Chapter One
50,000km above an Asteroid Belt
A white flash in the distance briefly appeared, followed by the appearance of a space craft, As it decreased speed and moved past the asteroids below its shape became more clearer; it was a Lantean long range survey ship, the exterior of the vessel lit up as external lighting the metallic surfaces.
On the ventral surfaces there were several damaged armour sections with exposed inner areas visible, further back the command centre dome also lit up internally, consoles had power rerouted to them.
A hologram appeared from several feet in front of the commanders chair, her avatar appeared to be a woman in her early twenties, and wore a long Lantean gown and she had short blonde hair.
She closed her holographic eyes and systems onboard the ship slowly came to life, first the lights then the consoles. After the bridge and its linked systems were communicating with the artificial intelligence her eyes opened and she vanished.
One deck the hologram appeared and walked down the corridor, stopping to walk through the solid door; emerging on the other side a room with several stasis pods, however only one pod was occupied.
Walking towards the pod, she again closed her eyes and seconds later the stasis tube lifted from its horizontal position to an upright one, the occupant was beginning to awake "Navigator Talus, we have arrived at the co-ordinates in Avalon specified"
Talus hadn't felt so groggy since his first encounter with stasis technology back on Atlantis, as a child, he took a step forward but found his balance to be completely out of synch causing him to stumble and fall to the ground.
"Navigator Talus, are you alright? Your vitals are within tolerance."
He tried to push himself upwards but thought better of it, he knew from training that the symptoms would pass shortly and decided to instead lie down flat on the floor looking upwards towards the rooms ceiling "I'll get up in a while. What's the status of the ship?" he asked with his throat feeling like it had been sore for thousands of years. Ironically it had..
"The Valiant systems are as follows
Hyperdrive – Control Crystals destroyed, replacements required thus offline
Sublight drive – efficiency down to 3% after near light speed travel
Scanners – Long Range Damaged beyond repair, Short Range active
Life Support, available to 69% of the ship
Hull – Multiple breaches detected in forward sections
Shields – Shield emitters are functioning at 2%
Power Generation – The Potentia is nearly depleted, on board generators offline
Weapons – Combat Drones depleted and energy weapons damaged beyond repair
Communications – Short Range is functional, Long Range is damaged beyond repair"
"I wish I hadn't asked" he replied covering his eyes with his hands to block out the lights in the room.
"But you did ask!", "Never mind, Ship are we in the Terra system? the instructions from the Lantean council said they were taking the portal to this part of Avalon"
"After accounting for galactic and system shift I would predict with a 99.7% success rate of arrival in the Terra system" she said while looking down towards Talus.
Talus moved his hands and got used to the lighting, then slowly sat upright "Okay, lets assume they made it, broadcast a signal on all frequencies and see if any of my people are still out there – I can't wait to see what cities and wonders they have built on the world where Atlantis left so many millions of years ago." He stood up and finally looked the ships AI directly in the face.
She closed her eyes again to instruct the communication signal "Signal sent through short range communications, signal strength should be sufficient to reach the inner planets instantly"
"And?"
"I am not receiving any response on any frequency, curious I have detected a short repeating transmission on a low band, however I am not familiar with the language employed"
In Russian "This is the Vostok (sounds of explosions in the background) we have taken critical dammm (Static)"
"Can you translate?" Talus asked beginning to feel some frustration
"Negative, there is insufficient information to translate, however I can set course for the signals origin?"
"Do it, I'll meet you on the bridge after I stop stumbling around like a new born child."
The ships engines burnt and once again the Valiant was moving although slowly by its original design standards, two days later it arrived. Talus stood up against the front of the command dome, he pressed his arms against the bulkheads and his mood had changed to despair.
In the distance the wreckage of hundreds of ships including F-302's, F-304's, Free Jaffa Motherships, and alien vessels from small to huge littered the view above a planet.
"Talus I have completed my scan, do you want to know the results?"
He slowly turned around and walked to the central command chair then took his seat "Go ahead"
The hologram moved to a position between the chair and the view ahead "Based on the formation of the destroyed ships in the debris field it would seem that three different forces were in conflict however two of them were fighting side by side against the third."
"And what of the planet below?"
"I have confirmed the presence of an Outpost on the southern most pole, however it would appear that it sustained critical damage after releasing the combat drones that inflicted the majority of damage on the third fleet."
"So my people could have been here after all?" He asked with a small amount of building hope
"Unlikely, the outpost design suggests it was millions of years old"
That hope flickered away in an instant "What about the rest of the planet?"
"It appears that thousands of cities once existed on the surface, potentially billions of beings lived there, however the atmosphere is now highly toxic to life"
"So to some up our situation, we are stuck in a dead system with no working hyper-drive, no defences and the some total food and water to survive on consists of what fits half on my bed" Talus leaned forward in the chair and rested his face upon his wrists supported by his knees. "I should have stayed in our home galaxy, I could have at least died in honour by ramming into a wraith cruiser or something"
"Actually Navigator, scans have detected components and supplies in the wreckage that may be compatible with our systems."
Talus raised his head and sat back, he began to think to himself "Okay, send co-ordinates to the navigation console." He stood up and walked to the left side of the command dome, walking to the front left console on the bridge, where a topographical map of the debris displayed on the projector above the piano like controls. "Lets start with hyper-drive control crystals, and some information on who was fighting with and against whom would be useful"
The map narrowed down to three Earth F-304's
"I have detected the crystals on these vessels, unfortunately an EVA suit is required to acquired them." The AI simulated a frown in her facial expressions.
"Very well" Talus manoeuvred the Valiant into position to the closest of the three, although he did not understand the writing on the side of the it read Daedalus, the ship had been cleaved into with the forward section having been broken clean away from the aft spinning around in space, and one quarter of its starboard hanger was missing. "I always disliked using the eva suits"
The AI watched as Talus walked out of the command deck and made his way towards the air lock on the lowest deck. Arriving sometime later wearing the suit Talus stood in front of the inner airlock door and placed the helmet over his head and secured it. He looked at the information panel on his right arm "I'm reading normal pressure in the suit, I'm ready open the first door!"
The airlock door opened and he took a step inside the small compartment, turning inside to face a wall, then the opposite one behind him opened up and pushed out the equivalent of a jet pack which attached itself to the suit. "Okay close the inner door, depressurize and on my order open the outer door"
"Understood Navigator" The inner door closed tight, and air was removed from the inside of the airlock "Depressurization complete Navigator"
"Ship please stop referring to me as that, I prefer to be referred to as Talus, not because we are friends or something but that designation applies to a rank that no long exists and its my name so it kind of makes sense..."
"Understood Talus" having rewritten its greeting protocols in milliseconds
Talus now felt weightlessness, and moved himself sideways through the space made by the absence of the outer airlock door "Ship launch reconnaissance drones" A few meters on the outside of the ship from the airlock door controls a small panel opened and a twenty kino sized spheres launched in a line then after a dozen feet they went their separate ways to scan the debris in more detail possible than the ships short range area. He looked towards the Daedalus, noticing several kino's splinting up to scan the ship, they quickly vanished from his sight as their small sized disappeared into the dark void of space.
"Okay, Remember your training as Training Co-ordinator Melar kept on drilling in to us!" he said out loud to himself. The jet pack was mentally controlled with sensors mounted inside the helmet, Talus manoeuvred himself towards the derelict battlecruiser slowly, his heads up display showing his available power, suit environmental's and a projection of any micro debris in his path that could cause damage to the suit itself.
"Ship how many cycles do you think we were travelling at near light speed?" the thought had only really occurred to him
"Approximately eleven thousand cycles" the avatar replied.
Inside the helmet the distance to the Daedalus entry point was decreasing 200, 190 and counting down, at 30 he mentally slowed himself down so only to travel 1 foot every fifteen seconds. Talus could see the gagged metal around the starboard hanger, it was something he desperately wanted to avoid he thought to himself "Travel to Avalon check, arrive at the former capital of my people check, rejoin Lantean society nope, die while crashing into an alien vessel by stupidity Not today!"
It took him several difficult manoeuvres to navigate through the damaged section, he could finally see inside the hanger, where two fighters were still landed though their cockpits were smashed and one of the 302's landing gear had been crippled leaving it pointed downwards from the nose section to the floor of the runway. The hanger door was closed tight but small holes in the hull did allow some of the suns light to shine through.
As Talus moved through the hanger he noticed bodies of who he could only believe to be crew members floating, their faces permanently frozen with their eyes looking into the distance. "Ship I believe the crew of this vessel were seed species, much like in our home galaxy I can take a genetic sample for verification"
"That would be unwise Talus, those bodies have been exposed to solar radiation and the results would be corrupted by such, it would be advisable to find corpses not directly to such conditions, perhaps deeper in the ship" The AI advised through the helmets comm link.
"Very well, I see what appears to be a doorway I'm making my way there now" pushing aside the nearest corpses Talus moved onwards towards the large naquada doorway
"Talus, one of the drones has detected a faint reading consistent with a Potentia, I have instructed the drones in that area to focus there attention on that vessel"
"How could they have a power module? I guess it doesn't matter atm, if you confirm it is one Put that higher on the list to gather."
"Understood"
Talus took out the scanning device identical to the ones found in the gate ships on Atlantis and began analysing the door, the results pointed him to a manual override lever behind a panel, he pulled the metal leaver causing the door to partially open. "Ship send the closet drones here and into the gap after I have opened it." Through the helmets speaker he heard the confirmation response.
He pulled the doors apart and two drones flew through into the room from behind him, "Illuminate the area please!" he commanded. Each of the drones emitted three bright lights in different directions making the contents of the corridor visible, mostly there were fallen bulkheads above and corpses lined the floor. Step by step he moved forwards taking care not to stand on the dead, while moving carefully around the metal pointing through the ceiling, two drones preceded him while the third followed.