So... uhm... hi?! I know it has been quite some time - four months to be precise - since I uploaded my last chapter and I can't stress how sorry I am that it took me so long to finish and then upload this. Mostly it was reallife that got in my way, though mostly in the forms of other things that distracted me. For example I've read through most of the long BSG/SG-1/SGA fanfics on ... *cough* To make up for it, this chapter is 15k words long ;)
I also wanted to take the opportunity to welcome all my new followers and favers (is that a word?! O.o) and a thank you to those that reviewed.
At least those of you that read this on and Tumblr will probably have noticed that this story now has a cover art that I had commissioned from comickergirl on Tumblr. :)
Also two announcements before I let you read my newest chapter:
- with this chapter I'll need to raise the rating to M again (I got a bit carried away here ;) )
- Warning: apparent major characters death!
Disclaimer: Everything related to Frozen is owned by Disney and everything related to the Stargate Franchise is owned by MGM.
"What do we have?", Colonel Young asked as he entered the gate room, eyes trained on the ancient ring on the other side of the room.
"We just sent the Kino through", Elsa replied, meaning herself and Sergeant Hunter Riley with 'we'. She had arrived in the gate room around a minute after Destiny had dropped out of FTL and the ship had dialed whatever planet they were supposed to go to. Riley had arrived shortly after her, a Kino in his hand.
"And now we've got the data", Riley stated from one of the two consoles, the other being occupied by Elsa herself. "Breathable atmosphere, very humid, warm temperature."
Elsa looked at the camera feed the Kino sent to her console. It showed a wall of plants and trees in the proximity of the gate. "Seems we found ourselves a forest. Taking the atmospheric data into account I'd even go so far as to say jungle." She looked up at the leader of the expedition who seemed to be deep in thought while staring at the silver blue shimmering event horizon of the wormhole.
"Do you have any idea why Destiny stopped for this planet?", he finally asked.
"Well, we did ask her to check for food. Since jungles are usually rich in vegetation I'd say that maybe we've got a possibility to enrich our diet." Though Elsa had absolutely no idea whether this was really the reason why Destiny had stopped here. Right now they only were able to ask her to find specific resources, but querying the reason for a stop was a different topic altogether.
She heard an approving grumble from the soldier.
"Good", he then said. "Shut it down, while we gather a team."
A press of one of the buttons on her console and the wormhole disengaged with that sound which always reminded her a bit of waves collapsing onto the shore.
Half an hour later the team was ready and in the gate room. It was arguably the largest team they'd sent through the ship's gate yet aside from their arrival on the ship. Some of the people had already been through Destiny's gate like Rush, Eli, Scott, Greer, James and Franklin. For others, like TJ, Chloe and Volker, it was their first time. For Chloe it was even the first regular visit of a planet through the gate at all – aside from the escape from the Icarus base.
"You're not coming with us?", Eli asked, leaning onto the console Elsa was standing behind.
"No, I'm not a fan of such a climate", Elsa responded. If she could avoid jungles she did; the only thing worse were deserts. Of course she had the ability to cool herself, but it was annoying nevertheless. "Besides someone needs to look after the ship with you two gone", she added with a smirk.
Eli shrugged. "Your loss."
"Okay, listen up." Colonel Young had stepped between the two consoles. "We think that Destiny has stopped here for us to gather food. We don't have much equipment to test the edibility, so we'll need to use human testers and hope that we'll be able to treat them should the worst happen." He paused and looked at the countdown clock behind him. "You have around forty hours till we enter FTL again. Make it count." The Colonel turned towards Riley. "Dial the gate."
Elsa had the control room to herself. With Eli and Rush as well as Brody and Park on the planet she was the only one left who usually worked at the Ancient consoles. It was a calming silence for once. No bickering did disrupt her, no accusations from Rush of people not being able to do their jobs. It was really peaceful. Of course that didn't mean that Elsa managed to get much work done. On a part of her console she kept track of the repair robot her and Brody had finally managed to bring up from the cargo hold around two weeks ago, shortly after the failed attempt to dial Earth. It had taken a while to understand its interface, but in the end they had sent it to repair hull breaches in the proximity of the livable areas. The less strain on the shields the better, they all thought. And as long as they had the raw materials – they had found some in the cargo hold as well and a few days ago Destiny had dropped them near a planet that had some easily mineable metal near the gate – the machine would be able to keep going, with the one or other interruption for charging of course. It was slow work with only one robot, but maybe they'd find more in other cargo holds once they were able to reach them. Even then the repairs were processing faster than if they'd be doing them themselves in spacesuits.
The main space on her console however was dedicated to her task to find information in the Ancient database about the master code they'd need to get full control of Destiny and her systems, but so far she wasn't successful. This of course was quite a source of frustration as it meant that they'd always have those runs against the clock and if they should encounter some hostile alien species – there had to be life in this galaxy – they'd be sitting ducks. A thought that wasn't comforting to any of them, especially not the military aboard.
She heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see the leader of said military walking into the room. She smiled at him.
"Colonel Young, can I help you?"
"The team on the planet just dialed. They said that Volker and Chloe were both ill and TJ had put the whole team under quarantine."
Elsa's smile fell. "What? How?"
"TJ doesn't know. Right now she thinks that it's something from the planet, but it could also be that it's something on the ship. Do we have any possibility to scan the ship for pathogens?" The three hours the team had spent on the planet definitely would have been a very short incubation time. For the team's sake Elsa hoped that it was something aboard and not from the planet.
"I don't know. I know that in principle the Ancients were capable of this as Atlantis went into lock down when she detected some pathogen a few years back. This ship however is far less advanced, so it might be that she doesn't have the sensors for it or access to them could be hidden behind the master code."
"Try to find something. I'll tell the infirmary to notify you should anyone turn up with similar symptoms."
Elsa hadn't found anything of use in the Ancient database and a few minutes ago she had been notified by the infirmary that other people had reported symptoms. With TJ absent the infirmary was currently run by one of the soldiers with a bit more medical education than the average person on the ship, but that wouldn't help those patients much. Reports from the planet had told them that the disease was widespread, but with the cases now aboard there was no reason to keep the others on the planet. She had thus notified Colonel Young who had said that he'd dial the planet and inform the others. Probably the team was already on their way back by now and TJ would try to find the source with the help of the instruments she had available here.
"Elsa, come in." It was the voice of Colonel Young that interrupted the silence in the control room.
Elsa reached for her PADD that was in her jeans' pocket.
"Here Elsa."
"Come to the gate room, we have a, uhm, situation." She raised an eyebrow. A situation? What kind of situation would warrant her presence if Rush just returned? Not that she'd really complain, but it was strange nevertheless...
"On my way", she responded.
When Elsa entered the gate room she saw Colonel Young standing next to Sergeant Riley who was as usual manning one of the consoles on this side of the room.
"You called?", she asked with a smile.
"Look", Young nodded towards the gate.
Elsa turned to look towards the Ancient device and her eyes widened in surprise. Instead of the surface of the event horizon calmly shimmering like waves on the ocean the complete surface was flickering into existence and away again. All abrupt and in chaotic intervals.
"We can't contact the team. Do you have any idea what this is?"
She was at a loss. "There are many things that can cause a Stargate to lose or block the connection to another gate, but it's the first time that I see it flicker like this." She paused for a moment gathering her thoughts. "Then again this gate is older than the ones in the Milky Way. Maybe something that doesn't cause problems for those gates does for this."
"Well, better find out what it is. We need them back!"
"We could try to send through a Kino?", Sergeant Riley suggested. "Maybe it's only communication that's disturbed." Since they didn't know what exactly was going on with the gate anyway, that idea was as good as any other.
Elsa nodded towards Riley. "Do it."
The young soldier darted out of the room to fetch a Kino.
Meanwhile Elsa pulled up the gate's diagnostics on the previously unmanned console and skimmed through them in the hope of finding any irregularities. Colonel Young had moved to stand slightly behind her looking over her shoulder onto the display with the Ancient text. She knew that his Ancient was basically nonexistent, so likely he simply wanted to keep himself occupied. However by standing so close to her, he was unknowingly triggering her old body responses of not wanting anybody near her. It was one thing, if she willingly interacted with others, like with TJ and Chloe on their first days on Destiny or when Eli was standing beside her, but this was different. She wanted to concentrate on the data in front of her and Young hadn't exactly been invited to stand in her close proximity. She let out a quiet sigh. More than one and a half century wasn't enough to completely rid her of these anxieties.
"Colonel Young", she finally said, turning her head towards him. "I'd appreciate it, if you wouldn't stand as close as you do. I still have some problems with people in my proximity in some situations." At least she had managed over the decades to open up, to tell people what was bugging her. Even small progress was progress.
The officer took a few steps to the side, distancing himself from her. "Of course, I'm sorry."
Elsa acknowledged his apology with a nod. However before she had been able to concentrate back on the console Riley came running into the room, a Kino in one of his hands. He placed the Kino a few meters in front of the gate right in the air where it started to float. Immediately Elsa's console picked up the device's data stream and controls.
"Okay, sending through", she commented, while the Sergeant walked back to his own console.
The Kino moved through the flickering event horizon, but instead of showing the jungle like environment of the planet the team had gone to she was greeted by the Ancient equivalent of the message that told her that the connection had been lost.
"Uhm... we lost it?!", she stammered with wide eyes.
"So we can't reach our people, right?", Colonel Young requested.
Elsa deflated and shook her head. "No, we can't."
"Well, then find a way!", he ordered, harsher than she was used from him, and walked out of the room. She shared a glance with Riley who seemed to be at a loss as well.
Five hours had passed and Elsa and Riley were no closer to a solution than they were when they started. They first had the idea to try if the problem was with the Stargate itself, but there was no other Stargate in range that they could have dialed to test this. Elsa had even fetched the laptop with the dialing program she had rescued from Icarus base and plugged it into one of the consoles, but even the then available information dump hadn't helped in any way. The gate always reported that it was working in normal parameters. It didn't take a genius though to see that this definitely was not the case.
To make matters worse however Elsa had started to not feel well as well. Considering that her powers always went a bit out of control when she was ill – mostly ending in the creation of more snowgies – she had alerted Colonel Young right away.
What bothered her however was that the disease seemed to progress differently for her than the rest of the crew, maybe courtesy to her mainly Ancient physiology. While the others aboard had started to feel weak, with a head ache and a pain in the neck, Elsa felt herself having a headache as well and she had started to cough. The coughs had been weak at first, but slowly they got stronger and soon enough snowflakes had started to appear around her as well with each one. No snowgies yet though which she was glad of. While she really adored those little snow creatures – they were basically her children after all – she didn't need any of these mischievous creatures aboard a vessel that was close to a breakdown.
Elsa was in the gate room – alone – checkingthe information the Stargate had provided them with again when a series of coughs interrupted her. The severity increased with each one and she even had to steady herself by leaning onto the console. Once the last cough had passed she heard a sound behind her as if something had hit the floor. She sighed. Probably she had now started to create snowgies, though it had sounded heavier than usual. She turned around and stumbled back towards the console when she had laid sight on what she had created. She wasn't really sure what exactly it was. In principle it looked like a cat, but its legs were more elongated, strengthened with ice, the body longer, more streamlined and the empty eye sockets – empty like those of Marshmallow – didn't convey the usual I'm-above-you-but-I-like-you-nevertheless feeling a cat sent out. All in all the creature looked menacing and that it hissed into her direction didn't help the matter at all.
Would it listen to her? Olaf and Marshmallow definitely did, the snowgies to an extend, but this... this snow cat? Could she even call it a snow cat with the features it possessed?
"Sit!", she commanded pointing towards the floor the creature was standing at. With relief she saw that the creature lowered its behind onto the metal floor, looking at her with expectation, its ears trying to pick up anything that went on around it.
Of course Elsa had to notify Colonel Young who arrived a few minutes later. A soon as he entered the room the creature started to growl in his direction.
"Hey! Stop it!", Elsa ordered it and the beast complied, albeit a bit hesitantly as Elsa noticed. She turned to the Colonel. "Sorry about that."
"It is certainly something", he said and stopped around three meters from the creature, not daring to step any closer. His right hand seemed to reach for the sidearm that usually was at his right hip, but since the military personnel wasn't usually wearing any weapons at all aboard the ship his hand grabbed for air.
"Shooting it will likely only aggravate it", Elsa stated in a low voice hoping that the creature wouldn't necessarily pick it up; its ears turning towards her told her differently however. It began to hiss towards the Colonel showing the icy and especially spiky teeth in its muzzle. The Colonel then held up his hands showing that he meant no danger and indeed the hissing subsided although the creature was still eyeing him with suspicion.
"What can we do about it?", Colonel Young asked, not taking his eyes off the snow cat, but at least lowering his hands again.
Elsa was at a loss. Never till now she had to deal with a creation of hers that seemed to indeed be malicious. Naive? Been there. Solitary? Jupp. Mischievous? Enough of it. But never malicious. Would it be the right decision to let the snow cat continue to exist, to continue to live? And even if not, how could she end it? She had never dissolved one of her sentient creations. She knew that she had a deep connection with them, so what would it do to her to erase one from existence?
"I-"
She didn't get far with her answer before another series of coughs interrupted her. Sure enough she could hear another thud in her proximity and upon opening her eyes she could see a second snow cat standing in the room, its eyes filled with malicious intent already turned towards the Colonel.
Suddenly she had an idea. She flicked both her wrists and columns of ice sprouted around each of the creatures, rising above them until both rings were closed of by a plate of ice. Additionally horizontal bars came into existence as well to reduce the possibility of escape.
Immediately the now trapped beasts turned towards her as if they recognized right away that their creator had been the source of the imprisonment; unlike with the Colonel they weren't hissing or growling towards her though.
"And if you create another one?", Young asked.
"I'll trap it as well. I don't think I can destroy them..."
"Will the ice hold if they decide to attack it?"
She honestly didn't know the answer to that. Her ice was sturdy, but then again she knew that Marshmallow was able to march through some of her tougher ice. Without thinking twice about it she improved the strength of the ice that made up the cages.
"Yes, it will", she finally confirmed with a confident grin.
With time the headache had gotten worse and now Elsa wasn't able anymore to concentrate enough to continue her work in the gate room, she hadn't been any closer to a solution anyway. She had decided to go to the observation deck and... well... wait for the end. As it turned out the disease was terminal. Over half the people that had remained aboard had already died, another quarter was close to it and the last quarter was already showing strong signs of the illness. She had to trap four more snow cats since her meeting with Young five hours ago. She didn't know how he was though, she hadn't seen him since then.
After what seemed to be an eternity she had reached the observation deck and slumped down in one of the lounge chairs that looked out into the vastness of space. The lights in the room were dimmed so her eyes could adjust to the darkness that surrounded her and soon enough she could make out details in the sea of stars like the galactic band that traveled from the lower right of her view to the upper left.
So Destiny isn't aligned with the galactic plane, she thought with a smile.
It didn't take long however for her thoughts to travel back to her creations in the gate room. The disease had weakened her as it had been harder to trap the last snow cat than the ones before it. She put down her reading glasses, folded them and hung them with one frame onto her shirt, before she rubbed her eyes. Maybe she could close her eyes for a few minutes? Yes, that would work...
It was a scream that awoke Elsa from her uneasy slumber, however she thought it had been part of her dream. She glanced at the countdown clock on the wall behind her and calculated that she had slept for around three hours, at least if the ship hadn't jumped to a new stop since then, which she highly doubted as the scenery before her was the same.
Then she heard a scream again. It hadn't been in her dream! Alerted she got up and sprinted towards the source of the sound which turned out to be one of the large empty storage rooms that they had used for the ill.
Once she had stepped over the door step she stopped dead in her tracks. Her hands went right up to her mouth to suppress a scream of her own that she knew was threatening to come. There was blood everywhere and what appeared to be pieces of bodies. The snowcats, tinged in red, strode around amidst the carnage looking out for anything that moved. They looked at her for a moment, but otherwise completely ignored her.
She stumbled around the corner, out of the room, a hand in front of her mouth, not to keep in a scream, but whatever else her body decided would be good to throw up.
It's my fault. She looked at both of her hands. I may not be a monster, but I created some. And now they are dead. They are all dead. Or were they? She reached for the radio on her belt and keyed it.
"This is Elsa, can anyone hear me?" She had decided to walk to the control room while she listened to the silence of the device in her hand. "Anyone, please respond!" Still no answer.
At the control room she moved to one of the consoles and brought up the map overlay that doubled as a life sign detector. But there was only one dot visible on the whole ship and it was located in the control room: herself.
Elsa fell to her knees, collapsing along the console. She had killed everyone, disappointed everyone to trust her control of her powers. She had failed. Completely and utterly failed. And now she was alone. Tears started to roll down her cheeks that got colder each time they surfaced. Soon enough frozen pathways were leading down her face.
Her sobbing continued for minutes. But then, suddenly, out of nowhere a resolve set in. With the help of the console she stood up. She vanished the icy trails on her face and then walked towards the gate room, ignoring the headache she still had.
On her way to the gateroom Elsa had avoided to look at the few bodies or parts of them that were spread in the corridors. Aside from the still caged snow golems the gateroom was deserted. So she must have created new ones while she had been asleep. That of course didn't help her already low mood, but she had already decided to solve this.
She just wanted to command the gate to dial when it started to do so by itself. Was the team finally coming back? Was it even good if they did? Wouldn't they all die if they came here and the free snow cats would savage them as well?
The wormhole engaged, but like before the surface was still flickering. Then something came through and stopped in mind air a few meters away from the gate which disengaged right away, steam emitting from the left and right sides of the gate. The object that had appeared was spherical and metallic. A Kino!
Right away she commanded the console in front of her to connect with the sophisticated little device and accessed its database. What she saw was the gate room itself. The Kino was pointing towards the Stargate, the wormhole flickering like it had all the time the past hours.
"Okay, sending through." It was a voice, her own voice that said that! This is the Kino she had Riley send through after they had first discovered the flickering! Had the team managed to send it back?
On the recording the Kino moved towards the event horizon and once it entered there was a short break in recording. Then it surfaced again, but she didn't see the jungle planet on the display. She saw herself, in the gateroom, standing behind a console and looking curiously at the Kino. Then the recording stopped.
The Kino they had send through the Stargate had arrived hours later again on Destiny? This could only mean one thing: time travel. And that meant that there must have been a solar flare through which the wormhole traveled as that's the only known way for a wormhole to travel forwards or backwards in time, the flare causing the wormhole to loop back to its source gate sometime in the past or the future. Additionally the gates used by Destiny were much more primitive so the flickering, which she had never noticed before, might be caused by the solar flare and the newer gates in the Milky Way were simply more resilient regarding this. At least this way they had a possibility to find out when such a solar flare happened. Elsa's mood had brightened a bit after this exciting discovery, but then a more sober phase set in. What use would such a detection method have if everyone aboard was dead except her?
Elsa sighed, finally remembering why she had come here. She switched off the display of the recording and ordered the gate to dial the jungle planet. Though the destination didn't matter for what she was about to do. She stepped in front of the console, letting her hand wander across the metal surface one last time.
She looked at the gate. The fifth chevron had been locked and the sixth one was already coming up. She readied herself, her plan being to run in just the right time. The seventh symbol moved up towards the bearing above the gate and as soon as the rotation stopped she started to run.
Destiny or not, Anna, I'm ending this here and now.
The particles of the event horizon started to form inside the gate and just as the wormhole started to leash out she jumped, straight into the unstable, but more important deadly vortex of the wormhole.
"Lieutenant Scott to Destiny, we found something strange", came Lieutenant Scott's voice from the console Elsa and Colonel Young were standing at.
"Here Destiny, go ahead, please", Elsa replied in place of the Colonel. Just a few seconds ago the first members of a rather large team had left the ship to visit a planet. At least the immediate area around the gate appeared to be a jungle or even rainforest and thus the hope of the crew had been that they'd find new food sources there.
Elsa saw on the console that Lieutenant Scott had been walking up towards the Kino which had been moved closer to the ground by Eli, after it had been surveying the area from above. Once the flying camera was on height of Scott's eyes he continued.
"We, uh, we found a Kino." He held up a sphere that definitely looked like one of the ship's Kinos, but its weathered surface also told Elsa that the Kino had been lying there for quite some time.
"That's impossible. We've never been here before", Colonel Young threw in.
"Perhaps the seed ship that had placed the gate had also dropped one?", Eli suggested with his head suddenly appearing on the right of the video frame.
"Unlikely, but possible", Elsa stated.
"Orders, sir?", Scott asked impatiently.
Elsa looked towards their leader who was looking towards the event horizon of the gate, his working jaw showing that he was deep in thought. Looking back at the video feed she saw that Scott was waiting patiently in contrast to his previous question and Eli was glancing around nervously, looking at a non existing watch on his wrist. She thought she faintly heard him humming a waiting tune like in one of those quiz shows.
"Stop the expedition. Everyone back to the ship. Let's check that Kino first", Colonel Young finally answered.
Young, Rush, Elsa, Eli, Chloe and TJ had met in Eli's Kino room to watch the footage and the derelict Kino definitely had packed a punch. The video stored on the device showed them, the group that was heading towards the planet to gather resources. As if it wasn't enough to see the teammates do things that they hadn't done yet – Elsa was fairly sure that some kind of time traveling was involved – it got even worse once members of the crew became ill. But even that got topped of by the team being attacked and killed by small, hostile, alien creatures.
Right now the video frame that was paused on the display in front of Eli showed the jungle at night with the Kino lying on the ground. Directly in its view lay Chloe, face down, with one of the alien creatures bursting out of her back. Elsa had already seen quite some... disturbing scenes throughout her life, no matter whether they were real or merely fictional on screen. But it was something entirely different to see someone who was standing right beside you being killed in front of your eyes.
"Okay... What the...", Eli began, however he was interrupted by Chloe running into a corner of the room and throwing up. Elsa and the others had managed to keep in their nausea, but she definitely agreed with what Eli had wanted to say.
A few moments passed before Chloe walked back to the group that was gathered in front of the video console, everyone looking at her in full understanding. Lieutenant Scott went right over and – placing a hand on her shoulder in concern – he asked her whether she was okay.
"Yeah, it just hit me", she said with a slow nod.
"You're sure you're okay otherwise?", TJ asked after she had moved next to the young woman as well, but Chloe merely confirmed.
"Pretty understandable", Eli chuckled with a glance to the people behind him.
"Not to me", Chloe commented.
"I was talking about the barfing."
"I was moving on." Chloe was getting annoyed now. "How is this possible?", she asked, looking at Rush and Elsa.
"I don't know", Rush replied, massaging his chin in thought.
"Oh! What about an alternate reality?", Eli threw in.
While everyone except Rush and Elsa stared at the young genius with blank faces Elsa decided to add her own opinion.
"Eli's thought doesn't necessarily need to be wrong. Both on Atlantis and in the SGC alternate realities aren't that unheard of." She noticed a sparkle in Eli's eyes upon her revelation. Maybe she should start a story evening just in case the people aboard should be aware of one or the other lesson learned in the past? "Though other causes like time travel are also plausible right now."
And now Eli's eyes even went wide. "Time travel?!"
Elsa shrugged. "Wouldn't be the first time." A bit too late she noticed the pun she had just said, but she decided to ignore it.
"This is so cool!" It seemed that Eli was about to switch to fanboy mode if TJ had not interrupted by speaking with Colonel Young.
"Sir, given the illness that developed on the planet, I suggest we quarantine everyone who went through to retrieve this Kino."
"Scott, Greer, Eli, Rush."
"And everyone they came in contact with since returning." Elsa let out a small groan. She was part of that group thanks to standing next to Eli, Rush and Scott.
"Well, that's all of us." Obviously the Colonel knew this just as well.
TJ sighed. "I'll have to coordinate on radio. Brody was also in the gate room when they got back."
"And by now he probably had contact to a good part of the crew", Elsa remarked, totally not eager to be put under quarantine, but nevertheless understanding the need for it.
As TJ wanted to answer she was interrupted by a confused Eli.
"We were only there for, like, a half-hour at most."
TJ dropped whatever she had wanted to say and instead addressed the young man's comment first.
"That's more than enough time to come in contact with a contagion."
The past, especially the one on Atlantis, had taught Elsa that this was definitely true. Nearly always it wasn't her however that had gotten sick – most likely because of her different physiology – but that didn't mean that she hadn't been a carrier.
"No, wait a second", Scott threw in. "You're worried because people got sick on this recording, which... never happened."
Elsa resisted the urge to facepalm – but at least she rolled her eyes – before she answered. "You don't have a clue how these things work, right Lieutenant?" Reluctantly he looked at her, both still aware of the strained relationship between them. "If it's indeed time travel we face here things would have gone exactly as on the video if you hadn't found the Kino. Finding the Kino however only changed that we aren't on the planet anymore, but not that we might have caught something either on the planet or something sometime ago."
"If we are dealing with time travel", Rush added.
"Yeah. If. But I'd say the chances are fifty-fifty that we're either dealing with that or an alternate reality." She glared at the Lieutenant. "That's definitely high enough that we shouldn't ignore the possibility."
The silence among the group was stretching on for several seconds before Eli interrupted. "And what about the gate? Any idea what had been wrong with that?"
That had bothered Elsa as well. When the team in the recording had been attacked by those creatures they had attempted to dial Destiny, but while the connection itself could be established the event horizon had been flickering. She wasn't enough of an expert to know what the problem had been, but she knew that there were enough reasons for a connection to be unstable. Maybe it even showed that the gates used by Destiny and the seed ships had less secure protocols than their – in design – younger Milky Way and Pegasus counterparts.
"It looks like the wormhole connection was unstable", stated Rush.
Thank you, Captain obvious, Elsa thought with a roll of her eyes that wasn't seen by the scientist.
"It would have been extremely dangerous to even attempt travel", he added.
Everyone besides Elsa and Rush looked in thought, at least until TJ spoke up.
"Sir?"
"Go", Colonel Young merely said and TJ departed to prepare her infirmary and to coordinate the quarantine.
"So... keep watching?", Eli asked, looking at the others with hopeful eyes.
Young merely nodded.
"Can you fast forward, please?", Chloe asked. Since the screen was still showing the dead body of the woman Elsa definitely understood her desire to skip this part.
"Yeah." Eli nodded and jumped to the start of the next recording of the Kino.
The gathered group continued to watch for a while and it was both disturbing and interesting at once what they learned from it. The list of dead people from the attack had been long. They knew that Eli, Greer, Rush, TJ, Franklin and Scott were alive, albeit the latter had been bitten by one of the creatures and was unconscious. Also Volker had not died of the attack, but of the illness that had struck him and others of the team. The Eli of the recording also theorized that the creatures were nocturnal since they had disappeared upon dawn.
What had been more heartbreaking however was when Eli had began talking with TJ about his personal past. Most importantly that his mother who had been working as a nurse had gotten HIV by a junkie that had struck her with a needle when she had been trying to restrain the patient. The talk with TJ had ended with Eli admitting that his mother would probably just give up if he'd die out here. That had triggered Elsa to give him a quick hug from behind, glad that her motherly instincts and also the friendship she had with the young man had decided to override her still deep rooted need for distance.
A few minutes ago Sergeant Greer had wandered off, with the Colonel following after him a bit later. If Elsa judged the Sergeant right than he was disturbed that his alter ego hadn't been able to defend the expedition.
Just as the Colonel entered the room again, Elsa noticed at the edge of her vision that Chloe collapsed with Scott barely catching her.
"Whoa!", Scott exclaimed.
Elsa turned around to look at the Lieutenant and the woman he held in his arms.
"What just happened?", Young asked.
"Uh, she started complaining that her head hurt. She just dropped."
Elsa hadn't noticed that Chloe had complained. Maybe Elsa had been too mesmerized by the recording?
"It's been three hours since we dropped out of FTL", Rush said.
"That's about the time people began to get sick on the planet in the recording." Eli was right. And that Chloe – who wasn't even on the planet this time – got sick as one of the first, strongly suggested that the source of the illness wasn't the planet, but something else. Elsa felt sorry for the young woman. If the recording was anything to go by then the illness was terminal and thus Chloe would be one of the first to leave them. She didn't know the woman for even a month, but already she felt her heart hurt at the thought.
"Let's get her to the infirmary", Young said and reached for his radio. "TJ, this is Young. Chloe just collapsed, we'll bring her to you."
With Young, Scott and Chloe gone Rush, Eli and Elsa had continued to watch the Kino footage. Their leading officer had rejoined them after a short while.
The remaining team on the recording had found a small cave that they had prepared to defend for the next night as the Stargate was still not working correctly. As night fell and the creatures flocked in towards their position again the remaining ammunition – which wasn't that much to begin with anyway – dwindled rapidly. In the end the Rush on the planet had run out of ammunition, had grabbed the dialing remote and darted off towards the Stargate with Eli in close pursuit. The viewers followed along as the young man had strapped the by now damaged Kino – it turned out that it had been shot by Greer by accident – to his helmet. Thanks to Eli's use of the Kino's night vision the spectators on Destiny were still able to see the environment the other Eli was running through. Shortly before reaching the area of the gate Eli had tripped which managed to relight his helmet light again, which had gone off some minutes before, thus resolving the need for the special viewing mode. When the young man stumbled onto the small clearing of the gate Rush had already dialed it, though the connection was still unstable.
"Hey, for a moment there, I thought we were in trouble", the Rush said and jumped through the wormhole.
Eli paused the recording. "For a moment there, I thought we were in trouble?"
Elsa was just as confused as Eli and looked at Rush for an answer. It was Colonel Young however who answered.
"Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It's uh, Butch's last line before he and Sundance run out to face the Bolivians. One of my favorites, too."
Elsa smirked. "So you two do have something in common after all."
"It appears so", was Rush's dry reply and he turned to look at anything besides the Colonel.
With a snicker Eli continued the playback which showed the Eli of the recording returning to the cave just as Sergeant Greer was struck down by a swarm of the hostile creatures.
"Colonel Young, Doctor Rush", came TJ's voice from the entry of the Kino room and Eli paused the video.
"What's our status?", the Colonel asked.
Elsa hoped deeply that no one had died yet, especially not Chloe.
The medic sighed. "I'm getting more sick people by the minute. It isn't only the people that went to the planet anymore, but more or less the whole ship. I think however that I've found the cause of the illness."
"What is it?", Rush asked, his curiosity stronger than his usual reluctance.
"Come, I'll show you." With that TJ turned and walked towards the infirmary.
Elsa looked at Rush and Young who both went after the medic and then Elsa decided to follow as well.
In the infirmary, in which all beds were filled with the worst of the sick, among them Volker, Chloe and to add to Elsa's already sad mood Vanessa James, TJ had guided Rush, Young and Elsa to a microscope in a corner of the room. Rush took a look first, readjusting the focus as he did.
"What is it?", he asked without looking up.
"Some sort of microorganism", TJ answered and Rush got up from the microscope which gave Elsa a chance to look through it.
"Something brought back from the planet?", Colonel Young asked.
Through the binoculars Elsa could see a bunch of microorganisms swarming through the water and doing whatever they did for a living.
"Not the planet they just went to, the planet you, Scott and Elsa went to. The ice planet."
"That was weeks ago. How do you know?"
Elsa inhaled sharply and looked away from the microscope towards TJ.
"This sample is from the water we brought back, right?", she asked.
TJ nodded. "When people outside the quarantine started coming down with symptoms, I knew we needed to look for another common cause."
"But we tested it all the time." Was Colonel Young grasping for straws to avoid him appearing to be at fault for the misery all of them were in? It certainly appeared so to Elsa, at least he did so unconsciously.
"At the time we couldn't see it." TJ gestured towards the microscope Elsa was still standing at. "The microscope just wasn't powerful enough, and the organism was just too small."
It was interesting to imagine that the organism had been smaller than the resolution of the microscope and now it was no problem to see it using the device. The environment in the water reservoir must have been one hell of a paradise for these beings. She took another look through the binoculars.
"Well it isn't now." Elsa rolled her eyes with Rush pointing out the obvious again.
"It's possible that a batch of water wasn't purified properly, and it contaminated the rest", TJ explained further.
"So we've all got it." Elsa noticed a bit of resignation in Colonel Young's voice. Considering that more and more people came down sick and they hadn't the necessary medication to fight this germ she fully understood this. Grimly she remembered a year of her regency in which a rather aggressive variant of the flu had swiped through Arendelle. They had pulled through it despite not having the best medication either, though they had lost some lives as well, among them Gerda, their head servant – though she had been more like a grandmother for her and Anna. Elsa suppressed the memory along with the tears that threatened to surface and turned away from the microscope to listen to TJ's further explanations.
"Well, everyone's immune system is different. The time it takes for symptoms to emerge will vary. But once it's strong enough to pass from the blood to the nervous system, it works fast. And the antibiotics won't cut it." TJ glanced at Elsa for a moment which in turn wondered how her own, different physiology affected this. She hadn't been in the recording as she hadn't been scheduled to go to the planet, so she didn't know about her own course of disease.
"'Well, for a moment there, I thought we were in trouble'." Elsa raised an eyebrow when Rush repeated the same quote that his counterpart in the recording had said just before he had jumped into the unstable wormhole.
Young, Rush and Elsa had returned to the Kino room afterwards as there still had been some footage of the recording left. The Eli in the recording had gone back to the cave they all had sought shelter in only to die himself. Now the only one alive had been Scott who had been unconscious throughout the previous day. At the next morning after discovering the dead body of Eli and retrieving the Kino he had gone to the Stargate which still had not been usable. The young soldier then turned towards the camera, tears clearly visible for everyone.
"It's forty-five minutes until Destiny jumps back into FTL. Everyone here is dead, except me. I don't remember much after we were attacked the first night. One of the creatures bit me, and I lost consciousness. I was starting to- to feel sick: headache, pain in the back of the neck. The bite still hurts like a bitch, but everything else is... is better. Um the gate still doesn't seem to be working." He turned the Kino to show the unstable wormhole and then turned it back. "I-I can't reach Destiny on the radio. I'm hoping it's just a communications problem, and that everything else is... is okay up there. I'm sending this through, and I am expecting that you will send some sort of a signal that it is safe to proceed. I will wait as long as I can, and then I'll head through regardless. On my own, I likely won't survive the night here."
The Lieutenant in the recording then tossed the Kino into the Stargate. There was a short pause that Elsa knew came from the process of transmitting an object through the wormhole before it reappeared on the other side. What became immediately clear was that this hadn't been Destiny the Kino had arrived on, but again the jungle planet. The Kino landed on the grass in front of the gate and stopped with its lens turned towards a human body lying in front of it in the grass. It was Rush!
Eli paused the recording. "What just happened?!", he asked in confusion. But the answer was clear now. It wasn't some kind of alternate reality that they dealt with. It was time travel. The Kino had gone back in time and so had Rush shortly before it. And if that happened in that timeline...
"It went back in time", Rush interrupted her train of thoughts and left the room towards the gate room, apparently having the same idea has her. Thus she darted after him right away, remotely noticing that the others followed as well.
Rush and Elsa reached the gate room first and started to dial the gate towards the jungle planet.
"What are you doing?", asked Young as he entered the room. It wasn't order or even malice in his voice, just plain curiosity.
"Making sure it hasn't happened yet", Rush merely stated.
"What hasn't happened yet?", Eli asked.
"A solar flare", Elsa jumped in. "If a wormhole's trajectory leads through a solar flare then the wormhole is looped back to its source either in the past or the future. Even the modern gates in the Milky Way or Pegasus don't have a security measure against this, so probably the Ancients deemed the risk of it as minimal. On the other hand both the Stargate Center and Atlantis had 'fun'", she stressed the word with air quotes, "with it from time to time." She suppressed a snicker because of that pun. "Though it seems that the Ancients did improve the gates in so far that the modern ones don't flicker if their wormholes cross a solar flare. So in that case we even have an advantage, because we have a way to detect it!" Elsa noticed Rush giving her an appreciative nod.
"Whoa, whoa. This is making my brain hurt. Uh... Oh my god. Back to the Future."
Elsa honestly didn't know whether Eli was mentioning the movie because of the time travel problem they were facing or because he was thinking about the movie list his alter ego in the recording had mentioned in a discussion with the Rush from the recording.
"How can I not put that on my list."
Elsa rolled her eyes. Of course he had been thinking about the list. She flicked a few snowflakes in his direction. "Eli!", she said. "Concentrate!"
"Yeah, yeah, sorry." His cheeks were red from embarrassment for once. "So, Scott thought that he was sending the Kino back to Destiny, but in reality he sent it to the past?"
Elsa nodded and waited for him to continue.
"Which in turn, uh, led to the creation of a new timeline with us finding the Kino." He was now beaming at her that he had solved the problem for him, the Colonel and the Sergeant.
Just as Elsa wanted to confirm Eli's summary the Stargate activated. The surface of the wormhole was as stable as usual and no flickering was in sight.
"Thankfully the solar flare hasn't happened yet", Rush said after he had studied the data from the console. Destiny's computers did provide more information about the gate than the dialing remote and was surpassed by Earth's dialing program only by a bit. So it was logical to assume that besides seeing the flickering of the event horizon the computers would also inform them about a malfunction.
"And why do we care about that?", Sergeant Greer asked, probably happy that they hadn't needed to spend a night on that forsaken planet.
"Because I think we might have to go back there", Rush answered.
Colonel Young had ordered TJ to the Kino room and together they watched the footage after Lieutenant Scott had woken up from his coma again. The recording had just reached the part in which he described that he was feeling better and Eli paused the playback.
"It's possible, I guess", TJ mused. "The venom of various animals: snakes, spiders, scorpions, they've all been tested for their antibiotic properties."
It was true. When Elsa had been in Egypt back in the 1930s she had been bitten by a snake, but luckily the antidote had been already available back then. She shuddered a bit at the thought that she could have died there, putting the thought aside that a few weeks ago she would have willingly died either from asphyxiation or inside a star.
Scott was less convinced however. "Are you saying that... thing that bit me can actually cure what's making everybody sick?"
"You fell into a coma", TJ started to explain. "It obviously releases some sort of venom when it bites. You apparently survived, said you were feeling better."
"But, you're just guessing!", Eli exclaimed. "And those things were... well..."
Elsa put a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe these creatures are why Destiny came here, not the food."
"What do you mean?", Young asked confused.
Rush however seemed as if he had a eureka moment.
"We did command the Destiny to look for resources for us. Food, raw materials and so on. However we are not able yet to ask her why she has stopped when she does so. It could very well be that the ship – like her younger sister Atlantis – is equipped with sensors that can register these germs we found. However instead of putting the ship into a quarantine mode it checks the data it receives from the seed ships and adjusts her course accordingly to solve the problem."
"Destiny brought us here because of these creatures?" Elsa was glad that Colonel Young wasn't looking at Rush for confirmation. The officer fully respected her intelligence even though she was a woman and a civilian at that.
"Judging from what we know of the ship it's the only sensible explanation." Rush on the other hand was happy to undermine her, though not because of her gender, but because he disliked competition. Even her Ancient physiology didn't protect her from that aspect of the lead scientist. She suppressed a sigh, but before she could comment herself TJ interrupted the discussion.
"Whatever we do, we should do it quickly. People are going to die from this." She paused and looked at the others present. "Right now these creatures are our only chance."
That was when Sergeant Greer snapped to attention.
"I'll go", he announced, his voice as firm as his body was rigid. Probably he wanted to atone for the mistakes his other self had made in the recording even though he hasn't really done anything in this timeline. But if Greer went maybe Elsa should go as well? After all her ice powers would allow them not to waste their ammunition.
"But not alone", Young said and nodded towards Scott who in turn snapped to attention and nodded in confirmation. "And I will go with you as well."
"I should go as well", Elsa blurted out.
"I'm sure we can handle this on our own", Scott said, his look clouded a bit by fear, the same fear she had seen in him those few weeks ago. She still didn't know what had happened back then, but it had definitely affected the relationship between the two even after Scott had finally talked with Vanessa and had officially ended their relationship after their failed attempt to return to Earth.
"But...", Elsa started, however Scott interrupted her.
"I know of your powers, but the planet is no place for anyone who doesn't have military training." Scott turned towards the Colonel. "Sir?" He didn't want to have her on this mission and this pained her more than Rush's behavior towards her.
The Colonel was in thought for a while before he answered. "I agree. Elsa, you are to stay here on the ship."
Up to now she had the hope that the Colonel would take her side, that he'd see how her powers would be able to help the team down there to capture the creatures. Maybe in the end it was, because she had been civilian. So much for respecting her despite being a civilian... Would it have been different if she had been part of the military as well?
"Understood", she grumbled and left towards the control room, fuming like a child that had just been scolded for no reason.
The team however had never made it back. They had notified those left behind on Destiny that they had reached the roost of the creatures, but they hadn't managed to come back before the solar flare had occurred. Three quarters of an hour hadn't been enough. Now the crew on Destiny was cut of from any potential helping venom as well and all they could do was watch everyone on the ship die one after another. Chloe had already died shortly after the team had left. Eli and Elsa had been standing by her side both shaken by the death of a woman they merely knew for a few weeks. For Elsa it got even worse as not much later she was standing next to the bed of Vanessa, providing the woman company in her last few moments in life. The next hour or so after these two deaths Elsa had spent in the room Anna had shown her a while ago, venting all her frustration and sadness into the creation of spiky, icy creations.
After a few hours more it became clear that Elsa wasn't immune either. However she showed different symptoms, according to TJ likely because of her different physiology. As strange as it sounded Elsa was glad that she wasn't immune. This meant that she wouldn't have to survive everyone aboard, that she'd need to see everyone she had known for months die. No, she would die along with them. What frightened her however was that she didn't know how the disease would manifest itself in her. She had started to cough, her head began to hurt and she got a fever. Usually this meant that it wasn't long till her powers would act out on their on, creating snowgies with every sneeze. Though she didn't sneeze.
Right now she was standing behind one of the consoles in the control interface room. Despite her head ache it was no use to go to the overfilled infirmary and if she was going to die like everyone else then she could spend her last few hours as she saw fit, namely remotely checking on the repair robot her and Brody had brought up from the cargo hold a few days after the attempt to dial Earth. It had taken a bit to understand its interface, but by now it was slowly, but surely fixing hull breaches next to the areas of the ship that already were accessible without spacesuits.
In the room with Elsa were Eli and Rush, both standing at their respective consoles and both yet having to show signs of the disease, but then again their counterparts in the recording hadn't shown signs either till they either died by the creatures or disappeared through the gate respectively.
It was then that another series of coughs ripped through Elsa's body, more intense than any coughs before. And once the last cough had faded away there was a thud of something hitting the floor.
So the time had finally come for her magic to act up. Her two companions had looked up as well upon the sound and she could see the eyes of both widen in surprise with Eli even dropping his jaw. Okay... what exactly had she created there? Slowly she turned around and gasped in shock as she laid her eyes upon the creature before her. Instinctively one of her hands reached up to cover her mouth. The creature didn't look even remotely like one of her previous creations, instead it looked more feral, more animalistic. Its main body which was made of snow was long and slim and suspended upon four limbs made of ice that ended in snow paws. The tail consisted of multiple ice segments while the head was round, with a plumb snout in the front and tipped ears at the top. Like with Marshmallow the eye sockets were empty, but nevertheless they emitted malice. All in all the creature reminded her of a feral predator, the closest resemblance being a cheetah.
"What. Is. That?!", Eli exclaimed and immediately the attention of the snow cat turned towards him with a growl.
Fearing an attack Elsa reached out towards her accidental creation. "Stop! Stand down!" She didn't know whether the cat would follow her orders, but as its creator she at least hoped so. To her relief the cat stopped its growling and looked at her expectantly.
Now Elsa turned halfway towards Eli, still keeping the creature in her vision. "When I'm ill my powers start to act out. Normally they merely create mischievous little snowmen that are easily controlled if one is aware of them, but I've not yet had something like that."
"Is it dangerous?"
"I... I think so...", Elsa admitted ashamedly.
"Then we should ask one of the remaining soldiers to put it down", Rush suggested.
Kill one of her creations? That had never happened yet. What would happen if they did? Would they simply recreate their missing limbs? Marshmallow had told her that he had been able to reattach the missing leg that Hans had cut off during the fight in front of the ice palace. So what were those creatures of her able to do that were created nowadays with her powers being even more powerful than back then? Would she herself feel that the creature was killed? She hadn't lost any of her creations yet, but maybe that would be the first.
Another series of coughs interrupted any further thought and like before it ended with a dull sound somewhere in the room. She turned around to see another of these snow cats directly growling at Rush.
"Stop! He's no enemy!" The cat looked at her for a moment, then back at Rush and gave a last growl as if it was saying that it was keeping an eye on him. Then it backed up a bit, never letting Rush out its sight.
"Maybe you're right", Elsa then admitted. "But I created them, I should des-, uh, end them."
She turned around to face the creature behind her and searched for memories full of love, memories of spending time with her sister back in the 19th century, memories of having a family in which no one had been left behind or forgotten. As she felt her powers swell up inside her she reached out a hand towards the snow cat and willed it to dissolve into snow and ice particles. What Elsa however had not expected was the pain. The creature screamed and threw its body around in agony while snow and ice were drifting away from it. And Elsa didn't fare better. She too felt the pain inside of her, but she chose to ignore it for the sake of the crew. She bit her lip in the process, drawing a bit of blood, evident by the metallic taste.
What broke her concentration however was Eli shouting her name. She broke the magic contact with the creature and turned around just in time as the teeth of the other snow cat would have reached the location her outstretched hand had been at merely seconds ago.
With the attack foiled the snow cat positioned itself between its partially dissolved sibling and its creator, growling at the latter.
"Out of the way!", Elsa commanded, panting heavily as she recovered from the pain. However the creation didn't budge. Instead the eye sockets of the creature began to glow a dark red.
Not wanting to hesitate anymore Elsa shot an icicle at the creature in the hope of impaling it, but it dodged. This time it snarled. Elsa shot more icicles, but the creature continued to dodge. And as she decided to shoot at the other creature instead the former picked her icicle right out of the air with its paws.
It then growled something at the other creature which had gotten hold of its maltreated body and without wasting any more time with the three humans the two snow golems darted out of the control interface room, Elsa shooting an icicle after them.
Elsa looked at her male companions. Eli's eyes were wider than she had seen them up to now and even Rush had a certain look of concern on his otherwise neutral face. Then it occurred to her that she had to warn the others. Those creatures were definitely dangerous and while the soldiers aboard were at least in theory capable to defend themselves they also had a large contingent of civilians that were not. In addition a large and still growing group of both were in one of the larger and mostly empty storage rooms near the infirmary.
But how should she proceed? Contacting TJ, who was in charge of the military personnel with Young absent, might lead to unnecessary delays while using Destiny's broadcast system might lead to unnecessary panic. She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to think about the less destructive solution. Then again they were all going to die anyway, so what did it matter? Maybe her creatures would be even helpful in that regard. Wait, where had that thought come from? Elsa shook her head in the hope of getting rid of these poisonous thoughts. When she heard a human scream some corridors down she made a decision. She reached for the correct button on her console and activated the ship's internal speakers.
"This is Elsa, attention please. There are two snow creatures on the loose." There was no use in hiding that it was her fault. She wouldn't go into hiding again only because she'd hurt someone again, be it directly or indirectly. Not anymore. "They are dangerous and will probably attack right away." She mentally imagined that those who had previously eyed her and her powers critically would scoff upon her admitting this. "If you're unarmed, then don't approach them. Lock yourselves in your quarters until the situation is dealt with. Thank you."
She began to walk towards one of the exits.
"Eli, Rush, I'd like you two to track the movements of the creatures. Use the infrared sensors, they should be the coldest regions on the map. Otherwise stay here where you'll hopefully be safe." For a moment she thought about creating a guardian for them, but she didn't know whether she could trust her magic for this purpose right now, aside from the fact that she hadn't consciously created a sentient golem since she had created Marshmallow.
Eli nodded quickly, immediately turning his attention towards his console, but Rush on the other hand was about to voice protest.
"Dr. Rush." She used his title this time on purpose. "I know I'm in no way able to order you around. But I'm asking you as a colleague, please, help me fix this mess." That was a difference between the two scientists. Rush wasn't eager to willingly accept help, it had to be ordered upon him. For Elsa it hadn't been easy for a long time either, but not because she didn't want to accept help, but because she felt herself not worthy enough of it. After her isolation from her sister she had problems to accept help, even from Anna. But as the time went by she had learned and while she didn't always ask for help when she should – especially when her own psyche was concerned – she did in situations that affected others, something she had to learn as queen of a country.
Rush looked at her for a moment, contemplating her request, before he agreed. Elsa didn't wait any longer. She voiced a small "Thank you" and darted out of the room into the direction she had seen her creatures running.
"They are running right to the cargo hold with the sick!", Eli's voice shouted from Elsa's PADD. She suppressed a curse and darted towards the infirmary. She could feel the creatures, just like she could feel her other snow golems when she was on Earth. She hadn't been aware of this connection at first – or maybe it hadn't existed during the first years – but with time she learned about this special connection she shared with her creatures and had used it to her advantage – mostly to find Olaf when he had repeatedly gone missing on his adventures in Arendelle.
She rounded the next corner and stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes went wide and her hands immediately darted towards her mouth in shock. In front of her lay the bloody remains of whoever unlucky person had been in the way of the creatures, explaining the scream from earlier in the process. She hadn't wanted this. She had never ordered her creations to kill and yet, here she was, eyeing the result of such a killing. Why were these creations so violent?
"Elsa, what's going on? You haven't moved in quite some time." Eli's voice ripped her from her state of shock.
"I... uh... I stumbled upon the body of someone who had been... killed by the creatures. Completely ripped apart as it is. I- I can't even identify them right now."
"Elsa, listen to me." It was Rush, not Eli, who spoke this time, sounding more soothing and comforting than she had ever heard him. "We need you to continue towards the cargo hold. The beasts are still on their way there and they will kill everyone there. You're the only one who can stop them. You are their only hope."
She stood there for a moment, eyes on the pools of blood and body parts. Then her resolve settled in. No, she wouldn't let them die, not by her own creations. She reached out her hand to create ice on the floor. She began to skate, creating more of the ice in front of her as she went. At least she trusted her powers that much right now.
As Elsa entered the cargo hold she could see her creatures standing near the doorway she stood herself in. They were held in check by two soldiers standing in the middle of the room, having their rifles trained upon the icy beasts. The sick that were lying around them seemed completely oblivious to the events however.
One of the creatures – the one she had tried to dissolve – looked around, it's disfigured jaw covered in blood, and upon seeing her it snarled. Elsa didn't hesitate any further and created an ice dome around the two. She could feel them testing the barrier, but it withstood and she began to have the ice grew inward so that it would hopefully crush the creations inside – she didn't have the energy to dissolve both at once.
Soon the pain set in. She could feel it as if it was her own body that was crushed to death and she felt it from two creations at once. She had to speed this up or she wouldn't be able to finish it. Trying to prepare her mind as much as possible for the pain she was about to inflict and feel in return she willed her ice to grow into the whole dome in a mere moment. Just as she did so she let out a loud scream of agony, even shocking the soldiers in front of her. Spikes of ice grew around her, pointing outwards to protect her. Then however the pain was gone. She was panting heavily, but no more pain. And she couldn't feel the snow cats anymore. Exhausted she collapsed to her knees.
As the adrenaline subsided she slowly felt her head ache return just as well as the urge to cough. One of the soldiers, a sturdy woman with short brown hair, walked over to her, stopping short of her ice spikes.
"Everything alright?"
Elsa only managed a weak nod. However the sounds of steps behind her caught her attention. TJ arrived, carrying a sidearm in her hands, shortly after followed by Rush and Eli.
"Report", TJ said, not to her, but to the soldiers who both snapped to attention.
"Sir, a moment ago two ice creatures that Elsa had warned about through the speakers came into this room, threatening everyone with growls and snarls", the female soldier that had checked on Elsa began her report. "Then Elsa arrived on a slope of ice and encased the two creatures with a dome of ice that she had apparently grow inwards to crush them. She screamed in agony, but pushed through."
TJ nodded and began to relax, lowering the sidearm and looking at the ice dome as well as the spikes that surrounded Elsa. Rush and Eli both looked relieved that Elsa had managed to deal with her creations, but otherwise were standing in silence at the entry to the room.
Slowly TJ started to approach Elsa, but the ice spikes were in her way.
"Uh, can you, please, dissolve the spikes?", TJ asked.
Elsa nodded and while it took more diving in love-filled memories than usual she managed it and right away TJ was all over her, checking her for any injuries. Rush and Eli now moved closer to them as well.
"Why did you create these... beasts?", TJ asked after she had finished her check up.
"It was an accident." Elsa looked down at the floor feeling ashamed for her lack of control. Then she looked back at the medic. "When I'm sick my powers can act out though up to now only my sneezes created something and that creatures are usually merely mischievous and no danger otherwise. It seems that my coughs have different properties." Or was this somehow connected to how she had treated Scott a few weeks ago? She definitely needed to check this – another series of coughs interrupted her train of thought. The coughing was more intense than the previous ones and right away she could hear the thuds of ice creatures coming into existence. She could hear four of these through her coughing and once it stopped and she opened her eyes again she saw it confirmed: four snow cats stood around the group, growling and snarling at them with red glowing eye sockets. She wouldn't be able to get them all at once, not with her head ache and the pain their crushing would inflict, but that didn't mean that she wouldn't try. Slowly she stood up, TJ supporting her.
"What now?", Rush asked, looking more uneasy than she had ever seen him, understandable though considering that he had no weapon in his hands.
Elsa moved into some form of battle stance with her feet apart to have a stable stand and her hands reaching away from her and glowing blue with ice magic. There was only one way to deal with this as much as it pained her.
"Kill them", she hissed and apparently that was all her creatures were waiting for, because just as the last sound had left her lips they started to attack the humans.
The soldiers emptied their magazines into the snow creatures while Rush and Eli tried to reach for objects in the room to use as weapons. Elsa threw ice bolts at the creatures, but even impaled by them they didn't cease their attacks. And soon enough they drew first blood. One of the snow cats had grabbed Rush by a leg and dragged him away from the group. Elsa tried to free him by concentrating her own attacks on the snow cat, even trying to crush it similar to before while ignoring the pain that inflicted, but it was no use. The monster ripped through the body of the scientist like a knife cut through warm butter.
Elsa wanted to scream, but she didn't find the power in her to do so. She had just seen her colleague being ripped apart alive, reducing him to nothing, but a puddle of organic matter. TJ and Eli had both stopped as well upon this display and for both this mistake had proven just as fatal.
One by one the snow cats picked through the defenders, ripping them apart and soon enough only Elsa was left. The snow cats however continued to ignore her despite her desperate attacks and instead ripped through the defenseless sick that lay on the floor and had no way to defend themselves or to get away.
In the end everyone alive in the room aside from Elsa had been reduced to a bloody mess. She collapsed to her knees again. She had failed, completely and utterly failed. She had promised herself that no one would get hurt by her magic anymore – at least if she didn't have to defend herself – and now everyone aboard was dead, killed by her creations, even if their creation was by accident.
The four snow cats began to approach her from different sides, snarling and growling at her as they did. This time there would be no way out of it, but she didn't want there to be anyway. She had blood on her hands, both literally and figuratively. She wouldn't ascend, not with such a big flaw. Would she see her parents again on the other side, in the beyond? She hoped so. She closed her eyes and stretched out her arms.
"Do it."
Her final thoughts while the snow cats ripped her apart were for her beloved baby sister.
"Destiny, we found something", came Lieutenant Scott's voice from the speakers of the console.
"Go ahead, please", Elsa answered after pressing a button. The first few people of the team that should explore the planet the Stargate had connected with had already disembarked, but the majority of the 20 people strong expedition was still aboard the ship.
"We found, uh, two Kinos lying in the grass."
Elsa raised an eyebrow in surprise noticing that both Colonel Young and Sergeant Riley that were by her side didn't fare any better. She turned towards the Colonel.
"We have never been to that planet."
"Do the seed ships drop Kinos on the planets they discover?", Young asked.
"That would be the first. And now we have even two Kinos. Something isn't right and maybe we should first check whether the Kinos have recorded something."
The officer looked in thought for a few moments then reached for the button on the console to open communications.
"Everyone come back to Destiny. I first want to check what's on the Kinos before we continue."
The people gathered in the gate room visibly deflated with their excursion being suddenly canceled. They had hoped to find alternative food sources there to add to the bland flavor of the protein powder they had for rations.
"Understood."
Half an hour later Colonel Young, Rush, Elsa, Lieutenant Scott, Eli and Chloe had gathered in the Kino room. They had decided to first watch the video contained on the Kino that did not look as if someone had shot at it. Especially since the length of the video was shorter than the other one.
To the surprise of everyone the video showed the face of Lieutenant Scott as if he was holding the Kino in his hands. His face was dark, courtesy of the darkness around him, illuminated only by the familiar silver blue shimmering of a Stargate's event horizon, nevertheless he looked clearly upset about something.
"If you've found this, it's because a solar flare interfered with gate travel, and I managed to send this Kino back in time." Elsa inhaled sharply and she noticed Rush doing the same. They both knew what wonders – both good and bad – the Stargate was capable of, a solar flare leading to time travel being just one of them. "All right, listen very carefully. There is a disease in the water we brought back from the ice planet. It is fatal, and we have all been drinking it."
"I warned you!", Elsa exclaimed to the Colonel while the Scott on the video had paused to look around after a chittering noise occurred around him.
"But there is hope! There's a-a creature that lives on this planet, lots of them actually, that could hold the key to saving you. In small doses their venom actually cures the disease. But be careful, they're-they're deadly. They're also nocturnal. They only come out at night. You can get them during the day while they're asleep in their nest. They're not far from the gate." He hesitated a moment, apparently not sure whether he should say more. "And... and take Elsa with you. She's your best chance at catching them without remorse."
Both Elsa and the Scott in the room shared a quick look of surprise. With them both not being on the best of terms they hadn't expected the other Scott to say something like this. Then again the mission – in this case catching a few of these creatures to save everyone aboard – came before their personal differences.
Meanwhile the Scott in the video had first looked at the Stargate to his right, before a creature that must have been one of those he had mentioned came flying to attack him. But he had heard it and thus shot it – thereby dropping the Kino – without getting hurt. He picked up the Kino again and checked his watch.
"Come on!", he shouted towards the wormhole. A short time later it could be seen at the edge of the Kino's vision that the event horizon became unstable, flickering all the time. Scott turned towards the Kino again. "Please believe me, you don't have much time. Act now, or you're all going to die." He threw the Kino through the event horizon and after a moment it landed again on the same planet with the recording stopping a few seconds later.
Elsa couldn't believe it. They had just witnessed a time travel through the Stargate. She knew that these were possible, but this was probably the first recording ever to document this. Why however was the event horizon flickering? She hadn't read about this in the reports about the previous time travel events that had involved the Stargate. Was it because the Stargates they were working with were much more primitive? Weren't the Ancients able to solve the problems that solar flares posed and merely improved the stability of the event horizon in the newer gates? Probably. There were no Ancients around to ask – though she could ask Anna – thus there was no possibility to find out.
Young immediately reached for his radio once the playback had stopped. "TJ, this is Young, come in."
"TJ here."
"Check the water we brought back from the ice planet for any potential disease that we might have overlooked during the first check."
There was hesitation for a few seconds, but then the answer came back.
"Aye, sir."
He turned towards the gathered crowd.
"As soon as TJ confirms what was said in the video I'm going to take a team to the planet. Lieutenant Scott, Elsa, you two come with me."
"Yes, sir", Scott replied right away.
Elsa merely nodded, unsure whether she should be glad or not that the other Scott had wanted her to come along as well.
Of course TJ had confirmed the presence of germs in the water that according to her weren't there before. Probably they had been too small back then and the environment conditions in the water tank of Destiny had been a paradise for these microorganisms.
So the team consisting of Colonel Young, Lieutenant Scott, Sergeant Greer, a fourth soldier named Marsden and Elsa had disembarked through the gate. Elsa immediately disliked the muggy atmosphere. Not only did the cold not bother her, but she definitely preferred the lower temperatures of Destiny in this case. She hoped they'd be able to find these creatures quickly, catch a few and then get back to the ship.
After around twenty minutes they had found the nests of the creatures, the increasing smell of sulfur being a good indicator that they had been heading towards something different. The nests were around one meter high chimneys made of dirt with a diameter of again roughly one meter. Inside the chimney went on for many meters, though they didn't check it in detail, since the smell was too overwhelming when looking over the rim of the chimney.
"Now what?", Lieutenant Scott asked once he had taken a look at the well-nigh endless shaft.
"Let's light the place up and blow those suckers to the surface", Sergeant Greer suggested with a little hopeful look in his eyes. After his endeavor with the flamethrower a few weeks ago Elsa was sure that the Sergeant had a bit of a pyromanic vein; a pyromanic vein that, if uncontrolled, could very well pose a problem for all of them.
"No need to waste our explosives", Elsa said and strode forward to the chimney. "I'm here and I can do this just as well." She hesitated. "I hope."
"Okay, Elsa will do this and we'll ensure that nothing escapes", said Young.
Did Elsa just imagine it or did Greer really deflate a little bit upon hearing his superior?
The soldiers then positioned themselves around her with their weapons trained on the nest. She herself flexed her arms and took a more stable stance.
"Okay, okay, here we go." She imagined the chimney in her mind as good as possible – of course since it was pitch black in there when she had looked that didn't include all details, but it was good enough. First she closed of the bottom of the shaft with a plate of ice, so they'd only have to deal with the creatures above the seal. Then she let a gust of ice cold wind travel down the shaft to freeze all creatures that were clinging to the walls. A small pang in her mind reminded her that she just hurt a living being with her powers. Again. She shook off the feeling. It was either this or they'd all die. And she enjoyed her life on Destiny and her crewmates too much to let that happen. With another motion of her arms she let a blizzard travel from the bottom of the shaft to the top, ripping the frozen creatures from the walls and spewing them from the chimney like confetti. Around forty creatures coated in ice landed all around the chimney for the team to pick up.
Lieutenant Scott went to one of the thirty centimeter long creatures and poked it with his rifle. Neither the creature itself nor its dark violet surface did budge.
"And they stay that way?", he asked while looking unsure at Elsa.
She merely shrugged. "Sure. As long as I will the ice to be that way."
"Okay, let's pick a bunch of those and head back to the gate. The sooner TJ gets these the sooner we can have an antidote", Colonel Young said and grabbed a few of the creatures himself, of which the bat like wings stayed rigid.
It turned out that the venom of the creatures indeed was the hoped for antidote. But it did not only cure the disease they had brought with them from the ice planet, it turned out to be a useful medicine in general, at least insofar TJ could tell with the few instruments she had at her disposal.
The germs in the water had also been cleaned using UV light that the water tank was already capable of emitting despite no one having known about this feature previously. This would make their water gathering tasks easier though they'd still need to try to improve their instruments so that they'd detect small germs.
All in all Elsa was glad how things had turned out. At least according to the video on the other, shot Kino it could have been much worse.
She was currently sitting on her bed, her laptop on her knees and worked through some Ancient code to distract herself from the images she had seen there.
"Finally we're through all this timey whimey stuff", came a voice from beside her bed. Elsa looked up and to no surprise she saw her sister standing there.
Elsa raised an eyebrow, but without further comment Anna slung herself onto the lower part of the bed. With a sad note Elsa noticed that she didn't feel her sister's impact on the mattress. Another reminder that she didn't really exist in this plane of existence.
"That bad, huh?", Elsa asked, receiving a sigh in response.
Anna rubbed her eyes then looked at her elder sibling.
"It's complicated. On the one hand I haven't been there in person, but on the other hand I remember the other timelines as if I had been."
"What happened?", Elsa blurted out, before she could think better of it, her curiosity overwhelming her. Her sister however hesitated. Was she not allowed to talk about the other timelines? But they already had proof of them in form of the two Kinos! Or was it because of what her sister remembered? Finally however Anna answered.
"It was horrible, Elsa. You've seen the video, but that only showed you what happened on the planet and on Destiny the people got ill as well, you got ill as well and your powers acted out and so your coughs created vicious snowcats that you could barely control and they massacred the remaining crew in both cases and in one timeline you were killed by the snowcats while in the other you were so devastated that you killed yourself." Anna deeply inhaled – despite not being necessary for her – after her rambling. Oh how Elsa had missed her sister's ramblings. Though then her sister's words caught up with her.
"My coughs created snowcats and they killed the crew?!" Her eyes went wide and her hands shot up from the laptop to cover her mouth in shook. "No, no, it can't be." Elsa shook her head. What had she done?! She was a danger to this ship, to its crew.
"Elsa? Elsa, listen to me!" Remotely Elsa registered the pleading voice of her sister. Her breathing however had already quickened. "It's-it's alright, you have broken the cycle. No one is going to get hurt."
"But- but what if something like this happens again? What if no solar flare is there to provide us with the possibility to right things?" Slowly she brought her breathing under control again. "I don't want to hurt anybody." Though she had already hurt these alien creatures just a few hours ago.
"I know." Anna smiled at Elsa with that small smile that always managed to improve Elsa's mood. "And because you don't want to hurt anyone this will work in your favor. Just- just don't work yourself up if it should happen that you hurt someone, okay? There will be times when you'll have to hurt someone to protect those you love."
Elsa shook her head in disbelief. "No, I can't, I won't."
Out of instinct the younger woman moved her hand to pet Elsa's leg, but it slipped right through.
"Ahhh! I can lie on this mattress, but I can't touch you! It's so annoying!" She repeatedly bumped her head against said mattress in frustration. After a few seconds her sister stopped and merely looked at the ceiling.
That was when another disturbing thought occurred to Elsa.
"Anna, do you know why those snowcats were as vicious as you described them to be?"
Her sister continued to look at the ceiling for a while, probably contemplating what she was allowed to tell Elsa. Then however she turned her head and looked Elsa in the eyes.
"Yes, I know. But trust me, in the end everything will turn out alright."
"And is this in any way connected to how I treated Scott back then?"
Again there was hesitation from Anna, though not as long as previously.
"Yes, it is. I can't tell you more. Please, Elsa, have faith in your destiny."
"I... I will." Though could Elsa really have faith in herself if it involved something as horrible as the snowcats ripping through the crew? She wasn't fully convinced and she noticed in the eyes of her younger sibling that Anna wasn't convinced of Elsa's statement either. Nevertheless the visit seemed to be at an end.
"Well, now you know more, so I'll leave you to your Ancient source code." Anna nodded towards the laptop. "See you." She waved and then vanished, not even leaving any dent in the mattress.
"See you, too", Elsa muttered, her thoughts still at the topic her sister had revealed to her. Why did Elsa always seem to hurt others with her powers and more importantly what was wrong with her?
So... yeah... I totally wiped Destiny's crew... twice... I'm sorry, please don't hurt me?! *ducks away*
I have no plan yet when the next chapter is going to be delivered. Likely however it's indeed going to be 'Life' though it might come the time when I'll jump ahead a bit or combine parts of episodes into one chapter... (Justice and Space come to mind for example)
It would be very nice of you to leave a review on your way out. :)