A/N: Sorry it so long to upload this chapter. I'm taking a few courses, so my time is divided between those and writing these chapters. Do not worry, I'm still writing but it would take time between writing the chapters and uploading them to the site. In the meantime, enjoy. Cheers.
Five Kilometers North of the Wall, 5 minutes later.
"Colonel Sheppard," Colonel Lorne said into the subspace radio as he gently lay down the Jumper onto the ice and snow-covered ground. SG-1 had finally reached their target coordinates, "we've reached the target coordinates."
"Copy that," Colonel Sheppard replied, "be careful down there. We're forecasting the temperature will be going down even further."
"Understood, Lorne out," Colonel Lorne nodded his head before he looked out the front viewport at the dark clouds overhead. Clouds that seemed to block out the sun; they could still see the snow and ice falling down onto the ship and the surrounding areas, as well as hear the 'gush' of wind as the small ship slightly trembled.
It was at this time that Elizabeth, McKay, Ronon, and Teyla got off their seats and headed for the metal cases in the rear compartment of the Jumper, Colonel Lorne pulled up the latest sensor data onto the holographic HUD in front of him and said, while connected to the Phoenix, "I'm reading a temperature of negative thirty five Celsius, with a wind chill of negative ten." Colonel Lorne said before looking back at the expressions on the rest of the team. They looked back at him with trepidation before Mackay spoke up and asked, while Tesla handed him a thick insulated jacket that was black in colour with orange accents and a fur lined collar and hoodie.
"These jackets will be warm enough, right?" he pointed at the jackets in his arms.
"We're not spending too long out there," Colonel Lorne said looking over his shoulder after receiving an acknowledgement from Colonel Sheppard who also told them to proceed cautiously. "Dr. Weir just needs to activate the control column, and then get us into the Library. And then we'll be warm, hopefully."
"Do scans show anything underneath?" Elizabeth asked as she put on her thick jacket after Ronon opened another one of the cases.
"Nothing," Colonel Lorne shook his head before getting off his seat, the console in front of him now deactivated since he wasn't in contact with the controls. "are you sure it's here, Dr. Weir?"
"Yes," she replied putting on gloves while the others, after putting on their gloves, goggles over their eyes, and the heavily insulated hoods over their heads, were prepared to leave. It was Ronon who pressed the button on the rear inside left bulkhead before the ramp started to open. As it did, a freezing cold gust of wind rushed into the Jumper which forced everyone to shudder. The cold was biting their skin even through the layers and layers of insulation with the team able to see their breathe condense in the cold air in front of their faces.
"Here we go then" Ronan said as he trudged down the ramp which already started to accumulate a layer of snow. His boots made a 'crunch' sound upon stepping on the snow, as did Teyla and the others who followed him down the ramp. The area around them was dark, as were the clouds hanging above them- but they could still see their immediate area.
There was no need for the Jumper's lights since it wasn't dark enough for the team to not see each other
"It's freezing!" McKay yelled, pieces of snow and ice getting into his mouth, as he yelled over the howling wind which served to bring down the cold down even more.
"Come on, Rodney!" Elizabeth yelled following him down onto the snow and ice-covered ground and patted his back, "it's not that bad!" Mackay turned around and narrowed his eyes though the goggles and glared at the smiling woman who brought up a scarf to cover the lower part of her face, and did the others. Once she was clear off the ramp, it rose up and closed behind her. She then gestured towards the Jumper behind her and said, "look at it this way, at least the Jumper's getting all warm and toasty for you."
Elizabeth than gave McKay a toothy smile before the latter had an idea, "you know, I could stay behind and work on the experimental Hyperdrive we installed in this Jumper!" he yelled over the loud howling wind, "you know, in case the Ori arrive over this world and…."
"We'll be fine, Rodney!" yelled Elizabeth before reaching out and holding his arm with her hand. "It's a simple mission. We'll go down there, get what we need, and then get out. And besides, the changes to the cloaking technology on the Phoenix should prevent the Ori from seeing us."
"But…." Mackay wanted to say when Elizabeth patted him on the shoulder again.
"If the Ori did know where we were, they would have come by now," Elizabeth said, "which means the modifications you made to the cloak are working." McKay took in a deep breath of the cold air before nodding his head, and then turned, walking further out onto the snow covered ground.
"Are you sure the Library has one of those construction pedestals?" Colonel Lorne asked looking back at Elizabeth while he walked next to Ronon. He was referring to the mission reports he read when the original SG-1 was brought to Merlin's lab. Before he transferred his consciousness Daniel, Merlin was using an ancient device… an energy-matter converter that was able to synthesize complex materials that were then combined to form part of the Sangraal. However, Merlin died before finishing it… which was why he transferred his mind to inside Daniel.
Elizabeth nodded to the left and then nodded her head. She led the group to a spot two meters away while saying that she wasn't sure what would be down there in the library. She was just aware that the data they needed would be down there, "so we'll have to use the energy matter converters on the Phoenix," she added before stopping suddenly as if she knew where she needed to go, and then looking down at the ground, "or… oh, wait, it's right here."
Elizabeth crouched down, and then took off her thick gloves before placing the palm of her hand on the surface of the snow and ice covered ground. Ronon, McKay, Teyla, and Colonel Lorne stood around Elizabeth as she started to rise to her feet while, at the same time, the surface of a cream coloured and black accented column rose up. The ice and snow on the of the column's surface started to steam before the heated surface melted it away to reveal a Panel that had the outline of a palm and five holes where the end of the fingers were meant to be placed.
Elizabeth then shook her head and looked back at McKay, realizing she hadn't finished what she wanted to say to him, so Elizabeth stared back at the holes while whispering, "or we may have to return to Atlantis to use the converter there if…"
"Didn't it take days to have the Sangraal built?" asked Ronan.
"Yes," Elizabeth said as she turned to look at Ronon, "but that doesn't change what we need to do. That Sangraal was built from Daniel's mind… a human mind. I'm hoping that the converter down there, if there is one, will be faster."
"I'm not saying we change any thing we've got planned," Ronon said, "I still want to fight these things. Just saying that it could take more than a day to build it." Ronon then looked around at the snow falling much heavier than before, and turned to look at Elizabeth once again while Teyla placed a hand on her shoulder, "I'm just saying it's getting cold."
"I told you!" stuttered a shivering McKay who wrapped his arms around his own body.
"Then I guess we're lucky that it's going to be warm down there," Elizabeth said as she placed her hand on the panel. She then turned her head sharply at the device when she felt something sharp prickly her fingers before there was a hiss. Ronon and the other saw a flash of white light around them before finding themselves still standing in the ice and snow; shivering in the cold as the wind penetrated the heavy insulation.
But Elizabeth was gone, "Okay, what just happened?" That was the only question to come out of McKay's lips as he and the others spun around searching for Elizabeth. However, she wasn't anywhere near them… in fact, they had no idea where she was teleported to. All they knew was that she wasn't with them.
"We need to contact the Phoenix," Colonel Lorne said before frowning and looking out into the near white-out conditions and snow and ice fell on them and on the Jumper, "let's head back."
The Library, a second later.
While the remaining members of a very confused and worried SG-1 were heading back to the Jumper, Elizabeth found herself surrounded by darkness once the bright white shimmering light faded away. Her surroundings were lit for an instant during the transport sequence, but now she was surrounded in darkness once again.
"Hello?" Elizabeth yelled, her voice echoing as she took a step forward before spinning around searching for the outlines of her friends. Her vision was blurred thanks to the bright white light, and then herself suddenly appearing in a dark place. She tried to rub the lights in her vision away by rubbing her eyes with the back of her hands, and it helped. While rubbing her eyes, Elizabeth called out, "Teyla? Ronon, Col…" Before she could say Colonel Lorne's name, soft overhead lights started to activate.
Elizabeth looked up soft yellow lights started to activate one by one, and then the lights slowly brightened as several more lit up slowly. She looked around, finding herself in a cavernous room with four consoles surrounding her. And that was all she saw while spinning around and reaching for the ear piece, "Colonel Lorne?"
She hoped that the signal from her ear piece would make it to Colonel Lorne, or to Teyla, Ronon, McKAy, or even to Colonel Sheppard on the Phoenix. But all Elizabeth received was static. Elizabeth rushed to one of the consoles, a gleaming white colour with several scripts etched onto a glass panel written in the Asgard language.
Elizabeth then ran to the other console and smiled, it was written in the language of the Ancients. The console was exactly the same, except for the language used. Elizabeth then rushed to the next console while taking off her jacket and dropping it to the floor. She then pulled the goggles off her eyes and paces it on her forehead while taking off the gloves and dropping them onto the floor. The warm air in the cavern brushed against her skin, warming her body while she stared at a script she hadn't seen before – the language of the Furlings, "and the last one must be the language of the Nox."
She took a deep breath before calling her team once again through her ear-piece. But there was no luck, just as when she tried contacting them when she arrived. "Ok," she whispered looking around at the consoles before dashing for the console that belonged to the Ancients, 'okay Elizabeth, one thing at a time.' She placed her hand on the console and watched in awe as it responded and lit up. At the same time, she looked up upon hearing a creaking sound and saw that the spot where she had been teleported to was now being retracted into a recess in the floor. The piece of the floor sank beneath the floor before being replaced by a pedestal that rose through the hole. With a thud, the new piece of floor that contained the pedestal stopped, the top of the pedestal now only five inches above the surface of the floor. Elizabeth watched at the surface of the pedestal glowed yellow before a hologram depicting an Ancient script flowing from left to right activated.
"Now show me where the exits are," she said looking back down at the console before starting to tap the transparent buttons, "and then… then I'm getting the data for the Ark of Truth, and the Sangraal." While Elizabeth was typing away at the console, the images of various items speed through in the hologram… as if it was a directory. "There you are," she whispered looking up at the Sangraal, "found you. Now, let's see if there is an energy-matter converter here." While she searched the directory in the library through the console, Elizabeth missed one such image that showed an oval rock… an oval rock that was covered in what looked like scales. It was there for an instant, before moving onto the next image, and then the next, and then the next, before she found what she was looking for, 'yes! An energy-matter converter. Okay… I have the exits, and I have the converter, and now….' Elizabeth then started to search for the Ark of Truth. The exits and the matter converter were in a separate area of the massive complex that spanned an entire continent beneath ancient rock and stone.
'I'll have to take the data to the converter,' Elizabeth thought as she typed on the console before she looked up at the hologram in front of her. Just as the console on the Jumper, the device in the Library read her mind and the hologram immediately showed her the route to the transporter which would take her to the Converter. As the hologram showed Elizabeth where she would be transported to, a red line extended from the destination transporter to the converter, and then to a transporter that would teleport her out of the library to the frozen hell she had just come from. Elizabeth smiled upon realizing, with relief, that there was a way out of the Library, before a frown appeared on her face before she narrowed her eyes at the holographic map in front of her. She was staring at a large room in the section just before the room containing the matter converter labelled 'Physical Specimens' in the Ancient language while whispering, "wait, this is a data library. There should be nothing here that's physical… it's all data that would be stored. Why's there an entire section on physical specimens from… wait, Terra? From Earth?"
"From what I remember," Elizabeth continued talking to herself, "there shouldn't be any physical specimens here. So, what's in there?" She pressed a few buttons while staring at the map morphing back into the Library directory- the images changed at a very quick rate before stopping at the oval rock which had blue and gold highlights, "specimens currently viable, forty-two." Elizabeth was confused while she walked round the console towards the hologram. She read the Ancient script beneath the number of the stones that were viable, and her eyes widened, "Draco Ovum. Terra."
"Draco?" Elizabeth asked herself as she looked away, "that's Latin. Latin for…" Elizabeth looked back up at the image of the stone and whispered, "dragon eggs? But…." Before she could finish her train of thought, Elizabeth turned around and scanned the immediate area with her eyes. The woman thought that she was being watched; although she didn't see anyone physically present around her.
"Hello?" she said walking back to the Ancient console. She placed her hand on the angled surface and tapped on a few buttons, changing the image behind her while she looked around; there was no one there. But she felt as if she was being watched, "anyone there?" Shaking her head after a few seconds, Elizabeth turned back to the hologram and switched the holographic index to the Sangraal. While she was checking to see how long the energy-matter converter would take to build the device, an unseen figure stood staring in surprise at the hologram, and then he turned his head towards Elizabeth.
"What is this?" the dark-haired figure in black and grey clothes said as he walked towards the hologram floating above the pedestal. He stared transfixed at the strange image that represented, unknown to him, the Sangraal. "Who are you?" the figure whispered looking back at Elizabeth, before he blinked his eyes and then appeared in the Jumper just as Colonel Lorne and the others closed the ramp behind them. He saw McKay taking off the gloves while breathing hard, and then rub his hands together. He then turned and watched, with fascination, at the holographic HUD that appeared once the Colonel placed his hands on the console.
"I'm raising the heat," Colonel Lorne said before the figure turned to a person he was surprised to see.
"Drogo," the figure in the black tunic and trousers whispered shaking his head. The figure remembered the visions he had seen when first hearing that the young woman calling herself the Queen of Dragons, Daenerys Targaryen, was accompanying his half brother, Jon Snow, to Winterfell. After reading the message, the figure had focused on the Dragon Queen and 'saw' her trails and tribulations- her entire history including her wedding to Khal Drogo, her first husband who later died. The man the figure was looking at now could have been Drogo's twin, he then saw the tanned woman as she took off her coat and lay it on a seat.
"Colonel, do you have her lifesigns?" Teyla asked while the figure stared at her.
"Nothing," Colonel Lorne said, "I'm contacting the Phoenix."
And then a second later, the figure felt himself pulling his spirit back into his body.
Bran Stark opened his eyes and stared at the pale white Heart-tree in the godswood behind Winterfell. What he saw was unexplainable, what he saw looked like magic- Lights and images floating out of nowhere, he saw a man who looked like a dead warlord, 'what is happening here?' Bran stared at the tree while feeling himself being watched. He looked over his shoulder and noticed one of the Winterfell guards; a young man who was nervous about guarding the disabled Lord of Winterfell on the orders of Sansa Stark- the current Lady of Winterfell and Bran's sister.
"My Lord," the young man told Brandon, "the King in the North has been sighted with his retinue."
"Take me to my sisters," Bran whispered before the guard nodded his head and rushed to Bran's wheelchair. A part of Bran, the part that could still feel just as he was before heading North of the Wall years ago- while the rest of his mind tried to make sense of what he was seeing around the world- was excited about seeing his brother again. 'No, my cousin,' he thought to himself as the guard walked around him and placed his gloved hands on the wheelchair armrest, 'Aegon Targaryen.'
The Phoenix, a few minutes later.
"SG-1 to Phoenix," Colonel Lorne's voice came through the speaker in the bridge while Colonel Sheppard leaned forward. He was surprise to hear from the SG-1 commander so soon after they had landed, and a part of him was worried that Elizabeth was wrong about the library being located in the planet below them. However, the man's curiosity about why the team called in so early dissipated and turned to intense worry when Colonel Lorne continued, "we found the control column but… but only Dr. Weir was beamed into the library, sir."
"What?" the surprised Colonel Sheppard said as he stood up from his seat, his mouth hanging open in surprise for a second before regaining his composure, "how did that happen? I thought the beam was…"
"We didn't know," McKay interrupted as he pushed Colonel Lorne to one side at the cockpit while adding, "Elizabeth did say that the blood of a former ascended was needed to get in. I guess it also meant that those who weren't former ascended beings couldn't get in. The rest of us who had to rush back to the jumper in below freezing weather."
"Basically only the Doc could get in," Ronon spoke after MacKay apologized when he imagined what Colonel Sheppard's reaction must have been to hearing that Elizabeth was lost again. McKay sighed and then walked back into the rear compartment, tired as he wondered if they had really lost Elizabeth again to an unknown fate, while Ronon walked over to the co-pilot seat and sat down, "what do you want us to do, Sheppard?"
"I…" the Colonel said just as the alarms in the ship started to go off, "stand by, SG-1." The Colonel then turned to Lt. West and asked him what was going on. It was once the young office told Colonel Sheppard that they were detecting hyperspace windows that the latter's expression hardened. He then rushed back to his seat and yelled a message down to the Jumper, "SG-1, I am ordering radio silence. No matter what happens up here, your orders are to stay where you are and wait for Dr. Weir. The Ori can not know that we have someone on the planet."
Colonel Lorne understood, nodding his head, and then pulled up a HUD in front of him. It showed the area of space above them as four Ori motherships exited hyperspace while the Phoenix was cloaked. Lorne knew that Colonel Sheppard wanted to be cautious, that he didn't want the Ori ships tracing any signals back to the Jumper and the Phoenix. However, while Teyla and McKay, out of their jackets now, stood behind Lorne and Ronon staring at the HUD, it didn't seem as if the four ships in orbit could scan any lifesigns.
"Or they would have moved towards the planet," Teyla whispered, her voice low, as she watched the four Ori ships head towards a section of space. The same section of space where the Phoenix lay in orbit in the belief that the new cloaking generator would prevent them being found by the Ori.
Back in space, over Illirianis, the crew of the Phoenix felt as if they were holding their breaths. Colonel Sheppard was told that the Ori ships were running scans but the cloaked ship hadn't been detected. The Colonel nodded his head, but he wondered how it was that the Ori ships had known where they were. The mission was classified, with only General O'Neill and Woolsey knowing the exact details- the others in the task force had no idea where the Phoenix was heading to.. just that she had an important mission.
'So how do they…' the Colonel thought to himself when suddenly he felt what seemed like fingers brushing against his mind. The Colonel felt a chill going up and down his spine before he heard a female voice in his mind.
"Hallowed are the Ori."
The Colonel's eyes went wide before he yelled out his next order. They were discovered. "Military thrust! Come about! Disable the cloak. Raise shields and…!" BOOOM! The entire ship shook as one of the four beams that fired out of the four ships struck the hull of the Phoenix just before the shield itself could be activated. The orange coloured beam speared through the ship at an angle- it obliterated the conning tower, part of the central power conduit, the shield generators- the beam passed through several decks before destroying fulling lines, the area surrounding the mess hall- all before the beam passed though the port hanger bay. The beam left explosions in its wake- explosions that killed over a hundred people in total. Some of the people were lucky, they didn't feel anything as the heat from the plasma beam killed them instantly. Other died in the resulting explosions that tore through the vessels hallways until the fire reach heavy composite doors that sealed shut. Several injured were on the other side of those doors while the plasma fire fizzled out thanks to the vacuum of space.
"Evans!" Colonel Sheppard yelled as he got to his feet after being thrown from the command chair following the beam's impact, "evasive manoeuvres!" Sparks were flying down from the ceiling as the ship shook once again, and then there were the sounds of explosions in the distance from plasma weapons hitting the hull.
"Shield generators have been hit, sir!" yelled a crew member, "aft shields disabled! Forward shield arrays have been damaged from a powersurge!"
"Weapons! Lock on and fire with everything we have!" the Colonel added as the Phoenix's two out of four sub-light engines fired while the four Ori ships continued firing spherical blue energy bolts at the Phoenix, with the Tau'ri ship doing all it could to defend itself. It the meantime, on the bridge, there was a cacophony of voices as the Colonel glared out through the forward window.
"The Ori ships have finished charging their main weapons!"
"Forwards shields down to thirty percent!"
"We're losing main power! The central conduit's been hit!"
"Switch power to secondary conduits!" the Colonel yelled as alarms blared all around him.
"Inertial dampeners at fifty percent!"
"We've lost power to three quarters of the Ancient weapons, beam weapons are at twenty percent, and…." The sounds around him were getting too much as the Colonel stood up and ordered everyone to calm down. He then stared at the people in the suddenly silent bridge before relaying his orders.
"Reroute main power through the secondary conduits!" the Colonel yelled out, "transfer power from all unessential systems to the remaining weapons."
"Transferring," Lt. Evans said before nodding his head.
"Fire!" the Colonel said. The four Ori vessels fired their beam weapons at the phoenix. All of them missed as the one hundred and fifty meter long ship fired its two remaining engines running at half power, and banked and weaved past the plasma beams while firing red and orange spherical blasts of plasma.
"We're losing power to the engines, sir," one of the crew said as the engines bright blue hue started to fade.
"We rerouted power, didn't we?" the Colonel asked.
"The secondary conduits must have been hit, sensors are indicating a power leak," another member of the bridge crew said.
"Reroute power from the engines to the Ancient beam weapons," the Colonel ordered looking back over his shoulder, and then back to Lt. Evans siting at the console in front of him, "fire everything!"
The Phoenix came about and then banked left before two green coloured beams of plasma fired followed by one volley after another from the energy weapons towards the Ori ships.. The beams impacted the Ori shields, and then went through one end of the hull, and out the other side. The green coloured beam continued through one ship and then impacted the shields of the ship next to it. The other two Ori ships took up new positions before firing at the badly damaged Phoenix. One of the Ori beams missed the shorten 'neck' section of the ship as it turned hard to port while banking enough for the second beam to glance the aft section of the Phoenix- taking out the number three and four engines, leaving just one of them functional. It was just as the aft sections exploded before jettisoning bodies and debris out into space that the Phoenix fire another volley of energy weapons despite the desperate power situation. The bursts of energy and the green coloured Ancient energy beams tore through the shields and hulls of the remaining ships before they exploded in space.
But it was no time to cheer for the Phoenix crew. So far, they had lost a little over sixty people with forty more badly injured, fifteen critically. Damage control teams and the uninjured were taking injuries to the infirmary. In addition, there was another additional problem, "we have no subspace, communications, half our sensors are damaged, the port hanger bay fuel lines have been sealed to prevent further explosions, we ware leaking energy faster than before, and we have one engine at forty percent and… oh no!"
"What is it?" the Colonel demanded as he stared at the stunned officer,
"We're caught in the planet's gravity well, we.. we can't pull out."
The Colonel frowned while staring at the crewmember before he turned and looking at the forward viewport. He could already feel the ship shaking as it continued to head down towards the planet. He then rushed to his chair and pressed the button on the left armrest, "engineering get me anything…. And I mean anything to slow down our descent in the next five minutes. Everyone else get to crash stations!"
TBC.
