English isn't my first language so please excuse any odd little errors you find dotted about.
I hope you all enjoy!
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Destiny's giant engines buzzed and whirred as the mysterious ship flew through space just like it had for so many centuries, lights switched on illuminating the long hallways and breathing life back into the bridge. The gate stood proud knowing it would soon be called into action once again and air began to circulate the vessel making it livable. Delicate rays of FTL light flickered past portholes in wisps of green, purple and blue almost like an artist who hadn't quite decided what to pain. All had rested in a quietude but that time was over and it was once again time for Destiny and its crew to live, to venture forth.
Three years and seventeen days, that was how long it took for the Destiny crew to wake up, a few of them anyway. Only the main crew. Rush's pod was the first to open followed by TJ's and then Young's, Chloe and the others followed but in an unknown order since Doctor Rush, TJ and the Colonel had already turned their attention to Eli's pod. He still stood there frozen just as they'd been, the large ovular metal rings casting an almost eerie shadow on Eli's chest. Tools and notes lay scattered about where he'd worked to fix the stasis chamber and Rush nearly fell over a screwdriver on his way to Eli's control panel, in seconds Chloe was at his side looking up at her best friend with worry; Rush easily registered her silent question, is Eli okay? A neon pink post-it note had been stuck to the panel with Eli's child-like chicken scratch scrawled on it – Rush was getting him handwriting lessons if it was the last thing he did, for Gods sake his had been better while going through nicotine and caffeine withdrawal on two hours of sleep – after a moment of decoding he figured out what the note said. Don't try to open the pod until you see the kino footage. There was a smiley face on the end. Rush glanced around but Young who had read the note over his shoulder had already grabbed it from the floor, everyone in the room listened intently to their crew mates words.
"Hey guys, as you can see I got the pod working so em, go me! There is a bit of a problem though, I can't get out again. I was running out of time and air so I had to hope that you'd all wake up and find a way to get me out, who am I kidding I need Rush. Rush, you'd better get me out of this ice box. All my notes are left on the floor, I wrote down everything I did and sorry but I kind of used up the last of the paper, as far as I can tell I got the system working but the timer didn't activate so it won't unfreeze me like the rest of you and the reanimation is still shot so even if the timer worked I still wouldn't wake up. I have faith in you, even you Rush, you're a difficult man to get on with but there's no denying you're a genius. If em, if you can't wake me up there's another kino in my room with messages for you guys. I didn't want to do it after this recording because I didn't want to cry and spend who knows how many years with frozen tears on my face. Hopefully I'll see you all soon."
The footage ended and a blanket of silence was cast over the crew, Chloe reached out a hand and pressed it to the cold glass of Eli's pod, Matt instantly rested his hands on her shoulders in a sign of comfort. No one wanted to lose Eli, he was their friend and if something happened to Rush he knew Eli was the ship's and the crew's only chance. The moment of quiet stretched on, but then that moment ended and Young snapped back into action, they couldn't stand there forever.
Only a the people in that one room had woken, everyone up at the same time would have been chaos. Rush had already set off back to work scribbling in his notebook as he went – seemed Rush still had a little paper left - while Chloe remained at Eli's side with that same look of worry decorating her delicate features. TJ and Greer had helped Park off towards the infirmary taking each step slowly, Varro offered to carry her but Park had quickly refused. Young pulled Scott and Greer out to the hallway leaving Chloe alone with her frozen friend.
"Scott, I want you to select military personnel to remove from stasis and Greer wake Camile up so she do the same for the scientists and civilians. I want this to remain equalrather than looking like there's pressure on the others, we've only just woken up and I don't want problems. Have Camile ask Rush who he needs."
"Of course Sir, keeping a balance is good." Said Greer. "Don't want problems straight off the bat."
Young could do without any major issued until at least a day out of stasis, he needed time to get his head on straight, to them it had only been a few seconds since the doors closed but who knew how long it had really been.
"I'm going to check in with SGC or at least try."
A short time later Camile had been roused along with Brody, Volker, James, Corporal Barnes and Airman Becker as well as a few civilians. Brody and Volker had been dragged to work after less than a second of consciousness much to their dismay. Up on the bridge Rush and Volker went over as many systems as they could as quickly as they could while Brody had been sent to the control interface room and had already started relaying bits of information. Rush worked mostly in silence locked in his own brain as usual completely unaware Dale Volker had been talking to him for at least two minutes, he's not been saying anything important though, not in Rush's eyes anyway. Destiny seemed to be just as they'd left her, she'd recharged along the way and as far as he could tell wouldn't have to do so again for at least a month; everything had gone to plan. Everything except Eli, but Nicholas knew he could fix that given enough time; of course he could he was Doctor Nicholas Rush after all. It felt good to be back at work, almost the second he'd stepped out of the stasis pod he'd felt his calloused fingers itching to return to what he did best.
"Rush!"
Volker's shout was finally enough to drag the grumpy Scotsman out of his own little world and back to the bridge and reality.
"What?" He asked through gritted teeth.
"There's something on the ship, not that I've already said that eighteen times."
Rush frowned in confusion before walking over to Volker's terminal practically shoving the taller blonde man out the way.
"It could be another one of those trackers the blue aliens left." Volker continued. "It's not like they haven't done it before without us noticing, they could have done it before Destiny made the jump to this galaxy."
"Possibly." Rush said without looking up from the screen. "But this seems smaller than the tracker ship they attached to us, and it seems there's been no attempt to prevent us detecting it." Nicholas reached for his radio, pulling it from the console and raising it to his mouth. "Young come in this is Rush."
There was a short pause and then the radio crackled to life.
"This is Young, what's the problem Rush? I was about to use the stones."
"It seems we have a tag along. Volker found something clinging to the hull and form the scans we're not to sure what it is, it's tiny but it's there."
"I'll have Scott take the shuttle out. If it's one of those bloody trackers I'll have him destroy it like the last one."
Rush couldn't help but notice Young's approach just seemed to be fire enough bullets and hope the issue went away, still if it was a tracker blowing it up was probably their best option.
It took almost half an hour for Matt to get the shuttle to the location Rush had sent him, the parasite clinging to them had tucked itself up in an area that was rather hard to access thanks to the raised guns flanking it . Greer went with him as usual while Rush helped guide him from the bridge, he'd been expecting the worst when Young had informed him of what Volker had descovered, everything they'd gone through to flee the blue aliens and yet there they were still following, still determined to get Destiny and kill them all. However, when the craft came into view he and Greer shared a look of confusion, it definitely wasn't part of Destiny but it didn't look like anything the blue aliens had ever used before, not that they could know that for certain, it was an almost perfect sphere made of a white-grey metal and had stuck itself to a section of the hull that lay in an unexplored part of the looked nothing like a Nakai fighter and a little pang of thorny concern settled in the bellies of Scott and Greer.
"Sir, Rush was right..." The as usual was implied. "... this isn't from the blue aliens, unless they went through one hell of a makeover. It's tiny, like a mini cooper."
Young's voice drifted through the comms.
"Doesn't matter, we can't risk them or another species stalking this ship. We only just made it away form the blue aliens. Destroy it please, Lieutenant Scott."
Scott knew he didn't have much choice and that was how he found himself preparing to fire on the strange craft. The shuttle fired but there was no explosion as Scott and Greer had expected, instead the blast bounced off into space leaving the sphere intact.
"Sir, this thing had a shield." He fired again but the direct shot did nothing. "The shuttle can't penetrate the shield."
Back at the bridge Colonel Young turned to Rush with a frown as though it was somehow his fault.
"Can we use the ships weapon systems yet?" The question came out quickly.
"I wouldn't risk it with so many still in stasis, we haven't gone over the weapons system yet and it could pose a risk to the sleeping crew since it will drain power." He paused for a moment and stood staring off into nothingness before snapping back and continuing. "That section of the hull shares a wall with a part of the ship we don't go into or use, we could open up the wall and see if we can disable the shield from inside. Brody found what looked like mining equipment shortly before we all went into stasis, we could use that."
"Wouldn't we just find the same problem?" Asked Young. Rush opened his mouth to answer but Brody got there first.
"No, its shield won't go all the way round in a bubble like Destiny's does, it will be more like a dome, from the inside we should completely bypass it."
Young took in the information slowly thinking it over as though he had more than that one option then nodded to himself.
"Alright, that's what we do." He lifted his radio to his lips. "Scott, Greer, bring the shuttle back in we have a new tactic."
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It had taken the better part of the afternoon getting through the thick metal to Destiny's parasite, Young had finally gone to use the stones and everyone had been relieved to find out SGC had waited for them. The crew had felt a weight lifted from their shoulders and found the ability to breath easily had returned to them. Camile had already started working on a rota for people to return to Earth and see their families, three years was a long time. She thought it best for those with children to go first.
Rush, Greer and Matt had slipped on their bulky gold-copper colored space suits in an effort to avoid accidentally drilling a hole in the side of the ship and killing themselves but after less than five minutes the grumpy Scotsman wanted to tare it off. A few hours Rush had endured enough, he was beginning to think drilling was pointless when finally, finally, Matt let out a loud we're through! Sections of the strange white-grey sphere came away at the hands of Matt and Greer while Rush monitored for any indication of the hull losing integrity. The metal was strange and smooth like a stone a the bottom of a river, what looked like rubber tubes started to appear from the hole they'd drilled and some kind of gelatin goo that was a cross between milk white and green seeped out, it didn't look like something found inside a tracker. Matt managed to clear away enough to stick his head into the hole and get a better look at the craft but instead of calm movements they got quick jerks and a look of both shock and horror. Scott screamed into his radio.
"TJ get down here now!"
"What the hell, man?" Greer asked in puzzlement but Matt didn't answer he just kept yelling for TJ. "What is it?" He asked again but still got no reply.
Greer wasn't just going to sit there by a massive hole in the floor, he pushed Lieutenant Scott out the way and crammed his own head into the hole they'd drilled, it was reasonably sized if needed he could have squeezed through. When it came up his face was filled with utter bewilderment. Rush had grown impatient the two military men looked like they'd seen a ghost.
"Well?" Rush demanded.
"... It's a little girl."