To melgar: It is coming in this chapter. They have been watching as they cannot interfere.
To Long live Warhammer40k: Thanks for the review.
To Death Korps: That may happen. Thanks.
To readers: "Gothic in front of non-Marines."
"English all the time and Marine to Marine Gothic."
Angelus relaxed in his chair, it had been two hours but they had returned the Logi-Engine to working order by totally disconnecting the Navigation Banks. Whatever those data crystals had contained they had caused the Logi-Engine to question all its star maps. Who knew when, if ever the Navigation Banks would clear up? Nestor and Varas were running a full systems check, Gideon had calmed the Machine Spirits of the generators and Vanem and Baltus were finishing up the modifications of the Warp engines. Stein was walking through the training halls looking at the precision fire of the Marines and Neophytes. In two weeks three of the Neophytes were going to be implanted with the Black Carapace and receive their Power Armour.
Angelus received the call he had been waiting two hours for, the man in the isolation cell was awake. Before he left for the Apothecarium he pressed a button on his arm rest and waited for Macillan's voice to reply. "You called Brother-Captain?"
Angelus pressed the send button and said. "What is the unknown ship's ETA?"
Macillan concentrated on the rapidly approaching warp shadow. "Nearly one hour till it is within communications range of the Emperor's Light."
Angelus nodded and left for the Apothecarium. In the Apothecarium Samuel was trying to calm the man down as he ran about his cell shouting in some strange language. Angelus arrived to a struggling Samuel as he tried to get the man to sit down on a bed and let him scan him. When Angelus got close to Samuel he could hear the man shouting something that was clearly thanks. Samuel gave up on trying to scan the man and let Angelus have a look at him. The man was fairly tall, had black hair and a very exited expression.
Samuel motioned for Angelus to come over to him. "For the limited scans I have got of him, he seems in perfect health except for two things. One he has a strange element in his blood stream along with a odd protein chain and his immune system has been totally repressed, I have managed to supplement it with a heavy dose of immuno-stimulants but he will have to take the same dose every day for the rest of his life and these drugs will harm a human in too high a dose."
Samuel looked at Angelus and said. "From what we have gathered from the data crystals these Goa'uld have no were near the same level of medical technology as we have. If this man is to survive he will be bound to this ship until we return to the Imperium and even then immuno-stimulants are very expensive."
Angelus nodded. "Well as long as he is on this ship he can join the Serf-crew."
Angelus walked over to the man who had a massive smile on his face. "Will you join the Serf-crew of this Battle Barge and serve the Emperor's divine will?" He said pointing at the man.
The man gave him a blank look and then smiled, pointing to himself he said. "Kage."
Angelus smiled and pointed at himself and said. "Angelus."
The man smiled and said something in his language which was followed by the name Angelus. Turning to the Apothecary who was leaning against the wall smiling.
"Send him to the nursery; have him taught Gothic, High and Low, and the ways of the Imperium." Angelus said and left the man who was once again trying to move around the room.
Levi was still overseeing the repairs of the Logi-Engine, as Angelus had put it "You broke it, you will fix it."
The Navigational Banks were still locked in some endless loop. He needed to find away to break it but the system was denying all access and commands. He had felt something was wrong with their location in the galaxy and this was just reinforcing his suspicions, if he could find more hard evidence then he could confront the Brother-Captain about it and see what would happen. He sighed as another servitor went into spasms as it attempted to access the Navigation Banks. This was going to take a long time.
Everyone on the Prometheus was staring at the wall monitors, the massive bulk of the Emperor's Light was being shows and it frightened the hell out of the crew. They had seen beings that claimed to be gods; they had fought with the all consuming Replicators and had faced certain destruction several times but they had never seen something that was so, so ominous to look at. The ship practically screamed 'war is all we know' with its massive guns, energy readings that dwarf their own and armour that could repel nearly everything they could through and then some. The ship hung over the carcass of a Ha'tak that it was evidently picking apart as several small lights could be seen on the supper structure. The ship spun round to face them and they saw the massive golden twin headed eagle above the immense hangar bay doors.
Daniel Jackson head pounded as he had a flash back of when he had ascended. "Humans have such great potential." A floating light had told him. "They could build a galaxy were everyone works for their fellow man."
Images of peace and prosperity flashed through his head. "Or they could bring darkness to the galaxy, embracing it in constant war, blood and death."
Images of whole planets burning, billion strong armies clashing, slaughter and hate unending, beast more horrible then any man should see, blood staining the very stars and the constant laughter of things ancient and evil.
"In the grim darkness of this future there is only war." The voice of the light sighed. "Thankfully for all, this path of humanity is almost closed to them." The light told him as it floated off.
The flash back stopped and Daniel grabbed the back of a chair panting.
"Daniel what wrong?" Samantha Carter asked from her seat.
"Sam scan that ship for anomalies, there is something wrong." Daniel got out through deep breaths.
Jack O'Neill looked as his friend straightened up and looked back at the ship. Teal'c just raised an eyebrow as Samantha Carter began to scan every detail; they could, of the ship. Everyone on the Prometheus thought the same thing; if we have to fight that we are going to die.
Angelus had decided to do a tour of his ship to see the section chief in person. Gideon had just grunted at his arrival and mumbled answers to his questions; he was always like that when he was working. Baltus and Vanem were tying the power systems of the Emperor's Light into the new engine parts. Karrack and the 4th were in the first training hall doing fire practice. Boras, the 2nd and 3rd were in the third training hall having a simulated battle using tag bullets. Stein was explaining to the Neophytes advanced moves with a Chain Sword.
Samuel was examining the bodies of the dead enemy soldiers; they seemed to be very interesting. "They are genetically modified humans with a pouch in the stomach to house the parasites young." He said spitefully. This just increased his anger at these foul creatures, using humans as walking incubators.
Pontius was running constant firing drills and Seleucus was testing the firing triangulations of the guns and Marcus was having the hydraulics of the Lance turrets worked on to increase the turning rate. Ishmael was having a mass in the cathedral with a large group of Serf-crew. Levi was still overseeing the repairs of the Navigation Banks, when he arrived he found a very anxious Librarian.
"What's wrong Levi?" Angelus asked
The Librarian looked over at him and said. "I am becoming more worried that there was something more to the Necron's device, the Logi-Engines is caught between what we have told it is fact and what the star maps from the data crystals say. Meaning that it could not comprehend what the star maps showed as a fact to what we have told it were facts."
This worried Angelus, the Logi-Engines were meant to be able to process any data. He walked away with this on his mind; I guess I will have to ask the approaching ship for a map then.
Angelus was on the bridge of the Emperor's Light. He was trying to locate the approaching ship with the scanners but so far there was nothing on the Warp sensors or the real space scanners.
"Are you sure something is there?" Angelus said to arm rest.
"Yes they will be here very soon." Macillan's voice replied.
Angelus sighed; looks like the Navigator had found a new job for now. Then across the void a window opened and the Prometheus emerged from hyperspace, it was a small ship but its shape was like a sleeker, smaller with several thing in different places Battle Barge. It could have been mistaken for a slightly modified Imperial Frigate. Angelus was relieved finally contact with the Imperium not noticing the ships use of hyperspace or its lack of Imperial icons. He was just too relieved.
He opened the communication lines and broadcast the standard Imperial greeting "In the name of the God-Emperor I welcome you." Silence.
On the bridge of the Prometheus everyone was staring at the massive man in black armour speaking in some strange language, the only one moving was Daniel Jackson who was frantically scribbling in a note book.
Angelus waited for the response but none came. He decided to send his preferred welcome "Identify your selves now, or be fired upon."
Daniel Jackson looked up at that last statement and gulped. "If I am right then they just threatened to fire at us."
"Can you communicate with them the" The temporary-Captain of the Prometheus asked.
"I think so give me a minute." Daniel answered scribbling furiously.
"Daniel I don't think we have a minute." O'Neill said as the Lance batteries of the Emperor's Light trained on the Prometheus.
"Okay let me try now." Daniel said as he fished scribbling in his note book.
The Prometheus opened a channel to the Emperor's Light and Daniel Jackson spoke. "We are… Friends… Don't fire."
Angelus was a little taken aback by the broken Gothic that this man with glasses and a green jacket was speaking. Why would the Head Communication Officer on an Imperial Navy ship have such broken speech? Even in the most back-water parts of the Imperium the Comms Officers have always spoken good Gothic.
He sighed at least some one was speaking. "Can you show us the way back to the Imperium."
Then he suddenly noticed this ship was not baring an Aquila and it had used the hyperspace technology. Daniel was a little out of his depth with the last question, were was this Imperium and how were they going to take them back.
Then man on the screen stood and shouted "Identify you selves or be destroyed. You are not the Imperial Navy are you?"
Daniel began scribbling in his book and looked up at the captain. "They are asking for identification and if we are part of some Imperial Navy."
The captain looked at the armoured man and then at the Lance batteries which were still trained on the Prometheus."Tell them we are the human ship Prometheus of Earth and don't want to fight."
Daniel flicked through the pages in his not pad getting some odd looks from Angelus; he finally got the phrases together. "We are the… human ship Prometheus… of…" What was earth? Daniel frantically looked through the notes till he found it. "Terra… we don't want to… fight." Daniel looked up at the man who had slumped into his chair. Angelus was dumb founded; they said they were from Terra, Terra of all places. How could they be from Terra? He motioned to Nestor to cut the channel.
"What in the Warp is going on here?" Angelus said to space. Angelus almost put his finger through the button as he said "All senior Brothers to the conference room."
Once again they were all gathered in the conference room except Seleucus, Marcus and Pontus who had remained at their stations in case of emergency.
Everyone was silent as Angelus started to talk. "There is something seriously wrong here, the star maps of this area of space were a total paradox to the Logi-Engines, the Astromica is gone and this ship claims that they are from Holy Terra."
Levi who had gone pale said. "They weren't lying they were from the Holy planet of Terra."
Ishmael was staring at the wall, Baltus and Vanem were whispering to each other about what was happening and Gideon was staring at the star field. "We need star maps that will confirm everything." He suddenly said.
Nestor nodded and said. "We could get one from that ship."
Karrack said. "How can we trust them, they could be Xenos or demons."
Boras asked. "Levi are they Xenos or demons?"
Levi looked at Boras and answered. "No they are humans."
Samuel looked over at Ishmael. "Do you think we should trust them?"
Ishmael looked at the Apothecary blankly. "We can trust them if their souls are pure."
Angelus looked over the pale and drawn faces of his command staff. Suddenly Vanem and Baltus shouted out. "That's the answer." Everyone looked at them. "There are two possibilities that fit the situation." Vanem said. "These are that the ship has travelled back in time to the Dark Age of Technology but there are a few things that are against this." He continued.
"Or the ship has punched straight through the fabric of reality and we have entered a different path of reality but this has never been recorded in more than fragments of ancient formulas from the Dark Age." Baltus finished.
Every one stared at the two but on some level they all knew that this was the truth.
"Alright let's get a star map off them and see what's what." Angelus said as he rose from his seat, the rest of the Marines followed suit and left the room.
They all looked a little better for having their thought laid out. Ishmael was thinking about what he had hear, at least this was not some horrible nightmare were the Imperium had fallen and strange heretics lived on Holy Terra. They would carry out the Emperor's will and forge new land for the Imperium here, in the largest crusade ever. That was the purpose of the Adeptus Astartes, to bring the Emperor's Light into the darkness.
On the Prometheus SG-1 were discussing the strange turn of events.
"Well that could have gone better." O'Neill said as he slumped down in a chair. Every one nodded in agreement.
"Daniel Jackson what language were they speaking?" Teal'c asked Daniel who was pouring over his notes from the strange conversation.
"It seemed some sort of mixture of several Earth languages." Daniel answered. "Has anything come up from your scans Sam?" He asked Samantha Carter.
"Well the ship's interior is a mystery but its armour is composes of plastic-steels compounds and several other metals, it is covered in weapons, its energy emissions are massive, it has the name Emperor's Light, it appears to be some were in the region of nine thousand years old and strangest of all its quantum signature is out of line with ours." Samantha Carter answered.
Every ones faces stared at her blankly. "Meaning what?" O'Neill asked for everyone.
"A quantum signature is the energy wavelength that every piece of matter and energy in our universe emits and theoretically a different Universe's quantum signature is different from ours."
Teal's was the first to react "So they come from some other Universe?"
Samantha Cater looked at the ceiling before answering. "Theoretical, yes."
O'Neill said. "Well that explains a lot, like why no one has ever seen anything like that before, why they speak weird and how it appeared hear with no warning."
Daniel breathed a sigh of relief; at least it was not from the dark future that he had seen were humanity had lost everything they now valued and embraced war. "Well let's wait until they contact us, we don't want to provoke them." Daniel said as he turned to look at the Lance batteries still trained on the Prometheus. If they could get that on their side they could free the galaxy from the Goa'uld. A shiver ran down his spine as he thought, or cover it in blood and fire.