Stargate Universe. the Legends Of Destiny

I think I forgot the disclaimer on my last chapter, but I don't and will never own the Stargate franchise, and further, I do not own any of the characters used in this novel, that honour goes to Brad Wright and MGM.

As Colonel Young followed the limping Eli

to the control interface room, he wondered just how the young boy had managed to survive, alone for three years. When they reached their destination, Dr Rush took a seat at his usual console and leaned back. Eli took a seat at the control interface opposite. "So," Young began, "Just what did it take to survive for three years?" Eli stared at Young for a while before he answered. "It's been hard, I don't pretend it wasn't, but Destiny's been teaching me how to operate and repair her systems. She told me where the ships food supplies were, and showed me how to repair and integrate a secondary reserve power generator into her systems.

It wasn't much but it was enough for me to keep life support running." He wiped a weary hand across his face and leant heavily against the back of the seat. "You almost make it sound although the ship is a person." frowned Rush. "She is, or was, Destiny is the uploaded consciousness of an ancient, integrated with the ship, and given an artificial neural network that allowed for her long term survival. She's been helping me all this time." Replied Eli with a proud look.

"So, can anyone talk to her?" asked Young. "Of course," Eli smiled. "Destiny, will you come down here please." Eli said in a respectful tone. There was a shifting of the air, and a faint golden light as an image of a woman with long black hair appeared. "What is it that you require Eli Wallace?" enquired Destiny.

Young stared open mouthed at the image in front of him. "So, Wait, you're the ship? Can you open the gate to Earth?" he demanded in a rush. "I am sorry but I am unable to comply with your request, but yes, I am the Embodiment of Destiny's Artificial Intelligence Subsystem. For all intensive purposes, I am Destiny."

"She can't open the gate to Earth, she's just too old, but she did explain to me about a system of intergalactic gates, one in each galaxy, that allows the traveller to jump from one to the other, like stepping stones across a pond. Once we have dumped the waste material inside the solar collectors and got a full charge of energy we can skip eight of these gates. It works both ways, earth can use this system to get supplies to us, and we can use it to gate home." Explained Eli.

"That's incredible Eli, but why wasn't this listed in the ships database of systems?" asked rush while trying to focus on Destiny. "That particular database is in the unrestricted sector of the network, there is an additional database with a complete list of systems and mechanisms relating to me." Stated Destiny. With that, she disappeared.

"Ok, both of you get to work on fixing the energy system, I'll go report this to Earth and get them to assemble supplies. Oh, and if either of you has anything to add to that list get it to me by the end of the day." And With that Young stalked out and left them to it. "I'll go and get things ready at the collectors, you need to find us a nice empty area of space, no asteroids, no stellar dust, no nothing. Plot the FTL course there and let me know when you have it. If you need me command Destiny to call me." Eli said, tiredly. With that he limped out. 'Great', thought Rush, grumpily, 'Eli thinks he's boss and to top it off, I don't have a complete list of the ships systems.' Moving to a console he began work on cracking the databases master code to find what other secrets Destiny had been hiding.

Young began walking towards the communications lab thinking how amazing it would be if they would soon have a supply line from Earth. After a few hours, still deep in thought, he bumped into Varro. "Ah! Finally, Colonel, or should it be General now? Congratulations on your promotion, Evrett."

"Er, Welcome to Destiny," spluttered Everett. "And who might you be?" "Sorry, I'm Jack, Jack O'Neil, glad to see you folks made it in one piece, are the crew o.k. and is this rust bucket still in working order?" Asked O'neil.

"Well, that's going to take a long time to explain sir, I will happily come back to earth and brief you at 0900 tomorrow. What's been happening on Earth while we were asleep?" he asked.

"Well, the Ori are back for one thing, and they got better ships, we lost five ships a year ago trying to destroy one of them, we are just no match for them. We barely managed to stop them when they attacked Earth, and we nearly lost Atlantis in the process. Long story short, were getting our asses kicked. Even the Lucian alliance are trying to get in on the action. Last week we lost our newest ship, The Highlands, in a battle with ten of their Ha'Tak vessels, because they found a way to upgrade their shields." He paused here to take a breath.

"We really need Destiny, it's the only ship that can match and withstand the Ori's fire power."

"That may be a little difficult sir, we are no more than a snail on the other side of the universe." gloomily stated Young.

"Not so much, we can dial destiny once! Just for eleven seconds, in that time Dr McKay will come through with a ZPM and a prototype wormhole drive, we can get this ship repaired, add a couple of upgrades, and get you fellas onto the front line!"

General Young narrowed his eyes at the other man. "That's a lot to take in sir, and you gotta understand, we are in just a small outdated ship falling to pieces with hardly any firepower, so what makes you think that we would be a match against just one of their ships?"

Young wasn't about to commit his crew and Destiny onto a suicide mission.

"Well, we had some scientists do some calculations based on the power output of your main weapon, and how strong your shields are, and long story short, your main weapon can output enough firepower to cut down their shields, and your shields are the only ones we know of strong enough to withstand their main weapons beam. We ran some simulations, you're capable of holding out against four ships. We managed to capture one of their ships for a brief time, and found that their weapons work by an exponential build up of plasma, and what were Destiny's shields designed to withstand? Supercharged plasma from inside a star! I think you guys will do just fine. We will get the gate dialled in a couple of hours, there's kind of a time limit to how long we can wait, Carter says they will be sling -shotting the wormhole around a giant star to speed it up a little, or something like that, you know how I get with all this techno babble." Finished Jack with a smirk.

Young, at this stage trying to hold it together, and almost laughing brushed back his hair and threw up his hands. "Alright, I'll assemble the crew and let them know but there's somebody you should meet first." With that jack raised an eyebrow. Young looked up at the ceiling, and stated, "Destiny, will you come down here." Nothing happened.

"Add to your promotion a phych eval." Said Jack with a profound look on his face. "Please" said young in an almost begging tone. A glimmer of golden light appeared just behind jack, and the image of Destiny took form. "I presume you heard our conversation a moment ago?" Questioned young. To which Destiny replied, "Yes. The mission cannot be aborted, I cannot allow myself to be taken back so far just to be used in a failing war effort."

Jack turned round to face her, and looking a little startled replied, "Well for one wer'e not going to keep you in our galaxy, we will jump you back, spend a few weeks refitting and repairing you, then wer'e going to send you on several strike ops over the course of another couple of weeks, then send you back, with that new car smell. If that's o.k?"

"That will be acceptable, shall I transmit a list of my engineering specifications and spare part blueprints and requirements back to earth?"

Young looked dumbfounded, "Wait, you can do that, I thought you could only send short range transmissions."

"Eli Wallace repaired long range communications, among other systems." "Such as?" Pressed Jack narrowing his eyes once more.

"My shielding generators are now operating at 80 per cent efficiency, weapons turrets are at one hundred percent, Faster Than Light, capacity is now restored to 30 percent of the previous specifications, water filtration and collection systems have been repaired, matter processor and forming facilities have been restored, the Stargate has been upgraded, and numerous hull breeches have been sealed and repaired." Finished Destiny with a crisp tone. She didn't sound at all out of breath after all that.

"Wow, guess Eli has been busy after all!" This small report, which was, as he guessed just a tactical overview filled him with so many questions, one of which he just had to know the answer to. So he asked Destiny, "When you say FTL is at 30 percent of its original designed capacity, does that mean wer'e not even going a third of your maximum speed?"

"That is correct, our FTL drive was designed after the hyperspace generators, it can outpace a city ships maximum hyperspace velocity by a factor of four, it is an undetectable propulsion method and allows for my monitoring of background radiation without dropping into normal space. In short, my FTL Drive makes hyperspace engines look like 'snails'" She started to shimmer. "I have no desire to obtain a 'new car' smell." With that she disappeared.

A flabbergasted General O'Neil then said "Well that's a lot to take in. Just as well, as one of our ops involves taking you guys across into the Ori's galaxy, we expected to have to use the wormhole drive as they made their own version of the Alterro device, but the snag of their device is if we get anywhere within two thousand lightyears of one of their ships traveling in hyperspace we get blown to smitherines."

"Well, we will do whatever we can to help, what do you need of us sir?"

A now slightly irritated General O'neil replied, "can you Lose the 'Sir' Evrett, wer'e equals now, I need your science team to switch with some of my guys so we can start to input the necessary data to save Mc'cay some time, were on the clock."

"What do you mean si….jack?"

"When you guys come back to Earth, we have to put you straight into a fight, there's an Ori mother ship above Earth, our ships are holding position near Atlantis on the other side of the moon but it won't make any difference if we have to bring them in, we have a day to spread the word of origin or else we will be 'smited!"

Evrett turned and made for the door."OK, I'll get everyone onto it now, expect my team to arrive within the hour."

Their conversation finished, Jack turned around and strode into a supply cupboard. Seconds later he stuck his head around the door frame, "erm?"

"Communications lab is down the corridor, left, right, right again, up one floor, left and then your'e there." Stated the clearly amused General Young.

"Ah, I knew that, thanks" desperately trying not to laugh Evrett turned around and headed back to the control interface room while pulling out his radio, "All science team members meet me in the control interface room, all military crew prepare the ship for battle." A short hiss come from his radio then Scotts voice came through, "Err, sir, when you say battle, who are we fighting? Are the drones back?"

"No, I'll explain when you get here, you should head to the control interface room too, long story short we will be jumping into a combat situation within the next few hours if all goes smoothly." There was a seconds stunned silence.

"On my way sir." With that General Young reached the control room to look at a pacing, near furious Rush. "What the hell is going on Colonol?"

"Its 'general' now, rush, and I'll explain when the rest of your team gets here."

Well sorry guys this took a lot of doing, as I came down with the classic case of writers block, plus halfway through this chapter I went away for a while, so here's a double length chapter to hopefully make some amends. Had some neat reviews, thanks guys, I thought I would give Destiny the repairs she deserves, and get her fighting something even the mighty Atlantis can't handle. Stay tuned for the next chapter to find out just what Destiny has planned, will Rush come quietly back to Earth? Will Eli take kindly to this? Keep watching this space to find out!