood what a rogue planet was thanks to his briefings though he had been told not to expect to see one since they were almost never encountered in the vastness of space by the unsc except on rare occasion. This seemed to be one of the occasions but something was bothering about it.
"Could this have dragged us out of slipspace. It's big enough and has the gravity to do it."
"While that is very possible, we dropped out of range of its gravitational pull so it is unlikely that this is the cause. No, the cause was recorded as a series of powerful energy pulse waves that caused our slipspace pocket to destabilize around us. Had we not dropped out when we did, the ships would have been torn into fragments the size of a volkswagen. " Rickland said as Pendergast examined the hologram of the massive planet before them.
"Have we managed to pinpoint the source of the disruption?"
"No sir, not yet. With the sensors damaged, our search is impaired until repairs are made." Said an officer as she handed him the report on ship damage
"Make sensors a priority. We're sitting blind here and won't not be able to see trouble coming our way." Pendergast told the young officer as he handed back the tablet and returned his eyes to the holotank as it began to display the sensor range and all that was in it. He did not completely understand how it worked but it made him feel totally blind to possible threats as he had been taught in the air force to rely on radar to see incoming threats but this made him feel like he was back in world war 2 with only limited radar in the middle of night with no moon light. It felt nerve wracking not knowing where they were and being blind to enemy attacks until they were on top of them.
"Let's hope we are alone out here." Pendergast said under his breath as he walked back the commander's chair and sat down.
(Location: Rogue planet-northern hemisphere)
This was a very boring mission. That was the sentiment felt by the goa'uld minor lord Dionyssos as he sat of his throne staring out the viewpoint of his hataks peltak. He had been sent here by the orders of his father zeus while he and his lord cronus were fighting apophis three systems away over a deposit of naquadah that had been discovered by apophis. He knew that this was going to take a while as the snake was going to throw as much of his forces as he could in order to defend the planet deposit was on which meant that cronus was also throw in more of his armies which would lengthen the time he would have to stay out here as a rear guard.
As he stewed in his thoughts about these events, he looked around to at the various jaffa that manned the controls and standing guard at the doors. Then he laid eyes on his lotaur holding his pitcher of wine, a drink was known to drink in excessive amounts ever since he had gained a liking for the drink when he was on the homeworld of this near worthless species.
He grimsed at the thought of the lost world of the slaves. It pained him to remember what the goa'uld empire had lost when they were forced to abandon that world. Not only had they lost access to the main stock of slaves they had but also he had lost more. Ever since he was forced to flee that world, his wine did not taste the same and seemed to only grow more sour as the ages passed. This in turn put him in a more foul mood as he snapped his fingers to get his slaves attention as he then held out his goblet so that she could pour his wine.
As he began to drink his thirteenth cup of the day but by no means his last, heard one of his jaffa begin trying to get his attention. He looked at the jaffa with a unpleasant look in his eyes that told the jaffa that if it had not been his first prime that was interrupting him, they would be tortured for interrupting his reflection period.
"What is it?" He growled as he sampled one of his more pungent cheeses and poured more wine into his mouth along with it. Secretly the first prime could not help compare this god of wine to that nerus and his many appetites as he watched his lord continue eating. On the outside he maintained his stoic facade but under that he wished that he had been on the frontlines than dealing with the temperamental if not drunk goa'uld.
"The sensors have detected a surge of energy coming from the outermost ring of the planet." This managed to catch the goa'uld attention for the moment which made the first prime a bit happier as it meant that his lord was not TOO drunk, yet.
"Show me." Dionyssos as he watched the viewpoint switch to a tactical display which showed the planet. The first prime then zoomed in on the outermost ring around the equator of the cold gas giant. He sighed as he knew that he was not supposed to allow any ships to get past him which meant that he would have to stop his drinking and deal with the intruder. As he looked at the read out, his eye caught sight of a symbol that seemed to be near by the target.
"What is that there?" He asked as he leaned over a bit to get a better look and saw that it was one of the patrol groups under his command. " Show me that group." He ordered as the first prime manipulated the control pedestal to do his lords bidding.
It zoomed in on the groups signal and displayed its composition and number strength. He saw that it was composed of three cheops class attack ships and two alkesh. The cheops had been refitted to carry more death gliders in the last century when lord cronus had been involved in a war with niriti which had cost him greatly, allowing him to be attacked by apophis until he had come up with the idea to turn his fleets of useless cheops into a light attack ship that could carry more death gliders into battle which worked out better as it allowed him to slow down apophis's thrust into his territory while he rebuilt his forces. Cronos managed to drive apophis out and hold him at a stalemate until they both gave up the fight as the goa'uld became bored of it. These days saw the ships deployed almost anywhere alongside a fleet of hatak to provide an almost effective screening force for the fleets of cronus, though he had heard that other goa'uld were beginning to use the same tactic as well.
"Have that groupe go scout out the signal and see if it is worth the time of a god." Dionyssos ordered as he reclined back into his chair a began to sip his fourteenth cup of wine.
"Yes my lord, your will be done." SAid the first prime with a bow as turned to relay the orders of his lord.
(Time- 20:27 Fire of prometheus-Engineering)
Her eyes continued to roam over the sensor data of the last hour. As she poured over the data, captain carter could not really figure out how they had been forced out of slipspace but she was determined to find out. As she kept working, the auto door opened to reveal colonel o'neill followed by teal'c who seemed to be a stoic as ever despite the current predicament. As the two walked in, they noticed the two guards that were standing watch in case of trouble.
As she kept working, Carter noticed a shadow fall over her screen but when she turned to see who it was she nearly jumped out of her skin when she saw the colonel staring at her with a smug grin that she hated when her brother would do that.
"Jesus Sir! Don't do that!" CArter said as she held her hand over her heart to feel it beating a little faster. She sent a glare Jacks way as he kept up his smug grin but decided to ignore him in favor of getting back to work.
"So, How is it going carter?" JAck asked as he looked at the screen over her shoulder even though he did not know very much about computers, especially these computers that were reversegnineered by silicon valley from the tech on the autumn.
"I am trying to find out what could have caused it by a malfunction with the drive but i'm drawing a blank. I just can't find anything wrong with the drive." Carter said as she leaned back in the chair and rubbed the stiff spot in her neck as she turned the swivel chair around to regard her team mates only to see daniel was with them.
"I'm sure you'll figure it out carter" Jack said with confidence.
"Thanks sir. Wish I was that sure cause if me and the chief engineer can't figure it out then i'm not sure if anyone can figure it out, as far as I can tell there is nothing wrong with the drive." Carter said as she turned back toward the screen as she heard the doors leading to the engine room open to the chief engineer Donald O'Brian.
"Chief O'Brien this is colonel O'Neill,Daniel jackson, and Teal'c" Carter said as he nodded to them as he moved to stand beside carter and showed her the tablet i his hands. A minute later, after she had absorbed the content of the tablet, she cursed under breath which told her companions that she had gotten bad news.
"Problem?" JAck asked.
"Big Problem, Sir." Carter replied
"The slipspace drive will not even beggin the charge up sequence Colonel. That means that we can't make a jump of even a short distance." O'brien answered in a irish sounding voice though O'Neil could tell that the accent was a bit off.
"And that's bad." Jack said, acting clueless so that he can get a better answer.
"It means sir, that if we can not charge up the drive we can't leave here. We could be stuck a while until we figure it out or earth sends help. And I'm not sure if we can figure it out cause there is nothing that we can find wrong with the drive." Carter said as she rubbed her temples in order to stave off the migrain she could feel coming. As she began trying to wrack her tired brain for a theory on how this could be happening, Teal'c had what colonel O'Neill had called an epiphany.
"Captain Carter. you said that you can not find any flaw in it's making?"
"Yes, it was made correctly to exact specifications." Sam answered, a little surprised by this question.
"And you say that you have found no sign of sabotage on the drive?" Teal'c inquired as he looked sam in the eyes with a serious expression.
"Yes. We examined it from top to bottom and found no signs of forced entry in the drives outer casing." O'Brian answered, a little perplexed by this line of conversation and wondering where the jaffa was going with this.
"Teal'c's got something, I can feel it." Jack said as he leaned against the wall while daniel looked up from his book, a little surprised that he had been moved from his quarters to engineering without looking and that it was teal'c asking these questions.
Teal'c remained calm but quiet as he seems to choose his next words very carefully.
"Whats on your mind teal'c?" Carter said as she looked at her friend who she has come to trust with her life and saw that he had a very serious thought on his mind.
"Could it be possible that something is causing this interference from outside the ship. IT must be originating from this location so as to force us to stop here. It may be some form of technology that we have never seen before." Teal'c said as everyone looked at him like he had grown a second head.
"Teal'c, we have already determined that it can't be the planet as we have made jumps past jupiter and this planet seems to be of equal size to it. As for it being technology, even the unsc has yet to encounter technology like that in either time. The only ones that could be capable of it were the covenant but they never seemed to need too so the only way that theory can still hold is if it were made by a race that was just as old and powerful enough to do something like this." Sam said but the thought of it began to stick into her brain so she turned back to the holoscreen she was working from and began to run the sensor logs in attempt to find a way to verify this at least to herself as she just could not put down this notion. As she looked at it, she began to find anomalies that had been logged by the sensors before they had been damaged that she had at first dismissed as the beginnings of malfunction but now she began to see that she may have been too hasty in that decision. AS she looked deeper into it, she began to see a pattern emerge in the form of sharp and powerful pulses that caused the slipspace drive to malfunction and ultimately shutdown. This made her think and so she pulled up the sensors to begin running a sweep of the surrounding space only to notice something odd in the vicinity of the ship.
"Um sir. Do you happen to know if the commander authorised the deployment of any dropships?" Carter asked which caught everyone's attention as they moved over to the holoscreen to look at what see was talking about.
"What is that?" O'Brian asked as the ships intercom buzzed on the wall. He walked over to it and hit the button while he noticed the camera watching them which caused jack to comment on how creepy it was."O'brian here"
"This is the bridge, the Xo needs Sg-1 up here on the double. As you have noticed, we have company." THe ai responded in a serious tone which showed how serious he was being.
"Tell them we are on our way." O'neil shouted as he and his team rushed out the door toward the elevator.
(Time-20:34 Bridge)
When Sg-1 arrived onto the bridge, they could see Penderghast standing next to the Holotank in the middle of the bridge behind the commander's chair. As they made their way over to him, they could see him looking at the hologram of a ship that had pointed front that sloped back into a vague pyramid shape with a wide rounded bottom. When they got close enough, the Xo regarded them with eyes that showed a hint of worry and uneasiness about the situation they had developing.
"Teal'c, just who I wanted to see," Penderghast said as he pointed at the holograms. "Have you ever seen a ship like that?" He asked
"Yes I have many times. It is a goa'uld cargo ship called a tel'tak. They are used mainly to move about items that can not be transported through the stargate." Teal'c said as penderghast cursed under his breath while the sensors seemed to train more on the small craft.
"What the hell is it doing here in the middle of nowhere, could it be lost?" Daniel asked as he leaned in to get a better look at it while the Ai continued to scan it.
"It is unlikely, tel'tak are equip with hyperdrives and have impressive navigation if maintained properly." Teal'c said matter of factly.
"Could it be a scout for an enemy fleet?" Penderghast asked with a grave tone in his voice as he watched the tel'tak begin to move away.
"Yes they can be used to scout for a fleet." Teal'c said in a very serious tone as Rickland gain a suddenly distant look for a moment before he looked at them with alarm.
"Sir! I just detected it sending a transmission off! I think it's reporting our position!" This quickly galvanized penderghast into action to try and divert disaster.
"Fire control, warm up archer missile pod A and target that ship before it gets out of range! We can't let them report back to the fleet they are attached too!" Pendergast ordered as the fire control officers fingers flew across the controls in front of him as he locked in the target.
Outside the shiip, the panel on archer pod A slid back to reveal the battery of missiles as one came to life and came rocketing out at tremendous speed as it flew toward it's target. The tel'tak attempted to evade the missile as it dove into the dust ring but the missiles guidance was not fooled as it arched up and came slamming down onto it's target, ending the tiny tel'tak along with it's jaffa crew in a short lived fireball.
(Goa'uld pletak)
"My lord, we have received a transmission from the scout. It reports a ship of unknown design just outside the dust belts before the transmission was cut off." The first prime reported as the goa'uld drank his seventeenth cup of wine.
"Just one?" Dionyssos asked as he held out his goblet for more wine.
"Yes my lord that's all that was reported before contact was lost." The first prime said.
"Anything else?" He asked as he ate some grapes being hand fed to him by his lotaur.
"Nothing more."The first prime replied as his lord sat up for a moment and seemed to almost contemplate his next move.
"Send in the patrol fleet, they should be sufficient to deal with this ship." He said as he lounged back into his chair as he thought that this should prove at least mildly entertaining to watch.
"Yes my lord." The first prime confirmed as he sent out the orders to attack.
(Fire of prometheus-Bridge)
"Target destroyed sir." The weapons officer confirmed.
"Good. Rickland, did it get off a transmission?" Pendergast asked but before he could get a response, the proximity alarm began to go off as multiple contacts began to enter sensor range at high speed.
"Multiple contacts incoming. configuration matches that of death gliders. We also have four unknown corvette sized ships among the formation." Rickland reported as he showed them.
"Those are alkesh bombers, you must destroy them quickly or they will cause this ship great damage." Teal'c said as he watched the battle begin in earnest as the bridge windows armored shutters closed to protect the bridge.
"Rickland, sound general quarters. weapons control, engage all point guns and target hostiles."Penderghast ordered as the crew sprang into action to defend their ship from the oncoming enemies.
outside the ship, the point defence guns roared to life as they began to fire on the approaching death gliders and alkesh. the first gliders hit by the anti fighter guns were blown apart as the streams of trasers moved on to the next gliders in the formation. before they had been able to get into the range, the first formation of gliders had taken ten percent casualties as the next wave moved in.
when they reached range, they began firing their golden plasma bolts into the ships hull only to find that the armor was resisting their attacks. As they began to come around for another pass, the point defence guns on the other side shot them down. This prompted the alkesh to begin moving in for their attack run.
"First wave destroyed sir, second wave incoming along with the enemy bombers." Rickland said as coding began to run though his body at lightning speed as he and the crew fought against the incoming enemies that seemed to not fear death.
(goa'uld peltak)
"My lord, battle seems to go well." The first prime said as he monitored the fighting and issued commands since his lord never took much interest in such things as he believed they were boring.
"Good good." Dionyssos said as he watched the screen as the unknown ship fought against the legion of death gliders attacking it.
"what do you wish to do with them, my lord." the first prime asked as he turned to look at the goa'uld. He was certain that his master would choose to destroy it simply for the fun of it as he had done many times before but the first prime thought that it might be better to capture this strange vessel in order to determine where it had come from.
"Hmm?" the goa'uld said as he turned his head away from his lotaur feeding him grapes to look at the jaffa. as he looked at the screen, he thought that it would be fun to destroy it but that it might bring him personal glory if he had it captured and those that manned it tortured to find where they came from.
"have the Patrol board it and capture it in the name of your god." He stated as he went back to eating his grapes.
"At once my lord" the first prime answered as he relayed the new orders.
(fire of prometheus-bridge)
The bridge was in a state of controlled chaos as the crew did their best to keep up with the demands of battle.
"Helm, evasive maneuvers, we need to try and avoid their attack runs until we can take them out. " penderghast ordered as the ship lurched from a hit. "Where was that?" He asked as the ship began to move.
" Hit on the starboard engine pod. Anymore hits like that and we will lose that engine." Rickland said as he began to analyze scans of the alkesh which showed him that they were shielded and that it would take too long for the guns to bring them down even if they concentrated fire.
"Sir, even with all the guns firing at them, we will no be able to take out the alkesh before they take out one of the engines." th ai said as the ship rocked again from a barrage of hits near the bridge,
"Can we use the archer missiles to take them out. " Colonel O'neill asked as he watched the battle from the other side of the table.
"Yes, I think we can." the ai replied as he quickly began to go over the numbers for such a manuvore. within the span of seconds he sent the firing solution to the fire control and beat them to the firing button.
Outside the ship
As the gliders continued to fly around the ship in effort to do damage against the ships surprisingly though armor as the alkech continued to try disabling the ship's movement so that the cheops could begin boarding the enemy ship to take it a prize. the thought of this made them all feel a sense of superiority as they brought glory to their names in battle.
As the ship made a turn to port, the coverings on the archer missile pods slid open quickly as the missiles warmed up for launch. within moments, multiple missiles launched and homed in on the alkesh that began attempting to evade the missiles but due to their size it was all for naught as the missiles turned them into fireballs and scrap in space. The glider pilots were stunned by the sight of this but took heart in the sight of the cheops approaching range for the staff cannons to do their work.
on Bridge
"Sir alkesh destroyed but we have a problem, three cheops class warships are approaching weapons range." The ai told them as he zoomed in on the offending ships that were almost at half the size of the frigate.
"FIre archer missiles pods A-C ." Pendergast ordered as the ai bagan to fire a barrage of archer missiles at them in effort to damaged the warships only for it to fail due to the shield that defended the ships from the missles.
"Might I suggest the use of the Mac gun?" Suggested the ai as the second barrage of missiles failed to do any damage.
"Couldn't agree more" CAme a voice from the bridge elevator that Colonel O'neil saw to be the commander as he moved to take his chair.
"Rickland, charge up Mac gun and bring the ship into firing position. Single shot, heavy round." Lovell ordered as the Ai appeared on the pedestal next to him and saluted as he carried out the orders.
Outside
As the three cheops were coming into range, the death gliders pulled back so as no to get caught in the crossfire. As they did this, the strange ship began to move to face it' front toward the oncoming warships which made the glider pilots laugh at the feeble attempt to face the might of their god.
AS the bow was turned toward the center ship, the barrel at the end of it began to glow as the the magnetic coils began to charge up with energy as the slug was loaded into position by the pulley system that brought it from the magazine and was loaded by the piston in the back before the breach was closed. with the round loaded and the coils primed, the firing pin struck against the bottom which the explosive material in the base of the round to be ignited and propel it through the coils which accelerated it to near light speed as the round shot out of the muzzle of the mac gun toward it's target, the goa'uld cheops class warship that had just entered its own weapons range but would not get to fire as the round tore through the weak shields of the light warship and smashed past the thin armor while tearing apart anything that got in its way until the round ended its journey by striking the liquid Naquadah reactor.
The eyes of the pilots nearly fell from their sockets as the watched the shield of the center ship be ripped open by a projectile traveling almost to fast to see and slice through the armor like it was paper.
The ship hung there for about a minute with a gaping hole in it's center that was venting flames fed by atmosphere until the reactor went critical, detonating with the force of a tactical nuke. The explosive force sent debris flying into the shields of it comrades which caused them to veer off course as their shields flickered while attempting to absorb and reflect the kinetic energy of the debris but that failed as a barrage of missiles slammed into them which caused them to fail entirely. As the two ships began to right themselves, the fire of prometheus began to hit them with four of it's point defence guns
(Goa'uld peltak)
The sound of the Goa'uld choking on his wine filled the pletak as he stared at a sight he would have thought impossible if he hadn't seen it with his own eyes. one of his ships had been destroyed and the others were being damaged along with the losses of the alkesh and his shrinking number of death gliders.
"My lord, I suggest retreat." The first prime said as the goa'uld took in deep breaths.
"retreat? have you gone mad?" The goa'uld finally yelled out as he rose from his throne in outrage at the events unfolding before him. while he was not averse to retreating to save his own skin, Lord Cronus was not tolerant of cowardness and has killed jaffas that retreat from battle.
"I merely suggest to regroup the patrol group with our hatak so that you can show them your might and crush the enemy.." The first prime replied. It was a thinly veiled excuse to get the ships out of danger but he knew that he could not push too far with this goa'uld, especially when he was not in a good mood.
As he stood there and awaited the goa'ulds reply, he could see a sense of realization come over his master's face as he thought about the chance for personal glory that might bring advancement in the eyes of cronus.
"Very well. Pull them back and have them rendezvous with us in the southern hemisphere of the planet." The goa'uld ordered as he sat back down on his throne to contemplate on how this situation could be savaged and him spared the wrath of cronus.
(fire of prometheus-Bridge)
lovell watched the holotank as the two cheops were sustaining minor damage from the point defence guns while the archer pods were loading the next salvo of missiles.
"How long till reload is complete?" He asked the weapons control officer.
"30 seconds, Sir." THe officer reported as the two cheops began to come about and begin retreating at high speed.
"Enemy ships are breaking off engagement and retreating on a course toward the inner the planet." The ai reported as he began tracking them until they were out of sensor range.
"Probably going to get reinforcements." Lovell said as he turned his command chair completely around to face the holotank as it displayed the retreating ships disappearing out of sensor range.
"Have you made any progress on why our slipspace drive malfunctioned Captain carter?" Lovell asked as he turned attention to the female member of Sg-1. He watched as she blink once as if she had not heard him, but to her credit, she managed to recover her composure enough to think of her answer as she tried to shake off the awe she felt at the power of this ships main weapon.
"I don't know anything for certain but teal'c has proposed an interesting theory that might be worth investigating." Carter said as Teal'c simply nodded his head.
"Have you found any evidence to corroborate your findings?" The commander asked as he leaned forward and watched the holotank as the sensors continued to scan for trouble.
"No sir, not yet." SHe admitted as she began to run the numbers in her head about which energy frequency she might be able to find these energy emissions within the background radiation of the surrounding space.
"I may have a solution to that commander." Rickland said as e appeared on the holotable and brought up a holographic diagram of a strange wave like energy pattern on it. It was carter that immediately noticed that the pattern was pulsing too smoothly for it to be natural for it to be an emission from the planet.
"During the battle, I managed to pick up on the energy emissions that had caused our slip space field to destabilize and force us to drop out to avoid destruction. It is actually very effective as either a deterrent or defence against aggressors." Rickland said as the smart ai began to ramble on about how such technology would have been a boon in the war with the covenant, all the while everyone inwardly groaned at the fact that the smart ai had gotten distracted again.
"AS fascinating as all that is rickland, Have you possibly found the source of this problem. Unless we can shut it down, we are going to be stuck here with the enemy." Lovell said as the Ai looked at him while scratching the back of his head sheepishly.
"I was getting to that. I have been able to triangulate the trajectory of the waves using the passive sensors as best as i could and was able to find that relative direction the energy waves are traveling from." Rickland said as he brought up a holomap of the surrounding area which showed the planetary rings, the planet itself and a yellow ping in the space between the inner ring and the planets western hemisphere as the Ai waved his hand which caused a set of expanding waves to emit from the point as the image was brought down onto the table to give a top-down view.
"As you can see, i have managed to narrow down the area where the source of these energy emissions could be originating from. I can say with about 75% confidence that we will find the source in this area." the Ai said as the commander looked at it. Everyone around the table seemed ti feel a slight amount of excitement in finding new technology to possibly help to defend earth with but It was pendergast that decided to ask the hard question.
"CAptain Carter, if we can get you to this source, can you shut it down?" The Xo asked as he looked the best scientist they had on the ship in the eyes.
"I can do my best." She said as she met his gaze with determination that told him that she meant what she said.
"That'll have to do. WE don't have time to waste." The commander said as he turned his chair around to face the front of the ship with the blast shield now lowered to show the debris field from the destroyed ship. "Helm, lay in a course to those coordinates. Colonel O'Neill, get your team ready for an away mission."
"Yes sir." Jack replied as he quickly led his team toward the bridge doors to head for the ships armory to gear up.
Lovell turned his attention back out the front viewpoint as the ship began to turn back toward the planet as it began to pick up speed. A the ship passed over the dust belt, the began to wonder what a goa'uld patrol was doing here in the middle of nowhere. He also wondered how many more ships were in the area and whether they would be more cheops or a full blown ha'tak mothership. The ship had proved itself capable against the former but he was not sure about the latter since that ship type was the backbone of the goa'uld fleets with the biggest weapons and best shields that the parasites could make. He sighed as he watched the planet began to get steadily closer, this was turning into a fucked up mission.
(time: 2115 hours-Fire of Prometheus-Armory)
As the ship was underway to the targeted point in space, SG-1 was getting their gear together for the mission. The colonel was with teal'c as they inspected their weapons and counted out the needed ammo clips they will take in case of encounter with the enemy.
"Alright. Looks like we are ready to roll T." Jack said in an upbeat mood that caused teal'c to raise his eyebrow at him as the eccentric leader went to his locker to get his gear on. The team were staring at him as they watched him gear up cause they had a feeling that the colonel might launch into his fascination with big honkin space guns but strangely he was quiet about it. Before any of them could broach the subject, the ship's intercom came on.
"O'Neil here." JAck said as he beat them to the button.
"This is the bridge, we have arrived at our destination but we have found something strange." The comm officer replied with a hint of awe and fear in his voice which gave them an Idea that what he was seeing must have been a bewildering sight.
As jack let go of the button, he looked at the others and saw that they each had different expressions ranging from curiosity to cautious expectation. They knew that this mission was going to be one of the most dangerous they have gone on to date as they were likely to encounter the enemy jaffa or they could be caught in the crossfire of the ship if it has to defend itself anymore goa'uld ships. As he looked them all in the eye, he saw that while they knew the risks they were still ready to go.
"Bridge, this is O'neil. Sg-1 is ready to head out." Jack said as he waited for the answer. It didn't take long.
"SG-1, proceed to the hanger. Mission is a go." The commander replied .
"Yes sir." Jack said as he began to let go of the button and looked at his team as they stood with their weapons in hand and ready to go.
"alright gang,let's roll out." He said as he made his way toward the door and down the hall toward the front of the ship. since the hanger was on the same level, it didn't take long for them to get there. When they walked in, they saw that it was mostly empty except for a single tactical pelican that had at least six odst waiting while the pilots were getting the craft ready for departure. Jack guessed that they had been sent as backup in case of trouble as he saw they were armed with weapons meant for close to medium range combat. AS sg1 looked at the soldiers, they noticed that two of them seemed to not be standing the same way that the others stop at parade rest bu it did not seem that big of a deal to them as they had not the time to question it further . When the team approached them, the assembled soldiers snapped off a brisk salute which he returned.
"Sir, Captain Harrison unsc odst helljumpers reporting." the young sounding officer said as he and his men stood at attention.
"At ease captain. Glad to have you with us on this little outing." JAck said as the odst troopers relaxed a little but they were still rigid. He guessed they might be uncomfortable being either around teal'c or going outside the ship into an unknown situation with the enemy likely to show up at anytime. He decided that it was the latter as he looked them over but found none of the signs that told him they were not safe to have around teal'c.
"Captain, I will assume that you have been briefed on this mission." JAck said as he tried to gauge the young man's reaction so as to determine how stable he was as he had read some reports that suggested that the unsc troops from reach might be a bit unstable due to their harrowing escape from certain destruction on reach.
"Yes sir." Younger man answered as he looked at the colonel without fidgeting like the report had suggested to watch out for. This showed jack that the young man was not unstable at the moment but he decided to keep an eye on him anyway.
"Alright then, let's get this bird moving." JAck said as he and his team began to board the craft with his team and the odst taking their seats while teal'c closed the ramp behind them.
"Yes sir." Acknowledged the pilot as he began to start the engine. "Launch control, this is pelican-29er alpha ready for departure." The pilot announced on the radio as he idled the engine while waiting for permission to launch.
"Pelican-29er alpha, permission to launch granted. Stay safe out there." And with that the hanger door opened as the pilot gunned the engine, propelling the craft out into the black of deep space.
"Sg-1 be advised, we are having difficulty scanning due to damage the object and are not able to determine if it is occupied by hostile forces. Recommend entering with extreme caution." Rickland said over the radio as Sam moved to look at the object as she was curious about it. AS she got to the front, she could see a dark silhouette that was barely highlighted against the dark gas giant it was orbiting.
"could you turn on the lights, we need to get a look at this thing." She asked the pilot who looked at her like she was crazy. He then remembered that she had never been to space so she was not aware of how things worked on the pelican up here.
"Lights don't work in space unless you are right up against the object. But I can do this." HE said as he flipped as switch that turned the window opec. then she flipped another switch which then activated a heads up display that showed the space around them in full clarity as if it was illuminated by the light of a star.
As she finally laid eyes on the object, Carter face suddenly dropped at what she was seeing. Where she had been expecting to see a technological marvel of engineering, was a station that from this distance looked like it had been built in the industrial revolution. From what she could tell, it's design seemed to be made of copper toned greyish colored metal which she guessed had to be possibly naquadah though she could see unmistakable signs of tarnish that showed clearly that this station was very old. as she took in its design more, she saw the central spire that rose from the central ring like structure that she was guessing to be a possible docking structure meant to allow access to maintenance crews in order to facilitate repairs in case of damage. As her eyes roamed over the hull of the station, she noticed that some of the paneling seemed to have taken damage from impacts which made her wonder how stable this station was and whether there would be any atmosphere to breath. AS she pondered these things, the pilot was moving the recon pelican closer to the strange station in order to get a high resolution scan of the exterior and interior of the station so as to determine if the enemy had a presence onboard.
"Beginning scan." The weapons officer reported as she began working the controls to her left and guided the scanners search for and airlock but as the scanners came into focus with the object, she noticed that she was getting no image of the structure inside or out. She checked her instrumentation and saw that everything was in working order from her end but she was unable to resolve the issue.
"I have a problem, I'm not getting anything on the active sensors." She reported which caused the pilot to turn around to look at her.
"Are you sure it's not instrumentation problem?" He asked as he began to check the active sensors from his end but came up with the same problem."Command, this is pelican-29er. We are experiencing interference with our active scanners."
"Acknowledged 29er. we believe it to be interference from the planet's magnetosphere. Standby for orders." The comm officer acknowledged as the com line went silent. As this was going on, sam's eyes were roving over the hull of the stations outer ring in an attempt to find either a hanger or a docking ring that could allow them to board the station before the commander decided that they should just blow it up as she wanted to see the technology of the station and maybe be able to reverse engineer a sample of it back on earth. Jsut as she was about to give up, she saw a round depression in the side the rings hull that looked big enough for a human to enter through. Just as she allowed herself to feel good about her great eyesight, she heard the radio crackle to life.
"Pelican 29er, return to the ship. It seems we are going to have to figure out something else out." The comm officer said as colonel O'Neill come up to the cockpit. Before he could even comment on the situation, sam quickly rushed to the front of the pelicans cockpit and pressed the button on the comm panel.
"Prometheus, I've got eyes on what might be an docking port on the station" SAm reported as the pilot looked at her with a peeved look on her face for the captain touching her controls without permission but sam ignored this for the moment in favor of proceeding with the mission
"What do you got carter?" The commander responded as she double checked what she had saw with the zoom function built into the viewpoint screen. WHen it came into view, she saw a rounded depresion on the top of the hull that gave her the impression of a docking pad with rear based airlock for landed craft. while this made no sense to her, sam did not dwell on this detail in favor of completing this mission as she was half certain that the prometheus would not be able to destroy the station in time before the enemy returned.
"I have eyes on what seems to be an airlock on the hull of the ring. We might be able to use that to gain entrance to the station." Carter said as the weapons whistled at the fact carter had seen it while she missed it.
"One problem carter, how the hell would you open it? Airlocks are always sealed and breaching one is very dangerous for the breaching team as it can release a burst of air that could blow you into space. Not to mention the possible debris that could be swept out of the target and either puncture your suit or outright kill you." The commander explained as Jack looked at the same screen that showed the airlock. That is when he was hit by an idea.
"I have an idea."JAck said as the other three looked at him."What if we use this birds weapons to blow the airlock."He asked as they looked at him as if he was crazy but before they could say as much, they heard the proximity alarm begin to blare on the prometheus bridge.
"proximity warning. Enemy death gliders squadrons are approaching us from outside our sensor range." Rickland said over the radio as Jack and sam began to look out the sides of the cockpit viewpoint and saw out of the very edge of the back that a large number of enemies were heading right for the ship as it began to fire tracers into the formation in attempt to dissuade them from using their numbers to overwhelm the guns with numbers.
"Prometheus to pelican. We can hold off the gliders for a while but you will not be able to dock with us so whatever you are going to do, it's up to you. Prometheus out." The commander said as the line cut out.
"Ok, so does anyone have any better ideas?"JAck asked as he looked at the other three occupants of the cockpit with a serious look in his eye that told them that they had to do something quick or they might become a target of the dead gliders as well.
"If i may, we might have a solution to getting onboard the station safely." Came the voice of one of the odsts as he walked up behind jack. AS jack turned to look at him, he then noticed that the trooper did not have a weapon and their uniform did not seem to fit exactly right which made jack a bit suspicious of who this was as the voice seemed familiar. Before he could demand the identity of the suspected stowaway, lifted the helmet from their head to reveal that it was Omac under the armor.
"Son of a -, what are you doing here?" Jack demanded as Omac moved past him to look at the station for himself.
"I came along because I felt that you would need my help to complete the mission. My people are still aboard your ship and are in danger from the goa'uld fleet that has become interested in the prometheus. If the ship were to remain, it's defences would eventually be overwhelmed and the ship boarded by the jaffa who would have no care to distinguish my people from yours. I am doing this because I want my people to return home to their families who stay up at night worrying about them and might even believe them to be dead. I want to see my family again and I am willing to do everything I can to see that day." Omac said as he began to calculate his plans for a maneuver that will allow for him to help get sg1 into the staion to shut down whatever device had trapped them here. He then moved to the pilot while Jack nodded his head in understanding for the man's reason for what he did and even began to respect the man's willingness to risk his life for the safety of his people.
"Pilot, can you land this craft onto the upper hull of the station?" The asked which caused the pilot to look at him as if he was insane.
"Are you serious? You are asking me to do a skin-to-skin contact with the station! Such maneuver is dangerous to do and only done by specially fitted pelicans."The pilot said in surprise at both the unauthorized presence of the man and his audacity of his question but was shocked to see the calm demeanor of the man as if he had meant it. "But to answer your question, yes I can but I don't see how that would help move the mission along." He said as he looked out the front to see if he could even spot a point on the hull to attach the grapnel anchors that are used for low gravity landing.
" It will help. My people have ways of getting through obstacles." Omac said sagly as the pilot looked at him with a sceptical look but then looked past him at jack who only nodded his head to do it. So the pilot turned his attention to moving the pelican forward to the spot on the hull that seemed flattest.
In the pelicans hold, sg1 watched as omac moved back to his seat but did not put on his helmet again though what surprised them was the fact that the odst did not even question what he was doing here which gave them the impression that they had known about him the whole time.
"So how are you going to get us in there?" Jack asked as he watched Omac stood in the middle of the pelican bay and stood there waiting.
"You will see." He responded when they heard a metal clang through the hull as the dropship made contact.
"Oh right, we have contact, what ever you are going to do, do it fast." jAck said as Omac brought up one of the devics they had seen his people wearing as he began to dial in a set of codes. they Then noticed that the floor to the bay began to distort and become somewhat semi-fluid.
"Go now, this will lead you inside."Omac said as sg-1 looked at him with a very funny look on their faces as if they had just seen the stargate being opened in front of them for the first time again. Omac saw this and let out a frustrated sigh as he saw their hesitation to go into the opening so he took out a ration pack from one the the many pockets on his belt and tossed it in. As it disappeared, they team watched as it disappeared into the distortion like it had past through the stargate.
Seeing that nobody wanted to test out the strange portal to the unknown, the odst captain cursed under his breath as he got up from his seat and grabbed his weapon as he walked over to the portal and jumped in to the amazed gasps of daniel and sam.
It was disorientating for a moment, but as soon as the captain got his bearings he noticed that he was now in a dark corridor with a slightly rounded walls that seemed to have the same copper tone as the outside but it did not seem to be rust upon closer inspection and the architecture seemed smooth compared to human architecture.
After making sure that he was alone and the area was secured, he put his finger to his helmets comm button to radio in.
"This is helljumper, the area is secured in here. You can come on down." He reported and watched as sg-1, his odst squad and the tollan came through the portal which closed behind him.
"Pelican, we are inside, get your asses out of here. O'niell out."the colonel radioed as he assessed the situation around them.
"Good luck colonel. You better hurry, prometheus is taking a on those goa'uld two bastards from earlier and they have more ships that keep sending in more squadrons of fighters so you better hurry. Pelican 29, out." Then the line cut out and O'neill looked around to get a feel for the surroundings as he turned his light on. The air smelled stale and he almost gagged before he pulled out his breathing mask so that he could breathe in fresh air.
" Lets move out."He said as he began to lead his team down the hall which seemed to go round until they came to room that seemed to lead them to a stairwell which to them seemed like an odd thing to have on a station that seemed to be this advanced but they pushed that out of their minds as they proceeded to move up the stairs quietly and they soon came too a shut door.
"Alright sam, your up." Jack said as Sam moved up to the door and began to study the small panel by the door though she was a bit perplexed about how to open it. She began to experiment by pushing buttons below what she took to be a light but the door was out of power. Before she could say anything, Omac came up to her and bean to remove the faceplate to reveal three crystals that were shaped like nothing she had ever seen before. Omac then brought up one of the small devices but this one was different as it had three crystal prongs on the back and four triangular buttons of the front. SHe watched as he pressed the back of the device to the control crystals which meshed the prongs on them which she guessed allowed him to manipulate the controls as Omac began to press the buttons in a combination and the crystal above them began to glow with power. He then pressed the light and the door opened with a silent hiss to reveal a dark corridor that opened into a large room that had consules placed about the room in a circular pattern that surrounded a large column that stretched from floor to ceiling with wires trailing from it to the floor.
AS the team walked into the rom, they could see the different consoles had controls that ranged from buttons to strange dials that gave the feeling of retro tech.
"Pelican, we have found what we believe to be the control room . We are proceeding inside."Jack reported through the radio as he took the lead with teal'c covering him two of the odst moved to the flanks and shined their lights around in search of threats.
"Clear Left."
"Clear Right."
"CLear front. Alright carter, You and Omac are up." Jack said as he gestured the two to enter.
AS she entered,Carter was taken aback for a moment by how old the tech looked but she pushed that out of her mind as she moved up to one of the consoles and began to study it in hopes of gaining any understanding of how to use the controls that might work the machine that is keeping the prometheus from leaving this area . As she touched one of the buttons on the panel in front of her, the screen in the center lit up with power as a holo screen appeared in front of her over the panel that she had touched. As she looked at the screen, she watched as writing appeared on it that took the form of blocky symbols that she felt that she had seen before but before she could think on it any further, Jack's com crackle to life with static.
"O'neill" He responded and was greeted by the voice of the commander shouting orders on the bridge to the pilot to make evasive maneuvers.
"SG-1, sitrep?" The commander ordered.
"Sir, we believe to be in the control room of the station. We are attempting to access the controls to what we think is the computer core."O'Neill replied as the radio crackled again with more orders being shouted the helms officer.
"Hurry SG-1, not certain how much longer we can hold out against these ships."Lovell said over the radio as jack heard as report of another cheops being sighted on approach to the ship.
(fire of Prometheus- bridge/ Time-2210)
"Roger that. We'll do our best to hurry along. O'Neill out." JAck replied over the radio as the com line cut out, allowing Lovell to refocus his attention on the battle outside. The ship was engaged in evasive maneuvers in attempt to keep from being boxed in to one spot so the enemy could close in to either destroy the frigate or board it. That was something that he could not allow to happen as it would show the goa'uld that the humans of earth were more advanced than they had supposed and this could lead the system lords to attacking and destroying their planet while it's people were not ready to face them head on. This had lead to the order for the ships to avoid capture by any means necessary, even it it meant self destruction to protect earth. Lovell pushed these thoughts away in order to focus on the battle that was taking place between his ship and the enemy attack ships that had launched the glider assault that was trying to damage the engine so as to prevent escape when the larger ships came in to begin boarding.
"Commander, we need to break our position near the station. It is preventing us from making more aggressive maneuvers to shake these gliders off us." Penderghast stated as the ship rumbled from another death glider strafing run.
"Very well." Lovell agreed as he turned toward the comm officer. He didn't want to leave the team without protection but knew that he had to protect the ship as well to he was making the hard choice.
" Comm, send encoded message to pelican-029 that we will have to break position to keep from being a sitting duck. Recommend use the station as cover until the battle is over." He said as He turned his attention to the holo tables tactical display that showed the now five enemy cheops class attack ships that had taken position to his starboard side, just out of reach for their main guns but not out of his. they seemed to be holding a staggered wall formation which would make it hard to maneuver should he turn his attention of them with his mac gun. His eyes picked out two of the ships designated as targets alpha-02 and alpha-03. They were holding formation in the center of all places. This made him wonder if the goa'uld commander was either that arrogant or really stupid as this was mistake to put the two weakest ships in the center instead of the flanks as it would allow the enemy to destroy them so as to divide the force into more manageable size as well as deprive the gliders of a place to land. The most critical flaw of this move was that if the two ships are destroyed, the explosion would send debris into the ships around them which would cause their shields to be weakened since the shields on these ships were apparently not built to withstand direct hits from large objects similar in mass the ships it was protecting. This fact coupled with the fact that it was an older model ships with light shields and he saw the mistake the enemy had made.
"Helm, come hard starboard and put us on course toward the enemy ships in the center. Fire control, warm up archer pods A1-D2 and target the ships designated targets Alpha 2 and Alpha 3. Rickland, Charge MAC gun to fire triple shot on my command and plot solution to fire Nuclear armament on my order." LOvell ordered as the ship began to bank toward the enemy formation with the trajectory aimed directly at the center ships. He began entering his Code for the nukes on his command chairs command pad while Pendergast did the same from his station.
As the frigate rocketed toward the formation,the Death Gliders rocketed in pursuit of the strange vessel that dared to defy the gods by challenging the mighty ships of Cronos, King of the Titans. The small fighters were doing their best to keep up but were unable to make any meaningful hits on its armored hull as they began to pull back in order to avoid the main guns of the fleet when it drew close enough into their range.
As they continued to follow they saw the ships lights dim slightly which caused them to believe that they had managed to damage something important until a blinding flash insured from the front which caused them to see spots due to the after image left by the firing of the mac gun.
The shell flew ahead of the racing ship at a fraction of light speed and slammed into Target alpha-2 whose shield was to weak from the earlier battle to even contest the shredder shell. It sliced through the paper thin armor and exploded deep in the bowls of the cheops which set its enormous shrapnel threw all the decks and into the reactor which exploded on contact with the white hot metal shards. The ship exploded in a fantastic fireworks display as its reactor broke up in an out of control manner as the liquid naquadah became overcharged and reach critical mass. The shockwave from this explosion pushed the ships to port out of formation, leaving a large enough hole for the prometheus to move through and as it did so, it fired off a what the R&D had dubbed a "goa'uld buster" which was made using a nuke enhanced with naquadah.
As the Prometheus flew through the debris field from the destroyed ships, the glider pilots tried to evade the remains of their former motherships but were only moderately successful as the bulk of their numbers met a fiery end as the collided with the largest chunks of the debris that bounced off the armor of the strange and suicidal ship.
As the Prometheus cleared the remains of the explosions, the ship rocketed behind a large moon by using the gravity the prepell the ship faster. As it came around, the nukes that they had launched hit their marks and targets beta 1 and beta 2 were destroyed in blinding flashes as the weaken shields gave out and the strain they had been subjected too. This left target beta 3 as it attempted to flee but was halted when the Prometheus fired its two remain Mac gun shots.
As the explosion from the destruction of the remaining enemy faded, a rousing hear erupted on the bridge as the crew took in the fact that they had won earth's first space engagement with the enemy.
"Well done everyone."Lovell congratulated as he took the moment to access the any damage to his ship as it had passed through the wreckage of the two destroyed ships and he was certain that they had taken some kind of damage. "Rickland get me a status report." he order the AI.
"No serious damage commander. Some slight dents and scrapes but nothing too bad." rickland said dryly as he look distracted for a moment.
"Commander, the remaining death gliders are regrouping to our starboard." rickland reported as the commander turned his seat around to regard the holotank as it showed the situation outside.
What the hell are they up too? He thought as the proximity alarm began to blare loudly in the bridge.
"Commander! I am detecting an unknown object emerging from the dust ring!" rickland announced with dead seriousness in his voice.
" what is the position?" Lovell questioned as the bridge suddenly became a flurry of activity as the view readied themselves for this new situation.
"To starboard, behind the enemy formation!" rickland said as he projected the even on the holotank.
Outside it was like the scene from a sci-fi horror movie as the a massive object began to emerge from the dust like a large marine predator about to take its prey. The first thing to emerge from the dust was a large golden point not unlike the cheops attack ships but this one was much larger and somehow felt much more menacing as more of the ship emerged from the to reveal a roundish superstructure surrounding a golden pyramid. The crew recognized it from their training to be the main ship of the goa'uld empire, the dreaded ha'tak mothership.
AS it came into formation with the death gliders, it launched reinforcements and began to charge up its weapons
"Commander, we are getting a transmission from the enemy ship." Rickland said as he worked over time to recharge the mac gun and prep the remaining nukes for launch.
"Put it on." Lovell ordered as he looked over the ships systems for any damage and to see what options he had left.
" I am Dionysus. You have no hope to resist my might. Surrender and bow before your god." The speakers spat out which caused the crew to stare for a couple seconds at the commander as he seemed to simply ignore the threats that the goa'uld kept spouting.
"Rickland, how long until we will be able to fire the Mac gun again?" lovell asked in a calm and professional voice as the crew followed his example by continuing to do their jobs.
"We will be able to fire in ten minutes provided we do not make any evasive maneuvers but since we will most likely have too. I estimate about fifteen minutes." Rickland said before his attention was drawn by the sensors reading regarding the enemy ships weapons.
"Commander, they are charging weapons and opening gunports." Rickland reported as the gliders began to advance toward them.
"Helm, evasive maneuvers but keep us between the enemy and the station. Fire Control, take down the incoming gliders while keeping fire on the enemy ship." he ordered as he turned his full attention toward the desperate battle they were about to face.
'It's all up to you now sg- 1.' lovell thought as the ship sped toward the ship's greatest test against the enemy it was built to protect the earth against.
As the gliders advanced upon their prey, the Prometheus began to fire it's point defence guns as the helm officer began to guide the ship in an evasive pattern that he had learned during training while in the air force. But as he began to bring the ship into a maneuver that would bring the ship out from under a strafing run by a wing of death gliders intent on knocking out one of the point defence turrets. As the ship heaved to the port, the ha'tak fired it's main guns at the frigate that was barely able to avoid a direct hit and instead took a glancing hit on the starboard engines outer armor shield. The impact heated the armor and cratered it when it was hit again by a more direct hit.
The prometheus responded with a volley of archer missiles but they exploded harmlessly on the motherships shields as it returned fire. with her fire divided between the death gliders and the ha'tak, the ship's helm officer engaged in standard naval procedure that called for the ship to keep circling around the station as it attempted to fight off the attacking craft. this only worked because it used the station to block off an avenue of attack for the gliders and prevented the ha'tak from getting a direct line of sight on the ship, though this did not dissuade them from firing at them when they had a shot.
While the helm officers actions were definitely not a good idea in the mind of lovell, he was dealing another problem that was much more important. The goa'uld were trying to scan the ship as if they were looking for something. what he feared was that they might discovered the ships ring transporter which was added to the ship for easier transport between ships in space and use it to board the ship. he had security teams setting up defences at the ring room incase such an occurrence happened though it seemed that the jamming was working at keeping that weakness hidden. He watched as a team of marines secured the bridge elevators with a machine gun turret and deployable barriers. He had done all that he could do,It was now all up to sg1.
(Station control room, unknown planet)
In the heart of the station, captain carter and omac were busily working on the station in attempt to deactivate the device that was preventing the prometheus from escaping this region of space.
"Carter, have you made any progress in turning off the damn thing yet?" O'neill inquired in a somewhat irritated voice from having been standing here while their ship was being attacked.
"Sir, this is in a language that I can't read. If I start guessing and pushing buttons randomly, I could blow us up." carter said in an exasperated voice as she was not use to being under this kind of pressure were one false move could spell disaster but if she took to long the ship may be destroyed in the battle that was being displayed on the holo screen. It showed the prometheus launching archer missile barrages but they lacked the kind of punch needed to overcome the ha'tak shields unlike the plasma cannons which were firing at the ship in attempt to disable it and board with intent on taking prisoners so she was racing against the clock.
Daniel was also trying to help by attempting to translate the text but was unable to as he lacked any kind of reference on this blocky looking writing that he was certain was the same as the writing from the planet of heliopolis. That led him to believe that the race that built this station was one of the great races.
"Daniel, any luck at translating the language?" SAm asked as she and Omac continued to try interfacing with the terminal in front of them. They had managed to find a way of removing the side of the panel to reveal the control crystals so that they could use the interface device on Omac's arm but they found that the data stream was at least fourteen trillion terabytes per second and he had said that such a datastream could not be simply interfaced with as it was too much data to go through to find the disruption devices controls.
"No Sam! I can't translate this as it is the same language we encounter on ernest's planet. I think that is one of the four great races". Daniel said. "This is amazing, to think we would encounter an example of their technology out in the middle of deep space." He wondered as O'Niell just rolled his eyes at the scene of the archaeologist moving back and forth around the room as he started drawing the symbols
"Prometheus to SG-1, respond!" Came the voice of the commander over the radio though it was marred by static and voices shouting reports.
"O'Neil Here."JAck replied as he turned to face the screen and saw that it was not going well for the prometheus as the ha'tak had managed to get in a few good hits on the frigate though this did not seem to slow the ship down as it was using large rocks inb the dust rings as cover while launching missiles from behind cover but it did not seem to be having any effect on the goa'uld ships shields.
"Have you made any further progress on deciphering the control mechanisms to the station?" The commander inquired as there was a sound of an explosion in the background.
"No sir, we are having difficulty with the system due to it's hyper advanced nature. the most we have been able to do is interact with the communication transmitter." O'Neill said to which the commander cursed over the line.
"That of no use to us in this situation sg1. Pick up the pace or we will all die here." THe commander growled over the radio.
(prometheus bridge"
On the bridge, there was controlled chaos as the battle raged between the frigate and the ha'taks escorts.
"We are working as fast as we can sir, but this system is highly more advanced than we can deal with. We don't even have the equipment or understanding of the language to begin interfacing with this data stream." Carter's voice said over the radio.
"That is why I allowed omac to go with you as he told us that he has experience with technology like this." Lovell said as he watched the holotank as another wing of death gliders was coming to replace a wing that had been destroyed by the initial volly from the point defence guns though it was beginning to show that they were not up to the job of dealing with such a large concentration of fighters as they increasingly got hits into the frigate that were slowly wearing down the armor in different section of the hull.
"THat is true, but I have never encountered a control system such as this. It is manipulated by a combination of buttons and hand dials with a data stream that would take much too long to decipher it." This caused the commander to curse louder as he looked around at the situation going to heel around them. He was about to order sg-1 to evac so that they could order the weapons officer to destroy the station.
"But I may have a solution to the situation, though it will come with great risk." He heard Omac's calm voice speak out.
"What is it?" Lovell inquired as he was ready to take anything
"It will require the aid of your ships Ai to transmit itself to the station and take control of the system. It will guarantee the success of the mission with no more time lost than has been already." Omac said in his calm voice though he could feel the gravity of the man's words as he suggested the craziest plan that lovell has ever heard.
"That is an unacceptable plan. I can not risk the lives on this ship as the Ai is the only thing keeping us from being blown into space dust." Lovell responded as t he ship shook again from a grazing hit from the hat'taks guns
"I understand that this is not something to take lightly but under the circumstances it is the most logical risk to take so as to ensure the survival of your crew and my people." Omac continued with finality in his voice as lovell remembered that this man also had a stake in this battle. He then turned to the holotank to see that the ha'tak was launching more death gliders which meant that if the situation did not change, the goa'uld would destroy the ship and and take the stations technology. This outcome was unacceptable in any choice they made. He looked at rickland who just stared back at him.
"What do you think rickland?" HE asked the ai.
"If this is the only solution to the problem at hand, then I am prepared to take the risks involved." The Ai said as he looked at the commander with a look of determination.
"Very well. Go then rickland. Time is running very short." Lovell said as he rose from his command chair. "Helm officer, relinquish the helm to me. If we are going to to do this without Rickland, then it would be best if we had a more experienced hand on the wheel." He stated as he moved to the helm station and took over for the navy man.
" Rickland, get yourself transferred to the ships Laser transmitter. After you are transfered, we will engage the hattak directly to keep them off your back as long as we can." Lovell stated as he sat in the helm officers chair and began to look over the controls, being pleased to see that they were that same as they were on the paris class frigates of old though this ship was a prototype using some goa'uld technology to supplement the unsc tech. He only hoped that the armor would hold up to direct engagement.
(Data Steam network)
Rickland made his way through the data stream to the laser transmitter subsystem of the ship, located in the ships transmitter and communication array. As he reached it, he began manipulating the data stream so as to enable the transmitter to transmit to the dropship that had managed to stay undetected by the gliders. It would much easier to transmit to the pelican as it's systems were configured for smart AIs to interact with and he was certain that the alien station would have multiple defences to protect its systems from outside intrusion which meant that he would have to downloaded to one of omac's devices and then plugged into the station's computer core.
"Rickland to pelican, prepare to receive me." HE transmitted to the pilots over encrypted channels.
"This is Pelican 029, ready for your transmission rickland." Came the response.
"Very well. Transmitting now." Rickland said as he initiated the transmitting code which caused a door to appear before him which led to the transmission. He knew this was a possibly bad idea but he walked through it regardless.
(Pelican-029)
The dropship pilot monitored the transmission as Omac walked into the cockpit along with O'Neill who had decided to come as an escort. Omac proceed to attach his data storage device to the console after manipulating the controls to make it compatible to the insertion slot. He watched as its small screen lit up to show something was being downloaded from the craft's systems which he was certain was the AI. within a minute, the device beeped to show that the download was successful.
"Success, the Ai Is with us. Now we can complete the mission. Let's get back to the others." He said calmly as he saw the Prometheus begin to break position on an attack course for the Ha'tak. He could only hope that the ship was strong enough to survive this battle for his people sake, and possibly every human in the galaxy if they to ever see freedom.
(Peltak)
The battle seemed to be going well for dionysus as his hattak took potshots at the foreign ship while the gliders continued to make attack runs at it to keep the ship from being able to retaliate effectively against him with its forward weapon. He had seen it while it had been destroying his cheops warships. he was not entirely sure as to what manner of weapon it was but he was certain that if it managed to be fired at his ha'tak, even this ships shields would not last very long against it.
"My lord, we have finished the scan of the station and determined that it is of unknown technology to us yet the enemy ship is continuing to circle it in attempt to defend it. What are your commands?" The first prime requested as he looked at the goa'uld taking another long gulp of his wine.
unknown to the jaffa, the goa'uld was using the goblet to hide his the large grin on his face as he watched the battle. Like all goa'uld he knew who this technology belonged to as they had encountered examples of it on the slaves homeworld in great quantities. It was the technology of the gate builders, even if it was the oldest example he has ever seen in his life, he was certain of it. HE knew that if he could capture it, then he could present it to lord cronus and then he would be rewarded greatly for his accomplishment.
"Have our jaffa prepared to board the station via the boarding craft. Order our gliders move to cover their approach while we move to attack the main prize." THe goa'uld said with a surprising lucid grasp of tactics despite how much he has drank.
"As you command, my lord." The first prime replied as he relayed the orders to the jaffa onboard the ship to their new mission but just as the jaffa began to make their way to the hanger, the proximity alarms began to go off which prompted him to quickly pull up the tactical screen and see that the enemy ship had broken its defence and was on course to possibly launch an attack against the ha'tak.
"My lord! The enemy ship advances upon us!" He announced which caused the goa'uld to laugh at them for thinking that they could harm his ship and ordered for the first prime to fire low powered shots so as to disable it for boarding and capture. But just as he began to adjust the weapons settings, the front of the enemy ship began to glow which caused the goa'uld to quickly order the ship to evade toward the side of the ship so as to avoid the front mounted weapon. he quickly carried out the order but instead of firing the weapon that his lord had expected, the sensors showed a pair of unknown targets launch from the ship. he decided to ignore the attack as he was confident that it would not harm the ha'taks mighty shields as they had been made by the gods and surly nothing could harm the ship when it had such divine protection.
"They launch an attack toward us, my lord." THe first prime reported with a neutral voice that benefited his rank as he knew that the goa'uld could care less what happened when he was drinking so much.
"Primitive weapons. They are nothing to fear for this ha'tak is built by the gods and therefore can withstand anything they send against us." The goa'uld said as he took another deep gulp of his wine. "Transfer power to the engine to out maneuver the enemy ship and allow us to strike at the flank." the fat goa'uld said as he shoved a piece of his cheese in his mouth and downed his wine in one gulp that amazed the jaffa that the did not choke from that. "When the ship passes us by, fire at the engine to disable movement then begin disabling weapons so also facilitate a smooth boarding." The goa'uld said in a pompous fashion as he went back to his drinking.
AS the ship approached , the first prime sent the order to the gliders to pull back so that they did not get caught in the crossfire when the two warships began exchanging fire. AS the hat'taks sensors tracked the incoming projectiles, they suddenly broke into at least a dozen different targets which caused the ships alarms to go off as the sensors detected naquadah in their makeup. he had no time to react as the objects accelerated to near blinding speed and before he could warn his lord, they impacted the shields in explosions that caused the ship rock slightly but from what he could tell was that there appears to be no real damage to the ship.
"What was that?" The goa'uld said in a surprised tone as the jaffa manipulated the controls the check the ships systems and what he found was profoundly troubling. the ships control console told him that the shields had taken damage and that the sensors had been momentarily blinded by heavy radiation which meant that he could not fire as the ship was blind to the target and he knew that firing manually was increadly difficult from the gunner stations on this old hatak as he would only be able to direct fire forward with greatly reduced accuracy on the part of the gunners. Seeing that the sensors would be no use to him for now, the first prime deactivated the tactical display to get a visual of the ship but all he could see was a wall of fire impact the shield and cause the floor to vibrate with more force.
As the missiles hit the shields, alarms went off in the peltak that signaled that the shields were showing signs of weakness in them as they were trying to draw in more power to re enforce the side of the bubble that was sustaining multiple hits which in turn was causing the emitters to strain from the effort due power having been transformed to the engine in preparation for a high speed maneuver. As he began to manipulate the controls to retransfer the power to the shields,The gliders sent him an alert about the enemy ship. He looked out the viewpoint and he managed to see through the explosions in time to see the bow of the foreign ship glow brightly before it unleashed three bursts that traveled nearly as fast as light to crash against the shield but as they hit, he saw them break into thousands of huge shards that managed to penetrate the shield and crash into the hull in a series of explosions that caused the ship to rock as the alarms screamed at him from the control console about damage in multiple locations and that the shields had been shattered from the impact. As he tried to initiate the emergency commands, the enemy ship banked to port and rose over the hull of the realing hattak while performing a roll that allowed it to clear the ships bow past the peltak, allowing him to see strange turrets pointed at the ship begin to erupt in flashes of light and fire.
(Prometheus bridge)
AS the prometheus passed over, Lovell ordered the weapons officers to use the point defence guns to start firing at the enemies gun batteries to prevent the wounded hattak from retaliating. He watched out the starboard side of the view point as the point defence cannons began barking vollies of shells into the ha'taks hull that began to explode against the thin armored hull of the pyramid ship. This was a firing configuration of the cannons that was surprisingly seeing a lot of use. It allowed the point defence guns to act like mini naval cannons by firing shells into the target. It was built into the guns because the people of this time were adamant that the ship would need to be able to fight enemy ships to the side effectively though lovell was certain that the people had a romantic idea of the destroyer left over from second world war. But seeing it now did make him see the appeal of such romantic ideas, as they were quite a sight to behold as they tore gouges into the enemy hull as the ship circled the monster that was trying to retaliate against them but was missing many shots due to having no targeting from the blinded sensors and the fact that they had ringed aboard two teams of odst and marines to attempt disabling the power plant.
"Captain Hannigan, report your status?" Lovell ordered into the hand radio he had strapped to his left shoulder as his hands drove the controls like mad to keep the prometheus moving while bringing the ships gun batteries to bear on each turn while the ha'taks uncoordinated guns fired. the ship took a couple hits to the midships but managed to avoid major damage.
(Inside hattak)
"This is hanagan, we have made contract with the enemy." He reported as He leaned around the connor to let lose a stream of bullets into an enemy jaffa that was trying to charge from his guard posting. " We have caught the enemy with their pants down. encountering light resistance."
"Don't be too confident, captain. You are on the clock. disable the hattaks power generator before they are able to get the shields back up or you will be stranded aboard the enemy vessel." Lovell said as the ship shook from a barrage of hits from prometheus. The captain then heard a distant explosion and could smell smoke in the air as it became evident that a fire had started aboard.
AS his marines rounded another conner, he saw a door in one of the wall to the left and an adjoining corridor to the right. He knew this was the door to the reactor room from maps taken from a terminal in the secondary bridge by the odest when they had boarded. His mission was to try and disable the enemies power systems while the odst were to access the ships data center and gain info on this ship, it's commander and more importantly why the enemy is here.
"Private Jones, set up here. BUrn that door open." He ordered the welder team he had as his marines set up fields of fire at form the corners of this junction.
"It will take no less than a five minutes, sir." Jones reported as a plasma bolt hit the wall near his head when a group of jaffa came charging from around the bend in the right corridor. This galvanised him to ignite his torch and begin working on the seam in the middle of the door.
"Better hurry son if you want to live." The captain said as he began to fire his MA5c assault rifle into the charging jaffa, his armor piercing rounds ripping through them as like a beer can. The jaffa charge faltered as the their numbers quickly thinned as the deck became slippery with blood from the wounded and dying. They managed to get some good hits on the defenders such as the LT. across from him. He would be alright as he had only taken a glancing hit. He as the poor bastards retreated, he could hear the marching of their armored boots coming from the main corridor though his men were making mincemeat of them as they marched up. He then heard an explosion as one of the marines rolled a grenade into the enemy ranks and took out at least five of them.
"How you doing jones?" The captain shouted as he positioned to lend his men a hand holding the main corridor.
"Half way through now. two more minutes!" The marine shouted as he continued to work on getting the door open. He managed to do it in less time as the door suddenly opened to reveal a jaffa that had hoped to flank the defenders but had ended up having the burning torch shoved into his eyes from the startled marine that was able to think fast on his feet. Private Jones Then pulled out his pistol and emptied the clip into the jaffa's belly. This brought the unfortunate bastard down and killed the symbiote as well..
"Sir, the door is open." Jones reported as he quickly took cover behind the new corner.
"Good work, private. Follow me. The captain said as he led two more maines through the doorway and into a giant rounded chamber that went up for quite a way. Hanagan looked around and in the middle of the room he could see a light shining up from a dark pit in front of him and his marines. He walked over to the edge of the pit in front of him and found that he was staring at the top of a cluster of reactors nestled in the bottom of the ship.
"OBjective found." Hanagan said into his radio as he and his marines began preparing the charges.
"Sir, how are we getting down there?" Jones questioned as he looked into the pit again.
"No time to climb down, we drop the charges on top of it and blow them." THe captain explained as he and his men prepped the charges. WHen they were ready, they threw them into the pit to clatter in the middle of the reactor cluster. HE was sure that this alone will not be enough to take the ship out but was certain that it will damage the reactor enough to cause it to shut down in emergency which will give prometheus enough time to get away from this system.
"Out now!" Haragan ordered and the Marines withdrew from the room. When they were clear, he pulled out the remote, flipped the safety off and pressed the button. His ears were created by the sound of an explosion that made the floor tremble. He watched as the lighting flickered in and out which caused the jaffa attack to faulted as they became aware of the fact that power was malfunctioning. The Marines took advantage of this opportunity and began mowing down their distracted and clearly demoralized for. This caused the hades to finally break and retreat from the junction.
The Marines roared in triumph at the withdrawing enemy while haragan hit the radio to Prometheus.
"This is captain Haragan. Mission accomplished. We are pulling out." He said as he gave order through hand signs and they began to make their way down the corridor the same way the came from.
"Odst report in. Is the exit secure?" The captain ordered as he checked a corner as his unit made their way to the ring room. He could he hear gun fire over the radio and became worried that they may lose the ring room. He sent a signal to prometheus to be ready for them to come in hot.
As they rounded the corner, the marines saw the floor covered in blood and bodies that belonged to attacking jaffa that had been met with a wall of lead from three submachine guns. As they stepped over the bodies, they found that the odst were unharmed for the most part but closer inspection showed that a couple had taken hits that, while had not penetrated their armor, had left them with various internal injuries.
"Prometheus, we are ready to ring back aboard. Have the medbay prepped for injuries." HE radioed to the ship as he began to push the combination on the control panel. The whining sound of the ring shutter opening and the whooshing of the ringings descending to beam away the first group of odst.
(prometheus-Bridge)
On the ridge of the frigate, Lovell watched turned the helm control to bring the ship to another portside turn as the guns kept up a covering fire against the ha'taks staff cannons but as they came around, the staff cannons stopped firing.
"SIr, mission is a success. The Boarding team have returned to the ship." The tactical officer and this brought a smile to lovell's face and he turned the helm controls toward the starboard.
"Alright, good work. tactical get me an assessment of the enemy ships status." Lovell ordered as he brought the ship to a more respectable distance away from the damaged hatak and back toward the station.
"It seems that the enemy ship is disabled. staff cannons show no signs of tracking or charge up sequence. I'd say that the hatak has been neutralized for the time being." SHe said and the crew broke into a triumphant cheer as lovell stood up from the helm station and made his way back to his command chair. AS he sat back down into the chair, his hand brought up the ships systems and saw that while they had managed to avoid most of the enemy shots, they had taken three hits to the starboard side in the engin blast shield, against the armor belt in the middle and a hit against the bow armor. When he was satisfied that the ship had managed to avoid any crippling damage, he brought the sensors up and saw that the enemy ship was not moving or even attempting to fire it's staff cannons at them. He was half tempted to order fire control to finish off the hatak with the archers but upon looking at the ships weapons systems, he saw that the archer ammo was almost depleted so it do no good to use them.
"prometheus come in. This is rickland." This brought his attention from finishing the enemy ship as the prometheus got ready to comabout and bring the mac gun to bear.
"Rickland, report."
"SIr, I have gained control of the slipspace disruption device but we have a much bigger problem." Rickland said which drew lovell's attention.
'Now what' He thought. Rickland then appeared on the holotank but from what could be seen about him, he seemed to be flickering lightly.
"Sir! I have deactivated the slipspace disruption device but i have come across a problem." Rickland said as he saluted. Lovell was not sure what it was, but he could see that rickland was not the same as he was.
"That is great news rickland but what is the problem that you mentioned? From where I'm sitting, then enemy is beaten here." Lovell said as he decided to test rickland to see what could be wrong with him. It was shown to be a smart move as the ai flickered rapidly until he settled back. "what's wrong with you rickland, you keep flickering
"I'm sorry sir, this system is not best configured to allow ai to roam it freely. I have sustained damage to my coding but I am still functional. The problem we face is that the stations sensores have detected what I believe to be a Goa'uld fleet of tremendous size to be approaching the system and will arrive on our current position in two minutes." Rickland said as Lovell's eyes went wide as he grasped the danger they were now in. He reached for his com unit but was met by the frantic sounds of frantic shouting as a flash happened off the starboard bow as goa'uld ships began to appear from hyperspace. first it was two, then six and they kept coming until they were staring at no less than one hundred ha'taks and escorting ships.
"Rickland you said that they were two minutes away. What the fuck is that?!" Lovell shouted as he kicked the engine in to full burn and made for the station. "Tell away teams to be ready to jump ship, we have to get out of here NOW!" Lovell ordered as the sensores began to register weapons fire behind the frigate as ha'taks began to pursue them.
"Im sorry, I did not see them coming. They must have been close by and received a distress call from the goa'uld commander here. But I have an idea on how to deal with them."
"What are you going to do?" Lovell asked as the ship shook as it took a glancing hit but before he could get and answer, a bolt of energy passed over the frigate and struck the chasing hatak and before it's crew had time to register they were under attack, another energy bolt tore through the ships shields and destroyed the ship.
"Rickland, what was that?" Lovell asked but saw his answer as the station came into view and he could see more energy bolts being fired into the enemy formation. The plasma bolts were the most incredible weapons he had ever seen as they destroyed ships in record time and this caused the fleets commander to break off pursuit as the frigate came to a stop beside the station.
"That was the stations defence weapons array. It would seem that they are more than enough to deal with dozens of attacks at a time. though i suggest evacuation before..." Then a new serie of hyperspace windows began to open and reveal a second fleet of ha'taks emerging from hyperspace behind the first fleet. "Sir, another fleet has just jumped in but something is not right. Im intercepting the enemy chatter and they seem to be trading insults."
Before Lovell could question this further, The second fleet began to fire it's weapons at the first. This brought a sigh of relief to lovell was the goa'uld ships took their attention from prometheus and fought each other.
"We caught a break. Away teams begin evacuation while we still have a moment. after they are back, we will attempt to break through the enemies and leave this place." Just as lovell finished, a bright flash of light appeared on the bridge and showed the arrival of a ship that near boggled the mind. "All teams move your..." He was interrupted as he was almost blinded as a buzzing sound filled the air and the away teams appeared in the bridge.
"I'm sorry. You need to go now." Rickland said as he began to flicker more as the station began to fire it's weapons at any attack that wondered to close.
"Rickland, what are you doing?" Lovell said as he began to see the slipspace drive charge up from his position on the helm.
"I'm sorry. There is no time for you to get me out of the system. I'm too integrated to it and you need somebody to hold them off as you jump away. Now get out of here before you can't anymore."
"Rickland, don't do this." Lovell pleaded as he watched the battle getting closer as the giant ship was pushin the first fleet toward them as the stations guns fired at an increased rate.
"I don't want to hear it."Static,Flicker..."This is my choice on how I want to die."Flicker ."I am too damaged to be removed from this system safely so I can't go with you now." Static, flicker, flicker."I would be too rampant to fly this ship safely so It's best if you leave this to me." Rickland said as he began to show signs of rampancy.
"Then I wish you well." Lovell said as he saluted rickland and reached for the radio on his shoulder. "All hands, prepare for slipspace jump. Repeat, all hands prepare for slipspace jump." Lovell announced as sg-1 watched in muted horror as the ship began to move away from the station after the pelican had docked.
"Goodbye sir. Rickland,signing off." Rickland said as he saluted before he flickered out as the blackness of slipspace enveloped the ship as the third enemy fleet arrived in the planet's rings.
(Fire of Prometheus/May 1st, 1999/2300 hours)
Lovell sat in his quarters as attempted to sleep from his exhaustion but you'd that sleep eluded him as he saw Rickland's smile before he cut out. It was haunting him too see the face of the ai that had been with them since the fall of reach. He had become familiar to the crew and had come to be regarded as a friend. He knew that Rickland's loss was hurting the crew but he knew not how to deal with it as he had never been in this situation before. The best he could do is hold a service after they arrive as they seem to be traveling at a very high velocity and they had estimated that they would arrive to tollana in around three more days.
As he sat on his bed, a knock came to his door.
"Enter." He said and was greeted by the face of Omac as he walked in.
"I came to pay my respects to you and your crew for all you did for my people. I wish I could understand how you feel about this but I can tell you that it is never easy to be a leader when you lose the lives of those that serve under you. I should know as my mission cost the lives of at least four of my people and would have cost the rest had your people not intervened when you did." Omac said in his calm and almost emotionless voice though Lovell could feel the deeper feeling in his words as he spoke. It made lovell wonder if Omac had been there when the disaster of tollan had happened.
"were you there when sarita was destroyed?"
"Yes. I was there when I happened and had even been the one to advocate for giving them the device that ultimately sealed our doom. Millions died from my actions so I'm certain that I am more than qualified to tell you that the only thing you can do is to honor those we have lost by moving forward with the lessons that we have learned so that we may care those that are still with us." Omac said as he walked back out of the quarters, leaving Lovell to sleep as he thought about what had been said he laid down in his bed and stared at the ceiling. While Omac's speech did not lessen his regret for his decisions but I did lighten his feeling of guilt about leaving rickland behind. These thoughts slowly gave way as exhaustion and sleep finally overcame him.
(Fire of Prometheus)
As the ship flew through slipspace, a pair of eyes regarded them with interest as they moved through the ship to see how far humanity had come with their new technology. It amazed them how this ship had been built and that it had defeated a goa'uld force on its own. True it had been a small force but the results spoke of great potential in the humans of earth and if they were guided in the right direction, they may One day not be able to challenge the goa'uld, they may even defeat them at last and free humanity from its enslavement. For now the entity would watch this For thing was for certain, the galaxy was going to be changed forever.
Authors note: hello my readers. I know that I have been absent for a long time and I greatly regret not updating quicker. I will not make excuses as I have none to make. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and will continue reading.