Stargate Aurora.
Part 1:There is a languor of the life...
Cast
Bruce Dawson-Captain Renatus Villgans
Pascale Hutton-Commander Trebal
Micheal Lieson-Second Watch Captain Verro
Nestor Carbonell-Gun Captain Adalyx
Nicole De Boer-Karyan, Ships physician.
Terry Farrell-Colonel Kiana, CAG
...............................................................................................................................
The old man sat at his desk in the middle of the night, as he usually found himself doing. Checking reports, status', news on the war...none of it was good. The more he read and absorbed the more it dawned on him that it was getting harder and harder for his people to fight this war. 'The Ascended.' he thought to himself, if he ever let a stray thought like that become public morale on the ship would go down faster than an ancient sailing ship in a storm.
The consequences would be far worse if he let this be known in a public forum like the high council, surely they would take his command away and control of the ship would be left to some bumbling imbecile, new blood to this already red river that was the war. As he dismissed such thoughts away he waved his hand over one of the many dozens of pads that littered the room and that concentrated over his desk...in effect signing them with his DNA, letting anyone who wanted to know that he gave his approval. For what, he had no idea but he did approve it.
"Will Captain Vilgans and Commander Trebal please report to the bridge?" He sighed and pressed the small communication stone that was attached to his uniforms collar.
"Renatus here, whats going on Verro?" He said to Verro, the Aurora's second watch Captain (three ranks his junior and two Trebal's.)
"Sir, we're getting a hyperlight message from Atlantus, its Councillor Melia." He smiled to himself as he lifted his finger off the button that sat in his neck and stood up from his desk. He straightened up his uniform (that, in all fairness should have been off at twenty four hundred hours.) and made his way through the corridors of his ship.
He hadn't been in command of the Aurora long, eighteen years to be precise. Before that he had served in the Offices of Fleet Command in Atlantus, looking forward to a retirement or a promotion to the Admiralty...He had served on dozens of warships throughout the war with the Wraith; The Solaria, The Defiance, The Columba and a hundred and six more...but of all of them, it was the Aurora he liked the most. There was something to be said for commanding an old warship, a keen sense of history that extended past the self...A sense of pride, a sense of family. He had heard Captains Helia and Iohannes talking about the upgrades that were made to their ships (based on designs from the Hyppaforalkus offcourse.), how their hyperdrives could make it to the Avalon Galaxy in a day, how their officers had chairs to sit on, how their security was stepped up almost seventy five percent...'To the Ori with those technological monstrosities' it didn't matter to him, to him the Aurora was the finest ship in the universe, and the crew held themselves up to the same standard.
...
Commander Trebal put her arm over her head as she heard the Second Watch Officer's voice come through the intercom. 'Councillor Melia, Renatus must surely be straightening his uniform by now.' She chuckled to herself as she got out of her bunk and made her way through the ship, not bothering to straighten her uniform or even put her trousers or shoes on...
...
Eighteen Years Ago, Lantea.
Renatus Villgans sat in his home near the ocean, on his chair. He looked out onto the pond that lay in stone in the garden behind his home. He had always wanted something like this, a private home for his family to live, far away from the hustle and cold of the cities of their people. It wasn't as if the four of them were completely alone, almost ten thousand of their kind lived on the main land and most of them within an hours walk...he had forgotten the amount of times that he had taken his sons and daughter to their friends...and forgotten his way back.
"Good morning Captain." She said as she made her way down the house's stair case. She was beautiful, she wore a white sleeping dress which blended perfectly with her red hair to make her seem like an angel in snow...and she wore perfume from Sateda, a fine sent that reminded him of lilac in autumn, a fact that sprung upon him as she put her fingers through his hair as she stood above him.
"Good morning, my love." He said with a smile on his face that brightened the room for all that saw it, the type of smile that could easily change into a cold expression of death, the type of smile that could only exist on the face of a leader of men.
"Where are the children?" She said after she brought a kiss down onto his forehead. She made her way to the kitchen gracefully, her feet barely made an imprint on the carpet as she went.
"Alia has gone to the gymnasium to be with her friends and Marius and Scurrat are hiking in the northern foothills with the rest of their class today." He said as he went over yet another report from the Maginot Line, their defensive line.
"That's good; it means I'll have more time to paint." She said from the kitchen.
"Yes, Speaking of which. Admiral Hippaforalkus has expressed an interest in owning one of your paintings, I think he wants to decorate his apartment in the city." Renatus said with a slight chuckle to himself.
"Poor man, he lives all alone; either on that ship of his or his apartment...Maybe we should introduce him to Temperas..." She said, pleadingly.
"No..."
"But Renatus..." She said pleadingly again.
"I am not going to introduce Admiral Hippaforalkus, General and Supreme Commander of the Lantean armed forces to your little sister." He said, so absolute and oddly strict...
"Come on Villgans..." She said with a smile as she came into the room again and then proceeded to grab the computer tablet that he was reading and throw it into the pond. He looked at her, his eyes wide and his jaw close to the floor...
"Thats Captain Villgans to you." They both burst out laughing at the absurdity of the argument.
"Alright, then you can call me High Councillor Aurora..." She said as tears of laughter trickled down her cheeks.
...
Present Day.
If there was one thing Villgans didn't like about his ship it was the bridge, he thought it was too big...too much space was wasted on one space that could have been used for more drone bays, more shield emitters...anything, the room just didn't seem right to him.
"Captain Villgans." Verro and Councillor Melia's holographic avatar said in tandem to the Captain who had just entered the room.
"Ma'am...Verro." He replied as he took his seat on the ships control chair.
"Welcome, Commander Trebal...I seem to have caught you at a bad time." Councillor Helia said, even through the hologram Villgans could see that her cheeks were turning red. ..His chair rotated by thought and he quickly encountered the reason for the Councillors embarrassment. Trebal stood in the doorway to the bridge wearing nothing but her uniforms shirt and underwear...Renatus closed his eyes, frowned and sighed.
"Its 24 hundred hours ma'am, I was asleep." Trebal said with a sense of pride in her voice.
"Yes, well maybe it could have dawned on you to wear trousers for a meeting with a high government official?" Melia said, proudly...putting emphasis on 'High Government Official'.
"I could argue with you for the next three watches about the authority being a high government official brings one these days ma'am." If her already distinct lack of clothing had brought her attention the fact that she had just talked down to one of Moros' Councillors brought much more...crew members stopped working to view the conversation. Before Councillor Melia could reply Captain Villgans intervened...
"I think it would be best if we got to it. "
"Yes very well." A hologram of a large gas giant planet appeared above Councillor Melia's head. "This is LX-335..."
"No long annoying name?" Trebal interrupted...Much to Renatus' sorrow.
"As you know, Commander Trebal..." Melia said with her usual airy tone that Renatus knew that Trebal hated with a passion."Planets made of Gas do not come under the naming conventions of our kind." Trebal just stared at her, she really didn't care.
"Recently we have become aware that one of our kind, a scientist called Janus has been using the gas giant as a base from which to conduct experiments. We require that you return him to Atlantus." She said firmly.
"Why, is he Councillor Moros' bastard son?" Trebal spoke out again
"Commander Trebal!" Both Captain Villgans and Councillor Melia exclaimed at the same time. Trebal raised both hands at once and slowly backed off of the bridge.
"Anyway, ma'am...If you don't mind me asking, is that all? It sounds like diverting a warship from patrol duties would be overkill to me."
"Yes, well it seems that several hundred human vessels have taken residence in the atmosphere of the planet as well...We would like you to vacate them." Renatus suddenly felt sick, that his own government 'the defenders of life' would ask him move refugees.
"Where should I tell them to go?" Asked Villgans.
"It is none of our concern, according to the treaty of union that planet is under our territory and as such they have no right to be there." There goes that sickening feeling again...He wanted to complain, he wanted to scream into her face so loud that even the Ori would hear it and coil in terror! But her knew that it would do no good, the high council would simply send another ship...One who's captain didn't have the moral compass that the Aurora's Captain had....'Oh Ascended Ancestors, what if she sent Helia?'
"Yes ma'am, orders received and understood."
...
Not ten minutes later the ships commanders were in session in the ships meeting chambers, Captain Renatus Villgans, Commander Trebal, Gun Captain Adalyx, Second watch Captain Verro, Karyan and Colonel Kiana all sat around the ships silver table that was an exact mirror of the one that to this day sits in Atlantus.
"I cannot believe in good conscience believe that they have asked you to evict those people from their like a common landlord." Karyan said from her side of the table.
"It's not like they asked the captain to simply abandon those people, the mandate could be stretched to include the reseeding of these people." Verro spoke cautiously, making sure not to infuriate Adalyx.
"But is it right? What right do we have to take this place away from them?" Trebal said.
"The Council has every right to deny the people of this rag tag fleet." Adalyx said, so absolutely and as sure of his speech as if he was a king giving proclamations. "You may not agree with the council's decision but you have to remember that as the creators of the humans in this galaxy we have ultimate jurisdiction of all territory currently controlled by the humans. That was one of the first points drawn up in the Treaty of Union." None of them could disagree, it was one of the sadder parts of Lantean-Human relations...No matter what level the humans of this galaxy aspired too...their Lantean creators would always be the higher life form. The room went silent...
"But they're still sentient beings, and they have a right to be there as much as anyone..." Kiana, the ships CAG said before being interrupted by Adalyx.
"But the Councils decision is..."
"Whoever's right, we can't ignore the council's orders." Adalyx smirked to himself as Captain Villgans spoke."But there is no way on the face of this universe am I going to leave over a hundred vessels adrift in space."
"What about this scientist that the Council wants you to collect, ehhr...Janus?" A hologram of the man appeared in the middle of the room as Kiana spoke.
"Janus, something of a rogue...he's been known to do out of the database experiments, a few of the council members think he has a secret laboratory hidden somewhere in the city although nothings ever been proven." Trebal replied, almost to an encyclopaedic level of detail.
"And what about this planet, why is he there?"
"No one knows, the only thing that we do know is that it's not the only place he's been in the past fourteen days."
"Do you think he has anything to do with the accidents last week?" Captain Villgans interrupted. ]
"Accidents?" Karya asked, the worriment easily detectable in her voice.
"Eight days ago, Altantus detected a number of errors in the Stargate network. As a precaution the council sent a warning out to not engage the stargates however this was not before several thousand journeys were made." Villgans said sorrowfully and slowly.
"What happened?" Adalyx asked.
"For three days, all connected Stargates exploded." All understood what that meant....millions of people dead. 'May the ascended help that man if he is responsible.' The group of Lanteans sat in silence for what felt an eternity..." Everything I just said was heavily classified."
"So what's the plan then sir?"
"We exit the planet as close as possible, we won't be able to drop out of hyperspace inside the gas giants atmosphere but if we get close enough we should be able to avoid wraith sensors. From there we get the scientist, drag him by his hair if we have to. After that we escort the human vessels to another planet...say, somewhere off the gate network. That's it." Captain Renatus Villgans said.
"That's it? It sounds easy, we'll be back to patrol by the end of the day." Karya said with a grin.
"Yeah, that's what they said about the war.." Renatus said from his seat. ."Let's get to work."