Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to the characters, locations, or plots from Game of Thrones. And I don't kow the rights to anything from Stargate SG1. They belong to their respective owners without whom this fanfiction would not have been possible. All reviews are welcome
Hyperspace. Year: 2032
"Okay," Captain Alayne Collins said as she stared out the clear canopy of her F-502 space superiority fighter, through her full visored helmet, at the blueish-white streaked hyperspace tunnel. She then looked back down at the central console in front of her where the middle screen was showing an outline of her plane with a section of the aft ventral section, and the accompanying hyperspace reactor within its housing highlighted in bright red. She then took a deep breath and spoke into the microphone within her helmet, "this is Captain Alayne Collins of the Tau'ri, does anyone copy? I repeat, I am Captain Alayne Collins of the HMS Avalon- part of the Tau'ri Task force Omega. I am currently on heading…." Alayne paused and stared at the topmost screen, and frowned since she was getting an error message, "I have no idea. I was supposed to be heading for the rendezvous point with the Avalon once the energy spike was detected in the core of the Brotherhood's home base, but there must have been something that went terribly wrong."
And immediately, she thought of the violent jolt that occurred just as she entered the hyperspace window after the planet, P6U-839, exploded violently. 'Hopefully the Brotherhoods weapons have been destroyed.'
'And as for my plane, of course something went wrong, it's my luck,' Alayne thought to herself as she turned her head to the side panel on the port side of the cockpit and pressed a button for the seventh time while saying out loud through her microphone and into the Voice Data Recorder, "I've tried to deactivate the hyperdrive on my Sparrow, but nothing's happening."
She turned back to the outline of the plane, "I've been getting the same error message since the jolt which accompanied the jump into hyperspace. The message says that the Hyperdrive controls to the reactor have been fused. In addition, I have been detecting heavy radiation spikes from the aft sensors coming from the reactor housing." Alayne looked back up at the tunnel and continued, "I don't know if anyone can hear me, but for the past ten minutes, the Hyperspace reactor's temperature has been creeping upwards." She knew that once the temperature went over a certain number, then the engine would become unstable and cause a violent explosion.
"I've been in the tunnel for over two hours now with another three hours of fuel for the hyperdrive," Alayne continued through her microphone, "but from my calculations, the overheating will cause the engine to become critical in another ten minutes... give or take."
Alayne then closed her eyes and took a deep breath while thinking over her options. She didn't want to think about how she got herself into her current situation, at least not yet. The rising temperature was too much of a worry to spend time in her memories on the events that led up to this moment.
"Okay," she breathed out opening her eyes, "what's the first step… first step…" Alayne mumbled to herself as she stared at her lower screen on the central console before biting her lower lip in worry. "Anyone hearing me? I'm running systems check prior to ejecting the hyperdrive. I'm not taking any risks that the temperature would be going back down to normal." Alayne knew it was extremely risky to release the hyperdrive out of its casing within the plane. However, that's what the latest version of the hyperdrive built for the F-502 Sparrows were designed to do in the event of any faults. However, it was never meant to be ejected in a hyperspace tunnel, and Alayne had no idea what would happed to the Sparrow if she did, "I just hope to God I'll be close enough to a planet with a Stargate."
And that was the other issue. She would be ejecting the Hyperdrive, and hopefully be ejected from Hyperspace through a window into normal space. And if she was ejected in open space with no planets in range of her Sparrow's fusion engines, then she would be in deep trouble- especially since the range of her subspace communications systems were limited to 5 light years in all directions.
With those thoughts in her head, Alayne began her systems checks hoping that she was in range of any Tau'ri ship, base, or in range of any allied civilizations once she exited the window.
"Subspace comms are green, fusions engines are green, weapons are green, inertial dampeners are green, hyperspace engines are non-operational, emergency systems are…" Alayne saw the letters on the screen turn yellow when it came down to the emergency systems- the emergency naquada generators that would kick in in the event the Sparrow lost all power from its main reactor- "we'll find out once I eject the hyperdrive. And life support is green."
Taking another deep breath, Alayne reach for another button to the starboard panel and whispered, "ejecting hyperdrive on my Mark". And Alayne the took a deep breathe before breathing out slowly, "Three, two, one…. Mark." Her finger went down on a blinking yellow button. There was a slight jolt that caused a rumble to go through the entire plane as a panel on the aft ventral section slid open. This was followed by sparks that erupted from within a recessed area before a glowing green square box slid out into hyperspace.
Back in the cockpit, alarms went off warning that the rear fusion engines were disabled as the hyperspace tunnel was torn asunder with the Sparrow released violently into normal space. Just before the window shut down, Alayne's sensors detected an explosion, and then the window shut behind her. However, the plane wasn't slowing down. Alayne was breathing in and out slowly trying to keep calm as her speed continued to increase. She grabbed a hold of the controls as she felt the G-forces through the protection provided by the inertial dampeners. Alayne gritted her teeth as the ship shot through open space, the blue hue from the rear engines gone- the ship hurtling forward through sheer momentum alone with nothing to stop it.
"Shields are operational!" she yelled as the Sparrow rumbled through space with an orange hue enveloping the ship before fading away, the shield emitters around the ship automatically activating to protect Alayne from anything that may damage the ship at such high speeds. Alayne began the standard procedures for restarting the fusion engines while her scanners detected a planet several hundreds of thousands of miles away. She looked up from the scans on the screens in front of her and could already see the blueish glow from the planet before she looked back down at her controls, "restarting engines in three, two, one." Alayne pressed a few buttons before the ship started to rumble once again.
A blue hue flickered from within the two fusion engines at the rear of the plane, with the hyperspace engines darkened due to lack of the hyperspace reactor. The flicker from the fusion engines slowly became steady while, at the same time, Alayne regained control of the Sparrow's speed and started slowing down. From within the cockpit, the rumble started to lessen as a quiet hum went through the ship.
'There we go,' she thought to herself as the engines were fired up and the ship began to fire its RCS thrusters to slow down, 'ease off, ease off…' The Sparrow slowly came to stop a hundred thousand miles from the planet which was now larger than a few seconds ago. Alayne was breathing in and out deeply while beginning scans of the surface through the upgraded Asgard-Tau'ri hybrid scanner package while she called out for aid through her subspace communications systems, "I'm not sure if there is anyone who can hear me, but this is Captain Alayne Collins of the Tau'ri calling for help on all allied channels. Does anyone read me?"
There was no response.
"I can't stay up here for the long haul," Alayne whispered to herself while she pressed a few buttons on the forward console while making sure that the radiation on the aft section of the Sparrow was now at tolerable levels, "and the radiation levels have returned to normal." She then turned her head to the port side and stared down at the planet below, "I can go down to the surface and wait for rescue. The problem is that I'll be alone." At least that was according to the scanners which were showing the planet below being devoid of life despite having all the requirements for life to exist.
'Curious,' Alayne thought as she began her descent through the atmosphere, "initiating distress signal. Hopefully one of the ships from Homeworld Command will be heading this way if they haven't heard from me within three hours." Alayne then frowned while her ship trembled and groaned while flames erupted around the shield as the Sparrow shot through the upper atmosphere, 'hopefully they'll find signs of my entry window and extrapolate the direction I was heading until now.' Alayne hoped it wouldn't take too long to find her since she didn't want to be the only lifeform on the planet.
And it was then that a thought entered her mind, 'this planet has everything needed to sustain life, so where… what the..?' As the flames petered out, Alayne glanced at a warning blinking red before it vanished…. As did the rest of her Sparrow's power, 'power surge… there was a power surge warning,'. All the systems were now deactivated as the Sparrow fell like a rock through the exosphere and was entering the thermosphere.
"Come on, come on, come on," Alayne whispered to herself while her body was being shaken to her bones as she fell towards the surface. She, with her trembling hand, pressed a button that would have normally deactivated all the Sparrow's systems. She then counted to sixty while feeling as if she was going to be torn apart while the plane hurtled down towards the surface as it entered the mesosphere, "come on.. start…. Start…" Alayne whispered continuously as she depressed the button that should restart all systems once again. After she did, the young woman noticed flashes on all her forward screens in the center console. She watched as her digital compass and horizon came online, she watched as several other buttons lit up just a she grabbed the navigation stick with one hand and the throttle with another hand.
She then glanced at the reactivated inertial dampeners before firing up the engines. There was a low hum before the vessel rumbled, a sign that the engines were reactivated. The blue hue reappeared from the rear engines before the ship started to slow down its descent. And eventually, just before entering the stratosphere, the Sparrow was back in Alayne's control and was shooting across the sky as it made a controlled descent. Alayne wanted to land the plane so that she could run a proper diagnostic- perhaps reset the entire system in the even the power surge caused the Sparrow's computer programs to become corrupted.
As she flew, with some sweat on her forehead, it was the beeping sound that brought her attention down to the central console. She stared at the lower screen which started to indicate signs of life from the surface as the plane closed in on the troposphere. Alayne narrowed her eyes as the plane shot through the sky while, in the distance, the sun was starting to go down past the horizon. Breaking through some clouds a few minutes later, Alayne found herself flying through the evening sky high above a sprawling city- with the most distinctive feature being a red coloured castle that rose up off the edge of a cliff.
Staring awestruck at the tallest tower looking over a large bay full of ships, Alayne's eyes shifted towards the sensor readings on the console in front of her, 'over a million people.. woah. Why didn't my sensors get any of this?' Being over twenty thousand feet in the air in the darkening sky, Alayne knew that anyone down on the surface would be hard pressed to see her Sparrow as it flew, 'this planet was supposed to be uninhabited. So how did…' Alayne was confused now, 'and… and what was that power surge?' Alayne was curious a she set her sensors to detect any advanced technology, 'why else would there be a power surge that could shut down my Sparrow?' In the meantime, she stared back at the sensor readings.
"I'm getting life signs from all around me," she said to herself as more and more data rushed in from the plane's sensor packets. She flew East for a few hundred miles before she banked South. Impressed at the sprawling civilization beneath her, Alayne mentally told herself that this was a place worth exploring. But she needed a quiet place to land so that she could check on her plane out of the sight of locals who may be afraid of a great big metallic bird landing among them.
'Yeah, there's no need to scare the locals,' Alayne though, 'especially since no one from the SGC or Homeworld knows I'm here.' Banking her plane around and towards the North, she flew over forests and rivers which reflected the disappearing light from the sun.
"Wow," Alayne whispered, leaning to port to look through the canopy as she flew at great speed over a castle where the towers seemed as if they were melted like wax candles, "what happened?" She ran sensor scans from her Sparrow while she flew overhead and saw readings which indicated that the stone, although now solid, had been melted down, "the amount of heat it would take to melt stone…" Alayne wondered how the stone melted as she stared at her sensor readings, 'I'm not getting any sign of advanced technology'. And that brought about another question, 'so how is it that the most advanced sensors in the galaxy… sensors that could usually see several hundred meters underground… did not detect any lifeforms from orbit? What's going on here?'
It was a puzzling question for Alayne as she shot past mountain ranges to her starboard side, "sensors are detecting signs of life from the mountain passes." Alayne frowned as she continued North, the Sparrow's sensor packets, which could pick out enemy fighters a thousand miles away, were gathering a lot of data about the surrounding areas. As she approached what the natives called the Green Fork river, a chill went up and down Alayne's spine.
It was something she couldn't explain as she looked out the canopy and down at the glistening river below. It was a few minutes later, the plane continuing on at Mach 4, that she flew past two stones towers on either bank of the river with a bridge in between them. Alayne looked down at the fires and at, what she could barely make out from so high up, people who seemed to be partying.
At least that's what she thought.
She looked back down at her sensor readings, and they showed that there were no people a mile from the strange castle. Alayne scanned the nearby forest and saw that it was not populated, and she banked her plane and made for a clearing in the middle while the area surrounding the forest was devoid of people. Making her way over the clearing, the Sparrow hovered in the air as its landing gear extended out. The small plane then lowered itself towards the ground before the wheels gently rested on the hand grassy ground.
Alayne then reached forward and began powering down the ship and then she pressed a few more buttons to activate the distress signal. She hoped that there would be someone from the Tau'ri able to receive the signal before too long. She then pressed a few more buttons that began a full diagnostic of the computer system- a diagnostic that would automatically look for any corruption in the Operating System and, if found, fix it.
Sighing as a notification appeared on the middle screen in the central console that he diagnostic would take about an hour, Alayne pressed another button and watched as the lower part of the canopy flipped upwards while the rest of the curved glass composite slid back. She then reached up to the sides of her helmet and pulled it upwards and off. Alayne's bright red hair and green coloured eyes stared out her Sparrow's cockpit and at her surroundings as she placed her helmet in the recess in front of her feet and then pushed herself up off her seat.
As she stood up, her stomach rumbled at the various smells of cooked meat that wafted through her nostrils.
'There's no one close by, so the smell must be coming from the castle,' Alayne thought to herself as she wondered if she should go and mingle among the locals- at least until the diagnostics on her Sparrow's computer systems were completed, 'I'll need something that'll make me kinda fit in, and of course I'll need to be armed.'
Alayne thought as she turned around and reached forward. She grabbed her seat back and pressed a latch in the rear… the very same latch she would have had to press after landing safely following an ejection. The seat back pulled down and then Alayne reached in to grab an orange bag. Pulling it out of the recess, the young redhead then opened it up and took out the first thing she came across- a tactical vest. She put that on looking around and, upon finding she was still alone, reached back into the bag.
She then pulled out a plasma weapon along with its holster that she then wrapped around her left thigh. Taking out the weapon, Alayne set it to 'stun-mode' and then placed it back in its holster once again. The young woman then reached back down into the bag and retrieved the small rectangular subspace radio and ear piece. She placed the small earpiece in her ear and the radio, which was now tuned to a wide-band frequency, into the pocket in the left side of her vest.
With there being no external ladder to get back down onto the ground from the cockpit, Alayne was going to . Once she zipped up the bag, Alayne returned it into the recess before pulled the seat back up and clicking it into place.
'Now,' she thought to herself as she pressed a button on the port console and an external panel on the port section just outside the cockpit opened up and a metallic collapsible ladder extended outwards onto the ground. Alayne swung her feet over and then climbed down after pressing a button beneath a hidden panel that closed and locked the canopy. Once her feet hit the ground, she opened a panel next to the ladder and put in a code that pulled the ladder back into its housing.
'Let's see if I can find anything that'll help me mingle,' thought Alayne to herself as she walked towards the trees in the direction of the castle she flew over several minutes ago.
The Great Hall, The Twins, an hour and a half later.
'We have guest rights,' thought Catelyn Stark to herself as she stood among the whooping cheers and yells of drunken joy all around then nodded her head at her brother, Edmure, who was being pushed past her and out the Great Hall with his new Frey bride. However, the thought that the combined Northern army, without the Karstarks, and the Tully's were being under Guest Right continued to repeat itself in Catelyn's thoughts as she turned her head and glanced at Walder Frey, 'the man is petty, deceitful, and has no honour. But not even he would do anything to violate Guest Right.'
Catelyn then glanced over at her son, Robb. She wasn't too fond of her son breaking an oath to the Freys in regards to marrying the girl, Roslin, 'I hope your mistake does not come back to haunt us, my son.' However, she couldn't stay mad at Robb for long, especially given that his wife was pregnant with the heir to Winterfell and her grandson. But the redhead couldn't help but, at time, glare at Talisa before looking away to her right as the bedding party exited the door. It was then she noticed two things, someone slipping into the Great Hall wearing a cloak and a hood that hid the face, followed by one of the Frey's closing the large doors to the Hall, and then locking it.
Narrowing her eyes as a chill went up her Spine, Catelyn's eyes search for the figure in the cloak and found her at the corner of the Hall staring back at her. It was then, under the lights of the torches along the wall, did some of that light land on her face. And Catelyn stared at a surprised face locking back at her.
"Sansa?" she whispered. Catelyn saw the woman, a few strands of red hair across her face, mouthing something she couldn't hear before looking away and shaking her head. Catelyn was about to stride towards the woman who looked so much like her daughter… she wanted to know how it was that she got out of Kings Landing, she wanted to know where Arya was, she had so many questions go through her head when she suddenly froze.
She opened her mouth wide in stunned silence as her head and the her body turned up to the gallery where the minstrels where now playing a song she dreaded to hear. The Reyne's of Castamere, Catelyn thought to herself as she looked back down to search for the figure from a moment ago. However, she was nowhere to be found. Catelyn's mind was in a jumble as she listened to the song play while everyone else was cheerful with drinks in their bellies and enjoying the wedding.
'No…. Walder Frey would never dare… no,' Catelyn thought to herself before catching sight of the figure from earlier heading for the large locked doors.
"Your Grace," the eldest Frey exclaimed in what Catelyn considered a mocking tone. She stared at the figure who stopped moving and stared with a look of surprise at Robb who stood up from his seat. Catelyn wanted to yell out for the figure she thought was Sansa, but before she could say anything she felt a hand grab her own. Turning around while Walder spoke to Robb about honour and oaths, Catelyn stared into the cold eyes of Roose Bolton. She saw his eyes flicker downwards while holding her hand tightly. Catelyn licked her suddenly dry lips and looked down at his hand- she could see a glint of metal.
And Walder continued to talk down to Robb about not giving the latter the proper congratulations for his wedding.
Catelyn reached out with her trembling left hand and grabbed the end of Bolton's sleeve and pulled it up.
'Mail,' she thought looking back up at the look on victory etched on Roose Bolton's face, 'no.' Catelyn glanced at the figure who was staring back at her, then at Robb. Catelyn could see the figure's eyes narrow in what looked like confusion as she stepped a bit to the left, away from the doors as if to get a good view of her.
"Sansa!" Catelyn yelled out at the top of her voice, "you must leave!" Catelyn saw everyone stop celebrating, even Walder Frey stopped talking and stared at Catelyn. Roose Bolton himself stared at Catelyn and then turned around to the figure who pulled back her hood and stared at Catelyn in surprised confusion.
"Sansa?" Robb whispered turning around and setting his eyes on the redhead with short hair ending just at the back of her neck.
Catelyn then slapped Roose before turning back as the Lord of the Dreadfort was pushed back towards another table form the force of the slap. She then turned to Robb, "it's a trap!"
TBC.