Chapter Two
Derelict Ship
That Same Time
Lieutenant Nathan Blackwell cautiously swept his Corsair heavy assault rifle from side to side, as he led his current squad of marines into the room where they'd detected the first lot of stasis signatures. Though this warship seemed to be derelict and almost completely dead, he wasn't about to take any chances, especially given the alien attack on the Concordia that had occurred mere minutes before. While the two unknown but highly aggressive alien warships had been defeated, either burned from the stars by ion cannon fire or torn apart by drone weapons, Nathan was too experienced to believe that the danger to himself and his men had ended with the destruction of the warships.
Taking there lead from him the rest of the squad spread out and began searching the room for any sign of hostiles. All of them knew that it was possible that the aliens had transported over to the derelict, it would be easy enough given that the derelict had no shields or anything capable of blocking or scattering a transporter beam – at least not that they knew of. They also knew it was unlikely that the Concordia would have spotted a transport during the heat of battle, transporter energy flares were very brief after all and could easily get lost in all the energy backwash 'noise' of weapons fire and Cherenkov radiation flares from shield impacts that occurred during a space battle.
"Clear lieutenant," Sergeant Rostov reported over the squad command frequency.
"Good," Nathan replied. "Michaels, Stevens guard the door."
"Yes sir," both marines acknowledged and moved to cover the door. While his two marines moved to the door, Nathan slipped his Corsair back to its storage location between his shoulder blades – held there by a molecular bonding surface – and curiously looked at the room around him.
It was a large rectangular space – according to his HUD the room was twenty-three metres long and ten wide. Somewhat unsurprisingly, there were still some lights on; they were the same pale blue lights that had illuminated the stairwell between the levels of this gigantic ship. Against the wall at forty-degree angles were rectangular coffin-like pods their transparent front surfaces frosted over. Small control panels on the side of each pod glowed softly and each had locker beside it – a locker that looked no different to what you'd find in any high school or gym in the galaxy.
A large pedestal like console stood in the centre of the room, like the smaller control panels some lights on it still glowed softly indicating that it was still drawing power from the ships energy grid. Cautiously he moved over to the console and scanned it; it didn't look at all like the consoles he was used it. Instead of being covered with crystalline controls, knobs and slides like on their own ships the console surface was smooth and gave the impression of being made of somekind of metallic plastic. Lights glowed faintly at a few places beneath the quasi-metallic surface, the lettering unsurprisingly in English characters and Nathan gave it a cursory scan, noting that it seemed to be a central control point for the chambers in this room.
"Rostov, come here" he called to his team's sergeant – who was also the closest thing he had to an electronics specialist. "Take a look at this console; see if you can make any sense of it."
"Yes sir," Rostov answered and Nathan made way for the younger man to get to work on the console.
While Rostov got to work, Nathan curiously made his way to the closest pod and mentally ordered his suits computer to scan it and its contents while he visually checked it out. The pod was somewhat bulky – more so than the cocoon-like stasis pods they themselves used on occasion – but seemed functional and the design somehow fitted in with the blocky, angular design of this vessel. Cautiously he reached out and wiped some of the condensation off the transparent front plate, to find that the pod contained a well built but otherwise unremarkable Caucasian male who looked to be in his mid to late twenties or very early thirties.
From what little he could see through the heavily frosted surface the young man was completely naked and was very pale, which fitted in with the sensor information his suit computer spat back at him. According to the scan the man was cryogenically frozen – though there didn't appear to be any ice crystals in his cells or blood stream. Nathan couldn't help but wonder if the gases that filled the interior of the pod coupled with the very low level microwave emissions that his sensors picked up were somehow preventing that from happening. If that's the case then it would be a clever solution to the problems cryogenically freezing someone has, he thought impressed by the technology. In some ways cryogenic freezing was superior to the technology they themselves used in the rare instances where stasis was required. But in others it was far more primitive and clunky, requiring extensive apparatus and needing someone to figure out away of preventing the freezing and defrosting processes from killing the subject. Something that this ships builders had obviously been able to do.
Curiosity growing he examined the rest of the data on the pod his suit sensors had been able to gather. The pod was apparently still drawing some power from the ship though it appeared that the lion share of power the pod needed was now coming from built in micro-fusion batteries. The pod was also completely airtight and seemed designed to survive in the absolute zero vacuum environment of space for quite sometime. Makes sense, he thought, some of our own stasis pods can act as life pods in an emergency, there is no reason why these can't either. The fact that these pods have their own internal power source will make getting them off the ship a whole lot easier, we can just transport the pods and their contents to one of our warships or Rivendell and revive them in more controlled conditions there.
"Lieutenant I've managed to get the console active," Rostov called out bringing Nathan's attention back to him and making the Special Forces trained and augmented marine move over to rejoin him.
"Can you make anything out?" Nathan asked.
"Yes," Rostov answered. "This console appears to primarily link to the systems in this stasis bay. It does have a link to the rest of the ships computer network – however the network appears to be down probably from lack of power. I can only access basic information from local memory."
"That's alright what can you tell me?"
"For one I can tell you this ships name, we're aboard the UNSC Spirit of Fire, Captain James Gregory Cutter commanding," Rostov replied. "If what I'm reading here is right this ship isn't a frontline combat vessel but rather some sort of fleet support ship."
Nathan raised an eyebrow behind the silvered faceplate of his helmet, surprised by that revelation. This ship was almost as big as a Damocles-class battlecruiser and it was a support ship? Albeit one that was well armed even if its weapons systems and defences were somewhat on the primitive side.
After a few moments more thought he supposed that he shouldn't be surprised. From what they'd seen on this ship so far the Humans who'd built it were a lot less technologically advanced than they were, they certainly seemed to lack technologies that Nathan like all Tau'ri took for granted. Technologies like nano-forges, molecular fabricators and food synthesisers that meant there ships didn't have to carry massive quantities of supplies. Hence why their own supply ships tended to be small and only carried materials and objects that were difficult – if not impossible – to easily construct or synthesise by their normal means.
The Humans who'd built this ship however seemed to lack that kind of technology, meaning they had to carry far more massive amounts of supplies. Viewed in that light it explained the immense size of this vessel they would need massive bays to store things in. And if the Humans of this reality were at war with someone it would explain why this ship was armed. Nathan suspected that the Humans of this reality were indeed at war and he had suspected that the aliens who'd attacked the Concordia were humanities enemy. It would certainly explain why the aliens opened fire on the Concordia without warning or provocation.
"Any more information in the local memory," he asked after a few moments of silence.
"Only a complete list of the individuals that are occupying the cryo-tubes in this bay," Rostov answered. "Most appear to be navy personnel – mostly pilots and maintenance personal, presumably from the hanger bay we initially beamed into. However a few are something called ODST – I have no idea what they are but from the rank structures I suspect they might be marines."
"Can you access the cryo pod control systems," Nathan asked knowing they'd find out more about these ODST – though what ODST stood for he had no idea – marines later. First they needed to get these people off this ship before it entered the asteroid field.
"I believe so," Rostov answered his hands dancing over the console, fingers still nimble even though they were encased in armour. After a few moments he managed to get access to the cryo control systems. "I'm in sir. Given that this ships life support systems are offline the system won't let me start the revival sequence on the pods. However I can disengage the pods from the ship which will – if I'm reading this right – automatically activate their emergency radio beacons."
"That will do, stand by to execute the command to disengage from the ship. I just need to inform the Concordia first so they can lock onto the beacons and beam the pods aboard."
"Yes sir standing by."
As the sergeant spoke Nathan gave his suit computer a mental command, instructing it to open an encrypted subspace comm. link with the Concordia. After half a seconds delay a bleep sounded in his ears as the connection was firmly established.
"Investigation team one to Concordia do you read," Nathan said into the suit pickup.
"We read you lieutenant," Captain Mitchell's voice responded immediately. "What's your status?"
"We've entered one of the stasis bays sir," Nathan reported. "There are a large number of Humans here in some sort of cryogenic suspension. We've been able to tap into some of the ships systems and have determined that the pods are capable of being separated from the ship without negative effects to those within. My guess is it's an emergency system similar to what some of our stasis pods have as the moment the pods disengage from the ships systems emergency radio beacons are supposed to activate."
"Interesting," Mitchell commented and Nathan could almost see the thoughtful look that had no doubt appeared on his commanding officers face. "Have you been able to learn anything else about the derelict lieutenant?"
"A little sir," Nathan replied before explaining what Rostov had been able to pull off the local RAM.
"Very interesting and if the Humans of this reality and those aliens who attacked us are at war with each other it would explain a lot," Mitchell said sounding thoughtful. "But we need more information than what you've been able to gather so far. Additional teams will be transporting over to the derelict shortly to do additional surveys in the meantime I have a new assignment for you."
Behind his helmet visor Nathan's eyebrows rose. "Sir," he queried.
"First off I want you to disengage those cryo-pods from the rest of the derelict so we can transport them aboard. Our scans have located what appears to be the bridge, once the pods are safely transported off I want you to take your team up there and see if you access the navigational computer."
"Getting a copy of their star charts would certainly save us a lot of time," Nathan commented knowing that the fleet and Rivendell itself had been heavily scanning space around them since their arrival in this reality. Conversations he'd had in the gym and mess hall with Lieutenant McKay had let him know that they were doing it to build an accurate map of the space around them as some of the stellar objects and phenomenon they could detect were either in slightly the wrong place or missing altogether. According to McKay the differences were giving the fleets navigators a fair few headaches to say the least.
"That is one of the reasons why we want them," Mitchell confirmed. "The other is the aliens who attacked us could send more ships to find out why their ships haven't returned. As powerful as our ships are I doubt we'd be able to fend off an entire fleet. Hopefully the star charts will tell us where the alien territory is so we can avoid it."
"Understood sir we'll get right on it."
"Good luck lieutenant," Mitchell answered before terminating the comm. link from his end. Calmly Nathan turned to look back at Rostov – even as his helmet bleeped and new destination coordinates appeared on his HUD.
"Disengage the pods from the ship," he instructed through his suit speaker before switching to the squad command frequency. "Alright everyone listen up. As soon as were done disengaging these cryo pods from the ship we'll be heading for this ships bridge. Our objective is to access the navigational computer and upload the star charts to the Concordia for analysis by Arwen and the fleet's navigational specialists. Everyone clear on what we're doing?"
"Clear sir," the whole team responded in almost perfect unison.
"Good," Nathan replied half a second before Rostov gave a small cry of triumph as he finally activated the system to disengage the cryo pods from the ship.
For a moment after confirming the command nothing happened then there came a humming of machinery coming to life. A long series of metallic clanks and bangs sounded throughout the cryo bay – almost deafening the marines despite the audio filtration abilities of their helmets – as the clamps holding the pods in their docked positions disengaged. Almost in unison all the cryo pods moved forwards slightly out of their original positions, lights on the pods began blinking and the mini computers in the marines armour reported the activation of emergency radio beacons. For a few seconds the pods remained that way before the familiar brilliant silver-white light of Tau'ri and Asgard style transporter beams enveloped them and they vanished instantly whisked away to the Concordia.
As the energy and light flare of the transporter beams faded Nathan once again spoke into his squad command frequency. "Move out," he ordered taking his Corsair rifle from his back once again and heading for the entrance to the now empty bay. The rest of his squad fell in around him, their own rifles out and ready as they resumed moving through the ship heading for the bridge and the navigational computer.
Bridge
TFS Concordia
"Transport successful sir," Commander Jason Parker reported from the first officer's station. "We have the first group of cryo pods onboard. We've stored them in cargo bay six; engineering and medical teams are on their way there now just in case there are any problems."
"Excellent," Paul Mitchell replied from the command chair. "Lieutenant McKay any progress on the analysis of the derel… of the Spirit of Fire's hull?"
"Yes sir," McKay answered. "Sir I have to revise our information on the composition of the Spirit of Fire's hull. Its not a pure titanium alloy instead it appears to be a advanced metal matrix composite alloy composed of very pure titanium fifty woven through with sheets of carbon sixty nanotubes. The result is a material that while still woefully inferior to our own hull materials is remarkably light while being incredibly resilient. I'd rate it as being similar in tensile strength to the trinium/titanium alloys that the old SGC used on the old Prometheus and Daedalus class starships."
"Interesting," Paul commented. "What about its current integrity? Will it withstand the graviton forces of a tractor beam and the potential inertial forces of a hyperspace tow?"
"Based on the renewed analysis the hull should be fully capable of withstanding the graviton effects of a tractor beam. However its to badly compromised to withstand the subspace and inertial stress of even a short burst of hyperspace travel. The only way it would be able to is if we were to somehow extend Rivendell's shields around it allowing the inertial dampening properties to protect it."
"We'll leave that to Arwen, the scientists and techs on Rivendell to work out," Paul replied with a smile. "Communications advise the Achilles that we've recovered some cryo pods from the derelict and determined that it is capable of withstanding the graviton stresses of a tractor beam, request permission to tractor the derelict back to the rest of the fleet."
"Aye sir," the communications officer replied before carrying out Paul's instructions. After a few moments of silence the response came in. "Sir Admiral Robyns has given permission for us to tow the derelict back to the rest of the fleet."
"Excellent, advise Lieutenant Blackwell of what we're going to do and instruct him to continue with the mission to acquire the navigational data," Paul ordered. "Helm bring us about and move us into position to tow the Spirit of Fire back to the rest of the fleet."
"Aye sir," came the response from the respective stations a moment before the first officer's console chimed for attention.
"Captain we've got a bit of a problem with two of the cryo stasis pods," Parker reported as information flowed into his mind through the consoles neural interface.
"What's wrong?" Paul asked.
"Engineering reports that two of the pods are loosing power rapidly, the power failure has apparently tripped some built in emergency rival protocols. Both affected pods are warming up rapidly and the life signs of the occupants are increasing. Medical personnel want your permission to internally transport the affected pods to sickbay so they can monitor the revival process more easily and intervene if needs be."
"Permission granted," Paul responded instantly, he had not destroyed two alien vessels to protect the people in stasis on the Spirit of Fire for two of them to potentially die now. "Also increase the monitoring of the other pods, if two are failing then the others might not be far off failure."
"Aye sir," Parker responded. "Medical personnel have acknowledged and are transporting the affected pods to sickbay now."
"Very well," Paul replied before standing up from his chair and felt the familiar momentary sense of disorientation as the command datastream normally present at the back of his mind whenever he was in the chair disappeared. "You have the conn commander. I'll be down in sickbay if I'm needed."
"Aye sir," Parker replied getting up from his own station and moving towards the command chair as Paul turned and left the bridge, heading to sickbay and there unexpectedly awakening guests.
"Commander we're in position to engage the tractor beam," the helmsman reported.
"Very good engage the beam," Parker instructed. "Then set course back to Rivendell and the rest of the fleet best safe towing speed."
"Aye sir."
Silently a beam of tightly focused gravitic force reached out from the aft underside of the Concordia and streaked through space towards the near derelict Spirit of Fire. So great was the strength of the localised gravity manipulation that the beam was faintly visible to the pilots of the Hornet fighters forming the CAP around the ships as a faint rippling in space as though they were looking at a patch of space through a plane of running water.
As the beam made contact with the Spirit it expanded into a faintly glimmering energy field that completely enveloped the whole of the two and a half kilometre long vessel while hugging the contours of the hull like a second skin. Instantly the field of manipulated gravitic forces cancelled out all the inertia built up by the near derelict ship in its long sublight cruise between the stars bringing it to near halt in space. But only for a moment as the Concordia's powerful inertial sublight engines powered up to barely two thirds of their normal power and began moving the vessel forward.
Under the influence of the tractor field the Spirit of Fire also began moving, matching the movements of the much smaller ship perfectly. Angling her course slightly the Concordia gently nudged the deadweight of the Spirit onto a new trajectory that would both prevent her ploughing at speed into the first of the systems two major asteroid belts and take both ships back to Rivendell and the safety of the rest of the task force.
Sickbay
TFS Concordia
It didn't take long for Captain Paul Mitchell to reach the Concordia's main sickbay from the bridge. Like the bridge and most of the ships vital areas the sickbay was located within the vessels citadel deep within the core of the Agamemnon-class heavy cruiser. Inside the citadel vital facilities such as the ships bridge, dual naquada enhanced nuclear fusion reactors, ZPM room and gunnery control rooms were protected from all but mortal blows by thick layers of additional armour and sophisticated force fields.
Stepping into the sickbay Paul was not for the first time surprised by how different from the style of the rest of the ship it was. While bulkheads and vaulted ceilings in the rest of the ship were made of light copper or tan coloured metal with slate black decks made of a marble-like metal the walls in sickbay were made out of a cream coloured metal. The decks were covered with soft carpeting – similar to that found in officer's quarters – and the lighting crystals gave off a slightly softer lighting than elsewhere on the ship. The effect combined with the softer furnishings and smooth almost organic curves of the consoles and beds gave the sickbay a restful and recuperative atmosphere.
"Captain," one of the nurses – a young man whose accent indicated he was from the Tau'ri colony on Epsilon Eridani III – asked approaching from the direction of the isolation rooms. "Is there something I can help you with?"
"Yes I'm looking for the people from the failing cryo pods," Paul answered.
The nurse smiled softly at that, the medical staff had been expecting their commanding officer to show up in sickbay soon after transporting the two cryo pods from the cargo bay to sickbay. It was a well known fact to all the hands on the Concordia that Paul Mitchell was a man who cared deeply for everyone on his ship be they members of his crew or guests. It was a personality quirk that made the crew very loyal to him as even the lowliest crew person knew the 'old man' cared so much about there welfare.
"There in isolation rooms two and three," the younger man answered as he started leading his commander towards the corridor that led to the viewing gallery isolation rooms. "We've been able to extract them from the cryo pods but there not in a very good way. Both are showing signs of considerable nutrient deficiency and are unconscious, the doctor guesses that they were in cryo stasis far longer than anyone ever intended someone to be in such a state. The cryo gasses did seem to provide some nutrients to keep them alive but it wasn't enough – not long term anyway."
"Why would they need nutrients in cryo-stasis," Paul asked in confusion. "I thought they were frozen."
"They were but not completely," the nurse answered. "The gasses of the cryo pod technology apparently lowers core body temperature almost to freezing – stopping almost all metabolic processes while inhibiting the formation of ice crystals that could rupture cell membranes. However some metabolic processes continue even in cryo – the heart keeps beating but incredibly, incredibly slowly like once or twice a minute, they continue to breath and blood keeps flowing albeit very slowly. Thus they still need some form of nutrients to keep them alive."
"I see," Paul replied. "Are they going to be alright?"
"They'll be fine," the nurse answered reassuringly. "We've already dealt with the nutrient deficiency, there just going to be unconscious for awhile as the residue of the cryo gasses leave their systems. They'll probably be somewhat groggy for awhile after wards as well, we can't say for sure as this type of stasis technology is largely unknown to us."
Paul nodded as they arrived on the gallery that looked down on the isolation rooms. The two active rooms were easy to spot as their overhead windows were illuminated allowing observers to look down in with ease. Standing on the balcony waiting for Paul to arrive was Doctor Roland Stewart the Concordia's chief medical officer.
"Captain," the doctor said in greeting. "I assume you're here for our two guests."
"I am doc," Paul confirmed. "The nurse told me that they're going to sleep for awhile but that they should be okay."
Roland nodded. "They should be," he said. "Since we don't know much about the cryo sleep technology I can't be entirely that they'll be okay until they wake up and I can perform full neurological tests. All our scans show they should be fine though. What I am concerned about is the others in the cryo pods both on this ship and anymore on the derelict. What we've observed with these two individuals is likely to be the case with all of them – and some could potentially be far worse off. We really need to get them out of those cryo pods.
"Unfortunately we don't have the manpower or the space on this ship to care for so many if we bring them all out of cryo stasis," he continued. "Given how many pods are likely still on the derelict I doubt even the sickbays of the Achilles would be enough to care for them all."
"Indeed we don't," Paul agreed. "Fortunately we're towing the derelict ship – our investigation teams found that she's called the Spirit of Fire – back to Rivendell."
"Then we shouldn't have any problems bringing everyone out of cryo stasis, caring and eventually housing them," Roland said the relief palpable in his voice. "Rivendell has more than enough space in its infirmaries to care for a few thousand people and housing them should be no problem."
Paul nodded. "No it shouldn't be a problem," he agreed before looking down into the isolation rooms at the two sleeping individuals. Both were male and athletic and one had what looked like a tattoo on his left shoulder though from his position Paul couldn't see what it was. "What's that tattoo on the one mans shoulder?" he asked.
"It's a large triangle with a flaming comet or meteor inside it and the words 'we go feet first' written below it," Roland answered. "I have no idea what it means. We'll have to ask him when he wakes up."
"Can you tell me anything more about them?" Paul asked.
"Not that much I have noticed however that both have a gene sequence very similar to the ATA gene sequence that all our people have," Roland answered.
"Will they be able to use our neural interface technology to access the ships datastream then," Paul asked in concern. He knew that if there guests were able to access the Concordia's systems mentally it would present a security concern to the whole fleet even if all critical systems were protected by adaptive firewalls and sophisticated encryption codes. Even Rivendell would be affected by the security concern though they also had firewalls and codes and had the added benefit of a watchful A.I matrix in the form of Arwen.
"No," Roland assured him. "While it's similar to the ATA gene sequence its not the same, it's certainly not close enough for them to access our systems without gene therapy or implant assistance. I've also noticed that the gene sequence is not natural to the Human genome."
"What do you mean?"
"Its coded wrong," Roland explained. "The nature of the coding is almost identical to the gene sequences that give Tok'ra – and the Goa'uld before them – their genetic memory and there is some information encoded in it that would probably manifest as a subconscious understanding of some topics or technologies. This kind of genetic information coding is not natural to Humans, someone deliberately engineered it and implanted it into their DNA and from the level of integration it was done a very long time ago."
"How long ago do you think it was done?"
"I can't be sure without a deeper analysis but anywhere from fifty to a hundred thousand years ago, before the evolution of modern homo sapiens. It's possible that the gene sequence led to the evolution of homo sapiens in this reality just like how the Ancients ensured that Humans would evolve in the desired direction on words they seeded across our universe. We both know what resulted the one time they weren't careful."
"Yeah instead of Humans they got the Wraith," Paul replied turning his attention back to the doctor. "Analyse any DNA samples you've got from them thoroughly doctor and let me know the results. Also forward them to the scientists on Rivendell and Admiral Robyns," he instructed curious as to what else about the Humans of this reality would be revealed by the DNA analysis.
"I'll get right on it sir."
"Good. I should get back to the bridge, keep me appraised of anything that happens with our guests."
"Of course captain."
UNSC Spirit of Fire
A Few Minutes Later
With a deep rumble of thunder and a flash of plasma flame and smoke the reinforced bulkhead door that was sealing the bridge of the Spirit of Fire off from the rest of the ship shattered, the incredible force of the C-60 charges tearing the metal apart like tinfoil. The shockwave from the detonation of the explosives rippled through the deck making the vessel shudder slightly before the wave died away.
Keeping his rifle at the ready Lieutenant Nathan Blackwell led his team through the thinning cloud of smoke onto the bridge. As when he'd first entered the cryo pod bay he carefully scanned the bridge looking for any potential threats and found none. Relaxing slightly he returned the Corsair to its place on his back and looked curiously around the bridge.
He was immediately struck by how dark and cramped the bridge was. A large table like console stood immediately in front of him taking up almost the whole of the rear of the bridge, two small monitors hung down from the ceiling on the right and left sides of the table – presumably to display supplementary information in addition to whatever information the table console displayed. Directly in front of the table separated by a few footsteps was what was presumably the ships command chair – itself with two small monitors hanging down from the ceiling where the captain or whoever was in the chair could easily see them – and curving around towards the front of the bridge on either side of the central walkway were a series of consoles all with wide angle windows out on space above them. Right at the front of the bridge was the most striking feature of the room – a complete floor to ceiling view port that looked out on the star speckled darkness of space.
"Okay people lets see if we can find the navigation controls," he said speaking into the squad command frequency. Rather than answer verbally the rest of his team spread out and began checking each console one by one to find out exactly what it was for. Nathan for his part found his attention drawn to the view port and he walked up before looking out on space. The view out was spectacular and right now everything seemed to have a slight sheen to it, an effect of the tractor field surrounding the ship as the Concordia towed it slowly across the system. Impressive view, he thought, though having the bridge exposed like this is dangerous. A smart enemy would easily be able to take it out with a single well placed shot leaving the ship directionless and easy prey for boarding or destruction.
"Lieutenant I've located the navigation and helm controls," Sergeant Rostov called out drawing Nathan's attention and making him look over at the other man.
"Unfortunately there doesn't appear to be any power to the bridge systems," Rostov continued sounding irritated. "My suit computer has located a terminal where we can plug a power source in, I would like your permission to contact the Concordia and get a power source and some tools sent over."
"Permission granted," Nathan replied before turning his attention back to the view outside. He could see why people found the idea of being able to look out at open space from the bridge romantic, it was certainly a spectacular view. Unfortunately for a military ship like this one it was dangerous as it made the command crew to vulnerable – his own people had abandoned exposed bridge modules on their warships because of that vulnerability. They'd learned that lesson the hard way during the last major war three centuries earlier against a reptilian race called the Theliax in the Andromeda Galaxy – a race that had attacked them without warning or provocation shortly after the establishment of the first Andromeda settlements and refused all attempts to end the confrontation by peaceful means. A number of times during the first years of that war the Theliax had targeted the bridge of Tau'ri vessels after breaking down their shields, crippling the chain of command and allowing them to board and capture the vessel without to much resistance and without the risk of the ships commanding officer initiating the self destruct countdown.
A momentary flash of silver white light illuminated the bridge from behind him accompanied by a musical tone let him know that the equipment Sergeant Rostov had requested had just arrived. Nathan paid it no mind as he found his thoughts drifting to thoughts of his ancestor's battle with the Theliax. The war between them had been very long and bloody as Theliax technology had been as good as their own, it had taken decades to defeat the Theliax – to drive them all the way back to their homeworld and force their surrender. Even today there was bad blood between Tau'ri and Theliax – though they'd never again faced each other in open war they weren't exactly friends.
A sudden audible thrum of power through the bridge caught Nathan's attention and brought his thoughts right back to the present. Turning in place he saw multiple consoles around the bridge starting to light up as power flowed through their circuits for the first time in who knew how many years.
"Well done, sergeant," he said as he saw Rostov stand up from where he'd been crouching near an open panel at the back of the bridge. A panel into which he and another of the team had patched in the small briefcase sized form of a portable subspace capacitor.
"Thank you sir," Rostov replied as he moved back to a console at the front of the bridge and sat down. "I'm not sure how long the interface with the capacitor is going to last though, this ships power systems are old, my guess is this ship has seen a lot of service even before it began its current long voyage between the stars."
"Its still an impressive achievement sergeant," Nathan answered moving over to join the other marine as Rostov sat down, "jury rigging an interface between one of our power sources and such antiquated systems."
"Thanks sir," Rostov replied and even though he couldn't see his face due to the silvered helmet visor Nathan could tell Rostov was blushing a little at the praise. Nathan could understand why as he wasn't one to give out praise unless it was really warranted.
"Okay next up parting the red sea," Rostov quipped earning a chuckle from all the marines on the bridge as he started working the controls to access the navigational databanks.
To his total lack of surprise the navigational computer was protected by a series of firewalls and encryption codes that he had to work hard to bypass or break through with aid from his armours computer. It took several minutes but eventually he broke through the last firewall and the main directory appeared on the screens before him.
"I'm in," he called out. "I'm setting up a radio link now with the Concordia to transfer the navigational data. Link established beginning file transfer."
Nathan nodded and was about to reply when a new voice spoke from somewhere behind them. "I'm afraid I cannot allow you to do that," a British accented female voice said a moment before all power to the navigational computer was cut making the console go dark.
Spinning around Nathan found himself face to face with a blue toned hologram of a woman standing about two feet tall on top of the table console at the back of the bridge. She was a beautiful woman with delicate features and long hair that from its shade of blue would be black if the hologram had been full colour. She wore a shirt and pants that would have been white and brown respectively and boots, strange bits of coding moved up and down her body as she studied them with great interest.
"Who are you," Nathan asked through his suit speakers.
"I could ask you that same question," the woman replied inclining her head slightly to the side in a quizzical fashion. "But I will satisfy your curiosity. My name is Serina I am the Smart A.I construct assigned to the Spirit of Fire.
"Now you answer me," Serina continued looking at the six armoured figures on the bridge in confusion and suspicion. They were bipedal and what limited internal sensors she still operational revealed that they were most likely Human but their equipment and technology – especially the advanced armour they seemed to be wearing – did not match anything in her databanks.
"Who are you and why are you aboard this ship?"